366:", an excuse that some broadcasters and television executives use to justify the current descent into the cynicism and passivity of Big Brotherland. Above all, I learned that a documentary could reclaim shared historical and political memories, and present their hidden truths. The reward then was a compassionate and an informed public; and it still is.
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A rather interesting quality of the articles was their concentration on Nazism and the holocaust. Pilger called Pol Pot 'an Asian Hitler' — and said he was even worse than Hitler ... Again and again Pilger compared the Khmer Rouge to the Nazis. Their
Marxist-Leninist ideology was not even mentioned
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and
Francois Ponchaud. Nonetheless, the reaction to the stories in Britain was as if they were something quite new." Oliver Kamm asserted in 2006: "Pilger's documentaries are full of falsehoods. They operate by misdirection, simultaneously denouncing one form of injustice while ignoring or denying
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going to air, 40 sacks of post arrived at ATV ... in
Birmingham – 26,000 first-class letters in the first post alone. The station quickly amassed £1m, almost all of it in small amounts. "This is for Cambodia," wrote a Bristol bus driver, enclosing his week's wage. Entire pensions were sent, along
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Following the programme, some $ 45 million was raised, unsolicited, in mostly small donations, including almost ÂŁ4 million raised by schoolchildren in the UK. This funded the first substantial relief for
Cambodia, including the shipment of life-saving medicines such as penicillin, and
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had provided a critical catalyst for the rise of the Khmer Rouge. It also exposed how the West, led by the United States and
Britain, was imposing an embargo, like a medieval siege, on the most stricken country on earth. This was a reaction to the fact that Cambodia's liberator was Vietnam – a
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Ponchaud had interviewed members of anti-communist groups living in the Thai refugee border camps. According to Pilger, "At the very least the effect of
Shawcross's 'exposé'" of Cambodian's treatment at the hands of the Vietnamese "was to blur the difference between Cambodia under Pol Pot and
358:, one after the other, for weeks. MPs received hundreds of thousands of letters, demanding that British policy change (which it did, eventually). And none of it was asked for. For me, the public response to
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simply described the monster that Pol Pot was, it would have been quickly forgotten. By reporting the collusion of "our" governments, it told a wider truth about how the world was run ... Within two days of
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militia after their take over of the country, the poverty and suffering of the people, and the limited aid since given by the West. Pilger's first report on
Cambodia was published in a special issue of the
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that "Pilger's reports underwrote almost everything that refugees along the Thai border had been saying about the cruelty of Khmer Rouge rule since 1975, and that had already appeared in the books by the
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and that had recently defeated the US. Cambodia's suffering was a wilful revenge. Britain and the US even backed Pol Pot's demand that his man continue to occupy
Cambodia's seat at the UN, while
232:, however, Pilger "failed to disclose that Communist Vietnam, having invaded Cambodia and installed a puppet regime, was trying to control which starving people were fed and which were not".
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Cambodia liberated by the
Vietnamese: in truth. a difference of night and day". In his book, Shawcross himself doubted that anyone had died of starvation.
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In a 2007 speech, "Freedom Next Time: Resisting the Empire", Pilger described his experience with executives of the
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clothing to replace the black uniforms people had been forced to wear. According to Brian Walker, director of
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stopped children's milk going to the survivors of his nightmare regime. Little of this was reported. Had
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The documentary as a television "event" can send ripples far and wide ...
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kept secret from the American population, the subsequent brutality and
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161:(ATV). First broadcast on 30 October 1979, the filmmakers had entered
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not only revealed the horror of the Pol Pot years, it showed how
521:"Holocaust" is rendered in lower case in Richard West's article.
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242:(1984) about Pilger's series of articles about Cambodia in the
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The Quality of Mercy: Cambodia, Holocaust and Modern Conscience
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The documentary has been released on DVD as part of Network's
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compilation box set as well as sets under Pilger's own name.
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Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism and its Triumphs
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and Shawcross' account of Vietnamesse atrocities during
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The Secret Country: The First Australians Fight Back
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604:"The revolution will not be televised"
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845:British documentary television films
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165:in the wake of the overthrow of the
503:West, Richard (28 September 1984).
27:1979 British TV series or programme
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562:(January–March 1986), 18(1): 56–63
471:Kamm, Oliver (20 September 2006).
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441:John Pilger (15 February 2011).
333:'secret' bombing of that country
637:. Democracy Now. Archived from
362:gave the lie to clichés about "
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374:(PBS). They refused to screen
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447:. Random House. p. 121.
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279:The Quality of Mercy
246:during August 1979:
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505:"Who was to blame?"
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63:John Pilger
60:Narrated by
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272:Red Guards
174:bombing of
100:Eric Piper
84:Production
40:Written by
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485:26 August
479:The Times
376:Year Zero
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351:Year Zero
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313:Year Zero
225:The Times
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607:Archived
481:. London
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389:See also
338:Cold War
191:and his
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169:regime.
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153:for the
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