OCR Text |
Show The Paper That Dares To Take A June 19, 1975 The Utah Independent Page Stand The Ugliness of a Communist Takeover Continued from page parents protested, the leader raised his riile and shot them in the chest. The teacher also said the Khmer Rouge fired on anyone who looked out of his balcony during the night. ... 6:00 P.M. ... One of the most dejected members of our community on this, our first day in captivity, is perhaps its most experienced, Fernand Scheller, chief of the UN development project in Phnom Penh. He nearly weeps as he tells us how he has seen his Cambodian family and his workers banished with everyone else into the countryside. I have spent the whole day betraying my friends, he said. What the Khmer Rouge are doing is pure and simple genocide. They will kill more people this way than if there had been fighting in the city. There is no food outside. The next rice crop js not until December, and anyway without outside helpthey can grow only enough to feed 30 percent of the population. ... What is going on now is an example of demogoguery that makes one vomit. ... Saturday, April 19, 4:00 P.M. ... The Khmer Rouge outside have no use for money, having burnt or confis; cated all they can lay their hands on and reverted to the barter system. ... 6:40 P.M. The French staff of Calmette hospital arrive with more accounts of cruelty and madness. For two days, they say, they operated ceaselessly on Communist wounded, while looking down the barrels of guns. The Khmer Rouge threatened to kill me if I didnt save the life of one man, said surgeon Bernard Piquart. Other witnesses corroborate this story. A gun was placed to my head and a grenade dangled before my nose. Finally, the Khmer Rouge threw us all out after smashing in the medicine cupboards with their rifle butts. Sunday, April 20. 8:35 A.M. ...: The Khmer Rouge have split up whole families - French husbands can stay, but Cambodian wives and children must go. The feeling of helplessness and rage is overwhelming. Is . nothing sacred? ... I turn round and find the American Doug Sapper, one of the toughest, bravest men I know, a decorated Beret who worked for the airlines in Phnom Penh. You know, Jon, I have been a fighting man all my life,- he says. But Im not built for this kind of stuff. I havent cried since I was ten years old. A Cambodian couple I know give away their baby, which will never survive the trip into the countryside. I am too choked to look them in the face. He is my only baby. He is a beautiful baby, the wife says. ... -- ; ex-Gre- en - seven-month-o- ld 8:20 P.M. ... Outside the atmosphere is sinister. Headlamps ablaze, trucks of soldiers1 go up and down, searching for people hiding out in the city. Gunfire crashes in the suburbs. Today we are witnessing perhaps the deaths of thousands, the destruction of a "April had pushed them into pools of stagnant water. . Motorized transport in Cambodia is now almost nonexistent. ... The ipind still gropes at the horror and enormity of the emptying of Phnom Penh. ... My overriding impression - reinforced as we journeyed through the countryside en route to the Thai border was that the Khmer Rouge military authorities had ordered this mass evacuation not to punish the people but to revolutionize their ways and thoughts. Many thousands will no doubt die. ... Thursday, May 1. ... We have come to an even more startling realization: that outside Phnom Penh, virtually every other city, town, village and hamlet that resisted the Communists has also been emptied out into the countryside. The greater part of this nation of seven million, which has endured one of the most savage, futile wars of modern times, has been uprooted, its people hungry and bewildered. Tonight we reached the province capital of Kompong Chhnang and found it emptied of its 500,000 people. ... A male nurse, Tong San, said that on April 20 Khmer Rouge carried away all the hospital patients in lorries and dumped them 18 miles in the forest without food or water. ... Everyone wears black, and the women universally have Maoist haircuts. One of the marvelous things about Cambodia used to be the spontaneity and gaiety of its people, even towards strangers. Now a wave and a smile is returned by wooden stares. ... It is ironic that throughout this exhausting ride, some of the greediest, most selfish among us were the Russian diplomats and their wives. While the rest of us nibbled on the odd Red Cross biscuit and a handful of rice, they settled down of an evening to a meal of food brought along with their personal possessions, washed down with vodka and tea. Not satisfied, they had the gall to demand their portion of the communal food. ... Friday, May 2. At last we reach the safety of the Thai e ride. ... border after our grueling -- four-cour- se 260-inil- 21. 3:00 P.M. Jean Menta, Corsican The Khmer Rouge have no time for cities, which in their eyes are parasites living off the sweat of the peasants. This is ... why they have evacuated Phnom Penh. ... Thursday, April 24. Jean Remy, head of the French Planters Association and Cambodias most influential Frenchman, is here after a week on the roads. He says he hears the Khmer Rouge are executing army officers at the rubber nurseries in the suburbs. ... Tuesday, April 29. 