by John Pilger
94 Interview in The Eagle, The Dragon, The Bear and Kampuchea, Central Television, 1983.
95 The Far Eastern Economic Review, January 4, 1980.
96 Letter from William Shawcross to the author, January 27, 1983.
97 Heroes, p. 411.
98 Written parliamentary answer by the Armed Forces Minister, Archie Hamilton; the Guardian, June 27, 1991.
99 The Spectator, March 23 and May 4, 1991. Chris Mullin wrote to the Spectator on July 23, 1991: ‘No doubt Mr Tonkin will argue that the KPNLF and the Sihanouk army are not terrorists, a subtlety which will, I imagine, be lost on most Cambodians.’ His letter was not published.
100 Letter to Mishcon de Reya, solicitors, from R. A. D. Jackson, Assistant Treasury Solicitor, June 25, 1991, accompanied by High Court documents.
101 High Court Public Immunity Certificate signed by Tom King, Defence Secretary, June 25, 1991.
102 Overheard by David Munro, myself and others.
103 This is the complete text of a statement by Central Television issued following the libel settlement on July 5, 1991: ‘Cambodia is a uniquely devastated country; The suffering endured as a result of Pol Pot’s reign of terror has been compounded by the wilful isolation of the Cambodian people. Cambodia is the only country in the world to be denied United Nations development aid. This is part of a punitive embargo devised and led by the United States and China, and backed by the British Government.
‘Britain’s involvement has been crucial. Since late 1989 government ministers have issued a series of denials that British troops have been secretly training Pol Pot’s allies on the Thai/Cambodian border. These denials have been in response to allegations, especially allegations made by us in our documentary films.
‘Last week the government finally admitted that the SAS had been training the so-called “non-communist resistance” – part of a coalition dominated by Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge – since 1983. In fact, serving and former British soldiers have been instructing Cambodian guerrillas in a range of military skills, including sabotage, the laying of mines and other modern techniques of terrorism. In Central’s film last year, Cambodia: The Betrayal, it was estimated that eighty Cambodians lose a limb every day as a consequence of stepping on mines.
‘In our film Ann Clwyd MP, Shadow Minister for Overseas Development, was interviewed about two men with military connections whom she had encountered in Phnom Penh during the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia in September 1989. The presence of the two men was described as mysterious. It should be made clear that these two, who sued us, played no part in the guerrilla training. In an agreed Statement in the High Court today, we have accepted that and made clear that it was never our intention to suggest that these men were involved in training. The libel case concerning these two men has now been settled.
‘Our film was principally concerned not with individuals but with governments – and especially the secret aid given by Western governments, including the British Government, to one side in the Cambodian civil war.
‘Not only was Britain’s role made clear by the government’s admission last week about SAS training – but it was demonstrated again this week in the High Court, where the government was represented by two counsel, and others, who intervened in the libel case in an extraordinary way.
‘Indeed, the government dramatically intervened even before the case came to court by stopping five subpoenas issued by our lawyers on three government ministers – Archie Hamilton, Mark Lennox-Boyd and William Waldegrave – and the head and former head of the SAS. The authority for this gagging order was contained in “Public Interest Immunity Orders” signed by the Secretary of State for Defence, Tom King.
‘In open court this week the government’s representatives made clear that no evidence would be permitted that went beyond the statement last week by the Armed Services Minister, Archie Hamilton, confirming British military training of Cambodian guerrillas.
‘The government counsel – John Laws QC and Philip Havers – spelt out the wide-ranging, catch-all provisions of the Secretary of State’s order. For example, certain evidence regarding the SAS and the security services, such as MI6, which might be brought by our defence counsel would be challenged and a ruling sought that it not be allowed. The government counsel spoke in open court about “national security” being at stake with the disclosure of evidence that “travels into the area that the Secretary of State would protect”.
‘The judge accepted this government restriction – which meant that a Ministry of Defence witness would not even be allowed, for example, to confirm or deny anything about the SAS and that counsel acting for the defence would not be allowed to challenge this.
‘The defence counsel – Desmond Browne QC – described this as “grossly unfair” and a “considerable injustice”. He drew a parallel with the Spycatcher case in 1987 in which the government intervened in a similar way.
‘In the meantime, the Cambodian people enter their thirty-third year of war and suffering in which Western governments have played a major part.’
