François Bizot (born 8 February 1940) is a French anthropologist, the only Westerner to have survived imprisonment by the Khmer Rouge.

Arrival in Cambodia

Bizot arrived in

Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailan ...

in 1965 to study

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religions, Indian religion or Indian philosophy#Buddhist philosophy, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha. ...

practised in the countryside. He travelled extensively around Cambodia, researching the history and customs of its dominant religion. He speaks fluent Khmer, French and English and was married to a Cambodian with whom he had a daughter, Hélène, in 1968. When the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

spilled into Cambodia, Bizot was employed at the Angkor Conservation Office, restoring ceramics and bronzes. Bizot, at first, welcomed the American intervention in Cambodia, hoping that they might counter the rising influence of the Communists. "But their irresponsibility, the inexcusable naivete, even their cynicism, frequently aroused more fury and outrage in me than did the lies of the Communists. Throughout those years of war, as I frantically scoured the hinterland for the old manuscripts that the heads of monasteries had secreted in lacquered chests, I witnessed the Americans' imperviousness to the realities of Cambodia," wrote Bizot in his memoirs of the time.

Capture

In October 1971, Bizot and his two Cambodian colleagues were captured by the Khmer Rouge. During his captivity on charges of being a

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

agent at the Khmer Rouge Camp M.13 at

Anlong Veng Anlong Veng ( km, អន្លង់វែង, ) is a district (''srok'') in Oddar Meanchey province in Cambodia. The main town in the district is also called Anlong Veng. The population of the district could not be counted during the 1998 censu ...

, he developed a strangely close relationship with his captor, Comrade Duch, who later became the Director of the infamous Tuol Sleng concentration camp in Phnom Penh. During his three-month imprisonment he came to understand the true

genocidal Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...

nature of the Khmer Rouge long before other outsiders. He was finally released in December 1971 after Comrade Duch wrote a detailed report that convinced the Khmer Rouge leadership of Bizot's innocence. Bizot's Cambodian colleagues were executed soon after Bizot's release.

Life after captivity

When the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975, Bizot, like most other foreigners in the country, sought refuge in the French Embassy. Because of his fluency in Khmer, he soon became the primary point of contact and unofficial translator between the embassy officials and the Khmer Rouge. He left Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge expelled all foreigners and sealed off Cambodia's borders. He returned to Cambodia in 2003 and met his former captor Duch, who was waiting for his trial for crimes against humanity, for about one hour and a half (a few minutes of the encounter were put on film). These moments can be seen in the documentary "Derrière Le Portail"Derrière le portail
film-documentaire.fr. Retrieved 27 February 2019. ("Behind The Gate"). Duch was on trial at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia and received a 35-year sentence, later increased to life from an appeal. Bizot was the first witness to testify at the trial. Bizot is Emeritus Professor at the

École française d'Extrême-Orient The French School of the Far East (french: École française d'Extrême-Orient, ), abbreviated EFEO, is an associated college of PSL University dedicated to the study of Asian societies. It was founded in 1900 with headquarters in Hanoi in w ...

In popular culture

Bizot's story provides the basis for the character Hansen in

John le Carré David John Moore Cornwell (19 October 193112 December 2020), better known by his pen name John le Carré ( ), was a British and Irish author, best known for his espionage novels, many of which were successfully adapted for film or television. ...

’s novel The Secret Pilgrim.

References

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External links

Bizot's web page at the EFEO

A Survivor's Story
interview on the Connection. WBUR. Show Originally Aired: April 11, 2003. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bizot, Francois French anthropologists French ethnologists 1940 births Living people Writers from Nancy, France Prix des Deux Magots winners Cambodian genocide survivors French expatriates in Cambodia