Like Rain in the Tears

1975_5_08 (Sydney H. Schanberg in Bangkok, Thailand | P01 | Friday, 1975/5/9): Cambodia Reds Are Uprooting Millions As They Impose a 'Peasant Revolution' - Old and Sick Included; Economy Is at Standstill. Millions of city-dwellers were dispatched to the countryside to 'become peasants' (note that nothing of this scale is implied in Maoism, which argues city and countryside must modernize/socialize/communize/revolutionize together) - Schanberg reports this was the very first thing they did when they took the capital on April 17th (while the international press said they evacuated the city due to allegations of an upcoming US bombing, Schanberg says no civilian heard this, only that the city had to be 'reorganized'). At this point, they signalled a move to radical isolationism, rejecting all foreign aid (shortly after, on April 30th, Saigon surrendered to Vietnamese communist forces).

Schanberg regards these forces as Communists (and 'before their overwhelming victory they were known as the Khmer Rouge'), he was unable to glean any information about the organization itself from an officer, other than he '"represent[s] the armed forces"', and 'there was only one political organization and one government', and some military units are called "rumdos" ("liberation forces") (though the soldiers did have 'Mao caps and Ho Chi Minh rubber-tire sandals'). 'Neither this commander nor any of the soldiers we talked with ever called themselves Communists or Khmer Rouge (Red Cambodians). They always said they were liberation troops or nationalist troops and called on another brother or the Khmer equivalent of comrade'. Further, he notes that this group had named Prince Norodom Sihanouk, deposed by the US in 1970 and in exile in Beijing, their 'figurehead chief of state', 'but none of the soldiers we talked with brought up his name'. From what Schanberg could tell, one Khieu Samphan was the effective leader of the organization. Ultimately, he ended up holed up in the French embassy for 13 days (until evacuated to Thailand), from which they heard scattered gunfire and saw fire and billowing smoke. Other foreigners who came to the embassy later reported hearing accounts of dead along the deportation routes, and families split, with people organized by sex and age. All this before the planting season, raising concerns about food, boding ill for the people’s stomachs.

1975_7_09 (NYT Editorial Staff | P01 Editorial | Wednesday 1975/9/9): Cambodia’s Crime .... Both the foreign press and diplomatic missions from all countries, including 'other Communist nations', were barred from Cambodia. About 7000 refugees were in Thailand, and the cities - about 1/3 to 1/2 of the country’s population - had been drained with little organization or necessary logistics. n2 reports people, especially urban dwellers, being 'worked to death', and alleging the condition a genocide, and criticizes the silence of the Third World and Lon Nol critics in US Congress.

1975_10_27 (Abraham I. Katsh in Philadelphia, PA (he is the President of the Dropsie University) | P01 Letters to the Editor | Monday 1975/11/10): What Zionism Is. 'Those who are familiar with the Holocaust are not surprised to witness the spectacle in the United Nations pertaining to Zionism. Your Oct. 24 editorial “Cynical Diplomacy” logically spells out “the ultimate danger” to be caused by final passage of this resolution.' In WWII, 'humanity failed to react to a lonely voice', so the Holocaust happened, and 'did not penetrate the consciousness of the general public, or even the intelligentsia'. Hence, the Third World and UN are mute about 'Red China’s aggression, about genocide in Cambodia, and gladly listens to Uganda’s president Idi Amin, a noted murderer and racist, who was not ashamed to send an open letter to the U.N. Secretary Waldheim extolling Hitler and Nazism.' He cites two books to say that 'Moslem-dominated states' have a 'creedo' 'to convert the world to the Islamic religion', thus when they manage the '"Humanitarian and Culture"' committee, they passed a resolution 'equating Zionism with racism'. He argues that '"For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem"' has been Judaism’s motto, despite persecutions, and finally 'succeeded in reestablishing state in its original homeland' with UN approval. 'If Zionism is racism, then the Hebrew Christian Bible is racist. Are Isaiah’s words spelling out Zionist hopes at the entrance to the U.N. racist propaganda?'

'I recall that on one of my visits to the U.S.S.R. I was asked by a leader of the Ministry of Education, “What is Zionism?” My reply was: “It is the Jewish effort throughout ages to emancipate itself from world imperialism.” I think it is proper to state now that Zionism has become the Jewish attempt to emancipate itself from Moslem and Third World imperialism. Since this “humanitarian and cultural” resolution is a blatant attempt to foster anti‐Semitism on a worldwide scale, it becomes a challenge to all our scholars and leaders not to allow their voices to become still as in the past, in order not to become a partner to genocide. “The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth out,” humanity where art thou?'

1975_7_14_a (Henry Kamm in Bangkok, Thailand | P01 | Tuesday 1975/7/15): Cambodian Refugees Tell Of Revolutionary Upheaval - People Who Fled Recently Report Wide Terror, Emptied Towns and Forced Labor of Millions Clearing Jungles. Henry Kamm had been busy interviewing refugees from Cambodia in Thailand. They report on the forced urban exodus, the clearing of land for rice, money no longer used, children supervising elders (and reporting failures to the authorities), those who resist 'will be crushed by "the revolutionary wheel"'. Cambodians address each other as Samak Mit (men) and Mit Neary (women) (roughly "comrade"), and the old social Khmer vocabulary is forbidden. Notably, he reports the group that runs the country is a 'remote and nameless entity commonly referred to as Angka, or "organization"', which he states 'is said to be the Communist party of Cambodia. This is the political organization that directs the revolutionary army'. None of the refugees had seen any higher official than a 'local chief', or knew the name or location of any person higher, though there was evidently a coordinated policy. Refugees reported no radios, electricity, or printed material (radios, TVs, clothing, books, files, furniture had reportedly been burned). Their encounters with Angka were through 'black-uniformed, very young Communist soldiers who supervise their work, whose names they rarely know and who are taciturn, or the nameless men who come to tell them what the new Cambodia expects from her citizens'. Kamm notes that, due to Cambodia’s extreme isolation, none of this testimony could be otherwise verified; in lieu of this, he chose to interview at maximally distant camps, to ensure the information was as independent of each other as possible (noting that Thai authorities isolate the camps 'as much as possible'), and still he detected 'no apparent discrepancies'. There were about 6000 in these camps, mostly illiterate rural people, with many men with protective Sanskrit tattoos.

The refugees speak of arbitrary killing by the soldiers; all were full of fear. All reports indicate a 'total' exodus from urban/village areas (except in areas long held by the erstwhile Communists (two such provinces given are Siem Reap and Kompong Thom) (one refugee estimated the capital (he passed through as a mechanic to repair some trucks; after work, he planted banana trees with other soldiers (men and women) in front of the royal palace), once home to hundreds of thousands, now housed 400 people working there), and that self-sufficiency, making own tools, and working with their hands were the labor instructions. People were given a small ration of rice a day, and told to supplement this by foraging for roots. They had a strict work day (though the total work day seems to have been 10 hours. They woke at 5 AM to a gong (the gong was the consensus time marker), and ate breakfast and prepared for work for two hours. From 7 AM to 5 PM, with a 2 hour break in between; after 5 PM, they foraged for supplemental food and drew water; occasionally there was political instruction at 7 PM), and were supervised either by soldiers but usually children aged 13 to 16.

NYT Map 1. Map fom 1975_7_14_a (page 10 of the linked newspaper). Though a bit distant from the town/village, the refugee camp in the far north is called 'Surin' by Kamm (see 1978_5_12, for example). Note that Siem Reap province is where the famous Angkor Wat temple is located (sited at the capital of the old Khmer Empire, Angkor, which ruled from the 9th to 15th centuries (per Wiki)). See also this map, which shows area under "NVA/VC control" (NVA/VC refers to Vietnamese communist forces), vs areas under government control in August 1970 (at which point the country was officially ruled by Lon Nol (that is, he was "the government"), who took power Prince Sihanouk in a US-backed coup), though that doesn’t necessarily reflect the areas of control in the years leading up to April 17th, 1975.

The political instructions were that (1) all were equal, so they had to leave the towns (also allegations that the Americans would send retaliatory bombing strikes), (2) agricultural production is the basis for which all will follow, and (3) total Cambodian self-sufficiency, including their own industry, which was planned for later, mediated only through Angka, in a cooperative lifestyle. Prince Sihanouk is nominally the head of state (despite living in North Korea at the time, and delaying plans, though saying he planned to go, back to Cambodia for a visit (from 1975_7_14_b (Fox Butterfield in Hong Kong | P11 | Tuesday 1975/7/15): PRINCE MAY PLAN CAMBODIAN VISIT - But Future of Sihanouk, Now in North Korea, Remains Subject of Speculation)), and Angka works for the entire people - at the border, only pure red flags were visible (not that of Sihanouk’s). The only leadership name refugees knew was Khieu Samphan, but his name was mentioned only in passing. Vietnam and China, the erstwhile supporters of the KR, go unmentioned at political instruction. The mechanic who passed through Phnom Penh said he saw planes occasionally come in and out, along with a group of Chinese civilians with Mao buttons.

1975_12_01 (Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn [a Soviet dissident widely publicized in the West], in Zurich, Switzerland | P31/p02 Editorials, Letters, and Opinions | Monday 1975/12/1): Schlesinger and Kissinger [Schlesinger was Secretary of Defense for Nixon and Ford, and for a few months in 1973 CIA director]; Kissinger was a high official in the Nixon administration, infamous for pursuing 'realpolitik', which meant horrific bombings]. 'I shall never forget, when President Kennedy was assassinated, the pain we felt for America and the bewilderment and disillusionment experienced by the many former soldiers in World War II and former inmates in Soviet camps and prisons. It was all the worse because of the inability or the lack of desire by the American judicial authorities to uncover the assassins and to clear up the crime.' He felt that powerful, freedom-loving USA had 'been smeared i nthe face with dirt, and the feeling persisted', and that 'our faith' was shaken in it.

'Despite the dissimilarity of events, I had a very comparable feeling at the time of the abrupt dismissal of Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger, a man of steadfast, perceptive and brilliant mind. Once again, the feeling was that America had been insulted,' despite Ford acting in 'conformity with the Constitution. But woe betide a system in which it is sufficient and expedient to govern guided only by one’s personal or party’s election interests.' 'Decency' and 'good sense' are 'higher than jurisdiction'. 'After all, the Secretary of Defense is not merely a member of the American Government. He is in fact also responsible for the defense of the entire free world,' so Ford should have sought 'consent from the allies'. He notes that the dismissal may be 'linked' with 'another name' that 'almost rhyme[s]'.

'When I was in the United States last summer, I avoided direct questions from the press on assessing the character of Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger. But his present triumph and the blinding misinformation being spread to this day about his activities compel me to speak out bluntly.' He says Kissinger is a diplomat who puts things in terms of two alternatives ('"Let our critics point out the alternative to nuclear war!"'), but alternatives are in the domain of science. Diplomacy as an art thus 'has a thousand choices', a spectrum, not two choices. Nuclear war also 'hangs equally over the head of his opponents', and in 'these equal circumstances', 'his opponents are always winning and he is always yielding'. 'I dispute not only that Mr. Kissinger has the life experience necessary to understand the psychology of Communist leaders, and as a result sits at the negotiating table as if blindfolded. I also dispute that he is on the high diplomatic intellectual level ascribed to him.'

'The celebrated Vietnam agreement, the worst diplomatic defeat for the West in 30 years, hypocritically and very conveniently for the aggressor prepared the way for the quiet surrender of three countries in Indochina.' 'A similar alarming feeling of shakiness is aroused by the Middle East agreements of Mr. Kissinger (as far as I know, many Israeli leaders do not regard them any higher), although there has not been the kind of open capitulation to which Vietnam was doomed by the same pen. Mr. Kissinger does not concede that any concessions whatsoever are being made.' Thus the 'very process of surrender' becomes 'an avalanche', 'evident in the new conditions across entire continents, in the unprecedented encroachments by the Soviet Union in southwestern Africa and In votes in the United Nations'.

While Kissinger can always take the 'emergency exit' of becoming a university lecturer, the US government 'will have no emergency exit'. Kissinger also likes to argue that '[i]n the nuclear age, we shall not forget that peace, too, “is a moral imperative.”' This 'is true ... only if one correctly understands peace as the opposite of violence and does not consider Cambodian genocide and Vietnamese prison camps as the attainment of peace. But a peace that tolerates any ferocious forms of violence and any massive doses of it against millions of people—just so long as this does not affect us for several years yet—such a peace, alas, has no moral loftiness even in the nuclear age.'

1977_1_20 E1: Jimmy Carter (Democrat) is inaugurated as 39th President of the United States, replacing Gerald Ford (Republican).

1977_3_20 (Anthony Lewis in Boston, Massachusetts, USA | P27/p02 Editorials, Letters, and Opinions | Monday 1977/3/21): Where Terror Is King. 'Communist Vietnam and Laos welcomed President Carter’s commission on Americans missing in Indochina, but the Government of Cambodia would not allow a visit. It was a decision to be expected from “the most tightly locked up country in the world, where the bloodiest revolution in history is now taking place.” That description of Cambodia today comes from an article by Jean Lacouture in the March 31 issue of the New York Review of Books. It is an article whose painful honesty lends ghastly conviction to its terrible conclusions.'

'“Genocide,” Lacouiure writes, “usually has been carried out against a foreign population or an internal minority. The new masters of Phnom Penh have invented something original —auto‐genocide. After Auschwitz and the Gulag, we might have thought this century had produced the ultimate horror, but we are now seeing the suicide of a people in the name of revolution; worse: in the name of socialism.... “A group of modern intellectuals, formed by Western thought, primarily Marxist thought, claim to seek to return to a rustic Golden Age, to an ideal rural and national civilization. And proclaiming these ideals, they are systematically massacring, isolating and starving city and village populations whose crime was to have been born when they were.”'

Lewis notes there 'have been many reports of mass killing and brutality in Cambodia since the Khmer Rouge took over in April, 1975', and the book '"Murder in a Gentle Land"' sums it up. 'The smell of horror was too strong to be ignored by any fair‐minded person, and it has not been ignored. But in this country, and the West generally, there has been less outcry about the savagery in Cambodia than its dimensions might have suggested. Why?' Currently, the reports are 'necessarily second-hand', mostly from refugees, 'and may have seemed exaggerated. Americans generally were weary of everything about Indochina. And those of us who had been critics of the war may have felt skeptical about some of the Cambodian reports because they came from right‐wing quarters that had been indifferent to the misery inflicted on Cambodia by American bombers. When Henry Kissinger cries for Cambodia, there is reason for skepticism.'.

'But those explanations wither in the presence of Jean Lacouture. He a leading French expert on Indochina. And he was a profound critic of the American war. He has no reason of ideology or ignorance to exaggerate the crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge.' The article is 'in form review of “Cambodge, armee zero,” a book just published in Paris', by Francois Ponchaud, 'a priest who was in Cambodia for 10 years, until three weeks after the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh—an informed and sympathetic witness.' Ponchaud 'quotes from orders by the revolutionary government itself. exts distributed to local officials, he says, urged them to “cut down” corrupt elites and “carriers of germs,” including “their offspring until the last one.”' Lacouture calls this '"The strategy of Herod."'

In the war, up to 1m Cambodians may have died, and now some estimate, 'on the basis of both refugee accounts and statements by Khmer Rouge leaders themselves, that another 1 million have been killed since.' To this, Lacouture asks '"What Oriental despot of medieval inquisitors ever boasted of having eliminated . . . one‐quarter of their own population?"' Lewis puts the blame on the US, and says 'Lacouture knows it'. Nixon '"bombed and laid waste"' to Cambodia, undermining Sihanouk, refused negotations, '"making an unmitigated Khmer Rouge victory all the more likely." But he rightly sees that as no reason for silence about Cambodia today.' Of the 'world’s tyrannies, it may be the least likely to be moved by outside protest'. 'But utility cannot be the only standard in these matters.'

'To remain silent in the face of barbarism as enormous as Cambodia’s would be to compromise our own humanity. It would be to say that hundreds of thousands of Cambodians do not count in the human scale. It would be to repeat the West’s corrupting mistake in 1972 of ignoring tribal genocide in Burundi. In today’s world, we ignore mass murder anywhere at our own peril.'

1977_3_21 (Richard Hyse in Oswego, NY | P22/p01 Letter to the Editor | Wednesday 1977/3/30): The Last Sneeze. 'As a survivor of World War II and the holocaust I have read Shelley Berger’s letter [March 21] on crime with a deep sense of uneasiness. I am uneasy because I have no simple answer to her questions, and because her letter is a disquieting indicator of the simplistic answers we are beginning to seek in these trying times. It is obvious that she cannot and will not accept the simplest and most cruel of all answers to her questions, namely that the human species wears the veneer of civilization only very uneasily and therefore honors the command “Thou shalt not kill!” more in the breach than in its observance. And I surmise that her idealism is perhaps right. Perhaps we have the right to demand, here in the United States above all but also elsewhere in the world, that violence become a thing of the past. But how are we to go about the realization of such a most desirable goal?'

'She equates the single violence or a criminal with the organized destruction of millions of individuals. Since World War II we have seen a steady rise of criminal violence in the U.S. and the genocide of Vietnamese in Indochina, the elimination of many African tribes, the organized suppression of dissent behind the Iron Curtain with fatal consequences to hundreds of thousands. It is ironic that on the editorial page facing her letter Anthony Lewis calls our attention to the unspeakable horrors of Cambodia. May I say that one characteristic that unites all of these killings is the rage the killers felt toward their victims. No one could have been more enraged about the Jewish victims than Hitler and his cohort. And she calls for public rage?' Citing the murder of one Rachel Brecher, Hyse asks if Berger would propose to do draconian things to the killer, to satisfy 'rage to avenge Rachel Brecher'. 'Too many concentration camps have been erected to the task to punish, and by punishing to correct, our fellow man.' Instead, justice should be a 'long and arduous task'. 'Rage is blind, and in these times out of joint we need more than anything else a clear view of what civilization was meant to be.'

1977_5_01 (Robert Moss [] | P417/p30 ??? | Sunday 1977/5/1) 'Let’s Look Out for No. 1!' - An appeal to first-world statesmen faced with third-world demands for a a reordering of the international economic system. The article is hard to read [physically, hard to discern, was digitally archived poorly], but from what I can gather, echos concerns about genocide, while reporting Cambodia’s Head of State was Khieu Samphan.

1977_5_30 (Anthony Lewis | P15/p02 Editorials, Letters, and Opinions | Monday 1977/5/30): 'I Am the Law'. Here he criticizes Nixon’s endorsement of the atrocities in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) committed by Pakistan, citing American diplomats saying 'they were “mute and horrified witnesses to a reign of terror by the Pakistan military,” to “selective genocide.”' Kissinger squashed such unease in the name of, per former Kissinger aide Roger Morris, '"Pakistan’s territorial integrity"', and thus 'Washington’s silence condoned a reign of terror that made secession (of Bangladesh) inevitable.”' Or in Cambodia, per Representative Paul McCloskey, 'when he visited Cambodia in 1975, as “greater evil than we have done to any country in the world.” One of the last Western correspondents there, John Swain of The London Sunday Times, wrote on his journey. out: “The entire countryside has been churned up by B‐52 bomb craters, whole towns and villages razed. So far, I have not seen one intact pagoda....”' 'Generations will pay for the excesses in Chile, the four added years of war in Vietnam. Compared to such enormities, Watergate was, as Mr. Nixon said, a “pipsqueak thing.”' In interviews, Nixon said that '"we [didn’t] condone[] what the West Pakistani Army was doing"' and that '"For five years from 1970 till 1975, Cambodia enjoyed ... 'enjoyed' is not the best word - it had what you call a flawed neutrality."'

'The destructive acts abroad were like Watergate—or worse—in manner as well as substance. They were carried with crude deception of Congress and the public, with contempt for the constitutional system, with obsessive secrecy.' He notes regarding the international abuses, 'that Mr. Nixon and his aides were never called to account for them as they were for the domestic abuses'. 'That was the lesson of Watergate. The sense that he had violated a leader’s fundamental obligation to obey the law is what brought Richard Nixon down. It was because the idea was so American that foreigners had difficulty understanding Watergate, and still do.' But this sense 'does not apply with the same force in foreign affairs', since 'judges have traditionally declined to resolve issues touching on foreign and military matters, deeming themselves incompetent in those areas even as they resolve the most controversial domestic questions of race and politics and abortion.' Thus, here Presidents assert 'unlimited authority'. However, at least Congress 'began to reassert a role in setting limits, with the War Powers Act and the law forbidding military action in Indochina', though likely this is a fragile balance.

1977_8_31 (Paul Grimes | P62/C19 Book Review | Wednesday 1977/8/31): Books of The Times; Book: Murder of a Gentle Land: The Untold Story of Communist Genocide in Cambodia by John Barron and Anthony Paul (published 1977/1/1). Paul Grimes took the book to task, arguing they luridly over-moralize, when the facts can speak for themselves. He notes an effort to psychologize Cambodia in terms of its ostensible leader, Khieu Samphan; they argue he acts as he does because he had 'a tormented boyhood and sexual impotency'.

1977_9_14 (Reed J. Irving in Silver Spring, Maryland, USA | P52/p01 Letters to the Editor | Wednesday 1977/9/14): A Difference of Opinion. This reader was angry about Grimes’ review (1977_8_31). Grimes replies that he just wants the facts to speak for themselves, that he believes in moral force, and that 'I expect that I abhor the Communist genocide in Cambodia as much as Mr. Irving does, but as an American I see no practical way to make up for it now.'

1977_9_11 (Jean Lacouture [he 'is a French journalist who has written extensively about Vietnam and Camboida. He is also a biographer of André Malraux'] | P246/p10 ???/ Book Review | Sunday 1977/9/11): An Area of Darkness; Book: Murder of a Gentle Land: The Untold Story of Communist Genocide in Cambodia by John Barron and Anthony Paul (published 1/1/1977). 'TODAY every book on Cambodia is welcome, no matter how tendentious, even if it is based on insufficiently verified sources. Any attempt whatsoever to shed a bit of light on that imprisoned country‐walled in, cut off from the world since April, 1975 to an extent that Russia, China or even North Korea have never been‐is worthwhile. When a government defies the world and the international community‐East as well as West‐when it shows such utter contempt for the inviolable right to knew, every speck of information is valuable. Information draws criticism, provokes counter‐examination, debate. It breaks the silence and redeems Cambodia from oblivion.'

'Nothing is worse than silence about the country that (although it may not have been the “gentle land” of which the authors speak, except in the eyes of European travelers) is now nothing but a vast concentration camp under the mad rule of several chiefs so possessed with national pride that they purport to give lessons in revolution to Lenin, Mao and Ho Chi Minh. So one must recommend “Murder of a Gentle Land” by John Barron and Anthony Paul, two Readers Digest editors, despite numerous reservations about the paucity of historical background, their journalistic methodology and point of view.' 'It is hard to measure the truth contained in this book', and could have refrained from calling it 'an "untold story"'. They are familiar with and quote area specialists such as Francois Pondieud, who published articles and 'a very good book on Cambodia, "Cambodia - Year Zero."' 'They should not have claimed that the atrocities committed in Cambodia elicited “no protest.” Don’t they read newspapers—American as well as foreign?' Though 'world opinion is far too muted'. The book has 'fragments of new material from secondhand sources', but is 'not actual reportage', understandably, since 'the Khmer Rouge locks the country in'. 'But it is neither historical analysis nor an essay on terror. It is a sort of a catalogue of horrors, an indictment in a trial where the accused are absent'.

'They try to define the Orwellian “organization” (Angku Loeu), with its anonymous reign of terror, review the “purification” methods used, describe escapes, manhunts and trials in the new villages. They base their accounts on the testimony of 300 refugees. Is everything these unfortunates say to be believed? If only a tenth were true, one would say that what the Cambodians have suffered and continue to suffer is horrifying. It shames us all as citizens of the international community‐and, most particularly, those like myself who advocated the cause of the Khmer Rouge in their struggle against the corrupt Lon Nol regime.'

'What this moving collection of tragic anecdotes completely lacks is an attempt to give historical, social or economic explanation. We seriously need to be reminded of the greatness (and pride) of the Khmers, of the vices of French colonization, the corruption of recent regimes, the violence of Cambodian political witch‐hunts in the 60’s, the disaster of American intervention, the horrors of civil war. We do not need this in order to justify what happened, of course, but to help us comprehend this paranoid “revolution.”'

Their main explanation for 'this madness' is 'the reported sexual impotence of the (apparent) head of the Khmer Rouge, Khieu Samphan, now chief of state'. 'At the end of the last century', 'certain European historians used similar “reasons” to explain the French Revolution, attributing Robespierre’s violence to a repressed desire to compensate for the continence nature had inflicted upon him.' It would have been better to analyze the KR in 'its own history and socioeconomic tensions', look for 'clues in the long colonial humiliation following the decline of Khmer power, the abuse of recent privileged classes, the profound alienation imposed upon this formerly proud people, as well as in the obsessing proximity of the Vietnamese?' Lacouture thinks the KR’s efforts to one-up Vietnam 'is in large measure responsible for making their “revolution” infinitely bloodier, more, intolerant and dogmatic than the one conducted by Ho Chi Minh’s disciples.'

'It would be impossible to understand the excesses perpetrated in Phnom Penh without taking into account the distrust and rivalry between Khmers and Vietnamese over so many centuries', and thus, the KR overreach. It may also be more repressive than in Vietnam in part because its top cadres are 'all new, young, inexperienced, hesitant, unprepared and incapable of resolving the terrible problems of peace. The less a revolution has the means to attain its goal, the more it succumbs the fascination of ultra‐leftist terror.' Lacouture thinks Barron and Paul would disagree here, but 'they would have done well to add some analysis', 'to reflect upon the repulsive caricature of agrarian socialism the Khmer regime of April 1975 represents. How and why is that regime possible?'

1977_9_17 (James F. Clarity in Philadelphia, PA | P23/L23 | Sunday 1977/9/18): Philadelphia Schools To Require a Course On Nazi Holocaust. 'Over the vigorous protest of the city’s largest German‐American organization, the Philadelphia school system plans to require virtually all students in secondary public schools to study the holocaust of the Jews in Nazi Germany.' The program 'began on a limited basis in some public secondary schools here last year', will be expanded. 'School officials say the course is the first on this subject to be made part of the regular curriculum in the public education system of a major city.' The program was 'developed by scholars including Franklin H. Littell, chairman of the religion department at Temple University, has the support not only of Jewish and community organizations, but also of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese and of the Metropolitan Christian Council, the chief Protestant organization here.' 'The protest is led by the Rev. Hans S. Haug, the German‐born pastor of the Immanuel Lutheran Church and chairman of the German‐American committee of Greater Philadelphia.'

He asserts the committee represents 'the views of 50,000 German Americans', and interviewed at his church said the program '“gives the impression that Nazis were the only ones who committed crimes against humanity and that the Jews were the only ones who suffered to any great extent.” “In the minds of Americans,” the minister said, “Nazi and German is identical.” He said the guide gave the impression that “genocide is mainly a Teutonic phenomenon, and this is what I would call a falsification of history.” He suggested the course be altered to reduce the amount of material on the Jewish holocaust and to add material on what he called genocides by the Soviet Government, by Moslem and Hindus in India in the late 1940’s, by the Communist‐oriented government in Cambodia and other nations and groups.'

He says no one in his group denies the events, or that they did '"heinous crimes against humanity, but it was never condoned by the German people." He said that Jews had been victims of the second largest genocide in history under the Nazis, while the largest genocide was the murder of 15 million citizens of the Soviet Union by their own authorities. He cited Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s “The Gulag Archipelago” as his source on Soviet atrocity figures.'

1977_9_28 (Fox Butterfield in Hong Kong | P5/A5 | Thursday 1977/9/29): LEADING CAMBODIAN IN A VISIT TO PEKING - Trip by Pol Pot Sheds Some Light on the Hierarchical Structure of Secretive Indochina State. It was revealed Pol Pot was the leader of Cambodia, arriving this day in Peking (Beijing) 'for his first known visit abroad since the end of the Indochina war two years ago', greeted by Hua Guofeng and Deng Xiaoping † In the old romanization, the NYT names them as 'Hua Kuo-feng' and 'Teng Hsiao-ping' . Here, Xinhua (China’s press agency) described him as Cambodia’s Prime Minister and the Secretary of the Central Committee of the 'Cambodian Communist Party'. The technical name for this party, per Wikipedia, is the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), which I will refer to them as. Notably, 'until last Sunday [25/9/1977], when his visit was first announced, Cambodia had neither officially said it had a Communist Party nor identified Mr. Pol Pot as its head'. Butterfield notes some confusion about Pol Pot remains (ie sources saying he is 'Saloth Sar, a French-educated intellectual from a well-to-do family who dropped out of sight in the early 1960’s to head the newly formed Communist Party. The name Pol Pot was not mentioned publicly until he was appointed Prime Minister in April 1976', and ther was confusion this person (Pol Pot) 'was actually a former rubber plantation worker rather than Saloth Sar', reflecting the profound secrecy of the CPK.

Pol Pot was accompanied by Ieng Sary, 'Deputy Prime Minister for foreign affairs', who is identified by Xinhua as a member of CPK’s Central Committee’s Standing Committee, as well as Vorn Vet, 'another Deputy Prime Minister' for economic affairs, who was also identified as a member of the Standing Committee, a kind of Politburo' (in the CPC at least, the Standing Committee was a sub-group of the Politburo, in which the 'real power' lay). 'Neither man had previously been referred to in his party capacity'. Butterfield reports that Beijing, per analysts, likely had a role in the 'disclosure of the existence' of CPK (prior known simply as Angka ('the organization')), due to 'some indications of coolness' between the two countries, 'apparently caused by the Cambodian reluctance to identify themselves publicly as Communists. The Chinese were also said to be uneasy over not having a well-defined group of officials to deal with'. Reportedly, China felt the CPK had gone too far in its evacuations of the cities, and mass executions, and were concerned about Prince Sihanouk (who had returned to Phnom Penh in 1975, but hadn’t been mentioned since then resigning in 1976 as head of state). Also on the 28th, Phnom Penh radio 'disclosed that the Communist Party was founded on Sept. 29 1960. The revelation came in a broadcast describing celebrations for the party’s 17th birthday'. Some other individuals in the Cambodian government, and their positions, are identified by Xinhua. The big issues, Butterfield reports, were likely about Chinese aid and Cambodia’s border clashes with neighboring countries, such as Vietnam.

1977_9_29 (Fox Butterfield from Hong Kong | P04/A04 | Friday 1977/9/30): Situation in Cambodia ‘Excellent,’ Its Leader Says at Peking Banquet. At a banquet in Beijing (a very high honor for a foreign official, reportedly), Pol Pot described Cambodia’s situation as 'excellent' (contra refugee reports), and said border clashes with Vietnam and Thailand 'had apparently grown out of disputes over territory lost by Cambodia in the 19th century'. Also on the 29th, Phnom Penh radio broadcasted a record six-hour speech by Pol Pot, giving the first announcement inside Cambodia that the CPK 'had been the guiding force behind the country’s revolution', marking the apparent 17th anniversary of the party. He announced that the '"social blemishes"' of '"imperialism, colonialism and other exploiting classes have been basically abolished by the great mass movement of our country"', with no mention of reports of various brutalities that refugees testified to. Butterfield also notes that, by this point, ther was a 'tiny diplomatic community from Communist and sympathetic third-world countries, and they have been tightly restricted to their quarters' (other foreigners include: 'some Chinese aid technicians'). He reported, along with public health being good ('a "network of hospitals and pharmaceutical centers" so that for every hundred families' there are adequate facilities) and predictions that the population would grow from 8m to 15-20m in the next 10 years, that they have wiped out illiteracy by 80-90% (3/4 which was, in 1975, 'uneducated' [it’s unclear if Butterfield is stating this as a roughly known fact, or something that Pol Pot is saying; though it seems plausible enough, if high]), and that 'now "tens of thousands of our young men and women work in the many branches of science and technology"' - this also in contradiction with refugee reports. 'Mr. Pol Pot also said that his trip to China coincided with the Cambodian Communist Party’s decision to make public its existence, but he gave no explanation why this time had been chosen'.

1977_10_02 (Gary Hoenig | P164/E07 The Week in Review | Sunday 1977/10/2): Headiners - Top Spot to Pol Pot. NYT publishes a photo of Pol Pot.

1977_10_04 (Fox Butterfield from Hong Kong | P06/A06 | Wednesday 1977/10/5): CAMBODIAN OFFERS EVACUATION MOTIVE - Premier, in Peking, Says Aim of the Forced ‘75 Exodus From Cities Was to Break Up ‘Spy’ Units. According to Pol Pot at a Beijing Xinhua press conference on Sunday 2/10/1977, the urban evacuation in 1975 was to 'break up what they believed were "enemy spy organizations"', and the plan had been decided on in Feb 1975, three months ahead. As a result, "enemies" could not invade the country from outside, helped by internal sabotage. He elaborated that "judging from the struggles waged from 1976 to 1977, the enemy’s secret agent network lying low in our country was very massive and complicated. But when we crushed them, it was difficult for them to stage a comeback. Their forces were scattered in various cooperatives which are in our own grip". No reference was made to the Vietnamese communists. Butterfield notes that Cambodia’s Constitution, put into effect in 1976, 'had said Cambodia was a nonaligned country that followed no ideology'; still, China’s then-leader, Hua Guofeng, said that "the truth of Marxism-Leninism has closely united us and the noble idea of Communism has inspired us to march forward shoulder to shoulder". He also notes that in Xinhua’s party listing, Khieu Samphan was not listed; so he was just president of the state, and likely a figurehead. Further, 'Pol Pot, Nuon Chea and Von Vet are all psuedonyms, according to Cambodians who knew the men before they disappeared from Phnom Penh in the early 1960’s'.

1977_10_31 (Henry Kamm in Lamsing, Thailand | P01 | Monday 1977/10/31): Refugees Depict Cambodia As Grim, Work-Gang Land. Henry Kamm again published refugee testimony, a family of nine. They reported society was organized into groups of 'adult men, adult women, the elderly, children 6 to 15 years of age and older teen-agers', with the 'communal organization into work groups' weakening family ties. All over age 6 work; family is infrequently to rarely seen (though elders are sometimes tasked with looking after the young). They did not know anything about the new country, 'its organization and its public pronouncements beyond their commune. They did not know of the Communist Party and had no image of its leaders except for its names that the adults knew.' The reports were very similar to Kamm’s prior (1975_7_14_a), adding the lack of medicine, the 'daily deaths, of illness and hunger and of violent punishment for minor transgressions'. They give some details about diet (such as 'sometimes received a little fish but it was always rotten. They recalled meat on the occasion of the Cambodian New Year but never sugar.'; they are from an area that traditionally relied on fishing). In their case, instead of a gong, they said the 2nd crowing of the cock before dawn was the waking signal; 'the boys’ group was supervised by a woman soldier, the girls’ by a man', who were frightfully ready to punish (a girl was once killed for going to her family house). Death by diarrhea was frequent; at political meetings, they were told to work harder, so that in three years '"we will have our own cars and machines, and you will be allowed to drive them."'. Like earlier, the only political names they knew were their group chiefs, no one higher; they were not indoctrinated about 'attacks on "imperialists" and the United States or the old regime'; 'they did not hear the word "Communism", they did not know the names of Lon Nol, last head of the anti-Communist regime, or of Prince Norodom Sihanouk'. The father (and brother-in-law) had heard two leader names: President Khieu Samphan, and Prime Minister Pol Pot. They hadn’t seen pictures or heard their voices though, and knew no other identities. They never heard ideological speeches, 'never heard of a Cambodian Communist Party or any words of praise for any other Communist country, including China'; China was sometimes mentioned (there were Chinese bikes and aid rice), but these were said not to be aid, but paid for.

The children never went to school nor played. The family was from an area controlled by Communists since 1971, but their experience 'did not reach its present grimness until 1975', when weakened urban dwellers were quartered with villagers. They were cruelly treated and died in large numbers. Work was much harder now, but the harvest was down; fishing forbidden. They decided to flee during a political rally, when the whole family would be 'briefly reunited'. The likelihood of these refugees to make it to the USA, however, were slim; as persons of little importance or connection to the US, an American official said 'their only hope lay in a continuing American program to admit those who, fe[e?]ling strongly about the ideals for which the United States said it went to war in Indochina, flee their homelands at great risk'.

1978_1_04 (Giovanni Agnelli in Turin, Italy (he is the 'chairman of Fiat, S.p.A.') | P27/p01 Letter to the Editor | Friday 1978/1/13): Italy: To Live and Work in Peace. 'I feel compelled to offer a few remarks after seeing on your Jan. 2 OpEd Page the reproduction of a poster portraying myself as a “wanted person” to illustrate the interview about today’s Italy given by Rosario Romeo.' Agnelli is 'quite amazed that it could be described in your caption simply as an “Italian political poster.” It was, in fact, a leaflet sporadically hand‐distributed over a year ago by an ultraleft group with no parliamentary representation, one of the many ever‐changing groupcoalitions that operate at the fringe of our institutional political life.' He says it’s more like the 'many aggressive posters' of the Black Panthers, 'depicting prominent American politicians as criminals', and the caption implies that this too 'could be taken to reflect the American political life.' He also doesn’t doubt that 'violence is not an Italian monopoly. In fact, the same things that occur here also take place, and have taken place in the past, in many other countries. For examples, no one could reasonably infer that the Spaniards are a bunch of murderers because the Spanish civil war, as everybody knows, was a bloodbath, nor that the population of Cambodia should be compared to a conglomerate of bloodthirsty people because of the genocide taking place there. Americans cannot be identified with the assassins of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy.'

It’s dangerous to portray Italy 'as a country of murderers', the same way it is to characterize all Italian-Americans as mobsters, 'while we all know the contributions Italian‐Americans have made to America’s development.' 'Human nature is a blend of aggressiveness, moderation, generosity and selfishness, in general including both good and bad qualities', and different circumstances bring out different qualities. 'If we have had our Borgias, we have had our St. Francises as well—and millions of hard‐working, law‐abiding and good‐natured people between them'.

1978_1_10 (James Reston in Washington DC | P19/A19 | Wednesday 1978/1/11): The Tragedy of Cambodia. 'The private diplomatic reports coming into Washington these days from Cambodia are increasingly somber. They speak of the “planned” massacre of tens of thousands of people and of a “systematic” effort by the Cambodian Government to wipe out the upper and middle classes. The Carter Administration now trying to come to grips with wnat is apparently an appalling human tragedy.' Carter’s delay is due to 'difficulty in verifying the accuracy of the reports out of Phnom Penh. Egypt is the only non‐Communist country that has diplomatic relations with Cambodia, and its officials are virtually under house arrest.' Even Communist diplomats 'are restricted to their own embassies', so most info 'comes from refugees'. 'This “murder of a gentle land” raises some fundamental questions for the community of nations, and for the United Nations that has tried so hard to organize opinion against genocide.'

'Can nothing be done by the so‐called “great nations” at least to investigate the reports of such human suffering? Do the sovereign rights of national states include the power to treat or dispose of their people in any way their temporary rulers decide? And if the powers cannot investigate or interfere with human brutality, can’t they at least cry out against it? These are the questions now in Washington. A distinction should be made here between the Cambodian Government’s apparent effort to wipe out those of its own people who have opposed its revolutionary policies and the border clashes between Cambodian and Vietnamese troops.' The latter is less ominous, and relevant diplomatic reports 'tend to dispute' Brzezinski’s view that this 'is a "proxy war"' between China and the USSR. The Sino-Soviet split dimensions are tangible here, but the reports 'indicate these border battles are limited in time and space', and don’t threaten the 'balance of power' in SE Asia. Thus the 'immediate issue' isn’t 'strategic but human', which raises questions for the PRC. 'They have hundreds of “technicians” and “advisers” in Cambodia who, unlike their diplomats in Phnom Penh, are free to move around.'

'More than any other foreigners, the Chinese are in the position to know the facts, and they represent the only country that has any leverage on the Cambodians. The French, who have historic ties to Cambodia, have done their best to intervene without success. The British have debated the issues in Parliament and tried through their missions in many capitals to persuade Cambodian diplomats to moderate their Government’s policies; but the most hopeful point of restraint is Peking.' 'Next month', the UN will have a 'major debate on human rights', giving a test to the permanent UNSC members. 'The truth is, and not surprisingly, they haven’t been thinking that much about Cambodia. They have been worrying, naturally, about their own concerns: inflation, unemployment, the Middle East, the balance of trade and the balance of power.' But they could probably 'ease the pain' in Cambodia without 'any serious political or military or even ideological differences'. Carter could have a 'quiet talk' with the Chinese to 'turn things around'. ' Cambodia is not a critical hinge in the politics of Southeast Asia, but it is an important sybmol in the relations between the United States and China, and the test of President Carter’s defense of human rights.'

'He has insisted on this principle in his relations with the Soviet Union on behalf of the Jaws. He has even insisted on it on behalf of the Palestinians in the Middle East, but so far as is known here, he has never raised the question of human rights with China, and Cambodia is comparatively an easy case. There is no vital risk of big‐power relations here. It is simply a case of relieving human suffering. Maybe Chinese officials see it in a different way, but the impression here is that the question has never really been put to Peking by Washington. They will debate it at the U.N. in public next month, but the chances are that more progress will be made by talking to the Chinese in private.'

1978_1_18 (Fox Butterfield in Hong Kong | P10/A02 | Thursday 1978/1/19): China, in Apparent Gesture of Support, Sends Official to Cambodia. Amidst border clashes between Vietnam and Cambodia (which lead to a shallow Vietnamese incursion into Cambodia, and occupation of those parts), Deng Yingchao - member of the CPC Central Committee, highly respected revolutionary, deputy chairman of China’s Parliament, and widow of Zhou Enlai (and I have heard was an important feminist figure in Mao-era China) - was sent to Cambodia, likely in effort to facilitate mediation between the Cambodia and Vietnam. Reportedly, Vietnam had asked China to help establish contact with Cambodia the prior week. Also, after Pol Pot’s visit to China in October 1977, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Le Duan had also visited China, reportedly with the Cambodia border issue in mind. Butterfield reports China feared 'Vietnamese ambition to dominate all of Indochina that rivals Peking’s own claims to leadership in the area', and was concerned about Vietnamese-Soviet closeness; though they also feared if they put too much pressure on Vietnam, they would push Vietnam solidly into the Soviet camp. On this same day, US Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher said hundreds of thousands had died in Cambodia since 1975.

1978_1_20 (Henry Kamm in Bangkok, Thailand | P02 | Saturday 1978/1/21): Hanoi in New Threat to Cambodia. After Deng Yingchao’s visit to Cambodia ('stressing nonaggression and respect for territorial integrity', which 'might also have been intended as a call for negotiations'; see 1978_1_18), Vietnam announced that 'Cambodia was leaving it no choice but to resort to "legitimate self-defense" and 'righteous counteractions"' against Cambodia, and this '"must necessarily entail heavy losses to those people intent on killing our compatriots and taking our land"'. Apparently, Cambodia had, for some time, been launching border raids into Vietnam, which Vietnam had responded to by occupying areas along the border. Vietnam reported it had inflicted enormous destruction on the Cambodian military in eastern Cambodia (perhaps up to 1/3 of the whole force).

1978_2_02 (Henry Kamm in Bangkok, Thailand | P07/A07 | Friday 1978/2/3): THAIS TO NORMALIZE CAMBODIAN RELATIONS - Foreign Minister Says Exchange of Ambassadors Is Planned. After visiting Phnom Penh for four days, Thai Foreign Minister Uppadit Pachariyangku said the two countries agreed to restore 'friendly relations' and exchange ambassadors ASAP; these echo similar remarks 'made on Oct. 30, 1975, when Deputy Prime Minister Ieng Sary of Cambodia (and at this point, was 'in charge of foreign relations') visited Bangkok' - I find this remark interesting, as it indicates there was some outside knowledge of who was in the Angka government, which Cambodians themselves were not contemporaneously aware of. Since that 1975 visit, Thai-Khmer border clashes had lead to 173 dead in 1977. Despite prior arguments over the border, and Thai claims that Thai Communist rebels used Cambodia as a base of operations, now Uppadit 'spoke only of "misunderstandings and untoward acts" perpetrated by "a third party"', though did not specify who the latter was. In his interview, he said 'nothing unkind about Cambodia', striking reporters, though he said that 'reports about conditions in Cambodia since the Communist victory might have been exaggerated' [does he mean Pol Pot’s remarks, or the West’s/Soviet camp’s?]. He said Phnom Penh 'seemed like a normal city', in contrast to a Scandinavian ambassador, who after visiting last month, said it was a '"ghost city"'. Uppadit also indicated the countries might soom resume trade, with Cambodia accepting Thai currency as payment.

1978_4_04 (Joseph W. Eaton in Pittsburgh, PA, USA ('The writer is a professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs') | P24/p01 Letters to the Editor | Wednesday 1978/4/19): 35 Years After Warsaw, and Genocide Is Thriving. In this letter, Dr. Eaton [Doctor, I presume at least] opens with a summary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which was fought from April 19 1943 to June 19. It seems he wanted his article published on 19/4/1978 [and it was], as he makes a point that it 'is an ordinary day at the United Nations', since '[n]ext to nothing is being done about the ongoing massive genocide in Cambodia', arguing '[a] combined humanitarian effort by the Soviet Union and China could probably end it'. He lists a range of countries which he alleges have had genocides since WWII: Brazil, Burundi, Iraq, Indonesia, 'and elsewhere'. He discusses Uganda’s Idi Amin - 'Uganda’s reincarnation of Adolf Hitler' - noting he was 'actually elected head of the Organization of African Unity' [the predecessor of today’s African Union], and '[f]ellow heads of state, with some noteworthy exceptions, kept a "polite" silence' about the execution of 150k-300k people. 'An SS-type police continues to spill black blood with unrestrained sadism.' He cited UN/Arab League passivity over the Lebanese civil war, and the 750k 'blacks, Christians and animists [who] were put to death in the southern Sudan before an internal settlement negotiated by its present Government'. He also cites the Pakistani butchery in Bangladesh (specifically saying 'systematically killed many of the Bengali educated elite'), and that the world powers 'competed' over sides [he doesn’t point fingers; here the US (and somewhat China) supported Pakistan, and the USSR supported India, who itself invaded to stop the fighting (and refugees)].

'The human rights issue has become a victim of the cold war. The genocide convention notwithstanding third-world and Eastern bloc nations claim that for "political reasons"' they can ignore transgressions, 'unless it occurs in a country not aligned with them'. To resolve genocide (once its 'beg[u]n]), he broadly suggests airlifts, 'a threat of intervention', and neutral observers. He points out that UN General Secretary Waldheim [Wiki: an Austrian non-Jew who was drafted into the Wehrmacht, fighting in Yugoslavia and Greece; he became pretty important; historians argue he probably knew about the atrocities against Serb civilians, though he denies it; per Eli Rosenbaum, he reviewed and approved antisemitic propaganda in 1944 leaflets to be dropped behind Soviet lines, one ending with "Enough of the Jewish war, kill the Jews, come over"] 'had to watch helplessly as his Jewish acquaintances in Austria were sent to their death. He was passive then. He need not be passive now. He has a leadership position from which he could lobby for an active policy of deterrance.'

Dr. Eaton concludes by saying that 'neither the West nor the Soviet Union came to the aid of the beleagured Warsaw Ghetto. Let us be more timely the next time when mass murder is planned and executed.' It’s worth noting that, per u/blsterken on r/AskHistorians, that it was impossible for the Soviets to help the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. There was a 1944 Warsaw Uprising, but not by Jews, but the Polish Home Army. u/blsterken sums up that the Soviets probably could have done more to help (and did not for political reasons), but that this wasn’t a betrayal, it was at a bad time for the Soviet military leadership, it was a bad time for the armies on the field (stalled by the Germans), and that Warsaw would have been a difficult city to attack (and defensible for the Germans). Concluding, they say 'I prefer to view it as a tragic result of poor communication and lack of planning between the two parties, political animosity, and the horrid but all-too-common nature of realpolitik.'

1978_4_16 through 1978_4_20, E2: NBC produced and aired the "Holocaust" television miniseries (five episodes, five nights), and appears to have aired in the time slot leading up to 11PM (ie 8PM - 11PM, 9PM - 11PM, 8:30PM - 11PM); though that source also indicates it only aired for four nights (ie no episode on 20/4/1978)? The miniseries dramatizes the Shoah/Holocaust 'from the perspective of the Weiss family, fictional Berl Jews', starring Fritz Weaver, Rosemary Harris, James Woods, Meryl Streep, Joseph Bottoms, Blanche Baker, and Michael Moriarty. While it won awards and had positive reviews, Elie Wiesel said it was 'Untrue, offensive, cheap: As a TV production, the film is an insult to those who perished and to those who survived." Though it did play a role in public debates about the Holocaust in West Germany after aired in 1979, with "enormous" impact. The series is also 'widely credited with bringing the term "Holocaust" into popular usage to describe the extermination of the European Jews' (Wiki). Per BBC, it was seen by 120m Americans, but was controversial. Some Germans called it a 'kitsch melodramatic soap opera that trivialised the Shoah (Holocaust)'. Some leftists said NBC was ' cynically exploiting Nazi crimes for the sake of TV ratings. Right-wing nationalists complained that German war victims were being forgotten. Neo-Nazis even bombed two television transmitters in an attempt to stop the broadcasts in Germany.' (it was rebroadcast 10-13/9/1979 (see E3))

1978_4_23 (William Safire | P91/p02 Editorials, Letters, and Opinions | Sunday 1978/4/23): Silence is Guilt. After NBC-TV showed a 'dramatic version of "The Holocaust" [a documentary about the Shoah/Holocaust, an early step in the US’s effort to globalize Holocaust memory] to a generation that wishes that memory would go away', Safire wrote this essay. He answers the rhetorical question 'where the hell was the rest of the world when a part of the world was a Hell?' He answers by saying that the world (and the US, for state self-interest, and reasons of politicians’ donor interests) is ignoring (A) the "Soviet slave labor camps", reportedly documented by CIA aerial photography in such detail that 'not even Soviet dissidents know as much as we do' [it’s worth noting that the gulag system (officially a corrective labor system), whatever it was under Stalin, had become much less harsh afterwards]; (B), unlike efforts to 'undermine' Rhodesia’s (today: Zimbabwe) 'internal settlements', the world was silent about Idi Amin’s atrocities in Uganda; (C) 'the harassment of the Kurdish people' by 'the Communist-supplied government of Iraq'; (D) 'the bloodbath in Cambodia', which 'in terms of numbers of people murdered, this generation’s rival to Adolph Hitler is the leader of Communist Cambodia, Pol Pot'.

He makes an interesting observation that 'many of the Cambodians being killed are of "mixed blood," marked for death because they are part Vietnamese [if this is the case (and that seems plausible), this seems plausibly a genocide]. He observes that 'at the United Nations, only one ambassador - Israeli’s Chaim Herzog - speaks against the genocide in Cambodia', so we 'should ask not how a previous generation could tolerate the murder of six million Jews; on a smaller scale, this generation is doing just dandy along those lines. The world still sees victims as pests, which should help us understand why Israelis are not about to let themselves become victims again'. My comments: ideological critique aside, it’s notable here how a variety of states which the West opposes (for various geopolitical reasons (and allegedly, donor reasons), the US Carter administration was not explicitly vocal on these topics) were brought out in comparison to the Holocaust. That Pol Pot was called 'this generation’s rival to Hitler' is not alone notable (Hitler comparisons were par for the course since WWII; though usually this meant (and still kind of does today) they had domineering ambitions to invade their neighbors, and ideologically intended to do horrific war crimes), but that this was also in the context of "the Holocaust" documentary aired by NBC. An explicit effort at rationalizing the atrocities in Cambodia, in terms of the Holocaust comparison.

1978_4_30 (Henry Kamm in Bangkok, Thailand | P01 | Sunday 1978/4/30): For Indochina, Endless Wars - Old Enmities Revived After U.S. Departure. Kamm argues that the 'colonial era', initiated by French colonization in the 19th century of Indochina, and which the US (directly or otherwise) dragged on until 1975, has come to an end. Now its the time of 'decolonization', which means enmities frozen from a century ago, when, he reports, Vietnam had been expanding into Laos and Cambodia (and Thailand into Cambodia), and this expansion was 'frozen but not forgotten' during the colonial period. Hence, these old ethnic enmities now resurface, hence the various border wars in the area. He argues Vietnam is currently restrained in its military response to Cambodia (for the latter’s 'border intrusions that have killed or maimed many civilians and ruined some towns and villages from the southern end of the border on the Gulf of Siam to Tay Ninh Province west of Saigon [Ho Chi Minh city]'. Vietnam is restrained in fear of China’s reaction to a full-blown overthrow of Pol Pot, though recent visitors to Hanoi have the impression that overthrow is Vietnam’s 'principal objective'. To this point, 'there are reports in Thailand, that Vietnam appears to be organizing thousands of Cambodians ... to form the nucleus of a pro-Vietnamese Cambodian government'. In this context, other southeast Asian countries (primarily ASEAN, then Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore) were anxious about Vietnam becoming over-powerful. Indonesia (then ruled by the deeply reactionary Suharto regime, which came to power by killing about 1m Communists and suspected Communist-sympathizers, and one of the US’s strongest allies in the region) said that '"Thailand is our barometer"' with respect to Vietnamese ambitions. Thus, these states (despite Cambodia being a base for Thai Communist insurgents) hoped 'that Cambodia will remain strong enough to resist Vietnam. No matter how difficult a neighbor Pol Pot’s Cambodia is, in the Thai view, a Cambodia subservient to Vietnam would be even less desirable'. Though they were all concerned about China’s intentions, for now they looked to China in its role of restraining Vietnam’s suspected 'ambitions for regional hegemony'.

