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