Pol Pot
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406–8 Eight Chinese diplomats . . . established their identity: This account is drawn from Yun Shui, Diplomats, pp. 504—19.
409 Convoys of trucks: Chanda, Brother Enemy, pp. 370–1.
410 Factories: Stuart-Fox, Murderous Revolution, pp. 173–4. Rice: Heder, Occupation, p. 31; Someth May, Cambodian Witness, p. 266. Michael Vickery disputes Heder’s account of the looting of Cambodian rice stocks (Cambodia, p. 235), but he agrees that this was what most Khmers believed and politically that is what counted.
410–11 Finally got the attention . . . two months later: By far the best account of the famine and the refugee exodus is Shawcross’s meticulously researched Quality, Chs. 5–10. His judgement that the extent of the famine was exaggerated in the West (where alarmist headlines spoke of’two million dead by Christmas’) does not invalidate the conclusion that it was worse than in the 1975–8 period. The death toll in the Khmer Rouge years was due primarily to a combination of overwork, lack of food and lack of medical treatment. In 1979, the main cause of death was hunger.
411 New permanent headquarters: Phi Phuon visited Office 131 for the first time for a meeting with Pol in July (interview). The area was also known as Châ-2 and 505. The description that follows is taken from interviews with Kong Duong, Kan, Mey Mak and Suong Sikoeun—all of whom worked there—and from an interview with Phann, who was with one of the groups hiding in the forest in the Eastern Zone. Walking skeletons: Kong Duong, Chor Sokhan, interviews. Cannibalism: Mey Mak, interview.
411–12 ‘Awful, spindly’: Shawcross, Quality, p. 170. Stephen Heder (Occupation, pp. 70 and 115) and Serge Thion and Ben Kiernan (Khmers Rouges! Matériaux pour I’Histoire du Communisme au Cambodge, Albin Michel, Paris, 1982, p. 299), relying on refugee interviews in Thailand, put the civilian population under Khmer Rouge control at 500—800,000, and suggest that as many as half may have died. On the basis of interviews with surviving Khmer Rouge officials, it seems more likely that the civilian population was of the order of 200,000, of whom perhaps a quarter died.
412 ‘Fat and sleek’: Picq, typescript, pp. 441, 445 and 453–4. See also her description of the ‘chubby faces’ of Ieng Sary and other leaders in July 1979 (ibid., pp. 466—9), and photographs taken of Sary at the meeting of the non-aligned movement in Colombo the same month. The earliest photographs of Pol, taken by Chinese journalists, date from December 1979. They, too, show him looking plump and overweight.
413 Looking-glass world . . . nauseating: Kamm, Stricken Land, pp. 178–81.
414 ‘Our main duty . . . socialist revolution’: Ibid., pp. 181–2. I have taken the liberty of changing Kamm’s rendering,’we abandon,’ to ‘we are abandoning’, since Sary does not speak English and the phrase must therefore have been translated from French or Khmer. No more executions: Mey Mak said categorically that ‘after 1980 there was no more killing’ (interview). Deuch, who dated the change to October 1979, said they stopped for a time but then resumed (interview with Nate Thayer). See also Peschoux, ‘Nouveaux’ Khmers Rouges, pp. 25–6 and 168–71.
415 ‘New beginning’: Picq, typescript, pp. 478—9.
415–16 August 1981 . . . interests were protected: This account is from Mey Mak, interview. Ieng Sary accompanied them to Bangkok, but neither he nor any other senior CPK leader went with Pol to Beijing.
417 ‘In certain places’: Martin, Gouvernement, p. 470. ‘We chose communism’: Kan, interview.
418 Offenders were re-educated . . . fewer friends: Peschoux, Nouveaux’ Khmers Rouges, pp. 141 and 180—5. ‘Draw lessons’: Kan, Mey Mak, interviews. ‘Drunk with victory’: From a document circulated in March 1993, quoted by Nate Thayer in ‘Whither the Khmer Rouge?’, Phnom Penh Post, June 6–12 1993. But usually . . . real traitors: Chandler, Brother, p. 163.
420 D-25: Kong Duong, Mey Mak and Suong Sikoeun, interviews.
421 ‘What hypocrisy’:Vanity Fair, Apr. 1990. Make Vietnam bleed: A Khmer Rouge diplomat explained to Henry Kamm why the sharpened bamboo stakes the guerrillas placed in man-traps did not have poisoned tips.’That would kill them,’ the diplomat said. ? wounded man takes four others to carry him and then he cries and cries and cries. It makes the others begin to think.’ ‘So much,’ Kamm commented, ‘for the finesse of Khmer Rouge diplomacy’ (Stricken Land, p. 179). Yet that was the US strategy in Cambodia. By wounding the Vietnamese, America hoped to make the Russians think. That year . . . situation permitted: Interview with Saut, a Jarai medical assistant who treated Pol, at Pailin, 21 Nov. 2001; Thiounn Thioeunn, interview.
