Nate Thayer

All of Kim Jong-eun's men By Nate Thayer

WASHINGTON - The top managers of North Korea's clandestine nuclear and ballistic missile program have been methodically promoted and now dominate the inner circle of Kim Jong-eun's new government, confidential foreign government documents and official media reports from Pyongyang show.

The shadowy group of power brokers in the world's most secretive nation emerged in the first military promotions prominently unveiled during recent high-profile ceremonies as the official mourning period for the death of former dictator Kim Jong-il concluded last week.

These same senior officials are known to be behind Pyongyang's missile test launch - scheduled for the middle of April - which has rattled regional nerves and sabotaged a short-lived agreement withWashington designed to slow North Korea's steady march towards a nuclear weaponized state. The United Nations and United States have charged the "earth observation satellite" launch is a thinly disguised cover for testing capabilities for a nuclear armed long-range ballistic missile.

At least 10 senior North Korean officials, now prominent at the core of power behind 29-year-old hereditary successor Kim Jong-eun, have been named by several foreign intelligence services as in charge of Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic missile development and export program, including enrichment of uranium to weapons grade strength.

They have also been implicated in selling nuclear and missile technology to Iran and Syria, dispatching special operation teams to attack South Korea and assassinate political opponents, coordinating an international criminal network involved in drug trafficking, counterfeit money laundering, and establishing front companies and banks to raise more than a billion US dollars per year to bankroll the privileged lifestyles of the regime's elite.

The 10 are among North Korean officials and government agencies named by at least 31 governments as part of a network that has imported, sold and developed components and technology for weapons of mass destruction (WMD). They have had their assets frozen, been banned from travel outside of North Korea and forbidden from engaging in business with the countries' nationals or companies, according to official documents.

In the first leadership reshuffle following Kim Jong-il's death and in one of his first public acts as the Korean People's Army Supreme Commander, Kim Jong-eun promoted four key officials to the rank of general at ceremonies marking his deceased father's 70th birthday on February 15.

Pak To-chun, Ju Kyu-chang and Paek Se-bong, previously seen only in civilian dress, were never known to have military rank before being made senior generals. Pyongyang's top spy, Kim Yong-chol, was also recently promoted to four-star general rank. In January, another key powerbroker, Kim Jong-eun's uncle Jang Song-thaek, who appeared for the first time in military uniform at the December funeral ceremonies for Kim Jong-il, was appointed to the rank of four-star general.

All five men are named by the United Nations, the US, the European Union (EU) and other government documents as key managers of Pyongyang's illicit ballistic and nuclear development and export programs.

Nuclear aides
Ju Kyu-chang has been at the center of Pyongyang's clandestine nuclear and missile development policies for more than two decades. He "oversees the development of North Korea's ballistic missile and nuclear programs", according to a December 19, 2011 EU document listing North Korean officials designated on its sanction list.

Ju Kyu-chang is also director of the Korean Workers' Party (KWP) Machine-Building Industry Department, former head of the KWP Second Economic Committee and past head of the National Academy of Natural Sciences. All three government agencies are named by US, UN, EU and other governments as deeply involved in covert nuclear and ballistic missile production, research and export.

According to a May 2010 confidential report to the United Nations Security Council, "Ju served as the overall supervisor for North Korea's missile development, including oversight of the April 5, 2009 Taepo Dong-2 (TD-2) missile launch and the failed July 2006 TD-2 launch."

Those two missile launches were the predecessors to the upcoming launch this month of an "earth observation satellite". Both ballistic missile launches immediately preceded Pyongyang's two underground nuclear explosions.

Daniel Pinkston, an analyst with the International Crisis Group (ICG), said Ju Kyu-chang has "technical expertise regarding the SLV [space launch vehicle] and satellite programs and the nuclear weapons program". In its June 2009 report "North Korea's nuclear and missile programs", ICG said Ju Kyu-chang "is believed to be in charge of an independent entity with custody of North Korea's nuclear bombs" and "was in charge of the August 1998 attempted satellite launch and the 2009 launch".

"I would equate Ju with General Leslie Groves, who headed the US Manhattan Project that produced atomic bombs during World War II," said Larry Niksch, a senior associate with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies and former Asian affairs specialist for 43 years with the non-partisan Congressional Research Service. "Ju runs the day-to-day programs to develop missiles and probably nuclear weapons," he said in an e-mail this week.