1978_5_10 (Henry Kamm in Trat, Thailand | P08/A03 | Wednesday 1978/5/10): Cambodians Held by Thais Say the Future Matters Little So Long as It’s Not at Home. In this provincial capital, Kamm interviewed three refugees from Cambodia. The nine of them were locked in an 8 ft², 10 ft high cage, 'their legs drawn up to leave a little space for one of them to stretch out occasionally. They rarely speak; when they do it is in a whisper. ... Most are young. They look old. The older ones among them look beyond age'. In the cage, they 'survive on one plate of rice a day and no exercise'. When given some extra food the day of Kamm’s visit, 'they stared at it and did not touch it until an interpreter was called to tell them they should.' This was, he reports, the fate of Cambodians who entered Thailand now, and would 'remain in their cages for a month or 2 more, guarded by policemen who treat them with indifference and sometimes laugh at them. Like all Indochinese refugees who have arrived in Thailand since Nov. 15 [1977?], they are held for at least a month for illegal entry'. Then they are 'transferred to the detention center at Buriram, a prison where they will stay indefinitely. If they are lucky - and few who have been sent to Biriram have been so lucky - they may eventually be taken to a refugee camp for Cambodians. Nearly 15,000 Cambodians are waiting in the camps for a country to offer them asylum. Most have been waiting for three years.' In addition, he interviews a tenth person, a defecting soldier, apparently in better health, who is kept in a separate cage (one of the other nine, Sam Settha, told Kamm '"I really hate him, but I try not to notice him now that he is here like us"').

The nine refugees were extremely scared, especially of Cambodia, but also of the Thai jailers. When asked various questions about what they wanted to do, they answered only "it’s up to the authorities". Their reports echoed those of others. Further, despite the daily broadcasts of Cambodian radio, they had not heard of the fighting with Vietnam, 'they did not know whether Cambodia was at peace', and, Kamm reports, 'communications between people confined to separate communes appear nonexistent'. Even during their lives before 1975, and especially after 1975 (aside from Thailand, of course), they had never been outside their native region (the province Pursat, bordering Thailand). They said they knew only Khieu Samphan as the country’s leader, though they 'had heard the name Pol Pot but did not know who he was'. They hadn’t heard of the CPK 'or any othe ruling organization'. They knew the name of Prince Sihanouk (who 'remains the one figure well known to all Cambodians'), but did know his wherabouts now (Kamm reports the Prince 'is said to be living under confinement in Phnom Penh'). When asked 'whether officials had ever come to visit their communes', one of the nine answered '"the only time they came was to execute people"', and that 'the officials were soldiers ... and executions took place two or three times a month, usually for attempts to escape'. 'Four of their group were killed by a patrol five days after they had sought to escape'. They said 'the only information given to them came from a loudspeaker near their huts. They heard speeches telling them to work hard in the fields and sometimes songs with the same message'. The defecting soldier 'said he was 23 years old, and had been drafted against his will and had never done anything in his year in the army but till fields', complaining of short rations, although after describing his diet, the other nine protested it was far better than theirs.

1978_5_12 (Henry Kamm in Bangkok, Thailand | P01 | Saturday 1978/5/13): Cambodian Refugees Depict Growing Fear and Hunger. A team of Yugoslav journalists came to Cambodia in March for a guided tour of the country. Though they exercised restraint, due to 'the conventions of Communist fraternalism', they voiced critique 'implicitly'. One of the team reported that a 'television journalist who was preparing a documentary on the visit told Cambodian officials that filming of the vast use of child labor in rigorous agricultural tasks would make a bad impression on the outside world. The Cambodians, however, urged him to film it'. The Yugoslav film recordings, says Kamm, bears out the testimony of the refugees. Both relate the ghost cities, the extremely regimented labor brigades, and that the people 'till the soil and build a country-wide system of small-scale irrigation earthworks with rudimentary tools and under primitive conditions'. The Yugoslavs did not raise questions about purges or the large scale of deaths due to overwork, undernitrtion, and 'the almost total absence of medical care or medicine'. They also didn’t touch on the large living condition gap between civilians and a 'minority of government officials soldiers'.

Regarding his survey of refugees, he says 'their bearing and comportment recall concentration camp survivors in the Europe of 1945'. They are mostly men, as the patrols and 'rugged and heavily mined border country' make escaping with them seem doomed, and that many other group members died along the way. Fewer than 10 of the 5000 refugees in the places he visited spoke French, none fluently (the language of education after early elementary school), indicating to him how thoroughly the educated classes had been killed, or died after being driven to the countryside. Yet refugees also reported on local level purges; none knew anything about purges 'above the level of their rural districts', and 'none had ever learned the names of officials above that rank, except for President Khieu Samphan'. While he says they came from 'four of the provinces bordering on Thailand', he also cites many refugees from Siem Reap province, which apparently does not border it (see map) (this doesn’t undermine his reporting, just worth pointing out). Some reported even two purges that happened within the last year. For example, Sen Smean and Lem Loeung, from Ampil district of Battambang Province (bordering with Thailand; see this map (though that map is contemporary, the borders may not be exactly the same as in the 1970s)), say the first district chief was purged, as he came to power in 1975, and so was 'still under the influence of the regimes of Prince Norodom Sihanouk and his successor, Lon Nol'. The second was purged as 'an "enemy" within". Such purges were often accompanied by killing the soldiers that were there with the prior chief, and replaced with new ones. In one case, in Siem Reap Province, a refugee, Tach Keo Dara, reported a purge provoked a week-long riot, which was brutally put down. And these are purges in areas generally remote from the Vietnamese border. These, however, all seem consistent with 'government pronouncements that Vietnam, with which Cambodia is in a state of limited war, had tried to bring down the Government of Prime Minister Pol Pot through internal subversion.'

There was a deep hatred of the soldiers, based on their privileged position (ie much better diet, with meat such as chicken and pork). And now, it seems the work day was from 4 AM, and could end as late as 10 PM.

A 'former army sergeant' [this seems to indicate he was a soldier for a pre-1975 government, rather than a defector, though it’s not wholly clear], Ok Eum, said that 'to have knowledge of the soldiers’ privileges weas dangerous in a country where power over the people was in the soldiers’ hands and death appeared to be the only punishment'. Another defector soldier, Choun Sakhon, said while civilians’ clothes and sandals had worn down to nothing (many walking bare feet), soldiers got new clothes and sandals regularly, even access to motorcycles. Refugees testified to soldiers being able to select women to marry, regardless of consent; Ok Eum agreed. Some civilians were even forcibly married (and otherwise needed the consent of their village chiefs). Marriage ceremonies took place en masse, once a year.

These subjects had to be drawn out 'through questioning', but 'two subjects come spontaneously from them - reports of mass deaths in their villages and constant hunger'. Disease was a huge killer, especially for infants, ans mothers (like everyone), had bad nutrition, so they had little milk or substitutes. Details of mass killings indicate the regime now had little inhibitation of conducting such in front of witnesses. Sen Smean said that his first district chief (now dead in a purge) announced at a meeting 'early last year' [~winter 1977] 'that of the 15,000 people of the district, 10,000 would have to be killed as enemies, and that 6,000 of them had already been punished', along with the phrase '"we must burn the old grass and the new will grow"'. 'The principal targets for extermination, according to all accounts, continue to be former government employees, soldiers and those in Cambodia called intellectuals - people with higher education'; by the prior year, it seems the regime was also going after the wives and children of long dead men; children were murdered in horrible ways ('had been thrown into the air and impaled on bayonets; others were held by their feet and swung to the ground until dead'; [certainly an eery echo of Imperial Japan]). A villager from Siem Reap Province, Kang Vann Dy, said he decided to escape 'after having killed former officers and sergeants, the Communist soldiers had come to the part of the village where he lived with a number of other former soldiers and had taken them and their families away' [it’s unclear if 'former soldiers' here means those under the pre-1975 governments, or post-1975 soldiers being purged]. Ok Eum, the former army sergeant, said 'he came from the district of Siem Reap Province where former President Lon Nol was born', and that soldiers came and 'killed the entire population of the former leader’s village', since they 'all were relatives of Lon Nol'. Ok Eum remarks: '"If the Communists continue, there will be no more Cambodians in the land of Cambodia"'.

Regarding Ok Eum’s quote referring to the "Khmer Rouge" (and calling them "Communists", though he may have picked up this denotation in Thailand): not only is he a 'former army sergeant' (either from a pre-1975 army, or a defector of the CPK army), but he is from Siem Reap province. Per 1975_7_14_a (see map), this was one of the provinces controlled by the KR in 1975, when, at least in the West, they were known as the "Khmer Rouge". While people were told virtually nothing about the ruling organization after April 17th 1975, it seems very plausible he would be aware of the denotations of the Khmer Rouge/Angka/CPK from before 1975. Otherwise, in this article, Kamm asked little (or reported nothing on) about what refugees learned in political education, or otherwise gleaned.

1978_6_28 (Sandy Vogelgesang ('an International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is a Foreign Service Officer on leave from the State Department. She is author of "The Long Dark Night of the Soul: The American Intellectual Left and the Vietnam War." This article is adapted from one in the July issue of Foreign Affairs') | P23/p02 Editorials, Letters, and Opinions | Wednesday 1978/6/28): Principle’s Price. 'Who can oppose human rights? Most Americans rank them with God, Mother and Country. What we will do about them is another matter. The gap between preaching and practice may leave both human rights and Jimmy Carter the losers'. First, she points out that Carter hasn’t made it clear that 'its policy embraces all rights proclaimed in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights', which includes 'trying to meet such "basic human needs" as food, shelter and health care at home, as well as abroad', in addition to the standard ones that come to mind. As a result, most Americans don’t 'know the scope of the President’s program'. Second, 'few think promoting human rights requires more than statements', as deeds aren’t cheap like words, and would likely require more taxes and some economic penalty. But third, inflation-pressed Americans don’t want more taxes ('prone to a new political conservatism').

'United States reaction to Cambodia may be the most telling index to this trend'; though it couldn’t stop the death of 'an estimated one million Cambodians, it has done little for those it could help', the refugees, since they would 'compete for scarce United States jobs'. She cites a rabbi, 'recalling comparable disregard for Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, senses a new American "epidemic of callousness." It mocks the human rights policy intended, in part, as the moral antidote to the Vietnam period.' She notes that 'United States foreign aid ranks, as a percent of gross national product, in the bottom 25 percent of all non-Communist-country programs. And, since Americans spend more on pet food at home than on food aid abroad, more may be at issue than economics.' She notes a 'schizoid split in the American public, sometimes aroused by others’ needs, but more often absorbed by private matters. Ten years after the Kerner Commission report on urban riots in the 1960’s, the United States is moving toward two societies - not one black and one white as then predicted - but one of haves and have-nots, separate and unequal.' 'The invisible poor of this "other America" are the domestic counterpart of a global phenomenon: one billion people below the United States "absolute poverty line."', as well as indignities of sex and race. 'Yet, neither haves nor have-nots make that connection. The American’s line of sight seldom extends from Peoria [a city in Illinois] to Pretoria [a capital of then-apartheid South Africa].'

'This ambivalence in the American commitment to full furtherance of human rights creates a crisis of capability, as well as credibility, for the President's policy.' 'Critics from the third world and American minorities, who are most concerned about their constituents’ economic and social needs, believe that the United States failure to address their rights reflects the inherent hypocrisy of the policy. Others, watching politicians stress military spending and fiscal responsibility rather than focus on the needy, lament the narrow scope of human rights action and the lapse from traditional American liberalism.' 'Mr. Carter seized “human rights” as one way to make United States foreign policy reflect American values. Its ultimate irony may be that, in revealing current apparent priorities, it does just that. The policy, premised on compassion, my be hoist on its own petard— and the pocketbook. If Mr. Carter does not hear the increasingly hollow ring of rhetoric on human rights, he may see one more initially popular policy boomerang by 1980.'

Comments: an interesting article, though seems more a rant. But there is a notable observation: Carter’s explicit efforts to center 'human rights' ('to make United States foreign policy reflect American values'), then-increasingly appearing hollow due to 'no needs', shows that the "actual" American values are not in centering 'human rights'.

Two articles related to Cambodia ( [see below] | P06 | Sunday 1978/7/16): World News Briefs.

(1978_7_15_a - Reuters in Bangkok, Thailand): Thailand and Cambodia Reach Border Accord. After Ieng Sary (Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister) came to Thailand for talks, 'Thailand and Cambodia agreed in principle today to try to end incidents along their border and to exchange ambassadors, said the Thai Foreign Minister, Uppadit Pachariyangkun.'. Their border has been 'plagued by incidents in which hundreds of Thais have died' since the KR took power in 1975. In February (x/2/1978), Mr. Uppadit had visited Phnom Penh, resulting in the agreement '"to forget the past, stop misunderstandings and normalize relations.”', though incidents continued nonetheless (they note though a 'lull in the last month'). In October 1975 (x/10/1975), Ieng Sary came to Thailand and the two 'established diplomatic ties', but haven’t yet exchanged ambassadors (also despite the x/2/1978 agreement).

(1978_7_15_b - AP in Bangkok, Thailand): Vietnam Calls China Main Culprint in Cambodia. In the CPV newspaper NhanDan, 'Vietnam accused China today of being “the main culprit” in alleged genocide in Cambodia and in Cambodia's border war with Vietnam.' They 'accused Cambodian leaders of “directly dipping their hands in the blood of the Cambodian and Vietnamese people,” but it said China was the main culprit, whose rulers “are running down the road of expansionism.”' 'The newspaper described Cambodia as a “hell on earth” and a “concentration camp” where• whole cities are destroyed, families separated and people, murdered.' '“What arouses still greater public indignation, “ the newspaper said, “is that this is a result of the cold‐blooded calculation by people behind the scenes, who have cheaply bought both the souls and bodies of Phnom Penh rulers and turned them into instruments for their counterrevolutionary global strategy.”'

1978_11_19 (Henry Kamm in Bangkok, Thailand | P392/p40 NYT Magazine | Sunday 1978/11/19): The Agony of Cambodia - Since 1975, the Khmer rouge have sealed off Cambodia from the world and decimated its citizens through stravation and slaughter. [per this article, while unclear if he is citing two educated refugees he met (Seng Horl and Hen Soth), or citing 'common' knowledge, it seems that in 1975, about 3m of an estimated 7m people were living in towns]. Ignoring like Hitler Germany, Stalin USSR; genocide accounts in pro-Western Thailand or Communist Vietnam; consistent w program anti-Vietnamese instigated by Lon Nol. Appears to outside world top officials are Pol Pot and Ieng Sary. Compares to "Auschwitz" and "Gulag Archipelago". Explains draining of cities because since the brutal civil war and American bombings, many refugees went to cities. The KR couldn’t control this huge mass, so they drained the cities. Experience of colonialism → autarkism; incompetence of Prince Sihanouk and Lon Nol administrations → eliminate those involved with them. Contra re-education in Laos and Vietnam, this elimination means murder. One refugee, Seng Horl, says 'since last year' [so 1977?] that 'the Communist Party and Communism have been mentioned at the frequent indoctrination sessions, but the people still refer to the ruling group as the nameless Angka. No one interviewed has ever met someone who said he belonged to the party, and no recruiting has been reported'. 'The Phnom Penh radio broadcasts daily and is assiduously monitored by intelligence organizations, but it is not listened to by the people of Cambodia, who have no radios. The refugees say that only the Khmer Rouge cadres who direct their work and guard them have radio sets, or access to the newspapers published infrequently by Phnom Penh'.

Regarding the compulsory twice-a-week political meetings (3-4 hours), the emphasis is on 'the need to increase work and production to make cambodia self-reliant. Politics is not much stressed. Except for such generalities as depicting the United States as the enemy and China as a friend, few specific lessons are remembered. "They do not even honor us with propaganda," Seng Horl said.' They are restricted to their homes after nationwide curfew, and cannot leave the commune except with permission; 'There is no postal service', and many are left ignorant about the status of their family. 'Whatever laws may have been passed by the 250-member People’s Representative Assembly, established in 1976, the people of Cambodia are ignorant of them. In fact, they are unaware of the very existence of any governing body or any central activity carried out by a government. Not even the universal symbol of a government, money, is in circulation', though Ieng Sary mused about reintroducing it in Belgrade in July 1977. Chan Serey Monty, at the Ta Phraya police station on the Thai side of the border, 'an 18-year-old girl of middle-class family, born and reared in Phnom Penh' gave flat, timid replies, reluctant to elaborate on what 'might shock the listener'. Her father was a 'minor official in the Prime Minister’s office. Her high school was closed for vacation the day the Khmer Rouge arrived in Phnom Penh, and she was home, in the family apartment on Avenue Charles de Gaulle.'

The first thing she heard was soldier orders to evacuate and immediately leave the city. 'She described the familiar tale of the mass exodus, the roundup and killing of those recognized as soldiers or officials. Her father was spared because of the mediocrity and anonymity of his job.' On the exodus, soldiers shot people for reasons she did not know. The march was for a month, 'to the provincial capital of Pursat, about 130 miles' away. 'The dying and the killing continued every day, she said, and she often stepped over bodies'. 'After a week’s halt near the railroad station in Pursat, they were loaded on a train. For three days and nights they rode, halting frequently in the middle of nowhere, the load of the jammed cars gradually lightening as deaths from illness, hunger and suffocation took its toll', taken to the 'district seat of Sisophon, near the Thai border. For the first time, the Chan family experienced an essential element of the new order: separation of its members according to their assigned work'. She and her surviving brother were sent 'to clear jungle for new rice fields', her sister to weave clothes, brother-in-law 'repaired bicycles' ('the soldiers’ basic means of transportation'), father for fishing traps, and mother 'threshed rice'. She was allowed to visit her parents once in the year she stayed in the village of Voat Chas.

Per Kamm, this description 'is the standard account of the life of the overwhelming majority of Cambodians, in all parts of the country, told with striking similarity of detail in hundreds of refugee interviews'. Her day began at 5 AM, setting out to the fields without breakfast. She did seasonal rice field work, 'built earth-works and ditches for irrigation projects in the off-season'. Work stopped at 11 AM for a paltry meatless meal. 'In a country once abundant with food, where hunger was the one human misery almost unknown, Cambodians go hungry all the time'. Work resumes after a half-hour until 6 PM, followed by the day’s last meal. When the moon was out, work resumed till 11 PM, and if the work pressure was high, the elderly had to hold torches when the moon wasn’t out. Other evenings had either mandatory meetings ('every three days') or she slept. 'During the first year, they slept in the open, under trees, even in the monsoon season.' '"You have yet to learn to tremble," Serey Monty recalled their Khmer Rouge chief as saying. "You have to live as we did during the war." Hatred of the people of Phnom Penh for having led a soft life is widespread among the Khmer Rouge, according to many refugees'. While remaining separate, the family was 'moved to Neak Ta village in the same district'. The two constants of her world were 'death and illness from hunger and overwork' and 'the arrest or disappearance of people suspected of association with the former regime. A phrase that recurs throughout accounts by people who fled Cambodia is "chap teuv bat". It means "taken away" and includes the notion of "never to be seen again."' Seray Monty witnessed one instance of what happened to such people, on the first afternoon of her escape. She went to find visit her parents, and 'foud herself emerging from the forest when, in the field ahead, 10 yards from her, she saw three Khmer Rouge knifing a group of eight fettered persons, mainly women and children.' She already knew soldiers killed people, '"because they told about it. They are very happy when they kill them. They tell us their names. One said, 'It is very easy to kill children; we only have to tear them apart.'"' She tried escaping with her family, but she was the only one with the strength to continue; her mother urged her on.

Per Kamm, '[d]eath from hunger and illness is more frequent than death meted out, usually by bludgeoning, by the Khmer rouge, in the consensus of refugees interviewed'. An interviewed agronomist, Hen Soth, refugee said in his village of about 320 families, 700-800 died by illness/malnutrition, and 100+ were killed. Medical care is provided only by 'Khmer Rouge medics, who are said to have no medical training and to concentrate their care on cadres and soldiers rather than the people'. Only traditional medicine is otherwise available. And while soldiers live a better, and separate life, than those they oversee, 'judg[ing] by the defectors ... it is very little more on every score. And because of the frequency of purges on the lower levels, their risk of instant death is high as well.' All prior social institutions - education, religion, family - are dissolving.

1978_11_24 (David Sidorsky in New York City, New York (he is 'a professor of philosophy at Columbia University') | P22/p01 Letters to the Editor | Tuesday 1978/12/5): On Printing a 'Propagandistic Opinion on Questions of Fact'. 'The Times’s decision to publish Danid Burstein’s article “On Cambodia” in its Op‐Ed page (Nov. 21) raises the question of the editorial responsibility assumed in publishing either the allegation of genocide or mass murder or the denial of such allegations as myth or a lie. One prerequisite is that there should be a single standard of concern for the lives of persons, whether European or Asian, and whether the murder is alleged to have been committed in the Katyn Forest, Babi‐Yar, Auschwitz, New Jersey, Guyana or Phnom‐Penh. Thus, Mr. Burstein’s view that the Cambodian “genocide myth is being fabricated” has a directly relevant analogy in the thesis of Prof. Arthur Butz of Northwestern that the charge of Nazi genocide in Europe is a hoax. Yet it is reasonably certain that would be irresponsible of The Times to publish Professor Butz’s views on this topic, even as an article of opinion.'

Perhaps one might argue its healthy to present contrary viewpoints, generating discourse, 'particularly when, as in the case of Mr. Burstein, this opinion seems to derive from a rare first‐hand trip to Cambodia'. But the purpose of Cambodia inviting the 'ideologically sympathetic journalist is precisely to generate such controversy and skepticism. In publishing the dissent, The Times would then be used as a conduit for the propaganda of those who seek to cover up the crime of genocide. The existence of such views or the record of such trips deserve being reported, but they do not require or merit literal transmission of their message.'

'What is at issue is the criteria of editorial judgment in publishing allegations or denials of genocide. Two criteria seem appropriate. First, the author must be judged intellectually responsible; second, the opinion must have some plausibility or the support of some prima facie evidence. If these two criteria are not met in a minimal way, then anything goes. Any expression of a prejudiced mind or every propagandistic ploy can receive legitimization and be recognized as a considered opinion on the subject.' Sidorsky doesn’t think 'Mr. Burstein’s article meets these criteria'. His 'barrage of countercharges' are '"fallacies of fake refutation," like the transparently irrelevant denial that Angkor Wat has been destroyed. Most tellingly, he has not responded to any of the evidence: the confirmed emptiness of a city, formerly of several millions; the eye‐witness account (by a Times reporter et al?) of the evacuation of Phnom‐Penh; the failure to account for the present whereabouts of those evacuees, and the independent and detailed stories of thousands of refugees. There is no effort to clarify this evidence but only an effort to obthe issue with other claims. In the case of several alleged murders in New Jersey, The Times was prepared to go to great lengths to protect the integrity of investigative reporting, even in a community with judicial safeguards. Surely, the alleged murder of millions of persons deserves more care and thoughtfulness than the publication of a blatantly propagandistic opinion on questions of fact.'

1978_11_26 (Florence Graves | P427/p10 Today is Sunday | Sunday 1978/11/26): Holocaust II! McGovern assails Cambodian atrocities. She opens with this quote: '“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” —George Santayana'. Then her article. 'They don't talk about extermination ovens or about freaky medical experiments or about lampshades fashioned from human skin. But the Cambodian refugees do talk about forced labor camps, about “deportations,” and about mass executions.' She then cites grizzly refugee accounts of KR methods of execution, and disregard for the living and the dead, as well as one account (from Sen Chul, 'a 27‐year old former college student') about once/twice a year 'mating period[s]', when young men and women were 'allowed to talk with each other' (in other times, they were not), 'except for talk about developing the country'; the penalty of violating this was immediate execution. '"After the two day mating period, you report to the authorities that you have found a suitable partner. Aside from the mating period, you cannot tell a girl that you like her. You must go to the village chief and tell him. I you tell her directly, you will be killed. In either case, if the chief agrees, you must wait until the mass marriages are held about every six months at the same time as the mating season."' '“Girls have no right to refuse…If she refuses, she will be executed. In some cases, she and her family are told that they must be ‘relocated’ far away. In 1976 about 15 families of girls who refused to marry were relocated. But, in fact, the Khmer Rouge escorts returned the next day with all their clothes and distributed them to others. Everyone thought that the families were executed. Being ‘relocated’ frequently means being executed.”' The goal, she argues, is 'horribly familiar—the annihilation of the past in order to create a new order, an ideal society.'

She cites some quibbles of foreign policy experts if the accounts 'may be exaggerated', but generally, based on reports from 'foreign journalists, diplomats, and hundreds of refugees', most agree that 'the Khmer Rouge (communists) have killed hundreds of thousands—estimates range up to two million—of the citizens of Cambodia (renamed Democratic Kampuchea). The way the refugees tell it, anyone who challenges the new rulers is a candidate for elimination.' 'It's a horror story which, for the most part, has gone unreported in the American press. A panel of prominent journalists cited the story of genocide in Cambodia (and Vietnam) as one of the “censored” stories of 1977, explaining that “what may be the most important human rights story of the decade receives little mass media coverage.” The above accounts, along with even more horrifying stories, were given in a thick document, available to the press, submitted to a United Nations subcommittee by the Human Rights Commission.' However, she reports, Senator George McGovern ('the embodiment of the anti‐war movement of the 60's, the man whose name is as symbolic of the peace movement as the familiar dove') is '[t]he man who is bringing this story to the forefront'. She says some of his 'political adversaries find it curious' that this peacenik is now 'sounding the clarion call for the consideration of an international peace‐keeping force “to knock this regime out of power.”' He says it isn’t 'curious': '“I've always been against needless killing. ... I have never forgotten that there are times when interference is necessary to stop needless bloodletting. That is why as a young man, I volunteered with millions of others to halt the blood purge of Adolf Hitler.”' He also cites the 'never, never again' aphorism regarding the Shoah/Holocaust - and 'it is clear that the senator thinks ... that "never, never again" is now'. 'Conceding that Hitler's diabolical plot to exterminate the Jews was different in concept and execution from the havoc wrought in Cambodia, nevertheless, he says, “a massive slaughter is once again taking place in our time”', and points out 'the world sits idly by'.

'We ask McGovern why he thinks the press has tiptoed around this story—some say there's been an almost purposeful evasion. Commentator Patrick Buchanan, for example, reported in his TV Guide “Newswatch” column that while all three networks were invited to an American Security Council briefing on Cambodian atrocities last January, not one sent a correspondent. The Washington Post reporter, he said, “walked out, midway, asserting she had heard enough of this ‘junk.’”' McGovern says that Hitler was able to '"get away with killing six million Jews"' because '[t]here was little media attention', 'and attributes the disbelief in both instances to “the nature of the human animal. We don't like to look at raw genocide. We like to blot out that kind of barbarous conduct.”' 'Plus, he asserts, “we're indirectly responsible. We set the stage.” Had the Americans left Prince Sihanouk alone ('he may have not been the greatest leader, but he was doing pretty well'), had we not drawn Cambodia into the Vietnam war, had we not “dropped more bombs on Cambodia than we dropped on Nazi Germany in World War II,” well, then, he says, Cambodia's fate might be different today. “We literally pulverized the whole social fabric. When you do that, what you have left is naked savagery…Out of all that misery climbed the Khmer Rouge.”'

She poses the argument of his right-wing critics (ie Pat Buchanan): that anti-war activism pulled the US out of Indochina, enabling communists to take over Vietnam and Cambodia. '“Many network newsmen and executives point proudly to the role they played in reversing American opinion (about the Vietnam war). Perhaps the network news would prefer that the American people not know, or not see, too much of what they helped to produce in Southeast Asia,” he wrote.' He calls those making such arguments '"idiots"'. '“I suppose we could have stayed there and bombed. I suppose we could have eventually levelled everybody…”'

'McGovern's not very well publicized campaign to focus world attention on the mass murdering in Cambodia has consisted of a denouncement of the regime in the Congressional Record, several speeches and press releases.' 'McGovern's stands on this issue put him in a tricky philosophical posture. He deplores reports of the mass killings and demands they be stopped; he's opposed to unilateral military intervention by the U.S.; he concedes that verbal condemnation and pleas to the United Nations arc imperfect solutions. Further he must deal with this question: Where does one draw the line between a humanitarian concern for human rights and a meddling interference into the affairs of a foreign power? At how many bodies?' 'That this issue “is not already on the agenda (of the United Nations) is a very disturbing matter,” he says. The U.N.'s tortoise‐like pace in responding to reports of mass murders in Uganda and Cambodia McGovern attributes to the fact that the U.N. is “dominated by the votes of the small Third World powers,” powers which consider themselves “victims of imperialism” and who are thus able to rationalize the actions of other Third World powers. “They rationalize that Cambodia is groping its way out of the dark night of war to establish a new order.” They realize, too, he says, that they could be next. McGovern resents the fact that these powers which are so quick to criticize the major powers, such as the United States, are slow to condemn their contemporaries.' When Graves and her team point out that 'the last time such mass murdering was stopped, the solution was military', WWII. He says that '“was a matter of national survival,” not on moral grounds'. 'If Hitler had confined himself to Germany,” he reiterates, “he would have been left alone.” The chilling consequences of what that statement implies, the vision of Germany today still ruled by Adolf Hitler, startles us.' He points out Cambodia is not a threat to the US, so such a war is unlikely.

'Can McGovern foresee advocating any military involvement on the part of the U.S.? “It would depend on the circumstances.” If there were a wellorganized uprising, he would consider the supplying of arms.' He argues that 'vociferous condemnation by the rest of the world can have an effect on Pol Pot and his communist regime', referencing a letter 'the Cambodian foreign minister sent to him, calling him a “fanatic and inveterate imperialist.” That reaction, he says, is evidence he has hit “a sore point.”' Graves observes that 'indeed, wo days after we talked, the press reported that the Cambodian government had invited U.N. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim to visit the country to “see with his own eyes” if the charges are valid. Cambodian foreign minister Ieng Sary denied wholesale slaughter, saying those who had been killed were “infiltrators and agents of the Vietnamese or U.S. imperialists.”' 'We suggest to McGovern that the is in a precarious position-being aware of mass murdering of innocent people and doing nothing but talking about it. Until the world establishes an effective international police force, he says, that is all that can he done. That, he says, is the “nature of a world organized along nation‐state lines.” The United Nations, which was founded in part as a response to the German Holocaust, he says with chilling understatement, has been “a great disappointment.”'

1978_12_10 (Henry Kamm in Bangkok, Thailand | P265/p02 The Week in Review | Sunday 1978/12/10): Now Asia Frets About 'Ugly Vietnamese'. Kamm outlines the Sino-Soviet fractures in Indochina; though notes the embarassment of China 'de-Maoizing' while supporting a country practicing 'Maoism in its extreme form'. Since 'last summer' [1977?], the Vietnamese have unofficially carved out land inside Cambodia (now officially called a "liberated zone"), 'the rubber plantation region' (see Map 2 below). They seem to preparing a counter-government, the 'Kampuchean (Cambodian) National United Front for National Salvation' (I’ll abbreviate this as CNUFNS). Kamm notes that in 1970, the Vietnamese had helped set up another such a front in Cambodia, which was the nucleus of the current 'Phnom Penh Government'. While nobody doubts Vietnam could easily topple Pol Pot, there are international costs, such as Chinese pressure. The US also exerts huge pressure; while attempting neutrality, the US has warned Vietnam 'that normalization of relations with the United States cannot be forthcoming if Vietnam openly invades a neighboring country'. 'The worst result of the conflict' for the US and its regional allies 'would be Vietnamese domination of Cambodia', because this would supposedly strengthen the Soviet position in the region. Kamm notes: 'The ironical upshot is that Washington once more feels that for overriding political reasons it must, implicitly, at least, rally to the defense of a regime that is notorious for its violations of human rights.'

NYT Map 2: from NYT article 1978_12_10.

1978_12_16 (Fox Butterfield in Hong Kong | P01 | Saturday 1978/12/16): China: The Long Wait. While noting that China-US relations have been in limbo since Nixon’s detante, especially over the Taiwan issue, something new is motivating China’s rapproachement: (1) a desire for new trade and technology for development and (2) fear of Soviet-camp encirclement, as Vietnam and the USSR recently signed a friendship treaty, and more urgently, Vietnam and Cambodia (China’s regional ally) were falling into increasing conflict, with 100k Vietnamese soldiers involved.

1978_12_24 (David Binder in Washington DC | P01 | Monday 1978/12/25): Cambodia-Vietnam Battles Spur U.S. Concern Over 'Proxy' War. The Carter administration was increasingly concerned of a Sino-Soviet proxy war blowing up between Cambodia and Vietnam. Further, after three Western visitors to Phnom Penh were attacked (including a British scholar, Malcolm Caldwell, killed), China implied this was 'staged by a new insurgency movement, whose establishment was recently announced by Hanoi radio'. Binder notes that a year ago, specialists, contra national-security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, said this wasn’t a proxy war (more deep-rooted ethnic), and that China was annoyed by the KR leadership. US Administration officials said that China supplied 99% of Democratic Kampuchea’s war matériel (tanks, artillery) 'through the port of Kompong Som on the Gulf of Siam', with the USSR supplying Vietnam. The US officials also called CNUFNS entirely a Vietnamese creation, though noting its leaders 'appear to be of Cambodian origin' (citing the example of Heng Samrien); the stated goal of this front 'is to bring down the Pol Pot Government'. 'A high-ranking State Department official' said Vietnam’s activity in Cambodia (towards toppling the KR) was 'alarming to the United States, and "very unsettling" for the independent states of the region'; and that the developments here would affect if Vietnam and US will normalize relations. Japan has also warned they will condition future foreign aid based on their behavior vis-a-vis Cambodia. American analysts also said they were skeptical 'about Hanoi’ s ability to crush Cambodia', citing high KR morale and difficult terrain. Though the Americans conceded that Pol Pot started the conflict in attacks on Vietnam, they argued they 'had taken pre-emptive action out of fear that Vietnam intended ultimately to subjugate Cambodia, as it has Laos', which now seems apparent. They also note that if the Vietnamese took 'Route 4' [see Map 3 below], they would cut Phnom Penh from the port of Kompong Som, though said this (or a strike on Phnom Penh) was unlikely.

There are four articles in this, three I’ll summarize below ( [info below] | P01 | Thursday 1979/1/4) Vietnam Speeds Cambodia Drive, Pressing Capital. As a packet of articles linked to "frontpage" coverage, I’ll keep them together, despite being written on different days.

1979_1_04 (Henry Kamm in Bangkok, Thailand | P01 | [see above] ): Takeo, on Road to Phnom Penh, Reported Taken. Kamm documents the Vietnamese four-pronged attack on Cambodia. He notes that route 4 was built by Americans. While pro-Vietnam Cambodian irregulars seemed to play little role, the CNUFNS announced it will form a government in the "liberated zone". The Vietnamese had built up forces in the rainy season, and are attacking now in the dry season. 'As the fighting continued, the United States declared that it would support a request by Cambodia for a meeting of the United Nations Security Council [UNSC] to take up Vietnam’s invasion'.

NYT Map 3: from NYT article 1979_1_04 (Kamm).

1979_1_03_a (Graham Hovey in Washington DC | P05 | [see above] ): U.S. Backs Cambodia at U.N. Washington’s UN declaration cited '"intervention by armed force in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation"', thus 'implicitly sided with Cambodia'. 'Mr. Carter said that "the United States takes great exception to the human-rights record" of the Cambodian Government but that "as a matter of principle, we do not feel that a unilateral intervention against that regime by a third power is justifed."' [a third power? Who is the 2nd?? The UN?] The Cambodian call for 'emergency Security Council session' was announced on 2/1/1979 by Ieng Sary. While the US State Department was unsure about the degree of participation of pro-Vietnamese Cambodian guerrillas, 'Mr. Carter emphasized the term "Vietnamese forces" and said in reply to a question that he had done so deliberately."' The leader of the CNUFNS 'is sad to be Heng Somrien, described as a former official in the Cambodian Government of Prime Minister Pol Pot'.

1979_1_03_b (Agence France-Presse in Hanoi, Vietnam | P05 | [see above] ): Peking Envoy Said to Leave Hanoi. China’s ambassador to Vietnam returned to Beijing 'two days ago' (1/1/1979), 'accompanied by the military attaché, a diplomatic source said here today.'

1979_1_05 (Henry Kamm in Bangkok, Thailand | P03/A03 | Friday 1979/1/5): Vietnam's Push in Cambodia Has Neighbors Worried. Vietnam enjoyed great prestige in the region, for its defeats over France and the US. But now that it was invading Cambodia, apparently thats all going out the window. Kamm observes that 'the decline in Vietnamese prestige began' when the 'lightly regarded Cambodian army' managed raids into Vietnam, withstood last year’s 'major Vietnamese onslaught last winter', and 'also seriously disrupted the Vietnamese reconstruction program'. Now Vietnam is increasingly diplomatically isolated, trying to find friends in regional non-Communist countries and the US. 'While no Southeast Asian countries approve of the harsh regime of Prime Minister Pol Pot in Phnom Pennh, they prefer an independent Cambodia to one under Vietnamese rule. Many Asian officials feel that a strong China stance would find general approval throughout the region.' (MAP)

1979_1_06 (UPI in Bangkok, Thailand | P08/L08 | Sunday 1979/1/7): U.S. Aide Bids Hanoi Pull Out of Cambodia. Here is Robert B. Oakley, 'a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs', at a news conference: '"We are very clearly seeing a so-called regime being imposed by outside military forces on Cambodia. Although we don’t like the Pol Pot regime, we are not sure any new regime would be better for the Cambodian people."'

1979_1_07_a (Henry Kamm in Bangkok, Thailand | P01 | Monday 1979/1/8): HANOI REPORTS CAMBODIAN CAPITAL CONQUERED BY 'INSURGENT' FORCES; LONG GUERRILLA CONFLICT FEARED - VIETNAM IN KEY ROLE - 13 of Its Regular Divisions Are Reported Involved in Broad Offensive. Vietnam, and the CNUFNS announced that Phnom Penh had been captured. '"The regime of dictatorial, militarist domination of the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique has completely collapsed," the radio announcement declared'. There was no mention of their whereabouts. They also captured Kompong Som (the port) and two major airports. While the broadcast credited the '"revolutionary armed forces"' of the CNUFNS, most analysts believed Vietnamese forces did the legwork. Further, that victory wasn’t yet at hand, and now there would be a 'long period of guerrilla war'. The US said that, with the capital fallen, the 'priority should be given to the withdrawal of Vietnamese forces from Cambodia and the avoidance of direct Soviet and Chinese involvement'.

'Analysts in Bangkok' felt Vietnam’s aim was to depose Pol Pot, which dispite a pre-1975 alliance from what anyone could see, they started raiding into Vietnam after 1975, and aligned with China. Said analysts also said, per battlefield communication monitoring, it didn’t seem Cambodian insurgents were a 'significant presence'. In general, Vietnam (and any allied forces) had, per Vietnam, made big gains in all but two of the 19 provinces (those two 'farthest from Vietnam'). However, analysts warned that Vietnamese troops made 'lightning advance' by both their use of the roads, and the fact that the cities and towns had been emptied. Rebel radio from Phnom Penh broadcasted a call from Heng Samrin (leader of the CNUFNS) for all KR troops to defect, and they will be forgiven if they had '"done good for the nation"'. They promised to abolish the excesses of the Pol Pot regime (ie families can reunite, freedom of religion, replace KR administrative bodies with 'elected "people’s self-management committees"', healthcare (which 'had been virtually nonexistant since 1975'), schools for 7-10 year olds ('Schools also virtually vanished under the Pol Pot regime')). They also invited Chinese advisors (thousands in the country) to turn themselves in. MAP

1979_1_07_b (Bernard Gwertzman in Washington DC | P10/A10 | Monday 1979/1/8): U.S. Calls for Vietnamese Pullback And Notes Fear of War Widening. The US was concerned that Vietnam should pull out ASAP, and urged China and the USSR not to get inovlved (especially worried about the former, as they had been building up forces on their border with Vietnam since 'the middle of last week'). 'There have also been reports, officials said, of Soviet troop movements along the heavily fortified border with China, but exact information was unavailable'. 'Although the American statements have had the effect of seeming to support Cambodia in the dispute, American officials stressed again today that the United States was not taking sides and that it continued to regard as reprehensible the Pol Pot Government’s human rights record, described by President Carter at one time as the worst in the world'. China had called on the UNSC to support [Pol Pot’s] Cambodia, blaming the Russians as 'behind the Vietnamese invasion', while the US has 'avoided blaming the Russians for the conflict', though 'many officials believe the Soviet Union has taken advantage of the balance of forces to embarrass the Chinese'. The Chinese were keen to articulate their normalization of relations with the US in strategic terms, the US less so, as this could upset its current negotiation of a 'strategic arms limitation accord with the Soviet Union'.

'[S]ince this is believed to be China’s first active interest in a Security Council matter, Peking will undoubtedly look for strong support from Washington. But American officials said that they would prefer that other countries take the lead, mainly because of previous concerns over Phnom Penh’s human rights violations'.

1979_1_08 (Fox Butterfield in Peking, China | P01 | Tuesday 1979/1/9): SIHANOUK REQUESTS AID OF U.S. AND U.N. - Criticizes Successors but Pleads for Help Against Vietnamese. '[A]fter three years of what he [Prince Norodom Sihanouk] termed "house arrest"', the Prince gave 'an emotional and revealing six-hour news conference' urging UN and US support against Vietnam in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. He said that Pol Pot 'personally released him last Friday [5/1/1979] to permit him to lead a Cambodian delegation to a special session' of the UNSC over the invasion. While he said 'he did not approve of the extreme policies of the Cambodian Communist regime', he would 'go to the United Nations tomorrow and later travel about the world to plead for support for Cambodia because, he said, Pol Pot, the Cambodian Communist leader, was above all a patriot' (he also said he 'totally lost contact with two of his daughters and their children when they were sent off to a rural cooperative in 1975 after the Communists’ victory', as '"we were not allowed to write letters in Cambodia"'. He said he heard 'reports of widespread killings in Cambodia over the Voice of America on a radio the Communists allowed him to keep'. He confirmed refugee reports that there was no currency, 'no telephone or telegraph service, no markets, no law courts and no freedo mof religion, and that people had been forced to live in cooperatives separated from other members of their families'.

'Prince Sihanouk appeared to recognize that his comments today would sever any last links he had with the Pol Pot regime, which has fled from Phnom Penh into the jungle. Toward the end of the news conference, he remarked: "Already I have said too much to you. It may not be possible for me to go to New York tomorrow."' He said he '"would like to retire in Peking" after his diplomatic mission. But he recognized that his comments the hostility between himself and Mr. Pol Pot might make that embarrassing for Peking', and alternatively, he will 'seek asylum in France, where he still owns a villa'. Some diplomats speculated the Chinese allowed him to speak so frankly as a way of subtly dissociating China from the KR, 'whose brand of revolution Peking could never denounce publicly'. His self-portrayal as a helpless prisoner, unconnected with the KR regime, might 'help create a more sympathetic reception' at the UN. He himself was couped in March 1970 'and replaced by the pro-American Government of Gen. Lon Nol', and 'moved into exile in Peking where he was the nominal head of the Communist resistance government', though stripped of power and disappeared when returning in 1975.

His attitude towards the US was 'cordial': '"Now we like the United States, which has condemned the Vietnamese. It is kind of you to do so. It is justice."' '"I hope the United States and the great American people will help us to expel the Vietnamese from Cambodia. We are ready to forget the past and be good friends."' 'He said China had pledged to continue to supply Cambodia with all necessary military supplies and food to continue the fight against the "Hitlerian Vietnamese aggressors." But he said neither Mr. Pol Pot nor China wanted Chinese military volunteers to intervene or favored a Chinese attack against Vietnam across this [PRC] country’s southern border. That, he conceded, might bring in the Soviet Union, which signed a defensive alliance with Hanoi last fall.' He alleged Vietnam a '"Soviet satellite" intent on making Cambodia its '"colony", something previous generations of Vietnamese began doing as early as the 15th century.' He acknowledged the logistics of China’s supplying Pol Pot was a problem (having lost the port and airfields), and 'wondered aloud whether "Thailand might close its eyes" to Chinese shipments across the Thai border into Cambodia.' Sihanouk reported that Deng Xiaoping told him 'China expects the war in Cambodia now to take longer than the five-year fight against President Lon Nol.' He said he didn’t know Pol Pot’s whereabouts, but was 'safe and well and apparently in radio contact with Peking', per Thiounn Prasith, 'a member of the Cambodian Foreign Ministry who accompanied him to Peking'. The latter’s 'intense face never showed a flicker of expression, even at the Prince’s most critical comments'.

Sihanouk hoped the UN, per its Charter, would either '"condemn Vietnam and expel it from the United Nations or force Vietnam to evacuate completely Cambodia."' '"If Vietnam refuses, the UN should create a military force to fight against the Vietnamese and drive them from Cambodia"'. He also planned to ask Tito of Yugoslavia to call the nonaligned nations together 'to expel Vietnam from the nonaligned movement, since Hanoi is "a Russian puppet."' 'He predicted that after the seizure of Cambodia, "the more the russians and the Vietnamese eat, the better their appetite." Next, he said, they will "be attracted by the seductions of Thailand," and then Singapore. "Very interesting, Singapore," he said, and chuckled like a man with his eye on a choice object.'

'Not everything about Mr. Pol Pot was bad' he commented. 'Five or six times during his three years of house arrest, he said, Khieu Samphan, the nominal President, escorted him on provincial tours where he saw people hard at work in the fields building up Cambodia’s agriculture.' '"The people were not unhapy," he said. "They smiled. On their lips were songs, revolutionary songs"', though he said he preferred loved songs, '"but revolutionary songs are not bad."' He said the people would have to speak for themselves regarding if they 'were really mistreaded'. '"If the Cambodians feel themselves happier under the Vietnamese than with Pol Pot, even the most massive Chinese aid will not bring Pol Pot back to Phnom Penh"'. "Even the Communist leadership had to listen to the Voice of America to get its news, he said, because of the lack of communications facilities'. He said if he didn’t support the KR government upon his 1975 return, 'he and his family might have been killed'. He said while in Beijing from 1970 and 1975, he read some Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Mao to 'learn about Communism, including the so-called Little Red Book of Mao’s thought, which is now condemned in China as overly worshipful of Mao. His remark brought laughs from a number of Chinese officials and reporters present.' '"I think Communism was good for China, but not for my country," he said. "Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao. Really, I cannot love Communism like that."'

The article includes a photo released by the Vietnam News Agency 'last week', 'a man identified as Chea Sim, a leader of insurgent Cambodian forces, visited peasants in a "liberated" area of the country.'

1979_1_09_a (Special to The New York Times from Moscow, USSR | P10/A09 | Wednesday 1979/1/10): Soviet Moves Quickly To Pledge Its Support To Cambodian Rebels. In a statement made 'in an interview with Time magazine executives and paraphrased by Izvestia, the Government newspaper', 'and in a congratulatory telegram', Brezhnev (the CPSU chief and leader of the USSR) said 'the Cambodian insurgents had overthrown a “political system of the Chinese model.” He called the deposed Government of Prime Minister Pol Pot “a hateful regime and a tyranny imposed from the outside.”' Referring to the KR killings, he said '“the mass destruction of people in Cambodia is nothing other than China's Cultural Revolution on other people's territory.”' The telegram was less direct about China, though had a similar message. An excerpt from the telegram, '[a]s quoted by TASS, the Soviet press agency': '“The Soviet Union will further develop and strengthen the traditional relations of friendship and cooperation between our peoples, support the Cambodian people in the construction of peaceful, independent, democratic, nonaligned Cambodia advancing toward socialism.”'

1979_1_09_b (Bernard Gwertzman in Washington DC | P10/A09 | Wednesday 1979/1/10): U.S. TO MUTE VOICE IN CAMBODIA DEBATE - Though Opposing Vietnam's Drive, It Will Do Nothing to Suggest Any Support for Pol Pot. 'Although the United States has criticized Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia, the Carter Administration plans to refrain from playing an active role at the coming United Nations Security Council debate over Cambodia, Administration officials said today', though China urged the US take a firmer stance at the UN. Bt Carter 'decided to do nothing' at the UNSC 'that could be perceived as support in any way for the Cambodian Government of Pol Pot, which President Carter has described as the worst violator of human rights in the world.' Despite Chinese efforts to link the USSR to the invasion, the US has, at the moment, decided not to make this link itself ('even though Moscow was Hanoi’s source of aid'), given simultaneous negotations over 'limiting strategic arms'. Vietnam’s invasion, however, complicated efforts to normalization relations with the US. Per State Department spokesman John Cannon: '“There is no question of movement towards normalization of relations under the present circumstances.”' At the same time, this is the first time the PRC took 'serious interest' in the UNSC, and the US wanted China more involved in UN politics. At the same time, any resolution 'condemning Vietnam would be quickly vetoed by the Soviet Union'. Sihanouk wanted to come to the US to seek American support, which State Department spokesman Hodding Carter 3d said Mr. Vance [Cyrus Vance was Carter’s Secretary of State from 1977-1980] would take 'under advisement'.

1979_1_10 (Wolfgang Saxon [in New York City, NY?] | P09/A08 | Wednesday 1979/1/10): Sihanouk Arrives to Plead the Case Of Cambodia Before U.N. Council. This article states that Sihanouk arrived in New York 'last night' (9/1/1979), 'to ask the United Nations security Council to aid the fallen Cambodian Government of Prime Minister Pol Pot.' The remarks are similar to the above article. Some other points: 'He referred to the insurgent regime, led by Heng Samrin, as the “so‐called Cambodian Government” and called it “completely, totally a creation, a puppet, of the Government in Hanoi.” Reminded that Heng Samrin and others in the new P[h]nom Penh leadership were associated until last year with Mr. Pol Pot, the Prince said: “You can find always, everywhere, traitors who cooperate with the enemy.”' Though keeping distance from Pol Pot, he said he supports a '“common fight against the Vietnamese to regain our national independence.”' He also insisted that while Vietnam might control 'cities, roads and waterways, the “Pol Pot team” held sway in the countryside.'

He arrived 'last night' 'on a regularly scheduled Pan American flight from Tokyo.' 'He was welcomed with bouquets of flowers in an airport lounge by the Chinese Ambassador to the United Nations, Chen Chu, and other members of the Chinese delegation.' He then made comments in a news conference. 'Prince Sihanouk also suggested that Vietnam, a poor country, could be pressured with financial and economic sanctions by the world powers.'

1979_1_11 (Malcolm W. Browne at the United Nations, New York City | P01 | Friday 1979/1/12): Sihanouk Appeals to U.N. Council To Get Vietnam Out of Cambodia. 'Overcoming opposition by the Soviet Union, Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia succeeded tonight in bringing an official appeal for help against the Vietnamese invasion of his country to the United Nations Security Council.' The Soviets and Czechoslovaks tried for two hours to 'halt the emergency meeting of the Council. In the end, lacking veto power in procedural matters, the Russians were outvoted 13 to 2, the Council took up the Cambodian crisis and Prince Sihanouk was invited to speak. At the same time, Vietnam and Cuba, two staunch Soviet allies, were permitted to join the debate.' Sihanouk’s address 'lasted 40 minutes'.

Sihanouk, 'dressed in dark gray Chinese‐style clothing, charged that Vietnam had committed “flagrant aggression” against his country in the form of “Rommel‐style blitzkrieg,” even though the Cambodian Government it overthrew had been its “brother and comrade‐in‐arms during the war against imperialism.”' He called the UNSC to adopt a resolution demanding Vietnam’s immediate withdrawl and 'cessation of Vietnamese interference', but didn’t ask for formal condemnation - though no resolution could survive the Soviet veto. Still, it was a 'modest parliamentary success' 'in being able to speak at all'. He said just because a foreign power succeeds in removing a nation’s government, that doesn’t affect said government’s legitimacy. And as far as that goes, the Pol Pot government still held '“several towns in the vicinity of the Thai border,” [and] that “our leaders are still inside our country” and that “we will fight to the death.”' He also asked the UNSC to withhold recognition for the new government, 'that member nations of the United Nations deny Vietnam any form of aid, and that the Security Council meet again if Vietnam failed to withdraw.'

Sihanouk arrived 'here Tuesday' [9/1/1979]. After Sihanouk, 'the Chinese representative, Chen Chu', spoke. He called 'the Vietnamese regime as "Hitlerite"', and said the invasion (with 'Soviet-built tanks and planes') 'had caused enormous loss of life, destruction and suffering', and accused the Vietnamese of systematic looting of towns they passed through [though so far none of the articles have indicated how much 'loot' remained in the cities, recall that the KR drained the cities of people]. 'Mr. Chen formally introduced the resolution that Prince Sihanouk had proposed', and said the USSR had 'converted the American‐built military facilities at Cam Ranh Bay and Da Nang into major Soviet naval bases covered by an alliance that the Russians and Vietnamese concluded last November.' He criticized Soviet "great hegemonism" and Vietnamese "minor hegemonism" as threats to world peace, and particularly a threat to Chinese security, citing Vietnamese troop buildup near the border with China.

Earlier that day, the Vietnamese representative Ha Van Lau told the meeting the new Cambodian Government was sending its Foreign Minister, Hun Sen, to the meeting (and that Sihanouk shouldn’t be allowed to speak) (the Soviet representative, Troyanovsky, made several attempts to adjourn the meeting, or recess it, until Hun Sen arrived). After Chen, Lau took the floor, charging 'converted the American‐built military facilities at Cam Ranh Bay and Da Nang into major Soviet naval bases covered by an alliance that the Russians and Vietnamese concluded last November. He charged that the “border war” between the “Pol Pot‐Ieng Sary clique” in Cambodia against Vietnamese forces had nothing to do with the “civil war” that had just ended inside Cambodia between Cambodian factions.' Further, all efforts to resolve the border dispute had failed, with Cambodians continuing their incursions into Vietnam, and they 'had a “sacred right” to defend itself against Cambodian atttacks.' 'The internal struggle resulted, he said, from a continuing wave of atrocities of the Pol Pot Government, which were “condemned by the entire world.” That Government ruthlessly “dissolved existing marriages of the married and forced unwanted marriages on others,” while making killers of the people. It was natural that such a regime should be overthrown, he said, adding that a new and better era was beginning in Cambodia.' The Cuban representative, Raul Roa, made personal attacks on Sihanouk, and jabbing at the recent China-under-Mao. '“When did the Prince speak out,” Mr. Roa asked rhetorically, “against the family separations, the forced moves to the country, the two million people slain, all by the Pol Pot regime? Perhaps when he took strolls with Pol Pot?”'

