Pol Pot

by Philip Short

  232 ‘Wild-looking boys’. . . 1962: Vickery, Cambodia, pp. 1–2. Forty years later . . . hatedit: Private communication from Bill Herod, whose companion, Bopha, lived at the village as a child from 1975–9. ‘National failing’: RC, Mar. 29 1958. He had used the same phrase two years earlier in a speech to the Third Sangkum Congress (Agence Khmère de Presse, Apr. 21 1956, in c. CLV7, QD). ‘Fundament’: 1th Sarin, Nine months, pp. 40–1.

  232–3 Years later . . .jealousy: Ly Hay, interview, Paris–Phnom Penh, Sept. 18 2000. See also Ponchaud, Year Zero, p. 141.

  233 Organisation of life: The lack of ‘communal spirit’ was already a problem noted by the Viet Minh in 1951, who wrote that ‘Cambodians . . . don’t like living collectively and don’t regard desertion [from their units] as a matter of any great importance’ (Comité des Cadres de l’Est au Comité des Cadres du Cambodge, Telegram No. 4/E, June 5 1951, c. 10H4122, SHAT). See also Ebihara, Svay, p. 92. Thai peasants show similar behaviour: see Herbert P. Phillips, Thai Peasant Personality: The Patterning of Interpersonal Behaviour in the Village of Bang Chan, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1965, p. 17, and Social Contact, pp. 348–9. Co-operative tradition: ‘A striking feature of Khmer village life is the lack of indigenous, traditional, organised associations, clubs, factions or other groups that are formed on non-kin principles . . . ’ (Ebihara, Svay, p. 181).

  234 Comrades . . . into tears: Bizot, Portail, pp. 84–6. ‘Party theoreticians’: Ibid., p. 98. In place of . . . the people: Ith Sarin, Bureaux, pp. 50–1; Chandler, Tragedy, pp. 209 and 357 n.51; Haing Ngor, Odyssey, pp. 112–13; and Radio Phnom Penh, Jan. 31 1976, quoted in Ponchaud, Year Zero, pp. 117–18. Ponchaud uses the term viney rather than sila (‘Social Change in the Vortex of Revolution’, in Jackson, Rendezvous, p. 173). The Chinese ‘Three Rules and Eight Points’ may be found in Mao’s Selected Works, vol. 4, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1969, pp. 155–6.

  234–5 Angkar . . . the spirit: Bizot, Portail, p. 163.

  236 Disbandment: Mey Mak (interview) recalled that in the South-West, orders for the disbandment of mixed units were issued by Mok in 1972: ‘They just gave us the order to do that. . . [They] said we had enough people ourselves to fight, we had the support of the people and we had the liberated areas . . . We didn’t need the Vietnamese so much.’ In Non Suon’s area, Region 25, in the Special Zone, there was also pressure from below. Mey Sror (interview) remembered: ‘It wasn’t that we had orders from above. It was just that we soldiers had come to hate the Vietnamese . . . We saw [them] taking Cambodian goods to Vietnam, and that made us angry with them. When I walked through the villages in Region 25, I heard the people complaining that the Vietnamese wanted to control everything.’

  237 By the beginning . . . highest level: Ben Kiernan has written that the Third Congress approved a decision to ‘expel theVietnamese’ and treat them as the CPK’s long-term ‘acute enemy’ (How Pol Pot, pp. 328–30); see also Heder, Pol Pot to Pen Sovann, p. 19; and Morris, Why Vietnam, pp. 56 and 59–60. This is contradicted by Non Suon’s confession, by CPK internal documents from 1972 onwards and by the subsequent development of CPK-VWP relations — all of which indicate clearly that, while there was mistrust ofVietnamese intentions, the CPK sought to avoid an open split until at least 1976. In this context, it is noteworthy that a hostile Vietnamese account quotes Ieng Sary as reassuring theVietnamese leaders in 1971 and again in 1974 that Vietnamese—Cambodian solidarity was ‘vital’ for the revolution (Le Quang Ba, ‘Un sommaire de la situation Cambodgienne’, Doc. 32(N442)/T8807, VA).