7:20 P.M. Tomorrow 600 of us are leaving by road for the Thai border. The Khmer Rouge announced this outrageous evacuation plan on Saturday . ... say outrageous because, of course, it would be so simple for us to fly out, now that the airport is open and that a French transport plane is on stand-b- y at Vientiane. But, of course, to try and probe the Khmer Rouge mind is fruitless. To apply Western logic to it is an irrelevance. ... Wednesday, April 30. ... Five years ago, Phnom Penh was one of the loveliest cities in Southeast Asia. It was not only the old French colonial architecture, the glittering pagodas, that gave it its enchantment, it was the warmth and grace of its people. Now the people have gone, and Phnom Penh, as we I drive through the suburbs, is a sinister wasteland. Every single building in the city has been turned upside down in the soldiers search for food and booty. ... They have wrecked the citys water plant' and shut down all its factories. The empty, dustblown streets were lined with hundreds of abandoned cars and motorbikes, cannibalized by the Khmer Rouge, their tires cut up to make Ho Chi , i Rydman Belriap is our newest paper boy. Rydman is the son of Austin and Jeriy Belnapon Chandler Drive. Mr. Belnap will be his sponsor. Rydman likes to play kick soccer and to toss his frisbee. He attended Carden School this past year.. Others interested in starting a news route and becoming a member of the UTAH IN DEPENDENTNews Carrier Club can 1. call Jack Lambson at 484-591- READERS OUTLOOK Continued from page 4 the world, depending upon their freedoms as Americans to tend to their business. Our enemies, all the anti-America- ns. realizing this have always concentrated their attacks our businesses, seeking agains always to keep us from our business, to keep us from making the most of what we have as do the ecologists and production limiters, individualism by suppressing into destroying groupisms, forcing our nationalism which is American to repalce it with internationalisms to involve others besides us in our business, and . are leaving us dependent upon governemnt for everything instead of upon our limitless freedoms to be our own free selves. Looking back to the days of 1 776 we find conditions that denied us the right to tend to our business until Americans got involved and and established independence ahead to freedom. Now, looking 1976, again there is the need for the American people to become involved in order to our independence and freedoms. Involved in business rather than involved 'in getting politics, politicians and government out of our private business and in keeping ourselves and our businesses out from under government: all so we can again tend to our business as Americans. ish heroin smuggler) adventurer (and, it is said, and the mercenary Borella, strangle and skin the Emlike bassy cat. A few ofu s eat it curried. The meat is tender ... chicken. A few more weeks and we will be real savages. one-tim- e Wednesday, April 23. 9:30 A.M. HERE WE GO AGAIN -- way of life. ... Monday, r 1 Minh sandals. We passed whole districts gutted by fire, with hungry pigs and dogs rooting through the ruins for scraps. The Khmer Rouge army, now the city's only occupants, has shown little pride in its prize. The main attraction to these country boys has been the multitude of watches, radios and trinkets they have been able to loot from its shops. The road out of the city, past the airoort, was lined with abandoned property, evidence of tne hurried migration - a giant boneyard of everything from trucks and cars to helmets, uniforms and TV sets. The rotting vehicles continued for miles, abandoned as the petrol ran out. Some drivers, angry at the thought of leaving what was probably their pride and joy to the Khmer Rouge, . 11 J. Kesner Kahn Chicago, Illinois 60649 A proposed change in federal would procedure BANKING ESTABLISH- MENTS ARE MORE DANGER- OUS THAN STANDING ARMIES" Wright Patman Cong. Texas This observation by Thomas Jefferson in 1799 is still valid today financial institutions must be carefully regulated to safeguard the public interst. Last week I was privileged to speak before the Southwestern Savings and Loan Institute on the critical need to restructure our financial institutions and Federal regulatory agencies. There are serious problems that demand prompt Congressional action: the ominous and excessive require prosecutors to treat batik robbers concentration of financial as well like parking violators, sending the as economic power in the accused a summons rather than a commercial banking system where subjecting him to an arrest the 50 largest banks control about warrant. Review of the News as much in deposits as the other 13.450 banks put together; the A letter published in the gigantic assets of bank trust departments which total over 5400 Washington STar on April 9th billion, half of this in the hands of points out that, under our current only 25 banks; the potential tax laws, and the recently passed dangers of the Electronic Funds rebate hill, two unmarried people Transfer System; and the secret living together pay less tax (and receive more rebate) than would be operations of the ' Federal Reserve. Copied of my the case if they were married. One May 17 statement on these and of our special correspondents related issues will be sent free to points out that this "is simply constituents upon request to my of- another example ofhow activity by the federal government often tends fice. (Representative Wright Patand man. House Office Building. to he anti-famiReview of the News Washington. D.C.) too-power- ful ly anti-moralit- y." |