The Vietnamese

With the election approaching, many of the ethnic Vietnamese in Phnom Penh are expressing increasing fear – fear of racial/ethnic violence directed against them by the opposition party and/or opposition party supporters.

I first started hearing concerns over this election from the Vietnamese a couple of months ago, just small talk in the cafes. They were saying that they felt this election had more potential for anti-Vietnamese problems than any election since 1998, but the reasoning seemed non-specific at the time. In an effort to get a better handle on these fears, over the last couple of weeks since the beginning of the campaign I’ve made it a point to have my afternoon coffee at cafes in the Phsar Kandal area of Phnom Penh, (where there is a large ethnic Vietnamese population,) hoping to overhear some scuttlebutt, perhaps talk to some local Vietnamese about their fears. I got a bit of both.

It has been said that the ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia support the CPP (the ruling party of Prime Minister Hun Sen, the Cambodian Peoples Party) because the CPP will not deport the illegal Vietnamese immigrants from the country. But to listen to the Vietnamese talk about it, while this is certainly an element, perhaps a stronger element from their point of view is that the opposition parties have always represented potential discrimination and even ethnic violence against them.

In my couple of weeks listening to the Vietnamese talk about the election, rumors have swirled and grown and are getting thicker. Though not verified, there is tell of groups of intimidating young men stopping Vietnamese appearing people in the evenings, demanding to know “what number” (which party) they support. “Number 7” is said to be the safest answer. They tell of racial epithets yelled by passing CNRP supporters, of Vietnamese caught alone after dark receiving a beat down, of women soup and egg sellers having their wares overturned and smashed by groups of young men. In light of these rumors the Vietnamese offer safety and security advice to each other: Vietnamese should not go out after dark, be careful not to get caught alone even during the day, don’t challenge them, just say “7” and keep your head down. They are also making contingency plans of where to go should widespread violence erupt, exchanging phone numbers, determining whose house is most secure, where they should gather, how they can get there, etc.

None of this should come as a surprise to Cambodia watchers. This sort of anti-Vietnamese intimidation and violence is far from unprecedented. The Vietnamese are the Khmer’s ethnic Other, the first minority group onto which blame falls during times of political and social tension.

The relationship between Vietnam and Cambodia is complicated, and traditional ethnic antagonism is deeply intertwined with historical and political animosities which are not completely unjustified, but when things turn bad in Cambodia, it is often if not always the poor, powerless ethic Vietnamese that take the violent brunt of it. They were massacred in a nationalist fury under Lon Nol in the early 70s, and again by the Khmer Rouge, not only in the late 70s when the KR were in power, but through the 80s and right up into the mid 1990s. Racially provocative rhetoric has been part-and-parcel of every Cambodian election since 1993, with the Royalist and the Sam Rainsy party leading the way in this regard. In the pre-election period of 1998, ethnic Vietnamese were assaulted and murdered in the provinces. During the post-election opposition protests of 1998, when the anti-Vietnamese rhetoric became particularly heated, there was significant anti-Vietnamese violence in Phnom Penh, including the murders of a couple of Vietnamese women, innocent street sellers, by an angry mob right in front of the French Embassy.

The Royalists (FUNCINPEC), and now the opposition party, (formerly the Sam Rainsy Party [SRP,] now the Cambodian National Rescue Party [CNRP]), have always played to the anti-Vietnamese sentiments in their election rhetoric, employing a convoluted mix of anti-government (the current government is seen to be aligned with Vietnam,) anti-immigration, nationalistic, historical and racial rhetoric. In this election (2013) the opposition has altered the rhetoric slightly, reframing much of it in terms of land issues and jobs in a seeming attempt to make it more palatable to the western press, but the underlying racial appeal remains the same, just in slightly new garb. (And, unbelievably, the international press and English press in Cambodia was apparently fooled, or perhaps indifferent, even sometimes playing into it in their reporting.)

