Blog Wars: Lies and Cambodia posted by Richard Seymour

Blogger Beezlebozo's strained apologetics characteristically misrepresent what is common knowledge, as well as what is acknowledged by governments and agencies working in Cambodia.

Let's take a few of the more straightforward misrepresentations to begin with:

1) Bozo asserts that food aid extracted from the World Food Programme was given to "over 300,000 refugees on the Thai-Cambodian border".

According to Former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, "20,000 to 40,000 Pol Pot guerillas benefitted" from this aid. (William Shawcross, "The Quality of Mercy...", 1984)

Bozo would argue that this was because "the Khmer Rouge effectively controlled some of the camps".

According to two US relief workers, Linda Mason and Roger Brown, "[t]he United States government insisted the Khmer Rouge be fed ... the US preferred that the Khmer Rouge operation benefit from the credibility of an internationally known relief organisation". (Linda Mason and Roger Brown, "Rice, Rivalry and Politics: Managing Cambodian Relief", 1983).

In 1980, Dr Ray Cline, a former deputy director of the CIA and then foreign-policy adviser to president-elect Ronald Reagan, secretly visited Khmer Rouge bases in Thailand. Within a year, 50 CIA agents were in Thailand running the Cambodian operation. The connection between "relief efforts" and support for the Khmer Rouge was "made plain" at a meeting with staff members of the US Senate Intelligence Committee on February 10th, 1990, according to a former British Foreign Office official who had been there. Specifically, it was revealed that a Defense Intelligence Agency colonel, who functioned as a "security liaison officer" between the UN Border Relief Operation and the Displaced Persons Protection Unit, was a key link between the US government and the Khmer Rouge.

2) While acknowledging US support for the Khmer Rouge, Beezlebozo tries to attenuate the force of this appalling crime by suggesting that the support was really aimed at "non-communist" forces. The US was merely observing "the principle of non-intervention". Additionally, noone wanted to see Vietnam "swallow" Cambodia.

I won't elaborate on the transparent absurdity of claiming that the US has ever observed "the principle of non-intervention" in Indochina, but if anyone takes this business about Vietnam "swallowing" Cambodia seriously, they need only look at the diplomatic record. Vietnam was perfectly prepared to accept the return of the former regime, sans Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, and they said so openly on two consecutive years. (Nayan Chanda, Far Eastern Economic Review, 1st November, 1984; 7th November, 1985). Vietnam had been under attack from the Khmer Rouge regime, yet were willing to admit its return so long as two individual mass murderers were not included. This, of course, was unacceptable to the US and the "international community" who supported them, specifically to Deng Xiaoping of China who wanted to "bleed" Vietnam by forcing them into a long war.

But let's ponder over the pretense that US and UK support was directed toward "non-communist" forces (presumably meaning democratic forces or ones not as inclined to mass murder).

In fact, when the US and China, backed by Singapore, invented the Coalition of the Democratic Government of Kampuchea, Prince Norodom Sihanouk was placed in charge of a Khmer Rouge dominated movement. Thaoum Prasith, a personal friend of Pol Pot, continued to speak for Cambodia.

Bozo would doubtless assert that the report of the US Congress in 1991 "proves" that US support did not extend to the Khmer Rouge because there is no evidence that "the NCR (Non-Communist Resistance) and the Khmer Rouge have been fighting as an integrated force. Nor is there evidence that the NCR has been fighting under Khmer Rouge command. Nor is there evidence that the senior leaderships of the NCR and the Khmer Rouge are cooperating in strategic planning."

It is, however, impossible to take this seriously. According to James Pringle of the Far Eastern Economic Review, "[b]oth Sihanouk's armyand Son Sann's KPNLF are completely discounted in Phnom Penh... 'All they do is sit drinking coca-cola on the border' said one well-informed Soviet-bloc dissident."

Meanwhile, "[t]rucks loaded with men and boys, 150 or 200 at a time, pull away from settlements controlled by the Khmer Rouge and rumble into Cambodia". Supplies were "brought into the Cambodian interior to stockpile supplies for the Khmer Rouge".

Holbrooke was certain that US aid would "end up going to Pol Pot and his people".

Dith Pran, upon whom "The Killing Fields" was based, protested that US policy was "like putting gasoline on a fire", while the State Department insisted that the Khmer Rouge coalition had to be supported because of its "continuity" with the Pol Pot regime. (Pringle, FEER, 25th February, 1988; Barbara Crossette, New York Times, 2nd April 1988; Elizabeth Becker, Washington Post, 22nd May 1983; see also David Hawk's letter to the FEER, 2nd August 1984, which is accompanied by a picture of Alexander Haig "meeting, drink in hand, a smiling Ieng Sang" in New York; John Holdridge, State Department, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, 97th Congress, 2nd session, 14th September 1982).