422 No less striking . . . cook: Ieng Sary, Mey Mak, Kong Duong, interviews. His new headquarters . . . Samphân: Kân, Kong Duong, Moeun, Mey Mak and Phann, interviews. All five worked at K-18 or House 20, or visited the area, between 1985 and 1990.
422–3 One of Samphân’s aides . . . major decisions: Phann, interview.
423 He and Meas . . . good mother: Moeun, interview. She was among those present at K-18 that day.
425 Their efforts to win . . . Khmer Rouge candidates: The Khmer Rouge strategy for the reconquest of the villages in the second half of the 1980s is discussed at length by Christophe Peschoux in ‘Nouveaux’ Khmers Rouges, Ch. 5. Suppose there are: From a speech to the Democratic Kampuchea Women’s Association in December 1988, cited in Heder,’Were the KR Serious about the elections?’, Phnom Penh Post, Mar. 24-Apr. 6.
427—8 Three weeks later . . . really back again: This is drawn from my own recollections of Sihanouk’s return, which I covered as the BBC’s Far East correspondent.
428 Incident . . . Sen’s loyalty: Phann, who was an aide to Son Sen at the time, believed he had failed to take the reports seriously (interview). Stephen Heder’s understanding is that Son Sen did report the rumours of trouble, but Pol Pot said no action should be taken (private communication). Either way, Sen was blamed for what happened. Phi Phuon recalled Pol speaking at a seminar at Phnom Chhat in July 1993 about ‘an internal problem in the movement’ that came to the surface when Samphán was attacked. He said this was taken at the time as being a reference to Son Sen (interview).
430 Not disarm: Brown and Zasloff, Cambodia Confounds, pp. 137–8.
431 Decision to boycott: Mey Mak, interview. According to In Sopheap (interview), Pol hoped ‘right up to the last minute that the Paris accords would be applied correctly—correctly, that is, from the Khmer Rouge point of view’.
433 Most people . . . kept quiet: Phi Phuon, interview.
434 Kbal Ansoang: The following sketch of Kbal Ansoang draws on my own visit in November 2001 and on In Sopheap’s recollections of life there (interview). Both Sopheap and Kor Bunheng used the word ‘idyllic’ to describe the area.
434–5 Every time . . . replace him: Peschoux, ‘Noiweaux’ Khmers Rouges, p. 140. Although the speaker, a former Khmer Rouge cadre, was describing Pol’s seminars in the 1980s, those who attended seminars at Kbal Ansoang, including In Sopheap, said his gifts of oratory were undiminished.
435 He also developed . . . left side: Thiounn Thioeunn, interview. See also Pol Pot, Thayer interview. He spent more time . . . youth in Phnom Penh: Kong Duong and In Sopheap, interviews. Kân also remembered Pol telling stories of his childhood (interview). Later he got . . . disappeared: Tep Khunnal, interview. Khunnal said he filled nine notebooks with Pol’s reminiscences, but they were lost, along with other papers, when Mok overturned Pol’s leadership in June 1997. Some were subsequently recovered and are now in posession of Stephen Heder (private communication). Whisky: In Sopheap, interview. Khieu Samphân also remembered Pol drinking whisky when they were in the maquis (interview). He appreciated . . .technique: Kong Duong, interview; interview with Meas Somneang, Pailin, Mar. 27 2001. At Office 131, in the early 1980s, a traditional orchestra was assembled to play for the Khmer Rouge radio station, and Pol would invite them to play for him. One of the group, a man then in his early eighties, was living at a wat in Pailin in 2001. Paris-Match: In Sopheap, interview.
436–7 Their agent was . . . never recovered: E
xcept where specified elsewhere, this account relies on Kong Duong, Mey Mak, Phi Phuon, and Phann interviews.
437 ‘Like a fish’: Kân, interview.
438 Nuon Chea and Son Sen . . . cloud: Interview with Mok’s driver, Chhun, Anlong Veng, Dec. 12 2001; In Sopheap, interview. Rapidly deteriorating: Kân, Moeun, interviews. ‘Crossing of a river’: In Sopheap, interview.
