What is Digg?Sponsored by Activision
Introducing DJ Hero Game view!
djhero.com - Scratch and mix 102 songs in 93 original mixes from today's hottest artists. Available Now.
30 Comments
- Sotheara, on 03/30/2009, -1/+12Being a cambodian myself, I hope they get tried, more so for revealing the truth and their whole plans when constructing something this horrible. I can careless how they get punished, most of these men are old and nearing the death age, punishment won't do much. I rather hear the truth and the whole operation so my people can finally live in peace. So future generations will know what happened and that it can be added to Cambodian curriculum.
- RikkiTikki, on 03/30/2009, -1/+11My mom is Cambodian and lost all 11 members of her immediate family. When we went to S21, she wrote in the comment book "YOU WILL PAY." This is a long time coming for her, and I'm glad to see it happening.
- MCA2142, on 03/30/2009, -0/+7Watch "The Killing Fields."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_Fields_(f ... - illuuu, on 03/30/2009, -0/+5No forgiveness. Never.
- rpganime, on 03/30/2009, -1/+6It is tough for me to say about this subject matter, My parents are survivors of the Killing Fields.
But it's truly hard to punish those, when people like Hun Sen (the current Prime Minister) are left to rule, even though he himself is a former officer of the Khmer Rough.
Many other officials in the government has strong ties to Khmer Rouge and Communist Leaders of Vietnam. Those that are still left in charge are very corrupt. - KReal, on 03/30/2009, -0/+4Agreed. I'm 5 years out of high school, and the only reason I even know what I do of this particular horror is because of music, not public schools.
- Claverhouse, on 03/30/2009, -1/+5This may well be a horrible man, but no justice can be served by a trial three decades late: memories fade, people lie, false confessions abound after so many years. Doubtless he is guilty, but the very fact I assume that is why he cannot get a fair trial. It would be better if some relative of a victim killed him in a dark alley; show trials are just morality plays.
- orsinoduke, on 03/30/2009, -0/+4This is typical stockholm syndrome!
- dalittle, on 03/30/2009, -0/+4These kinds of atrocities should have much larger sections in US high school text books. Unfortunately, a lot of the world is ignored in the current curriculum.
- blapierre, on 03/30/2009, -0/+4You do know what the Khmer Rouge did, right? Justice can never be served for that.
- inactive, on 03/31/2009, -0/+3From wikipedia:
"The ideology of the Khmer Rouge evolved over time. In the early days, it was an orthodox communist party and looked to the Vietnamese Communists for guidance.
It became more Stalinist and anti-intellectual when groups of students who had been studying in France returned to Cambodia. The students, including future party leader Pol Pot, had been heavily influenced by the example of the French Communist Party (PCF)."
They were COMMUNISTS !! The Khmer Rouge killed a third of their population. Mao killed millions of his. Stalin killed millions of his. Communist Vietnam killed hundreds of thousands of theirs. Castro killed thousands of his. North Korea has killed probably hundreds of thousands of theirs. They use bullets, forced labor, deliberate famines, moronic farming policies and more.
The truth is, when the USA left South Vietnam on it's own, we cleared the way for the Khmer Rouge mass killings. And those of the North Vietnamese too. - inactive, on 03/30/2009, -0/+3Your friend needs a wake up call because people are getting away with atrocious ***** in Cambodia. How the ***** is the Prime Minister going to be a former Khmer Rouge member? Tell me how ***** up that is. And Hun Sen is not a nice guy, nor is he a changed man since the Khmer Rouge.
- Khiva, on 03/30/2009, -0/+2"First, They Killed My Father" by Loung Ung makes for interesting background on the Khmer Rouge disaster. The film The Killing Fields fills in some of the blanks, though its a bit dated by now. I'm still a bit uneducated on the extent to which the secret bombing campaign abetted the Khmer Rouge takeover - if anyone has a good book about it to recommend, I'd be interested.
