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UNDERGRADUATE POLITICAL SCIENCE HONORS THESIS:
THE KHMER ROUGE CANON 1975-1979:
The Standard Total Academic View on Cambodia
Sophal Ear
Department of Political Science
University of California, Berkeley
Ronald E. McNair Scholar
Academic Achievement Division
FAX: 775-878-0116
E-mail: [emailprotected]
URL: http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~sophal
May 1995
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CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 3
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 4
CHAPTER 2: ROMANTICIZING THE KHMER REVOLUTION 13
CHAPTER 3: THE CHOMSKY-LACOUTURE CONTROVERSY 43
CHAPTER 4: BEYOND THE STAV 70
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 96
BIBLIOGRAPHY 102
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There can be no doubt but that this thesis would not have beenpossible without the contributions
of the following people. I am delighted to acknowledge theircontributions to this thesis .
For help in the early research phase of this thesis, I wouldlike to thank Professor Ben Kiernan of Yale
University, Professor Laura Summers of the University of Hull,and University of California Indochina
Archive Director Douglas Pike.
For research suggestions, materials, and references, I ameternally grateful to Professor David P. Chandler of
Monash University and my dear friend Bruce Sharp. They were bothalways ready to help, and only an e-
mail away.
I am especially grateful to archivist Steve Denney of theIndochina Archive for showing me the Cambodian
vault and referring me to the Chomsky-Lacouture Controversy overa year ago. Steve’s great advice wasubiquitous throughout thisproject.
For constructive criticism on an earlier draft of this thesis, Iam indebted to Dr. Marc Pizzaro and Andy Lei.
Last, but not least, this political science honors thesis wouldnot have been possible without the great
inspiration of my advisor, political science Professor AnthonyJames Gregor.
Although each of these contributors helped the final product,they are in no way responsible for the views
expressed or the mistakes made by the author. The author aloneis solely responsible for those.
Sophal Ear
Oakland, California
TO CAMBODIANISTS OF ALL PARTIES
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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
How many of those who say they are unreservedly in supportof the Khmer revolution would consent
to endure one hundredth part of the present sufferings of theCambodian people?
--François Ponchaud, 19771
So concludes François Ponchaud’s Cambodia: Year Zero, the firstbook to detail the “assassination
of a people” being perpetrated in the name of socialistrevolution in Cambodia. Hundreds of other books
and articles on Cambodia have been published since 1977. Manyhave focused on the period during which
the Red Cambodians or “Khmer Rouge” controlled the country whichthey renamed “Democratic
Kampuchea” between 1975 and 1978. Under the Khmer Rouge,hundreds of thousands of Cambodians died
from execution, forced labor, disease and starvation. Since itwill never be possible to ascertain the exact
number of deaths, estimates fall on a range. Michael Vickeryestimates 750,000 deaths,2while Ben Kiernan
adds to that another 800,000. Karl Jackson puts the figure near1.3 million,3while the Campaign to Oppose
the Return of the Khmer Rouge (CORKR) claims at least 1.5million deaths. The Khmer revolution was
perhaps the most pernicious in history; reversing classorder, destroying all markets, banning private
property and money. It is one worth studying for the ages,not for what it accomplished, but for what it
destroyed.
The idea for this thesis grew from research into Cambodia’seconomic development and history for
a simultaneous economics honors thesis.4In particular, a1979 book entitled Kampuchea: Rationale for a
Rural Policy by Malcolm Caldwell, was my first glimpse into acommunity of academics, I had no idea
existed. To be sure, this community was not some extreme“fringe” faction of Cambodian scholars, but
virtually all of them.5In other words, their view of theKhmer revolution ergo the Khmer Rouge, became the
1Ponchaud, Cambodia: Year Zero (1978), p. 193.
2Vickery, Cambodia: 1975-1982 (1984), p. 187.
3Jackson, ed., Cambodia: 1975-1978, p. 3. He footnotes onthe same page that this estimate “assumes
600,000-700,000 war-related deaths before the Khmer Rougevictory and a middle range-estimate of 5.8
million survivors at the beginning of 1979.” (Jackson, p.3n)4This thesis, entitled “Cambodia’s Economic Developmentand History: A Contribution to the Study of
Cambodia’s Economy,” is available from the Academic AchievementDivision, UC Berkeley.5With the notable exceptions of MalcolmCaldwell (b. 1931), Noam Chomsky (b. 1928) and perhaps Edward
Herman, these scholars were baby boomers who were either ingraduate school or lecturing there. To put it
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fueled anti-revolutionary propaganda against the Khmer Rouge bythe media. Together with Edward S.
Herman, Chomsky published an article in mid-1977 intheNation , entitled “Distortions at Fourth Hand” that
became the centerpiece of his argument against the media’sfrenzyover Pol Pot.10
Two years later, after the
Pol Pot-Ieng Sary regime was toppled by Vietnam, theNationarticle was followed by a book that continued
to express doubt about the truthfulness of “alleged” Khmer Rougecrimes.
Between 1975 and 1979, “the movement of solidarity with thepeoples of Kampuchea and Indochina
as a whole”11
as described by of one of its members, Gavin McCormick,vociferously defended the
Kampuchean revolution and its perpetrators. To be sure, therehave been very few articles or books on this
topic, since it is so unpleasant for those Ponchaud bluntlycharacterized as “unreservedly in support of the
Khmer revolution,” to be reminded of their responsibility inwhat Jean Lacouture has called “the murder of a
people.” The study of this movement is considered by some,especially those who continue to support
Chomsky, to be wholly outside Cambodian studies. They suggestthat it is more in line with American
studies since Chomsky attacked the Western media’s propagandamachine as it gravitated around the “evils
of communism.”
This thesis seeks to dispel this mitigating advance in favor ofa wider Canon for pro-Khmer Rouge
literature published between 1975 and 1979. “The Khmer RougeCanon 1975-1979,” unlike other canons, is
not an official list of works in this case, since noone has ever agreed to one (Carney’s list is a small
exception). For a work to be listed and reviewed in the “KhmerRouge Canon” requires that it have been
written in the period 1975 to 1979 and, of course, havesupported, whether explicitly or implicitly, the policies
of the Khmer Rouge (hence the inclusion of Chomsky’s andHerman’s work). A second criterion involves
the nature of the publication, namely print; the work must havebeen published in a reasonably well-known
English-language periodical (Current History, the Nation ,etc.), a monograph (Malcolm Cadwell’s South-
East Asia by Cook University), or a book (Cambodia: Starvationand Revolution and After the Cataclysm).
10For what is publicly available, see Ponchaud’s “Author’sNote for the English Translation” of Cambodia:
Year Zero (1977); Lacouture, Survive le peuple cambodgien!(1978); Chomsky and Herman, After the
Cataclysm(1979). Independent from the authors who were involvedin the debate, see Shawcross’
“Cambodia: Some Perceptions of a Disaster” in Chandler andKiernan, Revolution and Its Aftermath in
Kampuchea: Eight Essays (1983). Since the exchange was bothpublic and private, much of it could be
hidden from view. It is downplayed by Chomsky and Herman.
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Beyond this requirement is the obvious need for the author ofthis thesis to have read that particular work in
order to be able to review it. Of course, there are countlessdissertations, newsletter articles (such as those
in News from Kampucheaand News from DemocraticKampuchea), and other journal articles (from the
Journal of Contemporary Asia) that will not be coveredbecause they were unavailable or would have
required extensive treatment or for lack of time. The KhmerRouge Canon is by no means exhaustive, far too
many other Indochina scholars deserve to be canonized, yetbecause of circ*mstances will have to wait.
This partial Canon offers a glimpse into the assumptions andlogic, evidence and arguments that a
generation of Western scholars used to defend the Khmer Rouge orrationalize their policies during the mid-
to-late 1970s. Together, they created the standard totalacademic view. This glimpse, whether representative
or not, is in and of itself a testament to Khmer Rouge’s charmover academia.
This thesis seeks to answer the following questions on the STAV:First, in what military-political
context did it develop? Second, what are examples of STAVscholarship, who made them, what arguments
did they make, and why? Third, how does the Chomsky-Hermanthesis fit in, differ from or was similar to the
standard total academic view? Fourth, beyond the STAV, what werethe counter-arguments, and for the
members of the STAV scholars, Summers, Caldwell, Hildebrand,Porter, Chomsky, and Herman, what was the
continuity and change in their political thinking (usingVickery’s STV typology)?
In sum, this thesis deconstructs the standard total academicview on Cambodia and constructs the
foundation for the Khmer Rouge Canon 1975-1979.
