From the Archives, 1978: Insane dictator killing his own people

Page One, November 19, 1978:


INSANE DICTATOR RESPONSIBLE
FOR KILLING HIS OWN PEOPLE

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Citizens Pay With their Lives for Listening to 'Fake News'

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Madman Rejects Science, Medicine, All Forms of Education

By Benjamin L. Willard
Spy Southeast Asia Bureau


BANGKOK, Thailand – Reliable reports from refugees and foreign observers point to a frightening picture of an entire nation in the grip of an insane narcissist who has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of his own citizens in an effort to remake society with what he calls “real Cambodians.”

Cambodians are told they must work or starve

Thousands of refugees are fleeing illness, famine, and death caused by autocratic mad man Pol Pot, whose hatred of and contempt for intellectuals and other so-called “elites” has led him to pursue what is nothing more than a campaign of extermination directed at these unfortunate souls.

One former teacher told The New York Times: “The ignorant have become an honorable and inviolable class. Ignorance is good for the country, they believe.” The effort to drive out the educated class has also led to the collapse of the economy, exacerbating the plight of millions of starving and unemployed Cambodians.

The campaign is aided by Pol Pot's banning of all forms of education and independent media.  One former district leader told The New York Times: “We grow ignorance.  No schools, no books, no newspapers, no radio, no television.”

The experience of one young woman, who was driven out of Phnom Penh with her parents and told if she did not work in a slave labor camp she would be ineligible for any food or other income assistance is typical.  She said that camp inmates were forced to labor from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. and given little to eat.  The only medical treatment available was from Khmer Rouge medics, who had no medical training and were chosen solely for their support of the Pol Pot regime.  She said the sick were given herbs, roots, and tree bark, some of which contained hydroxychloroquine, which can be toxic.

As a result, she told The New York Times, “the sick person stays in his hut and waits for death.”

She also said that access to outside information is strictly controlled by the regime, which terms any criticism as fake news.  The only news they get comes in the form of lengthy indoctrination lectures from regime cadres under the control of a shadowy leader known only as the “Fox”, whose “friends” subject the camp inmates to lengthy lectures blaming the country's woes on “globalists” and “subversive immigrants.”

Whether one lives or dies depends on the strength of the individual's ties to the new regime.  Those who express undying loyalty to the new regime are given better food and clothes and easier work assignments.  The more educated and those who express skepticism about the supposed “tremendous” accomplishments of Pol Pot and his regime are executed or worked to death.

In interviews with foreign diplomats, Pol Pot has said that “only a minority” of Cambodians have died, and that it is a “small price to pay” for the restructuring of his country.  He predicted that “it would all be over when the weather gets warmer.”

Pol Pot's reliance on unqualified 
loyalists has led to disaster

However, some sympathetic Western observers doubt the stories being recounted by refugees.  They point out that no regime could survive long by condemning its own people to sickness and death after destroying a once-rich economy.  They also claim that the stories have been fabricated by Vietnam, which opposes the Pol Pot regime, in an effort to discredit the Cambodian Government, an effort they call “Vietnamgate.”

The suffering of the Cambodian people has gone almost unnoticed in the United States.  Few even appear to know where the country is, although it was invaded by the United States just eight years ago.

Said one sniffling Manhattan clubgoer bounding out of a limo outside of Studio 54 who gave his name only as “the Donald:” “Pol Pot?  F*** that,  Coke and meth, that's all we need in this country.”

[Material from the The New York Times News Service was used in this article.  All Times quotes were published Nov. 19, 1978]