Nate Thayer

No More Creampuff Journalism-Readers react to Nate Thayer's article in Phnom Penh Post

 No More Creampuff Journalism

(Below are a series of reader reactions to an interview I did with Khmer Rouge President Khieu Samphan. It wasn't pretty, but it was witty (mostly). Included is the article that sparked the outrage, The response of Michael hayes Publisher of the PPP, and my response)

Phnom Penh Post

Letter to the Editor

Friday, 29 January 1993

I was spending some vacation time in Phnom Penh when I picked up your paper and read the "interview" with Khieu Samphan. What's going on? This guy is a mass murderer and is single-handedly blocking a U.S. $2 billion international peace effort. Yet your "reporter" Nate Thayer treats Samphan like he was some kind of elder statesman, asking him what he thinks of the current political situation. Why didn't he ask him what it feels like to kill 1,000,000 Cambodians? I've read PR handouts that hit harder than this piece of marshmallow.

Do your readers a favor-next time you interview the Khmer Rouge, send a real professional reporter-not a cream puff like this Thayer guy.

Bill Shuller, United States

Editor's Response

Phnom Penh Post

 Letter to the Editor

Friday, 29 January 1993

 

Schuler has a point. Thayer faxed the raw transcript of the text of Khieu Samphan interview from Bangkok without his questions. While the text accurately reflected the content of the interview, it did not accurately reflect the questions posed. The interview should have been presented under topical categories rather than as a question and answer. We regret the editing error.

Thayer responds:

"I've been called a puppet lackey, an intelligence operative, a right wing jerk, a communist sympathizer, and a hopeless drunk, but I have never been called a creampuff and I resent it."

- The Post welcomes comments from our readers.

 

 

Sour Creampuffs

Phnom Penh Post

Letter to the Editor

Friday, 12 February 1993

 

As a long-term resident of Cambodia who has been subjected to Mr. Thayer's Errol Flynnish style of journalism for most of that time, I must take exception to the use of the word "creampuff." It is extremely difficult to make a good creampuff in the tropics.

The term one should apply to this journalist is lightweight twerp.

Bill Lohan, Cambodia

Gentle Journalism

Phnom Penh Post

Letter to the Editor

Friday, 09 April 1993

I feeling so sorry for your reporter Kate Thayer called Gream Puff and Light Weight Werp in letters. So unfair! I read her interview with Mr. Khieu Samphan so interesting. Mr. Khieu Samphan of course is very bad man hates Vietnam people but reporter did no thing wrong. She just write down everything what she told very obedient and polite and not ask rude questions of important man her superior. Why call Gream Puff and Eroll Fling? My friends and I in the Ho Chi Minh Ladies Sewing Circle say, carry on Kate! Keep writing in your own gentle and lady like way!

Ho Chi Minh Ladies Sewing Circle

Khmer Rouge Chic 

Phnom Penh Post

Letter to the Editor

Friday, 26 February 1993

The Post editor was kind enough to take the heat of poor Nate Thayer in answer to Phil Schuler's accusation of 'cream puff journalism' (Feb. 3 Post 2/3), But I fail to see why inclusion of the questions would have mitigated the impression. Didn't Thayer write the piece as published?

In addition to the list of names Thayer says he has been called, there was 'Khmer Rouge-chic' which I applied to some of his writing (see Indochina Issues 93, August 1991), and he attracts those names because of a persistence in treating the Khmer-Rouge as just ordinary guys with good intentions.

He asks for it again in his photo (Post, same issue, p.6) of a gentle Khmer Rouge soldier tenderly offering a smoke to a Vietnamese soldier, presumably a prisoner, when there is good information that the usual fate of captured Vietnamese was death.

In his latest article, "What role for Khmer Rouge", he quotes Pol Pot's talk of February 1992, in which he should have seen that Khmer Rouge obsession with the 'Youn' was a major theme. The Khmer Rouge imagine (and since it was a secret talk to his own cadres I assume it is what Pol Pot believes, not propaganda for affect) that the 'Youn' control Cambodia, that a 'Youn' army is what they are fighting, that there is now a U.S.-'Youn' alliance with the U.S. pressuring China, through human rights issues, to join the 'Youn', and that the object of the Khmer Rouge is to liberate Cambodia from the 'Youn'.

Those are the paranoid schizophrenics who are causing such international hand-writing over how to bring them into the 'peace process'. The present Khmer Rouge leadership should be kept out and isolated until they are no longer a threat, in particular because of their Vietnam policy which promises to keep Indochina in conflict for years ahead. This is not what the international community likes to think of, for anti-Vietnamese prejudice is widespread, not only among Khmer chauvinists, and the Khmer Rouge have played a useful role which several great powers may think should not go unrewarded.

Some heat should nevertheless be taken off Nate Thayer, for he is only following a trendy line which parallels the 'peace process' and is clearly reflected in the Paris Accords and the draft documents which preceded them, all designed to treat the Khmer Rouge as ordinary people in order to use them against the State of Cambodia. Observant readers like Schuler should focus their attention and ire on the entire UNTAC operation which is destroying Cambodia and giving new opportunities to an unreconstructed Khmer Rouge leadership, precisely as Pol Pot predicted in his remarks of February 1992.

 

Khieu Samphan:Gloomy Prospects for Khmer Elections

Friday, 06 November 1992

By Nate Thayer

The following interview with Khieu Samphan, president of the Partie of Democratic Kampuchea, was conducted at the Khmer Rouge compound in Phnom Penh.


Phnom Penh Post: What's your assessment of the status of the peace process, one year after the signing of the Paris peace accords?

Khieu Samphan: Two key agreements have yet to be implemented. First, [there's] no control or verification of the withdrawal of Vietnamese forces from Cambodia. Secondly, agreements on the role of the Supreme National Council (SNC) have not been implemented.

We know that these two issues are interrelated. We have to have the SNC play a role; if the SNC has no role to play UNTAC will cooperate with the Phnom Penh regime. That is why UNTAC uses the phrase "pragmatic necessity," which means UNTAC relies on the Phnom Penh regime to implement the Paris accords.

How can UNTAC exercise the control and verification of the withdrawal of Vietnamese forces under these circumstances? Actually the Vietnamese forces, soldiers, officers, advisors and experts are the ones who maintain this regime in place. These Vietnamese forces are now in place to maintain the puppet army, secret police, and administrative apparatus.

If UNTAC relies on the Phnom Penh regime, UNTAC will not be able to find these forces, so this is the cause of the current deadlock. If we do not tackle the root cause of the current deadlock, we will not be able to break this deadlock.

Post: UNTAC may decide to hold the elections without the participation of the Partie of Democratic Kampuchea. What will it take for the PDK to join in the electoral process?

Khieu: As far as the election is concerned, if they have a plan to hold the election without the PDK (Partie of Democratic Kam-puchea), is this in accordance with the Paris agreements? What will the result of such elections be? The Vietnamese forces are still in Cambodia.

Such elections would offer Cambodia to the Vietnamese; this [all] the Cambodian people in Cambodia and living abroad will not accept.

So the question is whether UNTAC is going to hold the election without the participation of the PDK or implement the Paris agreement in its entirety. Such elections without the participation of the PDK run counter to the Paris agreement and we will oppose it.

Post: How do you assess the economic and security situation in Cambodia at present?

Khieu Samphan: Now everybody is talking about the corruption of [the Phnom Penh] regime being on the increase, and the riel has lost its value. The devaluation of the riel has created problems within all strata of the Cambodian people-between the poor and the Phnom Penh regime, state employees and the Phnom Penh regime, and soldiers of their own regime.

When UNTAC is trying to come to the rescue of the riel, this will only create problems between the Cambodian people and UNTAC.

[With] corruption and the devaluation of the riel spreading, this is a situation that creates more problems.

The Cambodian people are suffering. What will their reaction be to a situation where they see no hope? Anarchy perhaps, but the situation is they oppose the Vietnamese regime.

Let me turn to a specific problem: banditry. There are indeed elements not under any control. There are elements of the Phnom Penh army they cannot control. But [also], there is organized banditry by the Vietnamese and the Phnom Penh party.

How can we resolve this problem of banditry if the SNC continues to be denied its role? If the SNC is given its role, the Cambodian people [would] join the SNC in opposing banditry. Otherwise it will increase.

I think in any country where you have a government that is not supported, you will not be able to control banditry.

Post: How do you respond to charges that the Khmer Rouge blew up two bridges in Kompong Thom last month and is launching a dry season offensive?

Khieu Samphan: These accusations are not true.

Last year during the 14th dry season, during the whole dry season, the Vietnamese launched military operations against our forces-now they are doing the same in Battambang, Pursat, route 6, 21, 7.

During the 15th dry season there might be complicated problems. As the Vietnamese launch military attacks against our forces we will be compelled to fight back.

Post: Do you think that the peace accords are in danger of collapsing, returning Cambodia to a state of civil war?

Khieu Samphan: There is no peace now-the situation is the same as before [the signing of the Paris accords].

If they [UNTAC] have no political objective to get rid of the PDK, they will implement the Paris accords on the role of the SNC. Other measures to try to avoid giving the role to the SNC would not resolve the problem, and would be tantamount to trying to get rid of the PDK.

I am speaking very frankly here; if they try to do this, it is an abandonment of the Paris accords. We will not accept this. We should not underestimate or overlook the reaction of the Cambodian people.

I have told Akashi very clearly, if you try to paint a situation [of optimism that the peace plan is succeeding], you won't change the situation. I also try to convey that I am trying to cooperate with UNTAC.

I agree with you that we are on very dangerous ground. We are at an unpredictable juncture. I cannot say I am optimistic or not, [but] whoever does not implement the Paris agreements will encounter problems. They will increase the problems themselves.

There might be the possibility of anarchy by Cambodian people who might explode against the Vietnamese settlers themselves because of land stolen from the Cambodian people.

To sum up, UNTAC alone cannot control and verify the withdrawal of the Vietnamese forces and resolve the problem of crime in the cities, because of lack of support from the Cambodian people.

So far, [UNTAC] has tried to help the Phnom Penh party. As to when they will see that what they are doing is not working, I hope it will be soon. We hope that UNTAC will [realize that] before it is too late.

Foot Soldiers from Rival Armies Share cynicism About Leader By Nate Thayer

Foot Soldiers from Rival Armies Share cynicism About Leader

By Nate Thayer

Phnom Penh Post

Friday, 07 August 1992

NORTH OF HIGHWAY SIX, Cambodia--From a trench in abandoned ricefields in Kompong Thom province, young conscripts of Phnom Penh's army peered wide eyed from their foxholes as two journalists and a score of heavily armed guerrillas emerged from enemy controlled jungles and approached them.

Popping up from camouflaged foxholes, they grabbed automatic rifles, and curiously approached the group. The soldiers-from rival factions-greeted each other warily.

For the guerrilla fighters, it was the first time they had spoken to the enemy in more than 13 years of war, although some knew each other by reputation.

A soldier was dispatched to seek a superior's approval for a request for the journalists to pass into Phnom Penh territory. While waiting, the young men exchanged cigarettes and asked about each other. It turned out a guerrilla and his government counterpart came from the same village in the far away province of Prey Veng.

"You see what the war has done to us," said Meas, a guerrilla fighter, pointing to the Phnom Penh soldier. "We could be related and we wouldn't know it."

Meas had fled Cambodia's turmoil to the Thai border more than a decade before, eventually joining the guerrilla faction led by Prince Norodom Ranariddh. The Phnom Penh soldier had been drafted into the army some three years earlier and sent to the jungle.

Another Phnom Penh soldier said that he had recently found out that his brother, who had been missing since the Vietnamese invasion in l979, was a soldier with the guerrillas.

"Do you know my brother and if he is well?" he asked the guerrilla.

Another young fighter said, "Now in Cambodia, a whole generation must ask our elders if we are related, because we don't even know who we are since the war split us apart."

"In Cambodia, all our leaders are getting rich while we suffer," another soldier added. Everyone nodded in agreement. It was a theme we heard everywhere.

A photographer from Impact Visuals photo agency and I had rented a Soviet jeep in Phnom Penh and set off alone on a 15-day journey that would take us through nine provinces, across dozens of minefields and frontlines to territory under the control of all four Cambodian factions.

Many Cambodians living under the control of, or working for each of the four factions expressed deep cynicism and resentment towards their leaders whom they blame for incompetence, corruption, and continuing a conflict largely for personal gain. Soldiers from all four factions said they had not been paid for months, and worried about what would happen to them in a post-war Cambodia.

No commanding officer could be found that day, and after some debate, we were allowed to pass, for the 100 kilometer trip back to Kompong Thom city.

Soon after our arrival, two Phnom Penh interior ministry police officials arrived at our guesthouse. Initially, they were not happy.

"My job is to protect the party," the young intelligence officer announced rather cheerfully. "You have no permission to be here and I have to ask you some questions."

After an hour of interrogation, the intelligence officer asked whether we could talk as friends. "I hear that maybe I will not have a job after cantonment and demobilization," he said, "Is journalism a good job? How is the pay? I think we have similar jobs. We both have to ask a lot of questions and find out what is going on."

In Banteay Meanchey province, large tracts of land have been made uninhabitable by mines planted during heavy fighting for control of the area.

Soldiers guided us through oxcart paths snaking through mined ricefields, across frontlines, delivering us to forward checkpoints of their erstwhile enemies.

During more than a score of such transfers, we would request a couple of soldiers from a forward position to accompany us for security until we reached another faction's base.

There was never a shortage of volunteers, most eager for a break from the boredom of isolated outposts. Because of the abundance of mines and bandits, it was good to have guides with weapons who were familiar with the terrain.

Killings and robberies were daily events in the area where rogue bands of former soldiers from each of the four factions routinely ambush anyone with valuables.

The young fighters in the guerrilla zones would pepper us with questions: Are there a lot of Vietnamese in Phnom Penh? Are there jobs for people like me? Do you think we will be safe and welcomed back now that the war is over?

It was not unusual for our Soviet jeep, which we rented from an army officer in Phnom Penh, to be filled with a half dozen fully armed uniformed soldiers from different factions. We would discuss politics but mostly their fears for the future and being able to provide for their families after years of living in the jungle.

In scrubland north of the district capital of Banteay Meanchey, we drove to isolated villages under the control of the Khmer Rouge, where villagers and Khmer Rouge cadre spoke about their hopes for the future.

"We must rid the country from the Vietnamese first before the war can stop," said one Khmer Rouge cadre. "But we all want peace. Everyone has suffered enough."

"I don't know why so many people died when we were in power," said one young Khmer Rouge fighter, who seemed genuinely perplexed by the issue.

A Khmer Rouge medic we met at a Khmer Rouge division headquarters near the Dongrek mountain escarpment asked if we could give him a ride south so he could pick up some medical supplies.

"You are American," he said cheerfully. "Do you know my sister? She lives in New York." He said that he had spent three years in China training as a medic, and was proud of his skills.

"I can do any kind of operation, but mostly amputations," he said.

I asked him how many amputations he had performed. "Oh, too many to count," he said, "At least 200."

In the bustling market town of Tmar Pouk, under control of the Khmer People's National Liberation Front, government soldiers in uniform mingled easily with their former enemies.

"We don't have any problems with each other," one said. "We are just regular soldiers. It's our leaders who can't get along."

One KPNLF soldier asked whether he could accompany us back to Phnom Penh controlled town of Sisophon. He could not cross the frontlines by himself, but he said with foreigners he had a chance. He wanted to catch a bus from Sisophon to visit his mother near Siem Reap, whom he hadn't seen in ten years.

"I left home to join the KPNLF when I was 12," he said. Quickly removing his jungle fatigues and switching to civilian clothes, he got in the back of the jeep, sharing the seat with an elderly woman who was returning to her government-controlled village after visiting her son, a KPNLF officer.

A guerrilla fighter guided us to an oxcart path. "Just drive along the tracks of the oxcart," he said, "Don't leave the path. Both sides are mined."

Further down Highway 69, where hundreds died in recent years' fighting for control, rogue soldiers piled mortars on the road in a crude roadblock. Soldiers with grenades in one hand and assault rifles in the other, stopped the rare vehicle demanding money.

"They don't get paid enough to eat," said the soldier in the back, after we passed.

