64. “Cambodia’s Crime. . .,” New York Times, July 9, 1975, p. A36.
65. See Adams and Joblove, “The Unnewsworthy Holocaust,” pp. 217–226.
66. “Cambodia Executions Confirmed,” Washington Post, November 2, 1975, p. A11.
67. In the first few months of KR rule, hundreds of refugees who had managed to slip into Thailand made the decision to return to Cambodia, expecting hard work and Communist indoctrination but desperate to be reunited with their families. Few were ever heard from again.
68. Bruce Palling, “Refugees: Life Harsh in Cambodia,” Washington Post, July 13, 1975, p. A1.
69. Dan Morgan, “Deaths in Cambodia Laid to U.S. Policy,” Washington Post, September 31, 1975, p. A14, quoting the nonprofit Indochina Resource Center’s report “The Politics of Food: Starvation and Agricultural Revolution in Cambodia.”
70. Metzl, Western Responses, p. 56; Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, “Distortions at Fourth Hand,” Nation, June 25, 1977, pp. 789–794.
71. Amnesty International, Amnesty International: Annual Report, 1974/75 (London: Amnesty International Publications, 1975), p. 86.
72. Amnesty International, Amnesty International: Report, 1975/76 (London: Amnesty International Publications, 1976), pp. 137–138.
73. Asia Research Department to National Sections Coordination Groups on East and South-East Asia, Amnesty International, ASA/23/01/77, March 3, 1977; cited in Metzl, Western Responses, pp. 63–64.
74. Ibid., pp. 82–83. The International Committee of Jurists similarly demanded irrefutable evidence before it publicly censured the KR.
75. Ben Kiernan, “Cambodia and the News, 1975/1976,” Melbourne Journal of Politics, December 1976/January 1977, p. 6; quoted in Metzl, Western Responses, p. 53.
76. Lewis Simons, “Disease, Hunger Ravage Cambodia as Birthrate Falls,” Washington Post, July 22, 1977, p. A16. Simons quotes a European diplomat who did not contest KR brutality but who said, “It now seems that perhaps no more than 200,000 were executed. From what we know of the size of the Khmer Rouge armed force [then estimated at about 80,000] the mechanics for executions on a more massive scale are just not there.”
77. Shawcross, Sideshow, p. 47.
78. Estimates of the number of Cambodians gathered at the Thai border varied. By July 1975 there were some 7,000; that number doubled over the next few years, but most Cambodians were trapped inside the country.
79. Becker, When the War Was Over, p. 141.
80. Seath K. Teng, “The End of Childhood,” in Dith Pran, comp., and Kim DePaul, ed., Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), pp. 157–158.
81. In mid-1976, after the early purge of the civilian and military officials affiliated with Lon Nol, the KR, in Becker’s words, “shifted their attention from eliminating or transforming the bourgeoisie to eliminating the bourgeois tendencies in the Party.” Becker, When the War Was Over, p. 274.
82. Savuth Penn, “The Dark Years of My Life,” in Dith Pran, comp., and Kim DePaul, ed., Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), pp. 44–46.
83. Chandler, Voices from S–21, p. 76, citing David Ashley’s translation of the July 25, 1997, trial of Pol Pot at Anlong Veng.
84. Joan D. Criddle and Teeda Butt Mam, To Destroy You Is No Loss: The Odyssey of a Cambodian Family (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1987), pp. 90–105.
85. Chandler, Voices from S–21, p. 44, citing Henri Locard, Le Petit livre rouge de Pol Pot, ou les paroles de l’Angkar (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1996), p. 175.
86. “Cambodia’s Crime,” New York Times, July 9, 1975, p. 36.
87. H. D. S. Greenway, “The New Cambodia: A Harsh, Joyless Land,” Washington Post, February 2, 1976, pp. A1, A12.
88. François Ponchaud, “Le Cambodge neuf mois après: I.—Un travail gigantesque,” Le Monde, February 17, 1976, pp. 1, 4; and François Ponchaud, “Le Cambodge neuf mois après: II.—Un nouveau type d’homme,” Le Monde, February 18, 1976, p. 2.
89. “Pickaxe Executions by Khmer Rouge Alleged,” Times (London), April 23, 1976, p. 7; and “Un Réfugié affirme avoir participé ‘à l’exécution de cinq mille personnes,’” Le Monde, April 23, 1976, p. 3.
90. “The Khmer Rouge: Rampant Terror,” Time, April 19, 1976, p. 65.
