Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Documentation Delayed, Justice Denied: The Historiography of the Cambodian Genocide

  • Chapter
The Historiography of Genocide

Abstract

Seven months after the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia in April 1975, and forcibly emptied its capital, Phnom Penh, the Foreign Minister of neighbouring Thailand, Chatichai Choonhavan, travelled to Washington, D.C. There he met with the U.S. Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, and his Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Philip Habib. After an exchange of greetings, Kissinger informed Chatichai of U.S. President Gerald Ford’s forthcoming visit to China. He then asked Chatichai about his recent meeting with China’s Khmer Rouge ally, the new Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Ieng Sary, brother-in-law of Pol Pot.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 89.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes

  1. Memorandum of Conversation, ‘Secretary’s Meeting with Foreign Minister Chatichai of Thailand’, 26 November 1975, declassified 27 July 2004, 19pp., at pp. 3–4, 8: (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB193/HAK-11-26-75.pdf).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Yun Shui, ‘An Account of Chinese Diplomats Accompanying the Government of Democratic Kampuchea’s Move to the Cardamom Mountains’, Guoji Fengyunzhongde Zhongguo Waijiaoguan [Chinese Diplomats in International Crises] (Beijing: Shijie Zhishi Chubanshe [World Knowledge], 1992), pp. 85–112;

    Google Scholar 

  3. P. Marks, in Conflict and Change in Cambodia, ed. B. Kiernan, special issue of Critical Asian Studies, 34, 4 (2002), 496–519; reproduced in Conflict and Change in Cambodia, ed. B. Kiernan (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 1–25.

    Google Scholar 

  4. For different views, see N. Chomsky and E. S. Herman, ‘Cambodia’, in their After the Cataclysm: Postwar Indochina and the Reconstruction of Imperial Ideology (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1980), pp. 135–294;

    Google Scholar 

  5. W. Shawcross, ‘Cambodia: Some Perceptions of a Disaster’, Revolution and Its Aftermath in Kampuchea: Eight Essays, eds, D. Chandler and B. Kiernan (New Haven, CT: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 1983), pp. 230–58;

    Google Scholar 

  6. M. Vickery, Cambodia 1975–1982 (Boston, MA: HarperCollins, 1984), Ch. 2;

    Google Scholar 

  7. E. S. Herman and N. Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988), pp. 280–96.

    Google Scholar 

  8. S. Adams, War of Numbers: An Intelligence Memoir (South Royalton, VT: Steerforth Press, 1994), pp. 191–204;

    Google Scholar 

  9. M. Vickery, ‘Democratic Kampuchea: CIA to the Rescue’, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 14, 4 (1982), 45–54, at 47.

    Google Scholar 

  10. T. M. Carney, Communist Party Power in Kampuchea (Cambodia): Documents and Discussion (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1977).

    Google Scholar 

  11. T. Carney, ‘Cambodia: The Unexpected Victory’, and ‘The Organization of Power in Democratic Kampuchea’, Cambodia 1975–1978: Rendezvous with Death, ed. K. D. Jackson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), pp. 13–35 and 79–107.

    Google Scholar 

  12. S. R. Heder, ‘Thailand’s Relations with Kampuchea: Negotiation and Confrontation Along the Prachinburi-Battambang Border’, unpublished paper, Cornell University, December 1977, 77pp.; idem. (‘Larry Palmer’), ‘Thailand’s Kampuchea Incidents’, News from Kampuchea, 1, 4 (1977), 1–31;

    Google Scholar 

  13. idem., ‘Kampuchea’s Armed Struggle: The Origins of an Independent Revolution’, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 11, 1 (1979), 2–24;

    Google Scholar 

  14. idem., ‘Origins of the Conflict’, Southeast Asia Chronicle, 64 (September–October 1978), 3–18;

    Google Scholar 

  15. idem., ‘The Kampuchean-Vietnamese Conflict’, Southeast Asian Affairs 1979 (Singapore: Heinemann, 1979);

    Google Scholar 

  16. idem., interview in The Call, organ of the Communist Party of the USA (Marxist-Leninist), 5 March 1979, 11.

    Google Scholar 

  17. S. Heder, letter to Dr. David Roberts, 5 March 1998, taking issue with Roberts’ article in Covert Action Quarterly (August 1997): ‘The article is defamatory because it suggests that there are grounds for suspecting that I am or have been a CIA operative or United States government agent.’ Heder added: ‘I must therefore ask you to make, as soon as is practicable, a complete attraction [sic] and apology, in terms to be approved by me beforehand, making it perfectly clear I am not now nor have ever been a member of the CIA or agent of the United States government.’ Roberts refused, and in a communication to Cambridge University Press, dated 18 December 2003, Heder acknowledged: ‘I have researched the CPK [Communist Party of Kampuchea] for 30 years, as a journalist, intelligence officer, human rights advocate, historian, UN official, legal scholar and political scientist, which is my most recent professional reincarnation.’