"I'm glad I'm with you," the mother said, "They would have taken everything I had if I was alone."

We left the two passengers in Sisophon. "I don't even know if my mother is still alive," the soldier said.

 

Frantic calls from Regent's Rm 406-Cambodian coup 1994 By Nate Thayer

Frantic calls from Regent's Rm 406

Phnom Penh Post

By Nate Thayer

Friday, 15 July 1994

The Post's Nate Thayer describes how he shared Prince Chakrapong's final hours in Cambodia after receiving a dramatic 6:30 am phone call.

Loyalist troops had taken positions throughout the capital on the night of July 2 as rumors swept the city that a coup attempt was imminent. Heavily armed soldiers were positioned outside the homes of government leaders and military installations by dark, and the children of senior officials were ordered to stay out of the city nightclubs.

Officials confirmed "there will be trouble tonight" and spoke of a coup attempt.

At 3:00 am government forces surrounded the houses of the alleged putsch leaders, who they named as former Interior Minister Sin Song and former Deputy Prime Minister Prince Norodom Chakrapong.

Their houses were invaded, and weapons and communication equipment seized. Sin Song was arrested and allegedly confessed to his role in launching a coup. Chakrapong had fled his house hours before security forces arrived.

At 6:30 am a call to this reporter said "call this number" and hung up. A jittery voice answered after I dialed the mobile phone. "This is Prince Chakrapong. Please, please help me," he said in a frightened broken whisper, "Come right away to the Regent hotel. They have surrounded me. They are trying to kill me."

In the 20 minutes it took for me to arrive, the Prince called me seven times begging for me to come quickly. "I am alone. Please, before they kill me, come now. Call the American Embassy and tell them my life is in danger."

He was obviously hoping that a foreign presence might prevent the security forces from harming him.

Government troops and security forces armed with machine guns, rocket launchers, and carrying walkie talkies were positioned on the street corners and entrance ways around the hotel near Monivong Boulevard when I arrived on the otherwise quiet early Sunday morning. But no one tried to stop me, probably thinking I was a hotel guest.

Inside, hotel workers, white with fear, stared blankly in response to my inquiry of where the alleged coup leader was staying. But maids hovering in an upstairs hallway, opened Room 401.

A disheveled, barefoot, and petrified son of King Sihanouk was found emerging from a crawl space above the ceiling of his hotel room, begging for help.

"Please, they are trying to arrest me. They will kill me. I am innocent. Please tell the American Ambassador to come right away. I need protection," the wide-eyed Prince said, near tears, and jittery from lack of sleep. He was alone. The bed was still made, and the curtains were drawn. A ceiling panel was removed revealing a small dark crawl space. A chair was under it to allow one to climb up. He said troops had been surrounding him since 3:00 am.

"I hear the rumor that I plan to make a coup d'etat. I am innocent. I have nothing in my hands. I have no political influence now. I have no troops," he said. "Please don't leave me."

So began a four-and-a-half-hour drama that, after scores of frantic phone calls and negotiations, ended with the Prince being whisked to the airport by military escort and forcibly exiled via a scheduled Malaysia Airlines flight to Kuala Lumpur.

Frightened hotel staff hovered in hallways and peeked out of rooms in the otherwise completely silent hotel.

Realizing that there was no press or diplomats aware of the developments, and I was alone with a hunted, hated alleged coup plotter. Surrounded by troops clearly prepared to invade, I opted to rent my own room down the hall, with a better view of the troops, street, and hotel entrance way.

I went downstairs to the front desk asked for Room 406 and handed over cash. The desk clerk stared with a furrowed brow look of fear and alarm, said nothing, and handed me the key.

I thought that it might diminish the incentive of the troops outside to act precipitously if I was in a room rented under my own name, and buy time to interview the Prince. The Prince thought it was a great idea and came over to Room 406.

I made a quiet call to senior government contacts and diplomats informing them of the situation, hoping that they would get the message to the troops downstairs - quickly.

My phone rang a few minutes later, saying that Co-Prime Minister Ranariddh was aware I was with the man who allegedly was trying to topple his government and assassinate top officials.

The three mobile phones in my room rang constantly. More than 40 calls came in within the first two hours, as Chakrapong desperately tried to delay the troops from arresting him, and attempted to convince US Ambassador Charles Twining to give him political asylum.

Chakrapong repeatedly denied to me that he was involved in any coup attempt, cursed the leaders of the government, begged for my help and asked me not to leave him if the troops invaded.

He fielded phone calls constantly on his two phones, often listening silently and hanging up, speaking in English, French, and Khmer.

King Norodom Sihanouk rang from Beijing. "I am alright Papa, but the situation is bad. They have surrounded me," he said at one point.

As more calls came in he broke down and again moist-eyed. He looked dejected as Queen Norodom Monineath Sihanouk kept him up to date from Beijing with the state of her negotiations with government leaders over allowing him exile.

"It is not the Queen, but as my parents. It is not politics, it is as a son," he told me when asked whether King Sihanouk and Queen Monineath supported him.

For the first two hours, he was in fear of his life, convinced that if arrested he would be killed.

"They tell me that if we criticize the government, we are serving the interests of the Khmer Rouge. If I am arrested, the embassies must stay with me, to keep looking for me. Please don't let them take me anywhere. Please don't leave me alone," he said to me.

The Prince asked me to contact the US Embassy to request political asylum. I give him the mobile telephone number of the US Ambassador Charles Twining. He calls and Twining is put on the phone. "I ask your protection, your excellency. It is a human right. If you don't come to protect me I prefer not to go outside. I prefer to die here. I will stay here in the room. How can I trust them if they bring me somewhere?", he says to Twining.

Prince Chakrapong's face shows that the American Ambassadors response is not positive. "Please your excellency, if they bring me outside, if they arrest me, they will kill me."

Chakrapong hung up from Twining and went to look outside. The street was quiet save for troops standing guard. "Twining says 'you are not an American citizen, we cannot help you,' " he said.

"They say this is a liberal democracy," staring from behind the curtain down at the soldiers, "They are silencing all opposition now. We will all be accused of serving the interests of the Khmer Rouge. The whole world must know that this regime accuses me without proof. If the free world helps this regime it is the end of democracy."

Another American diplomat called my phone: "Tell Chakrapong he is not a US citizen. As long as the government proceeds in a legal fashion regarding his human rights, there is nothing we can do to interfere in a sovereign government."

But the American message of rejection of official protection was clear.

Crying young hotel maids burst into the room at one point: "The soldiers are coming. They are inside now."

A disheveled Prince - barefoot, shirt unbuttoned, sleepless, and dejected-began to put on his shoes. He handed me his wallet and mobile telephones and asked me to give them to his daughters. "Please make sure my daughters are alright. The soldiers invaded my house last night and they were there."

But the soldiers didn't come in. And the phones rang incessantly, sometimes three at the same time. At one point, Chakrapong had King Sihanouk on the line in one hand, and Twining on the other.

The Queen was still negotiating for safe passage out of the country.

Finally Prime Minister Ranariddh - Chakrapong's nemesis and half brother - agreed to allow the Prince to leave the country. "If I am allowed to join my family in Malaysia, I will accept," he said at one point.

By 10 am we saw Twining, other diplomats, and press begin to gather on the street, to the great relief of the Prince.

"I have given ten years of my life for my country for nothing. They are looking for a plane for me," he said after hanging up from a call from the queen.

"I want you to tell them I am innocent. I am a military man. I know how to make a coup. Now, I have no power and no forces. How can I make a coup? If I was to do something would I stay here in Phnom Penh?

"I left last night with no bodyguards to come to the hotel because I felt something was wrong. Like when I was in the jungle. I knew on the battlefield when something bad would happen. But I was not afraid because I was innocent."

The military called from downstairs to say that the troops were coming to our room now and that the Prince would be allowed to leave the country.

He turned to me: "Please do not leave me. I will only leave if you go with me to the airport in the same car. They may not take me to the airport."

There was a strong knock on the door and I went to open it. A score of heavily armed soldiers and security police waited in the hallway as Twining and Co-Minister of Interior You Hockry entered alone. The four of us sat down.

Hockry asked me to leave. Prince Chakrapong asked that I stay. I said nothing.

"We will promise your safety to the airport. I promise there will be no guns on the plane. The best thing for us it to bring you safely to the airport," Hokry told the Prince.

Men were sent to get passports and luggage at Chakrapong's house. A Malaysian Airlines plane was held on the tarmac at Pochentong as Chakrapong was assured that he would be allowed to safely leave the country.

The behavior of several Ministry of Interior police, who were poised to arrest the Prince until minutes before, now went through a bizarre somersault. They entered the room crouched on their knees and hands clasped to their heads in deference to Royalty as they went about their business preparing to send him to exile.

The Interior Minister said that Chakrapong's alleged collaborator, Sin Song, had confessed. "I think that one or two people cannot do this kind of thing. There will be more arrests," he said. Chakrapong stared blankly, with a mixed expression of anger and fear.

At one point, while, we waited for the motorcade and luggage downstairs, Twining turned to Hockry.

"I just remembered, there will be a fireworks display this afternoon at the fourth of July celebration," he said, suddenly realizing that, as a jittery city emerged from an attempted coup, explosions in the city might not be timely.

"Do you have authorization?" the Minister shot back to the Ambassador, with an alarmed look on his face.

When the mobile phone rang to say that the motorcade of troops was ready, we left the room to walk to the street. Hotel staff and soldiers clasped their hands and knelt in respect as Chakrapong was led by a bevy of sunglassed, automatic weapon-toting officials through a throng of cameras waiting on the street.

Shoved into a sleek Toyota with black tinted windows, we were whisked to the airport in a convoy of a score of cars, including one with Twining. Streets were blocked off and hundreds of people lined them to watch the motorcade pass. The plane was waiting at the airport, full of curious passengers, as Chakrapong was whisked on board and the flight departed.

He called several hours later from Malaysia saying: " I want to thank you sincerely for saving my life. They would have killed me if you had not come. I am innocent. I was not involved in anything. Tell them I am innocent."

Publisher's note to readers:Re: Govt criminal complaint against the Phnom Penh Post for "incitement"

Publisher's note to readers

Phnom Penh Post

Michael Hayes

(A comment from Phnom Post Editor and Publisher Michael Hayes after the government announced they had filed criminal complaints against him and the paper for an article "Security jitters while the PM's away" charging the paper with "disinformation, incitement and creating insecurity and instability." They demanded to know the names of my sources. The Phnom Penh Post was a courageous and ground breaking factor in emerging expression of peaceful dissent and debating public policy--a concept long unfamiliar to the country.)

Friday, 08 September 1995 14:00

S INCE the announcement by the Ministry of Information (MOI) that a complaint had been lodged against me for an article we ran entitled "Security jitters while PMs away," written by Nate Thayer (PPPost: March 24, l995), our office has received dozens of inquiries from around the world and here in Cambodia on the situation vis-a-vis this case.

For readers who may not have seen any of the various news stories, the situation - in brief - is as follows:

The initial public announcement was made by the MOI on August 24.

According to an MOI spokesman, Leng Sochea, the government has filed a complaint with the municipal court asking them to press criminal charges against me, as publisher of the PPPost, for disinformation, incitement and creating insecurity and instability.

If tried and convicted, I could be fined and possibly jailed. As well, the PPPost could be closed down permanently.

Government lawyer Kao Bun Hong, on behalf of the two Prime Ministers, filed the complaint in a letter dated April 21, although it is not known when the court officially received the letter. A court official has said a judge is investigating the case to decide whether to press charges under Article 62 - dis-information - of the UNTAC Press Law.

Under current Cambodian law the court has six months to review the case and decide whether this or other charges will be brought against me, or none at all.

As a part of the court's investigation into the case I can be called in to answer questions before a final decision is made on prosecution.

To date, I have not been officially notified in writing by the court that the investigation is proceeding or that I will be summoned to answer questions, or whether or not I will be prosecuted.

I'm pleased to note with gratitude that in a faxed response to a letter of concern about this situation from Julio Jeldres, H.M. King Norodom Sihanouk wrote on August 25 that while he could not change the course of the case, His Majesty "shall, however, have the right and the duty to grant an amnesty to the journalists sentenced."

In a meeting I had with Kao Bun Hong on September 2, I was told that the government wanted to know who the unnamed sources were cited in the story.

According to the recently passed press law, which was signed into law by Assembly President and Acting Head of State Chea Sim on August 31, journalists are protected by law from having to reveal their sources.

In the absence of any official written notification on this case from either the government or the court, I have been refraining from making any statements to the press except to say that I stand behind the accuracy of the story in question.

Readers will be kept abreast of any significant developments regarding this case. Many, many, many thanks to all those, both within the RGC and without, who have expressed their support in the last two weeks.

The First Year (The Phnom Penh Post) By Sarah Colm

The First Year

Friday, 19 July 2002

Phnom Penh Post

It was January 1992. Two men were drinking and talking in their rattan chairs on the verandah of the Renakse Hotel, and invited me over. One of them, Nate, introduced the other to me by saying: "This is Michael. He's going to start the first English-language newspaper in Cambodia."

A few conversations later I found myself in the managing editor's chair of the Phnom Penh Post.
I had just moved to Cambodia to work as a stringer for the San Francisco Examiner after finishing the better part of a decade in San Francisco's Tenderloin district, where I had edited the neighborhood newspaper, the Tenderloin Times. The paper was published not only in English but in Khmer, Lao, and Vietnamese to serve the inner city's booming refugee population.

By abandoning the uncertainties of freelance journalism for the even more risky undertaking of helping to start up a newspaper in Cambodia, I joined a team of three: Michael, Kathleen, and Chap Narith. Despite the scarcity of staff persons on the masthead, there was plenty of support around town for the newspaper in the early days.

It seemed that just about everyone wanted to get something published in the first issue, with several of the local hacks competing for who was going to pen the gossip column, now institutionalized as The Gecko. Soon enough the Post was able to hire some reporters, with some of Cambodia's best journalists coming on board that first year, including Mang Channo, Moeun Chhean Nariddh, and Ker Munthit.

This was Cambodia before its first national elections, before the blossoming of an independent press, before a quarter-million refugees had been repatriated from Thai refugee camps. It was a place where you couldn't count on having electricity every day, even in Phnom Penh; where curfews were often imposed in the city at night, and where you took a chance of soldiers leveling their rifle or rocket launcher at you if didn't slow down for a checkpoint on the provincial highways.

International relief workers had only recently moved their offices from cramped quarters in the Monorom and Samaki (Le Royal) hotels to individual villas in Boeung Keng Kang. No one had mobile phones and getting through on a landline was difficult. The option was often a "human phone call": one visit to set up an appointment with a source and a second one to conduct the actual interview. Sending an international fax was problematic; email non-existent.

Putting out the first issue of the Post was very, very difficult. After Michael found an office for the Post, monks from Wat Botum were asked to come bless the newspaper and new offices. Shortly after the robed ones flicked holy water over all the new computer equipment one of us-I won't say who-mistakenly plugged the laser printer into the wrong voltage, destroying it.

A new printer-and stories-arrived just in time for us to publish the first edition in advance of our main competition, the Cambodia Times, making the Post Cambodia's first English-language paper to publish since 1975.

Setbacks that seemed huge at the time-brownouts and blackouts, equipment failures, bureaucratic obstacles in getting government approval to publish-were soon but dim memories as we slogged through rubber deadlines and all-night production binges.

Like many, I have a visceral memory of those first days and nights at the Post: the generator chanka-chanking away 23 hours a day, the noise ricocheting up the concrete stairway of the office to fill the entire building-and our crania-with sound; working during the peak of the hot season with the windows closed to keep the racket out and the smoke from several chain smokers in.

Newsgathering got only slightly easier after UNTAC arrived. Our press passes entitled us to ride the UN's Russian helicopters and C-130 transport planes for free, enabling day trips to Preah Vihear or Koh Nhek, but few of us traveled after dark if we could help it. Journalists gathered for press conferences by Khmer Rouge officials at the compound next to the Palace (now the site of Kantha Bopha hospital), or for UNTAC spokesperson Eric Fault's noon-time briefings, where UPI reporter Sue Downey pecked furiously away on her laptop as others dozed off their hangovers.

