François Bizot

François Bizot (born February 8 1940 in Nancy, France) was the only Westerner to survive imprisonment by the Khmer Rouge.

Bizot arrived in Cambodia in 1965 to study Buddhism practiced in the countryside. He traveled extensively around Cambodia, researching the history and customs of its dominant religion. He speaks fluent Khmer, French and English and was married to a Cambodian. When the Vietnam War spilled into Cambodia, Bizot was employed at the Angkor Conservation Office, restoring ceramics and bronzes.

Bizot, at first, welcomed the American intervention in Cambodia, hoping that they might counter the rising influence of the Communists. "But their irresponsibility, the inexcusable naivete, even their cynicism, frequently aroused more fury and outrage in me than did the lies of the Communists. Throughout those years of war, as I frantically scoured the hinterland for the old manuscripts that the heads of monasteries had secreted in lacquered chests, I witnessed the Americans' imperviousness to the realities of Cambodia," wrote Bizot in his memoirs of the time.ref|bizot-2003

In October 1971, Bizot and his two Cambodian colleagues were captured by the Khmer Rouge. During his captivity on charges of being a CIA agent at the Khmer Rouge Camp M.13 at Anlong Veng, he developed a strangely close relationship with his captor, Comrade Duch, who later became the Director of the infamous Tuol Sleng concentration camp in Phnom Penh. During his three-month imprisonment he came to understand the true genocidal nature of the Khmer Rouge long before other outsiders. He was finally released in December 1971 after Comrade Duch wrote a detailed report that convinced the Khmer Rouge leadership of Bizot's innocence. Bizot's Cambodian colleagues were executed soon after Bizot's release.

When the Khmer Rouge poured into Phnom Penh in April 1975, Bizot, like most other foreigners in the country, wound up in the French Embassy in Phnom Penh. Because of his fluency in Khmer, he soon became the primary point of contact and unofficial translator between the embassy officials and the Khmer Rouge. He left Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge expelled all foreigners and sealed off Cambodia's borders. He returned to Cambodia in 2003 and met his former captor Duch, who is waiting for his trial for crimes against humanity, for about one hour and a half ( a few minutes of the encounter were put on film ). These moments can be seen in the documentary "Derrière Le Portail" ("Behind The Gate").

Bizot is Emeritus Professor at the École française d'Extrême-Orient.

Further reading

*François Bizot. 2003. "The Gate." New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Euan Cameron, trans.
*François Bizot. 2006. "Le Saut du Varan." Paris: Flammarion

References

#cite web | title=François Bizot Biography | work=Pen America Center | url=http://www.pen.org/page.php/prmID/675 | accessdate=2005-12-18
#cite web | title=Threshold of Fear | author=Kenneth Champeon | url=http://www.irrawaddy.org/aviewer.asp?a=2808&z=106
#cite book | author=Bizot, François; translated from French by Euan Cameron| title=The Gate | publisher=Alfred A. Knoph | year=2003 | id=ISBN 0-375-41293-X

External links

* [http://www.efeo.fr/biographies/notices/bizot.htm Bizot's web page at the EFEO]
* [http://www.ina.fr/archivespourtous/index.php?vue=notice&from=fulltext&full=ethnologue&cs_page=1&cs_order=0&num_notice=12&total_notices=22 Interview on french television, 28th August 2000] : François Bizot discusses his book "The gate" (Le portail)
* [http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2003/04/20030411_b_main.asp A Survivor's Story] : interview on the Connection. WBUR. Show Originally Aired: Apr 11, 2003.