The Khmers Rouges and the final solution

History and Memory

Volumn 11, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 62-93

  Raszelenberg, Patrick ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84870362138     PISSN: 0935560X     EISSN: 15271994     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/ham.2005.0004     Document Type: Review

References (104)

1. Elie Wiesel, From the Kingdom of Memory: Reminiscences (New York, 1993), 133.
2. George M. Fredrickson, "Comparative History", in Michael Kammen, ed., The Past before Us: Contemporary Historical Writing in the United States (Ithaca, 1980), 457.
3. Robert Melson, Revolution and Genocide: On the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust (Chicago, 1992).
4. This figure represents a conservative estimate of all the deaths in Cambodia related to the Second Indochina War. See Central Intelligence Agency, Kampuchea: A Demographic Catastrophe, Research Paper (May 1980), 8, which further cites the estimates of King Sihanouk (600, 000), the Khmers Rouges (600, 000-800, 000) and the US government (600, 000-700, 000) (ibid.);
5. Kimmo Kiljunen, ed., Kampuchea: Decade of the Genocide, Report of a Finnish Inquiry Commission (London, 1984), 5 (600, 000);
6. Pol Pot, Interview à Monsieur Jan Myrdal, 8 Aug. 1978, Département de la Presse et de l'Information du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères (Phnom Penh, 1978), 7 (1.4 million);
7. Meng-Try Ea, "Recent Population Trends in Kampuchea", in David Ablin and Marlowe Hood, eds., The Cambodian Agony (London, 1990), 5 (600, 000).
8. This is particularly true of Arnold Toynbee. See the introduction in his der Gang der Weltgeschichte, vol. 1, Aufstieg und Verfall der Kulturen 1(Munich, 1970), 33-92
9. where the method is laid out. Cf. Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History, vol. 1(New York, 1965), 53-66.
10. Marc Bloch, "Pour une histoire comparée des sociétés européenes", in idem, Mélanges historiques, vol. 1(Paris, 1963), 33.
11. Fredrickson, "Comparative History", 465, 457.
12. Steven T. Katz, "Quantity and Interpretation-Issues in the Comparative Historical Analysis of the Holocaust", Holocaust and Genocide Studies 4, no. 2(1989):148.
13. The sentence is quoted in an internal Vietnamese report on the CPK: The Standpoint, Orientation and Foreign Policy of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, Social Sciences Commission (Hanoi, n. d. [probably 1977]) (in Vietnamese)
14. excerpts in Thomas Engelbert and Christopher Goscha, "Falling out of Touch: Vietnamese Communist Policy toward an Emerging Cambodian Communist Movement, 1930-1975" (unpublished ms.).
15. The Khmers Rouges did not stand alone among Cambodians in their attitude toward Vietnam and the Vietnamese: cf. Marek Sliwinski, Le Génocide Khmer Rouge: Une analyse démographique (Paris, 1995), 162.
16. The real issue behind the Khmer's ubiquitous hatred of the Vietnamese is the experience of territorial loss, in particular of the fertile Mekong Delta which became Vietnamese in the late 18th century. See Les frontières du Vietnam, Ouvrage publié avec le concours du CNRS (Paris, 1989);
17. Sarin Chhak, Les frontières du Cambodge (Paris, 1966).
18. For an early internal CPK assessment of the skirmishes, see Decisions concerning the Report of the Eastern Region Conference Mid-Year, 1977, 84
19. quoted in Stephen Heder, "Is Racism to Blame?" Southeast Asia Chronicle, no. 64(1978):18 n. 6.
20. A detailed analysis of the Khmers Rouges' decision to suspend the border negotiations with the Vietnamese in the spring of 1976, based on the minutes of the CPK Standing Committee, can be found in Ben Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime (New Haven, 1996), 115ff.
21. "Until now, we have attained our goal: Thirty dead Vietnamese for every single Cambodian. We could sacrifice two million Cambodians to exterminate the fifty million Vietnamese- and would still be six million. " Radio Phnom Penh, 10 May 1978, in British Broadcasting Corporation, Summary of World Broadcasts, series 2, pt. 3, The Far East (hereafter SWB), 15 May 1978, 5813/A3/3.
