Nate Thayer

"Cambodia needs to move on"-Malaysian Star

From The Malaysian Star
17th February 2000

Cambodia needs to move on

TO hear Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy tell it, every
Cambodian is either a drug addict, prostitute or corrupt. To hear
foreign correspondent Nate Thayer tell it, there's no hope for the
country either. Chief News Editor CHUA YEW KAY heard all kinds of
stories--there were stories of optimism and hope as well--during a
recent trip to a country once notorious for its "killing fields."
Here, he tries to clear the confusing and conflicting accounts he
heard about the country.

NATE Thayer, Far Eastern Economic Review correspondent and self-made
expert on Cambodia, made no bones about what he thought of the country
he has been reporting on for 15 years.

"It's a virtual dictatorship by any definition," he declared.

Thayer, who made a name for himself with his scoops on the Khmer Rouge
and the first interview with Pol Pot in 20 years since the end of the
genocidal regime, could not find anything positive to say about the
country.

"I am negative because everything about this place is negative.

"I thought I would know this country better but the more I learn the
less I know."

He wasn't the only one confused. Even more so were his
audience--senior journalists and editors from Asian and German
publications. Among them were also Cambodian media people.

The occasion was the third Asian-German Editors Forum organised by the
Konrad Adenauer Foundation to promote a free and responsible press in
South-East Asia.

And while the Cambodian media representatives called the Cambodian
media among the freest, if not the freest, in Asia, Thayer wasn't so
sure.

"There are stories that ought to see print but aren't published
because the journalists fear for their lives, the lives of their
families, or their livelihood," he said.

There is a great likelihood of having a hand grenade lobbed into your
home or your office ransacked for running a story someone does not
like.

It may take some stretch of the imagination, but it is also a form of
freedom of expression, according to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen,
although he didn't say it in so many words.

The Government is all for freedom of expression, he said.

The media can carry anything it wants as long as it's fair and
balanced, but the politicians also have the right to reply.

Nevertheless, while the Cambodian media feels that it is moving
towards even greater freedom, it rated itself quite lowly when asked
how influential it has been in shaping the national agenda.

After Hun Sen had given a rosy picture of Cambodia to the journalists
at the Hotel Le Royal in Phnom Penh, oppositionist Sam Rainsy painted
a dark and gloomy scene.

"Don't let the grand surroundings of this hotel fool you into thinking
the rest of Cambodia is like this," the gentle-looking Rainsy said.

Then he proceeded to check a list of what was wrong with his country.
Everything was wrong, it seemed--from the political structure and
social fabric to the environment.

He reeled off grim statistics--80% of Cambodians were poor farmers;
95% of exports came from overdependence on the textile/garment
industry; international assistance accounted for 40% of the national
Budget; the country was 10 times poorer than next-door neighbour
Thailand in terms of Gross Domestic Product per capita but spent 30
times less on education and health than Thailand.

For someone who aspires to the premiership, Rainsy offered no firm
solutions to his long list of problems, to the disappointment of his
listeners.

Even Thayer, who considers Rainsy the person most suitable to replace
Hun Sen, sees no hope of the opposition leader ever making it to the
top post given the current political circumstances.

He is disgusted, and rightly so, by what the Khmer Rouge did during
their bloody reign from 1975 to 1979, when up to two million
Cambodians were massacred.

His writings about certain Cambodian personalities and what he claims
are proof of the corrupt system--from airport immigration to the
highest political office--have earned him threats and lawsuits.

While he grapples with the present Cambodia and what he sees as its
bleak future, Thayer has difficulty burying the past.

He remains frustrated with that final interview he had with Pol Pot in
October 1997, the first international journalist to do so since the
man was driven from power 18 years earlier.

Pol Pot reportedly committed suicide in April 1998 to avoid trial.

Thayer is also irked by the fact that five of the Khmer Rouge central
committee members are today in the government, something he finds hard
to accept.

No one doubts his sense of justice and fair play. But, as he said, the
more he finds out about Cambodia the less he knows.

To many people, the Killing Fields may seem like yesterday. Yet, more
than 20 years have gone by. One new generation has grown up.

People like taxi driver So Pheap and human rights activist Phuong Sith
do not remember much of what it was like then.

Pheap, 26, said he was told his father was killed by the Khmer Rouge.
He never knew what happened to his mother. He grew up with relatives.

Sith, executive director of Human Rights Vigilance of Cambodia, said
Cambodians wanted to put that episode behind them and get on with
their lives.

What would it take then to lay the past to rest? Bringing the
perpetrators of the genocide to justice is one obvious answer.

While it may be important for the Cambodian psyche to have the Khmer
Rouge ghost exorcised once and for all, this is easier said than done.

Attempts to set up a tribunal are bogged down by a debate between the
Cambodian leadership and the United Nations.

The two sides have been negotiating for months to create the tribunal
to try the remaining leaders of the Khmer Rouge.

The government plan calls for UN involvement--vital to gaining
international legitimacy for the court--but ensures that the trials
would be controlled by Cambodia's politicised and nascent judiciary.

The UN has balked at approving the plan, which is in the form of a
draft national law. UN legal experts have demanded an international
co-prosecutor be able to make indictments independently of a Cambodian
counterpart.

Critics accuse Hun Sen of seeking to protect senior former Khmer Rouge
rebels living freely under defection deals while the UN has said it
would only back a trial that ensured minimum international standards.

It would seem that the tribunal is one vital component in the scheme
of thing in restoring confidence not only among Cambodians but also
outsiders.

Still, the tribunal issue has apparently divided the Cambodians. Some
analysts say while every Cambodian family lost a relative, every
family also had the suspicion that someone in the family was
implicated in the Khmer Rouge movement.

But, meanwhile, it is business as usual for the country--the business
of ensuring the country's economic growth.

Hun Sen, who became a grandfather for the first time just before the
media gathering, ought to pay attention.

During the question and answer session with the media, he was asked
about an incident in which the wife of a junior minister allegedly
threw acid into the face of her husband's mistress and whether he
should use it to restore confidence in the justice system, but Hun Sen
dismissed it as an isolated incident.

"Looking at one tree is dangerous. You must look at the whole jungle,"
he said.

That may be so, but as long as the law of the jungle does not take
hold again, Cambodia has every opportunity to break free from its
terrible past and move on with the rest of the world.

"Rage, tears greet Khmer Rouge"-By Nate Thayer

Rage, tears greet Khmer Rouge

By Nate Thayer

Monday, November 18,1991

Associated Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Sophan Nary broke down in tears Sunday when told the Khmer Rouge leaders who killed her family had returned and were staying next door to her noodle shop. "The government can give them permission to walk in the streets, but the people won't. We will kill them," said Nary, 26, whose shop is next to the heavily guarded villa housing the Khmer Rouge entourage.

Sixteen years after triumphantly entering Phnom Penh to begin a 3 ½ year reign that killed hundreds of thousands, the Khmer Rouge returned Sunday to Cambodia. They are part of a national reconciliation council set up by a UN brokered peace plan to usher in 1993 elections. Few Phnom Penh residents knew of the arrival of the 10-member Khmer Rouge delegation, led by Son Sen, the former chief of its secret police.

But crowds quickly gathered outside the government guest house where they are staying, exchanging tears and" angry stories of what the bloody regime had done to them. Several threatened to kill the Khmer Rouge if they emerged from the walled compound. Shortly after the Khmer Rouge arrived, Premier Hun Sen told a news conference that state radio had announced the return, but that national television would not broadcast pictures of

the delegation for security reasons. "If Son Sen goes out and the people recognize him, they might try to harm him," said Hun Sen. He added that he would not deal with the Khmer Rouge outside actual council sessions, saying he might be "stoned by people" if he did.

Khmer Rouge leaders

The two Khmer Rouge leaders who returned

Sunday to Cambodia are:

SON SEN — As chief of the secret police, Son Sen was reportedly responsible for the forced evacuation of cities, Internal purges and executions that ravaged entire classes of Cambodian society in the mid-1970s.

KHIEU SAMPHAN — Served as head of state, and became— by process of brutal elimination — the right-hand man of leader Pol Pot. His doctoral thesis was the blueprint for a deadly agrarian revolution. 

While maintaining some popular support in this largely rural rice-growing nation, the Khmer Rouge is despised in the cities, whose populations it targeted as class enemies in its pursuit of a radical agrarian Utopia. Government officials have expressed concern over the safety of the delegates and the government has guaranteed their security — although they will only allow them three bodyguards armed with pistols outside the compound. Under the peace accord signed last month, the Hun Sen government, the Khmer Rouge and two non-communist guerrilla groups will work as the Supreme National Council.

Yet many fear that the Khmer Rouge, which fought the Hun Sen government since its own ouster in 1978 by a Vietnamese invasion, will try again to take over. Apparently to prevent such a scenario, Hun Sen's government has been publicly cozy with Prince Norodom Sihanouk, a still-beloved former Cambodian leader who heads the reconciliation council. Nearly everybody in Phnom Penh says they remain afraid of the Khmer Rouge. "Don't believe anything the Khmer Rouge say. They are no better than dogs," said a somber Pen Chuut, who was one of several hundred people who gathered around the guest house. Down the street is a former Khmer Rouge torture center that has been preserved as a testament to its brutality. Adorning its walls are 20,000 photographs of those tortured and executed by the 1975-1978 regime.

'If (Khmer Rouge leader) Son Sen goes out and the people recognize him, they might try to harm him.'

Hun Sen

Premier of Cambodia

"North Koreans trained to hate U.S. from childhood"- By NATE THAYER

North Koreans trained to hate U.S. from childhood

By NATE THAYER

The Associated Press

Friday, April 24, 1992

PYONGYANG, North Korea — At a kindergarten in Pyongyang, children take turns firing wooden machine guns at an effigy of a U.S. imperialist soldier. The teacher then pulls a string and the hinged head collapses.

The scene is no distant memory from the darkest days of the Cold War. It is a snippet from daily life in this hard-line communist state, where anti-American propaganda is everywhere. From beginning classes to diatribes in the state-controlled press, there is no escaping anti-U.S. propaganda.

It depicts Americans as wolves and urges North Koreans to remain vigilant against supposed U.S. plans to launch a war. Annual mass rallies throughout the nation bring hundreds of thousands of people together to condemn the "U.S. imperialists."

"Yankees are wolves in human form" is one sentence found in a popular book to teach English-language sentence structure. "Let's mutilate the American imperialists!" is an entry in an English phrase book.

"Of course I think the United States will start another war," said Kim Due Sun, 77, speaking in this capital city, which was virtually flattened by U.S. bombs during the Korean War. "Even the children in kindergarten know that the United States wants to bring war again. Even the babies hate the American imperialists."

Foreign residents from North Korea's former socialist allies say that even at the worst of times, anti-U.S. sentiments espoused by their governments could not compare to those encouraged by the North Korean regime.

Most of the North Koreans interviewed cited the stationing of U.S. soldiers in rival South Korea and annual U.S.-South Korean war games as reasons to fear a U.S. attack. "We are still in a state of war with the United States," Maj. Kim Song Nam said in an interview at Panmunjom, the truce village that straddles communist North and capitalist South Korea. "Of course, I am very hostile to them. We have done nothing wrong to them, but they have unilaterally given us suffering and misery. That is why we all call the Americans wolves."

His hostility was on display when he conducted a Western reporter through the Panmunjom neutral zone as American soldiers watched silently a yard away. "This is where we negotiate with the American bastards," he said evenly through an interpreter. Despite the rhetoric, President Kim II Sung appears ready for a thaw in relations with Washington, in part because the fall of his socialist allies has created a domestic economic crisis.

North Korea is desperate for hard currency to purchase items such as fuel and spare parts for factories. This month, Kim called for opening of diplomatic relations with the United States. Washington, which accuses Pyongyang of trying to build nuclear weapons and of engaging in international terrorism, has held meetings with North Korean officials since January in search of improved relations. The annual Team Spirit war games between the United States and South Korea were canceled this year, but fear of the United States instilled by a generation of relentless propaganda may be hard to erase.

A guide assigned to interpret for a U.S. reporter said his wife was frightened for his safety during the weeklong assignment, and his 2-year-old asked fearfully if the "Yankee was really a wolf."

Last remnants of Khmer Rouge surrender, without their leaders-AP Robert Horn

Last remnants of Khmer Rouge surrender, without their leaders

By Robert Horn

December 5, 1998

Associated Press

BANGKOK, Thailand — The last main fighting force of the Khmer Rouge, the radical Marxist guerrillas who killed nearly two million Cambodians, has surrendered, a journalist close to the rebels said early today. Negotiators for the last band of guerrillas holed up near the Thai border met Friday with representatives of the government in Phnom Penh at Preah Vihear temple and agreed to lay down their arms, according to Nate Thayer of the Far Eastern Economic Review.

In 1997, Thayer became the first journalist allowed to interview Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, who had not been seen in public in nearly two decades and died in April. Thayer is one of few outsiders trusted by the guerrillas.

The surrender of the Khmer Rouge would bring to an end more than 30 years of'civil war in Cambodia that began with the Marxist guerrilla's insurgency against the government in Phnom Penh in the late 1960s.

Although the fighters' top surviving leaders, Tak Mok, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea were not included in the deal, they no longer command any troops. Their former followers apparently did not want to give them up. Khem Nuon, Ta Mok's chief of staff who negotiated the surrender with government officials, said simply that they are "retired" and he refused to go into details about them, Thayer said.

The Cambodian government and the United States have expressed a desire to capture all three and try them for genocide and crimes against humanity. Khem Nuon claimed he was negotiating on behalf of 5,000 remaining ragtag troops and 15,000 civilians living under Khmer  Rouge control. Thayer said, however, that he believed the estimate of fighting men was inflated, and that many of the civilians are living in the Phu Noi refugee camp in Thailand."There must be unity. There is no other way. There is no way for a military solution. No weapons. Only political struggle," Thayer said Khem Nuon told him in a telephone interview.  The government was represented at the negotiations by Meas Sopheas, deputy chief of staff of the Cambodian military, Thayer said.

Under the agreement, Thayer said the remaining guerrillas will join the government army and the civilians will return to Anlong Veng. the guerrillas' former stronghold in the north. While it is possible some tiny bands of guerrillas are still wandering the jungles, Thayer said he knew of no sizable Khmer Rouge fighting force that could pose a viable threat to the government.

The Khmer Rouge came to power in April 1975 by overthrowing the U.S:-backed Lon Nol government.

Under the leadership of Pol Pot, they emptied the cities and attempted to turn the country  into an agrarian utopia by herding the population on to collective farms. The experiment was a disaster economically and in human terms. Nearly two million people died of execution, overwork, starvation or disease under the Khmer Rouge until they were ousted from power by a Vietnamese invasion in 1979. They have fought a guerrilla war against successive governments ever since, but wings of their movement began defecting to the government in 1996.

Khmer Rouge now assured of role in Cambodia's future-By Nate Thayer

Khmer Rouge now assured of role in Cambodia's future

By Nate Thayer

Associated Press

Friday, August 30,1991

PATTAYA, Thailand — Ousted more than a decade ago as one of the age's bloodiest regimes, the Khmer Rouge is now ensured a role in Cambodia's political future and is following a careful blueprint for victory. The Communist rebel group has abandoned — for the time being —its quest to regain power through warfare in favor of seeking support for a role in an elected government, according to Khmer Rouge documents and other sources.

Talks brokered by the United Nations and world powers have made progress in recent days, but the leaders of Cambodia's warring parties failed at a four-day conference ending Thursday to forge a comprehensive peace pact to end the civil war that has wracked their homeland for 12 years.

The Khmer Rouge, two other guerrilla groups and the Vietnamese backed government they oppose remained deadlocked over a format for national elections and also appeared to be snagged on how to disarm their forces.

There were fears that the talks' failure would lead to fighting, violating the tenuous cease-fire that went into effect in June. The chief delegate for the Khmer Rouge guerrillas, Khieu Samphan, urged the United Nations to send peacekeepers to Cambodia immediately. A joint communique said Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the chief Cambodian mediator, would ask the United Nations to send at least 200 observers next month to monitor the cease-fire and halt arms shipments to the factions.

The negotiators will return to Pattaya for more talks Oct. 21-23 and meet in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, in mid-November, Sihanouk said. The Vietnamese-installed Communist government of Prime Minister Hun Sen has been battling the Khmer Rouge and two non-communist groups since Vietnam invaded and ousted the Khmer Rouge in late 1978.

The major powers have agreed that the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge will have to play some role in Cambodia's future government if there is to be any peace. A UN plan provides for the Khmer Rouge to share power with its enemies and allies in an interim period prior to UN-supervised elections. "Our army is not going to defeat the enemy by fighting them," Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot said in a 1988 speech to his lieutenants. "These days our army goes into the interior to build up popular strength," he said. "Such popular strength is the genesis of state power."

Architect of a reign of terror in the mid-1970s that left hundreds of thousands dead, the secretive Pol Pot spoke of "going on the offensive with our themes of reasonableness, openness, and all inclusiveness."

A copy of the speech was recently made available to The Associated Press. It was authenticated by several prominent Cambodia scholars and diplomats in Bangkok who say its contents remain valid today. Pol Pot is no longer officially head of the Khmer Rouge but remains a formidable and feared shadow force within the organization. Since being overthrown, the Khmer Rouge has gained significant popular following and built a strong army. It has forced its enemies— both within Cambodia and around the world — to include it in any effective peace settlement.

Through sophisticated strategies and despite its odious record, the Khmer Rouge has rebuilt a network of support in the countryside that leaves it in a strong position to do well in any national elections, according to intelligence officials and Cambodian leaders from the other factions. "People still remember the Khmer Rouge time, but they want peace more," said Gen. Nyek Buon Chay of the guerrilla group loyal to Sihanouk. The Sihanoukists and another guerrilla faction led by ex-prime minister Son Sann — both non-communist groups supported by the United States — are loosely allied with the Khmer Rouge against the Phnom Penh government.

"People hate Pol Pot and the big leaders, but the local leaders they like. They know them, they do not treat the people badly and many people support them," Chay said in a recent interview inside Cambodia. "If the people hate the Khmer Rouge so much, why do they get bigger and stronger?" the general said.

In the 68-page speech, Pol Pot outlined a strategy under which the Khmer Rouge would push for power through elections.

Cambodian rebels arrive for reconciliation talks-By Nate Thayer

Cambodian rebels arrive for reconciliation talks

By Nate Thayer

Associated Press

Wednesday, November 13,1991

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia —For 13 years, they tried to capture the Cambodian capital by force. On Tuesday, anti-Communist guerrillas flew into Phnom Penh to begin reconciliation talks under a UN mediated peace plan.

Leaders of the Western-backed Khmer People's National Liberation Front arrived for a meeting of the Supreme National Council, an interim government headed by resistance leader Prince Norodom Sihanouk. Sihanouk, 69, is due to arrive, Thursday, and a huge welcome is expected for the onetime king and head of state. Sihanouk was overthrown in a coup by pro-U.S. officers in 1970.

The four-faction Supreme Council is to run Cambodia until 1993, when UN-supervised elections are scheduled. "We are very happy to be home. It is the first time in more than 16 years," said the non-Communist Liberation Front's Cabinet chief, Pen Thol. "Achieving peace was difficult, but reconstruction of our country and building a better life will be much harder," he told The Associated Press.

Cambodia was embroiled in civil war until the Communist Khmer Rouge took over in 1975. The Khmer Rouge ruled for four bloody years, leaving hundreds of thousands of people dead from starvation, disease and executions, until they were ousted by the Vietnamese.

