Bringing the Khmer Rouge to justice

Human Rights Review

Volumn 1, Issue 3, 2000, Pages 92-108

  Kiernan, Ben ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0003374842     PISSN: 15248879     EISSN: 18746306     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s12142-000-1024-9     Document Type: Article

References (74)

1. Ben Kiernan, The Samlaut Rebellion and Its Aftermath, 1967-70: The Origins of Cambodia's Liberation Movement, Parts I and II (Monash University, Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, 1975). 2, Ben Kiernan, "Why's Kampuchea Gone to Pot?, " Nation Review, November 17, 1978.
2. "Kampuchea: A Refugee's Account, " Journal of Contemporary Asia 9:3 (1979): 369-74. See also Ben Kiernan, "People Heng in against Pol Pot, " Nation Review, April 5, 1979.
3. Ben Kiernan, "Genocide in de Oostelijke Zone, " Vietnam Bulletin 16 (June 25, 1980): 20-22.
4. Ben Kiernan, Conflict in the Kampuchean Communist Movement, Journal of Contemporary Asia 10:1-2 (1980): 7-74.
5. United Nations, AS, General Assembly, Security Council, A/53/850, S/1999/231, March 16, 1999, Annex, Report of the Group of Experts for Cambodia established pursuant to General Assembly resolution 52/135, 16.
6. Barry Wain, "Pol Pot's Paper Trail, "Asian Wall Street]ournaI, May 9-10, 1997.
7. I refer specifically to the Wall Street Journal editorial page, with its tradition of hamfisted ideological campaigning. See "The Big Lie Theory of the Country's Biggest Newspaper, " in Extra!, the journal of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), 8:5 (September/October 1995): 13424.
8. Stephen J, Morris, "The Wrong Man to Investigate Cambodia, " Wall Street Journal, April 17, 1995.
9. Khmer Rouge radio broadcast, August 14, 1995. U.S. CIA, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, EAS-95-157, August 15,1995: 67. The Khmer Rouge also described me as"a prot6g6 of the United States. "
10. "America's Cambodian Coda, " Asian Wall Street Journal, October 29, 1996.
11. "WillYale Deliver?"Wall Street Journal, December 19, 1996. For a different view of the CGP, see"Cambodia's Blinding Genocide: A Website Exhumes the Faces of the Dead,'New York Times Editorial Notebook, April 21, 1997.
12. Unpublished letters to the Wall Street Journal in response to its December 19, 1996, article and editorial on the CGP can be found at its World Wide Web site (www.yale.edu/cgp), under"More Findings": "CGP Assistance to the Search for US MIA's."
13. On academic suppression, see for instance Brian Martin et al., eds., Intellectual Suppression: Australian Case Histories, Analysis, and Responses (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1986).
14. Letter to the editor, Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER), July 5, 1984. Bunroeun Thach later moved to the University of Hawaii.
15. Steve Sharp, "Sites of Genocide, " Good Weekend, March 29, 1997: 33-34, 37.
16. Holocaust and Genocide Studies (Winter 1997): 413-425.
17. For contrary evidence which Sorpong Peou deliberately ignored in his review, see The Pol Pot Regime, 67-68, 258-267, and 93, respectively.
18. Stephen R. Heder, "Khmer Rouge Opposition to Pol Pot, " in Reflections on Cambodian Political History, Australian National University, Strategic and Defence Studies Center, Working Paper no. 239, 1991: 5.
19. Keith Richburg, "Timing of Khmer Rouge Defections Suggests Possible Role by China, " Washington Post, August 24, 1996: A18.
20. Phnom Perth Post, October 18 and November 1, 1996.
21. Former Khmer Rouge official Suong Sikoeun, Phnom Penh Post, November 15-28, 1996, quoting Stephen Heder on Radio France-Internationale, August 22 and October 10, 1996.
22. Stephen R. Heder, Po! Pot and Khieu Samphan, Monash University, Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Working Paper no. 70: 22-23.
23. "Evidence Against K. Rouge Leaders Varies-Researcher, " News America Digital Publishing, Phnom Penh, January 5, 1999, wire report distributed on Camnews, January 5, 1999.
24. Gregory Stanton, personal communication.
25. Pol Pot Plans the Future, 7.
26. Khieu Samphan, speech broadcast on Phnom Penh Radio, April 15, 1977, extract in New Statesman, May 2, 1980: 675.
27. See Ieng Sary's Regime: A Diary of the Khmer Rouge Foreign Ministry, 1976-79, full translation by Phat Kosal and Ben Kiernan available on the Cambodian Genocide Program website (www.yale.edu/cgp).
28. See MichaelVickery, Cambodia I975-1982 (Boston: South End Press, 1984).
29. Michael Vickery, "Violence in Democratic Kampuchea, " paper distributed at a conference on State-Organized Terror, Michigan State University, November 1988: 14.
30. Vickery, "Violence in Democratic Kampuchea, " 17.
31. Chandler, The Tragedy of Cambodian History, 1. He correctly adds: "This does nothing to alleviate the horror or their responsibility for it. "
