Almost three decades after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, a UN-sponsored tribunal has been set up in Cambodia to prosecute the leaders responsible for genocide. Yet non-Cambodians who share responsibility for the deaths will not be indicted.
By Raoul-Marc Jennar
Le Monde Diplomatique (France)
October 2006
VIETNAM invaded Cambodia (which the Khmer Rouge had renamed Democratic Kampuchea) in December 1978, after three years of Khmer Rouge attacks on its territory. The world then discovered the mass crimes of the Pol Pot regime (1). The United Nations, the United States, China and their allies responded by jointly condemning a change of regime brought about by foreign intervention: the Cambodians had committed the crime of being liberated from a barbaric regime by an ally of the Soviet Union.
The new People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) was not recognised, and the Khmer Rouge’s ambassador, Thiounn Prasith, continued to occupy Cambodia’s seat at the UN for another 10 years while, inside the country, the Khmer Rouge massacred the population in areas still under their control.
The US classified the Khmer Rouge leaders as “non-communist personalities” (2) to be supported in their struggle against Vietnamese occupation; China and the West rebuilt Pol Pot’s army in Thailand.
In 1979 the UN Commission on Human Rights refused to consider a report containing 995 pages of testimony on mass violations of basic rights in Kampuchea. For 10 more years the UN rejected all efforts by the PRK, by survivors such as Dith Pran (3) and by human rights activists such as David Hawk, to bring the Khmer Rouge leaders to justice.
Peace negotiations began in 1989. Because of the desire to involve the Khmer Rouge (which led to the failure of the UN’s attempt to pacify Cambodia), the crimes of the Pol Pot regime were passed over. The terms “crimes against humanity” and “genocide” were banned from all official documents. The Paris Accords of 1991 employed the phrase “policies and practices of the past” to denote what was in fact the extermination of nearly a third of the Cambodian population.
A trial is a necessity for the survivors now demanding justice: the crimes in question have never been tried by a neutral and impartial court. The resulting impunity is intolerable. How can there be justice in ordinary affairs when the greatest criminals go free? The field is wide open for revisionists of all shades. What the absence of justice can lead to became clear in 2004 when the head of one of the three parties represented in Cambodia’s National Assembly congratulated the Khmer Rouge movement on “its action over the last 30 years”.
Kampuchea was in fact tried by a “revolutionary people’s court” in 1979, in the person of two of its leaders, Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, the deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs. Both were sentenced to death in absentia. But that trial, which gave many survivors an opportunity to testify, is tainted in the collective memory of the Cambodian people by the fact that it was held under Vietnamese influence. Until the movement’s demise in 1998, the Khmer Rouge continued to claim that the massacres perpetrated by the Pol Pot regime had been carried out by the Vietnamese. That claim still provides a satisfactory explanation for the young in a country where 51% of the population is under 18.
In a letter of June 1977 to the UN secretary general, the Cambodian authorities requested “the assistance of the UN and the international community in bringing to justice those responsible for genocide and crimes against humanity during the period of Democratic Kampuchea”, with the aim of “establishing the truth” and “trying those responsible”. The UN General Assembly acceded to that request at the end of the year. But it took seven years of negotiations to overcome the difficulties.
The UN proposed an international tribunal but Cambodia wanted a Cambodian court assisted by foreign judges and advisers. In response, the UN demanded compliance with international judicial standards, guarantees of the arrest of suspects identified by the court and the involvement of international judges at all stages of the proceedings. The problem was that all Cambodian judges are both judge and party to the case, since they are all survivors of the Pol Pot regime and relatives of its victims. The Cambodian judiciary, rebuilt after 1979, has obviously not yet achieved a satisfactory level of competence and independence.
A law passed in 2001 was amended in 2004 to make the proceedings of the “extraordinary chambers in the courts of Cambodia for the prosecution of crimes committed during the period of Democratic Kampuchea” acceptable to the UN. All indictments will be the joint responsibility of a Cambodian prosecutor and a foreign prosecutor proposed by the UN, each assisted by an investigating magistrate of the same nationality. The trial court will have three Cambodian and two foreign judges, and its decisions will require the affirmative vote of four judges. The Supreme Court will have four Cambodian and three foreign judges, and its decisions will require five affirmative votes. So the agreement of a foreign judge will be required in all cases.
