‘Atrocities in Cambodia’

Press, Issue 33842, 14 May 1975, Page 17

‘Atrocities in Cambodia’

(New Zealand Press Association —Copyright)

BANGKOK, May 13.

The Khmer Rouge have executed all officers ranking above lieutenant in the defeated Cambodian Army, according to a Khmer Rouge soldier quoted in today’s edition of the mass-circulation Bangkok daily newspaper, “Thai Rath,*’ Agence France-Presse reports.

The soldier, interviewed on the ThaiCambodian border, said that six foreigners and a Cambodian journalist; had also been executed,! in a village six miles east of the Cambodian border; town of Poipet.

The Khmer Rouge soldier said that he had seen the bodies of those executed. They included three white men, two blacks, an Indian and a Cambodian who was still clutching a press card issued in the name of Ouk Phan. “The Khmer Rouge have killed the officers of the deI feated army, but sent the

rank-and-file soldiers to till the earth alongside the people,” the soldier said. “Many were killed, but they ! were enemies of the people, j "... Residents have been ; driven out of Phnom Penh land the cities because there I were too many people living there.” | In the United States, the I Secretary of State (Dr Henry ; Kissinger) said today that | “an atrocity of major proj portions” was going on in • Cambodia. ; Describing the situation as a tragedy, he confirmed re- ! ports that 3 million residents of Phnom Penh had been ! forcibly marched to rural [areas where no harvest is expected before November, and also that hospitals had been cleared of patients. Dr Kissinger said that in executing officials of the defeated Government, the Khmer Rouge were “reaching down to the level of second-lieutenants and their wives.” In South Vietnam, he said, the situation was less clear, and the United States Government had no first-hand information about events of this type. “But,” he said, “we do have very clear information about what is going on in Cambodia."