In the evenings the draw for journalists and UN workers was the No Problem Café or the Gecko Bar. This was Phnom Penh before the FCC and the Lucky Market; a time when the city's present-day restaurant district across the "Japanese Bridge" was a deserted muddy strip, accessible only by boat because the bridge was still shattered from a sapper raid during the war.

This was a time when the Post's offices housed not only computers, desks, and filing cabinets but also some of the paper's most important contributors and sources. Nate Thayer lived there, as did Michael, Kathleen, and Steve Heder. Foreign war correspondents from other eras often slung hammocks on the roof when they came to town, along with Montagnard leaders from North Carolina, who had come to meet FULRO fighters who had surrendered to the UN in Mondolkiri. Coming to work some mornings I'd see Khmer Rouge cadre squatting in the front yard of the office, waiting to talk to Nate.
While Cambodia-and the Phnom Penh Post-have both changed dramatically in the last decade, the reckless but gutsy vision that gave birth to the paper still remains. Let's hope that the Post remains among the vanguard of the country's press scene for another ten years.

Sara worked at the Post in 1992 as the paper's first managing editor. She is now a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch.

A non-standard view of the 'coup' Michael Vickery Phnom Penh Post

A non-standard view of the 'coup'

Phnom Penh Post

Friday, 29 August 1997 

Michael Vickery, associate professor of history at Universiti Sains Malaysia, condemns journalists' coverage of the recent fighting in Phnom Penh, and the Pol Pot trial.

BACK in 1993 it was said that journalists swarmed into town hoping to see blood, and left disappointed. Now they have seen some blood, and they certainly know what to do with it - grease their own personal Vietnam syndromes by kicking a Cambodian leadership which, like Vietnam, has refused to kowtow.

'Strong Man' Hun Sen, they say, moved to wipe out his opposition because he feared the results of next year's election. UNTAC's $2 billion was wasted, because it didn't buy compliance with what the West wanted in Cambodia. Those FUNCINPEC figures who chose Hun Sen over Ranariddh are 'quislings', although when they returned to Cambodia after 1991 they were hailed as the best elements of FUNCINPEC, as they no doubt are.

Totally ignored is the build-up to the events of July 5-6. Although journalists cannot always be historians and sociologists, they must pay some attention or their simple-minded recording of the 'facts' of the moment (always partial because choices must be made, and therefore inevitably partisan) leads them into gross misinterpretations, not to say disinformation.

No doubt for journalists the 1980s are such ancient history that they cannot be accused of bias for forgetting them. All Cambodian political figures, however, know, and do not forget, that the entire so-called peace process evolution was intended to get rid of the CPP, even at the risk of giving the Khmer Rouge a place in the government. The Paris Agreement and the 1993 election only came about because the People's Republic of Kampuchea/State of Cambodia (PRK/SOC) managed to defeat cruder schemes. And in spite of $2 billion and a whole gaggle of experts, the conduct of balloting and counting was sloppy enough to give the CPP reason to claim fraud.

It is, however, disinformation just to say that Ranariddh won but Hun Sen refused to move out. Representation was proportional and the coalition was mandated by Paris and UNTAC rules concerning the new Constitution. The modalities of forming the coalition, of course, were not parliamentary, but the position retained by the CPP was in accord with its votes, 38% against 45%. This is the minimum background

It was disinformation not to at least acknowledge in passing that weeks ago Ranariddh boasted that he would use new KR allies to further his own policies, especially and most dangerously, against Vietnam. It was disinformation not to note that ever since 1993 the royalists had been plotting to undermine Hun Sen as much as he, no doubt, had been plotting to stay ahead of them. The post-election secession was under Ranariddh's brother Chakrapong, just dumped by the CPP, and directly instigated by an important non-CPP higher-level personality. Hun Sen outplayed them and got credit for putting down the secession. All through 1994 various royalist schemes were hatched to undermine the CPP by bringing the KR into the government via a back door; and in July of that year a royalist coup was barely nipped in the bud.

The royalists, moreover, seem to have got what they asked for. As said in the CPP White Paper edited by a US legal expert, and as supported in Mike Fowler's presentation of the case (PPP 12-24 July 1997), the royalists had been trying to provoke such an incident, apparently overconfident of success, and Hun Sen had a good legal case against them, if only he had resorted to the courts rather than to violence. I wonder what courts he could have used. The Phnom Penh foreign community and the international press have already condemned the Cambodian courts as nothing but rubber stamps for the government, and they would have denounced any verdict in Hun Sen's favor as dishonest; and probably no international court would have taken the case.

Incidentally, the White Paper remarks were already widely held among serious diplomats during my last visit to Phnom Penh in December 1996.

Of course, we should all rejoice in the overthrow of Pol Pot by Nate Thayer and the emergence of the Khmer Rouge as born again liberal democrats. Nate, a volunteer PR man for the Khmer Rouge since, at least, his "Cambodia: Misperceptions and Peace" (Washington Quarterly, Spring 1991) has outdone himself with "Cambodia's Peace was Just a Day Away" in the Washington Post on August 17 [a version of which was published as "Secret talks lead to final purge" in the last PP Post]. Going beyond the usual PR, it is the most devious and dishonest piece of pseudo-journalism I have seen in a long time.

In order to present the scene as "a watershed moment" which would have meant peace for "this country's tortured history" (a cliché usual among hacks apologizing for the torturers) Nate talks about the KR abandoning "their war against Cambodia's government" and agreeing "to a formal 'surrender' ceremony in which their forces would join the Cambodian army".

That is straight Nate PR hype. In the finer print further on the KR themselves, at least, appear more honest.

In his Far Eastern Economic Review special (7 Aug) Nate was less devious with, "the Khmer Rouge finalized their alliance with Ranariddh's FUNCINPEC party on July 4", after negotiations between Ta Mok and FUNCINPEC general Nhek Bun Chhay in which the KR "agreed in principle to join in alliance [with FUNCINPEC]".

In the Washington Post, Nate put a different spin on the story, "the guerrillas finally had agreed to integrate their troops into the army [sic] and recognize the government". Nate deviously substituted 'the government' for 'FUNCINPEC' and its armed faction for 'the army'.

However, further on, Nate says that the KR were adamantly opposed to working with Hun Sen, whom they kept calling a puppet, and what they agreed to was not integrating forces and joining the government, but only that "the military units changed into government uniforms and pledged allegiance to the king, the government and the constitution, but were not forced to disperse from their territory". They would keep their own strategic base in Anlong Veng. Similarly it was agreed, not that the KR would join with the government, but "could join the National United Front coalition of anti-Hun Sen political opposition parties".

It was precisely what Hun Sen claimed, a FUNCINPEC-KR alliance against him, along with delivery of weapons and ammunition by FUNCINPEC to the KR.

It is thus egregious to say that only now, after Hun Sen's coup, "the forces loyal to Ranariddh have begun to form a military coalition with former Khmer Rouge fighters". That was what they had agreed to on July 4.

Not only would the Ranariddh-KR coalition not have brought peace to Cambodia, it could have embroiled Vietnam as well, for reports of KR radio broadcasts indicate that nothing of their traditional policy has changed. Hatred of Vietnam as the main enemy continues; and several weeks ago Ranariddh boasted of using defecting KR in his own anti-Vietnamese plans.

The Pol Pot trial scam shows again that the KR, as I wrote in 1991 (Indochina Issues) are adroit at winning the hearts and minds of the western press corps. As Thayer wrote, Tep Kunnal, a new KR front man, "is knowledgeable about US politics". The scam has some chance of success because for various reasons all opponents of Democratic Kampuchea have personalized its record with the name Pol Pot, ignoring that what happened in 1975-79 could not have been the work of one man, but was influenced by Cambodia's history and the structure of its society.

For Vietnam and the new PRK state in 1979, it was simply the easiest way to quickly assure the demonization of their enemies; for other Cambodians it was a way to avoid examination and self-criticism of their own society; for concerned western regimes it was a way to escape from their own responsibility in the destruction of Cambodia; and for academic specialists, at least in English-speaking milieus, concentration on personalities rather than social and economic structures was an ingrained habit in their work. Thus both among the Cambodian population and western observers 'Pol Potism' as an aberration of one evil man, or at most a small coterie, replaced 'Democratic Kampuchea', which should have been viewed as an unfortunate episode in Cambodia's integration into the modern world requiring close study and explanation in its totality.

Contrary to Thayer's hype, a number of persons who viewed the film, including both Cambodians and foreigners, and one leading Cambodia scholar, did not think Pol Pot appeared tearful or contrite, and at the end he was shown considerable deference by his 'accusers'. The audience was mostly women and children chanting slogans; key leaders - Ta Mok, Khieu Samphan, and Nuon Chea - were not present; Thayer could not (whether for linguistic or political reasons is not clear) ask Pol Pot any questions, and he simply reproduced what he was told by the directors and producers of the show concerning the alleged splits in the KR. Even then it is clear that not much is new. Peasantism and nationalism are still the KR themes, as they always were, and now they claim to be for liberal democracy and the free market.

So, one might ask, and this is indeed what they want us to ask, what is wrong with a KR-royalist alliance based on peasant welfare, nationalism and the free market?

For one thing, we have seen much of it before. Their policies were always in principle pro-peasant, yet they severely damaged peasant livelihood. Now, with a small population dependent on them, and vast wealth from timber sales over the years, it is easy to subsidize their way into popularity among those peasants. This gives no clue to what they would do in agriculture if they again controlled the country, or whether they have learned the requisite lessons from their previous experience. So far, their free market activity has meant stealing the national forests and selling them across the border, and if this is what Cambodia has to hope from them, the country might just as well stick with its current rulers. As for their commitment to liberal democracy, I think we may fairly disbelieve.

Moreover, in a poor country with an overwhelming majority of poor peasants in its population, a free market and liberal democracy work counter to peasant welfare, as may be seen from several examples in the real world.

As for nationalism, that means aggravated hatred of Vietnam, which was probably the single most destructive element of DK policies, and the motive for most of the officially sanctioned executions.

Those Phnom Penh diplomats who last December indicated that their worry for next year was an unholy alliance of Ranariddh, Rainsy and the Khmer Rouge which might do well in the election on a platform of anti-Vietnamese chauvinism were correct, and if Hun Sen has averted that we should all be pleased.

Nate Thayer, however, has put his finger on certain matters which deserve attention. Unlike those journalists who just want to see blood in Phnom Penh, and who time and again reserve their worst invective, not for the real KR, but for Hun Sen because once upon a time, before 1977, he was in the Khmer Rouge army, and unlike the western statesmen who throughout the 1980s publicly excoriated the KR while facilitating backhanders to them across the Thai border, Thayer believes in what he promotes. He sees that most of Cambodia's population, who are poor peasants, live in misery, ignored by most of their political and economic rulers. And Thayer thinks that what he sees as the new reformed KR may have some of the right answers.

At least, the Phnom Penh government and the interested foreign organizations should be giving serious attention to the social problems of large impoverished groups in the Cambodian population, including peasants, the urban mass, and the soldiers. In the events of July 5-6 there were disturbing reminders of April 1975. As reported by Robin McDowell of AP on 7 July, "Doctors at one hospital said patients were being discharged early to go home to protect their belongings. At another, struck by shelling over the weekend, doctors had abandoned their patients. By today, all the hospital's mattresses, furniture and equipment had been looted". Let us not forget that one of the reasons for the dispersal of hospitals by the victorious KR was because over half of Cambodia's doctors had fled the country before 17 April.

The looting which accompanied the coup was not in order to reward the troops. Quite obviously it could not be controlled, and civilians were involved as enthusiastically as soldiers. It showed a violent hatred by the poor, both soldiers and civilians, against the small privileged sector which has become indecently and pretentiously rich since 1991.

The Khmer Rouge won in 1975 because they had the support of those poor sectors of Cambodia, and Phnom Penh as a city, abstracting from the fate of particular individuals, deserved what happened in April 1975. The events of July 5-6, indicate that it might all happen again, whether or not Pol Pot has been put away, and whether or not the Khmer Rouge have reformed. Indeed, if a KR-royalist alliance should win an election, and put into effect the liberal democracy and free market they now praise, they might in the end find themselves victims of popular rage from out of the depths. After the anti-Vietnamese chauvinism which seems to be growing, what most worries me is that all factions, the KR, the royalists, the CPP, and the prominent dissident Pen Sovann, have been touting the same economic doctrines, which in the former Soviet Union have led, since 1991, to the realization of the old Cold War cliché about regimes making war on their own people.

Coup debate Letter to the Editor Michael Vickery on Nate Thayer

Coup debate 111

Friday, 23 September 1994 

Letter to the Editor

Phnom Penh Post

Unfortunately, Chris Horwood, in his entirely justifiable 'attack' on Phnom Penh Post (3/17, 26 Aug-8 Sept, p.9), did not say enough, and did not say it right, permitting Nate Thayer to respond disingenuously, further misleading PPP readers - not the first time this has happened. The question is not whether Chakrapong and Sin Song were guilty, or whether Thayer thinks they were innocent. What comes through in Thayer's report is that he is more sympathetic to them than to the government, even if they were guilty. The purpose behind Thayer's article was to discredit the CPP, and this was also the purpose of his interview with Sar Kheng, which he mischievously, brought up as a balance against his coverage of Chakrapong.

Questions? Thayer's first sentences expressed disbelief in the government line on the "alleged coup", 'reporting', without the slightest evidence, that it involved "at the least .. powerful elements of the security forces", an attribution which excludes both Chak-rapong and Sin Song. The first sentence in his second paragraph, that " more questions were raised than answered by the govern-ment's explanation", was also without evidence other than his own speculations, and a dishonest swipe at the government. And, the coup "has exposed a traumatic - and dangerous - split in the Cambodian people's Party", again without explanation to enlighten PPP readers. Need I go on ? Virtually every paragraph, if not every sentence, contains an editorial; and I would have no objection in principle, although I might still argue against Thayer's reasoning, if his piece had been presented as a PPP editorial, or Op-Ed, but not as front-page news.

As news it was impermissible to speculate that "the coup was organized at the highest level by dominant figures within the CPP", and sourcing to "some intelligence analysts and government officials" is without value, particularly after Thayer had named government officials with a variety of opinions. Equally slippery was to suggest it was because the CPP "are unused to dispute or dissent", as though they were the only Cambodian faction with that weakness.

One point neglected by Thayer is equally revealing of his purpose. Nowhere in his front page article, nor even in the page 8 article which directly touched on the subject, did he mention that Chakrapong and Sin Song have been sulking for months because they were dropped from the CPP lists of victorious election candidates in May 1993 and have been trying ever since to regain seats in the National Assembly.

What Thayer did say about the events of May-June last year is even more shady than his speculations about the coup this July, and the disingenuosness goes right to the 'highest level' of PPP editorship. Thayer says that the June 1993 secession led by Chakrapong and Sin Song, following their dismissal by the CPP, "had the covert backing of their Cambodian People's Party leaders - including Hun Sen, Chea Sim, and Sar Kheng". This is the umpteenth time Thayer has written this, without, so far as I have seen, presenting any evidence. The accusation in fact goes back to a confidential analysis by Stephen Heder under his Untac cover, and it had to be confidential because it was so lacking in substance. At the time I prepared a counter analysis, distributed on June 24-25 1993 to PPP and to other journalists, Embassies and Untac offices.

Thayer has ignored the counter argument, and his employers allow him to get away with it, thereby misleading readers like Horwood, who know no better than to repeat with Thayer that the "secession movement.. played a vital role in forcing Funcinpec to accept a greater involvement in government of the defeated CPP".

On this subject Thayer, supported by Michael Hayes, has been exercising self-censorship every time he puts pen to paper.

- Michael Vickery, Penang.

Motley crew moves out on jungle mission By Nate Thayer

Motley crew moves out on jungle mission

Phnom Penh Post

(The following is four separate stories on The march 1994 hunt for the Kouprey in one issue of the Phnom Penh Post: The analysis; the factual overview; the scientific report; and the editorial)

Friday, 22 April 1994

By Nate Thayer

Nate Thayer documents the human side of The Great Kouprey Chase

When the hunter in possession of the cow skull was asked to point out on the map where he had found it, his reply should have given us an idea of what we were getting ourselves into. " I don't know where on the map," he said cheerfully," but we call it 'the place of the dead foreigner'."

