Editing John Pilger (section)

==Documentaries and career: 1978–2000==
===Cambodia===
{{Main|Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia}}
In 1979, Pilger and two colleagues with whom he collaborated for many years, documentary filmmaker [[David Munro (documentary filmmaker)|David Munro]] and photographer Eric Piper, entered [[Cambodia]] in the wake of the overthrow of the [[Pol Pot]] regime. They made photographs and reports that were world exclusives. The first was published as a special issue of the ''[[Daily Mirror]]'', which sold out. They also produced an ITV documentary, ''Year Zero: the Silent Death of Cambodia.''<ref>[http://johnpilger.com/videos/year-zero-the-silent-death-of-cambodia ''Year Zero: the Silent Death of Cambodia''], video of programme on John Pilger's website.</ref> Whilst filming 'Cambodia: Year One" Pilger was placed on a 'death list' by the Khmer Rouge.<ref>{{Cite web |title=John Pilger on Margaret Thatcher – "he reminds us there has been a coup in Britain" |url=https://thestringer.com.au/john-pilger-on-margaret-thatcher-he-reminds-us-there-has-been-a-coup-in-britain-2338 |access-date=2025-02-09 |website=thestringer.com.au |language=en-AU}}</ref>

Following the showing of ''Year Zero'', some $45&nbsp;million was raised, unsolicited, in mostly small donations, including almost £4&nbsp;million raised by schoolchildren in the UK. This funded the first substantial relief to Cambodia, including the shipment of life-saving drugs such as penicillin, and clothing to replace the black uniforms people had been forced to wear. According to Brian Walker, director of [[Oxfam]], "a solidarity and compassion surged across our nation" from the broadcast of ''Year Zero''.<ref>John Pilger, ''Heroes'', p. 410.</ref>

[[William Shawcross]] wrote in his book ''The Quality of Mercy: Cambodia, Holocaust and Modern Conscience'' (1984) about Pilger's series of articles about Cambodia in the ''Daily Mirror'' during August 1979:
<blockquote>A rather interesting quality of the articles was their concentration on Nazism and the holocaust. Pilger called Pol Pot 'an Asian Hitler' — and said he was even worse than Hitler . . . Again and again Pilger compared the Khmer Rouge to the Nazis. Their Marxist-Leninist ideology was not even mentioned in the ''Mirror'', except to say they were inspired by the Red Guards. Their intellectual origins were described as 'anarchist' rather than Communist".<ref name="West84">{{cite news|last=West|first=Richard|url=http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/29th-september-1984/29/who-was-to-blame|title=Who was to blame?|work=The Spectator|pages=29–30, 29|date=28 September 1984|access-date=26 August 2016}} "Holocaust" is rendered in lower case in Richard West's article.</ref></blockquote>
[[Ben Kiernan]], in his review of Shawcross's book, notes that Pilger did compare Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge to [[Great Purge|Stalin's terror]], as well as to [[Mao Zedong|Mao]]'s [[Red Guards (China)|Red Guards]]. Kiernan notes instances where other writers' comparisons of Pol Pot to Hitler or the Vietnamese to the Nazis are either accepted by Shawcross in his account, or not mentioned.<ref name="Kiernan1984">{{cite web|last=Kiernan|first=Ben|url=http://www.yale.org/gsp/publications/Kiernan%20Review.pdf|title=Review Essay: William Shawcross, Declining Cambodia|work=Age|date=30 October 1984|pages=56–63, 62|access-date=26 August 2016|archive-date=13 September 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160913093404/http://www.yale.org/gsp/publications/Kiernan%20Review.pdf|url-status=dead}} Also cited to ''Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars'' (January–March 1986), 18(1): 56–63</ref>

