Pol Pot

by Philip Short

  134 ‘Thirsty for power’: Gorce to MAE, No. 41 AS/CLV, Jan. 29 1960, c. CLV 13, QD.

  135 Charcoal burners: Keng Vannsak, interview.

  136 The issue . . . proletariat: Engelbert and Goscha, Falling, esp. pp. 129—30 and 136—8. Asked why the Party focused its efforts on the peasantry, Ping Sây gave the obvious response:’Because [in 1960] there were very few workers. There was no industry and there were no factories’ (interview).

  137 Two weeks . . . smell: Ieng Sary, Ping Sây, Nghet Chhopininto, interviews; Tung Padevat, Sept.—Oct. 1976, pp. 1—32. The feudal ruling class’ . . . suppress [us]: Engelbert and Goscha, Falling, pp. 125—42.

  139 ‘Excluded themselves’: Ping Sây, interview. Reapply: Ping Sây, interview; ‘Recherche sur le Parti Cambodgien’, Doc. 3KN. T8572, VA.

  141 Who betrayed: In July 1977, Ros Mao alias Sây, who had been one of Samouth’s bodyguards in the early 1960s, confessed under torture at Tuol Sleng that he and five others—including Sieu Heng—had kidnapped the Party leader and taken him to Lon Nol’s house (confession, undated but July 1977). Another of the five, Som Chea alias Sdoeung, gave an almost identical description of the circumstances in a confession dated May 4 1978. However, both men remained loyal Party members for the next fifteen years and it is hard to see why either should have obeyed a traitor (Sieu Heng) to act against a Party leader who, by all accounts, was well-liked and respected. Interrogators at Tuol Sleng sometimes showed prisoners previous confessions in order to pressure them to admit their own guilt; if Sdoeung was shown Sây’s confession, it would explain why the two coincide so exactly (too exactly, in fact, for unconnected recollections of events sixteen years earlier). Nuon Chea later described Samouth’s death in terms consistent with, if not drawn from, the Tuol Sleng confessions (Mey Mann, interview), as did Pol Pot in his interview with Nate Thayer. Sieu Heng himself, questioned about Tou Samouth’s death by an American diplomat in 1972, replied, ‘Lon Nol knows what happened’ (US Embassy, Phnom Penh, airgram A-2, Feb. 17 1972, quoted in Chandler, Tragedy, p. 338 n.98)—which, if it confirms Lon Nol’s involvement, does nothing to clarify Heng’s own role. In Sopheap says that Pol Pot and Nuon Chea told him in the 1990s that Tou Samouth s courage in keeping silent during his interrogation had saved the urban movement from destruction (interview), and Khieu Samphân (interview) makes a similar claim. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that allegations of Sieu Heng’s involvement began to circulate within the Party between 1973 and 1978—precisely the time when the Party’s history was being rewritten to make it appear that the Pol Pot leadership had been its driving force ever since its foundation. In 1979, shortly after the overthrow of the Democratic Kampuchea regime, Vietnamese officials suggested that Saloth Sâr himself had been responsible for Samouth’s death (Kiernan, How Pol Pot, pp. 198 and 141 n. 135). The claim does not withstand close scrutiny. Sâr argued: Pol Pot, Cai Ximei interview.

  141–2 The meeting . . . full members: Ieng Sary, interview. According to Ruos Nhim (con fession, undated), Koy Thuon—who had not attended the 1960 Congress—was among those present in 1963.

  142 Four new: Mok said he, Ruos Nhim and Vorn Vet joined (Thayer interview). Kiernan (How Pol Pot, p. 201) quotes Nguyen Xuan Hoang as saying that Son Sen and Phuong, an Eastern Zone leader, also entered the CC at this Congress: that appears to be correct in the case of Son Sen, but not of Phuong, who entered the committee in 1971. Workers’ Party: Ieng Sary, interview. This second change of name, like the earlier use of ‘Labour Party’, was kept secret from the Party at large and from the Vietnamese.

  143 Thirty-four named leftists . . . surveillance: Keng Vannsak (interview) and Siet Chhê (confession, July 18 1977) both said police guards were posted at their homes. They were respectively among the best — and least-known figures named. It is hard to believe that they were singled out for such treatment, so I have assumed that the measure applied to all thirty-four.

