A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (91 page)

150. The s stands for sala, or "hall," and 21 was the code number for santehal, a Khmer term for "security police." Chandler, Voices from S-21, p. 3.

151. This included one who was spared because he maintained the prison's electrical generating equipment, another who painted Pol Pot's portraits, and a third who sculpted his bust.

152. Hurst Hannum, "International Law and Cambodian Genocide: The Sounds of Silence," Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 11, no. 1 (Feb. 1989), p. 91.

153. The instructions still hang at the Tuol Sleng Museum, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

154. Ibid., p. 130.

155. "Pro-Vietnam Journalist Cites Cambodian Torture," Washington Post, May 11, 1979, p. A23. Some of the reporting in the spring and summer of 1979 qualified atrocity reports-either mentioning that the source of the information was Vietnam or Conmmnist-sympath izing journalists or that there seemed to be few eyewitnesses to the reported atrocities. See, for example, Henry Kamm, "Chinese Invasion Overshadows Cambodia's Plight," Neu, York Times, March 4, 1979, p. 11; "Cambodia Situation Unclear," Neu' York Times, March 27, 1979, p. A3; "Vietnam Reports Discovery of Cambodian Mass Graves," New York Times, April 3, 1979, p. A5; and "Vietnam Says the Pol Pot Forces Beat 26,000 Prisoners to Death," New Yimrk Times, July 27, 1979, p. A2. As Western reporters were allowed back into Cambodia by the Vietnamese-backed government, the atrocity reports became more authoritative. See James Matlack, "Cambodia: Desolate and Devastated," Washington Post, October 25, 1979, p. Al.

156. Don Oberdorfer, "U.S. Accuses Hanoi, Calls for Withdrawal," hlashineton Post, January 8, 1979, pp. Al,A18.

157. See James Dunn, "Genocide in East Timor," in Samuel Totten, William S. Parsons, Israel W. Charny, eds., A Century of Genocide: Eyewitness Accounts and Critical Views (New York: Garland, 1997), pp. 264-290; Henry Kamm, "The Silent Suffering of East Timor," New York Times, February 15, 1981, sec. 6, p. 35.

158. British media disclosed that British Special Air Services (SAS) commandos had secretly trained Thai-based guerrillas, including the KR, to oppose the Vietnamese-backed government since the mid-1980s. See Simon O'Dwyer-Russell, "SAS Training Jungle Fighters," Sunday 7i•le- graph, September 24, 1989, p. 14, and Robert Karniol, "UK Trained Cambodian Guerrillas," Jane's Defence Weekly, September 30, 1989, p. 629. Although U.S. involvement may not have been as direct as that of the British, the United States did fund purchases of materiel, including weapons, ostensibly for the KR's non-Communist allies through several ASEAN member countries. See Paul Quinn Judge, "Asia Allies Want Open U.S. Aid for Kampuchea Guerrillas," Christian Science Monitor, October 12, 1984, p. 11; Elaine Sciolino, "Sihanouk Hints at U.S. Military Aid," New York Times, October 14, 1988, p. A3; and Elaine Sciolino, "Tainted Cambodia Aid: New Details," NewYork Times, November 1, 1988, p.A3.The United States technically limited its aid to the non-Communist forces in Cambodia, but the KR's dominance over their coalition partners made the KR the likely beneficiaries. Sydney Schanberg, "Needed: A Public Outcry on Cambodia," Newsday (Nassau and Suffolk edition), May 18, 1990, p. 90.

159. According to Richard Holbrooke, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, the Soviets' military shipments to Vietnam more than quadrupled from 1978 to 1979 in support of the Vietnamese occupation; Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, March 24, 1980.They supplied some $2 billion in weapons to Hanoi in 1979 and 1980 and about $750 million per year thereafter, in addition to some $1 billion annually in economic aid. Nayan Chanda, Brother Enemy: The War After the War (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986), p. 397.

160. Becker, When the Wir Was Over, p. 440.

161. John Burgess, "Khmer Rouge, Fighting to Regain Power, Admit 'Mistakes,"' Washington Post, August 10, 1980, p. A2 1.

162. Daniel Burstein, "A Visit with the Khmer Rouge,' Washington Post, March 9, 1980, p. C1.

163. John Burgess, "Cambodian Thanks U.S. for Help at U.N.," Washington Post, August 8, 1980, p. Al.

164. Elizabeth Becker," Sihanouk Seeks Backing for Neutral Cambodia," Washington Post, February 23, 1980, p. A21.

165. Along with the United States, China, Belgium, Ecuador, Pakistan, and Senegal voted to continue to recognize the KR government, whereas the Soviet Union, Congo, and Panama voted against approving. its credentials. Benin, Congo, Guinea-Bissau, India, Madagascar, Sao Tome and Principe, and Sierra Leone submitted an "amendment" to the draft resolution that would have kept the Cambodian seat at the UN empty, but the General Assembly chose not to vote on the measure.

