True Tales of Days Gone By ~ UNTAC recollections
-
- Damn, I just saw my Internet Bill !
- Reactions: 3
- Posts: 4420
- Joined: Sun Dec 09, 2012 3:04 pm
-
- I've got nothing better to do
- Reactions: 0
- Posts: 90
- Joined: Mon Mar 09, 2015 2:45 pm
The Cambodian fish available in the markets at the time was quite magnificent, with varieties that I'd never before seen or tasted.
One kind in particular had to be the best fish ever, but of course it couldn't last.
In about 1993 the Cambodia Times carried a story extolling the initiative of a Malaysian businessmen who was exporting a particular delectable variety of Cambodian fish to Kuala Lumpur, a species which had long since been completely fished out in his home country.
Similarly, in a cheap gym I got talking to another Malaysian who was telling me of his grandiose plans to set up large chicken farms where the fowls would be given 'medicine' for rapid-fire plumping. It happened that I'd spent a lot of time in Malaysia and was well aware that in that country the natural scrawny 'kompong chicken' fetched a higher price than the dosed up versions.
Lexus and ricecakes, as the two of you seem to like personal recollections, I'll divert from daily life with a couple of stories that, with apologies to OML, divert slightly in parts from the UNTAC time.
Upon the reopening of general entry in early 1992, all sorts of ghosts from the past went back for a look-see.
I sat next to the Newsweek journalist Ron Moreau when I flew in from Bangkok and when we departed the plane a group of young Khmer women handed an attractive middle-aged European female passenger a large bouquet of flowers and I like to imagine that it was Marie Claude Martin whose report The Vietnamization of Cambodia had been instrumental in the UN denial of recognition to the Hanoi-installed regime.
From my second night on I stayed at the government-owned Guest House (these days a private residence) on the Monivong side of what is now The Billabong. On my third day, leaving early one morning to go and eat a roadside breakfast I saw a fellow guest, a Khmer, standing against the front wall and when he responded with an American accent to my greeting then after identifying myself as just a tourist from New Zealand and enquiring about his past it became very noticeable that though he was talking to me he barely gave me a glance but rather his eyes darted from side to side which, coupled with his back now hard against the wall, gave the appearance of someone in full protective mode.
He only gave a couple of hints of his past including his rather mundane position during the Lon Nol regime but it was enough for me to blurt out "You're --- -----" and the poor guy almost collapsed in shock that an apparent blow-in visitor from NZ could so easily identify him.
He rapidly disappeared and I have no idea if I actually was correct in my identification but this guy (assuming it was him) should have become one of the key figures of the 1970-75 war but didn't due to tragic misconceptions and instead he only ended up being offside with each of the Rouge and the Lon Nol government and the Americans.
I'll give a full account of who and why in Part 2 of my kindle which I'll get done after I eventually stop work.
Some months back I also mentioned Ambassador Holloway but that will get too long-winded for this thread as it involves too much, including a full explanation of the Soviet perception that Australia and NZ were the West's weak links in the mid-1980s, culminating in the subsequent Soviet-Hanoi attempt to get Australia to break away and grant recognition to Vietnam's puppet regime in Phnom Penh in hope that this would lead to eventual UN acknowledgement.
This particular endeavour centred on a Vietnamese delegation going to Australia in 1984 to get Canberra's likely recognition.
Alarmed, I played a minor part in scuttling that, teaming up with a then-nondescript Cambodian on Australia's east coast to sting the dormant and placid Khmer expatriates into a protest that couldn't be ignored by the Australian Labor government.
I'll go into full detail on that in Part 2.
After I'd been in Phnom Penh for awhile in 1992 I learnt of the existence of an 'Ian from Australia' staying at The Capitol who said he'd been in Phnom Penh before it fell, and the given description exactly matched the young guy who I barely knew but had certainly heard all about. Unfortunately I could find no trace of him at the Capitol or his later whereabouts because I wanted to tell him a follow-up yarn.
Ian had felt so strongly about the anti-Khmer Rouge cause of the Lon Nol soldiers that he'd volunteered to serve in the trenches with them until one horrific and heaving night out there saw him decide that maybe he'd unvolunteer himself, and basically he was then persuaded to leave town before he had another change of heart and returned to the front.