And when local villagers pointed us in the direction of a Khmer Rouge controlled town to interview the village chief, we probably should have suspected something when our man emerged from his hut in full Khmer Rouge uniform save the American bomber pilot's leather jacket, speaking a language entirely unknown to our interpreter.

This trip was the culmination of six previous field surveys since 1991 in which dozens of villagers and hunters were interviewed and other data collected on the beast's possible whereabouts. These early exploratory trips pinpointed the Kouprey as living pretty much in the middle of some of the most forbidding terrain anywhere, never under any government control and inhabited for decades by a variety of guerrilla groups fighting a series of governments. This was an area, it seemed, where beast and man went mainly to hide. And in this lost province with no road, water or scheduled air access to the rest of Cambodia, with a population of 60,000, of which only two percent are ethnic Khmer. The remainder are a collection of 10 distinct cultures.

It became increasingly clear that the reason why no one had sighted The Cow in three decades was because no one was fool enough to launch an expedition to go where the beast had sought refuge in. But we decided to try anyway.

After compiling a team of expert jungle trackers, scientists, security troops, elephant mahouts, and one of the most motley and ridiculous looking groups of armed journalists in recent memory, we marched cluelessly into Khmer Rouge controlled jungles along the old Ho Chi Minh trail.

While they were very friendly, the population of the last village before we disappeared for eleven days in the jungle did not, logically, believe for one moment that we were who we claimed to be or that we were doing what we claimed to be doing. They had seen this movie before. Armed foreigners trekking through their village was a concept they were familiar with. Pieces of downed American warplanes piled in the village, which they had gathered from their jungle to salvage as scrap, testified to this.

Of our 26-man team, 18 (12 soldiers and six elephant drivers) had lived their entire lives in Mondolkiri province. Also, none had been anywhere near where we were going.

Our four trackers were former guerrilla soldiers of FULRO, the anti-communist "lost army" that operated out of these jungles for 17 years until late 1992, when they were discovered by the United Nations and received political asylum in the US. They were more than happy to leave factory jobs in North Carolina for a couple weeks to trek through their old haunts. Each had seen the cow in recent years and said it tasted really good.

The journalists thought the trip was a great idea until we actually started. It became clear to most, after the first day when we walked 12 hours and 30 km with no water, that this was a really stupid idea. There were several early casualties from heat prostration and other manifestations of badly out of shape bodies addled by long histories of drug and alcohol abuse. Others moaned about the lack of helicopter support. Others failed to see the humor in sleeping at recently abandoned Khmer Rouge basecamps.

Our group communicated with each other in Khmer, Lao, Thai, English, French, Rade, and M'nong. We ate lizards and American military rations bought in Phnom Penh.

But despite the surface madness of it all, the focus remained on the extraordinary array of wildlife and beauty of the region.

We saw scores of wild animals, none of which seemed remotely concerned by our presence, such as rare Banteng and Gaur. Lizards could be picked up by hand mildly puzzled by our interest in them. Fresh tiger tracks were seen regularly along our path. Rains would bring out symphonies of strange night insects and thousands of frogs, whose din would require shouting for us humans to communicate with each other. Elephant bones missing the tusks spoke of poachers.

When eventually one of our teams confronted an armed Khmer Rouge fighter, who shared the mountain where we saw what appeared to be Kouprey tracks, the guerrilla soldier stared at us with apparent shock. The poor man was very confused. He retreated.

We regrouped at a small stream where our forward teams had set up a camp. After trying, and failing, to come up with a plausible idea of how to explain to the probably now terribly nonplussed guerrilla unit that we were just looking for a cow, we decided not to push it. We are not sure if any Kouprey saw us. But if one did, its extremely likely that its first thought was that our entire team would actually be better off locked up in a zoo-and hopefully as far away as possible from the endangered cow section.

Jungle trek evidence resurrects the Kouprey

By Michael Hayes

Friday, 22 April 1994

THE remote northeastern jungles of Cambodia's Mondolkiri province is home to one of the largest populations of Asia's rarest and most threatened wildlife, a two-week 150 km jungle field survey completed this month has determined.

The Cambodian Kouprey Research Project, a non-profit all-volunteer organization launched to document the existence of one of the world's rarest animals, has concluded that the Kouprey still lives in the isolated forests of the country's northeast.

There has been no documented sighting since 1967 of the bovine, declared Cambodia's national animal by His Majesty King Norodom Sihanouk in 1963. It was only documented as a species in 1935, and has been the subject of a series of international efforts to save it from extinction in recent decades.

The field study, completed in early April, culminated more than a year of efforts with the full support of the Royal Government and Mondolkiri provincial authorities.

First Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh has taken a keen interest in the project and loaned his personal plane to ferry equipment and expedition team members from Phnom Penh to Sen Monoram, Mondolkiri's provincial capital. Corporate support was also received in the form of a grant from the British company Enterprise Oil.

While no sighting of the rare forest ox was achieved, other data collected suggested that less than a dozen still exist in a small 25 square kilometer region of Mondolkiri.

The study also concluded that a large number of other endangered animals also exist in the area. These include one of the largest populations of Asian elephants and Sumatran tigers in Asia, as well as a number of other birds, bovines, and reptiles.

The area surveyed by the expedition is devoid of any permanent human settlements, although widespread evidence was found indicating that hunters pass through the region regularly and are posing a major threat to the survival of the wildlife present. Bones of poached elephants, wild cattle, forest pigs and other species were identified by the team.

The Cambodian Kouprey Research Project is the brainchild of American journalist Nate Thayer. Plans are underway for a second expedition to the region in May.

 

Vet: Ten head of Kouprey in Mondolkiri

Friday, 22 April 1994  

Leading vetenarian Maurizio Dioli analyses the findings of the expedition.

From March 27 to April 7, l994 the Cambodian Kouprey Research Project undertook an expedition in Mondolkiri Province in an attempt to ascertain whether or not Cambodia's national animal, the Kouprey (Bos Sauveli) existed there. Based on an analysis of the trip's findings, the major conclusion of the trip is that it is almost certain that a very small population of Kouprey (less than 10 head) are still surviving in the area surveyed.

What follows is a brief report on the trip, the methodology undertaken and a summary of the trip's findings. Because of the uniqueness of the Kouprey and the fact that divulging the precise location of rare endangered species almost always results for a number of reasons in an increased mortality of that species, the exact location of the sighting area is not being released beyond that fact that it was in a remote corner of Mondolkiri Province.

Methodology 

Because of the extreme rarity of the Kouprey it was decided that a classic systematic survey of areas in which Kouprey have been known to exist was not appropriate. Rather, an approach focusing on first hand, reliable sightings during 1992-93 were collected from hunters, poachers and Khmer Rouge guerillas. Based on these sightings it was possible to pinpoint a particular area of a few square kilometers where the probability of encountering the Kouprey was high.

An aerial survey of the area in question was not considered since the Kouprey, like many other wild bovid, retreats to thick patches of forest during the day (especially during the dry season) and therefore is not visible from the air.

Using a field survey method, the team hired six elephants to transport equipment and provisions to set up a base camp from which foot patrols were undertaken to survey the surrounding region. The survey routes were chosen to allow close inspection of wildlife meeting points: salt licks and watering holes. Priority was also given to preferred grazing areas of wild cattle: open areas and open dipterocarps forest where old grasses have been burnt and palatable, freshly sprouted grasses were common. Dry open areas with burned grass and dry dipterocarp forest were not surveyed accurately. Overall, during a nine day survey period, more that 150 kms were covered by foot.

The Geography

The survey area consisted of gently undulating hills with a general elevation of 200-300 meters above sea level. Vegetation was largely open deciduous dipterocarp forest, with thicker forest along river beds or in the hills. Wide open areas of grassland were also present. Salt licks, termite hills and mud holes were a common feature. Generally it was determined that water was readilly available at numerous waterholes and in scattered pools in dry river beds.

All of the survey area indicated signs of periodic burning. It is interesting to note that it seems that the majority of burning was caused by "cold fires", i.e. fires started as soon as there is enough material to catch fire at the beginning of the dry season. The area was devoid of any permanent human settlements and several days walk from the nearest village but signs of hunters and Khmer Rouge patrols were encountered repeatedly.

Results

While the objective of sighting and photographing a Kouprey was not achieved, the survey succeeded in individuating an area inhabited by a relatively large number of three different species of wild cattle.

The analysis of numerous fresh footprints, grazed grasses and excrement indicate unequivically that the survey area is populated by two species of wild cattle: a large size bovine, the Gaur; and a medium size bovine, the Banteng (both animals were actually sighted). Water buffalos were not
present in the area and sightings have never been recorded by trackers familiar with the region.

The interesting and exciting discovery was a series of footprints that by their shape and dimensions could not be attributed to either the Gaur or the Banteng. These footprints fit the description of Kouprey tracks described by Wharton after his survey in 1957.

They were as wide as they were long, rounded and their dimensions ranged from 90x90 mm to 110x110 mm.

Estimates of herd population sizes of the three species of wild bovids in the survey area are difficult to determine. After an overall analysis of footprints seen and including sightings made by the team's guides over a previous ten-year period, it is estimated that there are approximately 40-50 Banteng, 10-15 Gaur and six-eight Kouprey living in the area.

Several skeletons of wild cattle were found during the survey. In most cases the removal from the skull of the frontal bones supporting the horns and clear signs of knife markings on many other bones strongly suggest poaching as a cause of death.

Proof of the existence of numerous other animals was also achieved with a complete list provided below.

Conclusion

1. As stated initially, it is almost certain that a very small population of Kouprey (less than 10) is still surviving in the area surveyed.
2. All of the wild bovid are almost exclusively nocturnal in their feeding habits.
3. Large numbers of dried footprints indicate that many wild cattle live in the area during the wet season and are not migrating to other areas.
4. Hunting for trophies and meat with automatic weapons is confirmed and is severely threatening the existence of the remaining populations of wild bovid.
5. Burning still plays a major role in maintaining open forest areas and in providing wild cattle (grazers) with an important source of food during the dry season.

Maurizio Dioli is a veternarian by training and spent ten years in East Africa which included extensive field work tracking and identifying wildlife in the region.

Editorial

Phnom Penh Post

By Publisher Michael Hayes

Friday, 22 April 1994

T HE most ambitious effort in more than four decades to document the existence of Cambodia's national animal, the Kouprey, has determined, with a high degree of certainty, that the world's rarest bovine does in fact exist in small numbers in remote corners of Mondolkiri province.

More importantly, the Thayer Expedition has documented categorically the existence of other species in signifacent numbers including the gaur, banteng, barking deer, wild pig, Asian wild dog, red headed vulture, whooly-necked stork, red junglefowl and peacock, all of which are rapidly approaching "endangered species" status throughout Asia.

While the Kouprey was not actually sighted by the Thayer expedition, evidence collected from animal tracks and recent sightings indicates that the Kouprey is alive and extremely endangered with perhaps as few as six to 10 animals surviving precariously in virtually uninhabited jungle areas in one of the Kingdom's most isolated districts.

Based on this new information, the Royal Government has a unique opportunity to act quickly and definitively to safeguard an important national symbol, a step that would not only guarantee the survival of the Kouprey but which in the long run would be of immense benefit to the nation.

His Majesty The King, the Royal Government, the recalcitrant Khmer Rouge and all friends of Cambodia must act now to save the Kouprey. To wait even one minute longer would be sheer folly.

To the point, the government needs to declare the northeast corner of Mondolkiri Province as a national reserve or wildlife park and take whatever measures necessary to protect the animals which still exist there.

The animals in Mondolkiri are rapidly vanishing from their shrinking enclaves. However, Cambodia, unlike many other nations in this part of Asia, still retains significant populations of rare species which stand head and shoulders above what exists elsewhere regionally.

The most saleable argument, among many, for safeguarding this wildlife is the long-term potential for engendering revenues as a result of the worldwide interest in wildlife tourism, of which the Kingdom is still well-placed to take advantage. In a nutshell, people all over the world are willing to spend thousands of dollars to see rare wild animals in their native habitat.

The opportunity for a bold expression of visionary leadership is waiting to be grasped. The Khmer people will only reap the benefits of such action for centuries to come.

What better reason is there to grab (gently) the cow by the horns? And, more to the point, which Khmer will go down in history as the individual who had the foresight to protect for eternity one of the Kingdom's most treasured national symbols?

"Outrage over report" Letter to the Editor: Phnom Penh Post

Phnom Penh Post

Letters to the Editor

Friday, 08 April 1994

Outrage over report

Dear Sir

A fter having read Nate Thayer's reports for several years now, I suppose I should not have been as surprised and outraged as I was on reading his latest pieces "Army blank check undermines budget" printed as the lead story in the Post dated March 11-24.

The notion that the fight against the Khmer Rouge would undermine Cambodia's budget and jeopardize aid is breathtaking. May we ask what humanitarian projects the budget and aid would be devoted to if the Khmer Rouge were able to regain power in Cambodia?

Thayer goes on to blame the victim for the "failure by the government to win new international military assistance". Why not speak of the failure of the international community to support the new government of Cambodia? Why not criticize the Thai government for its continuing sanctuaries and trade with the KR, and China and the Western powers for supplying the arms that are today being employed by the KR? Thayer's own companion story shows a German anti-tank missile supplied through Singapore in 1989 being used against government troops.

The same accusation is put by "KR Ambassador" In Sopheap in an interview by Thayer published on the following page: "There is no money to increase the salary of teachers, they say themselves that 20 percent of the people have no housing, but they spend money on fighting". This must taken some gall to report straight-faced considering the KR's record on education and housing, leaving aside civil servants' salaries!

- Helen Jarvis, Sydney, Australia

No More Creampuff Journalism

Friday, 29 January 1993

Phnom Penh Post

Letters to the Editor 

No More Creampuff Journalism

I was spending some vacation time in Phnom Penh when I picked up your paper and read the "interview" with Khieu Samphan. What's going on? This guy is a mass murderer and is single-handedly blocking a U.S. $2 billion international peace effort. Yet your "reporter" Nate Thayer treats Samphan like he was some kind of elder statesman, asking him what he thinks of the current political situation. Why didn't he ask him what it feels like to kill 1,000,000 Cambodians? I've read PR handouts that hit harder than this piece of marshmallow.

Do your readers a favor-next time you interview the Khmer Rouge, send a real professional reporter-not a cream puff like this Thayer guy.

Phnom Penh Post: Letters to the Editor: Editor's Response

Phnom Penh Post

letters to the Editor

Friday, 29 January 1993

Editor's Response

Schuler has a point. Thayer faxed the raw transcript of the text of Khieu Samphan interview from Bangkok without his questions. While the text accurately reflected the content of the interview, it did not accurately reflect the questions posed. The interview should have been presented under topical categories rather than as a question and answer. We regret the editing error.

Thayer responds: "I've been called a puppet lackey, an intelligence operative, a right wing jerk, a communist sympathizer, and a hopeless drunk, but I have never been called a creampuff and I resent it."

- The Post welcomes comments from our readers.

Phnom Penh Post: Letters to the editor: Sour Creampuffs

Phnom Penh Post

letters to the Editor

Sour Creampuffs

Friday, 12 February 1993

As a long-term resident of Cambodia who has been subjected to Mr. Thayer's Errol Flynnish style of journalism for most of that time, I must take exception to the use of the word "creampuff." It is extremely difficult to make a good creampuff in the tropics.

The term one should apply to this journalist is lightweight twerp.

letters to the editor Phnom Penh Post: Gentle Journalism

Phnom Penh Post

letters to the editor

Gentle Journalism

Friday, 09 April 1993 

I feeling so sorry for your reporter Kate Thayer called Gream Puff and Light Weight Werp in letters. So unfair! I read her interview with Mr. Khieu Samphan so interesting. Mr. Khieu Samphan of course is very bad man hates Vietnam people but reporter did no thing wrong. She just write down everything what she told very obedient and polite and not ask rude questions of important man her superior. Why call Gream Puff and Eroll Fling? My friends and I in the Ho Chi Minh Ladies Sewing Circle say, carry on Kate! Keep writing in your own gentle and lady like way!