It took two more years for the UN and the Cambodian government to raise the $56m budget, and for the judges (17 Cambodian and eight foreign) to take up their duties. Suspects will be prosecuted for breaches of Cambodian criminal law in force in 1975, international law on human rights, and international conventions ratified by Cambodia. The court will also be competent to try crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and violations of the Geneva Conventions on which international human rights law is based. It can also try breaches of the Hague Convention on the protection of cultural property.
Members of Pol Pot’s government, of the leadership of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (Angkar, “the organisation”), of the security forces (Santebal, the political police) and of the S-21 torture and execution centre are still alive. These include Khieu Samphan, head of state; Nuon Chea, known as Brother Number Two, who was Pol Pot’s closest associate, the head of Angkar and the regime’s second-in-command; Ieng Sary, who was the deputy prime minister; Khieu Thirith, who was Ieng Sary’s wife, Pol Pot’s sister-in-law, a minister and member of the central committee; Thiounn Mumm, a minister; Keat Chhon, another minister (4); and Thiounn Prasith, who was ambassador to the UN and the man who knows most about the US role in supporting the Khmer Rouge from 1979 to 1990. Kang Kek Ieu, alias “Duch”, the head of Centre S-21, is also still alive; as are Sou Met and Meah Mut, the commanders of the air force and the navy. Except for Thiounn Prasith, who appears to be under US protection, all are currently living in Cambodia.
But will they all be investigated with a view to indictment? Doubts arise because of the nature of the pacification process from the departure of the UN in 1993 to the surrender of the last Khmer Rouge stronghold in 1998. Ieng Sary went over to the government side in 1996 and was granted a royal amnesty for his 1979 conviction. Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea gave themselves up at the end of 1998. Sou Met and Meah Mut have joined the Cambodian armed forces. Only Duch is in prison. The number and status of those who are prosecuted will be a major indication of the trial’s credibility.
Another question is whether the investigating prosecutors will ask for Angkar, the regime’s supreme administrative organisation, in whose name the massacres were carried out, and Santebal, the political police, to be declared criminal organisations. Or for the standing committee of the Communist Party of Democratic Kampuchea, which decided on and planned the massacres, to be declared such an organisation. If so, it will be possible to indict any person on the grounds that he was a member of one of those organisations 27 years before the trial investigation began this July.
Pol Pot, Son Sen, the minister of defence and the man in charge of Santebal; Yun Yat, a minister; Thiounn Thieunn, a minister; Ta Mok, a military commander; and Ke Pauk, who was Ta Mok’s second-in-command, have all died, having enjoyed the protection of the international community from 1979 to 1993. Son Sen was a member of the supreme national council established by the Paris Accords of 1991 and the designated embodiment of national sovereignty during the transition period.
The US accepted the principle of a trial on condition that the court’s jurisdiction be confined to crimes committed in Cambodia during the period 17 April 1975 to 6 January 1979. Foreigners who share responsibility for the tragedy before and after the period of Democratic Kampuchea will not be indicted. No Thai civil or military leader will stand trial, although Thailand constantly interfered in Cambodian affairs from 1953 onwards, spared no effort to destabilise the neutral Cambodian regime before 1970 and served as a rear base for Pol Pot’s army from 1979 to 1998.
Singapore was the hub for supplies to Pol Pot’s army after 1979, but its leaders will not be brought to book. Nor will the European governments, led by Britain, that supplied arms and munitions to the Khmer Rouge from 1979 to 1991. Nor Henry Kissinger, for his responsibility in illegal bombings from March 1969 to May 1970, the coup of 18 March 1970 that overthrew Sihanouk, and the invasion of Cambodia in April 1970. Nor US President Jimmy Carter and his national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, who in 1979 chose to condemn the liberation of Cambodia by Vietnam, impose a total embargo on Cambodia and support the rebuilding and supply of Pol Pot’s army (5). That preference remained the choice of the Reagan and Bush (Sr) administrations until 1990.
Translated by Barry Smerin
* Raoul Marc Jennar holds a doctorate in Khmer studies from the National Institute of Eastern Languages and Civilisations and is author of ‘Les Constitutions du Cambodge: 1953-1993’ (La Documentation Française, Paris, 1994) and ‘Cambodge: une presse sous pression’ (Reporters sans frontières, Paris, 1997)
(1) Pol Pot (1925-1998), real name Saloth Sar, was the leader of the Khmer Rouge and prime minister of Democratic Kampuchea, now Cambodia, from 1976 to 1979. His policies caused the deaths of nearly 2 million people.
