Shenali D Waduge

The best example to showcase US, UK & UN complicity to a murderous guerrilla force is the case of Cambodia’s Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge. In Sri Lanka, the elite circles love to praise the West. Obviously they have not heard of Cambodia’s Pol Pot or the Khmer Rouge. In the late 1970s, the Khmer Rouge killed as many as 2 million Cambodians by execution, starvation and overwork (1/5 of its population), not too long ago and the accountability of the CIA & British Government has again surfaced. A Cambodian lawyer said All the foreigners involved have to be called to court, and there will be no exceptions… Madeleine Albright, Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush…we are going to invite them to tell the world why they supported the Khmer Rouge”. The issue is Cambodia’s tribunal was against West’s Khmer Rouge guerrillas, in Sri Lanka the LTTE’s crimes are kept nicely shelved and the witch-hunt is to somehow prove the Sri Lankan Army committed war crimes in a ghetto justice being designed by UNHRC.

 In 1970, Cambodia’s head of state Prince Sihanouk was toppled by pro-American forces. The US while bombing Vietnam were also bombing parts of Cambodia. This helped create Pol Pot. Pol Pot ran the government of Cambodia from 1975 until 1979. The Khmer Rouge were overthrown by the Vietnamese at the end of 1978. The UN resolutions from 1979-1990 always condemned Vietnamese occupation and demanded their unconditional withdrawal. In 1982, the US invented the Coalition of the Democratic Government of Kampuchea (another face for Khmer Rouge)

 John Pilger makes the following accusations from declassified US documents. John Pilger argues that these lives could have been saved if the US and Britain had not helped Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge. Can we not ask the same about the LTTE?

• Between 1969 to 1973 secret & illegal bombing (equivalent to 5 Hiroshimas) on neutral Cambodia under President Nixon and Henry Kissinger. Henry Kissinger US Secretary of State under President Nixon, helped orchestrate the secret B-52 carpet bombing of Cambodia – a quarter of a million tons of bombs
• The bombing created the Khmer Rouge that came into power for 2 ½ years and was overthrown by the Vietnamese on 25 Dec 1978
• The UN however allowed the Khmer Rouge government to continue using Cambodia’s seat at the UN (another UN charade!) Washington led the lobby inside the UN to affirm that the Pol Pot regime “was still the legal representative of the Cambodian people”.
• Thatcher Government backed Pol Pot who was in exile in Thailand. The secret came out only in 1989. Simon O’Dwyer-Russell writing to the Sunday Telegraph revealed SAS trained Pol Pot forces since 1983. Jane’s Defence also revealed that the training took place in secret bases in Thailand for 4 years and trained by Falkland war veterans. (same Jane’s defense told the world that the LTTE was making $300m annual profits)
• US had been funding Pol Pot in exile since January 1980 – some $85million from 1980 to 1986 (correspondence of Senate Foreign Relations Committee)
• CIA and other intelligence agencies set up Kampuchea Emergency Group in order to send humanitarian aid to Khmer Rouge (see how NGOs/Human Rights organizations come in handy to help terrorists) under US pressure the WHO had to hand $12million in food to the Thai army to give to Khmer Rouges 20,000 to 40,000 guerrillas (US Asst Sec Richard Holbrooke) (now you can imagine how LTTE got provisions too – their bunkers were fortified with these!)
• How many Prince Norodom Sihanouk’s has the CIA created over the years projecting them as democratic leaders! (good question)
• To make a UN resolution more palatable to the world, the Khmer Rouge united with FUNCINPEC, the royalist political party, and the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front (KPNLF), a pro-American faction, into the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea. (same role TNA is playing now)
• The Khmer Rouge flag continued to flutter over the skyline of New York City throughout the 1980s. (just like LTTE eelam flag are being hoisted too)
• Paris Peace Agreements on 23 October 1991, which established the United Nations Transitional Authority on Cambodia (UNTAC) to implement the accords (recall the peace agreements Sri Lanka was made to sign)
• Khmer Rouge faction was to play a legitimate role in the UNTAC process!  Consequently, an emboldened Khmer Rouge refused to be disarmed by UNTAC, leading to a total failure in demobilization and an escalation of security problems during and after the UNTAC mandate.  (just like the LTTE-TNA)
• The Khmer Rouge also refused to participate in the elections, which was deplored by senior UNTAC officials (LTTE did one better – TNA was created for this role)
• A UN peace keeping force was sent to Cambodia in 1992.
• Thaoun Prasith – Pol Pot crony was head of UN office in New York
• The Khmer Rouge was welcomed back to Phnom Penh by UN officials. Khieu Samphan, Pol Pot’s prime minister during the years of genocide, took the salute of UN troops with their commander, the Australian general John Sanderson, at his side. Reminds us of many LTTE events to which foreign envoys/UN officials took part
• Gareth Evans (then Australian foreign minister) claimed credit for the ‘peace proposals’. ‘The peace process was aimed at allowing (the khmer rouge) to gain respectability’ (how these words match LTTE scenario)
• UN’s involvement paved the way for the unofficial ceding of ¼ of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge (which is what OHCHR resolutions are trying to do to Sri Lanka)
• Khmer Rouge tribunal, officially known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), was established in 2006 (with the agreement of the Cambodian government) It was another hybrid court. The tribunal is a UN-assisted national court, with international participation of prosecutors and judges.
• British PM Thatcher demanded that Pol Pot regime retain ‘right’ to represent their victims at the UN (it was to revenge Cambodia’s liberator Vietnam) British representatives was ordered to vote with Pol Pot at WHO.
• When 16,000 people petitioned Thatcher her response was there is no British government involvement of any kind in training, equipping or cooperating with the Khmer Rouge or those allied to them” (can we ever trust statements by these leaders?)
• In 1991 PM John Major admitted to Parliament that SAS had trained the Khmer Rouge
• The West, with the UN as its vehicle, brought to Cambodia elections, the “free market,” AIDS and massive corruption, all of it  (John Pilger 1998) no different to the manner UN, UNSG and UNHRC & its head are ordering Sri Lanka around of late.

