The architect of the K5 plan was Vietnamese general Le Duc Anh, commander of the PAVN forces in Cambodia. He formulated five key points for the defence of Cambodia against Khmer Rouge re-infiltration. Letter "K", the first letter of the Khmer alphabet, came from kar karpier, meaning 'defence' in the Khmer language, and number "5" referred to Le Duc Anh's five points in his plan of defence, of which the sealing of the border with Thailand was the second point.[2] Many workers on the project, however, did not know what "K5" stood for.[4]
The K5 Plan began on the 19th July 1984[5]. It became a gigantic effort that included clearing long patches of tropical forest by felling a great number of trees, as well as slashing and uprooting tall vegetation. The purpose was to leave a continuous broad open space all along the Thai border that would be watched and mined.
In practice the K5 fence consisted of a roughly 700 km-long, 500 m-wide swath of land along the border with Thailand, where antitank and antipersonnel mines were buried to a density of about 3,000 mines per kilometre of frontage.[6]
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