The antiwar Republican posts an article on antiwar.com.................
critical of Reagan and Thatcher.      Sure beats reading prowar
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"Left" journals.
..........................................Tony Abdo

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Butcher of Cambodia Set to Expose Thatcher's Role
Foreign Affairs News
Source: Guardian (UK)
Published: Sunday January 9, 2000 Author: Jason Burke
Posted on 01/12/2000 11:40:37 PST by Antiwar Republican
Butcher of Cambodia set to expose Thatcher's role
Ta Mok, one of Pol Pot's genocidal henchman, who faces trial, tells
Jason Burke in Phnom Penh he will expose the West's part in training the
Khmer Rouge
Sunday January 9, 2000
The Observer
In a small, dark, heavily guarded cell in Phnom Penh's main military
prison sits a man of 74, wizened, white-haired, one-legged. He is in
good health and surprisingly high spirits, given his grim future and
grimmer past.
He is Ta Mok, also known as the Butcher or Chhit Chouen - possibly the
cruellest and most violent of the Khmer Rouge commanders who turned
Cambodia's green countryside into the killing fields.
The Prime Minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen, has hopes to try Ta Mok for his
crimes next month. Many in his shattered country are happy at the
prospect. Others, including many of the political leadership and
bureaucracy, fear his testimony will unveil their own roles during the
time of Pol Pot's genocide.
The unease is not restricted to the small, desperately poor, swampy
country of 10 million that is modern Cambodia. For when Ta Mok takes the
stand, his lawyers promise, no one will be spared - least of all the
Western leaders who, they say, supported the Khmer Rouge despite the
Maoist extremists' atrocities being widely known.
The most damaging element, for Britain at least, of Ta Mok's court
appearance will be new evidence about how British troops and diplomats
helped the Khmer Rouge in their fight for power.
Contacted in his prison cell through an intermediary last week, he
confirmed to The Observer that the extent to which London and Washington
helped the Khmer Rouge in their fight to control Cambodia would be
revealed during his trial. The evidence will contradict statements made
by Margaret Thatcher's Government - which authorised the operation at
the time.
Ta Mok's lawyer, Benson Samay, said the court would hear details of how,
between 1985 and 1989, the Special Air Service (SAS) ran a series of
training camps for Khmer Rouge allies in Thailand close to the Cambodian
border and created a 'sabotage battalion' of 250 experts in explosives
and ambushes. Intelligence experts in Singapore also ran training
courses, Samay said.
To allow Ministers to deny helping the Khmer Rouge, the SAS was ordered
to train only soldiers loyal to the ousted Prince Norodom Sihanouk, and
the liberal democrat former Prime Minister, Son Sann, who were fighting
alongside Pol Pot's Communists. However, Samay said the court would be
told the Khmer Rouge benefited substantially from the British operation.
'All these groups were fighting together - but the Khmer Rouge were in
charge. They profited from any help to the others. If they had won the
war outright, then Pol Pot would have been back in charge,' Samay said.
The Khmer Rouge and their allies were fighting against the
Vietnamese-backed puppet regime Hanoi had installed after ousting Pol
Pot's extremist Communists and exposing the horrors of the killing
fields.
In a classic piece of Cold War realpolitik, Britain - prompted by the
Americans - appears to have given military assistance to the Khmer
Rouge-led coalition, despite knowing of Pol Pot's atrocities, in an
attempt to limit the power of the Soviet-backed Vietnamese.
'Thatcher, Reagan, Kissinger - they should all be on trial along with Ta
Mok,' Samay said last week. He said the court would also hear that
humanitarian supplies for Cambodian refugees in Thailand were diverted
to the Khmer Rouge with, he claims, the knowledge of the Americans and
the British. The court would also hear, he said, how the diplomatic
support offered by London and Washington to the coalition led by the
Khmer Rouge was 'a great help and morale booster' for Pol Pot's troops.
The coalition retained the Cambodian United Nations seat throughout the
Eighties.
Ta Mok's journey from jungle hideout to power to hideout and eventually
to prison last May is a powerful symbol of the political tides that have
washed over Cambodia in the past decades. In April it will be 25 years
since Pol Pot's Chinese-backed Maoist revolutionaries defeated a weak
pro-US government and entered Phnom Penh. They themselves were ousted by
the Soviet-backed Vietnamese four years later and for 15 years a vicious
civil war - fuelled by Cold War politics - racked the country.
The trial of Ta Mok and his Khmer Rouge colleague Kaing KhekIev
(nicknamed 'Deuch') - who ran the regime's most notorious torture centre
- is a litmus test for this deeply scarred nation. Arguments over the
format of proceedings have yet to be resolved - the United Nations and
human rights groups fear the trial will be used by the government for
political ends or be a sham, or both. But it seems likely it will go
ahead nevertheless. Few feel, however, that anyone will be pleased by
the outcome.
Not far from the prison where its former commander is being held, the
Tuol Sleng torture centre still stands. Its iron beds, manacles and
electric cables are intact, though tourists and groups of school
children now walk wide-eyed through its cells.