Niksch wrote that Pyongyang reacted to international sanctions by "fashioning an alternative based on illicit programs: counterfeiting of US currency and products, narcotics smuggling, and selling missiles and other weapons to other 'rogue' nations like Syria, Pakistan, and Iran, and terrorist groups like Hezbollah ... I estimate that North Korean earnings from various forms of collaboration with Iran earns Pyongyang upwards of $2 billion annually. Kim Jong-il distributed much of these earnings to his military and communist elite to keep them satisfied and loyal."

Paek Se-bong is chairman of the government's Second Economic Committee (SEC). A classified May 2010 UN "Report to the Security Council from the Panel of Experts" said, "It is broadly believed that the Second Economic Committee of the National Defense Commission plays the largest and most prominent role in nuclear, other WMD and missile-related development programs as well as in arranging and conducting arms-related exports."

According to 2010 US government documents "The US has reason to believe ... [the Second Economic Committee] has been used for North Korea-Iran proliferation-related transactions." A 2009 UN report to the Security Council said the SEC "is a national-level organization responsible for research and development of North Korea's advanced weapons systems, including missiles and probably nuclear weapons". The same UN report said, "Paek is the chief operating officer of the DPRK's [Democratic People's Republic of Korea's] military industry, the country's largest employer and economic consumer."

Paek Se-bong personifies the mysterious grouping of figures in charge of North Korea's illicit weapons program. Very little biographical data exists on Paek Se-bong, who emerged from obscurity in 2003 when he was appointed to head the SEC and made a member of the National Defense Commission (NDC), the supreme ruling body of the DPRK.

After 2003, Paek Se-bong did not appear for eight years in official North Korean media until April 9, 2009 - four days after the highly publicized launch of the last North Korean "satellite". He was at that time reappointed publicly to his position as head of the SEC and a member of the NDC.

That long-range rocket test scuttled ongoing talks over its nuclear program and was followed weeks later by an underground explosion testing a nuclear bomb, which resulted in harsh UN sanctions. It was shortly thereafter that Paek Se-bong's name was placed on international sanction lists.

His name translates to the "Three peaks of Mt Paektu", a term used in official propaganda to refer to Kim Jong-il and his parents. (It is purported to be the mythical birthplace of Kim Jong-il, but he is known to have been born in a village in Siberia where his parents were in exile during World War II.)

Illicit exports
Pak To-chun was placed under international sanction on December 19, 2011, the same day Kim Jong-il's death was announced. According to the EU, "He is in charge of the arms industry. It is reported that he commands the office for nuclear energy. This institution is decisive for [North Korea's] nuclear and rocket launcher program."


An image of a national report meeting held on February 15, 2012, highlighted are Pak To-chun (2nd row, left), Ju Kyu-chang (2nd row, 2nd left) and Kim Yong-chol (3rd row, right), all of whom were given military promotions on the occasion of Kim Jong-il's recent birthday celebration. (Photo: KBS screen grab)

Pak To-chun, also a member of the powerful NDC, is director of the Military Arms Production Department. According to the May 2010 UN report to the Security Council: "The Military Arms Production Department of the Korea Workers' Party oversees the matters related to the Yongbyon nuclear plant and its nuclear weapons programs."

He succeeded Jon Pyong-ho as head of North Korea's military industries in 2010. Jon Pyong-ho was the primary manager since the 1980s of North Korea's clandestine international network tasked with covertly acquiring components and technology to build a nuclear bomb. He was in charge of trading ballistic missile and nuclear technology with Pakistan's Abdul Qadeer Khan network to build Pyongyang's nuclear and other weapons arsenal.

  Page 2 of 2
AN ATOL INVESTIGATION
All of Kim Jong-eun's men
By Nate Thayer

In 2008, a secret delegation of Myanmar military generals traveled to North Korea on a weapons and technology purchasing trip. A leaked detailed report, complete with pictures, showed Jon Pyong-ho hosting Myanmar military officials, including on a tour of a missile factory.

Jon Pyong-ho continues to serve on the powerful NDC and is named on international sanction lists for running a worldwide network trafficking in nuclear material with Iran, Libya, Pakistan and Syria.