  143–4 Ieng Sary . . . a day later: Ieng Sary, interview. See also In Sopheap, Khieu Samphán, p. 60, where Sary is quoted as saying that he argued that the Party should have its own rural bases and a solid network in the cities before the leadership moved to the countryside.

  144 Oracle: Massenet to MAE, June 26; and De Beausse to MAE, No. 1527 AS/CLV, Sept. 24 1962, c. CLV 15, QD. The latter contains the text of a Cambodian government memorandum, detailing a prediction by an oracle at Kratie that ‘bloody battles will break out’ on Cambodia’s border with Thailand in April 1963, but that the country would emerge from the trial strengthened. A minute in Sihanouk’s hand ordered that the prediction be made known to the cabinet, the General Staff of the Armed Forces and members of parliament. Royal oxen: On May 19 1957, by Circular No. 35/PCM/2B/C, Sihanouk informed his cabinet and all the provincial governors: ‘The choice of nourishment by the asopareach [royal] oxen after the ploughing of the sacred furrow authorises the prediction that the coming rains will be unfavourable for the harvest . . . According to the official astrologers the rains will end early . . . and the harvest will only be one sixth of that obtained last year . . . I feel I must therefore draw the attention of the competent ministries and services (Agriculture, Public Works, Veterinary Services etc.) to the imperious necessity of drawing up, with immediate effect, practical measures to enable us to ward off the hideous spectre of famine . . .All those who succeed in giving our people and our peasantry a real chance of avoiding famine and misery will be rewarded with official honours’ (annexed to Gorce to MAE, No. 710/CX, May 24 1957, c. CLV 9, QD). See also Meyer, Sourire, pp. 86–96.

  CHAPTER FIVE: GERMINAL

  145 Message: Ieng Sary, interview. Spartan: Truong Nhu Tang (Memoir, p. 128) described in these terms his first impressions of the COSVN (Central Office for South Vietnam) HQ on the Cambodia-Vietnam border at Memot in 1968. The camp where the Khmers lived was probably less elaborate.

  146 Sâr persuaded: Sdoeung, confession, May 4 1978. Ieng Sary (interview) said that in negotiating with the Vietnamese, ‘Pol Pot was very good at that. He could manoeuvre; he was very subtle—very clever at tactics.’

  147 Copies . . . police: The following account of the operations of the ‘printing office’ is taken from Nikân (interview). He worked there from late 1967 to mid-1968 after it had been transferred to Ratanakiri. See also Ieng Sary, interview; Pâng, confession, May 28 1978; Sdoeung and Siet Chhê, confessions. ‘After 1963’: Pol Pot, Cai Ximei interview. In Paris . . . the problems: Pol Pot, Thayer interview. ‘We applied ourselves’: Pol Pot, Talk with Khamtan. ‘Mixture [of influences]’: Pol Pot, Thayer interview.

  148 ‘Resides within’: Pol Pot, Talk with Khamtan. Mao spoke of the experience of the Chinese people ‘enriching and developing’ Marxism-Leninism, but he never claimed, as Pol Pot did, that the masses could ‘create’ it on their own.

  149 Systematically refused: Pol Pot, Talk with Khamtan. No choice: Khieu Samphán, interview. Viññãn: Thompson, Calling, p. 2.

  150 Intensely introspective: Robert S. Newman, Brahmin and Mandarin: A Comparison of the Cambodian and Vietnamese Revolutions, La Trobe University, Melbourne, 1978, pp. 7–8; Migot, pp. 351–2. ‘Worker-farmers’: Revolutionary Youths, Aug. 1973, pp. 9–20, quoted in Carney, Communist Party Power, pp. 30–3, refers repeatedly to the ‘worker-farmer class’. The same term is used in the Sept. 1973 issue. Proletarianised . . . position: Khieu Samphân, interview.

  151 ‘Black time’: Pol Pot, Talk with Khamtan. ‘Enemy furiously’: Pol Pot, Cai Ximei interview. Operating secretly: Nuon Chea, Statement, pp. 28–30.