  238 Reasserting sovereignty: Already in late 1971, the Secretary of one Eastern Zone region wrote to ‘Ba Hai’ [Pham Van Ba], the head of the Vietnamese Liaison Committee:‘I do not think it is right for your men to use military force against our men [to resolve disputes] and thereby impair our sovereignty’ [emphasis supplied] (Morris, Why Vietnam, p. 57, quoting a document in the Indochina Archive, University of California, Berkeley).

  240 He said privately . . . they have won: Tribune de Genève, Dec. 10 1971; Far Eastern Economic Review, Aug. 5 1972;’Interview with Oriana Fallaci’, New York Times, Aug. 12 1973.

  241 April 1971: Ieng Sary said he arrived in Beijing in April 1971, and spent three months there in secret before his arrival was announced officially (interview). Thiounn Mumm (interview) and Van Piny (confession, Feb. 16 1978) both dated his arrival to July 1971. Sihanouk knew of his return in the first half of July (Indochine, p. 93). Sary was . . . he loathed: Ponchaud, interview; Shawcross, Sideshow, p. 255—6.

  242 ‘Absolutely no negotiation’: Ruos Nhim, confession, June 14 1978. Acrimonious: Black Paper, pp. 72–4. Pol’s view . . . ‘liberated zones’: ‘Directive de 870’, Feb. 2 1973, in Doc. 32(N442)/T8o53,VA. Sihanouk himself has given a very different account of the Khmers Rouges’ decision to let him return to Cambodia (War and Hope, pp. 123–5; see also Chanda, Brother Enemy, p. 70). ‘Bare-arsed’: Ith Sarin, Sronoh Pralung Khmer, pp. 5—6.

  244 Ill-health: ‘Excerpts from the minutes of the meeting between Comrade Le Duan and Ieng Sary’, Apr. 8 1973, in Doc.TLM/165, ‘Les Perspectives, les Lignes et la Politique Etrangère du Parti Communiste Cambodgien’,VA. From China . . . to the region: A Vietnamese text quoted Zhou Enlai as telling Ieng Sary in the summer of 1973: ‘Experience has shown that sitting down to negotiate does not mean compromising; because we have more advantages, in negotiation they must accept our requirements; thus we would negotiate in a more advantageous position, it does not mean compromising’ (‘Excerpts . . . from a series of meetings between Ieng Sary and Brother Le Duc Tho in July and August 1973’, Doc.TLM/165, supra). A few months later, according to another Vietnamese transcript, Zhou said, ‘US imperialism is tending to shrink; the Soviet Union is tending to expand’ — causing theVietnamese editor to comment: ‘In truth . . . China wants Cambodia to yield to the United States in order to resist the so-called “Soviet expansionism in South East Asia”’ (‘Excerpts from the meeting between Ieng Sary and Brother Le Due Tho in November 1973’, Doc.TLM/165, supra). In Sopheap also thought part of the Chinese message to the Cambodians at that time was, ‘When you chase away the wolf, don’t forget the tiger’ in the shape of the USSR (interview).

  246 Even in the Eastern . . . land of their own: Quinn, Khmer Krahom Program, pp. 32–3.

  247 Twist the figures: Pol Pot, September 27 speech. See also Carney, ‘The Organization of Power’, in Jackson, Rendezvous, pp. 99–100.

  248 I met . . . wasn’t tough enough: Ping Say, interview.

  249 Until late 1972: See, for example, the photographs published in Le Nouvel Observateur, Jan. 11 1971. They, too, killed: Someth May recalled meeting a Khmer Rouge in the North-West who eventerated a monkey to show him ‘the way I used to kill the Lon Nol soldiers when we caught them and the way to get the liver out’ (Cambodian Witness, pp. 160–1).

  250—1 At the same time . . . Cambodia was lost: The following is drawn mainly from Deac, Road, Ch. 8. See also Pol’s account, in a speech in June 1976, in Chandler et al., Pol Pot Plans, pp. 31–2.

  251 ‘Friend with a conflict’: Siet Chhê, confession, May 11 1977; Tiv Ol was quoted as saying that year that Vietnam was a friend, but ‘not very loyal’ (Kiernan, How Pol Pot, p. 388). For the date of the plenum, see Non Suon, confession, Jan. 14 1977.