104 Document addressed to David Munro, signed by Long Visalo, deputy foreign minister, State of Cambodia, June 28, 1991, reads: ‘Report of Mao Makara (Khmer Rouge defector) . . . Nong Nhai Training Camp belonging to the Khmer Rouge, 6 British instructors came here in May, 1987’.
105 The Sunday Telegraph, December 16, 1990.
106 Ibid., July 7, 1991.
107 My reply was published in the Sunday Telegraph, July 14, 1991.
108 Letter from David Munro to the Evening Standard, July 22, 1991 (unpublished), in reply to the Evening Standard article, July 19, 1991.
109 Letter from Chris Mullin to the Spectator, July 23, 1991, replying to Paul Johnson’s article, Spectator, July 20, 1991.
110 Noam Chomsky identifies these three stages in Manufacturing Consent, written with Edward S. Herman. See Chapter 6, The Indo-China Wars (II): Laos and Cambodia; Pantheon, New York, 1988.
111 Roger Normand, The Nation, August 27, 1990.
112 The Vietnamese proposed a mutual pull-back of troops from their border with Cambodia on February 5, 1978. Three days later at the UN they issued a United Nations Circular to members detailing a proposal for a demilitarised zone of five kilometres on either side. The Vietnamese ambassador put this to the Secretary-General on March 3, 1978. It was subsequently rejected (see UN Circular NV/78/9, February 8, 1978).
113 In 1982 the Vietnamese began official partial withdrawals of their troops. In 1983 Hanoi proposed a timetable for the withdrawal of troops to Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Kusumaatmadja, who called it a ‘significant step forward’. The Thai Foreign Minister Siddhi welcomed ‘significant new elements’ in Hanoi’s proposals.
These elements were clarified in 1985, when Hanoi dropped its demand that the Chinese threat would have to end before any full Vietnamese troop withdrawal from Cambodia. In March 1985, Bill Hayden, visiting Hanoi, announced that the Vietnamese now insisted only that the Khmer Rouge be prevented from returning to power. Hayden called this a ‘considerable advance’. Indonesia’s Mochter called it ‘an advance in substance’ on the previous Vietnamese position. Sydney Morning Herald, October 20, 1990; see also Ben Kiernan, Cambodia’s Missed Chance, p. 6.
114 Ben Kiernan, Cambodia’s Missed Chance, p. 3.
115 Ibid., p. 6.
116 St Louis Post-Dispatch, November 29, 1979.
117 The New York Times, August 5, 1989.
118 The Guardian, October 6–7, 1989.
119 Hearings on Cambodia, the Asian and Pacific Sub-committee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Washington D.C., April 10, 1991.
120 Ibid.
121 Ibid.
122 Washington Quarterly, Spring 1991, p. 85.
123 The New York Times, August 17, 1990.
124 St Louis Post-Dispatch, January 15, 1979.
125 Lies of Our Times, ‘Down the memory hole’, June 1991.
126 The Nation, August 27, 1990.
127 The Independent, June 8, 1990.
128 The Independent, to its credit, gave me the same space in which to reply to the McCarthy article: July 6, 1990.
129 The Independent Magazine, December 7, 1991.
130 The Times, January 31, 1991.
131 The Times, November 27, 1991.
132 Source: Cambodia Campaign to oppose the return of the Khmer Rouge, Washington D.C.; also the Guardian, November 18, 1991.
133 Eva Mysliwiec, Punishing the Poor: The International Isolation of Kampuchea, Oxfam, Oxford, 1988.
134 Ben Kiernan, The Cambodian Genocide: Issues and Responses, p. 11.
135 Letter from J. Wilkins, South East Asia Department, Foreign Office, to C. Preece; July 9, 1991.
136 The Nation, August 27, 1990.
137 The Sydney Morning Herald, Good Weekend magazine, December 14, 1991.
138 Indochina Digest, February 21, 1992.
139 The Washington Post, January 26, 1992.
140 The first quotation is from the Guardian, November 20, 1991; the second is from Reuter, November 16, 1991.
141 I am grateful to Catherine Lumby for this, and other observations, in her excellent article in the Sydney Morning Herald, November 30, 1991.
142 The Washington Post, January 26, 1992; also Ben Kiernan, Khmer Rouge Strategy in Cambodia: Exploiting and Subverting the UN Agreement, 1992.
