76-14-A7

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Cambodia I

Transcript With our focus on Africa, the Middle East and other world trouble spots, few of us have thought to inquire about the fate of Cambodia which fell to the communists just two years ago. Now, thanks to a senior edit or of READERS DIGEST, John Barron, and DIGEST Far Eastern editor, Anthony Paul, we have a view of what must be one of the most brutal violations in human history of all that is decent. What has happened, and is still happening in Cambodia, matches or exceeds -- in sheer horror -- what Hitler did at his very worst. Our window is a book called, MURDER OF A GENTLE LAND, published by Readers Digest Press/Crowell Company, New York. Starting in the fall of 1975, Barron and Paul (with the help of two other DIGEST editors) interviewed hundreds of Cambodian refugees, mainly in the refugee camps along the border of Thailand. Those they talked to represented a cross section of Cambodian society, the educated, the illiterate, the poor, the affluent, students and professors. Such an array made it possible to check story against story and thus verify the tales of horror. It is significant that most of those they talked to had actually welcomed the communist conquest, because they thought it would bring peace and end the long years of fighting. They were, for the most part, disinterested in political philosophy and were, therefore, neither for or against communism. In addition to these personal interviews, the authors and their helpers, being experienced journalists and editors, monitored radio Phnom Penh as carried by the Foreign Broadcast Association. They checked their findings against intelligence reports, both foreign and American, and sought the counsel of scholars throughout the world who specialized in Cambodia. From all of this has emerged an accurate account of what took place beginning on April 17, 1975, when the first communist troops entered the capital city of Phnom Penh. They were greeted warmly as heralds of peace. Within two hours, however, the "heralds of peace" -- using loud speakers and going door-to-door -- ordered every one of the three million men, women and children in Phnom Penh to leave the city. Those who resisted the order, or were too slow in obeying, were shot where they stood. The same procedure was being followed at the hospitals. Patients -- bedridden, some just emerging from surgery, some who were dying -- were dumped into the streets. Friends and relatives of some who couldn't walk pushed their beds. Those without such help tried to pole their beds with a stick as you would pole a raft through shallow water. The streets were so jammed that for days the pace was as slow as 100 yards an hour. Those who had cars only reached the outskirts of the city and there their cars were confiscated. The same scene was being enacted in other Cambodian cities. Behind them, in the emptying cities, books, records, archives of every kind, medical libraries, priceless manuscripts, business and government records, were being burned. Hospital equipment, automobiles, home furnishings all were smashed, vandalized and destroyed in an effort to purge Cambodia of its entire history. This, of course, included the temples in the city. At the same time, the killing of former military officers, civil servants and their families, down to infants and children, was going on. They were slaughtered in organized massacres by artillery fire, hand grenades, land mines, machine guns, bayonets and even clubs. I'll take this up again in the next broadcast. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening.		Details Batch Number 76-14-A7 Production Date 05/25/1977 Book/Page RihoH-36 Audio Youtube? No
		Added Notes The Murder of a Gentle Land (Amazon)