  251–2 Chrok Sdêch . . . surrounding plain: This account draws on visits to Chrok Sdêch, Boeng Var and Ra Smach in December 2001 and on conversations with local villagers. See also Thiounn Thioeunn and Thiounn Maly, interviews.

  252 We built . . . camouflage: Nikân, interview

  253–4 I had a guide . . . on the poor: Kong Duong, interview:

  254 Exemplary severity: Comité Permanent de la Zone Est, ‘Directives Complémentaires: Pour faire face au mouvement Khmer Islam (d’origine Cham). . . en supplément du directive No. 20 du 25 novembre 1973’, Dec. 6 1973, in Doc. 32(N442)/T8o53, VA. Given the propensity of all Cambodian leaders, including Sihanouk, Pol and Hun Sen, to micromanage policy, it
is inconceivable that such a directive would have been circulated without a text having first been issued in the name of the Standing Committee. Pang said there was widespread discontent in the Northern Zone in late 1973/early 1974, ‘especially along the Mekong’, and ‘at one time the Cham almost rose up against the revolution’ (confession, May 28 1978).

  255—6 At the end of March . . . tightening: This account relies on Phi Phuon, who accompanied Pol to Kep (interview). In 1978, when a Yugoslav journalists’ delegation visiting Democratic Kampuchea was taken to the beach at Kep for a swim, their Khmer Rouge bodyguards waded fully-dressed into the sea after them carrying their weapons (conversations in Beijing in the summer of 1978 with Drago Rancic of Politika, who was a member of the group).

  256 The town market . . . robbery: Yun Soeun, confession, May 26 1977. Two years . . . in the fields: Tung Padevat, Aug. 1975, pp. 1–23.

  257 It worked well: Phi Phuon, interview. All through history . . . similar views: For an excellent discussion of this topic as it relates to the Cambodian revolution, see Vickery, Cambodia, pp. 299–309, and Ghita Ionescu and Ernest Gellner, Populism: Its Meaning and National Characteristics, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969, pp. 106–9.

  258 New currency: Phi Phuon, interview.

  259 Penance: Phi Phuon, Ping Say, interviews. Matters came . . . Thai border: See Vorn Vet, confession, Nov. 24 1978; Phouk Chhay, Mar. 20 and 24 1977; May Sakhan, confession, Oct. 9 1976; Toch Phoeun, confession, Mar. 14 1977; Non Suon, confession, Nov. 19 1976; Phi Phuon, interview; Tan Hao, cited in Kiernan and Boua, Peasants and Politics, pp. 274–6. Early in 1974 . . . CIA: Phi Phuon, interview.

  259–60 Mok, in particular . . . killed him: Ibid.; Bizot, Portail, pp. 383–5.

  260 Prasith . . . like us: Phi Phuon, interview.

  264 By early April . . . incandescent revolution: Except where otherwise indicated, the following account is drawn from Deac, Road, Ch.io; Chandler, Tragedy, pp. 233–5; Swain, River, esp. pp. 122–32. While rice . . . wines: Baltimore Sun, Apr. 17 1975; Haing Ngor, Odyssey, p. 73. See also George Hildebrand and Gareth Porter, Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution, Monthly Review Press, New York, 1976, pp. 7 and 19–38. Some 800 . . . went with them: Corfield, Stand Up!, pp. 218–23.

  265 Over lunch . . . the other two: Phi Phuon, interview. On Monday . . .failed to appear: Swain, River, pp. 126–8; Nikán, interview; Corfield, Stand Up!, pp. 224–5; Deac, Road, pp. 222–3. Eerie calm: Criddle and Butt Mam, Destroy, p. 3; Yasuko Naito, in De Nike et al., p. 96; Ponchaud, Year Zero, p. 3. Continuing bombardment: Schanberg, Death and Life, p. 16; Swain, River, p. 131. By dawn: Kan, interview.