Cambodia's main rebel groups

• Khmer Rouge: The strongest guerrilla group, the Communist Khmer Rouge ruled from 1975 to 1978 with repressive regime believed responsible for 1 million deaths from executions, famine and unrest. Ousted by Invasion of Soviet-backed Vietnamese forces. Estimated strength: 30,000 troops. Led publicly by Khteu Samphan and Son Sen, but there Is speculation former dictator Pol Pot may still be In charge.

• Prince Norodom Sihanouk's Group: Sihanouk's 29-year rule ended In 1970 military coup. From exile, Sihanouk directed noncommunist guerrilla forces with estimated 20,000 fighters. Sihanouk led rebel coalition in peace talks.

• Khmer People's National Liberation Front: Led by former Cambodian Prime Minister Son Sann, It is other major non-communist guerrilla force. Made pact with Sihanouk's forces In 1982.

A coalition of 13 international aid agencies issued a statement Tuesday expressing fears over Khmer Rouge participation in the interim council. The International Cooperation for Development and Solidarity said it was concerned "about the absence of any judicial action" against Khmer Rouge leaders. "The international community has an obligation to the (Cambodian) people to prevent a return to the human rights abuses of the 1970s," it said.

The Liberation Front guerrillas fought from the jungles along the Thai border for years,' hoping to topple the pro-Hanoi government. The guerrillas were in a loose coalition with the Khmer Rouge and a group loyal to Sihanouk.

An advance team from Sihanouk's followers has already arrived in Phnom Penh. The Khmer Rouge are to arrive next week •

A UN-brokered peace accord signed in Paris last month officially ended the conflict and set in motion an international effort to monitor the cease-fire, disarm the combatants, help reconstruct this country of 6 million residents and organize elections.

The truce itself has gotten off to a rocky start, with all factions trading accusations of violations. "We cannot build trust after 13 years of fighting overnight," said Pen Thol. "If we all work sincerely, the interests of the country and the people can come to a common ground."

Also arriving Tuesday was the French general who will head the advance UN military contingent observing the truce. He promised to deal with the hundreds of thousands of mines littering the countryside from years of war.

Meanwhile, curious onlookers continued to gawk at the Phnom Penh villa where the first UN troops are staying. The Australians staying there said Cambodians were particularly puzzled by a flag depicting a kangaroo in boxing gloves.

Cambodia talks to move to capital-By Nate Thayer

Cambodia talks to move to capital

By Nate Thayer

Associated Press

Wednesday, June 26,1991

 

PATTAYA, Thailand — Prince Norodom Sihanouk said the three Cambodian rebel factions agreed Tuesday that the unity commission negotiating a settlement of the 13-year-old civil war should move to the capital.

No timetable was set, but he suggested the move to Phnom Penh could come this summer. Sihanouk, the former ruler of Cambodia who heads a guerrilla group, said the three rebel groups and the government were trying to settle how to monitor their latest agreement on a cease-fire. The truce pact was signed Monday.

Tuesday's agreement to establish the headquarters of the Supreme National Council in Phnom Penh came on the second day of peace talks between the three-party rebel coalition and the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen. "When Hun Sen gives me the signal, I will go immediately to Phnom Penh, perhaps in August," Sihanouk said. "We have achieved our national reconciliation and Phnom Penh does not belong exclusively to Mr. Hun Sen."

There was no immediate comment from the other participants at the talks. The council is comprised of representatives of the government and the guerrilla groups —Sihanouk's force, Son Sann's Khmer People's National Liberation Front and the Communist Khmer Rouge.

The council was formed to negotiate the implementation of a UN Security Council peace plan, which the government thus far has partly rejected. After a settlement, the council is supposed to help guide the nation in the period before UN-supervised elections.

Sihanouk said the members of the council would take their own armed guards to Phnom Penh. The rebel leaders have not been in Phnom Penh since they fled the Vietnamese invasion force that entered the capital in late 1978, drove out the Khmer Rouge regime and installed the current government. "From now on, the Supreme National Counc.il is operational," Sihanouk told reporters. "The Cambodian nation at last has a unified government.. . . There is a cease-fire and cessation of arms supplies, at least on paper, and the headquarters of the SNC is in Phnom Penh."

Previous truces have fallen apart, and Monday's agreement on an indefinite cease-fire left many issues unresolved, including how to halt combat and disarm the opposing groups. The prince said the council had not settled those differences, but added that a monitoring team of government and guerrilla members would be formed and a UN role would be explored. The Khmer Rouge had proposed a 700-man UN monitoring team, but the government apparently rejected the idea. Hun Sen has opposed a UN military force in Cambodia.

A UN monitoring force is called for under the peace plan approved Nov. 26 by the U.N. Security Council. The rebel groups have fully accepted the plan, which also calls for demobilization of the four factions and extensive U.N. involvement in the country's administration and military affairs before UN-supervised elections. Hun Sen's government has rejected disarmament before elections because it fears the Khmer Rouge will cheat. It is demanding measures that would prevent the group from returning to power. Hundreds of thousands of people died of famine, disease or execution during the Khmer Rouge's 3 1/2 years in power.

"Plane crash bomb theory is fading"--By Nate Thayer

Plane crash bomb theory is fading

By Nate Thayer

Associated Press

Friday, May 31,1991

BANGKOK, Thailand — Early indications from the investigation into the crash of an Austrian jet are pointing away from a bomb, experts close to the probe said Thursday. One said speculation now focuses on engine failure. But the investigators all stressed that no firm conclusions could be drawn yet and no possibility had been excluded.

Meanwhile, the jet's "black boxes" were being sent to the National Transportation and Safety Board in Washington for examination, Thai officials said. The Lauda Air Boeing 767 crashed late Sunday in northwest Thailand, 16 minutes after takeoff from Bangkok.  All 223 people aboard the plane were killed. It was the first crash of a Boeing 767 and the 12th worst in commercial aviation history.

Previously, speculation had focused on a bomb. But one European aviation expert close to the investigation said Thursday that "no evidence of any sort of explosive device" had been found so far. "Most attention is now focused on the possibility of an engine implosion," said the expert, speaking on condition of anonymity. He said that one wing, with an engine attached, was found 12 miles from the rest of the wreckage and significantly intact, possibly indicating the wing broke off first and then the plane crashed. However, other experts have said the distance of the wing from the wreckage is in dispute.

In Seattle, Boeing spokesman Jack Gamble challenged the claim that one wing was found 12 miles from the wreckage. "Both the engines and the wings are in the general area of the fuselage that they've found," he said. "The story is out that one wing is 12 miles away from the rest of the airplane, and that's not true."

A U.S. aviation official said investigators would have expected to see the wreckage spread over a larger area if a bomb was involved. "If it had been an explosive device  you would expect a larger area of debris," said Don Smith, regional manager for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration based in Singapore. But he would not speculate as to the cause of the crash.

An official of the Thai Aviation Department who flew over the site said "We are still looking at every aspect including engine failure. There was no shrapnel, no evidence" of an explosive device, he said.

Marxists' stand threatens Cambodian peace--By Nate Thayer

Marxists' stand threatens Cambodian peace

By Nate Thayer

June 11, 1992

Associated Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — The head of the UN mission on Wednesday accused the Khmer Rouge guerrillas of undermining Cambodia's peace accord and warned that widespread fighting could erupt again. Yasushi Akashi, who leads the biggest UN peacekeeping operation, condemned the radical Marxist group for refusing to disarm as required by the peace treaty signed by Cambodia's four warring factions in October. He said the Khmer Rouge also was barring UN troops from territory it controls. "The position of the Khmer Rouge constitutes a clear breach of the peace agreement and is totally unacceptable," Akashi told reporters.

Despite the lack of cooperation from the Khmer Rouge, he said UN officials planned to begin disarming two other rebel factions and troops of the Vietnamese-installed government as scheduled Saturday. Akashi promised that UN forces would not allow the Khmer Rouge to gain an advantage over the other factions, but it was unclear whether the groups would go along.

Prince Norodom Rannariddh, head of one of the guerrilla armies, told reporters Friday that he would not allow his troops to be disarmed as long as the Khmer Rouge refused to do so. "How can we?" Ranariddh said. "If one of the parties does not agree, then I cannot go alone."

Akashi said that if the Khmer Rouge did not begin disarming within a month — the scheduled time for this stage of the peace plan — then the entire accord might collapse and reignite the 14-year-old civil War. Some fighting has been reported in several areas of Cambodia in recent days, and the United Nations has accused the Khmer Rouge of making attacks this week in the northern province of Preah Vihear.

The leader of the Khmer Rouge, Khieu Samphan, told an emergency meeting of the four factions and UN officials Wednesday that he refused to disarm because the United Nations had not implemented other aspects of the peace accord, such as ensuring all Vietnamese troops are removed from Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge says Vietnam secretly has thousands of soldiers in Cambodia who are attacking it. Vietnam claims it withdrew its last troops in 1989, and the United Nations says it has no evidence that Vietnamese soldiers are still in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge also said the Vietnamese-installed government in Phnom Penh should be dismantled before UN officials proceed with disarmament.

Khmer Rouge push for Hun Sen trial-AP

Khmer Rouge push for Hun Sen trial

(Author's note: The Khmer Rouge would routinely announce spurious and fictional accounts of my visits to their control zones over their radio, often before I had managed to exit their jungle hideouts and file a report. Note this radio broadcast was days after I interviewed Pol Pot and before I had released or published any story regarding my visit or the Pol Pot interview. They, in fact, gave me no documents whatsoever. At this point, they were reduced to using manual typewriters as their headquarters was without even electricity)

Associated Press

October 21, 1997

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) —Khmer Rouge guerrillas said on a radio broadcast Sunday that if they hand over longtime leader Pol Pot for trial before an international tribunal, Cambodia's current leader, Hun Sen, should be tried as well. The guerrillas said they had given American journalist Nate Thayer documents that implicate the Cambodian coup leader in "great crimes."

"Hun Sen has committed crimes, treason and mass killings of Cambodian people," they said. "If the international court arrests Hun Sen, try him along with Pol Pot."

Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia 1975-79, killing as many as 2 million people in their ruthless drive to quickly transform the country into a Marxist agrarian society. Hun Sen held power after a Vietnamese invasion overthrew the Khmer Rouge in 1979. He controls the country again after deposing his co-prime minister, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, in a July coup.

"N. Korea courts the U.S." AP By Nate Thayer

N. Korea courts the U.S.

By Nate Thayer

April 17, 1992

The Associated Press

PYONGYANG, North Korea— North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung, who celebrated his 80^th birthday on Wednesday, was quoted as saying it is time for better relations with the United States. "There is spring between the people of our country and the people of the United States, spring begins," Kim was quoted as saying in the Washington Times. "My wish is to establish (a U.S. Embassy in Pyongyang) as quickly as possible." He also reportedly said North Korea would turn over more remains of U.S. soldiers from the 1950-53 Korean War.

Tens of thousands North Koreans danced in Pyongyang's streets to celebrate Kim's birthday. Fireworks lasted more than two hours, and neon signs flashed socialist slogans.

Meanwhile, a senior official of the North Korean Ministry of Atomic Energy said Tuesday that international inspection of North Korean nuclear facilities could start any time after the end of May. At that time, "when they come for a first inspection, it is their decision; not ours," said Choe Jung-sung. He was referring to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, with which North Korea has concluded a safeguards agreement.

U.N. begins disarming Cambodian soldiers-By Nate Thayer

U.N. begins disarming Cambodian soldiers

By Nate Thayer

June 14,1992

Associated Press Writer

PREY VENG PROVINCE, Cambodia — The Khmer Rouge refused to take part in the U.N.- directed disarmament of Cambodia's four fighting factions that began Saturday. The disarming of government soldiers and three guerrilla groups is a critical element of the peace plan that all sides agreed to last year. The Khmer Rouge said other aspects of the plan were not being adhered to, so it would not lay down its weapons.

The Khmer Rouge position raises the possibility of a new surge in fighting because other factions have warned that they will respond in kind to any aggression. The Khmer Rouge has attacked several government positions during the past few weeks. Troops of the Phnom Penh government turned over guns and ammunition on Saturday and reported to sites for cantonment, or temporary quartering, in several areas of the country, including this eastern province.

At cantonment sites in Prey Veng and near the capital, Phnom Penh, more than a ton of ammunition was turned over to the United Nations. Gen. John Sanderson, the military commander of the U.N. operations, told reporters that no Khmer Rouge guerillas showed up at the sites. Yasushi Akashi, the overall leader of the U.N. mission, said, "Time is very much running out. The door is gradually being closed."

It could not immediately be determined whether any weapons had been turned over by fighters of the two noncommunist guerrilla factions: the Khmer People's National Liberation Front and fighters loyal to Prince Norodom Sihanouk, who now leads the reconciliation council that is guiding Cambodia through the transitional period until free elections are conducted.

The U.N. Security Council on Friday appealed to the Khmer Rouge to rejoin the peace process. The statement, released in New York, said, "Any delay could jeopardize the whole peace process."

Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan reiterated Friday that his faction would refuse to cooperate until the U.N. force first verified that Vietnamese troops had left the country and that the Phnom Penh government was stripped of most of its powers. Vietnam said it withdrew its last troops in September 1989, and the U.N. mission said it had no evidence that any Vietnamese soldiers remained in the country.

Cambodia has suffered 22 years of warfare and turmoil, sparked by a 1970 coup by pro-U.S. military officers. A Vietnamese invasion in late 1978 brought down the Khmer Rouge government, which led a three-year reign of terror over the country. More than 1 million of Cambodia's 8 million people died under Khmer Rouge rule — by execution, in civil unrest and from starvation.

A representative for the rebel National Liberation Front vowed to join with the government to battle Khmer Rouge forces if they would not cease their fighting.

Khmer Rouge smell victory Cambodian rebels enjoy strong backing by China-By Nate Thayer

Khmer Rouge smell victory

Cambodian rebels enjoy strong backing by China

By Nate Thayer

July 21, 1990

The Associated Press

SIEM REAP PROVINCE, Cambodia — Khmer Rouge guerrillas have seized large areas deep inside Cambodia in recent months and say they will fight as long as needed if they are shut out of a political settlement.

A recent five-week, 450-mile trip through the country's north by this reporter found the Khmer Rouge have strong Chinese support and have stockpiled caches of weapons, ammunition and funds in case foreign aid is cut. The United States announced Wednesday it was withdrawing recognition of the guerrilla coalition dominated by the Communist Khmer Rouge. The coalition also includes the non-Communist forces of Prince Norodom Sihanouk and Son Sann.

The U.S. move was prompted by fears of a return to power of the Khmer Rouge. The Communist group killed hundreds of thousands of people in forced agrarian reform in the 1970s until Vietnam invaded and installed a new government in early 1979.

The 30,000-man Khmer Rouge army already controls hundreds of villages in the country's south, west and north, and it operates in virtually all parts of the country.

In their jungle command posts, senior Khmer Rouge commanders said recently they were stepping up the fight to force the Vietnamese-backed government into political concessions. "The Khmer Rouge have everything they want from China. They don't need any more guns or money," said Col. Khan Savoeun, a commander of Sihanouk's army. "U.S. support for the non-Communists is very important psychologically for the non-Communist resistance. But it means nothing to the Khmer Rouge."

Ta Pok, a Khmer Rouge brigade commander in this northwestern province, said he listened to the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia for news on peace and hoped for progress. But he said the guerrillas cannot wait around for documents to be signed. "The Vietnamese will only listen to strength, and if they don't listen they will lose everything," he said.

The guerrillas have seized large quantities of weapons in recent fighting. Dozens of hidden jungle bases are full of ammunition, and captured heavy weapons were seen in the north.

The Chinese aid is channeled through the Thai border. But as the guerrillas push deeper into the country, they rely on the hidden caches and food from recently seized villages. Thousands of soldiers and civilian supporters were seen moving freely through newly seized areas. Heavy fighting between Khmer Rouge and government troops holed up at several key forward outposts defending Siem Riep city was heard every day. The guerrillas mined roads, attacked supply convoys and overran government artillery bases.  “ We are winning more easily than we expected. There is nothing that can stop us," said Khmer Rouge division commander Mit Lot, in charge of areas around the ancient temples of Angkor Wat in Siem Reap province. "If (Cambodian Prime Minister) Hun Sen is not flexible, we will fight and for sure we will win," he said.

The guerrillas appear to have substantial popular support. Many villagers say the Khmer Rouge are not forcing them to fight, and that they pay those who help carry ammunition and supplies. The guerrillas also pay a high price for rice. However, some villagers said they were afraid to refuse guerrilla requests for help.

As part of preparations in case foreign aid is cut, the Khmer Rouge have seized large gem-mining areas in the south and collect more than $500,000 monthly in taxes from miners, said Western intelligence analysts in Bangkok. In the north, they have created a sophisticated logging operation, trucking teakwood to Thailand. The guerrillas now have a network of thousands of miles of roads snaking from areas under their control to new front lines deep in the interior.

A young rebel relaxes near Ankor Wat: Photo: Nate Thayer

Refugees con Americans with MIA information: AP by Nate Thayer

Refugees con Americans with MIA information

Editor's note: The writer has lived for more than two years along the Thai-Cambodian border, and has been offered numerous artifacts and data about alleged American MlAs in Indochina.

By Nate Thayer

July 21, 1991

Associated Press Writer

BANGKOK, Thailand -"I have bones from dead American pilots," the Cambodian refugee whispered to this reporter, handing over a small packet of teeth, bone chips and a serviceman's identification number. "Is it true I can get $1 million from the Americans?" he asked.

The episode took place recently at a refugee camp along Thailand's eastern border with Cambodia, and the identification turned out not to belong to any of the 2,274 U.S. serviceman missing in action, or MIA, from the Vietnam War. But the offer illustrates the rumors —some based in fact — that have spread for years through rebel-held camps bordering Communist Laos and Cambodia, of huge rewards awaiting those who can show that U.S. servicemen are imprisoned in Indochina or those who can lead to their bodies.

The release of a photo this week purporting to show three U.S. prisoners of war has renewed debate over whether Americans are still held 16 years after the Vietnam War. Families of the three missing men say the men are in the photo. The three countries strongly deny they are holding prisoners. Numerous refugees and guerrillas have emerged from the jungles carrying bones, maps, letters purported to be from U.S. prisoners, and "dogtags" — military identification neckchains. They also talk of foreign captives in jungle hideouts. Refugees are often keen to provide stories about Americans in hopes of enhancing their chances of being resettled in the United States. Guerrillas are eager for cash.

The information is usually passed through relief officials or other foreigners to the U.S. Joint Casualty Resolution Center office at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok. Most is immediately dismissed as fraudulent or irrelevant. The packet which the reporter received at Site 2 was sent to the center, but the identification number did not belong to anyone on the Pentagon's list of Americans missing in action.

Most of the "evidence" turns out to be scams engineered by hucksters and conmen, although some is credible. But none has been proven. No prisoners have been brought out.

Still, many remain convinced that Americans remain captive. Teams of privately funded Americans have offered huge rewards, set up safe houses along the Thai border, and sent agents into remote jungles in efforts to obtain remains or bring back Americans alive.

Billionaire H. Ross Perot in 1986 offered $4.2 million to obtain a videotape purportedly showing POWs in Laos. Many of the private American teams' investigating reports accuse their government of dragging its feet, ignoring. evidence and conspiring to stifle efforts to bring back prisoners.

