Nate Thayer

Nate Thayer Awards and Honors

Thayer’s reporting has earned him The World Press Award, the 1997 British Press Awards 2006 Scoop_of_the_Year British Press Award, and the 1998 Francis Frost Wood Award for Courage in Journalism, given by to a journalist "judged to best exemplify physical or moral courage in the practice of his or her craft."

He was a visiting scholar at the Paul H Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University 

He was the  recipient of the Center for Public Integrity  International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting oof the Year (http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/icij  http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/icij/journalists/profile/856/  "Upon awarding Thayer the ICIJ Award, the judges noted: :"He illuminated a page of history that would have been lost to the world had he not spent years in the Cambodian jungle, in a truly extraordinary quest for first-hand knowledge of the Khmer Rouge and their murderous leader. His investigations of the Cambodian political world required not only great risk and physical hardship but also mastery of an ever-changing cast of Political faction characters." http://www.publicintegrity.org/assets/pdf/pi_1999_03.pdf Maud S. Beelman, "Reporting Across Borders," The Public i: Newsletter of the Center for Public Integrity,Vol 7, no. 2, Mar 1999.]

According to Vaudine England of the BBC "Many of the regions greatest names in reporting made their mark in the pages of the Far Eastern Economic Review from the legendary Richard Hughes of Korean War fame, to Nate Thayer, the journalist who found Cambodias Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot."http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8268105.stm Vaudine England, "Leading Asian Magazine to Close," BBC Asia-Pacific News, September 22, 2009.]

Thayer was also the first person in 57 years to turn down a prestigious Peabody Award because he did not want to share it with ABC News  [Nightline] saying publicly lambasting American television news saying:"I in no way want my name associated with such egregious violations of journalistic and professional ethics." .http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/your-scoop-nah-its-ours-if-we-want-it-1157187.html "Your scoop? Nah. Its ours if we want it." The Independent May 25 1998.]

Thayer is also the recipient of The Overseas Press Club of America Award, as well as the Asian Society of Publishers and Editors Award for "Excellence in Reporting,"

Thayer was also honored with the SAIS-Novartis "Award for Excellence in International Reporting."

He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize by The Wall Street Jounral

In 1999 Thayer established at the Hofstra Universitys Department of Journalism and Mass Media Studies in the School of Communication the Nate Thayer Scholarship given annually to "a qualified student with the best foreign story idea. Winners are selected on the basis of scholastic achievement or potential as well as economic need." http://www.hofstra.edu/pdf/1999/ho019900008.pdf Hofstra University Student Information Package, Financial Aid Section, p. 45.] http://www.hofstra.edu/Academics/Colleges/SOC/JMSPR/index.html

Khmer Rouge, Cambodian Government Suffer Memory Failure in Court: This Might Help By Nate Thayer

Khmer Rouge, Cambodian Government Suffer Memory Failure in Court: This Might Help

By Nate Thayer

The witness at the moment on the stand testifying against Ieng Sary in today’s Khmer Rouge trial in Phnom Penh seems to be suffering a memory lapse. Let’s try to help him, and a few others who have remarkably similar maladies. The three leaders of the Khmer Rouge in the docket: Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea, and Ieng Sary. The chief witness on the stand is Long Narin, for the last 30 years, Ieng Sary’s chief spokesman and closest loyalist.

He seems to be having memory problems. Let me see if this jogs his memory:

On August 6 1996, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge clandestine radio burst on the air and called for “the arrest and destruction  of Ieng Sary and his miscreant clique,” said the radio announcer,”Ieng Sary has hidden himself among the resistance fighters for years,” stole party money, and was nothing less than an “agent of Vietnam. He is therefore sentenced to death.” The Khmer Rouge radio announcer whose voice it was? Khieu Samphan.

That would be Ieng Sary, Pol Pot’s brother-in-law. For relevant historical context, the two had been sentenced to death together already-together-as the “Pol Pot--Ieng Sary clique” in 1979 by the Vietnamese installed Hun Sen Government compromised of ex-Khmer Rouge..

On August 7, 1996, Ieng Sary replied on his newly acquired—now rebel—radio station. The Ieng Sary radio crackled from the jungle denouncing Pol Pot as “the cruelest and most savage of murderers” naming Nuon Chea as Pol Pot’s chief “henchman.” “The war criminals are nobody else but Pol Pot and his handful of henchmen: Nuon Chea…who are the mass murderers of the people of Cambodia, committing until now enormous crimes against mankind. As such, they are sentenced to death.”

Ieng Sary’s radio concluded that “This impetuous mass movement, this groundswell swept up all at once the bloodthirsty, dictatorial clique of Pol Pot and Nuon Chea…” The radio voice, reading from a statement signed in Ieng Sary’s name, ended with “I have decided to resume leadership.” The man whose voice it was? Long Narin. --The man testifying this morning in the docket unable to recall the “details” of his relationship with defendant Ieng Sary.

And for good measure, 3 days later Pol Pot’s radio announced: “The Cambodian people are not confused. They can tell gold from shit…So one-eyed Hun Sen, out-and-out lackey of communist Vietnam, stop barking like a mad dog to deceive others. You yourself have already been sentenced to death.” The announcement was made in the name of Khieu Samphan.

That same day, Ieng Sary’s radio went on the air with the voice of Long Narin and cleared things up a bit: “Constant mutual suspicion reigns,” Long Narin, chief spokesman for Ieng Sary declared.

That radio station was a gift of Hun Sen. Who promptly welcomed Ieng Sary back into the national fold and government. On 14 August, 1996, Hun Sen publicly declared over His radio, “I would like to guarantee the life, the security of Ieng Sary,” the same man he had sentenced to death a few years earlier. But now, Hun Sen had a change of heart and appointed Ieng Sary the new Governor of the Province of Pailin. He also loudly called for, and received, a royal pardon from all previous crimes issued by King Sihanouk. And he recognized Ieng Sary’s newly named political party The Democratic National Union Movement.

However Hun Sen’s then co Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh, objected: “Pol Pot, Ieng Sary…at least five or six of them are completely unacceptable.” Hun Sen dismissed that remark less than a year later when he launched a bloody coup, murdering and torturing scores of Ranarridh’s supporters and driving him from power. A number had their tongues ripped out while alive, under interrogation, or their eyes gouged out, or their penises chopped off and stuffed in their mouths, before being executed by leaders of the current government holding a trial against ex colleagues accused of committing “crimes against humanity” and “torture” in Phnom Penh.  

On September 8, 1996, DNUM issued a typewritten document in English and Khmer and signed on official DNUM stationary and signed “Long Narin, Spokesman”. The document said “following the decision not to participate in the UNTAC organized elections, the dictatorial Khmer Rouge leadership was obliged to move its headquarters…At that time, though the old fox Pol Pot decided not to publicize his Machiavellian decision about His Excellency Ieng Sary for fear of the People’s and the Army’s opposition. His Excellency Ieng Sary had no more position in the leadership.” (signed) “DNUM Chief Spokesman, Long Narin”

The Ieng Sary radio was more specific on the reason for his break with Pol Pot and Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan. “I wanted to stay in Democratic Kampuchea, because I wanted to preserve our unity and thought it was still possible for me to express my opinion to a certain extent,” but “the dictatorial and murderous gang of Pol Pot (i.e. Sary’s current partners in the defence docket in the UN court, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan) began to openly make false accusations against me by labeling me as an agent of communist Vietnam and the Alliance (the grouping of the U.S., European and Asian countries now allied with the Phnom Penh government), as a traitor to the nation, the people and the Party” This “led me to make the decision to split forever with the  dictatorial gang of Pol Pot, Nuon Chea…and found DNUM on August 15 1996…this movement stems from the profound aspirations of the cadre, combatants, and people of the liberated zone who rose in a tumultuous movement to eliminate the dictatorial and murderous gang of Pol Pot…it is a historical current no one can stop.”

So Ieng Sary left the “murderous gang” of Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, and Khieu Samphan, according to his own statement read by his chief spokesman Long Narin, not because of 1.7 million people who died while all three—now in court as co defendants-- were in command together. But because he was accused of being a “Vietnamese agent” and “traitor to the Party.”

This was according to Long Narin, who this morning, in court, can’t recall the details of his relationship with Ieng Sary. The same Long Narin who helpfully hand delivered English translated copies, with his signature, to reporters at the time. The spokeseman for Ieng Sary who was later pardoned, appointed by Hun Sen to the current government, and then arrested by the same Hun Sen, still current Prime Minister of Cambodia. (who, just to complete the circle, was an officer in the Khmer Rouge army commanded by the now defendants during the same period when hundreds of thousands were killed).

All four had previously, at various times, sentenced each other to death. Then later welcomed in high ceremony into the current government. Only to be pressured to have some arrested by the international community. And of which all of the above figures contend they have had a lapse of memory of above mentioned details. Perhaps this might help jog their convenient, individually selective memories a bit.

International Campaign to Ban Landmines soundly rebuts my story against Treaty

International Campaign to Ban Landmines soundly rebuts my blog post opposing landmine treat

Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan
Research Coordination:
Ban/Policy (Asia)
Non-State Armed Groups (Global)

Dear Nate: Good to see your article, and I couldn't agree more with you on the lunacy of armed conflict as you perfectly describe it.
However, your conclusion regarding landmines is questionable. Your argument seems to be since conflict is unlikely to cease soon (agreed) then any international convention to take away a tool of the mass insanity will fail (facts are against you on the later).
We watch this carefully, and track it in our annual Landmine Monitor reports (www.the-monitor.org).
While there are some ups and downs in the pattern, we are clearly making a difference.
Since the 1997 Treaty came into existence, casualties from antipersonnel mines have dropped almost 75%.
80% of the world's governments have joined the treaty, which requires them to destroy their stockpiles and production capacity- they can't give it away or sell it.
Known legal trade in the weapon has halted for more than a decade.
Ground has been cleared of the weapon, last year areas of land 9 times the size of metro Paris were cleared of mines and returned to productive human use.
Non-state armed groups have also stopped using the weapons. A couple of reasons for this, one is the global norm we have created which stigmatizes users of the weapon, and many non-state armed groups are struggling for legitimacy and therefore do not use the weapon. Also they have relied in the past on state stocks which they could buy, steal or lift from the field, as those stocks are destroyed, and land is cleared under the convention, they have lost those sources.
The main countries in which non-state armed groups still use landmines- Afghanistan, Burma and Colombia, they make their own. However, since 2000, use of mines, self-made or otherwise, by non-state armed groups has dropped from 18 to 4 in 2011.
While we have yet to totally eradicate the weapon, we are on track.
And this has saved an enormous number of lives, both of combatants and non-combatants.
You are right, basically we need to bring a halt to this mass insanity in which young males are enticed to kill the latest enemy for the latest reason.
However, taking away a few of the means in the meantime can't hurt.
Cordially,
Yeshua

--
Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan
Research Coordination:
Ban/Policy (Asia)
Non-State Armed Groups (Global)

www.the-monitor.org
an initiative of the
International Campaign to Ban Landmines
1997 Nobel Peace Co-Laureate
www.icbl.org
providing research & monitoring for the
Cluster Munition Coalition
www.stopclustermunitions.org

Yeshua: Thanks for the reasoned well sourced reply. Of course we are in agreement on the basic issues. I do take issue with some of your definitions and statistical methodology at first read. But I will make sure I examine what you are basing your conclusions on before responding.

My basic point is that while formal landmines can be restricted, they will be replaced by more crude explosive devices to serve the same tactical purpose. And they will be much harder to track control remove regulate or enforce. For instance what do you categorize IED'd as. Surely they are landmines. And surely they are in wider use now than 1997 What do govt and guerrilla forces use to secure their perimeter with in Afghanistan for instance. Particularly in contested remote areas? Or in African conflicts? I will respond thoughtfully after reading your msg carefully.

Of course we are on the same team here. Anything that will eliminate or reduce civilian and combatant casualties is good. And to make them effectively more enforceable by international treaty. So, as I said in my post, my comments were as much interrogative as a statement. I remain open minded and will reply. I would like to post your comment as a reply on my blog if I have your permission

warm regards on good work,
Nate

Nate,
Sure, you are welcome to post my reply on your blog.
There has been a dramatic increase in IEDs in insurgencies around the world, especially since Iraqi insurgents brought the superpower to its knees through their use. Wow, what self-respecting rebel is going to pass up this easy to make weapon?
However, IEDs do not resemble, nor are they used in the same way, as the landmines proscribed by the 1997 Convention.
This difference is further obfuscated by many journalists reporting anything on the ground which goes boom as a 'landmine' (especially in S Asia... I'll be giving a workshop on Reporting on Explosive Weapons at the Indian Press Club in January as part of our efforts to get accurate reporting).
The convention was mobilised by humanitarian groups, a history you know well. The focus was on the indiscriminate nature of the weapon. Once laid, it kills friend or foe, much like the AV mine you got up close and personal with.
The Mine Ban Treaty bans any weapon, not just antipersonnel mines, which explodes due to the presence, proximity or activity of a human being. This means they are activated by the victim.
Most IEDs are targeted weapon, they are not victim activated. They require the operator to trigger them, usually through remote, electric, command (frequently cellphones, but also by wire). These targeted bombs have been used in Iraq, Chechniya, Afghanistan, S. Thailand and India by rebels to devastating effect.
Of course, just like US drones, they sometimes get it wrong and wipe out a bus load of ordinary folk. When that happens, by either NATO or the Maoists, it is a war crime, but does not come under the Mine Ban Treaty.
So, no, IEDs are not covered by the Mine Ban Treaty. With the exception of those which meet the treaties definition, however most don't. Do we need another convention to cover them? Well that's not going to happen. Anyway I'd prefer a convention against all war, or if we keep them only sending presidents and generals to fight them.....
by the way, all explosive boobytraps are prohibited by the mine ban treaty.
Cordially,
Yeshua

Yeshua:

I take no issue with any of the below. And again we are on the same team onn these issues. I am aware of how you described the  tactical use of IED's. And I am not trying to much up the debate with Socratic logic to detract from the legitimacy of your premise or the practical compromises that have to be made.

My original point was the use of a tactic weapon to secure the perimeter of infantry grunts actually at risk and deployed to carry out the combat. If landmines are banned, what will/do they now use in there place to secure their perimeter? I know it is different for newer usage of asymmetrical warfare, "terrorism" which targets civilians, and urban warfare in general (all of which violate existing international rules, laws, conventions, and treties of war), but in the field, say Afghanistan, what do forward deployed soldiers use to secure their AO? If they aren't using landmines, they are replacing them with something. And victim-activated devices may be banned, but thats the only way you are going to secure whatever piece of real estate you are using as a forward operating base. So, are they using imporvised explosives designed for other purposes or homemade or landmines? If not then waht? They certainly aren't going to rely on a gentleman's agreement with the other side when office hours are open for business. That is pretty much the basis of my entire admittedly intentionally provocative post. if you can convince me of another way that two sides on a mission to murder the other can replace that or not need to employ it, then I will promptly retract my (very luke warm and probably not really honestly committed to but meant to initiate a debate) initial opposition to the Treaty

Thanks for the substantive and thoughtful rersponses,

Nate

Below is the Original post or you can see full version on this blog:

Why Landmines Should not be Banned

 

By Nate Thayer

Great piece by Luke Hunt, as is his norm. But with the full knowledge I will get rebuked like a convicted pedophile arguing for the right to work as a summer camp counselor for teenagers, I am opposed to a ban on landmines and the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty. I promise I love my mother, dogs, children, and freedom etc. etc. But, in my view, an international treaty making  it illegal to manufacture, produce sell, export, buy, and use anti-personnel mines will result in increasing civilian and non-combatant casualties, and increase both the number of combatants wounded and the severity of their wounds. Here is my reasoning:  

The statistics swing wildly, as does the category what team is allowed to murder whom and when, which team doesn’t have the thumbs up to kill, or whom it is against the rules to murder (see below for far more random data than you want to know), but it is generally accepted that well over 250 million people were killed by political groups in the 20^th century—far more than any century in human history. It was a century that began with a murder that sparked a war in Sarajevo, interrupted by an icon event of world harmony and unity—the Olympics—in Sarajevo and ended with a mass orgy of mass killing and atrocities in Sarajevo. And it only seems to be getting worse since. There have been several hundred wars this last century, but the figure swings wildly depending on who is counting what and where.

But my conclusion is that it looks like it is going to be a while before people figure out another way to settle their differences. Another way than sending off as-close-to-teenage-boys-that-might-still-think-it-is-a-like-a-video-game as they can get away with, to do their killing or get killed trying to not let the other team kill the guy who sends the other guy who thinks it is like a video game off to prevent him from getting killed while trying to kill the opposing teams elite.

But, at the end of the day, anybody who has been to war knows that the first thing you do when you seize a piece of real estate is to protect your perimeter from being penetrated by someone trying to kill you. It is human nature. So you can take care of such matters as eating, talking, sleeping, thinking, and, in general trying not to dwell on the fact that you are unwanted where you are enough that someone will kill you for being there. It has nothing to do with politics. Or country. Or freedom. Or justice. Or ideology. Or patriotism etc. It has to do with not getting killed.

To secure your perimeter you must make the other team afraid enough to not risk trying to breach it. So you put things that explode and will kill them under the ground or along a path or between trees to make a circle around you that will kill them so they won’t kill you. So you can eat, sleep, and wake up. It has nothing to do with landmines per se. They make them designed to just blow your leg off and NOT kill you so two other guys will be out of action also because they need to carry you back from whence you came. Actually the good ones are designed to blow three peoples legs off to make SIX other guys, totaling nine, to be out of action. They have landmines that can bounce in the air and instead of blowing your leg off, blow up chest high to kill a bunch of the other team. Or attached in a line down a path so the first guy sets off an explosion that kills a whole line of guys going back, say, 40 feet. There are all kinds of tricks. You can easily make your own landmine from any explosive—a mortar, or artillery shell, grenade or a Budweiser beer can filled with innards of bullets etc. The point being that banning landmines isn’t going to stop some young fellow from doing whatever he can to make sure he can eat and sleep to minimize the chances of someone from the other team trying to kill him successfully while he does so.

It is human nature to try and avoid death, pain, injury or danger.

I will add here I speak as someone who has been on the wrong side of a landmine. Actually two landmines placed on top of one another just for good measure. Two anti-tank mines. I was in a Russian truck that the team I was with had just captured from the other team. After taking their whole town. We were driving at night down a jungle dirt path back towards our team’s locker room. Before this particular battle, the team I was with didn’t have any tanks—or trucks. These anti-tank mines are pressure designed. You can walk on them and they won’t go off, but you drive over it and the weight of the vehicle will create an explosion that will shake the earth ten miles away. I was 4 feet away when we did just that. It was placed earlier by my own team I was with to prevent the other team from driving their tanks—or trucks—through my team’s perimeter. But I guess they forgot. There were three of us in the front of the truck and six in the bed of the Russian Zil transport military vehicle. I was in the middle in the front. The mine blew the truck into the air like a child’s toy and shredded it into a thousand shards of lethal metal. The other two people sitting with me were killed. Well not immediately. I woke up in the engine compartment of the now non-existent truck with a severed leg across my face. It wasn’t mine. I checked. It was however the driver whom I had been sitting next to. He was holding the stump of his leg with the expression of frozen eyed indescribable shock of someone who knows he is about to die. He cried calling for his mother for what seemed like a long time. Then he died. The fellow sitting on my other side was luckier. He took shrapnel through his brain and died instantly. It was rainy. It was night. It was a jungle. And we were seven miles from the nearest place where someone wouldn’t shoot us if we arrived. Several were badly injured. I had shrapnel through my legs torso and head. And several broken bones. We tied a hammock to a small tree we cut down and carried the more seriously wounded through the jungle towards “home”. I only realized my ankle bone was sticking out of my leg when I stepped in a muddy puddle and pain shot up to my brain. I only realized I had pieces of metal in my head when I tasted blood dripping in my mouth, wiped my face, and my hand was covered in bright crimson liquid. Two died while we walked—for two and a half hours.

My point being only I really don’t like landmines at all. So it might seem odd I support them being used as a weapon of war, but it isn’t idle ignorance of the suffering they inflict. But it makes a lot of sense actually. Because I didn’t and don’t want to die.

If you make landmines illegal, it will be like alcohol prohibition or making marijuana illegal. It won’t stop them from being used; it will just make the issue worse. Think IED and Iraq and Afghanistan. Those aren’t landmines. But they are. They are just homemade. And far messier and harmful.

If landmines are controlled and regulated, it is a far more sensible and workable option. They can be designed to easily be detected and removed. Rules of war can be made to require they be mapped when placed, removed when the other team seizes that particular plot of land, or made to disintegrate after a period of time--whenever whatever organized lethal squabbling brought these young boys to wherever they are that requires more than turning off the bedside lamp to get a good night sleep.

But you can’t make laws that prevent people from trying simply to not let someone else they really have no beef with personally be able to kill them when they are eating lunch or sleeping. If you want to stop that from happening, then perhaps it is better to focus on not ordering sending these people off to kill and get killed because you want to protect your money, political power, or religion, or race, or whatever belief system is deemed worthy enough to declare war on the other team.

 

According to the Red Cross, the civilian to soldier death ratio in wars fought since the mid-20th century has been 10:1 and rising. From 1900 to 1987 more than 170 million were killed as defined by “death by government.” From 1945 and up to 1987, about 76,000,000 people have been murdered in cold blood by one regime or another. Most of this for political reasons of state or power, but also outright genocide—murder for reasons of ethnicity, race, religion, or nationality. From 1900 to 1987, about 39,000,000 people were killed in genocide or 20 million by the definition of genocide since WW2. And estimated 19 more million were killed between 1990 and 2000. So 80 million in war murdered since WWII. Only twelve countries in the world have a population larger than this. Then you add on that the additional that have been killed by government violence in the 20^th century—not war among combatants--but mass murder or intentional killings of their own people under their political control. Estimates are more than 150 million. The statistics people have actually devoted their lives to figure out categorizing the above to justify, excuse, create rules to make it morally OK, or to blame it on the other team are staggering. There is a list “ Attributing casualties caused just to Christians” and lists of  “How many people have died in the name of Christ, Christianity and Catholicism?” and lists of “Victims of the Christian Faith” which include “Ancient Pagans, Mission,  Crusades (1095-1291), Heretics, Witches,  Religious Wars,  Jews,  Native Peoples,  20th Century Church Atrocities”,  Then there is a list of “Death by Government” and an actual US military computerized system to estimate acceptable levels of “Collateral Damage” i.e. percentage of civilians acceptable to kill in a military operation.  The software used is known as “FAST-CD” or “Fast Assessment Strike Tool—Collateral Damage." A helpful, if a bit transparently sure- of-himself author explains how it works which I am not sure really makes much difference if you’re the one who is dead. “When followed, this process dramatically reduces the amount of collateral damage in U.S. military operations, and also ensures high levels of political accountability.” Here he gives the people who might be killing you a bit of wiggle room. “However, due to the realities of combat operations, the process is not always followed. The U.S. military’s collateral damage estimation process is intended to ensure that there will be a less than 10 percent probability of serious or lethal wounds to non-combatants. Less than 1% of pre-planned operations which followed the collateral damage estimation process resulted in collateral damage.” What a relief to know that, I am sure any reader would agree. The author continues to reassure potentially dead people: “When collateral damage has occurred, 70% of the time it was due to failed “positive identification” of a target, 22% of the time it was attributable to weapons malfunction, and a mere 8% of the time it was attributable to proportionality balancing - e.g. a conscious decision that anticipated military advantage outweighed collateral damage. ^“ Ah hah! So only 8% of the times were the murders of women, children, old people or other people not dressed hostilely intentionally killed? What a reassurance that is.  He continues, a bit annoyingly, self-riotously: “According to public statements made by U.S. government officials the President of the United States or the Secretary of Defense must approve any pre-planned ISAF strike where 1 civilian casualty or greater is expected.” 

Then the lists get endlessly more entertaining on who it is OK to kill, who, and why is doing the killing, and who killed against the rules (the rules of OK being quite remarkably distinct from each other) There is the “Overview of Twentieth Century Wars, Massacres and Atrocities: Source List and Detailed Death Tolls for Man-made Multicides throughout History” It only gets more unpleasant. There are lists that just include soldiers—dismissing the women children and civilians as not statistically relevant to study for that project. “There are endless lists of “Wars of the Twentieth Century” and “Death Tolls for the Multicides of the Twentieth Century”,(see below starting with “Alphabetical Index (A-J)” Almost every war falls into one of two categories: Ethnic conflict or religious conflict. There are lists of subcategories or additional lists where religion is just one of several issues worth murdering or being killed for. And then a list where different ethnic groups fought for primarily religious reasons. There is a list which is prefaced: “This list focuses on atrocities which are largely the direct result of unbridled corporate exploitation. Obviously, many additional conflicts have an underlying economic cause which operates indirectly.”

Then you have what defines a civilian casualty of war. The label ‘civilian’ is parsed and selectively applied in a multitude of definitions to make killing them acceptable for one team or another. You would think a civilian is pretty simple-- any person who does not belong to the armed forces of one side trying to kill the other team. But there are endless debates about, for example, civilian contractors, working with the military, or “terrorists” (which is another category with an endless disputed list of one group of people given the A-OK too kill another group). Not to mention whether said defined terrorist group has the green light to kill category “B” of said defined target for murder. So that complicates the whole issue of how one defines a “civilian casualty of war.” The disputed groups of who without a uniform and gun shooting back at you deserves to die a legal murder include: Those killed as a direct effect of war; Those injured as a direct effect of war; Those dying, whether during or after a war, from indirect effects of war such as disease, malnutrition and lawlessness, and who would not have been expected to die from such causes in the absence of the war; Victims of one-sided violence, such as when states slaughter their own citizens in connection with a war; Victims of rape and other sexual violence in connection with a war; Those forced to flee their homes from war – that is, refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs); and those who, even after a war is over, die prematurely from injuries sustained in war. 

Virtually every atrocity statistic is denied, minimized or rejected by someone, but the following lists of dead people from being murdered for a political reason are among the most argued about: Racism, since, as a collection of physical traits is not really a scientific concept, how do you attribute motive to murder from purely racial conflicts and all other ethnic conflicts? Whether a conflict is racist depends on whether the bad guy comes from the other side of the river or the other side of the planet. Generally, racism is covered by the African Diaspora, Apartheid, Colonial Activities and Indians.

 Then there is the list of “Secondary Wars and Atrocities of the Twentieth Century” and “Deaths by Mass Unpleasantness: Estimated Totals for the Entire 20th Century” Which I find particularly clever.

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Then there is the Infamous Proverbial Body Count Quiz Show Debate: How many people died in all the wars, massacres, slaughters and oppressions of the Twentieth Century? Here are a couple figures to choose from. Note the categories the different researchers deem OK to call “Against The Rules.”

Cherif Bassouni, "Searching for peace and achieving justice: the need for accountability", published on Law and Contemporary Problems, vol. 59: no. 4.) 33 million "military casualties" (that would mean dead boys carrying a gun wearing the same color coordinated clothes only); 170 million which is defined as dead people killed by or fighting their own governments in "conflicts of a non-international character, internal conflicts and tyrannical regime victimization" and “includes 86 million since the Second World War” for a grand total of 203 million people.

 

Or you can choose Zbigniew Brzezinski, “Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the Twenty-first Century (1993)”  He counts "Lives deliberately extinguished by politically motivated carnage":  which he says is 167 million to 175 million which includes “War Dead: 87,500,000”,  “Military war dead: 33,500,000”, “Civilian war dead: 54,000,000”,  “Not-war Dead: 80,000,000”,  “Communist oppression: 60,000,000” Or then for selective reading there is David Barrett, “World Christian Encyclopedia (2001)”,  who just counts “Christian martyrs only” at 45.5M.  Or Stephane Courtois, in “The Black Book of Communism”, who limits dead victim to “Victims of Communism only” at 85-100 million. Or there is Milton Leitenberg who slices up the body count to only include “Politically caused deaths in the 20th century” which he puts at 214 million to 226 million” which sub diced up into “Deaths in wars and conflicts, including civilian: 130 million to 142 million” and ‘Political deaths, 1945-2000” which, probably through some government funded research grant comes up with the pretty darn laser clear number of “50 million to 51 million. Then there is the oddly titled list “Not The Enemy Media”  which lists those “Killed through U.S. foreign policy since WWII, as of July 2003” to the pretty darn mathematically specific “10,778,727 to 16,861,695 (1945-May 2003).” Or there is the abruptly titled ominous list by Rudolph J. Rummel, titled “ Death By Government”, which  comes up with (Google the word, I had to) "Democides - Government inflicted deaths (1900-87)” and has a grand total of exactly “169,198,000” which includes the suspiciously partisan sounding categories of “Communist Oppression” which he places at “110,286,000” and the very different murderer but same dead result of “Democratic democides” which are suspiciously lopsidedly slim at “2,028,000.” He also, for fun or because his government research grant budget hadn’t been all spent yet maybe, has a list clarifying “Not included among democides”( but just as dead: my inserted notation): “Wars: 34,021,000” and “Non-Democidal Famine (which he helpfully defines for us: my notation) “(often including famines associated with war and communist mismanagement):”  and then provides further scientific sub categories of “China (1900-87): 49,275,000” and “Russia: (1921-47): 5,833,000” for a total of “258,327,000 for all the categories listed here.” Phew!!

Or the more sober data chart of Matthew White, “Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century, 2010)” which has the list as follows: “Deaths by War and Oppression during the 20th Century: 203 million”

	Military	Collateral*	Democide	Famine	Total
Wartime	37m	27m	41m	18m	123m
Peacetime	0	0	40m	40m	80m
TOTAL	37m	27m	81m	58m	203m

Mr. White, thankfully defines “Collateral = civilian deaths that are generally considered to be an unavoidable, legitimate byproduct of waging war.” And breaks it down further as “My estimate for the Communist share of the century's unpleasantness: Genocide & Tyranny: 29 million” and just to be clear adds it is “including intentional famine.” There is a separate list of dead people from other people being upset with some group of another people Mr. White includes of  “Man-made Famine: 41 million” adding “(excluding intentional famine, but including both wartime and peacetime)” which , frankly still leaves me a bit confused. He has other lists for the cause of a specific group of dead people which are “Communist-inspired War (for example the Russian Civil War, Vietnam, Korea, etc.)”  which he calculates at “Military: 7 million” and “Civilian (collateral): 10 million” And just so he is perfectly clear as to who caused who to be dead from what and for what reason, he adds “NOTE: With these numbers, I'm tallying every combat death and accidental civilian death in the war, without differentiating who died, who did it or who started it. According to whichever theory of Just War you are working from, the Communists may be entirely blameless, or entirely to blame, for these 17 million dead.” His final tally for dead people by political allegiance (or more accurately lack of allegiance, but still dead for some degree of political something or other he continues: “TOTAL: 87 million deaths by Communism.” And “RESIDUE: 116M deaths by non-Communism.”

He has further lists, he says “For Comparison” of dead people including “smallpox, smoking, abortions, Cats and Dogs, Influenza Epidemic 1918-1919, ASIDS, Homicides, Disasters, racism, Decommunization (I didn’t bother to Google that one), Medical Mistakes, and Eaten by Tigers”

 

Ok, I will stop here but I will let the lists continue on their own. But a warning to those who dare read on: You might be, statistically, risking dying from old age or confusion before getting to the end……………….

 

“‘We are the World!’ Who is that singer? Johnny Jackson? Like he says, ‘Let’s join together!”, the Khmer Rouge leader said By Nate Thayer

'We are the World!’

By Nate Thayer

After threatening to assassinate American civilians, the Khmer Rouge leader continued. “Why don’t we join hands in national reconciliation. Join together! We are with you, the West!” he said, growing increasingly animated, half breaking into song. “‘We are the World!’ Who is that singer? Johnny Jackson? Like he says, ‘We are the world!’ Let’s join together!”

(Copyright Nate Thayer. All Rights Reserved. Excerpts from unpublished manuscript “Sympathy for the Devil: A Journalist’s Memoir from Inside Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge.” No republication in whole or part without express written permission from the author.)

By Nate Thayer

A non-descript Khmer Rouge operative, dressed in civilian clothes was standing in the hallway outside my seedy hotel room in the still dark hours before dawn in The Thai border town of Surin. He waved me out urgently, nervously checking to see that the hallways were clear and I accompanied him at a pace too fast to be inconspicuous through the hotel lobby outside to a beat up pickup truck with a Thai civilian in the driver’s seat who refused to identify himself. The truck had Thai civilian license plates. Tuoch, the Khmer Rouge agent, refused to tell me where we were going or with whom I was scheduled to meet. “You will see,” he said solemnly. He probably didn’t even know himself. He would not have had to be instructed to be vague. His mission was only to retrieve me from the hotel and deliver me safely to Khmer Rouge controlled Cambodia without drawing the attention of anybody. In late July 1996, now more than ever, the Khmer Rouge believed that enemies were everywhere and they were right.

Life for the Khmer Rouge by mid 1996 was a far cry from the previous years, where hundreds of millions of dollars of Chinese military hardware was trucked across these borders, coordinated by Thai military intelligence units, and with the political backing of the United States, and more than 120 member countries of the United Nations. Khmer Rouge leaders had compounds in the relative luxury of Thai provincial capitals and travelled in chauffeured cars to Bangkok. Now they rarely got permission from the Thais to leave their isolated jungle hideouts.

The pickup truck was driven by a very nervous Thai civilian with a mobile phone that would ring periodically and he would grunt a few responses and hang up. He insisted he was not a serving military officer and I believed him. He was nervous, grim-faced, eyes darting and reluctant to utter a word, driving way to fast, and clearly uncomfortable.

Thai spooks were much more relaxed. They had carte blanche to travel these border regions still under Thai martial law since it was infested by armed guerrillas of the Communist Party of Thailand only a few years prior, and Thai military intelligence could pull rank with the flash of an ID card, getting a no-questions asked salute, and look of fear at any military checkpoint. I had seen it many times. This fellow I was with had no permission to transport a foreigner through the Thai frontier, and certainly not to smuggle him across national  borders into a zone controlled by an armed Cambodian rebel faction at war with the central government in Phnom Penh of which Thailand had formal diplomatic relations. The Thai government was constantly proclaiming they had no contact with the Khmer Rouge, and now, except for the legitimate national security functions of gathering intelligence, monitoring Khmer Rouge activities, and keeping their options open, they were largely complying.

He drove many miles out of the way through a network of back roads, bordered by endless rice paddies, specifically to avoid Thai military checkpoints. I wrote down every turn, drawing a map in my notebook, in case I needed to find my way back—or was ever inclined to sneak back this way again.

After a couple hours, the pickup turned down a dirt path into a small non-descript Thai village and pulled over at a thatched roof noodle and cigarette stall. The tinted one-way windows of the pickup shielded me from the solemn but prying eyes of the half dozen peasant farmers milling about. This was a village that knew well to look the other way when strangers came through. After chatting with the vendor for a minute, the driver hopped back in and we drove deeper into rice fields down rutted dirt tracks used only by water buffalo and farm equipment.

We pulled over under a lone majestic banyan tree amongst the rice paddies and waited. I was told to stay hidden in the truck. I was given a baseball hat with a Kiss rock-and-roll band logo of an extended tongue for disguise, sunglasses, and told to wrap a checkered traditional Cambodian scarf around my face.

Churning up dust in its wake, snaking through the rice paddies, a battered pick-up truck with no license plate and tinted windows approached from the east out of the jungle shrouded mountain ridge, which marked the natural Cambodian border a couple kilometers in the distance. It pulled next to us and a uniformed Khmer Rouge soldier got out, greeting my companions. With little small talk, I was promptly ordered in the cramped, small rear bench seat behind the driver, my 6-2 inch frame stuffed awkwardly like a sardine, my knees bent up to my chin. The Khmer Rouge soldier was at the helm, his face serious, a Chinese AK-47 propped by the gearshift, young Tuoch, who had knocked on my hotel door that morning, in the passenger seat. We sped toward the tree line. The rice fields devolved into now unproductive, fallow fields. This was always a mark of danger. As we neared the actual ill-defined border, fields were abandoned because of recent fighting. Landmines were everywhere. These were always eerie, peculiar scenes. Stark in their silence, abandoned rice fields are the sign that civilians have fled, giving up their most precious holdings—literally the source of the food on their table. Things have to be pretty bad for rice fields to be abandoned.

Periodically, artillery would fall, or clashes would break out, villagers killed or maimed, and they would retreat from their homes, waiting for the war that each side had nothing to offer them, to end. Hand painted blood-red skull and crossbones signs nailed to trees were everywhere, a crude warning to local peasants of landmines or booby traps. These increased proportionately to the importance of the area—either as a strategic road or military base or village of families of Khmer Rouge soldiers.

We drove for miles down dirt tracks through these abandoned, neglected fields, empty and silent, toward the tree line mountain escarpment on the horizon. Trees always marked the border between Thailand and Cambodia. In these parts of the Thai-Cambodia frontier if there were trees, there were guerrilla soldiers hiding in them.

We had one more obstacle ahead, I was told—an isolated Thai military checkpoint. The Khmer Rouge driver checked that I was sufficiently scrunched up in the back, hat and sunglasses on, traditional Cambodian scarf wrapped around my head, with only my eyes exposed. “Tell them you are visiting your family, if anyone asks,” he instructed, rather preposterously. The checkpoint consisted of a single raw cut log suspended parallel across and above the road, weighted on one end by concrete and tied by rope on a post on the opposite side of the dirt track. A bamboo hut was beside it. Next to it, in the mid morning sun, a single Thai soldier lay asleep in his hammock, his M-16 assault rifle propped against a tree. He didn’t even rise as Tuoch got out of the car to lift the barricade. We had now entered Khmer Rouge controlled Cambodia. The Thai never suspected an American was being smuggled through. The explosions of incoming artillery followed the rumbling of their firing further down the mountain escarpment ahead.

The guerrilla stronghold on a high ridge of northern Cambodia’s Dongruk Mountain offered stunning vistas of tropical jungles and besieged villages encircled by bunkers and land mines. Grim faced Khmer Rouge soldiers, many of them missing limbs and walking on crude hand carved wooden crutches, eyed me suspiciously, trying not to be obvious in the curiosity at the first westerner they had ever seen at their village.

One hut housed sophisticated radio equipment, its roof criss-crossed with antennas. Amputees in pea green Chinese style PLA uniforms, the elderly, and the women and children families of soldiers down the mountain in frontline trenches battling government soldiers, walked the dusty single road through the guerrilla base or squatted smoking cigarettes and boiling rice over open fires around the village.

The rhythmic thud of incoming government artillery elicits no reaction from Khmer Rouge “Minister of Finance and Economy” Mak Ben, as he emerged from a bamboo hut, wearing rimless spectacles and a grey Mao suit buttoned at the collar around his neck. A blackboard on a thatched wall behind him shouted Khmer Rouge slogans in the Sanskrit based Cambodian script, proclaiming “Hate the Communist Vietnamese Aggressor!” and “believe deeply in Guerrilla Warfare!” He walked over to greet me, extending his hand and a smarmy, insincere smile. “Welcome to the liberated zones!”

I, of course, had been given no idea with whom I was going to meet, whether we would continue deeper into the jungle, or whether I would be offered useful new information. I patiently exchanged pleasantries while fresh mangoes, papaya, and rambuttan fruit was served.

Mak Ben wasted no time launching into the lecture he was instructed to give me, denouncing the “Vietnamese puppets and their despicable alliance” who were darkly plotting to “swallow” Cambodia and eliminate the Khmer Rouge.

He saved special vitriol for the Americans. Much of the not very thinly veiled threats were directed at ears many thousands of miles away to official Washington. “If you, the United States, continue to help the Vietnamese and Hun Sen fight us, we will use our right to self-defence. I must tell you that if you continue to aid the Vietnamese and their puppets, we cannot guarantee the safety of Americans in Cambodia,’ he smirked at me, betraying no friendliness. “One thing I should stress is we will never agree to surrender. Never!”

“We are very concerned, very interested in (U.S. national Security Advisor) Anthony lakes meeting with (Thai) Prime Minister Banharn Silp-archa,” he continued.

A French trained engineer and former Khmer Rouge diplomat, Mak Ben held the meaningless title of Minister of Economic and Finance in the Khmer Rouge so-called Provisional Government. “We want to know exactly what Lake means when he says the U.S. wants ‘democracy, stability, and security’ in Cambodia? Is it security through national reconciliation, without the Khmer Rouge?”

I was beginning to seethe at the realization of what was happening. I had been summoned from across the planet, on my own dime, to be lectured by a robotic mid-level Khmer Rouge minion because they, in their isolation-fueled paranoia, were reading dark plots into a routine stopover in Bangkok by a U.S. official. And they wanted me to deliver their pathetic message to my “bosses” in Washington.

Anthony Lake’s comments meant nothing. They were the routine rhetoric of long stated U.S. policy, made on a courtesy stopover in Thailand on his return from Beijing to Washington, which was so short he never left the Bangkok airport.

But Mak Ben hammered on, visions of dark plots having been conjured up in these isolated jungles, attaching ridiculous significance to lakes visit. That was why I had just flown across the world, drove to a remote Thai border town, holed up for days in a 1 star hotel hovel, and smuggled across international frontiers illegally: To meet this bonehead spout delusional rhetoric of a wholly out of touch with reality guerrilla band of murderous thugs caught in a time warp of their own making. They were convinced that Lake’s routine, passing comment was focused on destroying them, and they wanted me to relay to Washington that they would start assassinating American citizens working as humanitarian aid workers in Cambodia if the U.S. didn’t back off.

Mak Ben went on to describe a fanciful geo-political strategy of the U.S. having entered into an alliance with Vietnam—using Cambodia as a theatre—that aimed to undermine Chinese influence in the region. “After the cold war, Vietnam is too weak to carry out its expansionist strategy. But Vietnam will never abandon its strategy—which is deeply rooted among the old and young. Now 4 to 5 million Vietnamese nationals are in Cambodia. Laos is finished. Seventeen northeastern provinces in Thailand will encompass the Vietnamese Indochina Federation. The Vietnamese are breeding like rats. Vietnam is at our door. We cannot afford to be alone. We are with you! Who else if not the U.S., the West?”

He went on to contend that the Khmer Rouge enjoyed wide support in Asian capitals. “Diplomatically, ASEAN, China and Thailand are compelled to recognize the Phnom Penh regime…But morally we enjoy the support of the region,”

Mak Ben went on to downplay the influence of Pol Pot and the rest of the senior leadership, who had long officially retired but in fact remained in complete control. “Cambodia of the past belongs in the past. Let’s not talk about history. Pol Pot and all the Democratic Kampuchea leaders are very old. You can imagine how they are. They have lived 30 years in the forest without medical care.”

He continued to further piss me off. “I would like to tell you that Pol Pot and the other old political leaders are not in the political game anymore. They are finished….I am here to speak on behalf of my colleagues. I tell you that we, our new group, abide and continue to abide by liberal democracy, to be with the western world—the U.S.! I dare to tell you we are with the U.S., the free world! You can believe it or not. I have to stress to tell you that this is our political position and we will never change. For the sake of our country, we cannot go communist…to survive as a nation.”

I had known Mak Ben for many years and always been particularly unimpressed with him. He oozed insincerity. And he had the self conscious, arrogant swagger of a nervous, gangly teenager who you wanted to feel sorry for except he was mouthing such dangerous dribble. His eyes darted avoiding mine from behind his dark glasses. “You have abandoned your children!” he said wagging his finger at me, referring to the American government. “Look at Funcinpec, isn’t it your child? And Sam Rainsy, he is a child of the west. They are all your children. You have given birth to them. You have given them food, milk! You have sent them to school. Are you going to abandon your dying children?” he failed miserably at trying to look intimidating.

I remembered Mak Ben well from 1991 in Phnom Penh. He arrived with the delegation of Khieu Samphan in late November after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords on the Khmer Rouge first return to the capital since the fled the Vietnamese invasion in 19709, leaving behind more than a million corpses under the feet of the broken souls of those who survived.

They were not warmly welcomed back. Immediately upon arrival to their newly rented headquarters in downtown Phnom Penh, convoying in from the airport with armed United nations protection, the Khmer Rouge delegation were besieged by a government sanctioned mob that attacked them, invaded their villa, beat them up, looted the contents, and burned it to the ground.

I invaded the house with the mob. After Mak Ben and the others were trapped, beaten and terrified, he fled for his life through the crowd back to the jungle.

But while the mob was attacking Mak Ben and the other leaders, beating them bloody, I noticed nearby their unopened luggage and immediately began to loot it, rifling through looking for documents. A very happy fellow next to me opened a suitcase with $200,000 American dollars in it. Among many gems, I found Mak Ben’s Yugoslavian passport. And a letter from his daughter. She was a young girl, a refugee herself from the Khmer Rouge killing fields, who found her way from the UN refugee camps in Thailand to Australia as a very young child. She hadn’t seen her daddy in years. It was a heart wrenching letter that begged her father to address rumours that he was a Pol Potist. “They say you are a murderer, daddy, it said.

After fleeing the Phnom Penh mob back to the jungle, other Khmer Rouge made fun of Mak Ban, saying he was terrified of returning to Phnom Penh and being killed. He wanted to stay in the jungle, afraid to face the Cambodian people. Every time I saw him, I saw a bully and a coward.

After lecturing me on the U.S. abandoning their “children”, and threatening to murder American citizens unless Washington knuckled under to these nearly irrelevant delusional, self-important thugs sleeping in the forest, he smiled at me and tried to lighten things up. “America is a liberal democracy. We are nationalists. Democrats, too! So why don’t we join hands in national reconciliation. Join together! We are with you, the West!” he said growing increasingly animated, half breaking into song. “We are the World! Who is that singer? Johnny Jackson” Like he says, ‘We are the world!’ let’s join together!”

Mak Ben blithely ignored the fact that the U.S. government really could care less what happened in Cambodia, and it’s only stated policy towards the Khmer Rouge, in 1996, was funding projects to gather evidence to bring him and his comrades to an international court to face charges for crimes against humanity. Retreating from his absurd and comically ineffective attempt at hipness, he again tried to look menacing. “It is up to you. Our cards are on the table. We can fight for 100 years. We can eat grass if we have to. We have no other choice. We cannot accept that our nation, the great 2000-year-old nation of Angkor, disappears. As patriots, we will use our right to self-defence. It is better to die in the jungle.”

I was very angry by this time. It was clear to me that I had been summoned around the world to be lectured and to be a courier to deliver half empty threats to Washington. I was not to see anyone important and I was not to learn much useful. I asked, of course, to meet Pol Pot and others and to stay in the jungle and travel to guerrilla bases. “The leaders are all busy,” he said dismissively. He told me that I would have to leave that afternoon, before dark. “It is not safe here.” Down the mountain I could see smoke rising after the ground shook from each burst of mortars and artillery.

At lunch, a village elder looked morose. “We moved here last year to get away from government attacks,” he said. “For the people here it is a very hard.’ He eyed Mak Ben to make sure he wasn’t saying something wrong. “We used to have hope that the Paris Agreements would bring peace. We want national reconciliation. In our hearts we want national reconciliation and peace,” he said quietly. “Especially peace.”

The village elder, like I, was fed up. I left shortly afterwards, telling Mak Ben, in a moment of uncontrolled fury and indifference, to pass the message not to invite me back unless they were prepared to let me meet senior leaders. He was insulted. I didn’t care. While he betrayed nothing of the matter that July 30, 1996, as we spoke, the jungles just south of here were simmering with a similar attitude, and rebellion within their ranks was about to erupt into violent mutiny that would later that week deliver the biggest blow to Pol Pot and his loyalists since they were ousted from power by the Vietnamese invasion 17 years earlier.

(Copyright Nate Thayer. All Rights Reserved. Excerpts from unpublished manuscript “Sympathy for the Devil: A Journalist’s Memoir from Inside Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge.” No republication in whole or part without express written permission from the author.)

 

The Night Pol Pot Died: From the Jungles of Northern Cambodia By Nate Thayer

The Night Pol Pot Died: From the Jungles of Northern Cambodia

By Nate Thayer

(Copyright Nate Thayer. All rights reserved. No publication or transmission in whole or part allowed without express written permission of the author. Excerpts from the unpublished manuscript “Sympathy for the Devil: A Journalist’s Memoir from Inside Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge.”)

I was alone in a hotel the night Pol Pot died, in the small, remote Thai border town of Surin, abutting the Khmer Rouge controlled jungles of Cambodia.

I had been urgently summoned by the Khmer Rouge a few days earlier in a phone call which betrayed no specifics of why they wanted to see me, only that it was urgent. General Khem Nuon, the Khmer Rouge army-chief-of-staff and top field commander for Ta Mok had said only: “What you have been asking for we have agreed to.”

I took that to mean that I had been granted another interview with Pol Pot, but I was to learn it was even more significant. They had decided, as I had been pressing them for months, to turn Pol Pot over to the international community to face a trial.

I was summoned to discuss how to actually handle the logistics of handing over Pol Pot. It was an attempt to play their last card to garner international support and stem metastasizing mutinies and all out warfare raging in their jungles which threatened to finish their organization for the final time.

I had spent several days along the Thai-Cambodian rebel held border discussing their plight and interviewing their top cadre. Earlier that day I had filed a story with my magazine, the Far Eastern Economic Review, on the Khmer Rouge decision to hand over Pol Pot. The Review went to press at 6:00 pm Hong Kong time on Wednesdays—this one being that day--the 15^th of April, 1998.

“We have decided to turn Pol Pot over to the Americans. But we can’t get in touch with the Americans. We discussed it again this morning and Ta Mok agreed. So we want to give him to you,” said the guerrilla commander.

I was, to put it mildly, momentarily flummoxed. What the fuck was I supposed to do with Pol Pot? Put him in the back of the pickup truck and take him to the Far Eastern Economic Review office in Bangkok? It was not part of my job description. I suggested they should promptly get in touch with the International Committee of the Red Cross and gave him the appropriate contact details. “That is a very good idea!” Khem Nuon responded. There were other details, but I knew that the decision to turn over one of the century’s most egregious perpetrators of crimes against humanity to face justice was a very good story indeed.

The magazine released the highlights of the story in a press release that night at 5:00 pm Bangkok time—6:00 pm Hong Kong time. It was picked up immediately by the international wire services and broadcast by the VOA at 8:00 pm Thailand time on their Khmer language service, which Pol Pot listened to every evening.

17 minutes after Pol Pot died—at 10:32 pm on 15 April 1998—my mobile phone rang in my hotel room. Reaching past the half-empty bottle of fake Johnny Walker Black whiskey on the bedside table, I grabbed the remote, muted the volume of CNN blaring on the television, and answered the phone.

“My friend, Pol Pot is dead,” said Gen. Khem Nuon, the KR commander and for months my good friend, in an urgent whisper. “He died a few minutes ago.” He was calling on a Chinese military radio phone from the jungles across the Thai border.

While the Khmer Rouge always whispered, they were rarely breathless. Nuon was desperate and looking for guidance. “What should I do?” he pleaded. “You must tell the Americans and you must come here immediately.” It was an example the murky terrain of my role as a journalist and liaison with the rebels in their final days.

As I listened to the Khmer Rouge army commander, Monica Lewinsky splashed across the muted screen of CNN International Headline news, the world news dominated with the criminal punishment and removal from power of the US president for his indiscrete blow job with a young intern, which would continue to tower over the story of the demise of a man who had been one of the century’s most notorious despots.

General Nuon called, mainly, because he knew I would want to know. He was both a killer and my friend. Nuon always tried his best to be helpful. I had spent countless days and nights over the last months with Nuon explaining how the world worked outside the jungles he had called home for thirty years. His appetite for and curiosity for ideas and the new-fangled world was insatiable. It equaled my thirst for knowledge of his movement, its inner workings and history. He had commanded the troops that overthrew Pol Pot the year before, and therefore risen as the top field commander of all Khmer Rouge troops. With his formidable language skills and new role as chief field commander of rebel troops, he was for the first time able to clandestinely leave the jungles he called home and travel for covert meetings in Thailand, where he was escorted by a special unit of Thai military intelligence operatives who closely monitored the routines, movements, and intentions of the outlawed guerrilla faction. Nuon was also receiving medical treatment in Bangkok at a Thai military facility for a cancerous thyroid. He would always come to my house and, over copious amounts of hot tea with lots of sugar, spend hours talking about life and just to be free from the harsh deprivations of the jungle. He had come to rely on me and me on him as we spent countless days and nights sharing thoughts and information. “We will be friends forever!” he would often say to me with a broad, gentle grin, squeezing my hand and hugging me. He was bright, gentle, hard working, kind, and a natural leader of men. He was also the top armed commander of one of the world’s most brutal political movements. He personified the contradictions within the Khmer Rouge movement that allowed them to be such a formidable political force despite their atrocious human rights record. He represented to me the contradictions in my own mind that I had developed for the Khmer Rouge—on one hand respectable and impressive and on the other hand unspeakably brutal and offensive. I was very fond of Nuon and him of me, despite the fact, in truth, I had grown to collectively detest everything that Cambodia had become.

There was symbiosis in my relationship with the Khmer Rouge: They needed me and I needed them and neither of us trusted each other. While competent jungle fighters, these were peasants, mostly rice farmers turned guerrillas, but their ranks were also filled with the best and the brightest of Cambodia who had fled to the jungles as youth 30 years before to join the revolution. Nuon and most others had no exposure to how the world worked outside the jungle, where most had lived there entire adult lives. They had come to largely rely on me to both interpret it for them and take their message to the outside.

After Nuon called with the news of Pol Pot’s death, I knew I wouldn’t have to tell the Americans that Pol Pot was dead. Moments after I hung up, an American intelligence officer charged with following Khmer Rouge developments called from Bangkok. He wanted to know if I had heard “rumours" that Pol Pot was dead. Nuon’s phone was tapped as I assumed mine was and the American spy wasn’t fooling either of us. It was a game whose rules I had long before learned and understood. But he also knew that a monitored phone conversation between a guerrilla commander and a journalist was insufficient to confirm such an historic event. They, as I, needed proof. To be sure this wasn’t some kind of political trick, someone independent and credible needed to go back to the jungle and provide details and evidence of what had happened. The American wanted me to bring Pol Pot’s body back if possible, he said, or some forensic material. “If you can’t do that, maybe you could cut off one of his fingers,” he suggested seriously, in an only fleetingly embarrassed tone. I told him I would do what I could. He needed to get Washington hard evidence of what had happened in these jungles inaccessible to them, and his crude suggestion didn’t faze me at the time at all. He was a top notch military intelligence officer, very bright, spoke fluent Thai, and had excellent relations with the Thai military.

The Americans had political restraints and could not simply show up at Khmer Rouge field headquarters, but I didn’t. I requested he make a phone call to the Thai military to encourage them to let me cross their borders at dawn with direct permission from the highest command, into the Khmer Rouge zones. The American promised to put in an urgent good word to facilitate my crossing through the heavily guarded Thai military checkpoints, through which all unauthorized persons were forbidden to pass. The road to Anlong Veng was a well hidden dirt path set off a remote road that hugged the unpopulated, jungle-clad Thai Cambodian border marked by a steep mountain escarpment. These rutted narrow paths were bordered by a towering jungle canopy and weaved through eerily silent thick tropical forests void of any human presence. It was a no-man’s land for miles after the last Thai checkpoint and before populated areas of the Khmer Rouge controlled jungle bases in Cambodia. The areas between frontlines are always the most dangerous, fraught with vulnerability from roving bandits, landmines, and ambush from a wide potential cast of characters.

While the Khmer Rouge wanted me to come, and Gen. Nuon controlled the troops at his jungle checkpoints, crossing out of Thailand into Khmer Rouge territory required another set of permissions.

A few moments after I hung up with the American spook, the assistant of the Thai army commander-in-chief called. It was close to midnight now. He said I was granted permission personally from the Thai army commander-in-chief, who I had known personally for years since he was a mid level Special Forces commander, to go out of Thailand to find Pol Pot’s body. The general was highly respected for his professionalism and honesty and previously was in charge of Thailand’s important and complicated efforts during the Cambodian covert war. He then headed army intelligence before rising to overall army commander, one of Thailand’s most powerful positions. His aide gave me the name and mobile phone number of the commander of a highly secret Thai military unit who I knew only by reputation. Regiment 16 was based in a remote location along the border and charged with the extremely sensitive task of controlling all access to and liaison with the Khmer Rouge, escorting them on their forbidden trips to Thailand and entering the Khmer Rouge zones with relative free will. Regiment 16 officially didn’t exist and performed functions Thailand officially denied it didn’t engage in. He said the Colonel was already instructed to meet me at a specific gas station at dawn

Neither the Thais or the Americans wanted to be seen as involved in what surely would be an extremely high profile event that would soon, I knew, dominate world headlines and attract scores of journalists to the border area. The Thais had long denied they had direct dealings with the Khmer Rouge, loathed the periodic public fallout from revelations to the contrary, and were under intense international scrutiny and United Nations official directive to not assist them.

My trip across the border from Surin in Thailand to Khmer Rouge zones was not a new scenario. I had made these forays many times before. And both the Thai and American intelligence officers trusted me. I could have burned them all many times over the years, and I never did.

I never revealed how I accessed the guerrilla zones or who assisted me. I knew which secrets to keep and which ones to spill and they appreciated that. One thing I rarely reported was what means and methods of getting to the story I sought or used which might jeopardize a source. The process was usually full of intrigue and would make a good read, but all officials involved operated covertly and therefore were deeply suspicious of journalists. I never betrayed a promise or source from any faction, agency or government.

By the time of Pol Pot’s death in 1998, no governments, even China, who previously appeared unconcerned with international opinion, could be seen as having friendly—or any—relations with the Khmer Rouge.

But everyone knew I still maintained good contacts with the guerrillas, and as a journalist this was wholly legitimate. Beholden to no one, I could hold the mantle of an independent, neutral journalist around my neck, which I defended proudly and without compromise. I had no political problems with associating with international pariahs and murderers. It started as my job. And I rather enjoyed it. Rogue people and states fascinated me. And then it became my obsession.

But the night of Pol Pot’s death, in many ways, marked when that particular episode of my life’s long efforts were finally over. It was midnight now. Pol Pot was dead. I felt numb mainly, but also relieved. I drank straight whiskey from a glass, re-organized my gear to cross the border in a few hours at dawn. I watched Monica Lewinsky play over and over on CNN, flashbulbs sparking, as she fled into a courthouse, to face the full puissance of the American justice system. It did not elude me that it was a twisted reality that the Lewinsky affairs sordid details of superfluous justice was far more newsworthy than that which had been deemed appropriate for pursuit of Pol Pot, who stood accused of crimes against humanity. It was a fact that when he died, 20 years after his regime, which left 1.7 million people dead--1/4 of the population—in 3 years, 8 months, and 20 days in power, Pol Pot had never been charged by any court with any crime anywhere in the world. When he died he was not formally, in the eyes of international law, a wanted man. In fact, it would have been a violation of his rights, sufficient to have any charges dismissed under international law, if he was captured and held against his will anywhere outside of Cambodia.

I knew that soon Pol Pot would be featured, perhaps not eclipsing but along with Monica, in the world press. It would leak to be a world story within hours. Once leaked, scores of journalists would descend on this Thai border town. I wanted to get in and out of the jungle before the circus began…..

To be continued….

(Copyright Nate Thayer. All rights reserved. No publication or transmission in whole or part allowed without express written permission of the author. Excerpts from the unpublished manuscript “Sympathy for the Devil: A Journalist’s Memoir From Inside Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge.”)

What Happened to the Khmer Rouge? They are Back in Power. By Nate Thayer

What Happened to the Khmer Rouge? They are Back in Power.

Some thoughts on the trial of Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, and Khieu Samphan

(Select excerpts from the unpublished manuscript “Sympathy for the Devil: A Journalist’s memoir from Inside Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge” By Nate Thayer. Copyright Nate Thayer. All Rights reserved. No publication in whole or part without express written permission from the author)

By Nate Thayer

The 1996 “defections” or “surrender” of Ieng Sary and thousands of Khmer Rouge troops in Pailin was actually, more accurately, the beginning of the final reintegration of the Khmer Rouge back into the open legitimacy of mainstream Cambodian society. It also sent shockwaves through Pol Pot’s remaining Khmer Rouge loyalists in the north, and rocked the fragile coalition government in Phnom Penh. The “surrender” of thousands of armed Khmer Rouge did not, as one might expect, strengthen the stability of the central government. Rather, it capsized the precarious political balance of Cambodia itself. It forced to the surface the latent, grave tensions between Hun Sen’s CPP and Ranariddh’s Funcinpec party percolating under the veneer of their government partnership. And marked the irreversible escalation of an inevitable process of the collapse of the government itself.

