Talk:Khmer Rouge/Archive 8

message: According to Kiernan and several other sources, a pro-Vietnamese faction of the Communist Party was in charge of "Eastern Zone" in Cambodia, and no genocide occurred there. When the Vietnamese moved in, it was in support of their Cambodian allies, who were at that time fighting a civil war against the Khmer Rouge. Should not this aspect  be more thoroughly highlighted?
Also, the fact that Khmer Rouge was very racist against ethnic minorities is noted by Kiernan. This deserves mention. (Just a passer-by's remark)
:I don't find that line of reasoning very convincing. The problem with it is that the facts of it are difficult to verify and the first people to popularize this idea were the Vietnamese themselves. Its a fact that the Vietnamese staffed their puppet government with ex-Khmer Rouge from the east (like Hun Sen), but I would consider all of them criminals. As far as a civil war within the Khmer Rouge, there isn't any documentation to support that. The east (and the Khmer Rouge in the east) were on the front lines of the war with Vietnam and the bloody raids into Vietnam. 152.163.100.200 02:16, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Khmer Rouge vs. "Eastern Zone" 

message: Actually I want to say 'disgusting.' 
Quote:
The Khmer Rouge's defenders have justified such actions by claiming that the country was on the verge of mass starvation as a result of U.S. bombing campaigns (figures for deaths vary considerably between 50,000 and 500,000 Cambodians), and that it was impossible to transport sufficient food to feed an urban population of between 2 and 3 million people. According to the Khmer Rouge's supporters this required forcibly evacuating the cities to the countryside so that people could become self-sufficient. In fact the motive for the evacuations was ideologically reflected in the Maoist doctrine which the Khmer Rouge followed, which praised the rural peasants and detested urban city dwellers.
#The first part of this basically says: 'It's impossible to transport food to the people, so let's transport the people to the food'. 
#*Yes it really makes sense that lacking the infrastructure to transport food, transporting people is plausible. No, not really.
#** Annoying sarcasm aside, transporting people is something you do once. Transporting food needs to be done repeatedly; thus there needs to be an infrastructure. Note that I in no way condone the actions of the Khmer Rouge. --Sunnan
#Then it goes on to say that urban people are not 'self-sufficient.' 
#*Really? New Yorkers, people living in Los Angeles, London, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Beijing are not self sufficient? You could have fooled me. Are the editors of this article trying to state something about division of labor here that they're not happy with? Is that really appropriate?
#** No, New Yorkers, people living in Los Angeles, London, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Beijing are not self sufficient. There's considerable import of goods from the countryside and from other regions. I actually read the passage you where quoting ("ideologically reflected in the Maoist doctrine") as anti-Maoist. I guess people read things differently... --Sunnan
#The non-apologetic use of 'forcible removal of people.'
#*There needs to be something here that says very clear and loudly that massive deportation of people is against human rights, and that no social agenda can justify this kind of inhumane government action.
#** For most people in the free world, the words "forcibly evacuating" are plenty damning in and of themselves. More is not needed if the goal is NPOV. --Sunnan (btw, I just discovered this page and I mean no disrespect to Ruy Lopez, Adam Carr and the others who quarrel over this. I was just annoyed with Bjorn's weird definition of POV/NPOV.)
#*Does that mean the massive deportation of people from the countryside to the cities, due to the US Air Force dropping 500,000 tons of bombs on the Cambodian countryside, is "very clear and loudly...against human rights" as well?  Ruy Lopez 04:36, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't doubt that, given time and patience, the article can be written in a way that will be NPOV to all sides. I'm offended by your statements. You give me a headache. --Sunnan
I see no reason why this article shouldn't be just deleted and rewritten. That's all. - Atomsprengja 02:52, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article is disturbing 