Now, with the election nigh, even those new clothes are beginning to fall away. There are increasing reports of anti-Vietnamese sentiments being yelled from opposition party parades. And the reports are coming not just from Vietnamese but Cambodian and western observers. At Sam Rainsy’s return to the country on July 19, I heard several anti-Vietnamese chants (though interestingly it went unreported in the local English language press.) And apparently Sam Rainsy, as he stumps through the country in this final week of the campaign, has ratcheted up the anti-Vietnamese rhetoric, helping to fuel some of his supporters’ anti-Vietnamese resolve.

Many ethnic Vietnamese in Phnom Penh are scared, and justifiably so – of the increasing anti-Vietnamese fervor of this last week, and even more of what may follow the election.

Also see:
Cambodia Daily: 'In CNRP Campaign, a Subtler approach to 'Vietnamese Issue'
Cambodia Daily: 'CPP the Clear Choice for Ethnic Vietnamese Voters'

Anniversary

500 riel note, stuck in my journal that first week in Cambodia

It's my Cambodia anniversary. Nineteen years ago today we arrived in Phnom Penh, by mini-van from Saigon. I recall my primary concerns of the time were safety, the price of a ticket at Angkor and the infamous Cambodian amoebae. I had no real plans of staying more than a week or two, but here I am 19 years later. The following are excerpts from my journal entries that first day and from a long-winded letter to a friend written a couple of days later (mostly journal rewrites.) A different Cambodia through different eyes.

This place is dark. Cambodia. Steeped in history still in the making. Khmer Rouge, American bombing, Pol Pot, genocide, war, UN, more war…and here we are, in Phnom Penh. We took a van in from Ho Chi Minh City today. I never thought I'd really come here.

We were originally planning to go back to Bangkok after Vietnam, perhaps find some teaching jobs there, but we met a couple of women at a café in Saigon who had just come back from Cambodia last week. They told us the UN is leaving the country and that there are lots of jobs available and a shortage of people. But safety is a big concern. There is a war going on here and tourists have been killed... On the other hand, several travelers fresh back from Cambodia all agreed that Phnom Penh and the road there from Saigon has long been firmly in government hands and that the military problems are confined to the other side of the country. So we decided to at least check out Phnom Penh.

It took about 8 hours on the road. We came through the Moc Bai crossing - a couple of wood shacks for the immigration cops and a 300 yard walk through no-mans-land between checkpoints. Like the Lao Bao crossing with Laos, streams of local people move in both directions, carrying huge loads of goods, perhaps contraband - Coca-Cola, cigarettes, beer, kitchenware, shrimp chips - dangling from shoulder sticks and sometimes just piled on their backs. Once on the Cambodian side we (Lucy) negotiated a van for the four of us the rest of the way to Phnom Penh - $15, good price.

The road from the border to Phnom Penh was paved but rough. The few people we saw looked very poor. People, often children, squatted along the shoulder at points, begging for money from vehicles passing at more than 40mph. I didn't understand what they were doing at first. I still don't. Am I supposed to throw money out of a moving car?

The countryside we drove through seemed barren compared to Vietnam, far fewer structures and houses, and I saw some signs of the war, old blast marks on a couple of buildings. When our van reached the edge of Phnom Penh the driver pulled over in an empty parking lot in the middle of nowhere and told us that if we wanted to be taken all the way to the hotel it would cost another $5. Lucy's 'forceful' negotiations ("no go hotel I pay $5 less!") got us the rest of the way to the Capitol Guesthouse at no extra charge, where we are staying now. Which turns out to be a backpacker dump. We came here on the recommendation of the same people that told us Phnom Penh is safe. Hmmm. Actually, I am not sure if it's much worse than anything else that might be available here.

Lots of backpackers here. The place seems full. The room is small and dank, the bed hard, the walls and door very thin and there is a group of 'vocal' Israeli backpackers partying hardy in the hallway. Interesting restaurant downstairs though. Full of travelers. Exposed fluorescent tubes lighting dirty tile walls, folding tables, cheap traveler's food, and a little cigarette stand at the side where the lady also sells palm-size plastic packets of leafy old ganja for 500 Riel (20 cents). Glueless rolling papers included free of charge. How do glueless papers work anyway? People twist up and smoke right in the restaurant. That particular traveler's tale seems to be proving true.