91. Ann Mariano, “Forced Cambodia Labor Depicted,” Washington Post, April 8, 1977, p. A12. It was March 1978 before a “delegation” of Yugoslav journalists became the first to enter Cambodia; David A. Andelman, “Yugoslavs, After Rare Tour, Tell of a Primitive Cambodia,” New York Times, March 24, 1978, p. A2. Even then they had to ask the KR leader, “Who are you, comrade Pol Pot?” Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime, p. 9. “Although restricted by the conventions of Communist fraternalism . . . in their dispatches,” one Yugoslav journalist confided to New York Times correspondent Henry Kamm that the group was “appalled by much of what they saw” in Cambodia; Henry Kamm, “Cambodian Refugees Depict Growing Fear and Hunger,” New York Times, May 13, 1978, p. A1.
92. Becker, When the War Was Over, p. 375.
93. In 1976 Twining sent cables documenting in detail the population transfers, individual refugee accounts of execution, the effects of disease, and the structure of the KR regime.
94. See Metzl, Western Responses, p. 62, citing Secretary of State to Embassies, June 8, 1976. The secretary had “spoken out publicly” only in April 1975, just after the takeover.
95. Congressional Record, 95th Cong., 2nd sess., 1978, 124, pt. 25:33873.
96. Ibid., pt. 26:34655.
97. Social Committee of the United Nations Economic and Social Council, 62nd Session, Summary Record of the 811th Meeting, May 4, 1977 (E/AC.7/SR.811, May 6, 1977), p. 7; cited in Metzl, Western Responses, pp. 87–88.
98. The UN Commission on Human Rights was savagely politicized and ineffective. Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, for instance, had deflected discussion or critique of his regime at the commission for four years because he headed the Organization for African Unity. The forum had deteriorated into a stage for denouncing only Israel, South Africa, and Western colonizers.
99. David Hawk, “Pol Pot’s Cambodia: Was It Genocide?” Toward the understanding and prevention of genocide: Proceeding of the International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide, ed. Israel W. Charny (Boulder, Co.: Westview Press, 1984), p. 52.
100. Human Rights in Cambodia, Hearing Before the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, 95th Congress, 1st session, July 26, 1977, p. 15.
101. Letter from Ieng Sary to UN Commission on Human Rights, Geneva, April 1978.
102. Shawcross, Sideshow, pp. 61–62.
103. George McArthur, “China Reportedly Ships Arms to Cambodia,” Los Angeles Times, March 3, 1978, sec. 1, p. 24; Henry Kamm, “Indochina Fighting Breaks out Again,” New York Times, May 18, 1978, p. A9; Bates Gill and J. N. Mak, eds., Arms, Transparency and Security in South-East Asia, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute research report no. 13 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 103.
104. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser, 1977–1981 (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1985), p. 199.
105. “Human Rights Violations in Cambodia,” p. 18618.
106. Human Rights in Cambodia, Hearing Before the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, 95th Congress, 1st session, May 3, 1977, pp. 19, 35.
107. The first five of these columns were written by both Jack Anderson and Les Whitten from June 1975 to the end of 1977. Jack Anderson wrote another ten columns on Cambodia during the course of 1978.
108. Jack Anderson and Les Whitten, “Cambodia: Most Brutal Dictatorship,” Washington Post, July 21, 1977, p. D15.
109. Jack Anderson and Les Whitten, “Human Rights Effort Losing Its Zeal,” Washington Post, November 30
, 1977, p. B15.
110. Jack Anderson, “In Cambodia, Obliterating a Culture,” Washington Post, May 2, 1978, p. B12.
111. Jack Anderson, “Cambodia: A Modern-Day Holocaust,” Washington Post, May 3, 1978, p. E10.
112. “Out of the Silence,” Economist, September 10, 1977, p. 131.
113. William Safire, “Silence Is Guilt,” New York Times, April 24, 1978, p. A23.
114. “The Cambodian Holocaust,” Congressional Record, 95th Cong., 2nd sess., 1978, 124, pt. 10:13508. See also Representative Stephen Solarz (D.–N.Y.), “The Human Rights Problem in Cambodia,” Congressional Record, 95th Cong., 2nd sess., 1978, 124, pt. 12:16020; Representative James Mattox (D.–Tex.), “Cambodia: The Worst Human Rights Violator,” Congressional Record, 95th Cong., 2nd sess., 1978, 124, pt. 11:15131; Senator George McGovern (D.–S. Dak.), “A Question of Conscience and Civilization,” Congressional Record, 95th Cong., 2nd sess., 1978, 124, pt. 21:27755–27757.
