"In one hour, Year Zero laid bare astonishing facts with such skill and power it was impossible to get up and leave the preview theatre." The (London) Times
Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia
John Pilger vividly reveals the brutality and murderous political ambitions of the Pol Pot / Khmer Rouge totalitarian regime which bought genocide and despair to the people of Cambodia while neighboring countries, including Australia, shamefully ignored the immense human suffering and unspeakable crimes that bloodied this once beautiful country. As the first complete report of the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge and the devastating affects of US bombing in Cambodia during the Vietnam War, YEAR ZERO: THE SILENT DEATH OF CAMBODIA is an important and historic document of the grim reign of Pol Pot and the world's response of indifference and inaction. Year Zero was 1975, the end of the secret US bombing campaign against the Viet Cong that saw 100,000 tons of bombs dropped over Cambodia, and the emergence of the Khmer Rouge party as a ruling force. That year saw the desertion of the capital of Phnom Penh and the displacement of some 2.5 million people, the majority of whom would soon go missing. Pilger explores the roots of the US bombing campaign that began in 1969, contrasting it sharply with powerful footage of sick and starving Cambodians and interviews with relief workers with UNICEF and the Red Cross as well as imprisoned members of Pol Pot's regime. At the time of its release, YEAR ZERO was for many the first glimpse of a harrowing injustice that had been played out with little fanfare. John Pilger lays bare the entire chain of events, from the removal of King Norodom Sihanouk to ensuing famine and genocide under the Khmer Rouge. The film is both disturbing and poignant, a sobering portrait of Cambodia's recent history.
 Map Cambodia  pol Pot As political factionalism grew in Cambodia, Sihanouk began to crack down on his opponents, including Communists. The Communists fell into two groups: Vietnamese-trained veterans of the independence struggle, including former Buddhist monks and their peasant followers; and younger urban radicals such as Pol Pot. While the former were major targets of Sihanouk's repression, Pol Pot and his followers were left largely untouched because of their privileged backgrounds and French education. This group gradually assumed leadership of the Communist movement. After Pol Pot became secretary general of the Workers' Party of Kampuchea (later renamed the Communist Party of Kampuchea, or CPK) in 1963, the party made a concerted effort to seize control of Cambodia.
By 1966, the American escalation of the war in neighboring Vietnam began to have a destabilizing effect on Cambodia. North Vietnamese and National Liberation Front (NLF) forces, made up of Vietnamese Communist guerrillas, established logistical bases and supply routes in Cambodia. While Sihanouk attempted to keep his country out of the Vietnam War, his political repression increasingly drove veterans of Cambodia's anti-French struggle back into dissidence, where Pol Pot's CPK drew them into its plans for rebellion. The CPK launched a revolt against Sihanouk in 1967. Sihanouk termed the rebels Khmer Rouge (French for "Red Khmers"), so-called after Cambodia's predominant ethnic group, the Khmers. Communist insurgency campaigns continued until the Khmer Rouge took control of the government in 1975.
In 1969, embroiled in Vietnam, the United States began a secret B-52 bombardment of Cambodia in an effort to knock out strongholds of the North Vietnamese and NLF. A year later Sihanouk was overthrown by U.S.-backed General Lon Nol. The Vietnam War spilled across the border, and the conflict tore Cambodia apart for five years. During the secret bombing American planes dropped 490,000 metric tons (540,000 tons) of bombs, killing about 100,000 Khmer peasants by August 1973, when the bombardment ended (see Secret Bombing of Cambodia). Meanwhile, the Khmer Rouge, aided by Sihanouk and the North Vietnamese, who did not want a pro-U.S. Cambodian government, battled Lon Nol's government for control of Cambodia.
 Khmer Rouge Recommended book : Survival in the Killing Fields - Ngor & Warner. |
 Killing Fields ISBN 1-84119-793-9
Constable & Robinson Ltd.
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