While Cambodia’s mainstream political factions competed in their anti-Khmer Rouge rhetoric, the truth was far more complicated. For both Funcinpec and the CPP their immediate priority was not the destruction of the Khmer Rouge, but the destruction of each other. In order to achieve this, they each entered into a frenzied competition to embrace the Khmer Rouge as military allies. Each now began a mad rush to woo intact the armed strength of the Khmer Rouge and secure their loyalty to—not the government—but their separate political parties. And the reason for this was nothing less than a strategic plan by each political party to procure an alliance with a strong—not weakened—Khmer Rouge. Whichever party successfully romanced the Ieng Sary faction in Pailin and the Pol Potists in the north would use their new found strength to launch a coup d’état against their government partners. So the push to force the “surrender” of the Ieng Sary faction of the Khmer Rouge in late 1996 was not a harbinger of peace at all: It was, in fact, an irreversible and calculated preparation for war.

It is a mistaken and simplistic premise to assume that any of Cambodia’s mainstream political factions were “anti-Khmer Rouge.” They indeed were frightened, almost obsessed, that the Khmer Rouge would declare allegiance to their political opposition. Everyone recognized that in the perverted priorities of the organization of Cambodian political power, the Khmer Rouge was an impressive and useful military and political organization. The government rhetoric against the Khmer Rouge was as cynical and insincere as it was strident. It was designed primarily for the gullible ears of their foreign benefactors on whose largesse they depended to pay the bills to run the country. In late 1996, each government party, while boasting to the United States and others that they were the architects of the demise of the Khmer Rouge, simultaneously intensified secret negotiations with both the Ieng Sary Pailin-based Khmer Rouge and with Pol Pot’s forced holed up in the north to secure their fidelity.

And from his jungle redoubt, Pol Pot was playing the same game. Like a mistress toying with two jealous suitors, Pol Pot schemed how to best manipulate the government factions to secure his maximum foothold in power. The strategy of all factions were the same—seek maximum power with short term tactical allies to destroy whomever they deemed to be the most immediate threat. These new tactical alliances with other enemies, the thinking went, could then be, when appropriately vulnerable, later targeted and dispatched with similar tactics.

No Cambodian leader had a strategic vision that analyzed the consequences of such an approach. Peace, political stability, economic development, strengthening institutions of government and society, or coherent foreign and domestic policies were too far-sighted theories. And make no mistake: indeed theories they were. It had been centuries since Cambodia had enjoyed any such organization of internal power.

Coalition politics has never been an end game for any Cambodian seeking political power. Power sharing is a distasteful, insincere, and temporary step, part of endless military and political maneuvering serving the only shared strategy: to hold sole and absolute power. Absolute power is demanded not just by a political party, but invariably by leaders within each party. That is why Cambodia’s political parties are always dividing like amoebas. Ambitious leaders, like their God-King predecessors, pursue nothing less than personal and complete hegemony over the country. Until that is achieved, all competition or disagreement, or even policy differences, must be, when the time is appropriate, crushed. This truth is fundamental to understanding why Cambodia is on a seemingly endless roller coaster of internal upheaval. The concept of loyal opposition or coalition politics has no successful precedent in Cambodian history. The primary ramification of this paradigmatic tool of ascension to political power is that Cambodia has remained in a constant state of warfare for generations. The norm of civil war ebbs occasionally to an uneasy temporary political alliance or subjugation between squabbling and scheming enemies, often imposed with force by impatient and frustrated foreign powers. These were the circumstances in late 1996 and 1997 that preceded the reintegration of the Khmer Rouge back into national society and the violent collapse of the UN elected government.

The Cambodian government’s efforts to romance the Khmer Rouge, intensifying in late 1996, would be central to the series of crisis that would rock the country in coming months. It would ultimately culminate with a bloody power struggle among the top Khmer Rouge leadership in June 1997 which ousted Pol Pot from power and days later a bloody power struggle within the Phnom Penh government which ousted Ranarriddh and his Funcinpec from power. The two events were, of course, parcel to each other.

This turmoil collapsed the government and plunged Cambodia back into civil war in July 1997, Hun Sen quickly seizing sole control. Once again, as had happened so many times in Cambodian history, after Cambodians were left to control their own destiny alone—this time with the 1993 withdrawal of United Nations peacekeeping forces—the  country quickly spiraled downward to its sure fate, eventually imploding in an orgy of chaos and violence until one man was left standing. This time Hun Sen—as Pol Pot, Lon Nol, and Sihanouk before him—lorded over his ‘victory”: a political landscape littered with fresh corpses and the surviving opposition humiliated and beaten into submission. In his defense, Hun Sen had simply won the game fair and square by the rules his opponents were all willing participants. But of course it was not a victory, because such an organization of power is, in the end, untenable.

Perhaps most importantly, however, the events of 1997 showed once again, that despite Pol Pot being ousted from the seat of government in 1979 after a short but shocking tenure in power, twenty years later he continued to dictate political developments in contemporary Cambodia. This fact is surely not a reflection of the attributes of the Khmer Rouge, but rather of the extraordinary weaknesses of their opposition: Even after committing crimes against humanity as a central government policy and unspeakable suffering on a horrific scale, the political options to the Khmer Rouge were so unimpressive that Pol Pot’s political movement remained a viable alternative with sufficient popular sympathy to still be a force to be reckoned with decades later. The tenacity of the Khmer Rouge is nothing other than a wholesale indictment of the failures of the entire Cambodian political culture. In a properly organized country, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge would have utterly collapsed under the weight of its own record. The reasons that it didn’t are an essential prism necessary to view and understand the sad and distasteful realities of the Cambodia that preceded and succeeded the Khmer Rouge.

(Select excerpts from the unpublished manuscript “Sympathy for the Devil: A Journalist’s memoir from Inside Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge” By Nate Thayer. Copyright Nate Thayer. All Rights reserved. No publication in whole or part without express written permission from the author)

For those following the Khmer Rouge Trial of Nuon Chea: Background ambience behind the scenes at the time of the final collapse of the Khmer Rouge. Selected Excerpts from “Sympathy for the Devil” By Nate Thayer

For those following the Khmer Rouge trial of Nuon Chea: Background ambience behind the scenes of the final collapse of the Khmer Rouge. Selected Excerpts from “Sympathy for the Devil: A Journalists Memoir from Inside Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge” By Nate Thayer

(Copyright Nate Thayer. Excerpts from unpublished manuscript “Sympathy for the Devil: A Journalists Memoir from Inside Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge” All Rights Reserved. No publication or citation permitted without author’s express written permission.)

 

By 1994, the Khmer Rouge leadership once again evaporated into the jungle. To my frustration, my methodically constructed stable of Khmer Rouge sources was now deep in hiding. They continued to communicate with me through an elaborate network of underground  agents and Communist party cells. But it was a tortuous web, elaborately compartmentalized to obscure the identity and isolate the location of the guerrillas from their enemies. It would often take weeks, even months for a message from the jungle to get to me in Phnom Penh. Sometimes they would contact me through intermediaries by phone or deceptively postmarked mail. Other times notes would be hand-delivered by well dressed strangers who arrived at my house unannounced, politely exchanged pleasantries, decline to introduce themselves, and hand me a sealed envelope. They would then slip back out into the bustling city through the mazes of armed checkpoints, unpaid government soldiers to busy sleeping or extorting money to look for Khmer Rouge agents.

And I was always organizing my periodic trips across Cambodian government frontlines or over the Thai frontier to the guerrilla bases themselves. Even though it was a war-zone, I felt most relaxed deep in the jungles. I felt much safer under the protection of the disciplined Khmer Rouge than the unpredictable anarchy in government towns. In Phnom Penh, I slept with loaded automatic weapons by my bed and rarely left my house without a pistol and extra ammunition clips. With the guerrillas, I always slept peacefully in my hammock, tied to two trees, a symphony of whooping monkeys and insect’s overhead, surrounded by armed bodyguards who were charged with ensuring no one harmed me.

Messages from my Khmer Rouge contacts were always short and vague, the circumspect handwritten scrawls on ripped out notepaper almost palpable with intrigue and fear. “My Dear Friend, I got your message. If you can get here, we have already agreed to meet you. Ask our Thai friend who gives you this to help. You can trust him We have many difficulties and there are many things I need to talk urgently about,” read one typical unsigned note in its entirety. Even their written messages seemed to rise off the page in a clandestine whisper.

There was urgency to their missives but they always left me unfulfilled, desperate to know more. Their culture of secrecy permeated their every breathing action, their every move the instinctual second nature of a hunted animal. If you read the above message, you will notice, on second reading, there is no clue on why they wanted to meet, where the meeting was, when it would be, who it was with, or what it was about. The notes themselves, when they risked committing to paper, would not even betray whom it was from or that it was intended for me. There was a feeling off stark vulnerability whenever engaging with the Khmer Rouge under such conditions. I never knew where I was going or when I would be back. I always went anyway. All Khmer Rouge communication was like this. It is a fundamental lesson in all clandestine services: reveal nothing that isn’t absolutely necessary to accomplish your mission—and after decades in the jungles the Khmer Rouge had hones it to an art. This succeeded in leaving them firmly in control of all encounters and maximally impenetrable to their enemies.

And make no mistake. They had no doubt I was an enemy agent. Given their historically intolerant view of the likes of me, I was always keenly alert around them. If it was expedient or useful, I never had any doubt my closest Khmer Rouge sources would kill me without emotion. And they often changed their minds of whether one was a friend or foe. Most of those killed by the Khmer Rouge were loyal cadre who had been deemed, almost always out of unfounded paranoia, ‘exposed’ as an enemy agent. For Khmer Rouge cadre, it was, in fact, more dangerous to be a Khmer Rouge loyalist than their enemy. But such political thinking was fundamental to Cambodian political culture and all political leaders and parties operated under such a psychological foundation for pursuing and maintaining power. No one trusted anyone else, including one’s closest comrades. Betrayal and purges had been fundamental to Cambodian politics throughout modern history.

It is rare to meet any Cambodian who has a problem with murdering civilians as a concept. The parameters of the moral debate are simply confined to the merits of the victims. But importantly, in 1992, I had been formally deemed a potentially useful enemy by Pol Pot himself, I was told by a Khmer Rouge cadre close to the top leader. Pol Pot had ordered that a channel be kept open to me. He had deemed me useful to getting their message out in as empirical and neutral manner as they could hope for. His reasoning was that my writings were read by those world figures who were involved in forming Cambodian policy. I was guardedly comfortable with that. In Cambodia, that is the best a foreigner can hope for: A strategic enemy but tactical ally.

In 1993, some of the top cadre with whom I had become close sought permission to communicate with me without prior notification of and approval from the party. When Pol Pot agreed, this was a crucial development in improving my access. All cadre knew it was unwise to question the wisdom of Pol Pot, and followed his orders unquestionably. Pol Pot’s absolute control of all aspects of the organization’s activities presupposed that a Khmer Rouge cadre simply did not have encounters with an American, little less establish a personal relationship, without the clear approval of Pol Pot himself. The penalty for such recklessness was death.

Pol Pot’s sanction of limited access for me was the function of the quality, influence, and reputation of the primary publications I worked for. The far Eastern Economic Review, my primary employer, was the finest newsweekly on Asia—and required reading around the globe for the limited number of diplomats, officials, academics, businessmen, and journalists interested in the region.  It was authoritative and serious and scrupulous and courageous in the quality and accuracy of its in-depth, often exclusive reporting. It covered even the most obscure reaches of Asia comprehensively with depth and persistence and insight. Countries like Cambodia have few readers and advertisers and this was a key reason why most media devoted few full time resources to its coverage. When something happened in Cambodia—or elsewhere in remote corners of Asia—the Review had already provided the context and preludes that preceded the breaking news. It was also in a unique position to have in place people who had the sources and knowledge to provide superior coverage. It was a reporters magazine, driven by an eclectic group of correspondents who often had years of history in the areas they covered. The reporting was backed up by superb editing which ensured its  content was fair, comprehensive, and accurate.

The Phnom Penh Post—the first independent newspaper in Indochina since 1975—was a courageous, scrappy, and detailed bi-weekly newspaper that was read by everyone in Cambodia who was involved in any aspect of policy. It published the details and gave the space that only a local paper can provide. It was started in 1992 by my good friend Michael Hayes, an American who had no newspaper or business experience who had left his work as a humanitarian aid official with the Asia Society, and started the paper with his own life savings from scratch. I lived at the Phnom Penh Post during my years in Cambodia in a three story villa which housed the newspaper offices, production facilities, and the living quarters of Michael, his wife Kathleen, and myself. It was a center of constant hubbub, with a steady 24-hour stream of incoming journalists, varied visitors, sources, and newspaper employees producing the paper.

I also wrote for Jane’s Defence Weekly, the preeminent authority on military matters, and the Washington Post, which was required reading by everyone in Washington. Between them, the Khmer Rouge expected that, in their attempt to spread their message, an honest, accurate analysis that would have a far reaching impact would emerge. They were not often happy with my missives, but also knew that very little could be written which would further blacken their reputation. “ We believe you are serious,” they said to me more than once. They were used to being the target of often inaccurate, speculative, and invariably hostile reporting that focused only on their years in power. In contrast, we covered current issues regarding them as well. I always provided background context that included their atrocious history and current dictatorship, but they were used to this after years of unrelenting criticism. They knew full well that they were culpable, and respected my criticism of their organization as long as it was accurate and comprehensive, regardless of the requisite negative content.

Aside from my forays into the jungle, I was used to meeting more cosmopolitan Khmer Rouge political leaders and diplomats in five-star hotel lobbies and at diplomatic functions. But after 1994, two years after he withdrew the Khmer Rouge from participating in the UN election process, Pol Pot ordered them all back to the jungle. I wasn’t even sure where along the 800-kilometer swath of mountainous jungles over the Thai border my Khmer Rouge sources were hiding. Innumerable times, I travelled for days to remote villages near the Thai frontier on instruction from the Khmer Rouge to meetings. As often as not, a liaison would never materialize. Or I would be guided to an obscure guerrilla base where some mid-level cadre would spout useless propaganda already broadcast verbatim over their clandestine radio. Hungry for gossip, news, or rumour, I relentlessly pursued any source that might offer information. I flew to cities in Asia, North America, and Europe trying to glean information from shadowy sympathizers, relatives of cadre, and former guerrillas who had left the movement, and other underground operatives. I met with spies and diplomats from numerous countries charged with tracking the guerrillas. And I was constantly in contact with Cambodians of all political affiliations, whose agenda I covered equally, and who often knew of activities within the Khmer Rouge through their fellow Cambodians. Each of these encounters, sometimes involving weeks of work, would perhaps produce only a quote or single detail or a rumour to pursue or confirm. I would sort these tidbits of knowledge and carefully piece them together, constructing a portrait of what was happening in the jungle and publish it as an article. It was a frustrating, tedious, and usually fruitless business reporting on the Khmer Rouge: that is why there was effectively on one else who bothered to try. But I enjoyed the methodical challenge and it fit my personality to work alone and focus to fruition on a single task.

But for most of the world, by 1995 the Khmer Rouge leadership had simply slipped silently into the impenetrable forests of northwest Cambodia, contact severed completely, and guerrilla war resumed. Like a disturbed hornet’s nest, they dispatched small, angry squads of troops to attack around the country, emerging from the jungle to strike vulnerable government outposts, massacre ethnic Vietnamese civilians, and blow up trains and bridges. They then immediately evaporated back into the forest.

“The resistance forces are everywhere. We can attack the two-headed, one-eyed puppets and their American bosses everywhere!,” a secret 1995 internal directive by the Khmer Rouge leadership to military commanders said, referring to the fragile UN elected coalition government of co-prime ministers, and to the war wound that left Hun Sen blinded in one eye when he was a loyal lieutenant of Pol Pot. “We can cut the highway anywhere, any bridge and culvert. We are going to cut it over and over until the two headed government…and the Americans turn their tail and run.” The directive instructed: “ Cut the enemies throat! Cut the enemies throat! Cut the enemies blood arteries! Tragic fit, tragic death to all the enemies near and far!”

Nothing was subtle with the Khmer Rouge. This is how they talked in conversation, sputtering vitriol and contempt for the rest of the country who they had dehumanized simply because they weren’t loyal to them.

Westerners who stumbled into Khmer Rouge units after 1993 were regularly kidnapped and brutally executed. They included, as well as many Asian nationalities, Australians, Americans, Belgium’s, French, German, and British citizens. I was involved in every case. They all died an appalling death. I was to learn eventually that their executioners included some of my closest Khmer Rouge friends. Each and every one of their families contacted me, my telephone number given to them by their governments who were unable to assist them. They had been told I might have influence or leverage with the guerrillas and they were desperate for help in saving their husbands, sons, and daughters.

These remain some of my most painful experiences. I was not able to save any of them. I did, often after months of work, gather the grisly details of the demise of each. I remain haunted by the stricken, inconsolable anguish on the faces of their loved ones. They invariably wanted to know every last bit of gruesome information. It is equally true for the millions of Cambodians who were, in some ways, unlucky enough to survive the Khmer Rouge brutal years in power.

But, by 1995, behind the veneer of confidence and aggressiveness, there was a cancer metastasizing at the heart of the Khmer Rouge movement. I knew from the private whispers of grunt Khmer Rouge soldiers on the frontlines and forests, Pol Pot’s 1992 decision to pull out of the Paris Peace Agreements, forego the internationally recognized 1993 UN elections, and break the cease-fire, was considered by many Khmer Rouge cadres as a disastrous, perhaps fatal mistake.

Thousands of rank-and-file felt this way but seethed in silence. Expressing disagreement on such matters was suicide. But the reality was self-evident. Pol Pot and his small group of core leadership were very much like the emperor with no clothes. Instead of bringing them closer to power or peace, the Khmer Rouge were now utterly isolated, opposed by the mass of the peasantry, covert foreign military and material aid severed by China and Thailand, and at war once again. Morale was abysmal.

After two decades of war and unspeakable suffering, the hopes and opportunity for peace that came with the 1991 signing of the Paris Peace Accords had been squandered. Many Khmer Rouge cadre believed that their leaders had failed them and were deeply disappointed. Others were bitter and angry. But expressing opinion or dissent within the Khmer Rouge was unthinkable. And to add to the simmering frustration of the Khmer Rouge, in the eyes of their enemies they were increasingly not viewed  as a serious threat. For an organization that took pride—in the manner of a neighborhood gang of bullies—in forcing others to accommodate their demands through intimidation and sheer terror to be largely ignored by their enemies, was deeply demeaning. And a humiliated Khmer Rouge had the potential to strike back irrationally to demand attention. They were dangerous enough when they were rational.

After the 1993 UN elections, the Khmer Rouge’s biggest threat, in fact, came from within their own ranks. Swatting malarial mosquitoes and eating plain rice seasoned only with salt and sprinkled with dried fish boiled on an open jungle campfire, sleeping in their hammocks slung between trees in the forest, rank and file cadre listened with growing resentment to short-wave radio broadcasts of the international embracement of the government that emerged from the 1993 UN elections. Foreign companies, diplomatic recognition and international aid flooded to their enemies, bolstering their legitimacy and threatening the Khmer Rouge with becoming sidelined as a superfluous political force. The Khmer Rouge, in contrast, remained without electricity, running water, health care, schools, and, increasingly, hope that they would ever taste the fruits of peace, little less victory.

Never willing to address unpleasant realities, the Khmer Rouge went to absurd lengths to put a positive spin on their increasingly desperate conditions. “Our army, our guerrilla forces , are more and more respectable regarding their view, their political knowledge, their economical situation, their welfare, their attitude toward the peaceful relation scheme, their stance on spying activity, and their awareness of the undermining activity,” wrote the top Khmer Rouge leadership to senior commanders in a secret policy and military strategy directive in November 1995. “Thanks to these qualities, the number of our cadre are multiplying; the number of our forces increases; and our forces are more disciplined, more decisive, braver and more resolute to fighting the two-headed national traitors, slaves of the Vietnamese communists and their alliance. The slaves of the Vietnamese communists and their alliance are being swollen, decomposed, and rotten, all devoured by maggots, and having no more flesh.”

The Khmer Rouge, like all Cambodian political factions, seethed in hatred and utterly intractable absolutes. This is the bane of Cambodian political culture—not just the Khmer Rouge—and central to understanding the unending instability in Cambodia. There is no concept of compromise or common good, little less common ground. If you disagreed with the Khmer Rouge, you were a “slave” of the “national traitors.” One did not seek to just defeat the enemy, but preferred to see their bodies not just dead but “rotting” and “devoured by maggots.” You didn’t just execute someone who opposed you, you tortured and humiliated them first, and then murdered their wives and children.

Not only were the Khmer Rouge short of friends and money, but weapons and ammunition. The cessation of foreign and military aid was addressed by boastful self-delusions that they were self sufficient. In 1995, they ordered all soldiers and civilians to meet a quota of carving homemade bamboo stakes and other crude weapons. “The strategic weapons that we now call our ‘main forces’, sharp pointed soldiers, very sharp are punji sticks, and booby traps. These are the strategic weapons we experimented with and the results are highly effective. These forces are located all over, and bamboo, woods, poisons, resins, machetes, axes, and knives are all locally abundant. It can be said that factories making strategic weapons to fight the enemies exist locally and are abundant all over, in lakes and rivers.”

This was the Khmer Rouge leadership’s response to the cutoff of covert military aid from China and the 1994 UN imposed sealing of the border with trade from Thailand. To Khmer Rouge soldiers who had to face the reality of a well-armed enemy in battle, this was not only profoundly insulting, it was life threatening. Their leaders were now asserting that bamboo stakes constituted superior firepower. As a result of such preposterousness, Khmer Rouge cadre increasingly directed their resentment not so much at their enemy as at their own leaders.

Many Khmer Rouge felt their future was passing them by. Defections of frontline troops increased. Morale was abysmal. Soldiers pulled back in battle rather than risk death in a war they now had only a veneer of allegiance to. The blind loyalty of armed cadre long demanded by their faceless leadership, and enforced by fear, was on the brink of dangerously unraveling. And the Khmer Rouge leadership reacted by cracking down on their own loyalists.

Ta Mok, the Khmer Rouge top military field commander and Army chief-of-staff, not so affectionately known as “The Butcher”, lamented that “pacifism has entered our cadres” and that “there is confusion, a blending of our essence and our enemies,” referring to increasing contact with villagers in government run frontline areas and growing sympathies among his troops to end the  war. The Khmer Rouge top leadership ordered all contacts severed with villages not strictly under their control. “We have continued to exist with them, eat with them, peacefully allied with them to the point that some of our own cadres and ranks have repeatedly been put in danger. In some of our units, enemy elements comprise 50-60%.” To be deemed an “enemy element” was a spine chilling accusation.

Their leaders made clear to their subordinates, in a secret internal document distributed to frontline units at the time, that they were being closely watched. “Our first responsibility is we must be clean. Our major responsibility is to clean up our act,” warning not to sympathize with proposed negotiations to end the war which they referred to as “the peaceful relationship scheme.” "Our ranks , our cadre, must be clean, our skin clear, free of smell, no peaceful relationship scheme, no spying activity, no internal undermining, nothing to be compromised at all…”

When, that same year of 1995, the leadership ordered troops to attack and burn to the ground front-line villages in northern Siem Riep province they suspected of not being sufficiently sympathetic, more than 1000 Khmer Rouge troops defected instead of carrying out the order. When I visited, the scene was surreal. Hundreds of Khmer Rouge soldiers in pea green Chinese PLA style uniforms lounged in the markets, flirting with local village girls, their commanders firing artillery they had taken with them, now firing back at their former comrades just past the tree line that marked the border from the rice paddies to the guerrilla jungles they had inhabited for thirty some years until only days earlier. “When we went to fight, we didn’t see other nationalities,” said former Khmer Rouge battalion commander Tung Yun. “ we fought because we were ordered to do so, but in our hearts none of us wanted war anymore.” He spoke for thousands of others still in the jungles.

In an atmosphere that forbids questioning the policies of their leaders, with no outlet to vent their disappointment and debate the merits of returning to war, conditions were ripe for an internal Khmer Rouge explosion of violence.

To be honestly transparent, in retrospect, part of me viewed this growing international and domestic consensus for peace and stability as a fundamental career threat. But while I loved being a war correspondent, this war was now meaningless. The fact was, by 1994, I, too, was tired of this war. I, too, did not want to be the proverbial last person to die in a war which now clearly had no purpose other than each side trying to secure raw and maximum power. After the withdrawal of the Vietnamese occupying troops in 1991 and the United Nations forces in 1993, it was now a war without issues, stripped to the carcass of armed conflict which is simply mans raw excersize of his most primal, uncivilized instinct for power and vengeance through violence and superior force; simply a winner takes all bloody grab for power. And the rank and file on all sides knew it. The soldiers from all the political factions still at war were nothing more complicated than pawns for a few hundred powerful and rich so-called leaders who weren’t courageous enough to wage peace and just wanted all of the pie. Many rank and file on both sides refused to fight seriously when ordered to battle, firing from a safe distance and reluctant to engage in tactics which threatened their lives.

By 1995, I had only one more objective in Cambodia, and that was to meet and speak with and interview Pol Pot. And ask him two simple questions. "Why?" And "Are you sorry?" And then, I told myself, I would leave this wicked society forever.

I viewed brewing dissatisfaction within the Khmer Rouge as creating cracks in their armour, opening up potential new means of access for me. Where there was turmoil, there was increased opportunity I could wangle my way into the heart of the Khmer Rouge central command. I had found that the Khmer Rouge opened up to me when they had difficulties, which often left them with issues they wanted to clarify or explain to outsiders. Turmoil and weakness increased the possibility that they might have to play that card. And I was constantly scheming to see that the vehicle they used to do so would be me. I was always encouraging, maneuvering for, and poised to take advantage of such contacts. I approached it as an endless chess game requiring strategy and patience and an intimate knowledge of one’s opponent. I knew from viewing the chessboard that I was closing in, however slowly, on their King, Pol Pot. Obstacles were being removed and I was advancing.

For years my biggest fear was Pol Pot would die before I was able to meet him. I would wake at night, my stomach in knots, with the thoughts of years of effort being concomitantly extinguished with his last breath. Barring that, I was convinced that one day I would meet him face-to-face and Pol Pot would have to answer the questions that haunted his broken countrymen.

In 1996, through smuggled letters, meetings with their underground operatives, and visits to their guerrilla bases across the frontier Thai borders in the jungles of Cambodia’s north, I pushed harder for them to allow me access to their leadership, arguing plausibly that they clearly had to try something new. The Cambodian government and the international community were perplexed by  the silence of the Khmer Rouge leadership and unclear what they wanted. They had let no one deep into their territory for four years--since my last visit—and they could see clearly they were in a weaker position since disengaging from the outside world.

They didn’t have to be convinced that they needed to do something, but they didn’t know what. They needed to reengage their movement to the Cambodian political process. What they needed rather than their tired, failed tactics of vitriolic rhetoric and terror was, I suggested, to shed light on their internal movement to lessen the blackened mystique that had shrouded their movement and Pol Pot in for forty years. Much of that mystique was not politically threatening to them, but simply allowing access to the personalities and daily life in their control zones. My perennially repeated request was that they allow an independent, credible witness as unfettered access as possible. A fresh look from inside their territory, talking with their loyalists, couldn’t possibly result in them having a diminished reputation in the eyes of the world, I repeated to their cadres. They were already a household name worldwide synonymous with unspeakable brutality and senseless violence. In the eyes of the world and most of their countrymen, they were already the devil incarnate and they knew it. There was certainly nothing I could write that would further blacken their image.

Many Khmer Rouge cadre sympathized and were, to a degree, in awe of the sometimes ridiculous and always relentless lengths I had gone over the years attempting to access their inner sanctums and interview Pol Pot.

My persistence, I think, struck some familiar chord of revolutionary self-sacrifice-against-daunting-odds. Perhaps many of them could relate, having disappeared as eager, patriotic youths into the jungle more than twenty years earlier, waiting for naught the revolutionary victory. If they weren’t impressed, at least they were entertained by this shaved-headed American who wouldn’t go away. And if they weren’t entertained, I had regardless become a kind of fixture, like some half-mad Dennis the Menace to the Khmer Rouge’s Mr. Wilson, with whom they grew resigned to affectionately tolerate.

They had, over time, tried everything to reject me—arrested me at gunpoint, shot at me, ordered me killed, banished me, robbed me, and handed me over the border in disgust to be arrested by Thai authorities. I became rather legendary within the Khmer Rouge army, I was to learn, as this reckless, perhaps insane, rather likeable American who would appear in the oddest of circumstances. Literally nothing dissuaded me. I was fully cognizant and reconciled to the fact that there was s strong chance I would die in these jungles. I always tried to be smart with tactics, having committed to a strategy that required accepting a high level of intrinsic danger. But I never once rejected going into a war-zone simply because it was dangerous.

I continued to show up, uninvited, over the years in virtually every corner of their jungles, often where no foreigner had ever been. I arrived by foot, captured Russian military vehicles, driven by defecting government soldiers during battle, on the back of an elephant, bicycle, dirt bikes supplied by the CIA to non-communist guerrilla allies, by river in commandeered sampans, ox-cart, rented helicopter, accompanied by United Nations troops, guided by my own hired mercenaries, escorted by Thai military intelligence liaisons, with Thai businessmen who traded with the guerrillas, logging trucks, and even by taxi cab ( I can remember more than once the driver of my hired car simply refusing to go any further into the scrub and abandoning me to walk the last few miles). I once traversed the trench lines into Khmer Rouge territory driving a government military officer’s Russian jeep, adorned with full government regalia identifying the vehicle, which I had rented from a corrupt Cambodian general. I remember startled guerrilla troops popping up from bunkers, leaves and branches crudely camouflaging their helmets, as I weaved through frontline trenches and around minefields in abandoned rice paddies. I was advised by unamused Khmer Rouge commanders never, ever to do that again.

Almost always, I arrived under dangerous circumstances, through combat frontlines, from enemy-held  territory, over mountains, crossing national borders, always through a minefield, from north, south, east and west, essentially to be turned away, mainly empty-handed, time and time again. I didn’t mid the rejection. The chase itself was a fun-filled adventure, a young man’s fantasy.

My visits to the Khmer Rouge zones didn’t endear me to the government forces either, who regularly tried to kill me. Spies are ubiquitous in Cambodia. The government would know I was in Khmer rouge zones within a very short time, often within hours. I listened to government field radio reports broadcasting my location to front-line troops. They would then rocket our position. This, in turn, didn’t endear me to the guerrilla troops with whom I was visiting.

In general, I was viewed as a problem. Many had concluded my very presence was simply a pain in the ass. There was often a mood shift which seemed to elicit an inaudible groan when I would arrive.

But I was the only westerner many of the Khmer Rouge cadre  and jungle fighters had ever had contact with.  So there was the ever present animal in the zoo factor. It was not unusual for large crowds of Khmer Rouge civilians and soldiers, some walking for days, to gather at a safe distance and gawk at me for hours. Old ladies would squat and chew betel nut, spitting and exchange raucous commentary with each other. “ Are they all fat and bald?” one toothless old lady asked my bodyguard in a remote village which had never hosted a foreigner before.

I remember clearly one time squatting around a fire late at night deep in the jungle just north of the great temples of Angkor Wat, monkeys crying from the tall canopy of trees. I had walked for two weeks from Thailand with non-communist guerrillas accompanying them on a mission to attack government positions. We often encountered Khmer Rouge guerrillas who shared the jungle with their then coalition partners fighting the common enemy, the occupying Vietnamese army and their installed government in Phnom Penh. A grizzled Khmer Rouge cadre was casually drawing battle plans in the dirt with a stick, explaining to other young fighters the next morning’s attack. He pointed to a small village, thrusting his stick in the dirt and raw hatred flashing from his eyes, hissed “Tomorrow, we will turn it into a rice field!” Several minutes into the preview of the intended assault he looked across at me squatting on my haunches a few feet away from him, locked on my eyes in abrupt recognition, and lept back with a cry of terror. “Joy Marey! Barong moek Howee!” Translation: “Motherfucker! A white foreigner has arrived!” was the totality of his exact words. He literally grabbed an AK-47 assault rifle, jumped to his feet, clutched his heart and paced back and forth, taking deep breaths and cursing for a few minutes to recover. Everyone who fit my description, after all, was the enemy, of whom he had only seen pictures of over the years. And to see a vision of the devil himself, a blue-eyed, bearded, bald one, armed and dressed in combat fatigues staring at him from across the campfire deep in the jungle, was too much for him to process. The poor man never seemed quite to recover. He glared at me for days afterwards, his face furrowed in a queer mix of raw hate and confusion.

To try and keep track of the inner workings of the Khmer Rouge was not just a matter of analyzing information. That was the easier part—a skill developed by following the nuances of their historical methodology and rhetoric. The hard part was getting credible, first-hand information. Elevating secrecy to an art form, the Khmer Rouge obscured and compartmentalized all levels of information so it wouldn’t fall into the hands of the enemy, which by 1995 was a category that included every single nation on earth and most Cambodian citizens. I was keenly aware, each time I went into their territory, it was a category that clearly also included me.

For the time being, however, I continued to be a potentially useful enemy whose channel, by order of Pol Pot himself, remained open. I comforted myself by dwelling on the fact, particularly when I was being glared at by armed Khmer Rouge, that every Khmer Rouge cadre knew that it would be suicidal to harm someone who Pol Pot thought might be useful. My relationship with the Khmer Rouge had evolved in the early 1990’s to include, by default, nothing less than perhaps their primary liaison to the West. They did not think of me as a sympathizer. Indeed, in their perpetual state of rather astounding and logic-muddled paranoia, they had concluded that I was a paid operative of the Central Intelligence Agency. “We have discussed whether you are CIA and decided it doesn’t really matter,” one Khmer Rouge diplomat told me matter of factly once. They politely attempted to maintain the charade that they thought I was an independent journalist, but we both knew they didn’t believe it. They simply did not understand the concept of someone who did not serve the interests of—was under the control of—the government that issued ones passport. They often used the term “you” when referring to the US government or angrily condemned me for some Washington policy. I would ritually correct them. And they would apologize half-heartedly. The irony is US law forbids the CIA from recruiting journalists employed by American owned media, and the Far Eastern Economic Review was owned by Dow Jones—perhaps the most iconic symbol of world capitalism. So, while extensive, my dealings with CIA operatives were often a tortuous process themselves that rivaled the Khmer Rouge, with many having to go through acrobatic lawyer-driven hoops to receive prior permission from Washington before meeting me. Some simply ignored the directive from Langley, and I count many intelligence officials—from a broad range of competing countries—among my friends.

It was helpful that the Khmer Rouge faced a couple of basic problems that worked to my advantage. Even before they retreated back to the jungle in 1992, many governments banned their officials from any direct contact with the guerrillas or their representatives. Even at diplomatic functions and cocktail parties, the Khmer Rouge was shunned. US policy went so far as to specifically prohibit initiating contact at cocktail parties. U.S. government officials were allowed—by written directive—to return, but not offer, a verbal greetings or handshake. This tied the hands of intelligence agents or diplomats  who were on one hand tasked with gathering information on the guerrilla group, and on the other forbidden from dealing with them directly. I, of course, had no such problem.

At cocktail parties, Khmer Rouge officials would often be standing alone, clearly uncomfortable in their western suits, looking grumpy as they held a cocktail they wouldn’t drink, being ignored and eyed simultaneously, not unlike a pedophile relative at a family gathering.

I not only had no problem chatting them up, I  reveled in it. I particularly liked National Day celebrations, held by virtually every countries embassy once a year. By protocol, the entire diplomatic list and other dignitaries and select nationals of the country would be invited, including the Khmer Rouge. Those functions to which I wasn’t invited, I crashed. I have attended scores over the years. The hotel ballrooms and ambassador’s living rooms are filled with people who would normally refuse my telephone calls. It was a diplomat’s nightmare and journalists dream; stuck being chatted up by a journalist he had long tried to avoid. Often the Khmer Rouge diplomat would be found in the corner with the North Korean or some other third world pariah. Afterwards, it wasn’t unusual to be grilled by jealous but thankful diplomats who needed something to write in their cable to the home office on their rare Khmer Rouge encounter.

The second basic problem, after the Khmer Rouge retreated back to their jungle redoubts, was often simply a matter of logistics. Dialogue from the jungle is a pain in the neck. Aside from the issues of safety and political will, physical access was extremely difficult. Normal modes of contact—such as telephone, email, meetings in obscure seedy bars or fancy hotel lobbies were, of course, not possible or practical.

In 1996, I took a sabbatical from reporting from Phnom Penh to be a visiting scholar at a Washington academic think tank. It was not unrelated to a rather incendiary series of articles I had written naming both Cambodian Prime Ministers as being bankrolled by and, in exchange, giving political protection to, a major Asian heroin trafficker and organized crime figure.

One day in 1996, while in my office at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, I got a call from a friend in Europe with a message. The Khmer Rouge wanted to see me urgently. Could I come to the jungle? The message was to go to the remote sleepy Thai border town of Surin, and check into a particular hotel as soon as possible. When I arrived at the hotel, I was to call a particular phone number in Europe and give my hotel room number. I was then to wait for someone to contact me. That was the entirety of the message. It was a typical set-up for a meeting with the Khmer Rouge. No mention of who I was to meet, where I would go, when I would be contacted, or what the subject matter would concern. I didn’t even know who within the Khmer Rouge was contacting me.

The routing of the message was typical in its circuitous layers to obscure any prying eyes or ears. And it was designed for the Khmer Rouge to remain in complete control of the process of me arriving in their territory. It denied me any ability to double-cross them if I was so inclined, or to pass on sensitive information to any foreign intelligence officials. It also left me very vulnerable if something were to go wrong. There was always a palpable undercurrent of dark unease for me with these people.

A Khmer Rouge “former” diplomat in Paris, who was married to a French woman and therefore held French citizenship and was allowed to remain in France, served as one of the guerrillas primary contacts in Europe. The Khmer Rouge “former” diplomat in Paris had been contacted by another Khmer Rouge “former” diplomat living underground in Bangkok (in a safe house maintained by Thai military intelligence). That diplomat maintained human runners who would be dispatched back and forth overland across the Thai border into the jungle. The diplomat in Paris had called my friend. My friend, a Franco-Khmer, was trusted by the Khmer Rouge but not a member of the Party. He, in turn, was known to be close to me. The leadership in the jungle relayed information to me in Washington this way. None of the intermediaries were told more than they needed to know beyond getting a message to me. Even if they were inclined to talk they didn’t have any information. The “former” diplomat in Paris had one fully equipped man, trained in China as a coded communication specialist, who could transmit and receive top secret messages from a counterpart in the jungle in times of crisis.

So, as always, I told my friend to reply I would be departing immediately and to relay the message that I would check into the specific hotel as instructed in Surin, Thailand within 72 hours. I boarded a plane from Washington’s Dulles international airport that night for the 36 hour flight to Bangkok. From Bangkok it was a 10 hour drive to the border town.

From the hotel, I dialed a contact number in Europe and informed my contact simply the number of the hotel room I had checked into. No names were used. No countries were mentioned. Certainly no words intimating any outlawed guerrilla groups culpable for committing crimes against humanity were uttered. Even the name of the hotel was omitted. “How are you, my friend?” I said. “I have arrived fine. I am in number 302. I will wait here.’

“I will let my friends know now. They will contact you. Be careful.” He couldn’t tell me who, where or what to expect or when I could expect to know when I would be contacted to not to be informed, then, either, of any of these details.

Then I waited….for days. I forget how many, but several. Mainly I stayed drunk. I did sit-ups and ran in place. I left the room for one hour each afternoon to swim at a lap pool in the town. I ate rice and noodles from the lobby nightclub, which doubled as a karaoke bar, coffee shop, and whorehouse. I prepared for an interview with Pol Pot I cleaned my camera equipment and read literature and documents on the Khmer Rouge I always kept for distraction. I had read everything at least once before.

I had no idea whether I was to walk through the jungle for days, whether I would meet important leaders, including Pol Pot, or when my contacts would arrive to retrieve me.

All that uncertainty requires contingency preparation: jungle clothes, still cameras, video camera, batteries, film, notebooks, hammock, mosquito net, food, rolls of chewing tobacco, whiskey and Ziploc bags of all sizes to protect against the daily monsoon rains. Everything had to fit perfectly inside a small Khmer Rouge knapsack on my back in case I had to walk for days.

And I couldn’t really leave the hotel room not knowing when the Khmer Rouge operatives would arrive and not wanting to draw attention to myself in a town where there are very few western visitors who aren’t up to no good. The small hotel staff knew me well after years of coming though, and it was no secret what, in general, I was up to. They knew I was going to nearby Cambodia, where there was a war, but they really didn’t want to know any more than that. I would always leave the lobby, usually before dawn, not checking out, dressed in jungle clothing with a backpack and laden with camera equipment. Often, I wouldn’t return for days, muddy and dirty and accompanied by fit men in crew cuts and sunglasses. These were my Thai military intelligence escorts who ferried me across the border through a myriad of Thai checkpoints who didn’t speak much and dressed in civilian clothes. They had a particular ID card that seemed to grip any other Thai official's attention with an immediate positive response and silent accommodation. This had always precluded the hotel staff previously of inquiring who I was or what I was doing.

This time there were no Thai officials to greet me and smooth my egress across national borders.

Then one rainy morning at 0600 there was a firm knock on the door. I asked who it was: First in Thai, then in English, then in Cambodian. After a long pause, a hushed voice replied in Khmer: “It’s me.”

TO BE CONTINUED……….

Copyright Nate Thayer. Excerpts from “Sympathy for the Devil: A Journalists Memoir from Inside Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge” All Rights Reserved. No publication or citation permitted without author’s express written permission.)  

 

Excerpts from unpublished manuscript of book “Sympathy for the Devil: A journalist’s memoir from inside Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge” By Nate Thayer

Khmer Rouge ideology and details of who they murdered--and why. From exclusive, perviously unplublished interviews with top Khmer Rouge leaders with Nuon Chea, Ta Mok, Pol Pot, Duch, and Khieu Samphan By Nate Thayer       (Copyrighted. All rights reserved. No republication without prior permission from Author)

By Nate Thayer

Selected excerpts from unpublished manuscript of book “Sympathy for the Devil: A journalist’s memoir from inside Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge” By Nate Thayer

Although popularly labeled as Communists, evidence from previously unpublished interviews with all the top leadership of the Khmer Rouge show the Khmer Rouge movement and its murderous policies were founded and implemented on an amalgam of ideology and homegrown political theory uniquely Cambodian. The leading all-powerful apparatus of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea came from disparate backgrounds, political influences, and training that clearly point toward a CPK structure of organized power based on no external models. Their policies drew from the structures of  their Cambodian historical political ancestors, with influences from anti-colonialist movements, extreme nationalism, and various non Cambodian communist parties in Europe and Asia in the 1940's and 1950's. In fact it is more accurate that they had no uniform ideology when they seized power, but rather were dominated by a unique amalgam of loosely allied regional fiefdoms with little uniform central ideology, coordination or control. In effect, in April 1975, six separate armies, long void of a unifying central leadership converged on Phnom Penh, simultaneously overthrowing the Lon Nol government. These loosely coordinated regional armed  Khmer Rouhge factions then struggled against each other for dominace within the framework of the CPK to assert inlufluence and control. Once in titular power, there was a stark absence of predetermined strategy or national leadership that implemented what evolved into a bumbling, delusional, ill prepared and shockingly unskilled cadre of government leaders that was predestined to implode in disaster.

It is useful to introduce a historical overview of the KR movement and its leadership prior to them seizing power in 1975.

Cambodia in the 1960’s offered few conditions that traditionally provided fuel to ignite and sustain a communist movement. It had virtually no industrial base or manufacturing sector from which to recruit a working class base of an exploited labor force by those who owned the means of production. Almost all its peasants—85% of the population—owned their own land, eliminating the issue to recruit based on the exploitation tenant farmers by a landlord class. The country was rich in natural resources, with abundant rice crops and some of the most productive fishing waterways in the world. It was a leading exporter of rice until after the war that engulfed the country in 1970. The population was very small compared to the productive land mass and there was virtually no malnutrition or starvation. Cambodia was at peace and a delicate political neutrality, deftly juggling outside pressures of alliances during the superpower struggles that rendered much of the world allied with one of the three great powers of the era. As a result there were no Cambodian proxy armies fighting for the power interests of foreign nations. Cambodia was almost largely ethnically and religiously homogeneous, precluding racial or religious pretext to foment resentment or strife. The conditions for revolution were not abundant.

While a number of anti-colonialist movements and nationalist armed groups flourished in the 1940’s and 50’s, the signing of the French granting independence to Cambodia in 1953 and the subsequent Geneva accords in 1954, spelled the demise of virtually all the armed underground movements in Cambodia. The Cambodian branch of the Indochinese Communist Party—entirely controlled by the Vietnamese—withdrew their entire ethnic Khmer cadre to Hanoi in 1954. The anti-colonialist Khmer Issarak party evaporated. The leftist Pracheochon party and the anti-Sihanouk Democratic party were neutralized.While leftist sentiments lingered and Sihanouk’s autocratic rule kept alive a movement seeking more democratic rule, it was largely marginalized by his heavy handed tactics.

So to what does one attribute the rise of the ultra radical Communist party of Kampuchea that seized power in 1975 leaving millions of bones stacking the killing fields that testified to the Khmer Rouge unprecedented political experiment which ended with the military conquest of Cambodia by Vietnam that brought a halt to the CPK’s 3 years and 8 months in power? What was the genus of its ideology or origins in political theory that allowed them to burgeon and drove the implementation of its disastrous rule?

On September 30, 1960 a group of 10-15 men gathered at a secret meeting in the Phnom Penh railroad station for the first party Congress and formed the Communist Party of Kampuchea. For three days and nights they hammered out and approved a party line and statutes. A Central Committee was chosen with Tou Samouth as Party Secretary, Nuon Chea as Deputy Party Secretary, Saloth Sar, alias Pol Pot, as member, Ma Mong as member, Ieng Sary as member, Chong as member, and Kaev Meas as member. The more powerful sub grouping of the Standing Committee of the CPK compromised Tou Samouth, Nuon Chea, and Pol Pot. As Pol Pot was a teacher, as was Ieng Sary, (as well as both their wives, who were sisters), they were limited to working from Phnom Penh. Nuon Chea was tasked with travelling to the countryside.

According to the unpublished interviews cited from below with Nuon Chea on three separate occasions in January, February, and March 1998: “ We implemented the principle of absolute party leadership in accordance with the slogan: a protracted, difficult, hard struggle, self-reliance, self-mastery, independence…As for the party statutes, the principles of Marxist-Leninism were used and the principle of Democratic centralism. And the Party had to build from the countryside as the foundation and the towns as following behind.”

Nuon Chea’s reference to Marxist-Leninism as a guiding party principle was the sole reference I heard from any senior or other party figure of the CPK, in extensive and repeated interviews with every surviving member of the party leadership in more than ten years of research from the 1980’s to date. These included interviews with Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Ta Mok, Son Sen, Ke Pok, and Khieu Samphan, the only surviving members of the CPK Central Committee after their internal purges and end of their rule in power. They also included hundreds of interviews with other senior political cadre and military commanders who mostly had joined the movement in 1970 or the late 1960's.

Each of the leaders had their origins as members of other political parties that formed and disintegrated in the 1940’s and 1950’s.

In 1962, CPK Secretary Tou Samouth was arrested while riding his bicycle to get medicine for his sick child in Phnom Penh and taken to the home of then Sihanouk security chief Lon Nol, interrogated to reveal the names of other CPK members, tortured and executed. He had been betrayed by a government double agent, Siev Heng, who was a former Secretary general of the earlier VN dominated Communist party--the Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party (KPRP).

The KPRP  had effectively dissolved after the 1954 signing of the Geneva Agreements which mandated the withdrawal of armed forces to Hanoi, and the 1953 bilateral agreement of Cambodian independence between France and Cambodia, which returned Cambodia to independence from Colonial French rule.

After Tou Samouth’s execution, another Party Congress was held in 1963, and Pol Pot was named Secretary General. While logically Nuon Chea was slated to be Secretary General, he was the nephew of the traitor Siev Heng, and deep suspicions of his loyalties—given the impossible to minimize influence of family loyalty in Cambodian culture—precluded him from assuming the top post of the CPK.

The 1963 Party Congress elected Pol Pot as Secretary General, Nuon Chea as Deputy Secretary, and Ieng Sary, Chong, Keu (Sophal), Vorn Vet, Ruoh Nhem (Muol Sambath), Ta Mok, Ma Mong, and Sao Phim to the Central Committee of the CPK. The highest ranking body, the Standing Committee of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, was comprised of Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Sao Phim, and Ieng Sary. Of these ten, six were executed by the KR once they obtained power.

Later in 1963, Prince Sihanouk, in his inimitable style, tauntingly announced that he would name 24 specific people as co Prime Ministers of his government. They were the exact list of all 24 members of the central committee of CPK including Pol Pot, Ieng Sary, Son Sen, Khieu Samphan, and three leftist CPK supporters who were then members of Parliament, Khieu Samphan, Hou Nim, and Hou Yuon. The decision was made that most named would have to flee the city and go underground.

This splintered the party leadership undermining its ability at central organization and implementation of a coherent national policy to be in place when they seized power in 1975. It resulted in the development of essentially autonomous regional fiefdoms without any effective central party leadership. This is key to explaining the confusion and killings after 1975 when essentially six separate Khmer Rouge armies converged on Phnom Penh simultaneously. The struggle for consolidating leadership and consistent national policy cannot be overemphasized, as the political policies and ideological philosophies differed widely on the ground in the different Khmer Rouge regions throughout the country.

The leadership themselves had scarce communication or coordination with each other, with Pol Pot based in the far Northeastern province of Rattanakiri, Ta Mok based in the Southwest, Nuon Chea travelling from Phnom Penh to the countryside, and Sao Phim based on the Vietnamese border to the East.

It is instructive to note, in an analysis of the origins of the political influences of the ideology that drove the CPK policy, that the CPK didn’t fire a shot for 7 years after its founding in 1960. A spontaneous peasant uprising in 1967 in the remote Battambang district of Samlaught over abusive government tax collectors sparked the CPK to make a decision to react in support. On 17 January, 1968, the Khmer Rouge raided a police post in Samlaught, killed a handful of government soldiers, stole weapons, and fled into the jungle. It was the beginning of a nascent armed struggle that would bring Pol Pot and the CPK to power 7 years later.

And it is crucial to recognize that they chose to embark on this guerrilla war after directly rejecting the plea’s not to initiate an armed struggle by both the Chinese and Vietnamese Communist Party leadership, according to Pol Pot, Ieng Sary, Nuon Chea, Khiue Samphan, and Ta Mok in independent interviews with each. “The Chinese and the Yuon (Vietnamese) told us that ‘If you decide to fight, it is like fighting your own father,’” Ta Mok told me in February 1998, referring to Sihanouk. “But we saw that if we didn’t use arms the movement would be finished. Therefore we decided that we had to mobilize the armed movement. And it wasn’t as if there was a proper leadership. The southwest was the southwest, the east was the east, enjoying independence-self mastery.”

This stands as a stark early example of the CPK refusing to follow the leadership or strategy of the international communist movement, even from the countries key to their short term tactical survival

Mok’s analysis that there was no central leadership of the Khmer Rouge forces, contributes to explaining the later purges by Pol Pot and his loyalists of most of the other senior leadership of CPK after 1975.

Of the ten members of the CPK standing committee named in 1963, 6 were executed by Pol Pot after they took power in 1975 and before they were deposed in 1979.

In 1975, when the CPK seized power (although they never publicly announced that the CPK was in fact in power until 1977—instead publicly naming a fictitious group of United Front personalities who held nearly zero internal influence in formulating State policy but represented a broad sector of well known figures, including King Sihanouk, who retained the title of Head of State while under house arrest ), they held another Party Congress and named as their standing committee members, in order of rank, Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Sao Phim, Ieng Sary, Son Sen, Ta Mok, Vorn Vet, and Nheum. Of those 8 members, 3 were executed during the Khmer Rouge reign in power—Sao Phim, Vorn Vet, and Nhuem. They also named 22 members to the central committee of the CPK. Of these, 18 were ordered executed by the time the Khmer Rouge were ousted from power in 1979. The existence of the Party was never publicly acknowledged until 1977.

Among the first to be purged was Hu Yuon, who as finance minister, objected to the abolishment of markets and the use of currency. He was believed to have been executed in the months after the 1975 liberation of Phnom Penh.

Hun Nim, Minister of Information, was arrested  and executed in 1977. It wasn't the first time Hu Nim had been purged. In 1967, while a member of Parliament, Sihanouk publicly berated Nim as "a little hypocrite" whose "words carry the scent of honey, but hides his claws like a tiger", and he "had the face of a Vietnamese or Chinese." he fled to the Khmer Rouge controlled jungles. Sihanouk sdded Hu Nim would be "subjected to the military tribunal and the execution block". After Sihanouk was overthrown in 1970, and he himself joined in alliance with the Khmer Rouge he called Hu Nim "one of our greatest intellectuals. Hu Nim served as Minister of Information for the Khmer Rouge until arrested and tiortured and executed in Tuol Sleng in 1977. On a Tuol Sleng confession of 28 May, 1977 he wrote: "I have nothing to depend on, only the Communist Party of Kampuchea. Would the Party please show clemency towards me?" He also wrote "I am not a human being, I am an animal."

“You say the enemy was trying to assassinate you, but most of your central committee was executed in Tuol Sleng before your years in power were finished, “ I asked Pol Pot, “ Did they deserve to die, or was it a mistake?”

“You raise this question, but let me clarify this. These people were in the central leadership of Democratic Kampuchea, but they were not the people of Democratic Kampuchea,” Pol Pot responded. “In 1976 and 1977, that group of people you were talking about set up a coup d’état committee, especially against me. In that committee there were Vietnamese agents in the majority.”

“And among the leadership, they included whom?” I asked.

“My memory does not serve me well on that,” he answered rather incredulously, unable to remember the names of his top comrades he had ordered executed. He paused for about 30 seconds and then exclaimed, pointed his finger. “but among those who were in the coup committee were Ya. He was a Vietnamese agent since 1946.”

Ya, alias Maen San was the zone secretary for the northeast appointed in January 1976, the same month he was arrested. He was also a member of the Standing Committee of the CPK.

The confession of Ya is particularly chilling. In an S-21 (Tuol Sleng ) document dated January 10, 1976, Duch wrote a note to Ya’s interrogator that “I reported to Angkar ( a reference used either for Pol pot or Nuon Chea. However Duch said he reported only to Son Sen and Nuon Chea and never directly spoke to  Pol Pot until 1988) at ten to nine on the case of Ya based on the documents that comrade (you) provided…Angkar says that in the case that Ya remains reluctant and continues to hide his traitorous connections and activities, Angkar has decided to have him killed…Angkar has decided it is a case of having him looking down on the Party, not just down on our state security. Therefore for Ya, you can use the hot measures and for a long time. Even if those measures led to his death, comrade will not be wrongful toward Angkar’s discipline” Duch signed off with “warm revolutionary fraternity.” Pon, S-21’s top interrogator, added a note to the document in handwriting designated to be read by Ya. “Brother Ya, read this and think it through thoroughly.” The document was then given back to Ya.

Included among those executed were many top leaders of the Communist party of Kampuchea named in power in 1975. They included Ya, Vorn Vet (ranked #7), Ruo Nheum alias Muol Sambat, Chou Chet alias Thang Si, Sao Phim, Koy Thuon, alias Thuoch (ranked #5), Chey Suon alias Non Suon (ranked  #11) and Ruos Nhim. All were members of the Standing Committee of the party. Among the central Committee members of the CPK who were arrested tortured and executed included pang alias Chheum sak-aok alias Seuang, Chan, Pin, Reran alias So Sarouen, Mon, Meah Tal alias Sam Huoy, Nat alias Im Long, Koe alias Kung Sophal alias Kan, Chong, who was Ta Mok’s chief deputy and an ethnic Thai from Koh Kong whose real name was Prasith, and Phuong.

According to an October 30, 1976 party  document entitled ‘ Decision of the Central Committee on a Number of Problems: the Right to decide on extermination within and outside the ranks.” It named the following; All 6 zone heads, the 22 members of the central Committee of the CPK, the Standing Committee of the CPK, and the top leaders of the Armed Forces. Many of these same leaders would also be arrested and executed.

Duch, the head of S-21 (Tuol Sleng) blamed the genesis of the killings on Pol pot’s 1973 decision to have all leaders come from the peasantry, eliminating educated cadre from positions of influence. “ at that time many things changed, and many people were killed. After liberation in 1975, Pol Pot said        ‘We must protect our country by finding enemies within the ranks of the party. We are not strong enough to attack enemies from the outside, so we must destroy them from within.' First we arrested the people from the North, then the Southwest, then the Northwest, then the east. He used Nuon Chea to do the work. Pol Pot never directly ordered the killings. Nuon Chea was always cruel and pompous. He never explained to the cadre. He only ordered them. For arresting people, it was the everyday job of Nuon Chea and Son Sen. Pol Pot knew about S-21, but did  not direct it personally. He left that job to Nuon Chea as number 2 in the Party and Son Sen as head of the Army and Police,” Duch said. “They arrested nearly everyone by the end…it is a permanent rule,” said Duch. "Whoever is arrested must be killed.”

In May 1978, Sao Phim was ordered  arrested and killed at a secret meeting of select top party leaders. In two weeks of recorded interviews totally 40 hours with Duch, the commandant of the KR security service S-21 (Tuol Sleng) that actually carried out the orders of the top political leadership, he said. "It was brother number one (Pol Pot) who decided that Sao Phim would die…a very secret meeting was held—Pol Pot ordered it. Khieu Samphan was there—He was the notetaker. Three men and especially one man ordered it. Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan and Son Sen were at the meeting--not Ieng Sary or Vorn Vet.”

By late 1978, another sweeping purge  was starting to crest. Among high ranking victims was Vorn Vet, a Party Standing committee member who was also the deputy premier in charge of the economy. He was a long time protégé of Pol Pot, who had personally inducted him into the Communist Party. In his “confessions" under torture, he discussed his opposition to Pol Pot’s purges.

When the Vietnamese invaded in late 1978, documents found at Tuol Sleng revealed that another two senior leaders were also targeted for arrest and liquidation. One was a long time Pol Pot associate, Son Sen, the Deputy premier in charge of National Defence, Chairman of the Armed forces general Staff, and  Standing Committee member, he was head of the entire Khmer Rouge Military and Security Services. As such, he was,  along with Nuon Chea, the CPK party representative that was the link between the political leadership and the killing machine itself. He was in fact the direct supervisor of the S-21 (Tuol Sleng) torture and execution center and to whom S-21 commandant Duch reported directly. In Mid-1978, he was dispatched to command the troops fighting the Vietnamese on the eastern front, and relinquished his duties as S-21 liaison with the Party leadership to Nuon Chea. With the war going badly against Vietnam, the CPK leadership blamed not the superior military strength, troop numbers, battlefield experience, and superior firepower and morale of the Vietnamese, but Son Sen as an enemy agent because it was unfathomable that the CPK’s strategy was untenable in itself so it had to be purposeful sabotage of “enemies from within” that it wasn’t succeeding.

Another target for execution found in the files of S-21 from the last days before the Vietnamese overran Phnom Penh, showed that Ke Pok, Party Secretary and commander of the Central zone, also a member of the Standing Committee, was also targeted for arrest and execution. Ironically both were saved by the Vietnamese invasion before their arrests could be carried out.

The remaining five in the years after, all turned against each other.  Ieng Sary broke with Pol Pot in 1996 calling him a “dictator worse than Hitler” and sentencing him to death. Pol Pot and Mok announced that Ieng Sary was a “Vietnamese agent” and in turn sentenced him to death. The irony that both Pol Pot and Ieng Sary had been sentenced to death together in 1979 by the ex-Khmer Rouge installed by the Vietnamese invasion as leaders of the “Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique” went largely unnoticed. Pol Pot ordered the arrest of Nuon Chea, Son Sen and Ta Mok in November 1996, blaming them for the defection of Ieng Sary. He later ordered the execution of Son Sen and Ta Mok, succeeding in killing Son Sen. Khieu Samphan went on the clandestine radio controlled by Pol Pot calling Son Sen a “traitor and Vietnamese agent.” Ta Mok fought back and captured Pol Pot, Khieu Samphan, and Nuon Chea.  Days after the execution of Son Sen, Khieu Samphan went back on the radio—this time on behalf of Ta Mok—referring to Son Sen as “comrade” and announcing that “Pol Pot” was under arrest as a “traitor.” Asked if he was a hostage of Pol Pot during the internal fighting, he said: "You could call it something like that."

