“For Communists and dictators, never trust, and always verify”: Sichan Siv

Sichan Siv
Would Mr. Sichan Siv's quote apply to Cambodia's dictator?

Remembering Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos

06/06/2010
By Sichan Siv
HumanEvents.com

Spring 2010 marks the 35th anniversary of the fall of Cambodia and South Vietnam to communism. In a recent speech at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, Mich., to commemorate the sad anniversary, I mentioned a pivotal date: April 10, 1975.

While in Cambodia, I listened to President Ford’s address to the joint session of Congress through the Voice of America. My heart sank when I heard him say: “The situation in South Vietnam and Cambodia has reached a critical phase requiring immediate and positive decisions by this government. The options before us are few and the time is very short.” I quoted this in my memoir Golden Bones (HarperCollins, 2008).

In his recently published book An American Amnesia (Beaufort Press, 2010), Bruce Herschensohn speaks to this date more extensively, including President Ford’s request for “Congress to appropriate without delay $722 million for emergency military assistance and an initial sum of $250 million for economic and humanitarian aid for South Vietnam.” Herschensohn concludes his quotes with the following paragraphs from Ford’s speech:

“In Cambodia, the situation is tragic. And yet, for the past three months, the beleaguered people of Phnom Penh have fought on, hoping against hope that the United States would not desert them, but instead provide the arms and ammunition they so badly needed. In January, I requested food and ammunition for the brave Cambodians, and I regret to say that as of this evening, it may soon be too late… Let no potential adversary believe that our difficulties or our debates mean a slackening of our national will. We will stand by our friends, we will honor our commitments, and will uphold our country’s principle.” But we didn’t, adds Herschensohn.

Ford’s address was one of the most difficult he had ever delivered. On the copy of the speech that he read, he added his own hand-written words to begin the speech: “I stand before you tonight after many agonizing hours and solemn prayers for guidance by the Almighty.”

An American Amnesia starts on January 23, 1973 in the corridors of the White House, where Bruce Herschensohn was working for President Nixon. He describes the cheerful mood in the executive compound after the peace agreement had been signed in Paris by the United States, its ally South Vietnam, Communist North Vietnam, and the Vietcong, known as the Provisional Revolutionary Government.

It was more than a cease-fire, Herschensohn points out. It called for the United States and North Vietnam, a.k.a. the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, to respect the right of the South Vietnamese people to self-determination. Following articles urged all parties to settle issues through negotiations and avoid armed conflicts and acts of reprisal, to insure democratic liberties, including freedom of speech, etc.

Cambodia and Laos were barely mentioned in the Accords; not until chapter 20, article 20. (I was a high school teacher in Phnom Penh and working at a conference of Southeast Asian nations on January 23, 1973. In all naïveté, I was happy that Cambodia was mentioned at all).

Without referring to North Vietnam and the Vietcong, who had occupied Cambodia’s eastern parts since the mid sixties, the accords stated: “Foreign countries shall put an end to all military activities in Cambodia and Laos, totally withdraw from and refrain from reintroducing into these two countries troops, military advisers and military personnel, armaments, munitions and war material. The internal affairs of Cambodia and Laos shall be settled by the people of each of these countries without foreign interference.”

These all sounded idealistic and wishful. There was hardly any provision to penalize the offenders of these articles. If anything, it was like trying to give speeding tickets at the Indy 500.

Obviously, the North Vietnamese and Vietcong had no intention of respecting the accords. Two years later they ran their tanks through Saigon and took over South Vietnam. The Khmer Rouge went even farther by immediately turning Cambodia into a land of blood and tears, where some two million people died. It was said there were only two kinds of people: those who had died and those who would die.

After 12 Congresses and five Presidents (Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford), Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam fell to the Communists. Who lost them?