'The American delegate, Mr. Young, noted that the United Nations had recognized the Pol Pot Government as the legal authority in “Democratic Kampuchea,” and that even if it had been overthrown, its representative had the right to speak here.' However, the US itself didn’t recognize the ousted KR government, nor was it 'expected to extend recognition to the new regime'. Still, Mr. Young made a point to warmly greet Sihanouk and the other KR Cambodian delegates.

1979_1_14 ([Editorial Staff?] | P136/p01 The Week in Review | Sunday 1979/1/14): Cambodia Crumbles - An Extraordinary Envoy Sent on an Extraordinary Job. While 'patriotism makes strange bedfellows' (Sihanouk arguing for his former captors, the KR), 'only 13 days after their invasion began, the Vietnamese-sponsored' CNUFNS 'were in control of the capital and most main cities', though 'the Pol Pot regime, which had all but emptied the cities during its brutal rule of nearly four years, claimed that resistance continued outside them.' 'The swift takeover further confused an already muddled situation. On the one hand, it seemed unjust that a small country was invaded and conquered by a neighbor; on the other, the fallen Government had been accused by some observers of genocide. Were the invaders conquerors, as they seemed — for Vietnam and Cambodia are ancient enemies? Or were they liberators, as they claimed? Was the defeat for international law a victory for simple humanity? Or was it one wrong compounding another.' In the Soviet bloc, only the 'maverick Communist Government of Rumania broke ranks' and 'denounce[d] the invasion as “a heavy blow for the prestige of socialism” and a threat to détente, declaring “No reasons and arguments whatsoever can justify intervention and interference in the affairs of another state, whatever their form, especially when two socialist countries are involved.”' While China moved troops to the Vietnam border, Soviet troops on the Chinese border 'implicitly threatened reprisal if China moved against Vietnam.' Pol Pot’s location was unknown, though KR Deputy Prime Minister Ieng Sary, 'who reached Peking via Thailand', said he was still alive, leading the resistance. Thailand itself was concerned about an influx of war refugees.

The article comments on his press conference in Beijing (see 1979_1_08) and his address at the UNSC (see 1979_1_11), it also notes that '[m]ore realistically, he asked member nations to withhold aid and trade from Vietnam.'

1979_1_15 (David Binder in Washington DC | P04/A04 | Tuesday 1979/1/16): 2 Views of Cambodian Sweep: Local Affair or Soviet Peril. He opens by saying that Vietnam’s Soviet-approved invasion of Cambodia has 'caused ripple of apprehension in a number of countries that feel vulnerable to the projection of force by Communist powers,' with Yugoslavia and Rumania voicing such in Europe, and in Asia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. Though they don’t 'feel immediately menaced', but are instead 'disquieted about the sudden subjugation of a weak neighbor by a strong one and by an international response that seems to them to amount to little more than the raising of an eyebrow.' In Washington, there are two views: one that it is a regional and 'relatively benign' war, understandable through 'ancient ethnic rivalries'. The other has a more global focus, in terms of Soviet expansion. Such a split has 'cropped up again and again' for the Carterm Administration, in regions around the world (he cites two examples, the Horn of Africa and the Persian Gulf). Vietnam’s capacity to overthrow Pol Pot was enabled by strengthening ties with Moscow, allaying its concerns about PRC retaliation. The Washington consensus is that, even if the USSR didn’t 'instigate the invasion', it has 'benefited enormously', because (1) China had to 'watch helplessly as a client country was overrun' and (2) 'because the invasion reinforced the impression that Moscow could subdue reluctant nations in similar fashion.' On this 2nd point, the Yugoslavs, Rumanians, and some Carter analysts believe this invasion is 'a continuation, in a new guise, of the Soviet beliefs that led to the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968'. That is, the invasion happened because KR-ruled Cambodia had a different version of Communism.

Binder notes the pretext for the occupation of Czechoslovakia was a '“cry for help” from Marxist‐Leninists in Prague who were loyal to Soviet aims'. 'That justification ... came to be known as the Brezhnev Doctrine': '“The sovereignty of each socialist country cannot be opposed to the interests of the world of socialism, of the world revolutionary movement.” Then the doctrine proclaimed that the Soviet Union was the “central force” in the revolutionary movement.' Without any loyalists in KR-ruled Cambodia to issue a "cry for help", so the argument goes, 'Vietnam and the Soviet Union attempted to justify the occupation simply by saying that the Pol Pot Government is “hateful,” “cruel,” “reactionary” and a tool of China.' Yugoslavia and Rumania 'branded' these justifications as 'transparent'. Henry Kissinger said 'that the invasion “shows a degree of lawlessness and contributes to the establishment of a principle that any country can have its way by using force.”' 'While calling the Pot Pot leadership “a group of genocidal murderers,” Mr. Kissinger said: “The point is that Vietnam attacked the Cambodians because they were independent, and were encouraged by the Soviet Union, through the signing of the friendship treaty, because Cambodia is pro‐Chinese. It shows a lack of responsibility by the Soviet leadership.”'

'The invasion has also polarized further the 88 nations in the nonaligned movement. These countries are split between those like Cuba and Ethiopia, who give unqualified support to Soviet policy goals, and those, like Yugoslavia, who oppose Moscow's dominance. Both Vietnam and Cambodia have counted themselves as members of the nonaligned movement.'

1979_5_31 (Henry Kamm in Colombo, Sri Lanka | P01 | Friday 1979/6/1): Aide Says Pol Pot Regime Is Ready To Join Old Foes Against Vietnam. In a two-hour interview [with Kamm it seems], Ieng Sary (KR, former Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister) said that Pol Pot, fighting from the mountains, 'is ready to enter into a coalition with his former right‐wing enemies'. He didn’t 'rule out the possibility' of Sihanouk leading 'such an anti-Vietnamese front', despite Sihanouk’s comments in Beijing ('that he considered Mr. Pol Pot his principal enemy for having killed vast numbers of Cambodians'). '“Frankly, we consider Sihanouk a patriotic personality,” Mr. Ieng Sary said.'

Ieng Sary claimed to have left 'the jungle headquarters of the Pol Pot forces on Saturday [26/5/1979] to participate in meeting of third world nations here [Sri Lanka], said that his Government was not against negotiations with Vietnam, but that they must be based on the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops. He said, however, that withdrawal was not a precondition for talks. He also expressed doubt that Vietnam was ready to negotiate.' Kamm says the implications of the interview was that Vietnam controlled all of Cambodia except 'one or two pockets' (later specified as the 'Cardamom Mountain fastness', a sparsely inhabited area), though Ieng Sary said guerrillas were fighting everywhere. He also 'paid high tribute to Thailand's attitude in the continuing war.' '“It is a very good attitude,” he said. “It is also in the interest of Thailand. If Cambodia became a Vietnamese satellite would have direct repercussions on Thailand. On that basis, we are convinced that relations with Thailand will continue to improve.”' Since Thailand is officially neutral, he declined to specify how Thailand had supported 'the anti-Vietnamese struggle'. 'But authoritative Cambodians confirmed reports from Thai military sources that the Thai Army on the border was allowing the Pol Pot forces to buy Thai rice.'

'Moreover, Pol Pot forces in considerable strength have frequently escaped Vietnamese pursuit recently by crossing into Thailand, marching on roads parallel to the frontier and re‐entering Cambodia in safer areas. They have often brought with them long columns of civilians, against their will, in full view of Thai troops and other observers.' Ieng Sary acknowledged this was a problem, but said there were orders 'not to force people to return to Cambodia against their will.' But 'Thai military sources' said if Cambodian troops don’t do it, they will. 'Thousands of Cambodians have been pushed back by Thai authorities, who concede that it is likely that those forced across the border face death as “traitors” against the Pol Pot movement.' 'The Deputy Prime Minister, who flew here from Bangkok yesterday, said the Pol Pot forces would need outside help for a campaign to force the Vietnamese out of Cambodia. He refused to name Thailand as a channel for such help but implied that the resistance forces had no hold on the coastline, which is the only other route of access.' 'Well-placed Cambodian sources' corrobated this necessity.

Tears came to Ieng Sary’s eyes 'when he was told of the starving and forlorn condition of Cambodian refugees reaching Thailand' ... [was he remorseful over the KR-era refugees? no:] 'reaching Thailand in recent weeks' [just the recent weeks!]. 'Going beyond' standard denial of mass killings during KR rule, Ieng Sary argued that 'Vietnamese agents had infiltrated Cambodia and committed atrocities to blacken Cambodia's reputation. He also said that local authorities had committed occasional excesses. Asked how many people might have been killed under the Pol Pot ‘regime, the Deputy Prime Minister said, “Not many, in all of Cambodia perhaps some thousands.”' He accused Vietnam of '“genocide of our race and nation,”' arguing that they have been, and continue to, massacre, 'exceeding anything in earlier Cambodian history', including France and US bombings. 'He said they spared only those who agreed to abandon their Cambodian customs and dress, killing those who wanted to maintain their identity.' He said there is 'basis for the fear' that 'the country faced widespread famine. But he rejected as Vietnamese propaganda, intended to divert attention from Hanoi's aggression, the suggestion that an international food aid program was required. He said the Pol Pot Government was conducting not only a military campaign but also an agricultural production drive.' He said even Pol Pot and Khieu Samphan didn’t 'always have enough to eat'. Kamm notes during the interview that Ieng Sary spoke in both Cambodian and French.

Though '[a]uthoritative Cambodian sources said that conversations were under way with right‐wing forces with a view to a political alliance', Ieng Sary declined to discuss. 'He said that “forces from outside are fighting against Vietnam with us on the battlefields.” There are believed to be Cambodians recruited by the Free Cambodian movement and linked with former Prime Minister In Tam, a refugee in the United States.' But regarding a possible united front with 'such former enemies', he said '“Mutual comprehension is growing greater.”' '“Before, there was a certain hatred against us and a spirit of vengeance,” he continued. “But now it is a matter of national survival.”' 'The Deputy Prime Minister said that the regime that might emerge from such a coalition depended on the will of the Cambodian people. He said it could be capitalistic or even monastic, and would be chosen in free and secret elections that could be supervised by the Secretary General of the United Nations. A return of Prince Sihanouk, he added, would also depend on the popular will.'

1979_6_17 (Editorial | P141/p01 Editorials, Letters, and Opinions | Sunday 1979/6/17): The Mad Traffic in Southeast Asia. This article overviews how the regional tensions have let to ethnic repressions and expulsions; with the KR-PRC alliance, and Vietnamese-KR tensions after 1975, the Vietnamese were suspicious of the ethnic Chinese in Vietnam [my comment: somewhat comparable to the situation of ethnic Vietnamese in KR-ruled Cambodia, perhaps; though not genocidal], hence the 'boat people' [which some Americans today are aware of]. And now, after the invasion and all the tension with China escalating, '[a]ccording to an indiscreet official at Vietnam's foreign ministry, that Government has decided to rid itself of most — maybe all — of the one million ethnic Chinese in a population of 50 million. The Vietnamese contend that this minority has been uncooperative and unproductive. Like other peoples of Southeast Asia, the Vietnamese majority has long resented the urban and industrious Chinese in their midst, and Peking's invasion of Vietnam last February has probably hardened this resentment into distrust. At least the war provided the final pretext for pushing them out.' The editors go on: '“Pushed” is hardly adequate to describe what Hanoi is doing. The Chinese of Vietnam are being systematically uprooted, robbed, even killed'

Further, '[t]he madness of this process exceeds even the con- current tragedy of Cambodia. More than 100,000 refugees are trapped near the border between Cambodia and Thailand. They are fleeing Cambodia's war, disease and hunger, and its Vietnamese conquerors, but huge numbers are being pushed back out of Thailand at gunpoint. According to the poignant accounts of our colleague, Henry Kamm, many of these tormented people are also Chinese. And now Malaysia threatens expulsion of over 70,000 Vietnamese refugees and, ineffect, death for any new refugees attempting to land.'

They say while the US 'bears its share of the blame' for Southeast Asia’s condition, this shouldn’t 'obscure the brutality now evident there', particularly focusing on Vietnam, vis-a-vis Chinese, '[a]nd they have perpetuated the misery in Cambodia with their usual coolvfficiency. They tread close to genocide.' Further, they point out the US has 'been admitting 7,000 refugees from Indochina each month' [though not specifying which country], and argues China should 'admit more of the refugees', and the 'rest of the world' needs to help with 'money and hospitality'. 'Outrage against such brutality is only half the duty of a civilized world.'

Comments: its interesting to note that the editors, while alluding to a broader regional minority persecution, they specifically focus on Vietnam, and allege they are 'close to genocide' in Cambodia.

1979_8_18 (UPI in Bangkok, Thailand | P05 | Sunday 1979/8/19): Cambodian Urges Death Penalty At Trial of Ex-Leaders in Absentia. This call comes from the prosecutor for the ruling Cambodian government, per official Phnom Penh radio. Current estimates put total Vietnamese troops in Cambodia at 170k. Further, 'the The official Cambodian press agency said that Vandy Kaon, identified as a doctor of sociology, testified that under the Pol Pot regime, “doctors” with only three months’ training and as young as 14 years old “performed horrible and scandalous surgical operations and monstrous and terrifying experiments.”' Among the charges at the trial, 'which began Wednesday' [15/8/1979], were accusations of 'massacres, eliminating monks and intellectuals, suppressing religion and Cambodian culture, .maltreating children and “corruption of adolescents in order to turn them into criminals and torturers.” They are also accused of committing genocide to serve “the expansionist and hegemonist designs of Peking.”'

1979_9_21 (Bernard D. Nossiter at the United Nations, New York City | P01 | Saturday 1979/9/22): U.N. Assembly, Rebuffing Soviet, Seats Cambodia Regime of Pol Pot. The margin was a 'surprising' two to one (71 to 35; 34 abstentions, 12 absences), a 'victory' for China and non-Communist Southeast Asia. The Soviets and Vietnamese argued 'not only that Mr. Pol Pot's Government was a murderous one, but also that it did not sit in Phnom Penh and had no subjects.' The Chinese and SE Asian reply was 'that no matter how outrageous Mr. Pol Pot was, the United Nations could not reward a Government installed at the point of foreign guns.' Though no one said anything good about Pol Pot, Ieng Sary sat in the back, smiling. India proposed a compromise, to leave the seat vacant, which delayed the final vote. The US 'kept a low profile in this debate', and 'said it voted for the Pol Pot regime on “technical grounds” since Hanoi's representative had simply not presented a superior claim to the seat.' Chinese delegate Chen Chu gave 'the most fiery address', saying '“Vietnamese authorities, with the backing of the Soviet Union, imposed a war of aggression on the Kampuchean people.”', and saying Cambodia was now an '“an out and out puppet of the Vietnamese authorities”' and the new government would '“not survive a single day without the backing of Vietnamese troops”' To seat Heng Samrin (the PRK representative) 'would be to “tolerate willful foreign aggression of territories by force of arms.”'

Russia’s delegate Troyanovsky said '“the people of Kampuchea overthrew the Pol Pot‐Ieng Sary clique which was pushing the country toward disaster” and “has now been thrown out on the garbage heap of history”', but his main point was that the PRK exercised actual state power now, though 'in the corridors', Ieng Sary said that Pol Pot was '“in firm control of at least a quarter” of Cambodia's countryside. French experts, however, estimated Mr. Pol Pot's grasp at far less.' Vietnam’s delegate Ha Van Lau 'matched the Chinese vigor in the debate'. Conceding that Vietnamese troops were in Cambodia, he put this to '“military solidarity between the peoples of Vietnam and Kampuchea.” It is “only a question of bilateral relations between sovereign states,” he said and this “constitutes a factor of peace and stability in the region.”' 'The Vietnamese delegate described the Pol Pot group as “the phantom Government, a gang of criminals who have committed the crime of genocide against their own people.” The General Assembly could not let “fascists and tyrants” continue to occupy Cambodia's seat, he said.'

Singapore’s representative, T.T.B. Koh, said that while the KR government had '“a very, very bad record of violations of human rights”', there was '“no right under international law for a neighboring state to invade with armed forces and set up a puppet regime.”' 'If such a “doctrine of humane intervention” existed, he said, it “would make the world even more dangerous for small states” and big powers would then invoke this as a pretext to attack the weak.' He stressed 'that nearly all the states in the region' opposed Pol Pot’s ouster. 'Richard W. Petree of the United States delegation, also made clear that Washington “condemns and abhors the brutal human rights violations of the Pol Pot regime.” But he said its rival had been imposed by Vietnam's military force and had, therefore, no superior claim to the seat.'

1979/9/10 to 1979/9/13, E3: NBC’s "Holocaust" (a dramatized miniseries about the Shoah/Holocaust; see E2) was re-aired in the US and Europe, and got 'as many as 220 million viewers' (source)

1979_10_25 (Graham Hovey in Washington DC | P08/A08 | Friday 1979/10/26): Cambodia Aid: Is Carter Late? - Officials Say He Waited For Assurances by U.N.. 'Although President Carter has now pledged up to $70 million to feed starving Cambodians, debate continues on why he did not act earlier. Also debated is why his original News Analysis commitment, announced last week, was only $7 million to help cope with a problem that he described yesterday as a “tragedy of genocidal proportions.”' 'Mr. Carter's prospective rival for the Democratic nomination next year, Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, was harsher. He accused the Administration of being “more concerned with the credentials fight over Cambodia's seat at the United Nations than with the mass starvation of its people.”' The 'continued fighting' between the two rival Cambodian government-claimants 'has been a factor in holding up the international relief effort.' Though a bill was introduced for $30m for Cambodian relief in the US House of Representatives on 27/9/1979, 'President Carter endorsed the measure only yesterday' [24/10/1979], and then the House 'approved the measure today [25/10/1979] by a vote of 362 to 10'.

'“If we had taken this long to respond to Israel's request for an airlift of military supplies during the 1973 war, the Arabs would now be in Tel Aviv,” Representative Solarz said today. He added that in September the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund was already talking about the need for a $90 million program for Cambodia.' 'Administration officials freely acknowledged that the United States and the international community did little to provide direct aid to starving Cambodians until weeks after the dimensions of the tragedy became evident, but they say formidable problems had to be resolved before any relief effort could be effective.' Henry B. Owen, 'an adviser to the President for international economic affairs', put the reason for delay on '“the inability of the International Red Cross and Unicef, acting for the whole international community, to obtain necessary assurances from the Cambodian authorities.”' Some Administration officials believe that Heng Samrin (per Vietnamese advice) withheld approval as a bargaining chip for diplomatic recognition, and officials said 'he was also opposed to relief going to Cambodians in the areas controlled by the forces of Mr. Pol Pot'. Officials also said that the President 'had acted promptly to provide aid once the Red Cross and Unicef could give some assurance that the relief would reach needy Cambodians.'

Once satisfied the supplies could be monitored, the UN appealed to its members on 28/9/1979 for $20m to start the program. The Carter Administration formally responded to this on 15/10/1979 with a $7m pledge, 'more than a third of the total', though the figure was disclosed 'five days earlier', and officials said 'that the international agencies had known about even before that.' 'Last Friday [19/10/1979]Secretary General Waldheim personally issued the second United Nations appeal for at least $110 million to finance relief for six months, saying that the proportions of the tragedy “may have no parallel in history”', and also said he waited til he was sure the relief program could be mounted on 'acceptable terms'. 'Officials said Mr. Waldheim's assessment was based on what was described as a more receptive attitude by the Heng Samrin Government, the buildup of modest airlift by Unicef and the Red Cross, with daily flights carrying 50 to 80 tons, and the prospect that ships would land 10,000 tons during the last 10 days of October at the port of Kompong Son.' Officials said Waldheim’s assurances were the signal the US 'had been waiting' for, though said officials were still concerned about logistics.

1979_11_06 (Graham Hovey in Washington DC | P03/A02 | Wednesday 1979/11/7): Questions and Answers on Providing Food to Cambodians. 'The United States has pledged $69 million to help check starvation among Cambodians, which President Carter has said could become “a tragedy of genocidal proportions”', though critics (such as Democratic Presidential hopeful Edward M. Kennedy) accused him of too little, too late. This is followed by a NYT rhetorical Q and A.

'Q. Why do President Carter and others liken the Cambodian situation to the Holocaust of World War II, when Nazi Germany killed six million Jews? A. Because experts say Cambodia has already lost three million of its eight million population through wars, repression and starvation over the last 10 years and that two‐and‐a‐half million to three million more are in imminent danger of death from hunger and related illnesses.'

'Q. Why did the United States and other countries allow a tragedy of these dimensions to develop without sending large‐scale aid? The 'answer' is that 'the magnitude began to be evident only in March', since which international organizations’ relief efforts have been limited by the civil war, 'the use of food as a political weapon by both sides and the involvement of Vietnam, the Soviet Union and China in the conflict.'

'Q. Can't such agencies as the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations Children's Fund obtain permission from both sides to distribute food strictly on a humanitarian basis? 'A. Under their charters, these agencies can distribute aid only with permission of the authorities on the ground and only under conditions where they can insure that the supplies go to the needy without political consideration or interference.' Further, Phnom Penh authorities, til recently, insisted no relief be sent to those under Pol Pot’s control, but after 'weeks of negotiating', the Red Cross and Unicef got permission for 'a daily flight into Phnom Penh from Thailand by a cargo plane that can carry 15 tons of relief supplies and assurances of unimpeded distribution of these and other foodstuffs arriving by ship at the southern Cambodian port of Kompong Som.'

'Q. With permission for an airlift and some food arriving by sea, how close will the international agencies be able to come in the near future to meeting the minimum estimated needs for the Cambodians? 'A. Unless the airlift can be greatly expanded and the unloading and distribution process vastly improved at Kompong Som, the answer will continue to be gloomy. Experts say that to provide the absolute minimum of 1,500 calories daily for each hungry Cambodian, the country would need at least 1,000 tons of food each day from the outside. The daily flight of the single cargo plane can bring in 500 tons a month at most.' 'A United Nations agency called the World Food Program and a Londonbased private organization called Oxfam have managed to land 9,500 tons of food at Kompong Som, enough to meet Cambodia's minimum requirement for about 10 days if it can be distributed efficiently. These and other agencies hope to land 20,000 tons for this month and 25,000 to 28,000 tons in December.' 'But all experts agree that the best way to meet the crisis would be by the “land bridge” of truck convoys from Thailand that was urgently recommended 10 days ago by three United States Senators after their visit to Phnom Penh and refugee camps in Thailand. Thus far, the Heng Samrin Government has rejected this proposal.'

'Q. Why can't the United States on its own, with or without Phnom Penh's permission, mount an airlift or airdrop of food and medicines for Cambodia, as it did to break the Soviet blockade of Berlin in 1948‐49? 'A. Phnom Penh has made it clear to the international agencies that it will not permit American military planes to be used in any airlift. To fly into Cambodia without permission would be regarded as illegal interference in that country's internal affairs even by governments that do not recognize the Heng Samrin regime.' Even if the US decided to 'risk military attack and widespread criticism by starting an airlift or airdrops without permission, it could have no assurance that the food would get to the Cambodians most in need of it.' So the US has instead 'channeled its aid through the international agencies', and urging Vietnam and the USSR to pressure Heng Samrin to 'grant the needed access'.

'Q. Despite the Administration's explanations and the military and political risks involved, can't the United States at least attempt an airlift in the hope that some of the food will get to the starving?' After the Indochina wars, Carter is reluctant to 'contemplate intervention anywhere in the world', and believes 'the positive results of a unilateral airlift would be minimal and that such an operation might wreck the efforts of the international agencies and leave the plight of the Cambodians worse than it was before.'

'Q. Has the Soviet Union done anything to help relieve starvation in the areas of Cambodia controlled by its ally, Mr. Heng Samrin, and the Vietnamese army? A. The Heng Samrin regime and the Soviet Union both say that Moscow and its allies have furnished 200,000 tons of food to Cambodia this year. Administration specialists call the contention ludicrous and say that if that kind of tonnage had been available, the Cambodian problem would have been under control long ago. The specialists believe the Soviet Union may have landed 10,000 tons of food at Kompong Som and say other supplies may have come in overland from Vietnam. But they estimate that Moscow and its allies have supplied no more than 40,000 to 50,000 tons of food to Cambodia and probably less. The officials also say that a sizable portion of the food sent in by the Soviet Union may have gone to help feed the 170,000 to 200,000 Vietnamese soldiers in Cambodia rather than the starving Cambodians. Moscow says it has offered Cambodia 50,000 tons of rice bought in India and has talked of supplying 150,000 tons more, but these assertions, too, are received skeptically in Washington.'

1979_11_14 (Edward Schumacher at the United Nations, New York City | P01 | Thursday 1979/11/15): U.N. ASSEMBLY BIDS VIETNAMESE FORCES EVACUATE CAMBODIA - Vote to Censure Hanoi Is 91 to 21 Proposal Was Offered by 5 Southeast Asian Nations. After three days of debate, the UN today voted 91 to 21 (29 abstentions) for a resolution demanding Vietnam withdraw from Cambodia. UN officials said 'it was the first time that the organization had censured Vietnam', though the resolution 'does not mention Vietnam by name' (calling 'for the withdrawal of all "foreign" troops'), most debate speakers specified Vietnam 'as the only foreign forces there'. The resolution was sponsored by the five ASEAN members (Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Philippines). The US supported the resolution, but didn’t 'play a major public role in the debate'. China 'lobbied actively' for it. Voting against were Vietnam, the USSR, 'and other Communist countries'.

Vietnam is now 'said to have 200,000 troops in Cambodia'. Last month they began a 'dry-season offensive in western Cambodia' against Pol Pot’s holdouts. The 'Asian diplomats behind the resolution' said it 'isolated Vietnam within the international community as an outlaw. That pressure, they said, will begin to be felt by Vietnam if it cannot wipe out the remaining Pol Pot forces before April, when the rainy season begins. “By April, if they are bogged down in a guerrilla war, which is not unlikely, this will be another pressure on them to rethink their policy,” T. T. B. Koh of Singapore said in an interview.' ASEAN nations sponsored it, Schumacher says, 'for fear that the Vietnamese offensive might spill over into Thailand. While they condemned the Pol Pot Government, accusing it of cruelty and hundreds of thousands of deaths, they said that the principle of nonintervention had to be maintained if small countries like theirs were to survive. The Vietnamese contend that their troops were invited in by the Heng Samrin Government.'

Twice motions were introduced in the UNSC to 'censure Vietnam for the invasion' (in January and March 1979), but the Soviets vetoed. 'The Vietnamese and the Soviet bloc backed a counterresolution today calling for a “zone of peace” in Southeast Asia. It was defeated by a margin of almost 2 to 1.'

'The three days of debate here took place against a background of widespread famine and suffering inside Cambodia. Last week, 50 nations met here and pledged $210 million in relief, and the opposing sides today cited humanitarian considerations as the motivation behind their positions.' United States deputy UN delegate William J. Vanden Heuvel said that Vietnamese offensives were 'hampering food distribution' and '“has escalated the destruction of life and property which it pretended to be against.”' 'Ha Van Lau of Vietnam said its forces had invaded Cambodia to stop what he called genocide under the Pol Pot regime.' Vietnam, 'historically fearful of China', called the SE Asian resolution sponsors "accomplices" of China. 'Mr. Koh and other representatives of the sponsoring nations denied the allegation, noting that they had publicly condemned the Chinese invasion of Vietnam earlier this year.' 'Each of the five countries maintains diplomatic relations with Vietnam and some of their diplomats stressed in interviews that they hoped to continue current exploratory moves to further those relations and possibly someday admit Vietnam to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.'

1979_11_12 (Henry Kamm from Phnom Penh, Cambodia | P09 | Sunday 1979/11/18): CAMBODIA PROMOTES ANTI-POL POT CULT - Propaganda Campaign Is Seen as Reflection of Regime's Need to Legitimize Its Power. Kamm reports on children singing in a Phnom Penh school auditorium, happy and smiling, singing (in paraphrase) 'Pol Pot committed genocide, he massacred our parents, he forced us to slave in the fields, he made us gather human excrement for fertilizer, he did not allow us to attend school' [just to note, while keeping children out of school to work is generally bad, collecting human excrement for fertilizer is pretty common for pre-modern agriculture]. Students understand this 'one-note propaganda campaign' through the Heng Samrin Government’s 'need to legitimize itself in view of its total dependence on Vietnam, and its inability, because of overwhelming hunger and disease, to offer much that is positive.' The focus on the KR regime’s transgressions also helps legitimize the dominant role Vietnam continues to play. '“We need the Vietnamese because we have nothing else with which to counter Pol Pot,” said a French‐educated intellectual. “We have no army. Without them… . ” He completed the sentence with a gesture of cutting his throat.' A British-educated intellectual echoed the same.

'Neither appeared to be speaking out of a special affinity for Vietnam, Cambodia's traditional antagonist, but both seemed deeply marked by their suffering under the Pol Pot regime. A number of casual remarks heard during a day in Phnom Penh indicated that the affection of Cambodians for the Vietnamese had not increased. The dominant emotion seemed to be a sense of relief at having been liberated from the Pol Pot regime.' Foreign visitors are scheduled to visit three landmarks: (1) a Roman Catholic cathedral, 'completely destroyed in Mr. Pol Pot's war on religion and foreign influences', (2) the 'ruins of the national bank' ('completely destroyed in Mr. Pol Pot's war on religion and foreign influences'), and (3) 'The prime landmark of the Heng Samrin campaign is a former school that served as a political prison, torture chamber and place of mass executions. In its echoes and reminiscences of horror, it can be compared only to Nazi concentration camps.'

The classrooms were divided into '16 brick cubicles [I’m not entirely sure what this means], so small that to be merely confined in them would amount to torture', with bare, uncomfortable furnishings (the rooms furnished also for interrogation). 'The instruments of torture are varied and unspeakable. The gallows were designed to hang prisoners by their feet and submerge their heads into jars of water. There are mountains of ragged clothes, stripped from the prisoners when they entered, and piles of rusty bowls from which they ate their sole daily meal.' 'One room contains mounds of looted silver vessels, to be melted down by the prisoners and fashioned into larger‐thanlife likenesses of Mr. Pol Pot's head, of which examples remain.' 'Hundreds of pictures of men, women and children line the walls of many of the rooms. All look frightened. Some have been beaten; others were photographed after their deaths. All were killed, according to the guides, who estimated the total murdered in the school at 20,000. People turned over to the prison had to be photographed dead or alive. The photographs served as proof that they had been delivered there.' 'The Cambodian people have to be saved from genocide,” said the Frencheducated intellectual. “The Vietnamese saved us from the genocide of Pol Pot. Now they must be saved from the genocide of famine.”'

1979_12_20 (William Borders in London, UK | P05/A05 | Friday 1979/12/21): Relief Official Praises Phnom Penh. Malcolm Harper, '[t]he director of Oxfam's relief program in Cambodia[,] today vigorously disputed recent charges that Russians and Vietnamese there had been blocking the distribution of food and medical supplies to starving peasants.' Harper left Cambodia on 16/12/1979 after six weeks, saying the new government was 'sincerely trying to cope with the enormous privations of the country. He said the Government's efforts were hindered by logistical and technical problems, and by being “grotesquely understaffed,” but not by politics.' In a London news conference, Harper said '“At no time in my weeks in the country did I see any sign of a witting lack of will on the part of the Government ... They are honest and they are genuinely trying.”' Sitting next to him was Oxfam’s director general, Brian Walker, who said the problems they saw in Cambodia 'were not much different from those in other third world countries, and that the situation in Cambodia was getting better.' '“The people continue to walk the knife edge,” he said, “but starvation is no longer prevalent, and the word ‘famine’ ceased to be relevant in September or October.” Of the accusations being made against the Soviet Union, he cautioned: “We should not allow paranoia to color every frustration with sinister political significance.”'

'The accusations to which both men were alluding included a report prepared for President Carter recently by the Central Intelligence Agency. It accused the Soviet Union and its Vietnamese allies of blocking international relief supplies and diverting them to the Vietnamese. In response to this report, President Carter issued a strong statement saying, “We call upon responsible leaders in both Hanoi and Moscow to recognize and act upon the compelling humanitarian requirements of the Cambodian people, which they thus far have not done.”' 'But the two Oxfam officials said that that degree of indignation was misplaced. Mr. Harper, who toured extensively in the southwest of the country during this month and last, estimated that the Soviet Union had given 120,000 tons of food aid to Cambodia in the past seven months, and added, “That's the best argument I know against the charge that they are committing genocide.”'

1980_5_18 (Essay by Henry Kamm | P376/p76 NYT Magazine | Sunday 1980/5/18): LIFE IN 'LIBERATED' CAMBODIA - Vietnam has delivered Cambodia from the horrors of the Pol Pot regime, but not from famine, which threatens once again. Now Hanoi is digging in for a long stay in this broken country.. 'The beautiful word "liberation" has been used rather freely in the latter half of this century, often to describe the replacement by force of one self-appointed and unpopular regime with another. But when Cambodians use the word today, they invest it at least with a sense of deliberance from evil, even if liberty has not accompanied it. More than a year after the Vietnamese Army swept away the tyrannical regime of Prime Minister Pol Pot, Cambodians are still rejoicing at their deliverance from four years of inhumanity and death. A sense of having survived is the most palpable feeling in Vietnamese-occupied Camboida today, although famine threatens again and Cambodians are fearful that those now in power, be they Vietnamese or Cambodian, will let it happen once more. Outsiders may feel that those in power are at fault, but Cambodians display more resignation to their fate than anger at it.'

'The fact that liberation has been accompanied by famine is one of many paradoxes of which Cambodians are painfully aware'. They know Vietnam 'has seldom been Cambodia’s friend', recalling 17th-19th century conquest, 'including the town later known as Saigon and now as Ho Chi Minh City'. Further, he argues, Vietnam helped bring Pol Pot to power 'in the first place', and that 'the weak men whom Vietnam has now installed' 'were faithful followers of their oppressor, holding important position in Pol Pot’s government of blood and terror'. Some 'ironies' they don’t know, since under the KR, 'they were isolated from the world beyond their villages'. So they don’t know that, til the KR broke relations with Vietnam at the end of 1977, Hanoi was 'praising his regime as a brotherly force in "liberated" Indochina. Vietnam did not mean it'; 'it knew of the atrocities', 'and its silence then takes some of the edge off its righteous condemnations and assertions today that the non-Communist world did not speak out on behalf of oppressed Cambodians. Western countries did, in fact, condemn the Pol Pot terror, and did so earlier than Vietnam, but it was not they who came as liberators - to the frequently expressed regret of Cambodians I met during a recent 15-day visit'. 'The ultimate paradox' is that the West 'continues to lend legitimacy and sustenance' to the KR and the pockets it rules. This includes Cambodia’s UN seat, and 'the West, through international relief organizations, has been nourishing not only the masses of refugees but Pol Pot’s fighting men and women and their dependents in the border encampments', treating them. Rosalynn Carter 'unwittingly' 'bestow comfort and sympathy on them ... in a Thai camp last November was bizarre even for a longtime observer of the absurdities of American involvement in Indochina'.

Despite these paradoxes, and despite that 'Vietnam cannot give them more iberty than the narrow measure it allows its own people, Cambodians still regard Vietnam as their liberator'. Their soldiers don’t get 'hostile glares', and '[c]hildren approach the occupying soldiers without shyness'. But for lack of a shared language, 'as well as centuries of antagonism', 'nothing a visitor gets to see supports the official rhetoric proclaiming the relations between Cambodians and Vietnamese as "brotherly"'. 'Senior Vietnamese officials in Cambodia acknowledge the irony of their role', and view the situation (per one 'ranking Vietnamese diplomat': '"Pol Pot’s system was so atrocious"') as a 'historic opportunity' to shore up relations. 'Others might call this relationship Vietnamese suzerainty', and if 'Vietnam can complete its objectives - and only a Chinese intervention seems likely to be able to halt its drive - it will have completed the dominance over formerly French Indochina that has already made Laos Vietnam’s client'. '[D]read of the return of the Pol Pot regime - a terror that Vietnam encourages by emphasizing the survival of its remnants and its recognition' by the world as the legitimate govt, legitimizes its 200k soldier occupation.

The Vietnamese 'make it plain in private conversations that there is no time limit on their stay. They depict their military presence as a necessary safeguard against what was, until the liberation, a Chinese base of aggression against Vietnam'. The 'improbability of détante' with the PRC is implied as linked with their stay. Vietnamese officials said their 'advisers and technicians' worked at all levels in Cambodia, since Pol Pot’s 'selective extermination of the country’s elite'. Soldiers are more ubiquitous, keeping guard throughout the country. 'The Vietnamese said they were generally well-liked by the local population, although in some villages Pol Pot forces had circulated rumors that Vietnamese soldiers were killing Cambodian civilians.' Though he couldn’t get a military briefing, he saw 'no evidence of clashes' 'in more than 1,000 miles of travel along the country’s principal roads'. 'Nothing that foreign-aid officials have reported condtradicts' a senior Vietnamese official asserting that 'little remains of Pol Pot’s armed strength', and is pinned at the Thai border.

Elsewhere, Vietnamese staff more ~civilian type positions, sometimes with a condescending attitude towards their Cambodian co-workers. 'Cambodian officials who deal with foreigners speak openly of their [Vietnamese] advisers and suggest that they play determining roles in their offices', such as in the propaganda apparatus. Kamm reports that 'some Cambodian ministries' have 'legendary inefficiency', but such problems are resolved 'overnight' after '[o]fficials of foreign relief groups' meet with a 'Vietnamese adviser to the Foreign Ministry'. 'But other than the Foreign Ministry adviser, non-Communist foreigners rarely see the Vietnamese who play the key roles, and the question is open whether the Vietnamese run things' only in 'essential' departments, such as 'security and foreign affairs'. Only Cambodians with 'explicit Vietnamese confidence' are put in 'charge of these portfolios', such as Defense Minister Pen Sovann ('also Vice President of the governing National Revolutionary Council', and Pol Pot defector 'earlier than the other turncoats who now govern'). One 'senior Vietnamese official' calls the government '"below the level required by its task."' Kamm reports that Pen Sovann 'is believed to be replacing President Heng Samrin as the de facto chief of Government'. Heng hasn’t impressed Westerners 'with the qualities required by his high office', and hasn’t recently appeared at 'public occassions at which a Communist leader’s presence is normally mandatory'. Vietnamese officials describe FM Hun Sen, 'just 29 years old', as having 'developed under their tutelage into a serious political figure after having spent most of his adult years as a guerrilla fighter and later as assistant to Heng Samrin, when the latter was Pol Pot’s regional commander near the Vietnamese border'. Yet the govt workings are as opaque 'as in other Communist countries'. Foreigners rarely meet with officials with 'decision-making power, even in minor matters'.

Vietnamese officials were 'at pains' to relay they only had an 'advisory capacity', yet 'minced no words in criticizing the performance of the Cambodian Government so far', but were hopeful as things recover. 'Patronizingly, Vietnamese officials speak of the low state of Cambodians’ political consciousness. "In a very relaxed way," a senior adviser said, Cambodians are being given "very flexible" political courses', '"showing them where we are going."' Cambodians report the courses 'are less than flexible or relaxed, and it appears that most of the urban population, at least, is being subjected to them. Lectures can be seen under way in Phnom Penh’s former shops, where a Cambodian agitprop functionary harangues a gently dozing assemblage, many of whom turn their backs to the speaker to watch what is going on in the street'. Said streets are bustling, people 'heading elsewhere in a never-ending search for a place that provides the necessities for survival'. The capital is a 'magnet', as most international relief 'is distributed there', the 'junction of all of the country’s principal roads, on which, more than a year after liberation, Cambodians are still wandering in search of' missing family, 'food and a home'. People barter and scavenge.

So far, the capital’s medical school is the 'only university branch in Cambodia that has been reactivated', requiring students and staff to 'spend one full day every week undergoing political education'; 'lecturers are Cambodian and Vietnamese'. 'Elementary-school textbooks have just been introduced' with Marx, Lenin, 'the liberation struggle and the atrocities of Pol Pot'. The latter 'abolished education altogether', so 'most Cambodian children under the age of 12 cannot read'. 'As in Vietnam, political education often takes the form of having "students" write and rewrite, ad infinitum, autobiographical essays in which they are admonished to confess the faults of their "bourgeois" past. This causes people to parrot things they may not fully understand'. The medical school dean, Dr. My Samedy, thus said that Cambodian doctors, 'before Communism', 'had not served the people but had concentrated only on making money. Therefore, he said, the great majority of them had lived in Phnom Penh. Minutes earlier, however, the dean had said matter-of-factly that of Cambodia’s 54 doctors today, 32 live in the capital'. Kamm observes that '[t]he Cambodians are a people so open to suggestion that it is hard to imagine them doing much more than issuing the orders their Vietnamese advisers suggest', reduced by the hardships of the past decade. This was a similar experience when the US played the 'role of senior adviser' until 1973. He finds many similarities in the US and Vietnamese experience. Back then, the US govt found the Lon Nol govt 'hopelessly incompetent and corrupt', but thought all they could do was give the 'economic and military aid and let the Government misuse it', as long as the US could keep its Air Force base there, 'until Congress prohibited American bombing in Cambodia as of Aug. 15, 1973'.

'The United States cannot escape a major share of the responsibility for the disasters that occurred in Cambodia during the 1970-75 war'. 'Today, Cambodia is infinitely frailer, its people decimated, the survivors profoundly traumatized, its houses, roads and canals ruined. The foodstuffs Cambodia used to produce in abundance are now reduced below the minimal needs for the survival of its people, estimated loosely to number between' 5m-6m. Kamm notes that the country’s 'population statistics have been guesswork since the last census, in 1962, when there 5.7m inhabitants', and thus numbers are put up about who caused how many deaths for various propaganda purposes, ie against the US and its bombings. 'Vietnam and the current Cambodian regime allege that Pol Pot murdered three million, and Pol Pot spokesmen accuse Vietnam of having killed two million Cambodians since last year'.

While 'Vietnam dominates this broken country', it 'can make a plausible case that famine could not have been averted last year'. The invasion took place 'during the harvest season, and Pol Pot troops wantonly set fire to rice in the fields and to stocks already harvested'; meanwhile, 'Cambodians fled from the warfare', beginning their journeys 'across the country', and the 'new regime reversed' Pol Pot’s city-draining policies. 'Against this exculpatory case can be set other facts, however'. Cambodia was 'very late in appealing for international help'; negotiations were 'excruciatingly difficult' due to an 'inordinately suspicious attitude on the part of Vietnam’s client Government. And the distribution of this aid has been inefficient'. 'High Vietnamese officials acknowledge' this ('[l]ike American officials before them, Vietnamese policy-making advisers shrug their shoulders pityingly at Cambodian inefficiency'). They echo relief official complaints that civil servants are favored, 'while much of the population goes hungry'. 'Drought, lack of seed and draft animals and tools', rat infestation, 'make the crop outlook for this year poor, and the last crop has already been eaten'. Without concrete plans, Vietnamese officials still 'assure visitors that this year will be better than last', though a 'ranking diplomat still warned that "it could be catastrophic"'.

When observed that Hanoi really controlled things, 'one Vietnamese official commented ironically that Hanoi was proving daily at home that it was not a model of efficiency, either. Vietnam’s own poverty is no doubt a major factor in Cambodia’s continuing suffering. At lesat the United States had the means to nourish'. Though the USSR 'is helping out with considerable amounts of foodstuffs, as well as vehicles, like Vietnam, it does not appear to be assisting the Cambodians in efficient planning, and the blunders it has committed suggest that it does not attach the highest priority to the survival of the citizens of the most recent addition to its camp.' For example, in April, 'food was running short and importing seed was critical if farmers were to be able to plant before the impending monsoon', but berths in the only seaport, Kompong Som 'were painfully short'. One of six is 'permanently reserved for small coastal freighters bringing' in military supplies from Vietnam. 'International-aid officials were tearing their hair because ships loaded with rice spent weeks waiting outside the port', while 'for several days' Soviet freighter Karl Liebknecht occupied the largest berth, 'unloading a large consignment of aluminum tea kettles'. 'Last autumn, despairing' of the weakness and ill-discipline/organization of Cambodian dockworkers, the Soviets 'sent in a Russian crew that quickly doubled the rate of unloading in the clogged port'. But they left in January, 'and the rate fell back'. 'After emergency appeals, the crew was brought back in April, but no one can compensate Cambodia for the rice it lost during three critical months'. 'The keys to distribution are a fleet of about 1,500 trucks, donated by relief organizations and the Soviet Union, and a limited rail network'. They are managed by 'less than qualified Cambodians - with results that are bitterly disappointing'. For 'military reasons', Vietnam 'continues to deny the use of the major provincial airports to the international aid efforts, even if Communist planes were to fly Western goods'. 'Western aid officials describe the situation as desperate', pleading with authorities over this. But the short-staffed Cambodian bureaucracy, 'uninspired by a sense of urgency on behalf of its people', is 'indifferent[] at best'. 'Vietnamese officials shake their heads in disapproval and Soviet merchant-marine officers do not hide their contempt'. 'But can Vietnam and the Soviet Union, any more than the Americans before them, renounce responsibility for assuring the survival of the people they have made their dependents?'

1980_10_16 (Bernard D. Nossiter at the United Nations, New York City | P09/A09 | Friday 1980/10/17): POL POT SUPPORTERS TO SIGN [United Nations] RIGHTS PACT - Ousted Cambodian Regime, Which Was Accused of Genocide, to Back Covenant at U.N. Ieng Sary is 'scheduled to perform the signing at the world body'. This week, the Pol Pot forces 'survived a challenge that would have cost them their' UN seat, and hope 'next week' hope the UNGA 'will approve a resolution urging' Vietnamese withdrawl 'and calling for an international conference to settle the nation’s fate in a vote sponsored by the world body'. While ruling, Pol Pot was 'accused of genocide against his own people'. 'Educated people and others from the middle class were sometimes beaten to death rather than shot in order to save bullets. In all, according to one estimate, anywhere between 1.2 million and 1.8 million people were killed by the authorities'.

Pol Pot still held out in Cambodia’s northwest. 'Most of the countries here that backed the Pol Pot forces in their struggle to retain the world body seat, including the United States, did so on the ground that Vietnam’s invasion must not be rewarded'. 'In 1977 President Carter signed the two covenants on civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights. The Senate, however, has not yet ratified these agreements, which have the force of treaties. Mr. Ieng Sary intends to go a step further than Mr. Carter. The Cambodian will also sign a convention for the elimination of discrimination against women.'

1981_1_20, E4: Ronald Reagan (Republican) is inaugurated as 40th President of the United States, replacing Jimmy Carter (Democrat).

1981_2_04, E5: Jeane Kirkpatrick appointed the United States Ambassador to the United Nations; interestingly, she was the first woman to serve this role. Kirkpatrick helped revive anti-totalitarianism as a doctrine of US foreign policy, which drew Reagan’s interest in her. For example:

Traditional autocrats leave in place existing allocations of wealth, power, status and other resources, which in most traditional societies favor an affluent few and maintain masses in poverty. But they worship traditional gods and observe traditional taboos. They do not disturb the habitual rhythms of work and leisure, habitual places of residence, habitual patterns of family and personal relations. Because the miseries of traditional life are familiar, they are bearable to ordinary people who . . . learn to cope, as children born to untouchables in India acquire the skills and attitudes necessary for survival in the miserable roles they are destined to fill. Such societies create no refugees.

Precisely the opposite is true of revolutionary Communist regimes.

from her essay in the November 1979 issue of Commentary

1981_9_18 (Bernard D. Nossiter at the United Nations, New York City | P03/L03 | Saturday 1981/9/19): POL POT GROUP WINS AT U.N. FOR 3D YEAR. 'For the third year' the UNGA voted 'more than 2 to 1 against a Soviet and Vietnamese effort to strip the Pol Pot delegation of its credentials and turn them over to the Communist Government of Heng Samrin, who was installed in Phnom Penh in early 1979 by Vietnam.' This was a victory both for China and the five ASEAN members; 'The United States quietly threw its diplomatic weight behind this combination.' In fact, 'the Pol Pot faction received a slightly increased vote'; the three relevant votes have gone from 71-35 → 74-35 → 77-37 (today with 31 abstentions).

'Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, the chief United States delegate, absented herself from today's session as a sign of American disapproval of Mr. Pol Pot, whose forces are accused of killing up to three million Cambodians during nearly four years in power. The American vote for the ousted regime was cast by her deputy, Kenneth L. Adelman. But to many delegates this gesture seemed diminished by the American action at a United Nations conference on Cambodia last July. There, according to Asian diplomats, the United States, in an apparent move to strengthen its ties with Peking, actively supported China's successful effort to prevent any obstacles to Pol Pot's eventual return to power.' 'Mr. Adelman said that the United States supported the Pol Pot group "on technical grounds" because no other faction had a better claim to the United Nations seat. He said that Washington remains "deeply concerned" over the "severe human rights violations" that took place in Cambodia "over the years."'

Vietnam, currently supporting Heng Samrin’s government in Cambodia with an estimated 200k troops, lead the failed effort. 'He complained that Cambodia's place had been "usurped" because of "an extremely dangerous plot woven by the Peking hegemonists and supported by Washington." The two nations, he said, aim at again imposing a "genocidal regime" in Phnom Penh to wage "a war of attrition" against the three Indochinese countries - Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Mr. Ha Van Lau said Vietnam would not withdraw its troops until this "threat had been removed." Nor, he said, would it allow the United Nation s to play any role in a settlement until the Pol Pot group was denied its seat.'

'Ling Qing of China replied that Vietnam's "outrageous aggression" would be rewarded if the Pol Pot group lost its seat. The rival Government installed in Phnom Penh was a "puppet regime," he said, that "cannot survive a single day without the 200,000 Vietnamese troops" in Cambodia.' 'Tommy T.B. Koh of Singapore taunted Vietnam and the Soviet Union for denouncing the crimes of the Pol Pot faction. The Communist nations, he noted, had championed the regime when it was in power.' [note that for at least several years in the 1975-1979 Pol Pot reign, the Soviets and Vietnamese denounced the KR government in the harshest terms of Marxist-Leninist vocabulary].

The article concludes with a different topic: 'In what has now become a ritual here, the Arab countries, speaking through the Sudan, questioned Israel’s credentials on the ground that it had defied many United Nations resolutions. But no move was made to bring the matter to a vote. Delegations here believe that the ouster of Israel would probably lead to a boycott of the United Nations by the United States and other nations, paralyzing the organization.'

1981_12_06 (Fox Butterfield | P257/E07 The Week in Review | Sunday 1981/12/6): U.S. SCHOLARS TURN A COLDER EYE ON CHINESE REPRESSION. He opens by noting that in the US, 'persecution of Soviet dissidents frequently becomes front-page news', such as the Sakharov family [Andrei Sakharov a top Soviet nuclear scientist], Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, and Anatoly Shcharansky, who have 'become practically household names and American groups often agitate on their behalf'. 'The Gulag Archipelago, the Soviet system of forced labor camps has become synonymous with the moral horrors of totalitarianism'.

Yet '[t]here has been no similar reaction to the widespread political persecution of intellectuals in China'; few Americans know of Lao She, 'drowned in the late 1960’s by Red Guards'. Nor 'prominent writer' Bai Hua, who has been 'recent[ly] attack[ed] in the Chinese press'; he 'wrote a movie that questions how successful the Communists have been', and 'has been forced to make a self-criticism and his fate is unclear'. Is there a 'double standard' here? Professor of history Merle Goldman at Boston University thinks 'a culpable yes'. 'Other China specialists argue that Americans’ different attitudes toward Moscow and Peking are based on slowness in understanding China or on Chinese Communists’ less brutal methods of control.' John K. Fairbank, 'professor emeritus of Chinese history at Harvard', doesn’t agree there’s a double standard, since '"there are real differences in style between the Russians and the Chinese, even if the Chinese still have their security police and labor camps"'. 'The Chinese have made a "public confession" about the atrocities of the Cultural Revolution, unlike anything in Russia, and have made a greater effort to correct past abuses than the Soviet Union.' Goldman though, 'charges that '"like those who knew about the Holocaust, my colleagues and I in the China field did not speak out loudly and publicly about the persecution of intellectuals" in the anti-rightist campaign of 1957 and the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960’s. A whole generation of westernized intellectuals were decimated," she observes - professors, scientists, doctors, lawyers, artists, writers and architects. "The institutions they helped to create - the universities, research institutes, journals, libraries and other creative enterprises, were also decimated," she said.'

There aren’t official figures on how many intellectuals persecuted in China 'since the Communist triumph in 1949, but there are some indications. A knowledgeable Chinese editor told Mrs. Goldman, who is also an associate of the Center for East Asian Research at Harvard, that between 400,000 and 700,000 intellectuals were arrested, imprisoned or sent to work in the countryside during the anti-rightist movement alone in 1957-58. Only in 1978, two years after the death of Mao Zedong, were the last group of these people, 110,000, released from prison or labor reform camps, according to a Chinese Communist Party document.' The Cultural Revolution 'engulfed an even larger number of people, including party officials, army officers and factory managers as well as intellectuals'. CPC newspaper The People’s Daily 'once reported that 100 million people were affected by the Cultural Revolution'. In 1979, Deng gave a speech saying 2.9m had been purged or imprisoned, though 'had since been rehabilitated'. 'By comparison, in the Soviet Union today there are perhaps 10,000 or at most several tens of thousands of political prisoners being held in the Gulag Archipelago, aside from ordinary criminals. That is the estimate of Joshua Rubinstein, the New England coordinator for Amnesty International and author of "Soviet Dissidents, The Struggle for Human Rights," a book published last year.

