Cambodia Outraged as US Demands Repayment of ‘Blood-Stained’ War Debt
US fighter jets drop bombs on Cambodia circa 1973 (Photo: Wikimedia Commons/cc)
By Nika Knight | Common Dreams | March 13, 2017
Cambodians are responding with outrage to the U.S. government’s demand that the country repay a nearly 50-year-old loan to Cambodia’s brutal Lon Nol government, which came to power through a U.S.-backed coup and spent much of its foreign funds purchasing arms to kill its own citizens, according to Cambodia’s current prime minister Hun Sen.
While the U.S. was backing the Lon Nol government, it was also strafing the Cambodian countryside with bombs—a carpet-bombing campaign that would eventually see over 500,000 tons of explosives dropped on the small Asian country, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and leaving a legacy of unexploded ordnance.
“[The U.S.] dropped bombs on our heads and then they ask us to repay. When we do not repay, they tell the IMF [International Monetary Fund] not to lend us money,” Hun Sen said at an Asia-Pacific regional conference earlier this month.
“At the same time the U.S. was giving weapons to Lon Nol, it was bombing the Cambodian countryside into oblivion and creating millions of refugees fleeing into Phnom Penh and destroying all political fabric and civil life in the country,” former Australian ambassador to Cambodia Tony Kevin told Australia’s ABC.
“And all of this was simply to stop the supplies coming down to South Vietnam, as it was then, from the north,” Kevin added. “So the United States created a desert in Cambodia in those years, and Americans know this.”
Hun Sen has argued that the U.S. has no right to demand repayment of its “blood-stained” funds.
“Cambodia does not owe even a brass farthing to the U.S. for help in destroying its people, its wild animals, its rice fields, and forest cover,” wrote former Reuters correspondent James Pringle for The Cambodia Daily.
In fact, during his tenure as prime minister Hun Sen has asked the U.S. to drop the “dirty debt” several times, but American leaders have refused.
“[The] U.S. would not drop it. It would have been so easy to forgive the repayment, it would have been easy to refinance it for education like they did in Vietnam,” the reporter Elizabeth Becker, who covered the Cambodian genocide in the 1970s, told Al Jazeera.
“The U.S. intervention in Cambodia was easily the most controversial that we had in that era,” Becker said. “[The U.S.] dragged Cambodia into the Vietnam War for hopes that by expanding it they could win, the complications now are that even 50 years later, the Khmer Rouge legacy is horrible.”
“The U.S. owes Cambodia much more in war debts that can be repaid in cash,” Becker argued to The Cambodia Daily.
4 Comments »
Leave a comment
Featured Video
Panama Ransacked in 1989
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Hands off ‘our hemisphere’ or Venezuela pays the price: US Senator warns Russia
RT | February 13, 2019
The US staked a claim on half the world, as Senate Armed Services Committee chair Jim Inhofe said Washington might have to intervene in Venezuela if Russia dares set up a military base not just there, but “in our hemisphere.”
“I think that it could happen,” Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) told a group of reporters on Tuesday. “You’ve got a guy down there that is killing everybody. You could have him put together a base that Russia would have on our hemisphere. And if those things happen, it may be to the point where we’ll have to intervene with troops and respond.”
Should Russia dare encroach on the US’ neck of the woods, Inhofe said: “we have to take whatever action necessary to stop them from doing that.” … continue
Blog Roll
Recent Comments
seversonebcfb985d9 on Somaliland and the ‘Grea… John Edward Kendrick on Kidnapped By the Washington… aletho on Somaliland and the ‘Grea… John Edward Kendrick on Somaliland and the ‘Grea… aletho on Donald Trump, and Most America… John Edward Kendrick on Donald Trump, and Most America… aletho on The US Has Invaded Venezuela t… John Edward Kendrick on The US Has Invaded Venezuela t… papasha408 on The US Has Invaded Venezuela t… loongtip on Palestine advocates praise NYC… Bill Francis on Did Netanyahu just ask Trump f… Rod on How Intelligence, Politics, an…
Aletho News- US hijacks fifth oil tanker in Caribbean waters as Washington tightens blockade on Venezuela
- From Industrial Power to Military Keynesianism: Germany’s Engineered Collapse
- Offshore wind turbines steal each other’s wind: yields greatly overestimated
- UK Expands Online Safety Act to Mandate Preemptive Scanning of Digital Communications
- Trump Pulls Plug on Ukraine’s Pentagon-Linked Bioweapons Web
- One Hundred People Killed in US Attack on Venezuela – Interior Minister
- The Year Ahead in Sino-American Relations
- Venezuela to Buy Only US-Made Products Under New ‘Oil Deal’ – Trump
- President Trump’s Cross of Iron
- A Modern History Of U.S. Regime Change Efforts
- If Americans Knew
- Israel says education in Gaza is not a critical activity – Not a ceasefire Day 91
- Israel is starving Gaza, ‘asphyxiating’ West Bank – Not a ceasefire Day 90
- Israel Targeted Churches, Mosques, and Markets during the Genocide.
- ‘We Saved the Child From Drowning’: In Gaza, Winter Storm Makes Displacement Even Deadlier
- Palestinian church committee urges churches worldwide to protect aid work in Gaza
- BlackNest: Inside Canary Mission’s Secret Web of Unlisted Sites
- Gaza staggers under 80% unemployment rate – Not a ceasefire Day 89
- Israel has detained Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya without charges for a year. Why has the New York Times refused to cover his case?
- Israel’s role in Trump’s attacks on Venezuela
- Shrinking Gaza: Israel moves Yellow Line again – Not a ceasefire Day 88
- No Tricks Zone
- Berlin Blackout Shows Germany’s $5 Trillion Green Scheme Is “Left-Green Ideological Pipe Dream”
- Modeling Error In Estimating How Clouds Affect Climate Is 8700% Larger Than Alleged CO2 Forcing
- Berlin’s Terror-Blackout Enters 4th Day As Tens Of Thousands Suffer In Cold Without Heat!
- Expect Soon Another PIK Paper Claiming Warming Leads To Cold Snaps Over Europe
- New Study: Human CO2 Emissions Responsible For 1.57% Of Global Temperature Change Since 1750
- Welcome To 2026: Europe Laying Groundwork For Climate Science Censorship!
- New Study Finds A Higher Rate Of Global Warming From 1899-1940 Than From 1983-2024
- Meteorologist Dr. Ryan Maue Warns “Germany Won’t Make It” If Winter Turns Severe
- Merry Christmas Everybody!
- Two More New Studies Show The Southern Ocean And Antarctica Were Warmer In The 1970s
Aletho News 
Thanks for this. I appreciate the comments of Ambassador Kevin, James Pringle, and Elizabeth Becker.
LikeLike
……..”they tell the IMF [International Monetary Fund] not to lend us money,”
The IMF is owned, and is part of the International Banking Cartel(which includes all Central Banks, including the Federal Reserve) that is currently enslaving the World in debt, and Cambodia is one of the poorest countries on Earth.
The USA demanding repayment of loans by a country that the USA Carpet Bombed, is outrageous.
LikeLike
“The USA demanding repayment”!
WHO IS DEMANDING THIS REPAYMENT?
We need names, so we can expose these DEMONIC scum!
LikeLike
Thanks for re-opening this post and allowing me to be outraged and ashamed once again, Buddy Silver. Here we are almost a year later…I wish Nika Knight would give us a look into current US machinations…and Cambodian reaction. (I did glance at the opening texts of the three “Related” sources above.)
LikeLike