Similar to Holocaust denial, Cambodian genocide denial is the belief that the Cambodian genocide (Khmer: ហាយនភាពខ្មែរ or ការប្រល័យពូជសាសន៍ខ្មែរ) did not happen or was not as bad as commonly believed.
Background
1973: End of intervention in Indochina
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In 1973, the U.S. government withdrew troops from Indochina following two decades of intervention that had become domestically unpopular following years of anti-war protests led by pro-communist forces, who wielded significant academic influence.
1975: Fall of Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam to communism
By 1975, American public opinion turned against further intervention against the Warsaw Pact-armed North Vietnamese-led communist insurgency groups in Indochina.[1][2]
The anti-communist governments in Laos,[3] Cambodia and South Vietnam[4] collapsed in April 1975 under the renewed onslaught of the Warsaw Pact-armed Pathet Lao,[5] Khmer Rouge and Viet Cong respectively, which was quickened by American public opposition to further military aid to the said governments.[1][6] The 1973 Paris Peace Accords – intended to end the Indochina Wars – failed as a result of the communist forces breaking the Accords.[1][7]
1975–79: Cambodian genocide
In the wake of communist takeover in Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam, millions of civilians perceived as enemies of communism were subject to tortures, massacres, forced labor and genocides,[8] notable of which was the Cambodian genocide having killed as many as 3,000,000 (1⁄3 of the Cambodian population),[8] or forced into exile as boat refugees,[2][8] as many as 400,000 of whom died in the South China Sea before they could reach anywhere.[9]
Academia
On the debate about the Cambodian genocide, American political scientist Donald W. Beachler remarked,[1]
Many of those who had been opponents of U.S. military actions in Vietnam and Cambodia feared that the tales of murder and deprivation under the Khmer Rouge regime would validate the claims of those who had supported U.S. government actions aimed at halting the spread of communism. Conservatives pointed to the actions of the Khmer Rouge as proof of the inherent evils of communism and evidence that the U.S. had been right to fight its long war against communists in Southeast Asia.
Despite the abundance of verified testimonies from Cambodian refugees and foreign witnesses, Cambodian genocide denial within academia was widespread in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Australia etc.[10][11]
Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman
With the transnational academic-cultural network tied to their prominence in Western academia, American scholars Noam Chomsky (1928 – ) and Edward S. Herman (1925 – 2017) published several books discrediting the survivors, objecting to the genocide classification and the confirmed death toll of the Cambodian genocide,[12] which influenced hundreds of millions worldwide into doing the same.[12]
Gareth Porter
In 1976, American historian Gareth Porter (1942 – ) co-authored the book Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution with George Hildebrand in which he denied that one million Cambodians had already been killed by the Khmer Rouge. On May 3, 1977, Porter repeated his denial at the Solarz hearing in the U.S. Congress.[13]
Historians have been critical of Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution. Particularly, historian Bruce Sharp conducted an in-depth research on the citations of that book. Of the 50 citations in a chapter of that book, 33 were traced to the state propaganda of the Khmer Rouge, while 6 from that of the CCP,[11] which served as a proof of their confirmation bias and intellectual dishonesty.[11]
Recalling the encounter later in his life, Solarz called Porter's Cambodian genocide denial "cowardly and contemptible," comparing him to those who denied the Holocaust.[14]: 40
Samir Amin
Egyptian-French economist Samir Amin had been a good friend of Pol Pot and Khieu Samphan since they were studying in France in the Cold War's early years.[15] When the Cambodian genocide was exposed, Amin continued to hail the Khmer Rouge as the most superior communist model.[16] When asked again about the Cambodian genocide in 1986, Amin retorted with an inversion of reality by blaming the "American imperialists," Vietnamese communists and Lon Nol for the suffering of the Cambodians.[17]
Responses
François Ponchaud
François Ponchaud (1939 – ) is a French priest who lived in Cambodia during the genocide. As a witness, he documented the genocide in his book Cambodge Année Zéro (Cambodia: Year Zero), which attracted biased criticism from Noam Chomsky and Gareth Porter who denied the genocide. In response, Ponchaud called out their intellectual dishonesty,
They say there have been no massacres [...] blame for the tragedy of the Khmer people on the American bombings. [...] For them, refugees are not a valid source [. ...] if something seems impossible to their personal logic, then it doesn't exist. Their only sources for evaluation are deliberately chosen official statements. Where is that critical approach which they accuse others of not having?
Sophal Ear
Cambodian-American historian Sophal Ear satirically referred to the biased narrative of pro-Khmer Rouge Western academic leftists as the Standard Total Academic View on Cambodia (STAV),[18]
[They] hoped for, more than anything, a socialist success story with all the romantic ingredients of peasants, fighting imperialism, and revolution.
William Shawcross
British journalist William Shawcross criticized the STAV academics as well. His criticism was endorsed by human rights activist David Hawk who pointed out that
Western governments were indifferent to the Cambodian genocide due to the influence of anti-war academics on the American left who obfuscated Khmer Rouge behavior, denigrated the post-1975 refugee reports, and denounced the journalists who got those stories.
Jakob Guhl
Jakob Guhl, the Senior Manager, Policy and Research of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), said that Cambodian genocide denial among Western academic leftists was rooted in their dogmatic rejection of liberal democracy,[19] presumption of "moral superiority" of anti-capitalist regimes and division of political actors into binary categories (oppressors vs. oppressed) to justify "anti-hierarchical aggression" towards hypothetical oppressors, who are dehumanized to have their suffering denied.[19]
Related pages
References
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