(2) CIA memorandum to US personnel of the UN mission to Cambodia, JPRS-SEA-92-008, 20 April 1992.
(3) Cambodian journalist for the New York Times from 1973: his story was told in Roland Joffe’s film The Killing Fields (1984).
(4) The only one of Pol Pot’s ministers who is a minister today, for economy and finance. There is no evidence linking him directly with arbitrary executions, and he has said he is willing to explain himself in court.
(5) See Christopher Hitchens, The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Verso, London, 2001, and Nayan Chanda, Brother Enemy, Collier, New York, 1986.
By Raoul-Marc Jennar
Le Monde Diplomatique (France)
October 2006
VIETNAM invaded Cambodia (which the Khmer Rouge had renamed Democratic Kampuchea) in December 1978, after three years of Khmer Rouge attacks on its territory. The world then discovered the mass crimes of the Pol Pot regime (1). The United Nations, the United States, China and their allies responded by jointly condemning a change of regime brought about by foreign intervention: the Cambodians had committed the crime of being liberated from a barbaric regime by an ally of the Soviet Union.
The new People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) was not recognised, and the Khmer Rouge’s ambassador, Thiounn Prasith, continued to occupy Cambodia’s seat at the UN for another 10 years while, inside the country, the Khmer Rouge massacred the population in areas still under their control.
The US classified the Khmer Rouge leaders as “non-communist personalities” (2) to be supported in their struggle against Vietnamese occupation; China and the West rebuilt Pol Pot’s army in Thailand.
In 1979 the UN Commission on Human Rights refused to consider a report containing 995 pages of testimony on mass violations of basic rights in Kampuchea. For 10 more years the UN rejected all efforts by the PRK, by survivors such as Dith Pran (3) and by human rights activists such as David Hawk, to bring the Khmer Rouge leaders to justice.
Peace negotiations began in 1989. Because of the desire to involve the Khmer Rouge (which led to the failure of the UN’s attempt to pacify Cambodia), the crimes of the Pol Pot regime were passed over. The terms “crimes against humanity” and “genocide” were banned from all official documents. The Paris Accords of 1991 employed the phrase “policies and practices of the past” to denote what was in fact the extermination of nearly a third of the Cambodian population.
A trial is a necessity for the survivors now demanding justice: the crimes in question have never been tried by a neutral and impartial court. The resulting impunity is intolerable. How can there be justice in ordinary affairs when the greatest criminals go free? The field is wide open for revisionists of all shades. What the absence of justice can lead to became clear in 2004 when the head of one of the three parties represented in Cambodia’s National Assembly congratulated the Khmer Rouge movement on “its action over the last 30 years”.
Kampuchea was in fact tried by a “revolutionary people’s court” in 1979, in the person of two of its leaders, Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, the deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs. Both were sentenced to death in absentia. But that trial, which gave many survivors an opportunity to testify, is tainted in the collective memory of the Cambodian people by the fact that it was held under Vietnamese influence. Until the movement’s demise in 1998, the Khmer Rouge continued to claim that the massacres perpetrated by the Pol Pot regime had been carried out by the Vietnamese. That claim still provides a satisfactory explanation for the young in a country where 51% of the population is under 18.
A step forward
It is a positive development that the trial, finally decided on by the Cambodian government and the UN in 2003 and scheduled to begin in 2007, will be held in Cambodia and in the Khmer language.In a letter of June 1977 to the UN secretary general, the Cambodian authorities requested “the assistance of the UN and the international community in bringing to justice those responsible for genocide and crimes against humanity during the period of Democratic Kampuchea”, with the aim of “establishing the truth” and “trying those responsible”. The UN General Assembly acceded to that request at the end of the year. But it took seven years of negotiations to overcome the difficulties.
The UN proposed an international tribunal but Cambodia wanted a Cambodian court assisted by foreign judges and advisers. In response, the UN demanded compliance with international judicial standards, guarantees of the arrest of suspects identified by the court and the involvement of international judges at all stages of the proceedings. The problem was that all Cambodian judges are both judge and party to the case, since they are all survivors of the Pol Pot regime and relatives of its victims. The Cambodian judiciary, rebuilt after 1979, has obviously not yet achieved a satisfactory level of competence and independence.