115. Congressional Record, 95th Cong., 2nd sess., 1978, 124, pt. 27:35961.
116. Human Rights in Cambodia, July 26, 1977, pp. 2, 23.
117. Ibid., pp. 15–16.
118. Jack Anderson, “In Cambodia, Obliterating a Culture,” Washington Post, May 2, 1978, p. B12.
119. Adams and Joblove, “The Unnewsworthy Holocaust,” p. 221. The first description was used on NBC news on July 8, 1975; the later two figures were given on CBS news on August 21, 1978, and NBC news on September 21, 1978.
120. Smith Hempstone, “The Need to Bear Witness to Cambodia’s Holocaust,” Washington Post, May 7, 1978, p. C5.
121. “Human Rights Violations in Cambodia,” April 21, 1978, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Jimmy Carter, 1978, vol. 2 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1979), pp. 767–768.
122. Amnesty International, Amnesty International: Report, 1978 (London: Amnesty International Publications, 1978), p. 169.
123. It is worth noting that the organization’s capacity had greatly expanded in the previous three years. Between 1975 and 1978, expenditures grew to about $1.13 million (about $3.2 million in 1999 dollars), nearly a 225 percent real increase compared to 1975.
124. Amnesty International, Allegations of Human Rights Violations in Democratic Kampuchea, statement submitted to UN Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, August 1978.
125. U.S. submission to UNCHR, July 6, 1978; cited in Metzl, Western Responses, p. 85.
126. George McGovern, “America in Vietnam,” in Patrick J. Hearden, ed., Vietnam: Four American Perspectives (West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1990), p. 24.
127. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Hearing on the Current Situation in Indochina, 95th Cong., 2nd sess., 1978, p. 24.
128. Ibid., p. 23.
129. Ibid., p. 29.
130. William F. Buckley Jr., “Cambodia—Our Sinful Sloth,” Los Angeles Times, September 16, 1977, sec. 2, p. 7.
131. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Hearing on the Current Situation in Indochina, 95th Cong. Sess., 1978, pp. 25–26.
132. Ibid., pp. 26 and 33.
133. Ibid., p. 30.
134. Don Oberdorfer, “McGovern and Cambodia: ‘Old Shock Technique,’” Washington Post, August 26, 1978, p. A8.
135. McGovern enlisted as a nineteen-year-old after the bombing of Pearl Harbor but says he believed even then that Hitler was the one to stop: “I was always startled after the war to hear people saying they didn’t know about Hitler’s crimes when I distinctly remembered reading about them before Pearl Harbor. There were reports at least prominent enough to catch the eye of a South Dakota high school student.” McGovern went on to fly thirty-five bombing missions in Europe and win the Distinguished Flying Cross.
136. Facts on File, September 1, 1978, p. 659.
137. Oberdorfer, “McGovern and Cambodia: ‘Old Shock Technique.’”
138. Robert Kaiser, “Press U.N. on Cambodia, 80 Senators Urge Vance,” Washington Post, October 13, 1978, p. A10.
139. Senators to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, October 12, 1978. The U.S. report included excerpts from interviews with Cambodian refugees at the Thai border, extracts from twelve earlier reports from the U.S. embassy in Bangkok, Carter’s statement to Oslo, Christopher’s January statements, transcripts of the congressional hearings and two House resolutions condemning Cambodia, and full copies of Ponchaud’s Year Zero and Barron’s Murder of a Gentle Land: The Untold Story of a Communist Genocide in Cambodia (New York: Reader’s Digest Press, 1977). The full case—997 pages in all—was formally presented to the Subcommission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities of the UNCHR (E/CN.4/Sub.2/414, 14 August 1978); cited in Metzl, Western Responses, pp. 115–118.
140. John Sharkey, “Vietnam, Cambodia Exchange Bitter Charges,” Washington Post, January 1, 1978, p. A8; David Binder, “Vietnam Holds Cambodian Region After Bitter Fight, U.S. Aides Say,” New York Times, January 4, 1978, pp. A1, A6.
141. Elizabeth Becker, “Cambodia Offers to Open Borders to Westerners,” Washington Post, October 14, 2001, p. A1.
142. In one stop-off they encountered child factory workers whom Becker quickly recognized were the very same children that had been filmed in a documentary prepared earlier by the Yugoslav journalists.
143. Becker, When the War Was Over, p. 406.
144. Ibid., p. 409.
145. Ibid., p. 426.
146. This effort had faltered largely because the United States was not quite ready to reconcile but also because of Hanoi’s insistence on enormous war reparations and its failure to account for American soldiers who remained missing in action.
147. U.S. embassy, Bangkok, to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, August 18, 1978; cited in Metzl, Western Responses, pp. 123–124.