    Google Scholar 

  18. See also David Roberts, Political Transition in Cambodia, 1991–99 (Richmond, Curzon, 2001), 69–71.

    Google Scholar 

  19. S. Heder, Kampuchean Occupation and Resistance (Bangkok: Institute for Asian Studies, Chulalongkom University, January 1980);

    Google Scholar 

  20. idem., ‘Kampuchea October 1979–August 1980, The Democratic Kampuchean Resistance, The Kampuchean Countryside, and the Sereikar’, unpublished paper (Bangkok, November 1980).

    Google Scholar 

  21. D. Kirk, ‘Revolution and Political Violence in Cambodia, 1970–1974’, Communism in Indochina: New Perspectives, eds, J. J. Zasloff and M. Brown (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1975), pp. 215–30;

    Google Scholar 

  22. B. Kiernan, The Samlaut Rebellion and Its Aftermath, 1967–70: The Origins of Cambodia’s Liberation Movement (Monash University, Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Working Papers nos. 4, 5, 1975).

    Google Scholar 

  23. K. M. Quinn, ‘Political Change in Wartime: The Khmer Kraham Revolution in Southern Cambodia, 1970–1974’, U.S. Naval War College Review (Spring 1976);

    Google Scholar 

  24. idem., ‘Cambodia 1976: Internal Consolidation and External Expansion’, Asian Survey, 17, 1 (1977), 43–54;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. M. E. Osborne, ‘Reflections on the Cambodian Tragedy’, Pacific Community, 8, 1 (1976), 1–3.

    Google Scholar 

  26. D. P. Chandler, B. Kiernan and M. H. Lim, The Early Phases of Liberation in Northwestern Cambodia: Conversations with Peang Sophi (Monash University Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Working Paper no. 11, 1976, 9);

    Google Scholar 

  27. B. Kiernan and C. Boua, eds, Peasants and Politics in Kampuchea, 1942–1981 (London: Zed Books, 1982), pp. 318–29, at 323.

    Google Scholar 

  28. D. P. Chandler, ‘Transformation in Cambodia’, Commonweal (1 April 1977);

    Google Scholar 

  29. idem., A History of Cambodia (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1983), p. xiii;

    Google Scholar 

  30. idem., Brother Number One: A Political Biography of Pol Pot (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992).

    Google Scholar 

  31. Letters from S. Heder and M. Vickery, Phnom Penh Post 4/6 (August 1995), 4/22–23 (November 1995).

    Google Scholar 

  32. M. Vickery, ‘Looking Back at Cambodia’, Westerly (December 1976), and ‘Looking Back at Cambodia, 1942–76’, Peasants and Politics in Kampuchea, 1942–81, eds, Kiernan and Boua, pp. 89–113.

    Google Scholar 

  33. F. Ponchaud, Cambodge Année Zéro (Paris: Julliard, 1977); Cambodia Year Zero (London: Penguin, 1978), p. 215.

    Google Scholar 

  34. Ben Kiernan, ‘Cambodia in the News, 1975–76’, Melbourne Journal of Politics, 8 (August 1976); for Vickery’s account of his views during 1975–9 see his Cambodia 1975–1982 (Boston: South End Press, 1984), pp. 47ff.

    Google Scholar 

  35. Bangkok Post, 25 June and 23 July 1975; Chandler, Kiernan and Lim, ‘The Early Phases’, and other sources noted in B. Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975–1979, 2nd edn (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996, 2002), pp. 92–3, and in Vickery, Cambodia 1975–82, pp. 98–9, 112;

    Google Scholar 

  36. N. Chanda, ‘Cambodia: When the Killing Had to Stop’, Far Eastern Economic Review (29 October 1976), cover story, pp. 21–3.

    Google Scholar 

  37. B. Kiernan, ‘Social Cohesion in Revolutionary Cambodia’, Australian Outlook, 30, 3 (1976), 371–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. D. P. Chandler, B. Kiernan and C. Boua, Pol Pot Plans the Future: Confidential Leadership Documents from Democratic Kampuchea, 1976–1977 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 1988), p. 220.

    Google Scholar 

  39. N. Chanda, ‘Cambodia’s Big Five’, Far Eastern Economic Review (21 October 1977), 23.

    Google Scholar 

  40. C. Boua, B. Kiernan and A. Barnett, ‘Bureaucracy of Death’, New Statesman (2 May 1980);

    Google Scholar 

  41. D. Chandler, Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot’s Secret Prison (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999).