An American Amnesia details the role of the 94th Congress which came to Washington after the November 5, 1974 post-Watergate landslide. It brought 291 Democrats and 144 Republicans to the House, 61 Democrats and 39 Republicans to the Senate. When it convened on January 3, 1975, President Ford became no more than a caretaker. The Democratically controlled Congress, along with the biased media, the anti-U.S. and pro-North Vietnam protesters (Jane Fonda, Ramsey Clark, and the like) made President Ford’s job at best challenging and at worst impossible.

Nixon probably said it best in 1969: “Let us be united for peace. Let us also be united against defeat. Because let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.”

Herschensohn’s chapter on “Hotel Journalism” is very telling about “cocktail reporting,” a tendency of anti-war journalists who filed stories from hotel bars based on propaganda fed by communist sympathizers. Incidentally, I was at one of those hotels, Le Royal in Phnom Penh, with my brother on April 17, 1975 when the Khmer Rouge came in and opened the darkest chapter of Cambodia’s history.

Bruce Herschensohn does an excellent job in painting the reality of this period, exposing the biased press and the overtly pro-Communist anti-war movement, and saluting the real heroes (Bud Day, John McCain, Jim Stockdale). He debunks many myths about the Vietnam War which he refers to as the Southeast Asian War.

President Reagan once quoted a Russian proverb: “Trust, but verify.” I would add, “For Communists and dictators, never trust, and always verify.”

Bruce Herschensohn’s American Amnesia is a must read for those interested in this critical period of history.
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Sichan Siv (www.sichansiv.com) is a former United States ambassador to the United Nations and author of "Golden Bones: An Extraordinary Escape from Hell in Cambodia to a New Life in America."

Freedom Road

Friday, April 30, 2010
By Kathryn Lopez
Townhall.com

The America ambassador asked Prince Sirik Matak of that country if he wanted to flee, too. He did not. And he explained that he "never believed for a moment that (America) would have this sentiment of abandoning a people, which has chosen liberty. You have refused us your protection, and we can do nothing about it. ... I have only committed this mistake of believing in you."

The Fourth of July came early this year. It fell, somewhat ironically, on the anniversary of the fall of Saigon.

On the morning of April 29, I was co-hosting a national radio show, when a woman named Kim called from Detroit. At 19 years old, she and her family were among "the boat people" who fled Vietnam in 1975, escaping the Communist takeover. Her father "knew that he didn't want to be there when (the Communists) took over Saigon." He had been born in Hanoi and moved south "because he wanted freedom," she said. And now he was going to make sure his entire family had it.

When Kim's family's boat failed, American servicemen took them the rest of the way and gave them water. "But these people don't know us," Kim remembered saying. One serviceman even gave Kim, she says, a $10 bill. "He said I might need it. I didn't know the value of it." Kim and her family didn't know a word of English. But once she got to a refugee camp, she was taught it. "They didn't have to do that," she remembered, 35 years later, holding back tears. "This is the greatest country. I am forever grateful."

When Kim's family arrived on these shores, her father was full of hope and determination. "If you cannot succeed here, you cannot do it anywhere else," she remembers him declaring. "Set your goal and go after it." Kim did; she's a physician. Her early experiences provided the inspiration she needed to succeed. She recalls, "When we lined up in Detroit for unemployment, for food stamps, I'd never seen my dad so sad. He said, 'We have our hands and feet, why are we standing here?' We left the line."

When people talk about American exceptionalism, it is the hope Kim's father saw here that they are thinking of. Kim called in response to a letter that to this day is hard to read. It's about an American surrender.

As we were moving out of South Vietnam, the Khmer Rouge was taking over nearby Cambodia. The America ambassador asked Prince Sirik Matak of that country if he wanted to flee, too. He did not. And he explained that he "never believed for a moment that (America) would have this sentiment of abandoning a people, which has chosen liberty. You have refused us your protection, and we can do nothing about it. ... I have only committed this mistake of believing in you."