He departed in early March of 1975 while myself, unwilling to trust that I'd be able to be notified in event of a final American departure, evacuated Phnom Penh on April 6 just a couple of days before Pochentong fell to the Rouge. Indeed I'd held off until I could see that the airport was about to go and that I really couldn't delay any longer.
I'd then holed up in Bangkok as the actual full evacuation came and went and a few days after that there was the BBC news report that those Westerners who'd remained behind (to welcome the 'liberators' if the harsh truth be told about the bulk of them) were desperately calling for an American rescue mission to get them out as if they'd only suddenly become aware of the reality of the Rouge.
But it was too late and they'd have to stay and hope for the best.
While waiting for the fall I decided to head off to Aranyaprathet to hang around the border to see what was going on.
Arriving at Aran after a near-full day on the train I went to the wooden bridge that linked the two countries.
There I was amazed to see a rather attractive mature German woman just standing around on the Thai side, and when I asked what she was up to she responded that as a child she'd been under American bombs in World War 2 so now her full sympathies were with the Khmer Rouge liberators and that once they were in control then she would cross the border to glorify with them in their victory. I was trying to explain 'DON"T' to her when she happened to mention that only an hour or so earlier she'd been talking to an 'Ian from Australia' who had said he was crossing over as he needed to get to Phnom Penh to get his Khmer girlfriend out.
I yelped and immediately crossed over myself into Poipet to try to find him and knock some sense into his head. It was then about April 15 and unknown to us Phnom Penh only had two days left. I scoured and searched and asked but no-one had either seen a Westerner or could give me any info on Ian so I eventually gave up and crossed back into Thailand. There'd been no border controls at all on either side with nothing and no-one at the Cambodian end, while the Thais had just grinned and waved me on my way out and then on my way back in.
I then decided that I'd really, really like to do the fraulein if I could, but now I couldn't find her either.
I went to drink a beer and while doing that I decided to dash back to Bangkok and make a quick farewell visit to beloved Saigon as the news bulletins were making it ever more apparent that that city too was about to go.
A couple of days later, about mid-morning on April 17, our pilot announced that we were now passing right over the top of Phnom Penh and though I strained my all and, oblivious as to what exactly what was unfolding directly below us at that very moment, I couldn't see the dear city clearly and it was only after we'd landed and I was strolling Tu Do Street that the paper boy held up the front page of the Saigon Post with its awful thick-print words PHNOM PENH FALLS.
One kind in particular had to be the best fish ever, but of course it couldn't last.
In about 1993 the Cambodia Times carried a story extolling the initiative of a Malaysian businessmen who was exporting a particular delectable variety of Cambodian fish to Kuala Lumpur, a species which had long since been completely fished out in his home country.
Similarly, in a cheap gym I got talking to another Malaysian who was telling me of his grandiose plans to set up large chicken farms where the fowls would be given 'medicine' for rapid-fire plumping. It happened that I'd spent a lot of time in Malaysia and was well aware that in that country the natural scrawny 'kompong chicken' fetched a higher price than the dosed up versions.
Lexus and ricecakes, as the two of you seem to like personal recollections, I'll divert from daily life with a couple of stories that, with apologies to OML, divert slightly in parts from the UNTAC time.
Upon the reopening of general entry in early 1992, all sorts of ghosts from the past went back for a look-see.
I sat next to the Newsweek journalist Ron Moreau when I flew in from Bangkok and when we departed the plane a group of young Khmer women handed an attractive middle-aged European female passenger a large bouquet of flowers and I like to imagine that it was Marie Claude Martin whose report The Vietnamization of Cambodia had been instrumental in the UN denial of recognition to the Hanoi-installed regime.
From my second night on I stayed at the government-owned Guest House (these days a private residence) on the Monivong side of what is now The Billabong. On my third day, leaving early one morning to go and eat a roadside breakfast I saw a fellow guest, a Khmer, standing against the front wall and when he responded with an American accent to my greeting then after identifying myself as just a tourist from New Zealand and enquiring about his past it became very noticeable that though he was talking to me he barely gave me a glance but rather his eyes darted from side to side which, coupled with his back now hard against the wall, gave the appearance of someone in full protective mode.
He only gave a couple of hints of his past including his rather mundane position during the Lon Nol regime but it was enough for me to blurt out "You're --- -----" and the poor guy almost collapsed in shock that an apparent blow-in visitor from NZ could so easily identify him.
