History neither forgets nor forgives |04 September 2020

Agence France Presse’s (AFP) “obituary” of Kaing Guek Eav aka “Comrade Duch” – reprinted in Seychelles NATION of September 3, 2020 – omits, wilfully or unwittingly, certain inconvenient facts about his murderous and genocidal past and that of his comrades-in-blood, most notably Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge regime.

Contrary to what one Cambodian, interviewed by AFP declares, Duch’s death will not bring closure to the vast majority of Cambodians. But they will be asking themselves questions. They will be wondering why it took so long to apprehend him and bring him to justice.

According to George Galloway, writer, filmmaker and renowned lecturer, who was a member of the British Parliament for nearly 30 years, “not one of the obituaries of Comrade Duch included the salient fact that Britain and the United States continued to recognise the Khmer Rouge Murder Inc long after they had been driven from power by Vietnamese backed fighters. For the British and the US the enemy of their enemy was their friend, even if he was a genocidal maniac. Anti-Soviet and anti-Vietnamese hatred trumped the tillers of the killing fields any day.”

According to Galloway, even after the Khmer Rouge had been driven from Phnom Penh, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were insistent on the regime’s ambassador keeping his seat at the United Nations and actually sanctioned the new Vietnamese-backed government in charge of Cambodia.

George Galloway’s recent article in RT reveals many inconvenient truths:

“Liberated Cambodia was subjected to sanctions while the Khmer Rouge in exile were secretly given millions of dollars by the US government – aid which lasted almost a decade after they had been overthrown. The CIA allegedly provided war material, money, weapons and satellite intelligence throughout those years, and discredited Western charities by forcing them to provide food to the mass murderers.

“Janes Defence Weekly and then the Daily Telegraph revealed as late as 1989 – more than a decade after the world KNEW about the killing fields, Britain's SAS was STILL helping to train Pol Pot's jungle army in exile. Indeed, following the Iran-Contra scandal which broke in 1986, the Khmer Rouge operation became a British-only affair – even the Reagan administration could not bear the further shame of arming and training ‘the comrades’. Not that Mrs Thatcher wasn't ashamed – her government lied to parliament in denying this assistance to the Khmer Rouge – before admitting in 1991 that they had been doing so since 1983. But when the assistance finally ended the enmity continued.”

George Galloway should know. Not only did he report on the killing fields as a parliamentarian, but he was also the head of the British parliamentary observer group sent to monitor the first multi-party election in 1993, which was discredited by most international observers with only him and the head of the Indian parliamentary delegation declaring the process as free and fair.

Galloway notes that the Khmer Rouge had been propelled to power by the US secret bombing of Cambodia in the first place, the tragic episode of Pol Pot’s regime of terror and genocide has been largely buried in “the unmarked grave of inconvenience”. But, he cautions, “like the Cambodian elephant, some of us have long memories...

Indeed, some inconvenient truths may be buried for some time. But History neither forgets nor forgives.

E. S. M.