439 May 16 1997: Letter from Long Sarin to Prince Ranariddh, May 18 1997 (Nhek Bunchhay personal archive, Phnom Penh).
440 The plan was to seize: Nhek Bunchhay, interview.
440–1 At about midnight . . . was right: Unless otherwise stated, the following account is taken from interviews with Seng (Pailin, Mar. 14 2001), In Sopheap, Kân, Keo Yann, Meas Somneang and Phann, all of whom were at Kbal Ansoang on the day Mok’s forces attacked. The chronology is confused. Pol’s order for the killing of Son Sen shortly after midnight on the night of June 9 is confirmed by Tern’s statement on June 24 1997 (‘Anlong Veng Papers’, supra; see also Phnom Penh Post, Aug. 15–28 1997). Mok said he started organising his forces at the Anlong Veng district centre on the morning of June 10 (‘Anlong Veng Papers’, meeting of Sept. 9 1997) and continued on the 11th. The Khmer Rouge radio at Kbal Ansoang broadcast for the last time on the morning of June 12. Pol must therefore have fled that afternoon. In Sopheap remembered spending ‘three or four nights’ on the run—i.e. until June 15 or 16—by which time it appeared to him that Pol had already been captured. Mok said the crisis had been resolved on June 14 (Phnom Penh Posf, June 27-July 10 1997), implying that Pol had been caught that day. Meas Somneang’s account also suggests that Pol must have been captured on June 14 or 15 (interview).
440 Pol later told: Pol Pot, Thayer interview.
442 Pol Pot has died: Chandler, Brother, p. 186. I have taken the liberty of changing the translation,’cow shit’, into ‘cowpat’.
AFTERWORD
444 ‘Explosion’: Ponchaud, interview. He used the French term sursaut. ‘Quiet, introverted’: Drago Rancic, writing in Politika, Belgrade, excerpted in Seven Days, May 19 1978.
445 Yos Hut Khemcaro: Phnom Penh Post, Mar. 21-Apr. 3 1997.
446 Actions of ‘normal’ governments: For example, in 1945 the US Army granted an amnesty, in exchange for their research results, to Japanese germ warfare specialists who had carried out thousands of experiments on prisoners of war as horrific as any of the atrocities of Josef Mengele in Auschwitz (see Sheldon H. Harris, Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932–45, and the American Cover-up, Routledge, London, 1994). Granting an amnesty in those circumstances was certainly a ‘crime against humanity’ and would be prosecuted as such under an international system of justice worthy of the name.
447 Culture of impunity: On July 6 1999, a film actress named Piseth Pelika was shot in Phnom Penh and later died of her injuries. It transpired that she had been the mistress of Hun Sen. The French weekly l’Express, accused the Prime Minister’s wife, Bun Rany, of ordering her execution. She threatened to sue l’Express but did not do so. No police investigation of Pelika’s murder was ever undertaken (Phnom Penh Post, July 23-Aug. 5, Oct. 15–28 and Oct. 29-Nov. 11, 1999, and July 7–20 2000).
448 ‘Utterly merciless’: Lee KwanYew, Third World to First, p. 328. ‘Millions of Cambodians’: Phnom Penh Post, Mar. 21—Apr. 3 1997. ‘Since the fall of Angkor’: Ros Chantrabot, p. 149.
449 Like a porcelain vase: The simile is Lee Kwan Yew’s (Third World to First, p. 327).
Index
Page numbers in bold refer to the dramatis personae section, pages 450–8.
