Lest We Forget - Cambodia

Yahoo! News Photos ^ | 4/20/03 | Reuters

[NormsRevenge]

Sat Apr 19,11:43 AM ET

Ashtrays sculpted to resemble the heads of Pol Pot(R), the infamous 'Brother Number One' of the Khmer Rouge (news - web sites), and 'Brother Number Three' Khieu Samphan(L) are seen on a shop shelf in this file photo taken March 5, 2003. The ashtrays, the brainchild of an enterprising Phnom Penh shopkeeper, sell for $3.80 each and are designed to remind the international community that the surviving leaders of the ultra-Maoist regime have yet to stand trial for the genocide of 1.7 million Cambodians. (Chor Sokunthea/Reuters)

[NormsRevenge]

The ashtrays, the brainchild of an enterprising Phnom Penh shopkeeper, sell for $3.80 each and are designed to remind the international community that the surviving leaders of the ultra-Maoist regime have yet to stand trial for the genocide of 1.7 million Cambodians.

1.7 million

The UN you and I fund today still can't get it right.

How long before some enterprising Iraqi folks come up with a Saddam urinal or a Chirac bidet?

[Illbay]

Where is Pol Pot? Vietnam? China?

[cibco]

He's DEAD... Jim ;0)

[NormsRevenge]

The death of Pol Pot .. From the World Socialist Web Site ... Died April 15th , 1998

[NormsRevenge]

Cambodian Genocide Program 1975 - 1979 , over 1.7 million died.

Hmm? Who was President? That Peace -loving peanut farmer.. uhh huhhh.

The parallels between Carter and Clinton are unmistakeable.

[NormsRevenge]

From the Yale website for the Cambodia Genocide Program

The Cambodian genocide of 1975-1979, in which approximately 1.7 million people lost their lives (21% of the country's population), was one of the worst human tragedies of the last century. As in Nazi Germany, and more recently in East Timor, Guatemala, Yugoslavia, and Rwanda, the Khmer Rouge regime headed by Pol Pot combined extremist ideology with ethnic animosity and a diabolical disregard for human life to produce repression, misery, and murder on a massive scale.

Since 1994, the Cambodian Genocide Program, a project of the Genocide Studies Program at the Yale Center for International and Area Studies, has been studying these events to learn as much as possible about the tragedy, and to help determine who was responsible for the crimes of the Pol Pot regime. In Phnom Penh in 1996, for instance, we obtained access to the 50,000-page archive of that defunct regime's security police, the Santebal. This material has been microfilmed by Yale University's Sterling Library and made available to scholars worldwide. As of December 2002, we have also compiled and published 22,000 biographic and bibliographic records, and over 6,000 photographs, documents, translations, and maps, along with an extensive list of CGP books and research papers on the genocide.

My own note here - In the spirit of fairness, Yes, Gerald Ford was President for the early portion of the massacre of 1/5 of Cambodia's population.

[Illbay]

Oh, sorry. Did he die as a result of "rough justice," or what? I know that Laos is still Communist but don't recall the status of Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge weren't the only Red faction there as I recall. Seems to me one of the Sihanouk family was attempting to broker peace but that was a long time ago.

Who are the "surviving leaders of the ultra-Maoist regime [that] have yet to stand trial for ... genocide?"

[cibco]

Check #5. The scum died of natural causes... a pity.

[Intolerant in NJ]

Lest We Forget - Cambodia...not everybody has forgotten - Mona Charen has an excellent chapter on Cambodia in her latest book Useful Idiots and really skewers the likes of Sydney Schanberg, "hero" of The Killing Fields, and other leftwingers who looked the other way and really would like to forget.....

[lilylangtree]

And where was the sacrosanct UN during Pol Pot's tyranny? (/sarc)

[backhoe]

The Killing Fields & Murder of a Gentle Land- what really happened in Cambodia a quarter-century ago

[tdadams]

From the killing fields memorial stupa, Siem Reap, Cambodia

[tdadams]

Did he die as a result of "rough justice," or what?

Even though most people will say he died of natural causes, let's put some facts in perspective and then give it another ponder.

Pol Pot was being held by his former commrades in what was left of the Khmer Rouge. He had turned on them, and they on him. These were his partners in crime during the 1975-79 genocide.

Shortly after they announced they had captured Pol Pot, then U.S. President Bill Clinton made a public announcement that, along with the Thai government, the U.S. would send in troops to apprehend him and bring him to justice. Once in custody, he would most likely tell all, hoping to gain leniency. If you were one of the former war criminals holding him, wouldn't you be inclined to do something to stop him from implicating you?

Not so surprisingly, just days after Clinton's announcement, it was announced that Pol Pot had suddenly died, from a heart attack, as it was explained. He was creamated the next day before anyone could examine the body.

More likely, Bill Clinton's announcement signed Pol Pot's death warrent. It was either an egregious order of extra-judicial execution which precluded testimony that would have brought the whole Khmer Rouge organization to justice, or it was one of the biggest diplomatic blunders in American history.