I AM DYING TO SEE HOW MR. BERGSTROM WILL “MAKE AMENDS"

The AP has revealed yesterday that a Mr. Gunnar Bergstrom, a "former Communist," has apologized for sympathizing with the Khmer Rouge. In August 1978, he and three other members of a leftist Swedish “friendship delegation” had sat down with Pol Pot to a yummy seafood banquet and – apparently – a highly satisfying intellectual discussion of the many joys and virtues of the Khmer Rouge revolution. Now, we are told, Mr. Bergstrom realizes he was mistaken about Pol Pot's brutal regime and wants to make amends.

Sorry, Gunnar. All the essential facts about Kampuchea were out there even as you munched oysters with Southeast Asia’s very own Mr. Genocide. By then, millions had already died, and anyone who cared to know it, knew. You are thirty years too late.

But if you are truly sincere about making amends, why don’t you produce a kind of supplement to the Black Book of Communism, focusing on the near-universal leftist tradition of non-Nazi genocide denial? List all significant deniers from around the world and explain their rationales and motivations. That will not bring anyone in the killing fields back to life, but it just may open a few eyes.

Of which there are millions out there, veritably screaming for help with jacking up their lids.