"[He] is in charge of nuclear weapons development," according to a 2009 UN report issued after Pyongyang detonated a second underground nuclear explosion. According to a December 21, 2011 EU report ordering new sanctions, the Machine Building 

Industries Department he headed is "responsible for overseeing activities of North Korea's military industries" including "the development of North Korea's ballistic missile and nuclear programs".

In April 2009, Jon Pyong-ho was one of only two officials named as accompanying Kim Jong-il to witness the purported peaceful "space launch" that scuttled earlier bilateral agreements to halt ballistic and nuclear testing, according to photographs and statements from the official Korean Central News Agency archives. The other was Ju Kyu Chang, who was promoted to four-star general during this year's February ceremonies for the deceased Kim Jong-il. Jon Pyong-ho was given special prominence at the recent mourning period closing ceremonies on 25 March.

Kim Yong-chol, a former bodyguard turned head of North Korea's spy agency, also received his fourth star during the recent Kim Jong-il birthday celebrations. Kim heads the Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB). Both he and the RGB are named in UN, US, EU and other international sanctions for their involvement in banned sales of sophisticated weapons systems, including to Iran and Syria, and have been implicated in launching recent military attacks on South Korea.

Kim Yong-chol and the RGB "specializes in the production of maritime military craft and armaments, such as submarines, military boats and missile systems, and has exported torpedoes and technical assistance to Iranian defense-related firms", according to December 2011 United Kingdom and EU sanctions documents.

The same documents name the RGB as "responsible for approximately half of the arms and related material exported by North Korea" and name RGB front companies that in 2007 and 2008 "facilitated transactions involving ... designated Iranian financial institutions, including Bank Melli and Bank Sepah ... for the benefit of North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau's (RGB) weapons program."

Kim Yong-chol was first implicated by intelligence agencies in 2010. In August 2010, US President Barack Obama cited the "unprovoked attack that resulted in the sinking of the Republic of Korea Navy ship Cheonan and the deaths of 46 sailors in March 2010" when issuing Executive Order 13551 that placed US sanctions on a single North Korean official, General Kim Yong-chol, the RGB he commanded, and the Green Pine Associated Corporation, a North Korean front company the US and others have identified as acting on the RGB's behalf to sell prohibited arms, including to Iran and Syria.

The day before Kim Yong-chol was promoted to full general, Pyongyang announced the creation of a new medal, the "Order of Kim Jong-il," awarded for services in building a "thriving socialist nation" and for the military defense of the country. The first recipients of the award included Kim Yong-chol.

Kim Yong-chol's direct superior, General O Kuk-ryol, vice chairman of the National Defense Commission, is another prominent figure in the new regime's inner circle. The UN described O Kuk-ryol as "supervising the acquisition abroad of advanced technology for nuclear and ballistics programs" in a list of sanctioned North Korean officials he was placed on in 2009. The EU added him to its list in December of last year.

At this year's March 25 ceremonies closing Kim Jong-il's 100-day mourning period, Minister of People's Armed Forces and Vice-Marshal Kim Yong-chun delivered the keynote speech which said that Kim Jong-eun "has turned North Korea into an invincible country which nobody dares to attack".

United Nations and US documents from 2011 placed Kim Yong-chun, identified as "special adviser to Kim Jong-il on nuclear strategy" on a sanction list that froze his assets and imposed a travel ban. He currently serves as Pyongyang's de facto defense minister and was one of only eight leaders to walk with Kim Jong-eun alongside the hearse during Kim Jong-il's recent funeral procession.

Analysts say that the decision to name Kim Jong-eun as successor to his father was made by early 2009 and subsequent reshuffles made within the party and military have paved the way for a smooth transition. In February 2009, O Kuk-ryol was appointed vice chairman of the NDC and Kim Yong-chun was appointed minister of the People's Armed Forces.

Top commanders
In April 2009, Kim Yong-chun, O Kuk-ryol, Jon Pyong-ho, Paek Se-bong, Jang Song-thaek and Ju Kyu-chang were all elected to North Korea's highest body, the National Defense Commission. All six are also named as key figures in Pyongyang's nuclear and missile program by the UN, US and other governments, and have all been prominent in public appearances with Kim Jong-eun in recent weeks.

