Doubletake: Intended for Evil, The Clearing of Phnom Penh

The World and Everything In It

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4.8 • 6.6K Ratings

🗓️ 18 January 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

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Summary

The communist Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, on April 17, 1975. Radha Manickam, a new Christian, watched them arrive from the balcony of his parents’ apartment. It was Radha’s first exposure to the Khmer Rouge. The leader of the Khmer Rouge was Pol Pot, led the most violent and brutal government in modern history. In its doomed attempt to create an agrarian utopia, between 1975 and 1979 Pol Pot’s regime murdered over 1.7 million people. Many were beaten to death or executed. Others starved to death or died of fatigue or some wretched disease. Mao and Stalin’s Communist regimes killed far more people. But no other government has destroyed nearly a quarter of its own citizens.Today Pol Pot is largely forgotten. But he and the Khmer Rouge are well worth remembering. Because the ideas that formed the Khmer Rouge are still with us today. Also worth remembering are the stories of those who survived. People like Radha Manickam. We’ll be telling his story over the next three episodes. It is in many ways a brutal story. One of loss and grief and terror. But it’s also a story of hope and grace. And ultimately, redemption.This series is based on my recent interviews with Radha, along with my 2016 book about his experiences. The book and this series are titled “Intended for Evil” by Les Sillars.Audio from:The Associated PressNBC NewsABC NewsSupport WORLD News Group at wng.org/donate (http://wng.org/donate)

Transcript

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0:00.0	From World Radio, this is Double Take.
0:04.0	I'm Les Sillers.
0:06.0	Today we have the first of a three-part series intended for evil.
0:10.0	You might call it a triple take.
0:12.0	In this series, most of the background sounds are from Cambodia during this period,
0:18.0	but in a few places we added sound effects. Just so you know.
0:22.6	Well, usually we wake up like 6, 7 o'clock in the morning.
0:39.1	Everything is kind of calm down and quiet.
0:43.5	And then we start hearing some gunfire like pop pop everywhere.
0:49.2	It was April 17, 1975.
0:52.2	Rada Manicum was 22 years old and living with his family near downtown Phnom Penhent, the capital
0:58.0	of Cambodia.
0:59.0	And then by 9 o'clock we hear there's rumble on the street, which is the Khmer Rouge,
1:06.0	drive in with the tank, the big tank.
1:08.0	The communist Khmer Rouge had just won a brutal five-year civil war in the jungle
1:13.0	against the American-backed Khmer Republic.
1:15.9	A half million people had died in the war.
1:19.9	That morning, April 17th, Khmer Rouge guerrillas were marching into the city.
1:24.9	Later that morning, Rada saw them, squads of soldiers walking in single
1:28.9	file down their street. They all wore loose black cotton pants and shirts with buttons
1:35.8	and breast pockets, often called pajamas, a black Chinese cap and a red and white check
1:42.3	patterned scarf around their waists are necks. Sandals cut
	...

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