143 The New York Times, November 15, 1991.
144 Gareth Porter, Kampuchea’s UN Seat: Cutting the Pol Pot Connection, Indo-China issue no. 8, July 1980.
145 Private communication following the Caithness meeting in Phnom Penh.
146 As told to the author.
147 The Sydney Morning Herald, October 20, 1990.
148 Sunday, National Nine Network Australia, September 1, 1991.
149 Indochina Digest, June 19, 1992.
150 Sunday, cited by Dennis Shoesmith in Cambodia after the Paris Agreements, February 17, 1992.
151 The Observer, December 1, 1991.
152 The Sydney Morning Herald, February 29, 1992.
153 The Bangkok Post, citing Agence France Presse, March 28, 1992.
154 Cambodian Chronicles (IV), EFERC 9, July 2, 1992.
155 Cambodian Chronicles (III), EFERC 7, May 11, 1992; and Paul Davies, Cambodia: Interference is not aid, May 26, 1992.
156 Paul Davies.
157 Reuter, June 3, 1992.
158 United Press International, May 30, 1992.
159 Reuter, June 10, 1992.
160 Ibid., June 11, 1992.
161 Land Mines in Cambodia: The Coward’s War, Asia Watch, New York, September 1991, pp. 1, 2.
162 Ibid.
163 Indochina Digest, May 1, 1992.
164 Reuter, January 2, 1992.
165 Repression Trade UK Limited: How the UK makes Torture and Death its Business, Amnesty International, January 1992.
166 Reuter, January 15, 1992.
167 Letter from Rae McGrath to the Guardian, January 20, 1992 (unpublished).
168 Letter from Derek Tonkin to the Editor, Vietnam Broadsheet, March 5, 1992, published summer issue 1992.
169 As told to Paul Donovan, April 24, 1992. (Verbatim notes supplied.)
I wrote to Tonkin on May 18, 1992 and advised him I was writing for publication about his latest involvement in Indo-China. My letter said, ‘I have a copy of your letter for publication in Vietnam Broadsheet (March 5, 1992) in which you state that your firm has plans for mines clearance in Cambodia. Paul Donovan has given me a record of his conversation with you and your associate, Neil Shrimpton, in which you identify Royal Ordnance as the company with which you are seeking contracts for clearing mines. Would you like to comment on this?
‘On the question of mine-laying, I note in your letter of 5 March, 1992 that you say “the only detailed account, claiming any authority”, about the type of military training given by British troops to Cambodian guerrillas is Jane’s Defence Weekly. This, of course, is not correct.
‘In September, 1991 Asia Watch and the Mines Advisory Group produced a comprehensive and expert report giving details of British instruction in mine-laying to Cambodian guerrillas. Amnesty International subsequently produced a report based upon the Asia Watch and Mines Advisory Group study. I presume you have read this.
‘In reviewing your public statements on this matter I note that you have not denied that, during your time as ambassador to Thailand, British troops trained Cambodian guerrillas to lay mines. Is this still your position? Or do you deny it?’
Tonkin replied on May 25, 1992, that he had ‘no wish to make any comment’.
170 As told to the author, June 1989, and repeated in part of Cambodia Year Ten, Central Television, November 1989.
171 Cambodia Year Ten.
172 Letter from John Pedler to the author, February 3, 1992.
173 The Sydney Morning Herald, November 30, 1991.
174 The Spectator, November 2, 1991.
175 Vietnam: A Television History, Programme 9, ‘The Secret War: Laos and Cambodia’, Central Television, 1983.
176 Michael Vickery, Cambodia After the Peace, Samizdat, Penang, December 1991, cited by Jennar, p. 16.
177 Roger Normand, The Nation, August 27, 1990.
178 Ben Kiernan, Cambodia’s Missed Chance, pp. 2–4.
179 The Economist, September 30, 1989.
180 Cambodia: The Betrayal, Central Television, 1990; also from untransmitted material.
181 The Far Eastern Economic Review, March 2, 1989.
182 Senator Bob Kerrey; testimony before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April 11, 1991.
183 Ben Kiernan, Cambodia’s Missed Chance, p. 10.
184 Ibid.
185 Stephen R. Heder, a Cambodian scholar who was worked both for the US State Department and Amnesty International, found that ‘after careful examination of all the available evidence, I have seen no evidence that any of the ex-Khmer Rouge in positions of high political authority in today’s Cambodia were involved in large-scale or systematic killing of Cambodian civilians’. Recent Developments in Cambodia, a paper presented at the Australian National University on September 5, 1990.