  152 ‘Several hundred’: Meyer, Sourire, pp. 191–5. No accurate figures exist for the number of members of the CPK’s urban underground killed by the regime in the 1960s, but scattered references in interviews with former Khmers Rouges and confessions from Tuol Sleng suggest that it was probably in the order of several dozen. Sihanouk himself acknowledged that his ‘Buddhist neutralism, tinted with Hinduism, could not work without a few drops of violence’ (Sihanouk, Indochine, p. 73), and at the beginn
ing of 1964 warned bluntly that ‘Khmers Rouges and left-wing intellectuals, accused of communism and sabotage’ would be summarily shot (De Beausse to MAE, No. 243/AS, Feb. 4 1964, c. CLV 113, QD). 2,000: Pol Pot, Cai Ximei interview. He told Le Duan in 1965 that the Party had 3,000 members, a figure which was almost certainly inflated (‘Recherche sur le Parti Cambodgien’, Doc. 3KN.T8572, VA).

  153 Public ridicule . . . scandalous: De Beausse to MAE, No. 2019/AS CLV, Dec. 19 1962, QD.

  153–4 The most committed . . . existing government: Phal, interview.

  156 Delegation to Hanoi: Sâr said he had been ‘delegated by the Cambodian communists to have a meeting with them [the Vietnamese]’ (Pol Pot, Cai Ximei interview). Ieng Sary (interview) confirmed this. Up till then: ‘Les Perspectives, les Lignes et la Politique Etrangère du Parti Communiste Cambodgien’, Doc.TLM/165,VA. Sâr set out . . . two and a half months: Vorn Vet, confession, Nov. 24 1978; Pang, confession (quoted in Chandler, Brother, p. 69); Pol Pot, Cai Ximei interview.

  157 On arrival . . . dozen times: Pol Pot, Talk with Khamtan and Cai Ximei interview. Le Duan tried: See the text of Le Duan’s talk with Saloth Sâr on July 29 1965, in Engelbert and Goscha, Falling, pp. 143–55. Hobby-horses: The same phrases are to be found in ‘Instructions Viet Minh pour la Campagne au Laos et au Cambodge’, a document obtained by the French SDECE in 1953 (No. 3749/234, June 22 1953, c. A-O-I 165, QD).

  157–8 The Cambodian Party’s stress . . . solidarity: Engelbert and Goscha, Falling, pp. 143–55•

  158 To bolster . . . reach a common view: Pol Pot, Cai Ximei interview.

  159 He stayed: I am grateful to Youqin Wang of the University of Chicago for this information. Official host . . . Zhou Enlai: Pol Pot, Cai Ximei interview; Ieng Sary, interview. Sâr himself said in 1984 he had seen ‘other Politburo members’, but without mentioning names (Cai Ximei interview); they may have included the Foreign Minister, Chen Yi, and Kang Sheng, the Head of the CPC International Liaison Department and concurrently Mao’s security chief. According to Sary, Sâr had extended conversations with Kang Sheng only during his subsequent visit in 1970. An internal Chinese Party document, which notes his meetings in 1965 with Chen Boda and Zhang Chunqiao (neither of whom were then Politburo members), makes no reference to his seeing Kang either in 1965 or 1970. Seminal article: Peking Review, Sept. 3 1965, pp. 9–30. Although the article was published under Lin Biao’s name, he played no part in the writing of it, which was carried out by a propaganda group under the leadership of Luo Ruiqing.

  160 Principal contradictions: Peking Review, supra, p. 10. Le Duan had made clear when he met Sâr in July that, on this point, Vietnam disagreed with the Chinese (and by implication Cambodian) stance (Engelbert and Goscha, Falling, p. 145). Subsequently, Vietnamese historians condemned the January 1965 Cambodian Party CC resolution for ‘putting in first place the contradiction between imperialism and the oppressed peoples; emphasising the contradiction between the peasants and the feudal landowners; and putting the contradiction between imperialism and socialism last’ (‘Recherche sur le Parti Cambodgien’, Doc. 3KN.T8572, VA). Two younger men . . . dictatorship: Unpublished internal Chinese Party document. Material support: Doc.TLM/165, supra, apparently quoting from a transcript of Sâr’s discussions in Beijing which he gave the Vietnamese on his way back through Hanoi.

