Dear Editor,
I would like to correct the figures I gave for the number of
officials of the People's Republic of China present in Democratic Kampuchea. I
wrongly suggested there were "several thousand" at any one time. In fact,
according to the internal records of the Democratic Kampuchea regime, no more
than 600-700 were present at any one time, although the total who came and went
from 1975 to 1978 was larger due to frequent rotation.
Of these 600-700,
200-300 were "military technicians" who "taught how to fly aircraft, to assemble
and employ radar, some things relating to anti-aircraft artillery and to
military communications". The remainder were attached to "ministries of civil
administration".
There is no clear evidence that any were attached to the
Democratic Kampuchea security apparatus.
- Steve Heder,
London