32. For my critique of Vickery's and Chandler's views, see Ben Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-I979, (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), and my review in the Journal of Asian Studies 52:4 (November 1993): 1076-78.
33. See Serge Thion, Vdritd historique ou vritd politique: affaire Faurisson (Paris: LaVieille Taupe, 1980).
34. For instance, Serge Thion, "Genocide as a Political Commodity, "in Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge, the United Nations, and the International Caommunit, ed. Ben Kiernan (New Haven, CT: Yale Council on Southeast Asia Studies, 1993), esp. 187: "We should first clean our own house. Who are we to give moral lessons to others?" Thion's premise is that all Westerners are responsible for U.S. or French government war crimes, an immobilizing notion of Caucasian collective guilt. A harsher view is that he also had no expectations of his appeal for a Cambodian domestic tribunal. (For my critique of Thion's view of the Cambodian genocide itselL see p. 17.)
35. Vickery, Cambodia 1975-I982, 287.
36. JulioA. Jeldres, "A Response to MichaelVickery, "distributed by Hann So, Camnews Internet discussion hst, June 17, 1996.
37. See Private Eye (London), May 7 and July 16, 1993.
38. Julio A. Jeldres, "Genoclde Investigation off on the Wrong Foot, " Cambodia Daily, January 27, 1995.
39. Ben Kiernan, "Jeldres Wrong to Point Finger at Alleged 'Pol Pot Apologists,'" Cambodia Daily, February 1, 1995.1 added that in less than a year (in 1977-78) Jeldres had received three invitations to visit the Chilean consulate in Sydney, Australia. I was aware of this because Jeldres had written to me at the time (on March 14, 1978), revealing also that"the programmes were rather heavy, and I did not have a minute to spare "These three invitations followed Jeldres' earlier visit to the Chilean consulate in May 1977.
40. "Jeldres vs. Kieman, " Cambodia Daily, February 10, 1995, and Rosanna Barbero, "}eldres Falls into His Own Trap, " Cambodia Daily, February 14, 1995.
41. Australia, Jeldres went on, "has now joined the communist countries and the so-called non-aligned ones in their attacks against Chile. We are getting sanctions because we did not want a commumst government. The change of government in Chile is our problem and not Australia's.'Julio A. Jeldres, "Insult to Chile, " Melbourne Age, January 21, 1975 For the Wall Street Journal editorial page's defense of Pinochet, see Extra! 8:5 (September/October 1995): 15, 19.
42. In a letter to the author dated July 1, 1976, Jeldres revealed that, "ln 1971, I was made Honorary Member of FUNK".
43. Jeldres, letter to the author dated March 14, 1978.
44. Cambodia Daily, February 10, 1995.
45. Far Eastern Economic Review, May 31, 1984. See my reply to Jeldres of June 21, 1984.
46. William Shawcross denied Jeldres' association with Khmer Conscience (see Private Eye, July 2 and 16, 1993), but its editor Hann So continued to distribute Jeldres'wntings. See Jeldres, "A Response to Michael Vickery, " distributed by Harm So, Camnews discussion list, June 17, 1996, copy in my possession.
47. See, for instance, Jeldres' articles in Cambodia Daily, February 28, 1995, and Phnom Penh Post, July 28, 1995 and September 20, 1996.
48. In 1996 Jeldres revealed:"I met Stephen Morris twice in Bangkok in 1985186. I have since spoken to him three times on the phone" (Jeldres, "Response to Michael Vickery, " distributed by Hann So, Camnews discussion list, June 17, 1996).
49. "Thailand's Separate Peace in Indochina, "Asian Wall Street Journal, September 4, 1989.
50. Mary Scully, R.N.C.S., and Theanvy Kuoch, unpublished letter to the Wall Street Journal, May 19, 1995.
51. Morris argued further that the Khmer Rouge were not the problem: "The danger lies in the Vietnamese Communists' determination to subvert such an agreement. " Stephen J. Morris, " Skeletons in the Closet, " New Republic, June 4, 1990. Morris labeled critics of the UN plan, and of its inclusion of the Khmer Rouge, as proponents of"an immoral, lost cause" beholden to Hanoi. The UN plan, he asserted, "is morally fight, and offers real hope of success. " It gave the Khmer Rouge, Morris wrongly predicted, an "incentive to lay down its arms, " which"will end the war. " Morris, "US Choice Ln Cambodia, " Boston Globe, August 7, 1990.