“American Journalist praised by Khmer Rouge for ‘support’ ”

“American Journalist praised by Khmer Rouge for ‘support’ ”

(Author's note: This was from a KR radio broadcast the day after my interviewing Pol Pot and 4 days before publication of that first inteview in two decades in the Far Eastern Economic Review. Not only did it piss me off, it underscored their cluelessness on any remotelessly effective PR strategy)

The Associated Press

October 20, 1997

Phnom Penh, Cambodia (AP)-The Khmer Rouge yesterday praised an American journalist Saturday who in June was the first outsider to see the group’s notorious leader Pol Pot in 18 years, and said he is back in guerrilla territory interviewing them again.

In a radio broadcast, the radical Marxist guerrillas said their leader Khieu Samphan met with Nate Thayer, a journalist with the Far eastern Economic Review on October 15.

A few of Thayer’s colleagues also were present at the Khmer Rouge stronghold of Anlong Veng, 190 miles Northwest of Phnom Penh, the announcer said.

Thayer captured international attention in June when he witnessed a show trial  of Pol Pot by the guerrillas he had led for three decades.

Doubts persist, however, as to whether the Khmer Rouge has truly repudiated Pol Pot, or whether Pol Pot staged the trial himself as a propaganda ploy.

“Khieu Samphan thanked Nate Thayer and the international neutral press for taking note of the truth about the struggle of the Cambodian nation and people to reach real real national reconciliation, peace, and democracy,” Saturday’s radio broadcast said.

"The Cambodian nation and people strongly need the support and assistance from the international community in order to realize this very sacred objective."

The Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia 1975-79, transforming the country into a vast labor camp, and killed as many as 2 million of the country’s 7 million people through starvation, exhaustion, and execution.

The Khmer Rouge waged a guerrilla war in the countryside after they were ousted by a Vietnamese invasion. The movement began to crumble last year, however, as thousands of war-weary guerrillas began defecting to the government.

Khieu Samphan remains holed up near Anlong Veng with the group’s last hard-liners, who in an attempt to make themselves more palatable to the international community, said they cut their ties with Pol Pot.

In the trial witnessed by Thayer and cameraman David Mckaige, Pol Pot was denounced by his comrades as a murderous traitor and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Khmer Rouge on the move in Cambodia: AP's Nate Thayer spent five weeks with rebels deep in Cambodia

Khmer Rouge on the move in Cambodia

Guerrillas control large chunks of country, target provincial capitals

EDITOR'S NOTE — Associated Press correspondent

Nate Thayer spent five weeks with Cambodian guerrillas deep inside Cambodia, the first Western journalist to make such a trip during the 11-year-old war. This is his report.

By Nate Thayer

The Associated Press

July 18, 1990

NATIONAL HIGHWAY 6, Cambodia — Guerrillas have seized hundreds of villages and military positions in northern Cambodia, forcing the army to fall back and defend besieged provincial capitals.

Evidence of the most significant guerrilla gains in more than 11 years of fighting was clear during a five-week trip with the insurgents that covered 450 miles.

 

The three-party guerrilla coalition, which includes the Communist Khmer Rouge, controls large areas of the north and northwest. The insurgents are shelling and launching commando raids on key provincial capitals.

Senior guerrilla commanders say the attacks are in preparation for full-scale assaults on the cities of Kompong Thorn and Siem Reap, and the ancient temples of Angkor near Siem Reap.

During the trip, hundreds of government artillery shells and rockets landed daily, shaking the paddies of a beautiful rice-growing region engulfed by war. Debris from bridges blown up by guerrillas littered highways. The jungle fighters set up ambushes to attack convoys trying to resupply forward government outposts defending the major urban areas. Guerrilla medics trained in China ran field hospitals, dressing wounds and amputating limbs.

As the guerrillas advance, the world seeks a political solution and worries that the Khmer Rouge, whose bloody regime was overthrown by a Vietnamese invasion in December 1978, may regain power. More than a million Cambodians were killed or died of starvation during 3 1/2 years of Khmer Rouge rule. Khmer Rouge commanders expressed confidence they would capture Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital. They used maps to illustrate encirclement from the north, south and west —similar to the strategy in 1975, when the Khmer Rouge defeated the U.S.-backed government of President Lon Nol.

The trip, with an escort of guerrillas loyal to Prince Norodom Sihanouk, leader of the coalition, began on the Thai border and covered three northern provinces. Included was a 30-mile stretch of National Highway 6, a government lifeline to outlying provinces, now in guerrilla hands.

It provided the first independent confirmation of the guerrillas' claims that they have advanced deep inside the country. Thousands of Sihanouk's guerrillas were seen lounging in villages, shopping in bustling markets and manning lines around Kompong Thom, which they said was their next target. Kompong Thom, a strategic crossroads city, is 90 miles north of Phnom Penh.

Sihanoukist rebels advance toward the besieged provincial capital of Kompong Thom. (AP)Photo: Nate Thayer

 In separate attacks, the Khmer Rouge was advancing toward Siem Reap, 200 miles northwest of Phnom Penh, and was within reach of the Angkor temples. "We have taken all the positions around Siem Reap, isolating the town," said Ta Pok, a Khmer Rouge brigade commander interviewed at his jungle base north of the city. "We are winning everywhere we are fighting," said Col. Khan Savoeun, a commander of forces loyal to Sihanouk, Cambodia's former ruler, at headquarters in Stoeung, the de facto capital of what the Sihanoukists call their liberated zone.

In the war's early stages, most guerrillas were in bases along the Thai border and obtaining weapons from China was easy, given Thailand's support for the insurgents. Now the lines have shifted far from the frontier.

The Sihanouk forces and the Khmer Rouge have forged a network of thousands of miles of secret roads and trails into the interior. Convoys of trucks, oxcarts and thousands of civilian supporters were seen daily moving supplies from jungle caches to forward areas. Convoys of Chinese-supplied trucks and captured government vehicles moved freely along sections of provincial highways that were under government control less than a year ago.

More than 50,000 insurgents are fighting an army that has superior firepower, but is mostly conscripts reported to be poorly trained. The guerrilla groups led by Sihanouk and Son Sann are non-Communist, but the Khmer Rouge is by far the strongest. The war took a favorable turn for the guerrillas last fall, when Vietnam withdrew most of its soldiers, leaving the forces of Premier Hun Sen to face the battle-tested guerrillas alone. "Sometimes I think Hun Sen is stupid; you know we don't need to negotiate with him now," said Mit Lot, Khmer Rouge deputy division commander at a base 12 miles from the Angkor Wat ruins. “If they don’t compromise, they will lose everything. At this rate the war will be over by the end of the year," he said.

Although the Khmer Rouge is the most powerful force in the coalition, it seemed clear during the trip that the non-Communists had gained considerable support and scored significant military victories. The Khmer Rouge has little public support because of its history, and that hampers its effectiveness in more heavily populated areas.

Sihanouk's commanders described a raid by 400 commandos who briefly seized Kompong Thom in late June. They destroyed military positions and tested the waters for what guerrilla field commanders said would be a full-scale attack on th provincial capital. Heavy weapons could be seen in place less than five miles from the city and rockets were being fired at Kompong Thom.

The Sihanouk forces claim to control more than 700 towns and villages. A major source of their strength appears to be wide public support for Sihanouk, revered by many as a god-king during his reign. Around Stoeng, on Highway 6 less than a 30- minute drive from Kompong Thom, non-Communists control the largest area of Indochina since the Americans left 15 years ago.

Followers of Sihanouk  have trained hundreds of civilian administrators, teachers and medical personnel and begun an aggressive effort to re-establish Buddhism. Thousands of children were seen attending primary schools. Dozens of Buddhist temples were being refurbished and others built.

While the Sihanoukists and Khmer Rouge are in a loose coalition, tension between the groups was evident. "For the time being, we share common military goals with the Khmer Rouge, but we are in full control here," said Col. Khan Savouen, commander of the Kompong Thom area. "The Khmer Rouge understand strength, and we are very strong in Kompong Thom”

“Cambodian guerrillas advance attack” – Associated Press reporter Nate Thayer

“Cambodian guerrillas advance attack”

EDITOR'S NOTE – Associated Press reporter Nate Thayer was the first to travel in an area of Cambodia where guerrillas have claimed recent victories. Returning, he was wounded by shrapnel from a land mine that destroyed the truck in which he was riding and killed the driver.

By NATE THAYER

Associated Press Writer

October 16, 1989

ROUTE 69, Cambodia (AP) —Following their capture of three towns, Cambodian guerrillas have begun a coordinated attack on the only big town blocking their advance to the strategic city of Sisophon, which is controlled by the Vietnam-installed government. The guerrillas claim they already have taken frontline positions at Svey Chek. The offensive began Saturday, and all day the area reverberated with hundreds of artillery blasts.

More than 1,000 guerrillas were seen Saturday trekking on the roads to Svey Chek from the recently captured towns of Thmar Puok, Banteay Chmar and Kandoul. Following them were convoys of people carrying ammunition and more than 50 ox carts full of ammunition, mortars, rockets and anti-tank weapons.

The Khmer People's National Liberation Front claimed it seized Thmar Puok and Banteay Chmar, along Highway 69 leading to Sisophon, and Kandoul, just west of the highway, days after launching a "general offensive" on Sept. 30. A 16-hour, 94-mile tour Saturday of the towns and several captured artillery bases showed they were firmly under the Liberation Front's control. Field commanders said the Liberation Front was attacking Svey Chek in uncommon coordination with its two partners in the resistance coalition, the Khmer Rouge and the forces of Prince Norodom Sihanouk.

The guerrillas are trying to topple the government Vietnam installed after it invaded Cambodia in late 1978. Their attacks intensified after Vietnam made what it called the pullout of its last troops from Cambodia on Sept. 26. Capturing Sisophon, a major military base for operations in northwestern Cambodia, would be a major victory for the guerrillas, who have not seized any areas of such significance.

The tour began at a Liberation Front base along the Thai border south of the Dong Ruk mountains, where the guerrillas showed off captured equipment — more than 1,000 automatic rifles, heavy machine guns, mortars, many cases of anti-personnel mines and teletype machines with Soviet lettering. The journey into Cambodia was on motorcycles, with about 20 Liberation Front guerrillas. It was slow and grueling, covering roads drenched by monsoon rains. Everywhere were captured artillery positions, virtually all capable of hitting Site 2, the Liberation Front's major civilian base just inside Thailand. Three destroyed tanks, four destroyed heavy trucks and heavy artillery guns were abandoned on the roads. Everywhere were former government soldiers who had defected to the guerrilla side. The three captured towns appeared only lightly defended and there were no signs the guerrillas expected a counteroffensive.

PHOTOGRAPHIES POL POT

PHOTOGRAPHIES POL POT

Excerpts from video of Pol Pot trial. Jungles of Northern Cambodia near Anlong Veng, July 25 1997. In French. Video copyright: Nate Thayer

U.N., Government Reports Cite Killings by Cambodian Military Officials - Nate Thayer

U.N., Government Reports Cite Killings by Cambodian Military Officials

The Washington Post

August 13, 1994

| Nate Thayer

A Cambodian military network that terrorized political opponents during last year's U.N.-supervised election campaign has continued to murder, kidnap, extort and commit a variety of atrocities under the country's new coalition leadership, according to investigations by the Cambodian government, the United Nations and human rights organizations.

Confidential U.N. and government documents charge that senior military officials in western Cambodia, including the commanders of elite intelligence units, have set up secret detention centers, tortured and killed prisoners who were held without charge, engaged in criminal rackets and practiced cannibalism.

The detention centers were ordered closed two years ago by a U.N. peacekeeping and administrative mission, but they have continued to operate as part of a network that has turned increasingly from political repression to criminal money-making activities, the documents said.

In one facility, at least 35 persons have been executed since August 1993, according to the U.N. Center for Human Rights based in the capital, Phnom Penh.

Soldiers involved in the network routinely ate parts of the bodies of executed prisoners and forced other captives to clear mines, a confidential May 10 report compiled by the U.N. center said.

Although the U.N. center's findings have been largely confirmed by other human rights groups and by the government's Military Prosecutor's Office, the coalition government has declined to press charges. Instead, it has denied that two detention facilities exist here and asserted that there is "no witness or evidence to confirm" the execution of at least 35 people.

Human rights investigators said the network has curtailed its abuses lately amid U.N. and government inquiries. They said at least two persons are still illegally detained at a facility at Chheu Kmau, about 20 miles northeast of this western provincial capital. Another detention site, a room at the Battambang provincial military headquarters, apparently is no longer in use, investigators said.

Most of the implicated senior officers continue to control military intelligence operations in key western provinces and have even been promoted.

The same units and leaders were involved in the killings of numerous political opposition party workers in 1992 and 1993, according to confidential reports of the U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia, or UNTAC, as the former peacekeeping mission is known. Since then, the units have also killed suspected petty criminals and agents who fell from favor, investigators said.

The accused officers belonged to the army of Cambodia's former communist government, which lost the U.N.-supervised elections in May last year. The army was reconstituted as the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, but large parts of it remain intact under the old leadership.

In its May 10 report, the U.N. center said it had "investigated and documented a series of murders and other criminal activities attributed to a military intelligence unit designated S-91. The investigation established beyond a reasonable doubt that several of the highest military intelligence officers in the province, including the leadership of the agency, were directly responsible for these murders."

In August 1993, an UNTAC report said that despite a U.N. operation to close a secret S-91 detention center a year earlier, the unit "once again uses the same building for interrogation and torture, continues to have the same leadership and continues to conduct illegal activities including abduction, torture and summary killing."

U.N. investigators reported that in August 1992, the chief of S-91, Gen. Toan Saveth, ordered the execution of three former antigovernment guerrillas after learning that UNTAC was going to visit the secret prison in which they were held.

Saveth, the regional military intelligence chief for Battambang and two neighboring provinces, was arrested recently after an unrelated incident in which he shot at police who tried to stop him at a checkpoint.

Other officers implicated in human rights violations by U.N. and other reports include Saveth's deputy, the chief of staff of the Fifth Military Region and the head of the region's Special Intelligence Battalion.

The U.N. report, which has been distributed to senior Cambodian government leaders, said investigations had established the officers' "direct responsibility in these illegal detentions and murders." It said top political, military and police authorities in the province knew of these activities but made no real effort to stop them.

The royalist party Funcinpec won the 1993 election in Battambang, but the coalition arrangement allowed the former ruling People's Party to keep control of the province. The officials who kept posts include the controversial governor, Ung Sami, a nephew of powerful People's Party chairman Chea Sim.

The U.N. Human Rights Center described the Chheu Kmau detention site, at which it documented 35 killings, as merely a "discovered island in the archipelago of criminal activities" in the province. It said military personnel were using their "wide and uncontrolled powers" to kidnap, rob and execute prosperous traders in addition to real or suspected Khmer Rouge guerrillas.

Although the government denies the existence of the detention centers, the Military Prosecutor's Office had confirmed in a confidential report the S-91 unit's involvement in abductions, executions and cannibalism and asked the Defense Ministry to "control and destroy immediately these two secret camps."

U.N. and human rights sources called the government's report a "coverup" that reflected its anxiety to avoid undermining requests for military assistance from foreign countries, notably the United States, Australia and France.

According to the U.N. Center for Human Rights, several eyewitnesses said military personnel at Chheu Kmau regularly cooked and ate the livers of executed prisoners.

Khmer Rouge leader returns, is beaten by Cambodian mob -Nate Thayer

Khmer Rouge leader returns, is beaten by Cambodian mob

Chicago Sun-Times

November 27, 1991 | Nate Thayer

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia An angry mob screaming "Dog!" and "Murderer!" today surged past police and beat a top leader of the Khmer Rouge, the Communist guerrilla group whose reign of terror in the 1970s left hundreds of thousands dead.

The government ordered in armored personnel carriers to evacuate Khieu Samphan, the right-hand man to top Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, as the crowd prepared to lynch him. Khieu Samphan and Son Sen, another Khmer Rouge leader, and their aides were flown back to Bangkok, Thailand.

Bleeding from the head and chest, Khieu Samphan cowered in a bedroom as security officers prevented him from being strung up by a wire tied to a ceiling fan.

"Please help me, please don't leave me," he pleaded, asking three foreign photographers to say in the room.

Only hours earlier, Khieu Samphan ended his exile and returned to Phnom Penh to take part in a UN-backed plan to end 13 years of civil war between the Khmer Rouge, its two non-Communist guerrilla allies and the government Vietnam installed after invading Cambodia in 1978.

The attack delayed what would have been the first meeting of a national reconciliation council and appeared to jeopardize a UN-brokered peace accord signed last month in Paris by all four warring factions.

The government, in a statement carried by its official news agency, said it remained fully committed to the peace pact. Under the accord, a Supreme National Council led by Prince Norodom Sihanouk would help pave the way for elections in 1993.

More than 10,000 angry demonstrators converged on the villa housing the Khmer Rouge delegation today after the 60-year-old Khieu Samphan's return. Khieu Samphan was one of the prime architects of the Khmer Rouge's murderous regime, which killed hundreds of thousands of people as the group tried to turn the country into a vast rural commune. Khieu Samphan is now the group's president.

After storming and ransacking the villa, the mob broke into the second-story room where Khieu Samphan was hiding. Reporters saw him huddled against a wall, wearing a steel helmet and bleeding profusely. He apparently had been struck by a rock.

As thousands of protesters ringed the house, six government armored personnel carriers moved into position outside. One backed into the front entranceway and Khieu Samphan, with several other members of his delegation, clambered onto the back of the vehicle.

Miners risk all for Cambodia rubies

Miners risk all for Cambodia rubies

Chicago Sun-Times

January 27, 1991 | Nate Thayer

BORAI, Thailand Thousands of fortune hunters risk land mines and malaria digging for rubies in the war zones of guerrilla-controlled western Cambodia.

Ruby fever has gripped this border town. Miners tell their adventures in bustling poolrooms and bars.

Lucky miners make fortunes, as in the gold rushes of the American West in the 19th century. They emerge from the jungle with pockets full of rubies.

Wutipong Sophapong, owner of a gas station in Borai, sat on his back porch fondling several hundred gems - dug from his yard in a single day, he said.

The Khmer Rouge captured the area east of Borai in 1989 and opened the border to Thai miners to help finance its war with Cambodia's Vietnam-sponsored government.

About 50,000 miners a month trek over the Ban Thad Mountains into the Cambodian jungles, according to Thai authorities. They say hundreds have died there, about one-third return with deadly cerebral malaria and others lose limbs to land mines.

Despite the risks, newcomers arrive every day.

"Over this mountain a few days' walk, you just stick your hand in the ground and the dirt is filled with red jewels," a miner said, his eyes sparkling while he waited to be checked for malaria.

The Khmer Rouge, who abolished money and all forms of private enterprise during their brutal 3 1/2 years in power, now oversee a sophisticated mining operation that miners and provincial officials say brings them millions of dollars a month.

Each miner pays the equivalent of $60 for access to the region and can keep whatever he finds. Officials say the windfall may allow the Khmer Rouge to buy weapons on the black market if supplies dry up from China, which is among the world powers searching for a peace formula in Cambodia.

Borai District officials estimate that more than 100 million baht ($4 million) change hands every day in deals over rubies.

"There are a lot of 3 or 4 million baht stones," the district chief of Borai said. "The most valuable one so far went for 24 million baht," about $1 million.

Less than a yard from where Wutipong sat on his back porch, the yard disappeared into a 100-foot-deep hole the size of a football field. The hole was filled with pumps, workers and two cranes worth $280,000 each, which the gas station owner bought after striking it rich a few months ago.

"There is an old canal under my house and we found rubies on both sides, so we are going to tear down the house in a few weeks," he said.

