Dear Sir,
T hank you for publishing Venerable Wipulasara's letter confirming my analysis, based on his description of conditions in Phnom Penh, that his first visit to Cambodia could only have taken place in early 1979, not, as PPP had it, just somewhat 'more than year ago', when as I wrote, "the true situation compared to Wipulasara's story was as day to night". If John Brown had just remembered the When of the journalists' 4-W's (Who, What, Where, When), no controversy would have arisen. I imagine the same carelessness would not have occurred had the interviewee been someone who had visited Cambodia six months earlier, in November 1978.
I was also pleased to learn from Venerable Wipulasara's letter about the invitation of the Heng Samrin government to an international Buddhist delegation, and the satisfaction of the government with the delegation's report. I had not heard about that at the time, but would gladly have used that information in what I was writing then. At that time, as well as ten years ago and until 1988/89, hot shot reporters doing the Cambodia scene were saying that the Heng Samrin/Hun Sen Regime was suppressing Buddhism, like their predecessors, the Khmer Rouge.
- Michael Vickery, Penang