Second Economy Commission chairman Paek Se-bong (circled) applauds at the start of a national report meeting for Kim Jong-il's birthday on February 15, 2012. He was given the rank of colonel general (sangjang) in a military promotions list issued on the occasion of Kim Jong-il's 70th birthday. At past national events, Paek Se-bong had been observed wearing business suits (Photo: KCNA-Yonhap)

Prior to the current diplomatic scuffle over the upcoming supposed satellite launch, North Korea was accused of creating nearly identical crises in 2009 when it launched a long-range, multi-stage rocket it referred to as a space satellite. The move was in defiance of a UN ban, broke off then six-nation nuclear disarmament talks and set the stage for a new underground nuclear test, the country's second.

The following year saw North Korea launch an artillery attack on South Korea that claimed the lives of 46 South Koreans and stoked international fears that the Koreas were near war.

In recent weeks, the same North Korean officials known to command these provocative events have been given high-profile promotions as Pyongyang unveils the new core of leaders behind Kim Jong-eun's new regime. In addition to the 10, other senior officials have also been named as key figures in North Korea's illicit nuclear and ballistic missile program.

Pak Jae-gyong and Hyon Chol-hae, both of the Korean People's Army's political department, are named as "military adviser to Kim Jong-il" in UN and other sanctions lists. Head of the Academy of Science, Pyon Yong-rip, is also named as "involved in WMD-related biological research". All three played prominent roles in the ceremonies that followed the death of Kim Jong-il in the carefully orchestrated succession process to crown Kim Jong-eun as North Korea's new dictator.

Several other powerful figures who are not named in international sanctions also play key roles in the new inner power circle. Korean People's Army chief of staff Ri Yong-ho and two NDC members, Generals U Dong-guk and Kim Jong-gak, are also known to be in Kim Jong-eun's inner circle. 

 
Vice Marshal Kim Jong-gak (2nd right) seen at a March 25, 2012, rally ending the 100 days of mourning Kim Jong-il's death. He nominated Kim Jong-eun as one of the Korean People's Army's delegates to the 4th Party Conference in April 2012. Ministry of State Security's General U Tong-chuk (3rd right).

U Dong-guk heads the State Security Department responsible for domestic intelligence while Kim Jong-gak is in charge of ensuring loyalty to the new leader within the armed forces and party. Kim Ki-nam, meanwhile, leads the formidable propaganda operation in charge of molding Kim Jong-eun's image. Another prominent figure is Choe Tae-bok who is involved in Pyongyang's scientific and technological development which concentrates mainly on efforts to build a sophisticated military state.

The coming weeks will see the further unveiling of top advisers who hold the real power in the new regime, say analysts. The 100th anniversary of the birth of the founder of the North Korean state, Kim Il-sung, will take place on April 15. State media have touted the date for several years as a major national turning point, marking the regime's promise to create "a mighty and prosperous nation".

The official Korean Central News Agency said on Monday that a rare Workers' Party conference will be held on April 11, shortly before Kim Il-sung's birthday celebration. At that event, his grandson, Kim Jong-eun, is expected to be named the secretary general of the KWP, the title previously held by his father Kim Jong-il. Kim Il-sung still retains the title of president in death.

North Korea's parliament, the Supreme People's Assembly, is set to hold its annual session on April 13. It is expected Kim Jong-eun will also be promoted to chairman of the NDC, another post held by his now deceased father. Coincident with these transitional events, Pyongyang informed international maritime and space organizations that it will launch its ballistic missile into orbit between April 12 and 16.

Nate Thayer, former Southeast Asia correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review, is an investigative reporter specializing in conflict, transnational crime, and Asian affairs. He is currently based in Washington DC and may be reached at [email protected]

(Copyright 2012 Nate Thayer.)

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.

Do the Khmer Rouge on trial this week uncomfortably reflect mainstream Cambodian views? By Nate Thayer

At the Khmer Rouge trial yesterday, Nuon Chea said that Vietnam intended to “swallow Cambodia and rip Cambodia of her ethnic race” adding “never trust a foreigner.” This came after a litany of testimony of unspeakable torture and violence inflicted by the KR on fellow Cambodians. The ugly truth is that Nuon Chea’s comments have deep roots in mainstream Cambodian politics. Political violence and the humiliation and destruction of political opponents are far from rare in modern Cambodian politics. Nuon Chea’s view of Vietnam, Cambodian political opposition, and foreigners is a common theme in mainstream Cambodia politics.  The unspoken truth is that far too many Cambodian political leaders are not against murder, human rights abuses, and political violence—they oppose them only when they are the targets.