This foundation to the Canon is composed of, among numerousother works, Laura Summers’
“Consolidating the Revolution” (December 1975) and “Defining theRevolutionary State in Cambodia”
(December 1976) in Current History, George C. Hildebrand’s andGareth Porter’ssine qua nonof the STAV:
Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution (1976), Torben Retbøll’s“Kampuchea and the Reader’s Digest” in the
Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars (July-September1979) and Malcolm Caldwell’s towering essay
“Cambodia: Rationale for A Rural Policy” in Malcolm Cadwell’sSouth-East Asia (1979). To this list chapter 3
will add Noam Chomsky’s and Edward Herman’s masterful“Distortions at Fourth Hand” in theNation (June
25, 1977) and After the Cataclysm(1979), though Chomsky andHerman are mindful to state that they are by
11Shawcross, “Cambodia: Some Perceptions of a Disaster,”in Chandler and Kiernan, Revolution and Its
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no means defending the Khmer Rouge nor “pretend to know wherethe truth lies,” though most of what they
do is to rehash the Hildebrand and Porter line in a morepalatable design. Together, they are a significant
body of scholarship from the STAV.
Three works come to mind with respect to how different facets ofthe STAV has been explored
previously, William Shawcross’ essay “Cambodia: SomePerceptions of a Disaster,” in Revolution and its
Aftermath in Kampuchea (1983),12
Stephen J. Morris’ essay “Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, andCornell” in the
National Interest (Summer 1989), and GeoffreyC. Gunn and Jefferson Lee’s Cambodia Watching Down
Under (1991). Shawcross and Morris, two individuals one wouldexpect to find on separate divides,
essentially agree that the Left failed--for one reason oranother--to become a moral force with respect to
Cambodia until 1979. This while some on the Left, particularlythose in STAV, zealously defended the Khmer
revolution. Shawcross focuses on the Chomsky-Herman thesis,while Morris tackles Cornell’s ties to the
Khmer Rouge. Gunn and Lee offer a exhaustive though curiouslyinsensitive view of the Australian
connection to Democratic Kampuchea.
The context within which Khmer Rouge support incubated was theVietnam War. To understand
how students and scholars, presumed to be detached from peasantconcerns, could have found solidarity
with the peoples of Kampuchea and Indochina as a whole, one mustfirst bear in mind the political
atmosphere and conditioning from which grew the yoke of radicalrevolutionary support. It would be facile
to strip the words of these academics from the context ofhistory, a practice not unlike that being undertaken
by current revisionists. But at the same time, these sameactivists cum academics must accept responsibility
for how they reached their conclusions--namely the validity andcredibility of the evidence they
unceremoniously attacked when at the same time they (quitehypocritically) accepted Khmer Rouge leaders
Ieng Sary’s or Khieu Samphan’s utterances as words to live by.Notwithstanding the pro-revolutionary
ideological framework from which they were taught to think,including the strife-ridden 1960s and 1970s, one
must still wonder how those who studied Cambodia and ostensiblyloved her most in the West, became
supporters of her worst enemy?
Aftermath in Kampuchea (1983).12
Shawcross’ 1984 book, The Quality of Mercy covers some ofthese aspects too.
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By the 1970 Kent State killings of four students, thesemore extreme elements of the STAV saw U.S.
intervention not only as a mistake that had to be stopped andstopped now, but increasingly inched toward
the maquis. After the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1979,many of these activists, scholars, and
academics were forced to choose between supporting their oldfriends, namely the Vietnamese communists
or Democratic Kampuchea, which would have implicitly meantsupporting the Khmer Rouge to varying
degrees. That was what Gunn and Lee have called the “two -sidedswitch.”13
Yet even before that split, there
was already division in the antiwar movement. Gunn and Leedescribe it:
The first was the split within the left-liberal camp in the US.This was symbolized by the action of
singer and civil rights activist Joan Baez in supporting a fullpage advertisem*nt in the New York
Times condemning Vietnam’s re-education camps and humanrights abuses. Her sources ofinformation included recentlyresettled refugees in America who had undergone incarcerationdespite
their anti-American activism and NLF sympathies in the pre-1975period. The result was
splintering of the Indochina Lobby with pro-Hanoi hardlinersincreasingly condoning Vietnam’s
slide into the Moscow camp.14
Douglas Pike, Indochina Archive director at UC Berkeley, fondlyrecalls a conference of antiwar activists not
long after the New York Timesadvertisem*nt appearedwhich turned into a shouting match between doves
who now could not agree with one another on whether to supportor condemn Hanoi. He may have been
facetious, but Pike, who became famous for being an outspokenState Department hawk, saw more fury
between them than he had ever seen between hawks anddoves. There was no lost love between either side,
to be sure, but one would perhaps have expected more civilityfrom “pacifists.” As lines were drawn and
crossed in the Third Indochina Conflict (the invasion ofCambodia by Vietnam), similar lines were drawn in
the West as well, where a distinctly pro -Hanoi faction criticalof the Khmer Rouge formed, leaving behind
only the truest believers in Pol Pot (i.e., the last of STAVscholars).15
Like F.A. Hayek’s dedication of his
classic 1944 treatise The Road to Serfdom to “Socialists of allparties,” this thesis is about some of these
same socialists.
Those who romanticized the Kampuchean revolution and upheld thestandard total academic view
in the years following “liberation” as they always referred it(covered in chapter 2), were young, idealistic
scholars, like Laura Summers and Gareth Porter both fromCornell’s South-East Asia Program (Albert Gore
13Gunn and Lee, Cambodia Watching Down Under (1991), p.72.
14Ibid., p. 75.
15Cambodian politics and studies is black and white. Thereis little gray. Kiernan calls it a “hall of mirrors.”
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Hou Youn, but do so at arms -length. Blinded by their ownideological biases, they believe themselves to be
objective despite employing some very poor sources andmethods.
In chapter 3, the Chomsky-Lacouture Controversy isreconstructed. It is more a Ponchaud- Barron-
Paul-Lacouture-Chomsky-Herman Controversy, to be sure, but thatwould sound tediously long. In early
1977, François Ponchaud wrote the first book detailing thestruggle, under socialism, of the Cambodian
people. That year, Barron and Paul published their ownbook, Murder of a Gentle Land (1977) an equally if
not more damning broadside against the Khmer revolution and theKhmer Rouge. Ponchaud and Barron-
Paul were among the first to see to sound the alarm on Cambodia.In 1976, Ponchaud had written in Mondes
Asiatiques about the nature of the Khmerrevolution.19After publishing his book, it was reviewedfavorably
by Jean Lacouture, but that review got a broadside fromthe leading, most intellectually formidable member
of the antiwar movement, Noam Chomsky. At the MayHearingsin 1977 on Human Rights in Cambodia,
Gareth Porter trashed Ponchaud his uncritical use of refugees inCambodia: Year Zero. A polemical exchange
ensued among Chomsky, Lacouture, Ponchaud, and Bob Silvers, theneditor of the New York Review of
Bookswhich had translated the Lacouture reviewtitled “The Bloodiest Revolution.”
The Porter-Chomsky-Herman objections were numerous, but stillChomsky and Herman admitted
that Ponchaud’s book was “serious and worth reading” though fullof discrepancies and unreliable refugee
reports which were contradicted by other refugees (who, forinstance, had said that they had walked across
the country and seen no dead bodies). This was vindication ofthe Khmer Rouge--reports of having seen no
evil nor heard any evil. The Porter-Chomsky-Herman logic in anutshell: Refugees are run away because
they are displeased, thus will exaggerate, especially over time,if not lie about “alleged atrocities” altogether.
Chomsky and Herman call for “care and caution,” nothing short ofpatronizing to today’s refugees from
Guatemala, or El Salvador, or yesterday’s from Auschwitz.Chomsky and Herman latched onto a number of
media mistakes which include three fake photographs, a fakeinterview with Khieu Samphan, and a handful
of misquotations. A little more fairly treated was Ponchaud’sbook, but the erratas first discovered by Ben
Kiernan were blown out of proportion in Chomsky and Herman’sreview of the Ponchaud book for the
Nation and repeated verbatim two years later inAfter the Cataclysm (1979).
19Ponchaud, “Le Kampuchea Democratic: Une Revolutionradicale,”Mondes Asiatiques, August.
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Chapter 4 of this thesis, titled “Beyond the STAV,”analyzes the aftermath of what amounted to a
parenthetical note in the history of Western academia.Counterevidence is presented in three successive
rounds: (1) Accuracy in Media’s analysis of human rights in thenews for 1976, (2) positive and negative
coverage of Cambodia from a variety of news sources for 1977,(3) William Shawcross’ test of the Chomsky -
Herman thesis for 1975-1979. Following, the continuity andchange in political thinking for each canonized
STAV scholar is reviewed. To give a sense of possible outcomes,Michael Vickery’s Standard Total View
typology is used, namely that they (1) accepted, or (2)partially accepted, or (3) mostly rejected the idea that
the STV that Ponchaud-Barron-Paul-Lacouture had forwarded.
It is within this context that the conclusion, in chapter 5,attempts to weave common threads in the
arguments of Summers, Caldwell, Hildebrand, Porter, Chomsky, andHerman. Only after having fully
See AlsoJames Van Der Beek Net Worth + How Get Famous - Gemtracks BeatsJames Speakman - Facts, Bio, Career, Net WorthWhat is Jeff Probst's Net Worth in 2024?What is James Marsden's net worth in 2024?absorbed their impact can the reader pass judgment on thesignificance of their contributions to the “Khmer
Rouge Canon.” What will emerge from this is the picture of acommunity of academics too consumed by the
need to prove their theories supporting peasant revolutions torealize the consequences of their act ions.