Little known fact is that the KR were eventually toppled by fellow communists in Vietnam. The Domino Theory in action. - angusm, on 03/30/2009, -0/+2For information on the rise of the Khmer Rouge and the "secret" bombings of Cambodia, read "Sideshow" by William Shawcross. I don't think he believes that the bombings "abetted" the takeover, but he suggests that the enormously-high casualty rates suffered by Khmer Rouge units fighting against the US-backed Cambodian government forces may have contributed to the savagery of their later actions. Military doctrine suggests that soldiers in a unit that has taken more than a certain percentage of casualties must be considered traumatized and psychologically damaged. Many KR units, targeted by B-52 strikes and with no air defenses of their own, passed that threshold many times over. It's not a complete explanation (nor does Shawcross suggest that it could be), but it's certainly easier to commit horrible atrocities if you happen to be ***** insane.
For more on Duch (Kaing Guek Eav), read David Chandler's "Voices from S-21". - voldron, on 03/30/2009, -3/+5This was a terrible thing that should have never happened, but now justice may be served.
- natathonanon, on 03/30/2009, -0/+1only now are some of these issues actually being dealt with in Cambodian school curriculums.
The fact that Pol Pot died in the woods as a ripe old man is a testament to how convoluted humanity can be.
http://cultandpaste.com/2009/03/30/brother-number- ... - blapierre, on 03/30/2009, -1/+2I'm sure Kim Jong Il can give you one. He's doing pretty much the same thing.
- arpad, on 03/30/2009, -2/+3What's the line from the apologists on this?
The Khmer Rouge were communists so there's got to be some repulsive line of rationalizations for their brutality. Anyone know why what they did is supposed to be justified, or not as bad as the Western corporate media makes it sound or whatever else is being passed around as a means of mitigating what the Khmer Rouge did? - orsinoduke, on 03/30/2009, -0/+1It's just too late.
- xutopia, on 03/30/2009, -0/+1I've visited S21 and I gotta say it hit me pretty harshly. I couldn't fathom such atrocities without seeing the evidence. Now I try to understand it.
- RikkiTikki, on 03/30/2009, -0/+1First They Killed My Father isn't the best book if you're looking for more info on the Khmer Rouge. It's written by a woman who was 5 when she went though the ordeal and lacks a lot of the detail that made the event so gruesome. The documentary S21: Killing Machine is much better.
Also, how can The Killing Fields be dated, if it's a historical flick? The events still happened, it's just a little more grainy than if it were made in '09. - inactive, on 03/31/2009, -0/+1Yes, yes, I know. The Khmer Rouge were ousted by the Communist Vietnamese military. So? Communists ALWAYS kill some of their own after they win. They did after the Russian Revolution, in Cuba, in China....always happens.
In this case, the Khmer Rouge just went a leetle bit too far. Killing a third of the population in just four years....who's going to come to mass rallies and listen to the six hour speeches if we let that happen? - AhniTipesh, on 03/30/2009, -3/+4I was just talking to one of my Cambodian friends, and he actually did not think the Khmer Rouge should be tried or punished (3 of his grandparents were killed during the Khmer Rouge reign btw)
because he said it is not in the Cambodian culture to do something like that. - inactive, on 03/31/2009, -0/+0i would just like to say that iam vietnamese and my dad was drafted to invade campuchia to oust them....so
YOU'RE WELCOME BITCHES - redstar1949, on 03/31/2009, -1/+1The Khmer Rouge had nothing to do with Mao or Maoism. They didn't even identify as communists. They were Khmer nationalists who has an alliance with Mao for strategic reasons, and they later supported the attacks on Mao and restoration of capitalism while China was under Deng Xiaoping.
They are worlds apart from Maoists. - inactive, on 03/31/2009, -1/+1Liar.
- MCA2142, on 03/30/2009, -1/+1Blue plastic bags...
That was a horrible day in Social Studies, when we began our studies about these unfortunate events. - shylove, on 03/31/2009, -1/+1Didn't the US bombing destabilize the country, didn't we want Sihanouk forced out as uncooperative?. Don't we have cluster bombs and land mines still injuring and killing innocent civilians in the region even now as casualties of the Vietnam War? Have we embraced torture techniques and psycho-sexual intimidations, and bragged of taking the gloves off and going to the darkside.
It is a slippery slope once the gloves are off and putting them back on isn't so easy. With the gloves off just what might the secret domestic CIA programs be up to. Oh, we have absolute trust in an agency known to have taken homeless people, drug addicts, and prostitutes off the streets of our country for terminal experiments. - rinarina99, on 04/01/2009, -1/+0this happen when people being so greedy...
- mediador18, on 03/30/2009, -3/+0gathera
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is