I was saddened to learn of the passing of John Pilger, whom I have followed for years. Noam Chomsky described him this way: “John Pilger’s work has been a beacon of light in often dark times. The realities he has brought to light have been a revelation, over and over again, and his courage and insight a constant inspiration”.

One of Pilger’s first documentaries was Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia (1979), produced and directed by David Munro and written and narrated by John Pilger with cinematography by Eric Piper. It was filmed less than a year after the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge (KR) by the Vietnamese military, an act that KR survivors refer to as liberation. It’s worth noting that Year Zero has never been broadcast in the US, whose illegal bombing of Cambodia under the direction of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger created the conditions for the KR to come to power in April 1975.

As this Guardian obituary points out, the documentary helped to raise $45 million in relief and earned Pilger a second journalist of the year title in the British Press Awards (the previous one was for his dispatches from Vietnam) and the United Nations Media Peace Prize. Over the next decade, he continued to return to Cambodia and report on the power politics and survived an ambush after being put on a Khmer Rouge death list.

Shalom (שלום), MAA