He rapidly disappeared and I have no idea if I actually was correct in my identification but this guy (assuming it was him) should have become one of the key figures of the 1970-75 war but didn't due to tragic misconceptions and instead he only ended up being offside with each of the Rouge and the Lon Nol government and the Americans.
I'll give a full account of who and why in Part 2 of my kindle which I'll get done after I eventually stop work.
Some months back I also mentioned Ambassador Holloway but that will get too long-winded for this thread as it involves too much, including a full explanation of the Soviet perception that Australia and NZ were the West's weak links in the mid-1980s, culminating in the subsequent Soviet-Hanoi attempt to get Australia to break away and grant recognition to Vietnam's puppet regime in Phnom Penh in hope that this would lead to eventual UN acknowledgement.
This particular endeavour centred on a Vietnamese delegation going to Australia in 1984 to get Canberra's likely recognition.
Alarmed, I played a minor part in scuttling that, teaming up with a then-nondescript Cambodian on Australia's east coast to sting the dormant and placid Khmer expatriates into a protest that couldn't be ignored by the Australian Labor government.
I'll go into full detail on that in Part 2.
After I'd been in Phnom Penh for awhile in 1992 I learnt of the existence of an 'Ian from Australia' staying at The Capitol who said he'd been in Phnom Penh before it fell, and the given description exactly matched the young guy who I barely knew but had certainly heard all about. Unfortunately I could find no trace of him at the Capitol or his later whereabouts because I wanted to tell him a follow-up yarn.
Ian had felt so strongly about the anti-Khmer Rouge cause of the Lon Nol soldiers that he'd volunteered to serve in the trenches with them until one horrific and heaving night out there saw him decide that maybe he'd unvolunteer himself, and basically he was then persuaded to leave town before he had another change of heart and returned to the front.
He departed in early March of 1975 while myself, unwilling to trust that I'd be able to be notified in event of a final American departure, evacuated Phnom Penh on April 6 just a couple of days before Pochentong fell to the Rouge. Indeed I'd held off until I could see that the airport was about to go and that I really couldn't delay any longer.
I'd then holed up in Bangkok as the actual full evacuation came and went and a few days after that there was the BBC news report that those Westerners who'd remained behind (to welcome the 'liberators' if the harsh truth be told about the bulk of them) were desperately calling for an American rescue mission to get them out as if they'd only suddenly become aware of the reality of the Rouge.
But it was too late and they'd have to stay and hope for the best.
While waiting for the fall I decided to head off to Aranyaprathet to hang around the border to see what was going on.
Arriving at Aran after a near-full day on the train I went to the wooden bridge that linked the two countries.
There I was amazed to see a rather attractive mature German woman just standing around on the Thai side, and when I asked what she was up to she responded that as a child she'd been under American bombs in World War 2 so now her full sympathies were with the Khmer Rouge liberators and that once they were in control then she would cross the border to glorify with them in their victory. I was trying to explain 'DON"T' to her when she happened to mention that only an hour or so earlier she'd been talking to an 'Ian from Australia' who had said he was crossing over as he needed to get to Phnom Penh to get his Khmer girlfriend out.
I yelped and immediately crossed over myself into Poipet to try to find him and knock some sense into his head. It was then about April 15 and unknown to us Phnom Penh only had two days left. I scoured and searched and asked but no-one had either seen a Westerner or could give me any info on Ian so I eventually gave up and crossed back into Thailand. There'd been no border controls at all on either side with nothing and no-one at the Cambodian end, while the Thais had just grinned and waved me on my way out and then on my way back in.
I then decided that I'd really, really like to do the fraulein if I could, but now I couldn't find her either.
I went to drink a beer and while doing that I decided to dash back to Bangkok and make a quick farewell visit to beloved Saigon as the news bulletins were making it ever more apparent that that city too was about to go.
A couple of days later, about mid-morning on April 17, our pilot announced that we were now passing right over the top of Phnom Penh and though I strained my all and, oblivious as to what exactly what was unfolding directly below us at that very moment, I couldn't see the dear city clearly and it was only after we'd landed and I was strolling Tu Do Street that the paper boy held up the front page of the Saigon Post with its awful thick-print words PHNOM PENH FALLS.
.
