Pol Pot (93 page)

Khieu Samphân, interview.

33

Khieu Samphân, interview.

In Sopheap, interview.

34

Pierre Lamant, interview, Paris, Mar. 25 2002; and David Chandler, personal communication. Other Frenchmen who taught in Cambodia in the late 1990s and early 2000s, such as Henri Locard and Claude Rabear, experienced similar frustrations in dealing with the current generation of Cambodian students. Keng Vannsak, in the late 1950s, noted the same lack of initiative among the staff of the Phnom Penh Teacher Training College.

36

Ping Sây, Thiounn Mumm and Ieng Sary, interviews.

38

Keng Vannsak and Ieng Sary, interviews.

The following section is drawn mainly from Christopher E. Goscha’s illuminating thesis on the First Indochina War,

42

Ping Sây, interview. See also Mey Mann and Ieng Sary, interviews.

Khieu Samphân, interview.

43

The following account is from the recollections of Mey Mann (interview) .

44

Meyer,

p. 33.

45

The following account is taken from Mey Mann and Nghet Chhopininto, interviews.

48

no. 8, Dec. 1949, pp. 19–20.

49

Mey Mann remembered: ‘He had a friend, or a cousin, I’m not sure what exactly . . . who took him off to stay with him . . . somewhere not in the Latin Quarter’ (interview). Nghet Chhopininto thought Sâr spent the first year staying with the sons of the governor of Kratie (Em Samnang and Em Samrech) in an apartment near the Jardin des Plantes (which is close to the Ecole de Radio-Electricité in the rue Amyot), in the 5th arrondissement of Paris (interview). Vannsak (interview) thought it was ‘probable’ that he had spent the first year with Somonopong. In fact, it seems certain that he stayed at 17 rue Lacepède, where Samnang and Samrech were both still living in 1955, together with two of Somonopong’s relatives, Prince Sisowath Monichivan and Prince Sisowath Vongvichan (cote 19800042, art 21, dossier 1912, AS de l’Association Khmer, 13 avril 1955, Centre des Archives Contemporaines, Fontainebleau).

Mey Mann and Ping Sây, interviews. See also Ieng Sary, interview.

The account of Sâr’s relationship with Son Maly is taken from Keng Vannsak, interview.

50

Pol Pot,

and

51

Pol Pot,

.

Pol Pot,

.

Ieng Sary,

and interview with Henri Locard, Pailin, 1998; Keng Vannsak, interview.

Keng Vannsak, interview.

52

Pol Pot,

55

‘Statuts du Parti Révolutionnaire du Peuple du Cambodge’ and ‘La ligne politique du Parti’, translated in ‘le Parti Ouvrier Vietnamien’, SDECE, c. 10H620, SHAT.

57

‘Rapport du Général Viet Minh Nguyen Binh sur le Front Cambodgien’. Aug. 11 1951,0. 10H636, SHAT.

Commandement des Forces Terrestres du Cambodge, EM/3B, No. 2371/3, ‘Synthèse d’exploitation’, undated, c. 10H5585, SHAT.

59

Keng Vannsak, interview

60

Keng Vannsak, interview.

‘Festival Mondial de la Jeunesse’, Berlin, 5 au 19 août, in c. BA2275, Archives de la Prefecture de Police, Paris.

61

Vandy Kaonn,

p. 182.

Keng Vannsak, interview.

62

Nghet Chhopininto, interview. Mumm (interview) confirmed making a report after his return from Berlin but did not specify the circumstances.

63

Mey Mann, interview.

Nghet Chhopininto, interview.

Keng Vannsak, interview.

Sâr himself claimed that ‘I and some of the other students organised a small group called the Cambodian Marxist [Circle]’, and dated its foundation to July-August 1951 (

). Ieng Sary (interview) said: ‘Initially, Saloth Sâr did [not take part] . . . Only later did his views start to change’; and (

): ‘We tried to bring him into our group . . . but he did not want to come. Finally he joined us before he left France.’The truth no doubt lies somewhere between—Sâr trying to pretend falsely that he was a founder member, Sary exaggerating his reluctance to join because of his links with Vannsak and Son Ngoc Thanh. For the location of Sâr’s cell, see Sher,

p. 120; and Ieng Sary (interview with

July 3–16 1998), who stated: ‘Chandler made quite a few mistakes. He did not have knowledge of Pol Pot’s role in rue Lacepède.’

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Sher,

p. 134.

Thiounn Mumm, interview.

65

Pol Pot,

: ‘That is my nature . . . I never talked much. [Someone] wrote that he knew me [in Paris] to be a polite, discreet, smiling young man. So, I did not want to show myself as a leader.’

Keng Vannsak, interview.

Pol Pot,

interview; Saloth Sâr,

.

Pol Pot,

66

Pol Pot,

.

Sâr himself told a Chinese interviewer in 1984 that he had joined the PCF in Paris (Pol Pot,

), and this is confirmed—though apparently on the basis of hearsay—by both Mey Mann and Keng Vannsak (interviews). Pham Van Ba, who in the early 1950s headed an Indochinese Communist Party cell in eastern Cambodia, also stated that Sâr had a PCF membership card (Chanda,

p. 58). Thiounn Mumm, who insists that, contrary to widespread belief, he himself was never a PCF member, has questioned Sâr’s claim, and some Western specialists, including Christopher Goscha, have likewise expressed doubts. To muddy the waters further, Ieng Sary, whose PCF membership is not in question, has also denied ever having held a Party card (

). Until the PCF follows the example of the Soviet, Chinese and Vietnamese parties and permits broader access to its archives, questions will remain. However, given the state of Sino—Soviet relations in the early 1980s, it is hard to see why, if it were untrue, Sâr should have invented PCF membership in an interview destined to be read by the Chinese leadership. Until proof to the contrary emerges, therefore, it should be assumed that his version is correct. For an overview, see Mey Mann, interview; and Pol Pot,

.

Pol Pot,

67

Stalin,

pp. 391–402. The six points are enumerated in the book’s conclusion as guidelines that all militants should learn. All are depicted as essential, but ‘revolutionary vigilance’ and the need for a flexible approach to Marx-ism-Leninism are given pride of place.

68

Debré,

p. 86. See also Sher,

pp. 133–4, quoting an unnamed former comrade of Sary. David Chandler, following Debré (whose source was Keng Vannsak), attributes these remarks to Saloth Sâr, and accordingly speculates that Sâr’s ambition to become the pre-eminent Cambodian communist leader dated back to the 1950s. I find the evidence unpersuasive. Vannsak himself says he was referring to Sary (interview).

Pol Pot,

.

Ieng Sary, interview. For the parallel with Lenin’s

see Thiounn Mumm, interview.

Pol Pot,

Referring to

he said simply, ‘It frightened me’—which I have taken to be a reference to the newspaper’s hectoring tone. Whatever Saloth Sâr’s faults, stridency was not one of them. Ieng Sary, by contrast, named

as one of his favourite newspapers (

) and it was at his initiative that it was made compulsory reading in the Cercle.

70

Pol Pot told Cai Ximei (

): ‘When I read Chairman Mao’s books, I felt they were easy to understand. I understood Stalin’s books more easily too.’According to Ping Sây (interview),

was the first of Mao’s works that members of the Cercle studied.

See the document issued by the ‘Comité représentatif du Sud-Est Cambodge démocratique’ on Sept. 24 1948, Haut Commissaire, Indochine, c. 77, AOM.

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