22. The Khmers Rouges envisioned a sharp population increase to better pursue this goal: "... implement the plan to increase the size of the population to the maximum so as to have ten to fifteen million people in the next ten to fifteen years." Radio Phnom Penh, 16 Apr. 1978, in Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report, Asia and Pacific (Springfield, VA) (hereafter FBIS, AP), 17 Apr. 1978, H9.
23. "They [North Korea] didn't carry out a genuine socialist revolution until 1958. They needed fourteen years to make the transition. North Vietnam did the same.... As for us, we have a different character.... We are faster than they are. If we examine our collective character, in terms of a socialist system, we are four to ten years ahead of them." "The Party's Four-Year Plan to Build Socialism in All Fields, 1977-1980 (Party Center, July-Aug. 1976)", trans. Chanthou Boua, in David Chandler, Ben Kiernan and Chanthou Boua, eds., Confidential Leadership Documents from Democratic Kampuchea, 1976-1977 (hereafter Confidential Leadership Documents), Yale SEA Monograph Series, no. 33(New Haven, 1988), 46; "We leap from a people's democratic revolution to a socialist revolution, and quickly build socialism. We don't need a long period of time for the transformation.... We don't follow any book. We act according to the actual situation in our country" (ibid., 49); "Why must we move so swiftly? Because enemies attack and torment us.... Thus the basic line we have to follow is to build our nation rapidly, and not merely defend it with combatants.... This is an important rationale." "Preliminary Explanation before Reading the Plan, by the Party Secretary (Party Center, 21 Aug. 1976)", trans. David Chandler, in ibid., 126-27.
24. Radio Phnom Penh, 20 May 1978, in FBIS, AP, 22 May 1978, H5.
25. The development from pre-1975 mutual aid brigades via cooperatives to communes displays strong Chinese influence and reflects developments in the People's Republic of China throughout the 1950s. So far, little scholarly work has emerged on the agricultural communes in Democratic Kampuchea. Most helpful are Laura Summers, "Cooperatives in Democratic Kampuchea" (paper presented at the SSRC [USA] conference on Kampuchea, Chiang Mai, 11-13 Nov. 1981);
26. Marie-Aléxandrine Martin, "La riziculture et la maîtrise de l'eau dans le Kampuchea démocratique", Études rurales, no. 83 (July-Sept. 1981).
27. On the various population transfers after 1975 as part of a policy to tighten control, see Kenneth Quinn, The Origins and Development of Radical Cambodian Communism (Ph. D. diss., University of Maryland, 1982) (Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1982), 127;
28. Kiljunen, ed., Kampuchea, 12-13.
29. For the official Khmers Rouges rationale regarding the original evacuation, cf. "Erklärung Ieng Sarys, Leiter der Delegation Kamputscheas, anläßlich des Wiedereinzugs der legitimen Vertreter Kamputscheas in die Vereinten Nationen, New York, 30.8.75", in Botschaft des Demokratischen Kamputschea, ed., Ein Jahr Demokratisches Kamputschea (East Berlin, 1976), 28.
30. Laura Summers, "Kooperativen im Demokratischen Kampuchea", in Walter Aschmoneit and Rainer Werning, eds., Kampuchea (Münster, 1981), 382;
31. Michael Vickery, "Democratic Kampuchea: Themes and Variations", in David Chandler and Ben Kiernan, eds., Revolution and Its Aftermath in Kampuchea, Yale SEA Studies Monograph Series, no. 25(New Haven, 1983), 132 n. 5;
32. Pin Yathay, L'utopie meurtrière (Paris, 1989).
33. The total death toll is largely based on estimates. The only census conducted before 1975 yielded 5.7 million inhabitants in 1962, itself a disputed figure. Jacques Migozzi, Cambodge: Faits et problèmes de populations (Paris, 1973), 203.
34. According to a CIA study, Cambodia had some 6.7 million people upon the Khmers Rouges takeover (Central Intelligence Agency, Kampuchea: A Demographic Catastrophe, Research Paper, May 1980, 2).
