Richard Beebe DUDMAN
Pseudonym: 2-TCW-923
Cases: Case 002/02
Category: Witness
Background and Role
Richard Dudman is an award-winning journalist
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who repeatedly travelled to Indochina in the 1970s to cover events there.
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Mr. Dudman interviewed Pol Pot in December 1978 when he was only one of two Western journalists visiting Democratic Kampuchea. He testified as a witness in the Case 002/02 trial on his time spent in Cambodia before, during, and after the Khmer Rouge, with a particular focus on his observations of living conditions under DK, anti-Vietnamese rhetoric, his interview with Pol Pot and the killing of journalist, Malcolm Caldwell.
Mr Dudman was called to testify as a witness by Nuon Chea’s Defence team.
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He testified by video link from the United States, accompanied by his attorneys.
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Mr Dudman did not recall many details of his experience in Cambodia.
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The Trial Chamber did not rely on his in-court testimony in its Judgment, but found that he had visited Democratic Kampuchea with Elizabeth Becker and Malcolm Caldwell, and that Caldwell had been killed.
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The Chamber also cited his articles about his visit to establish Cambodian fears of a Vietnamese invasion
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and the development of the term “auto-genocide” to describe Khmer Rouge massacres.
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Articles defending Khmer Rouge
During his testimony Mr Dudman explained that he wrote an article in 1990 suggesting that allegations of Khmer Rouge crimes were based on weak evidence
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and asserting that during a 1978 visit he had seen a “generally healthy population.”
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He clarified that “I know more things now than I did then” and acknowledged that “the preponderance of the evidence supports…that there was mass murdering going on”,
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adding “[f]or everything I have read since and everything – and sources I have consulted, I think there was genocide, under the Pol Pot regime. So I wouldn’t – I wouldn’t now write this article.”
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In particular, he testified that he had read that people on the Khmer Rouge’s enemy list were exterminated.
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Mr Dudman also wrote an article in the St. Louis-Dispatch in 1979 based on his visit to Democratic Kampuchea in 1978.
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While he did not contest that he had written that life under the Khmer Rouge may have improved, he claimed that this was just an “informed guess.”
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Visit to Cambodia in 1978
During his visit to Cambodia in 1978
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he undertook a tour of the country, which he claimed was unsatisfactory.
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The Defence questioned him about a statement he had published that he had “plenty of opportunity for observation in tours of 11 of the 19 provinces”, and he clarified that while those on the tour “couldn’t speak to anybody”, he “kept [his] eyes open” and wrote what he had observed.
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He acknowledged that he was frustrated by the inability to ask questions
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and that he could not be sure that what he had seen was representative of life under the Khmer Rouge.
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During his visit Mr Dudman heard anti-Vietnamese rhetoric. When the Prosecutor read him allegations of Vietnamese barbarity and references to the “skinny and wounded Vietnamese dog” from DK radio broadcasts, Mr Dudman confirmed those were the same type of rhetoric he heard.
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Interview with Pol Pot
Dudman and fellow journalist Elizabeth Becker met with Pol Pot during their trip. Pol Pot lectured them, saying repeatedly that the Vietnamese would invade Cambodia that he believed with American help the Khmer Rouge would repel the attack.
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Attack on journalists
Dudman awoke one night to the sound of gunshots. He went across the hall to speak with fellow journalist Malcolm Caldwell, and they decided to stay in their rooms. While Mr Dudman was in the hallway an armed man appeared and fired at him,
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and he fled to his room and hid.
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About two hours later, a Cambodian diplomat arrived and told Mr Dudman that fellow journalist Elizabeth Becker was safe, but Caldwell had been killed.
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Ms Becker and Mr Dudman left that day and took Caldwell’s body back to the United States.
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Videos