148. Becker, When the War Was Over, p. 394.
149. The number of deaths is impossible to verify because the last nationwide census had been conducted in Cambodia in 1962. Yale historian Ben Kiernan has estimated 1.7 million deaths; Craig Etcheson of the Cambodian Documentation Center believes that more than 2 million died during KR rule, more than half of whom were likely executed. By August 2001, the center had identified more than 1.1 million victims of execution, and nearly a quarter of Cambodia’s subdistricts had not yet been surveyed.
150. The s stands for sala, or “hall,” and 21 was the code number for santebal, a Khmer term for “security police.” Chandler, Voices from S–21, p. 3.
151. This included one who was spared because he maintained the prison’s electrical generating equipment, another who painted Pol Pot’s portraits, and a third who sculpted his bust.
152. Hurst Hannum, “International Law and Cambodian Genocide: The Sounds of Silence,” Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 11, no. 1 (Feb. 1989), p. 91.
153. The instructions still hang at the Tuol Sleng Museum, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
154. Ibid., p. 130.
155. “Pro-Vietnam Journalist Cites Cambodian Torture,” Washington Post, May 11, 1979, p. A23. Some of the reporting in the spring and summer of 1979 qualified atrocity reports—either mentioning that the source of the information was Vietnam or Communist-sympathizing journalists or that there seemed to be few eyewitnesses to the reported atrocities. See, for example, Henry Kamm, “Chinese Invasion Overshadows Cambodia’s Plight,” New York Times, March 4, 1979, p. 11; “Cambodia Situation Unclear,” New York Times, March 27, 1979, p. A3; “Vietnam Reports Discovery of Cambodian Mass Graves,” New York Times, April 3, 1979, p. A5; and “Vietnam Says the Pol Pot Forces Beat 26,000 Prisoners to Death,” New York Times, July 27, 1979, p. A2. As Western reporters were allowed back into Cambodia by the Vietnamese-backed government, the atrocity reports became more authoritative. See James Matlack, “Cambodia: Desolate and Devastated,” Washington Post, October 25, 1979, p. A1.
156. Don Oberdorfer, “U.S. Accuses Hanoi, Calls for Withdrawal,” Washington Post, January 8, 1979, pp. A1, A18.
157. See James Dunn, “Genocide in East Timor,”
in Samuel Totten, William S. Parsons, Israel W. Charny, eds., A Century of Genocide: Eyewitness Accounts and Critical Views (New York: Garland, 1997), pp. 264–290; Henry Kamm, “The Silent Suffering of East Timor,” New York Times, February 15, 1981, sec. 6, p. 35.
158. British media disclosed that British Special Air Services (SAS) commandos had secretly trained Thai-based guerrillas, including the KR, to oppose the Vietnamese-backed government since the mid-1980s. See Simon O’Dwyer-Russell, “SAS Training Jungle Fighters,” Sunday Telegraph, September 24, 1989, p. 14, and Robert Karniol, “UK Trained Cambodian Guerrillas,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, September 30, 1989, p. 629. Although U.S. involvement may not have been as direct as that of the British, the United States did fund purchases of materiel, including weapons, ostensibly for the KR’s non-Communist allies through several ASEAN member countries. See Paul Quinn-Judge, “Asia Allies Want Open U.S. Aid for Kampuchea Guerrillas,” Christian Science Monitor, October 12, 1984, p. 11; Elaine Sciolino, “Sihanouk Hints at U.S. Military Aid,” New York Times, October 14, 1988, p. A3; and Elaine Sciolino, “Tainted Cambodia Aid: New Details,” New York Times, November 1, 1988, p. A3. The United States technically limited its aid to the non-Communist forces in Cambodia, but the KR’s dominance over their coalition partners made the KR the likely beneficiaries. Sydney Schanberg, “Needed: A Public Outcry on Cambodia,” Newsday (Nassau and Suffolk edition), May 18, 1990, p. 90.
159. According to Richard Holbrooke, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, the Soviets’ military shipments to Vietnam more than quadrupled from 1978 to 1979 in support of the Vietnamese occupation; Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, March 24, 1980. They supplied some $2 billion in weapons to Hanoi in 1979 and 1980 and about $750 million per year thereafter, in addition to some $1 billion annually in economic aid. Nayan Chanda, Brother Enemy: The War After the War (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986), p. 397.
160. Becker, When the War Was Over, p. 440.
161. John Burgess, “Khmer Rouge, Fighting to Regain Power, Admit ‘Mistakes,’” Washington Post, August 10, 1980, p. A21.
A Problem From Hell Page 71
