Pol Pot (104 page)

Minutes of the CPK Standing Committee meetings of Mar. 11 and 13 1976 (Dossier D7562);’Speech by the Party Secretary to the Council of Ministers’, Apr. 22 1976 (Dossier D695), DC-Cam.

337

June 25 1976. This was not, as has sometimes been suggested, a journalist’s error. Cambodia continued to deny that Pol Pot was Saloth Sâr until the regime fell. Y Phandara was told by the Ambassador to China, Pich Chheang, in the spring of 1978 that Saloth Sâr ‘had died during the war’; Chinese officials at that time repeated the same thing.

337

–8

Nuon Chea,

p. 31.

338

Ieng Sary, interview.

Sihanouk,

p. 320.

Kong Duong, interview.

Mey Mak, interview.

339

Ieng Sary, interview.

Vandy Kaonn,

p. 137; Chou Chet, confession, May 20 1978.

340

In Sopheap,

pp. 95–6; I have condensed the citation, but without changing the sense. Sopheap, who gave a similar account from his own experience of attending meetings with Pol, said there was little real exchange of views after 1975 (interview).

In Sopheap, interview.

341

Becker,

pp. 424–5; In Sopheap, interview. See Martin Stuart-Fox,

White Lotus, Bangkok, 1996, p. 80, for the importance of the monks’ ceremonial fans in neighbouring Laos.

‘Long Live the Marvellous Revolutionary Armed Forces of the Communist Party of Kampuchea’,

Aug. 1975.

341

–2

Pol Pot,

p. 188;’ Extraits de quelques textes du Bureau 870’, Doc. 32(N422)/T83i8,VA. Although Pol himself never publicly criticised China in these terms, in a speech to a closed Party meeting in August 1976 he paraphrased Mao’s remark to him the previous summer—that China was ‘a capitalist country with no capitalists’—asserting that China and North Korea ‘have socialism as a base, but they [are] not clear of the capitalist framework’ (

p. 107). Such views explain why Pol’s tribute to Mao during his visit to China in September 1977 was not re-broadcast by Radio Phnom Penh (Chandler,

p. 45).

342

‘Extraits de quelques textes du Bureau 870’,

Henri Locard, untitled typescript, p. 11; Chandler,

p. 231.

David Morell and Chai-anan Samudavanija, ‘Thailand’s Revolutionary Insurgency: Changes in Leadership Potential’,

vol. 19, no. 4, Apr. 1979, p. 332.

343

Ieng Sary,

interview, May 2 1977.

Pol Pot,

pp. 46 and 49.

: Ieng Sary,

interview,

vol. i, no. 4, Oct. 1977, p. 35.

Pol Pot,

He may well have been thinking of members of Khamtan’s own party. David Chandler quotes Thai Communists as saying of the Khmers Rouges: ‘Their understanding of Marxism, of socialism and class analysis was terrible’; ‘[Theirs] was the revolution of the downtrodden, pure and simple’ (

p. 280).

345

July 1976, pp. 17–31 and Nov. 1976, pp. 1—15.

347

Thion,

pp. 158–9; Becker,

p. 171; Nikán, interview. Thiounn Thioeunn (interview) gave a scathing assessment of the medical qualifications of Sary’s daughters.

Sihanouk,

p. 263.

This is guesswork, but Madame Khieu fits Sihanouk’s description (see Ong Thong Hoeung,

p. 3), the one difference being that she was then in her late seventies, rather than her sixties, as the Prince thought. Sihanouk insisted that the mysterious passenger was not Khieu Ponnary, whom he knew by sight, and it is difficult to think of anyone else who would have warranted such exceptional treatment.

348

‘Report of the Eastern Zone Congress, July 17 1977’, Doc. 32(N442)/T8294,VA, which speaks of the dangers of’people starving and suffering, and losing confidence in the Party’. See also the regular telegrams on the economic situation in the regions in the ‘Khmer Rouge Communications File’, DC-Cam. By mid-1976, food supplies were deteriorating even in the Foreign Ministry in Phnom Penh. At the end of the year Laurence Picq and other Ministry workers were suffering from oedema caused by malnutrition (Picq,

pp. 67—8, 78 and 84).