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CHAPTER 2: ROMANTICIZING THE KHMER REVOLUTION
Universities are based on the illimitable freedom of the humanmind. For here we are not afraid to
follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate anyerror so long as reason is left free to combat it.
--Thomas Jefferson
Our story begins, fittingly so, in the ivory towers of some ofthe world’s finest universities. At the
Sorbonne (University of Paris), for instance, where would-beKhmer Rouge leaders like Khieu Samphan, Hu
Nim, and Hou Youn acquired their ideological trainingcourtesy of the French communist party, and at
Cornell University, where a generation of Cambodianists wereincreasingly attuned to revolutionary causes
and movements. Stephen J. Morris reveals the legacy of theSouth-East Asia Program’s (SEAP) at Cornell in
hisNational Interestessay entitled “Ho ChiMinh, Pol Pot, and Cornell.”1A cursory look at Morris’article
shows the enormity of his thrust. He unravels a sordid tale ofrevolutionary fanaticism at Cornell’s SEAP
from the 1960s though the 1970s. Morris’s censure starts at thevery top with politics Professor George
McTurnin Kahin and ends with Kahin’s students. Some of hismilder critics argue that his article lacks
historical context. In order to avoid this pitfall, thefollowing section discusses this context.
The Political Context
In the late 1960s to the early 1970s, while the United Stateswas still in Vietnam, American B-52s
began massive “secret” bombings to eliminate NorthVietnamese sanctuaries in Cambodia. In The Rise and
Demise of Democratic Kampuchea, Craig Etcheson writes,
The fact is that the United States dropped three times thequantity of explosives on Cambodia
between 1970 and 1973 that it had dropped on Japan for theduration of World War II. Between
1969 and 1973, 539,129 tons of high explosives rained down onCambodia; that is more than one
billion pounds. This is equivalent to some 15,400 poundsof explosives for every square mile of
Cambodian territory. Considering that probably less than 25percent of the total area of Cambodia
was bombed at one time or another, the actual explosive forceper area would be at least four times
this level.2
1Stephen Morris, the reader should note, has been“discredited,” branded a “polemicist,” worst, a “right-
winger” and is guilty of “character assassination” as personallyconveyed to me by Ben Kiernan, arguably
the second le ading scholar in Cambodia studies. Morris wasgraduate student, along with Kiernan, in
Australia. He has vilified the Left with his “Chomsky on USForeign Policy,”Harvard International Review ,
3, 4 (December-January 1981) and most recently with hiseditorial attacking Kiernan “The Wrong Man to
Investigate Cambodia,” Wall Street Journal, April 17,1995. The WSJclassifies as vendettascholarship.2Etcheson, The Rise and Demise of DemocraticKampuchea (1984), p. 99.
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This gave rise to a slew of American and Australian criticsearly on such as Noam Chomsky and Wilfred
Burchett.3Later, British journalist William Shawcross madequite a name for himself for his Far Eastern
Economic Review article entitled “Cambodia: Theverdict is guilty on Nixon and Kissinger”4 and his
acclaimed Sideshow: Nixon, Kissinger, and the Destruction ofCambodia (1978). In both, Shawcross
advances a “cause and effect” hypothesis that in essencecondemns “Nixinger” foreign policy for creating
the Khmer Rouge. Gunn and Lee (1991) offer insights into thisbent, they write, “But if the mainstream press
and academic interest had turned away from Cambodia in the wakeof US retreat, leftist interest had been
passionately ignited by the violence of the US saturationbombing of Cambodia.”5Those who became
“passionately ignited,” grew ever more eager to see themaquistriumph in Cambodia.
Before constructing the Khmer Rouge Canon, we must firstdeconstruct the ideological framework
“thought” to have guided the Khmer Rouge once they took power.Surely, had the world known of what
would become of postwar Cambodia, few scholars or academicswould have sympathized with the Khmer
Rouge cause. What drew the young, idealistic students ofCambodia to it? It was the duality of peasants
driven by academic cum revolutionary concerns. Additionally, anystruggle against neo -colonialism would
have made friends of STAV scholars who shared these values. Atleast part of the awe expressed for the
Khmer Rouge leadership by the STAV scholars lay in its equallyeducated background. Khmer Rouge
would-be leaders like Khieu Samphan, Hu Nim, and Hou Youn (who,like Trotsky, would be eliminated in
purges) all received doctorates in economics or law fromthe University of Paris. These were, of course, the
intellectual figureheads, not the anti-intellectual mastermindslike Saloth Sar (known by his nom de guerreas
Pol Pot), Son Sen, Nuon Chea, Ke Pauk, Mok, and IengThirith.6Professor Chandler points out the “old
canard” one too easily falls into every now and then, when oneassumes that because of intellectuals like
Khieu Samphan and Hou Youn, the Khmer Rouge were somehow anintellectually driven bunch. He writes,
The idea that a Ph.D. thesis forms the basis for a revolution isan example of academic folie de
grandeur, from which I suffer occasionally myself.What built the Cambodian Communist party in
my view was the phenomenon of continuing warfare in Indochinabetween 1945 and 1970. The
3Burchett collaborated with Sihanouk for My War with CIA(1973).
4Shawcross, “Cambodia: The verdict is guilty on Nixon andKissinger,”Far Eastern Economic Review,
January 7, 1977.5Gunn and Lee, Watching Cambodia DownUnder (1991), p. 62.
6For insights into Khieu Samphan’s share of responsibilityunder the Khmer Rouge (Communist Party of
Kampuchea), see Heder, “Pol Pot and Khieu Samphan,” 1991.
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party enjoyed Vietnamese patronage throughout this period.Those trained in France inhaled fumes
from the French Communist Party. Mao helped. But the Khmer Rougewere never intellectually
based. Khieu Samphan was and is, to his metaphors, the dogrunning in front of Pol Pot and other
anti-intellectuals who wield power in the CPK [Communist Partyof Kampuchea].7
Also, it seemed that their developmental strategy for Cambodiamatched those of French-trained Marxist
theorists like Amin Samir, one of the eminence to theWorld-Systems theory that called for autarkic
development in the Third World. In this heretoforeexploitation-exploited schema, where underdevelopment
grows from the yoke of capitalism and international integration,a less-developed country can expect to
develop only if it severs itself from the World-System (that is,the world itself). For Khieu Samphan, autarkic
development was renamed “conscious, autonomous development” tomake it appear more palatable. Later,
conscious, autonomous development was re-christened“self-reliance.”
In September 1976, over a year after the Khmer Rouge took power,the Berkeley-based Indochina
Resource Center (IRC) published a partial translation of KhieuSamphan’s 1959 economics dissertation.8At
the time, it was meant as a vision into the new Kampuchea.Virtually no one recognizes that vision as the
master plan for Cambodia, but the standard total academic viewheld that it was. In this sense, what the
Khmer Rouge actually did or thought does not matter--at leastnot for our purpose here--since this is a
study of the STAV on Cambodia, thus a study of Cambodianstudies. Summers’ abridged translation
intended to offer the world a peek into the mysterious KhmerRouge and their plans for Cambodia. Khieu
Samphan’s dissertation is unrevolutionary in most instances,though it exudes the same young, graduate
student’s “humanitarian socialist ideals” that inspired othergraduate students studying the Cambodia years
later. For our purpose, what IRC circles believed was a plan forthe postwar years, is sufficient to represent
the standard total academic view. Of course, the dissertationbeing tame relative to the Kampuchea’s reality
shows how far they off the mark. Yet, from that dissertation, ofwhich the conclusion follows, the reader can
see how the STAV perceived the Khmer revolution. Khieu Samphan’sconclusion states that:
The task of industrializing Cambodia would appear above all elsea prior, fundamental decision:
development within the framework of international integration,that is, within the framework of free
external trade, or autonomous development.
International integration has apparently erected rigidrestrictions on the economic
development of the country. Under the circ*mstances, electing tocontinue development within the
7Chandler, “Re: [The Killing Fields - Not a Noble Move],”e-mail communication, April 24, 1995.
8Summers, “Cambodia’s Economy and Problems ofIndustrialization.”Indochina Chronicle , September-
November 1976.
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framework of international integration means submitting to themechanism whereby handicrafts
withered away, precapitalist structure was strengthened andeconomic life was geared in one-sided
fashion to export production and hyperactive intermediary trade.Put another way, agreeing to
international integration means accepting the mechanism ofstructural adjustment of the nowunderdeveloped country torequirements of the now dominant, developed economies.Accepting
international integration amounts to accepting the mechanism bywhich structural disequilibria
deepens, creating instability that could lead to violentupheaval if it should become intolerable for an
increasingly large portion of the population. Indeed, there isalready consciousness of the
contradictions embodied in world market integration of theeconomy.
