Cambodia: Year Zero

by François Ponchaud, Nancy Amphoux (Translator)

On its publication in France, Cambodia: Year Zero received worldwide attention as the first detailed account of the 1975 Cambodian Communist revolution -- one of the most brutal and least understood revolutions in history. Jean Lacouture, reviewing the French edition in the New York Review of Books, hailed it as "by far the best informed report to appear on the new Cambodia." Now, updated and with a new introductory note on the English translation, Cambodia: Year Zero remains the most authoritative source we have on contemporary Cambodia.

Its author, Francois Ponchaud, was a missionary in Cambodia from 1965 until he was forced to flee Phnom Penh in May, 1975, just before the total victory of the Khmer Rouge. He observed at first hand the evacuation of the city and later amassed testimony from scores of Cambodian refugees in Thailand, Vietnam, and France. Their accounts of the horrors they endured -- forced migration into the countryside, forced labor, starvation, disease, mass murder, separation of families -- are presented in their own words, along with official radio and print communiques from the revolutionary government of Cambodia.

Ponchaud traces the roots of the revolution in Cambodia's history -- including the role that the United States and other foreign powers played -- and presents portraits of the revolutionary leaders. The shocking, close-up view Ponchaud provides is of a nation that has shut itself off from the outside world and a government that has systematically destroyed its own people and their past.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Asia, Politics, War

212 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

François Ponchaud was a French Catholic priest and missionary to Cambodia. He was best known for his documentation of the genocide which occurred under the Khmer Rouge (KR), and for being one of the first people to expose the human rights abuses being carried out at the time.

Reviews

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best insights from a western missionary who was there in Cambodia in the years around year zero. Using personal accounts and transcripts from interviews it builds a really harrowing picture of the events that should never be forgotten.

[alexander · Rating 3 out of 5]

maoist vision of agricultural, rural utopia... good. said vision in hands of delusional, paranoid fucks... bad.

[Gjermund Stensrud · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ikke den beste boken om folkemordet i Kambodsja, men siden den ble gitt ut mens det skjedde er det en viktig bok om temaet.

[Jane Griffiths · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps the most important source book on the nightmare that was the Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia. "Le temoin d'une revolution menee jusqu'a l'extreme de sa logique interne, comme dans une experience de laboratoire" ("witness to a revolution taken to the extremes of its own internal logic, as if in a laboratory experiment")> It was published in France in 1978, so while the Khmer Rouge were still in control. In the early days and weeks after the Khmer Rouge capture of Phnom Penh there were squadrons detailed to empty the abandoned houses and shops: medicines and drugs were especially in demand - and pile the goods into barges - whose crews were Vietnamese. The KR pulled the books out of the libraries and burned them. But they planted bananas on the lawns and in the parks, so the people would have something to eat. It's a very raw and immediate account of 17th April 1075 and what happened next. He was (got out three weeks later, lucky him), a Catholic priest, a Khmer speaker, and often an interpreter. After May 1975, when he got out, he relies on the testimonies of people who escaped, to Thailand or Vietnam or France: in the case of France he often spoke with them much later. This is very much worth reading, for its immediacy, for personal accounts from people who were often very young and impressionable at the time, and because he did not have to rely on French or English (or Chinese or Vietnamese) speakers, he could hear from humble people: farmers, peasants, people who who had been street sellers when there were still people in the streets, and so on. The cities were emptied, and money was trodden into the mud, as there was no longer any use for it.

The descriptions of the empty cities! People were told, by gun-toting teenage Khmer Rouge soldiers, to leave the cities, and they did.

Re-education only began some months after the takeover (remember, the whole regime lasted less than four years): to begin with, everyone who was deemed to need it (re-education) was simply shot, or bashed in the back of the head with an axe handle (this last reserved for those deemed least useful to the new society, so as not to waste a bullet).

In the end Ponchaud says plaintively that at the time the French media were concerned about the fate of people in other places - everywhere but Cambodia, which after all had been a French colony for 90 years, until 1953 (ceded, unlike Vietnam, which was lost in a bloody battle in 1954, also on 17th April).

[Sandra D · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very dated; written during the beginning of the Khmer Rouge regime before the full horror of the "Killing Fields" era was played out. Useful for understanding the origins of how it all came to be, but the writing was terribly dry.

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good. One of the first books on the Khmer Rouge. Still, not too informative, just gives you a feel for what people were thinking at the time

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating 4.5

This fascinating and heartbreaking narrative provides a real-time glimpse of the horrors of the Khmer Rouge period in Cambodia (1975-1979).