Apart from the above, we have film evidence showing Sihanoukists and Khmer Rouge troops attacking a village, looting it, and even filming themselves doing it. ("Cambodia, Year Ten", Central Television, 1989).

John Pedler, the afore-mentioned Foreign Office official, swore an affidavit in Rome, 14th June 1991, which told anyone interested that "Sihanouk's forces carry out joint operations with the Khmer Rouge, as I was personally able to confirm when I visited Kompong Thom in central Cambodia. I was in that province when the last remnant of the Sihanoukist forces involved in a joint operation with the Khmer Rouge..."

On 28th February, 1991, the Whitehouse dropped the egg. Bush admitted to Congress that theree had been "tactical military cooperation" between "non-communist" Cambodian forces and Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge. (Washington Post, 28th February, 1991).

US and UK support for the Khmer Rouge did not end with guns, training, money, good, diplomatic and political favour or intelligence. No, it also included a hefty disinformation campaign on its behalf.

This began when the CIA released its infamous "demographic report" on Cambodia suggesting that Pol Pot hadn't anyone during the final two years of his regime. In fact, between 1977-8, more than half a million people were executed. (The Guardian, 6-7th October, 1989).

Meanwhile, during Congressional hearings in November 1989, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Solomon repeatedly refused to describe Pol Pot's crimes as genocidal. (Referenced at Hearings on Cambodia, the Asian and Pacific Subcommittee of the Houe Foreign Affairs Committee, Washington DC, 10th April 1991).

Congressman Stephen Solarz, one of the chief architects of US support for the Khmer Rouge, commended the "journalism" of one Nate Thayer as "brilliant", "sobre-minded", "well-informed". (Ibid) Thayer propagandised tirelessly for the Khmer Rouge. Refusing to submit to political correctness, he happily described the million or so people who died as a result of the Pol Pot regime as "displaced". Thayer assured audiences that although Pol Pot was responsible for some "objectionable" policies, it was directed only against a "section" of the population. He also told readers that the Khmer Rouge had the support of 20% of Cambodians, a claim he relayed directly from Pol Pot. (Nate Thayer, Washington Quarterly, Spring 1991).

In the UK, the Charity Commission, which is appointed by HM Government, was lobbied by the International Freedom Foundation, a far right lobby group, to censure Oxfam for its bias against the Khmer Rouge. Duly informed, the Commission accused Oxfam of having "prosecuted with too much vigour" its public education campaign against Pol Pot, and threatened them with the loss of their charity status. This achieved the desired result - silence, at a time when negotiations looked set to allow the Khmer Rouge back into Cambodia and everyone in the human rights community as well as in Cambodia, was terrified of what Pol Pot's men might do. (Ben Kiernan, "The Cambodian Genocide; issues and responses", 1990).


Even if it were true that US-UK support was directed at the "non-communist resistance" forces, this would hardly cover them in glory.

Prince Sihanouk, who as noted earlier was made head of the outfit, was in his time a brutal autocrat whose vicious policies contributed to the growth of the Khmer Rouge. The Washington Post described him as "the best hope for a decent and democratic Cambodia", (29th April, 1989), yet his past reflects an authoritarian self-regard mired in corruption and secret police brutality.

When Sihanouk was overthrown by the CIA and replaced with the even more brutal General Lon Nol, he called on his "children" to join Pol Pot's maquis. While he was alleged to be the "prisoner" of the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh when they took power, he was able as prisoner to catch a plane t New York and address himself t the UN General Assembly as Pol Pot's head of state. He told the UN that "a genuinely popular democracy" had been born in Cambodia, "a society without exploitation of man by man". (Official Records, UN General Assembly, 13th Session, 6th October 1975).

As an extra favour to the world's most loved mass murderers, he knocked out a few precious encomiasms in press conferences:

"The whole country is well fed... And they are very gay... I confess that the people seem to be quite happy with Pol Pot." (Press Conference, 7th January, 1979, cited in Ben Kiernan, "The Cambodian Genocide..." op cit.)

In 1990, Sihanouk assured US viewers that "[t]he Khmer Rouge are not criminals. They are patriots." (Peter Jennings Reporting, ABC News, 26th April, 1990). He was also kind enough to inform his journalist friend TD Smallman that he personally was not opposed to genocide. (Vanity Fair, April 1990).

