“Nothing to offer in return”: Refugees, human rights, and genocide in Cambodia, 1975–1979

AuthorLaura Madokoro
Published date01 June 2020
Date01 June 2020
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/0020702020933643
Subject MatterLessons of History
Lessons of History
“Nothing to offer in
return”: Refugees,
human rights, and
genocide in Cambodia,
1975–1979
Laura Madokoro
Department of History, Carleton University, Ottawa,
Canada
Abstract
From 1975 to 1979, Canadian politicians and diplomats observed and discussed the
possibility that a genocide was taking place in Cambodia. The situation was difficult to
ascertain, however, given the limited history between the two countries and the deep
isolation in which the Khmer Rouge regime operated after rising to power, as well as
the Canadian government’s limited interest in international human rights until the late
1970s. It wasn’t until large numbers of refugees began to cross into Thailand in
1977–78, and began to tell their stories to Western diplomats, that human rights
discussions at the United Nations began to focus more closely on the situation in
Cambodia. Exploring the Canadian government’s use of refugee testimonies, this article
explores the relationship between narratives of mass violence and the burgeoning
human rights agenda of the late 1970s to highlight the role of refugees in shaping an
international human rights agenda.
Keywords
Refugee, genocide, Cambodia, human, rights
Corresponding author:
Laura Madokoro, Carleton University, Department of History, 400 Paterson Hall, 1125 Colonel By Drive,
Ottawa, Ontario, K1S 5B6, Canada.
Email: LauraMadokoro@cunet.carleton.ca
International Journal
2020, Vol. 75(2) 220–236
!The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0020702020933643
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Against the weight of an uncertain present and a shadowing past, and torn between the
desire to forget and the pressure to remember, between the fear of speaking and the need
to speak, refugees struggled to give form and meaning to their experiences in a country
where few were willing to listen.
—Khatharya Um
1
Genocide in Cambodia
In 1975, following a f‌ive-year civil war, the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot came to
power in Cambodia, which was off‌icially renamed Democratic Kampuchea in
January 1976. Backed with signif‌icant f‌inancial and military support from the
People’s Republic of China, the Khmer Rouge took over a country rattled by
conf‌lict, including an extensive US bombing campaign launched by President
Richard Nixon in 1970, with supporting incursions by South Vietnamese forces.
The Khmer Rouge regime pushed an aggressive, and violent, ruralization cam-
paign that targeted particular groups, including former government off‌icials and
ethnic minorities, including Chinese, Vietnamese, Cham, and Khmer Loeu com-
munities.
2
The widespread punitive violence, which included murder, torture, forced
relocations, forced labour, and mass starvations, led to the deaths of an estimated
1.7 to 2.1 million Cambodians, approximately one-quarter of the population.
As political scientist Katharya Um observes, “Even in a century of mass atroc-
ities, the Cambodian experience under the Khmer Rouge (1975–1979) stands out
as one of the most extreme and traumatic instances in human history.”
3
Six hun-
dred thousand people f‌led their homeland and almost 100,000 were ultimately
resettled to the US. Seven thousand Cambodians were resettled to Canada.
4
Although refugees, escapees, and journalists warned of human rights violations
1. Katharya Um, From the Land of Shadows: War, Revolution and the Making of the Cambodian
Diaspora (New York: NYU Press, 2015), 14. This article is inspired by a panel convened at the Bill
Graham Centre at the University of Toronto in February 2020 on the subject of Canada’sresponse
to the challenge of genocide in Asia. My thanks to Greg Donaghy for the invitation to participate,
as well as fellow panelists David Webster, Bob Rae, and Rosemary McCarney. I also wish to thank
Jennifer Tunnicliffe and Paul-E
´tienne Rainville for their help with the research for this article. My
gratitude as well to Vinh Nguyen, Y-Dang Troeng, and two anonymous reviewers for their gener-
ous comments.
2. Elliott Tepper, Southeast Asian Exodus: From Tradition to Resettlement: Understanding Refugees
from Laos, Kampuchea, and Vietnam in Canada (Vancouver: Canadian Association of Asian
Studies, 1980).
3. Um, From the Land,2.
4. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, The State of the World’s Refugees, 2000: Fifty
Years of Humanitarian Action (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 99. Although the reset-
tlement of Indochinese refugees, including Cambodian refugees, is incorporated into celebratory
post-Vietnam narratives, many encountered signif‌icant challenges compounded by the derelict
conditions of the places to which they were resettled. See Eric Tang, Unsettled:Cambodian
Refugees in the New York City Hyperghetto (New York: NYU Press, 2015). Aihwa Ong underscores
similar challenges, or precarity, in her study of Cambodian refugees and citizenship status in the US.
See Buddha is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, the New America (Berkeley, Los Angeles: University
of California Press, 2003).
Madokoro 221

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