François Bizot (; born 8 February 1940) is a French anthropologist. While working as a conservationist in

Cambodia Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline ...

, he was held captive by the

Khmer Rouge The Khmer Rouge is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), and by extension to Democratic Kampuchea, which ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. The name was coined in the 1960s by Norodom Sihano ...

for several months. He was released after being found innocent of spying charges, becoming the only Westerner to survive imprisonment by the Khmer Rouge.

Arrival in Cambodia

Bizot arrived in

in 1965 to study

Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

practised in the countryside. He travelled extensively around Cambodia, researching the history and customs of its dominant religion. He speaks fluent Khmer, French and English and was married to a Cambodian with whom he had a daughter, Hélène, in 1968. When the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...

spilled into Cambodia, Bizot was employed at the Angkor Conservation Office, restoring ceramics and bronzes. Bizot, at first, welcomed the American intervention in Cambodia, hoping that they might counter the rising influence of the Communists. "But their irresponsibility, the inexcusable naivete, even their cynicism, frequently aroused more fury and outrage in me than did the lies of the Communists. Throughout those years of war, as I frantically scoured the hinterland for the old manuscripts that the heads of monasteries had secreted in lacquered chests, I witnessed the Americans' imperviousness to the realities of Cambodia," wrote Bizot in his memoirs of the time.

Capture

In October 1971, Bizot and his two Cambodian colleagues were captured by the Khmer Rouge. During his captivity on charges of being a

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

agent at the Khmer Rouge Camp M.13 at Anlong Veng, he developed a close relationship with his captor, Comrade Duch, who later became the Director of the Tuol Sleng concentration camp in

Phnom Penh Phnom Penh is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Cambodia, most populous city of Cambodia. It has been the national capital since 1865 and has grown to become the nation's primate city and its political, economic, industr ...

. During his three-month imprisonment he became aware of the

genocidal Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" b ...

nature of the Khmer Rouge long before other outsiders. He was released in December 1971 after Comrade Duch wrote a detailed report that convinced the Khmer Rouge leadership of Bizot's innocence. Bizot's Cambodian colleagues were executed soon after Bizot's release.

Life after captivity

When the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975, Bizot, like most other foreigners in the country, sought refuge in the French Embassy. Because of his fluency in Khmer, he soon became the primary point of contact and unofficial translator between the embassy officials and the Khmer Rouge. He left Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge expelled all foreigners and sealed off Cambodia's borders. He returned to Cambodia in 2003 and met his former captor Duch, who was waiting for his trial for crimes against humanity, for about one hour and a half (a few minutes of the encounter were put on film). These moments can be seen in the documentary "Derrière Le Portail" ("Behind The Gate"). Duch was on trial at the

Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC; ; ), commonly known as the Cambodia Tribunal or Khmer Rouge Tribunal (), was a court established to try the senior leaders and the most responsible members of the Khmer Rouge for alle ...

and received a 35-year sentence, later increased to life from an appeal. Bizot was the first witness to testify at the trial. Bizot is Emeritus Professor at the École française d'Extrême-Orient.

In popular culture

Bizot's story provides the basis for the character Hansen in

John le Carré David John Moore Cornwell (19 October 193112 December 2020), better known by his pen name John le Carré ( ), was a British author, best known for his espionage novels, many of which were successfully adapted for film or television. A "sophist ...

's novel '' The Secret Pilgrim''.

References

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External links

Bizot's web page at the EFEO

A Survivor's Story
interview on the Connection. WBUR. Show Originally Aired: 11 April 2003. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bizot, Francois French anthropologists French ethnologists 1940 births Living people Writers from Nancy, France Prix des Deux Magots winners Cambodian genocide survivors French expatriates in Cambodia