So in the end, all ten of the original members of the 1963 Standing Committee of the CPK had either been arrested, murdered, or sentenced to death by each other as “traitors.” In fact by the end of Pol Pot’s rule in 1979, of the 22 members of the central committee of the CPK that were named in 1975 when they seized power, 18 had been executed or named to be executed as ‘enemy agents” from within the CPK ranks.

Many cadres who fled to Vietnam in 1977 and 1978, including current premier Hun Sen, ruling party president Chea Sim, the titular head of the original  Vietnamese installed government Heng Samrin, Interior Minister Sar Kheng, and Defence Minister Tea Banh fled in 1977 and 1978. Many were loyal officers who remained in power with the Khmer Rouge while hundreds of thousands died  at the hands of the government they were still loyal to, well after the disastrous policies and purges were implemented, not because of objection to Pol Pot’s policies, but rather because they were aware they were next on the list of targets.

During the massive purge of mid 1978 against “internal enemies” in the Party, the Khmer Rouge publicly announced that they were not just preparing for war against Vietnam, but the extermination of the entire Vietnamese race and the reseizing of territory on the Mekong Delta that had been lost centuries before. The Khmer Rouge strategy was clearly tactically, strategically and psychologically delusional. But they were no doubt serious. They announced on State radio that Cambodia, with a population of 8 million, would eliminate the entire Vietnamese population of battle hardened 60 million, and explained their crude strategy. The may 10, 1978 Khmer Rouge radio proclaimed in a public broadcast. “ The party has instructed that we destroy as many of the enemy as possible, and try to preserve our forces to the maximum. We are few in number, but we have to attack a larger force. This is our slogan:  In terms of numbers, one of us must kill 30 Vietnamese. If we can implement this slogan, we surely can win. Using these figures, one Cambodian is equal to thirty Vietnamese. And 100 Cambodians are equal to 3000 Vietnamese. We should have 2 million troops for 60 million Vietnamese. We don’t have to engage 8 million people. We need only 2 million to crush the 60 million Vietnamese, and we would still have 6 million left We must format our combat line in this manner in order to win victory. The entire army, party, and people must be made fully aware of these views, lines, and stands. We must review our history. Have the Vietnamese succeeded in swallowing Cambodia? No, they have not. We must purify our armed forces, our Party, and the masses of people in order to continue fighting the enemy in defence of Cambodian territory and the Cambodian race. If we do not try and defend our territory, then we shall lose it, and then our race will disappear. The Vietnamese will bring in one or two million people into Cambodia every year, and then we will lose our territory, and our race will be completely swallowed up.”

This official Khmer Rouge strategy was not a secret later unearthed internal party document. It was broadcast on their radio for both internal and foreign consumption Their military and political formula was patently delusional, and based on no remotely viable military strategy. It was simply ludicrous.

The “victory” was that the Khmer race would remain, in theory, with 6 million alive, ancient Khmer territory lost centuries ago would be reconquered, and current territory would be saved from fictional delusional, non-existent foreign plots of foreign designs of annexation rooted in age old historical grievances. It was nothing less than the manifestations of delusions of grandeur, still oozing the puss of the deep humiliation, resentment, and fixation for vengeance o the defeats of ancient history seared into the minds of the popular Cambodian consciousness , harking back 800 years to the forever at the forefront of contemporary political agenda of the Great Angkor Empire, which had evaporated by the 14^th century.

Pol Pot’s other major internal central policy focused singularly on the rapid creation of a patently untenable rise in agricultural production. He based his goals on the superior racial abilities of the Khmer peasants. He set unachievable quotas for rice production that were guaranteed to fail. He was obsessed  with an ability to create a superior agrarian utopia based on self-reliance on Khmer resources, which largely didn’t exist. Pol Pot’s domestic policies of agricultural production goals, regional production of rice quotas mandated by the central party, were simply unattainable. Cambodia’s mechanized resources were simply non-existent, its agricultural productive capacity and infrastructure decimated by years of warfare, and its trained human resources and technically skilled cadre with even minimum expertise  miniscule in number and capability. And anyone with foreign training and the skills, who returned from abroad upon victory to build a new society, were deemed suspected spies and most were killed. In addition, local and regional cadre who questioned the ability to meet the quota’s were deemed foreign enemy agents intent on sabotaging the revolution and arrested and executed.    “They fought against us, so we had to take measure to defend ourselves,’ Pol Pot told me in 1997, blaming “enemies from within” for sabotaging the regimes’ policy goals. He blamed starvation that killed hundreds of thousands on “enemies within our ranks” who “withheld food from the people. There was rice but they didn’t give rice to the population to eat.” The list of enemies ranged from officials of the defeated Lon Nol regime, to “internal agents” within the Party and the army, to Vietnamese, CIA, and KGB plots, often working simultaneously in coordination with one another., to his contention of six attempted coup attempts to depose him, to finally the entire nation of Vietnam.

In 1977, Khieu Samphan stressed the rejection of foreign aid as a “science. “ In the old regime did the school Children, college children, university graduates know anything about the true natural sciences? Could they tell the difference between an early crop and a six month rice crop…they relied completely on foreigners, expecting foreign equipment and even foreign experts to do their job for them. Everything was done according to foreign books and foreign standards. Therefore, it was useless and could not serve the needs of our people, nor could it be of any help building our nation. By contrast, our children in rural regions have always had useful knowledge. They can tell you which cow is tame and which cow is skittish. They can mount a buffalo from both sides. They are masters of the herd. They have practically mastered nature. Only this should be called natural science because this type of knowledge is closely connected with the realities of the nation, with the ideas of nationalism, national construction, and national defense.”

In its place he forced thousands of underfed and overworked forced labour to build poorly designed water irrigation systems, planting and harvesting at a pace that resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands from sheer overwork and exhaustion.

The ban on the use of money was also a direct consequence of the CPK hyper focus on foreign enemies trying to destroy Cambodia. "Pol Pot was convinced that only the ban of the use of money could prevent the CIA from carrying out any activity in Cambodia because in his view the CIA used money to buy people and recruit agents,” said CPK Standing Committee member and Pol Pot’s brother in law Ieng Sary after he defected in 1996.” He boasted that if we used money, his regime would not have lasted three months and so far no other country could do the same.”

In July, 1976, the Khmer Rouge embarked on a Four Year Plan in all Fields, 1977-1980.” The document acknowledged “we are extremely weak” in industry and technology, but said “technology is not the decisive factor; the determinign factors of the revolution are politics, revolutionary people, and revolutionary methods.” It also rejected  accepting foreign assistance saying we would certainly obtain some, but this would affect our political line…there would be political conditions imposed on us without fail.” The document concluded that Cambodia “had leaped over the feudalists and capitalists of every nation, and have achieved a socialist state right away.” They even said they had out achieved North Korea, China, and North Vietnam, saying “ we are faster than them…nothing is confused as it is with them…we don’t need a long time for the transformation.”

 

But while modern Cambodia bears no political or geographical resemblance to the ancient political and military and cultural antecedents of the Angkor period, the Angkor empire is crucial to understanding the motives and psychology of Pol Pot and, indeed, the modern Cambodian society that  created the Khmer Rouge rise to power, and to a significant degree the political culture that succeeded it and remains dominant today. Pol Pot’s political contemporaries almost all shifted allegiance in recent decades to serving alternately as military and political allies and adversaries to the Khmer Rouge. Sharing many similar objectives and characteristics, the political leaders succeeding and preceding Pol Pot in power, comprise a consistent modern political culture remarkably still dominated by the same cast of characters from French independence in 1953 to the present. They together share key responsibility to the disaster wrought by the Khmer Rouge and their short tenure in power.

But it reelected the sincere belief of Khmer racial and cultural and political prowess that was superior to all other nations and theories in history and this belief was carried out in all sectors of government policy.

A look at the backgrounds and statements of the leaders of the CPK provides little substantiation of the theory that there murderous policies were inspired by any allegiance to communism, but rather points instead to its roots in traditional Cambodian political themes of nationalism, anti-colonialism, vitriolic abhorrence to foreign domination, sovereignty, retaking territory lost in past centuries to neighboring powers, racial superiority of Khmers and racial hatred for foreigners, particularly Vietnamese. In detailed personal interviews with every living  member of the Standing Committee of the Central Committee of the Communist party of Kampuchea, only once did I ever hear a reference to Communism as an influence in their ideological development

The leadership of the Khmer Rouge was a disparate grouping of individuals with few shared teachings, backgrounds, ideology, or unified vision

*Pol Pot was a failed radio technician student from a rural middle class background influenced by anti-colonialist and nationalist movements who dabbled in leftist politics while a student in France and was inducted into the French Communist party. Upon his return to Cambodia in the early 1950’s he was inducted into the Indochinese Communist Party by the Vietnamese, who held firm control over the communist movement in the three Indochinese countries at the time. Before joining the original formation of the  CPK in 1960, he taught school and wrote articles under pseudonyms signed “The original Khmer” and the “The nation, the People, and the Race.” The later he used to sign his radio broadcasts from the jungles in the 1980’s and 90’s.

“When I asked him about his political influences and what drove his policies during his reign, he said: I would like to say that my conscious is clear. Everything I have done is for the nation the people and the race of Cambodia. I want to tell you, I am quite satisfied with one thing: If there was no struggle carried out by us, Cambodia would have been Kampuchea Krom(a reference to areas of the Mekong Delta in Vietnam which were annexed by Vietnam in the 1700’s) in 1975.” He continued: “ during 1975-78 there were of course some conflicting views, this is true,” he obliquely responded to questions of mass murder under his rule. “There was opposition to Democratic Kampuchea, and, of course, democratic Kampuchea had to do something about that. The Vietnamese carried out activities for some time. Naturally we had to defend ourselves. They wanted kill me.”

“Who is they?” I asked.

“Mainly the Vietnamese." They knew without me they could easily swallow up Cambodia.” Pol Pot saw himself literally as the personal embodiment of the Cambodian nation. Any opposition to him was interpreted as treason against the Khmer race and Cambodian nation itself.

During the trial of Pol Pot in the jungles of Anlong Veng in northern Cambodia, in July 1997, Bang Men, around 50, hobbled up on his amputated leg and one crutch in front of the gathered crowd, Pol Pot only a few feet away, cheeks shaking trying to maintain  his composure. Bang men introduced himself as “a representative of the people.” He spoke with sincerity and passion his voice raised at the crude podium on the dirt jungle floor, into the microphone hooked up to a car battery: “ The people and masses of Anlong  Veng, tens of thousands of people, have abandoned their land, homes, their parents, siblings, children, and grandchildren for close to 20 years, with the aim of solving the problem of the nation, the race….not thinking of the danger, their lives. This struggle is an exceedingly hard and difficult struggle, which has never been encountered before in the history of our nation. In the spirit of loving the nation, of loving the race, we have strived to achieve and express this most lofty and supreme heroism, to continue the struggle. But finally, the result was not in keeping with most of our wishes, our intentions. We have been separated and lost tens of thousands, millions, and then in the period of 1996-1997, we encountered the most terrible, the most barbarous incident of Pol Pot, who continually had us study about the view, the stance, fighting, enduring to fight, the stance becoming even stronger, the situation becoming ever more difficult. They saw enemies everywhere, saw them as rotten flesh, swollen flesh, enemies surrounding them, enemies in front, enemies behind, enemies to the north, enemies to the south, enemies to the west, enemies to the east, enemies in all eight directions, enemies coming from all nine directions, around them, closing in, with no place to breathe…Pol Pot wanted to further strengthen our stance. Strengthen over and over and over, including measures to successfully kill and purge our own ranks, including strugglers in the movement of the same rank….Looking backward, Cambodia was dissolving into nothing…fighting continually and Cambodia steadily dissolving.’

*Nuon Chea was a rural peasant from Battambang province in western Cambodia who was educated in Thailand after they temporarily invaded and annexed that part of Cambodia into Thai territory. He graduated from the prestigious Thammassat University in Bangkok and joined the leftist Thai Democratic Youth League in 1946 and the Thai Communist party in 1950. That same year he joined the Vietnamese controlled Indochinese Communist Party.

*Ieng Sary was born in former Cambodian territory annexed by Vietnam for more than a century in the Mekong delta of Vietnam to a Chinese immigrant to Vietnam and an ethnic Khmer citizen of Vietnam of middle to upper class origins. He received his higher education in France and joined the French Communist Party during his studies there.

*Ta Mok was an uneducated peasant whose family ran a lumber mill in rural Cambodia, trained to be a monk, and joined the anti-colonial Democratic party in 1946 and later the anti-French underground armed movement the Khmer Issaraks.

In several interviews with Ta Mok, he expounded in straightforward detail about CPK politics and theory. He was a military man who, while ranked number three in the party hierarchy, he had no formal schooling, and his more sophisticated comrades in the leadership would cringe when he spoke of politics. But in Cambodia, whoever has the guns has the power, and Mok had just overthrown Pol Pot in a day’s long duel of life and earth.” He acknowledge that “hundreds of thousand s died. Hundreds of thousands yes. Not millions like the Americans say. He contended that the “Communist party had sucked the blood of the people” and that “Pol pot had clearly committed crimes against  humanity. But he was clear in parsing the distinctions of who was legitimately killed. “ I joined the movement when I was 16. I have no theoretical ideology. My ideology is patriotism. Before I joined the Communist party, but I had no idea what communism was!,” he said throwing his arms in the air and chuckling. “ They said the Party was a patriotic one. That is why I joined the party. Later I found out that the Communist party was sucking the blood of the people.” He added that his one regret was working with Pol Pot “whose hands are soiled with blood….each of us has our own lessons to learn from ourselves. Ours is Pol Pot.”

But there was a reason Mok earned the nickname “the Butcher.” ‘I never killed Khmers,” he said. “ Vietnamese yes.” When I asked about the purges of other of his senior KR cadre comrades he was known to have been dispatched to murder, Mok said: “ Sao Phim. He was Vietnamese,” he said bluntly referring to the former number four in the Standing Committee of the CPK who headed the eastern zone military on the Vietnamese border. The tens of thousands of ethnic Khmer soldiers who Mok commanded the killing of who were subordinates of Sao Phim Mok did not view as Khmer. “They were Vietnamese,” he said dismissively/ There is a saying in Cambodian “Kluen Khmer, Kbal Yuon.” It means “To have a Khmer Body but the mind of a Vietnamese.” Mok was deeply implicated in the purges of thousands of civilians and cadre during the KR rule. Including his own deputy who he sent to his death at Tuol Sleng. “he was Vietnamese,” Mok said. Three westerners who ventured to close to his control zone in the months before my visits, were captured and executed—two European humanitarian workers sightseeing near ancient temples and a British former military officer who was volunteering training Cambodians how to unearth buried landmines.

* Son Sen was born in South Vietnam, studied in Phnom Penh and Paris, and returned to teach at the prestigious secondary school of Lycee Sisowath in Phnom Penh. Son Sen, during the KR period was directly in charge—as Army Commander and chief of national security—for the activities of the CPK secret police, including overseeing the Tuol Sleng Torture and extermination  center

*Khieu Samphan was born in the eastern province of Svay Rieng and educated in Paris, receiving a Doctorate of Economics. He returned to Cambodia to be elected to the national Assembly, was widely idolized for his reputation as incorruptible under Sihanouk, and served briefly as his minister of commerce, before fleeing to the jungle in 1967 after public threats by Sihanouk. While serving as the public face of the Khmer Rouge, he was never a member of the CPK most powerful body, the Standing Committee. He never revealed his affiliation with the CPK.

Ina February 1978 meeting in the jungles of Anlong Veng, I sat at a roundtable over fresh fish and warm soda in Ta Mok’s house dining for three hours with Ta Mok, Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, and several other Khmer Rouge cadres. I was allowed to film and record the entire event. Mok had by then captured Pol Pot and controlled the army and therefore the power. Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan hated Mok with a passion, considering him a competent military commander but wholly ignorant of political theory and a loud and course peasant soldier.

Ta Mok began to recite the names and ranks of the Party leaders who had been executed. “ That is right, a (“a” is a pejorative Khmer term for ‘”the contemptible’) Nhim was what number> A-Chong was what number?”, referring to their ranks in the Standing Committee of the CPK. “ A-Phong was what number? Why do I want to count them all? Because I want to relate clearly that all of them were what?” he was naming top leaders arrested, tortured, and executed at Tuol Sleng. “ from number One Pol Pot to all of those I mentioned, some of them were Yuon ( a derogatory term for Vietnamese) was Pol Pot Yuon or not? I don’t know, it is not clear. But So Phim is clear. He was Yuon. From the east., he was Yuon through and through, a pure Yuon. Chong was Yuon. He was a person of the Yuon.”

Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea were seething sitting next to me and Ta Mok. Their loyalties were still with Pol Pot and they despised Ta Mok. They looked like they were about to explode. Revealing Party secrets is an offensive that had always meant certain death, and to do so in front of an American was unfathomable to them. I knew they had already concluded I was a CIA agent, but considered me a useful back channel.

Cor Bun Heng, a young intellectual, asked “ Chong was from where?

Ta Mok replied: “Koh Kong. Or CIA. It is the same.”

Mok then laughed and pointed his finger at me. “ CIA, have you heard of them?”laughing louder and more. I had been told earlier by Khmer Rouge confidantes that Mok was convinced I was Cia. I said nothing. “ So within the leadership, there were Yuon and CIA. And there were Americans. Have you heard of them?”  he asked me again, perhaps trying to be both funny and menacing.

Mok laughed again. “ A-Thuch, what was his original name?” laughing and cackling, clearly enjoying making the whole table very uncomfortable for very different reasons.

Khiue Samphan, who was decidedly not laughing and decidedly annoyed, answered; ‘Koy Thuon.’

“Koy Thuon was an American,” Mok declared.” This is what I want to explain to you, “he said to me.. “it was like this. It was a mess. And it is this that causes the talk of two million or three million killed.” Because internally things weren’t good, they carried on killings. The Yuon group wanted to kill the American group. The American group wanted to kill the Yuon group and kill the Khmers. Internally, there were these three, three parties: The American party, the Yuon party, and the Khmer party. I want to tell you this just honestly, straightforwardly.”

It was the first time Nuon Chea had ever granted an interview in the 50 years since he joined the revolution. And he wasn’t happy. Mok presided and was periodically sarcastic, animated, and demeaning towards his senior colleagues, whose expressions seethed at Mok’s flippant and derogatory remarks.  Mok put down Khieu Samphan, who was seated next to him, saying: “Pol Pot, it is like the Americans say about Khieu Samphan, that he is only a figurehead. Because where are the forces? Who is Cambodia? I am not saying this to boast. Ask the Army. Pol Pot had only himself. The forces were the Southwest,” he said referring to the zone he commanded.

I asked Nuon Chea about the alleged coup attempts against Pol Pot and Nuon Chea between 1975 and 1979. “ During the three years holding power, it was the Yuon and the henchmen of the Yuon, “ Nuon Chea replied through clenched teeth.

“What happened?” I asked. “ this is a historical matter of long past, long ago. There were assassination attempts, there were attempts to poison, from what I could gather,” Nuon Chea replied. “But most of it, some places, it is hard for me to recall. I don’t know what Ta would say,” he continued trying to avoid an answer. “ This I am telling you frankly,” Nuon says. “They accuse us.”

Ta Mok then speaks, offering specific and never before revealed details to the consternation of Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan. “okay, I’d like to tell you. This matter isn’t something that is clear and transparent, it is very difficult, because internally who was it who was in charge, who was responsible? It was Pol pot who was responsible. There wasn’t anyone else who was number one but Pol Pot. Pol Pot was number One.’ Then Mok turns to Nuon Chea, smirks, eyes twinkling in a mixture of menace and mockery.” Brother, you were number two, right?’

Nuon Chea glares, pauses, and answers curtly, “yes.”

“Yes, you were number two,” Mok repeats, “ Ieng Sary was number three. So Phim was number four. And Ta Mok was only number five. And A-Nhim was what number?” Mok goads Nuon Chea.

“don’t know what number, Ta,’ Nuon Chea says.

‘it is the number two individual who knows the most,: Mok laughs referring mockingly to Nuon Chea,” But I didn’t understand much. I just looked from the outside. I observed. I just want to express that opinion.”

END OF PART ONE FROM EXCERPTS OF “Sympathy for the devil” Unpublished book manuscript by Nate Thayer

 

More excerpts will be posted as the trial continues.

Were the Khmer Rouge communists? By Nate Thayer

Were the Khmer Rouge communists?

by Nate Thayer on Wednesday, November 23, 2011 at 1:43am

Although theoretically a communist party, the personal statements of all the Khmer Rouge top leaders who remained alive after 1996 (including the three on trial now), suggest the Khmer Rouge were more accurately characterized as ultra-nationalists and xenophobic racists (with many similarities to fascism) intent on creating their own version of organized power deeply rooted in current Khmer political culture and history based on no external models. Of the 18 members of the central committee of the communist party that took power in 1975, only four spoke a foreign language. Since neither Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Marx, or Engels were ever translated into Khmer, it is hard to argue that the unspeakable failure and suffering that occurred under the KR was a result of communist—or, for that matter, any outside--ideology. The KR movement was in essence very Khmer. It's demand for obsequies loyalty to a single entity; its refusal to allow for even internal debate or opposition political thought or organization; its fixation on being a victim of foreign designs or trickery; its racial hatred towards non-Khmer; its unspoken inferiority complex to that of its more properly organized neighbors; its use of harsh violence as a central tool of consolidating and maintaining power; and its belief that it had only to unleash its unique abilities superior to other nations to achieve a superior society than the world had previously known were all central psychological and concrete ingredients of the feudal monarchies and regimes which had preceded the KR for centuries. These were all tenets in the tradition of their predecessors but allowed the Khmer Rouge, with its Stalinist power structure, to metastasize like an inoperable cancer throughout the body politic. Within three years 18 of the 22 members of the central committee of the Party had been executed or named as targets for execution. The irony is that, the KR so weakened the Cambodian nation and provoked its neighbors, that it guaranteed the requirement of its delusional prophecy come true--a foreign invasion by Vietnam to save the very nation and race from self extermination.

The Khmer Rouge sought the elimination of any vestiges of recent Cambodian political, social, and economic society. They refused assistance, advice, and even diplomatic relations with most every other nation. They demanded absolute obsequiousness to their policies from the citizenry, attempted to create an agrarian utopia based on emptying of the population from urban areas, demanded anti-intellectualism as state policy and demonized all things foreign—particularly Vietnam--as irredeemable historical enemies intent on conquering Cambodia and eliminating it as a sovereign nation.

They families of the entire population were separated, their children taken to live separately in labor brigades in an attempt to destroy traditional loyalties to be replaced by supine and unmitigated allegiance to the party. There was a near total renunciation of foreign trade, and a radical sealing of the borders and all access of information to and from the outside. Their largest manufacturing plant recycled old rubber vehicle tires to make shoes.

Perhaps their primary focus was an impossible to exaggerate paranoia of enemies everywhere, both “internal” from within their own ranks and the external designs of all foreigners as enemies—with a particular focus on Vietnam—who, the Khmer Rouge leadership were convinced, were poised and aggressively intent on conquering and eliminating Cambodia as a nation and the Khmer as a race.

 

In the process of implementation of these policies they combined the failures of Cambodia’s political culture--of which they vowed to eliminate and instead mimicked and exacerbated--with delusional, absurd, ill-planned and technically impossible utopian fantasies of what they deemed the “Super Great Leap Forward” in an economic strategy implemented in 1977. A direct reference to being more capable than China itself (in its Great Leap Forward), it was designed to prove their superior talents and abilities demonstrating they were racially, culturally, and as a nation-state more advanced than any other economic model in world history,  not just rejecting any foreign model but unsupervised by any Cambodian trained cadre. They forced compliance to these policies with rule through the centrally directed harsh use of violence and forced implantation of delusional central agricultural, economic, and social policies. They relied on manual labour, and arrested and executed cadre who suggested that mechanized machines such as tractors would be a superior method than the forced labour of a starving population. When impossible production quotas weren’t met, the KR cadre in the area were deemed as foreign agents intentionally sabotaging the Cambodian nation. These combined to create a recipe destined for disaster. They allowed no internal debate for their policies contributing to the astonishing failures of central policy as a whole, utter collapse of any normal government functions, extraordinary suffering of the population, a petrified and robotic Party rank and file, and finally a war they provoked which ended in the loss of their country to Vietnamese occupation. These dominant features underlined their tenure in power.

These themes are all consistent with the Khmer Rouge absolute policy of what they called “self reliance-self mastery” and their belief that they were capable of alone creating an agrarian utopia that harked back to their glorious Angkorean past. Pol Pot’s “Super Great Leap Forward” was an example that Cambodia could make achievements superior to that of even China, and reflected both the fact they were far from subservient minions of Beijing and a psychological penchant for vengeance against all things foreign which, they believed, had stripped them of their cultural and racial dignity. The fact that Cambodia had been a failed state in the 600 years since the demise of the Angkor empire created an inferiority complex of which they were determined to prove a misconception or a reflection of the rapacious, corrupt, and incompetent rulers that preceded them. In the end, they proved themselves even more incompetent and inhumane than their political enemies. Those who resisted or questioned their impossible vision for a utopia unique in history were often killed with the sincere belief they were enemies of the very Cambodian race, people, and nation.

‘I AM IN DANGER’: Duch talks of the risks to his life, provides details of Khmer Rouge death machine By Nate Thayer

‘I AM IN DANGER’: Duch talks of the risks to his life, even as he provides further details of Khmer Rouge death machine 

By Nate Thayer in Battambang province

Far Eastern Economic Review

May 13, 1999

 

(Authors note: At the time of the publication of this interview, the UN special representative to Cambodia on Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, called for the Phnom Penh government to ensure Duch’s protection “from possible retaliation or attempts to reduce him to silence…because of his key role as a cadre at the heart of the political security machinery he is a crucial witness to some of the worst of human-rights violations which have occurred during this century. Because of the publication of his interview, his safety and life may seriously be in danger.” Hammarberg called for an “ad hoc international tribunal” to be set up outside Cambodia. “The Cambodian judiciary unfortunately is unfit to handle a trial of this complexity and magnitude,” he said, because it failed to meet certain conditions such as “a culture of respect for due process.” The charges proposed by a UN panel of experts cover crimes against humanity, genocide, war crimes, forced labour, torture, and crimes against internationally protected persons. I was asked by the court for raw copies of my taped interviews of Duch, Pol Pot, Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea, Ta Mok, and Ieng Sary. I was also asked to be a witness and testify at the trial. I rejected both requests. Not because I oppose a trial for those indicted (and many others)--quite the opposite--but because I oppose being party to a politically motivated/manipulated/influenced show trial. Not to mention it is in violation of international standards of justice which forbid hearsay. And international law where if a person is alive and available to testify themselves, it is forbidden for a third party to quote that person when he is available to testify on his own behalf. A third reason, is I am a journalist, and portions of the interviews were given on various degrees of "on/off the record" and "background" basis. No court has the right to compel a journalist to reveal their sources. It undermines the whole basis of the role of a free press in a free society. But mostly, in this case, it is clear that there is little difference between this trial and a Stalinist era communist show trial where accused are cherry picked for political reasons, not based on an evidentiary process where investigators gather evidence, decide where they constitute sufficient, court admissible information to base an  indictment, and then press charges. These defendants were pre determined for political reasons and many others were excluded, also for political reasons, despite overwhelming evidence of culpability sufficient for indictment. For Cambodians, it reinforces the reality of impunity from justice for those with political influence. This trial is being given the rubber stamp of approval by the UN and international community, sending a message to your average Cambodian peasant that there exists no where to turn where an independent judiciary will seek justice on their behalf. In thousand sof Cambodian villages, people remain alive and in political power who have committed crimes against international law and their victims have no recourse.)

 

Kang Kek Ieu’s name is usually spelled “Kiang” by scholars, but in his interviews with the REVIEW, he said he writes it as Kang. He is an odd looking man, his large head seemingly out of proportion to his short, thin body. His huge ears frame a wide grin, which exposes his missing teeth and the rotting remaining ones. Both eyes are unfocused, clouded grey-blue with what appears to be glaucoma. His left hand is missing its index finger and is curved like a claw, the result, he says, of an accident while cleaning a weapon in 1983.

He seemed calm about being exposed as a mass—murderer, even laughing briefly at the irony of being asked by the REVIEW to write his own “confession.” Presented with a rough biography to verify, as well as copies of orders he and other leaders issued to torture and kill prisoners, he spoke for days and wrote long descriptions of the workings and structure of the Khmer Rouge killing machine. In the process, he sometimes wept and expressed deep remorse.

He was intent on concealing his whereabouts. “I don’t want any man to know our relationship,” he told the REVIEW, “They will make me unsafe. I have no secrets from the Far Eastern economic Review, but I fear the people around me. I don’t know who is the man of Nuon Chea, of Ta Mok, of Khieu Samphan. I am in danger. My life is at risk. My sister will worry if I speak in Khmer. She will say, ‘My brother will die!’ They can kill me. They will say I am the man of the CIA who sold out to the USA.”

Duch said he had been visited by the local police chief after being seen talking to the review in this remote hamlet. “I see you are talking to the bad people,” Duch quoted the police chief as telling him, “You should be careful.”

There are many people who don’t want the truth to be known, leading the United Nations to fear for his safety. In a statement, the UN special representative to Cambodia on human rights, Thomas Hammarberg, called for the Phnom Penh government to promptly take steps to ensure Duch’s protection “from possible retaliation or attempts to reduce him to silence…because of his key role as a cadre at the heart of the political security machinery he is a crucial witness to some of the worst of human-rights violations which have occurred during this century. Because of the publication of his interview, his safety and life may seriously be in danger."

Hammarberg called for an “ad hoc international tribunal” to be set up outside Cambodia. “The Cambodian judiciary unfortunately is unfit to handle a trial of this complexity and magnitude,” he said, because it failed to meet certain conditions such as “a culture of respect for due process.” The charges proposed by a UN panel of experts cover crimes against humanity, genocide, war crimes, forced labour, torture, and crimes against internationally protected persons.

If Duch goes before an international tribunal, his evidence would potentially be damning. Among his statements to the REVIEW:

--“Foreigners don’t know who ordered the killings. I want to explain clearly to you: It was a decision of the central committee of the Communist Party. I followed the orders of my superiors, Nuon Chea and Son Sen, but I have great difficulty now, thinking that the people who died did nothing wrong.”

--“My superior first was Vorn Vet during the war time, then after liberation (in 1975) I reported directly to Son Sen. In July 1978, I was transferred to Nuon Chea when Son Sen went to command the fighting in the east with the Vietnamese.”

--Duch later killed Vorn Vet at Tuol Sleng (see “Death in Detail”) after he was purged. “Ta Mok personally arrested Vorn Vet at his house. (Standing Committee member) Ke Pok was there and hid under the bed, trembling with fear. Nuon Chea's wife told me this.” Ke Pok, who as a Khmer Rouge commander was implicated in the purges of the late 1970’s, is now a one-star general in the Cambodian army.

--“The decision to arrest all the women and children, the families of suspects, was made by the provincial committee, the regional leaders, or the central committee of the party. Everyone connected must be killed.”

--Duch said that photos were taken of all the prisoners sent to Tuol Sleng “to prove to the party that they were arrested. For some people, Nuon Chea wanted me to give him pictures of their dead bodies for proof. He ordered me to bring pictures of their dead bodies to his office.”

The arrest of Hu Nim, the former Khmer Rouge Minister of Information, was decided by the entire Central Committee, Duch said. But it was Nuon Chea and Son Sen who actually ordered the arrests and executions of purged cadres. “For arresting people, it was the everyday job of Nuon Chea and Son Sen.” Nuon Chea was in charge of the killing machine and “the second man for the killing was Son Sen.” (Son Sen is now dead; Nuon Chea is living freely in western Cambodia)

--Neither Vorn Vet nor Ieng Sary (the former Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister, now also living in Pailin) was present at the 1978 meeting at which the leaders decided to purge the Khmer Rouge eastern zone, Duch recalled. “Son Sen and Nuon Chea ordered the arrest and killing of many of the party leaders,” he said. Then, looking puzzled, he added: “I don’t know why.”

He described the process of distributing the confessions he extracted from his victims under torture: “I made four copies of every confession. I would give the original to Son Sen and keep one copy at Tuol Sleng. Son Sen would give a copy to Nuon Chea and Nuon Chea would give to others depending on the case. After July, 1978, I gave copies to Nuon Chea directly.”

I had a special telephone in my house direct to Son Sen that could not be tapped. Nuon Chea talked less on the phone, but preferred to write instructions and I would visit him at his office. Son Sen loved to talk on the phone, sometimes for more than an hour.”

The Khmer Rouge leaders are aware that the archives seized at Tuol Sleng are potentially incriminating, Duch indicated.” On 25 June 1986, Son Sen asked me, ‘What about the papers at S-21? (a name for the national-security apparatus)’ I told him the truth, that Nuon Chea didn’t tell me the Vietnamese were coming.” (Duch had already said that because of this lack of warning, he didn’t have time to destroy the papers) “Son Sen got very angry with Nuon Chea.”

Poring over some of the Tuol Sleng documents, which ordered the torture and killing of thousands of people, Duch said: “This is the handwriting off Nuon Chea. You see this handwriting is square; mine is oval, like Son Sen’s.”

Having spoken of the fates of eight westerners killed at Tuol Sleng, Duch also recalled the death of another foreigner, a French truck driver who had been working in Indochina before the Khmer Rouge took power. The man’s death was ordered by Ta Mok, Duch said. “I killed him in 1971. Ta Mok ordered me to kill him.” He said the Frenchman, whose name is being withheld by the REVIEW pending the notification of his family, ‘was very courageous. He explained to me about Catholicism.”

Though Duch seemed to realize that these revelations would change his life, he didn’t know quite how. “I guess I cannot work to build schools in my district now, “he said. He then asked whether he might get a job as a human rights worker.

DEATH IN DETAIL: ‘Duch’ implicates living Khmer Rouge leaders in killings. Says Nuon Chea ran Pol Pot’s Death machine By Nate Thayer

DEATH IN DETAIL: ‘Duch’ implicates living Khmer Rouge leaders in killings. Nuon Chea ran Pol Pot’s Death machine, Duch says.

By Nate Thayer in Battambang province

Far Eastern Economic Review

May 13, 1999

(Authors note: This article was written one week after the REVIEW published a several story package by myself and photographer Nic Dunlop. Dunlop had first located Duch, who was living under an alias doing social work and recognized his face, in a truly extraordinary focus by Dunlop on what was then one of the most notorious and in hiding mass murderers in the world, weeks earlier. While Dunlop took his photograph, he did not, with good reason, broach the subject with Duch of  who he really was. The area was dangerous and Nic wanted to be sure it was indeed Duch, and be prepared for a negative reaction. He returned to Bangkok, contacted me, and we returned to a remote village in western Cambodia and confronted Duch with who he was. It was not a relaxing encounter. If Duch had chosen to, he could have disposed of us and no one would ever prove the details. This was hours from any communication with the outside and the heart of territory still controlled by nominally defected ex-KR. I knew the government had long been aware of Duch's location. And I had closely kept track of rumours of him for years which had him dead, working as a school teacher, a converted born-again Christian, and using a similar name to the alias he had introduced himself to Dunlop with. I had informed the REVIEW office that if I was not in contact in 48 hours, there was probably a serious problem. After a very brief denial when I asked if he "had ever worked for the security services between 1975 and 1979" (he contended he was a school teacher then), Duch took a second look at my business card, paused, and silently stared directly in my eyes for perhaps 30 seconds. He then said: "You are from the Far Eastern Economic Review. You are the one who interviewed Pol Pot and Ta Mok." Those seconds hung in the air far longer than was comfortable. "Yes," I said, " And we know who you are." Duch stared silently again for what seemed like forever, his mind obviously racing with the implications of the encounter, reached over, put his hand on my leg, and said "It is God's will you are here. My future is now in God's hands." And he never  lied again. We brought copies of his own torture and execution documents from Tuol Sleng, many with his handwriting and those of Nuon Chea and others. He meticulously acknowledged and identified each one. I gave him a rough biography I had written of him and asked him to correct or add details. He did so with great focus adding many dates and events. I had contacted several Catholic and Protestant Priests and said I was going to meet with someone who had " perhaps killed many people" and asked which passages of the bible might such a person most relate to. ( The answer was Paul: "chief of the Sinners" who was himself a murderer and converted, confessed his sins, sought redemption, was forgiven, and was granted salvation. It was a passage that Duch knew by memory)  After several days of interviewing him, the story was published in the REVIEW. We warned and made clear to Duch that his life would be in danger at 5:00 pm on that wednesday night, when the Review would send its normal press release of the next issues top storiies. We knew it would be picked up everywhere and broadcast in the VOA Khmer language service at 8:00pm that night. Arrangements were made for a secret arrest warrant to be issued in Belgium, so there would be legal authority to have him smuggled across the Thai border to safety, as many powerful people would have reason to silence him. Amnesty International and the UN Centre for Human Rights were pre alerted to the public release of the fact that Duch had been located. They were prepared to release public statements simultaneously with the story publication calling for the Cambodian government to ensure his safety as his life was in danger and he was a key defendent and witness for any trial on Khmer Rouge crimes against humanity. Duch was given mobile phone contacts for me in Battambang city, about two hours away, and told arrangements were in place for a safe house for him or to be smuggled out of the country if he felt his life was in danger. He chose to initially stay in his village. Within hours of the story being released, the very angry village police chief came to his house and said he was ordered to "come to a meeting.' A well known euphamism to Duch, he fled on foot and contacted me in Battambang. I checked him in under a pseudonym in the room next to mine at an obscure hotel. There, tape recorders were turned on and for a week he spoke in great detail of the entire machinery of the Khmer Rouge movement and specifics of many instances of war crimes and crimes against humanity and who ordered carried out and was involved. During this time, international pressure was significant; Governments called for his arrest, many called for his safety to be ensured by Cambodia authorities. The story was published but Duch had seemingly vanished again. After initial refusal, Hun Sen formally agreed to launch a government search for his whereabouts, and journalists descended on Battambang. As a journalist it wasn't my job to arrest him. It was also my responsibility to ensure he understood the consequences of his public statements and to ensure he wasn't murdered for speaking out to the REVIEW, as he had as much a right to due process of law as that he denied to thousands. I was beseiged by Cambodian government, military, diplomats and journalists demanding to know the whereabouts of Duch, who by this time had been known to have dissapeared from his village. One pro--government paper's front page banner headline was "Is Nate Thayer Hiding Duch?" above photogrpahs of us both. After a week, Duch decided he would seek, like Nuon Chea, Khiue Samphan, Ieng Sary and thousands of other former KR, the protection of  a senior Khmer Rouge military officer who had 'defected' to the government and was now a general in the Hun Sen army. We both left the hotel at the same time, he to the compound of the General and a rather nervous me--with 40 hours of the only copy of tape recordings detailing the Khmer Rouge killing apparatus--by land through a myriad of government military checkpoints over the border into Thailand. Duch was immediately betrayed by his contact and was whisked by helicopter to Phnom Penh where he has been in prison ever since. This story is one of those published after the two weeks spent with Duch.)

This time, it was Duch’s turn to write his confessions. In the weeks since the REVIEW broke the news that the notorious Khmer Rouge security boss was still alive, Kaing Kek Ieu has been in hiding, answering verbally and in writing the magazine’s questions about his role in the movement’s 1975-79 reign of terror.

The revelations about his job as chief executioner were chilling enough. But even more importantly, he recounted in detail how senior Khmer Rouge officials ordered the mass murder of prisoners processed through Tuol Sleng detention centre, which Duch—as he was then known—directed. Notably, he implicated Pol Pot’s number 2, Nuon Chea, who is living freely in Pailin, western Cambodia.

Duch’s testimony, which began with last week’s article, is fueling calls for the arrest and international trial of surviving Khmer Rouge leaders. It has also made Duch the most wanted man in Cambodia, with the United Nation’s warning that his life is in danger from those who want him silenced.

Phnom Penh fears that moving against the Khmer Rouge leaders, who have officially defected to the government but still effectively control the ex-Khmer Rouge guerrillas surrounding Pailin, could plunge the country back into civil war. Only one Khmer Rouge leader—former military chief-of-staff Ta Mok—is in custody.

Duch, now a born-again Christian, said he was ready to testify against his former comrades and answer for his own crimes in front of an international tribunal. “It is Ok. They can have my body, Jesus has my soul. It is important that this history be understood. I want to tell you everything clearly.” And he did.

“I was a technician for the Communist party,” he declared, then went on to describe the inner workings of S-21, the Khmer Rouge security apparatus that he directed from Tuol Sleng, a converted Phnom Penh school where at least 16,000 people—many of them purged Khmer Rouge cadres and their families—were taken for interrogation. Only seven survived.

Duch said the policy of killing all prisoners was ‘an oral instruction of the party since 1971, when we were trying to rid our ranks of the enemy.” The definition of enemy expanded in 1973, when Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot decided that all cadres should come from the peasantry and the educated should be eliminated. “At that time many things changed and many people were killed,” Duch said.

Once the Khmer Rouge seized power, the internal purges widened. “After liberation in 1975, Pol Pot said: ‘We must protect the party and country by finding the enemies from within the Party. We are not strong enough to attack the enemies from outside, so we must destroy them from within.’ First we arrested the people in the north, then the southwest, then the northwest, then the east. He used Nuon Chea to do the work. Pol Pot never directly ordered the killings. Nuon Chea was always cruel and pompous. He never explained to the cadre, he only ordered them.”

Nuon Chea was in direct command of the Communist party’s killing machine, Duch said. “Vorn Vet and Chay Kim Hour were ordered killed by Nuon Chea,” he said referring to two top leaders. Duch said he personally carried out the orders. “I even had to exhume the body of Vorn Vet from the earth to take a picture of him dead because Nuon Chea wanted proof that he was killed.”

Duch said he also killed eight westerners at Tuol Sleng on Nuon Chea’s orders. “Nuon Chea ordered me to burn their bodies with tires to leave no bones.” The victims were from America, Australia, Britain, France and New Zealand, theoretically making their killers indictable in their country of origin. He said the foreigners were held for a month and tortured using electric shocks by chief interrogator Mam Nay, now a police officer in western Cambodia.

Duch’s testimony could also bolster the case against Ta Mok, the one-legged general who was captured in March, but as of early may, the authorities in Phnom Penh had made no effort to summon Duch to give evidence. “Ta Mok had his own prison,” Duch said—a revelation previously unknown to investigators. “It was located at Cherie O’Phnoe in Kampot province. Many were killed there.”

Duch said his technique for killing prisoners was superior to Mok’s. “I knew from experience that if they were only tortured they wouldn’t say anything. So torture had to be accompanied by psychological tactics; so I told them they would be released if they talked. This was a lie, but it worked. Ta Mok didn’t care about the mental state of his victims. He just tortured them and killed them.”

Duch’s execution methods were similarly efficient.” We had no instruction from the party on how to kill them, but we did not use bullets. Usually we slit their throats,” he said, drawing his finger across his aorta to demonstrate. “We killed them like a chicken.”

Asked about the thousands of women and children he killed, Duch turned away as tears welled in his eyes. “It was a fact that everyone in the Communist party knew that everyone arrested must be killed. Ask anybody in the party.”

Now that his past has been revealed, Duch clearly fears for his life. He sometimes spoke only in whispers, referring to Khmer Rouge leaders by their initials so that listeners would not recognize their names. At other times, he asked to be driven to remote areas to speak in a vehicle where he couldn’t be overheard. Over two weeks, the REVIEW conducted over forty hours of interviews that shed unprecedented light onto the workings of the Khmer Rouge.

“The decisions to kill were not made by one man, not just Pol Pot, but the entire central committee,” Duch stressed.

“Nuon Chea, he was the principal man for the killings. Pol Pot was interested in military strategy. Khieu Samphan did not have the right to decide who to arrest and order killed. He was a notetaker.”

“Pol Pot knew about S-21, but did not direct it personally. He left that job personally to Nuon Chea as No. 2 in the party and Son Sen as head of the army and police.” Then, shaking his head, he added: “They arrested nearly everyone by the end.”

The decision to purge thousands of cadre in the eastern zone in 1978 was taken at a secret meeting of top leaders, Duch said. “Pol Pot ordered it. At the meeting were Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Pol Pot, and Son Sen.”

Duch said the purge reached its worst in the last weeks of 1978. “My prison was full. Nuon Chea ordered 300 (Khmer Rouge) soldiers arrested. He called to meet me and said, ‘Don’t bother to interrogate them—just kill them.’ And I did.”

The purge didn’t save the movement. Angered by repeated cross-border attacks by the Khmer Rouge, Vietnam invaded Cambodia in December 1978 and captured Phnom Penh within two weeks. “It is true that the last days before the Vietnamese came I personally killed the remaining prisoners” at Tuol Sleng, Duch said. “I was called by Nuon Chea to his office and he ordered me to kill all the remaining prisoners.”

“I asked Nuon Chea to allow me to keep one Vietnamese prisoner alive to use for propaganda on the radio and he replied, ‘Kill them all. We can always get more and more.’”

“I was like a waterboy for Nuon Chea. He didn’t tell me that the Vietnamese were invading so I had no time to burn the documents. When I met Nuon Chea in 1983, he told me, ‘All the papers from the Party were burned except for yours. You are stupid.’”

Thousands of forced confessions bearing notations that Duch identified as his own, or those of Nuon Chea and others, were left behind at Tuol Sleng. The documents, including orders to torture and kill prisoners, would serve as key evidence in any trial of Khmer Rouge leaders.

“I think a trial is a very good idea. It is a good thing to arrest Ta Mok and Nuon Chea. And if Pol Pot and Son Sen were still alive, they should be tried as well. Ieng Sary and Khieu Samphan did not have the right to decide the killings by themselves,” Duch said.

Pol Pot committed suicide in 1998, a year after ordering the murder of Son Sen. Khieu Samphan lives in Pailin with Nuon Chea and Ieng Sary, the former Khmer Rouge foreign minister.

Duch, who worked for several years for foreign aid organizations under various aliases, is uncertain about the future. “I guess that I will have to go to jail now, but it is OK. The killings must be understood. The truth should be known.”

Additional excerpts from Thayer’s interviews with Duch will be posted on May 7 on the REVIEW’s Web site. www.feer.com

 

End of Story?: Last Khmer Rouge defections don't bring closure - yet By Nate Thayer in Bangkok

End of Story?: Last Khmer Rouge defections don't bring closure -  yet

By Nate Thayer in Bangkok

Far Eastern Economic Review

December 17, 1998

After 28 years and more than 2 million dead, the war in Cambodia ended on December 4. That was the day the last remnants of the Khmer Rouge agreed to lay down their guns and accept the authority of the government in Phnom Penh.

   Conspicuously absent from the deal, however, were the names of the
three most senior Khmer Rouge leaders: military supremo Ta Mok, political
leader Khieu Samphan, and former party No. 2 Nuon Chea. International investigators want to see all three indicted for crimes against humanity for their role in the Khmer Rouge's brutal 1975-79 rule over Cambodia.

  The REVIEW has learned that Thai authorities are detaining all three at the request of the United States. Thai and Khmer Rouge sources say U.S. officials have requested that Thailand hold the trio until an international tribunal is created to try the architects of Cambodia's "killing fields."

     Senior Khmer Rouge and government military commanders negotiated the Khmer Rouge defection in a series of secret meetings at the temple ruins of Preah Vihear, in the remote northern jungles near the Thai border, Khmer Rouge Gen. Khem Nuon told the REVIEW on December 4. Phnom Penh confirmed the agreement the next day.

     The guerilla military commanders, who defected with as many as 5,000 soldiers and up to 30,000 civilians from the Thai-Cambodian border, will be integrated into the government and armed forces, according to Nuon and Cambodian government officials. In exchange, the guerillas have vowed to lay down their arms, don the government uniforms, and recognize the new government and constitution. They will in effect be given an
autonomous zone where the central government wields little influence.

     The decision follows two years of steady defections from the Khmer Rouge, who have been weakened by bloody infighting, a halt to foreign assistance, low morale and the evaporation of popular support. Though Khmer Rouge leaders say they still oppose Hun Sen's government, they have recognized the futility of further armed struggle. "We all agree to join the government. We are tired of war. We will fight politically for the peasants
from now on," says Khem Nuon.

     Ta Mok, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea - the top three Khmer Rouge leaders following the April death of Pol Pot - were not among the defectors. According to Nuon, they are "retired and play no role."

A source close to the guerilla leaders says Thai authorities are holding the three, separately, in Sisaket province near the Cambodian border. "They are in a bad position," the source says. Thai and Khmer Rouge officials add that U.S. officials, who want to see the three tried for crimes against humanity, asked that they be detained. (U.S. officials refused to comment, and the Thai government denied that the Khmer Rouge leaders were on Thai soil.)

     There's no guarantee that they will be brought to trial, however. Both guerilla and government sources say they expect that Khieu Samphan,  a former Khmer Rouge diplomat who has at times been the public face of the movement, is likely to be granted amnesty by the Cambodian government in coming months.

     Even more significantly, an appropriate international tribunal has yet to be created, and doing so may be difficult. Prime Minister Hun Sen has said that such a tribunal should be held in Cambodian territory and controlled by Cambodian authorities. The major democracies, which want to maintain a policy of engagement with Hun Sen, may be reluctant to confront him on the issue. "The U.S. wants to influence and guide the leader, not alienate him," says a U.S. diplomat.

     However, the United Nations sent foreign experts to Cambodia in November to assess the prospect for creating an effective tribunal -  and they are not likely to be so diplomatic. They say Hun Sen's proposal would be unacceptable, as any tribunal would have to be controlled by an independent judicial process, like the war-crimes tribunal in The Hague for the former Yugoslavia. "We will not be party to a judicial farce," says a foreign expert close to the UN team.

     Hun Sen's reluctance to see the creation of an independent tribunal is understandable. He is a former Khmer Rouge commander, and his government is filled with former Khmer Rouge; some defected when he did, in 1977, and others defected in recent years. They include the ministers of defence, interior, justice, finance and foreign affairs, as well as hundreds of officers in the military, security service and civilian administration.

     Among the most notorious is Keo Pok, a former senior Khmer Rouge cadre who became a government official after defecting in March. In charge of purges in the 1970s that killed at least tens of thousands, his role is detailed in documents captured from Tuol Sleng, where the Khmer Rouge tortured and executed more than 16,000 people.

    Mam Nay, another defector, served as chief interrogator at Tuol Sleng and is implicated in the murder of thousands. His signature is on scores of documents detailing the torture and killing of political opponents. He currently grows corn in western Cambodia.

     The demise of the Khmer Rouge began in earnest in July 1996, when thousands rebelled against Pol Pot and other leaders who wanted to return to open warfare against the government formed after the UN-sponsored 1993 elections. The government backed the rebellion, led by Ieng Sary and senior field commanders. Pol Pot and other leaders holed up in the northern jungles deemed the Khmer Rouge rebels traitors and "worse
than excrement." "We want to make one thing clear. We will never
surrender," one senior cadre, Mak Ben, told the REVIEW at the time. "As long as there is grass, we can eat the grass." He defected to the government in July 1997.

     In June 1997, Pol Pot's paranoia about traitors from within peaked. He ordered the assassination of his long-time comrade and defence minister, Son Sen, brutally murdering 16 of his family members in the process. Also targeted was Ta Mok, the one-legged military commander known as "the butcher," who escaped, mustered his troops and overthrew Pol Pot.

     But under Ta Mok's leadership, little improved. By March 1998 he was losing many of his troops to mass defections. An offensive by former loyalists then forced Pol Pot, Ta Mok and thousands of troops and civilians to retreat to the jungles near the Thai border.

     On April 15, Pol Pot died - of a "broken heart," his wife told the REVIEW -  and a livid Ta Mok continued to demand all-out warfare against defectors. "They are traitors who will all die," he said. Ta Mok's interpreter that day was Tep Kunnal, a senior political official and former UN diplomat. During the interview, he turned and whispered grimly: "This movement is finished."

     Later, as he plotted his own escape, Tep Kunnal sent a letter that revealed the bizarre idealism of a movement responsible for one of history's worst mass murders. "How great our sorrow is when we lose someone that we nourish and love dearly," Kunnal wrote. "But here it is not only the loss of someone's life, but the life of a movement that involves hundreds of thousands of human lives that have perished. You can imagine our grief." [End]

The Resurrected: The Khmer Rouge Haven't Disappeared-They're in Power By Nate Thayer

The Resurrected: The Khmer Rouge Haven't Disappeared-They're in Power

By Nate Thayer

Far Eastern Economic Review

Bangkok, April 16, 1998

It was a crime that earned Cambodia's ousted prime minister a 30-year prison sentence. "Norodom Ranariddh negotiated with the Khmer Rouge," the Phnom Penh military court judge intoned on March 18, at the end of a trial orchestrated by his rival co-premier, Hun Sen. But on the day Prince Ranariddh was convicted, Hun Sen's men were holding secret talks with the same Khmer Rouge rebels--cutting a deal remarkably similar to the one for which Ranariddh was being condemned. As a result of the negotiations, hundreds of Khmer Rouge guerrillas emerged from the northern Cambodian jungle the following week, armed with amnesty from prosecution, money and ranking positions in Hun Sen's government. Similar scenes have been repeated all over the country since 1996, when the Khmer Rouge--the ruthless organizers of the 1975-78 reign of  terror that left more than 1 million Cambodians dead--began fragmenting through infighting and defections. Instead of being brought to justice before an international tribunal, some of the movement's top commanders have gained senior positions in the government and security forces, while the Khmer Rouge rank and file have been quietly reintegrated into Cambodian society by the thousands. They are the beneficiaries of the bitter rivalry between Hun Sen and Ranariddh, whose political factions are vying for the allegiance of the guerrillas to strengthen their troop numbers. It's a raw power play that makes Hun Sen's condemnation of Ranariddh's negotiations ring hollow: Hun Sen justified his July 1997 coup by charging that Ranariddh was conspiring with the Khmer Rouge to overthrow the government.

Hun Sen's embrace of longtime Khmer Rouge cadres also undermines the premise of the international community's tacit backing for the Cambodian strongman, which is rooted in the pragmatic belief that his regime is a bulwark against the return of the murderous faction. Preventing the guerrillas from returning to power has been a goal of major Western countries ever since the Khmer Rouge government was overthrown in 1979 by the Vietnamese, who installed a puppet regime of Khmer Rouge defectors in Phnom Penh. After the Vietnamese army pulled out in 1989, this regime remained under Prime Minister Hun Sen. He and his Cambodian People's Party strong-armed their way into an uneasy coalition with Ranariddh's Funcinpec party after contesting elections sponsored by the United Nations in 1993. The factor that has persuaded foreign governments to back Hun Sen and the CPP is the party's control over Cambodia's administrative apparatus, which gave it credibility as the only force capable of blocking a Khmer Rouge comeback. Far from suppressing the Khmer Rouge, however, Hun Sen has courted the rebels as fervently as he accused Ranariddh of doing. He has appointed their leaders to his government despite overwhelming evidence that many of them were involved in torture and murder in the Khmer Rouge's killing fields. In late March, for instance, Hun Sen greeted several thousand Khmer Rouge troops in the latest mass defection. Declaring that he "warmly, movingly and joyfully" welcomed these "compatriot officers," he promised that they would be "inducted into the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, the national police, the military police and the civilian administration."The leader of the breakaway faction, Keo Pok, told journalists: "We all oppose and separate from the control and leadership of the murderous hard-liners . . . and would like to return to live with the Royal government." Pok's own murderous past as a long-time member of the Khmer Rouge's Central Committee was forgotten. Indeed, the Cambodian government continued its public condemnation of the rebels without missing a beat. Less than a week later, the government appealed to the Friends of Cambodia--an informal group of countries including the United States, Japan, France and Australia--to bring "the Khmer Rouge to trial for crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity." The U.S. has given more than $1 million to finance the gathering of evidence for an international tribunal to try the Khmer Rouge for such crimes. But in reality, Washington and other "friends of Cambodia" have turned a blind eye to the fact that thousands of Khmer Rouge cadres--many of them suspected mass-murderers--have been brought back into the corridors of power. On April 6, a State Department spokesman told the REVIEW: "The United States has supported the reintegration into Cambodian society of Khmer Rouge defectors . . . Many former members of the Khmer Rouge, including some in Cambodia's current leadership, have renounced that organization's murderous policies." Former Khmer Rouge cadres now in the government include Hun Sen himself, the defence minister, the interior minister, the finance minister, the head of the national assembly, and thousands of others in the provincial and local administrations. Some had been targets of  the Khmer Rouge's 1978 purges and fled to neighbouring Vietnam. After Vietnam invaded Cambodia in December 1978, they returned to Phnom Penh to be installed as the new government. But many have joined the government only in the past two years. The Khmer Rouge began disintegrating in earnest in August 1996, when almost half its forces in western Cambodia made a deal with the government. The rebels were enticed by promises that they would be allowed to keep their territory, exploit its rich timber and mineral resources, and hold senior posts in the government and armed forces. These areas are now autonomous zones controlled by the same Khmer Rouge figures who administered them before defecting. They and other Khmer Rouge commanders now hold government office despite abundant evidence that they were guilty of committing atrocities during the movement's three years in power.

Some examples:

-  Keo Pok, the 68-year-old senior cadre who led the mass defection in late March, played a leading role in some of the Khmer Rouge's worst killing sprees. His role is detailed in captured Khmer Rouge documents being compiled by Yale University. According to documents taken from Khmer Rouge torture and execution centres, Pok was involved in the execution of people associated with the Lon Nol government, which was toppled by the Khmer Rouge in1975. In the same year, he led the massacre of thousands of Cham Muslims in eastern Cambodia, the documents show. As head of the northern zone in 1977, he supervised the rounding up of "internal enemies, "including at least 112 civilians who were later killed, according to documents from the Tuol Sleng torture centre, known as S-21, that are cited by Cambodia historian Ben Kiernan and other scholars. "Pok's fingerprints are all over the S-21 archives," says Cambodia scholar Stephen Heder at London University's School of Oriental and African Studies. "The evidence is indisputable." Later in 1977, he took charge of the central zone, ordering the local leaders tortured and killed. Pok's worst atrocities came in 1978, when he led massacres in the eastern zone along the Vietnamese border in which tens of thousands of people were killed and hundreds of  thousands forcibly relocated, according to documents left at Tuol Sleng by the Khmer Rouge after they fled the 1979 Vietnamese invasion. "The guy who was in charge of the killing was Pok," says Heder, who has analyzed the documents.

nIeng Sary, the Khmer Rouge's former foreign minister, now controls an autonomous zone in western Cambodia. He broke from Pol Pot in August 1996, and the following year held a press conference in Phnom Penh to publicly pledge loyalty to Hun Sen. Shortly afterwards, he was given the rights to sell 178,000 cubic metres of logs from the timber-rich zone, worth an estimated $75 million. His lucrative deals were signed by Hun Sen on January 7 and 11 this year, according to copies of the official contracts obtained by the REVIEW.

n-- Mam Nay, another notorious Khmer Rouge figure, lives near Ieng Sary and now grows corn for a living, according to Cambodian military sources and human-rights investigators. Mam Nay was chief interrogator at the Tuol Sleng torture centre, where 16,000 people, including women and children, were put to death. His signature is on scores of documents detailing the torture of political opponents. He is implicated in "hands-on torture and execution and would almost certainly be convicted in any international tribunal," says Heder of  London University. Cambodian authorities know where he lives, but have made no attempt to detain him.

n-- Pech Chheang, a long-time ally of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, defected to the government in late March along with his Khmer Rouge troops. Gen. Chheang and his troops are now fighting remnants of the Khmer Rouge in northern Cambodia. Chheang was the Khmer Rouge government's ambassador to Beijing from 1975 to 1984. In 1994, Khmer Rouge radio named him as the movement's defence minister.

n-- Nuon Paet also was made a general in the Cambodian army after he defected from the Khmer Rouge in 1996. He is a convicted murderer. He was found guilty in a Cambodian court for killing three Western tourists who were kidnapped and held hostage for six weeks in 1994.

-  Sam Bith was Nuon Paet's commander at the time of the Westerners' murder. He switched allegiance last August, denouncing his former Khmer Rouge comrades at a Phnom Penh press conference. He is now a two-star general in the government army. Bith was the commander of Khmer Rouge troops who invaded Ha Tien in Vietnam in 1978, according to Heder and other scholars. Those troops slaughtered thousands of  Vietnamese women and children during the cross-border raids, which provoked Vietnam's subsequent invasion of  Cambodia.  Bith was one of nine younger leaders chosen by Pol Pot in 1985 to be groomed to take over the Khmer Rouge. Of those, six have joined Hun Sen since 1996 and now hold senior ranks in the Cambodian army. Since then, most of at least 15 Khmer Rouge army divisions have joined Hun Sen after offers of amnesty, money and government positions. The defections have left the guerrilla movement with a demoralized rump of a few thousand still fighting the government in the jungles in the north. The bulk of the Khmer Rouge are now members of Cambodia's government. That raises the question of who is to be defined as Khmer Rouge and who can be brought before an international tribunal if it were ever to be held.