52. Morris had once described Cornell University's Southeast Asia Program (America's most distinguished such institution) as"a comfortable milieu for those fond of totalitanan dictatorship. " Morris attacked Heder, a former Cornell student, for his"pro-Khmer Rouge views" and for"propounding the moral virtue" of communism (Stephen J. Morns, "Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, and Cornell, " National Interest (Summer 1989): 60). But in 1995, Morris shamelessly recommended Heder as one of a team he suggested should have been awarded the State Department grant that I received to document the crimes of the Khmer Rouge (Asian Wall Street Journal, April 17, 1995). In one of his own attacks on my work, Heder cited an unpublished draft by Morris (Southeast Asm Research 5:2 (July 1997): 128, n. 57). Though Francois Ponchaud also described Heder as"un Am6ricain pro-Khmers Rouges" (Le Point, April 25, 1998), Henri Locard has cited Heder's work to attack mine. Locard asserted inter alia that the Khmer Rouge were "sincere idealistic leaders" and had not massacred Cambodia'sVietnamese minority, but had expelled and"spared"them (Le Monde, April 28,1998). See my response (Le Monde, May 14, 1998), and my article, "Le communisme racial des Khmer rouges, " Esprit 252 (May 1999): 93-127.
53. Morris, "ABC Hacks for Hanoi, " Wall Street Jourzal, April 26, 1990.
54. Wall Streetlournal, June 6, 1990. Morris has a history of McCarthyist witch-hunting. Once affiliated with Harvard's Russian Research Center, Morris fell out with its Associate Director, Professor Marshall Goldman, whom Morris calls an" ally" of"the pro-Hanoi left" (Washington Times, September 29, 1993). Neff Sheehan, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning work, A B@t Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and the Americans in Vietnam, is dismissed by Morris as someone who"holds a benign view of the Vietnamese Communist Party" (Washington Times, September 29, 1993). John McAuliff and Eileen Blumenthal, organizers of a 1990 Cambodian dancers' tour of the United States, were attacked by Morris for possible "criminal" activity (Boston Globe, October 14, 1990) and for holding 39 dancers as"prisoners. " Morris's charges were investigated and proved to be totally unfounded by both the State Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. McAuliff's and Blumenthal's alleged victims, in both Cambodia and the U.S., remain their colleagues and friends (letter to the Wall Street Journal, April 28, 1995).
55. "Scholars Speak Out on Cambodia Holocaust, " Wall Street Journal, July 13, 1995. See also Washington Post, July 8, 1995.
56. See John Kifner, "Lott, and Shadow of a Pro-White Group, " New York Times, January 14, 1999: A9.
57. Alphonse La Porta, personal communication, August 22, 1995.
58. "The Academic Killing Fields, " Washington Times, October 2, 1995.
59. See for instance, Eyal Press, "UnforNven,'Lingua Franca (April/May 1997): 72. A letter to the Secretary of State from Rep. Martin Hoke of Ohio, backing Morris' charges and circulated to the 435 members of Congress, drew only one signatory, that of Robert K. Dornan of California (June 19, 1995).
60. Copies of Wold's and my letters can be found at the CGP's World Wide Web site (www.yale.edu/cgp), under More Findings: "CGP Assistance to the Search for US MIA's."
61. Chandler e-mailed me on November 19, 1996: "Thanks for your supportive response to the MIA people, with whom I'll be working in Phnom Penh in Jan.-Feb. "
62. Nancy DeWolf Smith, "America's Cambodian Coda, " Asian Wall Street Journal, October 29, 1996.
63. For evidence of Melloan's McCarthyist false charges against journalist Raymond Bonnet on El Salvador, see Extra! 8:5 (September-October 1995): 15.
64. "WiUYale Deliver?" Wall Street Journal, December 19, 1996.
65. "WillYale Deliver?"Asian Wall Street Journal, December 20, 1996.
66. For the facts, see the unpublished letters posted on the CGP's website (www.yale.edu/cgp).
67. The Cambodian Genocide Data Base and other materials on the Khmer Rouge can be found at www.yale.edu/cgp.
68. Peter Michelmore, "Legacy of the Killing Fields, " Reader's Digest (May 1997): 66. See also Chanthou Boua and Ben Kiernan, "Bureaucracy of Death: Documents from Inside Pol Pot's Torture Machine, " New Statesman, May 2, 1980.
69. See Cambodia Daily, September 10-11, 1996.
70. Letter to the author from the Inspector-General, Jacquelyn L. Williams-Bridgers, dated November 5, 1998.
71. Statement by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Ca) on the House floor, October 10, 1998, quoted in Indochina Interchange 9:1 (Winter 1999): 14.
72. Stephen J. Morris, "Clinton's Genocide Confusion, " Commentary, January 12, 1999.
73. Adam Garfinkle, "Be Careful Which Graves We Exhume, " Los Angeles Times, January 24, 1999.
74. H. Bruce Franklin, M.I.A. or Mythmaking in America (New York, Lawrence Hill, 1992). Stephen Morris' claimed 1993 "find" of an alleged Russian document on U, S. POWs in Vietnam was quickly shown to be full of errors (Nayan Chanda, "Research and Destroy, " Far Eastern Economic Review, May 6, 1993), and was reported to be a CIA fake (Susan Katz Keating, Prisoners of Hope, 1994).