It's late now…well, 10:30 or so. The restaurant closed at nine, driving us up to our noisy little wood cell. A balcony runs around the front of the hotel with a good view of the street below, obscured only by a utility pole standing within arm's reach, densely cocooned in a meter-thick bundle of ragged electrical wires and cables.

For all the wires I would have thought there'd be some lights on somewhere, but there are almost none - absolutely no street lights at all and most of the house lighting I can see seems to be from candles. It's very dark. The streets are puddled from the rain and seem almost empty save the occasional passing motorcycle. It's Thursday night, not that late, in the middle of the city and yet it's almost dead quiet. Why? I saw a group of armed men, soldiers I think, walk by. Maybe that has something to do with it. One traveler in Vietnam told me that she could hear the sound of artillery at night in Phnom Penh. I don't hear any artillery, but I can hear the sound of somebody tapping a bamboo bell (why?) several blocks away. It's that quiet. (Though I did also hear what may have been distant gunshots, just a couple.)

As I stand here in the tropical heat, looking at that dark empty street below, soldiers wandering by, candlelight flickering in the windows of blocky old buildings, the smell of rain and mildew and incense, I think about what occurred here in Cambodia, what is occurring here, and where I am, and the gravity of it all. Twenty five years of war. Three million killed under the Khmer Rouge. The forced evacuation of the cities, Phnom Penh, here. War stretching from the 1960s till now. I find myself fascinated with the idea and the feeling of being here in this 'strange and dangerous' place, in the midst of history still unfolding. Tonight at least, it's a rush just standing here watching a dark empty street. 

Better late than never - 2011

Newly completed Phnom Penh Tower, the city's second highrise.

Running a couple of weeks late on this post. Stray thoughts of Cambodia last year.

2010 At the end of last year, the on-going conflict with Thailand over Preah Vihear was probably the most talked about issue of that moment and perhaps the year. A decades old dispute, the flare up of the last few years was largely the result of Thai political instability stemming from the 2006 coup that ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. After months of deadly border skirmishes in 2010, political and military tensions had begun to ease in December, only to spike again with the arrest of a Thai politician and yellow-shirt activists on the Cambodian side of the border. And so began 2011.
Preah Vihear: the Thai-Cambodia temple dispute 
New developments in the Thai-Cambodia conflict (Dec 30, 2010)

Cambodia Daily

Voluntourism The international press turned a long overdue critical light on Pity Industry tourism, including orphanage tourism and commercialized voluntourism. Prompted by a study of orphanage tourism in Africa, papers such as the Guardian and the Telegraph published critical pieces toward the end of 2010, sparking several other unfavorable articles, blog entries and internet debates throughout the year. In October 2011 the high-respected NGO Friends-International in Cambodia launched an important new campaign aimed at bringing an end to orphanage tourism.
Guardian: Before you pay to volunteer abroad, think of the harm you might do
Telegraph: Volunteer holidays 'do more harm than good'
Inside the thriving industry of AIDS orphan tourism
Taking Aim at Voluntourism
The Independent: Cambodia's orphanages target the wallets of well-meaning tourists
When Children Become Tourist Attractions

Internet censorship Cambodia stumbled clumsily into the world of Internet censorship in February. After a ham-handed start in which all of BlogSpot was suddenly blocked and ISPs initially affirmed then denied knowledge of the blockage, the outage narrowed, leaving only the highly provocative KI Media and Khmerization permanently unavailable through some ISPs in Cambodia. Both the government and the ISP’s denied responsibility. The media squawked about it for a month or so, but the story has since been relegated to NGO reports. The blocked sites are still unavailable through many, perhaps most ISPs in Cambodia. That said, Cambodia still has some of the most unrestricted internet access in Southeast Asia, significantly better than its immediate neighbors.
The Curious Case of the Banning that Wasn't
LICADHO Condemns Censorship of Web Sites Critical of Government