35. Michael Vickery speaks of roughly 300, 000 executions and over 400, 000 deaths resulting from excessive working conditions (Cambodia 1975-1982 [Boston, 1982], 187)
36. while Kiernan claims 1.5 million deaths for the Khmers Rouges period (The Pol Pot Regime, 460).
37. Other estimates are 3, 314, 768 (sic!): People's Republic of Kampuchea, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Chinese Rulers' Crimes against Kampuchea (Phnom Penh, 1984), 85
38. later revised to 2, 7464, 105: Sapordamean Kampuchea (official news agency), 16 Aug. 1983, in FBIS, AP, 16 Aug. 1983, H3;
39. 05 million: Judith Banister and Paige Johnson, "After the Nightmare: The Population of Cambodia", in Ben Kiernan, ed., Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia: The Khmers Rouges, the United Nations and the International Community, Yale SEA Studies Monograph Series, no. 41(New Haven, 1993), 66;
40. Meng-Try Ea, "Recent Population Trends in Kampuchea", in Ablin and Hood, eds., The Cambodian Agony, 7. It seems safe to say that at least one million people perished as a result of malnutrition, beatings, forced labor and executions (the latter probably accounting for no more than 200, 000).
41. Melson, Revolution and Genocide, 265.
42. On the entirely un-Marxist class analysis of the Khmers Rouges, cf. "Statement of the Communist Party of Kampuchea to the Communist Workers' Party of Denmark, July 1978, by Nuon Chea, Deputy Party Secretary", Journal of Communist Studies 3, no. 1(Mar. 1987):19ff.;
43. "Sharpen the Consciousness of the Proletarian Class to be as Keen and Strong as Possible" (Tung Padevat article, special edition, Sept.-Oct. 1976)
44. in Karl D. Jackson, ed., Cambodia 1975-1978: Rendezvous with Death (Princeton, 1989);
45. Timothy Carney, "Kampuchea's Class Structure", in ibid.
46. See also my Die Roten Khmer und der Dritte Indochina-Krieg, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Asienkunde (Hamburg, 1995).
47. For the population transfers, see Kiljunen, ed., Kampuchea;
48. for the Eastern Zone uprising, consult Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime, 392ff;
49. for the internal rewriting of party history, cf. "Sharpen the Consciousness of the Proletarian Class", 269
50. and Viviane Frings, "Rewriting Cambodian History to 'Adapt' It to a New Political Context: The Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party's Historiography (1979-1991)", Modern Asian Studies 31, (Oct. 1997): 807ff.
51. "Abbreviated Lesson on the History of the Kampuchean Revolutionary Movement Led by Communist Party of Kampuchea, Party Center" (undated), in Confidential Leadership Documents, 219.
52. Cf. also the following sentence from "Sharpen the Consciousness of the Proletarian Class", 276: "We decided [sic] in the ninth month of 1975 not to have other separate strata than the workerpeasant class."
53. "Konvention über die Verhütung und Bestrafung des Völkermordes, 9 Dec. 1948", in Michael Schweitzer and Walter Rudolf, Friedensvölkerrecht (Baden-Baden, 1985), 86ff.
54. Ben Kiernan, "The Cambodian Genocide: Issues and Responses", in George J. Andreopoulos, ed., Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions (Philadelphia, 1994), 213.
55. Summers, "Cooperatives in Democratic Kampuchea", 21.
56. Interestingly, Pol Pot had remarked in 1976 that "food and dessert will be taken collectively. For this reason, food must be tasty, so that no one can criticize the notion of collectivism, saying that the food and dessert made collectively taste bad" ("Preliminary Explanation", 156).
57. "Report of Activities of the Party Center according to the General Political Tasks of 1976, Party Center, 20 Dec. 1976", in Confidential Leadership Documents, 184.
58. What is the Virtue, the Quality, the Reality and the Responsibility of Democratic Kampuchea in the Past Present and Future? trans. US embassy Bangkok, 29 Feb. 1988.
59. For a comprehensive study of Nazi euthanasia policies where this term is discussed, see Michael Burleigh, Death and Deliverance: "Euthanasia" in Germany 1900-1945 (Cambridge, 1994)
60. and Ethics and Extermination: Reflections on Nazi Genocide (Cambridge, 1997), pt. 2. The only Khmers Rouges expression distantly resemblant of this concept is a phrase frequently employed when referring to anoupracheachon: "to destroy you is no loss."