message: Folks, found this.  Seymour Hersh is a pulitzer prize winning journalist (for his work on reporting the My Lai Massacre...on a side note, there's one for you Ruy, an incident with American soldiers involved called a massacre...).  Bjorn, I don't think your current edit will work, it's to weasly (Some critics have speculated is the very definition of weasel wording).  Ruy, I haven't found the Sorpong Peou ref. yet in its entirety (Peou is a professor at the Sophia University in Tokyo, by the way, looked him up too), but from the Hersh book it looks like if we go with that one we would not have a reasonable expectation that we can put in exactly "CIA" and have it be truthful, yet.  I will dig some more, but the wording that I could live with would read something like this:  "Sources within the American intelligence community at the time have admitted to having made plans for a coup, and an assasination."  Not those words exactly, but I'm just thinking of this very quickly.  Please let me know.  Thanks.  --Easter Monkey 15:51, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow, good work. Looks legit. I wasn't trying to be weasily, just trying to find an acceptable compromise. Creating an article for Ruy's source would also go a long way to making it more acceptable (as long as that article has acceptable sources ;P). As for your discovery - if there's a source for it I'm down with it, but I think there needs to be something there too that describes the unpopularity of the idea. (Bjorn Tipling 18:06, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Samuel Thornton was a US intelligence officer in Indochina from 1968 until 1969.  If he is not notable, I wonder who would be a "notable" source who would have information of this kind.  Like many times before, you don't even have an argument here. Ruy Lopez 00:19, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

text: And of course, days after the coup, the US invaded Cambodia (unless you consider the invitation by one of the governments to make it a non-invasion - but then you'd have to modify the Afghanistan, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia articles).  But I guess that's just a coincidence Ruy Lopez 00:21, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Just because he was an intelligence officer doesn't mean he knew anything about what was going on. Maybe he was assigned to do cartography or something else totally unrelated. If he was in Naval intelligence then more than likely he had no idea what the CIA was doing. Those are two different organizations and I doubt they collaborate much. Who knows if he's telling the truth. Maybe he wasn't even on assignment. What information other than that he was in intelligence and in the area can you provide, Ruy, to assure us of the credibility and accuracy of this source? (Bjorn Tipling 01:41, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

text: So you're saying it happened in days as well - 60 days.  The reason the US invasion only went several miles into Cambodia is because the war spread not only from Vietnam to Cambodia, but back to the US as well.  The US government had to kill four students at Kent State protesting the invasion and two students at Jackson state.  The government thought this would shut down the students and workers who were against the war in the US, but after the US government murdered six or more people protesting Cambodia's invasion, what happened is almost every college campus in the US was shut down and taken over by the students.  The US government didn't want a repeat of May 1968. Ruy Lopez 01:59, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ruy has avoided personal attacks, can't the rest of us do that too? If there are credible sources for US involvment in Cambodian politics, then I think it should be mentioned. One thing I wonder though is how influential the US involvement could have been. The US has a history of helping rebel groups overthrow governments (helped U.S. friendly republicans overthrow the Kingdom of Hawai'i with U.S. Marines, help Philippines run out Spanish - but then took control itself, and also in South America, a failed attempt in Cuba for examples) so it's not as if it's so a ridiculous of an idea that the US might have been involved. But for us to include it in the article really we need a couple of things:
# Multiple, reliable, and unconnected sources. (And we need lots of information about these sources).
# Knowledge of the extent of possible U.S. involvement. If just say 'the US was involved' then it leaves people guessing as to how involved the country was. Most people will likely assume that the entire thing was orchestrated by the CIA when maybe all they did was provide some intelligence to the leaders of the coup or maybe just some training. We just need more information before we can put this in the article. I don't have a problem with truth, Ruy and Eastermonkey, no matter how unpopular it may be. I do have a problem with unfounded and unsupported conspiracies put in the article because you might be willing to quickly jump to conclusions because of a distaste for the US Government. We just need more information. One vague source in 'intelligence' (did he mop the floors there?) is not good enough - there is an engineer who worked with the U.S. Air Force at Groom Lake in Nevada who says the Air Force had extra-terrestrial equipment, are we to throw out conventional wisdom to belive this one person? No. (Bjorn Tipling 19:43, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Found this on google with search string of "Samuel Thornton Cambodia" 

message: Ruy Lopez still is reverting the article to include Samuel Thornton, attach the NPOV tag when no debate is going on, and is censoring links he doesn't like. So I'm going to repeat the questions: Why is Thornton so notable? What did he do in the intelligence business? Was he some average Joe guy or a top official? What "information" has he came forward with apart from his own (unverifiable) claims? Why do such shaky allegations have to be in an article that isn't even about the Cambodian coup? Hopefully, we can settle this mess if given a straight answer. CJK 22:06, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: One thing's for sure, calling him an officer is definitely a misrepresentation of who he is/was.  From the ref. material cited he is a yeoman, an enlisted man.  An intelligence specialist, perhaps, but not an officer, (it's an important distinction).  --Easter Monkey 16:03, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Another non-response. Since no one is engaging in an active debate, the NPOV tag is unjustified. CJK 22:10, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Asking a simple question is not "maniacal". To avoid anwering it is. I have responded to everything. Ruy has not, just as I had predicted. CJK 19:10, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Ruy Lopez still won't answer the questions

