Cambodian genocide denial is the belief expressed by some Western academics that early claims of atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge government (1975–1979) in Cambodia were much exaggerated. Many scholars of Cambodia and intellectuals opposed to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War denied or minimized reports of human rights abuses of the Khmer Rouge, characterizing contrary reports as "tales told by refugees" and U.S. propaganda. They viewed the assumption of power by the Communist Party of Kampuchea as a positive development for the people of Cambodia who had been severely impacted by the Vietnam War and the Cambodian Civil War. On the other side of the argument, anti-communists in the United States and elsewhere saw in the rule of the Khmer Rouge vindication of their belief that the victory of Communist governments in Southeast Asia would lead to a "bloodbath."
Scholar Donald W. Beachler, writing of the controversy about the range and extent of Khmer Rouge atrocities, concluded that "much of the posturing by academics, publicists, and politicians seems to have been motivated largely by political purposes" rather than concern for the Cambodian people. Cambodian scholar Sophal Ear has titled the pro-Khmer Rouge academics as the "Standard Total Academic View on Cambodia" (STAV).
With conclusive evidence, including the discovery of over 20,000 mass graves, of a large number of deaths—estimated at between one and three million—of Cambodians caused by the Khmer Rouge, denials, deniers, and apologists largely disappeared, although disagreements concerning the actual number of Khmer Rouge victims have continued.
Overview
Background
The Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, on 17 April 1975, and immediately ordered all the residents to evacuate the city. Between 2 and 3 million residents of Phnom Penh, Battambang, and other large towns were forced by the Communists to walk into the countryside without organized provision for food, water, shelter, physical security, or medical care. The evacuation probably resulted in at least 100,000 deaths. The dispossessed urban dwellers were assigned to re-education camps or "New Settlements." Former government employees and soldiers were executed. Soon, according to journalists, Cambodia resembled "a giant prison camp with the urban supporters of the former regime being worked to death on thin gruel and hard labor."
The Khmer Rouge guarded the border with Thailand and only a few thousand refugees were able to make their way to safety in Thailand. As virtually no Westerners were allowed to visit Cambodia, those refugees plus the official news outlets of the Khmer Rouge were the principal sources of information about conditions in Cambodia for the next four years.
Within one day of the Communists taking power, Fernand Scheller, chief of the United Nations development project in Phnom Penh stated, "What the Khmer Rouge are doing is pure genocide.... What is going on now is an example of demagoguery that makes one vomit."
"Standard Total Academic View on Cambodia" Donald W. Beachler has described the late 1970s debate about the character of the Khmer Rouge as follows:Many of those who had been opponents of U.S. military actions in Vietnam and Cambodia feared that the tales of murder and deprivation under the Khmer Rouge regime would validate the claims of those who had supported U.S. government actions aimed at halting the spread of communism. Conservatives pointed to the actions of the Khmer Rouge as proof of the inherent evils of communism and evidence that the U.S. had been right to fight its long war against communists in Southeast Asia.Despite the eye-witness accounts by journalists prior to their expulsion during the first few days of Khmer Rouge rule, and the later testimony of refugees; many academics in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Australia, and other countries portrayed the Khmer Rouge favorably or at least were skeptical about the stories of Khmer Rouge atrocities. None of them, however, were allowed to visit Cambodia until the final few days of Khmer Rouge rule (except Gunnar Bergstrom, president of the Sweden-Kampuchea Friendship Association) and few actually talked to the refugees whose stories they believed to be exaggerated or false.