61. The process of losing control over the CPK is described in Engelbert and Goscha, "Falling out of Touch."
62. On the invasion and its aftermath, see Gary Klintworth, Vietnam's Intervention in Cambodia in International Law (Canberra, 1989), chap. 9.
63. The official Vietnamese version speaks of over 55, 000 killed in action. People's Army of Vietnam's Deputy Commander-in-Chief Le Kha Phieu on 30 June 1988, Radio Hanoi, 29 and 30 June 1988, in FBIS, East Asia, 88-126, 30 June 1988;
64. and Ministry of Defense spokesman Nguyen Van Thai on 21 Sept. 1989, Radio Hanoi, 21 Sept. 1989, in SWB, 22 Sept. 1989, A3/3. See also Agence France-Presse, 30 June 1988 [0934]. The actual number probably lies well above 80, 000.
65. Gregory H. Stanton, "The Cambodian Genocide and International Law", in Kiernan, ed., Genocide and Democracy, 142ff.;
66. Richard Goldstone, "Fünfzig Jahre nach Nürnberg: Die internationalen Strafgerichtshöfe zum ehemaligen Jugoslawien und zu Ruanda", in Nürnberger Menschenrechtszentrum, ed., Von Nürnberg nach Den Haag: Menschenrechtsverbrechen vor Gericht (Hamburg, 1996), 57ff;
67. David Hawk, "International Human Rights Law and Democratic Kampuchea", in Ablin and Hood, eds., The Cambodian Agony, 118ff.
68. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (London, 1992), chap. 2. I do not intend to dispute this moral righteousness but would like to note that it hampered the actual fact-finding process at both trials.
69. Cf. in particular David Chandler, Brother Number One: A Political Biography of Pol Pot (Boulder, CO, 1992).
70. Yehuda Bauer, The Holocaust in Historical Perspective (Seattle, 1978), 41.
71. François Ponchaud, Cambodge Année Zéro (Paris, 1977). Ponchaud's account essentially covers the period from 17 Apr. to 6 May 1975 when he was evacuated to Thailand as part of the last group of Westerners to leave the country following over 2 weeks' confinement inside the French embassy by the Khmers Rouges. Although he personally witnessed the evacuation of the city, the remainder of the book, completed in 1976, is based on nearly 100 interviews with Khmer refugees who arrived in Thailand and Vietnam after the takeover.
72. For the term "stone-age communism", see Fritz Sitte, Die Roten Khmer: Völkermord im Fernen Osten (Graz, 1982), 144. The term "Holocaust" will be discussed below.
73. Reflected also in Rossellini's Germania Anno Zero shot amidst the rubble of postwar Berlin in 1946, later used as a reference point by Godard in Allemagne Neuf Zéro (1991).
74. There was practically no industry that would deserve this name in Democratic Kampuchea. For further reference, consult Marie-Aléxandrine Martin, "L'industrie dans le Kampuchea Démocratique", Études rurales, no. 89/90/91(Jan.-Sept. 1983):77ff.
75. "Excerpted Report on the Leading Views of the Comrade Representing the Party Organization at a Zone Assembly" [believed to be Pol Pot himself], trans. Ben Kiernan, in Confidential Leadership Documents, 20.
76. "The Party's Four-Year Plan to Build Socialism in All Fields, 1977-1980 (Party Center, July-August 1976)", trans. Chanthou Boua, in Confidential Leadership Documents, 45-46.
77. I have used this expression before in my Die Roten Khmer und der Dritte Indochina-Krieg, 83.
78. The term "social fascism" was popularized (albeit not invented) by the Chinese Communist Party at the height of the Sino-Soviet dispute where it was used to refer to the Soviet communist system. See Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, A Proposal concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement, June 1963 (Beijing, 1963).
79. In relation to Cambodia it was meant to insinuate a Khmer variant of Maoism. An alternative and somewhat less ideological albeit no more precise concept used to describe Democratic Kampuchea is "nationalist Maoism." See Serge Thion and Ben Kiernan, Khmers Rouges! Matériaux pour l'histoire du communisme au Cambodge, Annexe 2, Les "Confessions" de Hu Nim (Paris, 1981), 365.