A law passed in 2001 was amended in 2004 to make the proceedings of the “extraordinary chambers in the courts of Cambodia for the prosecution of crimes committed during the period of Democratic Kampuchea” acceptable to the UN. All indictments will be the joint responsibility of a Cambodian prosecutor and a foreign prosecutor proposed by the UN, each assisted by an investigating magistrate of the same nationality. The trial court will have three Cambodian and two foreign judges, and its decisions will require the affirmative vote of four judges. The Supreme Court will have four Cambodian and three foreign judges, and its decisions will require five affirmative votes. So the agreement of a foreign judge will be required in all cases.
It took two more years for the UN and the Cambodian government to raise the $56m budget, and for the judges (17 Cambodian and eight foreign) to take up their duties. Suspects will be prosecuted for breaches of Cambodian criminal law in force in 1975, international law on human rights, and international conventions ratified by Cambodia. The court will also be competent to try crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and violations of the Geneva Conventions on which international human rights law is based. It can also try breaches of the Hague Convention on the protection of cultural property.
Genocide contested
Some people dispute that genocide happened. Yet the use of that term seems unquestionably justified in the case of the extermination of nearly 40% of the Muslim population, the Cham, for no other reason than that they were Cham. It also seems justified in the case of the thousands executed for not having “a Khmer soul in a Khmer body”, meaning people of Thai-Khmer or Sino-Khmer parentage, and especially Vietnamese-Khmer people who were suspected of sympathising with Vietnam.Members of Pol Pot’s government, of the leadership of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (Angkar, “the organisation”), of the security forces (Santebal, the political police) and of the S-21 torture and execution centre are still alive. These include Khieu Samphan, head of state; Nuon Chea, known as Brother Number Two, who was Pol Pot’s closest associate, the head of Angkar and the regime’s second-in-command; Ieng Sary, who was the deputy prime minister; Khieu Thirith, who was Ieng Sary’s wife, Pol Pot’s sister-in-law, a minister and member of the central committee; Thiounn Mumm, a minister; Keat Chhon, another minister (4); and Thiounn Prasith, who was ambassador to the UN and the man who knows most about the US role in supporting the Khmer Rouge from 1979 to 1990. Kang Kek Ieu, alias “Duch”, the head of Centre S-21, is also still alive; as are Sou Met and Meah Mut, the commanders of the air force and the navy. Except for Thiounn Prasith, who appears to be under US protection, all are currently living in Cambodia.
But will they all be investigated with a view to indictment? Doubts arise because of the nature of the pacification process from the departure of the UN in 1993 to the surrender of the last Khmer Rouge stronghold in 1998. Ieng Sary went over to the government side in 1996 and was granted a royal amnesty for his 1979 conviction. Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea gave themselves up at the end of 1998. Sou Met and Meah Mut have joined the Cambodian armed forces. Only Duch is in prison. The number and status of those who are prosecuted will be a major indication of the trial’s credibility.
Another question is whether the investigating prosecutors will ask for Angkar, the regime’s supreme administrative organisation, in whose name the massacres were carried out, and Santebal, the political police, to be declared criminal organisations. Or for the standing committee of the Communist Party of Democratic Kampuchea, which decided on and planned the massacres, to be declared such an organisation. If so, it will be possible to indict any person on the grounds that he was a member of one of those organisations 27 years before the trial investigation began this July.
Pol Pot, Son Sen, the minister of defence and the man in charge of Santebal; Yun Yat, a minister; Thiounn Thieunn, a minister; Ta Mok, a military commander; and Ke Pauk, who was Ta Mok’s second-in-command, have all died, having enjoyed the protection of the international community from 1979 to 1993. Son Sen was a member of the supreme national council established by the Paris Accords of 1991 and the designated embodiment of national sovereignty during the transition period.
The US accepted the principle of a trial on condition that the court’s jurisdiction be confined to crimes committed in Cambodia during the period 17 April 1975 to 6 January 1979. Foreigners who share responsibility for the tragedy before and after the period of Democratic Kampuchea will not be indicted. No Thai civil or military leader will stand trial, although Thailand constantly interfered in Cambodian affairs from 1953 onwards, spared no effort to destabilise the neutral Cambodian regime before 1970 and served as a rear base for Pol Pot’s army from 1979 to 1998.