Political persecution in China reached such proportions, Mrs. Goldman writes, that Chinese who have survived "describe their experience as comparable to the Holocaust."' Though she says the analogy 'is not entirely correct', as '"[m]illions of people were not killed systematically"', and that '"the persecution of the intellectuals was due more to the chaotic nature of the time than to an organized government policy." But she says '"the situations were comparable" in at least one respect because, like the Jews in the Second World War, "the intellectuals were persecuted primarily for what they were, rather than for what they did."' '"Where were the Western China scholars when this calamity befell our intellectual colleagues in China? ... We can’t plead ignorance; the Chinese newspapers were filled day after day with pictures of intellectuals being paraded through the streets in dunce caps. As in the Holocaust, we knew but we didn’t want to believe. It was too horrible."' She thinks one reason the US is more severe to the Soviets is that '"those who study the Soviet Union hate it, while those who study China love it. ... We scholars of China are enamored of its history, culture and people. We didn’t want to believe that a country that had developed such a high level of civilization could be so cruel to its intellectuals."' She also thinks 'many Americans wanted to believe that Mao and the Communists "really had the answer to China’s problems after so many years of chaos, famine and weakness." In particular, some Americans on the far left, dissillusioned by the Vietnam War and Watergate, looked on Mao’s calls for revolution and egalitarianism as a model for the United States, she said.'

Further, as US-PRC relations normalize, 'it appeared possible that China scholars would be able to see the country "from which they had been barred since 1949," Mrs. Goldman noted, "most did not want to jeopardize their chance to get a visa." Michel C. Oksenberg, a professor at the University of Michigan and a member of the National Security Council under President Carter, says he is troubled that Americans may have a double standard toward Moscow and Peking but he believes it is really a matter of American lateness in comprehending China.' Though he notes we didn’t have' diplomats, journalists or scholars' there during the Cultural Revolution, and only recently with normalization '"that we are getting a fine-grained feel of China." In historical terms, Mr. Oksenberg added, the Cultural Revolution was more like Stalin’s vast purges in the 1930’s when Americans who did not understand the Soviet Union well were not as vociferous as they are now about human rights in Russia.'

1981_12_20 (Christopher Jones ('a freelance writer who has been reporting on Southeast Asia since 1978') | P320/p70 NYT Magazine | Sunday 1981/12/20): IN THE LAND OF THE KHMER ROUGE - An American reporter takes a journey into the Cambodian jungle, where the shadowy Pol Pot leads his peasant army in savage guerrilla warfare against the Vietnamese invaders. During the monsoon, Jones talks with Comrade Met Kanika of the Revolutionary Army of Democratic Kampuchea (DADK; this is the KR army) in his tent, who was drinking 'fiery pineapple liquor' and smoking a 'marijuana cigarette'. '"This is a very bitter place," he said in his fluent French. "Everything that happened here, on this front, was of immense significance to the future of the war. This was the keystone of a great new Khmer Rouge strategy."' '"The yuons," he said, "constructed a wooden tank bridge across the O Cheng Meng River." "Yuons" is Khmer for "savages." That is what the Khmer Rouge guerrillas call the Vietnamese invaders of Cambodia.' The tank bridge was, he argues, to move T-54 tanks in for an assault '"against our last major military base. We packed our explosives and rocket launchers on our backs. Kamtech khmang!" This is a Pol Pot banzai meaning, "The enemy must be crushed to bits." Met Kanika’s voice acquired the high-strung eloquence of the typical Khmer Rouge homily.' He also stated that KR soldiers always save a grenade, to blow themselves up so they are not captured, since '"if the yuons take us alive, they are not very gentle."'

'He paused, and added with unconcealed pride, "We give ourselves to the most serious and just, the most farseeing, the most formidable leader of the Communist Party of Kampuchea,"' Pol Pot. War in Cambodia started with American bombings in 1969, leading up to the KR takeover in 1975. 'In their black pajamalike uniforms, Mao caps and Ho Chi Minh sandals, the victorious guerrillas padded into the capital, Phnom Penh, to inaugurate the fanatical brand of Communism their leaders had dreamed up during their years in the jungle and, before that, in school in France. Cities were declared "irrelevant"; a "pure agrarian society" was proclaimed to be the goal.' 'Yet to Pol Pot, the leader of the Kampuchean Communist Party and the military commander in chief, the air was still thick with demons. Kampuchea, as the Cambodians call their country, was declared to be beset by "inner contradictions" and "imperialist threats," and the answer was to seal Cambodia off and perform the social surgery required to make it totally self-reliant and immune to capitalist ills.' He here gives a standard run down of the horrors of KR rule, though notably writing 'According to the most conservative estimates, 1.2 million people were slaughtered or died of starvation or disease. Some estimates go as high as three million, or even higher.'

'The Pol Pot regime lasted for almost four years. In January 1979, the Vietnamese Communists, never having given up their dream of dominating all of Indochina, invaded and kicked the Khmer Rouge out of Phnom Penh. An obscure Khmer Rouge divisional commander named Heng Samrin was placed at the head of a client government.' 'Cambodia’s agony continues. Systematic pillaging by Vietnamese troops has compounded the country’s plight. But partly because of the historic hostility between the two peoples - the Vietnamese have long regarded the Cambodians as barbarians who had the impudence to revolt against their domination in 1840 - the invaders have not been able to pacify the country.'

'President Heng Samrin’s Government in Phnom Penh remains a puppet regime, its army a ragtag band of perhaps 15,000, many of them teenagers. In an odd twist, the Khmer Rouge have come to be regarded by many Cambodians as the champions of national independence; while the United States, which had once excoriated Pol Pot as a butcher, joined with China in 1979 in rounding up enough votes at the United Nations to recognize his regime as Cambodia’s legal Government. The reason, of course, was big-power strategy: Neither Washington nor Peking was in a mood to countenance an act of Vietnamese aggression dependent on the support of Hanoi’s ally, the Soviet Union, and tending to promote the spread of Soviet influence in Southeast Asia.'

'Today, in the rain forests and stagnant swamps of Cambodia’s western provinces, some 50,000 Vietnamese troops, out of an occupation force of 200,000, are still engaged in combat with an estimated 40,000 Khmer Rouge guerrillas, who have been generously resupplied with Chinese arms. The guerrillas have struck rail links, cut vital highways, harassed outlying Vietnamese Army posts. Relying on confusion and terror, even as the Vietcong did during the Vietnam War, the guerrillas often seem to have at least the passive support of the poor peasantry. Occasionally the Vietnamese embark on largescale counterinsurgency operations, razing villages, poisoning crops and taking hostages. But after a while the occupation forces withdraw, and the Khmer Rouge return.' 'Pol Pot’s prospects of returning to power in Phnom Penh are questionable, but he pursues the struggle on a political as well as military plane. With Chinese support and American encouragement, the Khmer Rouge have been courting Cambodia’s two non-Communist insurgent groups, hoping to draw them into a united front.' These are the pro-Sihanouk faction (overthrown by Lon Nol in 1970) and the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front (KPNLF), 'headed by Son Sann, who had been one of the Prince’s Prime Ministers'. He reports both groups are 'relatively weak', but a coalition with 'such veteran leaders' 'would bestow' the KR with 'the political respectability they so badly need to attract international - and domestic - support for their cause.'

'It is this diplomatic offensive that provides the background for Pol Pot’s announcement over the Khmer Rouge radio two weeks ago that the Kampuchean Communist Party is being dissolved as no longer useful. Whatever the outcome of this move, it will seem less startling when considered against the political history of the Pol Pot regime. For a long time, the Khmer Rouge leaders were equivocal and secretive about the movement’s Marxist antecedents, some of them insisting that it was "revolutionary" but not "Communist."' Only in September 1977 did Pol Pot announce there was a 'Kampuchean Communist Party', founded in 1960 and had been allegedly leading 'the movement' since 1963. 'The present dissolution announcement only adds new doubt to the whole shadowy record.' 'Pol Pot, appears to have made another tactical move, aimed, this time, at disowning his ferocious past and attracting Cambodians to his banner. Whether he and his corevolutionaries were always Communists in name only - a label they adopted to secure Chinese support - or whether they remain convinced Marxists, by their lights, and are indulging in short-term deception, no outsider can say for sure. The best guess I could ever arrive at was that Pol Pot, at some time in his life, had imbibed a heady mixture of "Das Kapital" and Hitler’s "Mein Kampf."'

'To add to the confusion, even his identity remains in question. In an interview with Yugoslav television in 1977, Pol Pot said he had come from a poor peasant family. But a Cambodian refugee in Paris, Laau Phuok, insists that Pol Pot’s real name is Saloth Sar, and that his father was a landowner distantly related to the royal family. A third version is that Pol Pot is really Tol Sat, a revolutionary who was elected to the Khmer Rouge "People’s Representative Assembly" in Phom Penh in 1976. To complete the mystery, photographs of Pol Pot tend to change in appearance ever so slightly through the years.'

Jones’ journey to the 'more than 1,000 square miles of jungle' 'Khmer Rouge heartland' started in Bangkok, Thailand, a country that 'proclaim[s] strict neutrality', 'but frequent violations of their territory by Vietnamese troops in Cambodia have not endeared Hanoi’s cause to the Thai Government, and Bangkok is where contact with Khmer Rouge represenatives can best be made' While Jones says it was easy to cross the Thai-Cambodia border to a KR camp, getting deeper 'into the bush' ('where 60,000 to 80,000 dirt-poor peasants compose Pol Pot’s principal base of support') was another thing, which he’s been trying to get permission to for two years, 'but permission was always withheld'. A Thai Army captain told him i"The whole area is forbidden to foreigners ... [a] military secret!" That hinted at weapons and other supplies coming in from China. Little is known of the transit route, but a Khmer Rouge soldier I encountered in a field hospital during one of my earlier visits to Cambodia told me of supplies trucked surreptitiously through Thailand. When I asked Thai officials about this, they called it a lie. My guess is that the business is handled privately, without the Bangkok Government being implicated.'

'Then, last August [x/8/1980?1981?], I unexpectedly received the permission I had sought. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea sent authorization for me to travel all the way to the Cardamom mountain range, the Khmer Rouge power base about 100 miles inside Cambodia. I was the first foreigner permitted by the Angkar - the "Organization," as the Khmer Rouge high command is called - to take that route for a look at life under siege in Cambodia.' In Bangkok, '[a] discreet Khmer Rouge diplomat' instructed him on the trek. His escort (accompanied by a 'Thai intelligence officer') from Bangkok was Ambassador Pech Bun Ret, the KR representative at the UN’s Bangkok office. They headed out of Bangkok, past 'the emerald-green paddy fields and into the forests of the border area', towards the area around Aranyaprathet ('a dusty village of mud huts') (see Map 1 from 1975_7_14_a). At a Thai border post they spent an hour for 'our Thai plainclothesman' to negotiate 'permission to proceed'. 'We passed the tent encampments of the Cambodian refugees, 200,000 of whom have taken refuge in Thailand to get away from both the Vietnamese and the Khmer Rouge. After another barricade, a narrow mud road drew us into the jungle, and our driver produced a huge .45 automatic pistol.' The road was blocked by three jeeps with Thai border police, 'their carbines at the ready. The driver stopped; on the other side of a dry paddy field, some 30 heavily armed men in black pajamas moved out of the forest.'

'My Ambassador got out and walked toward them. He came back with a tall unarmed man with a row of ball-point pens in his breast pocket. "You the newsman?" he asked me in French. "Welcome to Democratic Kampuchea." The Khmer Rouge officer looked like an army commissar. "You are English?" he asked. "American." "It is the same." He motioned me to follow him. I said goodbye to my escorts. The Thai border police gazed stolidly ahead.' This man, Chhorn Hay, was 'more important than I had imagined', the 'Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Postal Services. The Khmer Rouge had restored the postal system, now that it was in need of contacts abroad. We passed the tents of a logistics unit, then some old Chinese trucks of Soviet design.' He observed some 'movement in the foliage overhead', which Chhorn suggestively called "monkeys" who "like to see you nice and clear". 'Then there was a smell of wood smoke, and abrubptly we were in a Khmer Rouge redoubt - Phnom Malay, provisional capital of Democratic Kampuchea', though this wasn’t a town so much as a camp, 'a bizarre mixture of primitive and modern'. Soldiers 'puffed on their marijuana cigarettes'. 'Yet all around me were the wares of the storefronts of Bangkok -nylon mosquito netting, Benson & Hedges cigarettes, Rolex wristwatches, Coca-Cola; the inventory seemed endless. And a remarkable variety of arms: AK-47's, the famous Chinese assault weapon; Chinese rocket-launchers; American M-16 rifles, booty from the former army of General Lon Nol; grenade launchers, signaling pistols, sackfuls of bullets, and I don’t know what else.'

Jones was 'struck by how young the soldiers were. The oldest did not seem much over 20; the youngest were mere children. I knew something of the training of these yotheas, as Pol Pot’s troopers are called. Separated from their families at age 12 and removed from their villages to the Khmer Rouge indoctrination camps, the recruits are taught to hate the "old society" and to "harden their hearts and minds" with cruel games. During the month I spent with the Khmer Rouge, I saw the yotheas take pleasure in tormenting animals. A favorite game was torturing monkeys - hacking off their tails or placing chains around their necks and pulling them across the open ground. Screaming with pain, the monkeys were strangled to death.' Chhorn led him to a 'long, thatch-roofed hut with a neat row of single beds', and told '"Now, don’t wander off," he said. "There are devices scattered around the camp that release six poison-tipped arrows at chest height. Otherwise, make yourself at home."' '[S]hortly past nooon', his host for lunch was none other than Khieu Samphan.

Inside Khieu’s tent was 'a large rectangular space hung with Chinese maps of the Phnom Malay area'. Jones was 'seated at a circular table next to' Thiounn Thoeun, 'a doctor [medical, it seems] of aristocratic background who had once served Prince Norodom Sihanouk ... until his overthrow by General Lon Nol in 1970'. He was now Health Minister in Sihanouk’s 'government-in-exile in Peking', though when the KR took over in 1975, 'he joined the new regime in the same capacity'. They were also joined by Ieng Sary (the top diplomat, who Jones also reports as Pol Pot’s brother-in-law, describing him as a 'big man in a light green uniform', and 'the most talkative', 'jumping from subject to subject with appropriate changes of tone'). '"Please do not regard this as an interview," Khieu said urbanely. "Let’s just chat, have lunch." The food was Cambodian and Chinese, skillfully prepared. Ieng Sary reminisced about Paris in the 1950’s and the little apartment on the Rue St. Andre des Arts where he and his wife had lived.' Other than an AK-wielding guard outside the tent, 'the scene could have been one of those social gatherings I had known in Bangkok'. Around the world, KR diplomats are working 'to portray the leaders of Democratic Kampuchea as wellmannered gentlemen, falsely accused of brutality, who are infatuated with the United States, international trade, free-market economics, supervised elections, French humanisme and, of course, human rights.'

Ieng Sary discusses some military developments in their fight with the "yuons", regarding Routes and Highways, and noting that 'the sacred Angkor temples [in the northwest, where the KR is strongest] were under Khmer Rouge control.' Reflecting on the years of KR rule, in 'almost [a] whisper', he concedes "we may have been too far left". Still, the "Vietnamese agents" (the PRK government) 'had to be rooted out; in any case, "less than 10,000" executions had taken place. Once the agents were taken care of, he said, the killing stopped.' '"There were no mass murders," Khieu Samphan chimed in. Those tales of genocide were all the product of Vietnamese propaganda. "What reason would we have to kill off our own people? Perhaps the evacuation of Phnom Penh could have been better organized, but if you are fair-minded, you will have to say that the positive prevailed over the negative." It is the Vietnamese invaders, my hosts insisted, who are guilty of genocide, bulldozing villages with their tanks and strafing them with their helicopter gunships. All Cambodians must unite against them.'

By lunch’s end, he still hadn’t met Pol Pot; '[t]he last non-Communist visitors to see him were a group of Japanese journalists in December 1979. He had dropped out of sight on earlier occasions, too, apparently as a political maneuver, to re-emerge victorious over his Khmer Rouge rivals. Was his current disappearance a sign of renewed internal struggle? To ask about his whereabouts, to request an interview, would have been a breach of Khmer Rouge etiquette. I would just have to wait.' At 3:45 AM, he was 'awakened by gunfire', very close, and 'a prolonged burst of pom-poms lighted up the night, and I could see yotheas scurrying amid the trees. Above the crackling of machine guns I could hear orders being screamed'. 'Someone entered my hut; it was Met Im, a junior military commissar, who was to escort me farther east, to the front that stretches south of Highway 10, the headquarters of Met Kanika, the senior army commissar responsible for keeping the highway closed and Khmer Rouge communication routes open.' 'Im was hung about with bandoleers. He said his unit was engaged in cleaning out a group of Vietnamese guerrillas nearby. The crack Vietnamese 75th Division was only five miles away, but showed little disposition to venture beyond its strong points.' 'Im said we were leaving. He cautioned me about land mines, black scorpions, giant red ants and punji sticks. "I’ll look after you," he assured me. "That way, you’ll stay alive."' They 'set out at down through the never-ending forest'. The trek was hot, had a 'stench of fungus', monkeys shrilled, he kept getting leeches on his clothes.

'To my relief, the brush opened up on a stockade. At its entrance, Khmer Rouge soldiers were proudly photographing four severed heads. Yuons, I was told; a raiding party had brought them in that morning. Somewhere close by, a Vietnamese sniper was picking off anyone who moved beyond the rampart. Later that day, I saw the guerrillas bury more than 50 of their own men. The corpses were bloated, a week old.' This was 'the village of Phnom Raang' [I couldn’t find any such village on a brief search of the English internet, at least]. At a 'hut higher than the rest', Jones met Comrade Kanika. 'He put on the obligatory show for foreign visitors - yotheas staged mock fights with AK-47’s and machetelike Cambodian knives, and completed the entertainment with folk dances.' He was 'allowed to talk to the villagers', around campfires, 'the men spoke of their concerns' - sick cattle, stolen rice, Vietnamese spies, 'who, they were sure, had been infiltrated in their midst. The soldiers told me these agents were known and would be dealt with by the Nokorbal, Pol Pot’s secret police.' The next day, they began their 'ascent of the Cardamom Mountains, Pol Pot’s supposed stronghold. At various points during my 200-mile journey, some of the company dropped out of the column and others joined in.' They encountered a 'desolate clearing' with 'several beaming yotheas' at a small table 'covered by a blue tablecloth. They had been informed of my impending arrival and had waited for hours to greet me with a ceremonial meal. We sat down to soupe Chinoise and rice; then, waving goodbye, the men walked back into the mountains.'

'As we started off in another direction, Comrade Im grabbed my arm. "Don’t move," he said. He pointed down at my feet. Three inches away, two bamboo prongs protruded from the ground. Two other spikes were visible a little ahead. "Vietnamese punji sticks."' To pass, they 'shuffled along, trying not to lift our feet from the ground'. At night, being hot, they didn’t pitch tents; the jungle was silent other than some insects and occassional birds. 'A dozen yotheas sat motionlessly around a campfire, listening to a boy with a smoothshaven head recount a tale of death and glory, in a kind of native chant. Comrade Im translated.' '"The Angkar’s blessings are remembered," the boy intoned, his eyes agleam. "All types of airplanes, including the dreadful B-52’s, dropped bombs which shook the land and shook the water. The Angkar taught me how to fight with ardor and keep my anger ever keen against my enemies."' Jones was woken up by gunfire 'a mile or so away. The men were moving out'. 'Im told me we were joining the fight, and we moved out in a long line - about 50 men with rifles, heavy automatics, mortars, portable rocket launchers, radios. Fording a stream, we came upon a shattered hamlet, its earthen walls blackened by flames. There was the dull whump, whump, whump of a Vietnamese gunship, and the unit scrambled for cover. Im dragged me by the collar into a ditch.' 'Tracers flashed; three mortars thumped nearby; two more helicopter gunships slid up overhead and peppered the village in long, leisurely bursts. Ahead of us, I could see men firing up from the ruins - locals, more of them than I had realized were there. Then I heard the grinding drone of tanks, growing louder. A volley of machine-gun bullets flung up pebbles and red dirt all around us. A mortar shell landed somewhere behind. For a while, the noise of battle was incessant. Then the firing died out. I stood up and peered through my field glasses in the direction of the receding fire.'

'Just then, on the summit of a distant hillside, I saw a figure that made me catch my breath: a pudgy Cambodian, with field glasses hanging from his neck. The eyes in his head looked dead and stony. I could not make him out in any detail, but I had seen enough pictures of the supreme leader to convince me, at that precise second, that I was staring at Pol Pot. Next to him, I could make out some other figures, stacks of rifles, a few tents. Thinking back on it now, I am still fairly sure it was Pol Pot I saw - whoever he may be.'

After '[t]he attack had been repulsed', Im took him into a village, where they heard accounts of the battle, and '[a] soldier led us to the headman’s hut'. 'I asked him about his village. Once, he said, it had a population of 2,500; today, it was almost deserted.' 'I inquired of Pol Pot’s whereabouts. The headman answered curtly. Im translated. "He says there is no military chief here."' Jones stayed in an empty hut for 'the next few days', over which 'the village returned to life. Yotheas milled about. A revolutionary cadre supervised the distribution of rice, vegetables and canned products. Medical teams set up temporary dispensaries under the charred beams of burned-out houses. A woman "barefoot doctor" [the term comes from Mao-era China, for medical personnel given brief primary-care-level training (with some traditional medicine mixed in, they may already have had such a background) to help shore up rural healthcare] wore a brown shirt displaying the Red Cross insignia. She gaped when I said I was an American journalist, but told me they were depending heavily on native herbal medicine, although supplies of modern drugs were improving. The village women observed me with distrustful, curious eyes. Some of them approached to ask for medicine.'

'Im escorted me to the abandoned campsites of Vietnamese. The walls of a radio shack stood amid the ruins. Scattered in the rubble were old copies of the Hanoi daily Nhan Dan, letters, documents, charts.' They had been moving around for 'a long time', 'place to place, to no apparent purpose, except to insure my safety', though it seemed to Jones more they were 'killing time, waiting to find out from the high command where to take me next.' Now, '[t]hey had apparently got their answer. With his bayonet, Im pointed to a a brown patch in the forest some 300 yards down a hillside, next to a banana grove. It was a cluster of mat huts, a Thai village. It was Thailand.' The journey was over, having walked a 'semicircle through Khmer Rouge territory', now 'at the Bo Rai border point, some way south of where my expedition had begun'.

'I looked back. By an old Cambodian cemetery a blind man was chanting the Ramayana, a part of Cambodia’s cultural heritage, as he twanged a primitive guitar. What better personification of Cambodia could I have found than this old singer, whose heroic and poetic ballad had ceased to have any connection with anything I had just seen? Cambodia, a land possessed, its ancient hymns, like its temples, fallen on evil days. Of all dead lands, the most dead.'

1982_8_08 (Colin Campbell in Bangkok, Thailand | P03/A03 | Monday 1982/8/9): 5 ASIAN NATIONS CALL ON VIETNAMESE TO QUIT CAMBODIA. 'The Foreign Ministers of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand issued a statement (one-page) at the end of a special meeting on Vietnam last night calling for the total withdrawal of Vietnamese soldiers from Cambodia and free Cambodian elections under international supervision.' They said that the ASEAN would continue lobbying 'for the continued seating next month of Cambodia’s ousted Pol Pot Government' in the UNGA, and 'hoped to see' Sihanouk 'admitted to the next top-level meeting of the nations professing nonalignment, scheduled for next month in Baghdad, Iraq.' Sihanouk was 'named president in June of a coalition government in exile that includes the Pol Pot group. The exile government was officially formed last month at a site on the Thai-Cambodian border.' The ASEAN ministers made several references to "Prince Sihanouk’s government", 'a characterization of the coalition that its backers have tried to promote. Before the agreement by Prince Sihanouk and Son Sann, who served as Prime Minister under the Prince, to join political forces with the Pol Pot group, that group’s support in the United Nations was reported to be ebbing.'

'An American diplomat said that despite fears that the terms of the coalition’s organization favored the Pol Pot group, many Cambodian refugees in the area along the Thai-Cambodian border had been flocking to border camps loyal to Prince Sihanouk.' Further, '[s]everal Southeast Asian diplomats have said in recent weeks that the five-nation group wants to have Prince Sihanouk lead a truly neutral Cambodia, and that the Prince would win an election if the Cambodians were allowed a free vote.' The ASEAN one-page statement didn’t mention a 'recent tour of Southeast Asian capitals by Vietnam’s foreign minister, Nguyen Co Thach. They appeared to agree, however, that Mr. Thach’s visits last month to Singapore, Burma, Malaysia and Thailand had been useful if unpersuasive.' Malaysia’s Foreign Minister, Mohammed Ghazali bin Shafie, said Vietnam’s '"diplomatic offensive"' had 'three aims'. 'First, he said, Mr. Thach has tried to convince Southeast Asia that China is a threat to Vietnam through Cambodia. Mr. Thach also tried to "frustrate" the Southeast Asian association’s [ASEAN] unified strategy, Mr. Ghazali said, and to gain "sympathy" among the Western democracies, all of which have asked that Vietnamese soldiers leave Cambodia.' Further, he said Vietnam argued that 'by maintaining that its 1978 invasion had saved Cambodia from the genocide of Pol Pot’s Communist regime'. Philippine’s Foreign Minister, Carlos P. Romulo dismissed Thach as an '"itinerant salesman for communism"'.

Sihanouk is 'reported to be headed for Europe to rally support for the exile coalition', and Son Sann is already there, 'seeking arms and other support for his faction'. Meanwhile, the Thai and Malaysian FMs said they are 'willing to speak with Vietnam again', the former having 'accepted an invitation to Hanoi during Mr. Thach’s talks with him here late last month [x/7/1982].' Thach 'plans to visit the Philippines and Indonesia soon'. 'Vietnam, Laos and the Vietnamese-controlled regime in Cambodia proposed at a meeting in Ho Chi Minh City in July that if Thailand abandoned its support for the Pol Pot forces along the Thai-Cambodian border and if China pledged not to attack Vietnam, Hanoi would remove its troops from Cambodia.'

1982_12_16 (Joel R. Charny (he is 'Southesat Asia Projects Officer for Oxfam America') | P28/p01 Letters to the Editor | Tuesday 1982/12/21): First Cambodian Priority: Stop Pol Pot. 'Stephen J. Morris makes several misleading assertions in his Op-Ed piece on Cambodia ("Aiding Cambodia," Dec. 15). I am writing to modify or correct his analysis based on my extensive experience inside the country working for Oxfam America, a private voluntary agency based in Boston. Mr. Morris writes that the Vietnamese "tried mass starvation" to crush resistance in 1979. The famine in Cambodia in 1979 resulted not from deliberate Vietnamese policy but from the chaos which followed the disintegration of the Pol Pot regime. Retreating Pol Pot troops and cadre, not the Vietnamese, pursued a scorched-earth policy, destroying what rice and supplies they could not take with them as they fled. The survivors of the Pol Pot holocaust exhausted themselves trying to travel long distances to their former homes while seeking out missing loved ones along the way. Refugees from this period have described the treatment they received at the hands of Vietnamese troops who provided food and medicine to those in particularly desperate condition.'

'But there were no resources -human or material - to support rice production during this chaotic period. No rice production, coupled with the destruction of granaries and human beings by Pol Pot, created the Cambodian famine.' He also argues that the 'Cambodian non-Communist resistance has survived' against 180k Vietnamese troops due to '"grass-roots support"', but Charny says they survive only because they’re 'based in Thailand and dares operate only in isolated areas of Cambodia'. Since Cambodia stabilized in late 1980, virtually no one has left Heng Samrin controlled areas 'to the border areas controlled by the resistance'. '[I]n four trips to Battambang province in western Cambodia in the past 18 months (most recently in October)', he hadn’t 'come across a single act of sabotage ... by the resistance which supposedly enjoys grass-roots support'. This contrasts with insurgencies in places like Afghanistan, El Salvador, and 'the northern tier of Ethiopia', which do 'enjoy the support of a significant portion of the rural population'. Morris also 'implies that the American refusal to arm the non-Communist resistance is the key factor which forces Cambodians into the horrible situation of having to choose between the Vietnamese and Pol Pot.' But the only reason they have the choice today is that Thailand, ASEAN, China, and the USA 'refused to abandon Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge to their deserved fate in 1979. Instead, these countries have pursued a policy of military, diplomatic and material support to this movement of mass murderers.' This 'morally bankrupt' policy 'has prevented the vast majority of Cambodians from resisting the Vietnamese occupation of their country, for the people of Cambodia correctly perceive that such resistance would result in the return of Pol Pot to power in Phnom Penh.'

'[T]here is no clearer testimony' that the world doesn’t have 'respect for Cambodian dignity, culture, and national sovereignty' than the forcing of Sihanouk and Son Sann ('the last Cambodian leaders with a shred of credibility') into a coalition with the KR, 'in exchange for promises of military aid'. 'Thus, arms aid to the feeble non-Communist resistance, as Mr. Morris advocates, is irrelevant to the welfare of Cambodians' so long as ASEAN, China, and the USA 'maintain Pol Pot and his brutal followers as contestants in the struggle for control of the future of Cambodia.'

1984_1_07, E6: Brunei Darussalam joins ASEAN, bringing its membership to six (the other five at this point are the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore).

1984_1_09 (Essay by Christopher S. Wren | P39/C09 Sports | Monday 1984/1/9): 84 OLYMPIC EFFORT A GREAT LEAP FORWARD FOR CHINA. Since the 1932 LA Olympics, China is returning this year, with a bigger team. They don’t 'expect to do very well', but it represents 'the most significant step' towards becoming 'a major sports power' by century’s end (though in winter sports, '[t]he Chinese sports newspaper has conceded that ... "China is still a long way from the advanced world levels"'). 'It will be the first time that the Communist mainland will be represented at an Olympics by a full contingent of athletes.' Some swimmers showed up 'late at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952', and was 'readmitted to the Olympic movement in 1979', sending 'a small team to the 1980 Winter Games at Lake Placid, but it joined the boycott of the subsequent Summer Games in Moscow to protest the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. With its propensity for slogans, China has coined a militant challenge for sports: "Break out of Asia and advance on the world."' It’s come a long way; it 'had a weak sports tradition and was debilitated by famine, war and revolution well into the 20th century'. Since 1949, 'they began developing organized sports', though unraveled by the Cultural Revolution. Deng’s regime has been more 'pragmatic', and '[s]ports have been revived'. 'The Government claims that 300 million Chinese, nearly a third of the population of 1 billion, now engage in some kind of physical training.' Children are specially 'selected early for their potential, sent after classes to thousands of "spare-time" sports schools, a less intense version of the Soviet sports-training machine. And the five proficiency grades for athletes, borrowed from the Russians in 1956, and dropped 10 years later, have been restored for 37 sports categories.'

Some of China’s best sports, 'like table tennis, badminton and kung fu, are not yet recognized as Olympic events'. '"Except for a few events, our track and field is weak"' '"[s]wimming on the whole is weak. Of course, everyone knows our soccer team cannot break out of the pack in Asia. This is something everybody is concerned about."' That’s Li Pingta, 'an official of the All-China Sports Federation'. Though China 'has the most bicycles in the world', it 'does poorly in cycling', since '"In China, we take cycling as a means of transport"', per Wu Zhongyuan, 'the spokesman for the Chinese Olympic Committee'. They aren’t 'hesitant about importing foreign expertise', such as from the US, Bulgaria, and Brazil. To shore up their sports, they’ve 'joined 46 international sports organizations', and 'began to dominate regional competition by capturing 61 gold medals at the 1982 Asian Games in New Delhi. China has applied to hold the 1990 Asian Games in Peking, and plans to build new sports facilities if it is chosen. China used to denigrate the importance of winning with the old Maoist motto, "Friendship first, competition second." Now its athletes are taught that victories are necessary to earn respect for China in the eyes of the world.' Their best hope for Gold in LA is Zhu Jianhua, 'who broke the world record for the high jump twice in 1983', but 'it is uncertain how well he will do under the pressure of international competition, since he took only a bronze medal at the world track and field championships in Helsinki last August [x/8/1983].' 'Another hopeful is Wu Shude' in weight lifting, as well as diving, with Li Yihua, Tan Liangde, and Li Qiaoxian. Also is men’s gymnastics and women’s volleyball. 'But the [Chinese?] Olympic committee has played down the likelihood of a strong showing', such as Wu Zhongyuan. 'China expects to spend 3 million yuan, about $1.5 million, on its participation in the Winter and Summer Olympics, according to Li Guochang, the director of the secretariat of the Chinese Olympic Committee.' 'By comparison, the United States Olympic Committee budget is $80.1 million'.

'Chinese athletes have not been exempted from ideological obligations. A Peking newspaper reported not long ago that the swimming team was studying the writings of Deng Xiaoping as part of its preparation. Mr. Wu explained: "Every day the swimmers will take a half hour or an hour. That’s not the whole day." Mr. Wu said that the Olympic athletes would be educated in Socialist spiritual civilization, a patriotic concept of behavior that rejects Western values, before they went to Los Angeles. He recalled that the high jumper Zhu Jianhua has undertaken political study. This is intended partly to discourage embarrassing defections. After the tennis player Hu Na was given political asylum in the United States in 1982, China angrily suspended official bilateral sports and cultural exchanges for the next year.' Mr. Wu says China holds the US responsible for 'preventing such incidents as part of the security measures for the Summer Games.'

This is mostly a book review, but there is an 'info box' included as well, so I’ll organize this as if it was two articles. ( [see below] | P50/p01 Book Review | Sunday 1984/6/22)

(1984_7_22_a - Aryeh Neier (who is the 'vice chairman of the human rights organizations the Americas Watch and the Helsinki Watch') | [see above] ): TRAGIC CAMBODIA: RESPONSE AND RESPONSIBILITY; Book: THE QUALITY OF MERCY Cambodia, Holocaust and Modern Conscience. By William Shawcross (published on January 1, 1985 [so this seems to be an advanced copy that Neier read]. The US involvment in Cambodia 'from 1970 [really, 1969] to 1975 in its civil war had been only a "sideshow"', and while the KR 'terror from 1975 to 1978 had not been ignored, but while it was at its height, it did not register significantly on the world's consciousness'. Cambodia [particularly, the KR] was only put 'into the limelight' due its war with with Vietnam. Shawcross writes that '"Massive abuse of human rights alone had failed to win worldwide attention in the way that open schism and warfare within the Communist bloc did."' 'As a way of legitimizing its conquest of Cambodia, Vietnam and its Soviet bloc allies helped bring the world’s attention to the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge. Conveniently discarded was Hanoi’s pre-1978 contention that the stories of atrocities in Cambodia were all part of a campaign of slander orchestrated by the United States.'

'After occupying Phnom Penh, the Vietnamese transformed the Khmer Rouge torture and extermination center of Tuol Sleng, formerly a high school, into a museum artfully designed to evoke comparisons to Auschwitz. By the summer of 1979, Vietnam had organized an elaborate and ghastly "People’s Revolutionary Tribunal for the Trial of Genocide Committed by the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique" that brought hundreds of foreigners to Phnom Penh. In addition to indulging in the rhetoric one has come to expect on such an occasion, the tribunal’s participants listened to pitiful accounts by survivors and went away to tell the world about the Cambodian "holocaust."'

'Having focused on Cambodia, the world was informed in 1979 by Western journalists and relief agencies that more horrors lay ahead. The devastation left behind by the Khmer Rouge was so great, it was said, that perhaps half of the four or five million survivors in Cambodia faced death from famine or disease unless food and medicine could be supplied speedily. "The Quality of Mercy" is about the world’s response - how governments, international relief agencies and individuals responded to the disaster and the blend of political and institutional considerations and humanitarianism that shaped their various responses. It is also about the way the Nazi Holocaust and the failure to prevent it shaped thought - including Mr. Shawcross’s own - about Cambodia.' The book offers harsh analysis of nearly every institution involved in providing aid to Cambodia, even those 'that generally performed very well' (ie the ICRC); Except Unicef, 'the various arms of the United Nations performed poorly in Cambodia', which Shawcross blames on UNSG Waldheim not wanting to offend the USSR, 'whose support he needed in his campaign for re-election'. The UNHRC 'was useless; when the number of Cambodians killed by the Khmer Rouge was probably more than one million, the Commission was able only to agree that allegations of Khmer Rouge abuses should be sent to Phnom Penh for comment'. The FAO and its subsidiary the WFP 'were bureaucratic and incompetent'. 'Other organizations, including such ordinarily useful charities as the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief (Oxfam), are portrayed by Mr. Shawcross as being preoccupied at times with institutional self-aggrandizement. In the case of Oxfam, one of its operatives signed an agreement with the Vietnamese-sponsored Heng Samrin Government in Cambodia that for a time undercut the efforts of Unicef and the I.C.R.C. to devise a politically neutral program that would feed hungry Cambodian refugees in Thailand as it would feed hungry Cambodians in Cambodia.'

Neier observes that '[w]ithout duplicating Mr. Shawcross's research, it is impossible to know whether all his judgments are warranted. Yet a reader cannot help but be impressed by his apparent fairness.' Despite US involvment 'from 1970 [1969] to 1975 plung[ing] Cambodia into its nightmare', the US 'is not the villain of this particular chapter' [titled "Sideshow"?]. 'Indeed, though Mr. Shawcross is critical of some aspects of the United States response to the Cambodian emergency, he has high praise for the efforts of the Ambassador to Thailand, Morton Abramowitz, and his associates. Although Mr. Shawcross is scathing in most of his comments about the Soviet Union, he makes it clear that the hard work of dockworkers supplied by the Soviets was crucial in making it possible for food to reach the hungry. And so on.' Neier argues that normally how 'political considerations' 'shape the delivery' of relief 'ordinarily escape such close scrutiny', but not for Shawcross. 'The result may well be the best account we have of the politics of international charity'.

'Mr. Shawcross is not quite so successful in dealing with his other theme - the way the memory of the Nazi Holocaust influenced thinking about Cambodia. He does make us understand his own preoccupation with Cambodia by evoking his childhood horror at and fascination with recordings brought home by his father, the British chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, of testimony given at the Nazi war-crimes trials. He also helps us understand how the Vietnamese exploited comparisons between Pol Pot and Hitler and between Tuol Sleng and Auschwitz to make the world forget that the authors of the crime against the people of Cambodia were their erstwhile Communist comrades. (Vietnam and its Soviet bloc allies habitually refer to "the fascist Pol Pot" rather than to the Khmer Rouge, as part of an effort to erase the memory of the political coloration of those responsible for the Cambodian holocaust.)'

Neier argues Shawcross fails 'in making us understand how it became legitimate to think of Cambodia as a holocaust'. That since WWII, 'millions have been murdered' by myriad governments, '[y]et those who try to arouse the conscience of the world learn to avoid comparing even the most unspeakable horrors to those committed by the Nazis, because there is something sacred about the memory of the Holocaust that is sullied by comparisons. Cambodia became an exception'. 'Was it because, after 1978, the two superpowers and those aligned with them could agree on condemning what happened in Cambodia?' Was it the scale? Yet a WWII-comparable death toll has occurred, he argues, in 'three or four' post-WWII disasters, 'starting with the religious violence' of the India-Pakistan partition. 'Was it because some of the killing was concentrated at Tuol Sleng, making it possible to publish photographs of piles of skulls? Was it because the Khmer Rouge was driven out of Phnom Penh, permitting the Vietnamese victors to uncover the crimes of the vanquished? Were other factors at work?' Though Neier doesn’t think Shawcross answers these questions, for him it doesn’t 'detract from the many virtues of "The Quality of Mercy", 'a splendid book that will have a profound impact'.

(1984_7_22_b - Colin Campbell | P74/p26 Book Review Infobox | [see above] ): The Perplexities of Relief. Shawcross (a '38-year-old English journalist') earlier published a book on Cambodia, "Sideshow", in spring of 1979, 'just as the world began to learn that the Cambodian people, who had been bombed by the United States, decimated by the Communist leader Pol Pot and then overrun by the Vietnamese, were starving'. On the phone, he said "It was a subject I didn’t want to walk away from". Originally he wanted to focus on 'disaster relief around the world', but felt there was an important story in the Cambodian relief effort. It was challenging for him to 'balance his criticisms of essentially charitable groups for occasionally betraying their principles and wasting money'; "Criticizing them is a lot harder than criticizing Henry Kissinger", [apparently a big figure in his earlier book "Sideshow"] "[i]n this case, it was much more difficult to separate right from wrong.".

'Fears of imminent famine in Cambodia turned out to be exaggerated. And as Mr. Shawcross followed his research to Bangkok, Phnom Penh, Hanoi, Geneva, Paris, Washington and New York, he found reasons to question the motives and performance of virtually everyone involved in Cambodia’s intended salvation. The United States comes out looking pretty good. Vietnam appears to have been the main obstacle to the Cambodians’ relief. Mr. Shawcross said he expects his book to be unpopular with the left, but he insisted the Vietnamese are "wrong" to be occupying Cambodia and the regime they back there doesn’t deserve international recognition.'

1984_10_28 (Samuel G. Freedman | P353/p01 Film/Documentary Review in Arts and Leisure | Sunday 1984/10/28): IN 'THE KILLING FIELDS,' A CAMBODIAN ACTOR RELIVES HIS NATION’S ORDEAL. 'During "The Killing Fields" (to open 'Friday [2/11/1984] at Cinema 1') - a film about friendship, separation and reunion set against the Khmer Rouge’s genocidal revolution in Cambodia'. Specifically, the film is about two people: Dith Pran (played by Dr. Haing S. Ngor), 'a relatively Westernized Cambodian, a doctor who spoke fluent French', and NYT journalist Sydney Schanberg (played by Sam Waterston), 'the winner of a Pultizer Prize for his reporting on Cambodia', who’s journalistic efforts on the Cambodian civil war (prior to 1975) were aided by Dith Pran (they also became friends).

'[T]he central character, a Khmer Rouge captive named Dith Pran, grows a small tomato plant. Its feeble fruit is part of survival amid rice gruel and endless labor. Then, as Dith Pran watches in impotence, a girl soldier of 12 or 14 rips the plant out of the earth. When that moment was filmed, Dr. Haing S. Ngor, who portrays Dith Pran, ran off the set screaming. "Khmer Rouge, Khmer Rouge," he insisted to Roland Joffe, the director. "She is Khmer Rouge." The girl, Mr. Joffe assured him, was a Thai who had been hired on location. But in her flat, dead eyes - the eyes of the thousands of children in the Khmer Rouge - Dr. Ngor saw again the horrors both he and Mr. Dith had actually endured.' This was Dr. Ngor’s (now a photographer for 'The Times' [not sure if this is the literal "The Times" in the UK, or the NYT]) first time acting. Freedman observes that Ngor’s performance wasn’t merely acting. '"For me, movie not different," Dr. Ngor said, still trying to master the language of his new land. "I have enough experience in Communist times. I put emotion into the movie. We have a lot of scenes like in Khmer Rouge time. Everything the same."'

Though taking some 'artistic liberties', it 'essentially follows the true story of Mr. Dith and Mr. Schanberg', based on the latter’s 1980 article in 'The Time’s Sunday Magazine, entitled "The Death and Life of Dith Pran."' Per that article, at the time the KR took Phnom Penh in April 1975, Dith and Schanberg mistakenly stayed in the city (they had been working together to document the civil war); the KR soldiers captured them, and planned to kill Schanberg, but Dith’s pleas convinced them to release them, and they headed to the French Embassy. When the KR demanded 'all the Cambodians in the embassy be surrendered to them', Schanberg couldn’t save Dith. They don’t reuinite until Dith escapes to Thailand 'more than four years later'.

'"The Killing Fields" represents the first attempt by a commercial film to grapple with the Cambodian genocide. In the name of their "peasant revolution," the Khmer Rouge drove the two million residents of Phnom Penh, among them Dr. Ngor and Mr. Dith, into the countryside. Other cities, like Kompong Speu, were literally bulldozed out of existence. By the time the Vietnamese ousted the Pol Pot regime in 1979, anywhere from one million to three million Cambodians, out of a population of seven million, had perished, some by starvation, some by murder. The Cambodian Genocide Project, an American group researching the Khmer Rouge atrocities, in 1982 read the scrupulous records of executions at Tuol Sleng political prison; inmates were clubbed to death, the Khmer Rouge wrote, because "bullets could not be wasted."'

'The search of someone to play Dith Pran consumed months'. The director and the casting director (Pat Golden) knew they couldn’t cast a white person, and most trained Thai and Cambodian actors 'they met were trained in the highly stylized Asian theater tradition, one ill-suited for a realistic film'. So they turned to the Cambodian expatriate communities in the US; interviewing 300 candidates, '[n]one fit'. Dr. Ngor, hearing of Golden’s efforts, resisted auditioning, despite a friend’s insistence. "I didn’t think I’m a movie star ... I am not handsome. I am too old." 'Miss Golden did not think so'. Encountering Ngor at a Cambodian wedding, she found he sufficiently resembled Pran for a 'screen test', 'essentially a series of improvisations' in potential scenarios, such as reacting 'as if his wife had just been killed'. '"It was the most astonishing thing," Miss Golden said. "I’d never seen anything like it."' The footage put producer Mr. Joffe and others in tears. 'The authenticity should not have been surprising. Dr. Ngor’s fiancee died under the Khmer Rouge, as did virtually all of his relatives.'

'So close was Dr. Ngor’s experience to Mr. Dith’s that ... Dr. Ngor never even met the man he would recreate on film. Like Mr. Dith, Dr. Ngor was a relatively Westernized Cambodian, a doctor who spoke fluent French. And like Mr. Dith, Dr. Ngor realized that his only chance of survival among the Khmer Rouge lay in denying his past.' On the day the KR took Phnom Penh, April 17th 1975, 'Dr. Ngor and a colleague were in a military hospital, operating on a man wounded in the bombing of the city'. When a KR soldier asked if he was a doctor, Ngor said no, the doctor was in the other room; he and his colleague debated if they should abandon the patient, or risk being killed. At first, he 'underestimated the ferocity' of the KR. They said the Phnom Penh evacuation was to 'protect them from American bombing', and everyone would return in three hours. "We don’t know the Khmer Rouge lying", he said [they say he is still learning English; he probably meant 'didn’t']. 'Even after a three-day march to a Khmer Rouge encampment, Dr. Ngor added, "We still think over and over again, maybe the Khmer Rouge call the people back to the city."' He somehow met some of his family, including his fiancee. On 28/5/1975, they began a march to a camp near the Vietnam border 'and to the heart of Cambodia’s darkness'. 'From 4 A.M. to 1 P.M. every day, Dr. Ngor broke boulders into bits small enough for paving roads. His tool was a household hammer. At 1 P.M., the workers received their first meal of the day - "A little watery rice. One tiny, small bowl. No, not even one bowl." He returned to the rocks until 7 P.M., when he got another bowl of rice. After that, there was work on an irrigation canal until almost midnight.'

In his 2nd KR commune, the 7000 workers didn’t even get rice, but 'lived or died on whatever they could forage'. 'The real Dith Pran survived by similar desperation; the character in the film eats small lizards and at one point sneaks into the commune’s stable to cut the skin and then suck the blood from a water buffalo. Caught, he is tortured. That, too, harkens to Dr. Ngor’s experience. The Khmer Rouge jailed him three times, trying to wring from him the admission he was a doctor. Having seen two other doctors executed, Dr. Ngor refused to tell.' '"I tell them I was a taxi driver. I change my name."' They tortured him in various gruesome ways. He managed to escape into 'Vietnamese-held territory and then to Thailand, the same path Dith Pran followed. The two men crossed the border within months of each other in 1979.'

Freedman reports the 'The film makers went to great lengths to evoke life under the Khmer Rouge, as well as in Phnom Penh before the takeover', interviewing Schanberg and Dith, meeting 'with Cambodian refugees in the United States, Europe and Thailand'. 'The depiction of life in the Khmer Rouge camps was drawn from refugees’ recollections and from Yugoslav and East German film footage. Mr. Joffe also talked to United States State Department experts on Cambodia and read the writings of Pol Pot.' The film 'speculates' why the KR rose; footage of Nixon is sometimes juxtaposed with 'scenes of the Khmer Rouge’s horrors'. Waterston 'also gives a speech, based on remarks the real Sydney Schanberg made to the Overseas Press Club, that criticizes the United States for intervening in Cambodia and implies that the incursion helped the Khmer Rouge gain strength.' Joffe says '"[t]he film isn’t anti-American; it’s anti-ideology"', but elaborates that '"[t]he argument is that the degree of bombing on a peasant country creates a kind of distress and a fury. The average age of the Khmer Rouge troops that came into Phnom Penh was 17, and those troops had had 75 per cent casualties. That would psychologically affect you. What the film is saying is that the world isn’t filled with strange and bizarre acts for no reason."'

Yet he says the KR’s atrocities 'grew out of more than American bombing'. '"I think the most terrifying thing in Pol Pot’s writing," the director said, "was the outstanding mediocrity and crudeness. One realized a mind that mediocre couldn’t see the ridiculousness of his ideas. It was close to being psychotic. The other thing I detected in Pol Pot was an intense nationalism and traces of paranoia - paranoia of the West, of Vietnam, of Thailand, even of China. Pol Pot had the idea of rebuilding the ancient peasant empire of Angkor Wat. He became an expression of the terror and hysteria of a whole country just as Hitler did."'

'While Holocaust survivors have helped perpetuate the memory of Nazi infamy, the Cambodian genocide is already being forgotten. Which is part of the reason Dr. Ngor decided to play the part of Dith Pran. "When Pat Golden ask me how much money I want, I said I don’t care about salary"' he recalled. "She say $800 a week. I say I don’t care. I want to be this actor. I want to show the world how the Communists really were. If any country get into a war, people killed by gun. In Cambodia, we are killed by rice; we are killed by starvation. If I die from now on, O.K. The film will go on 100 years."'

Two "Letter to the Editor"’s ( [see below] | p01 Letters to the Editor | Sunday 1984/11/4): A HOME FOR CAMBODIA’S CHILDREN.

1984_11_04_a (Hiem Thong, in New York City | [see above] ): 'Pain and joy characterized my reaction to Gail Sheehy’s moving and remarkable article, "A Home for Cambodia’s Children" (Sept. 23 [23/9/1984]). It is painful to witness the extent of man’s potential for evil. But, with all the accounts of life under the Khmer Rouge, what emerges is hope - hope in man, in his ability to do good, in his ability to pick up destroyed pieces and to rebuild.'

1984_11_04_b (from Carol S. Chen, in Cambridge, Massachusetts | [see above] ): 'I am a student at Harvard College, and last spring I took a course that dealt with the phenomenon of genocide. People are most familiar with the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, but what happened in Cambodia is no less frightening and appalling. // One class that I will never forget was the one in which Arn Chorn came to retell probably only a small part of what had happened to him in Cambodia and how he felt about his experiences. I had nightmares that night. // Maybe someday we will learn the lessons of Cambodia and Nazi Germany. In the meantime, we need more Peter and Shirley Ponds, because, in a very real sense, we owe the Arn Chorns of our world.'

1985_10_06 (Zbigniew Brzezinski (Brzezinski was Carter’s National Security Advisor for his entire term; (background (Desktop: Click the trigger text to make this popup stick; click elsewhere to dismiss)

Wiki: he is classified in the 'realist' school of international relations, and one might consider him something like Carter’s Kissinger; he was born in Poland in 1928 to a Roman Catholic Polish family. His father, Tadeusz Brzezinski, was a Polish diplomat posted in [Nazi] Germany and the USSR in the 1930s (and later 'praised by Israel for his work helping Jews escape from the Nazis'). Tadeusz was posted in Montreal in 1938, and from there, Zbigniew lived in North America, initially working in the development of the concept of totalitarianism to characterize and criticize the Soviets. He became a US citizen in 1958. In 1959, Harvard awarded Kissinger an associate professorship over him. He joined the Council of Foreign Relations.

In 1960, he advised the JFK presidential campaign, urging non-antagonistic policy towards Eastern European governments (worried it would push them towards Moscow, especially given concerns of an aggressive Germany), predicting it would break up itself. He apparently "predicted" a Sino-Soviet split in 1962, though by then the cracks were quite wide. He supported LBJ’s 1964 campaign, as well as the Great Society, civil rights policies, and the Vietnam War (for all this, and his 'fact-finding trip to Vietnam', he became an 'enemy of the New Left'); though after appointed to the US State Department’s Policy Planning Council in 1966, he resigned in protest of the war’s expansion. He then became foreign policy advisor to VP Hubert Humphrey (and served a similar role for his 1968 Presidential campaign). The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia reinforced his criticism of an aggressive stance towards Eastern Europe. He also criticized the 'Nixon-Kissinger détente condominium' and McGovern’s pacifism.

Concerned about global instability due to increasing economic inequality, he co-founded the Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller, 'serving as director from 1973 to 1976'. The purpose was to 'strengthen relations among the three most industrially advanced regions of the capitalist world', to coordinate policy regarding the aforementioned instability. In 1974, he made Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter a member. In 1976, Carter announced his candidacy for the 1976 Presidential campaign, describing himself an "eager student" of Brzezinski. The latter became Carter’s main 'foreign policy advisor by late 1975'. He favored the Helsinki process (focused on human rights), as opposed to the Nixon-Kissinger focus on détante, favored by the USSR. He was 'considered to be the Democrats’ response to Republican Henry Kissinger'. Once president, Carter made Brzezinski the National Security Advisor. In his help writing Carter’s speeches, he tried to send a 'positive message to Soviet dissidents'; the Soviets (and Western European leaders) complained this went against the "code of détante". He even ran up against members of the Democratic Party over détante interpretation, such as Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. The latter viewed the human rights rhetoric as hindering negotations over Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT), but Brzezinski wanted to do both. Reversing Nixon-Kissinger policies, he ordered Radio Free Europe to increase the 'power and area of their broadcasts', to which West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt objected, 'even calling for the removal of Radio Free Europe from German soil'.