* my 99 cent Kindle memories of 1974 CAMBODIA: http://www.amazon.co.uk/EXPLAINING-CAMB ... B00L0LC8TO *
* my 99 cent Kindle memories of 1974 CAMBODIA: http://www.amazon.co.uk/EXPLAINING-CAMB ... B00L0LC8TO *
You have your Marie Martins confused. It was Marie Alexandrine Martin, "Vietnamised Cambodia". No luck finding a copy though I did pick up her book Cambodia: A Shattered Society.karmageddon1 wrote:The
I sat next to the Newsweek journalist Ron Moreau when I flew in from Bangkok and when we departed the plane a group of young Khmer women handed an attractive middle-aged European female passenger a large bouquet of flowers and I like to imagine that it was Marie Claude Martin whose report The Vietnamization of Cambodia had been instrumental in the UN denial of recognition to the Hanoi-installed regime.
Don't blame me I voted for Sanders
- Lucky Lucan
- K440 Knight Captain
- Reactions: 761
- Posts: 22525
- Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2011 12:24 pm
- Location: The Pearl of the Orient
jm wrote:You have your Marie Martins confused. It was Marie Alexandrine Martin, "Vietnamised Cambodia". No luck finding a copy though I did pick up her book Cambodia: A Shattered Society.karmageddon1 wrote:The
I sat next to the Newsweek journalist Ron Moreau when I flew in from Bangkok and when we departed the plane a group of young Khmer women handed an attractive middle-aged European female passenger a large bouquet of flowers and I like to imagine that it was Marie Claude Martin whose report The Vietnamization of Cambodia had been instrumental in the UN denial of recognition to the Hanoi-installed regime.
I couldn't find any references to Marie Claude Martin either. As for Marie Alexandrine Martin, I found her book to be fairly balanced, unlike Karmageddon's.
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
-
- I've got nothing better to do
- Reactions: 0
- Posts: 90
- Joined: Mon Mar 09, 2015 2:45 pm
Thanks jm,
When I later tried to google her I couldn't find her either!
When I later tried to google her I couldn't find her either!
.
* my 99 cent Kindle memories of 1974 CAMBODIA: http://www.amazon.co.uk/EXPLAINING-CAMB ... B00L0LC8TO *
* my 99 cent Kindle memories of 1974 CAMBODIA: http://www.amazon.co.uk/EXPLAINING-CAMB ... B00L0LC8TO *
- Jacked Camry
- Is the World Outside still there ?
- Reactions: 2
- Posts: 5674
- Joined: Sun Jul 24, 2005 2:53 pm
She also wrote one of the best references about agriculture during the Khmer Rouge.
Martin, Marie Alexandrine, 1983. La riziculture et la maîtrisse de l’eau dans le Kampuchea démocratique. Études Rurals, pp. 7-44.
Martin, Marie Alexandrine, 1983. La riziculture et la maîtrisse de l’eau dans le Kampuchea démocratique. Études Rurals, pp. 7-44.
-
- My Best Friend is my Computer
- Reactions: 51
- Posts: 638
- Joined: Wed Apr 22, 2015 10:19 am
Two very interesting post karmageddon1.
As I think I posted at the near start of this thread, my first boss in the UN, in fact the person who recruited me in to the UN system, was Paul Ignatieff, a Canadian of white Russian ancestry, and whose family members have served the UN well in different agencies at different times. Paul was very much to the fore at the old French Embassy in Phnom Penh in the negotiations with the KR to get the international community members and some Khmers holed up there safely out to Thailand.
I am fortunate to have a acquaintance that I drink with occasionally in Bangkok, Les Strouse, an American, who had for many years been a pilot with Air America in Lao and appears in text and photos in several books about that secret air war in Lao. Les was piloting aircraft involved with the evacuation of US Embassy staff right up to and at the very fall of Phnom Penh. In fact Les flew what he believed was the last extraction out of Phnom Penh when the US ambassador implored him to make just one more last flight which he did against his better judgement and only just managed to pull off.
OML
As I think I posted at the near start of this thread, my first boss in the UN, in fact the person who recruited me in to the UN system, was Paul Ignatieff, a Canadian of white Russian ancestry, and whose family members have served the UN well in different agencies at different times. Paul was very much to the fore at the old French Embassy in Phnom Penh in the negotiations with the KR to get the international community members and some Khmers holed up there safely out to Thailand.
