In the beginning, I was not opposed to the Khmer revolution: having lived with the Cambodian peasants from 1965 to 1970, I was painfully aware of their exploitation at the hands of the administration under the corrupt Sihanouk regime….So I welcomed the revolutionaries’ victory as the only possible means of bringing Cambodia out of its misery. But after making a careful and full study of the broadcasts of Radio Phnom Penh and the refugees’ testimony relating to 1975 and 1976, I was compelled to conclude, against my will, that the Khmer revolution is irrefutably the bloodiest of our century. A year after the [French-language] publication of my book I can unfortunately find no reason to alter my judgment…

…May this book provide a modest contribution to the search for truth about the events in Cambodia. And may the Khmer people live to see the dawn of an age of peace and happiness.

– Extracted from the Author’s Note for the English Translation of Fran├зois Ponchaud, Cambodia: Year Zero, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1978, p.xiv and p.xvi.