While on the stand, he said that he had been witness to the 'illegal' bombing, known as Operation Menu, of Cambodia by the American air force, and that Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State should stand trial for his actions. He gave evidence at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia in 2013 during the war crime trials were being held. Following the overthrow of the KR in 1979, he returned to Cambodia. William Shawcross has said that the book is, 'the best account of Khmer Rouge rule'.įor four years after his expulsion, he and François Bizot helped Cambodian and French citizens escape from Cambodia. He is fluent in Khmer.įollowing the KR victory, all contact with the outside world was shut down, but following an editorial in Le Monde on February 1976, Ponchaud wrote an article which ran to three pages, telling of the systematic abuses he had witnessed while Phnom Penh was being emptied, and following this he wrote Cambodge année zéro (Cambodia: Year Zero), a book on the Cambodian genocide, which was published in 1977, and is credited with being one of the first publications which dealt with the genocide. On, the KR evacuated the embassy, Ponchaud was one of the last westerners to leave Cambodia. When Phnom Penh fell to the KR on 17 April 1975, Ponchaud was detained in the French embassy. Ponchaud was 26 years old and newly ordained when he arrived in Cambodia in 1965. He applied through the Paris Foreign Missions Society for an assignment to undertake missionary work, and was assigned to Cambodia. He spent three years in Algeria as a paratrooper during the Algerian War and returned to his studies in 1961, becoming a Jesuit. He attended seminary in 1958 but the following year left due to national service. Ponchaud was born in Sallanches, France and was one of twelve children.

Cambodia by François Ponchaud