It is 50 years since the Khmer Rouge regime murdered, starved and tortured millions. A decade prior, the US left millions of UXO (unexploded ordinances) that kill and maim to this day. Now the US Government has withdrawn from the Mine Ban Treaty.

On 17 April, 1975, Cambodian Communist Forces, known to the outside world as the Khmer Rouge, arrived in Phnom Penh. They drove their entire population into the countryside without explanation. More than two million were forced out of cities across the country. In the case of the Khmer Rouge, urban dwellers were designated as “Enemies of the People”, which meant their lives had no intrinsic worth.

In the week of 13 April, I sat down in Melbourne with Emeritus Professor David Chandler, 92. He offers insight into to the regime’s unstoppable velocity. He is a scholar of Cambodian history and war, an American Australian, Pol Pot biographer, poet, and author of many books, including four editions of The History of Cambodia (Chandler, 2007, 2008), and Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot’s Secret Prison (1999).

Peg Levine: This month marks 50 years since the Khmer Rouge regime began their mass murders. You were living in Cambodia after the French Protectorate, yet well before the Lon Nol regime (1970-75) and Khmer Rouge (1975-79). Can you speak to the trajectory and ideologies that drove Pol Pot and his comrades to commit crimes against humanity against the Khmer people and also genocide against ethnic Vietnamese and Cham people?

David Chandler: Yes, I went there from October 1960 to December 1962 to work for the US Foreign Service as a language officer before an English-Cambodian dictionary existed. I listened to speeches by Prince Sihanouk who had just been sworn in as head of state (well before he was overthrown by Lon Nol). In 1960, too, Saloth Sar (renamed as Pol Pot) and Nuon Chea formed the CPK or Communist Party of Kampuchea. It was King Sihanouk who named the communist opponents as the Khmer Rouge or Red Khmer.  In 1962, I wrote about village life where my Cambodian attendant lived. Descriptions are found in my article, “Coming to Cambodia”.

PL: Was there any hint of what was brewing then?

DC: There was little hint of unrest in Cambodia other than city demonstrations against the Americans. There was no resistance against Sihanouk. I freely drove my old Karmann Ghia VW to Siem Reap. About 1962, the tone changed. Free passage into Saigon ended in border checkpoints. Saigon became unsafe, and foreign journalists arrived to investigate. The American Embassy closed and the Australian Embassy stepped in to assume those duties. I was reassigned to Panama, and later Columbia, for other duties.

PL: How did other countries play a role in the Khmer Rouge advancements at this time?

DC: First, the Khmer Rouge could not have done what they did without the Vietnamese Communists (Viet Cong); the VC-trained Cambodian soldiers won their war against the Lon Nol regime (that the American Government was weaponising). Boosting Khmer Rouge power, paradoxically, were the various US presidents over more than a decade. Beginning with President Kennedy’s term (1961-63), the US displayed regime-like activities in the Indochina region, a location that held great value to the American Government. Then, Lyndon Johnson (1963-69) orchestrated used full military might, such as “Operation Rolling Thunder” in which bombing against North Vietnam spread to Cambodia. Then came Richard Nixon in 1969; he resigned in 1974. He devised “Operation Menu” (1969-70) and “Operation Freedom” (1970-73) which stepped up bombing in Cambodia. It was easy for Lon Nol’s regime (1970-75) to gain military aid from the US and plunder the countryside. In this context, the Viet Cong trained Cambodian soldiers to assist them in overthrowing Lon Nol’s regime. And it is easy to grasp how Cambodian people resented America. Such sentiments gave the Khmer Rouge an advantage; their popularity increased while being brutalised by Lon Nol and American bombing.

PL: By 1973, CPK controlled about 80% of the outlying zones of Cambodia. As anti-US sentiment grew, recruitment of child and adult soldiers got easier before 17 April 1975 and they capitalised on using youth trained by the Viet Cong. By 1976, mass murder was certain and CPK renamed the state as Democratic Kampuchea. Were there any hints of this possibility in 1962 before you left Cambodia?

DC: Inside Cambodia, life was idyllic. In 1960-62, seasons still animated daily life — all those smells at the markets and family village gatherings — sarongs, traditional music, literature, monks, temples, offerings to ancestors, all the colours and festivals. I was a single foreigner who could travel alone along village lines, greeted here and there. I truly fell in love with the place and the people and Angkor legacies.

PL: As the biographer of Pol Pot, can you note turning points in his life?

DC: He was born Saloth Sar in 1925. Childhood experiences and years in Europe influenced what came next. In the early 1950s, revolutionary groups were discussing Marx and Lenin. He became Pol Pot while in Paris (1949-53). In 1952, Salath published an essay, “Monarchy or Democracy?”. He studied revolutionary purges of monarchies in Russia, China, and France. Somehow, he was interested in Sun Yat-sen, but not Mao Zedong.

In Paris, Saloth engaged with Ieng Sary and others who later were part of his regime. His favourite philosopher was Jean-Jacque Rousseau and he read widely. But he was not a good executive and did not go far in formal schooling. He saw the Communist resistance movement challenge French colonists in the last years of Stalin. From Paris, he went to Yugoslavia, worked as a labourer and experienced socialist labour mobilised. Back in Paris, he sided with the French Communist Party. Returning to Cambodia, he engaged the Communist resistance against Vietnam and the Indochina Communist Party. In 1965, his visit to Vietnam and Vietnamese patrons was highly influential. From there, he made his way to China at the start of the 1966 cultural revolution; he was impressed. But he left China too early, with a false forecast and heightened fervour for what China could be, but never was.

In closing: The trajectory of Pol Pot’s regime zigzagged at high speed into genocide, crimes against humanity and and ritualcide (term coined by this author re: destruction of traditional ritual infrastructure).

US military databases estimate America left about 26 million explosive submunitions inside Cambodia during the Vietnam war and under the rule of President Johnson (1965-73). Bombings set between 1.9 million and 5.8 million cluster munition remnants: unexploded submunitions: BLU-24, BLU-26, BLU-36, BLU-42, BLU-43, BLU-49, and BLU-61. [Source: Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor]. This happened a decade before the Khmer Rouge acquired their own weapons from China.

Before then, Agent Orange rained its slow-death sentence for generations to come, signed by President Kennedy. Villagers in Kompong Cham province recall “Yellow Dew” glistening on their fruit trees after US aircraft flew low by night.

This year, Cambodians around the globe offer rituals to their ancestors. Now, under another American president’s rule of law, Trump withdraws from the Mine Ban Treaty. So who will clear the submunitions bearing US identification numbers under Johnson’s rule? Who will fund mine education materials for children who risk mutilation? The aftermath of murderous regimes is unending – unnerving.