Book description
In recent history, atrocities have often been committed in the name
of lofty ideals. One of the most disturbing examples took place in
Cambodia's Killing Fields, where tens of thousands of victims were
executed and hastily disposed of by Khmer Rouge cadres. Nearly thirty
years after these bloody purges, two journalists entered the jungles
of Cambodia to uncover secrets still buried there.
Based on more than 1,000 hours of interviews with the top
surviving Khmer Rouge leader, Nuon Chea, Behind the Killing
Fields follows the journey of a man who began as a dedicated
freedom fighter and wound up accused of crimes against humanity. Known
as Brother Number 2, Chea was Pol Pot's top lieutenant. He is now in
prison, facing prosecution in a United Nations-Cambodian tribunal for
his actions during the Khmer Rouge rule, when more than two million
Cambodians died. The book traces how the seeds of the Killing Fields
were sown and what led one man to believe that mass killing was
necessary for the greater good.
Coauthor Sambath Thet, a Khmer Rouge survivor, shares his
personal perspectives on the murderous regime and how some victims
have managed to rebuild their lives. The stories of Nuon Chea and
Sambath Thet collide when the two meet. While Thet holds Chea
responsible for the death of his parents and brother, he strives for
understanding over revenge in order to reveal the forces that
destroyed his homeland in the name of creating utopia.
In this age of suicide bombers and terror alerts, the world is
still at a loss to comprehend the violence of zealots. Behind the
Killing Fields bravely confronts this challenge in an exclusive
portrait of one man's political madness and another's personal wisdom.
"Having spent six years conducting about a thousand hours of
interviews, the authors have produced a rare look inside the psyche of
a mass killer. They find [in Nuon Chea] a faithful son and loyal
husband, an idealist, ascetic, and moral purist who blames the
Cambodian people for being too corrupted by imperialism and capitalism
to implement the pure-minded plans of the Angka
("organization"). . . . This important story-told with a
restraint that makes it all the more effective-confirms the banality
of evil."-Foreign Affairs
Gina Chon is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Sambath Thet
writes for the Phnom Penh Post.