    Google Scholar 

  42. B. Kiernan, ‘Why’s Kampuchea Gone to Pot?’, Nation Review (Melbourne) (17 November 1978), and ‘Vietnam and the Governments and People of Kampuchea’, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 11, 4 (1979), 19–25, and 12, 2 (1980), 72.

    Google Scholar 

  43. D. Pike quoted in St. Louis Post-Dispatch (29 November 1979), and Christian Science Monitor (4 December 1979).

    Google Scholar 

  44. K. G. Frieson, The Impact of Revolution on the Cambodian Peasants, 1970–1975 (PhD dissertation, Monash University, 1991).

    Google Scholar 

  45. K. Samphan, 15 April 1977, quoted in Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime, p. 204;

    Google Scholar 

  46. Pol Pot, 27 September 1977, in U.S. CIA, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report, Asia-Pacific (29 September 1977), H4.

    Google Scholar 

  47. B. Kiernan, ‘The Ethnic Element in the Cambodian Genocide’, Ethnopolitical Warfare: Causes, Consequences, and Possible Solutions, eds, D. Chirot and M. E. P. Seligman (Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2001), pp. 83–91.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  48. S. Ratner and J. Abrams, Accountability for Human Rights Atrocities in International Law: Beyond the Nuremberg Legacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 244.

    Google Scholar 

  49. See also Donald Reid, ‘’In Search of the Communist Syndrome: Opening the Black Book of the New Anti-Communism in France,’’ International History Review XXVII:2 (June 2005), 295–318.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  50. Text of Ford-Kissinger-Suharto discussion, US Embassy Jakarta Telegram 1579 to Secretary State, 6 December 1975 (declassified 26 June 2001), in East Timor Revisited: Ford, Kissinger and the Indonesian Invasion, 1975–76, eds, W. Burr and M. L. Evans National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 62 (6 December 2001) (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB62).

    Google Scholar 

  51. J. Alsop, ‘Showdown Over Southeast Asia’, Reader’s Digest (December 1975), Australian edition (January 1976), 137–42;

    Google Scholar 

  52. L. Finley, ‘Raising the Stakes: The Major Powers Still Play for Keeps in Indochina’, Southeast Asia Chronicle, 64 (September–October 1978), 19–30, at 26.

    Google Scholar 

  53. Memorandum, ‘Human Rights Violations in Cambodia’, 21 September 1977, 2 pp., declassified by the CIA, 25 January 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  54. Kampuchea: A Demographic Catastrophe, National Foreign Assessment Center, Central Intelligence Agency, May 1980. For critiques of this document, see M. Vickery, ‘Democratic Kampuchea: CIA to the Rescue’, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 14, 4 (1982), 45–54;

    Google Scholar 

  55. B. Kiernan, ‘The Genocide in Cambodia, 1975–1979’, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 22, 2 (1990), 35–40, and references cited.

    Google Scholar 

  56. E. Becker, When the War Was Over: The Voices of Cambodia’s Revolution and Its People (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986), p. 440;

    Google Scholar 

  57. L. Mason and R. Brown, Rice, Rivalry and Politics: Managing Cambodian Relief (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), pp. 136, 139, 155;

    Google Scholar 

  58. G. Evans and K. Rowley, Red Brotherhood at War: Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos since 1975 (London: Verso, 1990).

    Google Scholar 

  59. S. Heder and Yokobori, Asahi Shimbun (19 February 1982)

    Google Scholar 

  60. P. Wedel, United Press International (UPI), ‘US Opposes Proposed Ceasefire in Cambodia’, 14 May 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  61. N. Chanda, ‘Japan’s Quiet Entrance on the Diplomatic Stage’, Christian Science Monitor (13 June 1990).

    Google Scholar 

  62. S. E. Cook, ed., Genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda: New Perspectives (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2004),

    Google Scholar 

  63. E. Kissi, Revolution and Genocide in Ethiopia and Cambodia (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 2006).

    Google Scholar 

  64. N. Dunlop, The Lost Executioner: A Story of the Khmer Rouge (London: Bloomsbury, 2005).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Ben Kiernan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

    Dan Stone (Professor of Modern History) (Professor of Modern History)

Copyright information

© 2008 Ben Kiernan

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Kiernan, B. (2008). Documentation Delayed, Justice Denied: The Historiography of the Cambodian Genocide. In: Stone, D. (eds) The Historiography of Genocide. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230297784_19

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230297784_19

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-230-27955-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-230-29778-4

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation