Western support for the Khmer Rouge

Western support for the Khmer Rouge

Not exactly our usual style of travel blog post, but this account of Western support for the Khmer Rouge between 1979 and the early 90s is nonetheless of great significance for, in particular, our Cambodia tours, and is a well-hidden aspect of history that remains, regrettably but not surprisingly, largely unknown. (In our opinion, it should be known.)

By Western support for the Khmer Rouge, we’re primarily referring, of course, to US governmental backing along with that of their British allies and their regional proxy, Thailand. US global politics at the time coincided to some degree and in this area at least, with that of China, who also provided significant aid to Pol Pot and his cronies. Naturally, while the latter was barely disguised, Western support for the Khmer Rouge was far more under the table and to this day remains largely denied and little-reported.

Subsequent US and British governments have consistently denied anything plausibly deniable on the subject and revelations have been relegated to the domain of so-called conspiracy theorising ‘leftist’ journalists such as Michael Haas, John Pilger or Elizabeth Becker. However, despite the best efforts of the powers that be, conclusive evidence is certainly out there.

The Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia in April of 1975 with assistance from the North Vietnamese government and remained in charge of Democratic Kampuchea until November 1978. Despite such earlier military assistance to the Khmer Rouge by Vietnam, by late 1978, their relationship had soured to the point where Vietnam launched a military invasion of Cambodia. (Due to both persistent KR military incursions into Southern Vietnam as well as brutal treatment of the Vietnamese minority in Cambodia.)

Vietnamese forces rapidly established control over urban and low-lying regions, forcing the KR into remoter jungle and upland areas, mainly along the lengthy border with Thailand, where they were to remain for nearly 20 years. In order to add legitimacy to their invasion, the Vietnamese were all too ready to demonstrate the barbarity of the newly ousted regime by showing some of their worst excesses at sites such as the Tuol Sleng, S21, prison and notorious Choeung Ek Killing Fields site.

Regrettably, this was early 1979 and the US’s humiliation at the hands of the Vietnamese was way too fresh in their memories for them to not roundly condemn the Vietnamese invasion. It was very much a case of any enemy of the Vietnamese, however barbaric, was a friend of ours. Furthermore, the Vietnamese government was backed by the dastardly Soviet Union, hence the convergence of US and Chinese thinking on the matter. Despite widespread famine, starvation and disease and tens of thousands of Khmers in refugee camps along the border, all Western aid agencies were prohibited from intervening. (An horrific policy, the results of which are disturbingly filmed in Pilger’s tragic The Year Zero documentary.)

The Khmer Rouge’s Chinese ally had, in a somewhat puerile act of vengeance, invaded northern Vietnam in 1979, while continuing to supply Pol Pot with funds, training and weapons. Brzezinski, US national security advisor at the time, is reported as saying in 1980, “I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. I encouraged the Thai to help the [Khmer Rouge] […] we could never support [Pol Pot] but China could.” Even before the Vietnamese invasion, Kissinger, in a meeting with the Thai foreign minister, reportedly stated, “You should tell the Cambodians that we will be friends with them. They are murderous thugs, but we won’t let that stand in our way.” The pro-Western Thai government, fearful of the Vietnamese and Chinese as well as Communist expansion in Southeast Asia, were only too willing to go along. (That was shortly after the truly despicable character received the Nobel Peace Prize.)

Another Pilger documentary, The Betrayal, even goes as far as identifying British army training camps for KR soldiers over the border in Thailand as well as tracing funds and weapons to the US and Western Europe. This is of course, hotly disputed. What can not be disputed is that due to Western insistence, the Khmer Rouge kept the Cambodian seat in the UN until as late as 1993. (Strictly speaking, the KR alone held the seat until 83, after which it passed to a KR-dominated coalition named the CGDK – Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea.) Yes, even 15 years after being ousted, these genocidal maniacs in their border hideouts were still allowed to represent Cambodia at the United Nations.

By the late 80s, Western support for the Khmer Rouge was becoming increasingly difficult to justify and indeed to hide and in theory, assistance shifted to non-lethal supplies to non-KR opponents of the Vietnamese-backed regime. While Pol Pot’s resignation from the KR leadership in 1985 was claimed to be due to ill-health, it may have been an attempt to improve their PR profile. However, the Vietnamese withdrawal from Cambodia in 1989 further undermined any justification for support with UN-sponsored elections being held in 1992-3.

So, while the Killing Fields, Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot are all well-known to anyone who’s travelled in, or is thinking of travelling to Cambodia, the equally dark and troubled period from 79 to 93 and Western governments’ involvement with and at least tacit support for the Khmer Rouge is not so well-known, but, we’d say, certainly deserves to be.