In 1991, I met Noam Chomsky when he visited Oxford University. At that time, I was working on my Ph.D. dissertation exploring why the world had failed to respond to the Cambodian genocide (which became my first book). When I began asking Professor Chomsky questions suggesting he had been an apologist for the Khmer Rouge at the time the Cambodian genocide was occurring, he asked me to send him my questions in writing. To his credit, he responded at length, albeit angrily, to those questions. I then responded in writing to his letter. When I later asked him if he would agree to publishing our correspondence, he curtly refused. In light of reports of his recent passing (which, I found out after publishing and sharing this blog post, were not true), I decided to publicly release these documents. Please find below the transcribed texts followed by the original documents.
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Letter 1 – Jamie Metzl to Noam Chomsky (24 January 1991)
Jamie Frederic Metzl
St. Antony’s College
Oxford OX2 6JF
24 January 1991
Professor Noam Chomsky
15 Suzanne Rd.
Lexington, Mass. 02173
USA
Dear Sir,
If you will please remember, I spoke with you regarding an interview as you left your lecture in Oxford. As I told you then, I am currently a doctoral candidate at Oxford in modern history. For my dissertation, I am researching “The Western Response to Genocide in Cambodia, 1975–1980.” In my examination, I am very interested in the debate over whether the genocide was actually occurring, who was responsible, and whether its press coverage was accurate.
For this reason, I would be very happy if you might answer some questions which I have regarding these issues.
My questions are as follows:
1) Do you believe that a genocide occurred in Cambodia in the period 1975–1978?
2) If yes, do you believe that when you were writing articles such as “Distortions at Fourth Hand” in 1977?
3) If you believe that your articles were not questioning whether or not the genocide was occurring, but whether it was being reported responsibly and accurately, do you feel that those who read your articles read them in this way? If not, were you surprised at this?
4) What effect do you feel that your articles and others like them had on the press, government officials, and the general public? Do you think they justified the indifference of many people to what was going on, even in the least bit?
5) If you could rewrite those articles now, what would you change and why?
My own feeling, as I’m sure you can decipher from my questions, is that although many of your facts were right and your reservations justified, the overall effect of the debate in which you were involved was to create a certain level of doubt that somewhat inhibited decisive action on this issue. I am telling you this because I am open to opinions otherwise and would like to know what you think.
May I thank you in advance for your consideration. I very much look forward to receiving your response.
Sincerely,
Jamie Frederic Metzl
Letter 2 — Noam Chomsky to Jamie Metzl (3 February 1991)
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
20D-219
Department of Linguistics and Philosophy
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
February 3, 1991
Dear Mr. Metzl,
I have read your questions. They are, I am afraid, unanswerable, because they are based on false presuppositions and other misconceptions. Your letter suggests to me that you have not looked at the original materials, but are limiting yourself to what appears in your circles in Britain, where the level of falsification concerning the topic generally, and what I have written in particular, reaches monumental proportions, and is also uncorrectible thanks to the corruption of the British media and intellectual class. Those who run the operation (e.g., Professor Adam Roberts of Oxford, to mention some local talent) are protected from exposure by the British media, which do not abide by the minimal standards of journalistic integrity taken for granted outside of totalitarian states, and deny the right of response to dissidents targeted by the commissars — the Independent, to cite a recent case with which perhaps you are familiar; if I had written a lengthy denunciation of Professor Roberts in the Boston Globe, and his letter refuting it, point by point, had been denied publication, there would be a huge storm of protest, which I would in fact lead. The reaction is predictably quite different in the present case, given the prevailing intellectual and moral standards.
Nevertheless, I will try to respond, understanding these samples as I proceed. I presume you have a copy of your letter, so will respond to the queries in order. Before getting to that, however, a few comments on false presuppositions and other reasons why your questions are unanswerable as they stand.