He believed arms control and détante emboldened the Soviets in Angola and the Mid East, and thus argued for bolstering the military and emphasizing human rights. He drew criticism from all quarters for 'seeking to revive the Cold War'. He also pushed for normalizing relations with the PRC, resulting in the US severing ties with Taiwan. In the wake of the Iranian Revolution (he urged overthrowing the new Iranian government at all costs, 'whatever the short-term costs i nterms of values') and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan ('In the West, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was considered a threat to global security and the oil supplies of the Persian Gulf', though the fears are now known as overblown), he led the US to arms buildup and developed the Rapid Deployment Forces - 'policies that are both more generally associated with Reagan's presidency now'. 'Brzezinski developed the Carter Doctrine, which committed the U.S. to use military force in defense of the Persian Gulf. In 1981 President Carter presented Brzezinski with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.' As National Security Advisor, he exercised increasing influence in the Carter Administration and its foreign relations/policy, and was in many ways comparable to Kissinger (though the relationship with Carter seems far less vile than that of Nixon-Kissinger); even 'monitor[ing] State Department cable traffic through the Situation Room'. Frequent press briefings and appearances on TV made him prominent, in a similar, if lesser, way as Kissinger under Nixon. Vance felt Brzezinski’s activities (about human rights, SALT, etc) had pushed the USSR to invade Afghanistan; Brzezinski rebuffs that the State Department refused advanced efforts to 'maintain Afghanistan’s independence'. How to respond to the Iranian revolution 'was the last straw for the disintegrating relationship between Vance and Brzezinski' (Vance was more amenable to coming to terms with the Islamic Republic). Thus, Carter 'failed to develop a coherent approach to the Iranian situation', and the failures of the rescue mission lead to Vance’s resignation.

Vis-a-vis Afghanistan, Brzezinski aimed to make their invasion as costly as possible. This included sanctions and coordinating with Pakistan to "make the Soviets bleed for as much and as long as is possible; and we engaged in that effort in a collaborative sense with the Saudis, the Egyptians, the British, the Chinese, and we started providing weapons to the Mujaheddin, from various sources again—for example, some Soviet arms from the Egyptians and the Chinese."

Normalizing relations with China, even though it required severing ties with Taiwan (which met with vociferous Republican opposition), was a top priority for Brzezinski. 'Brzezinski "denied reports that he encouraged China to support the genocidal dictator Pol Pot in Cambodia, because Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge were the enemies of communist Vietnam." However, following the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia which toppled the Khmer Rouge, Brzezinski prevailed in having the administration refuse to recognize the new Cambodian government due to its support by the Soviet Union.'

He was generally skeptical of détante and arms control, instead argued to go on the offensive with human rights rhetoric. He viewed arms control efforts as pointless, 'that competition between the two powers and the nuclear arms race would not simply end because of the accord'.

After Reagan became President (and thus Brzezinski now out of office; though Reagan invited him to stay as National Security Adviser, he declined, 'feeling that the new president needed a fresh perspective on which to build his foreign policy'), he was concerned the 'dovish McGovernite wing' of the Democratic Party would marginalize the party. He liked Reagan as an alternative to Democratic 'pacifism', but also 'criticized it as seeing foreign policy in overly black-and-white terms'. He did end up serving several positions under Reagan and Bush, ultimately breaking with the Democratic Party. Soviet responses, under Gorbachev, to places like Lithuania and Nagorno-Karabakh were 'much less violent than Brzezinski and other observers anticipated.' In the 1990s, he cautioned the US against 'post-Cold War euphoria', against 'squandering international goodwill' by interventions in the Middle East 'and that it could trigger wide resentment throughout the Arab world'. He was critical of Clinton’s hesitation to intervene in the Yugoslav wars. He was a foremost advocate of NATO expansion. He opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, that it would be a mistake, which marginalized him in Washington. He worried, and later followed up on this, that the 'War on Terror' 'had damaged the reputation of the United States "infinitely greater than any wild dreams entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks" and destroyed any chance of uniting the world to defeat extremism and terrorism'. He defended John Mearsheimer’s 2007 book "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy". He endorsed Obama in 2007. 'In September 2007 during a speech on the Iraq war, Obama introduced Brzezinski as "one of our most outstanding thinkers," but some pro-Israel commentators questioned his criticism of the Israel lobby in the United States'.

He supported NATO intervention aggainst Gaddafi in 2011. In 2012, despite some disappointments, he endorsed Obama for president. In 2014, he linked Putin’s annexation of Crimea (legally part of Ukraine) with Hitler’s occupation of the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia in 1938, though didn’t advocate the US to go to war. 'Rather, he suggested that NATO should be put on high alert and recommended "to avert miscalculations". He explicitly stated that reassurances be given to "Russia that it is not seeking to draw Ukraine into NATO."' He was reportedly "deeply troubled" by Trump’s 2016 victory. He died on May 26th 2017, at age 89. His son, Mark Brzezinski (with a similar perspective as his dad), serves as Biden’s US Ambassador to Poland. His daughter, Mika Brzezinski, is the co-host of MSNBC’s "Morning Joe". ) | P182/p02 Editorials, Letters, and Opinions | Sunday 1985/10/6): LINKING TWO CRISIS. 'To imply the possibility of some political linkage between the crises in Afghanistan and Nicaragua is not the same as to equate morally the roles that the two superpowers are playing in these crises.' He argues that while the US involvement in Nicaragua has been 'direct economic and political pressure', 'its military leverage has been both indirect and limited', in contrast with the USSR directly invading Afghanistan. 'It needs to be said directly, and over and over again, that Soviet policy in Afghanistan is the fourth greatest exercise in social holocaust of our contemporary age: It ranks only after Stalin’s multimillion massacres, Hitler’s genocide and Pol Pot’s decimation of the Cambodian people. It is, moreover, happening right now.' He notes both countries in question are geographically close 'to the respective superpowers'; both 'first welcomed the internal upheavals', 'then felt that the upheavals went sour. Each superpower fears, or professes to fear, that internal troubles within its neighbor will be exploited by the other from the outside, as part of the superpower conflict.' Thus he suggests an arrangement between the two powers vis-a-vis both of these regions, to create a 'somewhat more favorable climate for arms control talks'.

He argues the US cannot tolerate 'indefinite subjugation of Afghanistan. Indeed, the continued Soviet presence there requires intensified American aid - tangible and political - for the Afghan cause as well as a concerted effort to increase international condemnation of the Soviet aggression. Only if both the military and the international costs of that aggression become prolonged and high might the Russians reassess their current policy.' Yet he argues the US should be sensitive to Soviet concerns over 'the pro-Moscow regime in Managua'; it would be unrealistic to expect one-sided concessions. A solution covering both countries should involve '"external neutralization and internal self-determination"'. For the latter, he means 'that political arrangements within the country correspond to the freely expressed views of the population and that such arrangements be at least initially reinforced by external forces acceptable to, but not controlled by, the pertinent superpower.'

Though he is cautious... about Soviet sincerity: 'To be sure, nothing may come of this, if the Soviet Union is both determined to control Afghanistan and not particularly interested in any serious improvement of relations with the United States. But that hypothesis can be tested in action.' For the US, it would mean... a bigger role? 'That would require continued United States pressure on Nicaragua, making it evident that Washington is not prepared to accept the status quo or a reinforcement of the Soviet presence in Central America. It would also require continued support for Afghan resistance and intensified efforts to dramatize the genocidal scale of the Soviet "pacification" policies.' The main concession for the US here is that '[i]t would, however, also require a willingness to talk to the Soviet Union about both Afghanistan and Nicaragua, holding out the prospect of regional accommodations that could pave the way also to further improvement in the American-Soviet relationship. A negative Soviet response to a concrete proposal along these lines would speak loudly for itself.' Comments: the fundamental axiom in this article is that the US acts in good faith, the USSR does not.

1985_12_09 (David M. Fitzgerald, from Washington, DC (he 'served in the Navy and was one of the last Americans to leave Cambodia in 1975, is a political and public affairs consultant in Washington.') | P23/p02 Editorials, Letters, and Opinions | Monday 1985/12/9): Cambodian Refugees Seem Overlooked. 'For all the talk here about refugees in Afghanistan, Africa and elsewhere, official Washington seems to have a bureaucratic blind spot for the plight of more than 230,000 homeless refugees from Cambodia living in impoverished border refugee camps in Thailand.' Though the US 'has been a credible provider of aid', 'contributing the bulk of the $12 million to $15 million given annually to both the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the United Nations’s border relief operation.' But money isn’t the only answer for 'an emotional problem that happens to be the ill-begotten legacy of a weak-kneed Congress whose moral collapse effectively handed Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge', nor is the issue 'the recent House approval of $5 million in military aid and economic assistance for the two non-Communist factions of Cambodia’s tripartite Government.'

'Let’s keep it simple. This Administration needs to reaffirm the central role the United States must play in caring for the fate of the refugees. Since 1975, an estimated 104,000 Cambodians have found a new home here. And since 1983, all those who fled the destructive Pol Pot regime or who refuse to work with the new regime have been eligible for admission to the United States. But bureaucratic intransigence has subverted the system.' Pressure from Congress last May 'forced a review of 15,000 to 17,000 applications that had been rejected because of the refugees’ alleged association with the barbarous Khmer Rouge. Only when confronted with persuasive evidence to the contrary - sworn testimony from relatives living in the United States - was the decision reversed.' This reflects 'an official myopia' forcing 'thousands to wait indefinitely'. For some, 'the camps [in Thailand] may become their permanent home'.

'Vietnam’s last successful offensive swelled the ranks of those seeking sanctuary in Thailand. The Thais have not yet chosen to accept these tattered people as refugees, but the technical classification assigned to them - "temporarily displaced persons" - is hardly appropriate to a people who have left behind a ravaged wasteland of human bones and Communist brutality and have no obvious wish to return.' 'The sad truth' is many 'who wish to escape to a new life will be forced to return', especially if Thailand 'continue[s] to tighten the frontiers'. 'The message here becomes increasingly clear: The West, and perhaps the democratic nations of Asia as well, have tired of an issue that refuses to resolve itself conveniently.' This is sad; while we will 'join with China and other Asian nations to resist Vietnam’s ambitions in Cambodia, the real victims of Marxism are themselves ignored. When one reviews Cambodia’s tragedy, there is only room for compassion, not petty politics. If ever an issue called for bipartisan support, it is the plight of the refugees.' For those we don’t accept, 'we must intensify our efforts to provide adequate aid, especially food, shelter and medical care. They not only need our help but deserve it.' He blames 'Cambodia’s tragedy' in part on the US Congress, that its 'pusillanimity' 'forced' the US to 'abandon so ignobly a friend and ally'. 'Friendship cannot be forgotten, or moral obligations ignored. If we will not take the lead for overseeing refugee relief, who will? This summer, Americans pledged $70 million in one day to assist Africa’s famine relief. Let this spirit be an inspiration to those who have turned away from Cambodia’s people. Compassion is not a finite commodity.'

1986_3_14 (Special to the New York Times, from Washington DC | P04 | Saturday 1986/3/15): TEXT OF THE REAGAN MESSAGE TO CONGRESS ON FOREIGN POLICY - Following is the text of President Reagan's message, titled ''Freedom, Regional Security and Global Peace,'' which was sent to Congress today: ... Freedom, Regional Security and Global Peace". Reagan asserts that both 'the causes ... ' ('the painful lessons of the 1930’s, that there could be no safety in isolation from the rest of the world') '... and consequences' of WWII 'made clear to all Americans that our participation in world affairs, for the rest of the century and beyond, would have to go beyond just the protection of our national territory against direct invasion.' In other words, '[o]ur nation has responsibilities and security interests beyond our borders - in the rest of this hemisphere, in Europe, in the Pacific, in the Middle East and in other regions - that require strong, confident and consistent American leadership.' He cites US responses '[i]n the past several weeks' 'in Haiti and in the Philippines', and that '[w]e have made important proposals for peace in Central America and southern Africa.' [Note 'southern Africa' is not a reference to South Africa (ie not so much a critique of apartheid), as much as the brutal civil wars and invasions (most directly, by South Africa) inflicted on left-aligned countries such Angola, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe] 'There and elsewhere, we have acted in the belief that our peaceful and prosperous future can best be assured in a world in which other peoples too can determine their own destiny, free of coercion or tyranny from either at home or abroad.'

Though the 'prospects for such a future ... seem brighter than they have been in many years', he argues there are still obstacles, that '[w]e cannot meet our responsibilities and protect our interests without an active diplomacy backed by American economic and military power.' While cautioning not to step into 'insoluble' problems, 'we must not be half-hearted when there is a prospect of success. Wishful thinking and stop-and-go commitments will not protect America’s interests.' He argues four foreign policy goals, '[s]ustained by a strong bipartisan consensus', have been pursued since WWII to 'enhance our nation’s security': (1) defending and advancing 'democracy, freedom, and human rights', (2) 'promote prosperity and social progress through a free, open and expanding market-oriented global economy', (3) diplomacy to resolve conflicts, and (4) working to 'reduce and eventually eliminate the danger of nuclear war'.

He argues these goals 'match both our ideals and our interests', and only such could 'command the broad support of the American people'. A foreign policy that ignored the 'freedom' of 'millions around the world' would not only betray American ideals, but threaten freedom at home. Hence, the US’s stakes in the world. He argues that, in the nuclear age, anything but bringing international conflicts to 'a peaceful resolution' 'would be irresponsible', and the tensions they generate are 'in fact a major spur' to nuclear arms buildup. 'For this reason, my Administration has made plain that continuing Soviet adventurism in the developing world is inimical to global security and an obstacle to fundamental improvement of Soviet-American relations.'

'Our stake in resolving regional conflicts can be simply stated: Greater freedom for others means greater peace and security for ourselves. These goals threaten no one, but none of them can be achieved without a strong, active and engaged America.'

While arguing '[m]ost of the world’s turbulence has indigenous causes' (and shouldn’t be viewed in light of the Cold War), we should mind 'historic changes in the international environment', citing '[t]hree such realities' for American 1980’s policies. (1) 'Soviet Exploitation of Regional Conflicts', that in the 1970s, the Soviets ramped up efforts to transform 'challenge[s] to regional security' into 'Soviet expansionism'. The Soviets and their 'clients' 'supplied enormous quantities' of material to 'destabilize and overthrow vulnerable governments on nearly every continent.' 'By the 1970’s the long-proclaimed Soviet doctrine of "wars of national liberation" was for the first time backed by a global capability to project military power. The Soviets appeared to conclude that the global "correlation of forces" was shifting inexorably in their favor.' He argues the results are '[m]urderous policies in Vietnam and Cambodia produced victims on a scale unknown since the genocides of Hitler and Stalin', invasion of Afghanistan, famine and resettlement in Ethiopia, and 'factional killing' in South Yemen. 'These have been only the most horrifying consequences'. 'Other outgrowths of Soviet policies have been the colonial presence of tens of thousands of Cuban troops in Africa; the activities of terrorists trained in facilities in the Soviet bloc; and the effort to use Communist Nicaragua as a base from which to extinguish democracy in El Salvador and beyond.'

He argues 'these are not isolated events', but part of a 'disturbing pattern of Soviet conduct in the past 15 years'. Unless obstacles to the Soviets are put up, they will be 'the most important obstacle to the future spread of freedom.'

(2) 'The second reality' is the need to work with others 'toward our common goals', that is 'protect[ing] their freedom'; he cites NATO, the Marshall Plan, and US involvement in the Korean War ('to repel a Communist invasion'). 'America was an ardent champion of decolonization. We provided security assistance to help friends and allies around the world defend themselves. We extended our hand to those governments that sought to free themselves from dependence on the Soviet Union; success in such efforts - whether by Yugoslavia, Egypt, China or others - has contributed significantly to international security.' In these efforts, the US requires cooperation 'with like-minded problems', and today’s problems make such 'even more important'. In part this is 'a result of the limits on our own resources, of the steady growth in the power of our adversaries, and of the American people’s understandable reluctance to shoulder alone burdens that are properly shared with others. But most important, we want to cooperate with others because of the nature of our goals'.

(3) 'the third critical development of the past decade offers special hope: It is the democratic revolution, a trend that has significantly increased the ranks of those around the world who share America’s commitment to national independence and popular rule.' He cites recent developments in Latin America and Caribbean ('Today, over 90 percent of the population ... live under governments that are democratic - in contrast to only one-third a decade ago'), citing Argentina, Bolivia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay, and Grenada. He sees the struggle elsewhere, citing Turkey, and the rallying of SE Asian countries ('with prosperous economies, and effective increasingly democratic national governments') 'since the fall of Vietnam'. These aren’t 'accidental' trends, but reflect the 'enormous social and technological change everywhere, and one country after another is discovering that only free peoples can make the most of this change. Countries that want progress without pluralism, without freedom, are finding that it cannot be done.'

'In this global revolution, there can be no doubt where America stands. The American people believe in human rights and oppose tyranny in whatever form, whether of the left or the right. We use our influence to encourage democratic change, in careful ways that respect other countries’ traditions and political realities as well as the security threats that many of them face from external or internal forces of totalitarianism.' He says the Philippines are 'revitalizing' democracy, Haiti are about to have 'their first chance in three decades', 'Advocates of peaceful political change in South Africa are seeking an alternative to violence as well as to apartheid.'

'But the democratic resolution does not stop here. There is another, new phenomenon as well. In recent years, Soviet ambitions in the developing world have run head-on into a new form of resistance. Peoples on every continent are insisting on their right to national independence and their right to choose their government free of coercion.' He says the Soviets 'overreached in the 1970’s', when the US 'weakened itself by its internal divisions', but now find difficulty consolidating, 'in part becuase of the revival of American and Western self-confidence, but mainly because of the courageous forces of indigenous resistance.'

'Growing resistance movements now challenge Communist regimes installed or maintained by the military power of the Soviet Union and its colonial agents - in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Ethiopia and Nicaragua. We did not create this historical phenomenon, but we must not fail to respond to it. In Afghanistan, Moscow’s invasion to preserve the puppet government it installed has met stiff and growing resistance by Afghans who are fighting and dying for their country’s independence. Democratic forces in Cambodia, once all but annihilated by the Khmer Rouge, are now waging a similar battle against occupation and a puppet regime imposed by Communist Vietnam.' He references also Savimbi’s UNITA in Angola, which he says 'in recent years' has 'steadily expanded the territory under its control.' In Nicaragua, he says 'democratic resistance forces' 'have been holding their own -despite their lack of significant outside help, and despite the massive influx of the most sophisticated Soviet weaponry and thousands of Soviet, Cuban and Soviet-bloc advisers.'

'The failure of these Soviet client regimes to consolidate themselves only confirms the moral and political bankruptcy of the Leninist model. No one can be surprised by this. But it also reflects the dangerous and destabilizing international impact that even unpopular Leninist regimes can have.' He says the struggle isn’t just internal, but is also a 'menace to their neighbors'. 'Hence the threats to Pakistan and Thailand by the powerful occupying armies in Afghanistan and Cambodia. Hence the insecurity of El Salvador, Costa Rica and Honduras in the face of the Nicaraguan military buildup.' 'Soviet-style dictatorships, in short, are an almost unique threat to peace, both before and after they consolidate their rule.' The reason for 'the drive for national freedom and popular rule takes different forms in different countries, for each nation is the authentic product of a unique history and culture', such as religion in one place, or ethno-tribal reasons in another, or in another 'from the grievances of colonial rule', or 'from the failure of an alien ideology to contribute to national progress.' 'Our traditions and the traditions of those whom we help can hardly be identical. And their programs will not always match our own experience and preferences. This is to be expected. The real question is: Can our policy - of active American support - increase the likelihood of democratic outcomes? I believe it can.'

'These three realities of the 80’s -the new thrust of Soviet interventionism, the need for free nations to join together, the democratic revolution - are inseparable.' American 'commitment' is required to 'check' Soviet 'power'. Thus, 'new ways of thinking' are needed, beyond the post-Truman consensus of 'contain[ment]'. This requires (1) challenging the 'arrogant' Brezhnev Doctrine: 'the claim that Soviet gains are irreversible; that once a Soviet client begins to oppress its people and threaten its neighbors it must be allowed to oppress and threaten them forever. This claim has no moral or political validity whatsoever. Regimes that cannot live in peace with either their own people or their neighbors forfeit their legitimacy in world affairs.' (2) the US must account for the 'growing ranks of those who share our interests and values.' In 1945, the US largely shouldered the 'burden of defending freedom' alone. In the 1970’s, some Americans were pessimistic about the relevance of 'our values of democracy and freedom'. But now we know they have a 'growing appeal'. 'A world of diversity, a world in which other nations choose their own course freely, is fully consistent with our values - because we know free peoples never choose tyranny.'

'The two tools of U.S. policy without which few American interests will be secure are our own military strength and the vitality of our economy.' 'The defense forces of the United States' are needed to keep a 'stable environment' within which 'diplomacy can be effective', 'in which our friends and allies can be confident of our protection, and in which our adversaries can be deterred.' 'And our economic dynamism not only provides the resources essential to sustain our policies, but conveys a deeper message that is being better understood all the time, even by our adversaries: Free, pluralist societies work.' He argues the 'failure' to maintain the US’s military and economic power in the 1970’s lead to 'Soviet expansionism', and reviving them in the 1980’s will deny them opportunities.

'When Soviet policy succeeds in establishing a regional foothold -whether through invasion as in Afghanistan or Cambodia, or sponsorship of local Leninists as in Nicaragua - our first priority must be to bolster the security of friends most directly threatened.' Hence, increasing 'security assistance' to Pakistan, Thailand, 'and the friendly democratic states of Central America'. He also cites defending 'democratic Israel' and 'longstanding friends in the Arab world who face clear and present radical threats'. Such help 'contribute[s] to stability and peace in a vital region of the world [the Mid East].' 'Security assistance to others is a security bargain for us. We must, however, remember that states hostile to us seek the same sort of bargains at our expense. For this reason, we must be sure that the resources we commit are adequate to the job.'

'In the first half of this decade, Libyan and Iranian aid to Communist Nicaragua, for example, totaled more than three times as much as U.S. aid to the democratic opposition [an ironic statement, considering the Iran-Contra deal]. Soviet assistance to Vietnam, at nearly $2 billion annually, far outstrips U.S. support for any country save those that signed the Camp David peace accords. Soviet support for Cuba is larger still. '

'In speaking of Central America in 1982, I said that "economic disaster [ had ] provided a fresh opening to the enemies of freedom, national independence, and peaceful development."' While 'economic responses alone' are insufficient to prevent 'political exploitation', they must be part of American policy, to stabilize in short-term, and 'in the long term, sustained growth and progress by encouraging market-oriented reform.' He cites economic aid to Central America being of comparable scale to 'security assistance'. 'Over the long term, America’s most effective contribution to self-sustaining growth is not through direct aid but through helping these economies to earn their own way. The vigorous expansion of our own economy has already spurred growth throughout the Western Hemisphere, as well as elsewhere.' This all depends on 'maintaining a fair and open trading system', as opposed to protectionism, which is 'also the blow to poorer nations around the world that are struggling for democracy but vulnerable to antidemocratic subversion'.

'Some have argued that the regional wars in which the Soviet Union is embroiled provide an opportunity to "bleed" the Soviets. This is not our policy. We consider these wars dangerous to U.S.-Soviet relations and tragic for the suffering peoples directly involved.' Thus, 'military solutions are not the goal of American policy', but 'negotiate[d] political solutions'. He 'put forward a plan' to resolve conflicts 'in which Leninist regimes have made war against their own peoples', meant to 'complement diplomatic efforts already underway'. This even involves stepping up 'bilateral discussions with the Soviets', though he says they don’t negotiate in good faith. He points to diplomacy in southern Africa (vis-a-vis Angola, Namibian independence from South Africa), Central America (peace talks for Nicaragua), and in Cambodia. Here, 'we support A.S.E.A.N. - the Association of Southeast Asian Nations - in its intensive diplomatic efforts to promote Cambodian self-determination and an end to Vietnam’s brutal occupation. Support for Freedom Fighters In all these regions, the Soviet Union and its clients would of course prefer victory to compromise. That is why in Afghanistan, in Southeast Asia, in southern Africa, and in Central America, diplomatic hopes depend on whether the Soviets see that victory is excluded. In each case, resistance forces fighting against Communist tyranny deserve our support.' Though he notes that, referencing JFK, 'winning inevitably depends more on them than on any outsiders. America cannot fight everyone’s battle for freedom. But we must not deny others the chance to fight their battle themselves.'

'In some instances, American interests will be served best if we can keep the details of our help - in particular, how it is provided - out of view. The Soviets will bring enormous pressure to bear to stop outside help to resistance forces; while we can well withstand the pressure, small friends and allies may be much more vulnerable. That is why publicity for such details sometimes only exposes those whom we are trying to help, or those who are helping us, to greater danger. When this is the case, a President must be able to work with the Congress to extend needed support without publicity.' To work towards transparency then, is 'taking from our hands an important tool'. 'Other governments that find they cannot work with us on a confidential basis will often be forced not to work with us at all.'

'Nowhere is this clearer than in Central America.' 'The conditions that a growing insurgency can create - high military desertion rates, general strikes, economic shortages, infrastructural breakdowns, to name just a few -can in turn create policy fissures even within a leadership that has had no change of heart.' And he says it’s this 'opportunity' that 'the freedom fighters of the 80’s hope to seize, but it will not exist forever, either in Central America or elsewhere. When the mechanisms of repression are fully in place and consolidated, the task of countering such a regime’s policies - both internal and external - becomes incomparably harder.'

'My Administration has insisted that the issue of regional security must have a prominent place on the agenda of U.S.-Soviet relations.' He denies both the view that the US should avoid the risks of Soviet confrontation, and that the Soviets would never 'reduce their commitments to their clients'. America’s policy is 'completely different' from 'pour[ing] fuel on existing fires'. Instead, it’s aimed at keeping 'regional conflicts from spreading', thus reducing superpower confrontation risk. This is done by demonstrating to the USSR 'and its clients' 'that we will stand behind our friends. Talk alone will not accomplish this'. Hence security assistance to Pakistan, Thailand, Zaire, and 'democratic states of Central America'. He notes we have done this 'without embroiling American forces in struggles that others are ready to fight on their own'. In short, the goal is 'to convince the Soviet Union that the policies on which it embarked in the 70’s cannot work', and thinks there’s good reason to think Moscow is second-guessing its commitments. Especially so because it is undergoing a 'succession period, especially when many problems have been accumulating for some time. General Secretary Gorbachev himself made this point last year when he asked American interviewers whether it wasn’t clear that the Soviet Union required international calm to deal with its internal problems.'

The American answer is 'very simple'. 'We desire calm too', as 'do the nations now embroiled in conflict with regimes enjoying massive Soviet support. Let the Soviet Union begin to contribute to the peaceful resolution of these conflicts.'

'I have often said that the tide of the future is a freedom tide. If so, it is also a peace tide, for the surest guarantee we have of peace is national freedom and democratic government.' He says on this point we are now at a crossroads, and much hangs on American 'staying power' and commitment. 'If America stays committed, we are more likely to have democratic outcomes than totalitarian ones.' 'Important choices now rest with the Congress: whether to undercut the President at a moment when regional negotiations are under way and U.S.-Soviet diplomacy is entering a new phase; to betray those struggling against tyranny in different regions of the world, including our own neighborhood; or to join in a bipartisan national endeavor to strengthen both freedom and peace. I have no doubt which course the American people want.'

1986_10_19 (Donald S. Leventhal, in Beachwood Ohio | P389/p01 Letters to the Editor | Sunday 1986/10/19): German Doctors And the Nazi Mentality. 'The enigma of why so many healers became murderers cannot be resolved through a rational analysis of Nazi philosophy ("German Doctors and the Final Solution," by Robert Jay Lifton, Sept. 21). Rather, to understand how this particular perversion of the Hippocratic Oath occurred, one must examine the preoccupation with death that was so much a part of the Nazi mentality.' He sites the skull-and-crossbones emblems of the SS uniforms, and words like 'Volkstod (death of the people)'. He argues 'Hitler was obsessed with the image of cancerous disintegration of the body of the German race', and that 'the death of some was the means by which the German race was to be purified and saved.'

'It is all too comfortable to assure ourselves that the Nazi preoccupation with death was a rare aberration in human history. But we must note that mass murder by governments in order to assure the purity of the race or people has happened many times. The recent genocidal slaughter of millions by the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia is a case in point.'

1986_12_28 (Robert Manning | P65/p02 Book Reviews | Sunday 1986/12/28): PEACE IS HELL; Book: BROTHER ENEMY The War After the War [A History of Indochina Since the Fall of Saigon]. By Nayan Chanda (published on 1/1/1986 [so it seems an advanced copy was reviewed]).. 'ELEVEN years after victory, Vietnam lurches in the company of the world’s poorest nations, far behind its non-Communist neighbors in Southeast Asia. Its 60 million people live in conditions not much better, and in some cases worse, than prevailed during the 30 years of war. While unable to produce enough food or goods, the Hanoi Government maintains the world’s third-largest standing army (after the Soviet Union and China), and uses it to subjugate its neighboring country, Cambodia - just the way the big boys used to treat Vietnam. The successors of the legendary Ho Chi Minh have made Vietnam a pariah among nations, almost entirely dependent on parsimonious Soviet patronage and continually threatened by its ancestral enemy, China.'

The book cites comments from CPV 'leader' Truong Chinh, who 'recently took the highly unusual step of retiring after a prolonged period of self-criticism over leadership failure.' (as well as other top leaders, such as Pham Van Dong and Le Duc Tho). He cites Truong: '"Life is unstable ... Negativism has developed, traditional ethical and spiritual values are eroded and socioeconomic activities are thrown into prolonged chaos. ...". While 'brilliant' at beating 'frightful odds' in war, Chanda argues Vietnam’s leaders 'have failed miserably at coping with peace', and Laos and Cambodia have 'few if any more blessings to count'.

'Nayan Chanda, the Washington bureau chief of the Far Eastern Economic Review, has devoted 15 years to reporting about Indochina', and has 'insight' why Vietnam’s victory over the US 'is proving to be so bitter', focusing on the Vietnam-Cambodia war, detailing how China, Russia, and the US have, 'by deed or omission, endeavored to influence events in that benighted part of the world.' '"Hardly had the imperialist enemy left the scene, when age-old rivalry and suspicion surfaced."' First was Pol Pot’s 'lust' to 'liquidate Vietnamese living in Cambodia', then 'Pol Pot’s genocide against his own people'. 'And after Pol Pot’s military forays into Vietnamese territory, Vietnam stormed across the border, took the capital of Phnom Penh and installed a Government to do its bidding. After that came China’s bloody invasion to "teach Vietnam a lesson," a lesson whose essence seems to be that China could not cow its small neighbor.' Chanda makes a convincing case that China sent its forces into Vietnam with "discreet American blessing" and that Washington "quietly helped China by providing satellite intelligence."' Chanda finds this ironic, as he says a justification for US intervention in Vietnam was against ''Chinese expansionism'', '"and that the insignia of the U.S. Military Assistance Command in Vietnam (MACV) was an American sword piercing a stylized Great Wall representing China."'

There are 'several threads run[ning] through this dense volume', and 'one theme in particular takes on a special color in the light of the present furor over the role of the President’s National Security Council'; Carter’s, Brzezinski, wanted to 'build on his predecessor Henry Kissinger’s success' resuming ties with the PRC, 'by moving toward full diplomatic recognition.' But Secretary of State Cyrus Vance (and 'one of his assistant secretaries', Richard Holbrooke) favored Vietnam, in a move against Moscow. Brzezinski thought this would offend China. Per Chanda, the Brzezinski-Holbrooke feud became a 'personal self-aggrandizement contest', scheming behind backs. But Brzezinski was closer to Carter, and thus won: relations were normalized with China, not Vietnam. Vance and Holbrooke, per Chanda, "lost the bureaucratic battle to the Manichaean anti-Sovietism of Zbigniew Brzezinski."'. 'It was the Vietnamese and Cambodians, of course, who lost the most. Such are the fruits of victory in Southeast Asia.'

Two articles here ( [see below] | P11/A11 | Monday 1987/4/13):

1987_4_12_a (Special to The New York Times, from United Nations, New York City): CAMPAIGN SEEKS GENOCIDE TRIAL OF KHMER ROUGE. 'A New York-based human rights organization', the Cambodia Documentation Commission, 'has started a campaign to have the Khmer Rouge tried for genocide before the International Court of Justice.' '[l]ast week' they said that 'it believed it had assembled evidence to prove the Khmer Rouge actions were genocide as defined by the 1948 Genocide Convention drafted by the United Nations. The commission estimated that the Khmer Rouge had caused two to three million deaths.' 'The commission’s director said the group hoped to gain recognition for the Cambodians’ suffering and put pressure on the Cambodian guerrilla coalition fighting the Vietnamese-backed Government to eject and punish Khmer Rouge factions.'

'The case would mark the first ever considered by the World Court under the convention, which obligates governments to punish genocide offenders.' '"The United Nations has never recognized the Khmer Rouge human rights violations, and the Cambodians want recognition for this terrible tragedy," said the director, David Hawk. "Those who were primarily responsible for perpretrating those acts remain active in international and Cambodian life," he said. "This is an ongoing violation of the articles of the convention that require those who commit genocide to be punished." Two hundred Cambodian survivors of Khmer Rouge camps, as well as survivors of genocide campaigns in other parts of the world, attended a news conference at the New York Public Library on Tuesday announcing the campaign.' The commission includes US Representative Stephan Solarz (D) of Brooklyn; Max Kampelman (Reagan’s arms negotiator); the 'Nazi-hunter' Simon Wiesenthal, and Dith Pran, 'the New York Times photographer whose experiences in Cambodia were portrayed in the movie "The Killing Fields."'

'Under the 1948 convention, only governments can bring a genocide complaint before the World Court, and the commission this week sent letters to 70 heads of state asking them to consider pressing the case.' The article gives a brief review of the definition, and that '[i]t requires signers to punish those the Court or relevant United Nations bodies find have committed genocide.'

'If the World Court decides against the Khmer Rouge, it could also rule against the Cambodian guerrilla coalition for not punishing Khmer Rouge offenders, Mr. Hawk said.' While a Vietnamese-backed government has ruled Cambodia since 1979, the UN recognizes a 'coalition government that includes the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge, democratic factions and groups loyal to Prince Norodom Sihanouk.' 'There is no precedent for enforcing the convention, but the commission believes the case would bring diplomatic pressure on the Cambodian coalition to "get those most responsible for genocide out of their current positions, and out of the jurisdiction of democratic Kampuchea," Mr. Hawk said.' The group also sent a letter to Reagan indicating they did not 'support the Vietnamese occupation or seek to weaken opposition to it.' Also, as of this date, the US signed the Genocide Convention, the Senate had 'refused to approve it until October of last year', for fear that loopholes 'might allow other governments to intervene in United States affairs.'

1987_4_12_b (Special to The New York Times, from Bangkok, Thailand): Controversy Over Toll. 'Controversy still surrounds the human toll the Khmer Rouge took during its years in power. David P. Chandler, an American scholar of Cambodia now at Monash University in Australia, said in an interview last week that most of his colleagues settled on "about a million - up to a million and a half - regime-related deaths."' Ben Kiernan, a Chandler colleague and author of "How Pol Pot Came to Power", gives similar figures. Michael Vickery, author of 'the first contemporary history of the period, "Cambodia: 1975-1982", accepts a slightly lower figure.' 'Stephen R. Heder, a Khmer-speaking historian of Cambodia who is now on the Amnesty International staff in London, has in the past been quoted as accepting a figure of about 1 million to 1.5 million "policy-related" deaths, among them at least 100,000 executions.' On the telephone, Chandler (working on 'a history of Cambodia since 1945'), 'acknowledged that other figures had been given, ranging from hundreds of thousands to three million, but he said they often reflect political viewpoints.' He thinks Vietnam overestimated, 'while Thailand, which supports the Khmer Rouge in exile, had sought to underestimate it. Statistics on Cambodia’s population in 1975 and now are considered unreliable by most experts.' For Chandler, number arguments aren’t 'the issue'; '"The important thing," he said "is that Pol Pot was absolutely awful."'

Two letters ( [see below] | P26/p01 Letters to the Editor | Thursday 1987/6/4):

1987_5_21_a (Gregory Stanton, in Lexington Virginia ('The writer is director of the Cambodian Genocide Project at Washington and Lee University’s School of Law') | [see above] ): U.S. Impotence on the Cambodian Genocide Issue. '"Cambodia’s Unpunished Genocide," your excellent editorial of May 21, advocated a World Court proceeding against Democratic Kampuchea for genocide. A genocide trial of the Pol Pot regime is long overdue. Unfortunately, under international law the United States cannot be the nation that asks the World Court to hear the case, as you suggest.' This is because the US Senate only 'gave its consent' to the Convention 'with a crippling reservation to Article Nine, the article that grants jurisdiction to the International Court of Justice. The U.S. will not submit to World Court jurisdiction except by specific consent in each case. The U.S. also does not submit to the Court’s general "compulsory" jurisdiction.' Further, the US won’t 'complete ratification of even the other 18 articles of the convention until it deposits the instrument of ratification with the United Nations, which the Senate forbade until implementing legislation is passed by Congress. That has not been done.'

'Under the reciprocity rules of international law, because it has not accepted World Court jurisdiction under the Genocide Convention, the U.S. cannot bring suit against another nation without that nation’s consent. The Court would not be able to accept jurisdiction if the U.S. brings the case unless Democratic Kampuchea specifically consents, which is unlikely.' But the US can encourage allies to file the charges, those that accept the Convention’s Article Nine (he lists Australia, Canada, Norway, and the UK as such examples, noting they are 'especially well suited to bring the proceedings because they have had an ongoing dispute with Democratic Kampuchea since 1978, when they brought complaints about the genocide before the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. Other parties, including Israel, could also bring the proceedings.'). 'Democratic Kampuchea is bound by its adherence to Article Nine until at least 1991.'

'Since 1980, the Cambodian Genocide Project has gathered massive evidence of the genocide for a World Court trial. Since 1986, we have sought a nation to submit the case to the International Court of Justice. The first case ever brought under the Genocide Convention must not be dismissed for lack of World Court jurisdiction.' The group alleges the KR committed genocide against 'Moslem Chams, Buddhist monks, Christians, all residents of the Eastern Zone [closer to Vietnam] an dat least a million other Cambodians', and that this 'must not be forgotten'. 'The crime should be prosecuted in full accordance with international law. We hope that the World Court case will make the Genocide Convention living international law for the future.'

1987_5_21_b (Sichan Siv in New York | [see above] ): The Greater Danger. 'Your editorial, a laudable piece with great emotional quality, helps maintain awareness of an almost forgotten tragedy, but it is 10 years late and fails to discuss the greater danger of the Vietnamese occupation. In fact, the fundamental issue of Cambodia’s survival remains unaddressed.' He recalls that in 1977, Canada, Norway, the UK, the US, and the International Commission of Jurists 'started to raise the human rights issue against Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, but these efforts ran into objections by the Soviet bloc. Since 1975 Cambodian refugees have demonstrated every year, in New York, Washington and other major cities, against Khmer Rouge atrocities. Their calls have gone unheeded.' Sichan argues that only after Vietnam’s invasion and 'subsequent occupation', did 'many self-appointed Cambodia experts suddenly began to condemn Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge. Hardly anything has been said about Communist Vietnam’s new model of colonialism in Cambodia. The policy is being pursued by Vietnamese occupation forces and colonizers, which constitute about one-sixth of Cambodia’s population and are protected by extraterritoriality. This is the equivalent of having 40 million Russians in the U.S. who can steal, kill and rape without being subjected to American laws.'

'The memory of Pol Pot’s victims would be honored only if all Khmer Rouge officials involved in the genocide, including those in Vietnamese-controlled regime, were tried along with the Vietnamese colonialists. Until freedom, independence and democracy is restored to Cambodia, any other course would be a disservice to the Cambodian people and would perpetuate instability in Southeast Asia. '

1987_9_20 (William Safire | P594/p34 NYT Magazine | Sunday 1987/9/20): On Language - Long Time No See. The article opens with an account of Jewish leaders meeting with Catholic church leaders at the Vatican. Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum of the American Jewish Committee was surprised over the syntax of writing Catholic official names, ie 'Cardinal John Willebrands' vs 'John Cardinal Willebrands', referencing the 'ancient, formal style stemming from the time the nobility put the Christian name before the title, as in "William, Duke of Norfolk."' Cardinal Willebrands cheerfully replied '"[w]e don’t do that anymore"'. Safire notes that while the statement was quoted in NYT correctly ('"On Tuesday morning, the Jewish delegation met with Cardian Agostino Casaroli"'), but the accompanying article 'clung grimly to the old ways', citing it as '"This morning the Jews met with Agostino Cardinal Casaroli"'.

He notes that the AP and 'most newspapers' go with 'the new form', though a Catholic spokesman said there has been no '"formal decree"' on the topic. Safire 'personally' 'hate[s] to see the archaic usage go', though acknowledges it may 'simplify matters' for non-Catholics. Safire is also drawn to a Catholic usage of 'perfected', to imply that a 'matter is in the process of completion'. He is also interested in the terms 'state', 'demonic' and 'Shoah', the term 'used soon after after World War II to describe the attempted extermination of Europe’s Jews.' He says that '[i]n Hebrew and Yddish, churban, "destruction" - specifically, the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem - was often used to describe the death of six million.' Regarding 'holocaust' in English (from Greek) it first appeared in a 'biblical song' about Abraham’s near sacrifice of Isaac. 'In its application to the Nazi era, the capitalized word was used first in this specific sense in the title of a 1965 book of memoirs about the Warsaw ghetto by Alexander Donat, "The Holocaust Kingdom."'

'However, the word holocaust, even when capitalized to refer to the specific Nazi era, has been used to encompass more than the murder of Jews. From the casualties in our Civil War (then described as "a holocaust of lives") to the wholesale murder of gypsies in World War II to later genocide in Cambodia, the coverage of the term has not been limited to any single group; hence, Jews sought a term for their particular tragedy. Shoah, a Hebrew word, has filled that need; Claude Lanzmann used the word to title his powerful 1985 documentary, a nine-hour oral and visual history of the killing. The Catholic Church’s use of Shoah in this context in recent years shows its willingness to acknowledge the uniqueness of Jewish suffering.'

Safire next takes up 'paradigm', and discusses Jewish dismay of the Pope’s 'much-criticized pala audience' with 'Austria’s Kurt Waldheim, a member of a unit that deported Jews to their deaths.' 'These leaders held that out of evil could come good, and saw in the Pope’s use of paradigm an oblique hint at what good could follow' such dismay. Though it strikes Safire as 'stretching the word a bit, evidence of Talmudic overinterpretation, but not every brother can paradigm. That was a pun, as is the title of this piece.' [I’m not sure exactly his point here; but it’s also worth nothing something Safire doesn’t mention: that Waldheim was UNSG from 1972-1981; per Wiki, revelations of his involvement/knowledge of Nazi atrocities as a Wehrmacht officer were made while he ran for Austria’s 1986 presidential election, 'rais[ing] international controversy'] He concludes with a discussion of the 'see' in 'Holy See', coming from "seat", as in throne/seat of power. Safire seems amused.

1987_9_28 (Paul Lewis at the United Nations, New York City | P17/A17 | Tuesday 1987/9/29): Albanians and Afghans Seek to Reduce Isolation. 'Two of the world’s most isolated Communist regimes, Afghanistan and Albania, made it clear to the General Assembly today that for different reasons they are seeking to reduce their isolation.' The 'Soviet-backed Afghan Government'’s FM Abdul Wakil appealed to Pakistan, and the 'guerrilla leaders' within, to open negotations for a 'government of national reconciliation to end a war that has "ruined our national economy."' He stated that 3/4 of 'Afghanistan’s economic progress in the last 50 years has been undone by the fighting', with 2k schools, 350 bridges, and 258 factories, among other 'development projects', destroyed. He said '"radical progress"' had been in Geneva negotiations with Pakistan ('which represents the guerrillas on fixing a timetable' on Soviet withdrawl), and that the 'gap on the timetable has narrowed "to only eight months."' He seemed to 'promise further Soviet concessions'.

As yet, 'no guerrilla leader of importance has agreed even to discuss the Kabul Government’s reconciliation plan, which would create a coalition government effectively controlled by the Afghan Communist Party even after a Soviet withdrawal.' Last week, Pakistan’s PM Mohammad Khan Junejo 'called on Kabul to scrap its own proposals and work out alternatives with the guerrilla leaders'. For Albania, 'which has followed a policy of almost total isolation', FM Reis Malile 'made clear today' that they plan to 'continue the gradual thaw in relations with East and West', underway since Ramiz Alia succeeded Enver Hoxha in 1985. In a speech 'couched in generalities', he said 'Albania seeks "peace and stability" for the Balkan region', and ready for bi/multilateral talks. 'Albania, he went on, "favors the development of international relations" and will "continue to take part actively in these relations."' From any other country, the comments would be unremarkable to the UNGA. But for Albania, they 'confirm[ed] the new Government’s decision to gradually lower the almost hermetic barriers cutting off this last bastion of Stalinist Communism from the rest of the world.'

In 'another speech today', 'a member of the Cambodian coalition opposed to the Soviet-backed Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia accused Hanoi of using "genocide" and brainwashing to eliminate Cambodia’s culture and absorb the nation into a Vietnamese-led federation. "The war stirred up and sustained by the Hanoi leaders is not an ordinary war of aggression, but a war of genocide," said the Cambodian speaker, Son Sann, who is Prime Minister of a Cambodian Government-in-exile recognized by the United Nations. "The ultimate goal is an all out Vietnamization, body and soul, of Cambodia."'

1987_10_14 (Special to The New York Times, from the United Nations, New York City | P05/A05 | Thursday 1987/10/15): U.N. Demands Vietnamese Leave Cambodia. The UNGA 'overwhelmingly adopoted a resolution today that deplores the Soviet-backed Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia and demands Vietnam’s withdrawal from that nation. The resolution has been adopted annually by the Assembly since 1979. But the vote of 117 to 21 marked the largest majority ever to support the measure, despite a major effort by the Soviet Union and Vietnam to divert criticism.' This year was the first time 'Moscow and Hanoi particpated in debate on the resolution' since 1983. Vietnam also, 'in recent weeks', 'announced several diplomatic initiatives', 'including support for informal talks with factions of the Cambodian opposition and an offer to give Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the former Cambodian leader, a post in the current Cambodian Government.' This didn’t convince any country to change their view though; 'scores of speakers criticized' their '"image of flexibility"'.

'The Soviet delegate, Aleksandr Belonogov, praised what he called the "political wisdom" of nations opposed to the Vietnamese occupation and those that support talks among Cambodian factions.' '"It is our view that favorable opportunities now exist for making progress in the Kampuchean settlement."' 'But, Vietnam's Deputy Foreign Minister, Nguyen Dy Nien, criticized the resolution, saying it would "compound the stalemate" because it "fails to devise measures to insure the non-return of the genocidal Pol Pot regime."'

1988_2_21 (Rod Nordland | P347/p30 Book Review | Sunday 1988/2/21): DEATH CAMPS IN EVERY VILLAGE; Book: Haing Ngor: A Cambodian Odyssey. By Haing Ngor with Roger (published on 2/2/1988 [so it seems an advanced copy was reviewed]). 'During Cambodia’s exercise in autogenocide, the Khmer Rouge tried to exterminate or at least deliberately work to death a majority of the population. It did so systematically, at all levels of social organization: there wasn’t even much attempt to hide the carnage from the population at large. Every village had its little death camp off in a mango grove.'

'This was a body politic that methodically cut off its own head. The Khmer Rouge targeted for execution every educated Cambodian, anyone who spoke a foreign language, ex-soldiers and their relatives, even people who wore eyeglasses. The majority of the population - all those who had not lived under the Khmer Rouge’s control before it took power in 1975 - were classified as "new" people and reduced to the status of war slaves.' Such people could only survive by 'foraging for wild foods - but that was a capital crime. In the end, the Khmer Rouge began killing its own cadres in massive party purges. Finally it turned on its erstwhile patrons, the Vietnamese, and began unprovoked cross-border raids to slaughter defenseless villagers. Vietnam invaded in 1979 and brought the Khmer Rouge regime to an end. By then, one to three million had died, out of a population of six to seven million: a killing ratio unprecedented in any genocide of modern times.' [note that the raids into Vietnam were not the final action ('Finally it turned on...') of the KR regime, but something they had done since taking over]

'Why? What forces led the Khmer Rouge to massacre fellow Cambodians? It’s the same question that accounts for the enduring fascination with the Nazi Holocaust, but the Cambodian model probably makes even less sense. Some logical goal might at least make the savagery comprehensible, a cold-blooded means to an end. In the absence of that, wer’re left with the even more disturbing question of how human beings could do this to one another. Confronting their capacity for evil, we cannot help but wonder about our own.'

It’s such questions that Ngor ('the Cambodian physician who later won an Academy Award as best supporting actor for his debut performance in the film "The Killing Fields"'; he 'now' lives in LA, 'working as an actor and helping other refugees') tries to grapple with in his book 'of punishing introspection, both personal and national. At first glance, Dr. Ngor’s book might seem like a triply derivative project: a co-written autobiography (with the journalist Roger Warner) of a Cambodian doctor who played the role of a Cambodian journalist, Dith Pran, in a movie based on Sydney Schanberg’s 1980 article in The New York Times Magazine. Dr. Ngor wisely hid his eyeglasses early on, and spent years squinting myopically into the face of evil.' He was arrested and tortured three times, to confess being a doctor; denying, he survived. 'Few emerged from the Khmer Rouge’s death camps alive, so Dr. Ngor’s account is an important document in the so-far sketchy annals of the Cambodian holocaust.'

'It is far more than just that. Many detailed accounts of Khmer Rouge atrocities have emerged, and been greeted with varying degrees of skepticism. The early tales were simply disbelieved, until hundreds of thousands of the near-dead had staggered across the border into Thailand. Even since then, critics like Noam Chomsky have sought, with rhetorical gymnastics but little or no firsthand experience, to downplay the Cambodian horror as nothing but a war-induced famine, exaggerated by a biased Western press and wild-eyed refugees. No one could believe that who has listened to Cambodian refugees with an open mind; nor would any reader of this book.'

While the book is 'highly personal, he brings great scope to the subject. This is a thoughtful, well-educated man, reduced to slavery and suffering, who never fails to bring his intelligence to bear on the events around him. He has no apparent political axe to grind, and even gives the Khmer Rouge its due from time to time; like many Cambodians he initially had high hopes for the regime. "After the stench of the Lon Nol regime," he writes, "the communists seemed like a fresh, clean breeze."' Nordland says Ngor’s 'honesty' is 'what really gives this account its credibility'; it seems he measures honesty with the pain inflicted on the reader. 'Like all holocaust survivors, he carries the guilt of the living', and this 'permeates his memoir'. He left behind a patient in Phnom Penh; didn’t speak up when KR medics 'inject an infant with what he knows is a fatal dosage of the wrong medicine.' He can 'only stand by silenty' as his father is led to 'his death for stealing food'. 'Nothing is more haunting, though, than his own version of "Sophie’s Choice." It is a choice even more harrowing, but better left unrevealed here, because it is such a climactic moment in the book.'

Nordland says a 'lesser man would have remembered such scenes to better personal advantage, at least in public'. But Ngor faces it honestly, and 'never excuses himself'; the 'more perfect man probably would not have survived. The tormentors were implacable toward their war slaves, often quoting an aphorism of the Khmer Rouge leaders: "If he lives there is no gain . . . if he dies there is no loss."' [this quote was also given by refugee testimony in one of above articles; though it seems I didn’t write it down here]

'Many contributed to creating the Khmer Rouge, but none alone is the Dr. Frankenstein. The whole greatly exceeded in horror the sum of its parts.' Was it 'something in the Cambodian character itself', despite appearing 'gentle on the surface, yet seething beneath with what he describes as kum, a bloodthirsty yearning for vengeance?' He succumbed to kum himself when 'liberation [was] at hand', 'helping to kill an accused Khmer Rouge cadre'. '"I had not learned about pain without wanting to inflict it," Dr. Ngor says. "I had not endured torture without wanting revenge."'

'In the end, Dr. Ngor doesn’t pretend to fully understand. Perhaps some who read this book will feel they do. For most, though, the face of evil will remain as blank as the stare of a patrolling shark: the sort of expression to be seen today on the faces of the Khmer Rouge soldiers still fighting in Cambodia. We have only begun to learn about what happened there. It’s hard to imagine a better teacher than this sad and remarkable Cambodian physician, in a book that is itself an act of courage.'

1988_3_27 (F. Gonzalez-Crussi ('a pathologist at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago' and 'author of "Notes of an Anatomist," among other books') | P66/p01 Book Review | Sunday 1988/3/27): THE DANGEROUS MARQUIS DE SADE Author: Donatien Alphonse Francois, the Marquis de Sade (Desktop: Click the trigger text to make this popup stick; click elsewhere to dismiss)

Wiki: Marquis de Sade was an 18th century French author, 'writer, libertine, political activist and nobleman best known for his libertine novels and imprisonment for sex crimes, blasphemy and pornography.' Most works appeared anonymously or posthumously. In the Seven Years’ War, he was an officer, but a 'series of sex scandals' put him in 'various prisons and insane asylums for most of his adult life', and he wrote much work in his 1777-1790 prison term, smuggled out by his wife. Released by the French Revolution, he 'pursued a literary career and became politically active, first as a constitutional monarchist then as a radical republican'. In the French Reign of Terror, he was 'imprisoned for moderatism and narrowly escaped the guillotine. He was re-arrested in 1801 for his pornographic novels and was eventually incarcerated in the Charenton insane asylum where he died in 1814. ' The word "sadism" derives from his work. 'There is debate over the extent to which Sade’s behavior was criminal and sadistic'. There has been increased interest in him in the 20th century, as a 'precursor to Nietzsche, Freud, surrealism, totalitarianism, and anarchism.' Some are critical of this and worry about his influence and affect to 'women, the young and "unformed minds"'. Note: The article was Adapted from the chapter "The Divine Marquis" in "On the Nature of Things Erotic" by F. Gonzalez-Crussi, to be published next month by Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich..

'My wife is neither prudish nor anti-intellectual. Nevertheless, upon reading one of the works of the Marquis de Sade, she reacted in a way that has come to be regarded as typical of the complacent bourgeois mentality: without saying a word, and having gone through about one-third of the book, she flung the slim volume into the trash can and went straight to the bookshelves to look for a substitute - the apposite word might be antidote - for her interrupted reading.' This surprised Gonzalez-Crussi, since 'Sade and his work have remained a constant and worldwide preoccupation among intellectuals for about two centuries. Theologians have been enraged and psychiatrists have been intrigued; and even political scientists have been tickled, for some have culled examples of the class struggle from the vivid descriptions of victimization that are owed to the poisonous pen of the Marquis'. He admired him simply for so 'incens[ing] his readers'. For him, successful writing is 'extend[ing] a bridge between two human hearts', and would prefer outrage (and 'thrown into the trash can') than to be 'politely relegated ... to the shelves of infinite boredom'.