Matak, who would be shot by the Khmer Rouge, didn't err, we did. Our political leaders disappointed him, and our servicemen were ill-served and underappreciated.

After the radio show that morning, another listener e-mailed me. I had referred to Kim's call as the welcome parade Vietnam veterans never received. In response, he said: "I'm one of those vets and your observation made me feel better about the sacrifice I made small though it was compared to that of others." He wrote: "Several years ago my daughter-in-law mentioned my year in Vietnam and thanked me for serving there. I surprised her when I told her that she was the first person to tell me that."

Warts and all, we are an exceptional nation of exceptional people -- most of us motivated by the founding principles that men fought and died for, principles that motivated our involvement in Vietnam and that we lost along the way there; principles that many of us worry the majority of our political class is forgetting again.

"Every morning I wake up and thank God that I'm here," said Mike, calling the same radio program during the same week. He was responding to a New York Times story about American expatriates renouncing their citizenship.

Mike, who was born in Croatia but raised a family here, would have none of it. A listener to conservative radio, he's become too used to hearing not from overtaxed executives living in Switzerland, but regular folks incensed at the major shift the Democratic Party seems to be forcing on the country.

"I cannot believe that one and a half years of Obama will bring the American people to its knees," Mike said. "You have to fight for your freedom."

There is something special about America. We have to work to keep it that way, forever treasuring the beacon that our nation is and needs to be, and never forgetting the dad from Hanoi, the proud soldiers or the lovers of freedom from all parts of the world.

Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak's letter to US Ambassador John Gunther Dean

Dear Excellency and friend,

I thank you very sincerely for your letter and for your offer to transport me towards freedom. I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion.

As for you and in particular for your great country, I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty. You have refused us your protection and we can do nothing about it. You leave us and it is my wish that you and your country will find happiness under the sky.

But mark it well that, if I shall die here on the spot and in my country that I love, it is too bad because we are all born and must die one day. I have only committed the mistake of believing in you, the Americans.

Please accept, Excellency, my dear friend, my faithful and friendly sentiments. Sirik Matak.

The 35th Anniversary of the fall of Saigon

April 7, 2010
By Chuck Palazzo
Veterans Today (USA)

Danang, Vietnam

What follows is a compilation from various sources as well as eye-witness accounts from friends, of what occurred during the days just prior to and the day of, The Fall of Saigon. My comments and opinions are inserted as well.

On April 30th, 2010, we commemorate two extraordinary events in United States as well as World history. The first marks the capture of Saigon, then the capital of South Vietnam, by the North Vietnamese Army. The end of the Vietnam War was realized and the transition leading to the reunification of Vietnam had begun. The second, a purported humanitarian undertaking – one which quickly ended in tragedy and proved once again that the United States is wrong in trying to influence its own power under the guise of humanity.

The final days of the Fall of Saigon began when the North Vietnamese forces commenced their final attack on April 29th, 1975. Heavy artillery bombardment ensued for most of that day and night. On April 30th, North Vietnamese Troops had occupied most strategic points of the city and finally overtook the South Vietnamese presidential palace. In spite of various allied intelligence reports, including those from our own CIA that stated South Vietnam could not be taken by the North through the current dry season and well into 1976, the city had indeed fallen. These reports were being sent to our Commander In Chief, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Ranked Command Officers as recently as March 5th. The strategy of the allied warring commanders was based on those reports. The eventual fall of a Nation was based on those reports. The United States and South Vietnam were defeated less than 60 days later – one would argue, the intelligence we were provided was inaccurate at best…perhaps purposely funneled, at worst.

Most Americans wanted to leave Saigon as did many South Vietnamese before the fall. Many had indeed left prior to the fall. The North had already started to push southward and the fall was imminent. Evacuations during the end of March and throughout April had increased. Flights from Tan Son Nhat International Airport were over-booked. The Defense Attaché’s Office started to fly undocumented Vietnamese to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines.

