B-52 carpet bombing
Samdech Head of State Norodom Sihanouk and Premier Pham Van Dong went to the opera "The Statuary" at the Hanoi Municipal Theater; Photo: Samdech Norodom Sihanouk and Premier Pham Van Dong congratulating the Vietnamese artistes after the performance..jpg)
Top photo: Khieu Samphan, Nguyen Huu Tho and Ieng SaryA. Gaffar Peang-Meth
Pacific Daily News (Guam)
Cambodia is a very old country. Her recorded history dates back to the first century A.D. But she has a very large young population. One source estimates that one-third of Cambodia's total population of 14 million is below the age of 15 years.It is no wonder that this young population appears to have little or no sense of why as many as two million people in Cambodia were killed from 1975-1979 by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime.
Yet Cambodians seem receptive of the view that U.S. B-52 bombings of Cambodia resulted in the radicalization of the Khmer Rouge, and the U.S. invasion of Cambodia eventually brought Pol Pot to power.
After all, Cambodians, young and old, frequently hear Premier Hun Sen's reminder: The killings wouldn't have occurred had Lon Nol's coup not taken place. This effective political socialization method has brought now King Father Sihanouk to describe Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party as the "younger sibling" and has diverted attention from KRT's investigation of other "suspects" involved in the Killing Fields. Sen was a Khmer Rouge northeastern regional commander.
The search for truth that presents only one side of the coin is at best an incomplete interpretation of historical facts -- a half-truth, if not a manipulation of facts.
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