Self-conscious, autonomous development is therefore objectivelynecessary. . . .9
In the first instance, Samphan offers two possible paths:“international integration” or “autonomous
development”. Because of conditions imposed on the country bythe “international integration” method of
development, Samphan argues, atavistic modes of production areamplified. How does he reach that
particular finding? By going back to the late 19thcentury, when the industrialized French penetrated the pre-
industrial Cambodian economy, Samphan asserts that thisdisruption stopped the course of development for
Cambodia. In other words, French colonization derailed theCambodian economy. Using balance of trade
and composition of trade analysis, to make his case, Samphanconcludes that exploitation takes place when
Cambodia and France trade, and that peasants too are exploitedby urban elite who buy imported luxury
goods which deplete foreign exchange reserves. Hence, thecontention that “structural disequilibria” from
“international integration” would lead to “social upheaval ...for an increasingly large portion of the
population.” In other words, revolution. It seemed to makesense to the person who translated the thesis,
Laura Summers, and still others who admired it, Malcolm Caldwelland Ben Kiernan, just to name two others.
Thus, the conclusion “objectively” reached, meant that“self-conscious, autonomous
development”, i.e., autarky or “self-reliance” was the answer.It would be facile to ridicule this notion in this
day and age, but in the context of economic history, autarkicdevelopment cast a spell on young, idealistic
students who had grown increasingly critical of the“neo-colonial world”, in their words. As they looked
elsewhere for space to forge ahead, their eyes stopped onCambodia, where a fresh revolution had taken
place, and its charming leaders had closed the country tothe rest of the world. They were in love. As
professor Chandler says, it is an “old canard” to placetoo much emphasis on Khieu Samphan’s thesis as
the master plan, since, of course, the Khmer Rouge followedtheir own anti-intellectual national development
policy of slavery; but for our purpose, what matters hereis not what the Khmer Rouge thought or actually
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did vis -à-vis the economy, but what the STAV scholars believedwas happening. Equally inspiring to these
scholars was Hou Youn’s dissertation, “Kampuchea’s Peasants andthe Rural Economy.” Like Khieu
Samphan, Hou Youn stressed the exploitative dimensions of trade,not just between countries, but urban
and rural regions. Siding with the peasant’s plight, Hou Youndecried the “thievery” that took place when
“The tree grows in the rural areas, but the fruit goes to thetowns.”10
With this in mind, we turn momentarily
to the military context of how the Khmer Rouge came topower.
The Rise of Democratic Kampuchea
Cambodia is the transliterated name of Cambodja, the remnants ofa once mighty Khmer empire that
stretched out over much of Southeast Asia. Cambodia’scontemporary history began with its colonization
by France in 1883. Independence came after World War II,in 1953, and until 1970, Cambodia was a
constitutional monarchy. The coup d’etatwhichdeposed Prince Norodom Sihanouk on March 18, 1970,
brought to power the pro -American prime minister Lon Nol.Sihanouk, who has never been known to give
up easily, immediately began a crusade to regain his country.Believing, like General Motors, that “What’s
good for GM, is good for America,” Sihanouk believed that “Whatwas good for Sihanouk, would be good
for Cambodia.” He created the resistance/maquis known as theNational United Front for Kampuchea
(FUNK) soon after his overthrow. FUNK was a coalition ofcommunists and royalists. For the next five
years, Cambodia was mired in wars on several fronts, bothinternally and externally.
[The] FUNK joined Vietnamese and Laotian communists on the“single battlefield” to struggle
against “U.S. imperialism” under the banner of the United Frontof the Three Indochinese People
(UFTIP). Militarily, this entailed combined militaryoperations--that is, guerrilla, conventional or
proxy military action as was expedient and/orpossible--conducted from “liberated” areas of the
country.11
These “liberated” areas grew as it became clear that Americawould pursue a “retreat with honor” policy
with respect to South Vietnam. By 1973, wh en the bombings onCambodia had reached their zenith,
PFLANK, the military wing of FUNK, “launched its firstfull-scale ‘solo’ offensive.”Though was by no
means a success, the “real significance of this offensive waspolitical.”12
This was significant politically in
9Ibid., p. 25.
10As quoted in Caldwell, Kampuchea: Rational for a RuralPolicy (1979), p. 17.
11Etcheson, p. 36.
12Ibid., p. 117.
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the sense that Pol Pot’s no-compromise policy, according toEtcheson, took center-stage for the
communists who were becoming the real brains behind FUNK.
The Rise of the Standard Total Academic View on Kampuchea
The rise of Democratic Kampuchea paralleled that of a newconsensus among scholars who
studied Cambodia. Many had grown hysterical against the war anddestruction of 1970-1975, and looked
forward to the FUNK’s victory. As increasing specie-speculationand corruption combined with large
infusions of U.S. aid brought the economy into hyperinflation,the national product: rice, became
increasingly scarce because of the war-destruction ofa*gricultural capacity.13
Shells reigned down on Phnom
Penh for two months before April 1975, the beginning of a newlunar year for Cambodians, and the start of
Year Zero for the Khmer Rouge. “Two thousand years of Cambodianhistory have virtually ended,” declared
Phnom Penh Radio in January 1976.14
Cambodia’s rebirth into Democratic Kampuchea would makeheavy
use of self-reliance. To almost all the scholars who had studiedCambodia, this made sense. Not just for its
economics, which had been “objectively” proven by Khieu Samphan,but for its international politics too.
David Chandler who briefly toyed with the standard totalacademic view, wrote in April 1977, “In the
Cambodian case, in 1976, autarky makes sense, both in terms ofrecent experience--American intervention,
and what is seen as Western-induced corruption of previousregimes--and in terms of Cambodia’s long
history of conflict with Vietnam.”15
That foreign policy dimension to self-reliance, became thejustification
for closing Cambodia’s doors to all foreigners. Toward that end,Laura Summers, a lecturer in the politics
department at the University Lancaster, England, began herapologia for Khmer Rouge activities.
A graduate of the South-East Asia Program at Cornell, Summersauthored two articles in Current
Historyabout Cambodia. These articles, entitled“Cambodia: Consolidating the Revolution” and “Defining
the Revolutionary State in Cambodia,” were published in December1975 and December, 1976, respectively.16
She was in England during these years, a point which willundermine her work and that of many other STAV
13By 1974, Cambodia imported as much rice as it exportedonly years earlier. The loss in output is double net
export or import.14
As quoted in Chandler, “Transformation inCambodia,”Commonweal, April 1, 1977, p. 21015
Chandler, “Transformation in Cambodia,” p. 210.16
Summers, “Cambodia: Consolidating the Revolution,” alsotitled “Consolidating the Cambodian
Revolution,” Current History , December 1975; Summers, “Definingthe Revolutionary State in Cambodia,”
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scholars canonized in this thesis. She did not fieldwork,interviewed no Cambodians for either articles.
Summers’ first article “Cambodia: Consolidating the Revolution,”ranks among the first attempts by scholars
of her generation to justify the Khmer revolution that wasachieved with the April 17th, 1975 fall of Phnom
Penh to the FUNK.
The Khmers could not be certain about whether the [allegedAmerican intelligence] document
[regarding sabotage operations] contained authentic plans orspeculative, contingency proposals.
What was certain was the tenacious and frequently violentinsistence of American governments
upon controlling the course of Khmer politics.17
First, she makes no distinction between “Khmers,” FUNK, KhmerRouge--presumably they are one and the
same. She takes at face value Khmer Rouge vice-premier IengSary’s explanation that documents of
American sabotage were authentic. Becoming a virtual mouthpiecefor the Khmer Rouge, she writes,
For Khmers who survived [the legacy of U.S. policies -- 600,000killed, prolonged suffering and
incidental charity], the awesome task was to transformaccumulated bitterness and suffering into
impetus for socio-economic reconstruction of the country allwhile normalising the country’s
foreign relations to prevent further harmfulintervention.18
Praising the Khmer Rouge for their rice farming techniques, asPorter and Hildebrand would do in Cambodia:
Starvation and Revolution in 1976, and justifying the need forthe evacuation of Phnom Penh based on the
fact that 3 million people would now have to be fed by the newregime, Summers contends that “[the] heavy
[U.S.] bombing deterred many from voting with their feet untilthe day of liberation.”19
There is, she writes
authoritatively, “little evidence of famine” although “foodallowances in the solidarity groups are small.”20
On the positive side, “rice substitutes” are being grown, andthe “end of war also means greater security for
fishing and livestock industries.”21
Her analysis of Cambodia’s agricultural and industrial prospectsleave much to be desired too. She
does not cite any sources, official or otherwise, which wouldcertainly cast doubt on how she procured her
information. Despite this, she concludes that in DemocraticKampuchea, “Life is without doubt confusing
and arduous in many regions of the country, but currenthardships are probably less than those endured
Current History, December 1976. “Cambodia: Consolidating theRevolution,” the manuscript was used, as
recovered at the Indochina Archive. The page numbers thusconform to that manuscript.17
Summers, “Cambodia: Consolidating the Revolution,” p.1.18
Ibid., p. 2.19
Ibid., p. 3.20
Summers, “Cambodia: Consolidating the Revolution,” p.3.21
Ibid.
