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(0-South Dakota) said that the
Cambodians would be "better off"
if the U.S. let them work things out
" in their own way." Rep. Bella Ab–
zug of New York said that 100,000
lives would be
saved
by refusing to
aid the anti-Communist govern–
ment.
New York Times
columnist
Anthony Lewis said that "more
American military aid- if it has any
elfect- can only prolong the agony
ofCambodia."
Where are the people who were
oh-so-concerned about human suf–
fering when the anti-Communists
were in power? Where are they
now? The world has heard Ameri–
can ambassadors carry on about
"human rights" and not once men–
tion the atrocities in Cambodia.
And while President Carter belat–
edly described the Cambodian
Communist regime as "the worst
violator of human rights in the
world today," his public pronounce–
ments on human rights have tended
in the main to ignore tbe Cam–
bodian issue.
And where is the U.N. with all its
pompous rhetoric about human
rights? The few protests against the
Khmer Rouge 's terrible cruelties
have met with deafen.ing silence and
inaction. (See box on page 41.)
The fact is that in world reaction
to the atrocities in Cambodia there
is a morbid parallel to the inter–
national blindness that first met the
news of the death camps in Nazi
Germany. Even today one detects a
distinct reluctance on the part of the
liberal media- the major American
television networks, and severa! big–
city daily newspapers- to expose the
full horrors of the Poi Pot Khmer
Rouge regime.
The Great T ribulatlon
One cannot, or should not, read
about the cruelties of the Cam–
bodian Communists without think–
ing of the Bible's prophecy of the
Great Tribulation: "For then shall
be great tribulation, such
as was not
since the beginning of the world to
this time,
no, nor ever shall be"
(Matt. 24:21).
Quite literally, it is difficult to
imagine any worse tribulation than
has already occurred
in
Cambodia,
42
except possibly if it were to take
place on a wider scale. At any rate,
the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge
are sobering reminders of this Bible
prophecy.
In the same context , the words of
Pin Yathay are equally haunting.
Most of his fami ly met horrible
deaths at the hands of the Khmer
Rouge: Sorne had been starved,
others died from disease or had
been clubbed. That left only his
child , his wife and bimself, sick and
swollen, forced to do hard manual
labor. He spoke for many helpless
Cambodian peasants when he said,
"You understand at this point that
death seemed normal. It would have
been a deliverance."
Deliverance indeed! Pin Yathay's
words evoke the prophecy of Reve-
Contrast the
sutfering this article has
only touched on to
the prophecy:
"They shall not hurt nor
destroy in all
my holy mountain."
lation: "And in those days shall men
seek death, and shaU not find it ; and
shall desire to die, and death shall
flee from them" (Rev. 9:6).
And yet, despite the human suf–
fering-the little children left home–
less, the fami lies ripped apart, the
innocent, simple vi llagers hacked to
death because they violated sorne
arbitrary rule imposed on them by
their overlords-the Khmer Rouge
press on in bui lding their utopian
hel l. They have turned their country
into a death camp, and the scripture
which Alexander Solzhenitsyn has
used to vividly describe the Siberian
labor camps of the Soviet Union
even more apt ly portrays the Khmer
Rouge: "Neither repented they of
their murders" (Rev. 9:21 ).
In the prophetic sense it is signifi–
can! that one writer has used the
word ' 'energumen" to describe
Cambodia's official ruler, Pol Pot. In
political parlance, an energumen is
a tireless , crazed fanatic who would
kili
his own family to further his
cause. But perhaps there is some–
thing here which is even more than
mere human fanaticism. One cannot
read the accounts of the atrocities,
the horrors, and the butcheries
which Pol Pot and his coterie of fa–
natics have committed without
thinking of the li teral meaning of
energumen:
"demon-possessed."
The Cambodian holocaust is not
the Great Tribulation of Bible
prophecy, but it is a ghastly forerun–
ner of such demoniaca! inhumanity,
a sobering reminder that we are liv–
ing in a world which is held in the
grip of mankind's great archenemy,
Satan the devil (Rev. 12:9), who is
wrathful because he knows that his
time of rule is soon to draw to a
close (verse 12).
The Hope of a BeHer World
The holocaust in Cambodia is, polit–
ically, the result of utopian fanat–
icism. It is grisly testimony to what
happens when man tries to create
the Kingdom of God on earth
by
himse!f
Indeed, as the eminent philoso–
pher Eric Voeglin has warned, every
time man attempts to create a mil–
lennium on earth through his own
elforts, he ends up instead creating a
hell.
That is the irony: l n their zeal to
build a utopía, no matter what the
human cost, the Khmer Rouge has
demonstrated the crying need for
not more of man's government, but
God's government to bring about a
rea l millennium of peace and pros–
perity.
Contrast the sulfering and pain
which this article has only briefly
touched on to the vision of the
prophet Isaiah: "They shall not hurt
nor destroy in all my holy moun–
tain: for the earth shall be full of the
knowledge of the Lord , as the
waters cover the sea" (lsa. 11 :9).
There was a reason that Christ
told His followers to pray for His
Kingdom to come. The blood of
millions of dead Cambodians críes
out for that Kingdom.
o
·
The
PLAIN TRUTH September 1978