Pol Pot (98 page)

‘Zhou Enlai and Pham Van Dong’, Beijing, Mar. 21 1970, CWIHP Archives.

199

Interview with

quoted in Gorce to MAE, No. 37/CX, Jan. 26 1960, c. CLV 11, QD.

p. 38.

Sâr wrote later that the Prince was ‘on the defensive’ during his first two days in China (

, p. 35).

‘Zhou Enlai and Pham Van Dong’, Mar. 21 1970,

The CIA reported the same day that Lon Nol had instructed his forces ‘to avoid friction with [Viet Cong/North Vietnamese] forces . . . as talks are continuing with [their] representatives in Phnom Penh’ (quoted in Shawcross,

, pp. 124–5). The Chinese Ambassador in Phnom Penh, Kang Maozhao, told Lon Nol in April that China would recognise his government if he maintained the communist sanctuaries, allowed weapons’ transit and aided the Viet Cong in their propaganda; not surprisingly, Lon Nol refused (Qiang Zhai,

, pp. 189–90).

Etienne Manac’h, Pékin, to MAE,Telegram Nos. 1194–9, Apr. I, and Nos. 1264–72, Apr. 6 1970, c. A-O-1965–78 442, QD.

199

–200

Sihanouk,‘Message to Compatriots’, in Grant et al.,

, pp. 105–9.

200

The reference to ‘the pure working people’ bears the hallmark of Sâr’s style. ‘Pure’ was one of his favourite adjectives; it was not a word Sihanouk used, nor was it Chinese communist jargon. See also the commentary in

, May 28 1971.

Sâr claimed in the

(pp. 35 and 38) that he ‘examined and modified’ the text (which he called the FUNK ‘political programme’ because it contained what the Khmer Rouge described as a ‘five-point programme’ of action), and that this was why ‘there was no question of socialism or communism in that document’. The claim is credible. The Khmers Rouges went to great lengths throughout the civil war to hide their communist goals. See also Sihanouk,

, Ch. 6, p. 45.

, p. 74. This source says that Sâr met ‘many members of the CPC Centre’. Sâr himself speaks only of meeting Zhou Enlai (

, pp. 35 and 38). While in China in 1970, he also had frequent contact with Kang Sheng (Ieng Sary, interview), but this took place before the coup.

Sihanouk,

, Ch. 6, p. 44.

200

–2

This account relies essentially on the recollections of Thiounn Mumm (

). For details of the Indochina Summit, see Xinhua News Agency, Apr. 25 and 26, and

, Apr. 26 1970; for the GRUNC cabinet, see

, May 18 1970, and Jennar,

p. 70.

204

‘Rapport [oral] du camarade Khieu Minh’,

This was confirmed by Kuong Lomphon, who spent nine months with Ith Sarin in the Special Zone in 1972 and early 1973. Arguing that the Khmers Rouges did not want a quick victory, he wrote:‘They realise that the people do not yet know them . . . Thus they are preparing for a long drawn-out struggle. If they won quickly it would be meaningless’ (quoted in Kiernan,

, p. 399 n.133).

205

Former Khmer Rouge commune chief who wished to remain anonymous (hereafter ‘Mekhum’), interview, Phum Chinik, Prek Kabas district, Takeo, Mar. 10 2001.

, pp. 54–7.

Siet Chhê, then CPK Secretary of Region 22 in the Eastern Zone, recalled that after the coup, ‘The Vietnamese came in all over the place, everywhere in the Zone . . . with working groups for this and that. They had letters of authorisation from the Zone [Secretary, So Phim] . . . They organised some village authorities, but I did not recognise them . . .’ (confession, May 11 1977). Sdoeung, in Region 25, remembered: ‘In April 1970, the Vietnamese organised the village and commune authorities . . . The district chief of Koh Thom was a Yuon [Vietnamese] . . . and he assigned me to be a member of te commune committee’ (confession, May 4 1978). According to the

(p. 56), Vietnamese-installed local administrations were widespread in the Eastern Zone and existed to a lesser extent in the South-West. See also Mey Mak, interview.