  CHAPTER EIGHT: MEN IN BLACK

  266 The young men . . . St Laurent: Composite accounts of the events of the morning of Apr. 17 are given by Justin Corfield in Stand Up!, pp. 225–31, and Kiernan in Regime, pp. 34–40. See also Ponchaud, Year Zero, pp. 4–5; Swain, River, pp. 136–7; Bernard Hamel, De Sang et de Larmes, Albin Michel, Paris, 1977, pp. 58—9; Ros Chantrabot, pp. 124–7.

  267 Harsher voice: Radio Phnom Penh, Apr. 17 1975 in BBC SWB FE4881/A3/1–3.

  268 Soundlessly: Ponchaud, Year Zero, p. 6. We moved in: Nikân, interview. ‘Slab of lead’: Ponchaud, Year Zero, p. 6. Newcomers . . .forest: Criddle and Butt Mam, Destroy, p. 11; Fenella Greenfield and Nicolas Locke (eds.), The Killing Fields: The Facts behind the Film, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1984, p. 86; Ponchaud, Year Zero, p. 9.

  269 ‘Never seen money’: Quoted in Kiernan, Rural Reorganization, p. 45. Toilet bowls: Mey Mak, interview; Haing Ngor, Odyssey, p. 122. They were scared . . . toothpaste: Chandler et al., Peang Sophi, p. 3; Szymusiak, Stones, p. 50. Excrement: Bizot, Portail, p. 263. Shook his head: Thiounn Mumm, interview.

  270 It was not money . . . thrown aside: Pin Yathay, Stay Alive, p. 52; Ponchaud, Year Zero, pp. 8—10 and 32; Criddle and Butt Mam, Destroy, pp. 11—12 and 15—18; and Szymusiak, Stones, p. 50. ‘The city is bad’: Ponchaud, Year Zero, p. 21. Such views are common to all cultures. Julio Caro Barojo notes that the writers of classical antiquity held: ‘In the city are found vice, corruption and artifice; in the country the ancient virtues . . .’ (‘The City and the Country: Reflections on Some Ancient Commonplaces’, in Julian Pitt-Rivers (ed.), Mediterranean Countrymen, Mouton, Paris, 1963, p. 28). American bombing: Kiernan and Boua, Peasants and Politics, p. 340. David Chandler goes a step further — in my view, a step too far — by arguing that ‘the bombing . . . provided the CPK with the psychological ingredients of a violent, vengeful and unrelenting revolution’ (Facing, p. 225). In Battambang . . . stop them: Chandler et al., Peang Sophi, p. 3; Mey Mak, interview. ‘Something excessive’: Haing Ngor, Odyssey, pp. 79—80.

  271 It was a stupefying . . . the previous day: Ponchaud, Cathédrale, pp. 160–1. Shane and Chou Meng Tarr, a New Zealand-Cambodian couple who were vocal supporters of the Khmers Rouges, took three days to cover the eight miles (News from Kampuchea, vol. 1, no. 1, Apr. 1977).

  272 ‘Hallucinatory’: Ponchaud, Year Zero, pp. 6–7.

  Hospitals: The evidence is contradictory. Most reports of sick and wounded patients being turned on to the streets came from the area under Northern Zone control. Pin Yathay, who travelled south, reported seeing two patients on hospital beds being wheeled along by relatives in the middle of the city. Marie Alexandrine Martin quotes medical staff as saying the Khmero-Soviet hospital was evacuated on Apr. 17, but that I’Hôpital Calmette, in the north, continued functioning until May 6 (Shattered, pp. 171–2; see also Someth May, Cambodian Witness, p. 107).

  Prosecution documents from the Vietnamese-orchestrated 1979 ‘trial’ of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, a hostile source if ever there was one, say only that ‘some hospitals’ were evacuated, implying that others were not (De Nike et al., p. 325).

  A medical student, working at the Lon Nol government’s temporary medical facility at the Olympic Stadium, which was taken over on Apr. 17 by South-Western Zone forces, has described how he and other staff there spent the next two months working under communist direction at different clinics and hospitals in Phnom Penh (Bangkok Post, Feb. 22 1976).

