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Vietnam, although itself facing famine after thirty years of war, has sent more than 25,000 tons of food to Cambodia. The Vietnamese have managed to do this by asking every family in their southwestern provinces to give six pounds of rice. By contrast, Western governments have sent only a dribble of aid. The major agencies, the International Red Cross and UNICEF, have demanded strings to their proposed charity, such as the right to supply what they call "the other side". Western observers who have crossed the Thai border into Cambodia have seen what this means in reality: it means feeding not civilians, not women and children, but supplying what is left of Pol Pot's army of genocide. For this privilige, the agencies have withheld aid from 90% of the Cambodian people. Supplying the Khmer Rouges is in line with the West's diplomatic support for Pol Pot. Last month, the United Nations general assembly was witness to the extraordinary spectacle of the Western democracies, America and Britain included, voting to continue recognition of a defunct regime which they themselves acknowledge as the most thorough mass murderers since Hitler. (it) |