Rebel Group Outlawed by Cambodia; Thais Implicated In Coup Attempt -Nate Thayer

Rebel Group Outlawed by Cambodia; Thais Implicated In Coup Attempt

The Washington Post

July 8, 1994 | Nate Thayer

Cambodia today passed controversial legislation to outlaw the Khmer Rouge rebel group, raising tensions in a government still jittery from a weekend coup attempt.

After the 98 to 1 vote in the National Assembly, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, who holds the title of first prime minister in a shaky coalition government, called on all countries to bar Khmer Rouge members from their territory and "arrest those outlaws" who he said will be named on government lists of Khmer Rouge officials. His remarks were aimed primarily at neighboring Thailand, where military officers and businessmen have long maintained ties with the notorious communist guerrilla group.

At the same time, however, Ranariddh publicly accused Thai citizens of involvement in the coup plot, which was apparently directed against him and his royalist Funcinpec party by hard-line supporters of the Cambodian People's Party, his main coalition partner.

So far, authorities have arrested 14 Thais connected to a Cambodian general who confessed to involvement in the plot, and a number of others are being sought. Ranariddh said they included a Thai police official and nine Thai specialists in radio communications, weapons and explosives.

According to Cambodian officials and diplomats, the heavy emphasis on Thai involvement appears partly intended to deflect attention from the role in the plot of senior officials of the coalition government. The sources said the coup attempt, which had been in the works for months, stemmed from a broad-based plot by hard-liners in the People's Party to stifle growing dissent among their partners in Funcinpec. The royalist party won last year's U.N.-sponsored elections but has been unable to wrest real power from the formerly communist People's Party, which had ruled Cambodia since 1979 but finished second in last year's voting.

Strains within the coalition intensified after the People's Party rejected a suggestion by King Norodom Sihanouk in mid-June that a national unity government be formed that would include the Khmer Rouge. Today's legislation to outlaw the radical guerrilla group, accused of killing 1 million people while it held power in the late 1970s, has exacerbated splits within the government. Some Funcinpec leaders described it as a move to further sideline Sihanouk and consolidate the People's Party's grip on power.

On Wednesday, security forces arrested Gen. Sin Sen, the number-two official in the powerful Interior Ministry, on charges of involvement in the conspiracy.

The coup attempt started when a dozen armored personnel carriers and 300 rebel troops left the eastern province of Prey Veng for the capital late Saturday afternoon. It ended Sunday when supporting elements failed to materialize and a distraught Prince Norodom Chakrapong, Ranariddh's estranged half-brother and one of the alleged coup leaders, was allowed to fly into exile in Malaysia after pleading for his life in frantic negotiations by mobile phone from a Phnom Penh hotel room.

Chakrapong, 49, a son of King Sihanouk, initially eluded arrest and went into hiding in Phnom Penh's Regent Hotel. From there, he contacted this reporter at 6:30 a.m. Sunday, begging me to come quickly to the hotel in apparent hopes that the presence of a foreign journalist would prevent security forces from killing him.

What followed was a bizarre 4 1/2-hour drama in which the terrified prince engaged in desperate phone negotiations with Cambodian intermediaries, the American ambassador and, in calls from Beijing, King Sihanouk and Queen Monique.

After making my way past government troops and security forces posted outside the hotel with machine guns and rocket launchers, I found Chakrapong, disheveled, barefoot and wide-eyed with fear, emerging from a crawlspace above the ceiling of his room.

"Please, they are trying to arrest me," he pleaded. "They will kill me. I am innocent. Please tell the American ambassador to come right away. I need protection."

Agitated and near tears, he repeatedly denied any involvement in the coup attempt, cursed government leaders and begged me not to leave him in case troops invaded the hotel. He fielded calls constantly on two mobile phones, speaking in English, French and Khmer.

At one point he had Sihanouk on the phone in one hand and U.S. Ambassador Charles Twining on the line in the other. But it was his stepmother, Queen Monique, who appeared to take a leading role in negotiating with government leaders on Chakrapong's behalf to let him leave the country.

"I am all right, Papa, but the situation is bad," he told Sihanouk at one point. "They have surrounded me."

He pleaded with Twining for political asylum but was told the embassy could not help him. Twining eventually showed up at the hotel and joined Interior Minister You Hokry in discussions with Chakrapong on his departure from the country.

"I am a military man," Chakrapong told me in protesting his innocence before being whisked to the airport in a heavily armed convoy. "I know how to make a coup. Now I have no power and no forces. How can I make a coup?"

"Ink':The New Yorker: "Nate Thayer, a thirty-seven-year-old Boston Brahmin with a shaved head and teeth blackened by chewing tobacco, emerged from the Cambodian jungle..."

Ink

The New Yorker

The Talk of the Town

By Philip Gourevitch

August 18, 1997

On Friday, July 25th, Nate Thayer, a thirty-seven-year-old Boston Brahmin with a shaved head and teeth blackened by chewing tobacco, emerged from the Cambodian jungle, having witnessed and recorded on film the Khmer Rouge trial of Pol Pot. Being the first Western journalist to see Pol Pot in nearly two decades was, he said over the telephone from Bangkok last week, the fulfillment of a "life objective." A few years ago, in Phnom Penh, The Cambodian capital, he had given me some indication of what he had endured along the way. By Thayer’s reckoning, over the last ten years he has been the object of several assassination attempts and countless death threats; been taken hostage twice by the Khmer Rouge; seen eight of his personal security guards killed; been hospitalized sixteen times for cerebral malaria; been detained more than ten times by Thai intelligence and Cambodian government troops; and lost hearing in one ear when his vehicle was blown up by a land mine.

Thayer's appetite for the extreme, his gift for shucks-it-ain't nothin' self-dramatization, his readiness to meet armed adversaries with what he calls "superior firepower," and his anti-hair style have won him the nickname Kurtz among the increasingly pampered ranks of contemporary foreign correspondents. Thayer, who speaks Khmer, has said that he feels more attuned to life in Cambodia than in America. Of New York, where he lived, and was mugged, as a teen ager, he says, "Man, I can't control my perimeter there. It's the crazies that I can't deal with." Thayer rarely talks about his family - moneyed New England; Harvard's Thayer Hall; his father, Harry Thayer, a former Ambassador to Singapore - except to ...recall Judge Webster Thayer, who sentenced Sacco and Vanzetti: "Whenever they call me the black sheep of the family, I say, 'What about this fucking guy?

 Whether Thayer’s gnarly macho bluster is more of a gag or pathology, it has served as a useful foil for his intense seriousness as an investigative reporter and political analyst. Since he first turned up, with no journalistic experience, in the refugee camps along the Thai border in 1988, Thayer's muckraking exposed of Cambodia's Jacobean politics have made him not just a chronicler of events but a significant factor in their development. (In a typical story, he found himself alone in a hotel room with a coup plotter, ringed by troops with orders to kill). His principal employer is the Far Eastern Economic Review, but he also contributes to Soldier of Fortune, a magazine which he calls "by far the finest publication of its genre."

 

In 1992, Thayer trekked up the old Ho Chi Minh trail near the border of Vietnam, where he discovered a lost army of anti-communist Montagnards, still loyal to their Saigon and American commanders; he convinced them that the war had been over for seventeen years, and many of them later settled in America. A more recent ‘scientific’ expedition, in search of the Kouprey—a nearly extinct Indochinese bovine species—ended in fiasco, after Thayer and his cohort rode into the jungle on elephants, heavily armed and wearing Donald Duck and Ronald Reagan masks on the backs of their heads to scare off Tigers (the cats tend to attack from the rear).

 

 

In June, when Khmer Rouge radio announced that Pol Pot had been imprisoned, Thayer saw an opportunity to get "the last great interview in Asia." He was broke, so he borrowed the plane fare and set about convincing his Khmer Rouge contacts that they needed to bring a credible witness to Anlong Veng, the jungle redoubt where Pol Pot was being held. With his old friend the cameraman David McKaige, Thayer proceeded through an elaborate underground railroad—“meetings at gas stations, coded phone messages, hotel rooms, waiting”--...into the bush. "I wasn't the first to get into Anlong Veng," he said. "I was the first to get out." Three Westerners had disappeared after venturing into the Khmer Rouge headquarters in the past year or so.

 Thayer never got his interview. Pol Pot, seventy-two years old, and visibly weakened by disease, could not stand on his own, much less speak, when the two-hour trial was over. "Every ounce of his being was struggling to maintain some last vestige of dignity," Thayer said. “You could see his cheeks shaking.” And Thayer, who choked up himself during an interview with Ted Koppel afterward, told me, "It was a tragic thing to watch any human being have to go through that, regardless of what he did to others. I felt great sympathy—and not just for him. My mind raced with the millions of people whose lives were destroyed."

Still, Thayer seems almost to regard the accomplishment of this life goal as old news. The leaders of this summer's coup in Phnom Penh are themselves old Khmer Rouge cadres. "Pol Pot is in jail; the rest of them are in leadership," he said. "They're executing people, and the American government doesn't have the balls to call it a coup, because that would mean cutting off aid, and that's a scandal." To hear him talk, Pol Pot's demise was not the end of the story but the starting point of a new one.—PHILP GOUREVITCH

 

DEPT OF SCOOPS: Where’s the Committee to Protect Journalists from each other?-"Talk of the Town"-The New Yorker

DEPT OF SCOOPS

Where’s the Committee to Protect Journalists from each other?

The New Yorker

May 25, 1998

Talk of the Town

By Philip Gourevitch

A George Foster Peabody Award is the broadcasting world’s version of the Pulitzer, and until last Monday, when the fifty-seventh annual awards ceremony was held, at the Waldorf-Astoria, nobody who was honored with a Peabody had ever spurned the distinction. Then Nate Thayer came to town. Thayer is the thirty-eight-year-old Bangkok-based journalist-adventurer who, last July, obtained one of the great scoops of our time by trekking into the Cambodian jungle, attending the show trial of Pol Pot, and trekking out into Thailand with the whole bizarre spectacle on high-quality videotape. Much of that footage was promptly aired by ABC’s “Nightline” in a three-part series, which went on to win one of this year’s Peabody’s for “distinguished achievement and meritorious public service.” And Thayer went from being the first journalist to meet up with Pol Pot in nearly twenty years to being the first to turn down a Peabody.

 

In a letter “formally and unequivocally” rejecting his share in the award, Thayer wrote, “Ted Koppel and ‘Nightline’ literally stole my work, took credit for it, trivialized it, refused to pay me, and then attempted to bully and extort me when I complained. They should not be rewarded for this kind of behavior and I under no circumstances want my name associated with these egregious violations of basic journalistic ethics and integrity.” So last week’s gala luncheon became a split-level ceremony: upstairs, in the Waldorf’s Grand ballroom, Koppel accepted the trophy—the sixth Peabody of his career—while downstairs, in one of the Waldorf’s many saloons, Thayer pleaded his case to the barman, who set up his double scotches for free, explaining, “I like a man with principles.’

Thayer has no quarrel with the series Koppel anchored, or with the fee of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars that, a month ago, ‘Nightline” finally paid him for the use of his footage. But the deal—which he originally negotiated with Koppel over the phone—was for a one-week exclusive on North American television rights only. As Thayer understood it, that meant that he could sell the remaining world broadcast rights and the potentially lucrative still photographs from his encounter with Pol Pot, and that he retained the print-media exclusive to the story, which he had promised to his longtime employer, the far eastern Economic Review, a Hong Kong-based weekly. Thayer says that he chose to work with Koppel “because of his reputation for integrity” and yet “within twenty-four hours the pictures and the story were all over the place. ABC’s public-relations just took it over.”

 

Even before the first “Nightline program on Pol Pot aired, the network’s promotion teams were shipping out photographs made from Thayer’s footage, and video clips were available on the ABC web site, where anybody could simply download them. “Nightline” also allowed a writer from the Times to preview ten minutes of the footage, with the result that Thayer’s scoop—text and photographs appeared on the paper’s front page before his own article for the Review had gone to press. According to a spokeswoman for ABC, this sort of pre-broadcast publicity is normal, and the network did nothing to violate its agreement. If Thayer thinks otherwise, the spokeswoman says, “It might be that he had no idea that this is what happens when you deal with a large news organization.”

 

Thayer does think otherwise. “My main objection is that the industry has taken control of journalists, and part of our job is to fight for the integrity of our profession,” he said last week over more double scotches in a midtown bar. “I’ve just become incredibly disillusioned over the last year.” Sadly, Thayer’s sense of himself as something of a dinosaur is not inaccurate; in the dangerous pursuit of his stories that have made him famous, he has often needed to trust verbal agreements—even with Khmer Rouge cadres—as a matter of life or death. And nobody in the news business seems to recognize that fact better than Ted Koppel. Last October, at the same Waldorf podium where he would claim his latest Peabody award, Koppel addressed a banquet for the Committee to Protect Journalists, paying homage to reporters who risk “ death, or torture, or imprisonment” in violent places under repressive regimes, and he warned that American journalism was equally endangered.—but “more insidiously”—by “the trivialization of our industry.” He said, “We struggle to be first with the obvious…we’re afraid of the competition; afraid of earning less money; afraid of losing our audience.”

Last week, with the ghost of those words hanging in the hall, Koppel kept his Peabody acceptance speech brief. “Nate has chosen not to accept this award, because he has some profound differences with ABC news, with “Nightline”, with me. I’m sorry about that, genuinely sorry,” he said, adding, “While he rejects this award, I don’t want to reject the enormous contribution he made to bringing the world this story.”

 

It was odd hearing Thayer spoken of as having made a “contribution” to the story that he alone had brought out of the Cambodian Jungles. Finding Pol Pot was his biggest scoop, but for ten years, in one groundbreaking story after another, Thayer has not only chronicled Cambodia’s treacherous political history but also done a good deal to shape it. Early last month, for instance, he got word that the Khmer Rouge leaders who had purged Pol Pot, and were keeping him captive, wanted to turn the aging and sickly boss of the killing fields over to “the Americans” for trial; before an international tribunal. “But they didn’t know any Americans,” Thayer recalled. “Just me. I went back in, and spoke with them, and reported their wishes. The Voice of America’s Khmer-language service led the eight-o’clock news with the story on April 15^th. Pol Pot was listening, and a few hours later he was dead.” Thayer grinned, and ran a big hand over his shiny shaved scalp, his narrow eyes seemed to brighten. “ That’s my award,” he said, and laughed. “ I killed Pol Pot.”---Philip Gourevitch

Cambodia: Doing Its Best to Stop Drugs - Letter to the Editor:The Washington Post

Cambodia: Doing Its Best to Stop Drugs

The Washington Post

August 4, 1997

(What the Ambassador failed to mention was that the United States had banned Theng Bun Ma from entry to the U.S. based on evidence they had gathered he was a drug trafficker. And that in the same statement he reference U.S. State Department spokeseman Nicholas Burns said " We have credible evidence that Theng Bun Ma is heavily involved in drug trafficking.' And that in the days before the Ambassador's letter Bunma had publicly stated that he had been requested and paid Hun Sen $1 million dollars to finance his coup detat weeks earlier on July 5, 1997. And that Hun Sen's official limousines, airplanes, and salary of the Cambodian army was paid for by Theng Bun Ma. And that  Bunma held a diplomat passport as 'economic advisor' to the Ambassador's political Party the CPP, and had paid for the entire official Cambodian state delegation's trip to Washington where CPP party chief Chea Sim met with congressmen, senator's, the State department, and the Pentagon)

Letter to the Editor from Cambodian Ambassador to the United States: Washington Post

 

The Post's July 22 front-page article on Cambodia {"Drug Suspects Bankroll Cambodian Coup Leader"} was biased, defamatory and focuses on the weaknesses of Cambodia's drug enforcement program while ignoring the giant steps forward Cambodia has taken to eradicate drug trafficking. Tying Second Prime Minister Hun Sen to drug trafficking is nonsense.

Even U.S. State Department spokesman Nicolas Burns said recently, "We have no direct evidence that Hun Sen is involved in drug trafficking."

Cambodia is located in an area where drugs from other countries can pass through it by road, river, sea and air. Its border and police agencies are not equipped or fully trained to stop drug movement, but the government does its best to halt this activity with the limited resources it possesses.

Since Cambodia formed its government in late 1993, it has passed a tough, new drug law, reorganized its drug-enforcement unit pursuant to international recommendations, equipped a lab for testing substances for drug content and conducted extensive training for its police and port officials. Cambodia's drug law provides a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison for possession or use of any quantity of any illegal drug.

More than 100 drug traffickers have been arrested and convicted in Cambodia. Last year, roughly 450 acres of marijuana were found and destroyed, and 40 kilos of heroin were seized in transit. Further, 71 kilos of heroin were burned under international supervision.

America, with all its resources, has not wiped out its drug problem or stopped drug entry at its ports. On April 7, 1996, President Clinton said, "The United States government is deeply appreciative of the efforts of the Royal Government of Cambodia to combat illicit narcotics trafficking." After a review of drug transit, he certified that the Cambodian government was fully cooperating with the United States or had taken adequate steps to achieve full compliance with appropriate international laws and programs.

Nate Thayer, the author of The Post's piece on Cambodia, published a version of this article in the Far Eastern Economic Review in November of 1995. At that time an investigation was initiated, and no evidence of official corruption was found. H. E. VAR HUOTH Ambassador Embassy of Cambodia Washington

Holly Harris will spin her blues on 'BOS

Holly Harris will spin her blues on 'BOS

The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)

January 8, 1993 | Susan Bickelhaupt, Globe Staff

Holly Harris is an ambassador for the blues in Boston, whether she's listening to music at a blues club, emceeing a blues festival or spinning blues tunes on the radio.

Starting this weekend, Harris has a new home at WBOS-FM (92.9), where she'll host Blues on Sunday at 10 p.m. For the past decade, Harris has mostly found a nitch on noncommercial radio, hosting a Sunday morning show on WMFO-FM (91.5) and subbing for Mai Cramer on WGBH-FM (89.7). Last year she signed with WCGY-FM, doing "Rockin' Blues" on Sunday night.

Harris, from upstate New York, said she's not that musical herself, although she's been surrounded by it. Her father has a doctorate of music from Columbia University, and his father was Al Jolson's No. 1 trumpeter.

Her jolt for the blues came when she was 16 and heard B. B. King. "It just hit me as the most beautiful music I'd ever heard," Harris recalls.

She ended up in Boston at Suffolk University in the early '70s, and listened to all the radio shows in town. WMFO's Sunday Morning Blues caught her ear, and when host Nate Thayer asked her to fill in when he left to travel, she gladly did. It's been her show since 1982, and she plans to keep doing it.

Harris, a school counselor during the week, was content with the three-hour show on Sunday (11 a.m.-2 p.m.), but when WCGY-FM (95.3) approached her last spring about doing a blues show on the rock station, Harris was receptive.

"I thought a commercial station would be a great forum, and it is," she said. "I think the blues is finally coming into some respect it always deserved."

Harris' latest gig will be hosting a show that has been on WBOS for a year and a half. Up to now it has had rotating hosts, Bill Smith and David O'Leary, both of whom have full-time jobs at the station.

She said she probably won't make the show as rock-based and consistently uptempo as the one at WCGY, and will play a variety of tempos. She also wants to take listener requests.

"I'm really big on local features, too, and want to spotlight one local group every week," Harris said.

No stranger to the Boston blues scene, Harris frequently emcees shows at clubs, and served as a consultant for the new House of Blues. Harris and Rick Russell founded the Blues Society in 1988.