  Haing Ngor has given a graphic account of young Khmer Rouge soldiers bursting into an operating theatre and demanding ‘the doctor’, but his assumption that they wanted to kill him may have been wrong; it is equally possible they had been ordered to round up any doctors they could find to treat Khmer Rouge wounded (Odyssey, pp. 78–9). Apart from Someth May (p. 111), who saw a doctor being taken away and later found his dead body, there appear to be few credible reports of doctors being singled out for execution or maltreatment because of their profession in the early stages of the new regime.

  274 Chakrey told him: Mey Mann, interview.

  276 ‘Fearful explosion’: Bizot, Portail, p. 278. If what he heard was indeed the bank being blown up, which seems almost certain since no other major explosion was reported during this period, it must have occurred on the afternoon of April 19 or 20 (see also Stanic, Without a Model, p. 77, and Drago Rancic, writing in Politika, Belgrade, excerpted in Seven Days, May 19 1978). Official claims that the blasts were the work of saboteurs are cited in Robert Brown and David Kline, The New Face of Kampuchea, Liberator Press, Chicago, 1979, p. 34. For the charge that the CIA was responsible, see In Sopheap, Khieu Samphân, p. 101.

  276n One certainty: Non Suon, the first Khmer Rouge National Bank Chairman, began work in the damaged building on May 12 1975 (confession, Jan. 16 1977).

  278 Angkar needs . . . rode off: Pin Yathay, Stay Alive, p. 34.

  278–9 ‘Shiny new Peugeot’. . . suicide: Haing Ngor, Odyssey, p. 96. Butt Mam also witnessed the family’s suicide (Destroy, p. 41).

  280 Technicians and skilled workers: Ponchaud, Year Zero, p. 28; Pin Yathay, Stay Alive, p. 38; Hu Nim, confession, May 28 1977, in Chandler et al., Pol Pot Plans, p. 277; Martin, Industrie, pp. 88–90. Technicians were also recalled to Kompong Som (Ung Pech’s testimony in De Nike et al., p. 75).

  281 Sugary words: Szymusiak, Stones, p. 182.

 
281–2 Yet there were . . . unfailing courtesy: Pin Yathay, Stay Alive, pp. 47 and 102.

  282 Humane gesture: Criddle and Butt Mam, Destroy, p. 32. A soldier helping: Szymusiak, Stones, pp. 16–17; another incident involving ‘good’ Khmers Rouges is related on pp. 8—11.

  284 ‘If we worry’: Mey Mak, interview. ‘Cut off their hearts’: Hinton, Why?, pp. 95 and 113. See also the statements of S–21 prison guards in Righy Pann’s film, S. 21: La Machine de Mort Khmère Rouge, transmitted by ARTE on June 2 2003.

  285 Kum: Haing Ngor, Odyssey, p. 9. Puth Tumniay: Smith, Interpretive Accounts, pp. 18–23; PinYathay, Stay Alive, pp. 105–6. ‘500 Thieves’: Mamm, Family Life, p. 1. Black crows . . . brief duration: Pin Yathay, Stay Alive, p. 106; Carol A. Mortland, ‘Khmer Buddhists in the United States: Ultimate Questions’, in Ebihara et al., Cambodian Culture, pp. 81–3.

  CHAPTER NINE: FUTURE PERFECT

  286 Three days . . . honour guard: Phi Phuon, Nikân, Khieu Samphân, interviews. Open work area: Khieu Samphân, interview.

  287 CIA officials: Heckman, Pig Pilot, pp. 339–40. See also Snepp, Decent Interval, pp. 339–40. Spy mania was part of the rationale for the expulsion of the 1,000 or so foreigners — mainly aid workers, businessmen, diplomats, journalists and planters — who found themselves in Phnom Penh at the moment of the communist victory (‘Options fondamentales dans la discussion avec les représentants du Parti Communiste Chinois’, in Doc. 32 (N442)/T8300,VA). Eyewitness accounts of the foreigners’ expulsion, and the events leading up to it, may be found in Bizot, Portail, pp. 225–371; Ponchaud, Year Zero, pp. 11—17 and 34—9; Schanberg, Death and Life, pp. 27–33; and Swain, River, pp. 145–70. Paris Commune: Ieng Sary, interview.