Singapore was the hub for supplies to Pol Pot’s army after 1979, but its leaders will not be brought to book. Nor will the European governments, led by Britain, that supplied arms and munitions to the Khmer Rouge from 1979 to 1991. Nor Henry Kissinger, for his responsibility in illegal bombings from March 1969 to May 1970, the coup of 18 March 1970 that overthrew Sihanouk, and the invasion of Cambodia in April 1970. Nor US President Jimmy Carter and his national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, who in 1979 chose to condemn the liberation of Cambodia by Vietnam, impose a total embargo on Cambodia and support the rebuilding and supply of Pol Pot’s army (5). That preference remained the choice of the Reagan and Bush (Sr) administrations until 1990.
Translated by Barry Smerin
* Raoul Marc Jennar holds a doctorate in Khmer studies from the National Institute of Eastern Languages and Civilisations and is author of ‘Les Constitutions du Cambodge: 1953-1993’ (La Documentation Française, Paris, 1994) and ‘Cambodge: une presse sous pression’ (Reporters sans frontières, Paris, 1997)
(1) Pol Pot (1925-1998), real name Saloth Sar, was the leader of the Khmer Rouge and prime minister of Democratic Kampuchea, now Cambodia, from 1976 to 1979. His policies caused the deaths of nearly 2 million people.
(2) CIA memorandum to US personnel of the UN mission to Cambodia, JPRS-SEA-92-008, 20 April 1992.
(3) Cambodian journalist for the New York Times from 1973: his story was told in Roland Joffe’s film The Killing Fields (1984).
(4) The only one of Pol Pot’s ministers who is a minister today, for economy and finance. There is no evidence linking him directly with arbitrary executions, and he has said he is willing to explain himself in court.
(5) See Christopher Hitchens, The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Verso, London, 2001, and Nayan Chanda, Brother Enemy, Collier, New York, 1986.
10 comments:
[je peux entendre moi, la voix de Chirac qui console sa fille Vietnamienne adoptee - "Ne te soucie pas Bebe, Nam Yang (P. Penh) sera certainement la tienne et notre NUOC MAM (sauce de poisson) de Koah Trol serait plus que jamais populaire la bas. HUN SEN pourrait l'utiliser comme recompense/motivation pour son election durant des generations a venir!". Et avec toi a NAM YANG, nous n'avons rien a nous soucier de l'avenir de la francophonie la bas non plus!]
10/10/06
AKnijaKhmer
Le nom de plume de l'auteur du premier commentaire, AKnijaKhmer, est un autre reflet du fatalisme khmer. Assurer un meilleur avenir pour la nation khmere requiert un changement immediat de cette mentalite en faveur des actions positives: quoi faire et comment faire pour remedier a cette situation lamentable avec une confidence qu'on peut le realiser et va y reussir. LAO Mong Hay, Hong Kong.
MAN, who is understaing French? Who give a shit about French...This article is written in plain English, and someone responded in French. French is a looser. They came into Srok Khmer stole our curlture and then left. They didn't even help us while we suffered under Khmer Rouge regime. So French is big looser.
Re: Anon@5:58PM
Hold your horses there Anon! I started it (in French) and for a reason. Show us mutual respect and move on please. Thanks a lot and have a pleasant one!
10/11/06
AKnijaKhmer
Re: M. LAO Mong Hay, Hong Kong @8:08AM
Bien sur M. LAO Mong Hay. Permettez-moi quand meme de vous assurer que mon nom de plume (pseudo/faux-nom) n'a rien a faire avec ma mentalite. Bien au contraire, et jusqu'a mon dernier soupir, je ne fais exactement que comme vous avez indique dans votre message. Merci mille fois pour ce tres tres sage conseil. A la prochaine!