Sam Rainsy Mid-March, Sam Rainsy was stripped of his seat in Parliament. It seemed much less of a story than it would have been in years past.
Cambodia opposition leader loses parliamentary seat

US Maintains Ban on Cambodian Adoptions  There has been a US imposed ban on the adoption of Cambodian children by Americans since 2001. After reconsidering the ban in March, the US ultimately declined to rescind it.
Cambodia Law Blog: Can expats adopt Cambodian children? Dispelling the myths

Unhappy Hippi In May Sihanoukville’s fabled Happy Hippi lost its smile.
K440: Happy Hippy smacked

The Cows of Spring On Royal Plowing Day in May the Royal Oxen ate beans and corn, eschewing the rice and other offerings.

Phsar Thmey and wart

Central Market After more than two years of work, during which many vendors were displaced to temporary buildings next to the market, the renovation and refurbishment of Phsar Thmey was completed mid-2011, including a brand new bright yellow paint job. (And it grew a wart in the form of a new, completely out-of-place 7-story building on the market square.) What a fantastic building, even with wart.

Preah Vihear In July elections were held in Thailand. The Pheu Thai party won. Thaksin’s sister became PM, Thailand’s political turmoil eased a bit, the yellows quieted, and the Preah Vihear situation has been getting better ever since. Come the end of 2011, Thai activist Veera remains in Cambodian jail.
Cambodia congratulates Pheu Thai Party on election win
Yingluck's visit to improve relations: Cambodian deputy PM
Cambodian PM stresses good relations with Thailand

DVDs at Russian Market

Legend In July The Legend Theatre opened in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s first ‘international-standard’ cinema. Full size screen, proper theater seats, quality projection and sound and the first screen in Cambodia to (legally) show Hollywood first run movies, including 3D movies. As a result there has been a threatened crackdown on bootlegged DVDs of certain first run movies.
Cambodia Law Blog: New moves on pirated movies

Tonle Sap Prime Minister Hun Sen continued to make the health of the Tonle Sap a priority, apparently with significant success. Illegal reservoirs and fishing lots were ordered shut down and the orders were enforced. Initial reports indicate the annual total fish catch is way up.
Fishing licenses around Cambodia's Tonle Sap Lake revoked
Hun Sen extends Tonle Sap fishing lot closure
AKP: Large Scale Crack-down of Illegal Fishing in Tonle Sap to Come

Former brothels on 63

Brothels closed on 63 Sometime in July, the long-running string of brothels on Street 63 was raided and closed. I posted about the bust of one in this group back in 2010. The place was back in operation a couple of weeks later, business as usual. Clearly well protected. But all of the brothels are gone now. To my knowledge those places on 63 were the last openly brothel-like businesses in central Phnom Penh. They have been there as long as I can remember and survived years after every other city center brothel had been shuttered. There must have been dozens of girls there. Closing them was probably one of the biggest brothel raid/ closures in the country this year. But to my knowledge the raid went unreported in the English press in Cambodia.

A Brief Tour of the Cambodian Sex Industry Best article on prostitution in Cambodia by an international journalist in recent memory. I don’t agree with everything he wrote, but unlike many of the weepy, sensationalistic, pre-scripted reports in the international media of late, he drew his conclusions from the evidence rather than looking for evidence to support his conclusions.

Faintings There was a spate of mass faintings at several different garment factories and even a couple of schools in Cambodia. Many observers were understandably quick to cast a suspicious eye on factory conditions, but the cause is still a matter of investigation. The mass faintings began suddenly and have occurred over a relatively short span, the only obvious commonalities being most happened in the factories and were exclusively amongst the laborers. It would be an extraordinary coincidence for such a cluster to occur, yet not have some common cause or link between the incidents – e.g. some new chemical, pesticide or product in use, a new ventilation system, a illness of some sort being passed around, longer working hours or increased production requirements, some new practice common to all of the affected factories.

Different causes have been suggested by investigators and labor advocates. In fact, there have been almost as many possible causes cited as there have been fainting incidents – chemicals, smells, ventilation, long hours, hunger, food poisoning, dehydration, etc., but nothing definitive and nothing new and common to all of the affected facilities. Working conditions in the factories appear to be pretty much the same as they have been for years.

