Pol Pot (99 page)

, p. 202; see also Donald Kirk,

, Nelson-Hall, Chicago, 1975, pp. 137–8.

218

–220

See the eyewitness description in Chantrabot, pp. 86–7.

220

‘Mekhum’, interview.

Mey Sror, interview.

221

Mey Mak and Mey Sror, interviews. Both men remembered Khmer-speaking Vietnamese instructors addressing political education meetings in Mok’s South-Western Zone.

222

Deac,

, p. 89; Shawcross,

, p. 186.

223

, pp. 58–9. Pol’s claims in this work, which he dictated to a group of Foreign Ministry officials (Suong Sikoeun, interview), must be treated with the greatest caution: some are pure invention—like his claim that, at this meeting, the Vietnamese tried to have him poisoned; others contain interesting nuggets of truth.

This interpretation runs counter to the

claim (p. 58) that the Vietnamese military training programme was carried out ‘secretly’ and closed down as soon as the CPK discovered its existence. The fact that Vietnamese instructors were operating freely in Mok’s South-West Zone until the summer of 1971, and that mixed units continued to exist both in the South-West and the East until at least 1972 — if not, in some cases, 1973 — indicates CPK acceptance of those policies at the highest level. Mok met Pol in January 1971. Had the guideline then been to prevent such co-operation, Mok would certainly have stopped it, as he did when CPK policy towards the Vietnamese tightened a year later. The fact that he did not suggests that the November 1970 meeting endorsed the training programme. Moreover, any other decision would have been against the CPK’s own interests and would not have been understood by the Party rank and file, most of whom at that time regarded the Vietnamese as loyal allies.

The decision to phase out the mixed units, which had been created during the Vietnamese advance in April–May 1970, and to replace Vietnamese administrative cadres with Khmers, were both, in contrast, commonsense measures which would have been difficult for the COSVN to refuse. Indirect confirmation of this view comes from a US State Department source, who reported that ‘late in 1970, Vietnamese advisers to FUNK [administration] committees were instructed to assume a lower profile’ (Kiernan,

, p. 313; Brown,

, p. 129); and from General Tran Van Tra’s subsequent claim that the VWP CC ‘wanted to reconcile differences with [our CPK] friends’ (quoted in Engelbert and Goscha,

, p. 100). Shortly after Pol’s meeting with Nguyen Van Linh, a senior Vietnamese official, Hoang Anh, spoke in similar terms at the December 1970 VWP CC plenum in Hanoi: ‘The matter of Cambodia is very important. For its successful resolution we must enhance our military efforts there and materially aid the local patriotic forces’ (Morris,

, pp. 48 and 255 n.3, quoting a Russian translation of Hoang’s report held in the Centre for the Preservation of Contemporary Documents, Moscow).

A later, hostile, Vietnamese account of Pol’s meeting with Nguyen Van Linh stated: ‘In essence, he said he did not agree with the way the General Staff had organised things to help the Cambodian revolution develop strongly after Lon Nol overthrew Sihanouk. After the meeting, [they] dissolved the forces and units that we had spent a long time helping to build for them, and they asked us to transfer to them completely all [Khmer] units which were being led by [Vietnamese] cadres’ (Le Quang Ba, ‘Un sommaire de la situation Cambodgienne’, Doc. 32(N442)/T8807,VA).

224–5

Ping Say, interview. Most of the account that follows is drawn from Ping Say’s recollections, except the detail about the Zone secretaries’ bodyguards, which comes from Phi Phuon, interview.

224

Moeun, interview; and ‘Alone among Brothers’,

, Oct. 20 2001.

225

Khieu Samphân, interview.

225

–6

Ibid, and Phi Phuon, interview.

226

–7

Except where otherwise indicated, this account is taken from Phi Phuon, interview.

226

Quoted in Engelbert and Goscha,

, pp. 96–7.

227

–8

Unless otherwise indicated, the following account is drawn from Phi Phuon, interview.

228

See also the CPK directive quoted in Kiernan,

, p. 323. Kiernan’s claim that the Congress approved policies of ‘war communism’, however, is mistaken. Had such a decision been taken in August, it would have become apparent before the end of 1971; it did not.

, Dec. 1975/Jan. 1976,

This account is extrapolated from the meagre information available; however, it would hardly have been necessary for the CC to issue an ‘emergency directive’ unless Pol had discovered weaknesses which he believed required urgent correction. Kiernan (

, pp. 328–9) details some of the May 1972 decisions, but attributes them to the Third Congress in 1971. (See also

, Sept.-Oct. 1976, pp. 1–33, quoting Pol’s speech on the Party’s 16th anniversary, and Sreng, confession, Mar. 13 1977.)

229

Except where otherwise indicated, the following account is drawn from Quinn,

, pp. 11–17, and Kate G. Frieson, ‘Revolution and Rural Response in Cambodia: 1970–1975’, in Kiernan,

, pp. 33–47, esp. p. 43

See also Brown,

, p. 128; and Quinn,

, p. 19. On credit co-operatives, see Khieu Samphân, interview: on harvest-time mutual aid, Nghet Chhopininto, interview; Kiernan,

, p. 321; and Ebihara,

, pp. 18 and 23.

Former Lon Nol district chief Chhing Nam Yeang, quoted by Kiernan in

, p. 319.

1th Sarin,

, p. 46.

230

Bizot,

, pp. 73–6 and 87–9; Quinn,

, p. 19.

According to the French chargé d’affaires, Gérard Serre, the graves may have contained altogether as many as 500 bodies (Serre to MAE, No. 20/DA.AI, Sept. 17 1971, in c. A-O-1965-78, vol. 134 ns, QD).

Kenneth Quinn, on the basis of refugee interviews, concluded: ‘The brutality of Khmer Rouge cadres . . . [was] quite limited in the early phases of FUNK control [in] 1970–71 and even 1971–72’ (

, p. 22). The former government district chief Chhing Nam Yeang, quoted by Kiernan, said that ‘in 1970–71, the [Khmers Rouges] did not kill people’ (

319).

232

Vickery,

, pp. 1–2.

Private communication from Bill Herod, whose companion, Bopha, lived at the village as a child from 1975–9.

, 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. CLV

, QD).

1th Sarin,

, pp. 40–1.

232

–3

Ly Hay, interview, Paris–Phnom Penh, Sept. 18 2000. See also Ponchaud,

, p. 141.

233

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,

, p. 92. Thai peasants show similar behaviour: see Herbert P. Phillips,

, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1965, p. 17, and

, pp. 348–9.

‘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,

, p. 181).

234

Bizot,

, pp. 84–6.

Ibid., p. 98.

Ith Sarin,

, pp. 50–1; Chandler,

, pp. 209 and 357 n.51; Haing Ngor,

, pp. 112–13; and Radio Phnom Penh, Jan. 31 1976, quoted in Ponchaud,

, pp. 117–18. Ponchaud uses the term

rather than

(‘Social Change in the Vortex of Revolution’, in Jackson,

, p. 173). The Chinese ‘Three Rules and Eight Points’ may be found in Mao’s

, vol. 4, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1969, pp. 155–6.

234

–5

Bizot,

, p. 163.

236

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.’