Operation Babylift

On April 3, 1975, President Gerald Ford announced “Operation Babylift”. Over 3,000 Vietnamese orphans would evacuate from the country. The first C-5A involved in the operation crashed and killed 154 passengers – almost half of the adults and children who were aboard. A mechanical problem was the official reason given for the crash. The morale of the American staff was certainly being reduced, but in the last minute haste, this tragedy just added to the devastation of war which was about to end. At least 2,700 children were flown to the United States and approximately 1,300 were flown to Canada, Europe and Australia.

The Babylift was controversial, because not all children on the flights were bona fide orphans. Documentation was often inaccurate. In several cases, birth parents or other relatives who later immigrated to the United States from Vietnam requested custody of children already placed. The hasty evacuation in the final days of the war also led to debate over whether the rescue operations were in the best interest of the children.

Interesting, this last slap in the face to the Vietnamese on the very day the war ended. Stolen children under the guise of humanitarian concern, but it is fitting with the Western view that they have more to offer than the Vietnamese. I suppose a part of this tragic stealing of children had to do with the Americans believing their own propaganda. The old video documentaries that show American women talking Vietnamese mothers into allowing the children to be taken to America are fascinating since some of these very Americans were charged with baby selling in Danang many years after the war. It is not very popular to call Operation Babylift a war crime, but it was.

The Final Days

The President of South Vietnam, Nguyen Van Thieu, resigned on April 21st, 1975. His departing words were particularly hard on the Americans, first for forcing South Vietnam to accede to the Paris Peace Accords, second for failing to support South Vietnam afterwards, and all the while asking South Vietnam “to do an impossible thing, like filling up the oceans with stones.” President Thieu went on to say “The United States did not keep its promise to help us fight for freedom and it was in the same fight that the United States lost 50,000 of its young men.” The presidency was turned over to Vice President Tran Van Huong. Thieu and his family fled Vietnam on April 25th for Taiwan. He later settled in England, and finally in Massachusetts where he died in 2001.

On April 27th, the first NVA attack on Saigon had begun when three rockets hit the capital. (The evacuation of Saigon also had to compete for resources with the imminent evacuation of Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, which fell on April 17th). This was the first such attack on Saigon in almost 4 years.

Before daybreak on April 29th, Tan Son Nhat airport was hit by rockets and heavy artillery. As a result, the US defense attaché in Saigon advised Ambassador Martin that the runways were unfit for use and that the emergency evacuation of Saigon must be completed by helicopter. The original plan to evacuate Americans by fixed wing aircraft was further stymied when a South Vietnamese pilot decided to defect and jettisoned his ordinance along the only remaining runway that was intact. The helicopter evacuation from Saigon was about to begin.

After the Ambassador made a personal assessment of the airport, he sent his superior, Henry Kissinger, his report and his request to evacuate immediately. Roughly 3 minutes later, Secretary Kissinger granted permission. The American radio station in Saigon began to play “White Christmas” on a regular basis which was the signal for American personnel to immediately move to their predesignated evacuation points.

The first CH-53 landed at the DAO (Defense Attaché’s Office) compound in the afternoon, and by the evening, 395 Americans and more than 4,000 Vietnamese had been evacuated. By 23:00 the U.S. Marines who were providing security were withdrawing and arranging the demolition of the DAO office, American equipment, files, and cash.

The original evacuation plans had not called for a large-scale helicopter operation at the US Embassy in Saigon. Helicopters and buses were to shuttle people from the Embassy to the DAO Compound. However, in the course of the evacuation it turned out that a few thousand people were stranded at the embassy, including many Vietnamese. Additional Vietnamese civilians gathered outside the Embassy and scaled the walls, hoping to claim refugee status. Thunderstorms increased the difficulty of helicopter operations.

At 03:45 on the morning of April 30th, the refugee evacuation was halted. Ambassador Martin had been ordering that South Vietnamese be flown out with Americans up to that point. Kissinger and Ford quickly ordered Martin to evacuate only Americans from that point forward.