In 2000 the UK Guardian exposed Thatcher’s role in Cambodia. Pol Pot’s own henchman were now spilling the beans on the West’s role in training Khmer Rouge. Ta Mok was known as the Butcher in the heyday of Khmer Rouge and he confirmed that London & Washington had helped the Khmer Rouge guerrillas control Cambodia. British forces were ordered to train soldiers loyal to ousted Prince Norodom Sihanouk. Military assistance was given by Britain and the US to Khmer Rouge knowing Pol Pot’s cruelties. Ta Mok’s lawyer said that if Ta Mok should stand trial so should Thatcher, Reagan and Kissinger.

In Cambodia the people are asking why the US did not arrest Pol Pot 20 years ago when they could have easily done so? They are also asking why the UN took 18 years to pass a resolution. This part is really funny because it’s the same question we are asking in Sri Lanka, was the UN sleeping for 30 years when LTTE was on a killing rampage? Why didn’t the West stop LTTE when their country’s had banned LTTE since 1997? And now they are calling for accountability not from the LTTE but from the Sri Lankan Government. Hilarious isn’t it?

In 1979, the People’s Republic of Kampuchea set up a “people’s tribunal” which tried the “Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique” in absentia and found them guilty of genocide. The West dismissed it as a “propaganda trial with no legal merit”. This is just how Sri Lanka’s LLRC has been treated by the West & UN.

The hunt for war criminals omits all western culprits. The West’s newspapers like the New York Times enjoy pointing fingers at others totally ignoring the mass murders committed by US, UK & NATO. Criminals are those that the West tells UN to declare so. Saddam was a fine chap agreeing to support chemical warfare against Iran but soon he became a Hitler, as did Gaddafi, Osama and even Pol Pot. There have been other butchers the West has helped – Chile’s Pinochet, Indonesia’s Suharto are just a few other names. The media and human rights are ever ready to demand accountability but forget to add the main sources of the terror. The big nations and their buddies that whispered into the ears of these murderers to murder people and they would fund them never get even honourable mention!
John Pilger asks Are the Khmer Rouge now finished? I doubt it. The more pertinent question is: Will those foreign governments that backed Pol Pot while wringing their hands now help rebuild the country they helped devastate? Henry Kissinger appeared to answer this when he said, “Why should we flagellate ourselves for what the Cambodians did to each other?”

This obviously is the answer Sri Lanka will get and as things stand when weak governments are at the helm it becomes easier for these devils to unleash more terror in the name of democracy of course!

Shenali D Waduge