Harris is a fan of Cramer's show on WGBH on Friday and Saturday nights, but is encouraged that commercial stations are starting to take the nod. WBCN-FM (104.1) now has a Sunday morning blues show.

Steve Becker, the program director at WCGY, said he intends to continue with the program and is already on the lookout for a new host.

The radio ratings that came out yesterday reflect the fall period, when listeners supposedly are back to their regular schedules and listening habits. The numbers, on which ad rates are based, are the equivalent of TV's "sweeps." The bosses at WMJX-FM must be grinning broadly over their first-place ranking for all Greater Boston listeners, age 25 to 54. 'MJX, which has been sprinkling the TV airwaves with advertising, vaulted from fourth-place in the last ratings book; it bumped WODS-FM down to No. 2. Next were WBCN-FM, WXKS-FM and WBOS-FM, which zoomed up from 10th to 5th place for its best book ever. (It, like 'MJX, has been heavy into TV advertising, and has revamped its playlist.) Next were WBMX-FM, WBZ, WSSH-FM, WZLX-FM, WCDJ-FM tied with WZOU-FM, WRKO-FM and WVBF-FM. Then, WEEI, WCRB-FM, WHDH, WILD tied with WFNX-FM, WCGY-FM, WOKQ-FM and WAAF-FM.

On the all-encompassing group of listeners age 12 and older, WBZ jumped into first place with 7.4 percent of the audience -- perhaps the election gave the all-news station a boost. Next in line were WXKS-FM (7 percent of the audience), WRKO (5.5), WMJX-FM and WBCN-FM tied at 5.3, WODS-FM (4.7), WZOU-FM (4.5), WSSH-FM (4.2), WBOS-FM and WHDH (3.8). After that were WZLX-FM (3.6), WBMX-FM (3.5), WCDJ-FM (2.5), WCRB-FM and WVBF-FM (2.4), WAAF-FM (2.3), WEEI (2.1), WPLM-FM (2), WFNX-FM (1.9) and WILD (1.8). Finally were WXKS, WCGY-FM, WOKQ-FM, WCAV-FM, WCTK-FM, WLYT-FM and WMEX. Spinning the dial

Comedian and actor Roger Kabler, of the NBC sitcom "Rhythm & Blues," will take his TV role seriously when he takes over the WILD (1090) airwaves this morning from 8 to 9 a.m. Kabler plays "Bobby Soul," a hip-talking DJ at an all-black radio station in Detroit . . . Dave Palmater invites folkie Rosalie Sorrels to perform live today at noon on WUMB-FM (91.9).

Uneasy boom in Cambodia

Uneasy boom in Cambodia

New Straits Times

February 13, 2000 | Zainon Ahmad

Zainon Ahmad
New Straits Times
02-13-2000
Uneasy boom in Cambodia
Byline: Zainon Ahmad
Edition: New Sunday Times;
Section: Opinion
Memo: (STF) - There is now peace in Cambodia but the general view is that stability will only be achieved when all the institutions of the state have been properly established and strengthened, reports Zainon Ahmad, who was in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap last week.

"ALL is not what it seems in Cambodia," said an Asean diplomat. Most foreigners stationed in Phnom Penh say the same thing when a visitor observes that the capital is booming and that tourists are once again flocking to the country.

Government leaders tell visitors that there is peace in the country following the UN-sponsored general election of 1993, that democracy has taken root and the Press is free. Others, including opposition leader Sam Rainsy and some non-governmental organisations agree that all is not what it seems in Cambodia. They say the peace is uneasy, the economy is a sham and there is no democracy.
"Cambodia is a dictatorship under the control of Hun Sen - make no mistake about that," said jounalist Nate Thayer of the Far Eastern Economic Review magazine to a group of Asian and German editors in Siem Reap last week.

Sam Rainsy of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party said there was no rule of law and as a result, mafia elements from Hong Kong and Macau had flocked to Cambodia.

But everyone agrees that there is now peace in the country, beginning with the election victory of strongman Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party in the 1998 election.

People are finding employment in the small factories that have mushroomed in and around Phnom Penh in recent years. Shops are stocked with goods and restaurants are well patronised. They are also employed in the scores of hotels.

When asked about the state of things, government officials are quick to say that the economy is growing again after the so-called Asian flu. And they have figures at their fingertips.

They admit that Cambodia is still one of the poorest countries in the world but say that the one year of peace has attracted many investors and that the future looks good.

The economy is the Government's priority, they say. It has called itself "the economic government" as a strategy to convince prospective investors that it is business-friendly.

"The gross domestic product growth has been fairly consistent with our projections and we hope to achieve at least six per cent growth this year," said Kong Vibol of the Ministry of Economy and Finance at a Konrad Adenauer Foundation-sponsored meeting of Asian and German editors in Phnom Penh last week.

He and other economists spewed statistics to convince the editors that the economy is doing well and that the investment climate in the country is never better.

The editors were told that "the real GDP growth of Cambodia is based on the following: a forcast 3.8 per cent growth in agriculture premising on three factors - a 5.1 per cent increase in rice production, a six per cent expansion in production of other cereals and a 14.8 per cent growth in fisheries products.

Kong Vibol also said: "The goals of the Government's reform programme are poverty alleviation and the achievement of sustainable economic growth. This programme is premised on strengthening the rule of law and governance and tackling corruption."

To which Sam Rainsy said all the glossy statements were presented to convince the donor community that the necessary reforms were taking place and corruption was being eradicated.

An official of one of the European NGOs (there are almost a hundred of them from Europe, America, Japan, Australia and other countries spending money on projects in Cambodia) said because of corruption, Australia was pulling out from extending a helping hand to the Royal Cambodian Navy.

Most of the government economists said Cambodia had benefited tremendously from being admitted as the 10th member of Asean in 1998. But they were quite unsuccessful in explaining how. They would not even admit that it was another bid for legitimacy.

Some NGO officials said government ministers and officials were not used to explaining things to their people. And because of the obsequious nature of the Cambodians in general, they saw no need to do so. "And this perhaps explain why some leaders commit all sorts of criminal acts with such impunity," said an NGO representative from Europe.

In the 1998 general election, Hun Sen's party failed to win two- thirds of the seats in the National Assembly, necessary for any move to amend the constitution. The CPP (the former Cambodian Communist Party) had no choice but to coalesce with the party it ousted in a bloody coup in 1997 - Prince Norodom Ranariddh's Funcinpec.

Ranariddh, son of King Norodom Sihanouk, is now content to play his role as speaker of the country's Parliament - the National Assembly.

This gives rise to speculation that some form of a deal had been worked out which would lead Ranariddh to be the next king of Cambodia. But only Sam Rainsy dared to speak out. Or, as some put it, was foolhardy or crazy enough to speak out.

He told the meeting of editors it was one of the reasons why he wanted the procedure of selecting the next king to be made public. The people should learn to break free from the feudal mentality under which they had lived for hundreds of years.

In his new millennium message, he lambasted the ruling regime. He said: "The superficially revamped communist regime - under a thin veneer of monarchy which is nothing else than a facade of legality and democracy for an illegal and dictatorial regime - preserves and promotes this type of mentality which forms the moral foundation of the unacceptable present status quo."

When leaders of the CCP and Funcinpec appeared on radio and television to blast him, Sam Rainsy appealed to some foreign embassies to protect him.

Asked by the editors why he made such extreme statements, he said the message was meant to shake up the thinking of the Cambodian leaders and people.

But peace does not mean that no more murders and killings are taking place. Cases of extrajudicial killings abound. Other killings and murders continue with impunity.

Nate Thayer cited examples of impunity, including the failure of the Government to arrest anyone for the 1997 grenade attack that killed at least 17 people and injured more than 100, for the more than 100 extrajudicial killings of Funcinpec security officials following the 1997 factional fighting, and for the lack of action following the December acid attack against a 16-year-old girl police said was led by the wife of a Council of Minister's official.

"People with money are able to buy off people with power, and people with guns are able to buy off people with power," the journalist charged. He said Cambodian officials' links to criminal syndicates were key to understanding why institutions were as weak as they were now in Cambodia.

Nate Thayer blasted the business practises of Teng Bunma, who directs the Thai Boon Roong Group and heads the country's Chamber of Commerce. The tycoon has been barred from entering the United States because of suspected links to drug-trafficking. Teng Bunma has denied the allegations.

One government senior official agreed with much of what Nate Thayer said. "Someone has to say the truth," said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

There were also Cambodians at the talk who disagreed. National Television of Kampuchea deputy director-general Kem Gunawadh said: "Nate Thayer knows well about my country, but he doesn't understand the differences now compared to before. What he said was true before 1998, but not now."

Lao Mong Hay, the executive director of the Khmer Institute for Democracy and regular government critic, said: "He might have gone too far."

Despite the bleak picture of Cambodia as painted by Thayer, some visitors to Phnom Penh get a sense that the country is enjoying prosperity especially at night when the city is all lighted up.

Neon signs proclaim the numerous casinos and nightclubs. Far greater number of casinos and nightclubs, said one diplomat, had mushroomed on the western strip of the country bordering Thailand, which does not allow casinos on its soil. Thais and others cross the border in hordes to enjoy themselves there while Cambodians flock there to work.

While Cambodians have no money to gamble they are certainly doing it with their soul, remarked the diplomat.

(Copyright 2000)

Tyrants Old and New - The Washington Post Lead Editorial

Tyrants Old and New

The Washington Post

July 30, 1997

FOR THE FIRST time in 18 years, Pol Pot -- one of the century's most evil figures -- has been sighted by a Westerner and shown on American television. It is as if Hitler or Stalin had resurfaced two decades after their genocidal crimes. Pol Pot, whose Khmer Rouge movement turned Cambodia into a concentration camp where a million people died in four short years, now appears as a feeble old man, supported by two soldiers as he walks, fretfully clutching a scarf to his neck.

Why is this sight -- filmed in the remote jungle by journalist Nate Thayer and a cameraman companion -- so disturbing? Partly it is the unsatisfactory letdown of a show trial to which Pol Pot has been subjected. Now victimized by the Stalinist and Maoist style that he helped bring to Cambodia, Pol Pot is shown sitting on a rickety chair as hundreds of his erstwhile Khmer Rouge compatriots shout in unison for him to be "crushed, crushed, crushed." Is it truly a fall from power, or a Pol Pot ruse within Cambodia's tangled politics? Outsiders cannot be sure. We can be certain, though, that it is not the international war crimes tribunal that alone could provide justice and satisfy history.

But the scene disturbs for another reason, too. To see this malarial old man is to render human the monster of our imagination -- and to remind us that he cannot have committed his crimes alone. We like to pretend that the awful genocides of the 20th century were the works of evil geniuses -- Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot -- beyond the control of ordinary people like ourselves. Yet Pol Pot could not have enslaved his nation without many willing collaborators, inside and outside Cambodia. Even the United States, which now (rightly) demands his apprehension, offered indirect support and cooperation when it suited U.S. geopolitical needs. This reality becomes all the more painful as we watch history repeat itself. A new tyrant even now is consolidating his rule in Cambodia. Hun Sen, himself a former Khmer Rouge lieutenant, has not committed crimes on Pol Pot's scale, yet the reports now emerging from Cambodia of tortures and summary executions are horrifying enough. And once again people inside and outside Cambodia are making their accommodations. Quislings in the party of ousted prime minister Norodom Ranariddh scramble to take his place, offering Hun Sen a constitutional fig leaf. Donor countries such as Japan proffer aid, taking with a straight face Hun Sen's promise to restore democracy. Perhaps 20 years from now, Hun Sen will face a trial someplace -- and everyone will again pretend that he acted all by himself.

Khmer Rouge Attack Train In Cambodia - The Washington Post

Khmer Rouge Attack Train In Cambodia

The Washington Post

July 29, 1994 | Nate Thayer

Suspected Khmer Rouge guerrillas this week blew up a train, gunned down passengers and abducted scores of people including three Western tourists, government officials and diplomats confirmed today.

The attack Tuesday on a passenger train bound for the southern port city of Sihanounkville left at least nine people dead, the officials said. After blowing the train up with mines about 80 miles south of the capital, the gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons on cars packed with up to 1,000 civilian passengers, then marched scores of people off into the jungle, investigators said.

Most of the Cambodian hostages were later released, but three Western tourists - from France, Australia and Britain - and three Vietnamese apparently were taken hostage, diplomats and railroad officials said.

The attack came a month after Cambodia passed legislation outlawing the Khmer Rouge following the breakdown of peace talks in early June. The legislation effectively ended hopes of a political settlement with the rebel faction, which has been waging a low-intensity guerrilla war off and on for 15 years since being ousted from power.

During nearly four years of brutal rule after seizing power in 1975, the radical Communist Khmer Rouge presided over the deaths of more than 1 million Cambodians. The faction boycotted U.N.-sponsored elections held in May 1993 under a $2 billion U.N. peace plan. In recent months, the guerrillas have stepped up activity against the shaky, year-old coalition government of former battlefield enemies that emerged from the elections.

According to intelligence sources here, leaders of the Khmer Rouge have ordered their combatants to capture foreigners to pressure the international community to halt support for the young government.

The Khmer Rouge may be targeting Westerners from countries accused of backing the new government, including the United States, Australia and France, the sources said. Vietnam, which invaded Cambodia and drove the Khmer Rouge from power in 1979, has long been a hated enemy of the group.

Earlier this month, Australian and British investigators announced that skeletal remains found in the same area as the train attack were believed to be those of two young women and a man from Britain and Australia who were abducted by suspected Khmer Rouge guerrillas in April.

An American medical volunteer was captured by the Khmer Rouge in the same area in March, but she was released more than a month later.

In June, two Belgian tourists disappeared in an area under Khmer Rouge control in northwestern Cambodia. Their fate remains unknown.

Earlier this month, a team of 90 U.S. military personnel arrived in Cambodia to begin repair work on a highway and bridges in the vicinity of Tuesday's train attack. The Americans also plan to train Cambodians in clearing land mines.

In an interview last month, a senior Khmer Rouge official warned that U.S. military personnel would be considered targets "whose safety we cannot guarantee" if they were deployed in Cambodia.

U.S. officials have expressed concern about the team's safety in view of the latest violence.

Bandits, including members of the Cambodian army, also have been known to attack and rob trains and motor vehicles in Cambodia. The area in which Tuesday's train attack occurred, however, has long been dominated by the Khmer Rouge.

In response to last month's legislation formally outlawing the group, the Khmer Rouge declared a provisional government based in a remote jungle zone, effectively partitioning the country. Analysts said the result is likely to be an increase in fighting.

Ousted Cambodian Prince Seeks Foreign Supporters; Ranariddh Criticizes U.S. Response to Coup - The Washington Post

Ousted Cambodian Prince Seeks Foreign Supporters; Ranariddh Criticizes U.S. Response to Coup

The Washington Post

August 15, 1997 | Nate Thayer

As Cambodian leader Hun Sen consolidates his power in Phnom Penh following a successful coup there last month, the rival he ousted is stepping up efforts to rally international opposition to the takeover and is openly criticizing the Clinton administration's response.

Prince Norodom Ranariddh, whom Hun Sen deposed as first prime minister in the coup on July 5 and 6, called on the United States to take a tougher stand on Cambodia and reveal what it knows about possible terrorism, drug trafficking and human rights violations by Hun Sen's supporters.

In an interview here on Monday, Ranariddh said Hun Sen's takeover of the shaky coalition government will not lead to greater stability in Cambodia, as some U.S. officials have theorized, but to a renewal of that nation's long-running civil war and a new lease on life for the notorious Khmer Rouge guerrillas. "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 help but have the participation of the Khmer Rouge," Ranariddh said at the house of Cambodia's ambassador to Thailand, a member of the prince's royalist party, known as Funcinpec. "The Khmer Rouge are coming back, but they are coming back as nationalists, as patriots, not as killers." While Hun Sen's coup was aimed at scuttling a political alliance between Funcinpec and remnants of the Khmer Rouge, it has driven the royalists and the rebels together militarily as they try to defend territory in northwestern Cambodia from attack by Hun Sen's forces. In response to the coup, the Khmer Rouge has stepped up its condemnation of Hun Sen as a "puppet" of neighboring Vietnam, which installed him in power after the Vietnamese invaded in 1979, ending nearly four years of bloody Khmer Rouge rule under Pol Pot. Because of Cambodians' widespread fear and resentment of Vietnam, a historical adversary, the Khmer Rouge propaganda appears likely to strike a more responsive chord in the wake of the coup, particularly since the group formally broke with Pol Pot in a show trial on July 25. In the interview, an emotional Ranariddh accused Washington of ignoring human rights violations by Hun Sen, notably a March 30 grenade attack that killed at least 17 people and wounded more than 100 at an opposition political rally in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital. Because the injured included an American, Ron Abney of the Washington-based International Republican Institute, an FBI team was sent to investigate. It has produced an internal report that implicates a bodyguard unit loyal to Hun Sen, government sources have said. However, according to other sources close to the investigation, the report is not being released because of U.S. concerns that it would upset internal political stability in Cambodia. "We have to talk about the grenade attack," Ranariddh said. "President Clinton must release the FBI investigation. They know Hun Sen is a terrorist, but why are the Americans hiding the information, protecting Hun Sen?" Ranariddh also accused Washington of concealing connections between Hun Sen and suspected drug traffickers who have bankrolled his projects and helped fund last month's coup. "We should bring Hun Sen to an international trial," Ranariddh said. "They are terrorists, they are drug traffickers, and they have committed crimes against humanity." At least 41 of Ranariddh's supporters were tortured and executed following the coup, and hundreds more are missing, according to international human rights groups. Soldiers have taken scores of bodies to Buddhist temples and incinerated them, the groups say. "My priority is a political struggle, but the people will not let such a regime last," Ranariddh said. "With or without Ranariddh, Cambodia will have a resistance. It is not a problem between Hun Sen and Ranariddh. It is a problem between dictatorship and democracy." He added, "It will be a big mistake if the world community thinks strengthening Hun Sen will mean stability." Ranariddh's Funcinpec party "is now in the process of reorganizing militarily and politically," he said. Facing an arrest order by Hun Sen if he returns to Cambodia, Ranariddh vowed to go to Funcinpec-held territory in the country's northern jungles if the fighting continues. When his military commanders call him, he said, "I will not hesitate for one second to go back to lead the resistance."

Cambodians OK new step toward peace

Cambodians OK new step toward peace

Chicago Sun-Times

June 25, 1991 | Nate Thayer

PATTAYA, Thailand Cambodia's warring factions moved another step toward peace Monday when they signed an agreement under which they would stop receiving foreign arms.

The accord also put in formal wording a truce declared Sunday between the Vietnam-installed government in Phnom Penh and the three guerrilla groups.

Despite the moves, the quest for a lasting end to the 12-year-old civil war faced major obstacles. Previous cease-fires have fallen apart, and the new pact left unresolved such issues as how to halt the combat and disarm the fighters.

"The declaration is one thing. The implementation is another," cautioned Prince Norodom Ranariddh, son of the resistance leader, Prince Norodom Sihanouk.

The 12 members of the Supreme National Council, from the Cambodian government and guerrilla factions, signed the five-point pact on the first day of talks at this beach resort near Bangkok. The national council seeks to implement a United Nations Security Council peace plan drafted late last year. The talks have been mired by bickering over the role of the world body and other issues.

Under the peace plan as drafted, the UN would be extensively involved in Cambodia's administration and military affairs before elections.

The rebels have accepted the plan, but the Cambodian government has rejected demobilization before elections are held and is demanding measures to prevent any takeover attempt by Communist Khmer Rouge rebels.

