Elizabeth Becker, renowned journalist and author, recently testified as an expert witness at the Khmer Rouge Genocide Tribunal to details atrocities she saw while being a reporter in Cambodia in the 1970’s.
She testified for the prosecution against two living accused war criminals from the time when the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia. During four years in power, the Khmer Rouge killed over two million people, about one-fourth of the Cambodian population, according to Becker.
The trial is intended to provide some modicum of justice to victims of the Khmer Rouge’s brutality and their crimes against humanity and genocide from 1975-1979.
Becker in an award winning journalist who has written for both the Washington Postand the New York Times and she was Senior Foreign Editor for National Public Radio. She is on the Ohio University campus to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Cambodian War and to speak to students. She is a guest of the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism.
Becker first went to Cambodia in 1972 for the Washington Post to cover the war there as the Khmer Rouge insurgents were trying to gain power. She returned in 1978 as one of only two journalist allowed back into the country after the Khmer Rouge takeover. She interviewed Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot while he was in power.
During her visit to Cambodia, she and her colleagues were attacked by armed gunmen and one scholar in the group, Malcom Caldwell, was killed.
In 1986, she wrote When the War Was Over, a history of modern Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge. She won the Robert F. Kennedy citation for the book. It was updated and translated into French and Khmer in 1998.
In 1992 she also wrote America’s Vietnam War, a narrative history of that period, for young adults.
Her most recent book was published in 2014 called Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism.
While on campus, Becker discussed her Cambodian experiences and her testimony with WOUB’s Tom Hodson.
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