I am fortunate to have a acquaintance that I drink with occasionally in Bangkok, Les Strouse, an American, who had for many years been a pilot with Air America in Lao and appears in text and photos in several books about that secret air war in Lao. Les was piloting aircraft involved with the evacuation of US Embassy staff right up to and at the very fall of Phnom Penh. In fact Les flew what he believed was the last extraction out of Phnom Penh when the US ambassador implored him to make just one more last flight which he did against his better judgement and only just managed to pull off.
OML
-
- I've got nothing better to do
- Reactions: 0
- Posts: 90
- Joined: Mon Mar 09, 2015 2:45 pm
I was unaware that M.A. Martin had written a book.Lucky Lucan wrote: I found her book to be fairly balanced, unlike Karmageddon's.
LL praises what he refers to as her 'balance' but that very aspect frustrates a reviewer: We're told that, "Vietnam imposed on Cambodia a painful and complete protectorate, against the will of the entire population..." And, right after that we were told that, "They did not mistreat the people, who welcomed them as liberators." That's what is exasperating about this book: was the occupation against the will of the people, or did the people welcome the liberators?
Maybe this is the ultimate political correctness. Every time a statement is made, immediately contradict it, and that way nobody's feelings are hurt...or maybe the book is therefore unacceptable to everyone.
LL, my Part Two will include the 1970-75 war and more background to it, as was always intended.
You refer to Part One which had the stated intent of outlining the decades-long deceit of the Vietnamese Reds, and that's what it did.
Given Hanoi's duplicity which resulted in death and suffering for multiple millions in a needless Second Indochina War caused solely by Ho's desire to turn all of Indochina communist, then just how exactly am I supposed to 'balance' out the unutterable misery that those North Vietnamese Reds inflicted?
Your same inane critique would surely then apply to all books on the Khmer Rouge regime whether written by Cambodian survivors or analysts as they too make one-sided condemnation of the Cambodian Reds as how in hell could anything positive be said about that period?
OML,
One ex-Air America pilot I knew got back into town one afternoon very shaken and told me about how just a short time earlier he'd landed his small cargo aircraft but while jogging for the terminal to get a ride into town to get out of the vicinity an explosive blast knocked him onto the ground and when he looked back his plane was in flames.
Returning to topic:
There were three very common phrases used at the time by English-speaking Cambodians.
The first was Step by step which reflected their desperate hope that UNTAC's presence meant that the long horror was finally coming to an end and that gradually they'd get a return to the kind of life they'd had decades earlier.
The second was I don't like someone looking down on me which was a sad indicator of things.
Even sadder, the third was In my next life I don't want to be Cambodian.
I happened to be passing along Monivong when the Indonesian UNTAC forces announced their appearance in a most astonishing manner with a massed jog-trot down that boulevard in full combat mode except with berets rather than helmets as they roared out fierce chants. Robust and fit and crisp, they were a real gob-smack for those Khmer on the street at the time.
Regrettably it all ended being more show than substance as UNTAC's overriding intent became to see an election rather than to enforce anything.
One of my great memories is of being at a juice stall off Monivong early one evening and meeting a couple of youngish Europeans who told me in very low-key manner of their incredible jaunts around the countryside.
At the time the Khmer Rouge were still on board with the election process as UNTAC hadn't yet disappointed them (I brought up the reason for their subsequent disillusionment somewhere on the thread) and so the top UNTAC officials were due to travel to certain Khmer Rouge strongholds by helicopter and it was going to be this big fuss of 'the first white men to ...blah blah') but when those UNTAC top brass flew in expecting a special moment they found instead that these two young guys had upstaged them and were already there, standing beside the Khmer Rouge welcoming party.
Knowing the proposed UNTAC itinerary in advance and where UNTAC would head and on which day, and applying the rationale that the Khmer Rouge were preparing for Western visitors anyway, the guys pulled the same stunt several times over to entirely deflate the initial appearances of the peacekeepers.
I was in awe of those them because the roads were in a condition that defied belief, mines were still prevalent, and they'd fearlessly pierced their way into Rouge strongholds.
Has anyone mentioned the cost of international phone calls?
You had to make them at the post office using phone cards which had denominations of $20, $50 and $100. The cards were rather beautiful, the $100 one being an Angkor Wat stunner.
