Nate Thayer RIP
Re: Nate Thayer RIP
Sameage as Chris Bean 2 months ago . . .
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Re: Nate Thayer RIP
Nate Thayer, Dead at 62, and Stories That Still Resonate
Among his many scoops, Thayer’s work also foreshadowed the rapid growth of Chinese influence in Cambodia.
By Luke Hunt
January 11, 2023
American journalist Nate Thayer, who died on January 3 at the age of 62 in Falmouth, Massachusetts, left behind a trail of good friends and colleagues and a wealth of stories that spanned from Cambodia and China to Iraq and the United States.
Thayer arrived in Cambodia as a reporter with Associated Press. He then worked as a freelancer for the Far Eastern Economic Review and by the early 1990s had become a consistent contributor to the Phnom Penh Post. He covered the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, and between 2011 and 2016 we collaborated on North Korea-related stories.
In Cambodia, he scored about 30 front-page bylines in the Phnom Penh Post alone across five or six years in the 1990s, a solid effort given the newspaper came out only once every two weeks.
Often his stories were grand, excellent examples of a journalist writing a first draft of history and they still resonate today. His 1997 interview with Pol Pot remains a case in point; it was a story that has overshadowed all his other work.
But the edgiest story and the one that raised the greatest fears was published in August 1994 when Cambodia was led by two prime ministers, Prince Norodom Ranariddh and HE, and detailed corruption within the ranks of the military.
“This is the Nate story that gave me the most jitters and worries about blowback,” said Michael Hayes, co-founder and then publisher of the Phnom Penh Post.
Another story that I liked but received much less fanfare was published in the same issue. Headlined “Chinese City of Dreams,” the story detailed how the Cambodian government had rejected Chinese plans to build a “new Hong Kong” in the heart of the country.
Thayer was ahead of the game when he broke the story. It included plans to allow 200,000 Chinese nationals the right to immigrate and inhabit the city to be built in an exclusive zone on a 20 square kilometer plot with $1 billion earmarked for its construction.
These were colossal numbers for that time and the article created its own stir both within government and out, particularly among diplomats who were yet to grasp Beijing’s expansion plans and Thayer’s story did serve as an early warning.
In full: https://thediplomat.com/2023/01/nate-th ... -resonate/
Among his many scoops, Thayer’s work also foreshadowed the rapid growth of Chinese influence in Cambodia.
By Luke Hunt
January 11, 2023
American journalist Nate Thayer, who died on January 3 at the age of 62 in Falmouth, Massachusetts, left behind a trail of good friends and colleagues and a wealth of stories that spanned from Cambodia and China to Iraq and the United States.
Thayer arrived in Cambodia as a reporter with Associated Press. He then worked as a freelancer for the Far Eastern Economic Review and by the early 1990s had become a consistent contributor to the Phnom Penh Post. He covered the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, and between 2011 and 2016 we collaborated on North Korea-related stories.
In Cambodia, he scored about 30 front-page bylines in the Phnom Penh Post alone across five or six years in the 1990s, a solid effort given the newspaper came out only once every two weeks.
Often his stories were grand, excellent examples of a journalist writing a first draft of history and they still resonate today. His 1997 interview with Pol Pot remains a case in point; it was a story that has overshadowed all his other work.
But the edgiest story and the one that raised the greatest fears was published in August 1994 when Cambodia was led by two prime ministers, Prince Norodom Ranariddh and HE, and detailed corruption within the ranks of the military.
“This is the Nate story that gave me the most jitters and worries about blowback,” said Michael Hayes, co-founder and then publisher of the Phnom Penh Post.
Another story that I liked but received much less fanfare was published in the same issue. Headlined “Chinese City of Dreams,” the story detailed how the Cambodian government had rejected Chinese plans to build a “new Hong Kong” in the heart of the country.
Thayer was ahead of the game when he broke the story. It included plans to allow 200,000 Chinese nationals the right to immigrate and inhabit the city to be built in an exclusive zone on a 20 square kilometer plot with $1 billion earmarked for its construction.
These were colossal numbers for that time and the article created its own stir both within government and out, particularly among diplomats who were yet to grasp Beijing’s expansion plans and Thayer’s story did serve as an early warning.
In full: https://thediplomat.com/2023/01/nate-th ... -resonate/
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Re: Nate Thayer RIP
Sorry, I have to call utter bullshit on part of this story. Thayer did not break the story about Hong Kong 2 in August of '94. That story had been around since at least the '87 - '88 time period, because I read about it for the first time in one of those Long Beach, USA newspapers that published news in Khmer. There was a lot of buzz around about who would fill in the vacuum left by Vietnam once they pulled out. The articles on the topic were part of a series because at the time VN and China were shooting each other over the Spratly Islands and China was sniffing around Cambodia again.CEOCambodiaNews wrote: ↑Wed Jan 11, 2023 7:34 pm Nate Thayer, Dead at 62, and Stories That Still Resonate
Among his many scoops, Thayer’s work also foreshadowed the rapid growth of Chinese influence in Cambodia.
By Luke Hunt
January 11, 2023
American journalist Nate Thayer, who died on January 3 at the age of 62 in Falmouth, Massachusetts, left behind a trail of good friends and colleagues and a wealth of stories that spanned from Cambodia and China to Iraq and the United States.
Thayer arrived in Cambodia as a reporter with Associated Press. He then worked as a freelancer for the Far Eastern Economic Review and by the early 1990s had become a consistent contributor to the Phnom Penh Post. He covered the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, and between 2011 and 2016 we collaborated on North Korea-related stories.