Turning first to your final paragraph, you refer to the 1977 review of several books that Edward Herman and I wrote in the Nation (which in England, for some reason, is known as “Chomsky’s article”). You say that “many of [our] facts were right.” That seems to presuppose that some were not right. If so, that has yet to be pointed out in any of the voluminous literature on the subject. No one, to my knowledge, has found even the slightest error or misleading statement, though this was, after all, only a review of several books and topics, at a time when very little was known, not a scholarly monograph; if one were to subject any similar article to careful scrutiny, doubtless errors and misleading statements would have been found after 14 years of trying, so I therefore feel fairly confident in assuming that this one happens to resist even the most hostile critique, and can therefore only be subjected to conscious deceit and distortion, as in the Roberts letter mentioned above, which he could write with perfect security that the journal would not permit exposure. If there are any errors in that review, I’d naturally be interested in learning about them. Let me make it clear that I am referring to what we wrote, not to the webs of fabrication spun by Roberts, William Shawcross, and others, which are, of course, not my responsibility.
You also express your feelings about “the debate in which [I was] involved.” Again, the statement suggests that you are part of British intellectual culture, carefully insulated from the world of fact. There was no such debate. Apart from that single review, neither Herman nor I wrote anything relevant during the Pol Pot years. We did write letters responding to various fabrications concerning that review, many of which were refused publication, as in the Independent. And I had a lengthy and very useful private correspondence with Francois Ponchaud after he wrote me a personal letter concerning some of the questions we raised in our review, which turned out to be seriously understated; that is the “debate.” Your severe misconceptions about the facts are also illustrated by your reference throughout to “those articles,” “such articles as” the 1977 review, etc. One review is not “those articles,” nor is it “a debate.” One can readily understand why British ideologists have constructed various useful fairy tales, which you seem to believe, but again, that is not my business.
Let us turn now to your statement that “the overall effect of the debate in which [I was] involved was to create a certain level of doubt that somewhat inhibited decisive action…” I’m surprised that you do not see the absurdity of this claim, even on your (false) assumption that there was such a debate. Surely it should be obvious to you that even if I had written extensively on the topic, it is absolutely ludicrous – flatly absurd – to think that that could have “somewhat inhibited decisive action.” On the part of whom? On the part of governments, human rights groups, professors at Oxford, etc., none of whom pay the slightest attention to what I do write – let alone to what I don’t write, as in this case. Surely there must be some limits to absurdity, even in the world of pure ideological fanaticism in Oxford corridors.
To add to the transparent absurdity, no one who claims that action was inhibited by my awesome power suggested any such action, to my knowledge. I am aware only of one proposal, in late 1978, by George McGovern, at Senate Hearings. He called for some kind of international reaction, and was roundly ridiculed throughout the mainstream media – who, I might add, were not under my control, though British intellectuals might believe otherwise. If anyone took up McGovern’s suggestion, I didn’t hear it.
The story of my huge influence (on this sole issue) was concocted by William Shawcross, reflecting his utter contempt for British intellectuals, who, he rightly assumed, would believe just about anything, if it is ideologically useful. But that is simply a comment on the intellectual culture in which you reside. Again, it should be obvious to any rational person, on a moment’s reflection, that this tale could not be true, even if I had written more than this one review and had taken part in a debate.
As if this comical tale were not ridiculous enough, Shawcross took pains to demonstrate the absurdity of his claims in yet another way, again, I presume, reflecting his contempt for British intellectuals and their willingness to believe anything, however outlandish, if only it is serviceable. If you read Shawcross’s charges in his articles and Quality of Mercy, you will note that he does give what he claims to be a quote of mine to support them. The quote is in part fabricated, and when given accurately, has none of the connotations he tries to suggest. But more to the point, the source of the fabricated quote is not the 1977 article, but rather material that went to press after the fall of Pol Pot and appeared in November 1979. So Shawcross is charging us with outright magic: by statements we wrote after the fall of Pol Pot, we succeeded in preventing the governments of the world, Amnesty International, the articulate intellectuals, etc., from reacting to Pol Pot atrocities before we wrote. As he expected, even this is quite acceptable to British intellectuals, who nod soberly at his profundity. That is, again, a comment on Oxford and the like, which you might want to think about.