‘The Vietcong March-April 1970 Plans for Expanding Control in Cambodia’, US Mission, Saigon, Vietnam Documents and Research Notes, No. 88, Jan. 1971, quoted in Kiernan and Boua,

, pp. 257–61. The documents betray the same patronising tone toward Khmers as in the 1950s. Then the Viet Minh spoke of the ‘insufficiency of their intellectual level’ (see Ch. 2). Now Viet Cong cadres were told:‘because [the Khmers’] capacity for learning is slow, we must use explanations that suit their level of understanding.’ Although the texts quoted by Kiernan and Boua were from lower-level units, they reflected COSVN guidelines.

207

Robert Sam Anson,

, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1989, pp. 116–28 and 135–42; AP, Neak Luong, Apr. 15, quoted in Sihanouk,

, p. 72; and UPI, Phnom Penh, Apr. 10 1970, quoted in Sihanouk,

, pp. 60–1; Ponchaud,

, pp. 136–7. See also Dauge to MAE, Telegram Nos. 801–4, Apr. 14 1970, where the Ambassador, whose reporting was generally sympathetic to the new regime, warned of the risk of ‘a real genocide’. The following day, he speculated that the killings were becoming ‘more selective’ because two priests, crossing the Mekong at Neak Luong, had counted 139 male bodies in the water, considerably fewer than on previous days (Telegram Nos. 846–8 Apr. 15). The Judicial Affairs Division of the French Foreign Ministry advised that ‘the acts currently being perpetrated in Cambodia could come within the scope of the UN Convention against Genocide’ (Direction des Affaires Juridiques, Note 420, Apr. 21 1970), all in c. A-O-1965–78 442, QD.

, Apr. 19 1970.

208

Phillips,

, pp. 351–5.

Quoted in Shawcross,

, p. 127.

Sihanouk,

, pp. 90–1; see also Sihanouk,

, pp.379–82.

Lon Nol,’Message to Buddhist Believers’, May 11 1970, in Grant et al.,

, pp. 109–12. The original broadcast was in Khmer. A French translation was issued by AKP on May 12 (c.A-0-1965–78 442, QD).

209

Kiernan,

, pp. 306–10; and

, pp. 262–3; Shawcross,

, pp. 174–5; Sheldon Simon,

, Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 1974, pp. 40–1. Sosthène Fernandez was quoted as saying at the end of 1970: ‘South Vietnamese troops rape, they destroy houses, they steal, they loot pagodas and they beat the Buddhist monks’ (Bernard K. Gordon,‘Cambodia’s Foreign Relations: Sihanouk and After’, in Zasloff and Goodman,

, p. 163).

210

, p. 55; Pâng, confession, May 28 1978.

Interview with Chen Xiaoning, Beijing, July 9 2000.

Pâng,

.

Thiounn Thioeunn, interview.

210

–11

Moeun, interview; and ‘Alone among Brothers’,

, Oct. 20 2001.

211

Moeun, interview.

Ibid.

, p. 34.

Kit Mân, interview;Yun Soeun, confession, May 26 1977.

212

Kit Man, interview.

Phi Phuon, interview; Tiv Ol, confession, June 14 1977 et seq.

This account of the taking of new revolutionary names is drawn from Phi Phuon, interview. Khmers will also change their names if they are frequently ill, or narrowly escape death, ‘in order to deceive the evil spirits’ that threaten them (Ponchaud,

, p. 213).

David Chandler (

, p. 370 n.64; and

, p. 209 n.25) quotes Keng Vannsak as saying that Sâr was known as Pol (or Paul) in Paris and speculates that this might have been the name by which he was known at the Ecole Miche. Vannsak’s memory was at fault in this case: Sâr never used the name Pol in Paris. According to a missionary who taught at the Ecole Miche, it was not the school’s practice to give Christian names to Cambodian children who studied there (‘Bref aperçu sur l’Ecole Miche, 1934–42’by Fr. Yves Guellec, unpublished ms held at the Archives Lasalliennes, Lyons).

213

Extracts from the text are given in ‘Recherche sur le Parti Cambodgien’ (

) and, more fully, in Doc. TLM/165, ‘Les Perspectives, les Lignes et la Politique Etrangère du Parti Communiste Cambodgien’,VA.

214

Dauge to MAE, Telegram Nos. 2720–5, Oct. 9 1970, c. A-O-65–78 443,QD.

215

–16

Truong NhuTang,

, pp. 167–70 and 177.

218

–219

Bizot,

, pp. 46–51.

219

Shawcross,