In Cambodia, he scored about 30 front-page bylines in the Phnom Penh Post alone across five or six years in the 1990s, a solid effort given the newspaper came out only once every two weeks.
Often his stories were grand, excellent examples of a journalist writing a first draft of history and they still resonate today. His 1997 interview with Pol Pot remains a case in point; it was a story that has overshadowed all his other work.
But the edgiest story and the one that raised the greatest fears was published in August 1994 when Cambodia was led by two prime ministers, Prince Norodom Ranariddh and HE, and detailed corruption within the ranks of the military.
“This is the Nate story that gave me the most jitters and worries about blowback,” said Michael Hayes, co-founder and then publisher of the Phnom Penh Post.
Another story that I liked but received much less fanfare was published in the same issue. Headlined “Chinese City of Dreams,” the story detailed how the Cambodian government had rejected Chinese plans to build a “new Hong Kong” in the heart of the country.
Thayer was ahead of the game when he broke the story. It included plans to allow 200,000 Chinese nationals the right to immigrate and inhabit the city to be built in an exclusive zone on a 20 square kilometer plot with $1 billion earmarked for its construction.
These were colossal numbers for that time and the article created its own stir both within government and out, particularly among diplomats who were yet to grasp Beijing’s expansion plans and Thayer’s story did serve as an early warning.
In full: https://thediplomat.com/2023/01/nate-th ... -resonate/
I later did research on the topic and sent a few cables in US government channels on the topic from Bangkok circa '89. Any diplomat that was caught flat footed about those plans was either not well read or a noobie to the region.
===============
We are all puppets in the hands of an insane puppeteer...
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We are all puppets in the hands of an insane puppeteer...
--Brother Theodore
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Re: Nate Thayer RIP
Steel Sharpens Steel: Remembering Nate Thayer
Many have recalled the foreign correspondent’s interview with Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. Fewer have remembered his most significant and meaningful work.
By Peter Maguire
March 02, 2023
After journalist Nate Thayer died on January 3, 2023, I reached out to Theo Rlayang, a Montagnard friend in Greensboro, North Carolina, and asked him to share this sad news with Nate’s old friend, Pastor Y Hin Nie. Thayer met the pastor deep in the forest of Mondulkiri, Cambodia, in 1992. At that time, Y Hin Nie was serving as FULRO’s (Front Unifié de Lutte des Race Opprimées, or the United Struggle Front for the Oppressed Races) Representative of Foreign Affairs and translator. This Montagnard army had been fighting the Vietnamese since 1964, and in 1992, almost three decades later, still had not surrendered.
When I spoke to Y Hin Nie in early February, he offered to organize and preside over a Montagnard memorial for Nate at the United Montagnard Christian Church in Greensboro. In short order, Y Hin Nie, Nate’s former Phnom Penh Post colleague Sara Colm, and I began planning what turned out to be a remarkable event attended by FULRO veterans, members of the Thayer family, Nate’s former colleagues, Montagnards, and many others.
Sometime in the 17th century, the acerbic Zen Buddhist monk Takuan Soho (1573-1646) wrote a letter to Yagyu Munenori, one of Japan’s greatest swordsmen and teacher to two generations of shogun. In it, Soho described the highest level of martial mastery as action without hesitation, what he described as “immovable wisdom.” I believe, that for most of the 1990s, Nate Thayer was the living embodiment of Soho’s “immovable wisdom.”
Full article: https://thediplomat.com/2023/03/steel-s ... te-thayer/
Many have recalled the foreign correspondent’s interview with Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. Fewer have remembered his most significant and meaningful work.
By Peter Maguire
March 02, 2023
After journalist Nate Thayer died on January 3, 2023, I reached out to Theo Rlayang, a Montagnard friend in Greensboro, North Carolina, and asked him to share this sad news with Nate’s old friend, Pastor Y Hin Nie. Thayer met the pastor deep in the forest of Mondulkiri, Cambodia, in 1992. At that time, Y Hin Nie was serving as FULRO’s (Front Unifié de Lutte des Race Opprimées, or the United Struggle Front for the Oppressed Races) Representative of Foreign Affairs and translator. This Montagnard army had been fighting the Vietnamese since 1964, and in 1992, almost three decades later, still had not surrendered.
When I spoke to Y Hin Nie in early February, he offered to organize and preside over a Montagnard memorial for Nate at the United Montagnard Christian Church in Greensboro. In short order, Y Hin Nie, Nate’s former Phnom Penh Post colleague Sara Colm, and I began planning what turned out to be a remarkable event attended by FULRO veterans, members of the Thayer family, Nate’s former colleagues, Montagnards, and many others.
Sometime in the 17th century, the acerbic Zen Buddhist monk Takuan Soho (1573-1646) wrote a letter to Yagyu Munenori, one of Japan’s greatest swordsmen and teacher to two generations of shogun. In it, Soho described the highest level of martial mastery as action without hesitation, what he described as “immovable wisdom.” I believe, that for most of the 1990s, Nate Thayer was the living embodiment of Soho’s “immovable wisdom.”
Full article: https://thediplomat.com/2023/03/steel-s ... te-thayer/
Join the Cambodia Expats Online Telegram Channel: https://t.me/CambodiaExpatsOnline
Cambodia Expats Online: Bringing you breaking news from Cambodia before you read it anywhere else!
Have a story or an anonymous news tip for CEO? Need advertising? CONTACT US
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