Longtime Scholar [David Chandler] Sees Disappointment in Trials Ahead

David Chandler, a researcher and author who writes a book about Khmer Rouge history, seen in a screen at the court press center of the U.N.-backed tribunal in Phnom Penh, in 2009. (Photo: AP)

Im Sothearith, VOA Khmer
Washington, DC Tuesday, 02 November 2010

[Editor's note: The Khmer Rouge tribunal is expected to benefit Cambodia by bringing justice to senior-most leaders of the regime, creating reconciliation for its victims and offering a model to the national courts. But the measure of its success has been varied. VOA Khmer spoke with David Chandler, a Cambodian scholar and author and former diplomat posted in Phnom Penh.]

You have been following Cambodian politics and history closely for decades. As a diplomat in the early 1960s, did you foresee the tragedy that would befall the country? How did this happen?

When I was there in 1960, I certainly had no idea that this was going to happen. We didn’t even know the Vietnam War was going to happen. That was what catalyzed the Cambodian civil war, followed by the Khmer Rouge victory. That had barely started when I was there. The fighting had barely begun. I certainly couldn’t imagine Cambodia changing itself rapidly. But of course the changes that happened in the late 1960s, when I wasn’t there, were quite extensive in the society and in the growth of the communist resistance and in the Vietnam War and in the gradual loss of confidence that people felt in [then-prince Norodom] Sihanouk. When I was there Sihanouk was immensely popular, except among a few members of the elite. But by the time he was thrown out, I think he was quite unpopular, certainly in Phnom Penh. So that was a big change that I wasn’t able to predict, but it did happen when I was not there. I was not in the position to foresee anything when I was in Cambodia in 1960-62. It seemed to me a quite wonderful country to be posted to and to study.