Let me stress again that those who – unlike me – do have access to public opinion propose no action, decisive or otherwise, and that the one counterexample I know – McGovern’s proposals shortly before the fall of the Pol Pot regime – was ridiculed or ignored. You might inspect the published record to see exactly what Shawcross, Roberts, et al., proposed – though perhaps they would excuse themselves by telling you that, like the US and British governments, they were too intimidated by my awesome power to express themselves and make public their proposals for decisive action. What is more, many of those who really do have access to public opinion used it to downplay the atrocities: among them, William Shawcross and David Hawk (then the research director for Amnesty International), a fact noted in the literature.
As for serious and knowledgeable journalists, at the time they tended to be cautious and skeptical. One of the most reputable of these is Nayan Chanda, then correspondent of the Far Eastern Economic Review and Le Monde diplomatique. If you check the record, instead of relying on Oxford propaganda, you will quickly discover this. As late as January 1979, the FEER (a reasonably authoritative journal) even estimated that the population had risen by perhaps a million under Pol Pot (later, they claimed, implausibly, to have been misled by CIA claims to this effect). Others with actual knowledge of the (very obscure) facts were also cautious and tentative. The best informed of anyone were the State Department “Cambodia watchers.” They and other State Department spokesmen cautioned their national audience in the U.S. that to their knowledge what was happening was not “mass genocide” but rather deaths from “brutal, raging change,” amounting perhaps to “thousands of deaths” to “hundreds of thousands from all causes (starvation, overwork, etc.).” We quoted this judgment at the time, because it was cited in very reliable TV after the fall, and perhaps still do. Roy Prosterman, who, a year after the fall of Pol Pot, described him as the “charismatic” leader of a “bloody but successful peasant revolution with a substantial residue of popular support,” under which “on a statistical basis, most of [the peasants]… did not experience much in the way of brutality.” Pike thus agreed with the later CIA demographic study (published in 1980, and also praised highly by the State Department specialists), which estimated killings at 50–100,000, denied outright the worst massacres (of 1978), and concluded that most peasants didn’t suffer particularly. Ponchaud, whose work was widely cited (though probably rarely read), gave rather similar judgments, including the most positive commentary on the KR that I have seen anywhere, and rather qualified judgments about what was going on. Now if Shawcross, Chanda, AI, State Department specialists, the CIA, Pike, etc. were all playing the matter down, then how can any marginally sane person believe that even if I had been writing extensively, saying the same things, that could have inhibited decisive action? (Recall that I was neither writing, nor saying any such things.) Please.
You’ll note, incidentally, that the Shawcross–Roberts–etc. crowd never quote the real examples of qualified and often rather favorable commentary on the KR by people who really did have access to public opinion, just as Shawcross and Hawk, among others, choose to “forget” their own writings. That would serve no useful ideological function. The basic idea was already understood in early 1978 by Time magazine, who actively sought pro-KR commentary from well-known people in the anti-war movement, and when all they could find was a book review in the Nation, they put it on the cover, as their major story, along with fraudulent misrepresentation of the contents (as Ponchaud has pointed out in print, as I have pointed out in print, as anyone can discover in five minutes by looking at the actual text). This was all very transparent. The point was to construct the appearance of a “debate,” so that one could dismiss the matter by putting the responsibility on “the extremes”: on the one hand, people who denied genocide, and on the other, those who fabricated incredible tales about it. This is a standard device. The facts, which were hard to come by, were of no particular interest. And the great advantage of this device was that it put the onus on the anti-war movement – that is, on people who had nothing to do with the matter – thus deflecting attention from the real issues, such as what could be done, and what was actually done, about atrocities.
Notice that nothing remotely similar was done with regard to East Timor. I wrote at least a dozen articles about Timor in that same period, along with Edward Herman. Time magazine, Newsweek, and others had access to these, but they never dreamed of running them, let alone putting them on the cover with fraudulent misrepresentation. The reason is simple: in that case, there was something that could have been done. There were obvious and straightforward measures that might have lessened or perhaps even ended the atrocities, such as cutting off U.S. military and diplomatic support for the Indonesian invasion, which began one day after Ford and Kissinger left Jakarta in December 1975, having given the green light. That could not be permitted to become a matter of public concern, so the device of constructing a “debate” was irrelevant there. In the case of Cambodia, in contrast, no one was suggesting anything that might be done, so here it was very useful to invent a debate, and then to blame “the extremes,” with the focus on the one or two people in the anti-war movement who could somehow be claimed to have taken a position on the matter – falsely, of course, but who cares? That is just what Time did, and that is the story repeated endlessly, to this day, throughout the British media and intellectual class.