Shawcross wrote in ''The Quality of Mercy'' that "Pilger's reports underwrote almost everything that refugees along the Thai border had been saying about the cruelty of Khmer Rouge rule since 1975, and that had already appeared in the books by the ''Reader's Digest'' and François Ponchaud. In ''Heroes'', Pilger disputes [[François Ponchaud]] and Shawcross's account of Vietnamese atrocities during [[Cambodian humanitarian crisis#Vietnamese invasion and famine|the Vietnamese invasion and near famine]] as being "unsubstantiated".<ref name="Pilger1986">{{cite book|last=Pilger|first=John|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dcL6w-VmjWwC&pg=PA417|title=Heroes|location=London|publisher=Soluth End Press|year=2001|page=417|isbn=9780896086661}} (Originally published by Jonathan Cape, London, 1986).</ref> Ponchaud had interviewed members of anti-communist groups living in the Thai refugee border camps. According to Pilger, "At the very least the effect of Shawcross's 'exposé'" of Cambodians' treatment at the hands of the Vietnamese "was to blur the difference between Cambodia under Pol Pot and Cambodia liberated by the Vietnamese: in truth, a difference of night and day".<ref name="Pilger1986"/> In his book, Shawcross himself doubted that anyone had died of starvation.<ref name="Kiernan1984"/>

Pilger and Munro made four later films about Cambodia. Pilger's documentary ''Cambodia – The Betrayal'' (1990), prompted a libel case against him, which was settled at the [[High Court of Justice|High Court]] with an award against Pilger and Central Television. ''The Times'' of 6 July 1991 reported:
<blockquote>Two men who claimed that a television documentary accused them of being [[Special Air Service|SAS]] members who trained Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge to lay mines, accepted "very substantial" libel damages in the High Court yesterday. Christopher Geidt and Anthony De Normann settled their action against the journalist John Pilger and Central Television on the third day of the hearing. Desmond Browne, QC, for Mr Pilger and Central Television, said his clients had not intended to allege the two men trained the Khmer Rouge to lay mines, but they accepted that was how the program had been understood.<ref>[http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/the-lie-is-indeed-breathtaking-mr-pilger-but-who-told-it/story-e6frg71f-1111118977347 "The lie is breathtaking indeed, Mr. Pilger, but who told it?"], ''The Australian'', 27 February 2009, accessed 24 July 2011.</ref></blockquote>

Pilger said the defence case collapsed because the government issued a gagging order, citing national security, which prevented three government ministers and two former heads of the [[Special Air Service|SAS]] from appearing in court.<ref>{{cite news|last=Sawer|first=Patrick|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/queen-elizabeth-II/10044172/Buckingham-Palace-defends-Queens-private-secretary-against-conflict-of-interest-claims.html|title=Buckingham Palace defends Queen's private secretary against 'conflict of interest' claims|work=The Daily Telegraph|date=8 May 2013|access-date=26 December 2016}}</ref> The film received a British Academy of Film and Television Award nomination in 1991.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://awards.bafta.org/keyword-search?keywords=documentary&page=2&f=|title=BAFTA Awards Search {{!}} BAFTA Awards|website=awards.bafta.org|language=en|access-date=18 May 2018}}</ref>

===Thai slavery story===
In 1982 Pilger authored an article for the ''Daily Mirror'' in which he wrote that he had bought an 8-year-old Thai slave girl for £85, and subsequently to have discovered her village of origin in Northern Thailand and returned her to her mother, with Pilger pledging money to support the girl's education. This story was subsequently cast into doubt by an investigation in the ''Far Eastern Economic Review'' (FEER) which uncovered that the girl and her mother had been paid to play their respective parts by a fixer working for Pilger. Pilger accused those involved at FEER of being CIA agents{{Citation needed|date=February 2025}}. An article by the right-wing journalist [[Auberon Waugh]] to ''The Spectator'' cast further doubt on the story. Pilger threatened ''The Spectator'' with an action for libel. In responding to [[The Bulletin (Australian periodical)|The Bulletin]]'s coverage of the issue Pilger wrote the following on 17 August 1982:

'''I Do Not Believe I was Hoaxed'''{{Blockquote|text="I AM sorry The Bulletin published an article about me (August 3) without seeking my side of the story. The writer, Robert Darroch, quoted me but I never spoke to him: a salutary experience for  a journalist such as myself. I appreciate the opportunity to make the following facts clear. I am suing The Spectator and its writer, Auberon Waugh, for one reason and one reason only: that in the June 12 issue Waugh gave approval and credibility to a totally untrue and bogus tale from Bangkok  that I, together with the author of a United Nations report on child slavery in Thailand, a photographer and a Thai human rights official, somehow “set up”  the buying of a child..."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1444984543/view?sectionId=nla.obj-1647594092&partId=nla.obj-1445005957#page/n99/mode/1up/search/pilger |title=I do not believe I was hoaxed|publisher=[[The Bulletin (Australian periodical)|The Bulletin]] |access-date=1 February 2025}}</ref>}}Pilger went on in his letter to point out that he wasn't in Thailand on the month it was alleged to have occurred.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Vol. 102 No. 5327 (17 Aug 1982) |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1444984543/view?sectionId=nla.obj-1647594092&partId=nla.obj-1445005957#page/n99/mode/1up |access-date=2025-02-07 |website=Trove |language=en}}</ref> The matter was settled out of court without any payment to Pilger.<ref name="Times obituary2">{{cite news |date=31 December 2023 |title=John Pilger, campaigning Australian journalist, dies aged 84 |url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/article/john-pilger-dies-journalist-australia-q5jz8nc9b |access-date=4 January 2024 |work=[[The Times]]}}</ref><ref name="Waugh 19822">{{cite news |last1=Waugh |first1=Auberon |date=12 June 1982 |title=Another voice: Thai 'slave-girl' mystery |url=http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/12th-june-1982/4/another-voice |access-date=4 January 2024 |work=Spectator}}</ref>

===Australia's Indigenous peoples===
Pilger long criticised aspects of Australian government policy, particularly what he regarded as its inherent racism resulting in the poor treatment of [[Indigenous Australians]]. In 1969, Pilger went with Australian activist [[Charles Perkins (Aboriginal activist)|Charlie Perkins]] on a tour to Jay Creek in Central Australia. He compared what he witnessed in Jay Creek to South African apartheid.<ref>Fieta Page, [http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/john-pilger-hopes-to-open-eyes-to-plight-of-aboriginals-with-utopia-20140226-33irr.html John Pilger hopes to open eyes to plight of Aboriginals with Utopia], ''The Canberra Times'', 27 February 2014.</ref> He saw the appalling conditions that the [[Aboriginal Australians|Aboriginal people]] were living under, with children suffering from malnutrition and grieving mothers and grandmothers having had their lighter-skinned children and grandchildren removed by the police and welfare agencies. Equally, he learned of Aboriginal boys being sent to work on white-run farms, and Aboriginal girls working as servants in middle-class homes as undeclared slave labour.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Pilger |first1=John |title=John Pilger goes back to his homeland to investigate Australia's dirtiest secret |url=https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/john-pilger-goes-back-homeland-2941945 |access-date=31 December 2018 |newspaper=The Daily Mirror |date=19 December 2013}}</ref>

Pilger made several documentaries about Indigenous Australians, such as ''[[The Secret Country: The First Australians Fight Back]]'' (1985) and ''[[Welcome to Australia]]'' (1999). His book on the subject, ''A Secret Country'', was first published in 1989. Pilger wrote in 2000 that the 1998 legislation that removed the common-law rights of Indigenous peoples:
<blockquote>is just one of the disgraces that has given Australia the distinction of being the only developed country whose government has been condemned as racist by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.<ref>John Pilger, [http://www.newstatesman.com/200010160011 "Australia is the only developed country whose government has been condemned as racist by the United Nations"], ''New Statesman'', 16 October 2000.</ref></blockquote>

Pilger returned to this subject with ''Utopia'', released in 2013 (see below).

===East Timor===
====''Death of a Nation: The Timor Conspiracy''====
{{Main|Death of a Nation: The Timor Conspiracy}}
In [[East Timor]] Pilger clandestinely shot ''Death of a Nation: The Timor Conspiracy'' about the brutal [[Indonesian invasion of East Timor|Indonesian occupation of East Timor]], which began in 1975.

''Death of a Nation'' contributed to an international outcry which ultimately led to Indonesian withdrawal from [[East Timor]] and eventual independence in 2000. When ''Death of a Nation'' was screened in Britain it was the highest rating documentary in 15 years and 5,000 telephone calls per minute were made to the programme's action line.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.timeout.com/film/news/1408/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080405201918/http://www.timeout.com/film/news/1408/|url-status=dead|archive-date=5 April 2008|title=Documentary evidence - News - Film - Time Out London|date=5 April 2008|access-date=20 May 2018}}</ref> When ''Death of a Nation'' was screened in Australia in June 1994, Foreign Minister [[Gareth Evans (politician)|Gareth Evans]] declared that Pilger "had a track record of distorted [[sensationalism]] mixed with sanctimony."<ref>"Pilger turns up heat on East Timor", ''The Australian'', 3 June 1994.</ref>