And indeed, the Khmer Rouge were very grateful for this support for "the non-communist resistance". Flushed, Khien Samphan wrote two letters to Douglas Hurd congratulating him on his government's policy toward Cambodia. (Letter from J. Wilkins, South East Asia Department, Foreign Office, to C. Preece, 9th July 1991).

Prince Sihanouk, similarly overjoyed, told the press that "Cambodians were forced by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council ... to accept the return of the Khmer Rouge" who "in their hearts ... remain very cruel ... " (Reuter, 16th November, 1991; The Guardian, 20th November, 1991).

The reaction of the Cambodians to the "accords" which allowed for the return of Prince Sihanouk and the Khmer Rouge is exemplified in the fate of Khiem Samphan. Samphan, returning to Cambodia, was beseiged at the top floor of his villa by a mob of angry Cambodians, some of whom had lost relatives to his regime's genocidal policies. They inflicted a head wound upon him, which sent him scampering to the bottom of a cupboard where he crouched, pouring blood on the floor, as they tore up his house chanting "Kill him! Kill him!".

Think about that, and also the gusto and vigour with which the US, UK, China and others worked to ensure that the Khmer Rouge and their allies could return to Cambodia. It is one of the most sickening episodes in the West's whole dealing with Cambodia. Absolutely sickening...


The worst atrocity to the truth inflicted by Beezlebozo is his lies about US bombing of Cambodia. After all, US support for the re-entry of the Khmer Rouge did not manage to claim hundreds of thousands of lives. The dropping of over a hundred thousand tonnes of bombs on Cambodia from 1969 to 1973 did.

Bozo claims that "[t]he commonly quoted 500,000+ figures for the war had actually been released by Pol Pot himself, and are without any validity."

In fact, the Finnish Inquiry Commission estimated that 600,000 people had died as a result of the bombing. Father Ponchaud put the figure at 800,000, although Chomsky and Herman pointed out that there was reason to believe Ponchaud may have exaggerated that toll, while the CIA's demographic study (cited above)tells us that "US government sources put the figure unofficially at 600,000 to 700,000".

Michael Vickery, using CIA estimates to arrive at a lower figure, suggests it might be closer to 500,000. (Michael Vickery, "Cambodia 1975-1982", 1984).

In addition to this, 2 million refugees were created (according to the Finnish Inquiry Commission) while deaths from starvation in Phnom Penh alone were running at 100,000 a year. (George Hildebrand and Gareth Porter, "Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution", 1976). Parenthetically, I would add that I am aware of these authors' Stalinist sympathies, but would hope that even authors with whom one disagrees are able to provide well-sourced, well-documented arguments as these two authors apparently do. An argument that dismisses them for being communists is not an argument at all.

Now, I'm only too happy to accept that all of the figures above could be wrong - but they are not figures "released by Pol Pot himself". That is a flagrant lie. There is a scholarly dispute over these numbers, as there is over the numbers killed by the Khmer Rouge. Vickery thinks Kiernan has placed the number too high, while Kiernan thinks Vickery has placed it too low. This is all within the scope of honest debate.

Why does Beezlebozo consistenly attempt to minimise the crimes of the US (and the UK and their allies)? He would not afford such treatment to any other power (except possibly for Israel).

Take, in closing, a few transparent lies of his on the reasons for US involvement: "the facts are that US was specifically fighting to prevent the communist victory in Indochina that Pilger and friends were cheering for".

I don't know why he supposes "Pilger and his friends" wanted the Khmer Rouge to win, but the greater wonder is that he describes enormous US bombing of Cambodia and South Vietnam as "support". What an Orwellian imagination! The dialectical twists and turns to which Bozo will resort in order to sanctify US crimes is truly mind-boggling, and reminiscent of the apologists for Stalinism, (I have met a few of these fuckers, so I know of which I speak). When Vietnam defends itself from Cambodian aggression, it is "aggression"; when the US bombs Indochina with extreme brutality for well over a decade, while sponsoring horrendous dictatorships, and killing a total of 3 million, it is called "support".

The lack of any sense of irony in these matters calls into question Beezlebozo's seriousness, if it were not already obvious that he is not arguing in good faith. As such, I have had enough of his feckless engineering of the truth to suit the ends of power. His ceaseless slander, distortion, evasion is commingled with ridiculous sanctimony, not hallmarks of an honest debater. I am therefore signing out of conversation with him for now.

Should anyone be fooled by Bozo's sleights of hand, I will naturally be only be too willing to set them straight.

Cheers.