The Chup rubber plantation was created in 1922, after Belgian banker Adrien Hallet arranged for the transfer of 18,000 ha of land from the Industrial to the financial group Hallet-Rivaud (1921), forming the Compagnie du Cambodge. The latter acquired two more concessions, Peamcheang and Krek. By 1960, there were about 9,000 to 10,000 employees living with their families (total of 35,000 persons). About a quarter were Vietnamese (A. Gontard, “Rubber Industry in Cambodia”, series of articles, Réalités Cambodgiennes, July-September 1960).

On 29 April-1 May 1970, in the frame of the South Vietnamese-US joint military operation Total Victory (Toàn Thắng 42), Task Forces 333, 318 and 225 battalions led by General Đỗ Cao Trí retook the plantation from the Vietcong 9th Division, but the situation was unstable and combats continued until the end of May. When the fighting erupted, the Vietnamese workers fled the area. The US Army publication The Hurricane confirms that 198 families (1,040 people) arrived at the Phước Điền refugee camp in South Vietnam from Chup on 26 May 1970 (Special Cambodia, no. 35, September 1970, p. 31). According to the testimony of 47‐year‐old former rubber plantation worker Nguyen Can Thanh quoted by journalist Iver Peterson, about 700 families fled and were still in Phước Điền a year later (“Vietnamese refugees from Cambodia say they don’t want to go back,” The New York Times, 15 July 1971, p. 10).

Chup, Tbong Khmum, Cambodia

Departure site and site of military operation

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