Foot Soldiers from Rival Armies Share cynicism About Leader By Nate Thayer

Foot Soldiers from Rival Armies Share cynicism About Leader

By Nate Thayer

Phnom Penh Post

Friday, 07 August 1992

NORTH OF HIGHWAY SIX, Cambodia--From a trench in abandoned ricefields in Kompong Thom province, young conscripts of Phnom Penh's army peered wide eyed from their foxholes as two journalists and a score of heavily armed guerrillas emerged from enemy controlled jungles and approached them.

Popping up from camouflaged foxholes, they grabbed automatic rifles, and curiously approached the group. The soldiers-from rival factions-greeted each other warily.

For the guerrilla fighters, it was the first time they had spoken to the enemy in more than 13 years of war, although some knew each other by reputation.

A soldier was dispatched to seek a superior's approval for a request for the journalists to pass into Phnom Penh territory. While waiting, the young men exchanged cigarettes and asked about each other. It turned out a guerrilla and his government counterpart came from the same village in the far away province of Prey Veng.

"You see what the war has done to us," said Meas, a guerrilla fighter, pointing to the Phnom Penh soldier. "We could be related and we wouldn't know it."

Meas had fled Cambodia's turmoil to the Thai border more than a decade before, eventually joining the guerrilla faction led by Prince Norodom Ranariddh. The Phnom Penh soldier had been drafted into the army some three years earlier and sent to the jungle.

Another Phnom Penh soldier said that he had recently found out that his brother, who had been missing since the Vietnamese invasion in l979, was a soldier with the guerrillas.

"Do you know my brother and if he is well?" he asked the guerrilla.

Another young fighter said, "Now in Cambodia, a whole generation must ask our elders if we are related, because we don't even know who we are since the war split us apart."

"In Cambodia, all our leaders are getting rich while we suffer," another soldier added. Everyone nodded in agreement. It was a theme we heard everywhere.

A photographer from Impact Visuals photo agency and I had rented a Soviet jeep in Phnom Penh and set off alone on a 15-day journey that would take us through nine provinces, across dozens of minefields and frontlines to territory under the control of all four Cambodian factions.

Many Cambodians living under the control of, or working for each of the four factions expressed deep cynicism and resentment towards their leaders whom they blame for incompetence, corruption, and continuing a conflict largely for personal gain. Soldiers from all four factions said they had not been paid for months, and worried about what would happen to them in a post-war Cambodia.

No commanding officer could be found that day, and after some debate, we were allowed to pass, for the 100 kilometer trip back to Kompong Thom city.

Soon after our arrival, two Phnom Penh interior ministry police officials arrived at our guesthouse. Initially, they were not happy.

"My job is to protect the party," the young intelligence officer announced rather cheerfully. "You have no permission to be here and I have to ask you some questions."

After an hour of interrogation, the intelligence officer asked whether we could talk as friends. "I hear that maybe I will not have a job after cantonment and demobilization," he said, "Is journalism a good job? How is the pay? I think we have similar jobs. We both have to ask a lot of questions and find out what is going on."

In Banteay Meanchey province, large tracts of land have been made uninhabitable by mines planted during heavy fighting for control of the area.

Soldiers guided us through oxcart paths snaking through mined ricefields, across frontlines, delivering us to forward checkpoints of their erstwhile enemies.

During more than a score of such transfers, we would request a couple of soldiers from a forward position to accompany us for security until we reached another faction's base.

There was never a shortage of volunteers, most eager for a break from the boredom of isolated outposts. Because of the abundance of mines and bandits, it was good to have guides with weapons who were familiar with the terrain.

Killings and robberies were daily events in the area where rogue bands of former soldiers from each of the four factions routinely ambush anyone with valuables.

The young fighters in the guerrilla zones would pepper us with questions: Are there a lot of Vietnamese in Phnom Penh? Are there jobs for people like me? Do you think we will be safe and welcomed back now that the war is over?

It was not unusual for our Soviet jeep, which we rented from an army officer in Phnom Penh, to be filled with a half dozen fully armed uniformed soldiers from different factions. We would discuss politics but mostly their fears for the future and being able to provide for their families after years of living in the jungle.

In scrubland north of the district capital of Banteay Meanchey, we drove to isolated villages under the control of the Khmer Rouge, where villagers and Khmer Rouge cadre spoke about their hopes for the future.

"We must rid the country from the Vietnamese first before the war can stop," said one Khmer Rouge cadre. "But we all want peace. Everyone has suffered enough."

"I don't know why so many people died when we were in power," said one young Khmer Rouge fighter, who seemed genuinely perplexed by the issue.

A Khmer Rouge medic we met at a Khmer Rouge division headquarters near the Dongrek mountain escarpment asked if we could give him a ride south so he could pick up some medical supplies.

"You are American," he said cheerfully. "Do you know my sister? She lives in New York." He said that he had spent three years in China training as a medic, and was proud of his skills.

"I can do any kind of operation, but mostly amputations," he said.

I asked him how many amputations he had performed. "Oh, too many to count," he said, "At least 200."

In the bustling market town of Tmar Pouk, under control of the Khmer People's National Liberation Front, government soldiers in uniform mingled easily with their former enemies.

"We don't have any problems with each other," one said. "We are just regular soldiers. It's our leaders who can't get along."

One KPNLF soldier asked whether he could accompany us back to Phnom Penh controlled town of Sisophon. He could not cross the frontlines by himself, but he said with foreigners he had a chance. He wanted to catch a bus from Sisophon to visit his mother near Siem Reap, whom he hadn't seen in ten years.

"I left home to join the KPNLF when I was 12," he said. Quickly removing his jungle fatigues and switching to civilian clothes, he got in the back of the jeep, sharing the seat with an elderly woman who was returning to her government-controlled village after visiting her son, a KPNLF officer.

A guerrilla fighter guided us to an oxcart path. "Just drive along the tracks of the oxcart," he said, "Don't leave the path. Both sides are mined."

Further down Highway 69, where hundreds died in recent years' fighting for control, rogue soldiers piled mortars on the road in a crude roadblock. Soldiers with grenades in one hand and assault rifles in the other, stopped the rare vehicle demanding money.

"They don't get paid enough to eat," said the soldier in the back, after we passed.

"I'm glad I'm with you," the mother said, "They would have taken everything I had if I was alone."

We left the two passengers in Sisophon. "I don't even know if my mother is still alive," the soldier said.

 

Lighting the darkness: FULRO's jungle Christians:Vietnam Era Renegade Army Discovered By Nate Thayer

(Two story package in Phnom Penh Post. An earlier cover story appeared in the Far Eastern Economic Review. PPP publisher Michael Hayes and I travelled to the remote NE Cambodian jungles near VN by helicopter to find an army literally lost in time. Eventually all 398 FULRO fighters and families were given political asylum in the U.S. and settled in North Carolina)

Lighting the darkness: FULRO's jungle Christians

By Nate Thayer

Phnom Penh Post

Friday, 25 September 1992

MONDULKIRI - Accompanied by a chorus of crickets and the steady drumming of rain on the leaf roofs of their huts, scores of Montagnard fighters and their families gather in the jungle darkness each night to pray and sing.

Having long ago fled ideological restrictions in Vietnam for a religious sanctuary deep in the forest, the soldiers are members of FULRO-the United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races-which has fought for a separate homeland in Vietnam for their hilltribe people since 1964.

Lamps fueled by chunks of slow-burning tree resin give light to the few shared tattered bibles and hymnals as Christian songs of worship echo through the otherwise uninhabited forest. Familiar gospel hymns are sung in the tribal dialects of the mountains.

For many at FULRO's scattered guerrilla bases, the ability to pray freely was a main motivation to flee their villages in Vietnam's central highlands 17 years ago.

"The communists will not let us pray. They say that Christianity is an American and French religion, so we came to live in the jungle," said Lt.-Col. Y Hinnie. "In our land under the communists, people pray at home secretly or in the ricefields. They cannot worship together like we do in the jungle. Here we are free."

Each of the five jungle encampments in the FULRO rear base area have an Evangelical church, while there is a lone Catholic church in the main guerrilla camp. Nearly 40 people share a single bible for the daily Catholic Mass and at weekend services. The church consists of pews of wooden logs lined neatly in a clearing, a towering rough-hewn cross behind the altar.

Similar Evangelical churches, cut into clearings surrounded by 30-meter high hardwood trees, are packed with more than 350 worshippers for the daily two-hour evening service and brief early morning prayers. Each church has its own pastor, and worshippers bring large green leaves as hassocks to kneel on the damp forest floor.

These believers are the legacy of Christian missionaries who lived in the Central Highlands until 1975, when the last of them were expelled by the current government in Viet-nam. Many of the missionaries had mastered the local dialects, translating Bibles and hymnals into the region's Rade, Jarai and Koho languages.

The guerrillas also tune into weekly radio sermons delivered in their native languages by a powerful shortwave radio station in Manila operated by the Christian Missionary Alliance.

A guerrilla congregation reels off the names of "their" missionaries like a litany: "In Pleiku, Mr. Long and Mr. Fleming and in Dalat, Helen Evans, she is from America too. Ken Swain from Darlac, he preaches in our language on the radio every Saturday now."

FULRO officials say some of the missionaries' involvement with the Montagnards went beyond simply bringing the scriptures to the area. They said some of them were active in the waning days of U.S. involvement in the early 1970s in running guns to the guerrillas.

Following the collapse of the South Vietnamese regime in 1975, FULRO leaders say, the communists set about systematically dismantling Christian churches. Many of the Montagnards' religious leaders were arrested and killed after the communist victory in 1975, they say.

"They take our pastors, preachers and Christians and put them in jail," said FULRO's military Commander-in-Chief Col Y Peng Ayun. "We don't hate any one man because we are Christians, but we can never trust the communists," he added.

Two prominent Montagnard pastors from Ban Me Thuot, Y Ham Nic Hrah and Y Lico Nie, died in the early 1980s after many years of harsh conditions in prison, according to the guerrillas. "Here, we worship no matter what," said Pastor Budar Su Khong, 52, from Dalat. "Jesus said 'Come to me whoever is tired, and I will bring you rest.' We are very tired. Please take a message to Christians in other countries to pray for us, and we will pray for them."

(On Sept. 19, UNTAC deployed three soldiers from Sector IV headquarters in Stung Treng to FULRO' encampment. They will be permanently based there to provide protection until the U.N. decides how to respond to FULRO's requests for help.)

Montagnard Army Seeks U.N.Help:Vietnam War Era Renegade Army Discovered In Mondulkiri

By Nate Thayer

Phnom Penh Post

Saturday, 12 September 1992

MONDULKIRI, Cambodia-Abandoned for years by their own leaders and former foreign military backers, an anti-Hanoi Montagnard army based in northeast Cambodia has approached the United Nations with a plea for protection.

The military combatants of FULRO-the United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races-have waged a lonely battle for a separate homeland in Vietnam for their hilltribe people since 1964.

The recent discovery of the Montagnard army in Mondulkiri province prompted Phnom Penh's Interior Ministry to inform U.N. peacekeeping forces that unless the group-formerly given sanctuary by the Khmer Rouge-is disarmed they would attack them.

On Sept. 4 a joint mission of officials from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) met with the fighters to discuss their request for sanctuary.

"We have to be very cautious because they may be in danger," said UNHCR Press Officer Annick Roulet.

Previous discussions with UNTAC military officials at their remote jungle camp near the Vietnamese border have resulted in conflicting impressions as to whether or not FULRO troops want to give up their struggle and apply for refugee status or continue to wage war against Vietnam.

Under threat from the Phnom Penh regime, expelled by the Khmer Rouge, and a thorn in the side to Vietnam, FULRO is presenting an interesting if not painful dilemma to U.N. officials in Phnom Penh.

UNTAC-mandated to verify the withdrawal of all foreign forces in Cambodia-may be obligated to ensure the return of the group to Vietnamese soil if they insist on continuing to wage war.

But UNHCR-responsible for protecting people with a "well founded fear of persecution"-may have to offer asylum to the fighters if they are in danger of being sent back to Vietnam, where they certainly would face imprisonment.

That, in turn, could open the floodgates to thousands of requests for political asylum from Vietnamese living in Cambodia.

"We have enough problems in Cambodia dealing with the four factions, and now this army we never even heard of turns up," said one UNTAC military official.

American diplomats in Phnom Penh and U.N. military officials in Cambodia are urging that UNHCR grant the group refugee status to begin the process of third country asylum, and give them temporary protection from military attack.

But FULRO Commander-in-Chief Y Peng Ayun and his forces are reluctant to accept giving up their fight without first getting U.N. protection.

"If we give up our weapons, they will take us back to Vietnam or the Vietnamese will come get us," Ayun said. "If I go to the U.S., I don't want to stay a long time there, because I have responsibility to liberate my country."

Frozen in Time

When two correspondents from the Phnom Penh Post visited FULRO's remote guerrilla headquarters last month, they found an army unaware of the world around them and desperately seeking instructions and resupply from their leadership.

Col. Ayun and his lieutenants gathered around the Post reporters, hungrily seeking information.

"Please, can you help us find our president, Y'Bham Enuol?" Colonel Ayun asked. "We have been waiting for contact and orders from our president since 1975. Do you know where he is?"

Neither Ayun nor his troops, who gathered around to meet the first journalists to find them since they fled to the jungles after the American defeat in Indochina in 1975, knew that their leader was executed 17 years before by the Khmer Rouge.

They fell silent when informed; some wept quietly.

Situated in a string of five villages carved out of dense forest along a raging river, the group of 407 guerrillas and their families have no access to even the smallest luxury items except from fighters returning from Vietnam.

There is no medicine or schools, and many of the soldiers and their families have only the clothes they wear and rifles. Bamboo huts with roofs of leaves provide shelter.

"The food we get from the forest. The forest belongs to FULRO." said Lt. Col. Y Hinnie. "We don't have food or medicine, so it is difficult. But with food and medicine the jungle is a very nice place. We are used to it."

The rivers nearby abound with crocodiles, huge catfish, and fresh water porpoises and the surrounding jungle-thick with mosquitos-is home to elephants and a host of deadly snakes.

The combatants and their families are traditionally rice eating people, but they are unable to farm rice here with the enemy constantly forcing movement.

A staple of corn, with jungle cucumbers, pumpkins, and hot green peppers are all they have. For part of the year they survive on poisonous potatos that must be carefully processed for five days to extract a deadly toxin.

"We must eat it slowly until our bodies get used to it or it will kill you," Hinnie said, "But the poison is also the medicine we use to cure snakebites." Nearby a soldier lay paralyzed from a snakebite he received three months before.

"This tree has the medicine we use for malaria and this one here we can use to treat diarrhea," Hinnie said, pointing.

The army has no maps or compasses. "But we can guide ourselves by stars and winds of the seasons. We can tell by which side of the tree is wet during different months exactly which direction we are going," he said.

Hinnie spoke credible English from his days as a young boy with Christian missionaries, as well as Khmer, Vietnamese, and French, and several tribal dialects, and translated for others who spoke in Rade. His skills have given him the title of "the FULRO Military Delegation's Representative of Foreign Affairs."

But his knowledge of world events is spotty. "We would like you to take a message to U Thant," he said, referring to the former U.N. Secretary-General. Asking about the cold war, he said, "I hear that President George Bush now contacts with the Russians."

He is charged with listening to the shortwave radio each morning, tuning in VOA, BBC, Christian radio, and Radio Vietnam to keep the group abreast of foreign developments.

Hinnie told amazed fighters of the fax machine: "You take a letter and put it in a telephone and it comes out in one minute in America," he explained.

The Forgotten Army

A number of soldiers appeared to introduce themselves in English as having fought with the Americans.

"You are the first foreigner I have seen since 1975," said Bhong Rcam, 47, "The Americans usually call me Tiny."

Like many of the fighters of FULRO, he worked with the U.S. Special Forces during the Vietnam War. After the U.S. withdrawal he was jailed by Hanoi, before joining FULRO in the jungle in 1976.

During the Vietnam War FULRO was supplied with millions of dollars of U.S. equipment, and before that, used as allies to further the objectives of the French and various Vietnamese regimes.

When the North Vietnamese launched decisive offensives in March 1975, FULRO leaders say that senior U.S. officials in Saigon promised continued support for the Montagnards and pledged to covertly support their fight.

Well equipped with American weapons and promises of more as South Vietnam crumbled in the spring of 1975, FULRO waited for the Americans who never returned, eventually re-grouping in the jungle.

"The Montagnard people and the Americans are like one family," said Lt. Col. Hinnie. "I am not angry, but very sad that the Americans forgot us. The Americans are like our elder brother, so it is very sad when your brother forgets you."

FULRO continued to launch attacks on Vietnam for four years after the U.S. withdrawal, fielding a fierce army of 10,000 fighters. But by 1979 they were running low on ammunition and had suffered huge casualties, with more than 8,000 of their fighters killed or captured.

In 1979 FULRO abandoned their bases in Vietnam and moved to the jungles on the Cambodian side of the Vietnamese frontier, switching to underground networks and small guerrilla strikes in their four regions of operations in Vietnam-Quang Duc, Darlac, Pleiku, and Kon Tum.

Previously given sanctuary by the Khmer Rouge in areas under their control, FULRO was expelled from Khmer Rouge zones in January to a remote area of Mondulkiri province. Khmer Rouge officials in Phnom Penh say they had given FULRO sanctuary since 1979, despite having fallen out with their leadership in 1986.

"They had no political vision. Their fighters are very, very brave, but they had no support from any leadership, no food, and they did not understand at all the world around them," said one senior Khmer Rouge official.

Jungle Christians

Col. Ayun complained bitterly of the treatment of his people by the Hanoi government.

"My people suffer terribly under the Vietnamese communist regime," he recounted from a thatched hut in the forest. "They came and took our land, and made it theirs. They try to erase our language and force us to speak Vietnamese. They have taken our fertile land and forced us to the bad land.

"They say they have come to build progress for my people, but they have come to kill, arrest, and oppress my people."

For many at FULRO's scattered guerrilla bases, the ability to pray freely and practice Christianity was a main motivation to flee Vietnam. Each of the five villages in the FULRO area have an evangelical church, while there is a lone Catholic church in the main guerrilla camp.

"The Communists will not let us pray," Col. Hinnie said. "They say that Christianity is an American and French religion, so we came to live in the jungle."

Col. Ayun requested to meet with the American ambassador to seek advice on whether his group would get the aid he said was long promised and to seek proof of the death of their leader.
"We are the troops of President Y Bham Enuol," he said.

"If he has died, we want proof from the United Nations. The Americans had a whole plan for Indochina. I want to meet face to face with the American ambassador. I have a plan for the future, and they should know clearly our position for the revolutionary struggle. We want to know whether they will help us or not."

But the chances of U.S. support for Ayun and his forces are dim, and FULRO faces a whole new series of difficulties.

Montagnard leaders now living in the U.S. appealed to Col. Ayun to give up the fight. "Due to unfavorable circumstances, I suggest it is time to stop fighting, to find different ways to reach our ultimate goal," said Pierre K'briuh in a recent message to the FULRO fighters.

K'briuh is a leader of the former FULRO troops now in the United States and he himself was jailed by Hanoi until the early 1980s.

"President Y-Bham Enuol and his entourage were executed by the Khmer Rouge in 1975," he wrote.

"Therefore, based on common sense, lay down your weapons and appeal at once to the U.N. for political asylum to join us here. We don't have any other choice."

Col. Ayun and his troops say that if they have proof that Y Bham Enuol is indeed dead, they will consider going to the U.S.

"But even if we go to another country, our resistance will continue until we get our own land, until we get back the land that belonged to us before," Ayun said.

"I don't want to go to a free nation," he added. "I want to stay here because this is my battlefield. It is my responsibility. But I have no supplies or help from free countries."

- Michael Hayes contributed to this report.

Expat Returnees pose legal questions for the West By Nate Thayer

Expat Returnees pose legal questions for the West

Phnom Penh Post

Friday 10 March 1995

By Nate Thayer

Some come back for the best of reasons, some are "less than altruistic." Expat returnees are posing hard legal questions for their adopted homelands. Nate Thayer reports.

WHEN Sok Chenda Sophea returned to Cambodia in 1992 after nearly two decades in exile in France, he came with a vision of doing his part to help rebuild his shattered homeland. The 38 year old Chenda, now an under secretary of state for the Ministry of Tourism , cuts a sharp figure with his European tailored suits, fluent French and English, and university and professional background in advertising and tourism promotion. His government salary is the equivalent of US$27 a month.

Likewise, Samnang Siv, 39, quit her US$90,000 a year job working for a biotechnology firm in Massachusetts in the US in April 1994 and returned to Cambodia. Leaving behind her husband and 20 year old son, she now serves as an advisor to the Minister of Tourism, and, with fluency in three languages and her dynamic personality, has been instrumental in assisting foreign companies to come to Cambodia and invest.

"I have been given 40 liters of petrol for my car," she says, and no salary yet. "I just want to contribute my knowledge, my skills, and help my government. I think they need people like me."

In a country whose most decimated commodity after decades of warfare is it's human resources, Sok Chenda and Samnang Siv are exactly what Cambodia needs to get back on it's feet. And there are hundreds of Khmers like them who have brought back their technical expertise, leaving behind "the good life" for reasons that are explained in terms little more complicated than a patriotic commitment to their native lands. "I just want to help my country and people," says Chenda.

But along with the good has also come the bad. Cambodia is choc-a-bloc with scores of corrupt and rapacious ethnic Khmers, many holding foreign citizenship and passports, who have returned since the fall of communism and are now officials in the new government. According to many businessmen and other Cambodian officials, the ranks of government are filled with foreign citizens lining their pockets with kickbacks.

"Oh boy," says Chhang Song shaking his head, "We were puritans compared to these guys."

Chhang, a former Minister of Information in the notoriously corrupt, US-backed Lon Nol regime that fell to Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge in 1975, is an American citizen from Washington, DC who recently returned to serve as an advisor to the current government.

The recent phenomena of foreign citizens returning to participate in the rebuilding of their countries since the collapse of communism and the cold war has raised a new set of legal and other complexities for the mostly western governments that the returnees hail from. While Cambodia stands out as a particularly stark example, it is also increasingly common in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and the Baltic states.

A recent Prime Minister of Bosnia Herzogovina is an American. And in 1992, when an American citizen was chosen as defence minister of the newly independent Lithuania, the U.S. government forced him to make a choice between his passport or the job. A recent Foreign Minister in Armenia was also an American. A Wisconsin politician, Rudy Perpich, was considering accepting the post of Prime Minister of Croatia in 1991. But when U.S. authorities informed him they could not guarantee that he could maintain his American citizenship, he declined the position, according to U.S. diplomats.

But nothing compares to Cambodia. Senior officials who are citizens of foreign countries include the Queen, the First Prime Minister, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Interior, Education, Agriculture, Rural Development, Women's Affairs, Tourism, Information, and even Culture.

As well, the head of the powerful Cambodian Development Council, at least 30 members of Parliament, numerous provincial governors, secretaries and under secretaries of state, civil servants, ambassadors, and military generals hold foreign citizenships.

The bulk of these officials hold French, American, or Australian passports, but Canada, New Zealand, Japan, and Switzerland are also represented. Most fled on the heels of the communist victory in 1975 or through refugee camps on the Thai border set up after the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in late 1978.

"On the one hand we want to encourage them to come back to help reconstruct their country," says a US diplomat, "This is a good thing. But there are complications."

While American law states that a US citizen cannot take an oath of allegiance to a foreign government, the law is rarely enforced. "The policy has shifted over the years since the end of the cold war," said a US government lawyer familiar with the issue. "We now approach these on a case by case basis."

One reason, say diplomats from several governments, is that many of the senior officials in the newly emerging democracies would not return to help reconstruct their homeland if forced to give up their foreign citizenship. " The political situation remains unstable during the transition period in many of these countries. They fled for their lives to exile once before, and they want to keep that option open," said a Phnom Penh based diplomat.

A US government internal cable sent to all embassies in February offered instructions on how to deal with U.S. citizens serving foreign governments. It cited several "potentially expatriating acts" which include "joining another country's armed forces" or "taking an oath of allegiance to another government". Scores of Cambodian-Americans fit that bill. It also requires embassies, under section 349 of the US Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 , to inform Washington of any "high level official in a foreign government in a policy making position" who is an American citizen.

But US diplomats say that the courts have now interpreted that Americans can serve in foreign governments as long as they had "no intent of relinquishing citizenship." In effect, it is largely up to the American citizens, according to current US government legal interpretation, whether they choose to give up their citizenship when they join the ranks of a foreign government.

Indeed, foreign governments find benefits in having their citizens in positions of influence. It does not hurt Australia, for instance, to have the Cambodian Foreign Minister hold Australian citizenship. Nor is it detrimental for Australia-which dominates the telecommunications industry in Cambodia-to have Australian citizens in charge of the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications.

The French, who have campaigned strongly for the reemergence of Francophone in Indochina, can only be pleased to have the Cambodian Minister of Culture a French citizen. And the Americans have used Cambodia's top cop, an American citizen, You Hokry who hails from Maryland and serves as minister of interior, to get US citizens in a pickle extra attention.

But there are numerous potential minefields in this new post cold war phenomena. It is well known that many Cambodian government officials who hold dual nationalities are lining their pockets with kickbacks, and their reasons for returning to Cambodia may be less than altruistic. Some Cambodian officials believe that many are here to cash in and have little interest in remaining in Cambodia.

But if they are US citizens, they must file US taxes. "The law is clear. You must declare all your income, whether illegal or legal," said a spokesman for the United States Internal Revenue Service. The US tax laws are often used to collar bad guys involved in more difficult-to-prove criminal activities, such as drug running. As an example the IRS spokesman cited Al Capone, the famous US gangster of the 1930's, who was ultimately jailed for tax evasion. It is common practice for Cambodian government officials to receive kickbacks, and rumors abound of the millions of dollars being pocketed by various officials.

Current Finance Minister Kiet Chhon, estimated that lost revenues from corruption is about US$100 million a year-or more than one-third of internally generated revenue.

"It is shameful," he said.

Senior government ministers privately grouse about a number of their colleagues who are on the take. One example is over a recent US$1.3 billion contract awarded to a little known Malaysian firm, Ariston, for gambling casinos and related development projects in the seaside resort of Sihanoukville. Two senior government officials say they have "proof" that another senior government official-who holds an American passport-received a US$10 million kickback for awarding the contract to Ariston. They say that other companies, including the American hotel firm Hyatt, who bid for the contract "never had a chance" and the corrupt process did "immeasurable damage to our reputation among investors."

Former Finance Minister Sam Rainsy, sacked last fall, and the country's most aggressive anti-graft fighter, said on March 2: " I have spoken with one of the other bidders which did not win the contract...They have been asked ten million dollars in cash. They (were told ) that 'if you give us 10 million US dollars the contract is for you.'" Senior government sources say the official who received the kickback is an American citizen and the company in question which was denied the contract was an American firm. American companies are prohibited by American law from paying bribes to foreign governments, but it is unclear whether American citizens working for foreign governments can receive them without breaking American law.

"In the last few months, the Royal Government of Cambodia has signed a number of contracts with foreign private companies in circumstances which are, to say the least, dubious. These dubious contracts are seriously harmful to the country, the administration of which has become more chaotic and less transparent," said Rainsy. He himself is a French citizen, an elected Member of Parliament, and regularly rates as one of the Kingdom's most popular politicians in public opinion polls.

Furthermore, it remains untested, say legal experts, whether foreign nationals holding senior government portfolios could be charged under criminal and civil laws that apply to the country they hold citizenship in. Of particular concern could be such positions as Minister of Interior or senior officers in the Ministry of Defence who hold American or other passports and ultimately are responsible for the conduct of their subordinates, human rights lawyers point out.

In Cambodia, both the police and military have been repeatedly implicated in human rights abuses including torture and murder in recent years. Rarely, despite cases with overwhelming evidence, are the offenders arrested or prosecuted. The U.S. Torture Victims Protection Act does allow for American authorities to prosecute American or other citizens implicated in torture overseas.

Amnesty International, in a report to be released on 14 March, a copy of which has been obtained by the Post said "members of the armed forces and police are able to impose their will on the civilian population with impunity, committing acts of violence including deliberate and arbitrary killings and extra judicial executions....the Cambodian authorities appear to lack the political will and ability to bring these violators to justice." The report, and an earlier one released by the United Nations Center for Human Rights, cite numerous cases of torture, including military officers involved in eating the livers and gall bladders of their prisoners, and cutting off the heads of prisoners who are alive and under interrogation. The government has, to date, refused to arrest the officers involved.

"Theoretically, they could be charged with, say, conspiracy to obstruct justice," said one human rights lawyer, citing superior officers - who hold foreign citizenship - of subordinates involved in torture. The Cambodian Co-Minister of Interior and scores of senior officers in both the national police apparatus and the military hold US passports.

But "There would have to be some act committed on American soil," insisted a US government lawyer responsible for analyzing such issues. "In general, U.S. law does not follow them around."

But Cambodia's reputation for political thuggery has even spilled over to American soil. Last year, a Cambodian general-an American citizen- was back in California and allegedly threatened a California-based, Khmer language newspaper editor with arrest and death if he returned to Cambodia because of articles critical of the new government, according to complaints filed with U.S. authorities by the newspaper.

U.S. government sources say the general was back in the U.S. to take care of his annual tax obligations, when he read the articles that offended him.

And last month, when an American relief worker in a remote province suffered a heart attack, an official of the Civil Aviation Authority refused to allow an emergency medical airplane run by a non-profit Christian relief organization to take off from Phnom Penh until "fees" were paid. The Civil Aviation official is an American citizen. Could an American citizen be charged with relevant criminal or civil complaints-such as extortion-committed against another American citizen, even though the criminal act was committed on foreign soil? Such questions are largely, so far, in uncharted territory.

"To tell you the truth, we don't like to talk about it. It's a headache," said one American diplomat.

POL POT: UNREPENTANT An Exclusive Interview By Nate Thayer

POL POT: UNREPENTANT

An Exclusive Interview

Cover Story

Far Eastern Economic Review

October 30, 1997

(Three story cover package)

The world holds Pol Pot responsible for the deaths of more than 1 million Cambodians. But the former Khmer Rouge leader, now a jungle captive of ex-comrades, expresses no remorse. In an historic, exclusive interview with Nate Thayer he defends himself as a patriot. His two-hour exposition ranges over the notorious killing fields, atrocities, party intrigues and his own early life. Plus:The first ever interview with Khmer Rouge strongman Ta Mok

Day of Reckoning: Pol Pot breaks an 18-year silence to confront his past. In defending his murderous rule, he sheds new light on the dark secrets of the Khmer Rouge 

By Nate Thayer in Anlong Veng

Far Eastern Economic Review

October 30, 1997

P OL POT is dying. He's helped slowly out of the backseat of a blue four-wheel drive truck, then stands unsteadily in the dust of the narrow road, smiling shyly and raising his clasped hands to his face in a traditional greeting.

He needs to grasp my arm to walk the 25 meters to an open-air hut, in a clearing hacked out of the dense jungles of the Dangrek mountains. His breathing labored, he eases himself down at a simple wooden table.

A deferential young KR cadre places a plastic bottle of water and a coffee jar filled with salt in front of him. Pol Pot adjusts his traditional peasant scarf, his face drawn and eyes blinking rapidly, and looks sadly across the table at the nearest thing to an interrogator he has ever faced.

The man who presided over the Cambodian holocaust is about to give his first interview in 18 years. It's his chance to make some kind of peace with his bloodstained past, to try to atone for a four-year reign of terror that left a million or more of his countrymen dead.
He refuses.

"I came to carry out the struggle, not to kill people," he rasps, his voice almost a whisper. He pauses, fixing his interviewer with an almost pleading expression. "Even now, and you can look at me, am I a savage person? My conscience is clear."

In a two-hour interview, Pol Pot is chillingly unrepentant about the horrors of his 1975-1978 rule over Cambodia. His humanity shows only when he talks about himself or his family; he describes in detail his youth, the origins of his political ideology, his health problems and his 12-year-old daughter's difficulties in school.

Grilled on his culpability for the mass murders, disease and starvation of the late 1970s - when his regime tried to turn Cambodia into a collectivist agrarian utopia - he comes back time and again with the same basic line: The KR made "mistakes," but without their unrelenting struggle Cambodia would have been swallowed by Vietnam.

"I do not reject responsibility - our movement made mistakes, like every other movement in the world. But there was another aspect that was outside our control - the enemy's activities against us. I want to tell you, I'm quite satisfied on one thing: If we had not carried out our struggle, Cambodia would have become another Kampuchea Krom in 1975," he says, referring to the Mekong Delta region, seized by Vietnam from the Khmer empire in the 17th century.

Pol Pot even claims that the notorious Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh, where the KR meticulously documented their torture and execution of 16,000 suspected "enemies," was a Vietnamese propaganda exhibit.

Yet the rare trip into the KR stronghold of Anlong Veng yielded some stunning revelations. The KR commander who ousted Pol Pot in June, Ta Mok, acknowledged in his first interview ever that "hundreds of thousands" of people had died during the group's time in power. Neither he nor other KR leaders interviewed would admit personal responsibility; instead, they point fingers at Pol Pot or one another.

Pol Pot does admit that he ordered the killing of his longtime comrade-in-arms Son Sen, slain on June 10 along with 14 family members, including grandchildren. "You know for the other people, the babies, the young ones, I did not order them to be killed. For Son Sen and his family, yes. I feel sorry for that. That was a mistake that occurred when we put our plan into practice. I feel sorry. You asked me to say something." Then he says abruptly: "Now I want to talk about the present situation in Cambodia."

It was Son Sen's killing that brought about Pol Pot's ouster from the helm of the revolutionary movement he led for 37 years. Ta Mok, who was also targeted but escaped, arrested Pol Pot on June 19. Five weeks later, Pol Pot was brought before a "people's tribunal" in Anlong Veng and sentenced to life imprisonment for Son Sen's murder.

The KR decided to make Pol Pot's ouster public, hoping to win international support for their battle against the government of Premier Hun Sen. They allowed this journalist to witness the July 25 tribunal, the first time Pol Pot had been seen by a journalist in 18 years. But an interview with the deposed leader took months more to arrange, through intensive contacts with a series of secret operatives both inside and outside of Anlong Veng. It took place on October 16.

For now, that's as far as the KR will go. Pol Pot is not going to be turned over to an international tribunal to face charges of crimes against humanity, Ta Mok said in a separate interview. "I will turn Pol Pot over no problem, if you bring Hun Sen and they go together," he says, setting an unrealistic condition.

Trial or no trial, Pol Pot's line of defence is the same: His youthful, inexperienced movement made "mistakes" under pressure from its enemies, but they saved the country from Vietnamese annexation. Asked whether he wanted to apologize for the suffering he caused, he looks genuinely confused, has the interpreter repeat the question, and answers: "No."

"We had no other choice. Naturally we had to defend ourselves," he says. "The Vietnamese... wanted to assassinate me because they knew without me they could easily swallow up Cambodia."

The anti-Vietnamese rhetoric isn't surprising: the ultra-nationalism of the KR became evident when they started raiding the territory of their erstwhile Vietnamese communist allies in Vietnam in the years after seizing power. But Pol Pot reveals that distrust between the two communist movements dates back to at least 1970, when Le Duan and other Vietnamese leaders tried to persuade him to take nominal command of a combined Cambodian-Vietnamese-Laotian army to fight the American-backed governments in Phnom Penh and Saigon.

"Le Duan and Le Duc Tho, they told us: 'You don't have to fight. You should wait until the Vietnamese victory then the Vietnamese will come and liberate you'," Pol Pot says.

Instead, he raced to beat the Vietnamese to victory. He says that by capturing Phnom Penh on April 17, two weeks before the communist victory in Saigon, the KR saved Cambodia from Vietnamese communist occupation. And immediately, he contends, he took steps to balance Vietnamese influence in Cambodia. "In May 1975, I sent my foreign minister to Thailand because I knew that the east is very savage... what I wanted was to have a friend in the West. Vietnam was furious at me."

There may be truth in Pol Pot's claim that Vietnam had designs on Cambodia. But he goes on, outrageously, to blame even the mass starvation during his rule on the Vietnamese. Nobody knows the precise figure, but during their 1975-1978 rule the "Democratic Kampuchea" regime killed perhaps 200,000 people, many from its own ranks. For every person executed, perhaps seven more died of starvation or disease as a result of the KR's inept central policies.

"To say that millions died is too much. Another aspect you have to know is that Vietnamese agents, they were there. There was rice, but they didn't give rice to the population," Pol Pot claims.

Even more outrageous is Pol Pot's claim that Phnom Penh's notorious Tuol Sleng prison was a "Vietnamese exhibition" set up for propaganda purposes after Vietnam invaded Cambodia in December 1978 and drove the KR from power. Scholars say the KR documented each of the 16,000 people whom they tortured and executed, often on Pol Pot's direct orders.

In fact, admissions he makes in the interview link Pol Pot directly to Tuol Sleng. He acknowledges that he ordered the arrest and murder of political enemies, accusing them of collusion with Vietnam. These included Vorn Vet, Hu Num, and Hu Yuon, fellow standing committee members killed after the KR took power. "Those people were in the central leadership of Democratic Kampuchea, but they were not the people of Democratic Kampuchea," he says. "In 1976... that group of people you were talking about, they set up a coup d'etat committee, especially against me. In that committee there were Vietnamese agents in the majority." He names "Comrade Ya" - the nom de guerre of Men San, who commanded the northeast region - as chief conspirator.

KR documents obtained by the Post show that Ya was tortured to death on Pol Pot's orders at the Phnom Penh prison. In a handwritten September 1976 note accompanying a "confession" extracted from Ya under torture, notorious Tuol Sleng chief Duch writes that he "reported this morning at 0910 to the Organization about Ya." The Organization is how Pol Pot was officially known.

"The Organization decided that if this guy continues stubbornly to hide his traitorous linkages and activities, that he should be executed and not allowed to play games any more ... Therefore, with this Ya you can forcefully use the hot method and for prolonged periods, even if you slip and it kills him." The document ends with a chilling addendum: "Ya to read so that he can think it over carefully."

Pol Pot demonstrated that same willingness to turn on his closest comrades 21 years later, when he ordered the killing of Son Sen, his longtime defense minister. In a soft monotone that contrasts starkly with the subject matter, he tried to justify the murder, saying that he had discovered proof that Son Sen was conspiring against him. The principle evidence? "The brother of Son Sen, Son Chhum... even let his daughter marry people who worked with Hun Sen. So the connection has been established."
Pol Pot's paranoia may have helped him survive as a guerrilla fighter, but it ultimately led his movement to self-destruct, fracturing into rival factions. It's a process that began soon after the group took power, and resumed with new intensity in mid-1996. As a result, separate KR groups are now scattered throughout the country, many of them aligned with Funcinpec or the CPP - whose premier, Hun Sen, himself defected from the KR in 1978.

"Pol Pot's stance got even loftier, and our territory got even smaller," says an elderly Anlong Veng villager. "He saw enemies as rotten flesh, swollen flesh. He saw enemies surrounding. Enemies in front, enemies behind, enemies to the north, enemies to the south... leaving us no place to breathe."
Indeed, only six of the original 22 members of the Democratic Kampuchea party central committee survived their years in power unscathed, according to documents obtained from Tuol Sleng. The rest died, or survived only because they were rescued from Tuol Sleng, ironically, by the invading Vietnamese army.

After that, the KR rose from the ashes, with military or political support from China, Asean and Western powers opposed to Vietnam's occupation of Cambodia. They capitalized on the animosity towards Vietnam that permeates Cambodian society.

But since the 1993 UN-run elections, which the KR boycotted, the movement's cannibalization has resumed. Of the nine younger military commanders chosen in 1985 to form the new generation of leadership, six have defected to the Cambodian government and two were arrested for killing Son Sen. In August 1996, senior leader Ieng Sary and more than half of the KR fighters in the northwest broke with Pol Pot, Son Sen, Ta Mok and Khieu Samphan, rallying around the town of Pailin.

While Khieu Samphan is officially head of the KR remnant in Anlong Veng, Ta Mok is clearly the strongman. In fact, Khieu Samphan seems to retain sympathy for Pol Pot. On June 12, in a clandestine radio broadcast, he called Son Sen a "traitor." Asked if he was a hostage of Pol Pot when he made that broadcast, Samphan replies unconvincingly: "You could call it something like that." He refuses to elaborate.

The turmoil has shaken the movement to its core. "All of us - our parents, our children - are poor peasants. We agreed to abandon everything for many years to join the struggle," says Khem Nuon, Ta Mok's chief-of-staff. "And ultimately, in order to kill each other? How can that be?"

So has the KR movement truly turned on its master, Pol Pot? Certainly Ta Mok says so: "Pol Pot's hands are filled with blood." And from Pol Pot's own words, the answer also seems yes. "For me it is over. Over politically, and over as a human being."

Since his sentencing, Pol Pot says he has been confined to a wood-and-thatch hut, where he's virtually bedridden and sometimes on oxygen. When he discusses his health problems he becomes animated, a contrast to the implacable way he discussed those who died under his rule. "You look at me from the outside, you don't know what I have suffered. If you allow me, I would like to tell you about my sickness.

"One night around 2 a.m. I woke up to go to the bathroom," he says, describing an apparent stroke he suffered in late 1995. "My left eye was closed. I thought that maybe nothing was wrong. But when I came back my eye just did not work any more... Now my left side from my head to my toe does not work. And my left eye is 95 percent blind. That is why when I walk it is not normal."

As the interview nears its second hour, Pol Pot often licks his parched lips and sips from his glass of water. Sometimes he becomes annoyed when he is interrupted or his answers are challenged. But he never raises his voice. And he seems eager to elicit sympathy. "In Khmer we have a saying that when one is both quite sick and old there remains only one thing, that you die."

Pol Pot says his days are bleak. His books have been confiscated, and he rarely gets out of bed. "I have nothing to do now," he says, adding that the hut is plagued with mosquitoes.

He listens to the radio every morning: both the clandestine Democratic Kampuchea radio and the Voice of America. "I want to listen to VOA every night as well, but sometimes I fall asleep," he says, complaining that the morning broadcast isn't as interesting as the evening one.

"I feel a little bit bored, but I have become used to that. You know, I can't even play with my daughter or my wife any more because in the morning, even after I wake up, I can't get out of bed. I stay still while my wife occupies herself with gardening and sewing. My daughter gathers wood and works in the kitchen. But we are together for dinner... We dine together at a small table."

He speaks with fatherly affection of his only child, aged 12. "She is a good daughter, a good person. She gets along with the others quite well. "But he says she isn't doing as well in some school subjects as others. On that score, "she is like me." When she grows up, will she be proud to say she is the daughter of Pol Pot? "I don't know about that. It's up to history to judge," he responds.

Then Pol Pot, with an engaging smile, apologizes and says he needs to go back to the hut and lie down. "I feel very, very tired," he says.

He is helped to his feet, unable to rise on his own. As he's assisted down the steps and along the jungle path, he pauses to offer pleasantries to hovering cadres, who remain grim-faced. Then he raises his hands together again in a polite farewell. Before climbing back into the truck, he turns to one of his captors and says softly: "I want you to know that everything I did, I did for my country."

 

On the Stand

By Nate Thayer in Anlong Veng

Far Eastern Economic Review

October 30, 1997

There are good reasons to be worried when coming face-to-face with the man responsible for one of the worst mass murders in history. But Nate Thayer was most worries that Pol Pot wouldn’t talk, or would cut off the interview after a few minutes. So from the outset he hit Pol Pot with the big question: Does he admit guilt for his murderous 1975-78 rule? It was a question that Thayer pressed again and again. Because Pol Pot is more likely to die than be turned over to an international tribunal, the jungle interview may be as close to a courtroom as he ever gets.

Thayer’s interpreter, a senior Khmer Rouge cadre, tried to beg out of his translating duties, perhaps anticipating the tone of the questions. Thayer speaks conversational Khmer, but he prevailed upon the interpreter to translate both the questions and answers while a tape recorder and television camera rolled. Here are excerpts, starting with Thayer’s opening questions.

 

Q Nate Thayer: He knows he is accused of leading and organization that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and that he has been condemned by most of the world for it. Is he a mass murderer, or what has he contributed to his country?

A Pol Pot: I think that you can raise all of the questions at one time, and some questions I think that I can answer connecting one to another to simplify things. But it's up to you...

Q: I'm interested in the issues of the time he was in power between 1975 and 1979. The millions of people who indeed did suffer during that time, and whether he feels that he's fairly accused. That's one question, let's start with.

A: Yes, I want to reply. Your question is not unfamiliar. That question has been raised time and again: I would like to say first that my conscience is clear. Everything I have done and contributed is first for the nation and the people and the race of Cambodia.

[Pol Pot then spoke about how the Vietnamese wanted to take over Cambodia, adding "they wanted to assassinate me because they knew without me they could easily swallow up Cambodia".]

Q: I would like to hear all of that, and if he's willing to stay here for hours, I am too. But if we could please deal with this first. As you know, most of the world thinks that you're responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Cambodians who didn't deserve to suffer. Could you answer that question directly? Do you feel that you were indeed responsible for crimes against humanity, against your own people?

A: I'm going to reply. I want to tell you clearly. First, I would like to tell you that I came to carry out the struggle, not to kill people. Even now, and you can look at me, am I savage person? My conscience is clear... As I told you before, they fought against us, so we had to take measures to defend ourselves...

Q: You have an opportunity here, a historical opportunity. You know well that during your years in power, your policies - agrarian experiments, social and political organizations, the direct executions of many thousands of people - that many families suffered. The country itself also suffered because of your policies. Your fellow Cambodians want to know whether you feel any remorse, whether you acknowledge that you made very serious mistakes while you were in power?

A: There are two sides to it, as I told you: There's what we did wrong, and what we did right. The mistake is that we did some things against the people - by us and also by the enemy - but the other side, as I told you, is that without our struggle there would be no Cambodia right now.

Q: But for all those hundreds of thousands who suffered - not just died but suffered from forced labor, from lack of food, from what were clearly failed central policies while you were in power - don't you think that they deserve an apology?

A: For the wrong things of our struggle, as I told you, for the wrong things, it has been written in the book. This is a testimony before history.

Q: Which book?

A: The book is the "The Right and Wrong of Democratic Kampuchea". [Pol Pot was apparently referring to a political tract released by the Democratic Kampuchea movement, as the Khmer Rouge calls themselves, in the late 1980s.]

Q: But that acknowledged only 30,000 deaths. All independent scholars, from all political ideologies, acknowledge a minimum of hundreds of thousands of people who died as a result of failed central policies while you were in power...That is a fact. While you were in sole power-and all the other members of your standing committee say you were in full power-thousands of people died because of failed social policies of your government. Are you willing to acknowledge that fact?

A: As I told you, that was written in the book, and I'm tired of talking about it...

Q: Let's talk about Tuol Sleng. There is overwhelming evidence that you had overall responsibility for Tuol Sleng. Sixteen thousand people who signed confessions were executed, including women and children who were suspected CIA, KGB, Vietnamese agents. Were you responsible for Toul Sleng and do you really believe that those 16,000 - including women and children - were agents of a foreign government?

A: I was at the top. I made only big decisions on big issues. I want to tell you - Tuol Sleng was a Vietnamese exhibition; a journalist wrote that. People talk about Tuol Sleng, Tuol Sleng, Toul Sleng, but when we look at the pictures, the pictures are the same. When I first heard about Tuol Sleng, it was on VOA [Voice of America]. I listened twice. And there are documents talking about someone who did research about the skeletons of the people... They said when you look closely at the skulls, they are smaller than the skulls of the Khmer people.

Q: Are you saying that you never heard of Tuol Sleng before 1979?

A: No, I never heard of it. And those two researchers, they said that those skeletons, they were more than 10 years old.

Q: Sir, let me say that there is overwhelming scientific evidence, overwhelming proof that thousands of people, Cambodians, were executed at Toul Sleng while you were in control of Phnom Penh. There is no dispute among anybody else in the world outside of Anlong Veng, perhaps, that it is true.

 A:[No response.]

 

Forbidden City: New strongman Ta Mok Reaches out of isolation

By Nate Thayer in Anlong Veng

Far Eastern Economic Review

October 30, 1997

 

TA MOK, the one-legged Khmer Rouge general known to the outside world as "the butcher," smiles and chuckles warmly as he welcomes the first journalist he has ever met.

During a three-hour interview over a luncheon of fish and Pringles potato chips specially imported for the occasion, the man who overthrew Pol Pot speaks with a peasant's directness and the ease of a man in total control.

His words, though, are sometimes as chilling as his laugh is warm. In an unprecedented admission by a KR leader, he says "hundreds of thousands" died during the revolutionary regime's 1975-78 rule, though he blames their deaths on Pol Pot.

As for the thousands of fellow KR that his forces killed during the purges of 1978, he shrugs. Their leader, he explains, had been discovered to be Vietnamese.

The new KR strongman can seem a study in contradictions. He has earned a fearsome reputation as a military chief, but in person he comes across as grandfatherly. He is clearly revered by many of the approximately 60,000 people living under his control around Anlong Veng. It's and area almost completely isolated by mountains and dense, land-mine-strewn jungles, but Mok's development projects seem to have turned it into one of the more prosperous swaths of countryside in Cambodia.
But for Mok, 71, there's no contradiction. He's a peasant leader who defends what he sees as the interests of his people. And like Pol Pot, that includes an obsession with the perceived threat of Vietnamese domination. Mok would kill a Vietnamese intruder with the nonchalance with which a farmer plucks a leech off a bare leg.

Mok believes that what his people need now is international support for their guerrilla war against Premier Hun Sen. To that end, he has agreed to an unprecedented interview. Sitting in a wooden pavilion freshly painted with revolutionary slogans, he talks about supporting "liberal democracy." It's not clear if he really understands the term, but since he ousted Pol Pot in June, cadres say he has allowed new freedoms in the guerrilla zone.

The potential benefits of world acceptance are plainly evident form the hard-packed dirt logging road that snakes down the Dongrek escarpment from Thailand to Anlong Veng. Millions of dollars' worth of logs lie by the roadside, blocked from going anywhere by an international agreement that bars the export of timber without central government permission.

That permission isn't about to come: The central government is at war with the KR. Evidence of past battles is everywhere: The few concrete buildings in Anlong Veng are pockmarked by bullets and shrapnel, and government tanks disabled during intense fighting two years ago sprawl in the roadway, political graffiti now adorning their turrets.

Yet Anlong Veng is more than a battlefield. A two-day tour shows a wealth of agricultural projects, making it one of the more developed rural areas in Cambodia. Sophisticated dams, irrigating systems and other water projects are everywhere. Tractors and earth-moving vehicles imported through Thailand work the land.

Water spills over new concrete dams into rivers where dozens of villagers, many missing limbs from mines, haul in large fish with nets.

"The people here love grandfather because he cares very much about the well-being of the poor," says Noun Nov, a cadre in his 40s. Like many others in Anlong Veng, Nov has followed Mok since his mid-teens.

Indeed, Mok says it was his passion for rural development projects ("My hobby is agriculture") that cost him his leg. He stepped on a mine when building a road. "I was inspecting a road project. I was behind a bulldozer," he recalls, shifting his artificial limb.

Is this the one place where the KR's ideology, which caused the death of perhaps one million Cambodians in the 1970s, actually works? Hardly. Mok denies that he ever embraced communism. "I was a monk," he says, and when he was just 16 he was recruited into the resistance. "When I joined the Communist Party of Cambodia, I did not know what communism was," he says with a burst of laugher. "They told me the party is a patriotic one. That is why I joined the party. Later on I found that the Communist Party was sucking the blood of the people.

"When we talk about economic life, I have no theoretical ideology," says Mok. " What is policy? When we talk about life we talk about land and water. For the people, having these is having freedom and democracy."

Actually, KR cadres say Mok has introduced new freedoms in Anlong Veng in the four months since he ousted Pol Pot. Previously, there were no schools, while now scores of brightly dressed schoolchildren carrying notebooks can be seen casually returning home from lessons. Listening to radio other than the clandestine guerrilla station was forbidden; now they can listen freely to foreign broadcasts. "We can even watch TV," one cadre exclaims proudly.

Ironically, there are signs that opening up has spawned social problems the puritanical KR never faced before. Mok has responded in a characteristically KR way: "No Gambling" has been added to revolutionary slogans such as "Defeat for the Contemptible Yuon Enemy Aggressors" adorning the walls of Anlong Veng.

That's not the only new slogan. "Defeat for the Traitor Pol Pot Whose Hands Are Stained With Blood," "Long Live the Emerging Democracy," and "Cambodians Don't Kill Cambodians" are all freshly painted. Mok, who has basically spent his entire life in the jungle, seems to think the appearance of the new slogans will be enough to inspire Cambodians to rally in support of is movement.

"Reports reach me everyday saying that the new policy that 'Cambodians Don't Kill Cambodians' is a magic slogan indeed," he says.

Of course, killing Cambodians was exactly what the KR did during their years when Mok was at the very core of the leadership. Mok denies personal culpability for the mass murder of those years - a denial that scholars say is patently untrue. But in an unprecedented admission by a senior KR leader, he does admit that the regime committed wide-scale abuses.

"It is clear that Pol Pot has committed crimes against humanity," he says. "I don't agree with the American figure that millions died, but hundreds of thousands, yes."

Mok's venom for Pol Pot seems genuine and personal. Yet his denials of personal responsibility ring false, scholars say. For example, he claims no involvement in the Tuol Sleng prison. "Pol Pot alone was in charge of the prison," he insists.

Academics who are analyzing documents seized at Tuol Sleng, including 16,000 signed "confessions" of people who were tortured and executed there, say there's no doubt that Mok both ordered arrests and viewed " confessions". "His fingerprints are all over the place. The proof is irrefutable," says Stephen Heder, a professor at the University of London.

Mok's "butcher" nickname may have been earned in 1978. As commander of the southwestern zone of Cambodia and fifth-ranking party leader, he was ordered by Pol Pot to purge KR cadres from the eastern zone who were accused of conspiring with Vietnam. Zone commander Sao Phim and thousands of his loyalists were killed.

Asked about this brutal purge, Mok makes clear that he believes anyone associated with the Vietnamese is a fair target for murder. "I learned from documents produced by Pol Pot that Sao Phim was Vietnamese," he says of the fourth-ranking party leader.

Mok shrugs again in reference to two other leaders, Hu Num and Hu Yuon, who were killed under torture. "Sao Phim I can understand. This man was Vietnamese," he says, but he then adds that the deaths of "Hu Nim and Hu Yuon I do not understand."

Mok's virulent anti-Vietnamese statements come as no surprise. In 1993, his troops carried out numerous massacres of Vietnamese. "I have never taken a nap in my life, in order to go faster than the Vietnamese, to beat the Vietnamese, to not allow the Vietnamese to attack us," he says. He considers anyone working with Hun Sen or the CPP to be Vietnamese and thus a legitimate target for murder.
That may explain why the straight-talking guerrilla chief seems to feel no guilt for his role in the horrors of 1975-78. Asked about the deaths of those years, he laughs and waves his hand dismissively. "If my hands were stained with the blood of my compatriots, why would the people love me? Go ask them yourself."

Mok says that if he had the chance to live life differently, he would not have joined with Pol Pot, whose "hands are soiled with blood".

Yet his rejection of the long-time KR supremo seems rooted not in the crimes of the 1970s but those on June 1997, when Pol Pot ordered the killing of Son Sen and attempted to murder Mok in a power struggle.

Since the 1993 UN-sponsored elections, the KR had been fracturing, and Pol Pot had moved his base of operations, first from Trat in the southwest, to Pailin, then to Phnom Chhat in the northwest, Mok says. "From Phnom Chhat he came to ask me to stay here. Then....he tried to kill me and the people of Anlong Veng. How can I trust him?"

After nearly three hours talking about the revolutionary movement that has been his world for more than half a century, Mok says Pol Pot has been taken to a mountainside location and is waiting to be interviewed. "Ask Pol Pot whether he recognizes his faults. Ask him why he has assassinated his fellow Cambodians. After all that he has done, what more does he want?" Mok says, scoffing at the man he served for decades. He then asks the interviewer: "Can you still say that Pol Pot and I are not estranged?"

 

 

My Education: How Saloth Sar became Pol Pot

By Nate Thayer in Anlong Veng

Far Eastern Economic Review

October 30, 1997

The bones stacked in the Killing fields dotting Cambodia testify to the results of Pol Pot's 1975-1978 experiment in radical agrarian reform. Until now, however, the ideology that drove it has been left largely to the realm of speculation. Some scholars have described Pol Pot as a Cultural Revolution-style Maoist, while others have conjectured that a youthful grape-picking trip to Tito's Yugoslavia planted the seeds for his later break with the mainstream Marxists of the Soviet Union and Vietnam.

But Pol Pot tells his own story differently. He claims that as a student in France in 1949-53, he was influenced by a range of progressive movements-including, ironically, that of non-violent Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi.

In his first interview with a foreign journalist in 18 years, Pol Pot may have refused to repent for the horror of his rule, but he was clearly concerned with what the history books say about his personal life. He became animated in talking about his youth and family, after remaining impassive during questioning about the abuses of his rule.

Historians haven't even been able to agree on the ultra-secretive Pol Pot's birthday: Some say May 25, 1925, while others put it on the same day in 1927. Pol Pot said neither was correct: He was born in January 1925. "January-I remember, because my mother wrote it in chalk on the wall of the house, next to the cupboard," he said in Khmer, adding "janvier" in French to make sure there was no mistake. He had lied about his age, he said, to remain eligible for a scholarship.

Born Saloth Sar in Kampong Thom province, he attended secondary school in Phnom Penh and won a scholarship to France in 1949. Clearly defensive of his status as an "intellectual," Pol Pot volunteered that biographer David Chandler was "not entirely accurate" when characterizing him as a poor student. "I was not a bad student. I was average . . . I studied just enough to keep my scholarship. The rest of the time I just read books," he said.

It was those books, as well as the leftist student movements brewing in Europe in the years after World War II, that gave Pol Pot his early political education. "I looked at the second-hand books that were on sale along the Seine River, the old books that I loved to read," he recalled. "When I got money from my scholarship, I had to spend it on rent and food, so I only had 20 or 25 francs left to spend.

But I got a lot of books to read. For example, La Grande Revolution Francaise. I did not understand it all, but I just read. At the same time I saw the movement in India of Mahatma Gandhi. He was well known and I was very pleased with that. And later on Nehru.

"I started as a nationalist and then patriot and then I read progressive books. Before that time, I never read L'Humanite [the French communist party newspaper]. It scared me, " he smiled, "But I got used to it because of the student movement."

Pol Pot said there was nothing political about his trip or trips to Yugoslavia in the early 1950s. "I went to Yugoslavia because it was vacation time and I had no money. They organized a brigade... I paid just 2,000 francs, including everything. It wasn't influenced by any ideology. We just went for pleasure.

The next year . . . I went camping. So I cannot tell you of any single influence. Maybe it's a little from here, a little from there."

Pol Pot said his real political awakening, though, came upon his return home to Cambodia. "Before I went to France, my relatives, they lived comfortably. They were middle peasants. When I came back, I went to my village by bus. When I got off the bus, I met someone with a wagon. He asked my name and he said: 'Ah- you've come back!' And I look at him and see he's my uncle. And he asks me 'Do you want to go home?' I was shocked. Before he had a piece of land and a buffalo, now he had become a rickshaw-puller... I met and talked with the relatives who used to have land and buffaloes and had nothing now... What influenced me most was the actual situation in Cambodia."

The secrecy that made the Khmer Rouge so effective was, Pol Pot said, second nature to him. "Since my boyhood, I never talked about myself ... That was my nature. I was taciturn ... I'm quite modest. I don't want to tell people that I'm a leader ... I didn't tell anybody, not my brother, not my sister, because I didn't want to worry them. If anything happened to me, I didn't want them to have any connection to it. So some people think that I don't care about them. But on the contrary, I respect, I love my relatives. But I never revealed my political thinking to them."

Pol Pot said that it was as much "by chance" as anything that he became leader of the Cambodian communist party in 1960, when Tou Samouth disappeared. "There was nobody else to become secretary of the party, so I had to take charge," he said.

He vehemently denied that he had killed his "best friend", explaining in detail how Tou Samouth had been betrayed and arrested when he left his safe house in Phnom Penh to fetch medicine for his sick child. Tou Samouth was taken to the house of Lon Nol - the military commander who would later lead Cambodia- and interrogated for a week, Pol Pot said. "At that time I was his aide. If Tou Samouth had talked, I would have been arrested. He was killed at Stung Meanchey pagoda. We loved each other."