The Khmer Rouge regime was a mixture of paranoia, hatred, intolerance, a deep historical resentment, inferiority complex, desire for vengeance, and an absurd belief to not just defeat and extinguish their historical enemy, but the Vietnamese race itself. This Khmer Rouge intolerance fits not uncomfortably in the belief system of their Cambodian political opponents. The Khmer Rouge hatred of Vietnam and foreign nefarious intentions against Cambodia has a long precedence in mainstream Cambodian political views. They are shared by a majority of Cambodians of all political stripes. Even their focus on “internal enemies” of the KR party is rooted in centuries of Khmer reality. Cambodia has always had one leader who demanded complete loyalty and absolute political power, no history of coalition politics, opposition parties, or any kind of independent judiciary, press, or even thinking. Anything that reflected any of the former categorized one as an enemy that must be crushed, usually after being publicly humiliated. If one was not submissive, then one was a political enemy by definition. This has virtually always been true in Khmer political culture. When Khieu Samphan—also on trial this week—was in parliament and the cabinet of the then Sihanouk government, he was stripped naked in broad daylight by government police and paraded down the street. He soon fled to the Khmer Rouge and jungle amid public threats to assassinate him. Humiliation and abuse of one’s opponents has a long tradition in Khmer politics. Leaders routinely insult each other in public.  And the murder of political opposition is a common method employed by all Cambodian factions. Sihanouk murdered many opposition figures. After seizing power in 1970, the U.S. backed Lon Nol regime, which overthrew Sihanouk ( who then joined and publicly led the Khmer Rouge into power) rounded up and publicly executed tens of thousands of ethnic Vietnamese civilians prior to expelling the remainder. As an example of acceptance of the murder of Vietnamese civilians by today’s mainstream Cambodian political parties and leaders, during the UN elections the Khmer Rouge rounded up and executed 29 women and children of Vietnamese origin who had been fisherman for generations in Cambodia. Not one Cambodian political party, of which there were more than 30 registered with the UN, raised a voice of objection. They knew that they would alienate the views of the population if they did so. Hun Sen, during his bloody coup of 1997, overthrowing the UN elected government, hunted down and executed hundreds of opposition figures, many brutally tortured, their eyes gouged out and their penises severed and stuffed in their mouth while alive, then disemboweled and their liver fried and eaten. Some had their tongues ripped from their mouths with pliers while alive under interrogation. So in many ways Nuon Chea and Pol Pot were an extreme reflection and logical extension of a Cambodian leader, their views a reflection of their predecessors, successors, and countrymen. Just some food for thought.

The long overdue and politicized trial of the three remaining top Khmer Rouge leaders offers an opportunity for an unvarnished history on one of the most unspeakable blights on modern abuse of power, human dignity, human rights, and international rules of law and war. Or it may be squandered, serving to once again whitewash, deflect, and demonize a few for which many others share guilt and responsibility. It is a reality deeply rooted in other mainstream players in current Cambodian political culture, and those which preceded and succeeded the Khmer Rouge. It also deeply implicates the international community and other Cambodian political leaders, in participating, supporting, reacting to, and delaying taking responsibility for their role in this tragedy. The Khmer Rouge were not an aberration. And the responsibility was far from limited to those on trial now. The ugly truth is that the trial reflects a very uncomfortable--but fundamental--psychology that is alive and ignored in mainstream Cambodia today. I will post excerpts from never before published interviews and documents of Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan, Ta Mok, Duch, Pol Pot, the current Cambodian government, and other international players in a small attempt to add some context to the current trial and commentary. They include three recorded interviews with Nuon Chea in the jungles of Northern Cambodia, and a roundtable recorded several hour discussion with Ta Mok, Nuon Chea, and Khieu Samphan on the killings while they were in power, their justifications for them, and the ideology that motivated their policies.  These were conducted in the months and weeks before their capture and surrender.

‘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.

Ambiguous Alliances: Can the Khmer Rouge survive Pol Pot? By Nate Thayer

Ambiguous Alliances: Can the Khmer Rouge survive Pol Pot?