She had been reading "Justine", the theme of which, '"the misfortunes of virtue" is well known'. In the story, a virtuous girl is 'made the butt of every conceivable infamy and abuse in a series of episodes painted with brilliance and imagination'; he recounts some lurid examples. 'What are we to make of this'? 'The least sophisticated reader promptly realizes that this literature cannot be read like any other. For one thing, the plot is wholly irrelevant', 'impossible', 'we come to understand why the Surrealists claimed this nightmarish, hallucinating narrator as their precursor and prophet.' 'Centuries of literary tradition had accustomed readers to consider the writer’s art as "mirror to nature." The writer holds his mirror to an external reality, and this independent world reflects itself on the polished surface. The reader gazes into it and passes a judgment on the degree of concordance between his own perception of reality and what he sees reflected in the mirror.' But Sade’s 'unreflecting contraption' 'cannot [be] call[ed] a mirror'. '[W]e are ready to dismiss it as a useless gadget when, suddenly, the surface is teeming with images: truculent, grotesque, hurtful, arresting and lively', 'shoot[ing] them up' 'like a film projector'. 'Each image is, therefore, already a digested concept, a second-order idea, a symbol.' Jutine isn’t the person depicted, but 'a symbol of Sade’s bold contention that all our noble impulses are a hoax, and cruelty the only abiding reality of the human condition.'

'The life of the Apostle of Evil [Sade] is itself a novel'. He reviews this. He marries on May 17 1763, to 'the daughter of a wealthy magistrate, a member of the petite noblesse, Renee-Pelagie de Montreuil. 'And four months after this marriage (he is 23 years old) we find him incarcerated in the prison of Vincennes. The charges: outrage to public morals, blasphemy and profanation of the image of Christ. In spite of his influential position he cannot avoid spending two weeks in prison. For the next four years he leads a dissolute life, keeping several courtesans and at one time even contriving to pass one of them off as his legally wedded wife. No major scandal, however. Then comes the famous affaire Keller.' 'On Easter Snday, April 3, 1768, at 9 o’clock in the morning', 28, stylishly dressed and 'under the shadow of a statue of Louis XIV', he sees a 'young woman who seems to be a beggar', Rose Keller, 'a German immigrant, 36 years old, the widow of a baker, struggling to eke out a living in prerevolutionary Paris, reduced to beggary.' He promises her 'one écu [Wiki: a French coin, likely gold; in English, 'the écu was often referred to as the [French] crown'] if she agrees to follow him'. She is unsure, saying she is 'an honest woman', but he reassures he just needs 'a domestic'. She eventually accepts, climbs into the Marquis’ carriage. 'And the two are off to Arcueil, a neighboring town where the nobleman has a country residence, much frequented by those who cater to his bizarre sexual preferences.'

She is brought 'upstairs to his bedroom', per their discussion of where 'her services would be most needed'. He leaves and locks the room; sometime after, he returns, and orders Rose to follow. Though afternoon, the windows are closed with 'wooden sashes', and the place is as 'dark and silent as if it were late at night'. Per Rose’s 'declaration to the police', once at the new room, he orders her to strip. She balks, he draws a knife; she yields, and he ends up tying her limbs to bed posts, and then 'torture[s]' her [is something more implied?]. After, he applies oil to her wounds, and tells her to clean bloodstains off her clothes, leaves, and locks the door. She then pries a window open, and uses bedsheets and clothing to make a rope to reach the ground. Encountering some village women, who are 'startled at her unkempt, disheveled condition and her bloody gown', she tearfully explains. They take her to 'the shed of a farmouse, where the women lift her skirts to see for themselves. That man is a monster! A demon!' They take Rose to 'the authorities for deposition', resulting in an 'order of arrest', and Sade is 'behind bars again' in June 1768, remaining there for about a year. Typically, ' a powerful and influential nobleman of Sade’s rank could and often did get away with murder in those times'. 'Historians conclude ... that powerful parties had decided to "contain" Sade’s misconduct, and members of his own family had agreed. Be that as it may, the stray sheep is strictly confined, in the merciless manner that was customary at the time.'

Little is heard from him til 1772, when he has his 'famous affaire of Marseilles', which has 'massive' 'documentation', when he is in his 'early 30’s'. He leaves his Provence homestead for Marseilles for 'some cash' 'about the middle of June'. He sends his servant to scour places of 'ill fame' for 'appropriate female bodies'; Sade wants them '"very young"'. On the morning of June 27, 'Sade and his servant enter the domicile of Mariette Borelly, a 23-year-old madam', where three young women (18-20 years old) are waiting. What happens after is 'a matter of historical record', but overall, 'great inventiveness was displayed'. ' Sade disported himself, as usual, as an enthusiastic stage manager: he directed the twosomes and threesomes into striking scenes of sodomization, homosexuality, mutual flagellation and - to break the monotony, as it were - "normal" heterosexual activity.' He, 'displayed all the gallantry and all the delicacy of manners that a man of his high station, bred in the ways of the most refined court in the world', rewards the women 'with liberality and tried to win their unreserved acceptance, having brought with him a crystal box of exquisite workmanship filled with chocolates'. He visits another 'house of ill fame' later in the evening, leaving with 'the crystal chocolate box' 'totally empty'.

In the 'official investigation that followed, it was established that' one of the woemn had sudden terrible stomach and urinary problems; vomiting and pains. Another victim, 'pale and week', was 'brought to police headquarters' the 'next day', shouldered by 'two friends' and with several residents of the Street. '[W]ith seven other witnesses', she said 'an attempt at poisoning was traceable to the chocolates that "a foreigner" had liberally distributed among the women'. Thus, the 'legal machinery is once again activated against the infamous Marquis', and he flees 'from his castle toward Italy'. The 'crown continues the legal proceedings in his absence. The two felons, Sade and Latour, are declared ''contumax et defaillants'' - contumacious ['(especially of a defendant's behavior) stubbornly or willfully disobedient to authority.'] and in contempt of court', as well as guilty of sodomy (a serious charge then), attempted poisoning, and 'outrage to the country’s morals', and 'condemned to perform an act of public atonement in front of the door of the cathedral, then to be transported to the gallows'. Not in France, however, they are touring Italy with style and honors, due to 'his high position in the social scale.' '[A]ll historians agree' on 'these highlights' of his life. 'But it is also established that the ''monster'' had no intention to kill. Behaving like the utterly irresponsible aristocrat that he was, he simply added childish touches to his grown-up misdeeds', the '"poison"' in question was 'easily available and commonly used as an aphrodisiac'. When Sade returned to France, he was put in jail, though his life spared 'through the intercession of friends'. But now things 'became the harsh, merciless repression by a society that senses a threat to its integrity in the freedom of this man'; 'Every new society constituted in France during the time of its most radical transformations found good reasons to lock him up', the Old Regime, the Republic, the Terror, the Consulate, and the Empire. Whenever free, he 'furiously attacked all conventions', while increasingly his body immobilized ('which he bitterly complained about toward the end of his life') and became 'ponderously fat'.

Then came Bonaparte. 'The Great Corsican’s legions are razing the old monarchies and spreading the light of freedom; a new dawn shines. In a fit of enthusiasm for the new order, Sade sends the Emperor an autographed copy of his most recent work. New disappointment. Outraged at the boldness of the descriptions, the undisguised sexual frenzies and the disregard of all moral precepts, the Emperor orders Sade interned in an asylum for the insane.' Even today, the author concedes, we would 'find, no doubt, valid reasons to put him behind bars. And I do not mean his sexual deviancy', to which we 'have grown tolerant' and even 'more enlightened', even (mostly) regarding '[s]exual sadism and ... masochism'. He notes that 'we like to think' of the 18th century as 'the Age of Reason'; and Sade’s pages are full of such 'truly noble paragraphs of 18th-century prose ... arrayed in support of his argumentation [to convince people to do ill]'. His writings’ victims, such as Justine, try to 'invoke the terrible pains of remorse to dissuade evildoers'. But they reply, more or less, to '[g]et used to evil, and remorse will vanish'; if you feel bad for one crime, do many more.

He considers if we could 'bring back some of Sade’s contemporaries', such as Rousseau, who would 'still thrill us', though he doubts 'that anyone would take him seriously as the political scientist, sociologist and philosopher that he fancied he was'. Or Diderot, '"the father of witty conversation"', 'might make it big on the lecture circuit, but academicians would spurn him for losing time in trifles'. 'Dr. Johnson would have some following, but I am afraid he would not reach a mass audience. Television would be out of the question for the good doctor,' crowded out by romance, sex, drugs, and 'shoulder-shrugging'. 'Voltaire, of course, could do anything. He would thrill us and instruct us and amuse us. The problem is, overly preoccupied with the church, he would continue thundering about irrationality in Christian doctrine, and critics would ask why such a genius insists on wasting his talents on topics that are no longer "relevant."'

'Sade alone would terrify. For Sade alone would stand apart from all these great men, and in the isolation of his cell (for, surely, we would imprison him) would continue distilling the nihilistic tenets of a philosophy whose central tenet simply says Le prochain ne m’est rien - the brotherhood of man means nothing to me. "Man is alone in the world. All creatures are born in isolation, and without any need for each other," he insisted. The only possible relationship Sade admits is that of crime, or of carnal concupiscence.' Though today, '[t]wo centuries after Sade', we affirm to ourselves there is a 'larger plan that integrates all people into the universal community and rules, or ought to rule, their behavior'. But 'we have behaved as if such a link did not really exist'. 'We have stood indifferent to genocide in Germany, while it occurred, and to mass extermination in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, to name only a few recent hecatombs. It is worthy of note that while the carnage was going on, we felt, in all candor, quite at ease. The record will show that the entire world looked on with utter indifference at horrifying deeds and that millions in Vancouver, Beijing or Australia lose no sleep over thousands upon thousands of killings in Central America. Everyone knows it. For, tell me, how could one live if one were deeply troubled by these things? ("Don’t you see, Justine? Men are not disturbed for doing what they do by habit.") In other words, millions of men die unjustly, at the hands of other men, all the time. And our response to this is: "I know it, and that is quite sufficient. Enough said; spare me the gory details." But suppose someone were rash enough to persist. Assume a man were to be found who kept describing, denoting, copying, with lifelong, obsessive insistence, all the details and horrors of all crimes. Woe to him! An entire society, bristling with indignation, would crush this hideous violator of its accepted standards.'

'Who knows, if the pestilent descriptions were to fall into unprepared hands - why, the young might be induced to raping, or thieving, or killing! Worded differently, all the outrage that slumbered during the actual performance of wholesale atrocity is suddenly awake, and ready to punish the man who, by being too spirited and imaginative a portraitist, might misguide the incautious. Would we not punish such a man, just as his countrymen did? It would feel so good to avenge a single rape after having stood indifferent to the sacrifice of millions!' 'Sade, of course, went too far. Not only did he dare to shake the complacency of society, but he made of it a profession of faith. Not only was he the denotator of crime in its infinite morphologies, but he built a system with his denotations. He dared to maintain that the fundamental relationship between human beings is not one subordinate to a higher, supra-individual value, but purely and simply this one: violence and cruelty. "The merit of Sade," wrote Simone de Beauvoir, "is not only to have cried loudly what all confess shamefully to themselves: it is to have taken sides. Instead of indifference, he chose cruelty. And this is why he finds so many echoes today, when the individual is aware of being the victim not so much of the malice of men as of their good conscience."'

1988_5_23 (Larry Pressler | P19/p02 Editorials, Letters, and Opinions | Monday 1988/5/23): We Can’t Isolate Vietnam Forever. 'Following a visit to Vietnam last month, I concluded that more than 13 years after the last American helicopters left Saigon, the United States should consider ending its isolation of Vietnam. For the first time, Congress seems ready to review American policy there. United States policy has remained virtually unchanged since April 30, 1975, when we closed our embassy and evacuated the last American personnel. Since then we have sought to keep Vietnam diplomatically isolated while denying aid and imposing a trade embargo. In 1978, after Vietnam invaded Cambodia, we escalated our policy to oppose diplomatic recognition until Vietnam withdrew from Cambodia and until it fully cooperated in resolving cases of Americans missing in action.' But could these objectives be easier achieved via 'regular official contacts', 'and if it made known its readiness to respond to urgent humanitarian needs through such established programs as Food for Peace'? In the 'Moscow summit meeting next week', the White House should include Vietnam/Cambodia on 'the agenda'. It would 'benefit from the kind of "realistic engagement" by the US that, he argues, helped to reach agreement on Soviet withdrawl from Afghanistan. Currently, 'we are leaving the Soviet Union a clear field in Vietnam'; on his visit, he saw 'Soviet personnel in many places', 'staying at and using facilities previously used by the United States, most importantly the former United States naval base and the harbor at Cam Ranh Bay. Soviet economic and military assistance to Vietnam, one of the poorest countries in the world, is estimated at some $1.6 billion annually. Nonetheless, the Vietnamese are disatisfied with Soviet involvement in their country.'

As it is, the Vietnamese have 'only one option'; the US should instead 'actively seek a dialogue' to work out their withdrawl from Cambodia, with Afghanistan as a model, 'and our role as a guarantor', exemplifying how the US can contribute to such. The US policy to Vietnam intends to isolate it; but this also isolates us from 'a country in which we have a lasting interest.' Pressler 'served as an Army lieutenant in Vietnam in 1967 and 1968'. 'Since my return visit', he heard from other vets eager to 'renew their ties to that country', some looking for children fathered there 'with Vietnamese mothers, others for friends', 'many of whom were locked up for years in harsh "re-education camps"', most of such prisoners though 'have been released, but they are not yet free to leave Vietnam for reunion with family and friends' in the US. Others are concerned about the MIA 'issue', and want a 'first-hand look' to 'help resolve lingering questions'. Other vets simply said they 'want to go back to see where they served'. 'All this demonstrates the almost forgotten bond the United States has with Vietnam. Nearly three million Americans served there during our 15 year involvement. In the years since the war, close to a million Vietnamese and their families have come to the United States'. A Vietnamese-American accompanied Pressler on his journey, reuniting with his 'aging mother in Hanoi' and 'other relatives in Ho Chi Minh City', a powerful sight that showed 'the powerful attraction that family ties have for the Vietnamese, as they do for us.'

The 'Vietnamese appear ready to welcome Americans', for many reasons. One Vietnamese Pressler spoke to said 'his country has been "occupied" in this century, as he put it, by the French, the Japanese, the Americans and the Russians. "And the Americans are the ones we want back," he said. Probably the Americans’ reputation for generosity to former enemies is part of the reason, but I believe it goes deeper. I sensed an enduring interest in American life and culture and economic techniques among many of the Vietnamese with whom we met.'

The US couldn’t have played its 'active role' vis-a-vis the Afghanistan agreement, without 'engaging in continuing dialogue' with the USSR. 'Likewise in Indochina', the US, China, and 'our allies in the' ASEAN 'have a vital role to play in bring about a settlement in Cambodia and in guaranteeing its security against encroachments by the genocidal Khmer Rouge. It is not enough to preach about withdrawal to the Vietnamese. We need to shoulder some share of responsibility in a region where the United States presence just 15 years ago was a central factor. Our policy of isolation has reached the point of diminishing returns. The Moscow summit meeting would be a good opportunity for America to begin a new approach toward Vietnam.'

1988_8_14 (James Markham | P01/The Week in Review | Sunday 1988/8/14): Some Paths Are No Longer Blocked; Battle Fatigue: Some Wars Are Failing the Cost-Benefits Test. He opens by observing the Iran-Iraq 'sputtering last week to a stalemated conclusion', and reflecting on the 'carnage [that] left perhaps one million dead', transforming the Iraqi military into a 'battle-hardened machine' that used chemical warfare on a 'scale not witnessed since' WWI. It ended more for exhaustion of both sides; 'the Iranian revolution is showing the first symptoms of ideological fatique'. He argues '[i]f peace seemed to be spreading around the globe last week, it was in part because the United States and the Soviet Union have resolved to put a higher priority on their bilateral ties than on seeking marginal advantages in third world conflicts'. Gorbachev wants to prioritize 'economic revival at home' over foreign wars, such as Afghanistan, and 'last week initiated its withdrawal from Kabul, which is now increasingly prey to bombardment by the Afghan guerrillas'. It also seems likely Vietnam will soon withdraw from Cambodia, permitting Sihanouk’s return. 'The Vietnamese, like the Russians, have learned that occupation is expensive, particularly since their own paymasters in Moscow have become reluctant to foot the bill'. Similar considerations affect Angola, where not only is the USSR rethinking, but so is South Africa - the latter especially with respect to Namibia.

The UN is also gaining legitimation amidst this '[w]ar fatigue', 'which had long been treated with aloofness by Moscow and with contempt by American conservatives.'. Gorbachev is now paying $159m in arrears for its peacekeeping contribution, and the US ('which owes about $467 million in back dues and $70 million for existing peacekeeping activities') 'would come up with the $15 million or so that it expects to be asked to pay for monitoring the ceasefire in the gulf'. Where the will for UN peacekeeping is lacking (perhaps he suspects, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iran-Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Central America), 'conflicts rage or simmer'.

He worries about conflict in the wake of Soviet withdrawl from Afghanistan. Regarding Indochina: 'And, while ending a foreign occupation is a laudable goal, it is sometimes forgotten that the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1979 halted the genocidal reign of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, who may have killed two million of their own people. The Khmer Rouge are the strongest of the anti-Vietnamese resistance groups - and hardly enthusiasts for the free elections that Prince Sihanouk would like to see take place after a Vietnamese withdrawal.' Overall, Markham doesn’t see a peaceful world on the horizon.

1988_10_08 (Editorial staff | P26/p01 Editorials, Letters, and Opinions | Saturday 1988/10/8): Never Again the Khmer Rouge. 'Cambodia’s paramount problem long seemed to be Vietnamese occupation. Now, with Vietnam seemingly ready to leave, the focus shifts to what might rush into the vacuum: the same fanatical Khmer Rouge that, under Pol Pot, terrorized Cambodia from 1975 until Vietnam’s 1978 invasion. Washington has rightly moved to bolster moderate factions, while Moscow and Beijing, patrons of Cambodia’s two tormentors, have begun to back off their opposing stands. Hard work remains, but the sense of possibility is unmistakable.' Vietnam says 50k soldiers will be out by year’s end, and the remaining 70k by 1990. THe promise is 'more credible now' since Moscow is less keen on funding it, and thus, the PRC is 'willing to move toward the summitry that Moscow has sought'. The author fears the main consequence of withdrawal though will be a 'Khmer Rouge coup'; they have 40k troops, far more than the 'two non-Communist factions' in its alliance; this alliance is supposed to rule in coalition with the 'Vietnamese-installed Government'.

'China’s evolving change in position needs encouragement. But merely containing the Khmer Rouge in this way will hardly do. Pol Pot and his beastly henchmen have never been called to account for the terrors they visited on Cambodia. Indeed, along with their coalition partners, they continue to represent Cambodia in the U.N.' Now even Sihanouk says 'an empty U.N. seat' is better than one that includes the KR, 'which he accuses of attacking his own troops'. 'This year 12 Nobel laureates called for unseating the coalition, a call that deserves support in the upcoming U.N. debate. And the U.S. could go further. It could invoke the U.N. convention on genocide and ask the World Court to determine the truth about this dark period.' 'Meanwhile, Congress appears likely to endorse President Reagan’s request for increased aid to the Khmer Rouge’s two coalition partners. That’s as it should be. The first responsibility now for those who have backed the resistance is to save Cambodia from another round of the Khmer Rouge.'

1988_10_21 (Clifford D. Conner, in New York City, New York | P22/p01 Letters to the Editor | Tuesday 1988/11/8): Vietnam Rescued Cambodians From Genocide. 'Of all the illogic in present-day public discourse, the most stunning example concerns the Vietnamese role in Cambodia. In "New Killing Fields?" (Op-Ed, Oct. 17), Lionel A. Rosenblatt reminds us of the horrors the Khmer Rouge inflicted upon the Cambodian people and warns us of the real danger of that murderous gang’s return (with or without Pol Pot). But he adds, as a virtually self-evident proposition that this "does not mean we should ease pressure on the Vietnamese to end their occupation of Cambodia."'

'The constant unexamined assumption is that somehow the Vietnamese are co-villains in the Cambodian tragedy; that their presence in that country should be deplored. Yet it was the Vietnamese - and they alone - who drove Pol Pot’s regime out of Cambodia and put an end to genocide.'

'Furthermore, Vietnamese troops have been the only effective obstacle to the Khmer Rouge’s return. Meanwhile, our Government consistently pushed in the opposite direction, demanding that the Vietnamese withdraw and paying for the coalition in which the Khmer Rouge is the dominant partner. Fortunately for Cambodians, the Vietnamese have stood their ground and not allowed the killing fields to reappear.'

'The Vietnamese should be remembered as the liberators of Cambodia. They ought to be applauded, and not assailed, for the job that they have done.'

1988_12_19 (Steven Erlanger in Samach, Cambodia | P03/A03 | Tuesday 1988/12/20): Hanoi Steps Up Its Cambodia Pullout. Vietnam and the pro-Vietnam Hun Sen govt of Cambodia went to great lengths inviting ~200 press members to witness the withdrawl of 18k troops at this [Samach] 'border post today'. 'In separate celebrations and speeches here and in Kompong Cham city, the provincial capital, Cambodian officials expressed gratitude to Vietnamese commanders for liberating the Cambodian people from what is invariably called "the genocidal regime" of the Khmer Rouge.' '"We will always keep in our heart the noble sacrifice of our comrades and their families for the Cambodian revolution," Mr. Hun Neng ['party secretary of Kompong Cham Province' and 'elder brother of Mr. Hun Sen'] said. "You helped us to gain freedom and real happiness."'

During the 1980s, 'Vietnam has been largely isolated by countries outside the Soviet bloc for its 1978 invasion. An American-led embargo on aid to and trade with Hanoi, though somewhat porous, has hurt, and economic difficulties at home apparently countributed to Hanoi’s decision to withdraw entirely by the first quarter of 1990.' After this week, Vietnam says 50k troops will remain (down from 200k), tho the West thinks really 70k-85k will remain. The Hun Sen govt has also struggled 'securing international recognition', despite stressing his qualities against the prior KR govt. 'The diplomatic challenge is to structure an interim government that would include the Khmer Rouge, the followers of Prince Norodom Sihanouk and those of former Prime Minister Son Sann, all of whom have fought against Mr. Hun Sen, without allowing the Khmer Rouge to return to power.'

One Lieutenant Coloenl, Van Tien Hong, had been in Cambodia twice, both for three years: during the American war, and after the 1978 invasion, though expected to return only '"as a tourist"'. 'He said the Khmer Rouge guerrillas are good fighters and are well-equipped with mostly Chinese weaponry. "But the Vietnamese soldier will fight better than the Khmer Rouge," he said. "We’re better at basics."' There is 'nervousness' about how Hun Sen’s soldiers will hold up though, who 'Western diplomats' estimate has 44k troops; Hun Sen said 'last week at a news conference' he will rely 'heavily on militia to hold off' the KR. 'There are reports that the Khmer Rouge blew up the railroad line from Battambang in the northwest to Phnom Penh four days ago. The reports could not be confirmed.'

1989_1_29 (Richard J. Evans (he 'is the author of "Death in Hamburg" and the forthcoming "Out of the Shadow of Hitler: West German Historians and the Attempt to Escape From the Nazi Past."') | P89/p28 Book Review | Sunday 1989/1/29): A 'NORMAL' ACT OF GENOCIDE?; Book: THE UNMASTERABLE PAST History, Holocaust, and German National Identity. By Charles S. Maier (published on 9/11/1988). He opens with a discussion of what we call the Historikerstreit, a debate between right- and left-wing West German historians about Hitler. The right-wingers want to 'stop feeling guilty', and 'recognize the part played by Hitler’s armies on the Eastern Front in defending Western civilization against Stalinist Communism', some even arguing that the invasion was 'preventative'. The central such figure is Ernst Nolte. He has claimed that the 'mass murder of millions of Jews by the Nazis at Auschwitz and elsewhere was not a unique event', instead a '"normal" 20th-century act of genocide, comparable to Pol Pot’s' or the 'massacre of Armenians by the Turks in 1915'. He has also 'claimed that Nazi extermination was a reaction to the international Communist threat to wipe out the German -and the European - bourgeoisie. Auschwitz, in his view, was both a copy of Stalin’s Gulag Archipelago and a pre-emptive defense against the perceived Communist threat to Central Europe. The implication is that Germans need feel no exceptional guilt about the Nazi past.'

These have been widely criticized/condemned, in 'West Germany and internationally'. Apparently the reviewed book is the 'first book-length contribution to the debate to appear in English', arguing against Nolte et al. He 'demonstrates how flimsy is the evidence on which their views rest'. The Nazi invasion of the USSR wasn’t preventative, but ideologically barbaric, and 'fighting for Hitler, not for Western Civilization'. '[H]is most effective passages' argue against 'Nolte’s attempt to deny the uniqueness of Auschwitz.' He convincingly argues he isn’t making proper 'historical comparison' ('weighing what was similar, in order to isolate what was different'), but is more 'concerned to obscure the differences'. 'Stalin’s terror was arbitrary; Nazism’s was not. Unlike a German or European Jew, "no Soviet citizen had to expect that deportation or death must be so inevitable by virtue of ethnic origins"'. '"Nowhere else but in German-occupied Europe from 1941 to 1945 was there an apparatus so single-mindedly established to carry out mass murder as a process in its own right." The Nazis did not borrow these methods from the Russians. Nor, in this sense, was there any international Communist threat to "exterminate" the European bourgeoisie. There was no Soviet Treblinka, built to murder on arrival. It was its determination to achieve the total extinction of a whole people without exception that made Nazism unique.'

While countering the 'German neoconservatives', 'the main effort' is to 'situat[e] their views, and those of their opponents, notably the social theorist Jurgen Habermas, in their intellectual context. Mr. Maier does this very well'. He draws attention to the 'relation of the debate to the emergence of post-modernist historiography', which Evans finds insightful. Though he finds 'this procedure lifts the debate out of the actual, concrete questions of the historical fact and interpretation on which so much of it centers'. He thinks that Maier gives the debate too much 'intellectual dignity' than it 'deserve[s]'; rather, it’s 'really about a crude and intellectually none-too-coherent attempt at exculpation'. For example, in Nolte’s "The European Civil War", he 'hints' the Holocaust 'was justified'; that deniers 'deserve to be taken seriously'; this doesn’t deserve to be elevated.

He also thinks Maier used too much a 'high mandarin style of writing', too ivory-tower, multi-lingual, read-in-philosophy (while spelling some German wrong, and 'getting his Latin grammar wrong in one instance'). While these are 'minor blemishes', 'they make the reader wonder whether Mr. Maier is right to present the debate in such highly academic terms. In reality something elementary is at stake, namely the truth. Most present-day Germans should not feel directly guilty for the crimes of Nazism. But all present-day Germans bear a heavy historical responsibility for them. Only by accepting this openly and engaging in an honest confrontation with the past can they hope to build a true sense of national dignity in the future.'

TIME: 1989_2_06 (Strobe Talbott | P40/p03 World | Monday 1989/2/6): America Abroad: Defanging the Beast. 'The consequences of U.S. intervention in Kampuchea have made a mockery of American intentions before, and they could do so again'. Talbott asserts the rise of the KR was 'partly a result' of US policy '20 years ago', Nixon’s secret bombings etc, creating 'chaos in which the Khmer Rouge thrived. In 1975 Pol Pot seized power and unleashed a holocaust.' 'Four years and nearly 2 million deaths later, the Vietnamese invaded and installed their own regime in Phnom Penh', and for most of the world, this 'mattered more' than KR atrocities, as it meant expanding Soviet influence.

'The Khmer Rouge, whom the arch-moralist Jimmy Carter called “the worst %[??] violators of human rights in the world,” became an instrument to drive the Vietnamese out of Kampuchea. “I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot,” recalled Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s National Security Adviser, in 1981. “Pol Pot was an abomination. We could never support him. But China could.” The U.S., he added, “winked semipublicly” as the Chinese funneled arms to the Khmer Rouge, using Thailand as a conduit. Throughout the Reagan Administration, the Khmer Rouge have been part of a loose and unholy alliance of anti-Vietnamese guerrilla groups that the U.S. helped create. Pol Pot has lurked in the shadows of the Reagan Doctrine.' Since Vietnam withdrew (which Talbott attributes to Gorbachev’s 'overall policy of defusing Third World conflicts'), the US 'has grown increasingly concerned' the KR will 'fill a vacuum'. Though 'n response, China seems willing to cut off support to the Khmer Rouge once the Vietnamese complete their withdrawal.'

'But defanging' the KR 'will require more'. 'As Pol Pot’s mentor Mao Zedong once said, “Power comes from the barrel of a gun,” and thanks to years of Chinese-Thai assistance, with tacit American blessing, the Khmer Rouge have more guns than the two non-Communist guerrilla groups that the U.S. has been aiding directly. The CIA estimates that the Khmer Rouge have enough materiel to fight on for an additional two years against their erstwhile allies.' To avert, 'the U.S. should use its influence with China and Thailand not just to cut off arms to the Khmer Rouge but also to shut down their base camps on the Thai side of the Kampuchean border, ferret out and seize their arms caches, round up their most villainous leaders and arrange for their peaceful retirement to, say, rural North Korea.' 'For a decade, the No. 1 American objective in Kampuchea has been to get the Vietnamese out. No. 2 has been to squeeze the Vietnamese-installed rulers out of a new coalition in Phnom Penh. Until recently, preventing the Khmer Rouge from butchering their way back into dominance has been a distant No. 3.' 'Now those priorities must be reversed. Blocking the return of the Khmer Rouge should take precedence, even if it means a slower Vietnamese withdrawal and a larger role for the pro-Vietnamese faction in the new government. And no more winking at abominations.'

1989_3_05 (Steven Erlanger [based in Bangkok, Thailand] | P468/p25 NYT Magazine | Sunday 1989/3/5): THE ENDLESS WAR: THE RETURN OF THE KHMER ROUGE. He opens with a scene of a site ('Site 8', 'the only Khmer Rouge camp open to the press') at the Thai-Cambodia border, where KR soldiers oversee the transport of war material (implied from China) into Cambodia. While Site 8 is a '"civilian" camp for Cambodians displaced' in the war, monitored by the UN Border Relief Operation, 'other international aid agencies and units of the Thai Army', within the KR reigns. With Vietnam pulling out now, the KR’s 'main enemy has become the Phnom Penh Government installed by Hanoi'. 'The border region is malarial, the narrow paths through it strewn with plastic land mines, fragmentation grenades and claymores. In Site 8 alone, 1,500 of the 35,800 inhabitants are maimed. According to Son Song Hak, director of the camp’s Khmer Handicap Association, 75 percent of the handicapped are "fighters." It is, he says, "a war of mines."' If a Site 8 resident/refugee 'refuse to carry ammunition, their food rations are cut', 'summoned to sessions of political "re-education"'. Sometimes beaten, imprisoned or disappeared; '[f]ew refuse to do what they are told'.

'Today', 'at least' 350k Cambodians 'live in holding camps' 'just inside Thailand, within the sound, the range and sometimes the reach of Vietnamese shells. The Thais and the United Nations have decided they are not refugees but people displaced by war, and thus ineligible to settle in any other country. Most have had no choice in selecting the camps in which they live. Of the 100,000 or so under Khmer Rouge control, the majority either took a wrong turn crossing the border or chose the wrong guide into Thailand. Others, who ended up in the camps run by the two other resistance factions, fare somewhat better.'

'TEN YEARS AGO, THE KHMER ROUGE WAS on its knees. Weakened by ferocious internal purges and a wrecked economy, it fled from the Vietnamese invaders toward the Thai border. "One more considered push [ by the Vietnamese ] and the Khmer Rouge would have been finished," says an Asian diplomat. "Instead, they were resurrected."' But within the Sino-Soviet split, KR defeat was 'unacceptable - whatever its crimes'. So 'the Chinese revived the Khmer Rouge as the best way to harass Hanoi and Moscow. Thailand, always fearful of Vietnam’s expansionist ambitions, facilitated Chinese aid to the Khmer Rouge, happy to take a cut and to have a buffer of Khmer Rouge soldiers and Cambodian civilians between itself and Vietnam. The United States, traumatized by its military defeat in Indochina and preferring improved relations with China over those with Vietnam, sided with the Chinese and thus, ironically, with the Khmer Rouge.' In the context of 'slackening Soviet aid to Vietnam as well as Hanoi’s own economic ineptitude', the 'Chinese policy worked'. Now Vietnam 'has decided to pull out'; now there are fears the KR will again take power. Despite peace talks making 'some progress', 'the Cambodian factions remain deeply divided over the nature of an interim administration that would oversee new elections.' On one side, is Sihanouk, the 'rightists who overthrew him in 1970', and the KR, 'which [Sihanouk] detests but whose military strength he needs in fighting the Vietnamese and their ally in Phnom Penh'. Even if the Chinese cut off aid, and the Thais 'shut down the border camps that have protected and nurtured it', the KR will 'remain a formidable force'. 'American intelligence estimates of Khmer Rouge strength vary from 28,000 to nearly 60,000, with the usual interagency compromise cited officially by diplomats as "30,000 to 40,000."' There is little doubt, whatever the numbers, that the KR 'forces dwarf those of Sihanouk and Son Sann'; 16k troops are loyal to the former, and 11k to the latter.

The US also 'believe' the KR has 'stored up to two years’ worth of arms and ammunition', '[a]nd few expect aid to the Khmer Rouge to be cut off entirely', since they 'China’s only insurance in Cambodia, and it would cost Beijing little to maintain a covert channel for resupply. Nor are the Thais eager to have a suddenly desperate Khmer Rouge raiding Thai villages for money, guns and rice.'

Site 8, 'the only Khmer Rouge camp open to the press', 'is a stage set of devastating cynicism'. It is everything KR Cambodia wasn’t; colorful clothes, flourishing pagodas, markets, schooling. 'Arguing that the government-in-exile is legitimate, the Thais have not applied their own laws within the camps, leaving justice to be meted out by Cambodians running them. In Site 8, the Thais are training some Cambodians to function as an internal police force. The training includes weapons handling and lectures on the intricacies of the rocket launcher. Asked why, the Thais say that the camp has been attacked in the past by bandits with grenade launchers.' Site 8’s administrator, Seng Sok, 'will say nothing of his life under the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. "It’s not important," he says. He provides the standard, soothing Khmer Rouge line: Communism has been "spoiled," he says. "Everyone is a capitalist now." He wears the marks of a Khmer Rouge of rank: a row of pens in the pocket of his military-style shirt, and on his wrist, a chunky, steel-banded watch. Asked if Ta (Grandfather) Mok - the most ruthless of the Khmer Rouge commanders - considers himself a capitalist, Seng Sok says, "If we remain Communist, how could we unite with other forces?" Then he laughs.'

'Everything, he insists, has changed. Khmer Rouge, he says, "is not our name" [this seems to be technically true since at least 1975]; the Communist Party abolished itself in 1981; Pol Pot "retired" in 1985. He laughs again. There is just Democratic Kampuchea now, he says, the coalition government recognized by the United Nations.' Asked if the KR wants to re-take power, he says '"We should have elections to choose who will be President"', and that he’d vote for Sihanouk, 'with Son Sann as Prime Minister'. '"Seng Sok is a stupid man," says a Western relief official. "The camp is controlled by other people. It is as with everything in the Khmer Rouge: everything is hidden. You never meet the people in charge."'

Contra the semi-rosy [compared to their reputation] picture of Site 8, there are three other KR camps in Thailand open to the UN and 'other international agencies' (though with 'limited access'), but barred to journalists. 'Few in these camps, according to those who have escaped, have any idea that anyone other than the Khmer Rouge feeds them.' Contra Site 8, life here is much more standard KR; isolation, 'propaganda sessions', fear. 'Food and medical care are not given; they must be earned'. 'Last Christmas, unhappy with the large number of people in O’Trao seeking Western medical care, the Khmer Rouge torched the camp’s only hospital.' Secrecy is 'not only a virtue, but an obsession' for the KR. They 'hid behind the name Angka' after 1975, and 'said that Sihanouk, actually under house arrest, was running the country'. Sometimes Pol Pot was called '"Brother No. 1"', or sometimes 'referred to himself by his code name "No. 870"'. After the 'Vietnamese occupation, he has been signing his messages "No. 87." He has never acknowledged that his given name is Saloth Sar.'

In the KR’s military camps, 'just inside Thailand, where perhaps as many as 50,000 live', no outsider has access, 'and even the Thai Army - a conduit for Chinese arms to the Khmer Rouge - rarely ventures there'. 'This is "the hidden border." Here, by all accounts, the Khmer Rouge has hardly changed at all'.

Sam Vuth, who is being married, who 'defected and went to a non-Communist camp, Site 2', is skittish since 'the Khmer Rouge kills its defectors'. He was a KR soldier 'since 1973, when he was 16; in 1984, he became a battalion commander in charge of 80 to 100 soldiers fighting the Vietnamese. Like Seng Sok, he will not describe his activities while the Khmer Rouge was in power. Nor will he describe why he chose to defect. He simply says he was tired of fighting.' He was 'debriefed by Thai, American and United Nations officials, and his account of life along the hidden border is confirmed by other Cambodians who have spent time in those camps. Until last September, he lived in a camp called V.4, in Thailand’s Trat Province, near the border of Cambodia’s Koh Kong Province.' He says Pol Pot 'lived a half-hour away by truck, just inside the Thai border'; other top leaders also had such a situation. Even Son Sen, 'the commander in chief, and regional commanders like Ta Mok would come at least once a year'. V.4, with about 4k people, was a place of military study and rest, where Pol Pot lectured on such issues. He said in a 'lecture in early September' which he was present at, Pol Pot said to move in where Vietnam withdraws from, move in civilians, and that '[i]t was important, he said, to show the world that it was the Khmer Rouge who had fought hardest against the Vietnamese, so its interests could not be ignored.'.

'In the months since', the KR has moved civilians from camps, to 'so-called "repatriation villages" closer to the border, where no outsider has any access. With heavy shelling along the border, causing hundreds of casualties, the Vietnamese have thus far repulsed efforts to occupy significant areas inside Cambodia. But Vietnamese troops are leaving, and the soldiers of their ally in Phnom Penh are only modestly equipped and largely untested. Sam Vuth sees "no good future" for Cambodia. Of course, the Khmer Rouge intends to take sole power again in Cambodia - the very question seems to puzzle him. Has the Khmer Rouge changed? "A little bit," he says. It has become more practical. There is less emphasis on Pol Pot’s brand of Communism and more on driving out "the contemptible Vietnamese." Fewer violations of discipline are regarded as capital offenses. Deserters are executed, but low-ranking soldiers who botch up tend to get a "re-education" - the euphemism for beatings, torture and prison.' From refugee interviews from these 'secret camps', is a picture of a party elite with 'access to the best of everything', while others get rations. Marriage is discouraged til mid-age, 'when their best fighting days are done'. 'There is, as well, a subclass, treated as subhuman, virtually as instruments or logistics. They include anyone without a party or military role, and they are kept isolated and illiterate'. They are kept 'capitve for years in secret camps, like one near V.4 called O’Lahong'.

Per historian David P. Chandler, the KR '"regret nothing"'. 'Their "disbanding" of the party in 1981 was simply a return to the secrecy they prefer, he says. The structures of the party remain in place. "The comical, ironical point is that the central committee claimed to abolish the party and turned out the lights. It’s absurd. It was a completely pragmatic and crass gesture to help their image. Now they can call themselves the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea, with a flag at the United Nations."' A 'lengthy internal document dated Dec. 2, 1986', with guidelines from the KR leadership, was 'stolen by a defector and translated last year'. Guidelines with respect to current circumstances 'and its temporary alliance with Sihanouk and Son Sann. The paper is considered genuine, says a senior Western diplomat, pointing to its insularity, race consciousness and tortured syntax.'

'The paper describes "the 30-year struggle" this way:'

"From non-existence of force to existence of force. From small to large force. From no state control to full state control. From struggle by political shadow to political struggle, to armed struggle, to five-year war, to control of the whole country and the establishment of socialism in Cambodia. And at the present time, we engage in a guerrilla war, fighting the contemptible Vietnamese enemy aggressors to defend our nation, protect our people and our Cambodian race so that it will last forever."

"In these struggles which follow one another, we use secret form, open act, half-open act, unlawful act, lawful act and half-lawful act; we fight and build forces in remote areas and cities according to the political slogan, 'National Democracy and Economy.' We use 'Economy' as a means to incite and mobilize people in the remote areas, 'Democracy' to mobilize people in the middle level such as students and intellectuals, and 'Nation' to mobilize front forces in the upper level."

While it 'acknowledges past "excesses," "errors" and "faults,"' it 'ascribes them to the manipulations of Vietnamese agents, the inexperience with power of the "base people" (the ascendant Cambodian peasantry) and the limited period of the Khmer Rouge rule: "Three years was too short a time."' It says '"we have learned our lessons"', and that 'these errors were grounded in "a spirit of patriotism and nationalism," and are minor compared with those of the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam and other Socialist countries.' It also argues the Western countries also had bad history. Thus, it concludes that '"Comparing those examples that truly exist in world history, we see that the true character and value of Democratic Kampuchea is far higher. Democratic Kampuchea has never violated or abused anybody."'

'At last month’s conference in Jakarta, Khmer Rouge officials went out of their way to put on an affable face', seeking the press to make overtures of their transformation 'and willing even to ban notorious figures like Pol Pot and Ta Mok from any political involvement.' '"Khmer Rouge tactics have shifted," says a Western diplomat, "but certainly not their goals. Anyone who believes they would be content to share power is living in cloud-cuckoo-land."' This all coincides with 'an improvement, albeit modest, within Cambodia'. Despite Hun Sen’s (now 37) association with the Vietnamese (and earlier background with the KR, from which he defected), 'Cambodians are nevertheless responding favorably to his efforts, especially in the last two years, to moderate his brand of socialism.' Land is returned to 'individual farmers', there is some private business, 'pagodas have been reconstructed'. Over the past 10 years, Hun Sen transformed from 'the shy, awkward Khmer Rouge commander' 'into a leader the Vietnamese believe stands a good chance of keeping his seat'. He believes his 'Government has earned legitimacy through its efforts to rebuild the nation and defend it from the Khmer Rouge.' The country has 'made progress in recogvering' from the '"Pol Pot time"'. There are still issues, such as with the capital’s water supply and sewage-treatment plant. Poverty still haunts the cities, and there is 'insecurity in the countryside'. The govt has 44k troops, and a militia of 100k. Still, the country is 'not pacified', and the KR 'at any given time', per 'Western military experts', 'has as many as' 20k fighters 'inside Cambodia, harassing villages, killing village chiefs.'

'Shunned by much of the world, Hun Sen contends that if anyone can hold off the Khmer Rouge it is he and his army, and that if Sihanouk and Son Sann had any sense, they would make common cause with him. Instead of pretending that the Chinese formula of a four-party government and army - made up of his forces and those of the three guerrilla factions - can somehow co-opt the Khmer Rouge, says Hun Sen, leave the Khmer Rouge in the forest and unite against it.' Still, his internationally 'credibility appears to be growing'. Thailand even hosted him in January, infuriating Sihanouk, 'who sees Hun Sen as a traitor'. An 'Asian diplomat' thinks that, especially with the Vietnamese gone, and if international efforts are made to help Cambodia, the KR morale will decline. Yet it '"would require the expenditure of great treasure and blood by those willing to do it."' 'And would would that be?' '"That’s just it," he says. "You’ve got to be willing to fight. That’s the big question with the non-Communist resistance, and with Hun Sen’s army, too. The Khmer Rouge will fight."' He says the KR does have big vulnerabilities; ie if the Thais close the camps, if there is an 'international peacekeeping force in Cambodia', and that now the Vietnamese are gone, some 'might tire of the endless war'. Another weakness 'is the hatred in which it [the KR] is held'.

'Nonetheless, says a former diplomat and an authority on the Khmer Rouge, it is a mistake to think the guerrillas have no political, nationalist or class support in the countryside. Under Pol Pot, the urban bourgeoisie suffered more than the peasantry. The Khmer Rouge has regenerated itself with new recruits, and not merely from intimidation. "They are, after all," says the former diplomat, "the only Cambodians really fighting the Vietnamese."' 'A Western diplomat' says the US has become more 'realis[t]' recently, happy both the Vietnamese and KR are out, and willing to come to '"a solution more on Hun Sen’s terms than Sihanouk or Washington would like, at least there’s a fair chance of pulling it off."'

Next, Erlanger talks with Son Song Hak, a confident, articulate 31 year old who '"became a soldier in 1979, when the Vietnamese aggressor came to my country. The only person who led us to fight against the Vietnamese was Pol Pot."' He 'behaves like a trusted party member', and says he 'taught himself English by listening to the Voice of America and the BBC. Before 1979, he "drove a tractor on a collective farm" in Battambang Province.' Asked 'what went wrong', he says '"If something crumbled between 1975 and 1978," he says smoothly, "we can fault both Pol Pot and the Vietnamese, who started their aggression long ago. Pol Pot made revolution because he wanted to do something good for the country. Perhaps he was confused about the nature of Communism."' He says that '[t]he party has reformed', and '[t]hings are much improved - just look around. "You couldn’t see children at school then ... You couldn’t see people walking and smiling [or] wearing different colored clothing."' He says now Cambodians need to 'settle their differences and unite. Words are a problem'; even sometimes 'people don’t mean what they say'.

The Cambodian refugee camps in Thailand are governed by 'three factions united against Vietnam', together form the 'United Nations-recognized Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea'. Sihanouk’s forces are 'concentrated in Site B, a relatively well-run camp of about 60,000 people'. 'Son Sann ... is the nominal head of the hopelessly divided and corrupt Khmer People’s National Liberation Front, whose various warlords control a sprawling collection of camps called Site 2 (with a total population of 179,000) as well as a smaller camp in the south of Thailand, Sok Sann (population: about 9,000).'. Pol Pot’s CPK, 'which Sihanouk long ago labeled the Khmer Rouge', 'is the best-armed, best-trained and most disciplined group in the coalition'. In their years of power, they 'transformed the country into a Maoist, highly xenophobic, peasant-dominated land. A fifth of the population of about seven million died from overwork, starvation, disease or execution. The Khmer Rouge camps are Site 8, Borai, Ta Luan and O’Trao. There are also an unknown number of secret military camps, such as V. 4. About 100,000 people live in these camps.'

Three articles here ([see below] | P01 | Thursday 1989/4/6): VIETNAM PROMISES TROOPS WILL LEAVE CAMBODIA BY FALL

1989_4_05_a (Steven Erlanger in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam | [see above]): Pol Pot Denounced - hanoi Urges an End to Military Aid to the 3 Insurgent Factions. 'Ten years and three months after its soldiers invaded Cambodia and installed a new Government in Phnom Penh, Vietnam announced today that it would unconditionally withdraw the rest of its troops by the end of September.' Previously they 'insisted' 'would have to be linked to a cutoff of all foreign military aid to the three factions that oppose Hanoi’s ally in Phnom Penh, Prime Minister Hun Sen', or else the withdrawl wouldn’t be til end of 1990. Vietnam says it has 50k troop sthere; the US estimate 60k-70k. 'Vietnam’s occupation of Cambodia has been, along with the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, one of the major East-West issues.' It has stalled PRC-USSR relations, as well as Vietnam’s 'own efforts to obtain aid and recognition' from the US, which 'insiste[d] that Hanoi withdraw its troops from Cambodia first.' Today, Vietnam just urges the opposition’s supporters, ie China, 'to honor promises to stop all military aid when Vietnam withdraws'. Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia jointly declared they 'reserved the right of Phnom Penh to request further "assistance" if military aid to the opposition did not stop.' It also said that 'the nations of the world should take responsibility for insuring that the Cambodian civil war ends and that the "genocidal Pol Pot regime" not be allowed to take power again in Cambodia.'

Sihanouk leads '[t]he Cambodian opposition', 'and includes his followers, those of a former Prime Minister, Son Sann, and the Khmer Rouge. Under Pol Pot, a Khmer Rouge Government allied with China oversaw the deaths of at least a million Cambodians from April 1975 until the Vietnamese invaded on Dec. 25, 1978.' from Beijing, Sihanouk today gave a statement that Vietnam’s withdrawl be '"controlled" and supervised by' the UN; that China would only cut aid if the UN verified the withdrawl. 'There was no official reaction from China. The Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia resulted in a Western boycott on aid and trade with Vietnam and a reduction of normal relations with the United States.' Erlanger reports that the 'fragile state' of Vietnam’s economy, and 'need for Western aid and investment necessitated an early end to their occupation, and that Mr. Hun Sen will be strong enough by September to keep his seat if the Chinese can be convinced to stop military aid to the Khmer Rouge. According to Vietnamese officials, five to seven Vietnamese soldiers are wounded or killed every day in Cambodia. Since 1978, there have been about 55,000 Vietnamese casualties, a third of whom were killed.' Today, Vietnam 'called on India, Canada and Poland', with a UN representative, 'to organize an International Control Commission to oversee and verify Vietnam’s withdrawal and the end of aid to all Cambodian factions.' Those three countries 'performed a similar role after the Geneva Conference on Indochina in 1954.' Vietnam urged Cambodian factions to meet and find a resolution 'before the end of September and to allow resumption of the regional peace process, suspended in February in Jakarta, Indonesia.'

'The Cambodian opposition coalition was formed after the Vietnamese invasion, when hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops invaded Vietnam in February 1979 "to teach Vietnam a lesson" and then soon withdrew.' With ASEAN support, China 'revived the Khmer Rouge to try to drive out the Vietnamese and Mr. Hun Sen, and put together the opposition coalition with the acquiescence of the United States. The United Nations recognizes the coalition as Cambodia’s legitimate government.' Sihanouk 'has agreed to meet Mr. Hun Sen in Jakarta on May 2 for further talks on an internal settlement. Mr. Hun Sen, who defected from the Khmer Rouge in 1978 during fierce internal purges, is expected to try once more to persuade the Prince to break with the Khmer Rouge and join him in a neutral and non-aligned Cambodia that would no longer be called the People’s Republic of Kampuchea. But China is unlikely to favor such a move, especially now that Vietnam has decided to withdraw unconditionally.'

1989_4_05_b (Special to The New York Times from Beijing | P06/A06 | [see above] ): Hun Sen Offers to Sihanouk. 'The unconditional Vietnamese troop withdrawal was one of two concessions that Mr. Hun Sen had offered in a message last week to Prince Sihanouk, a Vietnamese diplomat in the Chinese capital said today.' The 2nd concession was 'related to constitutional issues.' While Hun Sen 'was unwilling to dismantle the Government in preparation for new elections, as rival Cambodian factions have proposed, he is prepared to discuss such issues as the country’s name, national song, and government structure, the diplomat said.'

1989_4_05_c (AP from Washington DC | P06/A06 | [see above] ): U.S. Praises Hanoi’s Plan. 'The State Department praised Vietnam’s announcement today, saying the step would restore peace to Cambodia. "Although we have not yet seen complete details of the Vietnamese statement, we do believe that if the withdrawal is carried out, it would be a positive development," said Richard Boucher, a department spokesman.'

1989_4_07 (Steven Erlanger in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam | P01 | Sunday 1989/4/9): Vietnam’s Vietnam: Scars of Cambodia. 'Vietnam’s unconditional withdrawal from Cambodia by the end of September, announced Wednesday, will conclude an ordeal of duty, sacrifice, suffering and hubris that caused internal pressures similar to those faced by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and the United States in Vietnam itself.' For all three, 'the end of a military adventure that began with security concerns and ideological idealism was ambivalent, without clear resolution, let alone the accustomed victory, and left an uncertain future for their client regimes.' Many Vietnamese are proud of their involvement, 'for the salvation of a close neighbor from the degradation and genocide of the Khmer Rouge Government of Pol Pot, whom Vietnamese troops ousted from power when they invaded Dec. 25, 1978.' They also are proud of their assistance to the Hun Sen govt, rebuilding from 'the detritus of "Year Zero," as Cambodians called the period after the flight of the Khmer Rouge.'

'"International law did nothing against Pol Pot," said Thai Duy, on the editorial board of the weekly Dai Doan Ket, or Great Solidarity. "If that genocidal regime lasted two years more, what would have become of Cambodia? Would that nation still exist?"' There’s also just the relief of soldiers returning to families after 'dangerous duty'; 55k casualties, 'including some 18,000 dead'; 'Vietnam will finally be at peace for almost the first time since the resistance against the French began in the early 1930’s.' For some though, Cambodia 'is a metaphor for Vietnam’s recent and ongoing "renovation": a more realistic policy at last emerging after a tremendous sacrifice by the peasant class in pursuit of a miscalculated and dogmatic adventure by an unchanging and relatively unsophisticated elite.' One official said '"this is our version of Afghanistan. We are forced to go by our own internal difficulties and declining economy, the need for jobs and Western investment to solidify our renovation. And we stayed too long. We can no longer afford to be isolated in the world when our neighbors in Southeast Asia are developing with such speed."' writer and 'editor of the monthly magazine Van, a journal of literature and reportage', Anh Duc, said Vietnam had become too proud after beating the US, '"we thought we could have a victory in everything else."' Vietnamese policy 'on nearly all topics, including Cambodia, began to change significantly only at the end of 1986, when Nguyen Van Linh, now 73, was named Communist Party General Secretary and "renovation" was begun.' This is the reform of the centrally-planned state, and 'is somewhat chaotic', but the aim is clear, requiring opening to 'the democracies of Asia' and the West for 'investment and aid'. But there is resistance to 'the change as a deviation from Communism and a discrediting of the past'. This, along with the Hun Sen govt weakness and security concerns, 'goes a long way to explain why Vietnam remained in Cambodia so long', say 'Vietnamese officials'.