Ten Years After: "The Honor Roll": The Phnom Penh Post

(My Comment: The Phnom Penh Post was one of the finest, most courageous newspapers anywhere in the world in the last decades. And it was the brainchild and unspeakably hard and complicated and tenacious devotion and vision of Michael Hayes that is resposible for the immeasuable contribution it made as the first and only independent newspaper in Indochina since 1975. With the heroic and talented efforts of his then partner Kathleeen. I was and remain proud to have been associated with such an honourable and distinguished beacon of press freedom. The list of people who agree with me is reflected below.)

Ten Years After

The Phnom Penh Post

By Michael hayes

(Publisher, Editor-in-Chief, Founder)

Friday, 19 July 2002 14:00

The last ten years feels like an eternity.

Little did I know way back in October, 1991, when I sat in the then-Samaki Hotel's ramshackle restaurant and asked if they had any newspapers-only to be told 'aaaht eeh, aht minh kaset dteee'-that I would be sitting in Phnom Penh in July, 2002 trying to distill what it means to have published 263 issues of a newspaper called the Phnom Penh Post.

One thing I can say without hesitation after a decade in this media whirlwind: each issue was a labor of love and, at the same time, a pain in the you-know-what.

The years seem to have gone by in a blur; at the very least I now need eyeglasses-two pairs in fact, one to read this text at a 20 point font size and another to try and make out faces across the street.

Old hands from the UNTAC days occasionally come through town. I now have a legitimate excuse for why I can't recognize them. Why I can't remember people's names is another issue altogether.

The idea for the paper was simple. The UN was coming to town with thousands of people and bucket-loads of money that they would splash like water on a parched rice field. I needed a job, so why not create my own. And journalism seemed like an appealing new career twist-all the hacks I'd met during my two years in Bangkok were filled with energy and had great tales to spin. There was nothing in English to read in Cambodia so why not give it a go.

When then-Prince Norodom Sihanouk, as President of the Supreme National Council, gave me the green light in January, 1992 to start a paper, I thought to myself "Oh my God, what the %#&* do I do now?"

The idea drew interest like the streetlights near the riverfront attract bugs at night.

Kathleen (Hayes) O'Keefe was keen from the get go. Nate Thayer, my first new friend in town, and Sara Colm, our first employee, said they would help out. It snowballed from there.

The list of people who chipped in to make the Post whatever it is reads like a Who's Who from recent Cambodian history. I went through each and every back issue from Day 1 to collect the names of full-time staff, photographers, freelancers, contributors and the like. The 467 individuals culled from a decade of Posts are cited with honor and gratitude on page 10 of this supplement and I would salute them one-by-one if there were space.

If I had the kernel of an idea, all these folks helped fill in the blanks. Many of them contributed time, energy, ideas, photos and copy for free-just for the thrill of being involved in what was perceived as a good thing, a Mom and Pop newspaper run on a shoe-string budget in a troubled land with a shoot-from-the-hip management style that succeeded in spite of itself.

I'd list advertisers too if we had the space because without them the paper would have died an early death. But their numbers run nearer to 1,000. For all you folks out there who have had the pleasure of dealing with our legions of Advertising Managers, please know that we are indebted to you for your confidence and support.

In the early years the Post flew like the wind, burning the candle at both ends while digging up stories that kept readers glued to the page.

It's almost impossible to imagine now-and thinking about it makes me weary-but for the first 130 issues deadline day was a 24-hour grueling ordeal. We'd start at 8am Tuesday morning and burn on through the day-cranking out copy, editing and whatnot-on into the night and then until sunrise. At which point either Kathleen or I would drag ourselves onto a plane and head for the printer in Bangkok, only to show up bleary-eyed, suffering caffeine overload with nerves rattled to the bone. With the paper proofed and printed, we'd hump 20 boxes of Posts back to Don Muang, trundle them through the X-ray machine and load them on a flight to Phnom Penh as extra luggage, arriving back home near-certifiably brain dead.

July 1997 forced us to sort out a printer in Phnom Penh and, fortunately, a bit more reason has been introduced into our publishing schedule. My staff now have the luxury of seeing me start to grumble if we can't get the paper done by 6:30pm Thursday night.

Putting some of the in-house horror stories aside, the more important question-What does it all mean?-still looms large. One would think that after a decade, and having been asked this question during at least 100 interviews from colleagues in the press, I'd have a stock reply.

I don't.

I know the textbook theory stuff: press digs around, serves as watchdog, writes about problems, informs readers, wheels turn, debate is fostered, government or civil society responds, the world progresses.

Simple, right?

Wrong!

Nothing, it seems, is or will ever be that simple in Cambodia.

Has the Post made a difference in the last ten years? Very hard to say.

Because of the Post, have things changed for the better? Almost impossible to quantify, at least from my perspective, but things have gotten better, perhaps in spite of the Post.

There are a few things I know for sure from running a paper for so long. You can never satisfy all readers all the time, and you can never please the government unless you're willing to produce a paper along the lines of the (R.I.P) Cambodia Times.

Another thing I know for sure is that in running a paper like the Post you are bound to make enemies in all quarters. I was definitely naïve on this score at the onset. Little did I know that I would be accused of all kinds of erroneous suppositions, from trying "to destroy the Kingdom," being "pro Khmer Rouge," "anti-Funcinpec," "a US government stooge," "anti-CPP," to "creating political instability."

The list goes on and on, the people who refuse to talk to me is extensive, and the number of times someone at an official reception has discreetly turned away to avoid being seen chatting to me are countless.

People are afraid of this newspaper, which still to this day surprises me, and I don't believe that fear is a function of the Post's particular brand of journalism. I dare to say that the Post has tried to maintain the highest reporting standards, that we try to be balanced, to get it right, and to stick to the facts. Call it human nature if you want, but the Kingdom is not alone as a place where many people have secrets they prefer to keep hidden from the prying eyes of journalists. I doubt this will ever change which means that our job will never be an easy one.

And the bottom line, at the end of the day, is that I have always been willing to run rebuttals and responsible comment pieces from anyone who feels he or she has an ax to grind with what the paper publishes. I keep hoping that more critiques from readers will show up at our door. They are always welcome (and not only for the reason that they help us fill the paper for free).

On the brighter side, I can say that many in government have moved-off the record-from being antagonistic to the Post to a position of tolerance, if not grudging admiration. I've been told by civil servants from all factions on numerous occasions that the Post is viewed as a reliable source of information in an environment where accurate news and analysis is often hard to come by, especially that concerning the activities of the government itself.

In a more personal vein, I've seen many eager but untrained Khmers pass through the doors of the Post and, with some hands-on experience under their belts, move on to a variety of other challenging (and better paid!) career opportunities. And no one should forget how steep the uphill battle has been and will continue to be in the Human Resource Department given the wreckage of the KR years and their aftermath.

I remember fondly one particular incident back in 1992. I was proofing a story by one of my Khmer reporters and the quotes looked-how shall I put it-unbelievable. I asked my guy, "Did this man really say this?" "Well, no," came the innocent reply, "I just made them up." With a smile I politely explained that rule number one in journalism is that you can't make up quotes. He got the point-quickly.

Over the years it seems that the most common complement offered to the Post is that it stands as a record of current Cambodian history. The first cut, so to speak, of recent events.

Prime Minister Hun Sen was spot on the mark when he replied to a Post request for a comment on the 25th anniversary of the KR takeover of Phnom Penh. "History is history and cannot be changed," the Prime Minister wrote.

The only history the Post was determined to make was being the first independent paper in any language on the streets of Phnom Penh since the fall of the KR, and that was a function of a small spat with the cheeky competition which followed three days later.

As for the rest, our challenge remains to report what others do and say and do our utmost to get it right. The people of this Kingdom deserve nothing less.

The Phnom Penh Post

The Honor roll

Friday, 19 July 2002 

Among a distinguished list of staff and editorial contributors to the Post, it is impossible to effectively single out the deserving. Chap Narith and Kim Sophean, the first to be hired, continue to contribute in expertise and commitment after ten years. Journalist Mang Channo and photographer Stefan Ellis left us far too early after dedicating the best of their careers to covering compelling Cambodian issues.

HM King Norodom Sihanouk ° Nate Thayer ° Sara Colm ° Chap Narith ° Ellen Lichtig ° Kim Sophean ° Tom McCarthy ° Anne Moran ° Mao Vanna ° Peter Hüttenmoser ° Tanya Lieberman ° James Pringle ° Lance Woodruff ° Andy Maxwell ° Tom Conroy ° Mang Channo ° Moeun Chhean Nariddh ° Men Samath ° Ben Davies ° Peter Eng ° Denis D. Gray ° Doug Niven ° Yur Karavuth ° Angela Gennino ° Martha Belcher ° Peter Frecklington ° Van Bun Thet ° Sheila McNulty ° Ken Stier ° Serge Corrieras ° Roberta Caraher ° Leo Dobbs ° James Fahn ° Dilip Ganguly ° Mang Kimleap ° Paul Recer ° Serge Thion ° David Portnoy ° Panjarat Hongsakul ° Sylvia Meek ° Michael McDonald ° Gary Knight ° Sek Puth ° Hsin Hwei ° Ker Munthit ° Nina Frankel ° Arnaud Le Brusque ° Robin Davies ° Terry McCarthy ° Andrew Lam ° Keith Erinberg ° Caroline Gluck ° M.P. Nunan ° Ben Kiernan ° David Ashley ° Joe Lerner ° Marid Hendrickson ° Kevin Barrington ° Judith Coburn ° Dawn Rooney ° Carol Clark ° Iain Guest ° A. Roulet ° Stefan Ellis ° Tom Petocz ° John Kreiger ° Brian Hansford ° Dith Pran ° Philippe Decaux ° Jean-Claude Pomonti ° Bob Klass ° Robert Reid ° Giovanni Diffidenti ° Sherri Prasso ° Patrick Hughes ° Harold Linde ° Rathavary Duong ° Craig Stefensen ° Chris Burslem ° Katrina Peach ° Martin Flitman ° Thierry Poncet ° Colin Gatenby ° Maureen Harris ° Hei Han Khiang ° John C. Brown ° HE Julio Jeldres ° Tim Page ° Dr. Lao Mong Hay ° Jon Ogden ° Dennis McNamara ° Thant Myint-U ° Jeff Widener ° Liz Bernstein ° Bob Maat ° Yeshua Moser ° Mikel Flamm ° Rosario Esposito ° Ian Baird ° Caoimhin O'Baroin ° Bill Burke ° Kao Kim Hourn ° Nori Said Mahdi ° Michael Sinclaire ° Beat Grunninger ° Sudhakaran ° Ed Fitzgerald ° Jamilla Paglioni ° Maeve Donelan ° Henri Locard ° Jason Fisher ° Andrea Hamilton ° Lya Badgley ° Raoul M. Jennar ° Michael Vickery ° Philip Blenkinsop ° Franck Nolot ° Julian Camp ° Carol Livingston ° Karen Emmons ° Ira Chaplain ° John Westhrop ° Kassie Neou ° Josefine Bergsten ° Richard Vogel ° Denise Heywood ° Alan Pearce ° Sarah Horner ° Chhang Song ° Richard McDonough ° Chap Ponnara ° Derek Francis ° Mark Crossland-Turgesen ° Ung Rotana ° Steve Heder ° Melissa Ward ° Stuart Washington ° Bronwyn Curran ° Hans Hagberg ° Paul Box ° Mark Dodd ° Robert Scott ° Frank McKinley Sokh ° Ou Neakry ° Tam Navabotr ° James Galloway ° Ian Osborn ° Liz Gilliland ° Anugraha Palan ° Saul Kaiserman ° Chourson Tiun ° Judith Kerr ° Iain Spooner ° Sam Sattana ° Francis Bot ° Ieng Mouly ° Maurizio Dioli ° Xavier D'Abzac ° Francis James ° Gary Way ° Boua Chantou ° Hann So ° Heng Sok Chheng ° Ros Sokhet ° Matthew Grainger ° Jason Barber ° Peng Jie ° Darren Whiteside ° David Chandler ° Sou Sophornnara ° Kevin Heffernan ° Craig Etcheson ° Kim Pisak ° Valerie Jourdan ° Milton Osborne ° Mark Eglin ° Imran Vittachi ° Christine Chaumeau ° Lindsay Murdoch ° Chris Fontaine ° Huw Watkin ° Hang Sopheap ° Brad Adams ° Chea Sotheacheath ° Peter Schier ° Robert Lang ° Marc Hoogsteyns ° Beat Richner ° Michelle-Ann Okolotowicz ° Sue Downie ° Fabien Dulphy ° Karen Hibbert ° Maja Wallengren ° Chunn Vireak ° Sheila Bruce ° Craig Fujii ° Sylvain Perrier ° Greg Davis ° Court Robinson ° Nic Dunlop ° Jane Buchanan ° Mathew Roberts ° Tom Fawthrop ° Sovannara Khem ° Tony Kevin ° Soizick Crochet ° Teppo Turkki ° Murat Karaali ° David Doran ° John Riley ° Hoo Siew-Sai ° Hong Sokheang ° Nick Lenaghan ° Michael Kennedy ° Basil Fernando ° Paulo Vescia ° Benjamin Quenelle ° Walter Bennett ° Anthony Ainsworth ° David McNally ° Tricia Fitzgerald ° Philippe Latour ° John McBeth ° Michael Popkin ° John Philipsborn ° Andrew Nette ° Brian Anderson ° Mu Sochua ° Kayte Deioma ° Bert Hoak ° Eleanor Mannikka ° Sally Virgoe ° Katya Robinson ° Um Sarin ° Eric Vohr ° Hassan Abu Kasem ° Claudia Rizzi ° Christine Leonard ° Annuska Derks ° Chea Vannath ° Mick Elmore ° Ly Chiv Rong ° Chhun Phaveng ° Din Merican ° Jamie Factor ° Frederic Amat ° Soly Vannpok ° Sovachanna Pou ° Hubert Colombeau ° Jennifer Smith ° Tali Levy ° Joanna White ° Richard Brody ° Roberta Thami ° Karin Bo Berquist ° Ky Sok Lim ° Laurence Picq ° Thierry Falise ° Bit Seanglim ° James Ross ° Arnoud Roux ° Kyra Dupont ° Sok Pov ° Philippe Hunt ° Balakrishnan Rajgopal ° Joshua Phillips ° Andy Eames ° Thomas Hammarberg ° Hurley Scroggins ° Mike Fowler ° Bill Craner ° Youk Chhang ° Cheat Boravudh ° Charles Dharapak ° Sun Hean ° Charles Graeber ° Khieu Kola ° Susan Postlewaite ° Masaru Goto ° Bruno L'Hote ° Al Rockoff ° Peter Grant ° Wally Santana ° Toru Yokota ° Sylvain Pichard ° Rob Elliot ° Pin Samkhon ° Sody Lay ° Rusden Quinn ° Peter Arfanis ° Ian Brown ° Jon Swain ° Ingrid Muan ° David van der Veen ° Prasit Sangrungrueng ° Joe Cochrane ° Ek Madra ° Thet Sambath ° Jurgen Peters ° Greg Muller ° Heng Sinith ° Mak Remissa ° Marie-Christine Courtes ° Laura Ngo ° David Mead ° Penny Edwards ° Micholas Cecil ° Patrick De Noirmont ° Ratha Panh ° Stephanie Rousseau ° Chor Sukunthea ° Benoit Gysembergh ° Chan Vitharin ° Giorgio Fabretti ° Rita Leistner ° Martin Collacott ° Joel Charny ° Laura McGrew ° Kenichi Kaku ° David Roberts ° Chuon Malis ° Tim Watson ° Phyllis Lye ° Adam Feinstein ° Bruno Carette ° Rob Drent ° Rich Garella ° Helen Jarvis ° Alain Guillemot ° James Rapicault ° Fabienne Luco ° Reed Brody ° Peter Eyre ° Jacques-Henri Zamo ° Philippe Lopez ° Michael Karnavas ° John Bennet ° Ira Dassa ° Gregoire Rochigneaux ° Jim Puckett ° Dylan Hendrickson ° Ian Taylor ° Jerome Favre ° John Shapiro ° Kenneth So ° Bora Touch ° Dina Chan ° David Ayres ° Yin Soeum ° Tang Chhin Sothy ° Chhoy Pisei ° Maggie Huff-Rousselle ° John Ciorciari ° Philippe Bataillard ° Chea Chheang ° Dan Woodley ° Kek Galabru ° Tom Hricko ° Derek Tonkin ° David Venables ° Cedric San Cloes ° Chheang Dany ° Dana Langlois ° Christophe Loviny ° Robert Turnbull ° Martin Godfrey ° Roland Neveu ° Bill Herod ° David Lewis ° Mai Rasmussen ° Ralph Wetterhahn ° Philip Jones Griffiths ° Kem Sovannara ° Victoria Bornas ° Chhay Yiheang ° Francois Tainturier ° Sok Sam Oeun ° Vissot ° Joe Walston ° Philip Short ° Tom Winter ° Emily Polack ° Karen Ingram ° Christophe Howath ° Prum Vanna ° Geoff Coyne ° Peter Wray ° Sean Sutton ° Shiho Kohara ° Erin Moriarty ° Mary Kay Magistad ° Felix Payne ° Mark Lioi ° Goethe Gough ° Arnoult Seveau ° Py Rath ° Yew Kew ° Son Chhay ° Keo Omaliss ° Nou Gon ° Virak Mony ° Nathan Thornburgh ° Chea Kroch ° Nathan Dexter ° Malcolm Innes-Brown ° Elizabeth Moorthy ° Ngin Chanrith ° Chan Chhavirak ° Bertil Lintner ° Man Meas ° Man Mean ° Man Moon ° James Shelton ° Samreth Sopha ° Bou Saroeun ° Eric Pape ° Peter Sainsbury ° Anthony Galloway ° Pok Sokundara ° Kunnika Vann ° James Eckardt ° Paul Miles ° Emilia Casella ° Martin Wikfalk ° Karin Tang ° Rodney Tasker ° Heng Sopheap ° Kim Soy Piseth ° Allen Myers ° Sarah Stephens ° Phelim Kyne ° Aun Pheap ° Sok Kong ° John Trezise ° James Whittle ° Anette Marcher ° Chuon Phally ° Patrick Mercier ° Peter Huff-Rousselle ° Stephen O'Connell ° Carsten Stormer ° Leonid Goncharov ° Pascal Plamondon ° Vong Sokheng ° Vann Chan Simen ° Tarek Bazley ° Lucy Corry ° Jason Powell ° Bruce Hutchinson ° Bill Bainbridge ° Rajesh Kumar ° Alex McManus ° Botumroath Keo Lebun ° Lucas Vosch ° Sue Malesevic ° Robert Carmichael ° Rachel Scollay ° Sophie Wilson ° Aaron Goodman ° Julie Colom ° Lon Nara ° Patrick Falby ° Damian Kahya ° Sharapat Sarsenova ° Caroline Green