AEK (l’Association des Etudiants Khmers) 48–50, 58
sets up study circles 51–2
links with left-wing 60, 62–3
confronts Sihanouk 78, 81, 83–4
Afghanistan 412, 424
Albania 332
Albright, Madeleine 447
Alfonso, Denise 371
Algeria 364, 446
Anduong Meas 177
Angkar 256, 309, 330–1, 347; see also CPK
term first used 121
in 1960s 153–4
remoteness of 234, 295–6, 338, 366
and evacuees from Phnom Penh
278–9
treatment of population 314–16, 322–5, 347, 368
admits communist identity 361, 375
Angkor Wat 24, 35
as model 7, 21, 293, 341, 351, 365, 444–5
brahmins 26
Cambodia retains temples (1941)28
Pol Pot visits (1945) 32–3
as Issarak refuge (1946) 35
on Khmer Viet Minh flag 54
occupied by Viet Cong 205
Sihanouk visits (1973) 244
Khmers Rouges and 313n, 381
Anlong Veng 432, 434, 439
Aragon, Louis 69
Aural, Mt 178, 184, 186, 408, 412, 436
Auriol, Vincent 90–1
autarky 289, 349
B–1 311, 345, 358, 366
B–5 262
B–50 426
Baker, James 426
banditry 35, 87
Bandung summit 113
Bangkok 39, 303, 381, 405
‘Bangkok Plot’ 125
Bank Buildings, Phnom Penh 312, 355
Banteay Chhmar 232, 268–9
Bantei Srey temple 244
Bao Dai 198, 331
Bassac river 26, 274
Battambang 88, 101–2, 398
Lord Governor 17
and Thailand 28, 35, 119, 125
and Khmers Viet Minh 39, 120
armed uprising (1967–8) 164–5, 167, 169, 173–5
during 1970–5 civil war 216, 251, 270
evacuation of (1975) 277–8
guerrilla war against Vietnam 408, 421
Bavel 436
Bay Damran 174
Beausse, Jean de 153
Becker, Elizabeth 393, 394
Beijing
Pol Pot visits
1965 159
1970 188, 197, 199–200, 202
1975 298–303
1976 363
1977 375–7
1978 388–90
1981 415–16
1987 423–4
Sihanouk exiled in 8, 198–202, 239–42, 329–31
Democratic Kampuchean ambassador to 334
Son Sen visits 388
Nuon Chea visits 388
Bek Chan 276
Belden, Jack: China Shakes the World 71
Berlin Festival (1951) 60–1, 62
Bizot, François 218–19
held captive by Khmers Rouges 233–5, 259–60, 315, 358
after fall of Phnom Penh (1975) 269, 276, 283
Bjork, Kaj 354
Black Paper 387
‘boat people’ 379
Boeng Keng Kâng 116, 117, 120, 312
Bokeo 174, 175, 177
Bokor hill resort 28, 183n
Bolshevik Revolution 71, 341
Botum Vaddei, Wat 20, 21, 23
Boudemedienne, Houari 297
Bowles, Chester 181
Brahminism 18
Brezhnev, Leonid 90, 362
Brown, Harold 378
Brzezinski, Zbigniew 378, 380, 420–1
Buddhism 84, 197, 285, 445
distinctiveness 18, 25, 41, 327
and Pol Pot 20–1, 84
interaction with Marxism 65, 149–50, 234–5, 295, 317, 323n, 324, 328
Buddhist Institute 75
‘Buddhist Socialism’ 150
Bunchan Mol 83, 365
as anti-colonial activist 30, 35, 151n
as Issarak leader 87–8, 151n
Burma 7, 332, 342, 381
Cahiers Internationaux 66
Caldwell, Malcolm 393, 394, 395, 422
Cambodia 58, 105, 206; see also Democratic Kampuchea, People’s Republic of Kampuchea
relations with France 5, 16, 26, 28–9, 31–2, 34–5, 352
French community in Phnom Penh 24, 25
Fourth Republic 77
‘pacification efforts’ 81
Sihanouk’s independence crusade 90–5
relations with Japan
cession of Cambodian territory (1941) 28
wartime occupation 29, 31–2, 34–5, 75
agrément of Khmer Rouge Ambassador to Tokyo 382
relations with Thailand 28
relations with US 156–7, 245
relations with China 179, 301–2, 379
Cambodian air force 175, 221
Cambodian communist movement see Khmer Viet Minh for pre-1955, Angkar and CPK for post 1955 references
Cambodian National Army 432
Cambodian National Bank 263, 313
Cambodian National Union Party 430, 434
Cambodian People’s Liberation Committee (CPLC) 39
Cambodian People’s Party (CPP; previously PRPK) 428, 431
Camus, Albert 48
Canadian Marxist-Leninist Communist League 396
Cardamom Mountains 102, 175, 186, 228, 251
Carter, President Jimmy 378, 420
Catholic Church 23
Ceausescu, Nicolae 381
Cercle Marxiste 80, 107
established 63
structure and role 63–5, 82, 68, 154
ideological influences on 66, 70, 73–4, 248
and Pol Pot 81–2, 89–90
and Viet Minh 96
and Democratic Party 111
and Khieu Samphân 120–1, 132
and Thiounn Mumm 154
supports Sihanouk after his overthrow 200
Cercles d’Etudes 52
CGDK (Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea) 419
chalat 29
Chams 230, 254, 326, 327, 354
Chamkar Mon 312
Chamraon Vichea 120, 123, 143
Chan Chakrey as divisional commander 258, 268, 276
and evacuation of Phnom Penh 274–5
suspected 355–6
interrogated at Tuol Sleng 358
Chan Samân 99, 119
Chan Yourann 200, 434, 443
Chandler, David 290
Brother Number One 435
Chantarainsey, Prince
as Issarak leader 58, 81
and Pol Pot 82, 87, 89–90, 108
and Viet Minh 87
submits to government 101
killed 354
Chanthaburi 437
chantiers de la jeunesse 29