186 Martha Gellhorn, The Face of War, Virago, London, 1986, p. 254.
187 Interviewed on film in October 1992 for Return to Year Zero, Central Television, March 1993.
188 Ibid.
189 The Melbourne Age, cited in the Bulletin, May 11, 1993.
190 Report by the Danish-based Child International, sponsored by UNICEF, cited in the Guardian, November 11, 1993.
191 Document seen by the author.
192 Correspondence with the author.
193 The New Statesman and Society (letters), July 2, 1993.
194 See William Shawcross, the Washington Post, March 16, 1980.
195 The New Statesman and Society, May 28, 1993; the National Catholic Reporter, May 14, 1993; also communication with the author.
196 Roger Normand, The Nation, August 27, 1990.
197 The Guardian magazine, May 22, 1993.
198 The Independent, May 10, 1993.
199 The Australian, June 26, 1993.
200 The Phnom Penh Post, June 6–12, 1993.
201 Time magazine, December 28, 1992; the Daily Telegraph, May 12, 1993; the New York Times, October 11, 1993.
202 Private communication.
203 Interviewed by the author, June 1993. See Craig Etcheson, ‘The Calm Before the Storm’, CORKR Situation Report, March 1993.
204 See Indochina Newsletter, Issue 79, 1993, No. 1.
205 Cited in Indochina Digest, June 1993.
206 Indochina Newsletter, Issue 79, 1993, No. 1.
207 The Far Eastern Economic Review, February 4, 1993.
208 Ibid.
209 Nayan Chanda, ‘Cambodia in search of an elusive peace’, Aspen Institute, Vol. 8, No. 2, February 8, 1993.
210 Roger Normand, The Nation, August 27, 1990.
211 John Pedler, Cambodia: A Report on the International and In
ternal Situation and the Future Outlook, NGO Forum on Kampuchea, London, April 1989.
212 Indochina Digest, October 1993.
213 The Sydney Morning Herald, December 28, 1993.
214 The Guardian, December 23, 1993.
215 Report by Paul Davies, MAG South East Asia Desk Officer, April 28, 1994.
216 The Phnom Penh Post, August 13–26, 1993.
217 The Far Eastern Economic Review, cited in Indochina Digest, August 1992.
218 The National Catholic Reporter, May 14, 1992.
219 The Sydney Morning Herald, cited in Indochina Digest, February 1993.
220 Report to the UN Economic and Social Council, July 2, 1985.
221 The Washington Post, January 26, 1992.
222 Cited by Penny Edwards, the Guardian, November 4, 1989.
X UNDER THE VOLCANO
1 IBON Databank study, cited in the Daily Globe, November 11, 1991.
2 The Daily Globe, October 9, 1991.
3 War by Other Means, Central Television, 1991.
4 James Goodno, The Philippines: Land of Broken Promises, pp. 3–7.
5 Letter to the author.
6 James Goodno, The Philippines, pp. 5, 6.
7 Ibid., p. 4.
8 AMPO Japan-Asia Quarterly Review, Vol. 23, No. 1, 1990.
9 The Daily Globe, October 10, 1991.
10 Amnesty International report, cited in New Statesman and Society, June 21, 1991.
11 James Goodno, The Philippines, p. 287.
12 The Guardian, October 31, 1991.
13 The Guardian, October 30, 1991.
14 Ibid.
15 Do They Feel My Shadow?, made by Goldhawk Films, broadcast BBC 2, July 4, 1991.
16 Martha Gellhorn, The Face of War, Virago, London, 1986, p. 254.
17 The New York Times, August 5, 1991.
18 The Nation, June 17, 1991.
19 Heroes, pp. 138, 139.
20 The Guardian, June 27, 1992.
21 The Guardian, May 29, 1991.
22 Market International Report (Ethiopia summary), January 1979, cited in Behind the War in Eritrea, edited by Basil Davidson, Lionel Cliffe and Bereket Hable Selassie, Spokesman, Nottingham, 1980, p. 39.
23 BBC Short Wave Broadcasts Summary, June 1991.
24 Ibid.
XI AUSTRALIA
1 The Sydney Morning Herald, August 3, 1987.