Reluctantly, Martin announced that only Americans were to be flown out, due to worries that the North Vietnamese would soon take the city and the Ford administration’s desire to announce the completion of the American evacuation. Ambassador Martin was ordered by President Ford to board the evacuation helicopter.

The call sign of that helicopter was “Lady Ace 09″, and the pilot carried direct orders from President Ford for Ambassador Martin to be on board. The pilot, Gerry Berry, had the orders written in grease-pencil on his kneepads. Ambassador Martin’s wife, Dorothy, had already been evacuated by previous flights, and left behind her personal suitcase so a South Vietnamese woman might be able to squeeze on board with her.

“Lady Ace 09″ from HMM-165 and piloted by Berry, took off around 05:00 – had Martin refused to leave, the Marines had a reserve order to arrest him and carry him away to ensure his safety. The embassy evacuation had flown out 978 Americans and about 1,100 Vietnamese. The Marines who had been securing the Embassy followed at dawn, with the last aircraft leaving at 07:53. A few hundred Vietnamese were left behind in the embassy compound, with an additional crowd gathered outside the walls.

Ambassador Martin was flown out to the USS Blue Ridge, where he pleaded for helicopters to return to the Embassy compound to pick up the few hundred remaining hopefuls waiting to be evacuated. Although his pleas were overruled by President Ford, Martin was able to convince the Seventh Fleet to remain on station for several days so any locals who could make their way to sea via boat or aircraft may be rescued by the waiting Americans.

Lessons Learned

It is estimated that between 2,495,000 and 5,020,000 human lives resulted in death between the years 1959 and 1975 in Vietnam. These numbers include those who died as a result of combat, disease, famine and yes, murder. Of these, over 58,000 Americans were killed. What are not included are the victims of Agent Orange, PTSD, suicide, etc. How about the offspring of those who were exposed and continue to suffer and die? From both sides.

As a former US Marine, it is difficult for me to recount the War, think of fellow Marines who perished, consider the troops – all of us on both sides who were killed, maimed and continue to carry the guilt associated with such a gruesome time in our lives. As a person who remains active in the fight against the evils of Agent Orange and against those responsible for creating it, selling it, using it and lying about its known affects on mankind as well as the environment, the struggle continues. As a person who remains active in the fight against PTSD and the consequences so many of us has had to endure over the years, the struggle will, I am afraid, continue well past my departure from this world. Collateral damage, some would argue – none should be subjected to the lie from our government. None of us who risked our lives should have to look at the back of a Department of Veterans Affairs’ employee after our claims are rejected, only to die waiting for a resolution.

Walter Cronkite summed it up, in my opinion:

“We shouldn’t be arrogant about our power and the use of our power.

We should understand that there are attitudes, political positions being taken abroad, that are deeply seated in the culture of the countries involved, and that we should be very careful believing that what we think is right in America is necessarily right for the rest of the world.

We should be very cautious. We should be sure that we understand what we’re getting into when we dabble in the affairs of other nations.

And that is particularly true when dabbling gets to the point of committing military forces.”

I am afraid our arrogance continues and innocent people die each and every day. People from America and people from other countries as well.

As recent as yesterday, the US Consulate in Pakistan was attacked, killing two security guards and at least six others. Collateral damage? Each and every day, scores are killed in Iraq. Let us not forget Afghanistan. All, perhaps, as a result of our arrogance. All, perhaps, as a result of the US not being sure that it understands what they are getting us involved in when we dabble in the affairs of other nations. All, in my opinion, as a result of the lust the US has as a nation, for war.

Archive: The bitter end in Cambodia

By James Fenton
Taken from The New Statesman 25 April 1975
Posted on 22 November 2007

As a young foreign correspondent, James Fenton wrote an article for the New Statesman on the eve of the Khmer Rouge's final victory in Cambodia in 1975. Fenton wondered why so many Cambodian men continued to fight against the Khmer Rouge despite facing inevitable defeat. This sadly prophetic piece conveys an ominous feeling of impending doom, but still does not foresee the scale of the Khmer Rouge genocide.

