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Historical Dictionary

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COMMITTEE FOR EXTERNAL AFFAIRS (Ban Ngoại Vụ)

The secret administrative unit through which the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) first directed its affairs in Cambodia during the Indochina War. This entity first emerged as the Committee for Overseas Affairs (Ban Hai Ngoai) in 1947. In August 1948, the veteran communist Nguyen Thanh Son took charge of this committee under the new name of the Committee for External Affairs (Ban Ngoai Vu); it answered directly to the ICP’s Territorial Committee for Nam Bo (Xu Uy Nam Bo) run by Le Duan. The Committee for External Affairs was based in the Vietnamese border province of Ha Tien in Zone IX (Khu IX) and officially began operations on 7 December 1948. Adminstratively and militarily, this committee led all the liberation zones into which the ICP had divided Cambodia: the Southeast, Southwest, and Northeast, and the Phnom Penh special region. (The Overseas Party Affairs Committee in Thailand, led by Hoang Van Hoan, administered the northwestern zone.) To carry out his work, Nguyen Thanh Son also relied upon the National Salvation League of Overseas Vietnamese in Cambodia (Lien Doan Viet Kieu Cuu Quoc Cao Mien). The Committee for External Affairs was the main conduit through which the Vietnamese introduced communism into Cambodia during the Indochina War. See also ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE FOR THE FRONTIER; ADVISORY GROUP 100; CHU HUY MAN; COMMITTEE FOR THE EAST, LAO ISSARA; INDOCHINESE FEDERATION; NGUYEN KHANH.