Cambodian genocide denial

**Cambodian genocide denial** refers to the false belief that the Cambodian genocide did not happen or was not as bad as it was.

### 1973: End of intervention in Indochina

In 1973, the U.S. government withdrew troops from Indochina following two decades of intervention, which had become unpopular at home, with years of anti-war protests, led by pro-communist forces with significant academic influence.

### 1975: Fall of Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam to communism

By 1975, American public opinion turned against further intervention in Indochina. The anti-communist governments in Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam collapsed in April 1975 under the renewed onslaught of the Warsaw Pact-armed Pathet Lao, Khmer Rouge and Viet Cong respectively, which was quickened by American public opposition to further military aid to the said governments. The 1973 Paris Peace Accords – intended to end the Indochina Wars – failed as a result of the communist forces breaking the Accords.

### 1975 – 79: Cambodian genocide

Following communist takeover in Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam, millions of civilians perceived as enemies of communism were subject to tortures, massacres, forced labor and genocides, notable of which was the Cambodian genocide having killed as many as 3,000,000 ( of the Cambodian population), or forced into exile as boat refugees – 400,000 of whom died in the South China Sea before they could reach anywhere.

## Academia

On the debate about the Cambodian genocide, American political scientist Donald W. Beachler remarked,

Despite the abundance of verified testimonies from Cambodian refugees and foreign witnesses, Cambodian genocide denial within academia was widespread in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Australia etc.

### Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman

With the transnational academic-cultural network tied to their status in Western academia, American scholars Noam Chomsky (1928 – ) and Edward S. Herman (1925 – 2017) published several books making the survivors look bad, opposing the genocide classification and the confirmed death toll of the Cambodian genocide, which influenced hundreds of millions worldwide into doing the same.

### Gareth Porter

In 1976, American historian Gareth Porter (1942 – ) co-authored the book _Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution_ with George Hildebrand in which he denied that one million Cambodians had already been killed by the Khmer Rouge. On May 3, 1977, Porter repeated his denial at the Solarz hearing in the U.S. Congress.

Historians have been critical of _Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution_. Particularly, historian Bruce Sharp conducted an in-depth research on the citations of that book. Of the 50 citations in a chapter of that book, 33 were traced to the state propaganda of the Khmer Rouge, while 6 from that of the CCP, which served as a proof of their confirmation bias and intellectual dishonesty.

Recalling the encounter later in his life, Solarz called Porter's Cambodian genocide denial "cowardly and contemptible," comparing him to those who denied the Holocaust.

### Samir Amin

Egyptian-French economist Samir Amin had been a good friend of Pol Pot and Khieu Samphan since the time they were studying in France. When the Cambodian genocide was exposed, Amin continued to praise the Khmer Rouge as the most superior communist model. When asked again about the Cambodian genocide in 1986, Amin responded with an inversion of reality by blaming the "American imperialists", the Vietnamese communists, and Lon Nol for the suffering of the Cambodians.

### François Ponchaud

François Ponchaud (1939 – ) is a French priest who lived in Cambodia during the genocide. As a witness, he documented the genocide in his book _Cambodge Année Zéro_ (_Cambodia: Year Zero_), which attracted biased criticism from Noam Chomsky and Gareth Porter who denied the genocide. In response, Ponchaud called out their intellectual dishonesty,

### Sophal Ear

Cambodian-American historian Sophal Ear satirically referred to the biased narrative of pro-Khmer Rouge Western leftists as the **Standard Total Academic View on Cambodia** (**STAV**),

### William Shawcross

British journalist William Shawcross criticized the STAV academics as well. His criticism was endorsed by human rights activist David Hawk who pointed out that

## Related pages

- Holocaust denial
- Holodomor denial
- Bosnian genocide denial
- Rwandan genocide denial
- Armenian genocide denial