Selected by Robert Taylor

I went back, on Tuesday of this week, to visit the remains of the Khmer Republic — at least all that seems to remain of it (and by the time you read this it may have succumbed as well). It’s one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, a temple complex predating Angkor Wat, set on top of a 1,500-foot cliff, commanding a view which would rival even the Malvern Hills.

The only easy access is through the Dongrek mountains from Thailand. This is why the place has not yet been taken. To enter it, the Khmer Rouge are going to have to scale the cliff, which is possible although the approach has been well booby-trapped. On both occasions that I have visited the Temple of Preah Vihear, some sure-footed mountain creature has stepped on a mine and blasted itself into another existence. These occasional exploding animals must act as a disincentive to the Khmer Rouge. Perhaps when the communists enter they should drive a herd of goats before them across the minefield.

The temple still holds out and the tattered flag of Lon Nol’s Republic still flies over the ruins. About 130 soldiers defend the place and intend to go on doing so until their ammunition runs out. Or so they say. When you ask them why they continue to fight (exchanging small arms and mortar fire at night) they say it is because they do not want communism. But then they say that perhaps in a few days they will move off to Thailand.

They don’t know what to do, it is clear. They heard the old government’s call for surrender but they say (rightly) that it was not read out by the commander.in-chief. On the other hand they know that their commander-in-chief is now in Thailand. They’ve lost contact with their own headquarters in Siem Reap. They have no money and no supplies. But they don’t give up. They say: ‘If the Khmer Rouge were of good heart, we would join them. But they are not of good heart.’

It doesn’t matter, I suppose, since one way or another their futures are going to be sorted out very soon. But it makes me think of one feature of Lon Nol’s army which the Left has tended to ignore. The fact is the soldiers of the Republic continued fighting their losing battle until the very end. Is this remarkable? Well, I seem to remember reading, before I first went to Indochina, a lot of articles about how appalling FANK (the Forces Armées Nationales Khmères) and its Vietnamese counterpart, ARVN, were, how they would collapse as soon as the Americans left, how it was impossible for Thieu and Lon Nol to find anyone to fight for them.

These views were regularly expressed in the NEW STATESMAN, and continue to appear. Last year, for instance, this paper referred in a leader to ‘the mere fact’ that Phuoc Binh was abandoned without a struggle (a mere fact for which one would be interested

to know the mere source). And two weeks ago Simon Head was declaring that the collapse in the Central Highlands of Vietnam was ‘completely predictable’, and putting it down to the malaise in the army. But the Central Highlands fiasco was at least partly a result of a disastrous top-level decision, which set off a chain reaction of surprising speed — surprising, surely, even to Mr Head.

If the events of the past weeks were completely predictable, the events of the previous weeks and months, during which time thousands and thousands of men have sacrificed their lives for Thieu and Lon Nol, were not. Obviously it is the duty of the Left to take a look at why so many workers and peasants died for causes that the Left so much despised.

The notorious thing about FANK, then, was not its cowardice but its bravery. Having previously been nothing more than the Prince’s plaything (called FARK) it went first into battle against one of the most sophisticated and energetic armies in the world, the NVA (how would the British Army do against the NVA, I wonder, at home or away? Come to that, how would the Brits do against ARVN?). By the time that the Khmer Rouge had really been established FANK had already lost considerable ground, but it picked up considerably (as did ARVN) after direct American support had been withdrawn; and it went on, in last year’s dry season, to hold its own and defeat the attack on Phnom Penh.