POL POT: THE END By Nate Thayer

POL POT: THE END

COVER STORY

Far Eastern Economic Review

By Nate Thayer

August 7, 1997

In a stunning journalistic achievement, REVIEW correspondent Nate Thayer comes face-to-face with the elusive Pol Pot, architect of Cambodia’s killing fields. In a story packed with exclusive photos, Thayer describes Pol Pot’s jungle “trial,” and reveals the turmoil within the Khmer Rouge. Separate stories profile Pol Pot, introduce the new Khmer Rouge leadership, and shed new light on Cambodia’s deadly July coup and the suspected drug baron who financed it.

BROTHER NUMBER ZERO

On Other Pages:

19: Pol Pot Unmasked

21: New Face of the Khmer Rouge

22: Casualties of Hun Sen’s Coup

23: The Money Man Behind the Coup

24: On History’s Front Line

Pol Pot caused the deaths of more than a million Cambodians. But when he turned on his longtime military commander, Ta Mok, that was one Cambodian too many

By Nate Thayer in Anlong Veng, Cambodia

After a series of furtive rendezvous, using coded messages over mobile phones, I slipped into one of the most impenetrable, malarial-ridden and landmine-strewn jungles of the world: Khmer Rouge-controlled northern Cambodia. I was hoping to interview Pol Pot, one of the century’s most notorious and elusive mass murderers.

What I did not fathom, as I entered the Khmer Rouge stronghold of Anlong Veng at 12:12 p.m. on July 25, was that I was about to witness nothing less than history.

“Long live! Long live! Long live the new strategy!” hundreds of voices chanted in unison. The clenched fists of the crowds pumped toward the sky, as a smiling middle-aged Khmer Rouge cadre led me toward an open-air mass meeting hall. Old artillery pieces and a captured Russian tank stood nearby.

“Crush! Crush! Crush! Pol Pot and his clique!” shouted the crowd on cue as we approached, their fists striking down towards the ground.

There, slumped in a simple wooden chair, grasping a long bamboo cane and a rattan fan, an anguished old man,  frail and struggling to maintain his dignity, was watching his life vision crumble in utter, final defeat.

This was how the “people’s tribunal’ began for Pol Pot, reviled around the world for personally orchestrating a reign of terror that left more than a million human beings dead and shattered the lives of many millions more.

The crude podium held a microphone, and crackling loudspeakers—powered by a car battery lying on the earthen floor—began to spew humiliating public denunciations of the long-time Khmer Rouge leader.

A shocking number of participants stood on crude wooden stumps, sat in home-made wheelchairs, or were missing eyes—sacrifices to the revolutionary cause of Pol Pot. Others, their arms blown off by landmines, were unable to join the frequent clapping as speaker after speaker denounced the man once venerated as “Brother Number One.”

“Our ultimate goal today is that the international community should understand that we are no longer Khmer Rouge and we are not Pol Potists!,” roared Ta Neou, the governor of the approximately 60,000 civilians who live in the area, which was under Pol Pot’s control until weeks ago.

The carefully orchestrated performance evoked the image of a grainy, black-and-white film clip from China’s Cultural Revolution. But the message was starkly different. “Long live the emergence of the democracy movement!” shouted individuals in the crowd, periodically interrupting leaders offering carefully crafted speeches at the microphone. A chorus would repeat the slogan, followed by prolonged applause by the roughly 500 participants. “Crush! Crush! Crush! Pol Pot and his murderous clique!”

Pol Pot sat alone, near three other manacled loyalists. Many in the crowd of women, children, and uniformed guerrillas seemed more interested at gazing at the first Westerner they had ever seen than in watching the traumatized old man sitting alone in a chair.

Each speaker, seemingly chosen to represent a sector of society—a farmer, an intellectual, a soldier, a woman—got up to denounce and humiliate Pol Pot “and his clique.”

Pol Pot often seemed close to tears as the vitriol was unleashed. In contrast,  three  younger army commanders put on trial alongside him had menacing, almost arrogant expressions, staring coldly into the eyes of the speakers, the crowd and the visiting reporter.

“We have sacrificed everything for the sake of the movement,” Ta Neou continued, “Our parents and all of us are children of peasants and farmers, we have sacrificed everything for the sake of the movement, but at the end we kill each other.”

Pol Pot, who ruled Cambodia for more than three years and ruled the Khmer Rouge for more than three decades, is genuinely finished. He has been denounced and imprisoned by his own movement. Not for the 1975-1978 Cambodian genocide, but for turning on his own comrades in an attempted purge in June, according to speakers at his trial.

Those commanders, led by longtime military commander Ta Mok, struck back and took Pol Pot prisoner after the purge failed. The tribunal sentenced Pol Pot to life imprisonment, but ruled out turning him over to international courts, where he could face charges of crimes against humanity.

The Khmer Rouge of Anlong Veng have good reason to try and distance themselves from the notorious Pol Pot. They want to attract international support for their struggle to unseat Cambodian premier Hun Sen. That is why they let a foreign reporter witness the show trial, the first time a journalist had entered Anlong Veng and left alive.

Yet lengthy interviews with Khmer Rouge cadre left little doubt that his ouster was authentic. Still, the cadres clearly saw it as a tragedy, and continued to treat the 72-year-old Pol Pot with Gentle respect.

The fall of Pol Pot underlines the view that the Khmer Rouge movement that ruled Cambodia in the 1970’s essentially no longer exists. The original leaders have largely been replaced by younger ones less steeped in communist ideology, and the movement has fractured into numerous factions, many of whom are allied with the mainstream political parties contesting power in Phnom Penh.

“It no longer makes any sense whatsoever to call whatever remains a Khmer Rouge movement,” says Stephen Heder, a Cambodian Scholar at the University of London’s School of Advanced International Studies. “Because of the realignment of forces over the last several years, the concept of a Khmer Rouge movement as we know it no longer has any meaning.”

But that doesn’t mean the Khmer Rouge have become irrelevant in Cambodia. The aggressive courting of Khmer Rouge factions by Cambodia’s rival premiers, Hun Sen and Prince Norodom Ranariddh, was central to the July 5-6 coup in Phnom Penh. In fact, the REVIEW has learned, the Khmer Rouge finalized their alliance with Ranariddh’s Funcinpec party on July 4. Worried that the balance of power would be tipped in his rival’s favour, Hun Sen ousted Ranariddh the next day.

 

Photo: Nate Thayer

Pol Pot also opposed those negotiations, and it led to his downfall, according to Khmer Rouge cadre interviewed in Anlong Veng. Virtually the entire leadership favoured a political deal with the royalist Funcinpec, but Pol Pot was opposed, said Gen. Khmer Nuon, who is now the Khmer Rouge’s army chief of staff.

“Domestically and internationally, Pol Pot has his own personal problems to take care of,” Khem Nuon said, referring to Pol Pot’s blood-soaked reputation. “He has no way out. That is why he keeps dragging this movement toward the darkness.”

The visit to Anlong Veng opened an unprecedented window into the inner workings of one of the world’s most secretive guerrilla movements. The Khmer Rouge have splintered dramatically since July 1996, when forces in western Cambodia, representing almost half the movement, broke with Pol Pot’s northern forces headquartered at Anlong Veng. The western split was headed by Ieng Sary, Pol Pot’s brother-in-law and longtime comrade-in-arms.

Khem Nuon said the western split was aimed against Pol Pot himself, but the 72-year-old leader blamed his top leaders—Ta Mok, Nuon Chea, and Son Sen—for losing the west by failing to heal the rift. “ So Pol Pot asked Mao—over there,” Khem Nuon explained, pointing to a young Khmer Rouge cadre standing listening to the interview,” to shoot Ta Mok and burn him—last October—to leave no evidence.”

The grim-faced young cadre, who looked capable of such a deed, nodded in agreement with his commander. But he didn’t carry out Pol Pot’s order. Because Ta Mok, who is known to the outside world as “The Butcher,” is immensely popular with the troops and civilians under his control. So Much so, Khem Nuon said, that Pol Pot saw him as a threat. “All the combatants here are under Ta Mok and they really like him a lot because he is so helpful to them in terms of standard of living. He built roads, bridges, dams within this area,” Khem Nuon said. “This is the reason Pol Pot wanted to get rid of Ta Mok.”

Pol Pot turned to two senior military field commanders, Gen. Sarouen and Gen. San, and attempted to consolidate power against Ta Mok. He called a mass meeting on February 25 of this year, and had them declared the new political and military leaders, replacing Ta Mok, Khem Nuon said. “What is the main cause that steered our people to rise up against Pol Pot? One, the leadership and the grip on power by Pol Pot was so long. All the power was within his hands,” Khem Nuon said. “Pol pot took decisions without even consulting the top leadership.”

About the same time, according to Cambodian government sources and diplomats, secret negotiations accelerated between envoys of Prince Ranariddh and elements of the Khmer Rouge in Anlong Veng. Most of these efforts were conducted by Ta Mok loyalists—often behind Pol Pot’s back—and the top royalist military commander, Gen. Nyek Bun Chhay. By May, the faction agreed in principle to join in alliance.

Increasingly isolated, Pol Pot launched a desperate attempt on June 9 to scuttle the peace deal by purging Ta Mok and other top leaders. That night, longtime defence minister Son Sen and 14 of his relatives, including a five-year-old child, were shot dead by Sarouen’s men, according to both Khmer Rouge and intelligence sources. “On the 9^th of June at 12:15 a.m., Pol Pot issued a direct order to take two Toyota pick-up trucks loaded with 20-30 soldiers to kill Mr. Son Sen,” said Khem Nuon.

The killings sparked several days of turmoil, with commanders fleeing into the jungle in disarray. But they rallied behind Ta Mok and trapped Pol Pot and his band of 300 remaining supporters on June 15, Khem Nuon said. Four days later, they had surrendered.

With Pol Pot neutralized, the remaining Khmer Rouge leadership moved rapidly forward to finalize a secret, tactical, political and military alliance with Ranariddh’s political faction. The two factions were allies against Hun Sen’s Phnom Penh government in a decade-long guerrilla war before Cambodia’s 1991 peace treaty.

The deal was closed July 4 in Anlong Veng. Hun Sen, learning about Funcinpec’s new alliance through his agents, launched his deadly coup the next morning, according to Cambodian political cadres and Asian intelligence sources. It has tipped Cambodia, which enjoyed four years of relative peace after 1993 United nations-sponsored elections, back into the throes of the warfare that seems to define this nation of 10 million people.

Hun Sen has claimed the entire tribunal was stage-managed by Pol Pot himself. Khem Nuon paints a very different picture, but he did say that Pol Pot had ‘consented’ to having a foreign reporter witness the mass meeting, as a way of acknowledging his guilt for moving against his comrades.

“ Pol Pot did himself confess to me clearly, after his arrest,” Khem Nuon said. “ When I met him the first time, he embraced me and burst into tears and said: ‘It is the right thing comrade that this has happened,’ and then he cried. It was on June 21, 1997, and he told me: ‘I am wrong, comrade, all the mistakes were made by me, alone,’ and then he cried.”

“ Pol Pot told me that this is the end of his life, he has nothing left, but he begged me to allow him to live,” Khem Nuon continued. “ I also want to make clear that if Pol Pot was vested with any credibility or respect, he would not have shown up and let you see him like you just did today.”

: I told him this morning that you were going to be here,” to witness his condemnation, Khem Nuon told the REVIEW. “ I told him that we want to prove to the world that we no longer want to associate ourselves with him. Then he consented.”

As the “People’s Tribunal of Anlong Veng” continued into its second hour, the new leaders somberly paced on the outskirts of the crowd, concerned by the deteriorating health of a now clearly weak and traumatized Pol Pot. Guerrilla officials acknowledged that Pol Pot suffered from serious heart disease and high blood pressure long before the events of recent days.

Khem Nuon said relatives and friends of those killed on June 9-10 wanted the blood of Pol Pot and his co-defendants San, Khon, and Sarouen—said to have carried out the murders on his orders. “ You notice that here today nobody was allowed to carry a weapon to this meeting, otherwise they would have been killed by the mob already,” Khem Nuon said.

But the cadre who overthrew Pol Pot seemed anguished as they watched the white-haired old man, who was dressed in loose cotton clothes with a blue-and-white Cambodian scarf looped around his neck. Confusion and sadness were etched on men who had spent their entire adult lives following Pol Pot from Cambodia’s jungles to its capital and back again.

“ We have put an end to the leadership which has betrayed our organization and the people,” Mak Ben, a bespectacled French-educated economist, dressed in a green Chinese-style military uniform, said from the podium. “ They are completely gone, as of right now, the Pol Pot regime has ended.”

“ Having acknowledged the betrayal of our group in recent months by Pol Pot and his clique,” the loudspeaker roared into the nearby forest, then Pol Pot’s crimes were read out. They included the murder of Son Sen, the attempted murder and ‘detention’ of Ta Mok and Nuon Chea, and “destroying the policy of national reconciliation,” a reference to the attempt to block the Funcinpec deal.

“These are the criminal acts—the betrayal by Pol Pot and his clique—against the people, the armed forces, and our cadre. In conclusion, we all decide to condemn and sentence this clique to life imprisonment.”

He immediately was helped up, unable to walk unassisted, by a guard in Chinese-style military fatigues. “ get someone under his other arm, get him more help,” Khem Nuon ordered. Patting his heart, Khem Nuon added: “ I am worried that he may die from the stress.”

Some people respectfully bowed, as if to royalty, as Pol Pot walked 25 meters to a waiting vehicle. “ I said what I said with a very heavy heart,” said Tep Kunnal, an emerging political leader, as he walked slowly away with his head bowed after denouncing Pol Pot. “ It is very, very difficult for me, but it had to be done. Before there were two dangers for Cambodia. Pol Pot and the Vietnamese puppet Hun Sen. Now there is only one.”

The cadres suggested that I ask Pol Pot questions while he was led away, but balked at translating when told the questions I wanted to pose. “ I cannot ask such a question to the leaders. You must ask them in Khmer yourself. It is better.”

Pol Pot, perhaps never to be seen alive again, was helped into a Toyota Landcruiser with tinted windows—captured booty from UN peacekeeping soldiers prior to the 1993 elections. Seconds after the trial ended, a torrential rain began.

 

POL POT: THE END

COVER STORY

 

POL POT UNMASKED: He was obsessed with secrecy and total control

By Nate Thayer in Bangkok, Thailand

Far Eastern Economic Review

August 7, 1997

Pol Pot, whose name is synonymous with the Cambodian genocide, exercized total control over the Khmer Rouge for more than three decades from behind a wall of impenetrable secrecy.

By putting him on trial, his former comrades-in-arms have unmasked a man who shunned exposure, even when he was premier of Cambodia. They have also broken the vice-like grip on the movement he retained through a combination of charisma and utter ruthlessness.

Born to a peasant family in Kampong Thom on May 18t, 1925, Saloth Sar—Pol Pot’s real name—was educated at a Buddhist monastery before entering technical school in Phnom Penh. His clandestine life began in his teens, when he joined the anti-French resistance movement in Indochina during World War ll.  By 1946, he was a member of the underground Indochinese Communist Party.

In 1949, he won a scholarship to study radio electronics in Paris, where he was active in radical student politics. His studies, apparently, took a back seat and he failed his exams three years in a row. He spent one summer picking grapes in Tito’s Yugoslavia, where he may have acquired his radical communism that challenged Soviet-style orthodoxy.

It was also during his sojourn in France that he charmed Khieu Ponnary, whose sister was married to Ieng Sary, another future Khmer Rouge leader.

Returning to Phnom Penh with no degree, Pol Pot taught at a private secondary school and wrote articles for left-wing publications that he signed, “The Original Khmer.” His underground activities went farther than that, however. He became a senior member of the Cambodian Communist Party at its founding congress in 1960, and was named secretary in 1963 after the mysterious death of Tou Samouth.

It was then that his secret life became his whole life. Prince Norodom Sihanouk, no longer content to belittle the Cambodian communists as “me Khmer Rouges”—“My Red Khmers”—was stepping up police pressure. Pol Pot and his comrades fled into the jungle, leaving no trace. “When a secret is kept secret, 50% of the battle is won,” Pol Pot once said.

Twelve years later, after fighting first Sihanouk’s army and then American-backed troops of Gen. Lon Nol, the battle was won. On April 17, 1975, Pol Pot’s army of peasants, clad in simple black-cotton uniforms, marched into Phnom Penh. Finally, Pol Pot could put his ideas into action.

The result was one of the most brutal and disastrous social experiments in history. After emptying the capital at gunpoint, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge tried to transform Cambodia into a communal agrarian utopia, but instead turned the country into a vast slave-labour camp. More than one million Cambodians—out of a population of some 7 million—were executed, tortured, or starved to death under the Khmer Rouge reign of terror.

The educated were the first to be slain. But later, as the reign of terror turned on itself, waves of purges decimated the ranks of Khmer Rouge cadres. Anyone who could pose a threat to Pol Pot was killed.

Through it all, Pol Pot stayed behind his mask. When it was announced in 1976 that Pol Pot had been named premier of “Democratic Kampuchea,” as the country was renamed, American intelligence officials—who had been fighting the Khmer Rouge for years—could not figure out who he was.

“Secret work is fundamental,” Nuon Chea, the party’s number 2, told a visiting Danish delegation in 1977, the only time Nuon Chea was seen in public.

Nevertheless, a personality cult started to spring up around him in May 1978, pushed by cadres eager to show their loyalty as purges spiraled. Tens of thousands of Khmer Rouge cadres were executed as Pol Pot eliminated competition. His power was clearly growing, Chandler says: whereas he was addressed as ‘Elder Brother Pol” or “Brother Number One” soon after taking power, that gradually changed to “Uncle Secretary” or “party centre” to “Leading Apparatus” to, finally, the “High Organization.”

Pol Pot’s radical ideas were nourished by a five month sojourn in China in 1965-66, when the country was in ferment leading up to the Great proletarian Cultural Revolution. His admiration for the Gang of Four was mutual: Pol Pot went to China after his 1975 victory and met Mao Zedong, who congratulated him on his speedy revolution.

While Pol Pot’s thinking may have been influenced by his foreign experiences, at its root it is deeply Khmer. And in Pol Pot’s case, that means a visceral hatred of Vietnam, the much larger neighbor that seized the Mekong Delta from the medieval Khmer empire. Egged on by that HATRED, Khmer Rouge guerrillas carried out raids into southern Vietnam, triggering the December 1978 Vietnamese invasion.

Pol Pot again fled into the jungle, after ruling for three years, eight months, and 20 days. Reverting to form, he took the code name “81.” Until July 25, 1997, he hadn’t been seen by foreign journalists since 1979, when he was filmed by Naoki Mabuchi, a Japanese photographer with close ties to the Khmer Rouge.

Pol Pot officially retired from his official posts in 1985, but there was never any question that remained in total control of the movement. Cadres who have heard him speak say he is an amazing orator, making speeches so resonant in revolutionary and patriotic spirit that they bring his listeners to tears. Yet he refrained from appearing publicly.

Now, it appears Pol Pot has lost both his mask and his powers. That doesn’t auger well for the movement he helped found, and which is now in danger of segmenting further. As Nuon Chea said in his 1977 interview: “The leadership apparatus must be defended at any price…as long as the leadership is there, the party will not die.”

 

POL POT: THE END

COVER STORY

NEXT GENERATION: Khmer Rouge put on a new face

By Nate Thayer in Anlong Veng, Cambodia

Far Eastern Economic Review

August 7, 1997

A tiger, according to Gen. Khem Nuon, can indeed change its stripes. And if foreigners doubt that the Khmer Rouge movement has  done just that, he said, they should come and see for themselves in the jungles of Northern Cambodia.

That is the message that the movement’s new military chief-of-staff wanted to send in an unprecedented interview at his headquarters of Anlong Veng. “ From now on, we are going to open this area free for foreigners, so they can see the real facts about our movement,” he said.

Anyone who accepts that invitation will find a mixed picture. Clearly, the purge of Pol Pot and a generational transfer of leadership has profoundly changed the secretive movement. In the interview, Khem Nuon spoke with openness about the past “crimes” and future plans, and he showed no interest in communist ideology.

At the same time, however, the group continues to sound the drum of rabid anti-Vietnamese ultra nationalism, and remains bent on the overthrow of Cambodian premier Hun Sen. Some of the older leaders who orchestrated the 1975-78 Cambodian reign of terror still wield influence, and younger cadres talk of “democracy” rang hollow against the backdrop of a Cultural revolution-style show trial.

The movement is opening up for a reason: It wants to build alliances both within the country and overseas for its crusade against Hun Sen and the “Vietnamese aggressors” that it claims are still occupying the country. Specifically, it wants to join forces with Funcinpec—whose leader co-Premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh, was ousted by Hun Sen in a July 5-6 coup—as well as with other political parties opposed to Hun Sen.

But Khem Nuon and other new leaders are aware that if they’re going to have any hope of winning Western support, they have to break with the movement’s blood-soaked past. “ The reason we put an end to the Pol Pot regime is because we want the international community to see and help us in our struggle with other movements in order to fight against Hun Sen and the Vietnamese,” Khem Nuon said.

To an international community that equates the Khmer Rouge with genocide, it’s going to be a hard sell. But Khem Nuon says the Khmer Rouge—or, more precisely, Pol Pot’s Democratic Kampuchea Party—no longer exists. The movement is now called the National Solidarity Party.

“ If they still call me Khmer Rouge they haven’t seen what I have just done. I am the one who destroyed Pol Pot, who has been in power for many years,” he said after the group’s longtime leader was publicly denounced. “ Even the United States and the Vietnamese failed to get rid of him, but I can. So how can you call me the Khmer Rouge?”

In an unprecedented admission, he said that “crimes” had been committed during the Khmer Rouge’s nearly four year rule of Cambodia. But even when pressed, he would not go much farther, Blaming individuals rather than the group. “ We do condemn those who have committed crimes, which were not right,” Khem Nuon said. “ At the time I committed no crimes, only Pol Pot and some of his close people. Now they are gone, while Pol Pot is arrested. Some of them have defected to the Vietnamese side, and the rest I don’t know where they are.”

According to Khem Nuon and other Cadres, the movement is now led by a nine-member standing committee that includes only one member of the old guard: Khieu Samphan, the head of the committee, a diplomat who for years has been the public face of the Khmer Rouge. Khem Nuon, who’s aged about 50, is the second-ranking member, but his power is bolstered by his being the top military figure.

Yet Khem Nuon freely acknowledges that older leaders such as Gen. Ta Mok and Nuon Chea, who were key members of the murderous 1975-78 Khmer Rouge regime, still have a say in “all important matters.” Khem Nuon, who did military training in China, is the right-hand-man of the one-legged Ta Mok. “I’m the one who is in charge of the armed forces right now, but I keep consulting him all the time,” he said.

Once Hun Sen is driven out, the National Solidarity party would be happy to participate in democratic elections, Khem Nuon said. Tep Kunnal, another top-ranking standing committee figure, also spoke of liberal democracy as desirable. It seems that the new generation is driven less by communist ideology than by the ultra nationalism that has long under laid politics in a country squeezed between more powerful neighbors.

Khem Nuon claims there are 10,000 guerrillas and 60,000 civilians loyal to the movement around Anlong Veng. “Our movement is pure and clean,” he said. “ I hope the international community will help us.” For starters, he urged, “ Please ask them to stop calling us ‘Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.’”

 

====================

POL POT: THE END

COVER STORY

Harrowing Tales: Hun Sen’s forces torture and kill former allies

By Nate Thayer in Samrong, Cambodia and Bangkok

Far Eastern Economic Review

August 7, 1997

 

At the jungle hide-out along the Thai-Cambodian border, Gen. Serei Kosal, stuttering and wide-eyed with fear, relates five-days of flight from Phnom Penh through the Cambodian countryside. He was one of the top military officers targeted for arrest by Hun Sen, Cambodia’s second prime minister, who deposed the first prime minister, prince Norodom Ranariddh, in the July 5-6 coup.

Gen. Serei fled the capital on the morning of July 5 by commandeering a military aircraft to the western city of Battambang. From there, he travelled three days by foot with no food until he reached resistance-controlled zones along the Thai border. Claiming 700 troops under his command, he vowed to organize guerrilla war.

He was lucky to have escaped: The coup left scores dead, including two of his fellow generals, and hundreds arrested. Thousands of others are fleeing or in hiding.

“ We need a safe haven to protect our people from killing and arrest,” said Serei, dressed in borrowed shorts and shoeless. “ Hun Sen is hunting down our people, killing them, arresting them. Why hasn’t the world condemned the coup makers and acted in support of democracy and against the dictators?”

His bewilderment is shared by other Ranariddh loyalists who are flocking to north and northwest Cambodia to seek sanctuary and organize guerrilla resistance. They are joined daily in these jungles and remote villages near the Thai border by opposition-party members, journalists, and other civilians. Many relate harrowing tales of witnessing summary executions, atrocities, and the arrest of anyone suspected of affiliation with Ranariddh’s Funcinpec party.

From their accounts and evidence gathered by human rights officials, a grim picture is emerging of torture and summary execution by Hun Sen and his cohorts, many of whom are former Khmer Rouge soldiers who took part in the “killing fields” of the late 1970’s. Equally disturbing are allegations that foreign embassies refused help to Cambodians who feared for their lives in the first days after the coup when many of the killings occurred.

International human rights officials in Phnom Penh say they had confirmed 36 executions by mid-July and were verifying a dozen others. “ We have had many cases of bodies found, hands tied behind their back, with bullets in the head. But sometimes we arrive too late for the bodies and there are only ashes. They are literally incinerating the evidence,” said a senior Western human rights investigator in Phnom Penh. United Nations officials say they know of another 30 Funcinpec supporters who were tortured and forced to drink sewage.

Investigators say at least 617 people have been detained in Phnom Penh and another 271 are known to have been arrested outside the capital. They say the evidence beginning to trickle in is “only the tip of the iceberg,” but includes specific information linking Hun Sen’s top lieutenants to unspeakable acts of torture and murder.

Gen. Chau Sambath, a military advisor to Ranariddh, was captured while trying to flee the capital by motorcycle. According to human rights officials and Cambodian intelligence officers, Sambath was taken to Hun Sen’s personal compound on July 8 where he was tortured, then executed. The sources say his fingernails were pulled off and his tongue ripped out before he was killed by Gen. Him Bun Heang, chief of security for Hun Sen and head of his personal bodyguard. “ They wanted to know the military radio frequencies of Funcinpec leaders, so they tortured him at Hun Sen’s house,” said a senior Cambodian military intelligence officer. “ They pulled his tongue out of his head with pliers when he wouldn’t talk.”

Another Funcinpec general, secretary of state at the Ministry of Interior Ho Sok, was executed on the grounds of the ministry by the bodyguards of National Police Chief Gen. Hok Lundy, a loyalist of Hun Sen. According to Amnesty International, Ho Sok was arrested “ while attempting to find a country that would give him asylum.” He had taken refuge at the embassy of an Asean country, but was expelled at the request of Hun Sen’s aides and arrested as he drove to the luxury Cambodiana hotel, where many foreigners and Funcinpec officials had fled in the days after the coup. A Ministry of Interior spokesman confirmed the killing, saying it was done by “people who were angry with him.”

At least five bodyguards of Gen. Nyek Bun Chhay, the commander of Funcinpec forces, had their eyes gouged out while they were under interrogation, then executed, according to Western human rights officials and Cambodian military sources. After 14 days of flight through the countryside Nyek Bun Chhay has since arrived at the jungle headquarters and commands the resistance army.

Hundreds have already arrived in Thailand, including scores of Funcinpec officials, at least 24 members of parliament, journalists associated with independent newspapers, and officials of other political parties.

“The soldiers came to my house with rocket launchers looking for my steering committee members, putting their pictures on TV and posted in military offices,” said Sam Rainsy, Cambodia’s most prominent opposition politician and head of the Khmer Nation party. “ There is a campaign to destroy the KNP. The soldiers told people at my office ‘ We will not even let a baby asleep in a hammock stay alive.’ This is real Khmer Rouge language We cannot operate anymore. Democracy is finished.” More than 1000 of his party workers are now amassed at a jungle encampment along the Thai border under the protection of Funcinpec troops still loyal to Ranariddh.

“Killing and repression are going on on a very large scale. Hun Sen is a murderous prime minister,” Ranariddh told the REVIEW in Bangkok on July 20. “ I hope that the U.S. congress will call for a cessation of all aid to Hun Sen.”

But international condemnation of the coup has been decidedly muted, with the major donor countries still considering whether to support a government controlled by Hun Sen. If he maintains a credible coalition by co-opting ministers from Ranariddh’s Funcinpec party, he may win that support.

The ambivalence of major Western governments was foreshadowed by the reaction of their embassies in Phnom Penh during the coup—a response that has been criticized bitterly by Cambodian and human rights officials. They say the American and Australian embassies refused entry to Cambodian government officials who sought refuge on embassy grounds. The U.S. embassy also “flatly refused” requests of political asylum for some members of parliament or to issue them with emergency visas.

“We begged visas from Western embassies. We begged them to open their gates for people who were clearly targeted for persecution, and the Americans, the Australians, flatly said no,” said a foreign human rights official in Phnom Penh. “ These are the embassies who have pushed people to exercise their rights, have said they supported human rights and free expression and opposition politics, but when these very values are trampled upon and those who exercised their  rights were targeted, they did nothing to help.”

American embassy sources said they had no clearance from Washington to offer political asylum and claim they were not approached directly by any Cambodians for sanctuary on embassy grounds.

The U.S. also set up a sanctuary on the grounds of the Cambodiana hotel in downtown Phnom Penh during the fighting that raged in the city. Some Cambodian parliamentarians who have since fled the country said they were denied access to the sanctuary in the hotel’s ballroom. The correspondent for Voice of America, Cambodian citizen Som Sattana, was refused access to the ballroom by embassy personnel, despite having received death threats, according to human rights workers. He has since left the country.

“We set up a U.S. embassy reception centre at the Cambodiana hotel early on Sunday (July 6) for American citizens,” said an embassy spokeswoman, who added: “ We were not open for visas during the fighting.”

The able to flee are regrouping in newly formed resistance zones in northern Cambodia. Several thousand heavily armed troops backed by tanks and artillery control a swath of territory across several provinces abutting the Thai border, including the contested northwestern provincial capital of Samrong.

Hundreds of Funcinpec members, exhausted from days of trekking across the country to reach Funcinpec-controlled areas, spoke of being hunted by Hun Sen’s forces. “ They are arresting people in their houses, in the jungle, along the road—anybody they think works for Funcinpec,” said Sok Nuon, a policeman who fled from Kampong Chhnang province.

Gen. Long Sereirath, formerly deputy commander of the 5th Military Region in the north, fought his way out of Siem Riep city four days after the coup. He said he went without food for three days before reaching Samrong. “ We will blow up key bridges to keep them from coming north with artillery,” he said, but added that his forces were desperately low on ammunition.

His commander, Lt. Gen. Khan Savouen, who is now leading resistance forces, appealed for foreign assistance from his front-line command post near national Route 6 in Siem Riep province.” We will fight even if we don’t get foreign assistance,” he said, surrounded by Russian T-54 tanks, armoured personnel carriers, heavy artillery and anti-aircraft guns. Heavy fighting raged a few kilometers away and his position was overrun the day after the REVIEW interviewed him.

 

POL POT: THE END

COVER STORY

DUBIOUS DONOR

Money man: Theng Bunma sent cash and gold for Hun Sen’s coup

By Nate Thayer

Far Eastern Economic Review

August 7, 1997

How much does it take to buy a coup? In Cambodia, the going rate seems to be $1 million. Suspected drug baron Theng Bunma said he gave that much in cash and gold to Second Prime Minister Hun Sen to fund the putsch which toppled co-premier Norodom Ranariddh.

“For the clash of 6^th of July, 1997, I called Mr. Hun Sen and I talked to him. I gave him $1 million dollars to do whatever to control the situation,” said Bunma in an interview with Australian Channel 7 television.” He asked me if I had the money. I said no, but I would send 100 kilograms of gold in a plane into Cambodia.’ In return for his generosity, Bunma, reputed to be Cambodia’s richest businessman, enjoyed a perk of being a big-time coup financier: More than 300 hundred of Hun Sen’s troops, backed by tanks, were dispatched to protect Bunma’s property during the coup.

“ I say what the second prime minister did was correct. Why? One reason, take the example of my hotel. The other side wanted to destroy it, the government put three tanks and soldiers around to protect it,” he said. Asked whether Bunma had given the government the money, Cambodian Secretary of State for Information Khieu Kanharith replied:” Why would he give us a million dollars? I do not know what we are supposed to do with this money—it’s nothing, we need $100 million to finance the redevelopment of the whole country.”

Bunma also said he gave $50,000 dollars each to three leaders of a renegade faction of Ranariddh’s Funcinpec party “to encourage them”—Siem Riep governor Toan Chhay, Banteay Meanchey provincial governor Duong Khem and Minister of State Ung Phan.

The tycoon has denied allegations by the United States that he is involved in heroin trafficking.

Cambodia: Asia’s New Narco-State? Medellin on the Mekong By Nate Thayer

Cambodia: Asia’s New Narco-State?

Far Eastern Economic Review

COVER STORY (Three story package below)

 23 Nov 1995

Has Cambodia become a mafia state? Nate Thayer reports that in the two years since UN-run elections, criminal syndicates protected by high-ranking have turned the country into a major centre for heroin trafficking and money laundering. Doubly disturbing, some of the same military units accused of killing government opponents are implicated in drug smuggling and other crimes. Western aid donor countries are alarmed. Also: A profile of Theng Bunma, a businessman who has bestowed millions of dollars on the Cambodian regime.

(Authors note: The Review and I were sued by Theng Bunma for this story and I was forced to leave Cambodia for a short while because of serious threats to my life as a consequence of its publication. The U.S, government refused to go on the record that they had identified Bunma as an organized crime figure and drug trafficker, despite innumerable U.S. sources privately, in detail, saying he was. Thailand and Hong Kong, after publication of the below stories, both banned him from entry to their countries and issues criminal warrants for his arrest. Over drinks one night, in what will remain an unnamed remote Asian country, I was expressing frustration to a resident American diplomat at the U.S. refusal to acknowledge publicly Bunma’s status as banned from entry to the U.S. having been formally designated a drug trafficker. I was being sued by Bunma at the time causing considerable distraction. The diplomat responded: “Fuck that. Come to the embassy tomorrow morning. I’ll give you the documents.” I told him I wanted them to give to the Hong Kong court and he—the diplomat-- would be technically committing treason by giving me the classified documents. “Fuck it. You are a U.S. citizen. It is my job to protect American citizens.” I carried with me at the time a copy of Bunma’s Cambodian diplomat and civilian passport as well as his Thai passport under an alias. The next morning, I arrived at the embassy and the very accommodating American diplomat took the passport numbers, punched them into a computer, and up came Bunma’s classified designation as banned from entry to the U.S. based on his designation under two U.S. Immigration criminal classifications: (1) drug trafficker, and (2) “Undesirable person”—which often refers to an organized crime figure. “Which documents would you like?” asked the diplomat. “All of them,” I answered. He pushed print and out spit a U.S. government document, on embassy letterhead, stating Bunma was banned from entry to the U.S. that would appear on any immigration computer on entry to the United States. I turned it over to my lawyers, who turned it over to the Hong Kong court, who turned it over to Bunma’s lawyers. They dropped the lawsuit. I then wrote a follow up story based on the document and the Review printed a graphic photocopy of the official U.S. government document to emphasize the point.  End of story)

CAMBODIA: Medellin on the Mekong:

 

The UN spent $3 billion to lay the foundation for peace and democracy in Cambodia. Now the country's fragile democratic institutions are being subverted by the wealth of drug lords. The REVIEW's Phnom Penh correspondent, Nate Thayer, researched these stories over a four-month period in Cambodia, Thailand, Hong Kong, France and the United States.

It wasn't your typical diplomatic luncheon. In February 1994, U.S. Ambassador Charles Twining invited Cambodian Finance Minister Sam Rainsy and another senior official to dine at his residence in Phnom Penh. Leading them into the living room, Twining turned up the music and lowered his voice.

Then, according to Rainsy, Twining asked him to convey a message to Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh: "Please tell Ranariddh not to get involved with Theng Bunma because we Americans have evidence that Theng Bunma is involved in drug trafficking." The other Cambodian official confirms the account.

The United States ambassador had just named Cambodia's wealthiest businessman, but the allegation didn't shock his listeners. Western governments, international law-enforcement officials and Cambodian sources say businessmen engaged in criminal activities have amassed immense power in Cambodia in the two-and-a-half years since United Nations-run elections. Protected by senior government officials, they've turned Cambodia into a major centre for drug trafficking, money laundering and smuggling.

Although Theng Bunma denies any wrongdoing (see story on page 27), his company has been fined at least twice since 1993 for attempting to smuggle gold and other goods into Cambodia. Yet Bunma holds a Cambodian diplomatic passport issued in January that identifies him as special adviser to National Assembly President Chea Sim. He's a benefactor of both prime ministers: He paid $1.8 million in August 1993 for Ranariddh's Kingair-200 plane and gave Second Prime Minister Hun Sen the Mercedes limousine that ferries him to official functions. He even helped underwrite the 1994 state budget with interest-free loans of several million
dollars--effectively funding the dry-season offensive against the Khmer Rouge, the REVIEW has learned.

Cambodia is a place where, one American official charges, criminal syndicates "are using government planes, helicopters, military trucks, navy boats, and soldiers to transport heroin." Doubly disturbing, some of the same military units involved in drug trafficking have been implicated in political violence, pointing to dangerously close links between crime syndicates and political figures.

The allegations have far-reaching implications for Cambodia, which receives 44% of its $410 million annual budget in aid from Western donor countries. U.S. officials told the REVIEW that Cambodia will join 29 other countries on the Major Narcotics Country list in coming weeks, which could lead to a cut-off of aid.

France has already put Phnom Penh on notice that unless top officers it believes are involved in crime syndicates are removed from the national military police it will stop aiding the force. Australia, meanwhile, is worried by evidence that the navy--which it is assisting--is directly
involved in shipping heroin.

The revelations could cause additional embarrassment to U.S. diplomats, whose government has officially made the fight against drug trafficking a top foreign-policy priority. In late April, Twining's embassy issued a visa to Theng Bunma--the same businessman the ambassador had alleged to be a drug smuggler. Bunma visited the U.S. as part of a delegation headed by Chea Sim, who was acting head of state.

Asked whether he had informed Rainsy of U.S. suspicions about Theng Bunma, Twining said: "We don't comment about confidential conversations with a host government." But his employer, the U.S. State Department, has publicly voiced its worries about Cambodia. In a report on narcotics and Cambodia issued in March, it said "involvement of some leading businessmen with access to the highest levels of government is a known concern. We are not aware of any prosecutions for narcotics-related corruption. There are indications that some high-level military officials and powerful businessmen who give financial support to politicians are
involved in heroin smuggling."

Cambodian sources, international law-enforcement officials and diplomats say numerous senior military and police officers are involved in transporting heroin through Cambodia or protecting the traffic. The drug, originating in the Burmese segment of the Golden Triangle, arrives by
land from Thailand and Laos, or aboard small boats from Thailand. Then most of it is shipped out of Cambodia through ports in the southwestern province of Koh Kong, destined mainly for the U.S. About a third departs through Phnom Penh's Pochentong airport, often destined for Europe.

"It is clear that Cambodia is a new and rapidly increasing trafficking route," says Bengt Juhlin, deputy head of the UN International Drug Control Project regional office in Bangkok. He points to the absence of an effective legal system, lack of resources to combat drug smuggling, and
official corruption. "The presence of the three makes Cambodia very vulnerable."

An added attraction for international criminals is the ease of laundering money in Cambodia. A confidential report prepared this year for the Interior Ministry says that 19 of Phnom Penh's 29 banks are suspected of being fronts for cleaning tainted cash. As the BCCI scandal showed a
few years ago, crooked banks pose a special risk to the international financial system. But it doesn't take a bank to launder--in Cambodia's cash economy, it's easy to unload dirty dollars at restaurants, nightclubs, luxury-goods dealerships and the casino.

"Cambodia is now a mafia state because there are a group of businessmen who consider themselves above the law, who have infiltrated all spheres, all aspects of government, the judiciary, the parliament," says Rainsy, who was sacked from his government post in September 1994 and has just formed an opposition political party. "These people--these politicians--are at least protecting and at worst working for the mafia."

It's a sinister symbiosis. When the influence of crime bosses permeates the apparatus of state, then elements of the security forces can become their tools. Critics say that's happening in Cambodia, compounding the climate of fear created by the government's increasingly heavy-handed treatment of its political opponents. In fact, the two units most frequently cited in connection with political violence and other human-rights abuses--the Defence Ministry's intelligence force and the national military police--are also deeply implicated in smuggling and other crimes, according to international law-enforcement officials and diplomats (see
story on page 30).

That means those who highlight the links between crime bosses and government officials are doubly at risk. In August, after Phnom Penh's popular Morning News published reports about military complicity in heroin smuggling, a hand grenade was thrown in the house of the paper's publisher.

A year earlier, the editor of The Voice of Khmer Youth was shot dead at midday at a busy Phnom Penh intersection. The attack came just days after the newspaper published a detailed biography of Theng Bunma, accusing him of heading a large criminal syndicate whose activities included drug trafficking.

"Cambodia is now like Noriega in Panama. Nobody dares to speak out because they will be killed," says a senior officer in one of Cambodia's security services.

Police Gen. Nouen Souer, the former head of the national police anti-drug unit, is one of the few Cambodian officials to have spoken out publicly about government corruption and the drug trade. After his remarks were published in an August newspaper interview, he received death threats. He has been silent since then.

In the August interview, though, Souer claimed that 600 kilograms of heroin a week were coming through Phnom Penh. "I knew about this, but I couldn't do anything," he said. "The smugglers are rich and have high-ranking officials behind them." Asked who the high-ranking officials were, he replied: "I can't tell you or I will die."

Cambodian sources, international law-enforcement officials and diplomats name several wealthy and well-connected Cambodian businessmen as suspected heads of criminal syndicates. But none is better connected than Theng Bunma, a master at playing both sides of the fence.

In addition to bestowing gifts on the prime ministers, the magnate was linked to a failed July 1994 coup that attempted to shore up the power of some former communist officials who were being marginalized under the new regime. Cambodian and Thai officials say the 33 Thai nationals implicated in the coup plot arrived in Phnom Penh on air tickets booked by Bunma's holding company, the Thai Boon Roong Group. The invoice remains unpaid, however, and Bunma contends the order was unauthorized.

Until this year, Bunma seemed to be content to operate from behind a veil of enforced silence. But on October 15, he was elected president of the Cambodian Chamber of Commerce by a vote of 21-1. That shocked Western donor countries, who were well aware of Bunma's unsavory reputation. "This time they went too far," one Western ambassador in Phnom Penh quoted his U.S. colleague, Twining, as saying.

Twining's discomfort was understandable. His embassy had issued Bunma a visa so he could visit the U.S. in May as part of Chea Sim's delegation. That was 15 months after Twining's warning to Rainsy.

Twining and other U.S. officials refused to comment publicly on why suspected drug traffickers were issued visas, but one U.S. embassy source defends the decision: "We had no firm proof, only suspicions," he says.

But other U.S. government sources close to the issue reject that defence. "The decision was mainly political. We did not want to force a confrontation with a government that we have good relations with," says one official.

When several Thai MPs were put on the U.S. immigration "watch list" last year, barring them from entering the country because of suspected links to drug trafficking, the diplomatic and political fallout was heavy. Yet this time, the effort by diplomats to avoid controversy may have backfired.

To start with, letting suspected Cambodian drug traffickers into the U.S. appears to directly contradict post-Cold War U.S. foreign policy, which calls for "public diplomacy" to expose foreign officials who participate in or protect international crimes such as drug trafficking.

"It is in the drug trade's interest to remain behind the scenes working through corrupt government officials who can maintain a facade of probity and respectability. One of the best ways to routing out drug corruption is to expose it to public scrutiny," says the U.S. Government Narcotics Control Strategy report released by the State Department in March. "Corruption is a threat to any nation's security, for it allows criminal elements to undermine the legitimacy of the State from within."

When Chea Sim came to the U.S., his delegation's rooms at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel in Washington on May 8-10 were reserved and paid for in the name of Theng Bunma.

Chea Sim dined with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Winston Lord, had talks with National Security Council officials, and met Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, according to his official schedule prepared by the State Department. Teng Bunma didn't accompany Chea Sim on his official rounds in Washington, but Rohrabacher was incensed when he learned afterwards that U.S. officials suspected a member of the Cambodian delegation of involvement in the drug trade.

"If Chea Sim was accompanied to the United States by major drug dealers, I would be very upset. Not only upset with the drug dealers, but upset with my own government for not tipping me off," says the congressman, who met Chea Sim on May 10. "The Cold War is over. We have no more excuse to turn a blind eye to this kind of behavior by governments."

President Bill Clinton seems to agree. In a speech marking the 50th anniversary of the UN, he announced that the U.S. was identifying and putting on notice countries that tolerate laundering of drug money, and threatened economic sanctions against governments that failed to crack down.

"President Clinton's speech . . . represents a significant new conception of U.S. foreign policy," Zoe Baird, a member of the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, wrote on October 25. "The U.S. may stop supporting a leader who is tolerant of a drug cartel though it
previously supported him because he was a staunch anti-communist. The U.S. may risk embarrassing or destabilizing a government that is weak in rooting out--or protects--terrorists or organized crime."

The Cambodian government protests that it is doing what it can to fight crime. On September 15, it set up a special committee chaired by the prime ministers to combat drug-related crimes. Already, it says it's "closely cooperating with international organizations--such as the UN and  Interpol and with countries such as the U.S. and France--in implementing measure aimed at ferreting out and apprehending criminals, seizing drugs and sending them to the court."

But unless concrete results are visible soon, it may be too late to protect U.S. aid to Cambodia. American officials say it's only a matter of weeks before Cambodia is placed on the Major Narcotics Country list. Once that happens, U.S. law will require that Phnom Penh demonstrate that it has "taken legal and law-enforcement measures to prevent and punish public corruption--especially by senior government officials--that facilitates the production, processing or shipment of narcotic drugs, or that discourages investigation or prosecution of such acts."

If Cambodia cannot satisfy these terms, the U.S. is obliged to consider halting most forms of bilateral assistance, and voting against multilateral assistance programmes such as those of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank--the financial lifeblood of the Cambodian government.

In several cases, countries that failed to meet the criteria were issued U.S. "national-interest waivers" by the White House, sparing them from the full force of sanctions. But Cambodia, which lacks the strategic importance of a country like Pakistan, could conceivably end up on a short list of the countries that have been "decertified" by the U.S: Afghanistan, Burma, Iran, Syria and Nigeria. That would give it virtual outlaw status.

"You don't want to be on that list," says one U.S. official. "Its significance is the loss of assistance, but it's also political. It's like being on the terrorist list."

 

 (Story two)

Sugar Daddy

Businessman emerges as pillar of the regime

 

His name is a household word to Cambodians, from noodle vendors to civil servants. It is synonymous with wealth and power on the streets of Phnom Penh. “In Khmer, we say ‘He makes the rain, he makes the thunder’,” says a senior Cambodian official. “Everybody knows that Theng Bun Ma can do what he wants.”

Theng Bun Ma, a 54-year-old ethnic Chinese, is Cambodia’s richest businessman. But his aura of power doesn’t come from his October 15 election as president of the Cambodian Chamber of Commerce—it comes from his close connection to the country’s political and military elite.

With interests ranging from cigarette distributorship to a casino, Bunma’s company, the Thai Boon Roong Group, is Cambodia’s biggest taxpayer. But he has also showered the leadership with gifts and even helped underwrite the military budget.

Clearly, Bunma has come a long way from the eastern province of Kampong Cham, where he started out as a driver’s assistant on a rural bus line and moved into small trading. “I was young, then I traded rice and ran buses,” he said in a rare interview with a Phnom Penh journalist, “I had contact with Thai’s selling beans, sugar, cement.”

That wasn’t all he traded, according to a detailed biography published in a Phnom Penh newspaper in August 1994. The Voice of Khmer Youth alleges that in 1972, Bunma was arrested in the western city of Battambang, when he tried to smuggle 20 kilos of opium in from Thailand under the hood of his car.

Sentenced to twenty years in prison, Bunma bribed a guard and escaped, it charged. “Using a bamboo stalk as a ladder, he crawled out a prison window (and)…hid in a rice loft. The court issued an arrest warrant for Bunma. From this point on, Bunma took refuge at the Khmer-Thai border,” the newspaper said.

Less than a week after the newspaper printed the biography, its editor was gunned down by men in military uniform in broad daylight on a busy Phnom Penh street. No one has been arrested for the murder.

Bunma said he moved to Thailand in 1972 simply because Khmer Rouge guerrillas were disrupting trade. Whatever the reason for the move, Bunma received a Thai citizenship card on July 8, 1975. The next month he registered Thai Boon Roong as an import-export company with capital of $100,000. “I did business through waterways using ships to transport goods to sell in Vietnam,” Bunma said in the interview.

It was a tumultuous time to be trading with Vietnam, where the south had just fallen to the communists. The Voice of Khmer Youth report said that Bunma used boats to smuggle everything from palm oil to tobacco into the country, returning with Vietnamese girls and well-off Sino-Vietnamese refugees.

Smuggling made Bunma a rich man, the newspaper said. That charge incenses the tycoon, who prepared for the October interview by having an aide tape a patch of traditional Chinese medicine to his chest. “You’ll be asking questions so I am putting this patch on for fear that my energy is not strong enough,” he said. “My heart is not strong.”

Then he lashed out at public accusation that “I am mafia, that I deal in drugs.” Bunma said he made his fortune during the Thai property boon of the 1980’s. “Can the people who do dirty business be equal to me? I sold a piece of land on Sukhumvit (in Bangkok), which I’d bought for $400 million, and I sold it for than $800 million. I bought another piece of land, also in Thailand, for $100 million and I sold it for $470 million. Do people dealing in drugs make that much money?”

Bunma didn’t explain, however, where the initial capital came from. Nor did Thai Boon Roong’s move into real-estate mean an end to smuggling: Cambodian customs officers have fined the company at least twice in recent years for illegally importing goods: One incident in 1993 involved 104 kilograms of gold.

Bunma, who is managing director of the Thai Boon Roong group, said it was a desire to “reconstruct the Khmer nation” that made him one of the first major investors in Cambodia after the country started opening up in 1992. Actually, Bunma was already trading with Cambodia on a massive scale by the late 1980’s, and he helped the army meet its payroll when Soviet and Vietnamese aid ended.

In the early 1990’s, he snapped up hundreds of hectares of property in Phnom Penh and the deep-water port of Sihanoukville. When the government began privatizing its assets, He became a major contributor to the formerly communist ruling party, the Cambodian People’s Party, in the run-up to the 1993 UN-run elections.

Bunma now has major stakes in a wide range of legitimate businesses in Cambodia, including the Mekong bank, the Holiday International casino, the Regency Park hotel-office complex, a daily newspaper and a plywood factory. Thai Boon Roong is partnered with Intercontinental Hotels in building Phnom Penh” first five-star hotel. It also has exclusive distribution rights for Jet brand Indonesian cigarettes in Indochina; business associates say the monopoly nets at least $4 million a month on sales of 100,000 cases.

In the interview, Bunma also talked about owning three Boeing 737 aircraft and “49 pieces of land in Thailand, but I have not had time to construct.”

Bunma’s business skills have earned him his share of admirers. Says one Overseas Chinese Businessman in Phnom Penh: “he keeps his word. There is not a lot of paperwork in the traditional Chinese way of doing business, and he always pays his bills.”

Says another associate: “He is a very shy person, quiet, dignified. There is a physical presence, but he doesn’t swagger. For what it is worth, he is a very doting grandfather.”

One Asian intelligence agency, which has an extensive file on Bunma, mentions that he suffers from diabetes. He speaks Khmer, Thai, and Chinese, but no European languages.

“He is very demanding—he only eats dishes prepared by his wife,” said the newspaper biography. He has been married twice and has ten children—eight sons and two daughters. One son is the director of the Mekong bank; the other runs Sharaton Hotel in Phnom Penh, which houses the casino.

The casino business is perhaps most emblematic of the man, who used to spend his free time gambling on card games even as a small-time trader in sleepy Battambang. Now, according to an Asian intelligence official, “every time he gambles it’s not less than $1 million.”

 

(Story three)

The Storm Troopers

Abuses prompt donor countries to reconsider aid

It wasn’t exactly a clean getaway. When confronted by Phnom Penh’s anti-drug squad early this year, a gang of suspected heroin traffickers opened fire on police and to sanctuary inside a compound belonging to military intelligence on the western edge of the capital.

Was that a sign that the Cambodian Defence Ministry’s feared intelligence force was abandoning its security role for more lucrative pursuits? No, apparently it was just diversifying: On July 13, dissident politician Sam Rainsy’s bodyguards were dragged to the same compound, where they were beaten and threatened.

Diplomats, international law-enforcement officials and human-rights advocates who monitor Cambodia say a disturbing pattern has emerged: The same military and police units responsible for violence against opponents of the government are also the most deeply implicated in criminal activities. These include military intelligence and the national military police, or gendarmerie.

The way crime permeates the apparatus of state is problematic for Western aid donors. It is particularly awkward for France, which is aiding the military police. French officials say they notified the Phnom Penh government in October that unless the commander of the military police—Gen. Kien Savuth—is purged, France will halt its multimillion- dollar programme to train and equipt the force.

Formed during the 1979-1989 Vietnamese occupation and still essentially controlled by the same men, military intelligence and the military police both adapted quickly to life after communism after the signing of the 1991 Cambodian peace agreement. “From the very beginning, these people, in addition to arresting, held people for ransom,” says a former top official of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (Untac), which organized the 1993 elections. “They have been involved in both extortion arrests and political arrests.”

Untac documents implicate the current head of military intelligence, Maj-Gen. Chhum Socheat, in a number of incidents of political intimidation and violence during the run-up to the 1993 election, including the abduction and execution of four opposition-party activists in Battambang, in western Cambodia.

Military intelligence troops have been enforcing a reign of terror in western Cambodia since at least 1991, according to a 1994 report from the UN Centre for Human Rights. The confidential UN report said intelligence units were “making use of wide and uncontrolled powers they enjoy in the province to arrest, detain, interrogate, torture, and execute to carry out, concurrently to their military intelligence work, more lucrative activities.”

Socheat was responsible for the 5^th military region, which covers western Cambodia, at the time.

One UN official assigned to investigate a murder committed by senior military intelligence officers, vented his frustration with their impunity in a March 13, 1993 memo to his superiors: “Is someone going to escape going to trial for cold-blooded murder merely because he is a high-level military figure?” he said. “If so, this Human Rights Officer would prefer someone else tell the sister of the victim.”

The record of the military police, which answers directly to the two prime Ministers, isn’t much better. From 1985 through 1993, Gen. Kien Savuth’s 820-man unit was responsible for Phnom Penh’s security. It was called in by the Prime Minister to put down anti-corruption demonstrations in December 1991. According to the former top Untac official, the unit was directly “implicated in the killings of unarmed demonstrators during the unrest” and “was responsible for numerous cases of ill-treatment of peasants” during other operations.

“because of its record, recommendations were made during the Untac period that it be made among the first units to be demobilized because its very existence was antithetical to the creation of a neutral political environment,” the former official says.

Instead, the unit survived the Untac period and was transformed into a military police force after the election. In October, the gendarmes were used to break up an opposition-party meeting that had been banned by Hun Sen. Earlier, grenades were thrown and more than 30 opposition officials and supporters were hurt.

The nationwide networks of military intelligence and military police give them the means to traffic contraband, Nguon Pen, deputy governor of Stung Treng province, charged in September that planes controlled by the military were flying heroin from the province, which borders Laos, to Phnom Penh. “Who can fight them if some of the crimes are committed by those in the army themselves,” he said.

Military intelligence’s Gen. Socheat and the gendarmerie’s Gen. Savuth have something else in common: links to powerful businessmen. Uniformed and plainclothes gendarmes guard Theng Bunma’s residence in Phnom Penh, and also handle security at the Holiday International casino, which Bunma controls.

In February 1994, gendarmes forcibly evicted hundreds of families from a property owned by Bunma near Phnom Penh and slated for development. Gen. Savuth personally directed the operation, during which scores of villagers were beaten, one child shot to death, and one man taken into custody and executed, according to foreign human-rights investigators.

A record like that has made France balk. “We have officially told the Cambodian government already that if Gen. Kien Savuth is not dismissed, removed as head of the military police, we will not support them anymore. We will be forced to halt our gendarme programme,” a senior French official in Phnom Penh told the REVIEW. “We know very well the truth about this man. We cannot continue to support him.”

Australia, another key donor country in Cambodia, is faced with a similar dilemma. Much of Australia’s military assistance programme is focused on helping Cambodia rebuild its navy. But law enforcement officials say some elements at the navy are deeply involved in criminal syndicates, using naval vessels to transport or protect shipments of heroin and marijuana. “We are very disturbed by some of what we know,” says an Australian official in Phnom Penh.

Cambodia’s main drug export route is the southwestern coastal province of Koh Kong, where former navy chief Adm. Tea Vinh, the younger brother of Defence Minister Tea Banh, wields immense influence. A foreign narcotics official says that since 1991 “our intelligence began picking up four to six shipments a year” of high-grade refined heroin through Koh Kong, with each shipment weighing at least 300 kilograms. That is probably just the tip of the iceberg, he adds. “The only thing hampering them is the weather.”

Not that there isn’t the occasional raid. A combined force of police and customs officials swooped down on a speedboat off Koh Kong on August 11, seizing 71 kilograms of heroin. But two of the arrested smugglers were cops, who quickly fingered their superior officer. “The province of Koh Kong is completely under the control of the mafia,” charges a senior Cambodian government official. “Virtually the entire political structure is involved in illegal activities.’

 

Frantic calls from Regent's Rm 406-Cambodian coup 1994 By Nate Thayer

Frantic calls from Regent's Rm 406

Phnom Penh Post

By Nate Thayer

Friday, 15 July 1994

The Post's Nate Thayer describes how he shared Prince Chakrapong's final hours in Cambodia after receiving a dramatic 6:30 am phone call.

Loyalist troops had taken positions throughout the capital on the night of July 2 as rumors swept the city that a coup attempt was imminent. Heavily armed soldiers were positioned outside the homes of government leaders and military installations by dark, and the children of senior officials were ordered to stay out of the city nightclubs.

Officials confirmed "there will be trouble tonight" and spoke of a coup attempt.

At 3:00 am government forces surrounded the houses of the alleged putsch leaders, who they named as former Interior Minister Sin Song and former Deputy Prime Minister Prince Norodom Chakrapong.

Their houses were invaded, and weapons and communication equipment seized. Sin Song was arrested and allegedly confessed to his role in launching a coup. Chakrapong had fled his house hours before security forces arrived.

At 6:30 am a call to this reporter said "call this number" and hung up. A jittery voice answered after I dialed the mobile phone. "This is Prince Chakrapong. Please, please help me," he said in a frightened broken whisper, "Come right away to the Regent hotel. They have surrounded me. They are trying to kill me."

In the 20 minutes it took for me to arrive, the Prince called me seven times begging for me to come quickly. "I am alone. Please, before they kill me, come now. Call the American Embassy and tell them my life is in danger."

He was obviously hoping that a foreign presence might prevent the security forces from harming him.

Government troops and security forces armed with machine guns, rocket launchers, and carrying walkie talkies were positioned on the street corners and entrance ways around the hotel near Monivong Boulevard when I arrived on the otherwise quiet early Sunday morning. But no one tried to stop me, probably thinking I was a hotel guest.

Inside, hotel workers, white with fear, stared blankly in response to my inquiry of where the alleged coup leader was staying. But maids hovering in an upstairs hallway, opened Room 401.

A disheveled, barefoot, and petrified son of King Sihanouk was found emerging from a crawl space above the ceiling of his hotel room, begging for help.

"Please, they are trying to arrest me. They will kill me. I am innocent. Please tell the American Ambassador to come right away. I need protection," the wide-eyed Prince said, near tears, and jittery from lack of sleep. He was alone. The bed was still made, and the curtains were drawn. A ceiling panel was removed revealing a small dark crawl space. A chair was under it to allow one to climb up. He said troops had been surrounding him since 3:00 am.

"I hear the rumor that I plan to make a coup d'etat. I am innocent. I have nothing in my hands. I have no political influence now. I have no troops," he said. "Please don't leave me."