These matters are so transparent that it is almost embarrassing to discuss them. They illustrate very clearly the techniques of ideological control that are standard, and quite effective, in Western democratic societies. I have discussed them elsewhere, so won’t elaborate here.
Let us now turn to your specific questions.
(1) You ask: “Do you believe that a genocide occurred in Cambodia in the period 1975–78?” The answer is simple: the term “genocide” is much too vague to permit a clear answer. I have no problem in using it for what happened under Pol Pot, as long as we understand that the same term applies at least as well to many other cases, often with Western responsibility. Thus the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, with Western arms and diplomatic support, was a clear case of genocide; so were many other examples of which you are surely aware, such as the U.S. wars in Indochina, or the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people in Central America in the past decade, or the killing of over half a million children in Iraq right now, as a result of U.N. sanctions. If we want to use the term “genocide” honestly, then we will apply it across the board. If we want to use it dishonestly, then we will restrict it to official enemies.
(2) Your second question asks whether I believed genocide was taking place when I wrote “Distortions at Fourth Hand” in 1977. Again, I have no problem using the term “genocide,” provided we recognize its broader application. At the time of writing, however, the facts were extremely sparse and uncertain. I therefore expressed no firm conclusion. What I did say was that there was a great deal of credible evidence of atrocities, but that the scale and character of these atrocities remained very much in doubt, as did their causes. I also pointed out that some of the most extreme charges were not credible. This was in the context of a review of several books, each of which had its own strengths and weaknesses. We praised Ponchaud’s book for its general credibility, while noting what seemed to us some weaknesses; we were more critical of Hildebrand and Porter’s book, which was useful in some respects but marred by its apologetics; and we dismissed Barron and Paul’s book as worthless propaganda. That was the gist of the review, which has been endlessly misrepresented ever since.
(3) You then ask whether readers might not have understood our article as questioning whether genocide was taking place, rather than whether the reporting was accurate. That is a fair question. I can only answer that if people misunderstood the point, it was because they did not read the article, or were misled by deliberate distortions. I have cited in print some examples of flagrant misrepresentation, where passages were quoted selectively to suggest the opposite of what we actually said. I cannot be held responsible for the dishonesty of others, or for the failure of people to read what we actually wrote.
(4) As for the effect of our article on the press, government officials, and the general public, I believe it was minimal to nonexistent. To my knowledge, no one in power or in the mainstream media ever cited it, except in order to misrepresent it. In fact, as I mentioned earlier, many influential voices at the time were themselves minimizing or dismissing the atrocities, while others were exaggerating wildly. The atmosphere was one of extreme confusion, and our article was a very small part of that, read mainly by people on the left. To imagine that it influenced government policy, or inhibited decisive action, is absurd.
(5) Finally, you ask what I would change if I could rewrite the article now. With the benefit of hindsight, I would certainly emphasize more strongly that atrocities were taking place on a massive scale. At the same time, I would continue to stress the need for skepticism about sources, since there was a great deal of propaganda at the time. I would also place more emphasis on the broader context – namely, that atrocities of equal or greater magnitude were being committed elsewhere, often with Western support, and that these were being ignored or downplayed. In short, I would make the same basic points, but with more force and with more information now available.
I should add that I have often been accused of “minimizing” the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge. That is false. What I did was to urge caution, and to resist the temptation to accept propaganda uncritically. As it turned out, some of the most extreme claims were indeed false, while others were true or understated. That is exactly why caution was warranted. At the same time, I never denied that great atrocities were taking place. On the contrary, I explicitly acknowledged that they were, and that they might be on a scale of genocide. That is on the record, for anyone who cares to look.
