Who is to blame Tor Cambodia massacre?

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The Tory press-in particular the Daily Mirror with articles by John Pilger -have made much of the mass deaths in Kampuchea (Cambodia). What is the truth?

Few if any of the crimes of the Stalinist bureaucracy in other countries can have surpassed the deeds of the Pol Pot regime in Kampuchea between 1975 and the end of 1978.

It now seems to be generally accepted that between one and three million Kampucheans died under the Pol Pot regime.

Probably an exact estimate will never now be made but there can be no doubt that the slaughter and suffering were almost unimaginable, According to the evidence of refugees and the very few observers from outside who were in Kampuchea at the time the commonest causes of death were famine and exhaustion on the one hand and murder by agents of the Pol Pot regime on the other.

DEATH CAMP

The whole country was converted into a death camp. Evidence which would be hard to refute is now being presented by the occupying Vietnamese forces and the Heng Samrin regime of the existence of extermination camps modelled on those of the Nazis.

But the greatest deaths probably came as a result of the rigours of daily life and work under Pol Pot. Within a few hours of the capture of Phnom Penh from the retreating imperialists in April 1975 the forced evacuation of the city began.

Many died on the march to the countryside where Khmer Rouge-operated collective farms were set up. A new working week of ten days (9 days work and one day rest) was established in these labour camps; and survivors have claimed that the working day was often from 3 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Rations were given out according to work done-but in any case only amounted on average to a woefully inadequate quantity of rice (today the ration is only four pounds a month).

-FAMINE Recent reports from OXFAM and other relief workers suggest that the famine is now reaching its critical point and that there is imminent danger of two million more deaths from starvation unless much more food reaches the country very soon.

There is little or no locally grown food available because of the decimation especially of the male adult population who did most of the agricultural work.

In addition medical workers have said that as a result of the effects of the starvation 85% of women of child-bearing age have stopped menstruating, that at present there are ten deaths for every one live birth and that diseases like anthrax land bubonic plague are rife.

POL POT

The Vietnamese occupying forces blame the situation on the Pol Pot regime and they add, correctly, that one of the reasons that supplies of food are not available is the imperialist blockade imposed on Vietnam and Kampuchea after the invasion of last December.

It is wrong to lay the appalling disaster of the Kampuchean people solely at the door of the Khmer leadership.

The gigantic tragedy of Kampuchea was all the more severe because it hit a country which, to begin with, was one of the most backward on earth.

When the Khmer Rouge is justly accused of ending medical services and education along with all other marks of civilisation, it must not be forgotten how little of these already existed in Kampuchea before 1975.For instance, there was in 1971 only one doctor for every 15,000 people; and virtually none of the doctors were in the countryside where the great majority of Kampucheans lived FRENCH The legacy of French imperialism and the corrupt, reactionary puppet regime which succeeded it was that in 1970 Kampuchea had what was estimated to be the lowest standard of living of any country in the world.

Then from 1970 to 1975 Kampuchea was bombarded by US planes with an amount of explosives equivalent to five Hiroshimas. It was that, as much as the policies of Pol Pot which destroyed Kampuchean agriculture and sent millions of refugees fleeing to the cities.

And it must be accepted that if the Vietnamese occupying forces at present wished to begin to reverse the tragedy of the Kampuchean people it would be very difficult because of the hostile policies of imperialism.