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during the war. It is mistaken to interpret postwar socialdisorganization or confusion as nascent opposition
to the revolution.”22
Laura Summers, who had been to Cambodia once before 1975,on a brief visit, knew
very little of the hardships before “liberation” much lessafterwards. She explains that,.
Thus far, few Khmers have left the country and many of these areformer officers from Lon Nol’s
army or former civil servants who fear prosecution for wartimeactivities. No war crimes trials have,
in fact, come to light probably because of an RGNU [RoyalGovernment of National Union, i.e., the
Khmer Rouge] decision to avoid deepening internalsocio-political conflicts and bitterness in a time
of reconstruction.23
Her naïveté is mind-boggling here, Summers assumes that thosewho wished to leave were actually allowed
to do so, not to speak of the total and unnecessary use oftribunals for which the Khmer Rouge could very
easily have simply been judge and executioner at once.
In discussing Cambodia’s foreign policy, the French Embassy andthe Mayagez Affairs, Summers,
of course, sides with the FUNK whom she knew were the KhmerRouge. For our purpose here, a brief
discussion of the French embassy incident will suffice. Beforethe Khmer Rouge “liberated” Phnom Penh,
the French government had already discussed normalizingrelations with them. Thus, the French did not
intend to leave their embassy. “Hundreds of Frenchmen who hadearlier refused to leave the country,
journalists of several nationalities, Cambodian officialsof the defeated military regime and diplomats from
other foreign missions including the Soviet embassy, sought andreceived shelter from the French.”24
This
infuriated the Khmer Rouge, with whom she concurred. Diplomaticprotocol would have forced the French
to close down the embassy and re -open after there-establishment of relations. Why had the government of
France attempted such fraud? She explains, “Unhappy over theprospect of losing its remaining neo-colonial
privileges, France hoped to maintain its large culturalmission in Cambodia and sought compensation for
nationalized rubber plantations.”25
Again, one must wonder how she arrive at such creative andperceptive
conclusions.
Throughout the article permeates a sense of disproportion. Forinstance, Summers speaks of
massive resettlement as though it were a normal affair. Hernonchalant treatment of evacuations stands in
stark contrast to the seething sarcasm she expresses towardsFrench and American actions with respect to
22Ibid., p. 4.
23Summers, “Cambodia: Consolidating the Revolution,” p.4.
24Ibid., p. 6.
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the Royal Government of National Union (RGNU), the regime namefor FUNK (which took power).
“Cambodia: Consolidating the Revolution” ended on another ofmany positive notes. The overall foreign
policy of Democratic Kampuchea is praised, and its impacton the region assessed. “Among Asians, if not
among other [sic], Khmer desires for peace and respecthave been recognized and reciprocated.”26
Laura
Summers’ defense of the new Kampuchea is multifaceted. Fromdomestic to foreign policy, the Khmer Rouge
could do no wrong. She does a fantastic job of rationalizingaway the more awkward Khmer Rouge policies
such as expelling all foreigners. They were expelled, sheargues, for historical reasons. After years of abuse
by her neo-colonial master, who could blame Cambodia forwanting to kick the foreigners out? Her
apologetics obfuscate the fragmentary reports coming of refugeeswho were, in fact, fleeing the country.
Later, she suggests that they have reasons to lie: collaboratorswith the ancien regimeperhaps? or worse,
the discredited Americans! What emerges from this firstEnglish-language essay on the new Kampuchea is
the picture of a still idyllic revolutionary State, divorcedfrom reality.27
Defining the Revolutionary State
In her second Current Historyarticle regarding the newKampuchea, published in December 1976,
Summers is more reserved in her alacrity to praise Khmer Rougeaccomplishments. One might call it cautious
but very optimistic. In contradistinction, David Chandler,who felt the obligation to give the new leaders of
Cambodia the benefit of the doubt, put it this way:
Can the regime recapture the grandeur of Angkor [in which thegreat temples were built in the 12th
century] without duplicating the slavery (and by implication,the elite ) that made Angkor what it
was? Is the price for liberation, in human terms, too high?Surely, as a friend of mine has written,
we Americans with our squalid record in Cambodia should be“cautiously optimistic” about the
new regime, “or else shut up.” At the same time, I might feelless cautions and more optimistic if I
were able to hear the voices of people I knew in the Cambodiancountryside fourteen years ago,
telling me about the revolution in their words.28
The reverse is perhaps true for Laura Summers, who upon readingthe comments of “emissaries” to
Kampuchea, decides that all must be fine. Having acquired newmaterial to propagate, she quotes, without
so much as a single qualification (with respect to thecontrolled nature of the visit), the Swedish ambassador
25Ibid.
26Summers, “Cambodia: Consolidating the Revolution,” p.8.
27In chapter 4, the reader will see that there was paucityof coverage, according to Shawcross (1983).
Additionally, media coverage in 1975 focused not on the welfareof Cambodians, but that of foreigners still
interned in the French embassy in Cambodia, according toPonchaud (1978).
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to China’s observations while visiting Democratic Kampuchea asan invited guest of the new regime.
Believing perhaps that the ambassador was free to visit allplaces yet saw “no signs of starvation,” Summers
generalizes this finding to contradict refugee claims ofatrocities and starvation. But she goes too far,
however, when she admonishes the ambassador for not recognizingwhat she insists is an obvious bomb
crater in Siem Riep, caused by American bombs dropped some timeduring his visit of 1976. Of course, she
was not an eyewitness nor an expert on bomb craters, not tospeak of American-made ones.
On the status of Prince Sihanouk, who founded FUNK, but wassubdued by the Khmer Rouge, she
writes, “Since his retirement, Sihanouk continues to live inCambodia, where, according to another visiting
emissary, he enjoys the respect and affection befitting hisstatus as an eminent nationalist.”29The title of his
memoirs Prisonier des Khmer Rouges (1986) is self-evident incontradicting that emissary’s observations.
Here, the mistake she makes is to believe too easily inemissaries. Far from being randomly selected, the
emissaries who visited Cambodia were not chosen for theircritical bent. It took the regime three-and-half
years to invite Western journalists, a total of three to beexact. One of them was Malcolm Caldwell, a lecturer
in Southeast Asian economic history at the University of London,and author of occasional essays, one
book on Cambodia in the Southeast Asian war,30
and newspaper articles in support of the Khmerrevolution.
He writes, in 1977 for theLondon Times, “Profound changeswere needed, changes which could be brought
about only by revolution...”31
Caldwell, who, like Summers, is canonized in this thesis,was understandably
biased towards the Khmer Rouge. One would think, given allthis, that scholars like Laura Summers and
Malcolm Caldwell, both of whom held the standard total academicview on Cambodia (see no evil, hear no
evil), would turn to fresh sources of information or at least dosome fieldwork where they could interview
refugees and the like, but that apparently ranked low on theirlist of priorities.
Regarding the refugee accounts of atrocities, Summers forexample, dismisses them for having
received more attention than they literally “deserved.” In aseries of apologetics, she rationalizes their
overuse by the Press as having “served to harden Phnom Penh’sattitude towards Western journalism even
28Chandler, “Transformation in Cambodia,” p. 210.
29Summers, “Defining the Revolutionary State in Cambodia,”Current History , Dec. 1976, p. 213.
30Caldwell’s 1973 book with Lek Hor Tan, Cambodia in theSoutheast Asian War, is significant in that it
shows the inception of a revolutionary spirit, the beginning, asit were, of the end.31
Caldwell, “Inside Cambodia: the other side of thepicture,”London Times, July 20, 1977, p. 14.
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as the government welcomed a few Asian journalists into thecountry.”32
Not only were the Americans at
fault for causing starvation and thus the evacuation of PhnomPenh, as her colleagues would argue, but the
negative press was making them uncomfortable. Their no comment,closed doors policy was thus
understandable! Laura Summers attributes everything the KhmerRouge do to knee-jerk reaction to French
and American malfeasance and imperialism.33
Summers then outlines, quite favorably, the constitution ofDemocratic Kampuchea with its radical
collectivist ideas. After describing the elaborate process ofwriting the Democratic Kampuchea Constitution,
which she concludes is a mixture of Leninist and peasantcustoms, she sings the preamble in obvious
admiration, “happiness, equality, justice and true democracyreign without rich or poor people, without
exploiting or exploited classes and where people live in harmonyand the greatest national unity.”34
This
preamble was republished onto the fifth page of Long Livethe 17th Anniversary of the Communist Party of
Kampuchea, a propaganda booklet published by “Group ofKampuchean Residents in America” or G.K. Ran.
The booklet contains a translation of Premier Pol Pot’s speechcommemorating that 17th anniversary. In
France and England, similar groups published press releases fromthe Royal Government of National Union
of Democratic Kampuchea. These were the “Comite des Patriotes duKampuchea Democratique en
France” and the “British Kampuchea Support Campaign,”which, until 1991 lingered on.35
Summers, who no
doubt belonged to one, was by herself, a virtual think-tank. Shedid not have to take orders from anyone in
order to formulate her justifications, but she did needconsiderable official information from official organs,
to be so keen.