In lieu of evidence of a common cause I am inclined to agree with Time Magazine. The mass fainting are, for lack of a better term, ‘mass-hysteria,’ but by that I don't mean to diminish their significance. These factory workers are largely poor young women, often rural girls accustomed to rice farming and country living, now working in gray, stuffy, unpleasant conditions, feeling homesick, pressured by family (for money) and harsh supervisors, and doing mind-numbingly repetitive work for very little compensation (averaging $55-$61/month,) often for long hours. Though the factories are not 'sweat shops,' this is still the kind of work that is undesirable enough to drive some young women to choose prostitution in preference. In my opinion, for whatever reason that first mass fainting happened, it sparked a chain reaction of all the faintings that followed - it was the spark for a sort of involuntary protest by these young women against the unhappy and oppressive circumstances in which they find themselves.
Hundreds sick in mass fainting at Cambodian factory
Mass Fainting In Garment Factory
Mass faintings at H&M factory in Cambodia
What's Causing 'Mass Faintings' at Cambodian Factories?

Siem Reap, September 2011

Floods The wet season was too wet this year. Cambodia (and Thailand) saw some of the worst flooding in more than a decade. In Cambodia huge swathes of countryside along the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers were submerged, hundreds of deaths, enormous crop loss and property damage. Government response was slow and inadequate. In an unprecedented but widely supported move, the government cancelled the Water Festival boat races in Phnom Penh. Just as the press was beginning to take note of the flooding in Cambodia, especially with the repeated flooding of Siem Reap town, Bangkok came under flood threat and story in the international press changed focus to Thailand and never really returned to Cambodia. Interestingly, even with the flood related crop loss, Cambodia managed to produce more rice in 2011 than the previous year.
Flood reports, photos and links
Cambodia's rice yield stable in 2011 despite flood devastation: PM

Most self-absorbed article of the year Amidst stories of captive Cambodian women jumping from upper floor windows to escape Malaysian recruitment agencies and of repeated allegations of abuse, torture and rape of Cambodian maids in Malaysia, the Cambodian government has banned its citizens from working as maids in Malaysia. Reporting on the ban in ‘this article’ the Malaysian press complained of a “dire maid shortage”in Malaysia and of how the ban will hurt their recruitment agencies. "Dire." Never mind the abuses suffered by these maids in Malaysia or captive women jumping from windows to escape these so called 'recruitment agencies' in Phnom Penh, it sounds like tough times in Malaysia. It's dire. They're having to make their own beds and there's nobody to do the dishes. 
“They Deceived Us at Every Step”
Recruiters Round Up Cambodians to Work in Malaysia

Rice wine deaths There were several mass poisonings attributable to bad batches of homemade rice wine. A regular motodup on my street died a couple of months ago after being poisoned. In one tragic case the better part of a village was wiped out. One poisoning incident:
12 Cambodians died of wine poisoning

Top Ten Tycoons The essential Who’s Who

Land Next to the floods, the rampant land-grabbing and mistreatment of evictees was the story of the year. So much has been written on the subject I am not sure what more is to be said. The problem continues and is growing. It is involving ever more people and confrontations between evictees and authorities are becoming more violent. In terms of politics, it is a gift from the ruling party government to the opposition. While I accept it is unrealistic to expect there will not be evictions as the city and country develops, I don’t understand from either a human or political POV why it is being handled so badly and the evictees treated with such callous inhumanity. It is sowing the seeds of dissent and future conflict in ever growing numbers. As one Kampong Speu evictee put it, "If there was still a Khmer Rouge hiding in the jungle, I'd join." In the long and even medium term, these pitiless evictions don't make moral or even Machiavellian sense.