You know how before the BBC news on TV they show the countdown clock with the seconds flashing past, well that was what happened when you used these cards except it was your dollars disappearing at a rate of knots.
I was entering the post office one day when the street urchins who used to hang around there rushed up to a Westerner and handed him a pile of used phone cards that UNTAC personnel had discarded when there was no credit left in them. He in turn handed them a pittance and it was obviously a regular arrangement and I'd love to know what those cards are worth today.
Smart guy.
The CPP crook in charge of the phone price scam obviously caught on too because suddenly the ultra-attractive $100 cards were no longer available and were presumably being hoarded.
.
* my 99 cent Kindle memories of 1974 CAMBODIA: http://www.amazon.co.uk/EXPLAINING-CAMB ... B00L0LC8TO *
* my 99 cent Kindle memories of 1974 CAMBODIA: http://www.amazon.co.uk/EXPLAINING-CAMB ... B00L0LC8TO *
Good posts Karmageddon...looking forward to "Pilger's mischief" .....
- Lucky Lucan
- K440 Knight Captain
- Reactions: 761
- Posts: 22525
- Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2011 12:24 pm
- Location: The Pearl of the Orient
Perhaps both were true? Maybe they welcomed them at first and later grew to resent their presence? You weren't even aware she wrote a book and now you are judging it from one sentence is someone else's review?karmageddon1 wrote:That's what is exasperating about this book: was the occupation against the will of the people, or did the people welcome the liberators?
Maybe this is the ultimate political correctness. Every time a statement is made, immediately contradict it, and that way nobody's feelings are hurt...or maybe the book is therefore unacceptable to everyone[/i].
Anyway, it's got nothing to do with political correctness. That's just a cop out fit-all label for anything that doesn't fit in with your black and white thinking. Blaming "Uncle Ho" and the " Vietnamese Reds" for everything that went on in the region is the sort of simplistic reasoning I'd expect from a child, not an adult. In case you had forgotten, there were many belligerent parties involved in these wars.
I expect an "if you're not with us - you're against us - so you must be a commie" response soon.
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
- Petrol Head
- Grand Poobah
- Reactions: 71
- Posts: 5770
- Joined: Mon Aug 27, 2012 1:54 pm
Per OML's comments, would it be possible to break out a new thread for recollections by Aussie Vietnam vets ? There are precious few of you fellas left. I have read extensively on the topic, but there is far too little scally waggery therein.Holdfast wrote:Ot Mean Loi, hope you don't mind me making a comment about your few posts on the 26 th last month, on the subject of where mines came from, and the couple nonsense posts disagreeing with you view that it doesn't really matter, quote, to hell with statatisticiansn,NGO's, Historians and other like organisations. This is slightly off topic, also, but I arrived in Nui Dat Oct'69, posted as an FE with 3 troop 1 Fld Sqn, a national serviceman, but who cares, anyway over the next 12 months I had quite a bit to do with mines but never once did I, or anyone else there care about the origin of the awful killing and maiming device, the M16 which of course came from the good old USA. As you would know mine incidents were so relevant around those times thanks to that disastrous decision of the barrier minefield from the Horseshoe to Dat Do. Anyway, as someone who unfortunately still has bad memories of them, I'm with squarely with you on this one, as I really don't think these treaties, bits of papers, or shaming countries as was suggested achieves anything.
But to the current situation at least here in Cambodia, I've had a little bit to do with the supply of equipment, training etc with a small demining organisation based out of Siem Reap. I'll be back up in Siem Reap, Phnom Penh at present, in a week or two and at first opportunity I'll ask Aki Ra what sort of records he's kept and pretty sure all I'll get in reply is that infectious grin and "what mean". I don't know what Halo or MAG do we blow every device in the ground, so much for the origin, who cares, although I believe the Chinese made M72 was pretty prevalent In some area's. Just as a matter of interest, when I get around to it I'll check with some contacts to see what sort of, if any, records CMAC keeps on this subject.
Bit long winded, but to be expected from someone who first came here 14 years ago, read this forum for what must be a decade, and only registered and first post today.
