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The Long Secret Alliance: Uncle Sam and Pol

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The Long Secret Alliance: Uncle Sam and Pol The Khmer Rouge diligently documented its victims such as these, who were presumably executed soon after they were photographed. The Long SecretAlliance: Uncle Sam and Pol Pot by John Pilger he US not only helped create conditions rhat brought Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge to power in 1975, but actively supported the genocidal force, politically and financially. By January T 1980, the US was secretly funding Pol Pots exiled forces on the Thai border. The extent of this support - $85 million from 1980 to 1986 - was revealed six years later in correspondence between congressional lawyer Jonathan Winer, then counsel to Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) of the Senate Foreign Re- lations Committee, and the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. Winer said the information had come from the Congressional Research Service (CRS). When copies of his letter were circulated, the John Pilger, based in London, has won numero~ awards for his reporting from Indochina His 1979 TV documentary, Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cumbodia, is credited with alerting much of the world to the horrors of the Pol Pot regime and the US bombing that preceded it. No: 62 Reagan admmistration was furious Then land and to ensure that Khmer Rouge bases officer of a crandestine Special Forces goup wIthout adequately explaining why, Winer were fed. CVorkmg through “Task Force code-named “Daniel Boone,” Lvhlch KIS re- repudiated the statistics, while not disput- 80” of the Thai .km~; which had liaison of- sponsible for the reconnaissance of the US ing that they had come from the CRS. In ficers with the Khmer Rouge, the Amen- bombmg of Cambodia.> By 1980. Co1 a second letter ro Noam Chomsky, how- cans ensured a constant flow of UN sup- Eiland was running KEG out of the US ever, Winer repeated the original charge, plies, Two US relief aid workers, Linda embassy in Bangkok, where it was de- which, he confirmed to me, was “abso- Mason and Roger Brown, later wrote, “The scribed as a “humanitarian” organization lureiy c0rrect.“1 Responsible for interpreting Washingron also backed satellite surveillance photos of the Khmer Rouge through the Cambodia, Eiland became a United Nations, which pro- valued source for some of Lided Pol Pots vehicle of re- Bangkok’s resident CVestern turn. Although the Khmer press corps, who referred to Rouge government ceased to him in their reports as a exist in January 1979, when “Western analyst.” Eiland’s the Vietnamese army drove it “humanitarian” duties led to out, its representatives con- his appointment as Defense tinued to occupy Cambodia’s Intelligence Agency (DI.4) UN seat. Their right to do so chief in charge of the South- ~vas defended and promoted east Asia Region, one of the by Washington as an exten- most important positions in sion of the Cold War, as a US espionage. mechanism for US revenge In November 1980, the on Vietnam, and as part of its just elected Reagan admmis- new alliance with China (Pol tration and the Khmer Rouge Pot’s principal underwriter made direct contact when Dr. and Vietnam’s ancient foe). Ray Cline, a former deput) In 1981, President Carter’s director of the CIA, secretly national security adviser, visited a Khmer Rouge opera- Zbigniew Brzezinski, said, “I Khmer Rouge instruments of torture found at Tuol Sleng school. tional headquarters inside encouraged the Chinese to Cambodia. Cline was then a support Pal Pot.”The US, he added, US Government insisted that the Khmer foreign policy adviser on President-elect winked publicly” as China sent arms to Rouge be fed the US preferred that the Reagan’s transitional team. Within a year, the Khmer Rouge through Thailand.z Khmer Rouge operation benefit from the according to Washington sources, 50 CIA credibility of an intemation- agents were running Washington’s Cambo- ally known relief operation.“3 dia operation from Thailand. The dividing With 50 CIA agents running In 1980, under US pressure, line between the international relief opera- the World Food Program tion and the US war became more and Washington’s Cambodia handed over food worth $12 more confused. For example, a Defense In- million to the Thai army to telligence Agency colonel was appointed operation from Thailand, the pass on to the Khmer Rouge. “security liaison officer” between the According to former Assistant United Nations Border Relief Operation dividing line between the Secretary of State Richard (UNBRO) and the Displaced Persons Protec- Holbrooke, “20,000 to 40,000 tion Unit (DPPU). In Washington, sources international relief operation Pol Pot guerrillas benefited.