NGO Law The government wants to regulate NGOs and has proffered a law. The NGOs are suspicious of the government’s intent but split between those who say the proposed law needs modification and those who say there should be no law at all. Much ink has been spilled on the subject with the highlight being an exchange between Elizabeth Becker and an anonymous commentator at AKP, the government media mouthpiece. The proposed law is currently in its fourth draft and the debate continues. The Prime Minister recently calmed the debate by saying that there was no rush, that they would work as long as necessary to craft a law acceptable to both sides. But, of course, this also takes the ‘no law’ option off the table.
Catalogue of artcles related to the NGO Law
Hun Sen Calls for More Talks on NGO Law
Elizabeth Becker/AKP exchange
Silencing Cambodia's Honest Brokers By ELIZABETH BECKER
AKP: Commentary: Elizabeth Becker and the Campaign to Put NGOs above the Law
Response To Anonymous Critique by Elizabeth Becker

The King, King Father and Queen Mother on the occasion of the 90/20 celebration.

90/20 King Father Sihanouk celebrated his 90th birthday and 20-year anniversary of returning to Cambodia. A truly historic occasion.
Birthday of King Father Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia

Mu Sochea proves to be a continuing force, making her mark (and political hay) taking a hands-on approach and focusing on issues that directly affect the poor and disadvantaged such as land grabbing and maid trafficking. Like I said last year, keep an eye on this lady, especially in the coming election year. She’s going places.

Kristof Tweets In November Nicholas Kristof parachuted in to Anlong Veng to tweet a brothel raid and promote his favorite anti-trafficking NGO in Cambodia. His dramatic tweeting of the raid probably did more to raise public awareness of his questionable ethics in the reporting of sex trafficking than anything he has done since purchasing two underage girls in Cambodia in 2005.
Nick Kristof to the rescue!
Nick Kristof Live Tweets a Raid on an Underage Brothel – And Not Everyone is Thrilled
Fighting back, one brothel raid at a time
A human trafficker defends Cambodian sweatshops
Be Aware: Nick Kristof’s Anti-Politics

Laos threatens to construct the first hydropower dam on the Lower Mekong.
Laos' Mekong Xayaburi dam plan delayed again

@Faineg Tweets KR trial The KR trials continue under a darkening cloud of criticism from disparate quarters. Growing feelings that the trials may be fundamentally flawed, talk of UN incompetence, accusations of government interference, a judge resigned, acrimony between the government and UN, and that's just the now of it. Case 002 is underway. Nuon Chea (Brother #2) has been on the stand and has put on quite a show, well-worth a hundred million, see-sawing between denying knowledge and blaming Vietnam. In an innovative and powerful use of Twitter, Faine Greenwood, aka @faineg, (and others more sporadically,) has been live tweeting the proceedings from the courtroom. This is journalism. ( Recently @KRT_Monitor has taken up the blow by blow.)

Plane to Sihanoukville Cambodia Angkor Air began regular flights between Siem Reap and Sihanoukville in December. If memory serves, this is the first regular air service to Sihanoukville since Royal Air Cambodge stopped flying to Sihanoukville in late 1997…except for PMT’s short-lived ill-fated venture on the same route a few years back. 

Tourism grows and grows At year’s end the government announced that tourist arrivals were up 14% over last year, Vietnamese leading the way. Tuk-tuk drivers in Siem Reap complain that the increasing numbers of Asian tourists, often on packages, is driving down local transport prices. Still, Siem Reap is booming and some of it is spilling off to Sihanoukville and Phnom Penh.
Cambodia's foreign tourist arrivals up 14% in 2011

Gold Tower 42, The Phnom Penh Tower and The OCIC Tower

Phnom Penh towers At the site of the old Ministry of Tourism, Phnom Penh's second highrise after the OCIC Tower (Canadia Tower,) the new Phnom Penh Tower on Monivong Blvd, was completed and opened for business. Stalled project Gold Tower 42 (aka Grey Tower 31, aka Bassac Thmey) has been idle now for 15 months.

The Riel The Cambodian Riel held its own against the US dollar throughout the year, varying only about +/-50 Riel over the course of the year, beginning 2011 at about 4055KHR = US$1 and finishing around 4075KHR = US$1.

New bridge to Koh Pos, Sihanoukville, 2/11. Construction is now complete.