'Maj. Gen. Tran Cong Man, editor of Quan Doi Nhan Dan, the Army People’s Daily, provided two further reasons - error and pride. In an interview, he said that Khmer Rouge attacks on Vietnamese border villages in 1977 and 1978 required a response. "It seems to us it was something we had to do," he said. "And when we sent our troops to chase away Pol Pot, we thought it was a great victory."' He said '"during our stay"', they did too much of the work, '"[i]nstead of helping the Cambodians to grow up"'. The conclusion they reached is '"that the revolution of each country and the independence of each country must be managed by each nation themselves. And the support of others can only be secondary."' He 'also admitted that there has been some disaffection among those who have returned from the front to face a not always appreciative citizenry and to try to find a job in an economy with an unemployment rate of up to 30 percent.' They can thus cause trouble, such a soldier who 'started shooting into the sky' when refused admission on a bus.

General Man 'also said that logistical support was sometimes lacking, with poverty-stricken areas sometimes shortchanging military units on rice supplies'. Asked if war weariness was comparable to in the US during the Vietnam War, 'he smiled and said that North Vietnam had been war-weary, too. But at that time, he said, everyone in the country suffered hardships. "But now, only part of the society had to fight, and the rest lived peacefully. And that is why the relations of the soldiers in the rear is different now."' 'Nearly every family' 'has a relative or friend who served in Cambodia', and have been told the soldiers have '"gloriously fulfilled their duty to help the Cambodian people wholeheartedly and unselfishly"'. But families struggle 'to make ends meet' in a country with low wages. 'Vu Kim Hanh, the 37-year-old editor of the newspaper Tuoi Tre, or Youth, said she had instructed her journalists "that we must affirm that there is a big social and political problem for the returnees. The soldiers worry that the war is over and people will forget everything they have sacrificed, and if we forget, it is terribly wrong."'

'[N]oted novelist and screenwriter' Nguyen Quang Sang, 56, 'lives next door to the former house of the late General Edward Lansdale, the American intelligence agent who did much to form early American policy in Vietnam.' His 16-year-old son is 'good at engineering', and doesn’t want him to '"have to participate in warfare as I had to do"'. '"Let the Cambodians build any 'ism' they want to," Mr. Sang said. "It’s up to them. Perhaps the kingdom will come back. But let them build a regime suitable to themselves."'

1989_5_25 (Eric Pace | P105/D22 Business Day | Thursday 1989/5/25): Andreas Hillgruber, 64, Historian In West German Dispute, Is Dead. 'Prof. Andreas Hillgruber, a prominent West German historian who was involved in a controversy bearing on the "final solution," died May 8 in a hospital in Cologne after a long illness, his widow, Karin, confirmed when reached by telephone at their home yesterday. His death, at the age of 64, had been reported in the West German press.' He was 'an authority on Hitler’s Third Reich and had joined the faculty of the University of Cologne in 1972.' History professor Francis L. Loewenheim at Rice University, Houston, said '"Andreas Hillgruber was probably the leading West German historian of his generation - a scholar of indefatigable energy and fierce independence, a scholar of weighty judgment even if one did not always agree with him."' His 1986 book "Two Kinds of Destruction: The Shattering of the German Reich and the End of European Jewry" 'helped instigate a debate that sharply split German scholars and journalists for a time.' 'It suggested a connection between the collapse of the German Army’s eastern front in World War II and the genocide carried out against the European Jews.' It also 'gave long accounts of mass rape and "barbarian" behavior by Soviet troops advancing from the east toward Berlin', and 'contended that Austria, more than Germany, had fostered the strong anti-Semitism that led to the death camps, and that it was Hitler’s own personal hatred for the Jews that led to the "final solution," as the Nazis called the mass killing. By juxtaposing the collapse of the eastern front and the genocide, Professor Hillgruber implicitly invited moral comparison of the two.'

Shortly after, 'noted West German sociologist' Jurgen Habermas wrote 'in the liberal weekly Die Zeit 'challenged the book and criticized what he called "apologetic tendencies in the writing of modern German history." He contended that Mr. Hillgruber and other West German scholars were engaged in a "new revisionism" meant to imbue their country with "a NATO philosophy with a German national coloring." The "historians’ dispute," as it became known, also involved some scholars’ efforts to compare the genocide to mass murders in other parts of the world, like Stalin’s purges or the killings in Cambodia under Pol Pot.' 'Eventually, the President of West Germany, Richard von Weizsacker felt constrained to declare in October before a congress of West German historians: "Auschwitz remains unique. It was perpetrated by Germans in the name of Germany. This truth is immutable and will not be forgotten."' He thus 'declared an end to the dispute, and Professor Hillgruber said he completely agreed'. He said he 'never tried to "relativize" the past, but only to gain understanding of its times and conditions'. Herbert Kremp ('West German writer and journalist') defended him 'after his death' in Die Welt, that in Hillgruber’s 1980 book made clear he viewed Nazi crimes as '"singular" and consequently not comparable to others'.

Hillgruber was born in 1925 in a town now in Poland, son of a 'secondary school teacher'. 'The West German press reported earlier this month that the father was forced by the Nazis, for political reasons, to give up teaching and that the son became a prisoner of war in World War II.' After, he 'earned a doctorate at the University of Gottingen in West Germany', taught at Marburg and Freiburg, authored 'more than a dozen books', 'and was praised by Gordon A. Craig, the noted American historian of Germany, for his "masterful delineation of Hitler’s grand strategical plan."'

1989_9_10 (Lynn Hunt ('a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, is the author of "Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution."') | P85/p12 Book Review | Sunday 1989/9/10): IT’S NOT OVER TILL ITS OVER, AND IT’S NOT OVER; Book: A CRITICAL DICTIONARY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION Edited by Francois Furet and Mona Ozouf. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer (published 9/9/1989). It seems among 'hundreds of books on the French Revolution published during this year of the bicentennial', a dictionary wouldn’t be important, but this is 'really a manifesto representing the views of Francois Furet, who is now the most influential historian of the French Revolution in the world'. Over 'the last decade', he 'published four books developing his interpretation', summarizing his view in the 22 articles (of 99) he contributed, 'including the crucial ones on the Terror, revolutionary government, Jacobinism, Marx and Tocqueville. The collaboration of a number of young philosophers of law and politics in this dictionary, now ably translated by Arthur Goldhammer, is a tribute to Mr. Furet’s success in developing a whole new field of studies in which traditional narrative history, the history of ideas and political philosophy are combined - in the spirit of Raymond Aron and Hannah Arendt - to investigate the philosophical foundations of modern democratic politics.'

His 'intellectual ambitions and academic successes have helped propel him to the forefront in this year of commemoration and reflection on the meaning of 1789'. At a 'big international conference' in Paris 'in July', the news media was riveted by his absence ('he said he prefers smaller meetings'). He had earlier said '"the French Revolution is over," meaning almost all of the French had come to accept the legacy of 1789', despite continuing debate. 'Just when the revolutionary heritage of the French Republic seemed to have been finally assimilated, its commemoration has called forward a wave of furiously antirevolutionary works, in French and in English.'

'In France, a major controversy has erupted over the counterrevolutionary rebellion in the Vendee region of western France in 1793. Some now refer to it as the Franco-French genocide (with obvious allusions to the Holocaust and the Cambodian massacres), and claims are made that at least one-third and perhaps even more of the population of western France was deliberately exterminated by the revolutionary Government.' In Simon Schama’s 'best-selling history of the French Revolution, "Citizens"', he 'endorses all the most exravagant - and hotly contested - claims about the Vendee', and denounces all about the revolution. He thus calls into question such things as 'the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen'. 'This outpouring of antirevolutionary writing challenges all of the prevailing orthodoxies', and Furet’s 'article on academic history in this dictionary' argues that 'radical republicans, Marxists and, more recently, Communist Party historians' have 'dominated for generations' 'writing about the French Revolution in France'. Though disagreeing 'why the revolution failed', who were villains/heros, what were the turning points, 'all agreed that the revolution was good'.

'Mr. Furet himself has led the way in criticizing the orthodox Marxist interpretation of the revolution as the triumph of the capitalist bourgeoisie, but he has always stopped short of condemning the revolutionary experience out of hand. In the dictionary, he tries to make clear how he differs both from the orthodox Marxists and from the new wave of antirevolutionary historians.' 'This differentiation is by no means easy, for his vision is deeply pessimistic about the totalitarian tendencies of democratic politics, at least in their French version. In contrast to the antirevolutionary historians, however, he and his collaborators find the democratic experience profoundly interesting, even when it is troubling', and he, with Mona Ozouf, insist on 'ambivalent stakes' and 'complexity', rather than 'blanket dismissals'. Furet 'has the prudence to avoid endorsing the wildest claims about the repression of the Vendee'; he blames Louis XVI’s 'problem of establishing real authority' on his 'sexual impotence in his younger years'. Ozouf shows in 'her equally successful picture of the terrible Marat on the other end of the political spectrum' 'how the "prophet of woe" and demander of heads could be at once peripheral to revolutionary politics and exemplary of a hidden tendency toward terrorism.'

While not giving blanket claims of good/bad, 'they and their collaborators here repeatedly trace all subsequent problems of French democracy to key decisions in 1789'. 'In the period leading up to October 1789, "everything there was to say about the new principles was already said." The Terror, and the despotic and totalitarian tendencies available in democratic ideology, were there.' University of Chicago’s [of 'Chicago boys' fame] Keith M. Baker 'claims the National Assembly chose a radical Rousseauian definition of the constitution as created de novo by sovereign will. By opting for a language of political will rather than a discourse of interests grounded in modern civil society, he claims, the Assembly "was opting for the Terror" four years before the fact.' Furet 'develops the same argument. The Terror cannot be explained by circumstances, but only by reference to a democratic ideology that attributed unlimited powers to political action; "the mentality of revolutionary activism" had existed since the early summer of 1789.' The problem was 'French democratic ideology' was 'conceived in terms of "unanimity, as opposed to the chaos and conflict born of the clash of selfish private interests."'

Yet Hunt believes '[t]here are many problems with this reduction of the Terror to a spinning out of the principles of 1789. Despite the protests of the editors, it has the effect of minimizing, if not ignoring, the complexities of revolutionary events, in particular the development of democratic practices. No article discusses democratic politics in the period 1795-99, for instance, when the Jacobin Clubs were officially suppressed and then forced to regroup for the first time as an opposition party. How "a temple of orthodoxy . . . a fanaticized ruling party," as Mr. Furet puts it in his article on Jacobinism, could become a loyal opposition remains utterly mysterious.' A 'consideration of the [Declaration of] rights of man' shows '[t]he dangers of the abstract philosophical approach implicit in this kind of historical reduction'. In one article, 'political philosopher' Marcel Gauchet 'repeats the Furet line', that August 1789 was the '"moment of crystallization" of Rousseauist ideas from which all later radicalization followed', and thus the 'fundamental defect' of the Declaration was giving the 'legislature pre-eminent authority', thus able to 'usurp sovereignty four years later', thus per Gauchet, 'the founding text "embodied in condensed form a concept of liberty that prevented its realization"'. This 'overlooks the force of the idea of the rights of man, which has remained powerful' to this day. 'It is no accident that Eastern Bloc dissidents have taken up this cry as their own in the 1980’s'. 'Almost incredibly, there is no discussion in the article on the rights of man - or in any other related one for that matter - of the rights of Jews, Protestants, blacks or women, each of which aroused public debate from the earliest days of the revolution and continued to evolve in sometimes unpredictable fashion during the course of events. The French Revolution gave French Jews and Protestants full civil and political rights for the first time. The National Convention abolished slavery in 1794, but refused to countenance women’s public participation in politics and banned women’s clubs. Much could be made - not all of it to the Revolution’s credit - of these passionately interesting discussions, but to address them would require giving up the notion that all was settled once and for all by September or October 1789. The chaos and conflict of opinion continued right up to 1799 and the advent of Napoleon.'

Furet et al. have 'revived interest in the philosophical problems of modern democracy and shown the importance of the French Revolution in establishing the limits of modern political debate', though 'it is doubtful they will have the lst word any more than the Marxist or republican historians before them did'. These 1989 controversies have 'cleared the terrain'. 'The Marxist interpretation is now in the same disarray as the French Communisty Party, which has been steadily losing ground in French elections'. 'Mr. Furet and Ms. Ozouf have presented an alternative manifesto clearly based on a line of liberal thought that runs from Benjamin Constant and Madame de Stael in the 1790’s to Hannah Arendt in the 1950’s and 60’s. It is not obvious, however, that a new liberalism will succeed in France among either the intellectuals or the electorate. But that is the fascination of the French Revolution and the political legacy it has left: the options always seem to remain open, the fundamental questions are never definitively answered. As Mr. Furet himself concludes in his article on Tocqueville, "Perhaps he never believed that history would one day allow him to dispel its mystery completely."'

1989_9_14 (Thomas L. Friedman in Washington DC | P09/A09 | Friday 1989/9/15): House Panel Assails U.S. Policy on Khmer Rouge. 'The Administration’s policy of supporting a settlement in Cambodia that would bring the Khmer Rouge guerrillas into a transitional government came under stinging attack today in Congress.' The issue became more contentious as Vietnam is withdrawing, 'which is to be completed this month'. 'A peace conference of the competing factions ended last month in Paris without agreement on a power-sharing arrangement, and continued fighting appears likely. Doubts are being raised among lawmakers about whether the United States should continue backing Prince Sihanouk, with either lethal or nonlethal aid, especially considering his alliance with the Khmer Rouge.' '"The United States of America does not have the luxury of recusing itself from moral judgments," said Representative Jim Leach, Republican of Iowa. "In this regard there is a view of many, including this member, that Pol Pot should be brought before an international tribunal for war crimes."' 'In the Administration’s first Congressional testimony on Cambodia since the Paris talks, the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Richard H. Solomon, appeared today before the House Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs.' He said it might appear the US’s position in Paris 'might not seem "particularly morally impressive"', it was the only realistic one, and had a 'possibility of ultimately undermining' the KR through 'political means'. Mr. Solomon put the 'major question before the Administration' as '"Should the Khmer Rouge, responsible for genocidal violence of the 1970’s, be totally excluded from the political process with only a military option? Or, should it -less its top leadership - be given a limited stake in a transitional political coalition that would, under international supervision," face the test of Cambodian elections?'

'"From an American perspective," he said, "we want no role for the Khmer Rouge in a future Cambodian government."' But he says Sihanouk, China, and the ASEAN felt 'the chances of peace' are better if the KR is in the 'interim coalition', which would also include Sihanouk, Hun Sen, and Son Sann et al. '"We are not schoolchildren in this business," said Mr. Solomon, alluding to the history of Khmer Rouge brutality. "The chances of avoiding continuing conflict are not very good. But we firmly believe that the chances are much better to get this problem under control if you have a structured political settlement than if you just leave a situation that is totally unstructured or unconstrained, where civil conflict is almost a certainty." Representative Chester G. Atkins, Democrat of Massachusetts, told Mr. Solomon there was "every indication from people that the Khmer Rouge will continue to fight whether they are part of a settlement or not. It would seem to me that there is no reason we would want to insist that the Khmer Rouge be part of a settlement other than the fact that Sihanouk wants it. It would seem that in light of the outcome in Paris that Sihanouk is increasingly playing a personal agenda which relates to his own political aggrandizement and less and less of a nationalist Cambodian agenda."'

1989_9_26 (Steven Erlander in Moc Bai, Vietnam | P06/A06 | Wednesday 1989/9/27): With Vietnamese Out, Cambodia Faces Bitter Fight. 'What Vietnam says is its last column of troops in Cambodia began moving through this border crossing early this morning, nearly 11 years after Vietnamese soldiers invaded Cambodia and ousted the brutal Khmer Rouge Government of Pol Pot.' Amidst diplomatic deadlock [in Paris talks], Heng Samrin 'issued a statement calling on Cambodians to unite to defend the country against the Khmer Rouge, who he said would try to take advantage of the Vietnamese withdrawal to mount new attacks'. 'A Vietnamese official said today that it was "sad" that the world required warfare to clarify what diplomacy could not and that "it also represents a moral failure to confront the reality of the Khmer Rouge."' While there were celebrations at the border, Ho Chi Minh City crowds 'seemed only moderately enthusiastic' to a 9,000 soldier column marching home. 'The column was led by a regiment awarded a collective medal as Heroes of Vietnam for its bravery in fighting the Khmer Rouge, which still threatens the security of the Vietnamese-installed Government in Phnom Penh.'

Army officials noted some 700 vehicles in the column 'had broken down', journalists 'traveling from Phnom Penh this morning said a few trucks had overturned and others had blown tires or had simply ceased to function, sometimes blocking the road. The ferry across the Mekong River at Neak Luong also became a major bottleneck. But Vietnamese officers insisted, as they have done consistently, that all of Vietnam’s troops were on their way out of Cambodia and that none would be left behind. They denied that any had remained to don Cambodian uniforms, as asserted by Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the leader of the opposition coalition fighting the Phnom Penh Government of Prime Minister Hun Sen.' If the total withdrawl is accepted by China, the West, and ASEAN, resolves the issue of 'Vietnam’s long occupation of its neighbor'. 'But all of the non-Communist world except India continues to regard Mr. Hun Sen and his administration as illegitimate while supporting Prince Sihanouk and his coalition allies: the Khmer Rouge, under whose rule more than one million Cambodians died, and the followers of former Prime Minister Son Sann.' Diplomatic failures have made Cambodia’s 'future' appear 'bleak'. A 'four-party power-sharing administration leading to new elections' is the formal proposal, but Hun Sen 'absolutely rejects any pre-election role in government for the Khmer Rouge', and '[w]arfare is expected to increase'.

'The problem for the United States and Asean, Western diplomats in Bangkok say, is that Mr. Hun Sen’s Government and army remain the only real obstacle to a return to power by the Khmer Rouge. The non-Communist forces remain a relatively unimportant factor in the military equation. That has led to awkwardness in American policy, Asian diplomats in Bangkok say, because no administration wants to be seen as even indirectly aiding the Khmer Rouge, who are supplied by China, to return to power. "The United States does not want to legitimize Hun Sen, recognize a Vietnamese fait accompli in Cambodia or sell out Prince Sihanouk," an Asian diplomat said. "But Hun Sen is all that stands between Cambodians and the Khmer Rouge. What will the United States do if Hun Sen’s army starts to crumble?" The Vietnamese, not surprisingly, ask the same question.' They put the 'resonsibility for any new genocide in Cambodia' with those who opposed Vietnam’s invasion, supplying arms to 'Hun Sen’s opposition'. While Vietnam has tried for 'well over a year' to ties its withdrawl to a 'cessation of all external military aid to all the warring factions', the West and ASEAN rejects any 'partial solution' which doesn’t 'include a change of administration in Phnom Penh'. Hun Sen continues to try to split Sihanouk from the KR-lead coalition and join him, which would 'bring immediate legitimacy to Phnom Penh and badly needed Western aid'. Since then, Sihanouk 'seems to have moved further away' from Hun Sen. China opposes the idea, as well as the Prince’s wife and son ('who commands the Sihanouk army'). 'In recent statements from Beijing, Prince Sihanouk has derided the Vietnamese withdrawal as farcical and fraudulent.'

'At the same time, large cracks have appeared in the international front against Mr. Hun Sen, with Thailand in particular increasing informal commercial and diplomatic contacts with him.' This has strained ASEAN unity, but they say Vietnamese troops were their 'major concern', and they can’t 'afford to isolate a neighbor or try to pretend that Communist Indochina is not an integral part of the region. Indonesia and Malaysia have always worried more about China’s intentions in Southeast Asia than those of Vietnam, and while the Government of Singapore seems unalterably opposed to Mr. Hun Sen, Singaporean businessmen are extremely active in Phnom Penh. The United States has made normalization of relations with Vietnam contingent not only on the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia but also on a comprehensive diplomatic settlement there.'

1989_9_27_a (Editorial Staff | P28/p01 Editorials, Letters, and Opinions | Wednesday 1989/9/27): Bankrupt and Immoral on Cambodia. 'Vietnamese troops have finally left Cambodia. But with no agreed transition plan, Cambodians face a stark contest between the Vietnamese-installed Hun Sen regime and the genocidal Khmer Rouge. And the Bush Administration now has to face the bankruptcy of its policy of backing Prince Sihanouk along with his Khmer Rouge allies and of opposing Hun Sen. Morality and practicality require a new approach.' Sihanouk lead an anti-Vietnamese 'occupation' coalition with the KR and non-Communist forces; since the 'occupation has now ended, and the real force in the coalition looks increasingly like the old, unreformed Khmer Rouge. Incredibly, these killers, already to blame for more than a million deaths, seem poised for a possible comeback. U.S. policy collapsed in embarrassment last month when the 19-nation Paris peace conference on Cambodia fell apart.' Rather than produce an 'all-party interim government', it saw instead Sihanouk 'act like a broker' for KR interests. 'The Hun Sen regime, which has yet to demonstrate its legitimacy, was fully justified in rejecting the Prince’s demand that the Khmer Rouge share power. With Vietnamese troops now withdrawn, U.S. relations with Hun Sen, and with Hanoi, could usefully be reassessed.'

The US 'reasonably' 'believed' a 'settlement that excluded the' KR 'could be vulnerable' to KR 'disruption from the outside'. But it’s unreasonable to expect Sihanouk bringing them into 'a settlement without conceding them real power', and '[t]he Paris conference revealed the illogic of the U.S. position'. If the Khmer Rouge were so strong that they could not be safely excluded from a broad-based interim regime, then weren’t they also likely to dominate their non-Communist partners? The Prince appears to have become a prisoner of his Khmer Rouge allies, but Washington need not be. It is unlikely that any U.S. policy can save Cambodia from renewed civil war. But decency demands that Washington distance itself further from the Khmer Rouge and from Prince Sihanouk. Cambodia’s future is likely to be discussed again at the current U.N. General Assembly session, and perhaps at a reconvened Paris conference. That gives the Administration a chance to make emphatically clear that no Cambodian settlement offering the Khmer Rouge any political or military role is acceptable. Perhaps the U.S. cannot now design the right peace formula, but at least it can abandon a profoundly wrong moral course.'

1989_9_27_b (Jim Leach (a 'Republican of Iowa, is ranking member of the Asian and Pacific affairs subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.') | P29/p01 Letters to the Editor | Wednesday 1989/9/27): Don’t Help Pol Pot. Try Him. 'Sometimes, nations are compelled to opt for the moral high ground rather than comply with a policy of alleged pragmatism that may produce an ethical abomination. Such is the situation in Cambodia today. Between 1975 and 1979, upward of two million people - one-sixth of the Cambodian population - fell victim to the genocidal policies of Pol Pot and the Communist Khmer Rouge. In turn, Vietnamese imperialists used this tragedy as a rationale for invading Cambodia, extending their military and political hegemony in Southeast Asia. In view of this history, our policies in Cambodia should be animated above all by a refusal to countenance the return to power of Pol Pot. But that isn’t the case.'

Our Cambodia policy since the Vietnam War has been 'disengagement', from one extreme (''we had the only answers') to another. 'Accordingly, we have deferred too often in strategy and philosophy to the judgment of regional actors', thus Washington 'has fallen prey to the lowest policy denominator', letting China, ASEAN, and Sihanouk take the reigns of 'American diplomacy'. 'Credulously, the State Department has succumbed to the entreaties of these parties, each of which has a private agenda', and thus back a 'four-party transitional government' which includes the KR. 'Yet, there is no credible evidence that the political rehabilitation of the Khmer Rouge, which this policy implies, does anything except strengthen the hand of Pol Pot and his savage henchmen.' Sihanouk might 'make his bed' with the KR 'and their sponsors in Beijing', but US 'need not'. 'Communists and royalists are frequently at odds, but they have one thing in common - an antipathy to democratic institutions. In Cambodia, the forces of political elitism have formed an unholy alliance that should not be sanctioned. Instead of giving our stamp of approval, we should wash our hands of the sordid alliance and stand for our principles, not someone else’s expediency.' 'The U.S. canot pursue policies that violate basic moral precepts. With inexplicable reluctance, the State Department acknowledges that genocide occurred in Cambodia. But this acknowledgement lacks conviction because our policies contradict it.'

'Pol Pot should be tried as one of the great criminals of the 20th century, not countenanced as the eminence grise behind a new Cambodian government. The Khmer Rouge should be disarmed and universally discredited, not allowed to wreak havoc again in a once gentle land.' Rather than the four-party plan, the US should tap 'whatever reservoir of good will' it has at the UN to demand a peacekeeping deployment, not only to 'oversee Vietnam’s withdrawl but to make possible the holding of credible, democratic elections', and counter the KR, 'put[ting] a brake' on Sihanouk’s 'pathetic fronting' for them. 'Mass murderers must understand there is a day of reckoning. Whether the crime is committed behind barbed wire at Auschwitz or in the killing fields of Southeast Asia, justice must be pursued. Unfortunately, there is no sitting international criminal court. The World Court exclusively adjudicates disputes between states.'

'The U.S. should demand the establishment of an international tribunal, modeled on Nuremberg, to hold international criminals accountable for their crimes, from terrorism, genocide and torture to narcotics trafficking and attacks against diplomats. Pol Pot should be its first defendant.'

1989_11_16 (Paul Lewis at the United Nations, New York City | P17/A17 | Friday 1989/11/17): U.N. Backs Measure on Cambodia That Allows Khmer Rouge a Role. The UNGA 'overwhelmingly approved a resolution today calling for a comprehensive political settlement in Cambodia. The settlement would give the Khmer Rouge a role in an interim government led by Prince Norodom Sihanouk while internationally supervised elections are prepared. But for the second year running, the resolution also warns against a return to the "universally condemned policies and practices of the recent past." That is an allusion to the brutal four-year rule of Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge, during which at least one million people died in politicial purges, famines and epidemics as the Khmer Rouge attempted to impose agrarian communism on the largely urban population.'

Though the ' resolution is phrased vaguely and does not mention the Khmer Rouge by name, it enabled China, the group’s principal backer, to vote in favor, thus publicly committing itself to a democratic solution to Cambodia’s internal differences.' The 'resolution was carried by the widest margin since the Cambodia issue first came before the Assembly in 1978, with 124 countries voting in favor, 17 opposed and 12 abstaining. Last year a similar resolution won 122 votes, with 19 against and 13 abstentions. The reference to the "universally condemned policies and practices of the recent past" was placed in last year’s resolution in response to widespread fears that the Khmer Rouge might seize power this fall if Vietnam fulfilled its pledge to withdraw its forces from Cambodia.' Now Vietnam claims 'all its forces have gone', and fighting is 'increasing in Cambodia', there is now 'growing unease about the Khmer Rouge’s intentions'. The six members of ASEAN however, 'continue to contend that the Khmer Rouge must be brought into any comprehensive political settlement.' Notably, while Sweden and Finland 'voted for the resolution last year', they 'abstained today to protest the possibility of the Khmer Rouge’s returning to even partial power.'

'Officially, the Khmer Rouge says that Pol Pot and the other leaders responsible for its genocidal policies in Cambodia have retired from political life, and there are persistent reports that Pol Pot is seriously ill. Asian diplomats say Son Sann, who is prime minister in the opposition alliance, suggested to the Khmer Rouge that it send its most notorious leaders into exile. But the Khmer Rouge refused.'

1989_11_20 (Editorial Staff | P22/p01 Editorials, Letters, and Opinions | Monday 1989/11/20): On Cambodia: Immoral, and Pointless. 'Why won’t the world, even now, recognize reality in Cambodia?' 'The bloodiest little Southeast Asian country has seen its prospects transformed by two developments'. Sihanouk’s 'convoluted maneuvering toward a coalition collapsed' in August, and in September, 'Vietnamese troops ended their 10-year occupation. The pro-Vietnamese Hun Sen regime and Chinese-supported Khmer Rouge rebels now struggle in a desperate military showdown.' How does 'the world, including the Bush Administration, respond?' With 'policies conceived years ago which are worse than stagnant; they are repugnant', a 'tacit' 'cooperat[ion]' with the KR against Vietnam. But now they’re gone, and '[o]nly Hun Sen’s army stands' between the KR 'and their former killing fields. And that approach has become pointless as well as offensive.' A 'huge' UN 'majority, including the United States, shamefully endorsed a diplomatic formula that would invite Khmer Rouge killers into an interim Cambodian government' last week. 'To make this more palatable, the diplomats coupled their invitation with a polite warning against a return to the "universally condemned policies and practices of the recent past." The words "Khmer Rouge," "Pol Pot" and "genocide" were discreetly avoided. But no one should be fooled. The world community has decided to close its eyes to the real possibility of a second Cambodian holocaust.'

'Even as diplomats debated in New York, Khmer Rouge troops pressed their steady advance from sanctuaries along the Thai border toward Phnom Penh. On the battlefield, only two armies count: that of the Vietnamese-installed Hun Sen regime, and that of the Chinese-supported Khmer Rouge. A third force, of non-Communist guerrillas backed by Asian countries and the U.S., plays only a spoiler’s role, distracting Hun Sen’s soldiers from the struggle against the Khmer Rouge. It’s understandable that non-Communist Southeast Asians are unhappy about a Vietnamese-installed regime in Phnom Penh. And even now, long after the Vietnam War, many Americans still hope to contain Hanoi’s influence in Indochina. China is never reluctant to harry the pro-Soviet Vietnamese and further hopes to profit from its long investment in the Khmer Rouge.'

'Ever since Hanoi overthrew the Pol Pot regime in 1978, Washington has contended that resistance to the Vietnamese required some degree of cooperation with the Khmer Rouge, even though these killers murdered a million or more Cambodians. But the Vietnamese withdrawal and the diplomatic breakdown in Paris demolish any such justification. By refusing to break with the Khmer Rouge now, the non-Communist resistance has made itself Pol Pot’s pawn. The Hun Sen government still lacks legitimacy, but is clearly preferable to another round of Khmer Rouge killing. Some in Congress, and Southeast Asians like Thailand’s Prime Minister, Chatichai Choonhavan, now seem to recognize this point. But the U.N. majority, and the Bush Administration, still do not. Supervised free elections would be the ideal solution. But to insist, as does the U.N. resolution, on giving the Khmer Rouge an official role before the vote guarantees that there will be no elections. For now, the decisive contest for power is military. A Khmer Rouge victory, increasingly plausible, would be the worst imaginable outcome.'

1990_1_28 (Edith Milton ('who grew up in Germany and England, writes essays and short stories, many of them dealing with her experience of World War II.') | P80/p27 Book Review | Sunday 1990/1/28): THE DANGERS OF MEMORY; Book: TESTIMONY Contemporary Writers Make the Holocaust Personal. Edited by David Rosenberg (published 1/1/1989). 'The title of this essay collection, "Testimony: Contemporary Writers Make the Holocaust Personal," disconcerts me. It seems to suggest an almost gratuitous seeking out of intimacy with the horrendous, and to me it implies an odd sort of facile spiritual exercise, like those popularly applied during the Renaissance to the contemplation of martyrdom and other religious traumas. These 27 essays, edited by David Rosenberg, poet and essayist, are distant in space and time from Auschwitz, after all, and the offer to make the Holocaust personal by writers who for the most part had no direct experience of it seems, at first glance, simply arrogant.'

'Initially, the essays do not contradict the impression of being too easy in the face of too difficult a subject. All the essayists are Jewish; most live in America; and many are late converts from an earlier spiritual vacuum to what Robert Pinsky in his contribution calls a "religion of the Holocaust."' The first 10 odd essays aim to 'describe essentially the same process', a journey from childhood as a 'reluctant' Jew, to 'shocked awareness of the death camps, identification with their victims, and arrival, ultimately, at an understanding of what it means to be Jewish and at a commitment to Israel.' 'It is a repetition that makes for depressing reading; and when Jane DeLynn, with the nutty righteousness of an adolescent, declares that the continued existence of Israel is the single cause she feels may justify the use of nuclear weapons, one for which she might consider the annihilation of the rest of the world, one can only despair.' 'Fortunately', this is 'the low point' of 'what turns out to be an artful patchwork of contrasting opinions and personalities'. Perhaps too many, and too banal, 'Piligrims’ Progresses to Jewish identity, but in the aggregate these essays transcend the obvious paradox at the heart of any anthology that offers to recollect genocide in tranquillity'. Altogether, 'they add up, finally, to a useful compendium of the difficult disagreements in contemporary Jewish thought.'

He thinks even some essays 'are very good indeed, a handful brilliant; and that even the worst take pains to avoid the conventional and the academic'. 'Far from pretending to come to grips with the Holocaust, these narratives emphasize their authors’ necessary aloofness. Indeed, since subjectivity and obliqueness are the only approaches possible, this collection makes a virtue of being subjective and oblique. The best writing is often born of surprising and idiosyncratic viewpoints.' 'There is Julius Lester, a black American, a visionary, who, with great warmth and simplicity, destroys several of our most cherished moral divisions. "I am guilty," he says, "to the extent that I look at the Holocaust and insist on my innocence, for to be innocent is to deceive myself about what it means to be human." And there is Leslie Fiedler, who meditates with surprising charm on being the Last Jew and justifies "the last choice of the Chosen People: their decision to cease to exist in their chosenness for the sake of a united mankind."'

'Finally, there is Phillip Lopate’s admirably lucid and comprehensive "Resistance to the Holocaust," which declines to discuss the undiscussable and focuses instead on the abuses to which the idea of the Holocaust has been subjected, from denial that any such atrocity ever happened to the kitsch and sentimentality that have sprung up in its name. Mr. Lopate, unlike a majority of the other essayists included here, recognizes that many millions of people who were not Jews died in the Nazi camps, and that genocides occur all too frequently in the course of history. He points to the Holocaust as "the outer limit of a continuum of state-sanctioned cruelty," and marvels that we sometimes seem to treat "the murder of several million Cambodians as perhaps a more run-of-the-mill open-and-shut affair."' This essay 'makes a splendid center' for the book, due to its 'clarity of' 'argument and the resoluteness of its stance'. The collection’s value 'lies in variety'. 'It illustrates poignantly how individual prejudice and preference may lead people, on the same evidence, to vastly different conclusions and attitudes: to admire Hannah Arendt or despise her, to love Elie Wiesel or dismiss him, to be moved at Yad Vashem or dismayed by it. Perhaps it is not enough after all to remember history so as not to repeat its mistakes: memory is a biased tool that on occasion has driven events as tyrannically as forgetfulness. And the intensity of focus in "Testimony" sheds some light on how broad those biases may be.'

1990_2_18 (David Murray | P111/p24 Book Review | Sunday 1990/2/18): FICTION COMES TO THE KILLING FIELDS; Book: FOR THE SAKE OF ALL LIVING THINGS By John M. Del Vecchio (published 1990/2/1). 'Beginning in 1967, there has occurred in Cambodia an Asian holocaust in which, according to some estimates, more than three million Cambodians have died - casualties of civil war, political massacre, starvation, illness. Nor is peace at hand, even now.' On Vecchio’s first page, he asks '"How did it happen? What were the conditions and events that drove an unwitting people to the threshold of extinction? Was Cambodia a gentle land or the heart of darkness? A sideshow or an inextricable theater of the Southeast Asian war?"' To answer, he wrote a fictional story; an 11-year-old peasant Samnang conscripted into the KR, rising 'through brutal training and savage combat' to leadership. His sister Vathana marries a 'Frenchified heroin addict from Cambodia’s upper class'; working in hospitals, she 'meets and falls in love with an American Special Forces officer, John Sullivan, an adviser to the Cambodian military who has few illusions about that army’s - or indeed his own nation’s - ability to win.' Sullivan tells her that '"Cambodia needs international help." To which she replies: "America is very perplexing. You ask what will happen if we do nothing, but you think you do much just speaking."'

Del Vecchio believes the US 'lost the political will to pursue a victory', underlined through 'a number of literary devices', such as Sullivan chronicling events as background for his post-Army 1980s work at a Washington newspaper. For example, Sullivan hears Nixon’s tape announcing the invasion of Cambodia, and believes 'that by tipping the American hand Mr. Nixon doomed the invasion to failure'. For Sullivan, the '"most decisive battle"' was Kent State, when the National Guard killed four antiwar demonstrators. Del Vecchio himself served in Vietnam as a combat correspondent, and 'has thoroughly researched the military and civilian aspects of the Cambodian conflict. His narrative is filled with stark, bloody descriptive passages that detail Khmer Rouge training procedures, taking us to the Khmer Rouge’s sadistic re-education centers, which were established following their victory over the Cambodian Government. He also vividly depicts the hideous conditions of life in the country at large. Likewise, the carnage that followed the invasion of Cambodia by the North Vietnamese is set forth in a harrowing manner.'

'Mr. Del Vecchio’s opinions about America’s role in Cambodia can be debated; indeed, Cambodia’s tragic history has been the source of much controversy for the past 15 years. What cannot be debated is the power of Mr. Del Vecchio’s prose and the enormous amount of information he submits to his readers. He has added another memorable book to the literature of the Southeast Asian conflict, a tragic, bloody saga that seems to be with us forever.'

1990_2_22 (Steven Erlanger in Phnom Penh, Cambodia | P01 | Friday 1990/2/23): VIETNAMESE FORCE HELPING CAMBODIA, DIPLOMATS ASSERT - Defends Two Key Cities - Despite Pullout in Fall, Hanois Is Said to Heed Requests to Fight Khmer Rouge. 'Several thousand Vietnamese troops and military advisers returned to Cambodia last fall after a much-publicized withdrawal and are helping the Cambodian Government to defend two strategic cities from guerrilla attack, two senior Eastern European diplomats say.' They said Cambodia invited the Vietnamese back a month after departure was announced, indicating the 'precarious position of Cambodia’s Vietnamese-installed Government, which is under attack from the guerrillas of the Khmer Rouge and other Cambodian forces opposed to the Vietnamese influence.' Cambodia and Vietnam deny this; China, and the KR-lead anti-Vietnam alliance 'asserted that thousands of Vienamese troops never left.'

However, the Vietnamese ambassador in Cambodia, Ngo Dien, said there an undisclosed number of Vietnamese military commanders had returned at Phnom Penh’s request, for planning, training, and repairs. 'If Phnom Penh risked its international credibility by secretly inviting Vietnamese forces back, it clearly felt that the loss of additional territory to the Cambodian insurgents would create unacceptable morale and political problems. "On secret military matters, if the Cambodians need some people to advise or do something on a technical matter, we don’t say no," Mr. Dien said.' The 'two Eastern European diplomats' said the withdrawl went as promised, but after 'opposition advances' took Pailin, Hun Sen requested help, and Vietnam sent 'a special force as large as 3,000' to help at Battambang. 'The Vietnamese began to arrive by helicopter on Oct. 29, one of the diplomats said. At least 5,000 Vietnamese troops are encamped around Battambang and Sisophon to insure that these provincial capitals do not fall to the Khmer Rouge and its allied non-Communist factions, the two Eastern European diplomats said.' One said Vietnam told Hun Sen they would 'be withdrawn irrevocably' when the rainy season starts, 'around the end of April'.

'A third senior Eastern European diplomat said he had been told that at least 1,000 members of Vietnamese special forces entered Cambodia at the end of October, but he said he did not know if they were still here. "I know Vietnam wanted to be clean before Jakarta," he said, referring to the conference in Indonesia that is scheduled to begin later this month to discuss the future of Cambodia. "By now they might be gone."' But to his knowledge, 'they had done little fighting', the important thing was the KR knew they were there. He also said whether soldier or adviser, they were now '"paid for by Cambodia." Asked why he would disclose such sensitive and embarrassing information, a senior Eastern European diplomat with long experience here said, "I believe in the truth, and with changes at home, it is easier to tell it." Another Eastern European diplomat said Chinese, American and Southeast Asian aid was continuing to go to the opposition, "and it is no shame for Vietnam to respond to a request for help."'

'Dith Munty, Cambodia’s First Deputy Foreign Minister, said in an interview that there were no Vietnamese troops or military advisers here. Advised of Mr. Dien’s comments, he then said that "as far as I know, there are Vietnamese military attaches and aides working in Cambodia," but no troops.' He said the statements were '"a fabrication"', and Cambodia 'welcomed international verification'. Another Cambodian Foreign Ministry spokesman Chum Bun Rong concurred, saying if they were there, '"the Khmer Rouge could not seize a part of the country"'. '"We welcome verification by an international team even before a peace settlement. We don’t want to be hostage to accusations that poison the soil." Diplomats and aid workers say the Khmer Rouge control large areas of the countryside in a part circle beginning about 30 miles from the two city centers, where the three lines of defensive perimeters end. The Khmer Rouge have cut the Phnom Penh-Battambang rail line north of Pursat by blowing up two bridges, though Cambodian officials say they are under repair.'

The KR says their attack on Battambang began as 'frontal', but 'in fact the attacks were mostly made with rockets. Troops did not penetrate the city’s suburbs.' 'Foreign journalists were not allowed to visit Battambang until Jan. 23 and found the city quiet. But they flew into the city on a special flight and were not allowed to travel around the city, except to drive north to Sisophon and Poipet, within the defensive perimeters. Aid workers and diplomats say that about 12,000 Cambodians displaced by the fighting are now living on the streets of Battambang and that 30 people a day reach the city hospital with gunshot wounds.'

'The Vietnamese withdrawal last September followed a nearly 11-year occupation that began with their expulsion in January 1979 of the Khmer Rouge Government, under which more than a million Cambodians died. Before the withdrawal in September, Vietnamese generals said they feared that Sisophon and Battambang might fall. If those cities are taken, Cambodian officials privately say they fear a collapse of already low army morale and a panic in Phnom Penh. Early last April, when Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos jointly announced that Vietnamese troops would leave Cambodia at the end of September, the declaration included a clause reserving to Cambodia the right to call on assistance again if needed.' Hanoi said such a request would be judged 'at the time', but didn’t want to re-enter, but instead, to build relations with 'the West, the United States in particular, which had made Vietnam’s withdrawal a condition of diplomatic and commercial relations.'

'But the United States said that the unilateral Vietnamese withdrawal was not sufficient, and that normalization could only come after a comprehensive settlement in Cambodia. An American embargo on aid and trade to Vietnam continues, and Washington has blocked loans to Vietnam from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank.'

'The Eastern European diplomats said Mr. Hun Sen’s Government had been shocked by the fall of Pailin (one also said Hun Sen initially refused '"the military lobby"'’s request for help after initial failures, but the fall of Pailin changed his mind; and that the 3k Vietnamese were 'elite career soldiers who had not served in Cambodia'). In Hanoi, Maj. Gen. Tran Cong Man confirmed in an interview that Cambodian forces abandoned Pailin "with no real reason" when they thought Khmer Rouge forces were about to surround them.' He said such behavior would have lead to a general’s death sentence; in another town, Cambodian troops 'left' when their commander was injured. He also denied there were Vietnamese fighting in Cambodia, 'but said that the Cambodian Army suffered from poor morale and weak leadership.'

1990_3_16 (AP in Athens, Georgia, USA | P50/p01 Television | Saturday 1990/3/17): Broadcasting Awards Given For Coverage of Disasters. Among other awards for various topics: 'Central Independent Television, London, for ""Cambodia Year 10," an examination of "the plight of the nation from the Pol Pot regime to its tenuous present."'

1990_3_24 (Steven Erlanger in Bangkok, Thailand | P01 | Sunday 1990/3/25): Thai Wants Cambodia Refugees in Neutral Camps. 'The Thai Prime Minister has proposed moving about 276,000 displaced Cambodians from existing border camps to neutral ones free of political control by the warring Cambodian factions. The idea has been widely hailed by humanitarian groups and the European Community.' PM Chatichai’s outline ('first made two weeks ago') likely wouldn’t 'become a reality', 'Thai officials, Western diplomats and relief workers say.'. Criticism 'has come from many quarters, including the Thai military and, indirectly, the United States. Washington has little desire to see the faltering non-Communist guerrilla factions damaged further by the loss of the camps.' Even IRAs think his motive is 'more political than humanitarian', as it 'would only benefit the Vietnamese-installed Government in Phnom Penh'. Chatichai has drawn closer with Hun Sen to 'foster trade and end the war', and there are complaints about 'the burden of the Cambodian refugees. An increasing number say it is time that they are repatriated and that Thailand stop providing sanctuaries to the Cambodian opposition. The military, in particular, opposes another large refugee camp on Thai soil.'

All six camps in question get aid from the UNBRO, and some ICRC protection, are administered by the three rebel factions - 'the Communist Khmer Rouge, the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front and the followers of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. The last two groups are non-Communist and receive about $30 million a year in open and secret American aid.'. Though 'officially civilian', the camps 'in fact assist the armies' (recruits, food, combatant housing), and are 'in part as guerrilla bases in Thai territory, where Cambodian and Vietnamese troops cannot follow.'

'Residents of the camps, who originally fled the fighting in Cambodia in the late 1970’s [how about during the DK?], when the Khmer Rouge were ousted by the Vietnamese, have never had free choice about which camp they prefer, or under which leadership they wish to live. Residents of all the camps, but especially the Khmer Rouge ones, are subject to demands for military service and the portering of ammunition to the front. In the sprawling Liberation Front camp called Site 2, they are also subject to theft and extortion.' Hence, Thailand and 'groups like' the IRC, RI, and the USCR have 'long ... urged' neutral UN-administered camps. 'But for those politically opposed to Mr. Hun Sen, this is not the time to establish neutral camps. With the non-Communist factions suffering reverses on the battlefield, the elimination of their sanctuaries and the removal of camp populations from their control would damage them considerably, Western diplomats say.'

'The Liberation Front in particular, which has been the target of Phnom Penh's most recent advance in northwest Cambodia, is now in great difficulty, the diplomats say. The so-called liberated zone that the front carved out in northwest Cambodia, into which it eventually intended to move the refugees under its control, has largely been retaken by Phnom Penh. "For the K.P.N.L.F., the closing of Site 2 would be a disaster," a Western diplomat said.' While making no 'public declaration' on the proposal, in meetings 'last week' with the Thai Interior Minister, the US Ambassador Daniel O’Donohue 'repeated the American position that the safety and well-being of the camp population should be preserved. But Mr. O’Donohue also asked the Thais to consider the expense and difficulties of the proposal, Thai officials and Western diplomats said, especially at a time when United Nations agencies involved are having severe budget shortfalls. "Of course the Americans oppose it on political grounds, but they don’t have to say so," a Thai official said. "They just have to point out the obvious difficulties."'

'One of the American concerns, also shared by relief workers, is that the building of a neutral camp would merely encourage the Cambodian factions to move their camp populations over the border into Cambodia so as not to lose control over them. This sort of unsupervised and forcible repatriation across a mine-laced military front would create more danger for the refugees than leaving them where they are, a relief worker said. The Khmer Rouge has already moved about 15,000 people out of United Nations-supervised camps in the last 18 months, most recently in late January, officials say.'

1990_4_30 (Robert Pear in Washington DC | P13/A13 | Tuesday 1990/5/1): U.S. Says China Sent Large Arms Supplies to Khmer Rouge - Beijing is praised for supplying the non-Communists with weapons. 'In defiance of numerous requests from the Bush Administration, China has recently sent large new shipments of weapons to Khmer Rouge guerrillas battling the Cambodian Government, Administration officials say.' Bush’s NSAd and DSoS Lawrence S. Eagleburger visited Beijing 'in July and December', and 'asked the Chinese to curtail military support for the Khmer Rouge. More than a million Cambodians died under Khmer Rouge rule, from 1975 through 1978, when Vietnam invaded Cambodia. The United States has repeatedly said the Khmer Rouge must never return to power. In a confidential report to Congress this month, the State Department said there had been no discernible decrease in Chinese arms deliveries to the Khmer Rouge over the last six months. Indeed, Administration officials said the quantity and quality of the weapons had increased as fighting in Cambodia intensified.'

Policy Setback for Bush

'The last seven months have seen the heaviest fighting in Cambodia since 1985, when Vietnamese soldiers pushed many guerrillas over the border from Cambodia into Thailand. The Chinese have been arming the Khmer Rouge for years. But the discovery of large new arms shipments represents a setback for Mr. Bush’s policy and is the latest example of the failure of United States attempts to change Chinese behavior through the Scowcroft missions. ABC News reported on Thursday that American aid to non-Communist Cambodian guerrillas had the effect of helping the Khmer Rouge because they cooperate on the battlefield. But the Administration has said sees "no pattern of cooperation."' A Bush official said China was '"thumbing their nose"' at the US, 'as on other issues like human rights and the case of the dissident Fang Lizhi', the latter given 'refuge at the American Embassy in Beijing since June. The Chinese authorities have issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of organizing the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square last spring, and Beijing has spurned American requests to let him leave the country.'

The USSD quoted China saying they’ll end their aid when Vietnam’s withdrawl is '"independently verified, when all other external assistance to the Cambodian factions ceases and when a comprehensive settlement is in place." Mr. Eagleburger said the United States had urged China, "in any number of forums on a number of different occasions," to reduce and preferably to end its military support for the Khmer Rouge, even in the absence of a political settlement. French, Soviet and Thai diplomats said they saw no chance of such a settlement in the near future. Even while criticizing China for arming the Khmer Rouge, Administration officials said they were grateful to Beijing for supplying weapons to two non-Communist Cambodian guerrilla groups supported by Washington. The non-Communist factions are led by Prince Norodom Sihanouk and Son Sann, a former Prime Minister of Cambodia. "We encourage China" to continue supplying the non-Communist factions, an Administration official said, adding, "The non-Communist resistance would be vulnerable if it were not armed."'

'American officials said Chinese military aid to the Khmer Rouge far exceeds that to the other guerrilla factions. The Phnom Penh Government has received large amounts of weapons, including tanks, from the Soviet Union and Vietnam. China and the other permanent members of the Security Council, the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France, have held three rounds of talks this year in an effort to arrange a cease-fire and a framework for a political settlement in Cambodia. But a State Department official said the Chinese "need to display more flexibility" for the talks to succeed. A professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lucian W. Pye, said the Chinese leaders who suppressed the democracy movement last year were "obsessed with the need for stability" inside China and were now subordinating foreign policy to that goal.'

'Washington openly provides the non-Communist Cambodian guerrillas with food, medicine, clothing and money. Critics of Administration policy, including some in Congress, say the non-Communist guerrillas have used American aid funds to buy arms in Thailand or from Singapore. They also assert that American aid to the non-Communist guerrillas indirectly benefits their coalition partner, the Khmer Rouge. A State Department spokesman, Adam M. Shub, said on Friday: "We have no indication at all that any of the assistance we’ve provided to the non-Communists has been turned over to the Khmer Rouge. We provide no arms. We provide only nonlethal assistance to the non-Communist resistance." But battlefield reports sent to the Pentagon from the American Embassy in Thailand give details of increasingly close cooperation and "joint military operations" conducted by the Khmer Rouge and the non-Communist factions. In the last two months, the reports say, Khmer Rouge guerrillas and their non-Communist allies have stepped up joint operations in northwestern and central Cambodia, and Prince Sihanouk has said his troops fight "side by side" with the Khmer Rouge.'

1990_5_04 (Anthony Lewis | P35/p02 Editorials, Letters, and Opinions | Friday 1990/5/4): (Abroad at Home) The Killing Fields - Shameless U.S. policy on Cambodia. 'Suppose a Nazi army had stayed intact at the end of World War II, and held out in a remote area with Hitler, Goering and Himmler. Then imagine an American Government insisting that the Nazis must be included in arrangements for a German political settlement.' This is 'something like' what the US is doing in Cambodia today, 'benefit[ing] the murderous' KR. 'When the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia, from 1975 to 1978, they killed at least a million people. It is the one episode since the Nazi holocaust that qualifies for the term genocide.†'

'The Khmer Rouge leadership survives intact, with an army of 40,000, in camps along the Thai-Cambodian border. Pol Pot, the murderer-in-chief, is still there, directing the Khmer Rouge in its war on the Vietnamese-backed Government of Cambodia. A report last week by the human rights group Asia Watch showed that the Khmer Rouge are still using familiar methods. Refugees are forced to carry military equipment into Cambodia through areas planted with land mines. Those who refuse are denied food. Asia Watch interviewed children aged 11, 13 and 14 who had been made to act as military porters.' China supplies the KR, to 'carry on its millennial struggle with Vietnam', and Thailand is the willing conduit. 'The United States has helped the Khmer Rouge diplomatically by keeping them in Cambodia’s seat at the United Nations. It has put no pressure on Thailand, a good friend, to cut the arms flow. The U.S. insists that any political settlement in Cambodia must include a transitional role for three parties in addition to the present government: two tiny non-Communist opposition groups and the Khmer Rouge. In effect, that means recognition of the Khmer Rouge.'

'The way American policy works in the Khmer Rouge interest was explored last week in a superb television documentary, an ABC News special with Peter Jennings as anchor, "From the Killing Fields." It said that arms supplied by the U.S. to the non-Communist opposition have made their way to the Khmer Rouge.' While the USSD says they only send '"nonlethal" materiel' and denies helping the KR, but even if there aren’t 'secretly' weapons, the material 'include[s] guerrilla boats and combat gear'; and the KR 'dominate the so-called opposition coalition. There was some revealing reaction to the Jennings program. A review in The Wall Street Journal attacked it in McCarthyite terms as pro-Vietnamese. President Bush’s press secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, endorsed the Journal attack.'

'That reaction showed one reason for an American policy that on its face seems inexplicable. That reason is sheer hostility to Vietnam, a resentment that has continued to burn since the end of the Vietnam War.' Thus, US officials 'seem almost to forget the' KR 'record'. 'When the latest conference attempting to arrange a Cambodian settlement broke up, the United States blamed Vietnam for insisting on using the word "genocide" in reference to recent history.' 'Some Americans who have reason to remember the war bitterly take a more rational view', such as Senator John McCain, a Hanoi POW for six years, 'urges reconciliation'. 'William Colby, the former Director of Central Intelligence, who has published a book defending what the U.S. did during the war, appeared on the Jennings program to criticize our Cambodia policy now.'

'The other major explanation for the policy is China. From the President down, the Bush Administration seems determined to do nothing that might offend China. That evidently includes nothing effective against the Khmer Rouge.' He notes Bush asked China to 'cut down' KR military support, but 'this week it was reported' these have actually increased. 'The Administration and those in Congress who share responsibility for the policy - particularly, and surprisingly, Representative Stephen Solarz‡ of New York - seem to believe that they can somehow detach themselves from the consequences. But if the mass murderers take power again in Phnom Penh, Washington’s role will not be forgotten.'