During the course of its history, it also suffered several long and bitter sieges, until by the end it was everywhere besieged. Under the worst of such conditions it invariably showed itself at its best. At Kompong Cham in 1973 and Kampot in 1974 it surprised most ‘military experts’ by outlasting a strong and determined attack. In Kompong Seila, during a siege which lasted 11 months, the soldiers lived off Khmer Rouge flesh in order to survive. It is said that they used to send out foraging parties1 in order to bring back a few chaps for lunch. In Neak Luong, which became the lynch-pin of the war, the Khmer Rouge, made it their top priority that the town should be taken before Phnom Penh. Until that time they had never succeeded in over running an important town in which FANK had chosen to fight. The siege began in’ early January and continued, with heavy fighting until 1 April, the day Lon Not left The evidence is that the defenders fought I until the bitter end. Meanwhile the rest of FANK continued until not only Lon Nol had left, but also his replacement had gone, the Americans had gone, every other em bassy had gone long since, the money had almost gone, the ammunition was clearly running out, the airlift had turned to air drops and the Khmer Rouge had forced their way into the centre of town. At this point, on orders, they surrendered. Or rather they did in Phnom Penh. In the rest of the country it is taking a little longer, as we have seen.

Why should it take so long? Why did thel average soldier not throw away his arms and surrender long before? There was littie enough to induce him to fight. The pay was insufficient and usually late; he knew th government to be corrupt and incompeten He knew, or should have known, that he had nothing to gain from the war. I believe that part of the explanation comes from the nature of the Khmer Rouge. For behind the1 military victory . of last week — remarkable though it was — lies a political failure. What the Cambodian communists never succeeded in doing was carrying their revolution to th cities. The conditions, one might have thought, were there. The police apparatus was relatively weak. The Government unpopular. The radical students were allowed to say more or less what they wished, and did indeed do some quasi.revolutionary sabre.rattling. But no move seriously made to propagandise to the anlel Khieu Samphan made some radio broad casts, calling on the troops to surrender, ai yet I think that in two years army changed sides on only two occasions.

The popular image of the Khmer Rouge, encouraged by government propaganda, me F have been a caricature. Towards the end at the war people gave up talking about d! ‘ Khmer Rouge as if they were simply murd. erous maniacs. But there remained a certai notion of the communist movement whid may well correspond to the truth, a notiun of an authoritarian, austere, cruel society where a terrifying justice was meted out I all alike.

What is known about Khmer Rout society? What concepts are particul attached to it? The concept of poverty a way of life, of uniformity (forced haircs for women), of secrecy (secrecy about I Khmer Rouge government and about l outside world — enforced by such measul as the ban on dry batteries), of hard wo as virtue, and the concept of nationalisea Because of the last of these, they came to respected by Phnom Penh, both by tt’ government and the people. But the othea make an unattractive list. Why not! What have they to do with socialism? V/haL have they, indeed, to do with communism? It will be said that the Khmer Rouge had no choice. Working from the direst poverty, they had to achieve a great degree of regirnentation and discipline throughout society j order to win the war. I say that their 0rdering of society was the greatest stumbling block and hindrance to their winning of the war. Nor do I believe that the methods hitherto adopted will now be abandoned, even though society will no doubt eventually become less rigorous.

A certain euphoria came over Phnom Penh just towards the end of the war at the thought that the fighting was soon to be over. And many people seemed almost ready to welcome the communist troops (which is what eventually happened after the surrender). There were some who went into a panic, however, or wondered whether they should leave if possible. One of these was a friend who had previously been in the Khmer Rouge, and who had always hitherto been prepared to speak frankly in their favour. As the ‘Liberation’ forces came nearer to victory, his attitude changed to fear; and when he saw that there was no possibility of his leaving he seemed to sink into dejection. When I reminded him of his previous remarks, he said pathetically that he had only been joking. Why else did I think he had left the Khmer Rouge? Of course he disliked communism.

Nobody knew what to expect but this man knew something more than the rest. He seemed to have just remembered it — and I wondered what it was.

Bangkok