166. The Cambodian ambassador to the UN was not leng Sary but Thiounn Prasith, who lives to this day in Westchester County, despite countless efforts by Cambodia activists to have him deported.

167. Debate of the General Assembly, 34th sess., 3rd plenary meeting, September 18, 1979.

168. Ibid., p. 50.

169. John Burgess, "CarihodianThanks U.S. for Help at U.N.," Washington Post, August 8, 1980, p. Al.

170. "No Thanks," Washington Post, August 11, 1980, p. A18.

171. "Hold-Your-Nose Diplomacy," Washington Post, September 17, 1980, p. A18.

172. Jack Anderson, "PcI Pot or Not?" Washington Post, September 14, 1980, p. C7.

173. Don Oberdorfer, "U.S. to Support Pol Pot Regime for U.N. Seat," Washington Post, September 16, 1980, p. Al.

174. Some of the individuals whose opposition to the KR might have led one to believe they would hack Vietnam in fact urged support for the four-party coalition that included the Khmer Rouge. Representative Stephen Solarz was one of them. In the mid-I980s he initiated congressional efforts to aid the non-Communist resistance. "The last thing I wanted to see was the return of the Khmer Rouge, but the next to last thing I wanted to see was Cambodia dominated by Vietnam;' he says. Solarz believed the debate at the Credentials Committee, however symbolic, was an overblown tribute to the guilty consciences that many felt about KR terror. "The debate at the UN was :ts own sideshow. Whether the seat was filled or it remained empty, it had zero to do with the Khmer Rouge. It had more to do with a statement of morality. I thought the breast-beating was irrelevant. I mean, where were these people when Pol Pot was executing his wicked will?"

175. Elaine Sciolino,"Tainted Cambodia Aid: New Details," New York Times, November 1, 1988, p. A3.

176. The combination of Western isolation and Vietnamese mismanagement led to a famine. It is extremely difficult to compile meaningful population statistics in Cambodia, but one recent demographic analysis puts the death toll due to the famine at 300,000; see Patrick Heuveline,

"The Demographic Analysis of Mortality Crises: The Case of Cambodia, 1970-1979," in Holly E. Reed and Charles B. Keely, eds., Forced Migration and Mortality (Washington, I).C.: National Academy Press, 2001), pp. 102-129. Others have argued that widespread famine did not occur; see Judith Banister and E. Paige Johnson, "After the Nightmare: The Population of Cambodia," in Ben Kiernan, ed., Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge, the United Nations and the International Community (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 1993), pp. 65-139, and Ben Kiernan, "Review Essay: William Shawcross, Declining Cambodia," Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, January-March 1986, pp. 56-63.

177. Report to the Economic and Social Council, July 2, 1985, 4/SUB, 2/1985/6.

178. Becker, When the War Was Over, pp. 503-504.

179. United Nations, Treaty Series, "United States of America, Democratic Republic of VietNam, Provisional Revolutionhary Government of the Republic of South Viet-Nam and Republic of Viet-Nam: Protocol to the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in VietNam Concerning tht Return of Captured Military Personnel and Foreign Civilians and Captured and Detained Vietnamese Civilian Personnel. Signed at Paris on 27 January 1973," Treaties and International Agreements Registerd or Filed or Reported with the Secretariat of the United,'\'a- tions, p. 203, No. 13296 (1974).

Chapter 7, Speaking Loudly and Looking for a Stick

1. December 1968 remarks quoted in William Korey, "The Genocide Treaty: Unratified 35 Years," New York Times, June 23, 1984, sec. 1, p. 23.

2. Spotlight, May 14, 1979. See Charles R. Allen Jr., The Genocide Convention: America's Shame," Reform Judaism 10, 4 (Summer 1982): 12.

3. Ibid.

4. Congressional Record. 99th Cong., 2nd sess., 1986, 132, pt. 15:S1355.

5. Ibid.

6. Kathleen Teltsch, "Library Show Recalls Man Behind Treaty on Genocide," New York Times, December 4, 1983, sec. 1, p. 62.

7. Korey, "The Genocide Treaty"; William Korey, "Lemkin and Trifka: Memory and Justice," Christian Science Monitor, August 30, 1984, p. 11.

8. Congressional Record, 99th Cong., 1st less., 1985, 131, pt. 46:S4386.

9. Ibid., pt. 78:57961.

10. Ibid., pt. 48:S4520. Proxmire got the House statistic from a speech given by Representative Stephen Solarz the previous week.

11. Ibid., 99th Cong., 2nd sess., 1986, 132, pt. 6:S392.

12. Ibid., pt. 14:S 1252.

13. "Soviet Hypocrisy," New York Times, May 5, 1954, p. 30.

14. Ibid.

15. Congressional Record, 99th Cong. 2nd sess., 1986, pt. 14:51252.

16. Ibid.

17. "U.S. Urges Ratification of Genocide Convention," Department of State, Bulletin, November 1984, p. 66. "Remarks at the International Convention of B'nai B'rith," September 6, 1984, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, 1984, vol. 2 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1987), pp. 1242-1246.

