US Helped Pol Pots's Rise to Power

The Khmer Rouge's most notorious prison chief told a Cambodia war crimes court today US policies in the 1970s contributed to the rise of Pol Pot's genocidal regime.

Kaing Guek Eav, or 'Duch,' the brutal director of the infamous torture centre S-21 said he believed the Khmer Rouge regime would have died out had the US not supported the right wing military government that removed Prince Norodom Sihanouk from power in a 1970 coup.

"I think the Khmer Rouge would already have been demolished," he said. "But Mr. Kissinger (the then U.S. Secretary of State) and Richard Nixon were quick (to back General Lon Nol, the right wing coup leader), and then the Khmer Rouge noted the golden opportunity."

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