‘14 revealed him as a link between the US gov- This aid helped restore the ernment and the Khmer Rouge.6 and the US war blurred. Khmer Rouge to a fighting force, based in Thailand, from The UW as a Base which it destabilized Cambo- By 1981, a number of governments, in- As a cover for its secret war against dia for more than a decade. cluding US allies, became decidedly uneasy Cambodia, Washington set up the Kampu- Although ostensibly a State Department about the charade of continued UN recog- chean Emergency Group (KEG) in the US operation, KEG’s principals were intelli- nition of Pol Pot as legitimate head of the embassy in Bangkok and on the Thai-Cam- gence officers with long experience in country. This discomfort was dramatically bodian border. KEG’s job was to “monitor” Indochina. In the early 1980s it was run by demonstrated when a colleague of mine, the distribution of Western humanitarian Michael Eiland, whose career underscored Nicholas Claxton, entered a bar at the UN supplies sent to the refugee camps in Thai- the continuity of American intervention in in New York with Thaoun Prasith, Pol Pot’s Indochina. In 1969-70, he was operations representative. “Within minutes,” said 1. Letters from Jonathan Winer to Lany Chartienes, Viet- nam Veterans of America, citing Congressional Research 3. Linda Mason and Roger Brown, Rtie, Riualy and Poli- Service. Oct. 22,1%36. Letter from Winer to Noam Chomsb, 112~ Managing Cambodian Relit# (South Bend, [N: Uni- 5.williamshawc~sideduno:Nizon,KicsingerundIhe June 16. 1987. Telephone communication%ith author, versity of Notre Dame Press, 1983), pp. 135, 159. Dedbuetion QfCIrmbcdiu &ondonz Andre Deutsch, 1979). August 1989. 4. Wtii Shawcms, The QuaMy of Metqy: Cmbmiiu, 6. The colonel’s role was %ade plain” at a meeting with 2. Elizabeth Becker, Men the U&r MS Over (New York Holocausl and hhiern Conscience (London: Andre staffmembmsoftheSenateInte~~Commit&eeonFeb. Simon and Schuster, lQ86), p. 440. Deukch, 1%!4), pp. 289,345,395. 10,1990,accordingtoJohnPedler,~~atthemeeting 6 FALL 1997 Clayton, “the bar had emptied.” Clearly; something had to be done, In 1982, the US and China, supported by Singapore, in- vented the Coahtion of the Democratic Government of Kampuchea, which was, as Ben Kiernan pointed out, neither a coalition, nor democratic, nor a government, nor in Kampuchea.’ Rather, it was what the CIA calls “a master illusion,” Cambodia’s former ruler, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, was appointed its head; otherwise little changed. The Khmer Rouge dominated the two “non-communist” mem- bers, the Sihanoukists and the Khmer People’s National Libera- tion Front (KPNLF). From his of- fice at the UN, Pol Pot’s ambas- sador,the urbane Thaoun Prasith, continued to speak for Cambodia. A close associate of Pol Pot, he had in 1975 called on Khmer expatriates to return home, whereupon many of them “disappeared.” The United Nations was now the instrument of Cambodia’s punishment. In all its history, the world body has withheld devel- opment aid from only one Third World country: Cambodra. Not Khmer Rouge cadre in an undated photo. only did the UN - at US and Chinese insistence - deny the govern- “covert” aid estimated at $24 million to the of the US and Chinese position that the ment in Phnom Penh a seat, but the major “resistance. * Until 1990, Congress ac- Khmer Rouge be part of a settlement in international financial institutions barred cepted Solar? specious argument that US Cambodia. “It is journalists,” he said, Cambodia from all international agree- aid did not end up with or even help Pol “who have made them into demons.“9 ments on trade and communications. Even Pot and that the mass murderer’s US-sup- Weapons from West Germany, the US, the World Health Organization refused to plied allies “are not even in close proxim- and Sweden were passed on directly by aid the country At home, the US denied re- ity with them [the Khmer Rougel.“s Singapore or made under license by Char- Iigious groups export licenses for books tered Industries, which is and toys for orphans. A law dating from the owned by the Singapore gov- First World War, the Trading with the Enemy ernment. These same weap- Act, was applied to Cambodia and, of course, The “trial” of Pol Pot was a ons were captured from the Vietnam. Not even Cuba and the Soviet Khmer Rouge. The Singapore Union faced such a complete ban with no hu- wonderful Khmer Rouge connection allowed the Bush manitarian or cultural exceptions. administration to continue its By 1987, KEG had been reincarnated as theater-cum-media-event, secret aid to the “resistance.’ the Kampuchea Working Group, run by the same Col. Eiland of the Defense Intel- but was otherwise worthless. ;;;et~y$p~e;;;;;; ligence Agency The Working Group’s brief gress in 1989 banrung even was to provide battle plans, war materiel, indirect “lethal aid” ;o Pol and satellite intelligence to the so-called Military links Pot. lo In August 1990, a former member of “non-communist” members of the “resis- While Washington paid the bills and the the US Spe&l Forces disclosed that he had tance forces.” The non-communist fig leaf Thai army provided logistics support, been ordered to destroy records that allowed Congress, spurred on by an anti- Singapore, as middleman, was the main showed US munitions in Thailand going to Vietnamese zealot, then-Rep, Stephen conduit for Western arms.
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