Far Eastern Economic Review                 

By Nate Thayer in Phnom Penh              

July 3, 1997

(This article came out 8 days before the Cambodian coup d-etat and the country erupted into civil war, and a few weeks before Pol Pot was put on jungle trial)                            

              It's the philosopher's classic conundrum-in
              reverse. From the dense jungles of northwestern
              Cambodia has come the sound of a giant tree
              falling. But since nobody in Phnom Penh has seen
              it happen, nobody's certain it has.

              Now, internal Khmer Rouge documents obtained by
              the REVIEW throw the first clear light on the
              bizarre developments surrounding Pol Pot's
              recent "arrest" by former loyalists-and on the
              path the rebel movement aims to take towards
              political legitimacy. The documents suggest that
              the events of early June were precipitated by a
              deal struck in May, after three months of secret
              negotiations, between moderate elements of the
              Khmer Rouge and the Funcinpec party of First
              Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh.

              The deal, in turn, is rooted in the long-running
              feud between Cambodia's two premiers, both of
              whom are jockeying for alliances ahead of
              general elections scheduled for 1998. It seeks
              to unite the disparate political and military
              forces-Funcinpec, opposition leader Sam Rainsy's
              Khmer National Party and the Khmer
              Rouge-arraigned against the Cambodian People's
              Party of Second Prime Minister Hun Sen. The
              rivalry between the two prime ministers may
              offer the Khmer Rouge an opportunity to return
              to the legitimate political arena, analysts say.

              The two premiers recently made a rare display of
              solidarity when they appeared together on June
              21 to announce the seizure of Pol Pot and agreed
              that he should be brought before an
              international tribunal. But seasoned Cambodia
              watchers say the two men were putting on a show
              for an international audience. Behind the public
              smiles, they say, the Ranariddh-Hun Sen rivalry
              remains intense. Indeed, some political analysts
              worry that the shifting alignments in Phnom Penh
              could eventually throw the country back into
              civil war.

              Ranariddh's courting of the Khmer Rouge is rich
              with irony. In 1970, his father, Prince Norodom
              Sihanouk, had formed a similar alliance with a
              relatively unknown Pol Pot. At the time, their
              common enemy was the United States-backed Lon
              Nol regime.

              In 1970, the Khmer Rouge needed Sihanouk's
              prestige to emerge from the jungles and onto the
              political stage. Now, the rebels are banking on
              Ranariddh's legitimacy to revive their fortunes.

              But there is one crucial difference: Funcinpec
              cannot ally itself with a Khmer Rouge that
              includes the widely reviled Pol Pot. Sources
              close to the negotiations say the Khmer Rouge
              leadership was told they would have to separate
              themselves from Pol Pot in order to make the
              alliance palatable for local and international
              consumption. The 69-year-old guerrilla leader
              apparently went along with the deal until he
              realized it would mean his own eviction and
              perhaps exile.

              The Khmer Rouge documents explain what happened
              next. Pol Pot called a meeting of senior leaders
              on the night of June 9, at a jungle encampment
              near his headquarters at Anlong Veng in the
              northern jungle. When former Defence Minister
              Son Sen refused to turn up, a Pol Pot loyalist
              was dispatched to execute him, his wife and 16
              members of his family. Khmer Rouge army chief Ta
              Mok, apparently sensing that a purge was under
              way, slipped out of the meeting and fled into
              the thick jungle.

              The events of the next few days remain shrouded
              in confusion. Pol Pot loyalists maintained
              control of Khmer Rouge Radio at least until June
              12, when they broadcast a report denouncing Son
              Sen as a "traitor." The radio then fell silent.

              It came back to life briefly on June 16, to
              announce that "treason of Pol Pot took place on
              the night of June 9 to June 14 . . . This
              incident was resolved and normalcy restored as
              of June 14."

              One Khmer Rouge document, dated June 18, says
              that the leadership uncovered a plan by Pol Pot
              to kill other senior cadres in an attempt to
              scuttle the deal with Funcinpec. "Pol Pot had
              prepared a plan to kill the just and good
              leaders and cadres who are loyal to our
              principles and our good leadership," says the
              document. Pol Pot's actions, it adds,
              compromised the "internal solidarity . . . and
              the spirit of our agreements." Sources close to
              the Khmer Rouge say this is a reference to the
              deal with Funcinpec.