The evacuation of Phnom Penh, which was roundly criticized bythe rest of the world as “barbaric”
was really justified according to the standard total academicview which she supported. As her justification,
she writes “By all accounts, however, universal conscription forwork prevented a postwar famine,” 36but
32Summers, “Defining the Revolutionary State in Cambodia,”p. 213.
33This view gained popularity during the Cold War. Sovietaction was in fact reaction to American foreign
policy.34
As quoted on in Summers, “Defining the Revolutionary Statein Cambodia,” p. 215.35
According to Gunn and Lee (1991), “Other committees which,in the main, emerged in intellectual defence
of Democratic Kampuchea include the Upssala -based publishers ofKampuchea in Sweden with support
sections throughout that country. Other support circles emergedin West Germany, Switzerland, Denmark,
Japan, Hong Kong, and Australia.” (Gunn and Lee, p. 62)36
Summers, “Defining the Revolutionary State in Cambodia,”p. 215.
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admits that “It also appears that some work groups, in lieu ofother forms of reeducation, are obliged to work
harder and longer than others.”37
One must wonder how she knows this, given that she has notbeen inside
the country. Does she have a reference? No source is listed.With respect to statements from refugees and
Khmer Rouge defectors sponsored by resistance groups abroad,Summers dismisses them entirely. She
writes:
These public pleas for support and the public concern raised bysensational, but false, documents
finally provoked the Paris Mission of Democratic Kampuchea toprotest that some journalists were
degrading their profession and that the French held a majorshare of the responsibility for allowing
these activities to continue.38
Some of the documents to be discredited were, for instance,several faked photographs and interviews
which between 1976 and 1977 were published in newspapers fromAustralia to America.39
The issue of the
photographs, in particular, will be summoned when theChomsky-Herman book, After the Cataclysm, is
discussed in the following chapter.
In “Defining the Revolutionary State in Cambodia,” Summers doesadmit, albeit sparingly, that life
was difficult. As in her first Current Historyarticle,Summers compares the Khmer revolution with other
historical revolutions, proposing that “Like the puritanrevolution in England the Khmer revolution is the
expression of deep cultural and social malaise unleashed by asudden and violent foreign assault on the
nation’s social structure.”40
Her concern for the “difficulty” of life in the newKampuchea is so disingenuous
as to discount its value altogether. The urban “elite” werehaving problems because they were simply not
used to farming the land! A remarkable discovery that took ayear to reach. Summers throws that glimpse of
sympathy away, however, when she adds, “What the urban dwellersconsider ‘hard’ labor may not be
punishment or community service beyond human endurance ...Such associations [with memories it invokes
of Russian history] take what is happening in Cambodia out ofits historical and cultural context.”41
One
must wonder what specific context she means, when she says thathard labor may not be punishment. In
any case, Summers’ article proposes an embryonic theory of theFree Press that Chomsky and Herman
would elaborate in 1979, and again as recently as 1988. To besure, that theory was more sophisticated than
37Ibid., p. 217.
38Ibid., p.216.
39See, for instance, Mariano, “Forced Cambodia LaborDepicted,” Washington Post, April 8, 1977.
40Summers, “Defining the Revolutionary State in Cambodia,”p. 215.
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the conceptual framework alluded to by Summers, but still itcontained all the elements of this tragedy. She
asserts that:
The United States press, not to be outdone, produced dramaticnews reports and editorials based on
refugee and unnamed intelligence sources. In retrospect, thesereports were partly inaccurate and are
still largely unverified. The flap illustrates the powerful andpotentially dangerous force that is
generated when the political machinations of a few capture theattention of a concerned and
uninformed public.42
Like Chomsky and Herman, Summers dismisses the refugee accountsas bearing little evidentiary validity.
Perhaps it is hubris that prevents her from paying moreattention to these refugees, but that does not excuse
her from taking them seriously. Therefore, as in otherinstances, she works these into a lather of ever-less
reasonable justifications for why they would have unpleasantthings to say about the new regime.
Consistent with the STAV, she writes:
Clearly, they [the reported incidents] reflect the fears andexpectations arising from the exile’s
position in the old society. Most Cambodians leaving thecountry in 1975 managed to do so
without much difficulty as if the regime were acknowledging thatthey were among the few whose
values could not be accommodated in a people’sstate.43
Summers concludes, in the same fashion as her first article,“Cambodia: Consolidating the Revolution,” by
returning to the realm of foreign policy and Kampuchea’sposition vis-à-vis its historical enemies. She notes
that the new regime’s posture towards Vietnam is cool, but thatwith its “Indian” brothers to the west and
north, Thailand and Laos, respectively, relations haveimproved.
The Khmer revolutionaries have actively contributed to thepost-war regional integration of
Southeast Asia while consolidating Cambodia’s position as anonaligned [meaning socialist] state.
Despite these signs of the growing acceptance of Cambodia’srevolution, Phnom Penh has not yet
relaxed its guard against hostile foreign powers who might stillattempt to disrupt the people’s
state.44
This cautious but optimistic ending suggests that she grew morewary from December 1975 to December
1976 of what was in store for Democratic Kampuchea. In her firstCurrent Historyarticle, Summers was
cautious but very optimistic about every facet of the newregime’s policies. By 1976, however, she had to
defend the regime’s increasingly battered record on humanrights.
41Ibid., p. 216.
42Ibid., pp. 216-217.
43Summers, “Defining the Revolutionary Sate in Cambodia,”p. 217.
44Ibid., p. 218.
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Laura Summers, it must be said, did not know for certainwhat was really going on in Cambodia.
From her vantage point in Lancaster, England, she saw verylittle. However, she chose to write on
Cambodia’s revolution nonetheless. For other scholars whosecanonical contributions are covered in this
chapter, the standard total academic view reigned supreme. Likeso many other students and scholars of her
generation, Laura Summers was a romantic of revolutions.Self-reliance and non-alignment were code-words
that suggested breaking away from the World-System, i.e.,imperialism, the same imperialism which she
blamed for destroying Cambodia during the first half ofthe 1970s. Combined with this STAV on Cambodia
was her incredibly low suspicion of official RGNU explanationsfor why certain policies were undertaken.
Instead, she hypocritically exercises a “healthy” skepticismtowards the media. What emerges from these
two contributions to the “Khmer Rouge Canon” is the picture ofan academic far too obsessed with
rationalizing every objectionable Khmer Rouge action, to realizethat the more severe and numerous the
objections, the more likely some grain of truth was in them.
Starvation and Revolution
At Cornell, George McTurnan Kahin, director of the SoutheastAsia program from 1961 to 1970, and
professor of international relations at the Universitysince 1951, became an expert on the Vietnam conflict.
One of his students was Gareth Porter, soon to become a leading“scholar” on both Cambodia and Vietnam.
Kahin’s foreword to Gareth Porter’s and George C. Hildebrand’sbook, Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution
(1976), praises it for “what is undoubtedly the best informedand clearest picture yet to emerge of the
desperate economic problems brought about in Cambodia largely asa consequence of American
intervention, and of the ways in which that country’s newleadership has undertaken to meet them.”45
Porter, who was probably a classmate of Laura Summers,co-authored the most famous book of all Khmer
Rouge defenses published.
The Khmer Rouge Canon’s Sine Qua Non
Nowhere was the war so brutal, so devoid of concern forhuman life, or so shattering in its impact
on a society as in Cambodia. But while the U.S. government andnews media commentary have
contrived to avoid the subject of the death and devastationcaused by the U.S. intervention in
Cambodia, they have gone to great lengths to paint a picture ofa country ruled by irrational
revolutionaries, without human feelings, determined to reducetheir country to barbarism. In shifting
the issue from U.S. crimes in Cambodia to the alleged crimes ofthe Cambodian revolutionary
45Porter and Hildebrand, Cambodia: Starvation andRevolution (1976), p. 7.
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government, the United States has offered its own versionof the end of the Cambodian war and the
beginning of the new government.
--Porter and Hildebrand, 197646
In 1976, SEAP graduate Gareth Porter, and his colleague GeorgeC. Hildebrand published a small,
unread, but important book entitled Cambodia: Starvation andRevolution. It is important for two reasons:
first, it was the first English-language book of the eventsunfolding in Cambodia (becoming the sine qua
non for proponents of the standard total academicview).47
Second, it rationalized everything the Khmer
Rouge did and were doing (from the evacuation of Phnom Penhresidents and hospital patients to the
forcing of monks into hard labor).It became a veritablebible for defending the Khmer Rouge. Kiernan,
Chomsky, Herman, and Caldwell all referred to the bookfavorably. In Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution,
Porter and Hildebrand offer what appears to be insurmountableevidence contrary to the reports of atrocities
taking place in revolutionary Cambodia, renamed DemocraticKampuchea.