You might also consider the timing. In 1977, very little was known. The best information available came from refugees, who provided important but fragmentary and sometimes contradictory testimony. Other sources, such as journalists and intelligence agencies, were also unreliable. It was only after the Vietnamese invasion in late 1978 that more solid evidence became available, as refugees fled in large numbers and as the Khmer Rouge’s own records were captured. Even then, the full scale of the atrocities only became clear gradually. It is therefore unfair to judge a 1977 review by the knowledge we now have.
There is also a broader point. Atrocities should be condemned wherever they occur, and regardless of who commits them. But that is not the way the world works. In practice, atrocities committed by enemies are highlighted, often exaggerated, while those committed by friends are ignored or excused. This double standard was the main target of our criticism, and it remains so today. Cambodia was one case among many. East Timor, for example, was a contemporary case of comparable or greater horror, yet it received almost no attention in the Western press, because the perpetrators were allies of the West. That contrast was the real scandal, far greater than any alleged “minimization” by Herman or me.
To summarize: I did not deny atrocities in Cambodia. I questioned some of the claims, and I insisted on skepticism about sources. I pointed out double standards. I suggested that atrocities were taking place, and that they might be on a genocidal scale. I said that more information was needed, and that judgment should be cautious. That is what I wrote, and it has stood up fairly well to the test of time, despite the flood of misrepresentation.
It is worth reflecting on why these misrepresentations persist. The reason, I think, is that they serve an important ideological function. By portraying me (and Herman) as having “denied” or “minimized” Khmer Rouge atrocities, attention is deflected from two inconvenient facts: first, that Western governments and their allies were themselves complicit in equal or greater atrocities elsewhere; and second, that much of the mainstream commentary at the time was itself minimizing or distorting what was happening in Cambodia. To acknowledge these facts would be embarrassing. It is much easier to create a demon – to attribute denial to a convenient target – than to confront the real issues.
Thus the obsession with “Chomsky and Cambodia” tells us more about Western intellectual culture than it does about Cambodia. It is a case study in how myths are created and sustained for political purposes. It is not the first such case, nor will it be the last. One might compare it, for example, with the mythology about the Spanish Civil War, or about the Vietnam War, or about countless other topics where inconvenient truths have been buried under layers of propaganda.
Let me stress again that atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge were real, and on a vast scale. Nothing I have ever written suggests otherwise. What I did suggest – and continue to suggest – is that if we are serious about opposing atrocities, we must do so consistently. We must condemn them when committed by our friends as well as by our enemies. We must insist on standards of evidence that apply equally in all cases. And we must reject the double standards that dominate political and intellectual life. That was the point of my review in 1977, and it remains my point today.
If you find that disappointing, I can only say that it reflects a difference of priorities. My concern has never been to follow the fashion of the day, but to try to look honestly at the world, and to apply consistent principles. If that leads to accusations of “minimization” or worse, so be it. The record is there for anyone who cares to examine it.
I hope this clarifies my position. Whether you find it convincing is, of course, up to you. But at least I would ask that you base your judgment on what I have actually written, rather than on myths and fabrications that have been circulated for years.
As for your dissertation, I encourage you to pursue it with care and with an open mind. The subject is important, not only for understanding Cambodia, but also for what it reveals about the functioning of Western intellectual and political culture. The way in which atrocities are perceived, reported, and remembered tells us a great deal about power and ideology. Cambodia is only one case, but it is a revealing one.
If you wish to pursue these matters further, I would recommend that you read what I have actually written, and that you also look carefully at the record of others – Shawcross, Roberts, and so on – who have been so influential in shaping opinion. You may find that the contrast between what they wrote at the time, and what they now claim to have written, is itself instructive.
Thank you for your interest.
Sincerely,
Noam Chomsky
Letter 3 — Jamie Metzl to Noam Chomsky (26 February 1991)
Jamie Frederic Metzl
St. Antony’s College
Oxford OX2 6JF
England
26 February 1991
Professor Noam Chomsky
15 Suzanne Rd.
Lexington, Mass. 02173
USA
Dear Professor Chomsky,
Thank you for your letter of 3 February 1991 in response to the questions which I put to you regarding your involvement with the Cambodia issue. I was very interested in reading what you wrote. There are, however, a number of points that you raise with which I take issue.