The First Year 

Phnom Penh Post 

Friday, 19 July 2002  

By Sara Colm

It was January 1992. Two men were drinking and talking in their rattan chairs on the verandah of the Renakse Hotel, and invited me over. One of them, Nate, introduced the other to me by saying: "This is Michael. He's going to start the first English-language newspaper in Cambodia."

A few conversations later I found myself in the managing editor's chair of the Phnom Penh Post.
I had just moved to Cambodia to work as a stringer for the San Francisco Examiner after finishing the better part of a decade in San Francisco's Tenderloin district, where I had edited the neighborhood newspaper, the Tenderloin Times. The paper was published not only in English but in Khmer, Lao, and Vietnamese to serve the inner city's booming refugee population.

By abandoning the uncertainties of freelance journalism for the even more risky undertaking of helping to start up a newspaper in Cambodia, I joined a team of three: Michael, Kathleen, and Chap Narith. Despite the scarcity of staff persons on the masthead, there was plenty of support around town for the newspaper in the early days.

It seemed that just about everyone wanted to get something published in the first issue, with several of the local hacks competing for who was going to pen the gossip column, now institutionalized as The Gecko. Soon enough the Post was able to hire some reporters, with some of Cambodia's best journalists coming on board that first year, including Mang Channo, Moeun Chhean Nariddh, and Ker Munthit.

This was Cambodia before its first national elections, before the blossoming of an independent press, before a quarter-million refugees had been repatriated from Thai refugee camps. It was a place where you couldn't count on having electricity every day, even in Phnom Penh; where curfews were often imposed in the city at night, and where you took a chance of soldiers leveling their rifle or rocket launcher at you if didn't slow down for a checkpoint on the provincial highways.

International relief workers had only recently moved their offices from cramped quarters in the Monorom and Samaki (Le Royal) hotels to individual villas in Boeung Keng Kang. No one had mobile phones and getting through on a landline was difficult. The option was often a "human phone call": one visit to set up an appointment with a source and a second one to conduct the actual interview. Sending an international fax was problematic; email non-existent.

Putting out the first issue of the Post was very, very difficult. After Michael found an office for the Post, monks from Wat Botum were asked to come bless the newspaper and new offices. Shortly after the robed ones flicked holy water over all the new computer equipment one of us-I won't say who-mistakenly plugged the laser printer into the wrong voltage, destroying it.

A new printer-and stories-arrived just in time for us to publish the first edition in advance of our main competition, the Cambodia Times, making the Post Cambodia's first English-language paper to publish since 1975.

Setbacks that seemed huge at the time-brownouts and blackouts, equipment failures, bureaucratic obstacles in getting government approval to publish-were soon but dim memories as we slogged through rubber deadlines and all-night production binges.

Like many, I have a visceral memory of those first days and nights at the Post: the generator chanka-chanking away 23 hours a day, the noise ricocheting up the concrete stairway of the office to fill the entire building-and our crania-with sound; working during the peak of the hot season with the windows closed to keep the racket out and the smoke from several chain smokers in.

Newsgathering got only slightly easier after UNTAC arrived. Our press passes entitled us to ride the UN's Russian helicopters and C-130 transport planes for free, enabling day trips to Preah Vihear or Koh Nhek, but few of us traveled after dark if we could help it. Journalists gathered for press conferences by Khmer Rouge officials at the compound next to the Palace (now the site of Kantha Bopha hospital), or for UNTAC spokesperson Eric Fault's noon-time briefings, where UPI reporter Sue Downey pecked furiously away on her laptop as others dozed off their hangovers.

In the evenings the draw for journalists and UN workers was the No Problem Café or the Gecko Bar. This was Phnom Penh before the FCC and the Lucky Market; a time when the city's present-day restaurant district across the "Japanese Bridge" was a deserted muddy strip, accessible only by boat because the bridge was still shattered from a sapper raid during the war.

This was a time when the Post's offices housed not only computers, desks, and filing cabinets but also some of the paper's most important contributors and sources. Nate Thayer lived there, as did Michael, Kathleen, and Steve Heder. Foreign war correspondents from other eras often slung hammocks on the roof when they came to town, along with Montagnard leaders from North Carolina, who had come to meet FULRO fighters who had surrendered to the UN in Mondolkiri. Coming to work some mornings I'd see Khmer Rouge cadre squatting in the front yard of the office, waiting to talk to Nate.
While Cambodia-and the Phnom Penh Post-have both changed dramatically in the last decade, the reckless but gutsy vision that gave birth to the paper still remains. Let's hope that the Post remains among the vanguard of the country's press scene for another ten years.

Sara worked at the Post in 1992 as the paper's first managing editor. She is now a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch.

The Creation

The Phnom Penh Post

By Leo Dobbs

Friday, 19 July 2002 

I've only been a salaried worker of the Post for two months back in 1992, but I've felt a part of the newspaper from its conception. Michael didn't really have a clue about the trade and so when he was putting his vision together he kindly asked me to become a special adviser to the Post alongside my illustrious colleagues, Nate Thayer and James Pringle.

I can only remember giving him one piece of advice-go weekly. Well, he ignored that pearl. But I'm honoured to be a special adviser and wear it like a badge of honour. I contributed pieces to the first couple of issues gratis. A few of us did, excited at the thought that we were a part of history-the birth of a free Cambodian press.

Then Michael and Kathleen decided they'd hire my expertise on a monthly basis for $500. It was money for old rope-I didn't even have to come into the office but wrote my stories at home and faxed them in. Michael soon realised that this was a rather costly exercise and ended the arrangement after a few weeks. But I've contributed a bit here and there over the years, including Reuters stories of mine that the Post used in the mid 1990s.

I was also a major source for the Gecko column for a while. One small item was picked up by the wires and became front-page news in Malaysia-welcome press for the Post.

I've even acted in a movie filmed at the Post-playing the part of a sympathetic journalist in a documentary drama about the problem of landmines. It's been fun. I'll be drinking a toast to Michael, Kathleen, the Post and her staff past and present.

Thanks for the memories.

Leo's classic article "City grapples with urban growth" appeared in Volume 1, Issue 1, page 1. He now works for the Far Eastern Economic Review in Hong Kong.

Cambodian Peace Was Just a Day Away; Hun Sen's Coup Derailed Ceremony to Announce Truce With Khmer Rouge

Cambodian Peace Was Just a Day Away; Hun Sen's Coup Derailed Ceremony to Announce Truce With Khmer Rouge

The Washington Post

August 17, 1997 | Nate Thayer

After six weeks of secret meetings and a violent power struggle here in the jungles of northern Cambodia, a watershed moment in this country's tortured history was at hand.

The last holdouts of the Khmer Rouge, the radical Communist guerrillas who had killed more than 1 million people when they ruled Cambodia in the late 1970s and thousands more after their ouster, were giving up. They had deposed their notorious leader Pol Pot, effectively abandoned their war against Cambodia's government and had agreed to a formal "surrender" ceremony in which their forces would join the Cambodian army.

