Ben Kiernan

Benedict F. Kiernan (born 1953 in Melbourne, Australia) is the Whitney Griswold Professor of History, Professor of International and Area Studies and Director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University. He is a prolific writer on the Cambodian genocide.

Biography

In his early twenties, Kiernan visited Cambodia but left before the Khmer Rouge expelled all foreigners in 1975. Though he initially doubted the scale of genocide then being perpetrated in Democratic Kampuchea, he changed his mind in 1978^[1][2][3] after interviews with several hundred refugees from Cambodia. He learnt the Khmer language, carried out extensive research in Cambodia and among refugees abroad, and has since written many critically-acclaimed books on the topic.

From 1980 onwards, Kiernan worked with Gregory Stanton to bring the Khmer Rouge to international justice. He obtained his Ph.D. from Monash University, Australia, in 1983. He joined the Yale History Department in 1990, and founded the award-winning Cambodian Genocide Program at the Yale Center for International and Area Studies in 1994, and the comparative Genocide Studies Program in 1998. He is the author of over a hundred scholarly articles on Southeast Asia and genocide.

In 1995 a Khmer Rouge kangaroo court indicted, tried and sentenced Kiernan in-absentia for "prosecuting and terrorizing the Cambodian resistance patriots".

In an article in the Walrus Magazine (25 Sept 06) Kiernan, and Taylor Owen wrote that recent evidence reveals that Cambodia was bombed by the U.S. far more heavily than previously believed. They conclude that "the impact of this bombing, the subject of much debate for the past three decades, is now clearer than ever. Civilian casualties in Cambodia drove an enraged populace into the arms of an insurgency that had enjoyed relatively little support until the bombing began, setting in motion the expansion of the Vietnam War deeper into Cambodia, a coup d’état in 1970, the rapid rise of the Khmer Rouge, and ultimately the Cambodian genocide." [4]

Kiernan currently teaches history courses on South East Asia, the Vietnam War and genocides through the ages.

He is married to acclaimed historian of the American South Glenda Gilmore

Criticisms of Kiernan

In 1994, Kiernan was awarded a $499,000 grant by Congress to assist the Cambodian government document the Khmer Rouge’s abuses. The grant sparked a controversy after several fellow academics and journalists lobbied the Secretary of State Warren Christopher to withdraw the grant from Kiernan’s team. Citing numerous instances of praise that Kiernan gave to the Khmer Rouge and its leadership individuals such as Stephen Morris argued, that Kiernan’s former opinions and beliefs made him a poor choice for the role. Gerard Henderson, the executive director of Australia's Sydney Institute, echoed Morris’s opinion by stating that Kiernan had "barracked for the Khmer Rouge when the Cambodian killing fields were choked with corpses.

However,in response 26 Cambodian specialists from across the political spectrum, including senior historians such as David Chandler, Craig Etcheson, Nayan Chanda, Michael Vickery and Milton Osborne, signed a petition disowning Stephen Morris, stating that "We have full confidence in Prof. Kiernan's integrity, professional scholarship, and ability to carry out the important work of the Cambodian Genocide Program. He is a first-rate historian and an excellent choice for the State Department grant." Concluding that, "As Cambodia studies is a small field, and we and our students comprise the majority who publish in the field, we are at a loss to imagine which "scholars" Mr Morris might mean. We are certainly not among them, although Mr. Morris has not been above invoking names without permission. We totally dissociate ourselves from Stephen J. Morris."

Kiernan's work before 1978, especially his work with the publication News from Kampuchea, has been criticized as being pro-Khmer Rouge^[5][6]. While Kiernan has become a fierce critic of the Khmer Rouge behavior, Peter Rodman notes that “When Hanoi turned publicly against Phnom Penh, it suddenly became respectable for many on the Left to "discover" the murderous qualities of the Khmer Rouge-qualities that had been obvious to unbiased observers for years. Kiernan fits this pattern nicely. His book even displays an eagerness to absolve of genocidal responsibility those members of the Khmer Rouge who defected to Hanoi and were later reinstalled in power in Phnom Penh by the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1978.”

External links

• Cambodian Genocide Program
• Genocide Studies Program
• Kiernan's bio at Yale
• Behind the Peace Agreement in Cambodia
• PBS interview with Kiernan
• Aztag interview with Kiernan

Selected bibliography

• Kiernan, Ben (December 1976). "Social Cohesion in Revolutionary Cambodia". Australian Outlook.
• Kiernan, Ben (October–December 1979). "Vietnam and the Governments and People of Kampuchea". Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date format (link)
• Kiernan, Ben (2004) [1985]. How Pol Pot Came to Power: Colonialism, Nationalism, and Communism in Cambodia, 1930-1975. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-10262-3.
• Kiernan, Ben (1986). Cambodia: The Eastern zone Massacres.
• Kiernan, Ben (2002) [1996]. The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-1979. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09649-6.
• Kiernan, Ben (1998). Le Génocide au Cambodge, 1975-1979: Race, idéologie, et pouvoir.
• Kiernan, Ben and Boua, Chanthou (1981). Peasants and Politics in Kampuchea, 1942-1981. Zed Books Ltd.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Kiernan, Ben (1986). Cambodge: Histoire et enjeux.

References

1. ^ Kiernan, Benedict (Nov. 17, 1978). "Why's Kampuchea Gone to Pot?". Nation Review (Melbourne). {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
2. ^ Kiernan, Benedict (October–December 1979). "Vietnam and the Governments and People of Kampuchea". Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date format (link)
3. ^ Shawcross, William (1984). The Quality of Mercy - Cambodia, Holocaust and Modern Conscience. Simon and Schuster, New York. ISBN 0-671-44022-5.
4. ^ Morris, Stephan (Apr. 17, 1995). "The Wrong Man to Investigate Cambodia". Wall Street Journal. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
5. ^ Gunn, Geoffrey (1991). Cambodia Watching Down Under. ISBN 974-579-532-1.