Sihanouk denounced Prime Minister Hun Sen's reservations about the peace proposal. Sihanouk said a UN representative told him the UN Security Council would not monitor the truce or other agreements unless the entire plan was accepted.

"Sihanouk is putting the squeeze on Hun Sen," one diplomat said, on condition of anonymity. "He knows that Hun Sen knows you cannot have a cease-fire and cessation of arms without the UN plan."

The Supreme National Council said Monday it would "implement the unlimited cease-fire and undertake to stop receiving foreign military aid as from 24th June, 1991." Sihanouk is to direct future meetings of the council and lead a delegation to the UN.

Tycoon Says He Financed Hun Sen Coup; $1 Million Underwrote Cambodian Takeover

Tycoon Says He Financed Hun Sen Coup; $1 Million Underwrote Cambodian Takeover

The Washington Post

July 24, 1997 | Nate Thayer

A powerful Cambodian businessman and suspected drug kingpin says he gave more than $1 million in cash and gold to co-prime minister Hun Sen and his allies to fund a coup that ousted rival government leader Prince Norodom Ranariddh this month.

Theng Bunma, reputedly Cambodia's wealthiest man and a staunch supporter of Hun Sen, told Western journalists in an interview in Phnom Penh last week that he had called Hun Sen during the July 5-6 coup to offer his support. Among those present at the interview was an Australian television news crew, which made a tape available to The Washington Post.

"I gave him {Hun Sen} $1 million to do whatever to control the situation," Bunma told the reporters. "He asked me if I had the money in Cambodia. I said no, but I would send 100 kilograms {220 pounds} of gold in a plane into Cambodia." That amount of gold is worth about $860,000. Bunma, who is president of the Cambodian Chamber of Commerce and owns holdings worth an estimated $400 million in Cambodia, also said he paid three renegade members of Ranariddh's Funcinpec party $50,000 each to support Hun Sen's coup. The tycoon made it clear that he saw the takeover as good for his business interests, but he did not explain why he was revealing a role in bankrolling it. The U.S. government believes that Bunma, in addition to owning a hotel, a bank and an import-export company in Cambodia, is the country's biggest heroin trafficker. In the interview, Bunma reiterated his previous denials of involvement in drug trafficking. "I was accused of being a drug trafficker, and I am telling you, drug trafficking, I really hate that," he said. "I have never done it." In a briefing in Washington Tuesday, however, State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said, "We have reliable reporting that he {Theng Bunma} is closely and heavily involved in drug trafficking in Cambodia." He said the United States "does not have evidence that links Hun Sen himself, personally, to these accusations of narcotics trafficking" but that "we think the Cambodian government can do a lot more to purge itself of obvious corruption in the government, of obvious linkages between . . . members of the government and narco-traffickers." In an interview with The Washington Post in Bangkok Saturday, Ranariddh charged that Bunma and another wealthy suspected drug trafficker, Mong Rethy, have long been bankrolling Hun Sen. "He gets money from them, and they are drug traffickers," Ranariddh said. "I ask now that President Clinton . . . make public the investigation of the {Drug Enforcement Administration} on drug trafficking in Cambodia," Ranariddh added. "The DEA knows clearly." "The mafia is now in charge in Cambodia," Ranariddh declared, saying he was referring to "people like Theng Bunma, who is very, very powerful." During the coup, more than 300 of Hun Sen's troops, backed by tanks, were dispatched to protect Bunma's property. In the interview last week, Bunma expressed appreciation for that action and support for Ranariddh's ouster. "I say what {Hun Sen} did was correct," Bunma said. "Why? One reason. Take the example of my hotel." Ranariddh's troops wanted to destroy it, he said, but Hun Sen "put three tanks and soldiers around to protect it." Bunma said that he gave $50,000 each to three Funcinpec politicians opposed to Ranariddh -- provincial governors Toan Chhay and Duong Khem and minister of state Ung Phan -- to "encourage them" and cement their support for Hun Sen's coup. According to Western military sources in Phnom Penh, Bunma also has provided Hun Sen in recent days with Russian-made Mi-26 transport helicopters to ferry troops to front-line positions in northwestern Cambodia to battle Funcinpec loyalists. The helicopters are owned by Bunma and piloted by hired Russian crews. Intelligence sources say the helicopters also have been used to carry Southeast Asian heroin to Cambodian ports as part of international smuggling operations.

Cambodian peace may depend on UN troops - Chicago Sun-Times

Cambodian peace may depend on UN troops

Chicago Sun-Times

January 2, 1992 | Nate Thayer

1

PHNOM PENH Cambodia could return to war if the United Nations does not send peacekeeping troops and administrators quickly to oversee the fragile peace accord, a U.S. congressman warned Wednesday.

"So far the peace agreement has succeeded in bringing an end to the fighting, but it could very easily fail if UN forces do not arrive soon," said Rep. Stephen Solarz (D-N.Y.), who is on a congressional fact-finding mission to this country.

The Vietnam-installed government and three rebel groups signed a peace accord in October that created a Supreme National Council to work with the United Nations to administer the country until elections in 1993.

All the parties called Monday to speed up the deployment of 10,000 UN peacekeepers.

Officials said a void in political leadership since the peace plan was signed threatens to plunge the country back into conflict.

An inaugural meeting of the reconciliation council was aborted twice by mob violence and instability in the capital.

A crowd beat and nearly killed Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan on his arrival from 13 years of exile on Nov. 27, forcing him to flee the country. The mob was enraged by the Khmer Rouge killing of hundreds of thousands of people during its fanatical Communist rule in 1975-78.

Last month, anti-government riots left at least eight people dead and 16 others wounded.

The government sent troops to regain control of the streets and banned any demonstrations.

Second Thoughts for Pol Pot; Fallen Tyrant Defends His Brutal Regime but Now Wants Cambodia Tied to West - The Washington Post

Second Thoughts for Pol Pot; Fallen Tyrant Defends His Brutal Regime but Now Wants Cambodia Tied to West

The Washington Post

October 28, 1997 | Nate Thayer

In a clearing of the thick teak jungles of northern Cambodia, Pol Pot looked sadly across a wooden table and expressed the wish that his life's work be undone.

"When I die, my only wish is that Cambodia remain Cambodia and belong to the West," said the tyrant who presided over one of the most murderous regimes of modern times. "It is over for communism, and I want to stress that. . . . When I say Cambodia {should} be part of the West, I mean that if you belong to the West, at least there is no fascist regime."

This might seem a strange statement, coming from a man who seized power in 1975 by defeating a U.S.-backed government and who tried to transform Cambodia into a communist agrarian utopia. But it fits with the current position of Pol Pot's captors, who allowed him to be interviewed Oct. 16 as part of an effort to reach out to the West in general, and the United States in particular. Accounts of the interview by this correspondent first appeared last week in the Far Eastern Economic Review and the Wall Street Journal. As unrealistic as this effort might appear to outsiders, the Khmer Rouge remnants led by Ta Mok, 71, a feared guerrilla commander who lost a leg to a land mine, clearly hope that their purge of Pol Pot will encourage support for their struggle against the Phnom Penh government of Hun Sen. First installed as prime minister by Vietnamese occupation forces in the 1980s, Hun Sen forced his way into a coalition government after losing U.N.-sponsored elections in 1993, then overthrew his royalist partner in July. "When the Cambodian people hear our new slogans, they will surely send money to help our struggle," Ta Mok declared in a separate interview, pointing to freshly painted revolutionary slogans on the walls of a meeting hall. Among the slogans were "Defeat to the race-exterminating Vietnamese enemy," "Down with Pol Pot and his genocidal clique" and "Cambodians do not kill Cambodians." While Ta Mok expressed open revulsion for his former mentor, blaming him for the deaths of "hundreds of thousands" of Cambodians during the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge rule and the suffering of millions more, Pol Pot seemed oddly complacent about the former followers who turned against him and sentenced him to "life imprisonment" at a show trial here in July. The revolt against Pol Pot had little to do with the "genocide" that he is accused of waging against his own people during his rule, but was triggered by the massacre of the former Khmer Rouge defense minister and his family during a Pol Pot-ordered purge in June that also had targeted Ta Mok. Although he acknowledged that he is finished, "both politically and as a human being," Pol Pot made it clear he takes comfort from the fact that his disciples are carrying on the driving passion that guided his leadership of the Khmer Rouge for more than 30 years: a deep-seated hatred of the Vietnamese. "We had no reason to kill our own people," Pol Pot said in dismissing the charges of genocide. "But of course things happened that made people suffer." He insisted that his leadership had saved the country from an expansionist Vietnam. "Without our struggle, Cambodia would have been swallowed by the Vietnamese in 1975," he declared. He said his distrust of Vietnam dates back to at least 1970, when he met Vietnamese leaders who, he said, "tried to flatter me . . . but they wanted to assassinate me in order to swallow Cambodia. They asked us to not fight and to wait until they liberated Saigon and then they would come liberate us. I knew then that they wanted to be our masters." It is Pol Pot's obsession with Vietnam, a theme he returned to repeatedly, that allows him to justify to himself all the excesses of his rule. "Everything I have done and contributed is first for the nation and people and race of Cambodia," he said. "Our movement made mistakes like every other movement in the world. We were young. But without our struggle, there would be no Cambodia today." He even claimed that the infamous Tuol Sleng school-turned-prison, where at least 16,000 Cambodians were tortured into signing "confessions" before they were executed, was a fabrication of the Vietnamese. Pol Pot claimed that he first heard of Tuol Sleng from a Voice of America broadcast at a jungle hideout after being driven from power. "People talk about Tuol Sleng, Tuol Sleng, Tuol Sleng, but when we look at the pictures, they are all the same," he said. Referring to the displays of skulls at the site, now a museum documenting Khmer Rouge brutality, Pol Pot asserted, "When you look closely . . . they are smaller than the skulls of the Cambodian people." During the two-hour interview, his first in 18 years, Pol Pot often became annoyed when challenged or interrupted. But he maintained a gentle demeanor, never raised his voice and often looked pained when defending himself against the charges of genocide against his nation. He became animated and seemed eager to talk only when the subject turned to such matters as his health and his family life, and he sought to elicit sympathy for his own tribulations. "You look at me from the outside and you don't know what I have suffered," he said. "If you allow me, I would like to tell you about my sickness." He went on to describe a catalogue of health problems that had been publicly unknown, including serious heart disease, chronic respiratory difficulties that require an oxygen tank by his bed, and a stroke in late 1995 that has left him blind in one eye and partially paralyzed on his left side. "Two or three times I almost died," he said. He complained about scholars who wrote that he was not particularly bright, saying, "That is not entirely accurate. . . . I was not a bad student. I was average." During his student days in France, where he studied radio-electricity from 1949 to 1953 and joined the French Communist Party, "I studied just enough to keep my scholarship," he said. "The rest of the time I just read books." Pol Pot said he was born in January 1925, making him 72, and said he had lied about his age to qualify for the scholarship in France. He previously was thought to be 69. Among his early influences, he said with no apparent irony, was Mohandas K. Gandhi. He said he was never "from the traditional school of communism" and that he was influenced "a little from here, a little from there." Now living his dying days in the forbidding jungles of northern Cambodia, he comforts himself with his radio and his 12-year-old daughter, born of his marriage in the 1980s to a Khmer Rouge porter much younger than he. "I listen to the radio every morning," he said. "The Voice of America. But they don't have much news in the morning. The evening news is better."

Cambodians Describe Atrocities By Hun Sen's Forces, Vow to Resist; Supporters of Ranariddh Flee to Jungle Stronghold - The Washington Post

Cambodians Describe Atrocities By Hun Sen's Forces, Vow to Resist; Supporters of Ranariddh Flee to Jungle Stronghold

The Washington Post

July 28, 1997 | Nate Thayer

After a two-week cross-country trek by motorcycle and on foot, Gen. Nhek Bun Chhay, the most hunted man in Cambodia, straggled into this jungle stronghold with tales of atrocities by government forces and vows to resist the recent coup by co-prime minister Hun Sen.

Wearing flip-flops on his badly swollen feet and Buddhist amulets around his neck, Nhek Bun Chhay held court in shorts last week as he and other royalist commanders laid plans to lead a resistance army against what they described as Cambodia's new dictatorship. Surrounding their conclave near Cambodia's northern border with Thailand were soldiers loyal to the royalist party, known by its acronym, Funcinpec, as well as tanks and artillery.

In the three weeks since Hun Sen deposed Cambodia's other co-prime minister, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, and effectively annulled the results of a 1993 U.N.-sponsored election won by Funcinpec, thousands of refugees have fled here, to Funcinpec-controlled areas near the Thai border, to seek sanctuary and join a political and military resistance. Many have come with horrific tales of massacres and torture. Some, including senior opposition officials, were denied refuge in the U.S. Embassy and other embassies, human rights workers said. In an interview here Friday, Nhek Bun Chhay, formerly the deputy armed forces chief of staff and a top Ranariddh aide, said Hun Sen's forces captured five of his bodyguards and gouged out their eyes under interrogation before killing them. Western human rights officials in Phnom Penh, the capital, confirmed the atrocity. At least 30 of Nhek Bun Chhay's soldiers were executed after surrendering and their bodies were burned with gasoline and tires, the general said. He said he believes about 500 of his troops have been killed. "There are people hiding in the jungle in just about every province," Nhek Bun Chhay said. "I have never seen in my life this kind of violence. The killing is still going on." He said that during his flight, he and his followers fought eight major battles with about 3,000 pursuing troops and that leaflets bearing his picture and offering a $50,000 reward were dropped on villages along the way. "Hun Sen is hunting down our people, killing them, arresting them," said another general, Serei Kosal, who arrived in borrowed shorts and shoeless a week before Nhek Bun Chhay. "Why hasn't the world condemned the coup-makers and acted in support of democracy?" Nhek Bun Chhay and Serei Kosal were among four top Funcinpec officials targeted by Hun Sen's forces during the coup. The two others were captured and summarily executed, one of them after being tortured in Hun Sen's residential compound, according to human rights officials and Cambodian intelligence officers. Serei Kosal said the scattered Funcinpec forces are "fighting for democracy" and desperately need supplies such as hammocks, mosquito nets, canned fish and walkie-talkies. But he vowed to battle on in any case. "If the international community abandons us," he said, "we will fight even if we all die, because we are fighting against dictatorship." During a trip of more than 120 miles through resistance-controlled zones abutting the border with Thailand, other Funcinpec commanders regrouping in the north and northwest expressed similar determination to rally their forces, which now include about 10,000 troops backed by tanks and artillery. Before the coup, Funcinpec was estimated to control about a third of the 87,000-member Royal Cambodian Armed Forces. "We won the elections, but the communists have gone against the will of the people," said Lt. Gen. Khan Savoeun, a Funcinpec loyalist who headed Cambodia's Fifth Military Region before the coup by Hun Sen and his formerly communist Cambodian People's Party. Khan Savoeun spoke surrounded by Russian-made T-54 tanks, armored personnel carriers, heavy artillery and antiaircraft guns -- an arsenal that was not enough to prevent his position from being overrun the next day. While the extent of the killing by government forces since the coup remains uncertain, refugees here and human rights officials in Phnom Penh painted a grim picture of torture and summary executions. They said some atrocities may have been ordered by the coup leaders, many of whom, like Hun Sen, are former members of the radical communist Khmer Rouge movement. Human rights officials said more than 40 senior Funcinpec officials have been executed and that hundreds of other people have been killed in fighting. "We have many cases of bodies found, hands tied behind their back, with bullets in the head," said a Western human rights investigator. "But sometimes we arrive too late for the bodies and only have the ashes. They are literally incinerating the evidence." In a statement from Beijing, where he is undergoing medical treatment, Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk, Ranariddh's father, denounced "unimaginable cruelty" by Hun Sen's forces. "A certain number of so-called `extremist' Ranariddh supporters had their eyes gouged out before they were put down like rabid dogs," he wrote. "Many others were tortured to death in especially diabolical ways." Gen. Chau Sambath, a top military adviser to Ranariddh, was captured while trying to flee the capital by motorcycle. According to human rights officials and Cambodian intelligence officers, he was taken to Hun Sen's personal compound on July 8 on the outskirts of the city and tortured before being executed. The sources say his fingernails were pulled out and his tongue yanked from his mouth with pliers before he was finally killed by Gen. Him Bun Heang, the chief of security for Hun Sen's personal bodyguard unit. Another senior Funcinpec official, Ho Sok, the secretary of state for the interior, reportedly was executed on the grounds of the Interior Ministry by the personal bodyguards of Gen. Hok Lundy, the national police chief and a top Hun Sen loyalist. According to Amnesty International, Ho Sok was captured "while attempting to find a country that would give him asylum." He had taken refuge at the Embassy of Singapore, but was expelled at the request of Hun Sen forces and arrested as he attempted to drive to the luxury Cambodiana Hotel, where many foreigners and Funcinpec officials had sought sanctuary in the days after the coup. An Interior Ministry spokesman confirmed the killing, saying it was committed by "people who were angry with him." "They {government forces} are arresting people everywhere," said Sok Nuon, a policeman from Kompong Chhnang Province. He had shed his uniform and said he had come from central Cambodia the day before and had not eaten in four days. Speaking at this mountain redoubt, where several thousand new refugees have massed, he added: "They are arresting people in their houses, in the jungles, along the road -- anybody they think works for Funcinpec." Several hundred Funcinpec officials, at least 24 members of parliament, journalists for independent newspapers and officials associated with other political parties have fled to Thailand by air, land and sea. Many journalists have received death threats and have left the country or escaped to newly created resistance areas. At least 19 newspapers have ceased publishing. "Soldiers came to my house with rocket launchers looking for my steering committee members," said Sam Rainsy, Cambodia's most prominent opposition politician and head of the Khmer Nation Party. "All my people are in hiding, have fled to the jungle or are out of the country. . . . The soldiers told people at my office, `We will not even let a baby asleep in a hammock stay alive.' " He said the warning reminded him of the language of the Khmer Rouge, whose brutal rule in the late 1970s left more than 1 million Cambodians dead. "We cannot operate any more," Sam Rainsy said of his party. "Democracy is finished." In the wake of the coup, human rights officials and Cambodians opposed to Hun Sen have criticized the response of Western governments, notably those of the United States and Australia, whose embassies in Phnom Penh reportedly refused requests for asylum from some government officials and members of parliament who feared for their lives. U.S. Embassy officials said they had no clearance from Washington to offer political asylum to anyone and claimed they were not approached directly by any Cambodians for sanctuary on embassy grounds. Officials said Ambassador Kenneth Quinn personally sought out senior Funcinpec officials during the height of street battles to offer assistance and that embassy cars were used to ferry some officials to the airport to board evacuation flights. But human rights workers asserted that the embassy rejected their pleas for emergency visas for legislators who were in danger. "It is an absolute disgrace the way Western embassies have reacted," said a Western human rights official in Phnom Penh. "We have begged them to open their gates for people who are clearly targeted for persecution, and the Americans, the Australians, flatly said no. These are the embassies that had pushed people to exercise their rights, have said they supported human rights and free expression and opposition politics. But when these very values were trampled upon and those who exercised their rights were targeted, they did nothing to help." According to human rights workers, among those refused sanctuary in a Cambodiana Hotel ballroom, which the U.S. Embassy rented as a haven for Americans, was Som Wattana, a Cambodian correspondent for the Voice of America, who received death threats in the aftermath of the coup. He has since fled the country. "Our primary concern was to protect the safety and welfare of American citizens," said an embassy spokeswoman. She added, "We were not open for visas during the fighting." Ranariddh, in an interview in Bankok, said, "Hun Sen has ordered the mass execution of members of our elected government. He is responsible for the killings of hundreds of innocent people. . . . Before recognizing this government in Phnom Penh, before shaking their bloody hands, the United States should . . . investigate the killings." Some Western embassies "think that Cambodia is not ready for democracy," said Stephen Heder, an American Cambodia specialist who teaches at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London and who was in Phnom Penh during the coup. "They don't seem to fathom how extraordinarily unpopular Hun Sen is."

