Saloth Sar, AKA Pol Pot
The most appalling person of the 20th century, measured in terms of the level of horrors inflicted on his country's population?
However, someone interviewed by Der Spiegel takes a contrary view: "Nhem En, 46, a member of the staff of S-21 [the Tuol Sleng torture prison, which should be as famous as Auschwitz or the Kolyma camps in Siberia] ... took most of the photos now on display at the Genocide Museum. He, too, joined the Khmer Rouge as a child soldier. It was a decision he has never regretted. ... "I heard the people screaming, but my hair grew on my head." In other words: To survive, worry about yourself first. "Every day they brought in new ones," he says. "We had to take drastic measures." When Pol Pot fled in 1979, pursued by Vietnamese troops, Nhem En followed him and became his private photographer. "He was not a bad man," he says of the dictator. "He always took care of his comrades. Without him, we would have been an American province."
The rather more encouraging element to the item is that the UN and the Cambodian government have agreed a tribunal process to bring surviving Khmer Rouge leaders to justice. This, apparently, is the first time that any Communist leaders have been subject to a proper legal reckoning.
However, someone interviewed by Der Spiegel takes a contrary view: "Nhem En, 46, a member of the staff of S-21 [the Tuol Sleng torture prison, which should be as famous as Auschwitz or the Kolyma camps in Siberia] ... took most of the photos now on display at the Genocide Museum. He, too, joined the Khmer Rouge as a child soldier. It was a decision he has never regretted. ... "I heard the people screaming, but my hair grew on my head." In other words: To survive, worry about yourself first. "Every day they brought in new ones," he says. "We had to take drastic measures." When Pol Pot fled in 1979, pursued by Vietnamese troops, Nhem En followed him and became his private photographer. "He was not a bad man," he says of the dictator. "He always took care of his comrades. Without him, we would have been an American province."
The rather more encouraging element to the item is that the UN and the Cambodian government have agreed a tribunal process to bring surviving Khmer Rouge leaders to justice. This, apparently, is the first time that any Communist leaders have been subject to a proper legal reckoning.
Labels: South East Asia
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on Sunday, January 07, 2007 at 1:12 pm.
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Alas, very few senior Khymer Rouge leaders are still alive. I would say that the most appalling dictator of the 20th century, measured in terms of the level of horrors inflicted on his country's population, was Chairman Mao.
I have hust finished reading "Mao: The Unknown Story" by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. Jung and Halliday estimate that Mao caused the deaths of over 70 million Chinese.
How bad did things get under Mao?
Chinese government figures show that by 1960, the average Chinese was eating about 1,500 calories a day - a diet equivalent to that of slave-laborers at Auschwitz....
In their book, Jung and Halliday describe Pol Pot as a "soul-mate of Mao's". Mao was Pol Pot's mentor.
IT - you make a good point about the loathsome Mao, but I think Pol Pot managed to kill a higher proportion of his countrymen.
What was good about his death, other than the actuality of it, was, they just threw his dead body on a heap of wood and set light to it.
I guess a state funeral was out of the question ...
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