Report: Khmer Rouge collapse drove Pol Pot to tears
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) _ Pol Pot, the tyrannical leader of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, broke down in tears when he realized his once-mighty guerrilla movement was on the brink of defeat, according to an account of his final days published Thursday.
Pol Pot died on April 15 in a small hut near the Thai border as Cambodian government troops were trying to finish off the remnants of the Khmer Rouge. The 73-year-old revolutionary died of a heart attack, said his comrades-turned-captors.
The account in the Hong Kong-based magazine Far Eastern Economic Review suggests the heart attack may have been brought on by hunger, lack of medical care, even shock - upon learning the Khmer Rouge was preparing to turn him over to an international tribunal for trial on genocide charges.
The account was written by U.S. journalist Nate Thayer, who last year became the first foreign journalist in 18 years to have an interview with the elusive Pol Pot. The interview occurred shortly after Pol Pot was deposed as head of the movement and placed under house arrest.
Pol Pot led the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime that through its radical Maoist-inspired policies caused the deaths of as many as 2 million Cambodians - either in mass executions or from starvation and disease. Since then, the Khmer Rouge has operated as a guerrilla army operating mostly from northern Cambodia.
Thayer quoted a Khmer Rouge military commander as saying Pol Pot died just hours after he learned of the plan to hand him over from a news broadcast by the Voice of America shortwave radio service.
``We thought the shock of him hearing this on VOA might have killed him,'' the commander, Khem Nuon, is quoted as saying.
Khem Nuon, the story noted, had told Thayer a different account a week earlier, saying Pol Pot had been informed of the decision to send him for trial and accepted it with revolutionary stoicism.
Now he claims they only told him ``we were in a very difficult situation and perhaps it was better that he go abroad. Tears came to his eyes when I told him that.''
Thayer wrote that the fighting which drove the Khmer Rouge from their northern Cambodian stronghold of Anlong Veng prevented the ailing revolutionary from receiving proper care.
``For the last few weeks he had diarrhea and we haven't had much food,'' the current Khmer Rouge leader, Ta Mok, was quoted as saying.
A few days before his death, Pol Pot dyed his gray hair black, suggesting he was afraid of being captured.
At one point, Pol Pot was able to glimpse the turmoil caused by the fighting as he and his wife and 12-year-old daughter were being driven from one shelter to another, his minder, Non Nou, was quoted as saying.
``When he saw the peasants and our cadres lying by the side of the road with no food or shelter, he broke down into tears,'' said Non Nou.
Pol Pot's 40-year-old widow, Muon, quoted him as saying ``My only wish is that Cambodians stay united so that Vietnam will not swallow our country.'' Vietnam drove the Khmer Rouge from power in 1979.
Ta Mok denied, as he has previously, speculation that he had Pol Pot killed.
The very night Pol Pot died, Ta Mok said, he had wanted to move him to another house for security reasons.
``He was sitting in his chair, waiting for the car to come. But he felt tired. Pol Pot's wife asked him to take a rest. He lay down in his bed. His wife heard a gasp of air. It was the sound of dying. When she touched him, he had passed away already.''
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