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Thirty years on, the nightmare of Pol Pot's terror haunts a widow in a Paris suburb
guardian ^ | January 27, 2006 | Jon Henley

Posted on 01/28/2006 9:17:22 PM PST by tbird5

France faces moment of truth over events that ended embassy siege in Cambodia

He is safe, she thought. But he was not. Four days later two French gendarmes dragged Ung Boun Hor, the former speaker of the Cambodian national assembly, to the compound gates and delivered him, with six other alleged "traitors", to a platoon of waiting Khmer Rouge soldiers.

(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: cambodia; dictators; khmerrouge; killingfields; polpot; thekillingfields

1 posted on 01/28/2006 9:17:23 PM PST by tbird5
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To: tbird5

Sorry for the bad cut and paste.

The last time she saw him he was standing on the tarmac at Phnom Penh airport, waving as the ageing Air Cambodia plane carrying her, her daughter, two nephews and three suitcases to safety shuddered into the sky, avoiding by some miracle the constant barrage of Khmer Rouge shells.

In truth, she saw him once more, seven days later, on April 17 1975. But she was in France, and he was on the television. He was hurrying into the compound of the French embassy in Phnom Penh with the prime minister and other high-ranking officials from the former republic, clutching a suitcase she had left him stuffed with nearly $300,000 of her mother's cash.

He is safe, she thought. But he was not. Four days later two French gendarmes dragged Ung Boun Hor, the former speaker of the Cambodian national assembly, to the compound gates and delivered him, with six other alleged "traitors", to a platoon of waiting Khmer Rouge soldiers.

One eyewitness said he was so scared of what awaited him his legs were "quite literally shaking". After that, no one saw Ung Boun Hor again.

Sitting now in her cramped one-room flat in the Paris suburb of Nogent, Billon Ung Boun Hor, 66, relates the horrifying events of those few days three decades ago - portrayed in Roland Joffe's 1984 movie The Killing Fields - calmly enough. But the years have done nothing to temper her bitterness.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,,1695990,00.html


2 posted on 01/28/2006 9:21:30 PM PST by tbird5
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To: tbird5

Exactly the amount of courage and integrity the world has come to expect from the French.


3 posted on 01/28/2006 9:23:00 PM PST by D.P.Roberts
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To: tbird5
She might try looking here:

Remember, Pol Pot was a hero of the American Left.

L

4 posted on 01/28/2006 9:24:17 PM PST by Lurker (I trust in God. Everybody else shows me their hands.)
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To: Lurker


Gerald Ford pleaded with the democratically controlled Congress not to cut off the funding for the South Vietnamese. They cut it off anyway. No one can be certain if this enabled Pol Pot to butcher these people but many say it contributed to the rise of Communism in Southeast Asia.


5 posted on 01/28/2006 9:32:18 PM PST by jazusamo (A Progressive is only a Socialist in a transparent disguise.)
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To: tbird5

I suspect the French have proven themselves to be scum in every country they have attempted to "refine."


6 posted on 01/28/2006 9:34:11 PM PST by Rembrandt (We would have won Viet Nam w/o Dim interference.)
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To: tbird5

http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1998

summary on Pol Pot


7 posted on 01/28/2006 9:34:34 PM PST by VOA
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To: jazusamo

Carter didn't even try to stop the killing.


8 posted on 01/28/2006 9:35:21 PM PST by ncountylee (Dead terrorists smell like victory)
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To: tbird5

You'd think she'd have settled elsewhere than France after a betrayal like that.. Luxembourg, Switzerland are francophone too.
Cambodia, the domino theory exemplified and accelerated by the Democrat Party's own betrayal of allies.


9 posted on 01/28/2006 9:36:50 PM PST by 1066AD
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To: tbird5

Congratulations to Hanoi Jane and John.


10 posted on 01/28/2006 9:37:40 PM PST by DTogo (I haven't left the GOP, the GOP left me.)
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To: ncountylee


Sadly, that is true and nobody seems to remember that when he is referred to as the bastion of human rights.


11 posted on 01/28/2006 9:37:52 PM PST by jazusamo (A Progressive is only a Socialist in a transparent disguise.)
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To: Lurker
"Remember, Pol Pot was a hero of the American Left."

And Chomsky is still in denial.

12 posted on 01/28/2006 9:51:49 PM PST by sageb1 (This is the Final Crusade. There are only 2 sides. Pick one.)
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To: ferri

bump


13 posted on 01/28/2006 10:03:01 PM PST by ferri (Be Politically Incorrect: Support the Constitution!)
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To: tbird5
The French delivered someone to the Khmer Rouge? After he had sought sanctuary in their Embassy?
14 posted on 01/28/2006 10:11:59 PM PST by Zack Nguyen
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To: Zack Nguyen

Remember that the Khmer Rouge were playing hardball. They would have taken them one way or another.

Let's not jump on the French foreign service after they had just witnessed the American foreign service cut and run like dogs.


15 posted on 01/28/2006 10:30:47 PM PST by Monterrosa-24 (France kicked Germany's teeth out at Verdun among other places.)
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To: Rembrandt

Your tagline confused me because I read it as Diem and not Democrat. But why would anyone blame Diem who the Kennedy administration rubbed out because he would not run his country the way the Kennedy admin wanted it run?


16 posted on 01/28/2006 11:14:00 PM PST by Monterrosa-24 (France kicked Germany's teeth out at Verdun among other places.)
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To: tbird5; All
The Killing Fields & Murder of a Gentle Land- what really happened in Cambodia a quarter-century ago
17 posted on 01/29/2006 3:05:20 AM PST by backhoe (Just an Old Keyboard Cowboy, Ridin' the Trakball into the Dawn of Information)
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To: tbird5
The Killing Fields was a ground breaking movie, but I was appalled that Hollywood had to twist the script to fit their liberal politics.

Instead of just stating the obvious, that Communism is evil, they had to make a point of shifting blame that somehow the genocide was all America's fault. As the egotistical reporter sat "agonizing" in America as he was applauded by his friends at the New York Times, he cried in front of a TV screen showing B-52s bombing....something...to opera music.

It was pathetic.

18 posted on 01/29/2006 4:19:23 AM PST by SkyPilot
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To: Monterrosa-24

I still think it's wrong. The French delivered him to certain death and they knew it. Would the Khmer Rouge have invaded the French Embassy to get one man? Possibly, but that is an act of war and the French should have stood their ground.


19 posted on 01/29/2006 6:14:22 AM PST by Zack Nguyen
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To: sageb1

And Peter Davis, director of the propaganda film "Hearts and Minds", praised Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in his acceptance speech at the Academy Awards.


20 posted on 01/29/2006 6:34:08 AM PST by Fred Hayek (Liberalism is a mental disorder)
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