10/11/06
AKnijaKhmer
In reply to a comment on the French, I feel that Cambodians need to change their perception of their colonial masters. When young, I used to learn that the French had done nothing for Cambodia, they had given Kampuchea Krom away to Vietnam, they oppressed and exploited Cambodians, etc.... all the bad things about the French. When older and more educated, I have revised all that perception. In fact the French had helped the nation of Khmers to survive as an independent nation. Cambodians need to know the plight of their nation prior to the French arrival. A map in a school textbook on the history of Vietnam in French language written by a Vietnamese scholar I have read, shows that the Eastern part of Cambodia from Kampuchea Krom to Pursat and Kompong Thom was occupied by Annam (Vietnam) and the rest to the West by Siam (Thailand). Actually, Ang Duong and his family were brought up by the Siamese court. Ang Duong was crowned by the Siamese king. The French came and colonised the three parts of Vietnam (Tonkin, Annam and Cochinchina), Cambodia and Laos. Later they got Battambang from Siam. Cambodia recovered its independence but did not revert to Annam's or Siam's colonial rule. The French redicovered Khmer culture and civilisation which Khmers themselves had long forgotten. Khmer culture and civilisation were so solid that continuous internal strife and foreign invasion and occupation were incapable of obliterateing the nation of Khmers. In Fact, Khmer culture and civilisation are like resilient spring. This spring goes down under pressure but, once that pressure is off, then it comes back up again and again. Some other nations which had experienced prolongued periods of strife and foreign occuption have simply died. Not the nation of Khmers though. Khmer culture and civilisation show that Khmers had one quality common with Japanese. Khmers had learned and copied from other nations, in particular India, but they did better that Indians. Khmers built bigger and more wonderful monuments than their Indian gurus had done. But modern Cambodians have forgotten this one quality of their Khmer ancestors. Actually, this one quality needed to be re-inculcated in modern Cambodians and it has to be done fast. Cambodia has had good fortune. The French saved it from extinction and helped it to rediscover its culture and civilisation. This fortune is well reflected in a phrase in Cambodia's national anthem: "... we pin our hopes on the fortune of Cambodia, a great nation which has existed for a long, long time." (yoeung songkhoeum por phop preng samnang roboh kampuchea moharoth koeut mean you ongveng hoeuy.) Lately, the same fortune has saved Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge, Vietnamese occupation and communism. Coming back to the French, upon their departure in 1953, they left behind for Cambodians basic infrastructure like roads to different parts of the country and a railway line linking Phnom Penh and Bangkok, some hospitals, some schools. The French-built roads are being used and continue to serve as economic arteries. Independent Cambodia has not added much to them and have not been able to maintain them properly (at least until very recently). What is less visible and yet more important was the basics of the rule of law that the French left behind. Cambodia had then basic laws, basic law enforcement agencies, courts of law, public administration, and all of these institutions were functioning reasonably well and earned respect and trust from the public. Independent Cambodia was replacing this rule of law with the rule of men which eventually led it from desaster to desaster. Cambodians with such basic knowledge and understanding of the history of their country would feel they owe a debt of gratitude to the French. Some French people, so I have learned, said that Cambodians are an ungrateful people ("les Cambodgiens sont un peuple ingrat."). Cambodian rulers have a very bad habit of blaming their predecessors, yet, invariably some of them had in fact worked with or served their predecessors: Samdech Sihanouk and his subordinates blamed the French for doing nothing for Cambodia. Yet Samdech Sihanouk and many of his subordinates had been working with the French. Lon Nol and associates blamed Samdech Sihanouk for communist Vietnamse occupation of the Eastern border region and for some economic and social ills of the country. Yet Lon Nol and some associates had been working with Samdech Sihanouk and connived to let Cambodian territory be used as sanctuaries and supply route for communist Vietnamese forces. Tne Khmer Rouge blamed Lon Nol, his supporters and people living in Lon Nol-control areas for all of the country's ills and killed many of them. Yet some of the Khmer Rouge leaders had been working under the previous regimes. The Vietnamse-supported regime have blamed the Khmer Rouge for the destruction of the country. Yet many of its leaders and rank and file had been Khmer Rouge themselves. Cambodia would be better off without its incumbent rulers blaming their predecessors. Anyway blaming brings nothing. The nation of Cambodians would be better off if its leaders draw lessons from the past and have vision, and mobilize their people, whether supporters or opponents, altogether to realise this vision.
LAO Mong Hay, Hong Kong.
