François Ponchaud
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François Ponchaud (born 1939 in
Sallanches Sallanches (; frp, Salenches) is a commune in the Haute-Savoie department of France. Located close to the Mont Blanc massif, many visitors pass through the town en route to well-known alpine resorts such as Chamonix, Megève and Saint-Gervais-l ...
) is a French Catholic priest and missionary to
Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailan ...
. He is best known for his documentation of the
genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...
which occurred under the Khmer Rouge (KR), and for being one of the first people to expose the
human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
abuses being carried out at the time.


Biography

Ponchaud was born in
Sallanches Sallanches (; frp, Salenches) is a commune in the Haute-Savoie department of France. Located close to the Mont Blanc massif, many visitors pass through the town en route to well-known alpine resorts such as Chamonix, Megève and Saint-Gervais-l ...
, France, and was one of twelve children. He attended seminary in 1958 but the following year he left due to national service. He spent three years in
Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...
as a paratrooper during the Algerian War and returned to his studies in 1961, becoming a Jesuit. He applied through the
Paris Foreign Missions Society The Society of Foreign Missions of Paris (french: Société des Missions Etrangères de Paris, short M.E.P.) is a Roman Catholic missionary organization. It is not a religious institute, but an organization of secular priests and lay persons de ...
for an assignment to undertake missionary work, and was assigned to Cambodia. Ponchaud was 26 years old and newly ordained when he arrived in Cambodia in 1965. He lived in Cambodia from 1965 to 1975. When Phnom Penh fell to the KR on 17 April 1975, Ponchaud was detained in the French embassy. On 8 May 1975, the KR evacuated the embassy, and Ponchaud was one of the last westerners to leave Cambodia. He is fluent in Khmer. Following the
Communist Party of Kampuchea The Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK),, UNGEGN: , ALA-LC: ; french: Parti communiste du Kampuchea also known as the Khmer Communist Party,
victory, all contact with the outside world was shut down, but following an editorial in ''
Le Monde ''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...
'' in February 1976, Ponchaud wrote a three-page article, which described the systematic abuses he had witnessed while Phnom Penh was being emptied, and following this he wrote '' Cambodge année zéro'' (Cambodia: Year Zero), a book on the Cambodian genocide, which was published in 1977, and his book is credited with being one of the first publications which dealt with the genocide.
William Shawcross William Hartley Hume Shawcross (born 28 May 1946, in Sussex, England) is a British writer and commentator, and a former Chairman of the Charity Commission for England and Wales. Education Shawcross was educated at St Aubyns Preparatory School ...
has said that the book is, "the best account of Khmer Rouge rule". For four years after his expulsion, he and François Bizot helped Cambodian and French citizens escape from Cambodia. Following the overthrow of the KR in 1979, he returned to Cambodia. He gave evidence at the
Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC; french: Chambres extraordinaires au sein des tribunaux cambodgiens (CETC); km, អង្គជំនុំជម្រះវិសាមញ្ញក្នុងតុលាការ ...
in 2013 during the war crime trials were being held. While on the stand, he said that he had been a witness to the "illegal" bombing, known as
Operation Menu Operation Menu was a covert United States Strategic Air Command (SAC) tactical bombing campaign conducted in eastern Cambodia from 18 March 1969 to 26 May 1970 as part of both the Vietnam War and the Cambodian Civil War. The targets of these att ...
, of Cambodia by the American air force, and that
Henry Kissinger Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...
, former Secretary of State should stand trial for his actions. Ponchaud has said of the genocide that it, "Was above all, the translation into action the particular vision of a man ic A person who has been spoiled by a corrupt regime cannot be reformed, he must be physically eliminated from the brotherhood of the pure." In testimony given on what had happened to officers from the former
Lon Nol Marshal Lon Nol ( km, លន់ នល់, also ; 13 November 1913 – 17 November 1985) was a Cambodian politician and general who served as Prime Minister of Cambodia twice (1966–67; 1969–71), as well as serving repeatedly as defence min ...
regime, Ponchaud stated that in 1975 the KR had as an aim the destruction of anyone who had cooperated with both the US and the previous regime, and that he had heard from four witnesses that the KR had killed 380 people in Phnom Thipdey, a
commune A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to: Administrative-territorial entities * Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township ** Communes of ...
in Battambang Province. In 2001 a documentary titled ''The Cross and the Bodhi Tree: Two Christian Encounters with Buddhism'' was released, the film is about how
Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religions, Indian religion or Indian philosophy#Buddhist philosophy, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha. ...
has shaped both the life of Ponchaud, and that of a
Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
nun, Mother Rosemary.


Published works

*
Cambodia: Year Zero
', Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1978,
''Social Change in the Vortex of Revolution''
in: ''Cambodia 1975-1978: Rendezvous with Death'', Princeton University Press, 1989, Karl Jackson, ed., pp. 151–177. *''La cathédrale de la rizière: 450 ans d'histoire de l'église au Cambodge'', Fayard, 1990, *''Buddha e Cristo: le due salvezze'', EDB, 2005, * ''Brève histoire du Cambodge: Le pays des Khmers rouges'', Magellan & Cie Éditions, 2015


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ponchaud, Francois 1939 births Living people People from Sallanches French Roman Catholic missionaries Paris Foreign Missions Society missionaries Roman Catholic missionaries in Cambodia French expatriates in Cambodia People of the Cambodian genocide