Ben Kiernan Replies to Sorpong Peou

Letters to the Editor

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Sorpong Peou s review essay on Cambodia (Winter 1997, pp. 413-25) seriously distorts my work on the racism and the power-hunger of the leaders of the Communist
Party of Kampuchea, detailed in my book The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and
Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-1979 (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1996).
Peou asserts: "The book's central theme is that the Khmer Rouge leadership
was anti-Marxist and racist" (p. 413). While I do argue that racism played a heretofore
misunderstood role in the Cambodian genocide, I also describe "Pol Pot's motley
ideology" as a mingling of racism with Stalinism and other aspects of Chinese communism. I show that "Maoism proved a useful ideological tool" for the Khmer Rouge
regime, with its "unbridled lust for power," "Maoist emphasis on self-reliance," and
"ideological debt to China." I conclude: "Its racialist preoccupations and discourse
were of primary importance, but so were totalitarian ambitions and achievements"
(pp. 27, 125-27, 330, 463, 465).
By contrast, the words "Stalinism" and "Maoism" do not appear in Peou's review. He sees "classical Marxism," with its disregard for "cultural and ethnic particularism," as a source of the violence. But the Khmer Rouge were far more familiar
with the communist United-Front tactics of Stalin and Maoincluding, for instance,
formal recognition of "national minorities." The Khmer Rouge rejected that specific
aspect of their Maoist legacy, not because they were classical European Marxists, but
because of the homegrown racist component of their ideology.
Contrary to the impression Peou leaves, the role of racism in the Cambodian
genocide is gaining wide acknowledgement. In a new book, international lawyers Steven Ratner and Jason Abrams write: "The existing literature presents a strong prima
facie case that the Khmer Rouge committed acts of genocide against the Cham minority group, the ethnic Vietnamese, Chinese and Thai minority groups, and the Buddhist monkhood. While some commentators suggest otherwise, virtually every author
on the subject has reached this conclusion" (Accountability for Human Rights Atrocities in International Law [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997], p. 244). For two decades
I have worked to bring the Khmer Rouge leaders to justice for these and other crimes.
On the other hand, Peou has reportedly opposed legal accountability. Last
March he proclaimed that "Punishing Pol Pot will not solve the problem." He added:
"Prosecution in a condition of anarchy is wishful thinking and may hinder national
reconciliation." The journalist who interviewed him reported that Peou "says he is
willing to forgive for the sake of breaking the cycle of deception and pre-emptive
violence." The reporter wrote, "Sorpong supports reconciliation with the Khmer
Rouge rather than punishment for past crimes [and] supports the pragmatic strategy
of incorporating Khmer Rouge defectors into the government structure in the hope
that the movement will die a natural death" {Good Weekend [Sydney], March 29,
1997, pp. 33-34, 37).

Ben Kiernan
Professor of History
Director, Genocide Studies Program
Yale University

Corrections
The caption of die cover photograph of Volume 9, Number 2 incorrectly identifies
soldiers of the "Second" Armored Division; it should read "Elevendi."
On page 322 of Volume 11, Number 3 the next-to-last sentence of the middle paragraph ( T h e fact that the . . . was refused recognition.") should have been deleted.

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Peou s advocacy of letting bygones be bygones comes through clearly in his

review. He calls the Khmer Rouge leaders "so-called 'genocidists'" (p. 414), and links
"the pre-emptive nature of the violence" to "Pol Pot's egalitarianism," his "prudence,"
"insecurity," and "vulnerability," and "the fickleness of popular support" (pp. 416,420,
423). Surprisingly, Peou claims that "from 1970 to 1975, the Cham Muslims were not
persecuted at all" (compare the evidence on pp. 67-68, 258-62 of my book). When
he does acknowledge massacres of Chams, he denies they were premeditated, despite
overwhelming evidence (see pp. 262-67f). He then cites me inaccurately (see p. 93)
in support of his claim that "the Pol Pot group made severalunsuccessfulattempts to limit the killing."
Sorpong Peou's apparent agendareconciliation with the Khmer Rouge
should be familiar to readers of Holocaust and Genocide Studies.