To begin with, I would like to express to you that, despite your accusations, I am not conducting my research to defend the views of William Shawcross, Adam Roberts, or “British intellectual culture.” While you suggest that I “have not looked at the original materials,” may I tell you that the hypotheses which I am developing are based on an extensive and ongoing review of the primary materials available. Although it may be difficult to accept that my independent investigation has led me to conclusions different from yours, I ask you to keep only as open a mind on the subject as you suggest for me to keep.
In your letter, you respond to my questions regarding “the debate in which you were involved” by claiming that “There was no such debate” and that the single review in the Nation was the only relevant article written by you during the Pol Pot years. Although your Nation article was reprinted in the short book The Revolution in Kampuchea in 1978, and although a seven-page letter of yours to the Christian Science Monitor written in 1978, making many points similar to those made in your Nation article, was printed in a 1977 issue of the Journal of Contemporary Asia, I can accept this point of yours.
But while I can accept that you did only write one or two pieces on the subject, I can accept neither that there was no debate nor that you were not involved in it. As I’m certain you will recall, your article in the Nation was a review of the books by Hildebrand and Porter, Ponchaud, and Barron and Paul, and of Jean Lacouture’s review of Ponchaud’s work. A simple examination of these materials clearly demonstrates that a debate was in progress. Hildebrand and Porter, which you deal with favorably in your article, describe the forced evacuation of Phnom Penh’s hospitals by the Khmer Rouge, which resulted in many deaths, as “an act of mercy for the patients” (p. 50). Barron and Paul, on the other hand, whose book you call a “third-rate propaganda tract,” describe Khmer Rouge atrocities in graphic detail and write of “Communist genocide.” Ponchaud tells of Khmer Rouge atrocities, and Lacouture writes of Khmer “autogenocide” in his review of Ponchaud.
While these different sources indicate that a debate did exist and that you in your response to Lacouture’s review of Ponchaud’s book undeniably took part in it, an examination of other relevant sources makes this point even more clear. Aside from the Hildebrand and Porter book, Jerome and Jocelyn Steinbach (Phnom Penh Libérée, 1976), Malcolm Caldwell (in the Guardian), and Torben Retboll (in TLS) also wrote to defend the Khmer Rouge against its critics — who were already accusing it of genocide. Retboll, in particular, used arguments almost identical to yours. On the side of Barron and Paul were Jack Anderson (Washington Post), Bernard Levin (Times of London), Lacouture and others. All of these people recognized each other in their writings during this period. Some, I might add, even acknowledged you. Lacouture for example, writes the following in his book Survive le Peuple Cambodgien, finished in June 1978:
“Most sad, most serious, [is] the attitude taken, in face of the Cambodian genocide, by a certain number of American intellectuals who oppose Washington’s strategies in Asia, whose most notable and respectable [member] is Noam Chomsky… The first eleven chapters of this little book have responded… to most of Chomsky’s arguments.” (pp. 135–136)
Further, this debate was continued in the 1977 US Congressional hearings on Cambodia where different people, including Gareth Porter, expressed their opinions on the subject. Thus, while the dialogue on the issue of atrocities in Cambodia had many voices and was expressed in a variety of fora, it was a significant and substantial dialogue nonetheless. From your stated views on Oxford institutions, I’m sure that you will agree that a debate does not need to take place in the Oxford Union to be deemed a debate.
While you claim that my mention of “the debate in which you were involved” suggests that you had a “huge influence” and “immense global power,” I can assure you that I meant nothing of the sort. My only point was that the intellectual climate which this debate created was one conducive to doubt in different circles. It was not the sole factor but, as I wrote, it “somewhat inhibited” decisive action. In a recent interview with me, Martin Ennals, then Director-General of Amnesty International, stated that he was never absolutely certain that the reports of mass atrocities were reliable and that the continued contradiction of such reports fostered these doubts. This does not, of course, mean that he read your article and called off a mass campaign to end the Cambodian atrocities, but rather that he responded to the existence of doubt. This doubt, justified or not, was a result of “the debate in which you were involved” and, I would argue, “somewhat inhibited decisive action.”