Comments: † it’s interesting he says this is 'the one episode' since the Holocaust that 'qualifies for the term genocide'; there were many others, and this one doesn’t actually qualify. ‡ It seems Solarz (Democrat) ran an anti-war campaign in 1966 for a US House seat (though apparently lost); he seemed critical of some of Reagan’s interventionism, such as in Lebanon. He was also Jewish (his Wiki didn’t say his thoughts on Israel, but if he was a Zionist, that might explain it). Perhaps Lewis is 'surprised' by Solarz, since he makes the Holocaust comparison to the KR in this article.

1990_5_07 (Editorial Board | P14/p01 Editorials, Letters, and Opinions | Monday 1990/5/7): Ignored: A Path to Peace in Cambodia. 'In the waning days of the Vietnam War, President Nixon ordered American troops into Cambodia. He said it was necessary lest the United States be seen as "a pitiful, helpless giant." That invasion 20 years ago helped bring the Khmer Rouge to power and turn Cambodia into a killing field. Today, President Bush acts as though the U.S. were a pitiful, helpless giant in Cambodia - and a confused one at that. He insists that he wants peace between the Vietnamese-backed Government in Phnom Penh and anti-Vietnamese guerrillas. Yet he does little but complain about the failure of Beijing and Prince Sihanouk, the nominal anti-Vietnamese leader, to heed his requests. The President talks as though he wanted to end the nightmare inflicted by Khmer Rouge forces. Yet he praises China for supplying their non-Communist allies. This amounts to more Chinese arms for the Khmer Rouge.'

While peace will be difficult, the 'fundamental failure is one of policy'; in Washington, this is being 'more interested in fighting a phantom war with Vietnam than in seeking peace in Cambodia. If Mr. Bush really wants to stop the Khmer Rouge, he needn’t depend on Beijing or Prince Sihanouk. There’s now a chance to choke the arms pipeline - in Thailand. Cambodia’s present Government was installed by Vietnamese troops in 1979. Successive American Administrations have been willing to go to virtually any lengths to deny Hanoi further triumphs. Now the U.S. refuses to recognize that Vietnamese forces have withdrawn from Cambodia. Doing so would acknowledge that the U.S. is helping to sustain a civil war, not a resistance movement.' Bush says he wants a 'political settlement', but the true test is if he chokes the arms conduits the rebels 'need to sustain the war'. 'Geography dictates' the only route is via Thailand, and Thai PM Chatichai has 'repeatedly signaled' he wants peace (for the economy); yet the 'Thai armed forces that control the supply routes have shown no enthusiasm for their Prime Minister’s peace plans. A clear U.S. position in favor of squeezing the arms flows could change their minds.'

'Oh, we can’t do that, the Administration would say. That would also choke off arms to the non-Communist guerrillas. That’s true, but so what? Peace can only come to Cambodia through serious diplomacy and there won’t be any while the guns keep flowing to the Khmer Rouge murderers. Only by calling on Thailand to halt the arms supply can the U.S. begin to exorcise the ghosts of Vietnam for itself, and for Cambodians.'

1990_5_10 (Joel R. Charny and Anne E. Goldfeld | P33/p02 Editorials, Letters, and Opinions | Thursday 1990/5/10): Cambodia: Don’t Look Away. 'With each passing day of political stalemate, the human toll in Cambodia escalates. After surviving mass murder and slave labor under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, Cambodians both within the country and in encampments along the Thai border continue to suffer in silence. With the intensification of war, the growing strength of the Khmer Rouge and the repeated failure of negotiations, there is an urgent need for the international community to formulate a humanitarian response.' Cambodians in Cambodia 'struggle to build new lives'. 'In rural areas, widows who lost husbands under Pol Pot cannot produce enough food to feed their families. Irrigation pumps essential for rice production lie unused for lack of spare parts. These have been blocked by the U.S.-supported international trade and aid embargo against Cambodia. Draft animals die because of shortages of vaccines. In Battambang Province in western Cambodia, once the country’s rice bowl, hundreds of hectares of rich agricultural land have been taken out of production by land mines and war.'

'In Phnom Penh, residents crowd into tiny apartments or live in makeshift houses in rat-infested slums. Water and sewage systems, built by the French in 1905, barely function. Hospitals are poorly equipped and grossly understaffed - a legacy of the Khmer Rouge era, when most trained medical personnel were killed. One in five children dies before the age of 5. To escape military conscription, students risk cerebral malaria fleeing through jungles to Thai border jails. Those who do fight find themselves in a war in which, once again, Cambodians are killing Cambodians.' 'On the Thai border, in an active war zone, 278,000 people are held behind barbed wire in encampments.' Factions control these, and '[a]fter 10 years' of war, 'these people are still denied the refugee status that would enable them to find asylum. Many wish to return home but they cannot safely do so. Despite the best efforts by relief agencies, there is often not enough food, water or bamboo in the camps. People risk eyesight, limbs and their lives foraging for something salable or edible in the minefields. As a Cambodian has said, "You will recognize the Cambodian of the future by his one leg."'

'After 20 years of war and at least two million deaths by violence and famine, there is clearly no military solution for Cambodia. Too many times in this conflict political agendas have taken precedence over the alleviation of human suffering. Too many times in this century, the international community has failed to act.' They urge a 'humanitarian agenda for the Cambodian people', including immediate cease-fire, neutral UN-protected camps, its members having 'freedom to choose repatriation to Cambodia or asylum'; end of the UN embargo on 'development assistance to Cambodia so that, in advance of a political settlement, basic needs can begin to be met.'; recognizing the KR genocide and an international tribunal.

'For those Cambodians who have died by starvation or mine injury it is too late. For those who have lived in poverty, without safety or human rights, it has been far too long, but is not yet too late. We cannot alter the past. But together with the Cambodian people, we can begin to bind the wounds and help make 1990 a year of new life. As John Dos Passos wrote in 1940, in the midst of another Holocaust, "our only hope will lie in the frail web of understanding of one person for the pain of another."'

1990_5_25 (Editorial Board | P26/p01 Editorials, Letters, and Opinions | Friday 1990/5/25): Half Right on China Trade. Bush is 'right to propose renewing China's trade privileges. But he would have sent a sounder message if he had expressed outrage over Beijing’s continued gross abuse of human rights. Congress, which has 30 days to review the proposal, again will have to make clear that approving it in no sense approves repression. For now, the trade privileges, known as most-favored-nation status, should continue. Suspension would be the wrong way to support the democratic cause in China. It would most injure the wrong Chinese, the urban constituencies that still favor economic and political reform. Over the long pull, it is in America’s interest to strengthen these groups through trade and political support.'

While suspension might hurt 'Beijing’s hard-line leadership'’s 'prestige', but 'U.S. displeasure can be delivered more directly to these leaders - by strong statement of U.S. condemnation - without damaging the forces of democracy.' 'Recent changes' in Soviet and PRC policy give Bush an opportunity to re-evaluate a range of Asia-Pacific policies; 'He needs to take a firmer stance against Chinese arms shipments to the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and advanced weapons sales to the Middle East. Until China stops these activities and improves its human rights performance, he should maintain restrictions on World Bank loans and military sales to China. China recently released more than 200 political prisoners to encourage renewal of trade privileges. It can’t hurt to make it clear to Beijing that future renewals won’t be automatic, and that fresh provocations could bring swift revocation. The White House took precisely the wrong tack by emphasizing the profits American business stands to gain from renewal. President Bush’s decision to favor renewal of equal trading status for China was half right. Now it’s up to Congress to press for the second half - a ringing commitment to human and civil rights for the Chinese people.'

1990_5_29 (Representative Stephen J. Solarz ('Chairman, Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs') | P20/p01 Letters to the Editor | Tuesday 1990/6/12): Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge Won’t Go Away. 'In "The Killing Fields" (column, May 4), Anthony Lewis asserts that I support a policy that diplomatically and militarily "benefits the murderous Khmer Rouge," and that I am trying to detach myself from the consequences of such an approach. As someone who has devoted much of the last 15 years first to exposing Pol Pot’s genocide and then to frustrating its repetition, I believe he does me an injustice.'

'Mr. Lewis begins, disapprovingly, with an analogy to the inclusion of hypothetical remnant Nazis in post-World War II Germany in a hypothetical political settlement. If he suggests that the United States is insisting on Khmer Rouge inclusion in an interim government, he is nine months out of date. At last year’s Paris conference on Cambodia, the United States did endorse such an idea (a proposal I opposed). Since last year, however, the Bush Administration has supported an Australian proposal for a United Nations-supervised interim administration, the primary purpose of which is to exclude the Khmer Rouge. If, on the other hand, Mr. Lewis advocates that the Khmer Rouge should not be allowed to compete in elections in Cambodia, he ignores that even Hun Sen is willing to permit Khmer Rouge participation in an internationally supervised election, which the Khmer Rouge will certainly lose. In any case, it is hard to believe that the Khmer Rouge would be willing to go along with an agreement that includes elections from which they would be barred.'

'Regrettably, the Khmer Rouge can be constrained but not wished away. To return to the Nazi analogy, if there had been units of Hitler’s holdouts in some Bavarian redoubt, the occupation armies of the four powers would have dealt with them. Because no country seems prepared to send its forces to Cambodia to fight the Khmer Rouge, we must seek a political settlement. The most Cambodia could otherwise hope for is to become a Southeast Asian Lebanon.'

'Mr. Lewis also appears to endorse the notion that United States non-lethal assistance to non-Communist Cambodian forces is ending up in the hands of the Khmer Rouge. As the author of a statutory prohibition against any aid directly or indirectly benefiting the Khmer Rouge, I would be the first to object if such diversions were occurring. Yet I do not, because no diversions have occurred. That the non-Communists sit with the Khmer Rouge in a paper coalition for purposes of United Nations politics means nothing in Cambodia, where each military faction essentially fights on its own.'

'There is no question that the Khmer Rouge present a danger to the people of Cambodia. Preventing Pol Pot from returning to power should be the top priority of our policy. Yet the best way of dealing with the reality of the Khmer Rouge is to get a comprehensive settlement that would end the fighting, restore Cambodia’s national independence† and permit an election free of Khmer Rouge intimidation. That is the type of settlement the United States is attempting to secure.'

Comments: † It’s interesting he is claiming Cambodia is not independent.

1990_6_03 (Editorial Board | P171/p01 Editorials, Letters, and Opinions | Sunday 1990/6/3): Beijing’s Bloody Thank You. 'President Bush knew he’d draw criticism at home for proposing, despite Beijing’s violations of basic human rights, a 12-month renewal of China’s commercial access to U.S. markets. But in return he must surely have expected gestures of reconciliation and good will. Instead, Beijing’s answer is cynical and cruel: kind words for Mr. Bush and new repression for its suffering people.' It makes sense to 'keep trade doors open to sustain China’s reform-minded export regions'. But his 'frustrating refusal' to 'tough talk' has 'again backfired', 'adding fresh fuel to domestic criticism and setting back human rights in China. Tomorrow’s first anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre is the perfect occasion for Mr. Bush to stop mincing words.'

'Until the President’s May 24 announcement, Beijing worked hard to improve its image. It released political prisoners, lifted martial law in Tibet and revived talk of economic reform. But once Mr. Bush came out for renewal, China changed its tune. Prisoners were rearrested for minor offenses. Executions resumed. China bullied neighboring states into preventing political broadcasts from the Goddess of Democracy, a ship in international waters.'

Despite PRC tough talk, 'a decade of economic reform' has made them 'more sensitive to international opinion', it can’t 'afford to ignore outsiders'. 'Humanitarian arguments may not move Beijing to treat its people decently but commercial arguments can. That confers powerful leverage on the U.S. Yet Mr. Bush has refused to use it, even after the harsh responses to his conciliatory approach. Conversely, China’s concern about possible suspension of its U.S. trade privileges brought modest concessions. For now, continuing those privileges remains the best way to encourage Chinese democracy -but not indefinitely or unconditionally. Congress has 30 days to review Mr. Bush’s decision. It can make a constructive contribution by going along with this year’s extension but making it plain to the Chinese that America insists on demonstrable human rights and foreign policy progress before consenting to future extensions.'

'That progress should include a full accounting of all remaining political prisoners, freedom of emigration and the ending of arms shipments to the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia as well as advanced weapons to the Middle East. Beijing’s insulting responses to Mr. Bush require response, and not just by Congress. The Administration needs to spell out what will be needed to sustain longer-term economic cooperation. Mr. Bush is the right spokesman, and the Tiananmen anniversary is the right time.'

1990_6_04 (Steven Erlanger in Tokyo, Japan | P10/A10 | Tuesday 1990/6/5): Cambodia Talks Quickly Collapse With Boycott by the Khmer Rouge. 'A new round of talks on Cambodia lasted only 25 minutes today after the Khmer Rouge guerrillas complained about their representation here and boycotted the session.' This 'annoyed their Japanese hosts, who are engaged in regional peacemaking for the first time since the end of World War II.' Japan said they’re trying to salvage the talks 'intended to normalize a symbolic agreement already initialed by all four Cambodian factions.' 'The talks went into recess after the representative of the Khmer Rouge, Khieu Samphan, did not show up for the morning session'. The KR said they wnated to 'take part as an equal in four-party talks', rather than be part of one of two 'rival governments in Cambodia'.

'Prince Sihanouk had agreed to represent his side, with Mr. Khieu Samphan and Mr. Son Sann as part of his delegation, while Prime Minister Hun Sen represents the Vietnamese-installed Government in Phnom Penh. Mr. Khieu Samphan’s agreement to attend as only part of Prince Sihanouk’s delegation was considered a significant concession by the Khmer Rouge and their Chinese allies. It pleased the Americans, too, because it made the Khmer Rouge, who dominate the battlefield against Mr. Hun Sen, seem subsidiary to the non-Communist Prince Sihanouk.' 'The Japanese diplomat in charge of Southeast Asian affairs, Masaharu Kohno, said tonight that he was not entirely surprised by the Khmer Rouge boycott, "since they have done similar things on other occasions." But the Japanese were visibly upset.' The KR have thus 'insure[d] they are not forgotten'. Sihanouk is now in a 'difficult position, highlighting the weakness of his position. If he proceeds, as promised, to continue talking to Mr. Hun Sen and to sign the agreement already worked out, the Khmer Rouge say they will not abide by it. But if he does not proceed, he displays how much he is beholden to them.'

'That is why, in previous conversations with Mr. Hun Sen, the Prince has stressed that he was acting for his own faction only. Here, however, he is supposed to be representing his coalition. The agreement also calls for the establishment of a supreme national council to represent Cambodian sovereignty after a settlement and before new elections. In the agreement, the council is two-sided, with six members each for the two rival governments, rather than equal representation for all four factions.' The US wants modifications, 'calling for a comprehensive settlement and a stronger role in monitoring a cease-fire and cessation of foreign military aid by the United Nations. But there was little discussion of any changes today. As Japanese, Thai and even Chinese Embassy officials tried to persuade the Khmer Rouge to return to the talks, Prince Sihanouk said he was not returning to them himself because he agreed with the proposed text and had "nothing to discuss." "The problem is with the Khmer Rouge," he said.'

1990_6_05 (Steven Erlanger in Tokyo, Japan | P03 | Wednesday 1990/6/6): SIHANOUK WIDENS KHMER ROUGE RIFT - Signs Pact With Phnom Penh Government in Defiance of Communist Faction. 'Responding to the concerns of his Western backers, Prince Norodom Sihanouk distanced himself further from the Communist Khmer Rouge today, signing a communique with Hun Sen, the Prime Minister of Cambodia, that the Khmer Rouge refused to support. Speaking alongside his non-Communist ally, Son Sann, Prince Sihanouk said the two men and their followers would abide by the terms of the communique, even though their allies, the Khmer Rouge, would not do so.'

'The statement calls for the establishment of a Supreme National Council by the end of July to embody Cambodian sovereignty until new elections can be held and a new government formed. The communique says the council will be made up of equal numbers of representatives from the two rival governments, as Mr. Hun Sen wishes - not of equal numbers from the four Cambodian factions, as the Khmer Rouge demands. The communique also calls for "voluntary self-restraint on the use of force" - diplomatic language for a cease-fire that cannot be enforced -beginning on the first day that the Supreme National Council meets.' But Sihanouk said a ceasefire required KR agreement, and that 'the Supreme National Council would not truly be representative of Cambodian sovereignty until the Khmer Rouge took part.' '"But in my opinion, the Supreme National Council will really be a symbol of sovereignty only on the day the Khmer Rouge join as full members. In order to have peace in Cambodia, we need to make peace with the Khmer Rouge. We must persuade the Khmer Rouge to join us inside the Supreme Council."'

Pressure Off Western Nations

'But if the Prince and Mr. Son Sann do what they have now promised to do -form a Supreme National Council with Mr. Hun Sen even without the participation of the Khmer Rouge - it will enable the United Nations this fall to give Cambodia’s seat there to the council, thereby further legitimizing Mr. Hun Sen and isolating the Khmer Rouge.' This would ease pressure on the US 'and other Western governments that have been increasingly criticized for indirectly supporting the Khmer Rouge by their support for the Prince and Mr. Son Sann.' Currently, 'the Sihanouk coalition which includes the Khmer Rouge' has Cambodia’s seat. The KR 'were driven out of power when the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in 1978. Under the Khmer Rouge, more than a million Cambodians were killed or died of starvation and disease during a brutal campaign of restructuring. But as the Prince implied tonight, such an pact is likely to do little to end the war in Cambodia, the brunt of which is carried by the Khmer Rouge, and may intensify the fighting.' Left out of a settlement, they’ll 'have little incentive to stop fighting, and Asian and European diplomats make clear that no country will agree to put international peacekeeping troops into Cambodia as long as the Khmer Rouge have not agreed in principle, at least, to lay down their arms.' Japan opened the conference 'confidently', based on a draft from Thai Defense Minister Gen. Chavalit, which all four factions had signed.

'Japanese officials spoke of the meeting as a first venture into regional peacemaking since the end of World War II, and as a diplomatic exercise more commensurate with Japan's standing as a world economic power.' yet it 'quickly turned sour', and since the KR boycott, the 'bipartite negotiations never resumed'. General Chavalit and Japanese officials 'spent most of their time in conversation with the Khmer Rouge and the Sihanouk side. Officials with Mr. Hun Sen said there was little for them to do but wait.'

'A joint Hun Sen-Sihanouk news conference turned into separate ones, and then it was announced that Mr. Hun Sen would not speak this evening after all. Throughout, Japanese officials tried to keep smiles on their faces, although one official said the Japanese were "very annoyed" with the Cambodians, the Khmer Rouge in particular. In the end, what Prince Sihanouk and Mr. Hun Sen signed tonight was a communique little different from the one that the four factions initialed last month. But the real importance of the meeting here is likely to be the growing isolation of the Khmer Rouge within a diplomatic process that is accelerating, and that is treating Mr. Hun Sen with much more respect than before.'

1990_6_14 (Reed Irvine in Washington DC ('Chairman, Accuracy in Media') | P137/p01 Letters to the Editor | Sunday 1990/6/24): Accuracy in Media Has Enviable Record. 'In 1981, Robert MacNeil of the MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour said that he had found that "the public is entirely justified in thinking that a lot of American journalism is unfair or inaccurate." He said he used to "laugh those complaints away as conservative paranoia," but he had discovered that a program that tries to present many sides of controversial issues "reaps an extraordinary harvest of public gratitude."'

'It is ironic that your television writer Walter Goodman should have spent 21 column inches [Critic’s Notebook, May 28; see also Arts & Leisure, June 17, and letter, June 17] discussing an attack by the far-left group FAIR on Mr. MacNeil’s program. This small group has attracted inordinate news media attention for criticisms of the few programs on television that make an honest effort to give diverse points of view a hearing. FAIR wants more time given to the extremists on the left, to that numerically insignificant group that used to regard Pol Pot as a Cambodian hero and who wept at the rejection of Daniel Ortega by the people of Nicaragua.' He 'label[ed] Accuracy in Media the counterpart of FAIR on the right', that 'we are "advancing views that originate on the farther edges of America’s political spectrum"', '[un]interested in accuracy'. Yet the group for 20 years has 'an enviable record for accuracy in criticism', and has 'attracted thousands of American mainstream supporters'. 'At our 20th anniversary celebration last year, we received letters of commendation from President Bush, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon and many other prominent Americans.'

'AIM has often criticized the news media for portraying Communism as a system good for its victims and covering up Communist crimes. Perhaps that is why Mr. Goodman, caught in a pre-glasnost time warp, placed us on the farther edges of America’s political spectrum.'

1990_6_20 (Kenton J. Clymer in El Paso, Texas ('Professor of History, U. of Texas') | P16/p01 Letters to the Editor | Tuesday 1990/7/3): More Than One Way to Aid Khmer Rouge. 'Representative Stephen J. Solarz (letter, June 12) takes issue with Anthony Lewis’s assertion that Mr. Solarz supports a United States policy toward Cambodia that "benefits the murderous Khmer Rouge." Though I have no doubt that Representative Solarz does not want to see a return of the Khmer Rouge (he has spoken forcefully and eloquently on this in the last decade), the policies he advocates toward Cambodia have the effect of strengthening the Khmer Rouge.'

'Since at least 1983, Mr. Solarz has strongly supported sending American military assistance to the Khmer Rouge’s non-Communist allies. Although his efforts have not been successful, overt nonlethal aid has been authorized since 1985, and considerably more covert assistance has probably reached the resistance groups. Even if Mr. Solarz is correct that no American aid intended for these forces has reached the Khmer Rouge (and there have been persistent reports to the contrary), such aid indirectly helps the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge’s non-Communist allies use American assistance to combat the government in Phnom Penh. As far as they succeed in weakening the Phnom Penh Government, the Khmer Rouge - the strongest of the resistance factions - benefits.' He notes Solarz’ diplomatic support of the rebel coalition, representing Cambodia at the UN, 'though it controls very little territory. In fact, Khmer Rouge officials represent Cambodia at the United Nations.' These undermine the Hun Sen govt, which 'has its shortcomings, it is infinitely preferable to the Khmer Rouge regime that it replaced in 1979 and is strongly opposed to the return of the murderers. Weakening it - by supplying groups that are engaged in combat against it or by denying it diplomatic status - benefits the Khmer Rouge.'

1990_7_07 (Clifford Krauss in Washington DC | P03 | Sunday 1990/7/8): U.S. Weighs a Shift on Cambodia Policy - Critics say the current practice really benefits the Khmer Rouge. 'The Bush Administration is beginning quietly to reconsider its policy of supporting a guerrilla insurgency against the Vietnamese-backed Government of Cambodia, officials say', though not 'full-fledged policy review', Congressional pressure, and 'developments on the battlefield' and at negotiations, could 'force other options, including contacts with Phnom Penh or withdrawal from the conflict altogether.' 'Washington is giving more than $15 million a year in covert and overt aid to two small non-Communist guerrilla groups fighting in a loose coalition on the side of Khmer Rouge, the powerful Communist rebel group, against Prime Minister Hun Sen’s faction.'

'Although the aid, described as nonlethal, is small compared with the support that China and Singapore give to the guerrillas, critics say that United States policy could help bring Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge back to power. Human rights monitors charge that more than a million people died under Khmer Rouge rule in the 1970’s, during a radical restructuring throughout the nation. The Administration continues to argue that the present policy is the best way to shore up the non-Communist guerrillas and to restrain an expansionist Vietnam, which helped install the present ruling faction in Phnom Penh in 1979. The Administration backs a proposal of Australia and Representative Stephen J. Solarz, Democrat of Brooklyn, that the United Nations would help administer Cambodia after a cease-fire until democratic elections.'

'United States policy goes back to the late 1970’s, when the Carter Administration, hoping to improve relations with Beijing, put aside its human rights concerns and condoned China’s support of the Khmer Rouge. By 1982, Washington had helped persuade the non-Communist forces, whose most prominent leader is Prince Norodom Sihanouk, to join with the Khmer Rouge to drive Vietnam and the Hun Sen faction out of Cambodia. There was little debate on the issue for years, as worries over Vietnamese expansionism outweighed concern about the Khmer Rouge’s returning to power. But that is changing as a growing number in Congress fear a Khmer Rouge victory and wonder why the United States needs to involve itself in a struggle of limited strategic importance', bolstered by Vietnam’s withdrawl 'last year'.

Amidst a 'waning of the cold war', 'Administration officials say that the Vietnamese continue to deploy elite forces and advisers in Cambodia. But they concede that the Soviet Union has cut back its support for Vietnam and Cambodia and that Moscow will probably continue to do so.' Current policy isn’t 'going well', evidenced by KR battlefield wins and negotiation stalling. 'Moreover, a secret vote by the Senate Intelligence Committee to cut an estimated $10 million in aid to the insurgency late last month was a sign of growing opposition. The House approved more than $7 million in overt aid two weeks ago, but the Senate Democratic leadership has pledged to cut it.'

'"I’m troubled by the reports I’m getting that some of our aid is winding up in the hands of the Khmer Rouge and I can’t support anything that would allow that to happen," said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, chairman of the subcommittee that will soon handle the legislation. "We are on the defensive," said a Congressional aide who supports the official Administration position. With a push from middle-level State Department and Central Intelligence Agency officials here and in Thailand, the Administration is beginning to consider adjustments.'

'A senior State Department official said that he had asked his aides "to take a hard look" at a statement on June 11 by Senator George J. Mitchell, the Maine Democrat, in which the majority leader suggested that the United States open talks with the Hun Sen faction and ease restrictions on development and humanitarian aid to Cambodia. The Bush Administration has argued that Prime Minister Hun Sen is illegitimate because his Government remains dependent on Vietnamese support. In his statement, Senator Mitchell said: "The Administration’s Cambodia policy is incredible. It is insupportable. It must be changed." Senator Mitchell also advised that the United States withdraw its support for Khmer Rouge participation in the delegation that occupies Cambodia’s seat in the United Nations. Mr. Mitchell also suggested that steps be taken to "divorce" the non-Communist factions from the Khmer Rouge. A State Department official said the Administration might decide to go a step further than Mr. Mitchell’s proposal by encouraging the Sihanouk forces to join with the Hun Sen faction against the Khmer Rouge.'

Wariness of Offending China

'But he said such a policy would have to be pursued quietly. Otherwise, the Chinese might be emboldened to step up their support for the Khmer Rouge. The official stressed that such options had not yet reached the policy-making level of the Administration.' 'Proponents and opponents of the Administration position say the turning point for the policy could come if the five permanent members of United Nations Security Council, scheduled to meet in Paris this month, failed to work out a framework for an interim government and elections. Whatever the American policy, it may be difficult to stop the Khmer Rouge. The Hun Sen faction has had limited success in combating the well-disciplined guerrillas. "It is pretty late," said Nayan Chanda, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "But the only thing that could prevent the Khmer Rouge from taking power is a united approach by the Western industrial nations and Asean to urge Prince Sihanouk to form a coalition with the Hun Sen regime."'

1990_7_08 (Charlotte Libov | P74/?? | Sunday 1990/7/8): Dance Keeps Cambodian Culture Alive - A new troupe emerges from the dreams of a refugee who lives in the state. TO READ

1990_7_13 (Clifford Krauss in Washington DC | P03 | Saturday 1990/7/14): U.S. Policy on Cambodia Shifts a Bit - A welcome offer to identify G.I.’s lost in Vietnam. 'In a break from past policy of shunning the Cambodian Government, the Bush Administration announced today that it had accepted an offer by Phnom Penh to cooperate in examining what could be the remains of Americans missing in action from the Vietnam War. The State Department announcement comes at a time when the Bush Administration is reviewing its policy of aiding a rebel insurgency fighting the Vietnamese-backed Government of Prime Minister Hun Sen. Washington is currently sending more than $15 million a year in covert and overt aid to two small non-Communist guerrilla organizations fighting in a loose coalition with the Communist Khmer Rouge against the Government.'

'The policy review has been pushed by rising concern in Congress that the Bush Administration could inadvertently help the Khmer Rouge retake power. In the 1970’s, the Khmer Rouge radically restructured Cambodian society, clearing the cities of intellectuals and professionals and breaking up families. More than a million people died under their rule.'

The efforts 'gained ground last February' in talks between US Senator Charles S. Robb and Hun Sen. 'A senior State Department official said the Administration is treating the agreement to cooperate "as a humanitarian process." But the official, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified, added that there "would be some prospect of dealing with Hun Sen" politically if the Cambodian leader showed greater flexibility in regional peace talks.'

Democratic Elections the Goal

'The Bush Administration hopes the talks will organize an interim government to rule until democratic elections can be held under international supervision. Such an interim government would either be administered by the United Nations or by a coalition consisting of the three guerrilla groups and the current Government. The announcement appeared to ease the rising tension between Congress and the Administration on the Cambodia issue. Rep. Chester Atkins, Democrat of Massachusetts, said, "I am just delighted they are sending over this team." Mr. Atkins, who is a leading critic of the Administration’s Cambodia policy, said he hoped the new cooperation between Washington and Phnom Penh would "create a better environment for relations between our two countries."' Speaking 'at the annual meeting of the National League of POW/MIA Families', 'called on Vietnam to step up its efforts to account for American soldiers missing since the war', '"and lay the groundwork for improved relations with the context of a comprehensive settlement in Cambodia." He characterized his speech as "an important message, a message Hanoi should understand" so that the two nations "can move forward together toward a day when relations can be normal."'

1990_7_18 (Clifford Krauss in Washington DC | P10 | Thursday 1990/7/19): Behind U.S. Reversal: Gains by the Khmer Rouge - Using a strategy that brought the rebels to power. 'Defense and intelligence officials say they are increasingly concerned that the Communist Khmer Rouge guerrillas are winning their war to oust the Vietnamese-backed Cambodian Government. The Bush Administration’s announcement today that it is withdrawing recognition of the Cambodian rebel coalition and opening talks with Vietnam underlines that concern.' Though the USSD doesn’t think 'the Cambodian Government will fall this year. They said that two non-Communist guerrilla groups loosely allied with the Khmer Rouge had failed to make similar advances. The two groups receive more than $15 million in yearly overt and covert American assistance. "A primary concern of our policy is to keep the Khmer Rouge from taking power," said a senior State Department official. "Khmer Rouge military advances have caused concern."'

'Human-rights monitors have documented that more than a million Cambodians were killed under Khmer Rouge rule in the 1970’s during a radical restructuring of society that included the forced mass migration of urban people into the countryside. Administration officials said that the Khmer Rouge rebels are following rural-based strategy similar to the one used in encircling Phnom Penh in 1975, when the Khmer Rouge came to power.' In the KR rainy-season offensive, 'on northern, southern and central villages within 40 miles of the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, Government forces are retreating and in some cases dropping their weapons, the officials said.'

'A Defense Department official said the Khmer Rouge strategy was directed at "undermining the people’s confidence in the Government and the Government’s confidence in itself." The official continued: "The Government forces are hard pressed and extended in contending with the Khmer Rouge offensive. Morale problems and corruption are clearly evident."' Meanwhile, other issues: 'The Government cannot pay all of its civil servants and soldiers, a situation made all the more severe by rising inflation and a decline in Vietnamese and Soviet economic aid.' Also mention of Vietnamese withdrawl, but 'a few thousand Vietnamese military advisers have returned to help beat back the offensive.' The CIA estimates Chinese aid to the KR 'approaches $100 million a year, while the non-Communist groups receive much less from several countries, including Singapore, which sends them $10 million a year in military hardware and other supplies. The C.I.A. estimates that the Khmer Rouge is backed in one form or another by 30 percent of the population, with larger proportions of support in areas they control, where they can exercise intimidation.'

'C.I.A. analysts also said the non-Communist groups and Khmer Rouge share supply lines, raising questions of how the Bush Administration can continue to supply the non-Communists without inadvertently helping the Khmer Rouge. The deeper the American-supported groups operate inside Cambodia, the more dependent they are on the Khmer Rouge.'

1990_7_19 ([Editorial Staff?] | P10 | Thursday 1990/7/19): The Cambodian Ordeal: A Country Bleeds for 15 Years. This timeline starts on April 1975 (when the 'Communist guerrillas of the Khmer Rouge seize the capital, Phnom Penh, defeating the non-Communist Government of Marshal Lon Nol'), not in 1969, when the US started bombing. 'Under the leadership of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge impose a brutal reorganization of society in which more than a million people die. Prince Norodom Sihanouk, their virtual prisoner, is named head of state.'

Next, Vietnam invades, 'driving the Khmer Rouge to the Thai border', and 'install[s] a new Government led by Heng Samrin'. Next, 'The Khmer Rouge, the largest of three guerrilla groups fighting the Vietnamese-installed Government, is recognized by the United Nations as the legitimate government of Cambodia.' In June 1982, 'Under pressure from China, the United States and other backers, the three Cambodian guerrilla factions form a coalition government in exile with Prince Sihanouk as president, Khieu Samphan of the Khmer Rouge as vice president and Son Sann of the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front as prime minister. Despite its opposition to the Khmer Rouge, the United States recognizes the rebel coalition.' In May 1987, 'Prince Sihanouk steps down for a year as head of the coalition after attacks on his men by Khmer Rouge and pursues his own peace initiative.' In Feb 1988, 'Under Chinese pressure, Prince Sihanouk returns to lead the coalition.' An overview of Vietnam’s withdrawl process, and some UN and Paris meetings. June 1990: 'The Senate majority leader, George J. Mitchell of Maine, suggests that the United States open talks with the Hun Sen Government and ease restrictions on development and humanitarian aid to Cambodia.' July 1990: 'Under pressure from Congress and in light of battlefield gains by the Khmer Rouge, the Bush Administration withdraws its recognition of the rebel coalition. A State Department official says the Administration might encourage the Sihanouk forces to join with the Phnom Penh Government against the Khmer Rouge.'

Query at: May 9 1993

Three articles (Nate Thayer in Anlong Veng, Cambodia | P01[?] | Far Eastern Economic Review 1997/10/30): POL POT: UNREPENTANT - An Exclusive Interview (if that link doesn’t work, the pdf is also available here).

'The Cambodian holocaust';

(1997_10_30_a): Day of Reckoning: Pol Pot breaks an 18-year silence to confront his past. In defending his murderous rule, he sheds new light on the dark secrets of the Khmer Rouge The interview with a frail Pol Pot lasts two hours, taking place in the 'KR stronghold of Anlong Veng', where it was revealed that Ta Mok had ousted Pol Pot 'in June'. Ta Mok himself 'acknowledged in his first interview ever that "hundreds of thousands" of people had died during the group's time in power. Neither he nor other KR leaders interviewed would admit personal responsibility; instead, they point fingers at Pol Pot or one another.' As for Pol Pot, he refused to 'make some of peace with his bloodstained past, to try to atone'; 'chillingly unrepentant', 'His humanity shows only when he talks about himself or his family; he describes in detail his youth, the origins of his political ideology, his health problems and his12-year-old daughter's difficulties in school.' '"I came to carry out the struggle, not to kill people," he rasps, his voice almost a whisper. He pauses, fixing his interviewer with an almost pleading expression. "Even now, and you can look at me, am I a savage person? My conscience is clear."'

When 'grilled' on the DK era, 'he comes back time and again with the same basic line: The KR made "mistakes," but without their unrelenting struggle Cambodia would have been swallowed by Vietnam. "I do not reject responsibility - our movement made mistakes, like every other movement in the world. But there was another aspect that was outside our control - the enemy's activities against us. I want to tell you, I'm quite satisfied on one thing: If we had not carried out our struggle, Cambodia would have become another Kampuchea Krom in 1975," he says, referring to the Mekong Delta region, seized by Vietnam from the Khmer empire in the 17th century.' He claimed that the Tuol Sleng prison, where the 'KR meticulously documented their torutre and execution of 16,000 suspected "enemies," was a Vietnamese propaganda exhibit'.

He 'does admit that he ordered the killing of his longtime comrade-in-arms Son Sen' on June 10 'along with 14 family members, including grandchildren', but not '"the babies, the young ones"' and overall he '"fe[lt] sorry for that."' (this killing was what 'brought about' his ouster; Ta Mok was also 'targeted but escaped' and 'arrested Pol Pot on June 19'; 'Five weeks later, Pol Pot was brought before a "people's tribunal" in Anlong Veng and sentenced to life imprisonment for Son Sen's murder.'). The ouster was widely publicized, in hopes for international support in 'their battle against the government of Premier Hun Sen', and allowed Thayer to witness the 'July 25 tribunal, the first time Pol Pot was seen by a journalist in 18 years. But an interview with the deposed leader took months more to arrange, through intensive contacts with a series of secret operatives both inside and outside of Anlong Veng. It took place on October 16.' But the KR won’t turn him over to 'international tribunal to face charges of crimes against humanity, Ta Mok said in a separate interview. "I will turn Pol Pot over no problem, if you bring Hun Sen and they go together," he says, setting an unrealistic condition.'

'Trial or no trial, Pol Pot's line of defence is the same: His youthful, inexperienced movement made "mistakes" under pressure from its enemies, but they saved the country from Vietnamese annexation. Asked whether he wanted to apologize for the suffering he caused, he looks genuinely confused, has the interpreter repeat the question, and answers: "No."' 'The anti-Vietnamese rhetoric isn't surprising: the ultra-nationalism of the KR became evident when they started raiding the territory of their erstwhile Vietnamese communist allies in Vietnam in the years after seizing power. But Pol Pot reveals that distrust between the two communist movements dates back to at least 1970, when Le Duan and other Vietnamese leaders tried to persuade him to take nominal command of a combined Cambodian- Vietnamese-Laotian army to fight the American-backed governments in Phnom Penh and Saigon.' He says he was told he didn’t 'have to fight', and Vietnam 'will come and liberate you'; that they did the opposite, capturing Phnom Penh on April 17th, to pre-empt Vietnamese occupation. Though Thayer says there might be some truth here, Pol Pot then 'outrageously' 'blame[s] even the mass starvation during his rule on the Vietnamese'. '"To say that millions died is too much. Another aspect you have to know is that Vietnamese agents, they were there. There was rice, but they didn't give rice to the population," Pol Pot claims.'

Regarding his allegation that Tuol SLeng is just Vietnamese propaganda [certainly, it is that... but any atrocity memorial is]: yet he also 'acknowledges' he ' ordered the arrest and murder of political enemies, accusing them of collusion with Vietnam' (ie Vorn Vet, Hu Num, Hu Yuon, 'fellow standing committee members killed after the KR took power'). ' "Those people were in the central leadership of Democratic Kampuchea, but they were not the people of Democratic Kampuchea," he says. "In 1976... that group of people you were talking about, they set up a coup d'etat committee, especially against me. In that committee there were Vietnamese agents in the majority." He names "Comrade Ya" - the nom de guerre of Men San, who commanded the northeast region - as chief conspirator.' In September 1976, 'notorious Tuol Sleng chief Duch writes that he "reported this morning at 0910 to the Organization about Ya." The Organization is how Pol Pot was officially known' [though it seems 'Pol Pot' wasn’t 'the Organization', but the group-commonly-referred-to-as KR]. He reports that this paranoia has today fractured the KR, with some groups aligned against each other, some even aligned with Hun Sen.

'"Pol Pot's stance got even loftier, and our territory got even smaller," says an elderly Anlong Veng villager. "He saw enemies as rotten flesh, swollen flesh. He saw enemies surrounding. Enemies in front, enemies behind, enemies to the north, enemies to the south... leaving us no place to breathe." Indeed, only six of the original 22 members of the Democratic Kampuchea party central committee survived their years in power unscathed, according to documents obtained from Tuol Sleng. The rest died, or survived only because they were rescued from Tuol Sleng, ironically, by the invading Vietnamese army.' They then 'rose from the ashes', due to PRC, ASEAN, and Western support against Vietnam; 'They capitalized on the animosity towards Vietnam that permeates Cambodian society. But since the 1993 UN-run elections, which the KR boycotted, the movement's cannibalization has resumed. Of the nine younger military commanders chosen in 1985 to form the new generation of leadership, six have defected to the Cambodian government and two were arrested for killing Son Sen. In August 1996, senior leader Ieng Sary and more than half of the KR fighters in the northwest broke with Pol Pot, Son Sen, Ta Mok and Khieu Samphan, rallying around the town of Pailin.'

Notably, Khieu Samphan is ' officially head of the KR remnant in Anlong Veng' (though Ta Mok actually rules). 'In fact, Khieu Samphan seems to retain sympathy for Pol Pot. On June 12, in a clandestine radio broadcast, he called Son Sen a "traitor." Asked if he was a hostage of Pol Pot when he made that broadcast, Samphan replies unconvincingly: "You could call it something like that." He refuses to elaborate.'

Did the KR really turn on Pol Pot? 'Ta Mok says so: "Pol Pot’s hands are filled with blood." And from Pol Pot's own words, the answer also seems yes. "For me it is over. Over politically, and over as a human being."' He was animated when talking about his sickness (apparently suffering a stroke in 'late 1995'), 'a contrast to the implacable way he discussed those who died under his rule.' Over the interview, while he sometimes gets annoyed, he 'never raises his voice', and is 'eager to elicit sympathy'. Confined in a hut-turned-cell, his books have been confiscated. With nothing to do, he listens to the radio 'every morning: both the clandestine Democratic Kampuchea radio and the Voice of America. "I want to listen to VOA every night as well, but sometimes I fall asleep," he says, complaining that the morning broadcast isn't as interesting as the evening one.' Asked if his only daughter, aged 12, '[w]hen she grows up, will she be proud to say she is the daughter of Pol Pot? "I don't know about that. It's up to history to judge," he responds.'

(1997_10_30_b): On the Stand. There are good reasons to be worried when coming face-to-face with the man responsible for one of the worst mass murders in history. But Nate Thayer was most worries that Pol Pot wouldn’t talk, or would cut off the interview after a few minutes. So from the outset he hit Pol Pot with the big question: Does he admit guilt for his murderous 1975-78 rule? It was a question that Thayer pressed again and again. Because Pol Pot is more likely to die than be turned over to an international tribunal, the jungle interview may be as close to a courtroom as he ever gets. // Thayer’s interpreter, a senior Khmer Rouge cadre, tried to beg out of his translating duties, perhaps anticipating the tone of the questions. Thayer speaks conversational Khmer, but he prevailed upon the interpreter to translate both the questions and answers while a tape recorder and television camera rolled. Here are excerpts, starting with Thayer’s opening questions.

Asked about the DK period of his rule, in which ' millions of people who indeed did suffer during that time, and whether he feels that he's fairly accused. That's one question, let's start with.' For Pol Pot, the '"question is not unfamiliar"', '"raised time and again"'. His '"conscience is clear. Everything I have done and contributed is first for the nation and the people and the race of Cambodia."' Then he spoke of how 'the Vietnamese wanted to take over Cambodia, and '""they wanted to assassinate me because they knew without me they could easily swallow up Cambodia"'.

Thayer: '" Could you answer that question directly? Do you feel that you were indeed responsible for crimes against humanity, against your own people?"'

Pol Pot: '"I'm going to reply. I want to tell you clearly. First, I would like to tell you that I came to carry out the struggle, not to kill people. Even now, and you can look at me, am I savage person? My conscience is clear... As I told you before, they fought against us, so we had to take measures to defend ourselves..."'

Asked if he felt any remorse, or acknowledge he made '"very serious mistakes"', he answers '"There are two sides to it, as I told you: There's what we did wrong, and what we did right. The mistake is that we did some things against the people - by us and also by the enemy - but the other side, as I told you, is that without our struggle there would be no Cambodia right now."' Asked for an apology for those who suffered under him, he answers '"For the wrong things of our struggle, as I told you, for the wrong things, it has been written in the book. This is a testimony before history."' Which book? "'A: The book is the "The Right and Wrong of Democratic Kampuchea". [Pol Pot was apparently referring to a political tract released by the Democratic Kampuchea movement, as the Khmer Rouge calls themselves, in the late 1980s.]"' Thayer fires back that the book '"acknowledged only 30,000 deaths"', but '"[a]ll independent scholars, from all political ideologies"' acknowledge at least O(100k) from '"failed central policies while you were in power... That is a fact"'. Will he acknowledge? "'As I told you, that was written in the book, and I'm tired of talking about it...'"

About Tuol Sleng, was he responsible, and did he '"really believe that those 16,000 - including women and children - were agents of a foreign government?"' He replies '"I was at the top. I made only big decisions on big issues. I want to tell you - Tuol Sleng was a Vietnamese exhibition; a journalist wrote that. People talk about Tuol Sleng, Tuol Sleng, Toul Sleng, but when we look at the pictures, the pictures are the same. When I first heard about Tuol Sleng, it was on VOA [Voice of America]. I listened twice. And there are documents talking about someone who did research about the skeletons of the people... They said when you look closely at the skulls, they are smaller than the skulls of the Khmer people."' Did he never hear of Tuol Sleng before 1979? '"No, I never heard of it. And those two researchers, they said that those skeletons, they were more than 10 years old."'

(1997_10_30_c): My Education: How Saloth Sar became Pol Pot. In the opening here, Thayer notes that the 'ideology that drove it has been left largely to the realm of speculation. Some scholars have described Pol Pot as a Cultural Revolution-style Maoist, while others have conjectured that a youthful grape-picking trip to Tito's Yugoslavia planted the seeds for his later break with the mainstream Marxists of the Soviet Union and Vietnam. But Pol Pot tells his own story differently. He claims that as a student in France in 1949-53, he was influenced by a range of progressive movements-including, ironically, that of non-violent Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi.' He then goes into a biography of Pol Pot.

'Clearly defensive of his status as an "intellectual," Pol Pot volunteered that biographer David Chandler was "not entirely accurate" when characterizing him as a poor student. "I was not a bad student. I was average . . . I studied just enough to keep my scholarship. The rest of the time I just read books," he said. It was those books, as well as the leftist student movements brewing in Europe in the years after World War II, that gave Pol Pot his early political education. "I looked at the second- hand books that were on sale along the Seine River, the old books that I loved to read," he recalled. "When I got money from my scholarship, I had to spend it on rent and food, so I only had 20 or 25 francs left to spend. But I got a lot of books to read. For example, La Grande Revolution Francaise [by Peter Kropotkin]. I did not understand it all, but I just read. At the same time I saw the movement in India of Mahatma Gandhi. He was well known and I was very pleased with that. And later on Nehru. "I started as a nationalist and then patriot and then I read progressive books. Before that time, I never read L'Humanite [the French communist party newspaper]. It scared me, " he smiled, "But I got used to it because of the student movement." Pol Pot said there was nothing political about his trip or trips to Yugoslavia in the early 1950s. "I went to Yugoslavia because it was vacation time and I had no money. They organized a brigade... I paid just 2,000 francs, including everything. It wasn't influenced by any ideology. We just went for pleasure. The next year . . . I went camping. So I cannot tell you of any single influence. Maybe it's a little from here, a little from there."'

He said his 'real political awakening' was returning to Cambodia, and seeing that the situation had deteriorated; his uncle once owned 'a piece of land and a buffalo, now he had become a rickshaw-puller'. He said secrecy ('that made the Khmer Rouge so effective') was 'second nature' to Pol Pot; he had been that way since boyhood; '"I never talked about myself ... That was my nature. I was taciturn ... I’m quite modest. I don’t want to tell people that I’m a leader."' 'Pol Pot said that it was as much "by chance" as anything that he became leader of the Cambodian communist party in 1960, when Tou Samouth disappeared. "There was nobody else to become secretary of the party, so I had to take charge," he said. He vehemently denied that he had killed his "best friend", explaining in detail how Tou Samouth had been betrayed and arrested when he left his safe house in Phnom Penh to fetch medicine for his sick child. Tou Samouth was taken to the house of Lon Nol - the military commander who would later lead Cambodia- and interrogated for a week, Pol Pot said. "At that time I was his aide. If Tou Samouth had talked, I would have been arrested. He was killed at Stung Meanchey pagoda. We loved each other."'

(1997_10_30_d): Forbidden City: New strongman Ta Mok Reaches out of isolation. This is a three hour interview with Ta Mok. 'His words, though, are sometimes as chilling as his laugh is warm. In an unprecedented admission by a KR leader, he says "hundreds of thousands" died during the revolutionary regime's 1975-78 rule, though he blames their deaths on Pol Pot. As for the thousands of fellow KR that his forces killed during the purges of 1978, he shrugs. Their leader, he explains, had been discovered to be Vietnamese. ... He's a peasant leader who defends what he sees as the interests of his people. And like Pol Pot, that includes an obsession with the perceived threat of Vietnamese domination. Mok would kill a Vietnamese intruder with the nonchalance with which a farmer plucks a leech off a bare leg.' He thinks 'his people need' international support now, against Hun Sen; hence this interview. ' Sitting in a wooden pavilion freshly painted with revolutionary slogans, he talks about supporting "liberal democracy." It's not clear if he really understands the term, but since he ousted Pol Pot in June, cadres say he has allowed new freedoms in the guerrilla zone.'

'Yet Anlong Veng is more than a battlefield. A two-day tour shows a wealth of agricultural projects, making it one of the more developed rural areas in Cambodia. Sophisticated dams, irrigating systems and other water projects are everywhere. Tractors and earth-moving vehicles imported through Thailand work the land. ... Indeed, Mok says it was his passion for rural development projects ("My hobby is agriculture") that cost him his leg. He stepped on a mine when building a road. "I was inspecting a road project. I was behind a bulldozer," he recalls, shifting his artificial limb.'

'Is this the one place where the KR's ideology, which caused the death of perhaps one million Cambodians in the 1970s, actually works? Hardly. Mok denies that he ever embraced communism. "I was a monk," he says, and when he was just 16 he was recruited into the resistance. "When I joined the Communist Party of Cambodia, I did not know what communism was," he says with a burst of laugher. "They told me the party is a patriotic one. That is why I joined the party. Later on I found that the Communist Party was sucking the blood of the people. "When we talk about economic life, I have no theoretical ideology," says Mok. " What is policy? When we talk about life we talk about land and water. For the people, having these is having freedom and democracy."'

'Actually, KR cadres say Mok has introduced new freedoms in Anlong Veng in the four months since he ousted Pol Pot. Previously, there were no schools, while now scores of brightly dressed schoolchildren carrying notebooks can be seen casually returning home from lessons. Listening to radio other than the clandestine guerrilla station was forbidden; now they can listen freely to foreign broadcasts. "We can even watch TV," one cadre exclaims proudly. Ironically, there are signs that opening up has spawned social problems the puritanical KR never faced before. Mok has responded in a characteristically KR way: "No Gambling" has been added to revolutionary slogans such as "Defeat for the Contemptible Yuon Enemy Aggressors" adorning the walls of Anlong Veng. That's not the only new slogan. "Defeat for the Traitor Pol Pot Whose Hands Are Stained With Blood," "Long Live the Emerging Democracy," and "Cambodians Don't Kill Cambodians" are all freshly painted. Mok, who has basically spent his entire life in the jungle, seems to think the appearance of the new slogans will be enough to inspire Cambodians to rally in support of is movement. "Reports reach me everyday saying that the new policy that 'Cambodians Don't Kill Cambodians' is a magic slogan indeed," he says.'

Though this is what the KR did during the DK, when 'Mok was at the very core of the leadership. Mok denies personal culpability for the mass murder of those years - a denial that scholars say is patently untrue. But in an unprecedented admission by a senior KR leader, he does admit that the regime committed wide-scale abuses. "It is clear that Pol Pot has committed crimes against humanity," he says. "I don't agree with the American figure that millions died, but hundreds of thousands, yes. Mok's venom for Pol Pot seems genuine and personal. Yet his denials of personal responsibility ring false, scholars say. For example, he claims no involvement in the Tuol Sleng prison. "Pol Pot alone was in charge of the prison," he insists."' Academics, such as Stephen Heder, say 'there’s no doubt' he was involved there.

'Mok's "butcher" nickname may have been earned in 1978. As commander of the southwestern zone of Cambodia and fifth-ranking party leader, he was ordered by Pol Pot to purge KR cadres from the eastern zone who were accused of conspiring with Vietnam. Zone commander Sao Phim and thousands of his loyalists were killed. Asked about this brutal purge, Mok makes clear that he believes anyone associated with the Vietnamese is a fair target for murder. "I learned from documents produced by Pol Pot that Sao Phim was Vietnamese," he says of the fourth-ranking party leader. Mok shrugs again in reference to two other leaders, Hu Num and Hu Yuon, who were killed under torture. "Sao Phim I can understand. This man was Vietnamese," he says, but he then adds that the deaths of "Hu Nim and Hu Yuon I do not understand."'

'Mok's virulent anti-Vietnamese statements come as no surprise. In 1993, his troops carried out numerous massacres of Vietnamese. "I have never taken a nap in my life, in order to go faster than the Vietnamese, to beat the Vietnamese, to not allow the Vietnamese to attack us," he says. He considers anyone working with Hun Sen or the CPP to be Vietnamese and thus a legitimate target for murder. That may explain why the straight-talking guerrilla chief seems to feel no guilt for his role in the horrors of 1975-78. Asked about the deaths of those years, he laughs and waves his hand dismissively. "If my hands were stained with the blood of my compatriots, why would the people love me? Go ask them yourself."'

'Mok says that if he had the chance to live life differently, he would not have joined with Pol Pot, whose "hands are soiled with blood". Yet his rejection of the long-time KR supremo seems rooted not in the crimes of the 1970s but those on June 1997, when Pol Pot ordered the killing of Son Sen and attempted to murder Mok in a power struggle. Since the 1993 UN-sponsored elections, the KR had been fracturing, and Pol Pot had moved his base of operations, first from Trat in the southwest, to Pailin, then to Phnom Chhat in the northwest, Mok says. "From Phnom Chhat he came to ask me to stay here. Then....he tried to kill me and the people of Anlong Veng. How can I trust him?" After nearly three hours talking about the revolutionary movement that has been his world for more than half a century, Mok says Pol Pot has been taken to a mountainside location and is waiting to be interviewed. "Ask Pol Pot whether he recognizes his faults. Ask him why he has assassinated his fellow Cambodians. After all that he has done, what more does he want?" Mok says, scoffing at the man he served for decades. He then asks the interviewer: "Can you still say that Pol Pot and I are not estranged?"'