George Bush and the Khmer Rouge
The several thousand Cambodians who drove Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan from Phnom Penh on November 27 have been described as a lynch mob. In fact, they were angry Cambodians justifiably terrified of any involvement of the Khmer Rouge in the government of their country. Many had lost relatives in the nightmare years when the Khmer Rouge massacred more than a million people and destroyed what was left of Cambodia's economy after the USA's war machine had finished with it.
The United State and its allies, including the Australian government, bear a huge responsibility for the present state of Cambodia, and it is particularly ironic that Gareth Evans should have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in trying to tidy up a very embarrassing mess. The USA's war against the people of Indochina ruined the economy of the whole region, and the US was responsible for imposing repressive, right-wing governments, which eventually drove many Cambodians to look to the Khmer Rouge as an alternative.
Then, after the Khmer Rouge were forced to flee by an alternative Cambodian government backed by Vietnamese forces, the US and its allies covertly supported the Khmer Rouge, which was always the main force in the coalition opposing the government of Hun Sen. For the past decade, this support for Pol Pot's mass murderers has obstructed Cambodia's desperate attempts to reconstruct its ruined economy, condemning millions to live under extreme hardship and even with the threat of famine.
Most Khmer Rouge officials have now been forced to leave Phnom Penh and say they won't return until the Hun Sen government can guarantee their safety. Behind these statements is the threat that the Khmer Rouge will abandon the peace process and return to warfare against the legitimate government.
But the Khmer Rouge would not be in a position to wage war if it had not been supplied with arms over the past decade, largely by China (with tacit US approval) and partly from supplies allegedly provided to other partners in the anti-government coalition. Even today, China continues to arm the Khmer Rouge, a policy it would be unlikely to maintain if it were to come under strong diplomatic and economic pressure from the US or the United Nations.
Amid all this, it is worth asking what the Hun Sen government might be expected to do in defence of Pol Pot's mass murderers. Should it perhaps instruct its police and troops to shoot down those who have lost members of their families (and even their whole families) to the Khmer Rouge terror, and who are desperate to ensure that the Khmer Rouge can never return to power?
If there were any justice, or even sanity, in international affairs under George Bush's New World Order, this question would not even arise. The Khmer Rouge leaders would long ago have been put on trial and dealt with for their crimes against humanity. Instead, they have lived for the past decade in relative comfort in Thailand, and now they are rewarded for their crimes with the promise of a place in Cambodia's government. Small wonder many Cambodians see no alternative but to take matters into their own hands.