As a result of negotiations that Pol Pot violently opposed, but ultimately failed to prevent, it seemed that the end of the 35-year-old guerrilla movement was near -- and with it a termination of the civil war that has gripped the country for most of that time. Plans were made to announce the deal in a ceremony scheduled for July 6. The ceremony never took place. On that day, Second Prime Minister Hun Sen declared himself in full control of the government and announced the overthrow of his rival, First Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh. Apparently fearing that the peace agreement was a ploy to weaken him politically and militarily, Hun Sen had launched a coup July 5 to scuttle it. Now, Hun Sen's political opponents are waging armed resistance to his authoritarian rule, and there are signs that the Khmer Rouge remnants -- minus Pol Pot -- are reuniting to help them. In the tragic logic of Cambodian politics, an initiative that seemed only a day away from bringing long-awaited peace has instead brought more war. The story of the ill-fated peace initiative, played out in this Khmer Rouge jungle stronghold surrounded by land mines, emerges from documents and interviews with the government and Khmer Rouge negotiators involved in the talks. The Khmer Rouge officials were interviewed at the time of an extraordinary July 25 show trial in which an ailing Pol Pot was sentenced to "life imprisonment" by a tribunal made up of younger guerrilla leaders, who had revolted against him in June. Frail, white-haired and visibly traumatized, the former dictator hobbled on a bamboo cane as he was escorted away to house arrest. Government documents obtained by The Washington Post, signed by both the government and Khmer Rouge negotiators, show that on July 4 the guerrillas finally had agreed to integrate their troops into the army and recognize the government. The agreement, principally between Ranariddh and the Khmer Rouge's nominal leader Khieu Samphan, was the culmination of a score of secret meetings between Khmer Rouge leaders and government military negotiators. The talks proceeded against a backdrop of bitter divisions within both the government and the Khmer Rouge. Ranariddh and Hun Sen, steadfast political opponents, coexisted uneasily as co-prime ministers. The Khmer Rouge, meanwhile, had split a year ago when about half its fighters, followers of former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary in the western gem-mining center of Pailin, agreed to join the government army in a deal brokered by Hun Sen. Pol Pot, in firm control of the rest of the organization in its northern redoubt of Anlong Veng, bitterly opposed any peace negotiations. But many of his top commanders, seeing continued warfare as futile if they played no political role, wanted to strike a deal like the one agreed to in Pailin. Pol Pot's notoriety made him a major obstacle to such an accord. Between April 1975 and January 1979, when he ruled the country as head of a Khmer Rouge government, Pol Pot orchestrated a campaign of terror and mass murder that left more than 1 million Cambodians dead and the country in ruins. Formal negotiations with the Khmer Rouge were attempted last February, but Pol Pot loyalists ambushed a government team of 15 emissaries when its helicopter landed in Khmer Rouge territory. Ten of the government officials were executed and the rest were taken prisoner. Negotiations resumed on May 16, when a government military delegation met with Khmer Rouge officials led by Tep Kunnal, a senior political figure. A government negotiator who was at the meeting quoted Tep Kunnal as saying "he was in favor of national reconciliation and wanted a permanent cease-fire . . . to study whether we could work together to allow their territory and army to join the government." Tep Kunnal, a French-educated engineer and longtime Khmer Rouge diplomat and political strategist who joined the group in the early 1970s, has emerged as a top new leader. He served more than a decade in New York in the U.N. mission of the former Khmer Rouge government-in-exile and is knowledgeable about U.S. politics. A series of talks continued through the end of May and into early June, with government army negotiators repeatedly traveling by helicopter to Anlong Veng. "Pol Pot was informed of the negotiations," said a government negotiator. "At first Pol Pot said he was in favor of negotiations. But our side insisted strongly that Pol Pot must be completely out. So we discussed secretly with the new {Khmer Rouge} military leaders. So that was why Pol Pot was getting mad. We asked to exclude him." The guerrillas agreed in principle to integrate their army into the government armed forces, recognize the Cambodian constitution and formally disband their "provisional government," according to Khmer Rouge and government sources. On June 1, Ranariddh met Khieu Samphan, the nominal leader, secretly near the Thai border, according to Ranariddh. On June 5, the two sides met at the historic temples at Preah Vihear, where the guerrillas were preparing a site to announce the agreement. But that evening, Im Nguon, chief military representative on the negotiating team and chief of staff of the new Khmer Rouge army, called a senior government negotiator by mobile telephone "and asked me to work carefully on the issue secretly, because the negotiations were very sensitive," the government negotiator said. "I realized that this was a signal that there was a split within the Khmer Rouge. I realized that within the Khmer Rouge there was a split on negotiations. I didn't know who it was between, but {Im} Nguon was warning me." The next meeting was scheduled on June 10, "but there was a big problem," one of the government negotiators said. Khmer Rouge defense minister Son Sen and 12 members of his family and inner circle had been found murdered. It was the beginning of Pol Pot's attempt to scuttle the political negotiations through a violent purge of Khmer Rouge ranks. On June 12, top government military commander Gen. Nhek Bun Chhay and one other government colonel arrived by helicopter in Anlong Veng to find a Khmer Rouge at war with itself. Most of the Khmer Rouge negotiating team, including Tep Kunnal and Khieu Samphan, had been taken hostage by Pol Pot and his loyalists. Heavy fighting, involving mortars, artillery and small arms, could be heard just a couple of miles away, as the Khmer Rouge factions battled for control. Pol Pot's Hostages The Khmer Rouge negotiator, Im Nguon, reported that Pol Pot was holding hostage "all those who were in favor of national reconciliation." The Khmer Rouge said the situation was critical, and asked for immediate military support "to help liberate the hostages," according to one of the government negotiators. "After that we immediately took the helicopter to {the nearby government military base at} Samrong to bring ammunition -- mainly AK-47 ammunition but also heavier ammunition," including helicopters loaded with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and other heavy munitions, the government negotiator said. With Pol Pot and his loyalists on the run and the entire political leadership held hostage in nearby jungles, government negotiators moved fast. Nhek Bun Chhay flew in from Phnom Penh on June 12 and shuttled back and forth delivering ammunition before returning to the capital. It was that day, while fighting raged in the surrounding jungle, that Nhek Bun Chhay first met Khmer Rouge strongman Ta Mok, the 72-year-old, one-legged overall commander of the new Khmer Rouge who had joined the revolution in 1963 with Pol Pot -- and now had turned against him. "I place all my hope on you," he reportedly told Nhek Bun Chhay. "Please continue the negotiations for national reconciliation in order to bring trust between our two groups. I want to see peace in Cambodia and to not see any more killing," he was quoted as saying. The next day, June 13, the government team returned by helicopter. "It was a very tense meeting because the fighting was still going on, and they asked us to postpone the meeting because they had to solve their internal problems first," one of the negotiators said. The team left after four hours. When they returned four days later, they were told that "the situation had calmed down" and that some of the hostages had been rescued. "They said that Tep Kunnal and the others had been liberated and they would arrive back the next day, but political leader Khieu Samphan was still held and Pol Pot had not yet been captured," one of the negotiators said. On the next day, they returned and met with Tep Kunnal, who "expressed fear for his group because Khieu Samphan, their leader, was missing with Pol Pot," according to the government negotiator. Tep Kunnal said that Pol Pot's battle slogan was, "Fight! Fight! Fight! Struggle! Struggle! Struggle!" Meanwhile, back in Phnom Penh, there was another developing issue: the attitude of Cambodia's other prime minister, Hun Sen. Nhek Bun Chhay and other government military officials say Hun Sen was kept informed of daily developments by a committee of senior military and political officials, formed earlier this year to ease tensions between the two government camps headed by Ranariddh and Hun Sen. "Tep Kunnal . . . asked about Hun Sen's stance. What did Hun Sen say about the groups returning back to join the society?" recalled a government negotiator. The team replied that there "was no problem provided that he abandon Pol Pot, accept the constitution, and integrate their army." Strongman's Downfall As the days went on, Pol Pot's remaining loyalists, who had numbered only about 300, began to abandon him one by one. He had fled northeast toward the Thai border, and by June 19 was surrounded. When the man who had once wielded absolute power over 7 million people was finally captured, two of his soldiers were carrying him through the jungle in a green Chinese military hammock strung on a bamboo pole. With him were his wife, a woman in her 30s, their 12-year-old daughter, a niece, three other loyalists and Khieu Samphan as hostage. A witness to his capture said he was given oxygen immediately and seemed near death from exhaustion and trauma, which were exacerbating his serious heart disease and high blood pressure. A white Toyota Land Cruiser that the Khmer Rouge had seized from U.N. peacekeepers years earlier was sent to bring him back to Anlong Veng. On June 21, government negotiators returned to Anlong Veng, where they met a tired and drained Khieu Samphan. Nearby was a very sick 72-year-old man hooked to an intravenous drip with an oxygen mask over his face. When asked by government negotiators if they could take a picture of Pol Pot to prove to the world that he was alive and captured, Ta Mok erupted: "Let me throw the contemptible Pol Pot in a cage first, and then you can take his photograph!" "He was very angry," said a witness. Ta Mok reportedly told negotiators they could take Pol Pot away if they could find a suitable place in exile for him, but no specific country was mentioned. From that point, the peace negotiations moved more quickly. On June 20, during an official visit by Thai Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh to Phnom Penh, Ranariddh announced that Pol Pot was under arrest and Khieu Samphan would agree to surrender. The comments were met with widespread skepticism by diplomats and others, coming on the heels of similar claims over recent months that had proved unfounded. A military subcommittee was formed to hammer out the details of integrating the guerrillas into the government army. Nhek Bun Chhay demanded that the Khmer Rouge announce its support of the Cambodian constitution over their clandestine radio broadcasts. The Khmer Rouge prepared a draft statement agreeing to support the constitution, turn over their army and territory to formal central government command and recognize the role of King Norodom Sihanouk as sovereign of the nation. But the government negotiators spent days hammering out wording and demanding the deletion of vitriolic language condemning Hun Sen -- particularly frequent references to the second prime minister as "contemptible" and a "puppet" of Vietnam. Hun Sen defected from the Khmer Rouge in 1977. Vietnam installed him as Cambodia's foreign minister after its invasion toppled Pol Pot in 1979 and later elevated him to prime minister. "We said to them to you must stop using these words. . . . We asked specifically to stop using `puppet' . . . in their language on the draft announcement to surrender to the government," said one of the chief government negotiators. On June 22, the Khmer Rouge reiterated a request for assurances that they be allowed to keep the same military arrangement in Anlong Veng that was given to earlier defectors. In those cases, the military units changed into government uniforms and pledged allegiance to the king, government and constitution, but were not forced to disperse from their territory. Nhek Bun Chhay agreed. And it was agreed that the former Khmer Rouge, who now called themselves the National Unity Party, could join the National United Front coalition of anti-Hun Sen political opposition parties, which had been formed earlier this year in preparation for elections scheduled for 1998. Request for Amnesty On June 29, Khmer Rouge leader Ta Mok met the government negotiators over lunch at Anlong Veng. Ta Mok complained about attempts to bring him to an international court on charges of crimes against humanity, citing the royal amnesty granted to former Khmer Rouge official Ieng Sary after his defection last year. "Now Ieng Sary has already been given amnesty by the king, and Ieng Sary was number three in the command structure of the Khmer Rouge. But I was number five. So if the number three is amnestied, why not me who was less powerful?" complained the commander who has been accused of leading major purges of political enemies during the Khmer Rouge's years in power. "From the very beginning of the struggle to now I have never issued an order to kill anyone," Ta Mok contended, according to sources who were present. "All orders were decided by Pol Pot alone. Pol Pot made all decisions with absolute dictatorship!" The question of Ta Mok's fate was left unresolved. A formal surrender ceremony was tentatively set for June 30, "but the problem was lack of helicopter transportation for all the journalists and diplomats" to the remote jungle base, which is surrounded by thousands of land mines and is unreachable by road. In any event, a few small issues remained. By July 3 both sides had hammered out all details of the agreements, "and we flew back to Phnom Penh to report to the prime minister that everything was finished," one of the government negotiators said. A statement that was to be announced on the radio and read by Khieu Samphan at a press conference on July 6 was signed by both sides, including Ranariddh on behalf of the government. "On 4 July we flew back to Anlong Veng and we informed the Khmer Rouge to proceed because we got the final agreement from Prime Minister Ranariddh," said one of the chief government negotiators. The surrender ceremony was to be held at the Preah Vihear temple site, with diplomats and journalists flown in to witness the historic occasion. It never happened. Early on the morning of July 5, Hun Sen launched his coup d'etat in Phnom Penh, targeting Nhek Bun Chhay and inflicting a total military and political defeat on Ranariddh's forces in the capital within 48 hours. The chance for a negotiated peace, only 24 hours away, was gone. Back to Square One Ranariddh's forces are now holed up in jungle sanctuaries, and Hun Sen, in control of the government, is sending thousands of troops and heavy weapons to the areas in an attempt to subdue them. The forces loyal to Ranariddh have begun to form a military coalition with former Khmer Rouge fighters, both from Anlong Veng and from the other faction that surrendered last year. "I hope that ASEAN {the Association of Southeast Asian Nations} and the international community will be aware that our government was not able to take Anlong Veng militarily, in a series of major offensives since 1993," Ranariddh said in an interview in Bangkok last week. "Now it is Hun Sen alone. My priority is diplomatic and political struggle, but I have clearly warned the U.S. if you do not help me put pressure on Hun Sen, you will have civil war, a bloody civil war, and you cannot avoid having the participation of the Khmer Rouge." He added, "The Khmer Rouge are coming back, but they are coming back as nationalists, patriots, not as killers. It is not fair that they accuse Ranariddh. It is Hun Sen who has brought back the war."

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Coup debate III: PPP Letters to the Editor re: July 1994 Coup Attempt

"Coup debate 111"

Phnom Penh Post

Letter to the Editor

Friday, 23 September 1994

Dear Sir,

Unfortunately, Chris Horwood, in his entirely justifiable 'attack' on Phnom Penh Post (3/17, 26 Aug-8 Sept, p.9), did not say enough, and did not say it right, permitting Nate Thayer to respond disingenuously, further misleading PPP readers - not the first time this has happened. The question is not whether Chakrapong and Sin Song were guilty, or whether Thayer thinks they were innocent. What comes through in Thayer's report is that he is more sympathetic to them than to the government, even if they were guilty. The purpose behind Thayer's article was to discredit the CPP, and this was also the purpose of his interview with Sar Kheng, which he mischievously, brought up as a balance against his coverage of Chakrapong.

Questions? Thayer's first sentences expressed disbelief in the government line on the "alleged coup", 'reporting', without the slightest evidence, that it involved "at the least .. powerful elements of the security forces", an attribution which excludes both Chak-rapong and Sin Song. The first sentence in his second paragraph, that " more questions were raised than answered by the govern-ment's explanation", was also without evidence other than his own speculations, and a dishonest swipe at the government. And, the coup "has exposed a traumatic - and dangerous - split in the Cambodian people's Party", again without explanation to enlighten PPP readers. Need I go on ? Virtually every paragraph, if not every sentence, contains an editorial; and I would have no objection in principle, although I might still argue against Thayer's reasoning, if his piece had been presented as a PPP editorial, or Op-Ed, but not as front-page news.

As news it was impermissible to speculate that "the coup was organized at the highest level by dominant figures within the CPP", and sourcing to "some intelligence analysts and government officials" is without value, particularly after Thayer had named government officials with a variety of opinions. Equally slippery was to suggest it was because the CPP "are unused to dispute or dissent", as though they were the only Cambodian faction with that weakness.

One point neglected by Thayer is equally revealing of his purpose. Nowhere in his front page article, nor even in the page 8 article which directly touched on the subject, did he mention that Chakrapong and Sin Song have been sulking for months because they were dropped from the CPP lists of victorious election candidates in May 1993 and have been trying ever since to regain seats in the National Assembly.

What Thayer did say about the events of May-June last year is even more shady than his speculations about the coup this July, and the disingenuosness goes right to the 'highest level' of PPP editorship. Thayer says that the June 1993 secession led by Chakrapong and Sin Song, following their dismissal by the CPP, "had the covert backing of their Cambodian People's Party leaders - including Hun Sen, Chea Sim, and Sar Kheng". This is the umpteenth time Thayer has written this, without, so far as I have seen, presenting any evidence. The accusation in fact goes back to a confidential analysis by Stephen Heder under his Untac cover, and it had to be confidential because it was so lacking in substance. At the time I prepared a counter analysis, distributed on June 24-25 1993 to PPP and to other journalists, Embassies and Untac offices.

Thayer has ignored the counter argument, and his employers allow him to get away with it, thereby misleading readers like Horwood, who know no better than to repeat with Thayer that the "secession movement.. played a vital role in forcing Funcinpec to accept a greater involvement in government of the defeated CPP".

On this subject Thayer, supported by Michael Hayes, has been exercising self-censorship every time he puts pen to paper.

- Michael Vickery, Penang.

Coup debate II: letters to the Editor; PPP Coup detat 1994

"Coup detat ll"

Phnom Penh Post

letters to the Editor

Friday, 09 September 1994

0

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Dear Sir,

R eading the debate between Chris Horwood and Nate Thayer on the subject of the latter's reporting of the July coup attempt, I couldn't help feeling that Horwood came out of the tussle with more marks for logic than Nate Thayer.

Basically, Thayer scored a few quick points defending himself against an imaginary accusation of overt bias; but be seemed to miss the substance of the charge, which was that the bias was covert and arose from a lack of balance in the paper's overall coverage of the situation. This charge wasn't answered at all. The point here is that bias is as much a matter of what's left out as of what is actually printed.

It's true that Nate Thayer's Regent Hotel story made gripping reading. It might have been ideal in a Western weekly paper of 50 pages. But it's questionable whether it was really good journalism in the context of a paper the size of the Phnom Penh Post and in that context it may be pertinent to question the judgment, in this case, of the editor as much as the author. Mayn't it?

Chris Horwood is certainly not the only reader to feel that the issue was perhaps a bit of an ego-trip for the reporter. In the light of this, the rather arrogant and sarcastic tone of Thayer's reply to Horwood's letter was not very well judged.

One felt that although Thayer certainly writes a good story, he's happiest when he's at the center of it.

I was also surprised that Thayer, in an attempt to be snooty to Horwood, should have revealed that he doesn't know the difference between the professions of demining and project management.

And Thayer's accusation of 'pomposity' definitely had the ring of the proverbial pot calling the kettle black.

Brevity is the soul of wit. And it has to be admitted that Thayer, for all his other journalistic talents, can sometimes be just a teeny bit long-winded.

- Colin Alfred, freelance educational materials writer, Regent Hotel, Phnom Penh.

"Post Attacked": Letters to the Editor PPP on July'94 Failed Coup

"Post Attacked"

Phnom Penh Post

Letters to the Editor

Friday, 26 August 1994

Dear Sir,

Referring to the report on "Political Killing raises fears" written by Ms Anugraha Palan dated May 20 - June 2, 1994, the Press Department of the Ministry for Information would like to clarify the following points:

The Royal Government of Cambodia which emerged from UN supervised elections, is a legal and legitimate one with neither armed forces nor police, nor militia men belonging to any political party. In fact, Ang Noun, a commune militia man and two other policemen, Srey Touch and Som Ra, were not involved in the killing of Mr. Ang Kuoy and his nephew, Yin Nhath, according to the report from Mr. Kun Kim Teng, the governor of Kampot province and a member of Funcinpec. Me. Ang Nuon who tried to intervene that incident, which took in a religious ceremony in Boch Ktnum village, was wounded, while the other two were killed by a group of 15 Khmer Rouge soldiers led by a leader known as "Nhanh" who based in Sen Han headquarter in Kampot province.

The distortion of the news of killings into political issue is not helpful in the current atmosphere.

The reporter should have, at least, conducted some basic inquiries with the police now comprising both people coming from former Funcinpec and CPP.

It is pity that the Phnom Penh Post could not have demonstrated greater professionalism.

Leng Sochea, press director, Information Ministry.

Anugraha Palan replies: The report was based on independent investigations by three different human rights organizations, all of which gave the version of events as reported in the Post.

Dear Sir,

In the 15-28th July issue of the Phnom Penh Post the second anniversary of the paper, the Editor-in chief, Michael Hayes assessed the Post as having an exemplary regard as a 'responsible' paper taking great pains to provide accurate accounting of events. Yet this issue was the same that reported extensively on the alleged coup attempt of the 2nd of July with a definite and disturbing bias.

Over five pages of reporting were devoted to Nate Thayer's interviews assessments and personal experiences in relation to the events of early July. While the alleged coup attempt does raise serious unanswered questions, and Chakrapong and Sin Song may have been used as scapegoats in more complex political maneuv-ring, one was left with the strong impression that the Post and particularly this reporter were not only cynical of government claims but effectively promoted the innocence of Chakrapong and Sin Song. The amount of space and prominence of position in the paper given over to the Chakrapong interview and the highly personalized story of the Prince's arrest in the Regent were unjustified and unbalanced.

We were offered a full page of statements from Chakrapong allowing him to present his case, argue with passion his innocence, discuss democracy and repeatedly criticize the government. This from someone with notoriously few democratic credentials and who seriously crippled the successful resolution of last year's elections by leading the seven province secessionist movement in June '93.

He has also, with Sin Song, been widely suspected of using violence and intimidation in the political process. According to some analysts this sessionist movement and other strong-arm tactics, played a vital role in forcing Funcinpec to accept a greater involvement in government of the defeated CPP. An uneasy alliance which now characterizes the political factionalism in government.

Thayer's question (p age 2 interview); "So you think that this government has shown that it is incapable of dealing with the problems and needs be changed" is entirely 'leading' and performs the dual purpose of illustrating the reporters own bias while offering Chakrapong another platform from which to launch further criticism of the current government.

In a revealing article; again by Thayer but short and printed on Page 8, King Sihanouk makes it clear that the real issue for Chakrapong is one of personal power not democracy. Surely for an issue of this importance the Post relied far too much on the writings and personal experiences of one reporter. Thayer seems to have a disproportional monopoly in the Post on high-profile issues such as these.

Many of us are deeply concerned about human rights and justice issues in Cambodia. Journalists and the Post have become increasingly concerned about press freedoms and I feel they have used the alleged coup attempt to vent frustrations. We must step back and remember the recent history of this country and the conditions from which Cambodia is trying to emerge. Democratic elections took place against high odds and huge numbers of Cambodians voted. Democracy will come slowly - any study of the development of democracies in 'western countries' as well as emergent democracies in Africa etc will illustrate the huge difficulties. Governments must be rigorously checked and controlled but also given time and support. Concerning the alleged coup attempt I felt the Post neither covered the affair 'responsibly' nor did it perform good journalism.

Chris Horwood, project director MAG. This letter was submitted in a personal capacity.