Outrage In the final week of the year Cambodia publicly soiled itself and walked around stinking of shit in its pants all week after pardoning and releasing convicted Russian pedophile Alexander Trofimov. Alexi first arrived in Cambodia heading up a high-profile US$300,000,000 Koh Pos investment project before being caught diddling dozens of prepubescent girls in Sihanoukville in 2007. His subsequent handling by the Cambodian judiciary was riddled with irregularities and he had served only a fraction of his original sentence before being freed by royal pardon. Juice speaks. He has since disappeared into Cambodia somewhere, doing what...we can only imagine. After he was released all of the authorities that should have been in-the-know did a Sgt. Schultz style, "I know nothing...nothing!" all denying knowledge of how he got on the pardon list. His former company even denied knowing who he is. Yeah, right.  
Cambodia pardons Russian in paedophile case
Phnom Penh Post: Petition to deport pedophile Alexander Trofimov

Ten Cambodia Tweeps to Follow
khmerbird
peter_k440
faineg
nate_thayer
dickonverey
HunSensEye
ChrisInCambo
SimOliver
MuSochua
mybigfatface
JaredsCambodia

Cambodia News and Info on Twitter
phnompenhpost
voakhmer
tweetcambodia
cambopedia
cambodianews
Canby_Cambodia
USEmbPhnomPenh
EyeOnCambodia
KRT_Monitor

New Cambodia Blogs of Note
Faine Opinines
Nate Thayer

Useful Idiots of the Khmer Rouge

By late 1977 the Pol Pot regime had decided to begin seeking broader international support for their 'Democratic Kampuchea.' In November 1977 Burma's Ne Win became the first head of state to visit Phnom Penh since the Khmer Rouge takeover in April 1975. Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania followed soon after. Beginning in early 1978, small groups of Communist-sympathizing westerners were invited and/or allowed to visit Cambodia, most often arriving on the then weekly flight from Beijing to Phnom Penh. (Pol Pot History of a Nightmare, by Phillip Short, page 381.) In August of that year a leftist Swedish group including the now repentant Gunnar Bergstrom toured the country and even dined with Pol Pot. Bergstrom made news again in 2008 when he returned to Cambodia after 30 years, this time to offer apologies for supporting the regime and ask forgiveness of the survivors. (For more on Bergstrom see Taiwan News and BBC)

In April 1978, months before Bergstrom arrived in Cambodia, a group of four Americans from the American Communist Party M-L visited the country, declaring themselves the "first Americans to visit Cambodia since April 1975." The group included Robert Brown, David Klein and the editor of the communist The Call magazine Daniel Burstein. (Ironically, Burstein is now a New York venture capitalist and writer, at least according to the Communpedia and from what I have been able to infer from some Googling.)

This group of Americans met with Iang Sary and toured the country for eight days* in what was no doubt a carefully orchestrated outing, including Phnom Penh city and Siem Reap, Kampong Thom, Kampong Cham and Takeo provinces. Afterward, they departed with a very favorable impression of Democratic Kampuchea and the 'accomplishments' of the Khmer Rouge regime. Burstein was so impressed that he wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times entitled "On Cambodia: But, Yet," published November 21, 1978 (link,) declaring the stories of Khmer Rouge horrors and genocide that were littering the US press at the time to be slanderous lies. Burstein wrote,

"Everyone knows about the war waged by the United States in Cambodia from 1970 to 1975. But very few people know about or understand the war that it is waging today against that country, which now calls itself Democratic Kampuchea. The was is being fought on many fronts. But it is mainly a propaganda war, a consciously organized, well-financed campaign to spread lies and misinformation about Kampuchea since the victory of its revolution in 1975

I was the first American to visit Kampuchea since April 17, 1975. What I saw has little in common with the stories told by so many journalists and other 'authorities' who have never been there...

The most slanderous of all charges leveled against Kampuchea is that of 'mass genocide,' with figures often cited running into the millions of people. I believe this is a lie, which certain opinion-makers in this country believe can be turned into a 'fact' by repeating it often enough."     