Overlooking the rusting barbed wire are the garish villas of the
nouveaux riches who have successfully exploited Cambodia's recent shift
towards a new, hugely corrupt, free-market economy. Outside its gates
loiter half a dozen beggars - dirty children and disabled victims of the
mines that still litter Cambodia's countryside - hoping to beg a few
riels (Cambodia's virtually worthless currency) from wealthy farang
(tourists).
They know what should happen to Pol Pot's henchmen. 'They should all be
punished,' said Pheach Yui, 35, who lost his leg to a mine while
fighting against the Khmer Rouge 12 years ago. 'They should all be
rounded up and judged and punished for their sins. They should be in
jail until they die.'
Yui is likely to be disappointed. There are thought to be 50,000 former
Khmer Rouge fighters in government positions. At least five are Cabinet
Ministers. Others have been effectively pardoned and live well. They
include Ieng Sary, the Khmer Rouge number three and Pol Pot's
brother-in-law, Nuon Chea, who was known as 'Brother Number Two' and
Khieu Samphan, the movement's one-time Prime Minister.
Even Ta Mok says that they should face punishment. 'I know about only a
fraction of what happened,' he told The Observer through an
intermediary. 'You should ask Ieng Sary and the others too.' Several key
Khmer Rouge commanders are gen erals in the Cambodian army and look
untouchable. Even the Prime Minister himself was a Khmer Rouge cadre
until being recruited by the Vietnamese.
Ta Mok and 'Deuch' may end up being the only senior Khmer Rouge brought
to justice for their crimes. Pol Pot, the architect of the the
massacres, died in 1998 and no one else has been arrested or is likely
to be.
Though some argue that 'national reconciliation' means forgetting the
past, to many the failure to bring the Khmer Rouge killers to justice
merely emphasises the cheapness of human life in Cambodia today.
The psychological scars of genocide and war are obvious everywhere. The
smallest incident can provoke extreme violence. The crime columns in the
press are almost grotesque: three men blow themselves, and a café, to
bits playing Russian roulette with an anti-tank mine; a man is murdered
in a row over whether the millennium bug is a hoax; a syphilitic farmer
kills five children and drinks their blood in the hope of being cured; a
chess game ends with one dead, two badly injured. Arguments over land
regularly lead to murder.
Attacks with acid have become more common. Last month a government
official's wife hideously burnt her husband's mistress by pouring five
litres of nitric acid over her while bodyguards held the screaming woman
down. Such 'crimes of jealousy' are increasing. Last summer Cambodia's
most famous actress was shot dead in the street. The press reported that
her murderers had been hired by the wife of the Prime Minister - her
alleged lover.
'There is an ingrained culture of might is right,' said one Western
diplomat. 'It needs very little to spark off appalling violence.' Armed
robbery is common and, as the police are corrupt and ineffectual, people
take the law into their own hands. Vigilante killings are rou tine, with
even novice monks and art students beating suspected robbers to death.
The customs and the military, often with the co-operation of senior
members of the government, collude in massive smuggling - of beer,
drugs, people, tropical hardwood and the country's archaeological
heritage.
Cambodia has lost half its forests in the past 30 years, and the trees
are still falling fast. Last year soldiers used heavy equipment to break
up 30 tonnes of stone carvings from 1,000-year-old archaeological sites
before loading them into army trucks and driving them to Thailand to
sell to dealers with rich Western clients. The military have even been
reported to have been extorting 'protection money' from those trying to
conserve Angkor Wat - Cambodia's world-famous jungle temple complex.
The level of development is appallingly low. Average life expectancy is
52, one in five children dies before reaching the age of five, more than
a third of the population live below the poverty line and half the
children show the effects of malnutrition. Aids killed 6,000 people last
year. The elite's exclusive golf course, on the outskirts of Phomh Penh,
charges $20,000 (£12,000) for membership, 80 times the average income.
Even the international community's well-meaning interventions often come
unstuck. The UN peacekeeping operation hugely boosted Aids in the
country and created a parallel dollar economy. A senior French aid
worker was reported to be pimping the orphans in his care.
Recently the partly British-funded Cambodian Mine Action Centre was
found to have been clearing land for former Khmer Rouge warlords. They
included Chhouk Rin - the commander who, in 1994, kidnapped and killed
three Western tourists including a Briton.
Khieu Phen is, like Ta Mok, an old man. He was 30 when the Khmer Rouge
came to power and lost his brothers, sisters and brother-in-law in the
massacres. He survived the killing fields - where he was forced to work
'day and night' and watched 'sons forced to murder their fathers' - by
working harder than everyone else. Now he rides a scooter around Phnom
Penh hoping to pick up a passenger and earn enough for a bowl of
noodles.
'Sometimes I think we are cursed,' he said. 'Everybody takes from this
country. So few people give anything. Everybody betrays us in the end.'
© Copyright Guardian Media Group plc. 2000

1 Posted on 01/12/2000 11:40:37 PST by Antiwar Republican
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To: Antiwar Republican
Wouldn't surprise me. Thatcher's role in Rhodesia is responsible for the
mess that place is.
2 Posted on 01/12/2000 11:45:25 PST by Rodney King
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