Ponchaud, a French mission worker, was in Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975. He was trapped in the French embassy for a few weeks until the KR allowed him and the rest of the expats to leave.

The book reports and analyzes the situation as it unfolded. Ponchaud, who is fluent in Khmer, was able to understand the KR radio broadcasts and provide key information about the ideology and brutal actions of the KR. Sadly, some didn't believe his account at first, claiming he was too sensationalistic.

Chapter 9, "The Revolution of the Ultras," is pure gold. It explains how the KR was able to take over the country and gives a nuanced portrait of the Khmer mindset at the time.

I learned so much from this book, which I accidentally stumbled upon in a second-hand shop in Phnom Penh. I'm glad I found it!

[Ana-Maria Bujor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very important book due to the year it was written, very close to the time of the events, but also because the author got to witness some events personally. While there are many testimonies used, the book rather provides a larger picture of what happened, the ideology, social impact, general victimisation, as well as the history that allowed for everything to happen. If only more people had paid attention..

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This reads like an well-written research paper. It is broader than Bizot's very personal The Gate and covers what was happening in the countryside. It also gives a quick and dirty 45 (1930-1975) year history of Cambodia. (parts of which had puzzling descriptions such as "The wives put a stop to that.")

All in all a great place to start reading about the effects the Khmer Rouge had on Cambodia.

[Willem Bant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interessant en schokkend, ook al zijn de meeste zaken bekend.

[Mona · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the most detailed compilations of interview accounts from so many perspectives. So glad I found this gem of a book. As atrocious as the accounts were, reading this gave me a 360° view of what happened.

[Mark Dark · Rating 3 out of 5]

extremely informative and shocking

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only a hint of the photos to come "oh the horror!"

[Patrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Factually compelling and a necessary accounting of the methodical madness of the Khmer Rouge prison. But, in terms of literature, it is more of a comprehensive report than good story telling.

[Mahmut Homsi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horror Horror Horror!

[Keen Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

"See nothing, hear nothing, know nothing, understand nothing."

I’ve read quite a number of books on Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, this one differs from the others in that, as far as I can see, this was the only one published whilst the genocide was still going on and so gives it a chilling immediacy and naivety, when we consider now what was going on in Kampuchea at the time. With many mixed and conflicting reports emerging in the late 70s, the author wasn’t even aware at this stage that Pol Pot was the leader and that so much killing had gone on, nor is there any explicit knowledge or mention of S-21.

This book is largely made up of a collection of transcribed radio broadcasts, personal accounts of refugees and of course the author himself details his own limited experience of the horror. Lies, deception and propaganda are par for the course when it comes to dictatorships, but what went on in Cambodia between 1975-79 surely makes it a strong candidate for the most brain dead attempt at revolution in modern history. Killing all the people who are best qualified to help build a new, stronger country in favour of letting ignorant, illiterate peasants rule?... The bizarre thing is that Pol Pot (himself a former school teacher and apparently well liked too) and many of his closest henchmen were from fairly privileged backgrounds and/or studied abroad and yet these were the very people they wanted to exterminate?...Like many regimes it was built on a puzzling series of contradictions, lies and untruths that defied rational explanation. This is a system that rejected basic and essential medicines and treatment in favour of antiquated Khmer pharmacopoeia in the belief that anything perceived to be western was to be distrusted and destroyed no matter what the cost to their so called revolution?...Madness doesn’t even begin to cover it.

This was a really interesting read, that took a fresh enough angle on the horror to make it worthwhile reading, even for those who may have read much on the subject already. He provides some historical background without getting bogged down and allows us to see the horror from many angles, making this an important historical document and valuable lesson too.

[Andrew Tattersall · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well researched and sourced book written as the Khmer Rouge were starting the miserable reign in Cambodia by someone who had lived there for the ten years before and was in the last batch of foreigners to leave the country after 17th April 1975. The full horror of what was to happen was not known but it is clear from this that what was happening in the country was known outside it.

Why was nothing done? Why was the genocide allowed to happen? Why were the Vietnamese internationally vilified for rescuing the country? Answers to these questions there are none but evidence of the fact what was going to happen was known by the outside world as it was happening. The details of the impact upon ordinary Cambodians is quite stark. I have to remind myself that this was from the first year of the Khmer Rouge's reign. And that people in the west, like Chomsky, defended these barbarians,unbelievable. Well worth reading if you care at all about Cambodia, not just because of what it says but the questions it poses.

[Karlo Mikhail · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sketchy but reflective of the prevailing atmosphere of fear and anxiety as well as the general lack of information on the secretive Khmer Rouge regime at the time of its writing.