Philip Short Quotations

King Sihanouk was an absolute monarch in the 1940s and 1950s. No one could publicly disagree with anything the king said. In the throne room, even ministers had to approach the king on their hands and knees because everyone's head had to be below the level of the king's feet.

Sihanouk founded a political party and contested the elections himself. He sent thugs and police to break up opposition meetings and kill opposition candidates. Communists and all other oppositions were suppressed. Some oppositionists were executed by the military-the Sihanouk forces made a film of one of these executions and ordered it to be shown in every movie theater.

In three years and eight months beginning on April 17, 1975, between 1 and 2 million Cambodians died, as much as a quarter of the entire population. This is the story of a holocaust.

Like a cornered animal, which turns instinctively to confront pursuing predators, Pol Pot viewed policy in terms of a fight to the death. The alternative was to be devoured.