Though, in the spirit of a proper apologist he did concede that there may have been "excesses,"

This does not mean there has been no violence or bloodshed since the revolution. The new Government has had to deal with many forces that oppose the revolution -- former Lon Nol officials, as well as organized networks of American, Russian and Vietnamese agents trying to overthrow the Government. Such sabotage has undoubtedly been met with violent suppression. In the course of this, there may even have been some excesses, which no revolution is immune to.

His tour companions were similarly impressed by their experience in Democratic Kampuchea. They produced a 115-page booklet entitled, 'The New Face of Kampuchea: a photo-record of the first American visit to Cambodia since the end of the war,' or 'Kampuchea: A photo-record of the first American visit to Cambodia since April 1975,' written by Klein, with photographs by Robert Brown and published by the now defunct Liberator Press (Chicago) in late 1978. (See The Eyes of the Pineapple for more on Liberator Press.) They arrived at a similar conclusion to Burstein's, i.e. that the Khmer Rouge were liberators, Cambodia was moving in the right direction, the Cambodian people enthusiastic participants in the new order and that the tales of Khmer Rouge atrocities were just so much capitalist propaganda.

The very month that this group of Americans were in Phnom Penh, April 1978, the purges of the Eastern Zone and the torture operation at the infamous S-21 prison facility in Phnom Penh (now the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum) were reaching a crescendo. The unfortunates brought to S-21, not far from where the Americans were touring city, were tortured into bizarre and unlikely 'confessions' reflecting the paranoias of Khmer Rouge leadership, sometimes 'admitting' to being counter-revolutionary spies working simultaneously for the Americans, the Russians and the Vietnamese. In his landmark work on the prison, 'Voices from S-21' (page 73,) David Chandler writes, "The Party Center then embarked on a wholesale purge of cadres in the Eastern Zone. In April 1978, so many were brought into S-21 that some of the trucks bearing prisoners had to be turned away...presumably to be taken off to be killed without any interrogation," stocking the killing fields of Choeung Ek just outside of town. In a chillingly deaf echo of this horrible reality, Klein apologetically notes in Kampuchea (page 10) that Khmer Rouge government leaders acknowledged "violence" was still being employed to root out a secret apparatus of CIA, KGB and Vietnamese infiltrators in Cambodia, but that it was to "(make) sure that the chains which had previously held the people in bondage would never be forged again." 

The following are scans of a photocopy of the Forward, Introduction and first two chapters of 'Kampuchea: A photo-record of the first American visit to Cambodia since April 1975,' which contain Klein's observations and impressions of the state of the country and people as well as several interesting photographs by Brown of an almost empty Phnom Penh.

One might say that these men were naive, duped, perhaps blinded by their ideology, but I find it difficult to understand how they could see child soldiers carrying AKs as big as themselves, masses of black clad people toiling in the mud like ants and a capital city devoid of occupants three years after the takeover and not catch a hint that something might be amiss.

Click on the images to enlarge. 

 Page 4: Colonial villa on Sothearos Blvd opposite National Museum?

 Dan Burstein with Iang Sary, April 28, 1978

Page 27: Former American Embassy, northeast corner of Norodom Blvd. and Mao Tse Toung Blvd.

 Page 31: Corner of Norodom Blvd and Street 130, northwest corner

Page 32: Looking east down Street 154 from the corner of Norodom Blvd. and Street 154.
Page 33: Looking south down Monivong Blvd from corner of Monivong and Street 114

Page 34: Looking east on Street 118 from the corner of Norodom Blvd and Street 118. 
Page 35: Southeast corner of Norodom Blvd and Street 118

(* There is some discrepancy regarding the length of the tour. Wikipedia [yes, I know it is an inherently dubious source] states that the tour lasted 8 days. But in his booklet 'Kampuchea,' David Klein states the group arrived in Phnom Penh April 12, but also dates one of the photos of Dan Burstein in the book April 28, indicating that the stay was longer than 8 days or perhaps that they toured at slightly different times or had overlapping tours. It may also be that the photo is incorrectly dated, or is not credited properly, perhaps taken by someone other that Robert Brown.)

Looking Back