Tribute to Dith Pran

Somehow I had managed to miss the news of the death of Dith Pran earlier this week.The Cambodian photographer was the inspiration behind the film the Killing fields which told the story of the Khmer Rouge's takeover of Cambodia in 1976.

At the International Herald Tribune,H.D.S Greenway writes an inspiring tribute.

He recalls

When the tourist business abruptly shut down - the Khmer Rouge ultimately burned Pran's hotel to the ground - Pran, along with many of his colleagues, moved to the capital, Phnom Penh. There they found another, less wealthy and infinitely more dangerous group of clients, the foreign press, who desperately needed their services to get around in a country they knew little about.

And tells the story of how he saved journalists when the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh

The fanatic Khmer Rouge were about to shoot Sydney, and his British colleague, Jon Swain, out of hand. Pran saved their lives by softly and persistently talking to their captors, who eventually let them go.