message: And that's good! (Bjorn Tipling 18:37, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps the block on Lopez has something to do with it. He probably won't be showing if he actually has to justify himself. CJK 23:23, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: He was blocked? I don't see anything on his talk page about it. He's still editing  (Bjorn Tipling 04:06, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Things seemed to have calmed down 

message: The Genocide in Cambodia, 1975-79, by Ben Kiernan; Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, Vol. 22, 1990
The article examines the Statistics on the Cham, but also an overview of the total population, statistics etc. The author answers to Vickery. Seems that I am not the only that accused Vickery of being a genocide denialist, since that is what the answer clearly imply. Fad (ix) 19:36, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relevent critic of Michael Vickery's methodology 

message: Sources? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Harris0 (talk • contribs) .
* Discussed at length in Philip Short's  Pol Pot:  Anatomy of a Nightmare; also see Google search: +Kropotkin +"pol pot" Heather 18:36, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kropotkin Influences? 

message: Ruy Lopez has once again inserted the source without anwering any questions as to who exactly Thornton was and how important he was and why his word should be taken at face value. CJK 00:11, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have answered this question at great length earlier on this discussion page. Ruy Lopez 15:35, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to SUMMARIZE it below.  Say, a paragraph.  Clearly state who the fellow is and your source for the information.  A2Kafir 15:45, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Here we go again

message: (My comments are only about the characterization of the US with regard to their activities that affected Khmer Rouge.)
I recommend the two sides (America did no right v. America did no wrong) find someone to arbitrate. Find an historian. I think both sides need to consider the realities of power. WAS 4.250 01:09, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well that's a nice "moderate" position you got there but not everything is always "in-between." Stoned Trey 02:32, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, compromise on representation of views should be possible (WP:NPOV). I was just wondering if anyone had read Kenton J. Clymer's book, and if so whether it's helpful.  Rd232 talk 01:22, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Do you '''like''' spending your time like this?

message: This article has almost no line citations.  I doubt the editors will be able to reach consensus unless this changes. Durova 00:34, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: RfC

message: Just to formally announce to anyone who is interested, arbitration has been requested with (largely) regards to this page. WP:RFAR CJK 02:30, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Arbitration

message: I wanted to understand more about this line, "The tribal pariahs, who were very accommodating, left such an impression that Saloth Sar considered them pure. This kind of purity was then adopted to the ideology." So I clicked on the link to 'pure' and landed at a page about cubism. Does this mean that cubism was somehow incorporated into the Khmer Rouge doctrine? If so, there should be deeper discussion on this! If not... the link should go away, but I don't feel comfortable editing this page with my limited knowledge of the subject. Please advise or correct. Rachel Forsmann 20:11, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Link to 'Purism' in "Political Ideology" 