350

‘Minutes of meeting between Ieng Sary and Chinese Ambassador’, undated but apparently early 1976, Doc. 32(N422).T8188,VA.

‘Directive No. 32 of the Party Standing Committee of the Eastern Zone’, Sept. 5 1976, Doc. 2.5.06 in De Nike et al., pp. 385–6. The timing is important. Pol had said in late July: ‘We don’t use old workers, because if we [did] there would be many complications politically’ (

p. 47). But that had been the position since late 1975. The Central Committee directive on which the Eastern Zone document was based—extending the prohibition to intellectuals—was presumably issued in the last days of August or the very beginning of September. Ong Thong Hoeung and at least thirty colleagues were sent to the factories at precisely that moment and withdrawn a month later.

Sept-Oct. 1976, pp. 1–32; Pol Pot,

Khamtan;

p. 160.

352

Although there is no way of proving it, I tend to agree with Michael Vickery that between a half and two-thirds of the population were, at least in relative terms, reasonably fed until 1978 (

p. 131).

354

Minutes of the CPK Standing Committee meeting, Mar. 8 1976, Dossier D684, DC-Cam.

354

–5

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

pp. 289 and 293–6.

355

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

p. 295. Doeun, in his confession, insisted that he did pass on the information to Pol Pot, but without making clear how quickly he did so.

This account is based on Long Nârin, interview, and Kiernan,

pp. 321–3. While I do not agree with Kiernan’s interpretation, he provides a useful summary of the known facts.

356

See Nuon Chea, letter to Pham Hung, May 23 1976, quoted in

vol. 1, pp. 130–1.

357

‘Talk between Ieng Sary and Sunao Sonoda, Foreign Minister of Japan, in Tokyo, June 12 1978’, Doc. 32(N442)/T8297,VA. Kiernan gives an account of the negotiations which is much more sympathetic to Vietnam (

pp. 115–20), based on his interpretation of the minutes of the CPK Standing Committee, May 14 1976.

Pol Pot,

.

These details were furnished by a Chinese historian who wishes to remain anonymous.

357

–8

Pol Pot,’Keynote opinions of the Comrade delegate of the Party Organisation at the [Western] Zone Assembly’,

June 1976, pp. 14–65.

358

The following account draws on Chandler,

and on Deuch, interview with Nate Thayer, Battambang, April 1999.

According to Ney Sarann (confession, Sept. 30 1976), Chhouk joined the CC at the CPK’s Fourth Congress in January 1976.

Moeun, interview.

Suong Sikoeun, interview; Picq,

p. 222.

359

Dossiers L01373, Aug. 2, L01374, Aug. 3 and L01442, Sept. 2 1976, DC-Cam; and Pol Pot,

(Aug. 23 1976), p. 161.

Dossier L01445, Sept. 9 1976. According to Son Sen, seditious pamphlets were discovered on at least five occasions that year, in April, June, July and August/September.

360

–1

Pol Pot,

pp. 183–5.

362

BBC SWB FE5323/B/1. Pol’s resignation, announced by Radio Phnom Penh on Sept. 27, was backdated to the 20th, the day of Ney Sarann’s arrest. It was allegedly approved by a cabinet meeting that day, but whether in fact such a meeting ever took place is unclear. Twenty years later, neither Nuon Chea nor Mok had any recollection of these events (interviews with Nate Thayer). Ieng Sary, however, did remember, which, as David Chandler has noted, tends to confirm that it was linked to a foreign policy issue (

p. 180 n.44). Had Pol really been ill—or had it been an internal manoeuvre to turn the tables on political opponents—the last thing he would have done would be to have the news broadcast by Radio Phnom Penh.

The following account is drawn from Phi Phuon (interview), who named the members of Pol’s delegation and his interlocutors identically in separate conversations, several months apart. Pich Chheang confirmed that the visit took place, but was unable to remember the details (interview). The delegation stayed at Diaoyutai, a well-guarded walled estate, west of the Forbidden City, containing villas for high-level visitors.