My interview with a dictator | ABC Radio National
My interview with a dictator | ABC Radio National
Former journalist and war correspondent Elizabeth Becker recalls the day she interviewed dictator Po Pot during the reign of the Khmer Rouge. April 17, 2025 marks 50 years since Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge. On April 17, 1975 tanks rolled into the Cambodian capital and the people thought the long-running civil war was over. Instead, it was the start of one of the worst genocides of the 20th century. During a brutal four-year period, the communist-nationalist Khmer Rouge killed between 1.6 and 3 million people via execution, starvation and forced labour. The outside world had few clues of these horrors but American journalist Elizabeth Becker was given a rare opportunity to visit Cambodia in the dying days of the regime, and a chance to interview its mastermind Pol Pot.