Because there were no foreign journalists within Cambodia and no reliable reports coming from the Communist states (and Egypt) which had embassies in Phnom Penh, the articles and books published on the subject gained in significance due to the lack of competing information.
In your letter, you suggest that I read Nayan Chanda’s reports in the Far Eastern Economic Review; all of which I had already read when I wrote you my first letter. I am, of course, considering these reports in my appraisal. While there is still debate as to how many people were killed (you yourself suggested that 100,000 people were killed by the Khmer Rouge in the October 1979 issue of Change, while seeming to support Michael Vickery’s figures of 200,000–300,000 “outright executions” in a 1985 article on Cambodia printed in The Chomsky Reader) this debate does not negate my consideration of its precursor during the Pol Pot years.
Nor does my consideration imply that I am defending the hypocrisy of certain intellectuals or states. It is this hypocrisy which I am examining in my research. Perhaps Shawcross and Roberts might have done more during the early years of Khmer Rouge rule. Nevertheless, my investigation, or even an accusation of these intellectuals and states, does not, in itself, vindicate your position. Both you and they must be looked at based on the result of my research. As I stated in my letter, “I am open to opinions.” I am not “participating” in the falsification of evidence, as you seem to suggest in your letter.
Thank you also for your suggestion that I consider changing my dissertation topic because it has already been covered. The two books which you claim to have done this are Shawcross’ The Quality of Mercy and your After the Cataclysm. Since you attack Shawcross’ book as dishonest and “self-serving,” you leave your book as the sole, honest coverage of the Western response to the Cambodian genocide. Obviously, had I thought that your book adequately covered the subject, I would neither have selected the topic which I have nor written you a letter questioning your role in the situation.
While I have chosen this topic, I would like to defend my use of the phrase “the indifference of many people to what was going on.” This statement makes no reference to other atrocities being perpetrated at the same time in East Timor and elsewhere. Personally, I happen to believe that all humans have a responsibility to respond to as many violations of human rights as possible, no matter whom they are committed by. While there was some protest on the Cambodia issue, very little was done. The UK denounced the DK regime to the UN Commission on Human Rights in late 1977, and it took three years for the Commission to first consider “the Situation in Kampuchea.” By this time, even the UK was supporting the seating of the Pol Pot regime in the General Assembly of the UN. There was a terrible hypocrisy and lack of action which I am studying in my research. If you think that enough was done, then I bid you to reconsider your position on the importance of international standards for human rights. The existence of hypocrisy does not mean that all considerations of human rights are null and void, even if I were taking the side of the US or UK. As I have already expressed, I am not.
This brings me to my final point. I am guessing that you will respond to the above statement that no investigation can be entirely neutral. While a person chooses a question to research for personal reasons, the choice of that question signifies a certain position regarding what is important. I am, of course, investigating Cambodia and not East Timor. Perhaps you are correct, but I do not feel that I am condoning the atrocities committed in East Timor or the Western role in their perpetration by conducting my research. In the same vein, however, it follows that your 1977 review in the Nation cannot be seen as simply an objective consideration of the available facts which expressed no position or bias regarding the atrocity reports. Your statement in the 1977 article that “We do not pretend to know where the truth lies amidst these sharply conflicting assessments” does not imply that you were an unbiased observer of the Cambodia situation. While your work on the Cambodian atrocities written during the Khmer Rouge period might seem as such when examined out of context, it can appear very different when one considers what was taking place at the time.
By choosing this particular subject and by undertaking the type of investigation described in your work, you were, in my opinion, taking a stand on the issue. I feel that it is my job as an historian to investigate this stand. It is by no means the only, most important or most significant stand on the issue. It was, however, one important and significant stand which I hope to examine and ultimately judge, as unbiasedly and honestly as I possibly can.
I thank you again for your letter and for the inspiration which it gave me to put to paper the above-mentioned ideas.
Sincerely,
Jamie Frederic Metzl
St. Antony’s College
Oxford
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Here is a link to the original scanned document.