Pol Pot (101 page)

Ponchaud,

p. 6.

Criddle and Butt Mam,

p. 11; Fenella Greenfield and Nicolas Locke (eds.),

Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1984, p. 86; Ponchaud,

p. 9.

269

Quoted in Kiernan,

p. 45.

Mey Mak, interview; Haing Ngor,

p. 122.

Chandler et al.,

p. 3; Szymusiak,

p. 50.

Bizot,

p. 263.

Thiounn Mumm, interview.

270

Pin Yathay,

, p. 52; Ponchaud,

pp. 8—10 and 32; Criddle and Butt Mam,

pp. 11—12 and 15—18; and Szymusiak,

p. 50.

Ponchaud,

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.),

Mouton, Paris, 1963, p. 28).

Kiernan and Boua,

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’ (

, p. 225).

Chandler et al.,

p. 3; Mey Mak, interview.

Haing Ngor,

, pp. 79—80.

271

Ponchaud,

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 (

vol. 1, no. 1, Apr. 1977).

272

Ponchaud,

pp. 6–7.

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 (

pp. 171–2; see also Someth May,

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 (

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 (

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

Mey Mann, interview.

276

Bizot,

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,

p. 77, and Drago Rancic, writing in

Belgrade, excerpted in

May 19 1978). Official claims that the blasts were the work of saboteurs are cited in Robert Brown and David Kline,

Liberator Press, Chicago, 1979, p. 34. For the charge that the CIA was responsible, see In Sopheap,

p. 101.

276

n

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

278

Pin Yathay,

p. 34.

278

–9

Haing Ngor,

p. 96. Butt Mam also witnessed the family’s suicide (

p. 41).

280

Ponchaud,

p. 28; Pin Yathay,

p. 38; Hu Nim, confession, May 28 1977, in Chandler et al.,

p. 277; Martin,

pp. 88–90. Technicians were also recalled to Kompong Som (Ung Pech’s testimony in De Nike et al., p. 75).

281

Szymusiak,

p. 182.

281

–2

Pin Yathay,

pp. 47 and 102.

282

Criddle and Butt Mam,

, p. 32.

Szymusiak,

pp. 16–17; another incident involving ‘good’ Khmers Rouges is related on pp. 8—11.

284

Mey Mak, interview.

Hinton,

pp. 95 and 113. See also the statements of S–21 prison guards in Righy Pann’s film,

:

transmitted by ARTE on June 2 2003.

285

Haing Ngor,

p. 9.

Smith,

pp. 18–23; PinYathay,

pp. 105–6.

Mamm,

, p. 1.

Pin Yathay,

p. 106; Carol A. Mortland, ‘Khmer Buddhists in the United States: Ultimate Questions’, in Ebihara et al.,

81–3.

286

Phi Phuon, Nikân, Khieu Samphân, interviews.

Khieu Samphân, interview.

287

Heckman,

339–40. See also Snepp,

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,

225–371; Ponchaud,

pp. 11—17 and 34—9; Schanberg,

27–33; and Swain,

145–70.

Ieng Sary, interview.

287

–8

Cited by Long Visalo, interview in Phnom Penh, Nov. 26 and Dec. 8 2001.

288

Doc. 2.5.01 in De Nike et al., p. 379.

In Sopheap,

p. 110, quoting a speech by Pol to the ‘Party Centre’ in September 1975. It may be objected that this was four months after the meetings in May, but there is no doubt that he already held these views at that time. In the following account, I have cited extracts from speeches Pol made over the next fifteen months where I am convinced that they are a restatement of positions originally adopted in May.

289

Pol Pot,

47.

Pol Pot,

p. 152. His remark is worth comparing with Khieu Samphân’s 1959 statement: ‘While it is true that it is more advantageous for a backward country to import industrial goods rather than to produce them at any given point in time, it is equally true that in the long run such a country can never really improve its industrial overhead’ (

pp.78–9).

Ieng Sary, interview with James Pringle,

Beijing, Sept. 4 1975, pp. 12–13.

289

—90

Khieu Samphân,

, pp. 30, 53 (trans, amended) and 75–6.

290

Feb. 15, 17, 19, 21, 23 and 25 1976.