18. Bernard Gwertzman, "Reagan Will Submit 1948 Genocide Pact for Senate Approval;' New York Times, September 6, 1984, p. Al.

19. Bernard Weinraub,"Reagan's German Trip: Furor over Remembrance," New York Times, April 18, 1985, p. A l .

20. David Hoffman, "Reagan Defends Plan to Visit German Military Cemetary;" l4ashintiton Post, April 13, 1985, p. A 1.

21. Jay Matthews and H,len Dewar, "Wiesenthal Rejects Trip to Bitburg; White House Seeks Holocaust Survivors to join Predident," Washington Post, April 27, 1985, p. A 1.

22. Hoffman,"Reagan Defends Plan."

23. "Transcript of Renta-ks by Reagan and Wiesel at White House Ceremony" New York Times, April 20, 1985, sec. 1, p. 4.

24. David Hoffman,"Ho goring Wiesel, Reagan Confronts the Holocaust; Bergen-Belsen Put on Trip Itinerary," Ihsluugton Post, April 20, 1985, p. A].

25. David Hoffman, "German Soldiers Called 'Victims'; Reagan Defends Itinerary," kI'ashington Post, April 18, 1985, p. Al.

26. The United States attached two reservations, five understandings, and a declaration.The second reservation held that the genocide convention could not authorize any legislation or action by the United States if it were prohibited by the U.S. Constitution. This provision has become a standard accompaniment to U.S. ratifications of international human rights treaties. It is problematic because it leaves the executive branch again free to decide, if a case of genocide arises, whether or not compliance with the treaty in the case at hand violates some provision of the U.S. Constitution, which it will interpret. Future presidents can thus reopen some of the very debates that had stalled ratification in the first place for nearly forty years. With this pair of reservations, the U.S. Senate riade it clear that it did not see the law as meaningfully -binding.-The Senate understanding held that the words "intent to destroy, in whole or in part" should be interpreted as the intent to destroy "in whole or in substantial part" the group concerned. In its 1988 implementing legislation, the Senate would define "substantial part" as "a part of a group of such numerical significance that the destruction or loss of that part would cause the destruction of the group as a viable entity within the nation of which such a group is a part."The Senate understood the words "mental harm" as the "permanent impairment of mental facilities through drugs, torture, or similar techniques"The Senate also "understood" that it would not participate in any future international criminal tribunal without ratifying a separate treaty to that effect.

27. Congressional Record, .9th Cong., 1st sess., 1985, 131, pt. 103:510203.

28. Ibid. An amendment )ffered by Senator Chris Dodd (D.-Conn.) to modify the effect of the ICJ reservation was defeated 8-9.

29. Congressional Record, 99th Cong., 2nd sess., 1986, 132, pt. 15:51355.

30. Ibid., pt. 16:S 144 1.

31. Ibid., pt. 15:S1355.

32. Ibid., 100th Cong., 2nd less., 1988, 134, pt. 8:S552.

33. "Remarks by President Ronald Reagan on the Occasion of Signing the Genocide Convention Implementation Act of 1987," Federal News Service, November 4, 1988.

34. Congressional Record, 100th Cong., 2nd less. 1988, 134, pt. 149:516798.

Chapter 8, Iraq

1. Middle East Watch, Genocide in Iraq: The Anal Campaign js ainst the Kurds (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1993), pp. 4-5, 56.

2. Kurds are divided not merely by party but by language and geography: Sorani speakers of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) are located east of the Greater Zab River; Kurmanji speakers of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) are found near the Turkish border to the river's north and west. On September 17, 1998, at the prodding of the Clinton administration, Barzani and Talabani signed the Washington agreement, in which the KDP and PUK affirmed Iraqi territorial integrity, committed themselves to improving the administration of the three northern provinces, and condemned in-fighting among them, pledging "to refrain from resorting to violence to settle differences or seeking outside intervention against each other"; Barton Gellman, "Kurdish Rivals Cement U.S.-Brokered Pact; Leaders of Northern Iraq Rebels Set Aside Bitter Feud, Agree to Share Power and Resources," Washington Post, September 18, 1998, p.A26.

3. See the Pike Committee Report, reprinted as "The Select Committee's Investigative Record;' Village (dice, February 16, 1976, p. 85.

4. Middle East Watch, Genocide in Iraq, p. 35.

5. Ibid., pp. 37-38. See also Isntet Sheriff Vanly, "Kurdistan in Iraq," in Gerard Chaliand, ed., A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan (New York: Olive Branch Press, 1993), pp. 185-188; David Hirst, "Rebels Without Recourse," The Guardian, December 7, 1976, p. 4; Shiloah Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Tel Aviv University, Middle East Conte,n- porary Survey, vol. 1, 1976-1977 (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1978), pp. 410-411; vol. 2, 1977-1978 (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1979), p. 521; and vol. 3, 1978-1979 (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1980), pp. 568-570.