Genocide, which can be defined as the action intended to eliminate certain national, ethnic, religious, or racial group, is regarded to be one of the cruelest and most inhumane acts performed by people. Among most known instances of the genocide are the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, the Bosnian genocide, the Armenian genocide, and the Cambodian genocide. Apparently, events that take place during genocides have incredibly painful effects on human beings and bring about variety types of suffering. It is particularly significant for the people to remember about horrible acts of genocide. The social institution which is capable to help greatly with the retention of the memory about genocide is the media. A huge advantage of the media from the perspective of providing information about genocides is the ability of specifically trained media journalists to collect and process correct and most important information in a highly professional manner and to convey this information to the audience using numerous means (Elmas, 2016). It is noticeable, though, that the way the Cambodian genocide was portrayed in the media, due to specific reasons, cannot be described as the most successful one. While trying to provide the coverage of Cambodian genocide, the reporters tended to deal with substantial complications associated either with the difficulties of acquiring information regarding the genocide or with the desire of specific authorities to conceal the information from the public.
In 1975, the Khmer Rouges seized the city of Phnom Penh which was the capital of Cambodia and installed the dictatorial regime. The country, which was soon renamed as Demokratia Kamboĝo, became nearly totally isolated from the outside world; only limited contacts with China and Yugoslavia were maintained. Even the names and portraits of the leaders of the country, including the one of Pol Pot, were kept in secret from the public. Guided by the Maoist doctrine of social revolution in in peasant society, the Khmer Rouge suppressed or destroyed in the mass order a huge part of the population, particularly the urban population and intellectuals. Throughout the country, there were prohibited writing, money, and foreign language. The whole country was basically turned into a set of labor agricultural communes with the 18-20 hour working day; the Cambodian people were turned into special mobile work teams. The death penalty could be applied even for the slightest fault, for instance, for the childbirth without the permission of the commune’s leaders. Thousands of people were shot, slaughtered, drowned in water, and choked with plastic bags by the Khmer Rouges; the practice of hanging little children on the trees was as well widespread. A huge number of the deceased died as a result of famine and disease. In 1979, the genocide was eventually ended due to the Cambodia’s Vietnamese invasion (Frey, 2009). But the consequences of the Khmer Rouges’ actions during those several years were dreadful.
However, it is noticeable that, although currently the information about the Cambodian genocide, which is indescribably horrible, is easily available for the public, in 70s and 80s, there were serious obstacles for the media to receive the evidences of Khmer Rouges’ actions and provide the coverage of Cambodian genocide. Packer (2014) smartly suggests that “the mass slaughter of two million Cambodians under the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979 was probably the least understood at the time of the killing.” The main reason for such a phenomenon was that fact of Cambodia being cut off from the rest of the world at the time. The country’s borders were severely guarded, the mail service was not functioning, the phone lines were cut, and, what is more, all foreigners, including the foreign journalists, were forced to leave the country. As a result, exceptionally limited opportunities were left for the reporters to acquire and provide the information for the audience. The only source of the information about the genocide was the testimonies of Cambodian refugees who managed to escape from the country. Unfortunately, though, the journalists using the data provided by the refugees were criticized for providing rather unverifiable information (Packer, 2014). Because of this, the majority of media consumers from the West world tended to be rather skeptical of the very sparse information about the genocide.
Nevertheless, after the era of the Khmer Rouge was ended, a set of sufficient attempts of enlightening the events associated with the Cambodian genocide was performed by the media; among most successful such attempts, is a British drama film The Killing Fields, which was directed by Roland Joffé and aired in 1984. The film, which was based on the real life experience of American journalist Sydney Schanberg and Cambodian journalist Dith Pran, received numerous positive responses from the audience and received a set of famous film awards.
In the center of the story’s plot is the coverage of Cambodian genocide by the New York Times’ correspondent Sydney Schanberg with the help of a brave Cambodian journalist Dith Pran. During the time of so called “Year Zero” policy established by the Khmer Rouge, Pran used to become a forced laborer in Cambodia. Pran thus pass through numerous terrible and ridiculous events while being a forced laborer. For example, the journalist attended special propagandist classes intended to re-educate the Cambodian population. Also, after realizing that the intellectuals were being made to vanish, Pran took the decision to simulate the simple-mindedness. One of the most shocking Pran’s experiences is the slipping into the killing fields filled with thousands of the rotting human corpses. Fortunately, Pran managed to survive and provided Schanberg and, as a result, the whole world with realistic information about the calamity brought by the Khmer Rouge and, in particular, about the genocide which took place in Cambodia (Joffé, 1984).
Another significant aspect associated with the difficulties faced by the media while providing the coverage of the Cambodian genocide is the purposeful denial or minimizing by certain public authorities, specifically the ones from the USA, the fact of abuses of human rights by the Khmer Rouges. There were practical political reasons for such a behavior of the Americans. It is known that the Khmer Rouge was hugely supported by the US government as the latter tended to see the Khmer Rouge as a substantial opposition for the Vietnam. This explains the reasons for the providing the communist Khmer Rouge with the weapons by the USA and, even more, the reasons for the belief of the American government regarding an exceptionally positive impacts of the Khmer Rouges on the development of Cambodia. Among the first most influential attempts to opening the truth about the position of the US regarding the events in Cambodia was the one made by the ABC’s journalist Peter Jennings. By his initiative, the report with an in-depth investigation of the Cambodia genocide was offered for the audience in 1990. The main argument expressed in the report by Jennings was the one claiming that the United States contributed greatly to the offences performed by the Khmer Rouges (Jennings, 1990). It is noteworthy that after the report, the US government provided numerous explanations regarding its role in the Cambodia genocide, and the issue of Cambodia genocide started to be presented considerably more fully and fairly.
Taking everything into account, the media is considered to make a crucial contribution to the memory retention regarding the genocides. The coverage of the Cambodian Genocide in the media, though, tended to face a set of serious complications associated with the difficulties of acquiring fair, extensive, and verifiable information about tragic events which took place in Cambodia. Nevertheless, after considerable work performed by a number of dedicated and highly enthusiastic reporters and media makers, the humanity now have a full access to that tragic historical event.
References
Jennings, P. (Anchor), & Cockburn, L. (Producer). (1990, April 26). Peter Jennings Reporting: From the Killing Fields. ABC News. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxPHarm3Q_E.
Packer, G. (2014, April 7). Genocides, Remembered and Forgotten. The New Yorker. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/genocides-remembered-and-forgotten.
Joffé, R. (Director). (1984). The Killing Fields [Drama film]. Warner Bros. (Distributor).
Frey, R. G. (2009). Genocide and International Justice. New York, NY: Infobase Publishing.
Elmas, E. (2016). Towards 2015: Media in Turkey on the Armenian Genocide. The Armenian Genocide Legacy, 183-196. doi:10.1007/978-1-137-56163-3_12.
