From: matus (matus@snet.net)
Date: Sun Mar 16 2003 - 21:46:56 MST
From: "Alex Future Bokov" <alexboko@umich.edu>
[quote from: matus@snet.net on 2003-03-16 at 14:51:32]
I would also be interested, however, in seeing a similiar list of rights
lost
by the people of south vietnam when the communist North Vietmanese finally
overtook the south directly because of the US abandoment of the region.
(An abandoment, which I remind you, that you found just) Any interest in
compiling such a list Samantha?
"Screw Vietnam."
Well that certainly seems to be the general attitude of most Americans, then
and now. Who cares? They arent people, right? Never mind that millions of
Indochinese people were slaughtered and enslaved. They werent Americans, we
didnt know any of them, right?
"Let the Vietnamese compile their own lists."
They probably would if they didnt have to worry about being killed for it.
Im sure such a list of lost rights just after the fall of saigon might have
read:
- the right not to have your skull bashed in by the but of rifle
- the right to not have to dig your own grave before being executed as an
'enemy of the people'
- the right to propery, speech
- the right to not be enslaved and forced into peasant farming
- the right to life of nearly 1 million people
A similiar list in cambodia might have added
- The right to more than a quarter cup of rotten corn every day
- the right to express feelings of an emotional nature to loved ones (The
khmer rouge would often execute anyone for public displays of affection, as
it demonstrated that they valued something more than the state)
- the right to express sorrow at the news of the loss of a child without
being executed, a child who had been carted off to a distant slave labor
farm and surprisingly died despite his healthy quarter cup of rotten corn
every day (again, expressing grief at the loss of a child demonstrated that
someone loved themselves or their children more than the state)
- the right to life for 2 - 3 million cambodians
- Excerpt -
"[Tan Samay's] pupils hanged him. A noose was passed around his neck; then
the rope was passed over the branch of a tree. Half a dozen children between
eight and ten years old held the loose end of the rope, pulling it sharply
three or four times, dropping it in between. All the while they were
shouting, "Unfit teacher! Unfit teacher!" until Tan Samay was dead. The
worst was that the children took obvious pleasure in killing.
----A Khmer Rouge execution "
AND
"The devastating history of Cambodia during the 1960s and 1970s is
intimately bound up with the Vietnam War. Communist North Vietnamese
provided military aid and soldiers to Cambodia's own communist guerrillas,
the Khmer Rouge or Red Cambodians. Cambodia was an avenue for war supplies
from North Vietnam to the Viet Cong guerrillas fighting under their command
in South Vietnam against South Vietnamese and American troops. As a result,
the United States systematically bombed Khmer Rouge guerrillas and Viet Cong
supply routes, and in a final attempt to destroy these routes, invaded
Cambodia from South Vietnam. But, American Congressional and public opinion
hostile to the invasion soon forced American forces to retreat back to South
Vietnam.
In proportion to its population, Cambodia underwent a human catastrophe
unequaled by any other country in the twentieth century (see Figure 1.2 of
my Death By Government). It probably lost slightly less than 4,000,000
people to war, rebellion, manufactured famine, and democide--genocide,
nonjudicial executions, and massacres--or close to 56 percent of its 1970
population. Between 1970 and 1980, from democide alone, successive
governments and guerrilla groups murdered almost 3,300,000 men, women, and
children, including 35,000 foreigners. Most of these, probably as many as
2,400,000, were murdered by the communist Khmer Rouge, both before and (to a
much greater extent) when they took over Cambodia after April 1975. These
statistics are shown in Table 6.2 here.2
The United States had supported and supplied the Cambodian military
government of General Lon Nol. But the American Congress ended all aid to
him with the withdrawal of the United States from the Vietnam War in 1973.
After successive retreats, Lon Nol could no longer even defend the capital,
Phnom Penh, against the Khmer Rouge guerrillas. The Cambodian army then
declared a cease-fire and laid down its arms. "
- end excerpt - from http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/WF.CHAP6.HTM
"Sorry if I sound insensitive or selfish... it's probably because I am. And
precisely because of said selfishness, I do retain a keen interest in my
rights."
I value my rights dearly as well. Do you not also value the rights of other
human beings as well?
"So, power to you, Samantha. I definitely hope you keep your focus, get it
done soon, and make it known far and wide. The world (me especially) needs
to know!"
In this I also totally agree, If Samantha's list is accurate and objective,
by all means, spread it far and wide, I myself will be glad to spread the
link to her list as well. The world does need to know, but the world also
needs to know the attrocities that befell the people of Indochina, the
attrocities caused by a general abandomnent of those people by the US at the
insistence of its people and its politicians to the hands of known terrible,
murderous, and horrific regimies. Do we not value freedom for all peoples?
Some members of this list supported this abandonment and actually refer to
these events that followed as a 'victory for the good guys'
"Ignore the attacks from people who will go to any lengths and justify
anything under the sun for the sake of ideology."
Do you mean to imply that I am 'going any length' to 'justify anything under
the sun' Please read the above links of the hell that befell the cambodian
people and then try to determine what idealogy in particular I am trying to
promulgate at 'any lengths'
Regards,
Michael Dickey
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