Haha - my money’s on Playboy
If we're talking about "Shattered Society" I would disagree. It very much reflects Karmageddon's anti Viet worldview. It confuses communist political indoctrination for Vietnamization ("ethnocide" ) throughout. It's full of quotations without attribution and made up or unreferenced statistics "Vietnam planned to send five million immigrants of which one million arrived before 1979" which are then quoted elsewhere as authoritative..Lucky Lucan wrote:jm wrote:You have your Marie Martins confused. It was Marie Alexandrine Martin, "Vietnamised Cambodia". No luck finding a copy though I did pick up her book Cambodia: A Shattered Society.karmageddon1 wrote:The
I sat next to the Newsweek journalist Ron Moreau when I flew in from Bangkok and when we departed the plane a group of young Khmer women handed an attractive middle-aged European female passenger a large bouquet of flowers and I like to imagine that it was Marie Claude Martin whose report The Vietnamization of Cambodia had been instrumental in the UN denial of recognition to the Hanoi-installed regime.
I couldn't find any references to Marie Claude Martin either. As for Marie Alexandrine Martin, I found her book to be fairly balanced, unlike Karmageddon's.
Don't blame me I voted for Sanders
- Lucky Lucan
- K440 Knight Captain
- Reactions: 761
- Posts: 22525
- Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2011 12:24 pm
- Location: The Pearl of the Orient
Fair enough, it's a long time since I actually read that book. Maybe I was fooled by the smooth talk and didn't realize she was on the same page as karmageddon.
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
-
- My Best Friend is my Computer
- Reactions: 51
- Posts: 638
- Joined: Wed Apr 22, 2015 10:19 am
Hello Petrol Head,
Re: Per OML's comments, would it be possible to break out a new thread for recollections by Aussie Vietnam vets ? There are precious few of you fellas left. I have read extensively on the topic, but there is far too little scally waggery therein.
Such a forum would be far too narrow if just for Australian veterans recollections. Besides, I doubt if there are many of us contributing to this forum anyway. In addition to which, many things are best left in the dark recesses of people's minds. Although each of us feels differently about such matters. Personally, I tend to remember the more humorous aspects of life at that time - humorous within the context and setting that is.
What is needed is a forum topic along the lines of ...Second Indochina War - Personal Involvement Recollections ... This way, all former combatants and non-combatants, from all sides, and of all nationalities, could contribute.
But I agree with you about one thing. I seem to be receiving AU Veterans obituary notices and funeral notices at an alarmingly fast rate these days and many of them for vets far younger than myself. In addition to which I have my own significant medical problem thanks to Agents Orange, Blue and White being sprayed all over all of us in the Australian TAOR. Dioxin is a terrible substance.
OML
Re: Per OML's comments, would it be possible to break out a new thread for recollections by Aussie Vietnam vets ? There are precious few of you fellas left. I have read extensively on the topic, but there is far too little scally waggery therein.
Such a forum would be far too narrow if just for Australian veterans recollections. Besides, I doubt if there are many of us contributing to this forum anyway. In addition to which, many things are best left in the dark recesses of people's minds. Although each of us feels differently about such matters. Personally, I tend to remember the more humorous aspects of life at that time - humorous within the context and setting that is.
What is needed is a forum topic along the lines of ...Second Indochina War - Personal Involvement Recollections ... This way, all former combatants and non-combatants, from all sides, and of all nationalities, could contribute.
But I agree with you about one thing. I seem to be receiving AU Veterans obituary notices and funeral notices at an alarmingly fast rate these days and many of them for vets far younger than myself. In addition to which I have my own significant medical problem thanks to Agents Orange, Blue and White being sprayed all over all of us in the Australian TAOR. Dioxin is a terrible substance.
OML
-
- Similar Topics
- Replies
- Views
- Last post
-
-
Tales from Mike Force (Vietnam War)
by The Steve » Fri Mar 03, 2023 9:48 am » in Cambodian History and Culture - 8 Replies
- 1387 Views
-
Last post by YaTingPom
Fri Mar 03, 2023 5:15 pm
-
-
- 5 Replies
- 2340 Views
-
Last post by khmerhit
Sun Mar 15, 2020 6:06 am
-
- 1 Replies
- 790 Views
-
Last post by dejess83
Thu Feb 13, 2020 2:25 pm
-
-
Nearly 800 People Vaccinated on First Two Days of COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign
by Bong Burgundy » Fri Feb 12, 2021 7:07 pm » in Cambodia News - 6 Replies
- 1644 Views
-
Last post by v12
Sat Feb 13, 2021 3:12 am
-