  161 He told Keo Meas: Keo Meas, confession, Sept. 30 1976. ‘Reassured’: Pol Pot, Talk with Khamtan. At Loc Ninh . . . his back: ‘Rapport [oral] du camarade Khieu Minh . . . le 10 Mai 1980’, Doc. 32(N442)/T8243, VA.

  163 ‘Malaise’: Malo to Manac’h, Paris, June 11 1966, c. A-O 1965–78 438, QD.

  164 A week after . . . armed struggle: ‘Recherche sur le Parti Cambodgien’, Doc. 3KN.T8572, VA; Chheang [Kong Sophal] (confession) confirms the decision in October 1966 to ‘seize authority in the villages and communes’. ‘Live together’: Pol Pot, Abbreviated Lesson, pp. 218–19. For a contemporary expression of the same idea, see the communist pamphlet quoted in Le Sangkum (July 1966), which stated: ‘Don’t have too much confidence in Sihanouk! That should be the motto of every Party member.’

  165 Impossible: The North Vietnamese Premier, Pham Van Dong, told Zhou Enlai on Apr. 10 1967: ‘We still do not know fully to what extent the struggle is organised and to what extent it has been provoked by the enemy’ (CWIHP Archives). ‘Pushing the peasants’: Chheang [Kong Sophal], confession. Ben Kiernan quotes an official Party history, circulated in the South-Western Zone in early 1972, as saying: ‘From 1967, the Party resumed the armed struggle . . . The events at Samlaut were prepared in advance’ (Communist Movement, p. 256).

  166 At that point . . . was over: Kong Sophal and Say, confessions, supra. According to Say, senior monks fom Wat Thvak and Wat Treng took part in the negotiations. Kiernan (Samlaut, Part I, p. 30) said the abbot of a monastery in Battambang, Iv Tuot, was also involved. In a speech at Siem Reap on June 20, Sihanouk paid tribute to ‘the efforts made by the clergy of Battambang’ to bring the unrest to an end (Argod to MAE, No. 1377/AS-CLV, July 4 1967, c. A-O 1965–78 439, QD). According to the North Vietnamese Premier, Pham Van Dong, the COSVN also sent emissaries to the CPK in April (or possibly earlier) to try to persuade the Cambodian leadership to call off the struggle (talks with Zhou Enlai, Apr. 11 1967, CWIHP Archives).

  167 By May: Kong Sophal (confession, Nov. 12 1978) quoted the leadership as saying: ‘If Battambang just does this alone, the enemy will be able to destroy all the revolutionary forces.’ ‘The pacification . . . headquarters’: Lancaster, Decline, p. 52. ‘Ghoulish details’: Osborne, Before Kampuchea, p. 43.

  168 He told guests: The Reuters’ correspondent Bernard Hamel was present at the dinner;I am grateful to Sacha Sher for this anecdote. See also Hamel’s despatch for Reuters, ‘Mystery about Cambodian communist leader Khieu Samphân’, Phnom Penh, Apr. 24 1974. Milton Osborne (Before Kampuchea, p. 80; Prince of Light, p. 194) quotes Khim Tit, a former Defence Minister with close links to the Prince, as telling a similar story. That evening . . .peasant life: Khieu Samphân, interview. A slightly different account appears in In Sopheap, Khieu Samphân, pp. 86–7.

  170 We have reached . . . victories: ‘Lettre du Comité Permanent du CC du CPK au Bureau politique du CC du CPC’, Oct. 6 1967, Doc.TLM/175,VA.

  172 Sâr himself . . . available: Phi Phuon and Ieng Sary, interviews. Pang (confession, May 28 1978) said: ‘In late 1966 (around July or August 1966) [sic], Office 100 was . . . dissolved . . . The group travelling to the north-east was led by Brother Van [Ieng Sary]’—but this is evidently an error for 1967. Ieng Sary (interview) said the move to Ratanakiri took place in 1967. Engelbert and Goscha refer to Sâr receiving treatment in Vietnam in 1968 at ‘the Central Committee’s Southern Bureau Hospital’, which was presumably the same place as ‘Hospital No 5’ (Falling, p. 83). Malaria was . . . attack: Khieu Samphân, interview; In Sopheap, Khieu Samphân, p. 90. Relapses: Phi Phuon, interview; Pang, confession, May 28 1978; Mey Mann, interview.