So began a four-and-a-half-hour drama that, after scores of frantic phone calls and negotiations, ended with the Prince being whisked to the airport by military escort and forcibly exiled via a scheduled Malaysia Airlines flight to Kuala Lumpur.

Frightened hotel staff hovered in hallways and peeked out of rooms in the otherwise completely silent hotel.

Realizing that there was no press or diplomats aware of the developments, and I was alone with a hunted, hated alleged coup plotter. Surrounded by troops clearly prepared to invade, I opted to rent my own room down the hall, with a better view of the troops, street, and hotel entrance way.

I went downstairs to the front desk asked for Room 406 and handed over cash. The desk clerk stared with a furrowed brow look of fear and alarm, said nothing, and handed me the key.

I thought that it might diminish the incentive of the troops outside to act precipitously if I was in a room rented under my own name, and buy time to interview the Prince. The Prince thought it was a great idea and came over to Room 406.

I made a quiet call to senior government contacts and diplomats informing them of the situation, hoping that they would get the message to the troops downstairs - quickly.

My phone rang a few minutes later, saying that Co-Prime Minister Ranariddh was aware I was with the man who allegedly was trying to topple his government and assassinate top officials.

The three mobile phones in my room rang constantly. More than 40 calls came in within the first two hours, as Chakrapong desperately tried to delay the troops from arresting him, and attempted to convince US Ambassador Charles Twining to give him political asylum.

Chakrapong repeatedly denied to me that he was involved in any coup attempt, cursed the leaders of the government, begged for my help and asked me not to leave him if the troops invaded.

He fielded phone calls constantly on his two phones, often listening silently and hanging up, speaking in English, French, and Khmer.

King Norodom Sihanouk rang from Beijing. "I am alright Papa, but the situation is bad. They have surrounded me," he said at one point.

As more calls came in he broke down and again moist-eyed. He looked dejected as Queen Norodom Monineath Sihanouk kept him up to date from Beijing with the state of her negotiations with government leaders over allowing him exile.

"It is not the Queen, but as my parents. It is not politics, it is as a son," he told me when asked whether King Sihanouk and Queen Monineath supported him.

For the first two hours, he was in fear of his life, convinced that if arrested he would be killed.

"They tell me that if we criticize the government, we are serving the interests of the Khmer Rouge. If I am arrested, the embassies must stay with me, to keep looking for me. Please don't let them take me anywhere. Please don't leave me alone," he said to me.

The Prince asked me to contact the US Embassy to request political asylum. I give him the mobile telephone number of the US Ambassador Charles Twining. He calls and Twining is put on the phone. "I ask your protection, your excellency. It is a human right. If you don't come to protect me I prefer not to go outside. I prefer to die here. I will stay here in the room. How can I trust them if they bring me somewhere?", he says to Twining.

Prince Chakrapong's face shows that the American Ambassadors response is not positive. "Please your excellency, if they bring me outside, if they arrest me, they will kill me."

Chakrapong hung up from Twining and went to look outside. The street was quiet save for troops standing guard. "Twining says 'you are not an American citizen, we cannot help you,' " he said.

"They say this is a liberal democracy," staring from behind the curtain down at the soldiers, "They are silencing all opposition now. We will all be accused of serving the interests of the Khmer Rouge. The whole world must know that this regime accuses me without proof. If the free world helps this regime it is the end of democracy."

Another American diplomat called my phone: "Tell Chakrapong he is not a US citizen. As long as the government proceeds in a legal fashion regarding his human rights, there is nothing we can do to interfere in a sovereign government."

But the American message of rejection of official protection was clear.

Crying young hotel maids burst into the room at one point: "The soldiers are coming. They are inside now."

A disheveled Prince - barefoot, shirt unbuttoned, sleepless, and dejected-began to put on his shoes. He handed me his wallet and mobile telephones and asked me to give them to his daughters. "Please make sure my daughters are alright. The soldiers invaded my house last night and they were there."

But the soldiers didn't come in. And the phones rang incessantly, sometimes three at the same time. At one point, Chakrapong had King Sihanouk on the line in one hand, and Twining on the other.

The Queen was still negotiating for safe passage out of the country.

Finally Prime Minister Ranariddh - Chakrapong's nemesis and half brother - agreed to allow the Prince to leave the country. "If I am allowed to join my family in Malaysia, I will accept," he said at one point.

By 10 am we saw Twining, other diplomats, and press begin to gather on the street, to the great relief of the Prince.

"I have given ten years of my life for my country for nothing. They are looking for a plane for me," he said after hanging up from a call from the queen.

"I want you to tell them I am innocent. I am a military man. I know how to make a coup. Now, I have no power and no forces. How can I make a coup? If I was to do something would I stay here in Phnom Penh?

"I left last night with no bodyguards to come to the hotel because I felt something was wrong. Like when I was in the jungle. I knew on the battlefield when something bad would happen. But I was not afraid because I was innocent."

The military called from downstairs to say that the troops were coming to our room now and that the Prince would be allowed to leave the country.

He turned to me: "Please do not leave me. I will only leave if you go with me to the airport in the same car. They may not take me to the airport."

There was a strong knock on the door and I went to open it. A score of heavily armed soldiers and security police waited in the hallway as Twining and Co-Minister of Interior You Hockry entered alone. The four of us sat down.

Hockry asked me to leave. Prince Chakrapong asked that I stay. I said nothing.

"We will promise your safety to the airport. I promise there will be no guns on the plane. The best thing for us it to bring you safely to the airport," Hokry told the Prince.

Men were sent to get passports and luggage at Chakrapong's house. A Malaysian Airlines plane was held on the tarmac at Pochentong as Chakrapong was assured that he would be allowed to safely leave the country.

The behavior of several Ministry of Interior police, who were poised to arrest the Prince until minutes before, now went through a bizarre somersault. They entered the room crouched on their knees and hands clasped to their heads in deference to Royalty as they went about their business preparing to send him to exile.

The Interior Minister said that Chakrapong's alleged collaborator, Sin Song, had confessed. "I think that one or two people cannot do this kind of thing. There will be more arrests," he said. Chakrapong stared blankly, with a mixed expression of anger and fear.

At one point, while, we waited for the motorcade and luggage downstairs, Twining turned to Hockry.

"I just remembered, there will be a fireworks display this afternoon at the fourth of July celebration," he said, suddenly realizing that, as a jittery city emerged from an attempted coup, explosions in the city might not be timely.

"Do you have authorization?" the Minister shot back to the Ambassador, with an alarmed look on his face.

When the mobile phone rang to say that the motorcade of troops was ready, we left the room to walk to the street. Hotel staff and soldiers clasped their hands and knelt in respect as Chakrapong was led by a bevy of sunglassed, automatic weapon-toting officials through a throng of cameras waiting on the street.

Shoved into a sleek Toyota with black tinted windows, we were whisked to the airport in a convoy of a score of cars, including one with Twining. Streets were blocked off and hundreds of people lined them to watch the motorcade pass. The plane was waiting at the airport, full of curious passengers, as Chakrapong was whisked on board and the flight departed.

He called several hours later from Malaysia saying: " I want to thank you sincerely for saving my life. They would have killed me if you had not come. I am innocent. I was not involved in anything. Tell them I am innocent."

Faded red: The death throes of the KR By Nate Thayer

Faded red: The death throes of the KR

Phnom Penh Post

By Nate Thayer

Friday, 21 April 1995

The final chapters of history are being readied for one of the most brutal regimes in recent times, the Khmer Rouge. Nate Thayer investigates.

ANGKOR CHUM, SIEM REAP - Along this isolated stretch of provincial highway, 19 blown bridges isolate the remnants of villages that were burned to the ground in recent months by Khmer Rouge guerrillas.

Huge craters in the road explain the carcasses of trucks destroyed recently by anti-tank mines. Dozens of soldiers with protective eye-wear gently expose thousands of land mines laid in rice fields, as truckloads of ragged government troops pass by on the way to nearby front lines.

Intermittently, deafening explosions mark another mine detonated in place. The automatic weapons bursts puncturing the quiet have been a regular feature of life in rural Cambodia for more than 25 years.

The tree line on the other side of the rice paddy marks Khmer Rouge zones, where the remnants of one of the worlds last communist guerrilla movements wages what now seems a war without issue. But despite the depressing scenario of ongoing warfare, most Cambodians and analysts agree, the Khmer Rouge appear, ultimately, to be doomed.

In the wake of a vicious military campaign of terror targeting civilians begun late last year, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge have suffered significant defeats in northern Cambodia in recent months. Nearly half their forces in this once key stronghold of Siem Riep have defected to the new government, unwilling to continue fighting what they say is a hopeless cause with no clear objective. While it may be a few years away, analysts agree that the group is dying a slow death, with little chance of recovering as a potent political force.

"The Khmer Rouge must die because they have lost their political base, their support base, their ideological base. Now they just have an army, and the army has turned against the masses," said Siem Riep governor Toan Chhay.

The governor is not just spouting government propaganda. Since 1979 until 1993's UN-sponsored election, Toan Chhay was chief of staff of the royalist guerrilla army that fought with the Khmer Rouge. His forces shared jungle supply lines, covert Chinese aid, and battlefield strategies with Pol Pot, aimed at ousting the Vietnamese occupation army and the government they installed.

Now, as a senior official of the government that emerged from those 1993 elections, he is welcoming Khmer Rouge defectors using psychological warfare and political and economic incentives. Against the recalcitrant hard-core cadre still fighting from increasingly remote jungle outposts, he and the army are coordinating military assaults.

For the government, the combined use of amnesty where Khmer Rouge elements are sincerely invited to defect without retribution and effective but cautious military pressure has turned Siem Riep province into a model of national reconciliation that has brought a level of peace and development unseen in decades.

In many areas long under guerrilla control, Khmer Rouge defectors have rallied to the government and continue to administer the same zones they did as guerrilla cadre. Four months ago, much of Ankor Chum district, 30 kilometers from Angkor temple, was at war, inaccessible to government forces. In January, after Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge leaders ordered troops to kidnap and execute local officials, burn villages, and mine roads that connect the desperately poor communes, many long time cadre said enough is enough.

552 Khmer Rouge guerrillas in Angkor Chum alone defected to the government after their commanders cut a deal with provincial authorities. Last week, in a bizarre scene, hundreds of armed Khmer Rouge, still in their Chinese PLA style uniforms, lounged in village markets, flirting with vendors and providing security against the remnants of their former comrades now hunkered in small groups in the surrounding jungle.

"When we received the order to carry out the policy to attack the people and villages, I led the people into the forest to protect them, but of course then my commanders wanted to kill me," said Tung Yun, 38, who commanded two regiments of 600 guerrilla fighters until January. He smiled as a 152 mm artillery parked near his house shook the earth as it fired at his former Division commander, who with less than 75 men, had retreated to the jungle a few kilometers away. "Don't worry, I took all the big weapons with me, they can't fire back."

Tung joined the Khmer Rouge in 1974. "Wherever I looked in 21 years I never found a happy place," he said over lunch in a handsome village house that belongs to relatives. "The happiest I have been is now." Tung continues to command his troops, and the government now pays his salary and provides his ammunition. "I don't know why they are still fighting, I guess they just want power."

Meanwhile, the defections have meant unprrecedented levels of security in many areas of Siem Riep, allowing an array of development projects such as road construction, dam repair, demining around former front-line villages, and agricultural infrastructure improvements. These efforts have increased levels of local support for the government, further eroding the rebels' ability to appeal to the sympathies of long neglected villagers.

The Khmer Rouge leadership view forces like Tung's differently: "In certain units, 50 to 60% (of our troops) are organized enemy elements" who are "poisoned by enemy ideas", say written directives from Pol Pot and Ta Mok issued in late 1994 and obtained from defectors in Siem Riep.

But despite the clear-cut successes of the government in marginalizing the Khmer Rouge in Siem Riep, it stands in stark contrast to the other primary area of guerrilla influence-Battambang.
There, the guerrillas have been able to deflect government military offensives effectively and remain capable of sustaining themselves.

Cancerous levels of corruption from top to bottom in government and military abuses continue to be a major source of popular discontent and provide a ripe breeding ground for anti-government sympathy. Says a source close to the Khmer Rouge: "Corruption is the basis of the regime. Personal gain has replaced any ideology. Reasons to resist the government remain."

"The weakness of the DK should not be considered by itself. It should be considered in the framework of a balance of forces," says a source close to the Khmer Rouge leadership. "Even a weak DK remains something strong compared to this government."

Agrees Toan Chhay: "We need to strengthen the discipline of our own soldiers. It is not a Khmer Rouge problem, it is our problem."

In Battambang there have been no significant defections in recent years. Analysts say that the military and provincial government there is sufficiently corrupt and brutal that there is little incentive or atmosphere of trust that encourage the Khmer Rouge to come over to the government side. Human rights workers and government sources in Battambang say that the military continues to carry out murder, intimidation, and extortion of innocent civilians as well as families suspected of having Khmer Rouge connections. Government sources say that there have been several cases of Khmer Rouge forces attempting to negotiate to defect, only to be scuttled by local military leadership more interested in confrontation and revenge than reconciliation.

The legendary resilience of the Khmer Rouge organization should not be underestimated, say those who know the Khmer Rouge well. They point out that, except for their disastrous three years, eight months, and 20 days in power in the late 1970's, Pol Pot and his top cadre have lived underground in difficult jungle conditions since the 1960's fighting a series of governments considerably more formidable than the current regime.

But while these failures of the government may allow for the Khmer Rouge to continue as an army for years, there is little to indicate that they have a future as a political movement. The Khmer Rouge no longer seem to have a political program of significant credibility in the countryside. They are fighting for survival, say analysts, resembling warlords more than revolutionaries, rebels without a cause. Defectors speak of a hierarchy isolated, demoralized, and increasingly unable to get their troops to implement the directives of the leadership. Intelligence sources and defectors say that more moderate elements who favored a political solution to the conflict have waned in influence and more hard-line field commanders are on the ascendancy.

"The first priority of the DK has always been to defend and preserve their leadership and forces," says a source close to the movement. "It is the number one priority before launching offensives or actions against the enemy."

For the first time since they were ousted from power by the Vietnamese invasion in 1979, the Khmer Rouge are employing new tactics in the countryside that include targeting normal peasants and burning whole villages effectively abandoning their previous hearts and minds strategy.

"In 1979, we were on our deathbed. We should have died in 1979. Why didn't we die? Because even though we made alot of mistakes, and had many enemies who hated us... in every situation we have kept control of the countryside, and that is the reason we have been able to survive," Pol Pot said in a 1992 speech to senior cadre. "Our army was completely defeated and dismantled, but was rebuilt from the countryside. The necessity for us is the countryside, not communism."

But their renewed campaign of terror in rural villages - scores of which have been razed in recent months - have deeply alienated much of their previous base of support and many of their own fighters. Many of the villages are populated by families of their own cadre, who have abandoned the movement and joined the government after being asked to attack their own kin. As a result the remaining Khmer Rouge cadre in some key areas of the country have been denied access to food and provisions which came from these same villages.

"The Khmer Rouge strategy is to regroup, keep the struggle alive and tell the world they are still alive," said Toan Chhay. "Blow up bridges, lay mines. OK, we will rebuild the bridges again and again."

Both sources close to the Khmer Rouge and western intelligence officials confirm that the Khmer Rouge leadership has approved the use of terrorism - including urban attacks - as a new tactic. "Many people in the leadership want to use terrorism now. I can't be more specific," says a source knowledgeable of current thinking within the leadership. Western intelligence officials say they have hard evidence that the Khmer Rouge have sanctioned targeting westerners for terrorist attacks. Such attacks, analysts agree, would be extremely difficult to prevent because of widespread availability of weapons and explosives and lack of effective control of Phnom Penh by security services.

But perhaps most importantly, for the first time in 30 years, the Khmer Rouge have found that both foreign and domestic allies that were essential for the groups survival have evaporated. The United Nations, the US, and ASEAN who backed the Khmer Rouge-dominated guerrilla coalition during the Vietnamese occupation, now are focusing on strengthening the current government and helping destroy the guerrilla faction. The political and material support of China has halted. In recent months Thailand has gone to great lengths to diminish crucial cross border access. And the Khmer Rouge's former battlefield allies during the 1980's are now the internationally recognized government that emerged from the $3 billion UN peace plan that culminated in elections in May 1993.

In his Feb 1992 speech, Pol Pot predicted the current scenario: "Democratic Kampuchea (the Khmer Rouge) cannot be strong all on it's own. When these guys (UN and western powers) strafe everybody else and leave Democratic Kampuchea on it's own, it is possible for Democratic Kampuchea to be weakened. Once that happens they will attack Democratic Kampuchea and drag the other forces into joining with Phnom Penh. It would become an alliance between the West, the (Vietnamese), the contemptible puppets, and two of the three parties. If this were the case, then the Chinese, the Thai and ASEAN would all accept it whether they liked it or not... that is why we need friends among the three parties until the day we die, and we need (foreign) friends until the day we die." But if one thing is clear, the Khmer Rouge have few, if any, friends these days.

The crackdown on covert Thai military support has hurt the Khmer Rouge deeply, according to sources close to the faction. Without access to Thailand, the key guerrilla rear bases along the Thai border would be unable to sustain themselves, deprived of foodstuff, fuel, medicine and other key commodities. While smuggled support continues it is greatly diminished, sources close to the guerrilla faction say.

Meanwhile, the Khmer Rouge are now threatened with losing much of their main sources of gem and timber income. Thai businessmen and intelligence sources confirm that the vast majority of the gem fields near Pailin which brought millions of dollars a month to Khmer Rouge coffers in recent years, have virtually dried up.

In the Thai border town of Borei, where cross border gem trading was centered, most of the scores of banks and big gem companies have closed since last year. "Now it is small scale, nothing significant," said an Asian diplomat who monitors the trade. "In terms of economic strength, the Khmer Rouge are very shaky, unless they have a lot stored away."

Furthermore, cross-border logging through Khmer Rouge-controlled check-points is expected to be greatly diminished in coming months as the Cambodian government has vowed to end logging exports. "If the government has a policy not to issue logging licenses to Thai companies, the Khmer Rouge logging will finish," said the Asian diplomat. "Thai companies now get export licenses from the Cambodian government for Khmer Rouge logs."

The Cambodian authorities, motivated by kickbacks, issue licenses to Thai companies to take logs from KR border areas, effectively helping finance their enemies.

With an effective clamp down on logging in Khmer Rouge areas, which now allow trucks to cross in from Thailand smuggling other crucial goods to the guerrillas, these supplies would also dry up, say Thai border officials.

Intelligence estimates now put the fighting strength of the Khmer Rouge at between 5,000 and 6,000 regular troops under arms. About 2,000 of them are holed up in remote, sparsely-populated jungles of the far north, with the rest in the mountainous western provinces of Battambang and Pursat. Small pockets of guerrilla fighters - usually numbering less than 100 - remain in numerous jungle outposts in other areas of the country collecting "taxes" at gun point. They are more a minor irritant than a political threat.

Khmer Rouge sources and intelligence officials agree that the faction is suffering from significant ammunition shortages. In recent months Khmer Rouge radio has repeatedly called for villagers and soldiers to produce quotas of "pungi sticks" to defend bases. Analysts say that captured soldiers and defectors complain of ammunition shortages, and the guerrillas are stepping up campaigns to buy supplies from corrupt government commanders.

"It is similar to the situation in 1973 after the peace agreement signed with Vietnam," Pol Pot said in a communique to supporters in 1993. "At that time we were isolated from external support. We had to rely on the people and we had to get our ammunition from the enemy."

But what seems to be the Khmer Rouge's biggest obstacle to survival is their lack of any coherent political program that appeals to the population. Their directives to cadre and radio broadcasts are almost singularly focused on the ridiculous claim that millions of Vietnamese troops and civilians have flooded Cambodia as part of a massive plot by Vietnam to "swallow" Cambodia. But the racist invective - while attempting to appeal to deep strains of racial hostility many Cambodians harbor towards their eastern neighbor - rings particularly hollow in the rural areas of Cambodia where the war is conducted and virtually no Vietnamese have been seen since the Vietnamese army pulled out in 1989.

"Their line on the Vietnamese issue does not fit the reality in many parts of the country, particularly the north and west," says one Cambodian source close to the Khmer Rouge. "Once the people realize there are no Vietnamese, all the DK logic collapses."

"Most of us do not believe that Vietnamese control Cambodia," said former Khmer Rouge regiment commander Tung Yun who defected in January. "When we went to fight we did not see other nationalities. We fought because we were ordered to do so but in our hearts we did not want war anymore."

The Khmer Rouge daily attack the United States, Australia, and France who they say, in collusion with Vietnam, "are waging war against the Cambodian nation and people." But such talk also rings hollow to villagers who see millions of dollars of donor assistance coming in to build roads, healthcare, and other infrastructure development. For most Cambodians now, including many who once sympathized with the Khmer Rouge during the Vietnamese occupation, after 25 years of warfare, destruction, and disastrous political experimentation, there is little motivation to fight and no enemy except those who continue to wage war.

Khmer Rouge attacks late last year in Siem Riep province created 70,000 new refugees from poor rural villages, but most have returned home and vast areas of the province long under guerrilla influence are now with the government. Development workers who had been restricted because of security from many areas for years say that they are getting unprecedented access and security, much provided by former KR soldiers and supporters.

British and French NGO's are clearing thousands of mines from roads and villages. They are followed by UN-supported road building crews, many who employ Khmer Rouge defectors and their families. After the roads are built, other NGO's are entering to repair irrigation systems and provide veterinary health care.

"You can see in Siem Riep that many areas have suddenly opened up," said David Salter, chief project engineer for the International Labor Organization in Siem Riep, whose mandate is to build roads to rural areas. "Because of improved security, access to development has improved. Everyday we employ 1400 people. A lot of those people are defectors or their families. It brings them into the economic life and development process. When they have a job they protect their jobs. When the road gets built the value of their land goes up. When their lives are improved it encourages more defections and security is further improved and more development work can be undertaken."

Last week in Siem Riep town, scores of military officers and officials gathered to celebrate the Cambodian new year. "Together with the Khmer Rouge and the government working together we will build roads, build schools, build happy places," Toan Chhay said in a toast. Scores of drunken former Khmer Rouge and government officers cheered wildly.

In 1988, Pol Pot told his followers that "peace will bring many new complications" and the "enemy will come at us even more strongly, this time flush with money."

Said an ASEAN diplomat with long ties to the Khmer Rouge: "There is no way out now for the Khmer Rouge, they will die slowly."

Said Toan Chhay " I think it will take ten years to get rid of the Khmer Rouge now. Contain them, isolate them, development, development. It is a political strategy."

'I'm tired of talking about it':Excerpts from interview with Pol Pot By Nate Thayer

'I'm tired of talking about it'

Excerpts from interview with Pol Pot October 16, 1997

By Nate Thayer

Phnom Penh Post

Friday, 24 October 1997 

   

Pol Pot, in his Oct 16 interview, dodged the big question - his role in mass murder - despite repeated attempts to get a response from him.

Nate Thayer's interpreter, senior KR cadre Tep Kunnal was less than keen on his job, trying to beg out of his translating duties. Thayer prevailed upon Kunnal to stay and translate the questions and answers. The following are excerpts, starting with Thayer's opening questions, addressed to the interpreter:

Q: He knows he is accused of leading and organization that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and that he has been condemned by most of the world for it. Is he a mass murderer, or what has he contributed to his country:

A: I think that you can raise all of the questions at one time, and some questions I think that I can answer connecting one to another to simplify things. But it's up to you...

Q: I'm interested in the issues of the time he was in power between 1975 and 1979. The millions of people who indeed did suffer during that time, and whether he feels that he's fairly accused. That's one question, let's start with.

A: Yes, I want to reply. Your question is not unfamiliar. That question has been raised time and again: I would like to say first that my conscience is clear. Everything I have done and contributed is first for the nation and the people and the race of Cambodia.

[Pol Pot then spoke about how the Vietnamese wanted to take over Cambodia, adding "they wanted to assassinate me because they knew without me they could easily swallow up Cambodia".]

Q: I would like to hear all of that, and if he's willing to stay here for hours, I am too. But if we could please deal with this first. As you know, most of the world thinks that you're responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Cambodians who didn't deserve to suffer. Could you answer that question directly? Do you feel that you were indeed responsible for crimes against humanity, against your own people?

A: I'm going to reply. I want to tell you clearly. First, I would like to tell you that I came to carry out the struggle, not to kill people. Even now, and you can look at me, am I savage person? My conscience is clear... As I told you before, they fought against us, so we had to take measures to defend ourselves...

Q: You have an opportunity here, a historical opportunity. You know well that during your years in power, your policies - agrarian experiments, social and political organizations, the direct executions of many thousands of people - that many families suffered. The country itself also suffered because of your policies. Your fellow Cambodians want to know whether you feel any remorse, whether you acknowledge that you made very serious mistakes while you were in power?

A: There are two sides to it, as I told you: There's what we did wrong, and what we did right. The mistake is that we did some things against the people - by us and also by the enemy - but the other side, as I told you, is that without our struggle there would be no Cambodia right now.

Q: But for all those hundreds of thousands who suffered - not just died but suffered from forced labor, from lack of food, from what were clearly failed central policies while you were in power - don't you think that they deserve an apology?

A: For the wrong things of our struggle, as I told you, for the wrong things, it has been written in the book. This is a testimony before history.

Q: Which book?

A: The book is the "The Right and Wrong of Democratic Kampuchea". [Pol Pot was apparently referring to a political tract released by the Democratic Kampuchea movement, as the Khmer Rouge calls themselves, in the late 1980s.]

Q: But that acknowledged only 30,000 deaths. All independent scholars, from all political ideologies, acknowledge a minimum of hundreds of thousands of people who died as a result of failed central policies while you were in power...That is a fact. While you were in sole power-and all the other members of your standing committee say you were in full power-thousands of people died because of failed social policies of your government. Are you willing to acknowledge that fact?

A: As I told you, that was written in the book, and I'm tired of talking about it...

Q: Let's talk about Tuol Sleng. There is overwhelming evidence that you had overall responsibility for Tuol Sleng. Sixteen thousand people who signed confessions were executed, including women and children who were suspected CIA, KGB, Vietnamese agents. Were you responsible for Toul Sleng and do you really believe that those 16,000 - including women and children - were agents of a foreign government?

A: I was at the top. I made only big decisions on big issues. I want to tell you - Tuol Sleng was a Vietnamese exhibition; a journalist wrote that. People talk about Tuol Sleng, Tuol Sleng, Toul Sleng, but when we look at the pictures, the pictures are the same. When I first heard about Tuol Sleng, it was on VOA [Voice of America]. I listened twice. And there are documents talking about someone who did research about the skeletons of the people... They said when you look closely at the skulls, they are smaller than the skulls of the Khmer people.

Q: Are you saying that you never heard of Tuol Sleng before 1979?

A: No, I never heard of it. And those two researchers, they said that those skeletons, they were more than 10 years old.

Q: Sir, let me say that there is overwhelming scientific evidence, overwhelming proof that thousands of people, Cambodians, were executed at Toul Sleng while you were in control of Phnom Penh. There is no dispute among anybody else in the world outside of Anlong Veng, perhaps, that it is true.

[No response.]

Dying Breath: The inside story of Pol Pot's last days and the disintegration of the movement he created-By Nate Thayer

Dying Breath: The inside story of Pol Pot's last days and the disintegration of the movement he created

------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Nate Thayer in Preah Vihear province

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Far Eastern Economic Review
April 30, 1998

As Pol Pot's body lies bloating 100 metres away in a spartan shack, exhausted Khmer Rouge leaders gather in a jungle-shrouded ammunition depot filled with home-made mines and crude communications equipment. Explosions of heavy artillery and exchanges of automatic-weapons fire echo in the mountains as the Khmer Rouge's remaining guerrillas hold off government troops.

Ta Mok, the movement's strongman, vows to fight on, and blames his longtime comrade-in-arms for the Khmer Rouge's desperate plight. "It is good that Pol Pot is dead. I feel no sorrow," he says. Then he levels a bizarre accusation against the rabidly nationalistic mass murderer: "Pol Pot was a Vietnamese agent. I have the documents."

A young Khmer Rouge fighter, his leaders only metres away, leans close to a visiting reporter and whispers in Khmer: "This movement is finished. Can you get me to America?"

Besieged in dense jungles along the Thai border, the remnants of the Khmer
Rouge are battling for survival in the wake of three weeks of chaotic
defections and the loss of their northern stronghold of Anlong Veng. Having
lost faith in the harsh leadership of Ta Mok, several commanders are
negotiating to defect to the guerrilla forces loyal to deposed Prime Minister
Norodom Ranariddh.

Ta Mok's growing paranoia and isolation were only some of the revelations to
come out of an exclusive tour of shrinking Khmer Rouge-held territory north of
Anlong Veng the day after Pol Pot's death. Khmer Rouge cadres and Pol Pot's
wife recounted the last, ignominious days of his life, as he was moved through
the jungle to escape advancing troops.

There was no visible evidence that the former Cambodian dictator was murdered.
Cadres say he died of a heart attack on the night of April 15. In the days
after his death, Khmer Rouge envoys held secret peace talks in Bangkok with
Cambodian Defence Minister Tea Banh, and had their first direct contact with
U.S. officials in more than two decades. Yet at the same time, Khmer Rouge
holdouts were joining up with Ranariddh's rebel forces, making it likely that
the insurgency will continue as Cambodia prepares for crucial elections in
July.

The Khmer Rouge weren't trying to expose their shaky future when they allowed a REVIEW reporter to enter their territory, but to prove to the world that the architect of Cambodia's killing fields was indeed dead. Leading the way to Pol Pot's house to display the ultimate proof, a cadre warns against stepping off the path. "Be careful, there are mines everywhere."

The sickly-sweet stench of death fills the wooden hut. Fourteen hours have
passed since Pol Pot's demise, and his body is decomposing in the tropical
heat. His face and fingers are covered with purple blotches.

Khmer Rouge leaders insist that Pol Pot, aged 73, died of natural causes.
Already visibly ill and professing to be near death when interviewed by the
REVIEW in October, he had been weakened by a shortage of food and the strain of
being moved around to escape the government offensive. "Pol Pot died of heart
failure," Ta Mok says. "I did not kill him."

That night, Ta Mok had wanted to move Pol Pot 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. It was at 10:15 last night."

There are no signs of foul play, but Pol Pot has a pained expression on his
face, as if he did not die peacefully. One eye is shut and the other half open.
Cotton balls are stuffed up his nostrils to prevent leakage of body fluids. By
his body lie his rattan fan, blue-and-red peasant scarf, bamboo cane and white
plastic sandals. His books and other possessions have been confiscated since he
was ousted by his comrades in an internal power struggle 10 months earlier. Two vases of purple bougainvillea stand at the head of the bed. Otherwise, the room is empty, save for a small short-wave radio.

Pol Pot listened religiously to Voice of America broadcasts on that radio, but
the April 15 news on the Khmer-language service may have been too much to bear. The lead story was the REVIEW's report that Khmer Rouge leaders--desperate for food, medicine and international support--had decided to turn him over to an international tribunal to face trial for crimes against humanity. "He listened to VOA every night, and VOA on Wednesday reported your story at 8 p.m. that he would be turned over to an international court," says Gen. Khem Nuon, the Khmer Rouge army chief-of-staff. "We thought the shock of him hearing this on VOA might have killed him."

A week earlier, Nuon had said that Pol Pot knew of the decision, but now he
says the ageing leader had not been fully informed. "We decided clearly to send
him" to an international court, says Nuon, "but we only told him that 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."

Perched nervously by the deathbed is Pol Pot's wife, a 40-year-old former
ammunition porter for the Khmer Rouge named Muon. Clutching her hand is their 12-year-old daughter, Mul. A peasant woman, Muon says she has never laid eyes on a Westerner before. She corroborates Ta Mok's account of Pol Pot's death. "Last night, he said he felt dizzy. I asked him to lie down. I heard him make a noise. When I went to touch him, he had died."

Pol Pot married her after his first wife went insane in the 1980s as the Khmer
Rouge tried to survive in the jungle after their reign of terror was ended by
invading Vietnamese troops. Muon seems oblivious to her husband's bloodstained past, caught only in the anguish of the present.

"He told me a few weeks ago: 'My father died at 73. I am 73 now. My time is not far away,'" she says. "It was a way of telling me that he was preparing to
die." Reaching down to caress his face, she bursts into tears. "He was always a
good husband. He tried his best to educate the children not to be traitors.
Since I married him in 1985, I never saw him do a bad thing."

Asked about his reputation as a mass-murderer, her lips quiver and she casts a
terrified glance at senior Khmer Rouge cadres hovering nearby. "I know nothing about politics," she says. "It is up to history to judge. That is all I want to say."

She has reason to be terrified. "As to what I will do with his family, I
haven't decided," says Ta Mok. "If I let them go, will they say anything bad
about me? Maybe they might be used by Hun Sen," he says, referring to his
nemesis, the Cambodian premier.

Outside the front door is a small vegetable garden tended by Pol Pot's wife and
daughter; next to it, a freshly dug trench where Pol Pot and his family were
forced to cower as artillery bombarded the jungle redoubt in recent weeks.

Pol Pot's last days were spent in flight and fear of capture--a humiliating end
for the man who ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. According to his wife and
Khmer Rouge leaders, he dyed his hair black on April 10 in a desperate attempt
to avoid capture by mutinying Khmer Rouge troops as he fled to the Dongrek
mountains north of Anlong Veng. "Pol Pot feared that he could be caught. By
dying his hair he was trying to disguise himself. For such a person to do that,
it showed real fear in his mind," says Gen. Nuon.

The guerrillas had been unable to provide their ousted leader with sufficient
food since being forced from their headquarters in late March. "For the last
few weeks he had diarrhoea and we haven't had much food because of the fighting with the traitors," recounts Ta Mok.

As Pol Pot fled, the remnants of the movement he created 38 years ago crumbled before his eyes. A few days before his death, he was being driven with his wife and daughter to a new hideout by Gen. Non Nou, his personal guard. From his blue Toyota Land Cruiser, Pol Pot saw Khmer Rouge civilians--cadres say around 30,000--who had been forced from their fields and villages by government troops and Khmer Rouge defectors.

"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," says Non Nou. His wife echoes the
account, and quotes Pol Pot as saying: "My only wish is that Cambodians stay
united so that Vietnam will not swallow our country." Pol Pot never expressed
any regrets, she says. "What I would like the world to know was that he was a
good man, a patriot, a good father."

Asked how she wanted her father remembered, Pol Pot's only child stands with
her head bowed, eyes downcast and filled with tears. "Now my daughter is not
able to say anything," interjects Muon. "I think she will let history judge her
father."

History will have to, because death has deprived the world of the chance to
judge the man responsible for the deaths of more than 1 million people.

Although Pol Pot has cheated justice, other leaders of that regime remain at
large, including Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, who are sheltering with Ta Mok. Others, such as Keo Pok, Mam Nay and Pol Pot's former brother-in-law, Ieng Sary, have defected with their troops to the government side since 1996.

Although Pol Pot's life will stand as the darkest chapter in Cambodian history,
his death is likely to be just a historical footnote. What's more likely to
affect Cambodia's future is the continuing disintegration of the Khmer Rouge.
This is prompting desperate attempts by what's left of the movement to find
security.

The day after Pol Pot died, senior Khmer Rouge officials travelled to Bangkok,
where they held secret negotiations with Cambodian Defence Minister Tea Banh.
There, they offered for the first time to cooperate with elements of the
Cambodian government. "Yes, we are prepared to negotiate. We are in the
process," says Ta Mok. "But I am not going to be a running dog of Vietnam like
Ieng Sary. In a nutshell, we want to dissolve the Hun Sen government and
establish a national government that includes all national forces."

Interviewed on April 18, one of the chief Khmer Rouge negotiators, Cor Bun
Heng, said of the unprecedented meeting: "It was a good beginning and cordial.
But these things take time." Added the other senior negotiator, Gen. Nuon: "We
believe that the only way out is national reconciliation between all the
parties. We know that the entire Cambodian population wants peace."

What's more, Nuon and Cor Bun Heng said they met secretly on April 17 with
American officials in Bangkok, and laid out their demands for a political
settlement. It was the first official, direct contact between the United States
and the Khmer Rouge for at least two decades. U.S. officials wouldn't comment.

In the jungles, Ta Mok knows that his capture and trial is sought by the
international community. He wants to use Pol Pot's death to wipe the slate
clean. "The world community should stop talking about this now that Pol Pot is dead. It was all Pol Pot. He annihilated many good cadres and destroyed our movement. I hope he suffers after death," he says. He then asks a visiting
reporter to get hold of a satellite telephone for him, sketching a collapsible
phone he has seen. "I want a good telephone. One that I can call anywhere in
the world."

But working the phone will not prevent Ta Mok from rapidly losing the loyalty
of his own commanders. Privately, many of his top officers and cadres hold him responsible for the collapse of the movement since he seized control from Pol Pot last July. "He is very tired," says a senior Khmer Rouge official. "No man can shoulder all the political, diplomatic and military burdens by himself." Others are less kind. "He has no more support from many of his own people," whispers one cadre. "But we don't know where to go. Cambodia has no good leaders."

Fear was in the faces of many leaders and cadres still holed up near the Thai
border--and for good reason. "There may be more traitors, it is normal. But in
the end they will all die," Ta Mok says. He's a man of his word: Three top
commanders arrested with Pol Pot last year were executed in late March because some of the fighters who mutinied were loyal to them. "It was a decision made by the people," Ta Mok shrugs.

He gives the impression of being increasingly out of touch with reality, seeing
enemies everywhere and unwilling to compromise. His brutal tactics are also a
source of unease among his remaining loyalists. "Our movement will only get
stronger. We have sent our forces close to Phnom Penh and they have carried out
their tasks successfully," he says. The "task" he boasts of was the recent
massacre of 22 ethnic Vietnamese, including women and children, in a fishing
village in Kompong Chhnang province.

The REVIEW has learned that many of the estimated 1,600 guerrillas still
nominally under Ta Mok's command have pledged allegiance to the forces loyal to
Ranariddh's Funcinpec party, who occupy nearby jungles. Cadres say that in
negotiations with Funcinpec's Gen. Nyek Bun Chhay, they have pledged loyalty to
Ranariddh's party and agreed to force Ta Mok into "retirement."

Scores of uniformed Funcinpec troops, including senior commanders, are fighting
alongside Ta Mok loyalists north of Anlong Veng. Gen. Meas Sarin, a Funcinpec
commander and governor of Preah Vihear province before Hun Sen's coup in July,
is present at Khmer Rouge headquarters. He says 600 Funcinpec troops are
fighting government forces alongside Ta Mok's commanders. The heavy fighting
nearby is audible during the interview.

This presents a political dilemma for Ranariddh. He has pledged to abide by a
Japanese peace plan that aims to create conditions for Funcinpec to campaign
freely ahead of the July elections--something Hun Sen has resisted. The
Japanese plan specifically calls for the severing of links between Funcinpec
troops and Ta Mok's guerrillas. For the moment, Ranariddh is choosing denial.
"I do not have any cooperative relations with the Khmer Rouge," he said on
April 17. "Rumours currently circulating to the effect that forces loyal to me
are supporting the Khmer Rouge forces in Anlong Veng are not true."

That's not the only obstacle facing Japan and Asean as they try to find a
formula that would allow Ranariddh to return home to campaign for the polls.
The job was already hard enough for the Thai, Philippine and Indonesian foreign
ministers who met King Norodom Sihanouk in Siem Riep in mid-April. But then
Sihanouk made it harder by telling them Ranariddh should pull out of the
elections--and Cambodian politics altogether--and instead prepare to be king,
according to furious Funcinpec members.

Meanwhile, Cambodia's neighbours are becoming increasingly exasperated by the
seemingly endless war. Interviewed in Bangkok, Thai Foreign Minister Surin
Pitsuwan expresses optimism that elections could be held in Cambodia, but also
voices a warning. "Without a resolution to the Cambodian conflict, the region
is being perceived as insecure, unstable. That prevents further cooperation and
development for Asia," he says, pointing to plans to develop the Mekong basin
that are now delicately poised.

China, previously hesitant about taking part in the Mekong's development, is
now willing to participate, Surin says. That means that Cambodia, at the heart
of the Mekong Basin, is now the major remaining obstacle. "The region is being
denied this development by the existing Cambodian conflict," says Surin.
"Certainly, there is a sense of Cambodia fatigue in the international
community. Cambodians should realize that."

Motley crew moves out on jungle mission By Nate Thayer

Motley crew moves out on jungle mission

Phnom Penh Post

(The following is four separate stories on The march 1994 hunt for the Kouprey in one issue of the Phnom Penh Post: The analysis; the factual overview; the scientific report; and the editorial)

Friday, 22 April 1994

By Nate Thayer

Nate Thayer documents the human side of The Great Kouprey Chase

When the hunter in possession of the cow skull was asked to point out on the map where he had found it, his reply should have given us an idea of what we were getting ourselves into. " I don't know where on the map," he said cheerfully," but we call it 'the place of the dead foreigner'."

And when local villagers pointed us in the direction of a Khmer Rouge controlled town to interview the village chief, we probably should have suspected something when our man emerged from his hut in full Khmer Rouge uniform save the American bomber pilot's leather jacket, speaking a language entirely unknown to our interpreter.

This trip was the culmination of six previous field surveys since 1991 in which dozens of villagers and hunters were interviewed and other data collected on the beast's possible whereabouts. These early exploratory trips pinpointed the Kouprey as living pretty much in the middle of some of the most forbidding terrain anywhere, never under any government control and inhabited for decades by a variety of guerrilla groups fighting a series of governments. This was an area, it seemed, where beast and man went mainly to hide. And in this lost province with no road, water or scheduled air access to the rest of Cambodia, with a population of 60,000, of which only two percent are ethnic Khmer. The remainder are a collection of 10 distinct cultures.

It became increasingly clear that the reason why no one had sighted The Cow in three decades was because no one was fool enough to launch an expedition to go where the beast had sought refuge in. But we decided to try anyway.

After compiling a team of expert jungle trackers, scientists, security troops, elephant mahouts, and one of the most motley and ridiculous looking groups of armed journalists in recent memory, we marched cluelessly into Khmer Rouge controlled jungles along the old Ho Chi Minh trail.

While they were very friendly, the population of the last village before we disappeared for eleven days in the jungle did not, logically, believe for one moment that we were who we claimed to be or that we were doing what we claimed to be doing. They had seen this movie before. Armed foreigners trekking through their village was a concept they were familiar with. Pieces of downed American warplanes piled in the village, which they had gathered from their jungle to salvage as scrap, testified to this.

Of our 26-man team, 18 (12 soldiers and six elephant drivers) had lived their entire lives in Mondolkiri province. Also, none had been anywhere near where we were going.

Our four trackers were former guerrilla soldiers of FULRO, the anti-communist "lost army" that operated out of these jungles for 17 years until late 1992, when they were discovered by the United Nations and received political asylum in the US. They were more than happy to leave factory jobs in North Carolina for a couple weeks to trek through their old haunts. Each had seen the cow in recent years and said it tasted really good.

The journalists thought the trip was a great idea until we actually started. It became clear to most, after the first day when we walked 12 hours and 30 km with no water, that this was a really stupid idea. There were several early casualties from heat prostration and other manifestations of badly out of shape bodies addled by long histories of drug and alcohol abuse. Others moaned about the lack of helicopter support. Others failed to see the humor in sleeping at recently abandoned Khmer Rouge basecamps.

Our group communicated with each other in Khmer, Lao, Thai, English, French, Rade, and M'nong. We ate lizards and American military rations bought in Phnom Penh.

But despite the surface madness of it all, the focus remained on the extraordinary array of wildlife and beauty of the region.

We saw scores of wild animals, none of which seemed remotely concerned by our presence, such as rare Banteng and Gaur. Lizards could be picked up by hand mildly puzzled by our interest in them. Fresh tiger tracks were seen regularly along our path. Rains would bring out symphonies of strange night insects and thousands of frogs, whose din would require shouting for us humans to communicate with each other. Elephant bones missing the tusks spoke of poachers.

When eventually one of our teams confronted an armed Khmer Rouge fighter, who shared the mountain where we saw what appeared to be Kouprey tracks, the guerrilla soldier stared at us with apparent shock. The poor man was very confused. He retreated.

We regrouped at a small stream where our forward teams had set up a camp. After trying, and failing, to come up with a plausible idea of how to explain to the probably now terribly nonplussed guerrilla unit that we were just looking for a cow, we decided not to push it. We are not sure if any Kouprey saw us. But if one did, its extremely likely that its first thought was that our entire team would actually be better off locked up in a zoo-and hopefully as far away as possible from the endangered cow section.

Jungle trek evidence resurrects the Kouprey

By Michael Hayes

Friday, 22 April 1994

THE remote northeastern jungles of Cambodia's Mondolkiri province is home to one of the largest populations of Asia's rarest and most threatened wildlife, a two-week 150 km jungle field survey completed this month has determined.

The Cambodian Kouprey Research Project, a non-profit all-volunteer organization launched to document the existence of one of the world's rarest animals, has concluded that the Kouprey still lives in the isolated forests of the country's northeast.

There has been no documented sighting since 1967 of the bovine, declared Cambodia's national animal by His Majesty King Norodom Sihanouk in 1963. It was only documented as a species in 1935, and has been the subject of a series of international efforts to save it from extinction in recent decades.

The field study, completed in early April, culminated more than a year of efforts with the full support of the Royal Government and Mondolkiri provincial authorities.

First Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh has taken a keen interest in the project and loaned his personal plane to ferry equipment and expedition team members from Phnom Penh to Sen Monoram, Mondolkiri's provincial capital. Corporate support was also received in the form of a grant from the British company Enterprise Oil.

While no sighting of the rare forest ox was achieved, other data collected suggested that less than a dozen still exist in a small 25 square kilometer region of Mondolkiri.

The study also concluded that a large number of other endangered animals also exist in the area. These include one of the largest populations of Asian elephants and Sumatran tigers in Asia, as well as a number of other birds, bovines, and reptiles.

The area surveyed by the expedition is devoid of any permanent human settlements, although widespread evidence was found indicating that hunters pass through the region regularly and are posing a major threat to the survival of the wildlife present. Bones of poached elephants, wild cattle, forest pigs and other species were identified by the team.

The Cambodian Kouprey Research Project is the brainchild of American journalist Nate Thayer. Plans are underway for a second expedition to the region in May.

 

Vet: Ten head of Kouprey in Mondolkiri

Friday, 22 April 1994  

Leading vetenarian Maurizio Dioli analyses the findings of the expedition.

From March 27 to April 7, l994 the Cambodian Kouprey Research Project undertook an expedition in Mondolkiri Province in an attempt to ascertain whether or not Cambodia's national animal, the Kouprey (Bos Sauveli) existed there. Based on an analysis of the trip's findings, the major conclusion of the trip is that it is almost certain that a very small population of Kouprey (less than 10 head) are still surviving in the area surveyed.

What follows is a brief report on the trip, the methodology undertaken and a summary of the trip's findings. Because of the uniqueness of the Kouprey and the fact that divulging the precise location of rare endangered species almost always results for a number of reasons in an increased mortality of that species, the exact location of the sighting area is not being released beyond that fact that it was in a remote corner of Mondolkiri Province.

Methodology 

Because of the extreme rarity of the Kouprey it was decided that a classic systematic survey of areas in which Kouprey have been known to exist was not appropriate. Rather, an approach focusing on first hand, reliable sightings during 1992-93 were collected from hunters, poachers and Khmer Rouge guerillas. Based on these sightings it was possible to pinpoint a particular area of a few square kilometers where the probability of encountering the Kouprey was high.

An aerial survey of the area in question was not considered since the Kouprey, like many other wild bovid, retreats to thick patches of forest during the day (especially during the dry season) and therefore is not visible from the air.

Using a field survey method, the team hired six elephants to transport equipment and provisions to set up a base camp from which foot patrols were undertaken to survey the surrounding region. The survey routes were chosen to allow close inspection of wildlife meeting points: salt licks and watering holes. Priority was also given to preferred grazing areas of wild cattle: open areas and open dipterocarps forest where old grasses have been burnt and palatable, freshly sprouted grasses were common. Dry open areas with burned grass and dry dipterocarp forest were not surveyed accurately. Overall, during a nine day survey period, more that 150 kms were covered by foot.

The Geography

The survey area consisted of gently undulating hills with a general elevation of 200-300 meters above sea level. Vegetation was largely open deciduous dipterocarp forest, with thicker forest along river beds or in the hills. Wide open areas of grassland were also present. Salt licks, termite hills and mud holes were a common feature. Generally it was determined that water was readilly available at numerous waterholes and in scattered pools in dry river beds.

All of the survey area indicated signs of periodic burning. It is interesting to note that it seems that the majority of burning was caused by "cold fires", i.e. fires started as soon as there is enough material to catch fire at the beginning of the dry season. The area was devoid of any permanent human settlements and several days walk from the nearest village but signs of hunters and Khmer Rouge patrols were encountered repeatedly.

Results

While the objective of sighting and photographing a Kouprey was not achieved, the survey succeeded in individuating an area inhabited by a relatively large number of three different species of wild cattle.

The analysis of numerous fresh footprints, grazed grasses and excrement indicate unequivically that the survey area is populated by two species of wild cattle: a large size bovine, the Gaur; and a medium size bovine, the Banteng (both animals were actually sighted). Water buffalos were not
present in the area and sightings have never been recorded by trackers familiar with the region.

The interesting and exciting discovery was a series of footprints that by their shape and dimensions could not be attributed to either the Gaur or the Banteng. These footprints fit the description of Kouprey tracks described by Wharton after his survey in 1957.

They were as wide as they were long, rounded and their dimensions ranged from 90x90 mm to 110x110 mm.

Estimates of herd population sizes of the three species of wild bovids in the survey area are difficult to determine. After an overall analysis of footprints seen and including sightings made by the team's guides over a previous ten-year period, it is estimated that there are approximately 40-50 Banteng, 10-15 Gaur and six-eight Kouprey living in the area.

Several skeletons of wild cattle were found during the survey. In most cases the removal from the skull of the frontal bones supporting the horns and clear signs of knife markings on many other bones strongly suggest poaching as a cause of death.

Proof of the existence of numerous other animals was also achieved with a complete list provided below.

Conclusion

1. As stated initially, it is almost certain that a very small population of Kouprey (less than 10) is still surviving in the area surveyed.
2. All of the wild bovid are almost exclusively nocturnal in their feeding habits.
3. Large numbers of dried footprints indicate that many wild cattle live in the area during the wet season and are not migrating to other areas.
4. Hunting for trophies and meat with automatic weapons is confirmed and is severely threatening the existence of the remaining populations of wild bovid.
5. Burning still plays a major role in maintaining open forest areas and in providing wild cattle (grazers) with an important source of food during the dry season.

Maurizio Dioli is a veternarian by training and spent ten years in East Africa which included extensive field work tracking and identifying wildlife in the region.

Editorial

Phnom Penh Post

By Publisher Michael Hayes

Friday, 22 April 1994

T HE most ambitious effort in more than four decades to document the existence of Cambodia's national animal, the Kouprey, has determined, with a high degree of certainty, that the world's rarest bovine does in fact exist in small numbers in remote corners of Mondolkiri province.

More importantly, the Thayer Expedition has documented categorically the existence of other species in signifacent numbers including the gaur, banteng, barking deer, wild pig, Asian wild dog, red headed vulture, whooly-necked stork, red junglefowl and peacock, all of which are rapidly approaching "endangered species" status throughout Asia.

While the Kouprey was not actually sighted by the Thayer expedition, evidence collected from animal tracks and recent sightings indicates that the Kouprey is alive and extremely endangered with perhaps as few as six to 10 animals surviving precariously in virtually uninhabited jungle areas in one of the Kingdom's most isolated districts.

Based on this new information, the Royal Government has a unique opportunity to act quickly and definitively to safeguard an important national symbol, a step that would not only guarantee the survival of the Kouprey but which in the long run would be of immense benefit to the nation.

His Majesty The King, the Royal Government, the recalcitrant Khmer Rouge and all friends of Cambodia must act now to save the Kouprey. To wait even one minute longer would be sheer folly.

To the point, the government needs to declare the northeast corner of Mondolkiri Province as a national reserve or wildlife park and take whatever measures necessary to protect the animals which still exist there.

The animals in Mondolkiri are rapidly vanishing from their shrinking enclaves. However, Cambodia, unlike many other nations in this part of Asia, still retains significant populations of rare species which stand head and shoulders above what exists elsewhere regionally.

The most saleable argument, among many, for safeguarding this wildlife is the long-term potential for engendering revenues as a result of the worldwide interest in wildlife tourism, of which the Kingdom is still well-placed to take advantage. In a nutshell, people all over the world are willing to spend thousands of dollars to see rare wild animals in their native habitat.

The opportunity for a bold expression of visionary leadership is waiting to be grasped. The Khmer people will only reap the benefits of such action for centuries to come.

What better reason is there to grab (gently) the cow by the horns? And, more to the point, which Khmer will go down in history as the individual who had the foresight to protect for eternity one of the Kingdom's most treasured national symbols?

KR HARDLINERS- DOWN BUT NOT OUT-By Nate Thayer

KR HARDLINERS- DOWN BUT NOT OUT

Phnom Penh Post

By Nate Thayer

Friday, 04 October 1996

The Khmer Rouge split has brought much attention to the mysterious rebel group's inner workings. Nate Thayer analyses the break-up and assesses where the Pol Pot faction now stands.

AFTER the raw drama and spell-binding intrigue of the unprecedented Khmer Rouge break-away, one thing remains sure: thousands of hardcore troops and commanders remain loyal to Pol Pot. These hardliners, who have long warned against dealing with the enemy, have likely been hardened by recent events.

The schism has pitted Ieng Sary - former Khmer Rouge foreign minister, brother-in-law of Pol Pot, and former No. 4 in the all powerful Standing Committee of the Party - and a group of powerful younger military field commanders, against the old guard leaders and their loyalists. Not since the purges and open warfare of 1978, that led to the Vietnamese invasion and the fall of the KR regime, has the movement's inner-circle been so rocked.

Remaining intact, however, is virtually all of the important KR political leadership and most of its military command structure. These include party supremo Pol Pot, his second in command Nuon Chea, chief of the general staff Ta Mok, and Defense Minister Son Sen.

Mok, who opposed the Paris peace agreements and advocates an aggressive military posture, has seen his power significantly rise as a result of the internal strife. He now directly commands at least 80 percent of the KR troops, though the rank and file remains split, with final alliances not expected to clarify themselves for months.

Though Sary has taken as much as 20 percent of the KR's fighting force, he has not gone over to the Royal Government. Sary's faction has effectively set up an autonomous command with a tenuous agreement of a truce with government forces.

But the rebel faction has removed a major stronghold and leadership base, as well as control of rich gem and timber territory that provided desperately needed cash to the movement's central coffers - a major economic and political blow to the leadership.

In addition, for the first time in 30 years the KR loyalists find themselves without foreign or domestic allies that have been critical to it's survival.

The United Nations, the United States and ASEAN, who all backed the KR-led guerrilla movement prior to the 1991 peace accords, are all now firmly behind the Cambodian government. China halted all support in 1991, and Thailand has gone to lengths to stop cross border traffic and covert assistance to the guerrillas. In addition, their former battlefield allies - the two non-communist factions - are now part of a coalition government and formally at war with the KR.

Pol Pot, known as a brilliant military strategist, saw the writing on the wall in 1992, and warned his comrades of impending danger: "While Democratic Kampuchea has indeed now become strong, without others to be with it, Democratic Kampuchea cannot be strong all on it's own. When these guys...leave Democratic Kampuchea on it's own, it is possible for us to be weakened. Once that happens, they will attack the DK and drag the other forces into joining with Phnom Penh. It would become an alliance between the West, the Youn [Vietnamese], the contemptible puppets and two of the three parties. If this were to be the situation, then the Chinese, the Thai, and ASEAN would all accept it whether they liked it or not...the forces sustaining us would be enfeebled, which would lead to our being isolated and attacked." He termed it "a life and death struggle".

The scenario that Pol Pot described as his faction's worst nightmare is precisely the situation they face now, many analysts say, and is key to the pressures which contributed to his movement's implosion.

Since 1992, when the KR pulled out of the UN-sponsored election they have attempted to become self sufficient, relying on timber and gem trading for new resources. The breakaway faction has taken with them control of the most lucrative area. In 1993, at least 57 Thai companies were operating over 1,000 earth moving vehicles in KR-controlled ruby regions of Pailin, with more than three billion baht invested, according to then Thai MP Thanit Traivut. Western intelligence and Thai businessmen put the guerrillas' monthly gem profits at $10 million from Pailin alone, until the early 1990's.

In a speech to senior cadre before the peace agreement, Pol Pot explained the importance of Pailin: "Our state does not currently have sufficient capital either to expand its strength or enlarge the army. We are spending many tens of millions of baht to augment the assistance of our foreign friends, but that is still not enough and there are many shortages. It is thus imperative that we find ways to develop the natural resources that exist in our liberated and semi-liberated zones as assets to be utilized in the fight the aggressor enemy."

ORIGINS OF THE CURRENT CONFLICT

It was a centrally-ordered directive by the senior leadership in recent months to re-seize control over resources in Pailin that sparked the crisis.

Importantly, KR radio - still in the hands of the loyalists - and the rebel radio provided important and accurate details of the origins of the split.

While often used for propaganda, KR radio also serves as a vital communication link to the rank and file. References to its importance are often cited in internal KR documents.

Between radio broadcasts, intelligence reports, and guerrilla and loyalist sources, the origins of the split are relatively clear. There are several important factors.

Firstly, there are long personality disputes among the leadership that have simmered for years. Particularly, Ieng Sary was in fact purged from all positions of political importance within the organization more than six years ago. While he continued to live in DK zones, he was in many ways a minor figure. It was the younger field commanders, Y Chhien in particular, who held the real power.

Secondly, the KR, in the aftermath of the failed Paris Agreements, the cut off of foreign assistance, and the loss of their former Cambodian allies to a government coalition, are suffering from an increase in "regional fiefdoms". In areas like Pailin the large amount of trading in valuable resources has made many ordinary KR cadre, soldiers and civilians relatively wealthy - and reluctant to go back to the times of warfare and central control by the DK leadership.

Thirdly, because of the cut-off of foreign assistance and pressure on cross border trade with Thailand, the KR leadership increasingly is in need of cash and was trying to consolidate central control of resources and political loyalty.

Furthermore, the massive trading with Cambodians from government territory and Thais has left sectors such as Pailin vulnerable to infiltration by enemy operatives. Senior KR sources say they have been suspicious of locating important bases at Pailin since at least 1990, when they began detecting radio emissions not under their authorization. The brief government military capture at Pailin in 1994 was blamed by senior KR officials on government special forces units and other "spies" posing as businesspeople.

The split erupted publicly on 6 August when KR radio called for the arrest and "destruction of the traitors", naming Ieng Sary, 450 Division commander Sok Pheap and 415 commander Y Chhien.

Ieng Sary, in a rebuttal broadcast over government radio, called Pol Pot "the cruelest and most savage murderer", and also condemned Ta Mok and Son Sen.

On 7 August, the DK radio again denounced Sary as a traitor, accusing him of embezzling millions of baht from the movement to lavish on himself and his family.

On Aug 8, the loyalist radio called for the arrest of Chhien for spying and stealing party coffers.

Importantly, the radio also said "this Chhien and a couple of his thugs, such as the named Nhoek, Lanh, and Khieu, threatened to arrest, in a pseudo coup, the NADK supreme command representatives... This open offense and threat to arrest the supreme command representatives took place on the morning of 6 August."

The rebel faction shot back, announcing loyalty "to support our leader" Ieng Sary and "deny[ing] our support to Son Sen who is not our leader who confiscated possessions, such as ox-carts".

The rebel broadcast also referred to Son Sen accusing "patriotic fighters...such as the late comrade in arms Hoem and Mich, of being traitors.."

Many aspects of the radio reports were confirmed by Khmer Rouge loyalist and rebel sources, and the radio was used, during this crisis, as a means to communicate with the rank and file to attempt to explain the events and halt the erosion of unity within the ranks.

The spoils of rubies and timber sparked an internal party conflict that has escalated to what we have today. In essence, the Khmer Rouge military leadership, including Ta Mok, Son Sen and Nuon Chea, attempted in recent months to re-assert central control over elements in the army in control of the Pailin sector. These forces, particularly Chhien and his allies, balked, and the confrontation escalated.

Furthermore, the rebels' reference to the "late comrade in arms" Mich of being a traitor suggest a purge was under way prior to the open split. Mich served as a senior military chief of Front 250, elements of which joined the rebels.

