The Pol Pot dilemma #USadministration #WikiLeaks

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Charles Parkinson, Alice Cuddy and Daniel Pye

A trove of more than 500,000 US diplomatic cables from 1978 released by WikiLeaks on Wednesday includes hundreds that paint a vivid picture of a US administration torn between revulsion at the brutality of Pol Pot’s government and fear of Vietnamese influence should it collapse.

“We believe a national Cambodia must exist even though we believe the Pol Pot regime is the world’s worst violator of human rights,” reads a cable sent by the State Department to six US embassies in Asia on October 11, 1978. “We cannot support [the] Pol Pot government, but an independent Kampuchea must exist.”

They are the second batch of cables to be released by the whistle-blowing website from Jimmy Carter’s presidency, which was marked by a vocal emphasis on human rights. That focus shines through in much of the correspondence, even to the point of wishing success on the Khmer Rouge in repelling Vietnamese incursions during the ongoing war between the two countries, in the hope it would, paradoxically, prevent more of the worst excesses of the government in Phnom Penh.

“While the Pol Pot government has few, if any, redeeming features, the cause of human rights is not likely to be served by the continuation of fighting between the Vietnamese and the government,” reads a cable sent by the US Embassy in Thailand to the State Department on October 17. “A negotiated settlement of [Vietnamese-Cambodian] differences might reduce the purges.”

In relation to that war, the cables give insight into some of the tactics employed by the Vietnamese to topple the Khmer Rouge, including allegedly training up Cambodians to operate as subversives in their homeland. They also reported the Khmer Rouge assertion that the murder of British academic and Khmer Rouge sympathiser Malcolm Caldwell during a trip to Cambodia was perpetrated by infiltrating enemy agents. Elsewhere in the cable, they relayed reports that the killers had been dressed differently from most cadres, and noted that, at the very least, the killing would be great propaganda for the Vietnamese.

“That such an incident took place in their presumably heavily guarded compound in Phnom Penh will be a propaganda coup for the Vietnamese, who have been harping for months on how insecure the Pol Pot government is,” reads a cable from the China US Liason Office to the State Department on December 23, the day of Caldwell’s death.

The cables also present a picture of aggressive denials from Chinese officials in the face of US accusations of atrocities carried out by the Khmer Rogue, including a fiery meeting between a Chinese delegation and US senators in August, in which Chinese Ambassador to the United States Chai Tse-Min told Senator John Sparkman “reports of mass killings in Cambodia were untrue”.

They also highlight how Chinese support for Cambodia was driven by fear of Vietnamese expansionism in the region.

“[Chinese foreign minister] Huang Hua noted that having defeated the US and acquired large quantities of US arms, the Vietnamese had ‘swollen heads’, and that they have long harbored plans for an Indochinese Federation,” reads a cable from the US Embassy in Malaysia to the State Department on April 27, sent after a meeting with a member of a Swedish government delegation that had just visited China.

Yet while the US government was aware of the horrific actions of the Pol Pot regime, with a July 21 cable from the US Embassy in Laos estimating 2 million people had died at its hands, it refused overtures from the country’s previous leadership to challenge the Pol Pot government’s right to represent Cambodia at the United Nations.

“The US is most sympathetic to the human rights concerns that have moved the Lol Non delegation to issue a credentials challenge to the [Government of Democratic Kampuchea] delegation,” reads a July 20 cable from the State Department to various embassies. “However [the US’s UN delegation] should not support a credentials challenge.”

While that refusal is based on the fact the US considered the “participating government” to be “the government which is in de facto control of the country, unless the government was imposed from outside”, other cables point to the administration’s deep fear of instability should the Khmer Rouge fall.

“If the Pol Pot regime was toppled, this could result in indefinite guerrilla warfare in Cambodia,” reads a cable from the State Department to the UN on December 16.

Nine days later, the Vietnamese launched a full-scale invasion of the country, forcing the Khmer Rouge to retreat to ever-more isolated redoubts before their final surrender in the late 1990s.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SEAN TEEHAN

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national

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US mooted trips to DK-era Angkor

Fri, 29 May 2015

Daniel Pye

Among the hundreds of WikiLeaks cables on Cambodia released yesterday, some revealed the more personal – and bizarre – side to US diplomacy.