Four missing Western journalists may be still detained by Iraq authorities, friend says - AP

Four missing Western journalists may be still detained by Iraq authorities, friend says

AP Worldstream

April 1, 2003 | SHAFIKA MATTAR, Associated Press Writer

1

00-00-0000
Dateline: AMMAN, Jordan A colleague of four Western journalists and another American who entered Iraq without visas at the start of the war said Tuesday he believed they were being detained by Iraqi authorities.

Nate Thayer, an award-winning freelance journalist from Washington, D.C., said Iraqi authorities arrested him and his photographer, Molly Bingham of Louisville, Kentucky, at their hotel on March 24.

"After five hours of detention and questioning, I was released, but Molly did not come out with me," Thayer told The Associated Press. "I believe she is with the others, although I did not see their detention and no one else did."

He drove out of Baghdad to Jordan last Friday with an Italian photographer who was also being expelled.

"We believe they were detained by the Iraqi security forces, who believe they are something other than what they are," Thayer said. "We want to correct this misunderstanding and get those people back to their homes."

In addition to Bingham, Newsday correspondent Matthew McAllester, 33, Newsday photographer Moises Saman, 29; Danish freelance photographer Johan Rydeng Spanner, and an American peace activist, Philip Latasha, are unaccounted for in Iraq.

Thayer said that he, Bingham, Spanner and Latasha entered Iraq during the first hours of the U.S.-British bombing of Iraq and claimed they were tourists because they couldn't get press visas. McAllester and Saman went on the same day but with another group, he said.

Journalists expelled from Iraq have told Newsday that security officials came last Monday to the hotel where McAllester and Saman were staying and questioned reporters. No one saw McAllester and Saman removed, but their room was empty when a friend went to check on them, Newsday reported.

Spanner's photos of damaged official buildings in Iraq were printed in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten. The newspaper said Monday that Spanner was being held by Iraqi authorities on suspicions he could be a spy.

"Johan is an independent photographer and innocent," Thayer said. "He wanted to show the world the horror of the war."

Pol Pot Admits `Mistakes' by His Regime; But Cambodian Insists, `My Conscience Is Clear' - The Washington Post

Pol Pot Admits `Mistakes' by His Regime; But Cambodian Insists, `My Conscience Is Clear'

The Washington Post

October 23, 1997 | Keith B. Richburg

1

The elusive Pol Pot, who presided over Cambodia's killing fields of the late 1970s, has conceded, in his first interview in 18 years, that his notorious Khmer Rouge movement "made mistakes" during its brutal reign, but he declared, "My conscience is clear," according to excerpts of the interview in the Far Eastern Economic Review.

Review correspondent Nate Thayer, who conducted the interview last week at the guerrilla group's jungle stronghold at Anlong Veng in northern Cambodia, reported that Pol Pot was unrepentant when questioned repeatedly about accusations that he was responsible for the deaths of more than a million Cambodians. "I came to carry out the struggle, not to kill people," Pol Pot said, according to the Review's advance excerpts. "Even now, and you can look at me: Am I a savage person?"

For nearly two decades, Pol Pot, whose real name is Saloth Sar, has remained an enigma, moving only in the shadows of Cambodia's tortured politics. Never seen publicly and only rarely photographed, his name alone was enough to elicit terror and loathing. For years, his elusiveness -- his pronouncements were read by others over the guerrilla group's clandestine radio station -- only added to his mystique, giving rise repeatedly to rumors that he was dead or deathly ill, that he was living in luxury in Thailand, that he was retired or actively leading troops in the jungle. Not until July, when Thayer emerged from the malaria-ridden jungles of Anlong Veng, was there proof that Pol Pot was still alive. And now, for the first time, the man who lived a life shrouded in mystery has spoken in his own words to an American reporter about the movement he led for 37 years, the killings that took place under his regime, his regrets (apparently few) and his own view of Cambodia's genocide and why it happened. Thayer is the American journalist who first photographed Pol Pot July 25, when the Khmer Rouge leader was denounced by his own colleagues in a jungle show trial reminiscent of a Chinese-style Cultural Revolution "struggle session." Since then, Pol Pot reportedly has been detained under house arrest, stripped of the leadership of the movement he founded and headed, although until now there had been no sightings to confirm that he was being held captive. Thayer's full report on his two-hour interview will be published in Thursday's edition of the Hong Kong-based weekly Far Eastern Economic Review. Videotape of the interview will be made available by Associated Press Television. In the interview, according to the two-page press release the Review faxed to news organizations today, Pol Pot conceded that "our movement made mistakes" in the execution of perceived political opponents and others. But he added, "We had no other choice. Naturally we had to defend ourselves. The Vietnamese . . . wanted to assassinate me because they knew without me they could easily swallow up Cambodia." Pol Pot came to power in 1975 after a civil war and embarked on a radical Maoist agrarian experiment in which as many as 1 million Cambodians died of starvation, forced labor, malaria or execution before Vietnam invaded and ended Khmer Rouge rule early in 1979. In the excerpts, Pol Pot defends his purge of internal opponents to his rule, but blames many of the deaths on Vietnamese agents inside Cambodia. He denies the accepted estimate of 1 million Cambodian deaths while he was in power. "To say that millions died is too much," he is quoted as saying. The magazine's press release also says that Pol Pot made the "patently false claim" in the interview that the notorious Tuol Sleng prison on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, never existed. Tuol Sleng, a former school building, is now a museum of Khmer Rouge atrocities, filled with grisly photographs of victims as well as classrooms that were converted into torture chambers. But in the interview, according to the Review, Pol Pot calls Tuol Sleng a propaganda invention of the Vietnamese. The press release says that Thayer, who speaks Khmer, the language of Cambodia, and has dedicated his career to reporting on the shadowy guerrilla movement, also interviewed Ta Mok, the brutal Khmer Rouge military leader known as "the butcher." Ta Mok, Thayer reports, also denied that millions of Cambodians died during Khmer Rouge rule. "I don't agree with the American figure that millions died," Ta Mok is quoted saying -- "but hundreds of thousands, yes." No senior Khmer Rouge leader was previously known to have commented publicly on the scale of the atrocities committed by the group. Ta Mok overthrew Pol Pot after a bloody internal power struggle last June that saw Pol Pot order the murder of his own defense chief, Son Sen, along with Son Sen's wife and children. Their bodies reportedly were run over by trucks. Thayer reported that Pol Pot regrets killing his former defense chief, but denies he ordered the deaths of the children. "The babies, the young ones, I did not order them to be killed," he said. "For Son Sen and his family, yes, I feel sorry for that. That was a mistake of when we put our plan into practice." Thayer said he found Pol Pot, believed to be about 70, ill and perhaps near death, afflicted with a variety of ailments. He suffered an apparent stroke in 1995. "In Khmer, we have a saying," Pol Pot told Thayer, "that when one is both quite sick and old, there remains only one thing, that you die." Pol Pot is said to be confined to a hut with his wife and a 12-year-old daughter. Ta Mok, now leading the rebels, recently offered to turn Pol Pot over to an international tribunal if Hun Sen, the Cambodian strongman now in charge in Phnom Penh, is also put on trial for his alleged "crimes." Hun Sen has declined the offer.

HANDICAPPED CRITICIZE MBTA ON VAN SERVICE FREQUENT DELAYS, FAULTY EQUIPMENT CITED - The Boston Globe

HANDICAPPED CRITICIZE MBTA ON VAN SERVICE FREQUENT DELAYS, FAULTY EQUIPMENT CITED

The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)

September 16, 1988 | Joe Ferson, Contributing Reporter

1

A group of handicapped people told a meeting of the MBTA's access advisory committee yesterday that the door-to-door service known as The Ride is unreliable and dangerous.

The Ride is operated by Transportation Management System Inc. under contract from the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

Promises to improve the service have not been met, one participant said. "They're making an effort, there's no question on that, but it's not enough," Ralph Steele told the panel.

Steele mentioned reports of injuries due to incompetence, and added, "Are they waiting for someone to die before they take action?"

Timothy Gens, a spokesman for the MBTA, said the service provided by Transportation Management has improved since July 1, when the Virginia company took over the service from THEM Inc. of Cambridge.

"There has been significant improvement since the transitional period, when one would expect a certain amount of confusion," Gens said.

But according to Nate Thayer, transportation director for the state Office of Handicapped Affairs, criticism has been pouring in since Transportation Management took over operation of The Ride.

"There's a serious crisis facing the 9,000 handicapped individuals who depend on The Ride -- and right now, because right now it's not working," he said.

Thayer said his office has received 1,000 complaints concerning The Ride since July 1.

Thayer noted there was "not one complaint regarding service" during the time THEM Inc., a nonprofit agency, ran the service.

"It's like a leaking ship with 70 holes in it," Thayer said of Transportation Management. "The only solution is to get a new ship, a new contractor for The Ride."

Carolyn Stack said she came to the meeting, which was attended by about 25 handicapped people, to present the case of her 80-year-old father, Arthur Conway.

"My father goes to dialysis three times a week, and we've gotten calls from hospital workers asking us to come pick him up because The Ride didn't show up," she said.

Thayer said one woman was late for a dialysis treatment and was told by her doctor upon arriving that she was in serious risk of a stroke because of the delay.

"TMSI was warned specifically about this woman," Thayer said. "Either they don't know what they're doing or they don't care."

Thomas McKenne, who works at Ferguson Industries, told the committee: "The trouble with all these meetings is, they always pass the buck -- back and forth."

McKenne said The Ride drivers are polite and try to do their job, but that there is a lack of communication from management. He said some vans have faulty lift equipment, leaving the drivers hard-pressed to do their job.

Because of delays in The Ride, McKenne added, he's been arriving late for work by an hour or more for the last three weeks.

McKenne said if delays continue, he could be docked the hour's pay, adding that he's frustrated by the company's lack of sensitivity.

"A lot of these people are making money off the handicapped," he said. "But they don't give a damn so long as they collect their big fat salaries."

McKenne said that on a recent day he was picked up late by a van that had a broken gas gauge, no brake lights and no arm rest on his seat.

"Someone could fall out of their seat real easy," he pointed out.

Lorraine Greiff, assistant director of public affairs for the Office of Handicapped Affairs, said many handicapped people who use The Ride live at the whim of the company's scheduling.

"You make plans to go somewhere and then you discover at the last minute you're not going anywhere," she said.

Report: Khmer Rouge collapse drove Pol Pot to tears - AP Online

Report: Khmer Rouge collapse drove Pol Pot to tears

AP Online

April 23, 1998

AP Online

04-23-1998
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) _ Pol Pot, the tyrannical leader of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, broke down in tears when he realized his once-mighty guerrilla movement was on the brink of defeat, according to an account of his final days published Thursday.

Pol Pot died on April 15 in a small hut near the Thai border as Cambodian government troops were trying to finish off the remnants of the Khmer Rouge. The 73-year-old revolutionary died of a heart attack, said his comrades-turned-captors.

The account in the Hong Kong-based magazine Far Eastern Economic Review suggests the heart attack may have been brought on by hunger, lack of medical care, even shock - upon learning the Khmer Rouge was preparing to turn him over to an international tribunal for trial on genocide charges.

The account was written by U.S. journalist Nate Thayer, who last year became the first foreign journalist in 18 years to have an interview with the elusive Pol Pot. The interview occurred shortly after Pol Pot was deposed as head of the movement and placed under house arrest.

Pol Pot led the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime that through its radical Maoist-inspired policies caused the deaths of as many as 2 million Cambodians - either in mass executions or from starvation and disease. Since then, the Khmer Rouge has operated as a guerrilla army operating mostly from northern Cambodia.

Thayer quoted a Khmer Rouge military commander as saying Pol Pot died just hours after he learned of the plan to hand him over from a news broadcast by the Voice of America shortwave radio service.

``We thought the shock of him hearing this on VOA might have killed him,'' the commander, Khem Nuon, is quoted as saying.

Khem Nuon, the story noted, had told Thayer a different account a week earlier, saying Pol Pot had been informed of the decision to send him for trial and accepted it with revolutionary stoicism.

Now he claims they only told him ``we were in a very difficult situation and perhaps it was better that he go abroad. Tears came to his eyes when I told him that.''

Thayer wrote that the fighting which drove the Khmer Rouge from their northern Cambodian stronghold of Anlong Veng prevented the ailing revolutionary from receiving proper care.

``For the last few weeks he had diarrhea and we haven't had much food,'' the current Khmer Rouge leader, Ta Mok, was quoted as saying.

A few days before his death, Pol Pot dyed his gray hair black, suggesting he was afraid of being captured.

At one point, Pol Pot was able to glimpse the turmoil caused by the fighting as he and his wife and 12-year-old daughter were being driven from one shelter to another, his minder, Non Nou, was quoted as saying.

``When he saw the peasants and our cadres lying by the side of the road with no food or shelter, he broke down into tears,'' said Non Nou.

Pol Pot's 40-year-old widow, Muon, quoted him as saying ``My only wish is that Cambodians stay united so that Vietnam will not swallow our country.'' Vietnam drove the Khmer Rouge from power in 1979.

Ta Mok denied, as he has previously, speculation that he had Pol Pot killed.

The very night Pol Pot died, Ta Mok said, he had wanted to move him to another house for security reasons.

``He was sitting in his chair, waiting for the car to come. But he felt tired. Pol Pot's wife asked him to take a rest. He lay down in his bed. His wife heard a gasp of air. It was the sound of dying. When she touched him, he had passed away already.''

Guerrilla Court Holds `Trial' For Pol Pot; Americans Witness Sentencing in Jungle - The Washington Post

Guerrilla Court Holds `Trial' For Pol Pot; Americans Witness Sentencing in Jungle

The Washington Post

July 28, 1997 | William Branigin

An American reporter said yesterday that he saw the elusive Pol Pot Friday in the jungles of northern Cambodia and witnessed the longtime Khmer Rouge guerrilla leader's "trial" by former followers who mutinied against him last month.

Nate Thayer, a staff correspondent for the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review and an occasional contributor to The Washington Post, saw the deposed leader of the radical communist group at Anlong Veng, a Khmer Rouge stronghold now controlled by mutinous remnants of Pol Pot's guerrilla army. It was the first time in 18 years that a Western reporter had seen the mastermind of Cambodia's 1970s holocaust, in which more than 1 million people died by execution or from disease, starvation and overwork in less than four years of Khmer Rouge rule.

"I witnessed his public trial and denunciation and sentence to life imprisonment," Thayer said by telephone from Bangkok. He said Pol Pot and three of his top military commanders were sentenced for "crimes of genocide" by a Khmer Rouge tribunal in an open-sided meeting hall after a two-hour trial attended by local villagers and Khmer Rouge militiamen. Thayer described Pol Pot as looking "old and defeated" as he sat before the tribunal and heard himself denounced. White-haired and frail-looking, the former dictator walked with a cane and was said to be suffering from an undisclosed illness. Thayer called the scene the "most extraordinary event" he has ever witnessed, the equivalent of "seeing Hitler in his bunker." He said he brought out photos and videotape that are "really historical." Thayer said the Review has exclusive rights to his story and that he could not divulge further details until the weekly magazine's cover story is published later this week. He declined to say whether he had spoken to Pol Pot, who is believed to be 69 years old and has been reported to be in poor health. The trial Thayer referred to occurred Friday in Anlong Veng at what Khmer Rouge radio described as a mass meeting of the movement's followers. In a broadcast Saturday, the group's clandestine radio station said that "thousands of people held a meeting and condemned and sentenced Pol Pot and his squad that had carried out serious rebellious deeds against the people." The broadcast said Pol Pot and unidentified members of his "genocidal clique" were sentenced to "life imprisonment" by representatives of "the people, the army and cadres." Thayer, 37, who has traveled to Khmer Rouge zones repeatedly in recent years, was allowed to attend the ceremony with an American cameraman. He has lived in Southeast Asia off and on since 1981 and speaks Khmer, the Cambodian language. Videotape of the scene is to be broadcast Monday night on ABC's Nightline program under an arrangement among the network, Thayer and the Review. Thayer said his forthcoming story in the Review would make clear that Pol Pot's long rule over the Khmer Rouge is over and that the trial was "no political trick." He said Pol Pot was clearly displeased that the event was witnessed by an American journalist and cameraman. The two were the first westerners to go to Anlong Veng and make it out alive, Thayer said. A British expert on land-mine removal and two French tourists were captured by the Khmer Rouge in the area and have not been seen since. According to Cambodian, Thai and Western sources, Pol Pot has been held under house arrest at a site north of Anlong Veng close to the Thai border since last month, when a major dispute split the Khmer Rouge's already depleted ranks. The rift was apparently provoked by the efforts of some Khmer Rouge elements to strike a deal with Prince Norodom Ranariddh, then Cambodia's co-prime minister, under which the Khmer Rouge would have been allowed to join Ranariddh's political organization in return for dropping their "provisional government" and publicly recognizing the Cambodian constitution and government. As part of the arrangement, sources said, the Khmer Rouge remnants in Anlong Veng were to break definitively with Pol Pot and two other bloodstained leaders, Khmer Rouge defense chief Son Sen and guerrilla commander Ta Mok, leaving the movement in the hands of longtime nominal leader Khieu Samphan and a younger generation of Khmer Rouge commanders and cadres. But the deal fell apart -- by one account, when no foreign country would agree to let Pol Pot and the others take up residence in exile. Early on June 10, Son Sen and his family were slain in Anlong Veng in a purge attributed to Pol Pot. Ta Mok, who may also have been targeted, sent forces in pursuit of Pol Pot and a dwindling band of followers, capturing them 10 days later. Ailing and exhausted, Pol Pot and his longtime deputy, Nuon Chea, were carried into a Khmer Rouge jungle base in hammocks, according to Gen. Nhek Bun Chhay, a military aide to Ranariddh who at the time was trying to negotiate the handover of Pol Pot for trial before an international tribunal. Khmer Rouge radio declared then that Pol Pot had committed "treason" but indicated no willingness to turn him over for such a trial. Speculation grew that he was dead or that the events in Anlong Veng were a ruse to camouflage his continued manipulation of the movement he led for 35 years. The holding of a public "trial" by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge captors suggests there is little prospect he will be brought to justice in an international setting. The negotiations between Ranariddh's faction of Cambodia's coalition government and the Khmer Rouge remnants prompted a government coup July 5 and 6 by co-prime minister Hun Sen, who accused Ranariddh's partisans of trying to bring Khmer Rouge guerrillas into Phnom Penh to bolster the prince's forces. By holding an ad hoc "trial" of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge remnants apparently are still trying to position themselves to wage a political struggle against Hun Sen's rule while maintaining the group's diminished guerrilla force for protection.

In Mongolia, a GOP-Style Revolutionary Movement; Republican-Inspired `Contract' Helped End Communist Rule - The Washington Post

In Mongolia, a GOP-Style Revolutionary Movement; Republican-Inspired `Contract' Helped End Communist Rule

The Washington Post

April 6, 1997 | Nate Thayer

On a stool in his portable felt and canvas yurt, Yadamsuren, a 70-year-old nomadic sheepherder, offered a visitor chunks of sheep fat and shots of fermented mare's milk to ward off the unspeakable cold. Seventy miles of bleak desert northeast of Ulan Bator and many miles from the nearest neighbor, he spoke glowingly of the work of House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and the Republican Party.