message: I have wanted to stay out of this debate, and will continue to stay out of this debate for the most part.  
*First of all: I know nothing about Cambodia, and would have a difficult time finding it on the map.   
*Second of all: I know Ruy has been shown to be a sock puppet, and I am aware of the  harsh sanctions imposed on him on Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Appeal of VeryVerily. I do not condone Ruy's behavior and I actually encouraged and helped TDC  check Ruy's alleged sockpuppets.
*Third: I actively throw around labels on my adversaries. My favorite is: "apologist", but I have also been banned for comparing CJK's views to a holocaust denier.   So I am well aware that it is a valid argument to call me a hypocrite by pointing out CJK and Adam own character attacks.  It is very important to remember: my own personal character attacks does not lessen the guilt or innocence of those who attack Ruy.  In other words, no matter how much I may use character attacks against others, that in no way makes CJK and Adam's character attacks more acceptable.
Character Attacks on Ruy
Now those three points are out of the way, The reason I am here is to mention the repeated attacks on Ruy, particularly by Adam and CJK.  My cursory (quick) look at these comments here and I notice how much Adam and CJK especially use character attacks on Ruy.  
::Adam: "Because his "reasonable" persona is a facade for the fact that he is a dedicated communist, as is reflected in all his edits."
::CJK: "Ruy Lopez can't provide another source of decent credibility (actually, the first one does not have credibility either) because he is a blind anti-American communist propagandist. That might sound a bit harsh, but its true, as any respected user knows."
::CJK: "If Lopez was just an "anti-American communist" I would be OK, however he is more than that. He is an outright liar and a fraud, a liar because of his false accusations on a personal and historical level, a fraud because of his inability to answer the questions or cite decent sources."
::Dr. Trey: "There is no "disagreement" about this. Whether or not Lopez is personally a communist, he spends a lotta time on wik making sure nothing bad's said about Uncle Joe, Uncle Ho, Our Dear Leader...you name it"
CJK and Adam call Ruy a communist and anti-American.  As I have said in the RfC against Ruy, unless Ruy has come out and said he was a communist, it is unfair and irrelevant to label him as a communist.  
But even if he did admit that he was a communist, his political affiliation in no way lessens or increases the rationality of his arguments.  In otherwords: seperate the argument from the man.  
Red baiting
You would think Red baiting died with the death of the USSR, but it is alive and well here on wikipedia.  Throughout American history, American politicans have labeled others communists to destroy their ideas and sometimes even take away their freedoms.  It has been a very effective tool of oppression and fear.
Moral repugnance
In high school my english teacher said that Hitler's experiments on human beings did provide some scientific merit in understanding disease.  She tempered this justification by saying that she was only trying to be "balanced".  I was sickened by the very idea of this "balance" for years afterword. But, admitatly, she was right, despite the moral repugnance of her ideas, Hitler's experiments on human beings did provide some scientific merit in understanding disease.  Adam and CJK may see Ruy's edits as morally repugnant, as justifying the KR.  This is probably true.  But there are always two sides to every story.  Silencing Ruy because his views are repugnant is wrong.  Silencing Ruy because his wikipedia edit behavior breaks the rules is right.
The first contentious paragraph on this talk page reads:
:The Khmer Rouge's defenders have justified such actions by claiming that the country was on the verge of mass starvation as a result of U.S. bombing campaigns (figures for deaths vary considerably between 50,000 and 500,000 Cambodians), and that it was impossible to transport sufficient food to feed an urban population of between 2 and 3 million people. According to the Khmer Rouge's supporters this required forcibly evacuating the cities to the countryside so that people could become self-sufficient. In fact the motive for the evacuations was ideologically reflected in the Maoist doctrine which the Khmer Rouge followed, which praised the rural peasants and detested urban city dwellers.
This paragraph seems like it is explaining the other side, as despicable as that other side may be.  Isn't that the whole idea of NPOV?  To explain both sides of the story?  I have argued somewhere else that their is a fine line between historical context and justifying attrocities.  Does this paragraph step over the line? I will leave that to the KR experts to decide.  
Adam: I was there
Another issue that bothers me is how Adam repeatedly mentions that he has been to Cambodia.  For some reason whenever he mentions this I remember the Republican Senator who traveled to the Philippines during the Philippine-American War and constantly used this argument to defuse critics of the war: "I was there" he would constantly repeat.  How long were you in Cambodia Adam?  I lived in Ukraine for 2 and a half years and I noticed how ex-pats usually stuck to themselves and never really assimulated into the culture, even after 2 and a half years of living there, and even writing a guidebook on Ukraine, I still am hesitant to use "I was there" to trump others arguments, because even living in Ukraine for 2 and a half years was not long enough. How long were you in Cambodia Adam? Do you know Cambodian?
Is there any actual Cambodians here editing this page? Or is it all Americans? 
It really troubles me that so many people on this talk page want to silence Ruy simply because they disagree with his controversial political views.
I look forward to CJK's and Adam's response.
Signed.Travb 12:50, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What is the relevancy of this long exposé with the content of the article? Fad (ix) 20:15, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Attacks on Ruy 

message: As of today I can't find any reference to US bombing of Cambodia. Most historians agree that they played a major role in Khmer Rouge's rise to power. Ericd 13:15, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Most historians do not agree that the bombing played a major role in the rise of the Khmer Rouge. The rise of the Khmer Rouge was due to a civil war in Cambodia, Sihanouk lending his support to the Khmer Rouge and almost unlimited military supplies provided by Vietnam, the Soviet Union and China. The bombing caused massive destruction in Cambodia, but it didn't create the KR or make them do what they did. 168.127.0.51 19:56, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: US Bombings

