‘Taliban are modern-day version of Khmer Rouge’

By Shahid Husain
Sunday, August 07, 2011
The International News, Pakistan

If the United States were to invade Pakistan on the premise that al-Qaeda ‘sanctuaries’ must be destroyed in order to protect American troops in Afghanistan, it would be repeating history with respect to their engagement with Cambodia in the early 70s, as this would only prove to legitimise the enemy and make them stronger.

This was observed by eminent scientist Dr Syed Arif Kazmi in an interview with The News. He said that President Nixon’s military campaign to assist the Khmer Republican government in Cambodia in stopping the Khmer Rouge (followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea) and their brutal ideology from taking control of the country, only served to strengthen the Rouge, as those who lost family members and close friends ended up joining the Khmer Rouge revolution. They called themselves communists but they were very brutal and millions of people were killed during their rule through genocide, he said.

‘The Taliban is the modern-day version of the Khmer Rouge. Both groups are ideologically motivated as well as brutal and the Americans would be repeating the same mistake if they were to invade Pakistan for the purpose of removing terrorists factions, as these acts would only gravitate innocent people who would fall victim to the military operation towards the enemy itself, which in this case is the Taliban or al-Qaeda,” he warned.

Kazmi had some interesting insight into America’s history with was in the decades past as he himself had participated in protests against the Vietnam War in the 1960s. Although he acquired an MSc in Chemistry from the University of Karachi (KU) in 1963, he went on to complete a PhD in Chemistry from Kent State University, USA, in 1970.

With more that 45 publications in international journals, he has taught at various universities as a visiting scientist and has also been president of the Karachi University Teachers’ Society (KUTS) as well as the head of the Chemistry Department. Since 2006 he has been working with KU’s Husein Ebrahim Jamal (HEJ) Research Institute of Chemistry.

Kazmi recalled his youth when he was in the process of preparing to leave in the pursuit of higher studies in the United States, which coincided with the Gulf of Tonkin in North Vietnam. “The Americans had bombarded North Vietnam for the first time because of alleged firing on US naval ships by the North Vietnamese in the Gulf of Tonkin,” he explained, adding that this was really the start of the war against North Vietnam.

“In Karachi meanwhile, the left-wing student body of the National Students Federation (NSF) organised a demonstration and a public meeting at Patel Park (now known as Nishtar Park). I participated in that demonstration,” Kazmi informed with pride. A few weeks later he left for the US where the anti-war movement was very small at the time, but gradually it grew with the war itself.

‘To put it simply here were two major schools of thought in the anti-war movement; the larger was liberal in its opposition based on the idea that this particular war was not good for Americans, while the smaller was radical with the basic philosophy that the South Vietnamese communists (Vietcong) were right and the Americans deserved to be defeated,’ he added.

Kazmi went on to speak of how the anti-war movement grew and certain incidents within the US including a bloody incident related to the South Vietnamese embassy in Washington. In 1970, President Nixon ordered the invasion of Cambodia because of the alleged infiltration route from North to South Vietnam, he said.

‘This resulted in a new uprising around US campuses, some of which were countered with state violence. Four students were killed on my campus when the Ohio National Guard opened fire on the demonstrators,’ Kazmi recalled with regret. He added that these events radicalised American schools and since many American troops fighting in Vietnam were also from US campuses, their willingness to continue the fight began to vane.

‘Nixon administration quickly realized that it would be impossible to sustain military activity on the ground and they began to withdraw under the facade of a programme for Vietnamisation,” Kazmi said.

‘The finale came on April 30th/May 1 1975 when the American ambassador along with many staff members and Vietnamese collaborators escaped from the rooftop of the embassy in Saigon. Three weeks later there was a massive victory rally in the New York City which I attended. A week later I returned to Pakistan.’