Nate Thayer replies: Horwood accuses the Post of "a definite and disturbing bias" in reporting. However, he fails to provide one piece of evidence to substantiate his contention.

He says we "effectively promoted the innocence of Chak-rapong and Sin Song" and added the space given to Chakrapong was "unjustified and unbalanced".

His only citation to prove these allegations was another article by me in the same issue which he said was "revealing" in proving his point because it "makes it clear that the real issue for Chakrapong is one of personal power not democracy."

Let me see if I have it right: his only "proof" of biased reporting by me is to cite an article in the same issue, written by me, that quotes people taking a contrary view to other articles in the same issue written by me.

The nut of his argument appears to be his objection, in his words, to the Post "allowing [Chakrapong] to present his case" because Horwood doesn't agree with his politics.

It is not only good journalism, but our duty as an independent newspaper, to present views of those accused of trying to topple a government. Whether Horwood or the Post agrees with Chakrapong is irrelevant.

Horwood fails to mention that we gave an equal amount of space to Sar Kheng as Chakrapong, also in an unexpurgated interview format.

It seems Horwood believs the Post should exercise self-censorship against people prominent in the news whose views we disagree with. This would be biased and unethical.

I am grateful that he has chosen a profession other than journalism, so we are saved from having to think of what facts he decided to leave out because he didn't agree with the politics. I would hope that Horwood exercises more logic and less intellectual shortcuts in his chosen profession of demining than he has in this rather confusing and pompous attempt at political punditry.

...and praised...

Dear Sir,

Your newspaper is doing some great things. Keep up the good work!

- J. Ken Bingham, Professor of Law, Institute of Economics

Pol Pot and The Art of War: By Craig Etcheson

Pol Pot and The Art of War

[Dr Craig Etcheson is executive director of the Campaign to Oppose the Return of the Khmer Rouge. This article originally appeared in the Phnom Penh Post.]

Wednesday, September 8, 1993

By Craig Etcheson

Everyone seems to agree the Khmer Rouge are finished, or are they? It is well to recall that Cambodia is covered with graves of those who underestimated Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge (KR).

Nonetheless, the majority view is that the danger has passed. Prince Sihanouk called the election "an historic defeat" for the KR. In the US, secretary of state Warren Christopher termed the elections "the triumph of democracy", and the assistant secretary Winston Lord opines that the KR are now "manageable". Clinton administration intelligence officials are giving background briefings with the message, "The Khmer Rouge are in disarray". Mr Twinning mocks them: "I hope they like the forest".

Perhaps the most systematic exposition of this view to appear in public was Nate Thayer's recent piece titled "Whither the Khmer Rouge?". Thayer argues the KR are isolated and vulnerable, "with no allies they can rely on for the first time since 1970". They are "incapable of remobilising an army" and consequently unable to "seize control of more territory". Abandoned by their FUNCINPEC allies as a liability, they "may find themselves a target of an internationally supported military campaign to destroy them".

As the subhead of Thayer's piece proclaims, it sounds like the end for the KR. And perhaps this is exactly what Pol Pot wishes to be perceived at the present time. Nearly 3000 years ago, the Chinese General Sun Tzu wrote in his classic treatise, The Art of War, "All warfare is based on deception".

After all, as Thayer himself points out, the Khmer Rouge retain significant strengths. "Their organisation remains essentially intact ... and they have sufficient 'popular strength' to sustain them." "They have competent administration and military" in an "autonomous zone of control" covering at least one-fifth of the country.' These zones include "areas rich in rice, gems, timber and safe supply lines to willing commercial partners". Moreover, their armed forces have recently grown, and have received new weapons from Thai generals, as confirmed by US, UN and other intelligence sources.

Compare this to their situation of utter defeat, isolation and exile in 1979-1980, and one can argue that the Khmer Rouge have actually made excellent progress. Yet the wise general deceives. As Sun Tzu says, "Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance". But this is not all. Pol Pot is a political strategist par excellence.

If Pol Pot had relied on the military strength of his party alone, he would never have come to power in the first place. The Khmer Rouge originally gained power in 1975 by forming a united front with th overthrown god-king Norodom Sihanouk, thus winning the allegiance of Cambodia's peasants. The identity of the Khmer Rouge leaders and the existence of their communist party was kept absolutely secret. The Khmer Rouge then systematically liquidated royalist politicians and soldiers until Pol Pot had secured undisputed control.

This time around, Pol Pot decided to stick with a winning strategy. After the overthrow of his murderous regime by Vietnam in 1979, Pol Pot declared that his communist party had been dissolved, he was retiring form politics to become a school teacher, and the Khmer Rouge were adopting capitalism. The Khmer Rouge then formed a united front with Prince Sihanouk to make war on the Cambodian government. The scenario would make a delightful farce were it not so predictable, and so lethal.

According to a defector, Pol Pot instructed Khmer Rouge military officers in 1988 that "The fruit remains the same; only the skin has changed". A captured Khmer Rouge document dated January 10, 1992, emphasises, "We must concentrate first on accelerating the infiltration of category one forces in order to gradually establish in advance the prerequisites" for the takeover of his hapless allies. Again, the Khmer Rouge have been liquidating royalists in order to seize control of the front.

Prince Sihanouk remembers what the Khmer Rouge did to his National United Front in the 1970s. Sihanouk resigned as the leader of the royalists before the Paris treaty, and now says, "There are Khmer Rouge who occupy important positions in FUNCINPEC. They [have become] chiefs of bureaus, heads of provincial organisations. There are apparently assassins among these Khmer Rouge."

As the Khmer Rouge specialist Jacques Bekaert observes, "In the zones controlled by the former resistance ... everything is in the hands of the military and people are executed almost every day for a variety of reasons". Bekaert adds, "A large number of soldiers belonging to FUNCINPEC or the KPNLF have vanished". The Khmer Rouge military provides "security" in these so-called "non-communist liberated zones."

UN and other intelligence sources indicated that royalist military units have now been assigned logistics functions by the Khmer Rouge. FUNCINPEC units are responsible for transporting ammunition and other military stores from their Thai military suppliers to the front line Khmer Rouge combat units. The fact that Pol Pot has entrusted royalists with such a crucial role indicates the Khmer Rouge have completed the task of establishing operational control over significant portions of the royalist military command.

The few surviving FUNCINPEC commanders loyal to Cambodian royalty realised the untenability of their position. Five of them defected to the People's Party this year.

On the political front, the Khmer Rouge long ago adopted a "leopard spot" strategy of infiltrating cadre into villages for clandestine political work. This tactic has multiple objectives, including providing intelligence, propagandising the population, causing disarray in the enemy's rear areas and infiltrating enemy political organisations. Tens of thousands of people from KR camps in Thailand are now dispersed across Cambodia; how many still work for the KR?

All this may account for the fact that the KR did not seriously disrupt the election, as was widely predicted. Instead, they brought out their followers with instructions to vote for FUNCINPEC. The tactic has been exceedingly successful. Respected specialists on the Khmer Rouge such as Raoul Jenner and Ben Kiernan warn that the Khmer Rouge tactic of infiltrating agents into allied and opposition parties alike — a tactic used most effectively in the past — is most likely still in use by Pol Pot. How many officials of FUNCINPEC, or for that matter the People's Party, are Khmer Rouge agents?

Sun Tzu says, "To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill". Perhaps the most significant strength of the Khmer Rouge is one that has escaped all comment in the West. The greatest obstacle to a Khmer Rouge return to power has been the State of Cambodia. That obstacle has been swept away, replaced by a weak coalition government. The victorious FUNCINPEC is largely manned by the personnel who have been in exile for a quarter century and have no experience in governing. The division of power between the People's Party and FUNCINPEC is tenuous at best. Such a government is extremely vulnerable to subversion and black measures, Pol Pot's speciality.

For the last 18 months, the greatest threat to the KR has been the international spotlight. Recently, Pol Pot has begun making nice noises toward the UN, offering to integrate his army, open his zones and become a "simple party". He might even stop attacking UN positions. Of course, such negotiations will take time and by then UNTAC will be gone. After UNTAC departs Cambodia, the issue will quickly fade from international attention. Another successful peacekeeping mission. As Sun Tzu says, "What is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy's strategy".

But let us not forget the Khmer Rouge still maintain that there are 3 million hereditary enemies in Cambodia to be exterminated. Promises by politicians like Australia's Senator Evans that the international community would invade to beat back a second Khmer Rouge attempt at genocide are laughable. Who would provide such troops? Australia? France? The US? Perhaps Japan? A brief look at the domestic political conditions in these states reveals the absurdity of the claim.

So, where does the balance lie? Given the facts, what one might term "Thayer Thesis" — that the KR are finished — is certainly plausible. FUNCINPEC and the KPLNF are now allied with the People's Party. Weapons shipments from China have been reduced or eliminated. Soon, KR diplomat Thioun Prasith may even be forced out of Cambodia's United Nations mission in New York. It could be the end of Pol Pot.

However, equally plausible is the contrary thesis, let's call it the "Sun Tzu Thesis", that Pol Pot is better positioned today for a return to power than at any time since 1979. The Vietnamese are gone. The "puppet regime" is defeated, replaced by an unstable conglomeration. Pol Pot still has his army, and still has highly placed friends in Thailand and China. He is wealthy. He has hugely expanded his territory and population. He has deeply infiltrated the opposing parties, and again has both overt and covert operatives in Phnom Penh. And he has convinced most of the world that the Khmer Rouge threat is no more. Sun Tzu would be proud. For, as he says in The Art of War, "He who lacks foresight and underestimates his enemy will surely be captured by him".

[Dr Craig Etcheson is executive director of the Campaign to Oppose the Return of the Khmer Rouge. This article originally appeared in the Phnom Penh Post.]

PPP Letters to the Editor: "Khmer Rouge Chic "

"Khmer Rouge Chic"

Phnom Penh Post

Friday, 26 February 1993 

Letters to the Editor

By Michael Vickery

 

The Post editor was kind enough to take the heat of poor Nate Thayer in answer to Phil Schuler's accusation of 'cream puff journalism' (Feb. 3 Post 2/3), But I fail to see why inclusion of the questions would have mitigated the impression. Didn't Thayer write the piece as published?

In addition to the list of names Thayer says he has been called, there was 'Khmer Rouge-chic' which I applied to some of his writing (see Indochina Issues 93, August 1991), and he attracts those names because of a persistence in treating the Khmer-Rouge as just ordinary guys with good intentions.

He asks for it again in his photo (Post, same issue, p.6) of a gentle Khmer Rouge soldier tenderly offering a smoke to a Vietnamese soldier, presumably a prisoner, when there is good information that the usual fate of captured Vietnamese was death.

In his latest article, "What role for Khmer Rouge", he quotes Pol Pot's talk of February 1992, in which he should have seen that Khmer Rouge obsession with the 'Youn' was a major theme. The Khmer Rouge imagine (and since it was a secret talk to his own cadres I assume it is what Pol Pot believes, not propaganda for affect) that the 'Youn' control Cambodia, that a 'Youn' army is what they are fighting, that there is now a U.S.-'Youn' alliance with the U.S. pressuring China, through human rights issues, to join the 'Youn', and that the object of the Khmer Rouge is to liberate Cambodia from the 'Youn'.

Those are the paranoid schizophrenics who are causing such international hand-writing over how to bring them into the 'peace process'. The present Khmer Rouge leadership should be kept out and isolated until they are no longer a threat, in particular because of their Vietnam policy which promises to keep Indochina in conflict for years ahead. This is not what the international community likes to think of, for anti-Vietnamese prejudice is widespread, not only among Khmer chauvinists, and the Khmer Rouge have played a useful role which several great powers may think should not go unrewarded.

Some heat should nevertheless be taken off Nate Thayer, for he is only following a trendy line which parallels the 'peace process' and is clearly reflected in the Paris Accords and the draft documents which preceded them, all designed to treat the Khmer Rouge as ordinary people in order to use them against the State of Cambodia. Observant readers like Schuler should focus their attention and ire on the entire UNTAC operation which is destroying Cambodia and giving new opportunities to an unreconstructed Khmer Rouge leadership, precisely as Pol Pot predicted in his remarks of February 1992.

An Interview with Khmer Rouge Leader Khieu Samphan

An Interview with Khmer Rouge Leader Khieu Samphan

Phnom Penh Post

Thursday, 27 August 1992

By Nate Thayer

The following are excerpts from an interview in early August between Khieu Samphan, president of Democratic Kampuchea, and the Phnom Penh Post.

On Working with UNTAC

Our position remains clear. As long as the fundamental issues are not resolved, other issues cannot be resolved. If we do not implement the Paris agreement to force Vietnam to withdraw, there will be no peace in Cambodia, there will be no national reconciliation, and there will be no neutral political environment necessary to hold elections.

We have clearly said that the most important thing is the implementation of the Paris agreement in regard to the SNC [Supreme National Council]-the sole legitimate source of authority in Cambodia. If the SNC remains without power and means, then UNTAC-either consciously or unconsciously-is cooperating with the Phnom Penh regime and the elections will certainly be held within the framework of the regime set up by the Vietnamese. There can be no neutral political environment under such conditions to hold an election-the result of which would be to rubberstamp the Vietnamese occupation.

We will never accept this and cannot participate in elections or political activity under such conditions. If these two key provisions are not implemented, then the Party of Democratic Kampuchea cannot have a neutral political environment in order to have elections. If such a situation continues, we will continue to do as we are doing now.

I also told Akashi clearly that our own proposal is only one proposal. We would consider any proposal that would allow the SNC to play its role. We continue to believe that through consultation and dialogue, we will be able to break the current deadlock.

No Desire to Return to Power

If we look at the past nine months, we can see that this is the main trend: the western powers' thinking is now to get rid of the forces of the party of Democratic Kampuchea. They try to keep in place the Phnom Penh regime and the Vietnamese forces, to use these forces to try to get rid of the Khmer Rouge.

Allow me to inform the western powers that we do not entertain any idea whatsoever to return to power. If we look at the provisions of the Paris agreement, there is no provision to allow us to return to power.

The Paris agreement calls for the withdrawal of foreign forces and entrusts UNTAC to organize and supervise elections in a neutral political environment. We will respect these elections and have no desire to return to power.

The big western powers should ask [the opinion of] Cambodians, including those living in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Those Cambodians will tell them that, while they do not agree with the policies between 1975 and 1978, they do not agree that the Khmer Rouge should be eliminated.

All Cambodians want national reconciliation, and on this point they support the Democratic Kampuchea party. This does not mean they join our party; but they don't want us eliminated.

Relations with China

In concrete terms we no longer receive assistance from China. I have seen [Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Xu Dunxin] a few days ago. He conveyed to me the position of China, and tried to impress upon me that we should enter into Phase II. He said that [Democratic Kampuchea's] two key provisions are reasonable and correct, but that we should enter into Phase II and discuss the matter at the same time. I conveyed to China that we want the two key provisions implemented first.

I think you understand that China has no interest in supporting the party of Democratic Kampuchea in violation of the peace agreement. China needs to have good relations with the west in all fields-trade, diplomatic, and economic. China also wants to have good relations with Vietnam, now that there is no more Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and in a situation where the socialist community is disappearing.

On Vietnamese Settlers

Recently [U.S. Chief-of-Mission] Charles Twining spoke of his worst nightmare, seeing Vietnamese corpses floating down the Mekong River in Phnom Penh. UNTAC must understand the urgency of resolving the problem of the Vietnamese settlers, who are part of Vietnam's occupation plan, which continues to swallow Cambodia.

If the Cambodian people cannot see a peaceful resolution to the problem, they will seek other means. So the nightmare that Twining was talking about might become a reality. What are the consequences, we cannot foresee.

If we raise these issues, people blame us for creating the problem. But the problem exists, it is not us who invented it. It is very clear that as long as Vietnamese forces are not withdrawn, the Cambodian people will never accept this.

As long as Vietnamese settlers continue to plunder the land of the Cambodian people, the Cambodian people will never accept such a situation. Vietnam continues to occupy Cambodia through the regime they set up. At this point the western powers do not see this-the Vietnamese experts on overt and covert warfare in all fields continue to direct Phnom Penh.

We agree that the question of the Vietnamese settlers should be left for the new Cambodian government, after elections, to tackle.