80. Elie Wiesel, "Some Questions That Remain Open", in Asher Cohen, Joav Gelber and Charlotte Wardi, eds., Comprehending the Holocaust: Historical and Literary Research (Frankfurt/Main, 1988), 13.
81. See also Dagmar Mensink, "Erinnerung ist das Gegenteil von Gleichgültigkeit", in Mensink and Reinhold Boschki, eds., Das Gegenteil von Gleichgültigkeit ist Erinnerung: Versuche zu Elie Wiesel (Mainz, 1995), 151-52.
82. Omer Bartov, Murder in Our Midst: The Holocaust, Industrial Killing, and Representation (Oxford, 1996), 57.
83. Berel Lang, Act and Idea in the Nazi Genocide (Chicago, 1990), 81ff.
84. Bruno Bettelheim, Erziehung zum Überleben: Zur Psychologie der Extremsituation (Munich, 1982), 104-5.
85. Tom Segev, The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust (New York, 1993), 434.
86. The Einsatzgruppenprozeß (Ulm, 1958) and the Auschwitz trial (Frankfurt, 1963-1965)-the latter partially instigated by the attention the Eichmann trial received in Germany-are usually regarded as early watersheds in this respect. Although the Doctors' Trial (1947) had set an earlier precedent, it did not lead to a systematic legal Aufarbeitung of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
87. James E. Young, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning (New Haven, 1993), 5.
88. Wolfgang Sofsky, Die Ordnung des Terrors: Das Konzentrationslager (Frankfurt/Main, 1993), 15.
89. Raphael Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government, Proposals for Redress (New York, 1944).
90. For "autogenocide" cf, Yehuda Bauer, "The Place of the Holocaust in Contemporary History", in John Roth and Michael Berenbaum, eds., Holocaust: Religious and Philosophical Implications (New York, 1989), 30.
91. Young, The Texture of Memory, 5.
92. J. D. Kinzie, "The 'Concentration Camp Syndrome' among Cambodian Refugees", in Ablin and Marlowe, eds., The Cambodian Agony, 338.
93. Cf. Alexander Laban Hinton, "Why Did You Kill? The Cambodian Genocide and the Dark Side of Face and Honor", Journal of Asian Studies 57, no. 1(Feb. 1998):93ff.
94. Young, The Texture of Memory, 195.
95. On Tuol Sleng see Chanthou Boua and Ben Kiernan, "Bureaucracy of Death", New Statesman, 2 May 1980, 669ff.;
96. Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime, 464.
97. Pierre Nora, "Entre mémoire et histoire: La problématique des lieux", in idem, ed., Les lieux de mémoire (Paris, 1997), 1:36.
98. Quote from (shortened) English-language edition: Nora, "General Introduction: Between Memory and History", in Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past, under the direction of Pierre Nora, ed. Lawrence D. Kritzman, trans. Arthur Goldhammer, vol. 1, Conflicts and Divisions (New York, 1996), 14.
99. Pierre Nora, "The Era of Commemoration", in Realms of Memory, vol. 3, Symbols (New York, 1998), 626.
100. See "Der Gersteinbericht", Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, no. 1(1953):177-94
101. cited in Siegfried J. Pucher, "... in der Bewegung führend tätig", Odilo Globocnik, Kämpfer für den "Anschluß", Vollstrecker des Holocaust, Dissertationen und Abhandlungen (Disertacije in razprave), no. 1(Klagenfurt, 1997), 115.
102. Jean-Clément Martin, "La Vendée, région-mémoire", in Nora, ed., Les lieux de mémoire, 1:530 (not included in Realms of Memory).
103. Maurice Halbwachs, La topographie légendaire des Évangiles en Terre Sainte (Paris, 1941), 205.
104. For a challenging and provocative work on this debate, see David Stannard, "Uniqueness as Denial: The Politics of Genocide Scholarship", in Alan Rosenbaum, ed. Is the Holocaust Unique? Perspectives on Comparative Genocide (Boulder, 1996), 163-208.