Porter and Hildebrand’s Sources
Using “suppressed” documents and “official” bulletins courtesyof the Government of Democratic
Kampuchea, they argue that the April 17th, 1975 evacuation ofPhnom Penh, was due to the U.S. war on the
people of Cambodia, which resulted in the overpopulationof Phnom Penh (from 600,000 to 2-3 million
between 1970 and 1975) and therefore its necessaryevacuation. Furthermore, they argue that the explosion
of corruption under the Lon Nol regime was the direct result ofU.S. foreign aid, and that in turn, it
exacerbated death, malnutrition, and disease in Phnom Penh,making it uninhabitable. Curiously, Porter and
Hildebrand in their 100 plus pages book refer to the Khmer Rougeonly by their more palatable coalition
name of NUFK (National Front for a United Kampuchea, also knownas “FUNK” in French acronyms).48
They pepper their book with propaganda photos directly from thenew regime.
In chapter 2, titled “The Politics of Starvation in Phnom Penh”Porter and Hildebrand attack the
media reports of atrocities, as did Summers inCurrent History,because they were based on a single account
written by Sydney Shandberg for the New YorkTimesthree weeks after the evacuation while cooped up in
the French embassy. Porter and Hildebrand write, “The articlewas a weak foundation for the massive
46Ibid., p. 11.
47The first book was a French book: Steinbach, Phnom PenhLibere (1976). A cursory look at the endnotes
of the Porter and Hildebrand book indicates that it is usedextensively as a source.
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historical judgment rendered by the news media. It contained noeyewitness reports on how the evacuation
was carried out in terms of food, medical treatment,transportation, or the general treatment of evacuees.”49
While it is true that Shandberg could not venture outside theembassy, from his vantage point he see more
than Porter and Hildebrand could have, while in the UnitedStates. The point of not having eyewitnesses to
corroborate or contradict reports of atrocities will becomesimportant when the Chomsky-Herman book is
discussed at length in the following chapter. Continuing theircritique of the mass media, Porter and
Hildebrand write, “Nor was there any extensive analysis of thereasons Shandberg attributed to the
revolutionary leadership for the action.”50
Here, Porter and Hildebrand refer to the circ*mstances ofpostwar
Cambodia, circ*mstances which they insist were deplorablebecause of U.S. actions that prompted the
evacuation. Like Chomsky-Herman, they assert the evacuationsaved live s.
Porter and Hildebrand discount stories similar to New YorkTimesjournalist Sydney Shandberg’s
as sensational (by of their titles alone) and write“commentators and editorialists expected revolutionaries to
be ‘unbending’ and to have no regard for human life, andbecause they were totally unprepared to examine
the possibility that radical change might be required in thatparticular situation.”51
Nowhere is the romance
with revolutions more obvious than it is here. Porter andHildebrand expect revolutionaries to bend and to
be humanitarian because their indoctrination had taughtthat revolutions were good. Phnom Penh was in the
jaws of starvation when the Khmer Rouge “liberated” it, sothey argued, and that there was no other
alternative than to evacuate everyone. By defending the KhmerRouge, via justification of their policies,
Porter and Hildebrand resort to official explanations andsources of information. Revolutions
notwithstanding, there is no mention of any crime committed bythe Khmer Rouge during the evacuation.
On the other hand, numerous counterexamples of reasonable, ifnot caring Khmer Rouge behavior and
demeanor, are forwarded.
More rigorous analyses supported by actual evidence suggests arather more cynical desire to
shut the economy down, reverse class order, and enslave theurban population. The controversy over the
evacuation continues despite compelling evidence that suggestsit was unnecessary and provoked
48Porter and Hildebrand use “Khmer Rouge” when they mustquote its use, but prefer NUFK (FUNK).
49Porter and Hildebrand, p. 40.
50Ibid.
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numerous deaths. The Khmer Rouge’s contempt for city dwellers isself-evident in one of their post-
liberation broadcasts:
Upon entering Phnom Penh and other cities, the brother andsister combatants of the revolutionary
army . . . sons and daughters of our workers and peasants . . .were taken aback by the
overwhelming unspeakable sight of long-haired men and youngsterswearing bizarre clothes making
themselves undistinguishable [sic] from the fair sex. . .. Our traditional mentality, mores, traditions,
literature, and arts and culture and tradition were totallydestroyed by U.S. imperialism and its
stooges. Social entertaining, the tempo and rhythm of music andso forth were all based on U.S.
imperialistic patterns. Our people’s traditionally clean, soundcharacteristics and essence were
completely absent and abandoned, replaced by imperialistic,p*rnographic, shameless, perverted,
and fanatic traits. (FBIS IV, May 15, 1975:H4)52
The anti-American theme was nothing new. After all, the FUNKfought U.S. imperialism. Perhaps, because of
this, the followers of the standard total academic view wereespecially drawn to it. Ben Kiernan, who
followed the STAV, interpreted this as forgivable nationalism.Porter and Hildebrand maintain that the
evacuation was a reasonable course of action given low foodreserves without American aid in sight. In
retrospect, however, food supplies in Phnom Penh were notsufficiently low as to justify an evacuation to
the countryside. If anything, it was the two month long shellingof the capital by the FUNK that resulted in
the stranglehold on Phnom Penh. Furthermore, evidence that theevacuation was planned well before April
suggests that strategic advantage, not the well-being of thecitizens mattered to the Khmer Rouge. Hou
Youn’s dissertation had sufficiently maligned cities as to makethem appear useless to the country. Not only
was class order reversed, but city dwellers would be made tofarm the land, in a complete occupational
reversal. Charles Twinning explains:
An extraordinary [Cambodian communist] party congress held inFebruary 1975, reportedly
presided over by Khieu Samphan, is generally thought tohave made the decision to evacuate cities
and abolish all currency after the takeover. The fact that thecities were all emptied within several
days of the fall, with the people knowingly directed to spots inthe countryside where they camped
at least temporarily, does not give the impression of a sudden,knee jerk action. This had all been
organized before hand.53
Another Porter and Hildebrand justification for Phnom Penh’sevacuation is that since 5/6 of the population
of Phnom Penh were refugees from the countryside, they weresimply being returned to the countryside.
This explanation sounds, oddly enough, reasonable. But why then,would over 800,000 peasants turn up
dead?
51Ibid., p. 41.
52Jackson, ed., Cambodia: 1975-1978 (1989), p. 44.
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Moreover, Porter and Hildebrand were concerned about theimage of the Khmer Rouge as
somehow inhumane. A romance with revolution dictates that it behumanitarian and just. Porter and
Hildebrand describe the difficult choices the Khmer Rouge faced,and how their actions were rational.
Above all else, the NUFK [FUNK] leadership had to be concernedwith food and health. The
concentration of a large part of the population in the cities,where they were unproductive and
totally dependent on foreign aid, posed grave dangers. On theone hand, attempt to maintain an
adequate supply of rice for the urban population would havedisrupted the existing highly organized
system of agricultural production; on the other hand, extremelyovercrowded conditions, combined
with the breakdown of all normal public services, made theoutbreak of a major epidemic highly
probable.54
With this in mind, the evacuation made sense to Porter andHildebrand. The reasoning followed that: first,
the conversion of unproductive labor to productive labor (fromcity to countryside) would prevent
starvation and second, epidemics necessitate evacuations. Porterand Hildebrand assert that the 600,000 city
dwellers of Phnom Penh (i.e., those who were supposed to bethere to begin with) were justifiably taken into
the countryside because their labor was needed for the task ofcultivating rice. The claim becomes nothing
short of utopian fantasy when they write, “The 500,000 to600,000 urban dwellers would by growing their
own food, by freeing others from the task of getting food tothem, substantially increase the total produced.
By remaining unproductive during the crucial months, on theother hand, they would reduce the amount of
food available to everyone.”55
Their logic is devoid of realistic consideration for thehuman toll, just as
Summers’ nonchalance reigned over the idea of evacuatingmillions away from home. When they take at
face value Khmer Rouge vice-chairman Ieng Sary’s claim that, “Bygoing to the countryside, our peasants
have potatoes, bananas, and all kinds of foods,”56
they lose all sense of reality or objectivity.Stephen
Morris said it best, “Serious students of communist regimes knowthat public utterances by communist
officials and their media may or may not be true. But they arealways made to serve a political purpose.”57
Porter and Hildebrand accept all the positions and policies ofthe new regime, re-printing without reservation
propaganda pictures of postwar Cambodian workers in thefields and factories working “happily”.
53Twinning, “The Economy,” in Jackson, Cambodia:1975-1978, pp. 114-115.
54Porter and Hildebrand, pp. 42-43.
55Ibid., pp. 44-45.
56Ibid., p. 44.
57Morris, “Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, andCornell,”National Interest, Summer 1989, p. 54.