message: :"Most historians do not agree" but obviously they were not there when the bombs went off. The Khmer Rouge found the US Bombings to be a great reason to evacute the Cambodians and fuel their hatred toward Western Civilation. Thanks a lot Nixon.
No, those were merely excuses on the part of the Khmer Rouge.  Though these bombings were horrendous US atrocities against the Khmer and Vietnamese people, they were just one excuse of many which the Khmaey Krahom used or could have used.  --Ionius Mundus 01:32, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "secret" bombing 

message: Just wondering what 'Fundinernment' means, it's used in the 'Recovery and trials' section and a google search brings up only wikipedia hits and the same line used in a few different articles. Quote from article: "Fundinernment said that due to the poor economy and other financial commitments, it could only afford limited funding for the tribunal." Thesm 13:41, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: What on earth is 'Fundinernment'?

message: Now that Ruy Lopez has apparently either left or been banned from Wikipedia, I am returning to this article in the hope that sensible discussion can now take place. Using David P Chandler The Tragedy of Cambodian History and Steve Heder Cambodian Communism and the Vietnamese Model (both recognised authorities) I am going to rewrite it from scratch since it is a horrible mess after months of edit warring. I am also proposing to move the bulk of the article to Communist Party of Cambodia, which was what the organisation that actually ran the country from 1975 to 1979 was called at that time (Kampuchea is just another spelling of Cambodia). Left at this article will be an account of the origins and various meanings of the term "Khmer Rouge." Is everyone OK with that? Adam 12:33, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: This article

message: Hes died please update page as more information ecomes avaliable.--Lucy-marie 00:14, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Now deceased 

message: I'm not sure labelling the Khmer Rouge "Maoist" is in anyway factually correct and seems to me to be too POV oriented. Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge never took on the label as a "Mao Tsetung Thought" or "Maoist" Party. I also see really no references to the ideological backround of Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot himself was eccletically influenced by people from the French Communist Party and Kropotkin's work. The only real link I can see between Mao and Khmer Rouge is that Mao briefly met Polt Pot and other Khmer leaders in 1975, and that China provided aid to the Khmer Rouge....but this is a tedious link to ideological connections.
--Riot Fred 20:32, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maoist? 

message: "In the past, Vietnam was a province of China" - this sentence is wrong
It would be correct to say that Vietnam was a tributary of China. Adam 10:15, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need to correct 

message: I went to Cambodia this summer and I went to the museum that displays information about this crazy genocide.  
First of all, the museum is actually a school.  When the Khmers invaded, the school was evacuated and the class rooms were used as prisons to keep normal civilians inside.  Inside these classrooms today are still the beds and chains that bound the prisoner to the room.  On the wall of each classroom is a photo of the corpse found in the room when American or French (I forgot who came right after the genocide) soldiers discovered it.  
One of the rooms were completely filled with photos.  Not only were the photos of victims but also the photos of the ruthless killers.  The amazing thing is, none of the killers were older than twenty.  Most of the killers, including girls, were estimated to be around fifteen and sixteen, mostly adolescents from the worst part of Cambodia where guerilla bandits frequent.  Adolescents were recruited as soldiers for this genocide because they could be easily manipulated to torture and kill fellow civilians.  
Pictures in another room showed weapons and tools used for torture.  One of the rooms showed cells made of bricks that were clearly exposed so that soldiers could patrol and keep eye on the prisoners.  The whole school museum screamed of pain from lost souls.
In Reply: I'm not sure about this, but I will say a different thing. Children were used to find out and point out suspected traitors, so they can become killed. Just like how the movie Equilibrium uses children to point out people.
Paracite 05:58, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Children Killers not mentioned 

message: Without the Soviet support, China and the United States came to aid the Khmer regime. seems to indicate that there was US aid to the KR and/or DK before 1979. While there are ample sources that talk about US direct and indirect aiding of the KR post-1979, I have not come across any sources that say that the US was aiding the KR pre-1979. Most sources (including Elizabeth Becker's first-hand account) only talk about the presence of Chinese advisers in Phnom Penh. -- Thaths 05:24, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  pre-1979 US aid of the KR / DK?