The government reference to Chhien and a "couple of his thugs" attempting to arrest the leadership is a direct reference to younger field commanders seeking to arrest Ta Mok, Nuon Chea, Son Sen, and Nikon after the attempt to seize control over the area in early August.

What is clear is that the rift had virtually nothing to do with politics, and even less to do with factions of the KR defecting to the royal government, which was decidedly a spectator - although beneficiary - to the events.

IENG SARY AND LEADERSHIP CONFLICTS

Ieng Sary - a long-standing member of the Communist Party standing committee, foreign minister and deputy prime minister during the DK years in power, and the key liaison for all Chinese military and financial aid throughout the guerrilla war of the 1980s - was stripped of power in a bitter break with the organization many years ago.

His fall came after years of friction, much of it based on personality conflicts.

As foreign minister during the KR rule, most of the intellectuals who came back to Cambodia after the KR victory in 1975 were under his charge. Hundreds perished, and many more were kept in reeducation camps or were forced to do menial work in state ministries.

When the KR retreated to the jungle in 1979 after its overthrow by the Vietnamese, Sary caused a major rift within the leadership by acknowledging to a reporter the existence of the Toul Sleng torture center in which at least 16,000 people were interrogated and executed - mostly party cadre and their families. Sary was denounced in internal party meetings for violating a key tenet of the KR - to never make public statements not sanctioned by the leadership.

But Sary had the support of the Chinese, who insisted that all their assistance be passed through him. As a result, he was effectively in charge of distributing weapons and money throughout the 1980s, a role which gave him concrete power. But he is known to have had several disputes with Pol Pot, and to have angered field commanders and political cadre with his autocratic style and abrasive personality. When the signing of the Paris agreements ended all Chinese covert aid in 1991, his influence effectively ceased.

Ousted from the Standing Committee of the Communist Party around 1989, Sary was no longer invited to high level meetings, according to KR officials. In a late 1992 meeting between Pol Pot and another senior official, Pol Pot agreed with criticism of Sary, saying "I have known for a long time that Ieng Sary was a bad leader", according to sources close to the faction.

KR sources say that serious rifts between Sary and the leadership began in 1986, "when one guy who was in charge of security for Ieng Sary organized a bandit attack with some Thais at Pailin and stole millions of dollars," according to one source.

Many Khmer Rouge intellectuals complained bitterly about Ieng Sary's abrasive personality. "We have a saying in Cambodian that people had to 'walk like a duck' around Ieng Sary and his wife. If they dropped something, someone else picked it up. They complained about the quality of the food. Their servants were nervous and obsequious, like around a king. It was very feudalistic," says one source close to the KR leaders.

"In 1993, Ieng Say still lived in Thailand in a very nice home built with DK money. That was denounced by the leadership. While others suffered in the jungle, he lived in a nice home in Thailand."

During the 1980's, most of the KR intellectuals were based at Phnom Malai, in areas under Sary's influence. But in the early 1990's, almost all of the political leadership, including the foreign affairs staff, young intellectuals, and Khieu Samphan and the office of the president of Democratic Kampuchea, moved north to the base of Phnom Chhat. Under the control of So Hong, commander of sector 102 and the nephew of Pol Pot, it served as a major base for the leadership until it was overrun by government forces in a surprise attack in August 1993.

While Sary is held responsible for the deaths of many intellectuals during his tenure as DK foreign minister, Cambodian scholar Steve Heder points out that some of the only ones who survived were those directly under his charge. Department heads in the Foreign Ministry during the Khmer Rouge rule included Suong Sikoeun (who joined Sary's breakaway in August), Kiet Chhon (who defected in 1993 and is the current Finance Minister), Thionn Prasith (former KR ambassador to the UN through the 1980s until his retirement), Long Norin (who is with Sary's breakaway), Ok Sokhun (KR ambassador in Paris until the embassy was turned over to the government after the Paris agreements), Pech Bun Ret (who remains with the loyalists), and Chan Youran (the current DK "foreign minister"). Such survival rates among these intellectuals, who had all been named to the security services at Toul Sleng as traitors, suggests that Ieng Sary was able to protect them from the purges that claimed many of their colleagues.

THE REAL POWER

Many KR sources say that by far the most important defector, rather than Sary, was military commander Lt. Gen. Y Chhien, who, as officer in charge of Pailin, controlled crack troops and the lucrative gem and logging trade with nearby Thailand.

"Officially Chhien should be under Ieng Sary, but many believe that Chhien now controls Ieng Sary," said one source close to the KR. "He controls concrete forces - troops and money."

Chhien "was said to be a protégé of Pol Pot", says scholar Heder. "He was responsible for the personal security of both Pol Pot and Nuon Chea," according to the confession of senior Khmer Rouge official executed at Toul Sleng prison in 1977. In 1977, he accompanied then Foreign Minister Ieng Sary on an officials visit to Rangoon, in the capacity of "bodyguard".

By 1981, he was identified as Division 415 commander, and in 1991 promoted to overall Pailin sector commander - equivalent of a governor, civilian administrator, military commander and economic czar.

It was a role that gave him great influence, and one that would be bestowed on someone with the total confidence of the leadership, including Pol Pot. Chhien was viewed as one of a rising group of six or seven younger commanders being groomed for taking over the movement.

Sary's daughter, a graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook in the late 1980s, is married to a top lieutenant of Chhien.

"Both Sok Pheap and Chhien had a high degree of interaction with the international community. They had extensive contact with Thais and other foreigners," said Heder. "Elements of both Divisions voted in the UNTAC elections, against the directive of the leadership."

On the other side of the KR, perhaps the most key military man is Ta Mok

The number three on the standing committee and Chief of the General Staff of the army, has seen his influence considerably enlarged since the UN peace agreements. He increased his control from 6 to 12 divisions in 1992, and is responsible for troops from the northwestern Thai border throughout the north and the entire east of the country on the Vietnam border.

This gave him control of perhaps 70 percent of the Khmer Rouge army. But one of the consequences of the recent split is the marked rise in influence of Ta Mok in the wake of the loss of Pailin. Now more than 80 percent - and perhaps as much as 90 percent - of the remaining troops are under his direct command.

Ta Mok, otherwise known as Chhit Choeun, studied Buddhism when young, and reached the status of "Lok Kru Achhar". He took over his father's lumber business and was described as "bright".

According to a senior KR official in 1977, Ta Mok "made vital contributions...by building up a solidly reliable base. He was able to build up military strength in every sector", "throngs of people supported him" and "he was able to build up massive armed forces rapidly" and "went down personally to lead the military". But, continued Non Suon, who was later executed at S-21, Ta Mok had "shortcomings"; "he thinks only his zone is important" and "is quick to become angry, even furious...his attitude is displayed in loud rages and cursing. A lot of other cadre have been cursed out by him". Non Suon continued to say Mok has a "boastful personality and clings stubbornly to his understanding of things. Whatever he says has to be done, is to be done. If this is not curbed in time he could be transformed into an authoritarian strongman."

THE NUMBERS GAME

While Prime Minister Hun Sen said in August that the two commanders Chhien and Sok Pheap would bring 3,000 troops to defect to the government, analysts urged caution, and the intelligence figures suggest otherwise.

In August 1991, the NADK formally submitted military organization charts to the UN, in accordance with the agreements reached in Paris. They said that 415 division had a strength including combatants, guerrillas (militia), and porters of 1,200 men and women. In 1992, UN military intelligence put the real number under arms at about 400. In internal documents of the RCAF's 2nd bureau responsible for military intelligence dated June 1995 put the troop strength at 350.

For division 450, the August 1991 NADK official figure was 1,635 (of which the DK said about 65 percent were under arms). UNTAC estimates in 1993 put the figure at 400, and the later RCAF internal intelligence documents reported about 300 under arms.

Whichever way one analyses it, the figures bandied about by the government of late can be dismissed as propaganda.

For overall figures of DK armed strength, their formal submissions to UNTAC in August 1991 was 25,175 combatants and porters plus 2,510 guerrillas, of which 65 percent - or about 18,874 - under arms. These figures are consistent with the upper ranges of State of Cambodia and Vietnamese intelligence estimates at the time. In the mid-1992 UNTAC's "guestimate" was about 10,000 KR under arms. But after the DK's withdrawal from the peace process, they began a central directive of remobilization of troops. By December 1992, UNTAC had increased their estimates to 15,000 under arms. In June 1995, RCAF intelligence put the KR strength at 4,750 regular forces, with militia bringing the total to 8,500.

Using the government own intelligence figures, the two divisions comprise approximately 800 soldiers, or between 10 and 20 percent of the entire KR fighting force.

But the KR leadership is not only short of friends and money, but also ammunition. The group has ordered all soldiers and civilians to meet a quota of homemade bamboo stakes and other crude weapons since last year. In an internal strategy document from the leadership to cadre earlier this year, the leadership spoke of "The strategic weapons that we call our main forces, sharp pointed soldiers, which are punji sticks, poison punji sticks, and booby traps...machetes, axes, and knives are locally abundant."

THE FUTURE

While the internal split within the movement has caused concrete damage and is a major propaganda victory for the government, it is much too early to count the KR out.

Virtually the entire KR political leadership, and much of its military command, is intact. The entire northern command structure - which has successfully defeated all government attempts to destroy it in recent years - is largely unaffected. It is this area that the leadership moved its political operations several years ago.

It is cogent to remember that the Sary's forces have given no sincere indication that they are willing to join the government, or indeed that peace and national reconciliation was ever their aim in breaking away.

In scores of interviews with defectors by this reporter in recent years, few cited political disagreements with the KR as a motive for leaving. Most said that they were treated well by the commanders and were proud of their role in defending the country against the Vietnamese threat. That is the case with those loyal to the Pailin commanders.

It is likely that, for the time being, the Pailin rebels will remain a "third force" - with a shaky tactical alliance with the government - unless a confrontation between the new "allies" is forced.

For the rest of the KR, many government officials acknowledge that they have little to offer in the eyes of the average guerrilla, and that life in the "liberated zones" is often better than that of his counterpart across government front lines.

Hardline KR elements - who have long advocated no contacts with the enemy and who support an increase in guerrilla warfare and terrorism - are now in greater control of their faction.

In a 1994 KR document issued to northern forces, Ta Mok warned: "We have continued to exist with them, eat with them, peacefully allied with them to the point that some of our cadres and ranks have been repeatedly put in danger... in some of our units, enemy elements comprise 50-60 percent."

Ta Mok warned that "pacifism has entered our cadres" and that "there is a confusion, a blending our essence and our enemies."

He reminded cadre of "our absolute duty to smash and sweep away the enemy."

An October 1995 internal KR military strategy document outlined their emphasis on avoiding "tricks of the enemies", especially the "peaceful relationship scheme".

The document also urged the KR to target foreigners, particularly Americans.

"The resistance forces are everywhere. We can attack the two heads and their American boss everywhere. We can cut highway four anywhere, any bridge, any culvert on the road. We are going to cut it over and over until the two-headed government will not be able to use it and until the Americans and their construction on highway four turn their tails and run back to Phnom Penh...the short reminder of historical events is nothing more than a desire to caution that the strategic supply lines are the life and death key to winning or losing a war...cut the enemy' throat! Cut the enemy's throat! Cut the enemy's blood arteries! Tragic fit, tragic death to all enemies near and far!"

The US Army has detachments of military engineering units involved in road construction on Route 4 and special forces units training Cambodian deminers elsewhere in Cambodia. Western intelligence sources say they have information that the KR are targeting Westerners in Cambodia, and have issued at least three confidential "threat alerts" in recent months.

Similarly, other internal documents and references on radio push the same line: that the KR must guard against all enemies, and remain at a distance from corrupting influences.

One document said: "Our first responsibility is we must be clean. Our major responsibility is to clean up our act. We must be clean. Our ranks, especially our cadre, must be clean, our skin clear, free of all smell, no peaceful relationship scheme, no spying activity, no internal undermining, nothing to be compromised at all..."

With the recent events, those elements of the KR who have been warning of the "peaceful relationship scheme" are likely to be saying "I told you so" - and be that much more intent to strengthen their hands with the remaining ranks.

 

(Nate Thayer, correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review, is currently a Visiting Scholar and Fellow at the School of Advanced International Studies, Foreign Policy Institute, Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC.)

Bloody repression will leave lasting scars-1992 Thai coup Nate Thayer

Bloody repression will leave lasting scars

MAY 21 1992

BANGKOK POST SPECIAL AFTERNOON EDITION

by Nate Thayer of AP
TAXI drivers and stockbrokers, students and noodle vendors
reacted with defiance when once again the military intervened to
block Thailand's road to democracy. And they vented their rage
when a military clique turned its guns on civilians to retain
power.
  While nobody is yet predicting that the military's days are
over, an opposition stronger than ever has emerged to an army
long seen as politicised and not particularly effective on the
battlefield.
   Images of soldiers gunning down unarmed protesters and
striking women with their rifle butts will be seared into the
minds of millions. Even some soldiers and security officers are
openly expressing disgust.
   "You cannot shoot down the people like falling leaves. I
cannot accept what I saw with my own eyes," said Pol Maj-Gen
Uthai Asvavilai, a senior police official at the scene where
demonstrators were gunned down early on Tuesday morning.
   "If I am forced to act against my conscience, I will take off
my uniform," he said.
   "We cannot forget soldiers using weapons payed for by
taxpayers shooting down Thai citizens," said Jatuporn Prompan, a
26-year-old university student.
   It appears that a small group of army generals orchestrated
the crackdown on a broad-based coalition of pro-democracy
demonstrators who took peacefully to the streets to demand the
resignation of Prime Minister Suchinda Kraprayoon.
   At least 40 people have been killed and more than 600 injured
since Sunday night.
   Each volley of shots into the crowd seemed only to galvanise
the protesters. More and more came out to support the protests.
   Thousands also rallied in provincial capitals as word spread
of the bloodshed.
   Coups and military intimidation have been regular features of
Thai politics since the military helped topple absolute monarchy
in 1932. But this time, the civilians they tried to cow into
submission wouldn't budge.
   "No more military mafia!" was a popular banner strung across
downtown streets occupied by more than 100,000 demonstrators,
even after troops opened fire.
   A recent article by Robert Karniol, an editor for the
respected military journal, Jane's Defence Weekly, characterised
the Thai military as "incapable of organising an effective
defence against conventional attack."
   He said "the few officers who recognise this are ignored by
senior staff distracted by non-military pursuits."
   After a coup in February last year, Suchinda promised to crack
down on corrupt government officials. He ordered investigations
of a number of ministers of the previous government who were
later branded as having amassed illegal wealth.
   Many Thais were outraged when the same officials were
reappointed to Suchinda's newly formed government last month,
allegedly by buying their way back into the government.
   Thailand's increasingly affluent middle class has especially
grown intolerant of a military who seem more focused on muscling
their way into political power than defending the country.

"Pol Pot, I Presume." Nate Thayer, Wall Street Journal

"Pol Pot, I Presume."  

Nate Thayer, Wall Street Journal

August 1, 1997

Nate Thayer, a reporter for the Far Eastern Economic Review, garnered
world-wide attention after becoming the first Western correspondent in almost
20 years to see former Cambodian dictator Pol Pot. What follows is his own
account, condensed from the Aug. 7 issue of the magazine, which, like The Wall
Street Journal, is owned by Dow Jones & Co.

After a series of furtive rendezvous, using coded messages over mobile phones,
I had slipped into one of the most impenetrable, malaria-ridden and land
mine-strewn jungles of the world: Khmer Rouge-controlled northern Cambodia. I
was hoping to interview Pol Pot, one of the century's most notorious and
elusive mass murderers.

As I entered the Khmer Rouge stronghold of Anlong Veng on July 25, hundreds of
voices chanted in unison: "Long live! Long live! Long live the new strategy!" The clenched fists of the crowd pumped toward the sky, as a smiling, middle-aged Khmer Rouge cadre led me toward an open-air meeting hall. Crackling loudspeakers, powered by a car battery lying on the earthen floor, began to spew denunciations of the longtime Khmer Rouge leader. "Crush! Crush! Crush! Pol Pot and his clique!" shouted the crowd on cue as we approached, their fists striking down toward the ground.

Final Defeat

A shocking number of the participants stood on crude wooden stumps, sat in home-made wheelchairs, or were missing eyes--sacrifices to the revolutionary cause of Pol Pot. Others, their arms blown off by landmines, were unable  join the frequent clapping as speaker after speaker denounced the man once venerated as "Brother Number One."

The carefully orchestrated performance evoked grainy film clips of China's Cultural Revolution. But the message was starkly different. "Long live the emergence of the democracy movement!" shouted individuals in the crowd. A chorus would repeat the slogan, followed by prolonged applause from the roughly 500 participants. Each speaker, seemingly chosen to represent a sector of society--a farmer, an intellectual, a soldier, a woman--got up to denounce and humiliate Pol Pot "and his clique."

Pol Pot sat alone, near three manacled loyalists, and often seemed close to tears as the vitriol was unleashed. In contrast, the three younger army commanders on trial alongside him had menacing expressions, staring coldly into the eyes of the speakers.

Pol Pot, who ruled Cambodia for more than three years and ruled the Khmer Rouge for more than three decades, was denounced and imprisoned by his own movement. Not for the 1975-78 Cambodian genocide, but for turning on his own comrades in an attempted purge in June.

The Khmer Rouge of Anlong Veng have good reason to distance themselves from Pol Pot: They want to attract international support for their struggle to unseat Cambodian Premier Hun Sen. That's why they allowed a foreign reporter to witness the show trial, the first time a journalist has entered Anlong Veng and left alive. Still the cadres clearly saw Pol Pot's ouster as a tragedy, and continued to treat the 72-year-old former leader with gentle respect.

The fall of Pol Pot underlines the view that the original Khmer Rouge movement which ruled Cambodia in the 1970s essentially no longer exists. But that doesn't mean that the Khmer Rouge have become irrelevant in Cambodia. The aggressive courting of remaining Khmer Rouge factions by Cambodia's rival premiers, Hun Sen and Prince Norodom Ranariddh, was central to the July 5-6 coup in Phnom Penh. In fact, the Khmer Rouge had finalized their alliance with Ranariddh's Funcinpec Party on July 4. Worried that the balance of power would be tipped in his rival's favor, Hun Sen ousted Ranariddh the next day.

Virtually the entire Khmer Rouge leadership favored a deal with Funcinpec, but Pol Pot was opposed, said Gen. Im Nguon, who is now the Khmer Rouge's army chief of staff. "Domestically and internationally, Pol Pot has his own personal problems to take care of," he said, referring to Pol Pot's blood-soaked reputation. "He has no way out. That's why he keeps dragging this movement toward the darkness."

The Khmer Rouge had splintered dramatically since July 1996, when forces in western Cambodia, representing half the movement, broke with Pol Pot's northern forces headquartered in Anlong Veng. The western split was headed by Ieng Sary, Pol Pot's brother-in-law and longtime comrade-in-arms. Im Nguon said the split was aimed against Pol Pot himself, but the 72-year-old leader blamed his top leaders--Ta Mok, Nuon Chea and Son Sen--for failing to heal the rift.

"So Pol Pot asked Mao--over there," Im Nguon explained, pointing at a young Khmer Rouge cadre, "to shoot Ta Mok and burn him--last October--to leave no evidence."

The grim-faced young cadre, who looked capable of such a deed, nodded in agreement with his commander. But he didn't carry out Pol Pot's order. Ta Mok, who is known to the outside world as "the butcher," is immensely popular with the troops and civilians under his control. So much so, Im Nguon said, that Pol Pot saw him as a threat. "They really like him a lot because he is so helpful to them in terms of standard of living. He built roads, bridges, dams within this area," Im Nguon said.

Pol Pot turned to two senior military field commanders, Gen. Sarouen and Gen. San, attempting to consolidate power against Ta Mok. On Feb. 25 he had them declared the new military and political leaders, replacing Ta Mok, Im Nguon said. About the same time, according to both Cambodian government sources and diplomats, secret negotiations accelerated between envoys of Prince Ranariddh and elements of the Khmer Rouge in Anlong Veng. Most of these efforts were conducted by Ta Mok loyalists--often behind Pol Pot's back--and the top royalist military commander, Gen. Nyek Bun Chhay. By May, the faction agreed in principle to join in alliance.

Increasingly isolated, on June 9 Pol Pot launched a desperate attempt to scuttle the peace deal by purging Ta Mok and other top leaders. That night, longtime defense minister Son Sen and 14 of his relatives, including a five-year-old child, were shot dead by Gen. Sarouen's men, according to both Khmer Rouge and intelligence sources. The killings sparked several days of turmoil, with commanders fleeing into the jungle in disarray. But they rallied
behind Ta Mok and trapped Pol Pot and his band of about 300 remaining supporters on June 15, Im Nguon said. Four days later, they had surrendered.

With Pol Pot neutralized, the remaining Khmer Rouge leadership moved rapidly to finalize a secret political and military alliance with Funcinpec on July 4. Hun Sen, learning about Funcinpec's new alliance through his agents, launched his deadly coup the next morning.

Hun Sen has claimed the tribunal I witnessed was stage-managed by Pol Pot himself. Im Nguon paints a very different picture, but he did say that Pol Pot had "consented" to having a foreign reporter witness the mass meeting, as a way of acknowledging his guilt for moving against his comrades. "Pol Pot did himself confess to me clearly, after his arrest," Im Nguon said. "When I met him the first time, he embraced me and burst into tears. . . . He told me: 'I am wrong, comrade; all the mistakes were made by me, alone,' and then he cried."

"Pol Pot told me that this is the end of his life, he has nothing left, but he begged me to allow him to live," Im Nguon continued. "I also want to make clear that if Pol Pot was vested with any credibility or respect, he would not have shown up and let you see him like you just did today."

Life Imprisonment

As the "People's Tribunal of Anlong Veng" continued into its second hour, a loudspeaker roared into the nearby forest: "These are the criminal acts--the betrayal by Pol Pot and his clique--against the people, armed forces, and our cadre. In conclusion, we all decide to condemn and sentence this clique to life imprisonment."

Pol Pot, unable to walk unassisted, was helped up by a guard in Chinese-style military fatigues. Some people respectfully bowed, as if to royalty, as Pol Pot walked 25 yards to a waiting vehicle. The cadres suggested that I ask Pol Pot questions while he was led away, but balked at translating when told the questions I wanted to pose. Pol Pot, perhaps never to be seen alive again, was helped into a Toyota Landcruiser with tinted windows--captured booty from United Nations peacekeeping soldiers prior to the 1993 elections. Seconds after the trial ended, a torrential rain began.

Khmer Rouge Might Turn in Pol Pot --Nate Thayer

 (Authors note: This was the release of the Story in the Far Eastern Economic Review the day before Pol Pot committed Suicide. He listened to the report on VOA Khmer language service at 8:00pm April 15, 1998. After ingesting poison, he was declared dead at 10:15PM that night. Khmer Rouge leaders contacted me 5 minutes later desperate for answers on how to handle the death of the last card in the deck they had to negotiate their survival (note time difference: 2:19pm EST is translated to 3:19am Cambodia time the following day)

Khmer Rouge Might Turn in Pol Pot
Tuesday, April 14, 1998; 2:19 p.m. EDT

HONG KONG (AP) -- Cambodia's Khmer Rouge officials have told a Hong
Kong-based magazine they want to hand their former leader Pol Pot over
to an international tribunal.

Meanwhile, Cambodia's army says it has trapped remaining Khmer Rouge
forces in the mountains near the Thai border, and is poised to finish
them off.

The Far Eastern Economic Review reported in its latest issue that the
Khmer Rouge rebels have asked Review correspondent Nate Thayer for
advice on how to deliver the notorious Pol Pot to the authorities.

Gen. Khem Nuon reportedly made the request Saturday during an interview
with Thayer at the Thai-Cambodian border.

Khmer Rouge forces have held Pol Pot, 73, under house arrest since June,
when they ousted him in a bloody internal power struggle.

Thayer interviewed Pol Pot last year after attending a communist-style
``People's Tribunal'' where the rebels denounced the former leader.

Gen. Nuon reportedly said the Khmer Rouge was unable to contact the
United Sates or other countries, and asked Thayer to put them in contact
with the ``right people.''

Thayer suggested they contact the International Committee of the Red
Cross, the report said.

Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh
in 1975 and ruled Cambodia until 1979, presiding over the deaths of an
estimated 2 million people. A Vietnamese invasion in 1979 forced the
Khmer Rouge to retreat back to the jungle.

There have been calls for Pol Pot to be brought before the International
Court of Justice in the Hague to stand trial for war crimes and crimes
against humanity.

The rebels hope handing Pol Pot to the authorities will bring food,
medicine and other international support for the beleaguered Khmer
Rouge.

According to Cambodian military sources, the army is currently hammering
the Khmer Rouge guerillas near their former mountain stronghold along
the Thai border.

Reports indicate Khmer Rouge head Ta Mok and an undetermined number of
hard-line guerillas are holed up in the jungle peaks and attempting a
last desperate stand.

Most of the government forces are made up of Khmer Rouge defectors, who
oppose their former comrades' refusal to strike a peace deal with Phnom
Penh.

Some 5,000 defectors are waiting out the fighting 25 miles south of the
battle zone. The government said they will send them and their families
home when it is safe.

Hell on the Ho Chi Minh Trail: SOF Finds Elephants, Tigers and Khmer Rouge--but No Cow Nate Thayer

Hell on the Ho Chi Minh Trail: SOF Finds Elephants, Tigers and Khmer Rouge--but No Cow

Soldier of Fortune magazine

By Robert K. Brown & Robert MacKenzie

August 1994

Photos by Tim Page

Lurch, jolt, lurch, jolt. Riding elephants for 12 hours a day at three klicks an hour was proving to be a mind-and but numbing experience as we moved through the desolate Cambodian Savanna-type jungle. Ant-covered bamboo slapped our faces in rhythm to the lurching gait of the elephants. Thank God and Gargoyle sunglasses we still had our eyes.

It was becoming another pointless, painful misadventure. There had been a point to it all, but at this juncture, after hours on the back of a "lurch, jolt" elephant, we found the purpose growing less and less noble.

Like most adventures it initially sounded more intriguing and glamorous than it was turning out to be--like jumping from a perfectly good airplane, where, while shuffling to the door, the bile trying to claw its way up your throat, you ask yourself once again, " Why am I doing this?"

It all started a few months ago when Nate Thayer, a young journalist whose career SOF helped launch, called the office.

"Brown, how ya doin'? How'd you like to go on a scientific expedition...to locate a species of cow that was thought to be extinct for 50 years?"

Well, we always thought cows were for eating, or if wild, e.g. Cape buffalo, for shooting and then eating. And a scientific expedition? Ho, hum. Dullsville. Maybe we are getting along in years, but the notion had as much appeal as Kissing Hillary Rodham on the ear.

The ever-resourceful Thayer has been pushing the envelope for years: He's had malaria 16 times; keeps a motorbike hidden on the Thai-Cambo border and periodically drives unannounced into Khmer Rouge country. He has also managed to get blown up when his truck hit a land mine, killing 10 of the other 12 passengers; and when he positioned himself to the right-rear of a recoilless rifle shooting Burmese from a Karen bunker, instead of a Pulitzer-prize winning photo he got a snap of the bunker ceiling and lost 95% hearing in one ear...you, know, that sort of envelope-pushing. Thayer must have sensed we were less than enthusiastic. So he started upping the ante.

"Brown, we'll chopper into the base camp; use elephants to recon."

On an interest level of one to 10, that's about a two.

"We're going into KR country in eastern Cambodia, near the Vietnamese border, along the Ho Chi Minh trail."

Interest level now at five.

“We’ll be carrying AKs and whatever else is necessary.”

Interest level six.

“Our tracker/scouts will be former FULRO (United Front for the Struggle of Oppressed races) Montagnards who fought the NVA for 17 years after Saigon fell,” he continued.

“If we find that extinct cow, we will all be famous.”

Thayer sensed Brown wavering.

“And there are marauding tigers in the AO. We’ll need someone to deal with that threat. An AK, even on full auto, won’t do the job quick enough. We need a big caliber gun and someone who knows how to use it.”

Bingo! Level 10.5 Brown bit and Thayer sank the hook, but, now, as our elephantine convoy continued to lurch and jolt through the bamboo like a sailor on leave, we both wished he had spit it out.

PHOTO LEFT: Nate Thayer, former SOF author and presently Cambodian correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review, organized ‘scientific’ expedition to locate species of bovine, the Kouprey, thought extinct for 50 years. Thayer, AKA Col Kurtz, was so disorganized he made RKB look like role model for German General Staff

PHOTO LEFT: One of Thayer’s more bizarre concepts was to place rubber masks, modeled here by ‘Col, Kurtz’ himself, with lights behind them on trees facing away from camp to frighten tigers. Cooler heads determined it was unnecessary to implement this concept.

PHOTO TOP: Maj. Robert Mackenzie, ten-year veteran of Rhodesian SAS, and Robert K. Brown logged more ‘elephant time’ than anyone could possibly want. Only access was by foot and elephant; Promised helicopters never materialized. MacKenzie carries Chinese Type 56-1 AK and Brown, whose mission was to summarily terminate any marauding tigers, is armed with Ruger .375 H&H Magnum with 1.5x-6x Bausch and Lomb scope

After losing several thousand dollars’ worth of camera gear to thieves who work at the pricey Sukhothai Hotel in Bangkok, we arrived in Phnom Penh to be greeted by Tim Page, a crazy Brit film shooter who made his bones big time as a combat photographer in the ‘Nam, and Thayer, whom we quickly labeled “Colonel Kurtz.” Thayer bamboozled Brown’s Ruger .375 H&H through customs, prattling about being a friend of the King; a close friend of the Prime Minister. Whatever works.

PHOTO ABOVE: Thayer was/is an operator par excellence. Who else could lay on the Cambodian equivalent of Air Force One to transport our motley crew from Phnom Penh to jump-off point at Sen Monorom, dreadful capital of Mondolkiri province of eastern Cambodia. This particular aircraft serves as personal transport for King Sihanouk, who had blessed expedition. Dude with parasol—just what you need for Khmer Rouge territory—is Mike Hayes, editor of the Phnom Penh Post

PHOTO ABOVE: Team plots next elephant recon at insect-farm base-camp located on Ho Chi Minh trail about 20 klicks from Vietnamese border. Leader of Montagnard scout/tracker team, in yellow T-shirt, fought NVA for 17 years after Saigon surrendered.

 

We headquartered on the second floor of an old mildewy French villa that serves as an office for the English-language daily, the Phnom Penh Post.

As we dumped our gear on the floor, Thayer popped beers and said, “Welcome to the freest country in the world!”

Our puzzled glances prompted him to open a large cabinet containing an old French MAT-49 sub gun, a selective-fire Chinese M-14, several AKs, an M-79 grenade launcher and cases of ammo. Obviously no 4473s required here.

As if too reinforce his assertion, Thayer rolled and lit up a joint, continuing, “Anything you want. You can get a 50-kilo bale of pot at the market; there is an opium den down the street and you can pick up a case of AIDS without much difficulty.” Hmmm.

One might define freedom that way: all in the light of what you are smoking. The arsenal was intriguing, but we passed on the offer of dope and communicable disease.

Thayer’s prior planning primarily consisted of drinking, smoking, and banging the local bimbos. Even though Tim Page had assumed S-4 responsibility and acquired a fair amount of equipment, there would be considerable delay. Food, weapons, communications and transport were among ‘minor details’ not resolved for our 25-man foray into the KR-controlled, tiger-infested jungle.

PHOTO ABOVE: Brown examines wreckage of U.S. aircraft shot down over Ho Chi Minh trail. U.S. POW/MIA search teams had already visited crash site. Photo; Robert MacKenzie

PHOTO ABOVE: MacKenzie administers first aid to results of Brown’s folly—failure to apply moleskin when hotspots started to develop from new boots. Lesson learned.

Over the next days, we cleaned weapons and scrounged equipment in Phnom Penh markets, and met other expedition members. An experienced Italian veterinarian and author of the definitive book on camels, Maurizio “Mo” Dioli was the scientific member. Mo, Phnom Penh Post publisher Mike Hayes, his reporter Ker Munthit, and a Thai TV cameraman Praparn were ready to go. We awaited the four-man team of FULRO Montagnards with American escort from stateside.

We marked time visiting the battle-zone at Pailin (watch for a sit-rep next issue) and catching some rays. As we tanned, the plan evolved to final form. Alternative transportation had to be organized: The three Cambodian choppers Thayer promised were not to be—the Cambodian army only has three choppers. But continued shopping/scrounging had us at operational status when the Montagnards arrived.

Thayer had convinced Cambodia’s Prime Minister of the expedition’s merit, so we had a government airplane. The first staging point was at Sen Monorom in Mondolkiri province, where the governor organized a truck for the next leg and provided a 12-man detachment of Cambodian paramilitary police because of Khmer Rouge in the area. The governor issued the Montagnards AK-47s to increase expedition firepower. The SOF team members brought their own.

The next morning our party and supplies boarded a clapped-out truck and headed north on a dirt road. Most Cambodian roads boast only dirt and potholes; this road ran more to potholes and less to dirt. The plan was to drive until we ran out of road, to be met by elephants arranged by the provincial governor.

But, no elephants. By the time some showed up, we had lost another day.

We hung out at the trail head in hammocks, impressing local villagers. They were so impressed the headman invited us for rice wine (as Third-World villages go, it could have been worse) and a pitch for American aid, lest his village vanish. The chief had three wives and the village was knee-deep in children and pregnant children; vanishing didn’t seem imminent.

At daybreak we continued north. All walked except the overweight American who escorted the Montagnards. By mid-afternoon, it approached 100 degrees. We became separated into two groups, since elephants walk more slowly than men. The command element, the English speaking Montagnard and Thayer, were two hours behind. We were told to expect a river a couple hours out. By 1400 there was still no river, so we stopped and waited for “the leaders.” When they appeared at 1600, the priority was water, so we moved west towards the nearest watercourse.

PHOTO ABOVE: Members of Montagnard team pose with MacKenzie and RKB prior to patrol. Cambodian (center) in olive drab is member of 12-man security unit provided by provincial governor

BELOW PHOTO: Another member of the Cambodian security team, less than thrilled with his assignment. These troops, who had fought for the communist Cambodian/Vietnamese-supported government, did not inspire confidence. They were responsible for the only round fired-an AD which resulted in their giggling a great deal.  ’Nuff said.

An hour of bush bashing brought us to the blue line on their map, and huge pools of water. Soon elephants were in one pool, Cambodian soldiers in another and the expedition was drawing water from a third. A Third-World car wash was underway in the elephant pool with much splashing and frolicking as the mahouts scrubbed their charges.

We reached the proposed base site the next day and pitched camp. The following day we split into two groups to search for the cow. Both groups saw herds of Banteng, another wild ox with which the legendary Kouprey often cohabits. One group also saw packs of wild dogs and wild boar, but no cow yet. The next morning, as we were getting ready to leave our overnight site, Thayer’s walkie-talkie crackled with the words we didn’t want to hear—a sentry had spotted a Khmer Rouge soldier, who had also spotted him. The sentry returned to camp firmly convinced the KR was not alone and that this did not bode well for our mission.

 Despite Thayer’s assurance from the KR representative that the area commander was aware of and approved our mission, there was no certainty all local Khmer Rouge commanders had the word. On return we had a hurried conference to discuss options.

We could continue stumbling through the bush looking for the Kouprey; we could try to talk to the KR and assess the situation we could bugger out. The SOF mission opted for the second choice since the KR surely knew we were there and showed no hostile intent. Prevailing sentiment, however, was that no one wanted to get killed looking for a cow, so everyone upped sticked and returned to base camp: The KRs reputation for ferocity and unpredictability was enough to tip the scales in favor of flight.

 

PHOTO: Robert MacKenzie: Elephants are primary transport in isolated areas of eastern Cambodia. Tenderly cared for by their mahouts, elephants are their only major possession, only means of livelihood, and are passed from father to son. Our elephants ranged in age from 25 to 50, their mahouts from 18 to 70.

Elephants came equipped with box of wood slats and bamboo about three feet square and 18 inches deep. Carved in the shape of elephants back, box sits on thick cushion of fibrous bark, secured by bamboo cables, one of which runs around the tail, with another around the chest; a plaited rope of bark and bamboo goes around the neck. Cargo capacity is about 500 pounds, including the mahout. Elephants walk all day, foraging as they go, but need 12 hours rest between marches to relax and forage. “Speed” on trail is about 3 klicks an hour, during which time they eat everything from grass to tree roots.

At night elephants were loosed to forage, encumbered by a 13-foot chain heavy enough to gouge a furrow in the ground, making it easy to track them if the wandered off.

Boarding the ponderous critters is accomplished in one of two ways, depending on agility of boarders: if nimble, like Mackenzie, the mahout would have elephant extend front foot and passenger would step on and climb up. If old and decrepit, like Brown, elephant would belly down in the dirt—front feet forward and read feet backward—at which point passenger could be shoved into box by available bystanders.

Things were not well back at camp. Suffering from the heat, Page had convinced himself he was in serious danger of dying and needed a helicopter casevac. News of KR in the area corroborated his premonition and strengthened his demand to go home. The American Montagnard advisor was also down with excess heat and poundage—another candidate for casevac. With no radios to call the non—existent helicopter, we sent them out by elephant the next day. The TV shooter—with several hours of footage already, and the Post reporter with a deadline, also returned with three of the elephants and four of the Cambodian cops.

The remaining crew spent the next several days looking for the Kouprey in an area clearly devoid of any animal life (but far from the KR), as there was neither hoof print or cow pie anywhere in the barren landscape. But, as we could not convince the semi-intrepid Montagnard leader to go back where we had seen herds of cows and the lone rifleman, we ended the futile search and returned to base. We broke camp in the evening in order to get an early start back to Sen Monoram.

PHOTO BELOW: Another member of the Cambodian security team with RPG-7. Maybe we would run into armor-plated elephants?

Photo above: Maurizio Dioli, only ‘scientific’ member of the abortive expedition, is Italian veterinarian with 10 years of experience in northern Africa and the author of definitive books on camels. His sad/PO’d demeanor sums up the whole trip

PHOTO ABOVE: Elephants take a dunk with assistance from their mahouts. Riding elephants was an interesting experience—but once is too often

 

Late that night, the dry season ended and in the next hour more than three inches of rain inundated our campsite, now devoid of tarps. Amid curses and mutterings around the camp, our hammocks took water in at a slow but constant rate and did not let out.

As the noise of the storm faded, it was replaced by a din such as we had never heard during many campaigns on many continents: The rain was reveille to all the frogs in Cambodia, who had been waiting underground for the monsoons. Hundreds of thousands of frog voices in varying tones, timbres, pitches and strengths joined in a vast jungle cacophony loud enough to elicit sympathetic vibrations in the intrepid expeditioners’ chest cavities. It was an incredible, surreal experience—national geographic should have been there to record it.

Musing on the phenomenon, MacKenzie tipped more water from his hammock and wrapped himself in a sodden but still effective poncho liner, finally drifting off into a broken sleep to dream of giant frogs. We won’t be back again for a second try.

Robert K. Brown is SOF’s Publisher/Editor. Robert MacKenzie is an SOF contributing Editor for Unconventional Operations. They’re still friends.

A Live Report From Baghdad: The Road From Baghdad-Nate Thayer

A Live Report From Baghdad

By Nate Thayer

Posted Friday, March 28, 2003, at 11:38 AM ET

The Road From Baghdad

Last night my room at the Palestine, the hotel where journalists are staying in Baghdad, was ripped apart by Iraqi secret police. They found an illegal satellite phone and told me to be out of country by 7 a.m. today. Though I've been ordered out before, they made very clear that this time I would be arrested if I didn't go.

To get out of Baghdad is not easy. Along with Marco DiLauro, an Italian photographer who was also being expelled, I managed to rent a GMC 4-wheel drive. A little after 7 a.m., we set off on the road that leads west toward both Jordan and Syria. We were going to make our decision about which border to head for depending on the military situation we encountered.

In Baghdad, nearly all the men on the streets are armed. But after passing Iraqi military positions on the way out of the city, we saw no Iraqi forces whatsoever. At first, we couldn't tell who was in control of the highway. But less than 50 miles on, we ran into what looked like American forces. We stopped the car and got out, waving white handkerchiefs. We walked 100 yards to a position of what turned out to be Australian special forces, armed with artillery and about a dozen Humvee-type vehicles.

Despite the fact that they surrounded us, making us get down on our hands and knees as they searched us, we were delighted to see them. Once the Australians determined we were friendly, they were happy to see us too—and interested in how little military presence we'd seen exiting Baghdad. Then they sent us on our way toward Jordan.

The desert road was surreal, littered with the carcasses of dozens of burnt-out vehicles, including Iraqi armored personnel carriers with incinerated bodies inside. We saw ruined bridges and what looked like the skeleton of a Syrian tourist bus. Red Crescent vehicles passed in the other direction, ferrying medical supplies toward Baghdad. At one point a U.S. Black Hawk helicopter bore hovered above, but it left us alone after making out the letters "TV," which we'd applied to the roof of our truck with black duct tape.

For 350 miles, we saw no Iraqi military presence at all. But at the border, Saddam loyalists were still in control of the Iraqi side—200 feet from our nominal allies the Jordanians. Customs officials elaborately searched our bags and stamped our passports. They checked to see that the serial numbers on our computers matched those indicated on our entry documents—as if we were leaving some normal country.

City of Grief and Rage- By Nate Thayer, SLATE.COM

March 24, 2003

The following article by an American journalist still in  Baghdad
gives a bit different take on things than the TV coverage.  He
reports a great deal of anger against the Americans, rather than
people jumping up and down looking for liberation.

His account may well be biased -- we have no way of knowing.
But here's a what if.  What if when the Coalition finishes off the
regime they are stuck with a nation of angry and highly resentful
people?  What then?

http://www.msnbc.com/news/889982_asp.htm?0cv=CB10

City of Grief and Rage
By Nate Thayer, SLATE.COM

March 24, 2003

Today, for the first time, the bombs fell and the missiles struck in
daylight. The assault lasted all day. And it came not only from
long-range missiles but from coalition planes that are flying over our
heads and dropping their payloads in the neighborhood of the Palestine
Hotel, where most of the foreign journalists remaining in Baghdad are
staying.

TODAY IS ALSO the first time that I am truly frightened. It is not the
American bombs I am primarily afraid of. What frightens me and Mary -
the name I'll give a photographer with whom I've become inseparable -
is the mood of the people. The city is thick with anger and defiance,
and we are Americans.
Every day since Mary and I arrived by road from Jordan, we have been
threatened with expulsion. This morning, once again, we were ordered
out. "You have two choices-you can be a human shield or you can leave
the country," said my government minder. He offered this without his
usual smarmy smile.

"But what about my visa?" I asked.

"Your visa is now to heaven," he said, forcing a laugh.

BOMBS AND BLOOD TESTS
I talked my way out of it once again. My minder said we could obtain
visa "extensions" provided we take HIV tests. I brought my own
syringes, and I swabbed Mary's arm and extracted a vial of blood in my
room. She did the same for me. We then went to the so-called HIV
center together, with bombs dropping around us, to submit our blood to
the Iraqi government. Of course, they insisted on taking their own
samples. Cruise missiles launched 900 miles away exploded around us,
incinerating government buildings as we partook in this ridiculous
charade.

This absurdity over, we returned to the Palestine, where we are as
prepared as we can be for whatever may come next. We have 300 bottles
of the water and have filled the bathtubs in each of several rooms for
reserve. We've stockpiled enough food for weeks. Should the power
fail, we have a generator and jerry cans filled with petrol purchased
on the black market. If a bomb blows out our window, the duct tape
we've covered it with should protect us from flying glass. All of our
electronics-computers, cameras, communications devices-are wrapped in
aluminum foil against so-called e-bombs that will destroy all the data
of electronic devices.

A SEARCH FOR AIRMEN
At 4 p.m. Baghdad time, an American fighter jet dropped its payload so
close that the concussion sucked the air out of our lungs. Mary and I
got in our car and drove toward the site of the explosion.

As we crossed one of the four Tigris bridges, there was an enormous
traffic jam. Hundreds of armed men and civilians were looking down to
the river below. Scores of cars had stopped in the middle of the
bridge. We grabbed our gear and got out.

The rumor was that an allied plane had been shot down. Word spread
through the crowd that two pilots had parachuted from the downed plane
and were floating down the river. One had supposedly already been
captured. Whether there were any pilots in the river, I don't know.

Small boats with heavily armed soldiers searched among the reeds. From
the banks, people took pot shots at objects in the river. Under the
impression that the airman had been captured, thousands of cheering
Iraqis chanted and clapped, shooting AK-47s in the air for joy. People
in both uniform and civilian clothes eyed us with hostility during
this celebration.

"Where are you from?" demanded an armed Iraqi, looking at me.

"Germany," interjected my government guide, abruptly grabbing me by
the arm and yanking me away.

"Do not tell them you are American," he whispered as he rushed me to
the car. "We must leave. It is very dangerous here."

ROAD TO BABYLON
Then we were on the western side of the Tigris, where the coalition
bombardment has struck hardest. The sounds of imams on speakers
reverberated through the streets-calls for the people to kill all the
Americans. We raced through Baghdad's most dangerous area, passing
Saddam's palaces, now piles of burnt rubble. The Foreign Ministry was
a concrete shell with no windows and only sullen soldiers at the
entrance. Apartment buildings recently filled with civilians were
charred, burnt, collapsed, and empty. Hundreds of apartments and no
people-where did they all go? Western medical sources have reported
some 300 civilian injuries in Baghdad but very few killed.

The Iraqi military had now closed all the Tigris River bridges. Mary
and I were stuck. We had to drive north for an hour as bombs continued
dropping around us. "This is the road to Babylon," said our government
minder. It felt like Babylon. We then took another road-the road to
Kuwait, our guide said. We had to drive north of the city, then west,
and then south to enter Baghdad on the east bank of the Tigris and
return to our hotel.

Explosions are rocking my computer as I write. For the first time,
small-arms fire can be heard throughout the city. Anti-aircraft
emplacements are set up around the perimeter of our hotel. It's not a
good sign. Yesterday those 500 meters from us were destroyed,
completely destroyed, by American missiles.

Nate Thayer is covering the war for Slate.

Duch Confesses-He was the chief executioner in one of history's most murderous regimes. Now, he's a born-again Christian and aid worker. In his first interview, 'Duch' confesses to his Khmer Rouge crimes--Nate Thayer and Nic Dunlop

Duch Confesses

Far Eastern Economic Review

May 6, 1999

 

He was the chief executioner in one of history's most murderous regimes.
Now, he's a born-again Christian and aid worker. In his first interview,
'Duch' confesses to his Khmer Rouge crimes. The revelations could shake
Cambodia.

By Nic Dunlop and Nate Thayer in Battambang province

At first, the old man speaks only of his passion for Jesus and his mission
to bring the Gospel to these squalid jungle hamlets populated by Khmer
Rouge defectors.

Ta Pin, as he calls himself, has worked with international aid groups in
recent years, and he speaks for an hour--in a combination of Khmer, French
and English--of the needs of the peasants. He proudly displays a pair of
laminated certificates he received after attending seminars held in
Cambodia by American evangelical churches--they commend his "personal
leadership development, team-building and deepening commitment to Jesus
Christ."

He sidesteps several political questions, until one causes him to look
down and examine the business card of a visiting reporter. Following a
long pause, his eyes narrow and he looks directly at his visitor,
betraying a racing mind. "You are from the Far Eastern Economic Review,
the one who interviewed Pol Pot, Ta Mok and the other leaders," he says.
"Yes," the reporter replies. "They told me who you are and that you were
here."

The old man stares silently into the distance for a moment, then sits
down next to the reporter. Without being asked another question, Kang
Kek Ieu--alias Ta Pin, alias Hong Pen, alias "Duch"--begins to speak of
his life as the chief executioner for Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge.

"First, I want to say that I thank God to be meeting the Far Eastern
Economic Review today," says the one-time warden of Cambodia's most
notorious death camp who has been on the run for 20 years. "It is God's
will you are here. Now my future is in God's hands."

With that, he talks freely of his role and that of others in the horrors
of 1975-79, when the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia and as many as 2 million
people perished out of a population of less than 7 million. "I have done
very bad things before in my life. Now it is time for les represailles
[to bear the consequences] of my actions."

He makes the confession in interviews on April 22 and 26 in his one-room
hut in the jungles of western Cambodia. His pregnant niece lies sick and
nearly comatose on a mat behind him, her arm taped to an intravenous
drip that hangs from a ceiling beam. His son sits nearby, his wooden leg
with carved toes--he stepped on a landmine in 1985--hanging over the
edge of the hut's raised floor. Hundreds more mines, in all likelihood,
still seed the earth around the hamlet.

"The first half of my life I will remember forever. Then I thought God
was very bad, that only bad men prayed to God. My unique fault is that I
did not serve God, I served men, I served communism," the 56-year-old
Duch says. "I feel very sorry about the killings and the past. I wanted
to be a good communist. Now, in the second half of my life, I want to
serve God by doing God's work to help people."

Comrade Duch has much to be sorry about. He was chief of the Khmer Rouge
"S-21" national-security apparatus and ran the notorious Tuol Sleng
detention centre in Phnom Penh. A converted secondary school, Tuol Sleng
was the nerve centre for a nationwide network of prisons and execution
grounds. Thousands of people--many of them purged Khmer Rouge cadres and
their families--were tortured, forced to confess to fantastic plots and
executed at Tuol Sleng, their bodies dumped in shallow graves outside
the city.

The treatment and the confessions of inmates were meticulously
documented. Duch's own signature and detailed comments are on hundreds
of documents ordering barbarous torture methods ranging from electric
shocks and severe beatings to the pulling out of toenails and submersion
in vats of water. At least 16,000 people were "processed" through Tuol
Sleng, according to scholars; only seven survived, escaping when
invading Vietnamese troops captured Phnom Penh in January 1979.

If an international tribunal is convened to try the Khmer Rouge for
genocide, Duch would be a pivotal figure: He was the direct link between
the Khmer Rouge political leadership and its killing machine.

"Duch would in fact be in a key position to close key gaps in the
evidence," says Stephen Heder, a Cambodia expert at London University's
School of Oriental and African Studies. "Although we have documents
linking S-21 to Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ta Mok, Ke Pok and Son Sen, among
others, they do not establish incontrovertibly that any of the above
ordered all the crimes against humanity that we know were committed, and
leave very unclear the roles of key figures such as Ieng Sary and Khieu
Samphan."

Heder was referring to the top leaders of the Communist Party of
Kampuchea, who ran the country from April 1975 to the end of 1979. In
the past few years, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan and Ke Pok have
all "defected" from the Khmer Rouge and now live freely in Cambodia; Ta
Mok is alone in having been jailed after his capture in March. Son Sen
was murdered in June 1997 on Pol Pot's orders, and Pol Pot committed
suicide in April last year to avoid trial.

Duch's confessions will likely give new impetus to calls by the United
Nations, the United States and other major aid donors for the arrest and
trial of Khmer Rouge leaders. Indeed, in the interview, Duch says that
the entire leadership was responsible for the executions he carried out.
"The decisions for the killings were made not by one man, not just Pol
Pot, but by the whole central committee," he says. "Whoever was arrested
must die. It was the rule of our party. S-21 had no right to arrest
anybody. We had the responsibility to interrogate and give the
confession to the central committee of the party."

Putting on his glasses, he solemnly leafs through copies of documents
recovered from Tuol Sleng and shown to him by the REVIEW. They are
"confessions" extracted under torture, riddled with notations in Duch's
handwriting giving instructions for questioning, torture methods and
execution. "Yes, this is my signature," he says, pointing to a scrawl
ordering the torture of one victim. "And this handwriting is Nuon Chea's
and this one Son Sen's."

Another forced confession bears a long note from Duch to the party
leadership on the "traitorous activities" of a perceived enemy. "That is
my handwriting," he volunteers, then pointing elsewhere on the document,
he adds: "And this here is Nuon Chea's handwriting." The prisoners were
later executed. He identifies what he says is the handwriting of Nuon
Chea and fellow leaders on other documents, many with notations to or
from "Elder Brother" or simply the ominous "Organization," as the
Standing Committee of the Communist Party was known.

Nuon Chea, formerly No. 2 in the party hierarchy behind Pol Pot, was
effectively given amnesty by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen last year.
After staying in luxury hotels in Phnom Penh and vacationing in the
seaside resort of Sihanoukville, he now lives freely in the western
Cambodian border town of Pailin.

Examining the documents, Duch expresses what seems like genuine remorse.
"I am so sorry. The people who died were good people. I am here now. God
will decide my future." He adds: "There were many men who were innocent.
I tried to understand the punishment and orders to kill. I have a great
difficulty in my life thinking that the people who died did nothing
wrong."

He goes on to identify those he says made the command and control
decisions of organized genocide. "The first was Pol Pot, the second was
Nuon Chea, the third Ta Mok," he says.

Referring to seven Westerners known to have been executed at Tuol Sleng,
he says: "Nuon Chea ordered that the foreigners be killed and their
bodies burned so no bones were left. Only the Europeans were burned. I
remember well the Englishman. He was very polite."

At the same time, Duch offers a degree of exoneration for others. "Ieng
Sary knew nothing," he says of the regime's foreign minister. "He only
knew a little of the internal situation of the country because his work
was outside Cambodia." In 1980, Ieng Sary was sentenced to death for
genocide in a show trial staged in his absence by the government
installed in Phnom Penh by Vietnam. He was pardoned in 1996 by King
Norodom Sihanouk after leading mass defections from the Khmer Rouge to
the government.

The regime's figurehead prime minister, Khieu Samphan, was not as
oblivious, according to Duch. "Khieu Samphan knew of the killings, but
less than the others," he says. Khieu Samphan now lives with Nuon Chea
in Pailin, which is controlled by Ieng Sary and other ex-Khmer Rouge.

While Duch's revelations would be a prosecutor's dream, the chances of a
hearing being convened before an international tribunal abroad or a fair
trial being held in Phnom Penh remain remote. Cambodian Prime Minister
Hun Sen has resisted calls for a wide-ranging trial, saying it could
spark a new civil war in a country at peace for the first time in 30
years.

In fact, the REVIEW has learned, the Cambodian government has been aware
of Duch's whereabouts since at least mid-1997, but apparently made a
political decision not to arrest him. Questioned by international
human-rights investigators as to why Duch had not been detained, the
army deputy chief of staff, Gen. Pol Saroeun, remarked: "What do you
want to do, cause a panic?"

The fear is that the arrest of Khmer Rouge figures implicated in the
genocide could destroy the fragile peace. Large areas of northern and
northwestern Cambodia are controlled by ex-Khmer Rouge, and thousands of
soldiers remain loyal to their leaders. These leaders have nominally
defected, but actually operate autonomous zones outside the control of
the Phnom Penh government.

On April 19, Hun Sen said foreign judges would be allowed to take part
in the trial of the jailed Ta Mok, but he insisted it would be held in a
Cambodian court. He was noncommittal on the issue of arresting others
implicated in the crimes of 1975-79, saying the government couldn't tell
the judicial branch what to do. Four days later, the UN special
representative for human rights in Cambodia, Thomas Hammarberg,
nonetheless reiterated the commitment of the international community to
push for a trial of key leaders implicated. Hammarberg has asked to meet
Ta Mok but was denied permission to do so by Hun Sen.

In his remote village in northwest Cambodia, Duch says he is willing to
let his fate be decided by others. "For the trial of myself, I don't
worry, it is up to Hun Sen and Jesus."

Instead, he speaks of his wish to leave politics behind. "For the
present and future, I want three things: Schools for the children, for
my stomach to be full, and I want to finish my life to pray to God, to
bring the spirit of God to everybody in Cambodia."

Cambodians, however, may not find it so easy to forgive and forget.

Help Wanted:Forces loyal to the deposed Premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh are regrouping-By Nate Thayer

Help Wanted:Forces loyal to the deposed Premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh are regrouping. But to hold out against Co-Premier Hun Sen's army, they will need foreign assistance-which doesn't seem forthcoming.

              After the July 5 coup, the REVIEW's Nate Thayer
              crossed the frontline in Cambodia's emerging
              civil war. Over the next nine days, he travelled
              through both government and resistance
              strongholds, covering 110 kilometres in a
              military jeep escorted by armoured personnel
              carriers. Thayer got a ring-side view of the
              fighting across the northern and northwestern
              regions of the country. He interviewed dozens of
              commanders and soldiers representing both sides,
              including Gen. Khan Savoeun, now commanding the
              resistance fighters, and Gen. Serei Kosal, one
              of the two men most wanted by Second Prime
              Minister Hun Sen.
              -------------------------------------------------
                  By Nate Thayer in Phnom Penh and Samrong,
                            northwestern Cambodia

              Far Eastern Economic Review
              -------------------------------------------------
                                July 24, 1997

              My name is Number Sixteen." The coded message,
              delivered to a mobile-phone number on July 11,
              brought this reporter in contact with Gen. Serei
              Kosal, one of the two most-wanted men in
              Cambodia. Loyal to ousted First Prime Minister
              Prince Norodom Ranariddh, Serei Kosal had
              escaped from Phnom Penh hours after the July 5
              coup by Second Prime Minister Hun Sen.

              Now he was in a secret base in northwestern
              Cambodia, not far from Poipet, on the Thai
              border. Tired, frightened and cut off from other
              commanders of forces loyal to Ranariddh's
              royalist Funcinpec party, the general is
              nonetheless determined to keep fighting. If Hun
              Sen's Cambodian People's Party doesn't agree to
              a negotiated settlement, he says, "we will fight
              them to the end."

              As Hun Sen consolidated his grip over Phnom Penh
              in the second week of July, thousands of
              resistance fighters were regrouping in the
              country's northern and northwestern provinces,
              where they still control some territory. From
              here, they hope to mount a political and
              military counterattack against Hun Sen's
              Cambodian People's Party.

              It won't be easy. For any kind of fightback, the
              Ranariddh loyalists will need ammunition and
              food-and the support of the international
              community. Serei Kosal ticks off a wish-list:
              "We need mosquito nets, Icom [radios], canned
              fish and rice." All that, plus ammunition. "It
              is necessary for us to take out bridges and send
              out small units to practise guerrilla warfare,"
              he explains.

              The general's position appears hopeless to some
              observers. CPP commanders in Phnom Penh and Siem
              Reap are confident it is only a matter of time
              before Funcinpec forces surrender. There is a
              palpable sense of fear in the
              resistance-controlled areas, as thousands of
              refugees arrive daily from other parts of the
              country, with stories of arrests and executions
              conducted by CPP forces. Many refugees carry
              their passports, hoping to find a way out of the
              country.

              But Serei Kosal insists the end is nowhere near
              nigh. "Now the situation is much easier than
              when we fought the Vietnamese," he says.

              Certainly, the Funcinpec forces are better
              manned and armed than they were during the 1980s
              when, along with the Khmer Rouge, they waged a
              guerrilla war against the Vietnam-backed regime.
              Funcinpec commanders claim to have at least
              10,000 armed men-and CPP commanders agree that
              figure is realistic. In addition, travelling in
              Funcinpec-held territory, this reporter saw at
              least 12 tanks, 30 heavy artillery pieces and
              several armoured personnel carriers.

              But the Funcinpec commanders concede that their
              forces are perilously short on ammunition. And
              support from the Khmer Rouge-who have 3,000
              fighters each in the north and west-may not be
              enough to fight the larger, better-equipped CPP
              forces. "We need help from our foreign friends,"
              says Serei Kosal.

              On that front, he's had little cheer. To be
              sure, the international community has rebuked
              Hun Sen for his violent putsch. The United
              States, Germany and Japan have suspended
              financial aid to Phnom Penh, while the
              Association of Southeast Asian Nations has
              postponed Cambodia's induction to the regional
              grouping (see stories on pages 18 and 19).

              But the expression of displeasure over Hun Sen's
              power grab does not automatically translate into
              support for Ranariddh's forces. There is little
              likelihood that Asean, the United Nations or
              Western donor countries will encourage a return
              to civil war. Thailand, central to the success
              of any resistance movement along its border with
              Cambodia, is reluctant to take sides.

              Nor does it help the resistance fighters that
              some senior Funcinpec leaders are ready to sleep
              with the enemy. On July 16, Foreign Minister Ung
              Huot was picked by remaining members of the
              Funcinpec steering committee to succeed
              Ranariddh as first prime minister. Away from the
              country when the coup took place, Ung Huot
              returned to Phnom Penh on July 14.

              Toan Chay, governor of the northwestern Siem
              Reap province and former Ranariddh ally, has
              said many Fincinpec members of parliament are
              prepared to cooperate with Hun Sen. However, at
              least 24 MPs have arrived in Bangkok seeking
              political asylum.