"I read the `Contract With the Voter' closely. Everybody did," he said, explaining why he decided to vote for a new government in Mongolian elections last June. "In the contract, they clearly say what society and the people can do for each other."

American hordes, led by the Republican Party, have invaded the steppes of Mongolia in recent years. Instead of cavalries, they have comprised teams of election strategists and campaign organizers, who mobilized a once ragtag Mongolian opposition to achieve victory in national elections last June 30. In what was once an impenetrable Soviet satellite, a remarkably young democratic government has taken power, creating Asia's first successful transition from communism to democracy. A key element behind the victory, say Mongolia's new leaders, was a carefully engineered strategy by American Republican political operatives to end 75 years of Communist Party control. And the tool that the Mongolian Democratic Union credits for victory was none other than the "Contract With America," the platform used in 1994 by revitalized Republicans to sweep into control of the U.S. Congress. "This form of signing a contract with the people is a new achievement of the Mongolian political system, even of political science," said Prime Minister M. Enkhsaikhan in a recent interview, smiling in his drab Soviet-built office in the main government square in Ulan Bator. But today the halls of government in Ulan Bator could be mistaken for a university campus. Of the 50 new Democratic Union coalition legislators who gained power in the elections, 36 are in their twenties or thirties; the prime minister is 41, the parliament speaker is 43, and the minister of defense is 38. "It is an unqualified success of political transformation," said a Western diplomat here. "But the 50 Democratic Union MP's and new government have virtually no previous political experience. The phrase `complete chaos' has been used." When the Russians built a capital for their first satellite country, populated by nomadic herdsmen, they named it Ulan Bator, which means "red hero" in Mongolian. But the winds of political change have swept again across this isolated but strategically important corner of northeast Asia. Mongolia's new freewheeling democracy has scores of newspapers, dozens of political parties and vigorous debate within the government, achieved without bloodshed or resistance from the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, the once-Stalinist Communist Party in uninterrupted power since 1921. Under the pressure of demonstrations in 1990, the government promised political and economic reforms, and the first multi-party parliamentary elections were held in 1992. The disorganized opposition only garnered six seats, leaving the other 70 -- and the government -- firmly in the hands of the Revolutionary Party. In the wake of the crushing defeat, the Mongolian opposition began to work together with Republican advisers to transform itself into a unified force with formidable campaigning skills. Such peaceful transformation stands in stark contrast to the turmoil that has beset Russia and many former Soviet satellites after the collapse of communism. "For decades Mongolia was under the domination of foreign countries," Enkhsaikhan said. "So really Mongolia itself is a new nation." Republican Party help to the fledgling Mongolian democratic opposition began in late 1991. "It was a personal request from Secretary of State {James} Baker. He called us up when he returned from {an official visit to} Ulan Bator and said, `I think you need to do something there to help the democratization process,` " said Kirsten Edmondson, the Washington-based International Republican Institute (IRI) program manager for Mongolia. IRI -- the Republican wing of the congressionally funded National Endowment for Democracy -- dispatched staff members to Mongolia. They convinced squabbling groups of opposition forces -- political parties, students, activists, nongovernmental organizations, intellectuals and businessmen -- to form a united coalition. IRI then trained candidates and supporters from the newly created National Democratic Union in the science of targeting voters with relevant messages, grass-roots party development and membership recruitment. As the campaign season began in late 1995, Gingrich sent the authors of the Contract With America to Ulan Bator. Working with the Democratic Union, they drafted the "Contract With the Mongolian Voter." Even the new Mongolian election law was lifted verbatim from the election law manual of Texas, Mongolian and IRI officials said. The Contract with the Mongolian Voter called for private property rights, a free press and the encouragement of foreign investment. It became the most widely distributed document in Mongolian history, according to Mongolian officials, with 350,000 copies printed in 1996. The Americans convinced the opposition candidates of the importance of hitting the campaign trail -- a concept previously unheard of here -- personally taking their message to the far-flung corners of this country of 2.5 million people just under the size of Alaska. And it was voters such as Yadamsuren, who like many Mongolians uses only one name, who put the new government in power. A herder like more than half of Mongolia's population, he owns 50 cows and sheep, which grazed nearby in minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit weather. While his wife melted snow on a coal stove for drinking water for the livestock, he talked of giving the young opposition forces a chance to change Mongolia: "People understood that this new government wanted to put Mongolia on the same footing with other countries. We decided to give them the power to do it." And it was the contract that persuaded him to vote out the Communists, he said. "We knew before the elections there were promises in the contract that could not be fulfilled, like raising the pensions. But in general, in a strategic sense, {the new leaders} are doing important things. We decided to give the younger generation a chance." In dozens of interviews with ordinary Mongolians during a one-month trip through the country, all were familiar with the contract. On June 30, 1996, dressed in their finest traditional clothing, and traveling by horse, camel and on foot, 91 percent of the Mongolian electorate turned out to vote -- -the biggest turnout by far in Mongolian history. The result stunned everyone, including the victors. Baker was on hand to witness the victory, having returned as a private citizen to serve as an official election monitor. Diplomats and Mongolian officials agree that the Communists grossly miscalculated voter sentiment and the opposition's organization. All 50 of the newly elected legislators were trained by IRI, according to government leaders. IRI and Mongolian officials said the Communist candidates were offered training and assistance in campaign strategy by the Americans, but turned it down. But diplomats and Mongolian officials are quick to credit the Communists for the smooth transition. "In many ways they are the unsung heroes. They had the army and the power. They could have just refused to turn it over," said an American diplomat. In a July letter, two former leaders of the democratic opposition who suddenly found themselves head of parliament and the majority leader praised IRI and "all of our friends in America": "The victory of democracy in Mongolia demonstrates that the values of life, liberty, freedom of speech and respect for human rights and justice are not just American values, but universal values inherent in all peoples, including the people of Asia," they said. "We want to thank our American friends who worked so hard to make this possible. The International Republican Institute stood side by side with us."

UMJWorldNews.blogspot.com: October 2011

UMJWorldNews.blogspot.com: October 2011.

Magazine says Khmer Rouge leaders wants to surrender Pol Pot - AP Online

Magazine says Khmer Rouge leaders wants to surrender Pol Pot - AP Online

(AP pickup of Far Eastern Economic Review story released hours before Pol Pot committed suiced upon hearing the news broadcast on VOA Khmer language service at 8:00PM 15 April, 1998)
04-14-1998
HONG KONG (AP) _ Cambodia's Khmer Rouge officials have told a Hong Kong-based magazine they want to hand their former leader Pol Pot over to an international tribunal.

Meanwhile, Cambodia's army says it has trapped remaining Khmer Rouge forces in the mountains near the Thai border, and is poised to finish them off.

The Far Eastern Economic Review reported in its latest issue that the Khmer Rouge rebels have asked Review correspondent Nate Thayer for advice on how to deliver the notorious Pol Pot to the authorities.

Gen. Khem Nuon reportedly made the request Saturday during an interview with Thayer at the Thai-Cambodian border.

Khmer Rouge forces have held Pol Pot, 73, under house arrest since June, when they ousted him in a bloody internal power struggle.

Thayer interviewed Pol Pot last year after attending a communist-style ``People's Tribunal'' where the rebels denounced the former leader.

Gen. Nuon reportedly said the Khmer Rouge was unable to contact the United Sates or other countries, and asked Thayer to put them in contact with the ``right people.''

Thayer suggested they contact the International Committee of the Red Cross, the report said.

Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh in 1975 and ruled Cambodia until 1979, presiding over the deaths of an estimated 2 million people. A Vietnamese invasion in 1979 forced the Khmer Rouge to retreat back to the jungle.

There have been calls for Pol Pot to be brought before the International Court of Justice in the Hague to stand trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The rebels hope handing Pol Pot to the authorities will bring food, medicine and other international support for the beleaguered Khmer Rouge.

According to Cambodian military sources, the army is currently hammering the Khmer Rouge guerillas near their former mountain stronghold along the Thai border.

Reports indicate Khmer Rouge head Ta Mok and an undetermined number of hard-line guerillas are holed up in the jungle peaks and attempting a last desperate stand.

Most of the government forces are made up of Khmer Rouge defectors, who oppose their former comrades' refusal to strike a peace deal with Phnom Penh.

Some 5,000 defectors are waiting out the fighting 25 miles south of the battle zone. The government said they will send them and their families home when it is safe.

 

Amazon.com: The marketing of my book that didn't exist yet "Sympathy For The Devil" [Paperback]

My book "Sympathy for the Devil: A Journalists Memoir from inside Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge" had not even been wriiten when my then publisher's PR department described it and with Amazon started selling it online. The below hype was never even made aware to me nor was I consulted. It is still online despite my attempts to have it taken down. But now it says that the book is not currently available.

Sympathy For The Devil [Paperback]

 

Product Description

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Viking USA (Mar 1 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670885762
• ISBN-13: 978-0670885763
• Shipping Weight: 503 g

Book Description

The adventures of one of the world's bravest journalists in his ten years on the trail of the elusive Pol Pot--one of the most evil men in history.

Among his peers, Nate Thayer is known as "a man with a mission, a mobile, and an AK-47." In Sympathy For the Devil, he recounts his search for Pol Pot, a man synonymous with the 1970s Cambodian reign of terror, and explores what he learned from him in "the last great interview in Asia." Thayer's pursuit of Pol Pot took him through one of the most impenetrable, malarial, landmine-strewn jungles of the world: Khmer Rouge-controlled northern Cambodia--where he narrowly survived repeated death threats, assassination attempts, and detention by Khmer Rouge, Thai intelligence, and Cambodian troops. Through his clandestine network of contacts, it climaxed in his presence (the only Westerner) at the ex-dictator's 1997 people's tribunal. And in an hour spent exploring Pol Pot's mind--paranoid, precise, and unrepentant.

Thayer's gripping book is an unforgettable account of the lengths to which a reporter will go to reach the truth, and a close first-hand look at evil and its ways. It is an urgent reflection on Cambodia past, present, and future--from the only journalist to enter its hidden core and leave alive.

Thai troops advance on protest camp; Standoff takes another turn At least eight injured amid tightened security - The Washington Post

 

Thai troops advance on protest camp; Standoff takes another turn At least eight injured amid tightened security

The Washington Post

May 19, 2010 By Andrew Higgens and Nate Thayer

After weeks of escalating confrontation, soldiers backed by armored vehicles deployed in force early Wednesday in the center of the Thai capital, moving toward the fortified encampment of anti- government protesters entrenched behind bamboo barricades in this modern Asian metropolis.

The operation, which also included armed police, appeared to mark the start of an attempt by Thai authorities to dislodge "red shirt" protesters from an upscale shopping and diplomatic district and end an increasingly volatile standoff in the heart of Bangkok.

But a government spokesman suggested that the military was not making a final push to evict the demonstrators. Panitan Wattanayagorn said that the operation's goal was to tighten the security cordon and that it would take the rest of the day.

Troops armed with American M16 rifles skirmished with militant elements of what began more than two months ago as a peaceful protest movement. Clouds of tear gas and smoke from burning tires drifted over a garbage-strewn boulevard leading to the heart of the red shirts' zone. Gunfire crackled and helicopters clattered overhead.

Troops broke through a barricade in the south of the territory occupied by the protesters but by mid-morning had not pushed into the core of the zone. Protest leaders called on their followers to stay put. At a stage decked with a banner reading "Not Terrorists," protesters sang a Thai folk song called "No Problem."

An estimated 3,000 people, including women and some children, remained inside the protesters' encampment, and a full-scale operation to force them out would carry grave risks for America's closest ally in Southeast Asia. Heavy casualties would likely only stoke political passions further and could escalate Thailand's worst crisis in decades.

Initial casualties appeared to have been modest, with news agencies reporting at least eight people injured.

The stakes are also high for Washington, which risks severe embarrassment if the military push produces major bloodshed. The United States has long-standing and intimate relations with Thailand's armed forces. The two countries hold regular joint exercises, the most recent of which, a naval exercise off the Thai coast, began late last week -- just as the Thai authorities declared parts of Bangkok a "live firing zone."

Approaching red shirt territory, soldiers beefed up their presence on a street where a billboard advertising BMW cars declared, "Joy is here, there and everywhere." Soldiers also took positions outside the U.S. Embassy, on the edge of protester territory, and moved on foot along an elevated rail line over the center of the camp.

Red shirts first moved into the capital nine weeks ago to press demands that new elections be held to replace a government they denounce as undemocratic. Since then they have steadily expanded territory under their control, paralyzing the center of a capital city of more than 9 million people. As troops moved in last week to choke off supplies to the protest area, militant elements took up arms and fought running battles with the Thai military in which at least 39 people have been killed.

Kobsak Sabhavasau, a senior aide to Thailand's Oxford-educated prime minister, said on Thai television that the government was still open to negotiations, but only if the protesters withdraw first. "I believe it is not too late," he said. His remark suggested that the government still wanted to avoid an all-out offensive and was ratcheting up pressure the protesters in the hope that the protesters might finally pull back.

Washington, in public comments, had tried to remain aloof from what it termed a domestic political crisis. But behind the scenes, U.S. diplomats in Bangkok worked to find a peaceful settlement. They held informal talks with both government officials and red shirt representatives, diplomats familiar with the discussions said. It was not clear whether the United States was informed beforehand of the Thai military's advance Wednesday.

Torturer compares himself to St. Paul - Sunday Gazette-Mail

 

Torturer compares himself to St. Paul

Sunday Gazette-Mail

May 2, 1999 | Seth Mydans

1

BANGKOK, Thailand - Cambodians know him as the cruelest of the Khmer Rouge torturers, the author of such directives as "Use the hot method, even if it kills him" and, in the margin of a list of 17 children, "Kill them all."

In his own mind, he is St. Paul, a persecutor who renounced his past and became a Christian evangelist.

Kang Kek Ieu, better known by his revolutionary nickname, Duch, was the head of the Khmer Rouge secret police and the commandant of Tuol Sleng prison, where at least 14,000 people were tortured and killed. In the 20 years since the Khmer Rouge were ousted from power, he converted to Christianity and devoted himself to spreading the Gospel and to helping refugees who fled the brutality of his regime. "I think my biography is something like Paul's," he told Nate Thayer, an American reporter who recounted his strange story in an article last week in the Far Eastern Economic Review. "I feel very sorry about the killings and the past," said Duch (pronounced Dook), who is now 56 and had been living quietly and anonymously in western Cambodia. "I wanted to be a good communist. Now in the second half of my life, I want to serve God by doing God's work to help people." But he sought to make it clear that he had not tortured and killed for the fun of it. Indeed, he portrayed himself as a harried bureaucrat, constantly concerned about the quality of his product. "I did not get any pleasure about my work," he assured Thayer, speaking in broken English and in French. "All the confessions of my prisoners - I worried, is that true or not?" Almost as extraordinary as his personal story is the fact that, for the past two years, Cambodian authorities have known where he is, according to Thayer, and have made no move to arrest him. A senior Cambodian Justice official said Thursday that even now that Duch's whereabouts have been revealed, there are still no plans to put him in custody, as a defendant or a witness against other leaders. "I have no plan to summon him to Phnom Penh as a witness in Ta Mok's case," said Ngin Sam An, the investigating judge in the case of the only Khmer Rouge official to have been arrested, the commander Ta Mok. "There are also no plans yet to charge him separately with crimes." Youk Chhang, a researcher who has prepared evidence against Khmer Rouge leaders at the Documentation Center of Cambodia, called Duch a "very essential" witness against the people who are responsible for the deaths of more than a million people when they held power from 1975 to 1979. "He is the key to the conviction of Khmer Rouge leaders. His testimony can show that they were aware of what was happening," Youk Chhang said. Prime Minister Hun Sen has resisted international demands that other Khmer Rouge leaders be arrested, saying he fears this could cause a violent reaction among their followers, who now live in semiautonomous areas in the north and west of the country. Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea are prominent among these leaders. The two men surrendered last December and were given a guided tour of the country before returning to the security of the remote Khmer Rouge- controlled town of Pailin. In the interview, Duch implicated both men, as well as Ta Mok, as leaders who ordered the torture and killings he carried out at the prison known as S-21. "The first was Pol Pot," he said, naming the Khmer Rouge leader who died a year ago. "The second was Nuon Chea, the third Ta Mok." He added: "Khieu Samphan knew of the killings, but less than the others." The overriding rule at Tuol Sleng, Thayer quoted Duch, was a simple one: "Whoever was arrested must die." When a Vietnamese invasion drove the Khmer Rouge from power in 1979, Duch fled with other Khmer Rouge leaders into the jungles. According to his own account he left the movement in 1992 and became a teacher. Then, under assumed names, he worked until a few months ago with United Nations and private relief organizations. It was at that time that he converted to Christianity, he said. "After my experience in life I decided I must give my spirit to God," he said. Duch, whose thin face, large teeth and prominent ears made him one of the more recognizable faces in photographs of the Khmer Rouge, said he was fully prepared to face trial. "I have done very bad things in my life," he said, the first Khmer Rouge leader to make that admission. "Now it is time to bear the consequences of my actions."

Khmer Rouge Torturer Gives Interview - AP Online

 

Khmer Rouge Torturer Gives Interview

AP Online

May 5, 1999 | CHRIS FONTAINE, Associated Press Writer

1

CHRIS FONTAINE, Associated Press Writer
AP Online
05-05-1999
Khmer Rouge Torturer Gives Interview

BATTAMBANG, Cambodia (AP) -- Eight Westerners were among the 14,000 people tortured and executed two decades ago at the Khmer Rouge's infamous Tuol Sleng prison, the former commandant said in a magazine interview.

Kaing Khek Iev, known as Duch, said American, British, French, Australian and New Zealand citizens were tortured with electric shocks for a month by the prison's chief interrogator, Mam Nay, before being killed.

Speaking in an interview published Thursday in the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review, Duch voiced remorse for the killings and said he would be willing to testify against Khmer Rouge leaders.

However, since the interview, Duch has disappeared. The Review said in a news release Wednesday that he had gone into hiding in fear for his life.

Human rights groups and experts on the Khmer Rouge genocide have said Duch could be killed to keep him from testifying before a Cambodian or international court.

The journalist who conducted the interview told The Associated Press that Duch said a former Khmer Rouge now in the Cambodian military police visited him last week and issued a veiled threat, saying, ``We see you have been talking to the bad people.''

Magazine correspondent Nate Thayer said Duch has good reason to be afraid.

``He is the link between the command-and-control and the killing machine,'' Thayer said. ``I'm sure there are a lot of people nervous that he will name them.''

In the interview with Duch, the former commandant said prisoners were killed ``like chickens.''

``Usually, we slit their throats,'' he said, drawing his finger across his neck.

The Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975 and transformed the country into a slave labor camp, causing the death of an estimated 1.7 million people from overwork, starvation and execution. They were toppled in 1979 by a Vietnamese invasion.

The government has given most Khmer Rouge leaders de facto amnesties in exchange for ending a long guerrilla war.

Prime Minister Hun Sen, a one-time Khmer Rouge field officer, has rejected calls for a U.N.-organized tribunal, insisting that Cambodia can handle the trials with help from foreign jurists.

Google Images

Google Images.

Google Images. The most comprehensive image search on the web.

Nate Thayer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nate Thayer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Profile Photos

Profile Photos.

Photos by nate thayer, Oct 1, 2011 - Album for profile photos