A plan hatched to fly US tourists on day trips from Bangkok to visit Angkor Wat “could eventually have [the] impact of opening the regime and moderating [its] domestic policies”, a November 23, 1978, cable asserted.

The US expected either former Thai foreign minister Chatchai Chunhawan’s Erawan airline or national carrier Thai Airways to open the route by the following March, and had prepared to post travel advisories and “warn prospective American tourists of potential dangers and strongly remind them of our inability to provide consular protection for visitors to Kampuchea”.

In Myanmar, the US lobbied Yangon to approach Pol Pot’s regime to “counsel [Phnom Penh] to moderate its policies”, but the one-party state ruled by dictator Ne Win declined the advance. Though “the carnage in Kampuchea appeared to be without recent equal”, a Myanmar official said, “much blood is spilled in people’s revolutions”.

Perhaps most unusual of all is a November 18 cable about then foreign minister Ieng Sary’s four-day visit to Jakarta In October 1978.

Sary, according to Indonesia’s then ambassador to Phnom Penh, said that Cambodians were being given pitiful rations in order to fund a national reconstruction program, before then proceeding to sell Cambodian rice to Jakarta – an offer the Indonesians accepted “for political reasons”.

Indonesia’s would-be man in Phnom Penh, Djundjunan Kusumahardja, took a liking to Sary after talking with the Khmer Rouge leader at his hotel, describing him as “very intelligent, charming, cultured, and with a good sense of humor”.

He preferred Sary to Vietnamese officials, as Sary had paid “all expenses during the visit to Jakarta, unlike the Vietnamese visitors . . . whose hotel bills, food, even telex bills [indonesia] had to pay”.

“Sary wore a Mao-suit to official functions, but a smart light grey business suit and a colorful tie on informal occasions.”

He “likes to eat” while admiring “the pretty Chinese waitresses during dinner parties, but [he] ogled them only”, Djundjunan reportedly said.

The Indonesian, until then based at the embassy in Bangkok, said he felt “a little nervous about how he may be treated in Kampuchea”.

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/us-mooted-trips-dk-era-angkor

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Thais grew testy as Khmer Rouge entered year 3: cables

Sat, 30 May 2015

Ethan Harfenist

A fresh batch of US diplomatic cables published on Wednesday by WikiLeaks has shed light on the increasing regional tension caused by the Khmer Rouge regime as it entered its third year in power, particularly in Thailand, where patience was thinning over activities along its border.

A cable from May 1978 detailing Admiral Maurice Weisner’s visit with the then Thai Prime Minister Kriangsak Chamanan details Thailand’s unease over China’s support of the Khmer Rouge. He detailed China’s furnishing of Cambodian forces with 122 and 130mm guns, as well as 107 and 120mm rockets.

“[Kriangsak] knew, from shell fragments found in Thailand when the Cambodians have fired across the border, that the Cambodians have new equipment in the border area,” the cable reads.

“Thailand remains calm and tries not to overreact to Cambodian attacks … but Thailand cannot wait around much longer without responding to the attacks.”

Both men admitted to not understanding what Cambodia’s objectives were, but Kriangsak said the Cambodians thought the Thai government supported insurgent groups within Cambodia. The prime minister stated, however, that his government had stopped sponsoring such attacks and only carried out assaults in retaliation to Cambodian aggressions.

“Kirangsak said that Thailand has the military capability to ‘Walk to Phnom Penh. They cannot stop us’,” the cable says.

A cable from June of 1978 describes Laos’ uneasiness with the disputes between Vietnam and Cambodia, along with Thai Foreign Minister Uppadit’s meeting with former Cambodian Ambassador to Laos Sam San.

“Uppadit reiterated to Sam San the [Royal Thai Government’s] desire to work to improve bilateral relations. He noted, however, that the Thai people could not tolerate the continuation of the attacks on the border, and that the RTG would act firmly to protect Thai interests,” the cable says.

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/post-weekend/thais-grew-testy-kr-entered-year-3-cables