  172–3 In the North-East . . . hunting: Moeun, Phi Phuon, interviews.

  173 Unusual excitement: Khieu Samphân, interview. Isolated incidents had occurred, both in Battambang and in the South-Western Zone, even before the ‘official’ outbreak of the rébellion (see the account of Sihanouk’s visit to Kompong Tralach district, near Oudong, on January 9, in RC, Jan. 13 1968).

  175—6 Sihanouk himself . . . Khmer-language press: Speech at Andaung Pich, Bokeo, on Feb. I 1968 (Paroles, Jan-Mar. 1968, p. 72); Argod to MAE, Telegram Nos. 350–7, Mar. 7, and Nos. 669–75, May 24, and Dauge to MAE, No. 157/AI, July 2 1968, c. A-O 1965–78 439, QD; Kiernan, How Pol Pot, pp. 274 and 293 n. 164; Le Monde, Nov. 20 1969.

  176 An Eastern Zone . . . palm tree: Kiernan, How Pol Pot, pp. 265 and 276. Ten years later, the Khmers Rouges were alleged to be executing suspected spies using the same method. The stories may be apocryphal, but in both cases they were widely believed. At K-5 . . . fetch him: Phi Phuon, interview; Pâng, confession, May 28 1978.

  176–7 Rarely mov
ed . . . she visited: ‘Alone Amongst Brothers:The Story of Khieu Ponnary, Revolutionary and First Wife of Pol Pot’, Cambodia Daily, Oct. 20, 2001.

  177 Sâr took over: Phi Phuon, interview. The ‘Biography of Pol Pot’, broadcast by Radio Pyongyang on Oct. 3 1977, said he was North-Eastern Zone Secretary ‘from 1968 to March 1970’ (BBC SWB FE/5634/B/4). ‘Problem of unity’: ‘Recherche sur le Parti Cambodgien’, Doc. 3KN.T8572, VA. At a meeting with Thai communists in August 1977, Sâr also spoke of the disunity caused by the CPK’s dual origin (Pol Pot, Talk with Khamtan). ‘Separatist tendencies’: Pol Pot, Talk with Khamtan.

  178–9 I had been told . . . body: In Sopheap, Khieu Samphân, pp. 89–90. Ill-health was a constant problem. Toch Phoeun remembered arriving at Phnom Pis in the South-West Zone in 1970 to find ‘most of our comrades were sick, lying in their hammocks’ (confession, Mar. 14 1977).

  181 America says: RC, Nov. 11 1967.

  182 Exceed 20 million: Conversation between Mao Zedong and Pham Van Dong, Beijing, Nov. 17 1968, CWIHP Archives. The North Vietnamese Premier said the money was paid ‘to Sihanouk’ which raises the question of whether the Prince himself benefited from these transactions. Until the minutes of this meeting became available, it had been assumed that Sihanouk himself was honest but lacked the will (or the inclination) to discipline those around him. It is of course possible that Pham Van Dong used the Prince’s name merely as a synonym for the Cambodian administration. There is no way to be sure.

  183 Lon Nol, now back . . . to escape: Except where specified elsewhere, this account of the raids, which took place between Aug. II and Sept. 6 1968, is drawn from RC, Aug. 30, Sept. 13 and 20 1968). Forty suspects . . . subsequently executed: Vorn Vet (confession, Nov. 24 1978) said ‘more than twenty people’ were arrested. Six of those he identified—Dam Pheng, Leang Kim Huot, Pa Sieng Hay, Kum Saroeun, Chhoeun and Kac Sim—were also named by RC. The two sources together cited a further sixteen names. Vorn Vet’s account stated that all except one woman, Kac Sim’s wife, were ‘killed by the enemy’, which would normally mean that they were condemned by the Military Tribunal and shot. The Bokor story is told by, among others, Milton Osborne, in Prince of Light, p. 197; Kiernan, How Pol Pot, p. 276; and Meyer, Sourire, p. 193.