Editing John Pilger (section)

===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>