Re: LAO Mong Hay, Hong Kong@3:20 PM
Thanks a million for your input. It's an awful lot of history lessons about the "Beaux-parleurs" to learn and digest in five minutes. Yet brilliantly and so simply doing, M. LAO Mong Hay, you did arrive at a conclusion that I, personally, or many other khmer readers for that matter could and would concur with, for the sake of KHMER as a nation.
If I may, and with all due respect - how would one know that what you have tried to convey about the French is actually unbiased, true, accurate and beneficial to KHMER as a nation and its people? How would one know that is not actually from your personal upbringing, experiences and sympathy for the French in other words your being one French sympathizer?
Sincerely yours,
10/12/06
AKnijaKhmer
[P.s. SVP et FYI (a propos de mon nom de plume), suis pas du tout fataliste. J'aime beaucoup trop ma race khmere!. Mais je vais le changer a autre chose, Merci.]
Mr. AKnijaKhmer,
Please check with realities and facts to see whether I'm biased or not. I don't have any monopoly on the truth. Only dictators do. As to my upbringing, I've been influenced by four cultures: Chinese culture, Khmer culture, French Culture and Englsh culture. I have studied the basics Confuciaism, Buddhism, Hindism, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. I was educated under the French-modeled educational system in Cambodia up my graduation. I did my post graduate studies in England. While there I studied a bit the French philosophy (rationalism) and the English philosphy (empiricism), and I compared the financial systems of former British and French colonies for my doctorate. And lately I have been working on the legal system of Cambodia which has compelled me to refer to both the French civil law and the Anglo-Saxon common law systems. Apart from my studies, I have lived for prolonged periods of time in England, Singapore, Thailand, Canada and Hong Kong, and I have travelled a lot. In Cambodia I have traveled to all provinces except Stung Treng, to urban and rural areas alike. So far I have traveled to over 30 different countries around the world and visited big and small cities and rural areas in those countries. I started to be aware of the destiny of Cambodia rather young when I saw my elders, adult male villagers being trained to be chiverpol for the independence of the country. They made wooden guns for their parades. I have learned that gratitude is a virtue. I have owed a debt of gratitude to Cambodian society for bringing me up and building schools and hiring teachers to educate me. I'm now 61 years old and I'm not sure whether I can ever repay this debt. But I'm trying, after all there is no harm trying, as the English would say.
LAO Mong Hay, Hong Kong.
Re: Dr. LAO Mong Hay, Hong Kong @10:06 AM
Dr. Lao,
I took up French just enough to be able to read, and to jokingly scorn and scold those "Beaux-parleurs" for fun, so I thought. Now, I am sold to your very respected and elaborate version as to who and what the French had been to Khmer, and who you really are. Earlier, I thought it was a copy cat pretending to be you, pulling our readers's legs here on KI-Media. May I personally now, Dr. Lao, thank you for having taken your valuable and precious times to coach and educate us thus far? I did a little more research and may I also say - I am a fan of yours, I owe you a big one, and for whatever you do, you get my vote. Please forgive my rudeness if any had been exhibited.
And, since we have been off-topic from the very beginning, we can now turn this over back to our readers for a more serious inputs/comments on the TRIAL of the khmer rouge.
Respectfully yours,
10/13/06
AK4AnetKhmer (formely AKnijaKhmer)
[P.s. Selon votre conseil, j'ai choisi AK4AnetKhmer comme mon nouveau nom de plume. Merci infiniment Dr. Lao! Mes plus profonds respects!]
The French built only 9 national roads to control Cambodia and they invited the Viet to take over Cambodian government and they gave Cambodian land to the Viet.
Yes! The French help Cambodian people to pay taxes in blood. The French help Cambodian people by giving away Khmer Krom to the Viet and right now there are over 10 million Khmer Krom living under the Viet! The French help Cambodian people to be stupid by making all of them including King Sihanuok to go to school in Vietname and be honest because no Vietnamese want to teach Cambodian peole!
Currently, the French extend their airport management contract in Cambodia to another 20 years because due to the lack of qualify Cambodian people. I will be damned if it takes 20 years just to learn something. The French think it takes 20 years just to train Cambodian people how to ran a fucken airport!I never thought Cambodian people are so dumb!
ahahahhaahahahahaahahah!
Cambodian people have the right to be grateful for all the French help because it is the French intention to help Cambodian people to be stupid people!!!!!
Speak from the heart!
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