ABSTRACT
Historians, politicians, and laymen alike are fond of quoting George Santayana’s famous dictum, “Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” Yet the lessons drawn by the major domestic and regional state actors involved in the 1970s–90s Cambodian crisis have in fact lessened the chances of an effective international response to another genocide in the region. Based on interviews with Vietnamese leaders and Vietnamese archives, I argue that the first step to drawing the kind of historical lessons that would actually prevent history from repeating itself is for scholars to be bold in expressing their opinions, to dare to question established tenets like the ASEAN Way, and, from there, to discuss in practical and specific terms the real lessons of the Cambodian genocide for dealing with ongoing and future genocides in the region.
