Mick Hartley

Thirty years on:

A Swedish man who supported the Khmer Rouge movement has returned to Cambodia for the first time in 30 years.

Gunnar Bergstrom was part of a group which toured the country and dined with the Khmer Rouge leadership in 1978.

He now says he regrets what he did – and plans to apologise to survivors of the Pol Pot era.

As many as two million Cambodians are thought to have died because of Khmer Rouge policies, and trials are under way of surviving Khmer Rouge leaders.

The last time Gunnar Bergstrom came to Phnom Penh, there was virtually nobody in the city.

The Khmer Rouge had evacuated the population to the countryside.

Many of them died there – from malnutrition, disease or summary execution.

But Mr Bergstrom's Swedish support group saw the Khmer Rouge in a different light.

They thought the ultra-Maoist organisation had liberated Cambodia from imperialist Western powers.

On their carefully controlled tour in 1978, the Swedes only saw the positive side of the revolution – factories, hospitals, and smiling peasants.

Malcolm Caldwell was unavailable for comment.