Father Francois Ponchaud Who Had Alerted the World to the Khmer Rouge Regime, Passes away

Father Francois Ponchaud answers a question from a member of the audience during a conference at the French Institute on Dec. 14, 2021 in Phnom Penh. Photo: Kavi CHHAY

PHNOM PENH — Father Francois Ponchaud, whose book in 1977 was the first to draw attention to the killings taking place in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime, died in France on Jan. 17. He would have been 86 years old on Feb. 8.

This Catholic priest, who was a member of the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris in France, had spent most of his life in Cambodia.

After completing more than years of mandatory military service as a paratrooper in Algeria, Ponchaud had joined the society, been ordained priest in 1964, and arrived in Cambodia in 1965. He first studied Khmer language in Kampong Cham and Battambang provinces, and was later assigned to a Catholic community in Kampong Cham province.

Then in 1970, the civil war began, following the ousting of Prince Norodom Sihanouk who took refuge in China and became the official head of the Khmer Rouge forces based in northern Cambodia and getting support from the Vietnamese forces.

This led in Cambodia to the government forces of Lon Nol going after the Vietnamese communities that had been settled in the country for decades. “It was terrible,” said Ponchaud during an interview in Phnom Penh on Dec. 14, 2021.  Thousands were killed along with 8 or 10 French and Vietnamese Catholic priests, he said.

Ponchaud and other priests tried to rescue as many people of Vietnamese origin as they could and help them flee to South Vietnam where war was raging and where most of them had never lived, he said.

In April 1975, when the Khmer Rouge forces marched on Phnom Penh and took control of the capital, Ponchaud was among the hundreds of foreigners and Cambodians who found themselves at the French Embassy on Monivong Boulevard. Following days of negotiations with the Khmer Rouge leaders who ordered Cambodians to leave the compound, except for some women who could prove they were married to foreigners, people were taken to the Thai border by truck.   

“I was the last one to leave the French Embassy,” recalled Ponchaud. “I’m the one who handed over the keys of the embassy to the [Khmer Rouge] vice-president in charge of the north sector.” This was on May 8, 1975.

Back in France, Ponchaud started to gather information on the Khmer Rouge regime. To get the testimonies of Cambodians who had fled the country since the start of the regime, he travelled throughout France and to countries where they had taken refuge such as Canada, the United States and so on.

After the fall of the regime in January 1979 and during the 1980s, Ponchaud would go to Thailand and work in the Cambodian refugee camp Site 2.

Father Francois Ponchaud is photographed on Dec. 14, 2021 during a book signing session at the Carnets d'Asie bookstore at the French Institute in Phnom Penh. Photo: Kavi CHHAY


In his book released in 1977 in French and in English, he does not mince words regarding the United Nations and the international community’s inaction regarding the Khmer Rouge regime in spite of distress calls made by Cambodians.

In his last chapter, he wrote, “[The regime] is a perfect example of the application of an ideology pushed to the furthest limit of its internal logic. But the furthest limit is too far and ‘too far’ is akin to madness—for in this scheme of society, where is man?

“The smile of the Leper-King has frozen into a grimace of death,” he concluded.

When he returned to Cambodia in the 1990s following the signing of the Paris Peace Agreements in 1991, Ponchaud worked on translating Christian documents in Khmer. He had just finished translating explanations of the New Testament in Khmer when he left the country in December 2021.

In his opinion, some Catholic traditions should be adapted to the country rather than asking Cambodians to adapt to all Western ways, such as designing churches with either lower seats or cushions on mats on the floor rather than the rows of stiff seats of the traditional churches.

In a small book entitled “Together, In Search of the Light,” he had written in 2006, Ponchaud had said: “[t]he Buddhists as well as the Christians seek to follow a way that they themselves do not see clearly…even if we belong to different religions, we can come together and shine as the light for the world today.”

As he was getting ready to say goodbye to Cambodia, Ponchaud said he would be leaving with happy memories of people in the country. “This joy of the Cambodians is everywhere,” he said. “This joy at the Water Festival…when they go to the countryside, it’s all joy. And their joyfulness warms one’s heart.”

Cambodianess

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