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Countering charges that the print media’scharacterization of the evacuation as a “death march,” is
another falsehood Porter and Hildebrand dispel. They argue thatsuch untruths were “fostered by U.S.
government statements, including ‘intelligencedocuments,’”58
They cite accounts contradicting claims of
untoward behavior by the Khmer Rouge onto the population ofPhnom Penh shortly after April 17. Most
were from Phnom Penh Libere: Cambodge de l’autre sourire (1976),the very first book that favorably treated
the Khmer Rouge evacuation of Phnom Penh. Gunn and Lee call it a“studied” account as opposed to the
“banalized” version seen in the motion picture “The KillingFields”. Porter and Hildebrand conclude from
this that the “death march” characterization was“unfounded.”
Finally, leaving nothing to chance, Porter and Hildebrand holdthat “the temporary clearing of most
hospitals, far from being inhumane, was an act of mercy for thepatients.”59
They argue that the hospitals of
Phnom Penh had become overcrowded and unhealthy. It was thusnecessary, for the well-being of the
patients, to evacuate them. And what could they expectonto the elsewhere? Porter and Hildebrand offer as
an alternative a propaganda photo of a Khmer Rouge surgical teamoperating in 1974 as proof that better
care was just a countryside away. Jean Lacouture retells anencounter he had with a Khmer Rouge supporter
in which the former argued that “under the Lon Nol regime,medical practice was in the hands of the
Americans, corrupt and decadent. These poor souls had to beripped out, at all cost, from this alienating
medical facility. [To which I replied:] A new ‘conspiracy ofwhite coats.’”60
Porter’s and Hildebrand’s falls
near the Norwegian journalist’s.
The shameless propagandizing continued without refrain. Havingrationalized the more gruesome
Khmer Rouge actions, Porter and Hildebrand legitimize theleadership and sing its praises. They conclude
the second chapter of Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution,rather self-assuredly, by claiming that:
A careful examination of the facts regarding the evacuation ofCambodia’s cities thus shows that the
description and interpretation of the move conveyed to theAmerican public was an inexcusable
distortion of reality. What was portrayed as a destructive,backward-looking policy motivated by
doctrinaire hatred was actually a rationally conceived strategyfor dealing with the urgent problems
that faced postwar Cambodia.61
58Porter and Hildebrand, pp. 47-48.
59Ibid., p. 50.
60Lacouture, Survive le peuple cambodgien! (1978), pp.134-135.
61Porter and Hildebrand, p. 56.
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In chapter 3, Porter and Hildebrand explain the reasons behindCambodia’s agricultural revolution by
legitimizing the Khmer Rouge leadership. In a juxtaposition ofacademic and peasants, they assert that
because some of the Khmer Rouge leaders are doctors ofphilosophy, namely Khieu Samphan, Hou Youn
and Hu Nim, which makes their policies well-thought out andlegitimate. This romanticization seen not just
here but elsewhere in Malcolm Caldwell’s, Laura Summers’ and BenKiernan’s contributions to the STAV on
Cambodia.62
In a recent editorial in the Wall StreetJournal opposing the U.S. State Department’s half-
million dollar grant to Yale University for the creation ofdatabase on Khmer Rouge crimes to be headed by
Ben Kiernan, Stephen Morris writes, “Mr. Kiernan wrote that‘Khieu Samphan’s personality--particularly his
assuming manner, ready smile and simple habits--endeared him toKhmer peasants. Himself a peasant by
birth, he is said to have been somewhat ascetic in hisbehavior, but never fanatical and always calm.’”63
Expectations of famine by Western intelligence sources for 1977were dismissed by Porter and
Hildebrand in light of FUNK broadcasts that claimed superb riceharvests due to superior two-cycle rice-
farming under Khmer Rouge leadership. They write:
Tiev Chin Leng, former director of the port of Sihanoukville anda member of the NUFK [FUNK]
residing in Paris, the 1975 crop amounted to 3.25 million tonsof paddy, or about 2.2 million tons of
rice. For the Cambodian people this bumper harvest represents250 grams of rice per meal per
adult, and 350 grams per meal doe worker on the productionforce.... In addition meat eating has
increased, In the past, under the influence of Buddhisttradition, the peasants took little part in the
slaughtering of animals, and ate very little meat.64
Both points (including the statistics) reappear in MalcolmCaldwell’s posthumously published essay turned
book Kampuchea: Rationale for a Rural Policy (1979)reviewed in the following section. The unending
gullibility of Porter and Hildebrand is itself incredible.However, that was not the end of it. For instance,
62Kiernan himself is not canonized because none of hisSTAV works were available for review, but
secondary sources indicate that he was quite favorable to theKhmer Rouge during their reign. See chapter 3
and 5 for more on this. The original sources, if available,would be Kiernan, “Revolution and Social
Cohesion in Cambodia” presented to the ASEAN Seminar (at whichCaldwell was the main speaker) and
published under The ASEAN Papers, Townsville: James CookUniversity for Transnational Co-operative,
Sydney, 1979; and “Social Cohesion in RevolutionaryCambodia,”Australian Outlook, December 1976.
There were still many, many others who were STAV scholars. Somehave recanted their views, as did Ben
Kiernan. Others have yet to admit to having done anything wrong.Kiernan’s apologetic piece in the
Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholarsin 1979 is becovered in chapter 5.63
Morris, “The Wrong Man to Investigate Cambodia,” WallStreet Journal, April 17, 1975. The Kiernan
quotation originates from a June 1975Dyason HousePaper.64
Porter and Hildebrand, pp. 85-86.
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Porter and Hildebrand believed that forcing monks to work wasnot an act that could “fairly be represented
as religious persecution,”65
because everyone else, they argued, old and young wasforced to work, too.
Although Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution is about Cambodia,a good portion of it is devoted
to blaming America for the starvation which, as it turns out,was tampered by the Khmer Rouge’s liberation
of Phnom Penh. Porter and Hildebrand leave no stone unturned intheir critique of U.S. intervention and its
destruction of Cambodia. Porter and Hildebrand describe ascissors-like extraction mechanism curiously like
the Soviet law of primitive socialist accumulation, when theyexplain that modern industry would be fueled
by “capital raised by the expansion of agriculturalproduction.”66
Their conclusion makes Cambodia the
victim not of the Khmer Rouge, but of the Americans and the halfdecade of underdevelopment and
destruction by U.S. bombs. In addition, the U.S. media,according to Porter and Hildebrand, was a co-
conspirator in this cover-up, by not doing justice to Cambodia.Porter and Hildebrand fastidiously conclude
that:
Cambodia is only the latest victim of the enforcement of anideology that demands that social
revolutions be portrayed as negatively as possible, rather thanas responses to real human needs
which the existing social and economic structure was incapableof meeting. In Cambodia--as in
Vietnam and Laos--the systematic process of mythmaking must beseen as an attempt to justify the
massive death machine which was turned against a defenselesspopulation in a vain effort to crush
their revolution.67
As Porter and Hildebrand romanticize the “social revolutions,”they reveal their motive: defending the
Khmer revolution. Far from being scholarly or objective, theymake evident their biases by citing, without so
much as a pathetic reservation or qualification, the propagandawhich forms their defense of the Khmer
revolution ergo the Khmer Rouge. What they achieved,unquestionably, was the temporary confounding of
the events in the new Kampuchea, perched from half the globeaway, they played a role in legitimizing it for
another three years. Next, we canonize the significantcontributions of Malcolm Caldwell. Caldwell was an
author, STAV scholar, tireless Khmer Rouge defender, and finallya victim of the Khmer Rouge themselves.
Malcolm Caldwell’s Kampuchea
Another academic who romanticized the Khmer revolution and itsrevolutionaries was Malcolm
Caldwell, a lecturer at the School of Oriental and AfricanStudies (SOAS), University of London. He was an
65Ibid., p. 72.
66Ibid., p. 88.
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economic historian “committed to the struggle of the colonized,oppressed, and impoverished against
imperialism and neo-colonialism.”68
In short, Caldwell became the leading academic supporterof the Khmer
Rouge. His colleagues write upon his assassination that he“would not have liked to have gone down in
history as an academic in the usual sense of the term. He wouldhave wanted to be remembered as an
activist on the British Left and an anti-imperialistfighter.”69
Caldwell published a number of articles70
before
submitting the draft of a paper titled “Cambodia: Rationale fora Rural Policy” was published after his death
in 1979 under the auspices of James Cook University of NorthQueensland.71
The introductory note by Hering and Utrecht in MalcolmCaldwell’s South-East Asia echo similar
points gathered from Porter and Hildebrand (1976) as wellas Summers (1975 and 1976),
The Western Press, apparently feeling insulted and beingoutraged, excelled in negative reporting on
developments in Kampuchea under the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary regime.Not only did strongly exaggerated
reports on the mass killings in the regime appear in the Westernmass media, but also reports of
crop failures and hunger in Kampuchea. Contrary to thisunfavorable reporting in the Western
newspaper, Malcolm was able to find more reliable dataandcompose a much more favorable
account of economic development in Kampuchea in thelast two years before the Vietnamese
invasion of January 1979. [Emphasis added.]72
As the STAV scholars mobilized against the media’s “negativereporting on developments in Kampuchea”
they joined by one of their elder statesmen, Malcolm Caldwell.Although negative coverage did appear from
various newspapers and magazines, it was neve
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