              Still, some Funcinpec members say it would be
              politically expeditious to remain within the
              power loop in Phnom Penh, even if they privately
              support the resistance fighters in the
              northwest. "Many will give their bodies, but not
              their hearts," says Serei Kosal.

              For his part, Hun Sen has invited Funcinpec
              ministers to stay on in their posts-only
              Ranariddh and a few senior leaders would be
              punished as "traitors," the second prime
              minister has said. This would allow Hun Sen to
              claim that he is staying within the framework of
              the Paris Peace Agreement, the Cambodian
              constitution and the coalition government
              approved by the international community after
              the UN-sponsored 1993 elections.

              But few doubt that any authority that emerges in
              Phnom Penh will be subservient to Hun Sen. "If
              we do not support Hun Sen, we will be killed,"
              Serei Kosal says. He himself came very close to
              death on July 5. When the coup began, Serei
              Kosal was in Phnom Penh with another Funcinpec
              general, Ho Sok. When their compound came under
              artillery shelling, he escaped by foot to the
              military airfield; he commandeered an aircraft
              and flew to Battambang in the northwest. From
              there, he trekked for three days, without food
              or rest, to reach his current position.

              Ho Sok, meanwhile, was captured and executed,
              "as a warning to all of us," Serei Kosal says.
              So too was another general, Chau Sambath. Of the
              four Funcinpec commanders on the CPP army's
              most-wanted list, only Serei Kosal and top
              commander Nyek Bun Chhay-rumoured to be wounded
              and fleeing-survive.

              But Serei Kosal is not alone in holding out
              against the CPP forces. In the northern
              provincial capital of Samrong, Gen. Long
              Sareirath says he will be ready for the CPP
              attack when it comes. "We will blow up key
              bridges to keep them from coming north with
              artillery," he says. Already, some bridges on
              the strategic Highway Six and Highway 68 have
              been blown up. This reporter saw at least 100
              anti-tank mines unloaded from a truck 12
              kilometres north of Kralanh, on Highway 68.

              Some 70 kilometres away, in his frontline
              command post, Gen. Khan Savoeun claims to have
              most of seven armed divisions-more than 10,000
              men-under his command. "We will fight even if we
              don't get foreign assistance," he says,
              defiantly, surrounded by Russian T-54 tanks,
              armoured personnel carriers, heavy artillery and
              anti-aircraft guns.

              In Banteay Meanchey province, the one-armed Gen.
              Ta Sou, a former Khmer Rouge commander who
              defected to the Funcinpec cause, claims to have
              2,000 men-and says he can call on his old
              comrades for help. Referring to the Khmer Rouge
              military overlord, he vows: "If the world
              doesn't help us, we will ask Ta Mok."

Cambodian Border Massacre-Nate Thayer Soldier of Fortune magazine

SOF Frontline Report

Cambodian Border Massacre

American Crosses the Line to Save Lives

Text and Photos by George Jones (aka Nate Thayer)

Soldier of Fortune magazine

October 1989

(Back to Bangkok: A few months ago, George Jones was a desk jockey in an eastern state bureaucracy with prospects of steady work, good pay, and engaged to be married. Reconsidering, Jones pulled the pin, went to Southeast Asia with a camera and started covering myriad mini-wars as a freelance photojournalist. SOF publisher Bob Brown recently met him in Bangkok, and as a result we are able to offer Jones' first SOF story, about free-lance journalism on the weird and wild Cambodian border.)

 

I was not in a very good mood. I had just been kicked out of the Khmer People's Liberation Front (KPNLF) main civilian base camp by the Thai military authorities.

Site Two had been closed to all non-essential personnel, including medical and United Nations workers, for several days as a result of daily Vietnamese shelling but I managed to get in that morning and was waiting with the terrified civilian population for the expected daily dose of big gun intimidation. Around noon the first 107mm rockets landed, killing one man and injuring a workman and a young child. They were probably coming from the former KPNLF base of San Ro, about 2 1/2 kilometers to the southeast, which had been captured during the previous Vietnamese dry season offensive. A woman showed me the trajectory of one piece of shrapnel which had gone through 17 bamboo and dry thatch huts in the densely populated camp, passing within a meter of her sleeping baby.

A "Situation Four" had been called, meaning too late to evacuate--take immediate cover. But the Thai authorities had heard I was there, located me, and escorted me to the perimeter. U.S. Vice president Dan Quayle was scheduled to visit the camp the following week as a show of support to the Non-Communist Resistance, but as I was riding out on my motorcycle, it was clear that the Secret Service folks scheduled to arrive in a few days would be looking for a change of venue. The Quayle visit was subsequently cancelled, moved several hundred kilometers to the civilian encampment of the other non-communist resistance, the Armee Nationale Sihanoukiste (ANS).

I returned to the Thai border town of Tapraya, 30 kilometers to the south of Site Two, not sure how I was going to spend the rest of my day. I stopped by a radio base station operated by a fellow I knew. Prasart was a well-connected former Thai military officer who had a love for electronics--radios in particular. Although he coordinates a complex system of radio field communication for the border relief effort, he has a number of two-way radios he monitors simultaneously, including those of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Thai military, and the Khmer resistance. He speaks fluent Thai, Khmer, and English. If anything is developing on this border region Prasart is often the first to know.

"George, you always seem to show up when things are interesting," he said with a smile.

"Why, what's going on/" I replied.

"You know there is a Situation Four in Site Two," he said.

"I know. I just came from there."

"Well, I just got word there are wounded coming out from north of Phnom Chhat," he continued, referring to the Khmer Rouge headquarters of the 519 Division located about ten kilometers to the southeast. "It looks like the casualties are heavy. I just called papa and Whiskey for permission to send ambulances to a pickup point," he said, referring to the Red Cross and United Nations field directors. “I think you might want to get down there."

He gave me rough coordinates and I was off. There is no way to properly cover the war in Cambodia without a motorcycle, especially in the rainy season. Many areas are simply not accessible by car, and it can take hours to walk to many of the guerrilla bases once the roads end. This was just such a time, I thought, as I maneuvered through the two kilometers of rice paddies towards where the wounded were supposedly coming out.

There was a sense of controlled chaos when I arrived. In a clearing on the edge of rice paddy, about 50 people were gathered, most of them wounded. There were a few Khmer Rouge soldiers with their familiar Chinese Kalashnikovs and their green uniforms, who seemed to be monitoring the scene. The rest included about a dozen medical workers who, not being able to go to work at Site Two, had received a message over their compulsory hand-held radios that there were wounded in need of attention near Tapraya. There were no Red Cross ambulances yet and no coordination. The relief workers were doing the best they could with limited equipment. Most of them worked in hospital and primary-medical care facilities in Site Two.

With a population of 174,000, Site Two is the second largest Cambodian city in the world, behind Phnom Penh, despite the fact that it is a refugee camp several kilometers inside Thailand. Like any city, there is a need for an extensive medical infrastructure, and these folks have come from all over the world to volunteer their expertise. It has been said that Site Two has access to better medical care than any other comparable rural population in Southeast Asia. The Doctors and nurses there that day were not battlefield medics, however, and for most of them this was a new experience. The most severely wounded were treated first, with IVs attached after vital signs were ascertained. One doctor was squeezing an IV bottle with both hands, attempting to speed the process of replenishing a man who had lost a lot of blood.

I walked among the wounded taking pictures and asking questions in my broken Cambodian. Apparently, a group of more than 100 Cambodians, escorted by about 20 Khmer Rouge soldiers, were ambushed about 5 kilometers inside Cambodia by Vietnamese-backed Heng samrin troops. The dispute was over control of a lucrative cattle trading market, and casualties were primarily Cambodian cattle traders who had refused for the fifth (and the last) time to pay 'taxes' to take their cattle through government-controlled territory to markets in Thailand. The traders had come into Thailand in the morning, sold their cattle for between 4,000 and 12,000 Bhat each ($160-480 US dollars) and were returning for the four-day-and-four-night walk through the jungle to their homes. What they did not know was as soon as they passed through on their way to the Thai border, the Heng Samrin troops had set up an ambush site. With trip-wire activated mines set up along the path, a group of about 100 were killed or wounded within a matter of seconds. Those that were not hit by the shrapnel of mines were ambushed by a platoon-sized group of Heng samrin soldiers laying in wait with rifles and B-40 rocket propelled grenades. Except for the 20 or so Khmer Rouge soldiers, the rest were unarmed. The wounded I talked to said that more than five were killed in the initial attack and that many more were wounded. Many of the wounded fled into the jungle, trying to avoid the assault on the survivors. Many of the more seriously wounded were not able to get out, and probably were hiding in the jungle, unaware that medical help awaited them if they could make it to Thailand. Only 35 out of the more than 120 had made it and dusk was approaching.

 I walked over to a Khmer Rouge with an AK and started snapping a few pictures. "No pictures," he immediately barked, as he turned his back.

I followed him and smiled a friendly smile. “Fuck you, asshole. You are in Thai territory and you can't do a thing about it if I take your picture," I said, knowing full well he didn't understand a thing.

There was a satisfaction in telling the Khmer Rouge to go to hell. Many journalists were killed during the fighting in Cambodia in the 1970's, some of them disappearing into Khmer Rouge-held areas, never to be heard from again. They tend to see all westerners as the enemy, and there had been plenty of times they had taken my film at gunpoint, accused me of being CIA, and even arrested me. Not to mention that out of the thousands of Cambodians I have met over the years, I have yet to meet one who didn't lose a family member or friend during the three and a half years the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia. These were clearly some of the most offensive thugs to get together an army and take over a government in my lifetime. Besides, this Khmer Rouge unit had the task of protecting the traders on their return to Cambodia, and they obviously didn't do a heck of a job. So, fuck you, asshole.

As I was interviewing the wounded, there were intermittent arrivals of more, some on makeshift stretchers (a hammock tied to a bamboo pole), some walking, and a few on the back of motorcycles. I went up to a fellow who seemed to be coordinating the retrieval of the wounded to try to get more information. It was getting dark, he said, but there were many more wounded still in the jungle. The problem was that Heng samrin troops were still in the area and the Khmer Rouge were refusing to send troops in to assist in the retrieval of the severely wounded. No one had been to the massacre site, but there would be attempt come daybreak.

"Could I come along," I inquired. After a check with his compatriots, he returned and said yes. I was to meet him at dawn.

By the end of the day, 38 wounded had emerged from the Cambodian jungle, been delivered to the International Committee of the Red Cross, and taken to the ICRC surgical hospital at the U.N. refugee camp of Khao I Dang 30 kilometers south of Tapraya. But there were many more wounded, and it could only be hoped that a rescue team could get to them before the Heng samrin troops, or before they died of their injuries. That was the task of those I was to accompany the next morning.

From our meeting point the next morning, I accompanied a group of four or five Thais in a pickup truck several klicks southeast toward the Khmer Rouge military base of Phnom Chhat. I wasn't sure who these Thais were or exactly what they did for a living but you learn not to ask too many questions on the border, and as long as they knew what they were doing I really didn't need to know. We abandoned the pickup several kilometers after we left the last real road, unable to move the vehicle forward over the scrub terrain. We got out and started walking through lightly wooded terrain, with elephant grass, brush, and thin trees. It was a strange area, with no huts or cultivated land for several klicks behind us. Minutes into the walk, three people appeared walking towards us from the east. One had shrapnel wounds to the legs, and the other two were assisting him to the Red Cross ambulance on stand-by near Tapraya. After spending the night in the jungle, he had come over the border at daybreak and had run into the other two. There were more wounded across the border, he was sure of it. Since they were over an hour’s walk to the ambulance, we sent our driver to accompany him in the truck.

We walked another 45 minutes to a small clearing, passing one body near the path. He had died the night before, I was informed. Coming with a group of several wounded, he had succumbed to his wounds here, and they left him at this spot while the others continued towards medical help.

At the clearing we met up with a ragtag group of six men, bringing our group to a total of 11, including myself. I was happy to see Noi, the fellow who I had seen just the night before when he had approved my request to accompany them to the massacre site. He was an impressive fellow, exuding quite confidence, and clearly in charge. Only in his early 20's, I was to find out that Noi was the leader of a three-man Thai ground intelligence unit, whose job was to monitor the Khmer military situation in this area of the border. He was an intelligence grunt, who passed the information to some office in the Thai border town of Aranyaprathet. He had regular interface with the Khmer Rouge, the KPNLF, and the Vietnamese-backed Heng Samrin troops of the People’s Republic of Kampuchea. Given that all three of these groups regularly attack each other, Noi's ability to move among the factions was impressive. He was just the type of guy I like to know in my line of work.

Noi laid out the itinerary: He had sent an emissary to the Khmer Rouge military commander to request troops to accompany us into Cambodia to the massacre site. We were to wait here until they returned. The massacre site was about six kilometers east, and the path was heavily mined. We would have a trained mine expert whose job it was to detect mines, and defuse them or lead us around them but it would be slow moving. The area where we were going was long controlled by Heng Samrin troops. No one had been to the massacre site yet, and we did not know what to expect. Our mission was to retrieve wounded, since more than 60 people were still unaccounted for, and those that were not killed were probably still in the area. If the Heng Samrin troops saw us, they would probably shoot us. Noi promised to do his best to avoid that possibility.

Our group of 11 was a strange and motley one indeed. A mix of Thais, Khmer Rouge, and a few who were fluent in both languages. None were in uniform, some were barefoot, others had Ho Chi Minh sandals. Noi wore a pair of relatively new military-issue combat boots, a white tee shirt and fatigue pants with a canteen attached. All of them had huge knives or sickles. There were a couple of guns and grenades among us. Everyone was quite sullen, some whittling wood with their knives, others rolling cigarettes with newsprint and raw tobacco, and still others eating plain cooked rice from small bags tied to their waist. There were sporadic rockets landing to the south of us, but they didn't seem to merit more than a brief turn of the head from our group. Twice the dull thud of a landmine detonated in the direction we were to go, and a few would get up to assess the situation, walking a few meters to stare intently into the jungle, only to return to squat with the group. No one spoke much. I had little idea of what was going on. I had met a few of these folks briefly the day before, but I had no idea exactly what any of them were doing in this no man's land about five kilometers from the nearest cultivated land. Since none of them spoke a word of English, we were communicating in my smattering of Khmer mixed with a few Thai words.

The emissaries Noi dispatched to the Khmer Rouge base camp returned in about an hour. We had been refused troops. The Khmer Rouge had said it was "too dangerous," according to Noi, and besides, they didn't want to travel with a Westerner.

But we had our human mine-detector and we began the next leg of our journey. In single file, we began to walk. Two scouts were sent ahead about 20 meters, and the Khmer Rouge fellow trained in mine detection was, of course, in front of the group. The jungle quickly became denser. Along the single path, less than two feet wide, visibility was about ten meters.

We were less than fifty meters into the jungle when a wave from the scouts brought us to a halt. They had discovered the first mines, buried on the path. They marked the spot with a simple X scratched in the dirt with a stick and put a couple of sticks on either side, guiding us around it. As I passed by, I tried not to ponder the fact that, to me, it looked no different than the rest of the path.

The jungle became progressively thicker, visibility decreasing to a few meters. We walked slowly. I felt guilty as I carefully placed my feet in the footprints of the fellow ahead of me. At one point I passed him, simply walking around him, stepping off the narrow path in the process. A whispered command came from ahead. Noi came back to me. 'Stay on the path no matter what." he said firmly as if he were talking to a child. His "you don’t get it, do you/" look made me feel foolish.

Hell, I thought, I am a city boy from Massachusetts. We don't have jungles where ZI come from, and we certainly don't have mines. I wouldn't know the difference between a claymore and a half-buried Budweiser can. I have no military training. Hell, I don't even have any photography training. Even if I do manage to get some good shots, I don't know whether anyone will buy them. I have not forgotten the times before that I have photographed firefights only to be offered 25 bucks apiece for the best ones. "Good pictures," they say,” But, frankly, a firefight in Cambodia isn't of much interest in Peoria."

We were waved to a halt. More mines, the relayed whisper confirmed. About three meters ahead, our Khmer Rouge human mine detector went to work. Savuth, only 19, had no family, and had lived in the Khmer Rouge border bases since the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia in 1979. I was impressed. He was like a coon dog. Wielding only a thin bamboo stick and a determined gaze, he found more than a dozen areas that were mined that day. Some locations had several devices, with trip wires positioned on alternate routes around the mined path. Savuth motioned to me to come to him. “Right here," he pointed to a spot in front of us. I looked intently, but saw nothing. He reached down and gingerly cradled a thin green wire stretched about three inches above the ground in some light brush. He followed the wire gently with his fingers off the path, poking the ground and digging gently with his stick at suspicious dirt. About a meter off the path, the wire led to a spring detonated Type 69. Savuth untied the wire from the mine and then proceeded to deactivate the spring detonator. He handed the mine to me." You want it?" he said. “I have plenty."

I am sure he did. The Thai-Cambodian border has served as a refuge for more than a generation of guerrilla fighters, starting with the anti-French Issareks shortly after World War II. During the 1970's, a number of small groups of anti-Khmer Rouge resistance fled to the mountainous sanctuaries of the Dong Rak escarpment. When the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia on Christmas day 1978, hundreds of thousands fled to the border area, developing an armed resistance that now numbers more than 60,000. The first thing every unit does when they take over a piece of real estate is surround the perimeter with mines. The annual Vietnamese dry-season offensive has dislodged scores of camps during the ten-year-old war. But the mines stay behind, and the ritual is repeated as the guerrillas move to new sanctuaries. After so many years, the Cambodian border region has been turned into a series of mined paths that snake through vast areas, long abandoned, where every step is fraught with danger. The refugee camps have thousands of mine victims, and bustling workshops that are devoted strictly to churning out wooden legs. Often one will see a new mine victim helping to carve his own prosthesis in these surreal workshops, which are virtually a cottage industry on the Cambodian border of the 1980'.

We had been walking for almost an hour when the lead scouts again brought us to a halt. I looked ahead and saw 10 meters ahead of us what I instantly recognized as the infamous "K-5." "K-5" is a barbed-wire barricade that runs more than 100 kilometers in the jungle parallel to the Thai border. It is a sophisticated barrier system, surrounded by mines on both sides with wire activated devices that run through the fencing itself. Shaped like an inverted V, the pinnacle is more than a meter-and-a-half off the ground, with one fence perpendicular to the ground in the middle, with booby-trapped wire fencing coming down from the peak on both sides at a 45 degree angle, reaching the ground about 7 feet apart. After the Vietnamese launched their crushing 1984-85 dry-season offensive, routing virtually every resistance base camp, they built this barrier several klicks inside Cambodia, to prevent the resistance from launching attacks from their new sanctuaries inside Thailand. It has proven very effective, eliminating many infiltration routes. I had heard many soldiers speaking of the disruption that K-5 had caused them in their forays into the Cambodian interior.

Ironically, it also proved a boost to the resistance as well. Thousands of Cambodians were conscripted into forced work brigades by the Vietnamese to build this barrier in the jungle. Thousands of people contracted malaria in these brigades, and hundreds stepped on mines. There was vast resentment by civilians throughout Cambodia, as people returned to their home provinces with horror stories from the west. Hundreds of young men fled to sanctuary of the resistance camps rather than be subjected to the labor brigades.

K-5 was an impressive structure but the fence had been cut, with a gap of about a meter, in the spot we were. It was in an area that was lightly forested, and then fence disappeared into the trees going in both directions. Savuth showed me two more Type 69's and trip wires that disappeared into the fencing. He added the deactivated mines to his collection. "Why," I inquired, “exactly are you saving those things?" It seemed that Savuth had a broader job description than I realized. Not only was he skilled in detecting and defusing these cylindrical nightmares, but he was charged with re-depositing them under some path somewhere else in the jungle as well. Waste not, want not, I thought, happy that Savuth was able to take a break from the flip side of his job to accompany us that day.

There was sober evidence we were nearing the massacre site. A man lay dead just off the path, with obvious shrapnel wounds to his legs and arms. He hadn't been dead long, probably unable to continue, succumbing to his wounds suffered in the initial attack. There were also a couple of traditional Cambodian scarves lying on the ground, bloodied and dirty. Several spent B-40 RPGs lay just off the path.

We paused at K-5 for about 30 minutes, while the area was scoured for mines, and two scouts went ahead to assess the area. I could see them walking about 25 meters on the other side of K-5, crouching and listening. Noi squatted next to me. “The wounded who came out yesterday said the attack took place about one-and-a-half klicks east of here,” he said soberly. “This area is controlled by Heng Samrin. Two wounded who came out this morning said that they were still active in the area. We will try to get to the site to see if there are any more wounded. We will stay there only long enough to retrieve them. It is very dangerous. If there are any troops, or if there is gunfire, we will come back in this direction.”

The scouts came back and we were given the OK to proceed. I noticed that the tension level of the guides increased markedly. I also noticed that four of our group declined to proceed, opting to wait for our return.

Within a hundred meters, the lead scout motioned for us to get down, and everyone sank to a crouch, leaving us still clearly visible in the shallow scrub surrounding the path. Although the area was medium forest, the terrain was rolling, offering numerous hidden sanctuaries less than ten meters from the path. It occurred to me that the platoon that lay in wait for the traders yesterday could easily be within meters of us on either side, with ample concealment. I didn’t dwell on it. We moved slowly and gradually quickened the pace. It seemed that the guides knew where we were going and were trying to get it over with, calculating that the risk factor was diminished proportionally to the amount of time we spent in the area

Within a twenty minute span we were twice ordered to hit the ground as someone thought they had heard sounds or saw movement off to the side. There was increased evidence that we were closing in on our objective. Two more bodies lying off the path spoke volumes of the recent chaos. Pieces of clothing, brand-new tape players still in their boxes shattered by shrapnel, packages of dried noodles and other small items lay on the path, obviously dropped by people fleeing the area.

I moved up to the front of the line, staying immediately behind the scout, checking my camera for the proper settings. The scout came to an abrupt halt. Ten meters in front of us the path was strewn with bodies. As I came up to the first one I was overwhelmed by the smell of death. Spitting out the air in my lungs and trying to hold my breath, I got off some quick shots, and counted bodies strung in a row on the path. They obviously had been walking single file when the mines went off. It wasn’t hard to see what happened. The mines had been placed on either side of the path, parallel to it for about ten meters. The first person in the line set off the trip wire, detonating all the mines on the path. We were told they were claymores and Type 69s. The platoon of Heng Samrin was lying in wait, and then opened fire as the wounded started running away from the initial explosion. Off the path were several groups of bodies. There was a pile of six only two meters from the path.  Another grouping of about ten lay a little further away in the other direction. There were several other clusters of legs and heads and arms. I counted 32 bodies in all, but some of them were piled on top of each other and it was difficult to make an accurate body count. I stood over one body that had a number of shrapnel wounds. Looking closer, I picked up a spent AK cartridge laying next to his head. There was a clean hole near his temple with a ring of burns surrounding the entrance wound. Someone had finished him off while he lay wounded, I thought.

The lead scout next to me suddenly fell to the ground on all fours, looking toward the tree line and an embankment about 15 meters to the north. Everyone silently followed suit. I clearly saw someone move in the clump of trees, and my heart raced. We were totally unprotected, lying in the middle of a minefield. The scout had just told me not to venture closer to the clusters of bodies lying off the path, because sometimes soldiers booby-trap the bodies after an incident. I saw someone stick his head up in the tree line and then duck down. I snapped a picture for the hell of it, knowing that it would only show a cluster of trees, and couldn’t possibly reflect the tension of the moment. The jungle was silent for what seemed like forever. No one knew quite what to do. Our scout whistled softly in the direction of the movement. Again, a head appeared from behind the trees, and then an arm waved—motioning us to come closer to him. No words were exchanged and the jungle remained silent.

“Who are you,” our scout whispered loudly in Cambodian, "Where are you going?” Jesus Christ, I thought, what thee fuck do you mean “where are you going?”  We are lying in a minefield in the middle of the jungle surrounded by dead bodies. The way I figure it, pal, he is either sitting there bleeding to death or he is about to pop out with about 20 others and waste me. This is hardly the time to inquire about his travel plans. Perhaps I lost something in the translation.

I didn’t understand the response from the figure in the tree line, but our two scouts reacted positively, and they started making their way gingerly off the path towards the figure. There was no way to tell how many people were in the tree line, and whether or not they were friendly. The guides were obviously reluctant, not confident enough to incautiously proceed forward.

It was one of the traders, and he was wounded, the scouts called back to us. They scurried to help him. He was talking rapidly as the two scouts carried him the short distance back to us. The boy, only 19, had avoided any shrapnel wounds, but had been hit twice in the leg by the subsequent AK fire. He had run into the woods and been hiding since the attack, now about 19 hours before. Heng Samrin troops had come back twice since the initial attack, he said, each time killing any of the wounded they could find. The last time was less than an hour ago, he said, as he pleaded with us to take him to safety. I took the Cambodian scarf off my head and used it to cover his wounds. A hammock materialized, and they tied it to a long pole. This was a very lucky man, I thought, looking at him. The expression on his face was a queer mix of pain, joy, and fatigue. He looked like he was trying to laugh, but his injuries were sending other messages, resulting in an incongruous mix of facial expressions.

The boy said he had seen no one else alive other than those that the soldiers had killed on their return trip. The news that the Heng Samrin soldiers were in the immediate area made all of us very nervous and the scouts kept grabbing me, telling me to run. I had shot less than two rolls and was reluctant to go. We had been there less than ten minutes.

We left the massacre site in a considerably different manner than we arrived. We trotted along the same path that only minutes before we had inched along. I reminded myself that this was the same path our scouts had relieved of a dozen mines within the last few hours. As well, there were three occasions (or was it four?) where they chose to leave the mines intact, and guide us around them.  I briefly reminded myself of these remaining mines as we walked briskly back toward Thailand and hoped that Savuth, our mine detector, deserved his reputation for thoroughness.

It seemed to me that our return trip through the jungle was rather reckless, as we moved quickly and in a group. But I just followed the lead of those in charge and tried not to think. I had adopted an attitude in covering the war that a French photographer had impressed upon me a few years back. The two of us were on the front lines with the KPNLF, awaiting an expected Vietnamese assault to overrun a resistance camp. The Vietnamese had already captured half the village; all 17,000 civilians had been evacuated many weeks before. The opposing front lines were a series of trenches facing each other less than fifty meters apart.

When the expected assault came, it was clear the Vietnamese intended to own that piece of real estate by the end of the day. They laid a heavy artillery and mortar barrage on our position and were sending in assault teams to dislodge our front lines. Our platoon would have been more than happy to retreat immediately, but the shelling accompanied by dozens of AKs on full auto left us unable to move. There were three guerrillas in my particular trench. One had taken a round at about his sternum and was breathing heavily with a wet gurgling sound with every breath. The second was in tears, and the other was crouching with his AK held high over his head on full automatic pointed in the general direction of the Vietnamese. I had basically abandoned any serious thoughts of photography and was, in a prone position, reassessing my career objectives. The Frenchman, however, was standing outside of the trench, slightly in front of us, casually focusing his camera and taking our picture. There were numerous AK rounds hitting the dirt around his feet, not to mention the big guns which had bracketed our position. He was wearing bright yellow pants. I knew right away that this man was simply crazy. We, of course, survived the unpleasantness, and later over dinner safely back in Thailand, I inquired why he seemed to have divorced himself from sanity earlier that day.

“Look,” he said, “I travel all over the world trying to photograph combat situations. Maybe, if I am lucky, ten hours per year I will be in a hot situation such as today. I just empty my mind and take pictures. You can’t think about the danger too much or you won’t get any shots. And anyway it doesn’t do any good, since usually there is nothing you can do about it.”

He was, of course, right. He also had good pictures. Every one of mine that day turned out to be out of focus or the victim of camera shake. Most also were at a peculiar angle, with lots of rim shots of the trench taken from below. So not only did I risk my life, but I didn’t even have any saleable pictures to show for it. This job did not make a hell of a lot of sense to begin with, but it made absolutely none if I didn’t have any pictures. I did think, however, that thee Frenchman’s day glow yellow pants were entirely unnecessary.

It took us less than 45 minutes to make it back over the Thai border. Although we were safely past the mined path, it was another 45 minutes where we had left the truck. Our focus was on getting the wounded boy to a Red Cross team that was stationed back in Tapraya. I said some quick goodbyes to our Khmer Rouge scouts, for whom I had developed a fondness ever since they found the first Type 69 in the path in front of us. They were Cambodians and were not allowed to venture freely on Thai territory, so they headed south through the elephant grass to their Khmer Rouge base camp. Noi, myself, and a small contingent with our wounded friend moved west toward the pickup truck. I had spent the better part of two days around these folks and still had no idea who they were or exactly what their function in life was. Some of them we seemed to acquire in this no-man’s land, wandering about with no explicable purpose. With their huge knives and bags of cooked rice, groups of two or three seemed to appear out of nowhere at several points earlier in the day. Usually they would sit down, often with no one acknowledging each other, and silently roll a cigarette or eat plain rice with their hand out of a bag. This had been a strange day.

As we walked toward the truck, I saw three soldiers standing in the path waiting for us. Three Royal Thai Army soldiers armed with M-16s several klicks from the nearest road were clearly not just passing though. The Thai’s do not control this area and there was only one reason they were there.

“We have been ordered by our commander to confiscate your film,” said one of them in a perfectly friendly tone. The Thais are some of the friendliest people in the world, and they have the ability to make you like them, even if they have orders to ruin your day. How did they know so quickly I had gone in, I thought. I had tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. But it is hard for a six-foot-two-inch white guy with a camera to blend in on the Thai Cambodian border.

“Oh, man, you can’t do this to me,” I said. “I worked hard for these pictures.” They were friendly but firm. They were just grunts with orders, and I knew they could not return to their commander without film.

“Check his pockets,” said one to the other. “And the film in his camera as well.’

“All right,” I conceded. I rewound the film in my Nikon and popped it from the case. I handed it to them along with two rolls from my pocket. They had a job to do and they were pleasant enough. They let us go, mission accomplished as far as they were concerned. At least they didn’t arrest me, I thought. It had happened to me more than once coming over the border from someplace I wasn’t suppose to be.

What the three Thai soldiers didn’t k now was that I had taken all my exposed film and hidden it in my socks periodically throughout the day. I have had my film confiscated before, and vowed to be prepared in the future. A photographer without film isn’t worth much to anybody. They had gotten two unexposed rolls I keep for just such occasions, and the film in my camera, which had less than five exposed frames. My damage control strategy had been effective.

We made it to the truck and arrived at the Red Cross stand-by ambulance by mid-afternoon. The doctor who administered to the boy before he was transferred to the ICRC surgical hospital said that he would live, although a bullet was lodged in his knee and could permanently impair his ability to walk. If he had not received medical care today, said the doctor, he probably would have died from blood loss or dehydration.

I went back to Tapraya to assess the last 24 hours and try to sell the story and pictures.

(TAPRAYA, THAILAND) ‘Vietnamese backed Heng Samrin troops ambushed a group of more than 100 Cambodian cattle traders today in an apparent dispute over control of this lucrative cross-border black market. At least 37 people were killed, all Cambodians and mostly civilians. Forty-five wounded managed to cross the border into Thailand, and were taken to the International Committee of the Red Cross hospital at Khao I Dang refugee camp, 20 kilometers south of this Thai border town of Tapraya. Thai military sources said seven of the killed were Khmer Rouge soldiers who were escorting the traders back into Cambodia after selling their cattle. Red Cross officials confirmed reports that as many as 30 wounded were unaccounted for and their fate appeared grim. Attempts to organize a rescue effort were complicated by continued fighting in the area. Thai military and relief officials said it was one of the bloodiest clashes of the year in the ten-year-old civil war in Cambodia. The Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge are the strongest of the tripartite resistance coalition fighting the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia since December 1978.”

I called a wire service I had worked for in the past to try and sell the story. “Sounds interesting," said the editor, “How does fifty bucks sound?”

The fact is that a firefight in Cambodia doesn’t raise many eyebrows in 1989, 19 years since Sihanouk was overthrown and the United States sent ground troops across the Vietnamese border to dislodge NVA sanctuaries. The same music with different words had been playing on Radio Cambodia for a long time, and the world was getting bored. I accepted the wire service offer. Knowing that soon the ambush would be yesterday’s news. I understood it received a full paragraph in the New York Times next to a department store ad the following day. I was surprised they even printed it.

I would send the pictures to Bangkok to make the rounds and see if anyone was interested. Freelance photojournalism is an unpredictable business. You never know what will sell or for how much. Or if at all. If I made a couple hundred bucks from the last couple days product, I thought, I would be lucky.

It was getting dark and I was sitting alone in a small restaurant in Tapraya, having my first food since yesterday. I had spent the day walking through a minefield with some very suspicious characters in order to take pictures of dead people. Now I was eating dinner in a restaurant on the Thai-Cambodian border. Four months ago I was working as a bureaucrat for a state government in the northeastern United States. Steady desk job, good money. I was engaged to be married. Shit, the wedding had been scheduled for next Saturday, I thought over my fried rice with chicken. But I decided to make some changes. My mother is not happy.

 

 

Mr. X, The Cop, and the Heng Samrin--By Nate Thayer Soldier of Fortune

"Mr. X, the Cop, and the Heng Samrin"

(Note: Nate Thayer was South East Asian correspondent for Soldier of Fortune Magazine from July 1989 to the mid 1990's. He was listed under the Masthead name George Jones (in homage to perhaps the world greatest make vocalist--country music singer George Jones) He also wrote under the pseudonym Ed Norton covering Burma (in respect for the character playing Jackie Gleason's sidekick his next door neighbor and sewer worker Ed Norton in the TV comedy sitcom "The Honeymooners"). Often the story of how when gets the story in reporting is as interesting as the straight reporting that makes it to press. SOF focused on this genre of reporting.

Soldier of Fortune Magazine

"Mr. X, the Cop, and the Heng Samrin"

March 1990

By Ed Norton (Nate Thayer)

It was not unusual, given the type of story that SOF prefers, for a correspondent, during the course of researching his article, to run into some very unusual people, travel under unusual circumstances, or to find himself in an unusual pickle. My trip to the Karen-held areas is a case in point.

One day I had lunch with SOF publisher Bob Brown at a hotel in Bangkok and, as had become routine since he arrived in town, an unusual person joined us. “Mr. X, " whose employer(s) I never adequately determined, was a Thai military type who appeared to have extraordinary access to the ethnic resistance movements in Burma, as well as detailed knowledge of the methods of opium production and transport used by the opium armies of the Golden Triangle

Mr. X produced pictures of himself and Khun Sa--perhaps the biggest primary source of heroin in the world--and said he could arrange for me to travel to the Golden Triangle to interview him.

He also had good contacts with Karens, had information of a major Burmese assault at their base of Palu and detailed Burmese troop movements, including the battalion identity, location, and strength (by memory). He said he could arrange my immediate transport to the resistance base.

Mr. X carried a military-issue, multi-programmable hand radio and repeatedly used the phrase “I cannot disclose that information." Brown kicked me under the table more than once, his arched eyebrows analyzing this caricature.

Mr. X was a solid fellow, whose information was good, but I have no idea why he was being so generous with his assistance. Being the crack investigative reporter that I am, I doubted Mr. X's contention that it stemmed from a moral obligation to promote the just cause of the opium armies.

Mr. X clearly is some shade of spook, but I have decided that half of my contacts out here are, and that fact in itself doesn't concern me. I can count at least 14 armies at war on one or another of the Thai borders, and wars, particularly guerrilla wars, mean spooks. It is only logical that if one is to run around asking lots of questions, one can assume that others will run around asking why, and just what you plan to do with the answers. As far as I can tell, these are the same folks that have others running behind them for God knows what reason.

Mr. X agreed to call me later that afternoon to make arrangements for my immediate transportation to Palu. The call woke me from my nap. “Go to the Pata department store at 0800 sharp and wait out front. A black Volvo will meet you to take you to Mae Sot." Mr. X identified himself as "your friend from lunch." I reiterated my interest in interviewing Khun Sa. “Please, we don't know who is listening. Do not refer to him by name. Call him Commander-in-Chief." Whatever you say X baby.

I received another call that night. “There has been a change," said Mr. X, " The car will meet you at the same place and time but will not be a black Volvo. It will be a white Mercedes with the following plate number."

Look, Mr. X, the deal was a Volvo. There was no mention of a Mercedes. I am an important correspondent for a very important international publication. The type of folks who read SOF would not be happy if they knew you were responsible for such a precipitous decline in the quality of my transport. But being the flexible sort of guy I am I said nothing.

Mr. X took the opportunity to broach another subject. “Uh, Ed, do you have any contacts in the American embassy?" asked the man whose acquaintance I had made only a few hours earlier. “Well," I replied cautiously. I am a journalist. I try to have contacts everywhere. What is it you would exactly like to know?" “Perhaps you could introduce me to some DEA agents when you return from Burma," said the fellow whose picture I had seen with his arm around the biggest primary producer of heroin in the world hours before. “Right, Mr. X. We will talk when I return."

I was met on schedule by the Mercedes and its owner. Thong was an affable young man, with a big smile, a crew cut, and a brand new Mercedes. We got in the car. Thong slipped Grand Funk railroad into the cassette deck, and we were off for the 400 klick drive towards the mountain borders of Northwest Thailand. Thong's military-issue, multi-programmable radio crackled between the seats.

“So, Thong, what exactly is your interest in arranging my illegal transport across the Thai border into rebel-held Burma?” I inquired in significantly more diplomatic terms. I soon learned the 30-year-old Thong was a policemen, which seemed for some reason to make perfect sense. “I don't like being a policeman, but I am my mother's only son and that is what she wanted. You cannot make any money as a policeman in Thailand." That is true, with senior officers making less than US 50 dollars a week. I wondered, however, how Thong managed to purchase a brand new $35,000 Mercedes. He must really save his pennies. “What would you prefer to do for a living?” I ventured. “I want to be a rock-and-roll guitar player. I like heavy metal," he commented over Deep Purple's "Smoke on the water" blasting from the cassette.

Although I had been to resistance-held Burma before, it was not an area where I concentrated my efforts. I preferred the Thai-Cambodian border and reporting on the resistance to the Vietnamese-occupation in Cambodia. I had been scheduled to return to the Cambo border that morning, until Mr. X appeared with an offer I couldn't refuse. Anyways, I could use a couple more days to analyze my approach to returning there, as it seemed there were a couple groups of folks there upset with me. Brown had returned from a brief trip to the Cambodian non-communist resistance. , and, sleuth that he is, informed me that he was told that someone had plans to shoot me upon my return to that area. As I recall, the conversation went something like this. “Ah, Ed, I don't want to pry into your personal life, but this is for altruistic reasons."

"Well, what is it you want to know, Bob?'

"Do you carry an Australian passport?"

"Ahhh, no."

"Well", he said, spitting tobacco into the hotel bone china coffee cup. “My contact said that he talked to someone who said when you came back to the border you were going to be,"--Brown pointed a finger at me simulating a pistol--"X'd."

The info, as I was to find out, was pretty accurate. They were angry at a westerner who drove a motorcycle and had recently been arrested in the area. "They' were the Khmer Rouge--i.e. Pol Pot et al., the group who decreased the Cambodian population by over a million in 3 and 1/2 years. As far as I knew, I was the only westerner with a motorcycle on the border, and certainly the only one who had been arrested by these people a few weeks before this relayed threat. I had gone in east of one of their military bases to take pictures of soldiers, and they were quite upset, took my film, put a guy with an AK behind me and one in front and marched me to their leader, where I was accused of being a spy and eventually turned over to Thai military intelligence. “I think you do secret work," said the interrogator

"Oh no, you are quite mistaken, my friend. I just work for a magazine called Soldier of Fortune," I could have told him. As I pictured a humorless young KR intel agent--who had lived in the jungle his entire adult life--leafing through his English phrase book for the definition of "Soldier of Fortune," I had decided this would be inadvisable.

Apparently, this incident continued to irk them, and I wasn't quite satisfied with the efficacy of any of my strategies for defusing the unpleasantness, so a couple of days on the Burmese border was fine with me. Besides, two nights before, I received a message at 0300 from my apartment security guard in Bangkok: “Noi called from Tapraya," he said, referring to a small town on the Thai-cambodian border. “The Heng Samrin army is angry with you. Return immediately--I will negotiate with them for you."

Noi is a Thai intelligence contact of mine. I presumed it had something to do with the time Noi had arranged a trip into Heng Samrin-controlled territory a few weeks ago so I could meet them. What Noi had not told me until we were tromping through the jungle was that in fact I was a doctor today, not a journalist, and I was here to diagnose what apparently was a VD epidemic in this Heng Samrin recon unit, and supply appropriate medication which Noi would deliver at a later date. And so I played Doctor in between taking several rolls of film. Perhaps they had caught on when the pictures were published in the second largest news weekly in Asia, and were perturbed. Regardless, I had two of the three-largest Communist armies in Southeast Asia apparently very angry with me, and I was just as happy to be driving 140 kilometers an hour in the opposite direction towards Burma, with my rock and roll cop and his Mercedes.

 

 

"Rage, tears greet Khmer Rouge"-By Nate Thayer

Rage, tears greet Khmer Rouge

By Nate Thayer

Monday, November 18,1991

Associated Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Sophan Nary broke down in tears Sunday when told the Khmer Rouge leaders who killed her family had returned and were staying next door to her noodle shop. "The government can give them permission to walk in the streets, but the people won't. We will kill them," said Nary, 26, whose shop is next to the heavily guarded villa housing the Khmer Rouge entourage.

Sixteen years after triumphantly entering Phnom Penh to begin a 3 ½ year reign that killed hundreds of thousands, the Khmer Rouge returned Sunday to Cambodia. They are part of a national reconciliation council set up by a UN brokered peace plan to usher in 1993 elections. Few Phnom Penh residents knew of the arrival of the 10-member Khmer Rouge delegation, led by Son Sen, the former chief of its secret police.

But crowds quickly gathered outside the government guest house where they are staying, exchanging tears and" angry stories of what the bloody regime had done to them. Several threatened to kill the Khmer Rouge if they emerged from the walled compound. Shortly after the Khmer Rouge arrived, Premier Hun Sen told a news conference that state radio had announced the return, but that national television would not broadcast pictures of

the delegation for security reasons. "If Son Sen goes out and the people recognize him, they might try to harm him," said Hun Sen. He added that he would not deal with the Khmer Rouge outside actual council sessions, saying he might be "stoned by people" if he did.

Khmer Rouge leaders

The two Khmer Rouge leaders who returned

Sunday to Cambodia are:

SON SEN — As chief of the secret police, Son Sen was reportedly responsible for the forced evacuation of cities, Internal purges and executions that ravaged entire classes of Cambodian society in the mid-1970s.

KHIEU SAMPHAN — Served as head of state, and became— by process of brutal elimination — the right-hand man of leader Pol Pot. His doctoral thesis was the blueprint for a deadly agrarian revolution. 

While maintaining some popular support in this largely rural rice-growing nation, the Khmer Rouge is despised in the cities, whose populations it targeted as class enemies in its pursuit of a radical agrarian Utopia. Government officials have expressed concern over the safety of the delegates and the government has guaranteed their security — although they will only allow them three bodyguards armed with pistols outside the compound. Under the peace accord signed last month, the Hun Sen government, the Khmer Rouge and two non-communist guerrilla groups will work as the Supreme National Council.

Yet many fear that the Khmer Rouge, which fought the Hun Sen government since its own ouster in 1978 by a Vietnamese invasion, will try again to take over. Apparently to prevent such a scenario, Hun Sen's government has been publicly cozy with Prince Norodom Sihanouk, a still-beloved former Cambodian leader who heads the reconciliation council. Nearly everybody in Phnom Penh says they remain afraid of the Khmer Rouge. "Don't believe anything the Khmer Rouge say. They are no better than dogs," said a somber Pen Chuut, who was one of several hundred people who gathered around the guest house. Down the street is a former Khmer Rouge torture center that has been preserved as a testament to its brutality. Adorning its walls are 20,000 photographs of those tortured and executed by the 1975-1978 regime.

'If (Khmer Rouge leader) Son Sen goes out and the people recognize him, they might try to harm him.'

Hun Sen

Premier of Cambodia

"North Koreans trained to hate U.S. from childhood"- By NATE THAYER

North Koreans trained to hate U.S. from childhood

By NATE THAYER

The Associated Press

Friday, April 24, 1992

PYONGYANG, North Korea — At a kindergarten in Pyongyang, children take turns firing wooden machine guns at an effigy of a U.S. imperialist soldier. The teacher then pulls a string and the hinged head collapses.

The scene is no distant memory from the darkest days of the Cold War. It is a snippet from daily life in this hard-line communist state, where anti-American propaganda is everywhere. From beginning classes to diatribes in the state-controlled press, there is no escaping anti-U.S. propaganda.

It depicts Americans as wolves and urges North Koreans to remain vigilant against supposed U.S. plans to launch a war. Annual mass rallies throughout the nation bring hundreds of thousands of people together to condemn the "U.S. imperialists."

"Yankees are wolves in human form" is one sentence found in a popular book to teach English-language sentence structure. "Let's mutilate the American imperialists!" is an entry in an English phrase book.

"Of course I think the United States will start another war," said Kim Due Sun, 77, speaking in this capital city, which was virtually flattened by U.S. bombs during the Korean War. "Even the children in kindergarten know that the United States wants to bring war again. Even the babies hate the American imperialists."

Foreign residents from North Korea's former socialist allies say that even at the worst of times, anti-U.S. sentiments espoused by their governments could not compare to those encouraged by the North Korean regime.

Most of the North Koreans interviewed cited the stationing of U.S. soldiers in rival South Korea and annual U.S.-South Korean war games as reasons to fear a U.S. attack. "We are still in a state of war with the United States," Maj. Kim Song Nam said in an interview at Panmunjom, the truce village that straddles communist North and capitalist South Korea. "Of course, I am very hostile to them. We have done nothing wrong to them, but they have unilaterally given us suffering and misery. That is why we all call the Americans wolves."

His hostility was on display when he conducted a Western reporter through the Panmunjom neutral zone as American soldiers watched silently a yard away. "This is where we negotiate with the American bastards," he said evenly through an interpreter. Despite the rhetoric, President Kim II Sung appears ready for a thaw in relations with Washington, in part because the fall of his socialist allies has created a domestic economic crisis.

North Korea is desperate for hard currency to purchase items such as fuel and spare parts for factories. This month, Kim called for opening of diplomatic relations with the United States. Washington, which accuses Pyongyang of trying to build nuclear weapons and of engaging in international terrorism, has held meetings with North Korean officials since January in search of improved relations. The annual Team Spirit war games between the United States and South Korea were canceled this year, but fear of the United States instilled by a generation of relentless propaganda may be hard to erase.

A guide assigned to interpret for a U.S. reporter said his wife was frightened for his safety during the weeklong assignment, and his 2-year-old asked fearfully if the "Yankee was really a wolf."

Last remnants of Khmer Rouge surrender, without their leaders-AP Robert Horn

Last remnants of Khmer Rouge surrender, without their leaders

By Robert Horn

December 5, 1998

Associated Press

BANGKOK, Thailand — The last main fighting force of the Khmer Rouge, the radical Marxist guerrillas who killed nearly two million Cambodians, has surrendered, a journalist close to the rebels said early today. Negotiators for the last band of guerrillas holed up near the Thai border met Friday with representatives of the government in Phnom Penh at Preah Vihear temple and agreed to lay down their arms, according to Nate Thayer of the Far Eastern Economic Review.

In 1997, Thayer became the first journalist allowed to interview Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, who had not been seen in public in nearly two decades and died in April. Thayer is one of few outsiders trusted by the guerrillas.

The surrender of the Khmer Rouge would bring to an end more than 30 years of'civil war in Cambodia that began with the Marxist guerrilla's insurgency against the government in Phnom Penh in the late 1960s.

Although the fighters' top surviving leaders, Tak Mok, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea were not included in the deal, they no longer command any troops. Their former followers apparently did not want to give them up. Khem Nuon, Ta Mok's chief of staff who negotiated the surrender with government officials, said simply that they are "retired" and he refused to go into details about them, Thayer said.

The Cambodian government and the United States have expressed a desire to capture all three and try them for genocide and crimes against humanity. Khem Nuon claimed he was negotiating on behalf of 5,000 remaining ragtag troops and 15,000 civilians living under Khmer  Rouge control. Thayer said, however, that he believed the estimate of fighting men was inflated, and that many of the civilians are living in the Phu Noi refugee camp in Thailand."There must be unity. There is no other way. There is no way for a military solution. No weapons. Only political struggle," Thayer said Khem Nuon told him in a telephone interview.  The government was represented at the negotiations by Meas Sopheas, deputy chief of staff of the Cambodian military, Thayer said.

Under the agreement, Thayer said the remaining guerrillas will join the government army and the civilians will return to Anlong Veng. the guerrillas' former stronghold in the north. While it is possible some tiny bands of guerrillas are still wandering the jungles, Thayer said he knew of no sizable Khmer Rouge fighting force that could pose a viable threat to the government.

The Khmer Rouge came to power in April 1975 by overthrowing the U.S:-backed Lon Nol government.

Under the leadership of Pol Pot, they emptied the cities and attempted to turn the country  into an agrarian utopia by herding the population on to collective farms. The experiment was a disaster economically and in human terms. Nearly two million people died of execution, overwork, starvation or disease under the Khmer Rouge until they were ousted from power by a Vietnamese invasion in 1979. They have fought a guerrilla war against successive governments ever since, but wings of their movement began defecting to the government in 1996.

Khmer Rouge now assured of role in Cambodia's future-By Nate Thayer

Khmer Rouge now assured of role in Cambodia's future

By Nate Thayer

Associated Press

Friday, August 30,1991

PATTAYA, Thailand — Ousted more than a decade ago as one of the age's bloodiest regimes, the Khmer Rouge is now ensured a role in Cambodia's political future and is following a careful blueprint for victory. The Communist rebel group has abandoned — for the time being —its quest to regain power through warfare in favor of seeking support for a role in an elected government, according to Khmer Rouge documents and other sources.

Talks brokered by the United Nations and world powers have made progress in recent days, but the leaders of Cambodia's warring parties failed at a four-day conference ending Thursday to forge a comprehensive peace pact to end the civil war that has wracked their homeland for 12 years.

The Khmer Rouge, two other guerrilla groups and the Vietnamese backed government they oppose remained deadlocked over a format for national elections and also appeared to be snagged on how to disarm their forces.

There were fears that the talks' failure would lead to fighting, violating the tenuous cease-fire that went into effect in June. The chief delegate for the Khmer Rouge guerrillas, Khieu Samphan, urged the United Nations to send peacekeepers to Cambodia immediately. A joint communique said Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the chief Cambodian mediator, would ask the United Nations to send at least 200 observers next month to monitor the cease-fire and halt arms shipments to the factions.

The negotiators will return to Pattaya for more talks Oct. 21-23 and meet in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, in mid-November, Sihanouk said. The Vietnamese-installed Communist government of Prime Minister Hun Sen has been battling the Khmer Rouge and two non-communist groups since Vietnam invaded and ousted the Khmer Rouge in late 1978.

The major powers have agreed that the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge will have to play some role in Cambodia's future government if there is to be any peace. A UN plan provides for the Khmer Rouge to share power with its enemies and allies in an interim period prior to UN-supervised elections. "Our army is not going to defeat the enemy by fighting them," Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot said in a 1988 speech to his lieutenants. "These days our army goes into the interior to build up popular strength," he said. "Such popular strength is the genesis of state power."

Architect of a reign of terror in the mid-1970s that left hundreds of thousands dead, the secretive Pol Pot spoke of "going on the offensive with our themes of reasonableness, openness, and all inclusiveness."

A copy of the speech was recently made available to The Associated Press. It was authenticated by several prominent Cambodia scholars and diplomats in Bangkok who say its contents remain valid today. Pol Pot is no longer officially head of the Khmer Rouge but remains a formidable and feared shadow force within the organization. Since being overthrown, the Khmer Rouge has gained significant popular following and built a strong army. It has forced its enemies— both within Cambodia and around the world — to include it in any effective peace settlement.

Through sophisticated strategies and despite its odious record, the Khmer Rouge has rebuilt a network of support in the countryside that leaves it in a strong position to do well in any national elections, according to intelligence officials and Cambodian leaders from the other factions. "People still remember the Khmer Rouge time, but they want peace more," said Gen. Nyek Buon Chay of the guerrilla group loyal to Sihanouk. The Sihanoukists and another guerrilla faction led by ex-prime minister Son Sann — both non-communist groups supported by the United States — are loosely allied with the Khmer Rouge against the Phnom Penh government.

"People hate Pol Pot and the big leaders, but the local leaders they like. They know them, they do not treat the people badly and many people support them," Chay said in a recent interview inside Cambodia. "If the people hate the Khmer Rouge so much, why do they get bigger and stronger?" the general said.

In the 68-page speech, Pol Pot outlined a strategy under which the Khmer Rouge would push for power through elections.

Khmer Rouge smell victory Cambodian rebels enjoy strong backing by China-By Nate Thayer

Khmer Rouge smell victory

Cambodian rebels enjoy strong backing by China

By Nate Thayer

July 21, 1990

The Associated Press

SIEM REAP PROVINCE, Cambodia — Khmer Rouge guerrillas have seized large areas deep inside Cambodia in recent months and say they will fight as long as needed if they are shut out of a political settlement.

A recent five-week, 450-mile trip through the country's north by this reporter found the Khmer Rouge have strong Chinese support and have stockpiled caches of weapons, ammunition and funds in case foreign aid is cut. The United States announced Wednesday it was withdrawing recognition of the guerrilla coalition dominated by the Communist Khmer Rouge. The coalition also includes the non-Communist forces of Prince Norodom Sihanouk and Son Sann.

The U.S. move was prompted by fears of a return to power of the Khmer Rouge. The Communist group killed hundreds of thousands of people in forced agrarian reform in the 1970s until Vietnam invaded and installed a new government in early 1979.

The 30,000-man Khmer Rouge army already controls hundreds of villages in the country's south, west and north, and it operates in virtually all parts of the country.

In their jungle command posts, senior Khmer Rouge commanders said recently they were stepping up the fight to force the Vietnamese-backed government into political concessions. "The Khmer Rouge have everything they want from China. They don't need any more guns or money," said Col. Khan Savoeun, a commander of Sihanouk's army. "U.S. support for the non-Communists is very important psychologically for the non-Communist resistance. But it means nothing to the Khmer Rouge."

Ta Pok, a Khmer Rouge brigade commander in this northwestern province, said he listened to the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia for news on peace and hoped for progress. But he said the guerrillas cannot wait around for documents to be signed. "The Vietnamese will only listen to strength, and if they don't listen they will lose everything," he said.

The guerrillas have seized large quantities of weapons in recent fighting. Dozens of hidden jungle bases are full of ammunition, and captured heavy weapons were seen in the north.

The Chinese aid is channeled through the Thai border. But as the guerrillas push deeper into the country, they rely on the hidden caches and food from recently seized villages. Thousands of soldiers and civilian supporters were seen moving freely through newly seized areas. Heavy fighting between Khmer Rouge and government troops holed up at several key forward outposts defending Siem Riep city was heard every day. The guerrillas mined roads, attacked supply convoys and overran government artillery bases.  “ We are winning more easily than we expected. There is nothing that can stop us," said Khmer Rouge division commander Mit Lot, in charge of areas around the ancient temples of Angkor Wat in Siem Reap province. "If (Cambodian Prime Minister) Hun Sen is not flexible, we will fight and for sure we will win," he said.

The guerrillas appear to have substantial popular support. Many villagers say the Khmer Rouge are not forcing them to fight, and that they pay those who help carry ammunition and supplies. The guerrillas also pay a high price for rice. However, some villagers said they were afraid to refuse guerrilla requests for help.

As part of preparations in case foreign aid is cut, the Khmer Rouge have seized large gem-mining areas in the south and collect more than $500,000 monthly in taxes from miners, said Western intelligence analysts in Bangkok. In the north, they have created a sophisticated logging operation, trucking teakwood to Thailand. The guerrillas now have a network of thousands of miles of roads snaking from areas under their control to new front lines deep in the interior.

A young rebel relaxes near Ankor Wat: Photo: Nate Thayer

Refugees con Americans with MIA information: AP by Nate Thayer

Refugees con Americans with MIA information

Editor's note: The writer has lived for more than two years along the Thai-Cambodian border, and has been offered numerous artifacts and data about alleged American MlAs in Indochina.

By Nate Thayer

July 21, 1991

Associated Press Writer

BANGKOK, Thailand -"I have bones from dead American pilots," the Cambodian refugee whispered to this reporter, handing over a small packet of teeth, bone chips and a serviceman's identification number. "Is it true I can get $1 million from the Americans?" he asked.

The episode took place recently at a refugee camp along Thailand's eastern border with Cambodia, and the identification turned out not to belong to any of the 2,274 U.S. serviceman missing in action, or MIA, from the Vietnam War. But the offer illustrates the rumors —some based in fact — that have spread for years through rebel-held camps bordering Communist Laos and Cambodia, of huge rewards awaiting those who can show that U.S. servicemen are imprisoned in Indochina or those who can lead to their bodies.

The release of a photo this week purporting to show three U.S. prisoners of war has renewed debate over whether Americans are still held 16 years after the Vietnam War. Families of the three missing men say the men are in the photo. The three countries strongly deny they are holding prisoners. Numerous refugees and guerrillas have emerged from the jungles carrying bones, maps, letters purported to be from U.S. prisoners, and "dogtags" — military identification neckchains. They also talk of foreign captives in jungle hideouts. Refugees are often keen to provide stories about Americans in hopes of enhancing their chances of being resettled in the United States. Guerrillas are eager for cash.

The information is usually passed through relief officials or other foreigners to the U.S. Joint Casualty Resolution Center office at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok. Most is immediately dismissed as fraudulent or irrelevant. The packet which the reporter received at Site 2 was sent to the center, but the identification number did not belong to anyone on the Pentagon's list of Americans missing in action.

Most of the "evidence" turns out to be scams engineered by hucksters and conmen, although some is credible. But none has been proven. No prisoners have been brought out.

Still, many remain convinced that Americans remain captive. Teams of privately funded Americans have offered huge rewards, set up safe houses along the Thai border, and sent agents into remote jungles in efforts to obtain remains or bring back Americans alive.

Billionaire H. Ross Perot in 1986 offered $4.2 million to obtain a videotape purportedly showing POWs in Laos. Many of the private American teams' investigating reports accuse their government of dragging its feet, ignoring. evidence and conspiring to stifle efforts to bring back prisoners.

“American Journalist praised by Khmer Rouge for ‘support’ ”

“American Journalist praised by Khmer Rouge for ‘support’ ”

(Author's note: This was from a KR radio broadcast the day after my interviewing Pol Pot and 4 days before publication of that first inteview in two decades in the Far Eastern Economic Review. Not only did it piss me off, it underscored their cluelessness on any remotelessly effective PR strategy)

The Associated Press

October 20, 1997

Phnom Penh, Cambodia (AP)-The Khmer Rouge yesterday praised an American journalist Saturday who in June was the first outsider to see the group’s notorious leader Pol Pot in 18 years, and said he is back in guerrilla territory interviewing them again.

In a radio broadcast, the radical Marxist guerrillas said their leader Khieu Samphan met with Nate Thayer, a journalist with the Far eastern Economic Review on October 15.

A few of Thayer’s colleagues also were present at the Khmer Rouge stronghold of Anlong Veng, 190 miles Northwest of Phnom Penh, the announcer said.

Thayer captured international attention in June when he witnessed a show trial  of Pol Pot by the guerrillas he had led for three decades.

Doubts persist, however, as to whether the Khmer Rouge has truly repudiated Pol Pot, or whether Pol Pot staged the trial himself as a propaganda ploy.

“Khieu Samphan thanked Nate Thayer and the international neutral press for taking note of the truth about the struggle of the Cambodian nation and people to reach real real national reconciliation, peace, and democracy,” Saturday’s radio broadcast said.

"The Cambodian nation and people strongly need the support and assistance from the international community in order to realize this very sacred objective."

The Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia 1975-79, transforming the country into a vast labor camp, and killed as many as 2 million of the country’s 7 million people through starvation, exhaustion, and execution.

The Khmer Rouge waged a guerrilla war in the countryside after they were ousted by a Vietnamese invasion. The movement began to crumble last year, however, as thousands of war-weary guerrillas began defecting to the government.

Khieu Samphan remains holed up near Anlong Veng with the group’s last hard-liners, who in an attempt to make themselves more palatable to the international community, said they cut their ties with Pol Pot.

In the trial witnessed by Thayer and cameraman David Mckaige, Pol Pot was denounced by his comrades as a murderous traitor and sentenced to life imprisonment.