Email to Henry Kissinger

29 May 2010

Dear Dr Kissinger,
 
I work in Phnom Penh teaching poor children English. Many come from violent and dysfunctional families. In numerous cases their parents were rendered violent and dysfunctional when they themselves were indoctrinated and brutalised as child soldiers for Pol Pot, a generation or so ago.
 
As historians now agree, the US bombing was the decisive factor in swelling Pol Pot’s followers from about 4,000 to a force of 70,000 - angry and determined enough to topple the old regime. So I wonder if you would feel like accepting a small portion of the responsibility for the economic and psychological wasteland that is today’s Cambodia.
 
In a strange, metaphorical way, these children are your children.
 
A concrete way of doing this might be to make a financial contribution to one of the NGOs which are trying to pick up the wreckage left from the 1970s, such as the one I volunteer for - though there are many others.
 
I could assist with information if you wish.
 
 
Sincerely,
 
John Macgregor