Dith Pran, the journalist and former prisoner of the Khmer Rouge who coined the term "Killing Fields" to describe his native Cambodia's horrific mass killings in the late 1970s, has died of pancreatic cancer.

Mr. Dith was working as an interpreter for a New York Times reporter in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, when the city fell to the psychopathic forces of the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot. He then endured more than four years of torture and starvation in captivity, before escaping to Thailand in 1979. Mr. Dith eventually made his way to the United States, where he became a photojournalist for the New York Times.

His book, "The Death and Life of Dith Pran," brought the realities of the Khmer Rouge's murderous reign home to an American audience, and was adapted into the multiple-Oscar winning film "The Killing Fields" in 1984.

Mr. Dith was a journalist in the true sense of the word, a man who turned the unflinching light of truth and openness on to one of the most horrifying chapters of recent human history. May he rest in peace.

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Lewis on Flickr.com.