              There are other, more obvious indications of a
              Funcinpec-Khmer Rouge alliance. Recent Khmer
              Rouge Radio broadcasts have expressed support
              for the National United Front, an anti-Hun Sen
              coalition created by Ranariddh and Rainsy
              earlier this year. In a May 21 internal document
              obtained by the REVIEW, Khmer Rouge President
              Khieu Samphan said "it should be possible for
              all national forces to unite within the
              framework of the NUF." The previous day,
              Ranariddh had announced "a very great welcome"
              to Khieu Samphan and the Khmer Rouge into the
              alliance.

              Ranariddh has since admitted to secretly meeting
              Khieu Samphan on June 1 in the remote northern
              provincial capital of Preah Vihear. In the days
              following Pol Pot's apparent ouster, Khmer Rouge
              Radio openly said the guerrillas would "uphold
              the stand of supporting the National United
              Front with . . . Ranariddh as the chairman."

              Later, after a brief street battle on June 17
              between bodyguards loyal to the two premiers in
              Phnom Penh, Khmer Rouge radio announced an
              "appeal to all combatants," to "unite in
              launching an offensive against the puppets, with
              Hun Sen as the most active ringleader, in an
              increasing vigorous and militant manner."

              Hun Sen's response was to issue Ranariddh an
              ultimatum on June 18: The first prime minister,
              he said, must choose to "join the Khmer Rouge or
              [remain in] the Royal government."

              Earlier, on June 6, Hun Sen said Ranariddh was
              "rescuing the Khmer Rouge from ruin" and "taking
              the wrong route by using the Khmer Rouge's Khieu
              Samphan as a political counterweight to us."

              The effectiveness of that counterweight is far
              from certain. For one thing, there's still
              considerable confusion over Pol Pot's fate. Nor
              is it clear who is in control of the Khmer
              Rouge-and whether the current leadership can
              recast the rebels as a moderate, politically
              acceptable force. Rebel radio has announced that
              "a new era has begun," but has said little about
              Pol Pot's hardline comrades-in-arms.

              For instance, no mention has been made of Nuon
              Chea, Pol Pot's chief ideologue, or of Ta Mok,
              the military commander who directly controls the
              bulk of the rebel troops. Cambodian military
              officials who have been meeting with the rebels
              in recent days say Ta Mok-one of the architects
              of the Khmer Rouge's "killing fields" rule from
              1975 to 1979-was a key figure in organizing the
              purge of Pol Pot. Analysts say it would be just
              as hard for Ranariddh to do a deal with Ta Mok
              as it was with Pol Pot.

No More Creampuff Journalism-Readers react to Nate Thayer's article in Phnom Penh Post

 No More Creampuff Journalism

(Below are a series of reader reactions to an interview I did with Khmer Rouge President Khieu Samphan. It wasn't pretty, but it was witty (mostly). Included is the article that sparked the outrage, The response of Michael hayes Publisher of the PPP, and my response)

Phnom Penh Post

Letter to the Editor

Friday, 29 January 1993

I was spending some vacation time in Phnom Penh when I picked up your paper and read the "interview" with Khieu Samphan. What's going on? This guy is a mass murderer and is single-handedly blocking a U.S. $2 billion international peace effort. Yet your "reporter" Nate Thayer treats Samphan like he was some kind of elder statesman, asking him what he thinks of the current political situation. Why didn't he ask him what it feels like to kill 1,000,000 Cambodians? I've read PR handouts that hit harder than this piece of marshmallow.

Do your readers a favor-next time you interview the Khmer Rouge, send a real professional reporter-not a cream puff like this Thayer guy.

Bill Shuller, United States

Editor's Response

Phnom Penh Post

 Letter to the Editor

Friday, 29 January 1993

 

Schuler has a point. Thayer faxed the raw transcript of the text of Khieu Samphan interview from Bangkok without his questions. While the text accurately reflected the content of the interview, it did not accurately reflect the questions posed. The interview should have been presented under topical categories rather than as a question and answer. We regret the editing error.

Thayer responds:

"I've been called a puppet lackey, an intelligence operative, a right wing jerk, a communist sympathizer, and a hopeless drunk, but I have never been called a creampuff and I resent it."

- The Post welcomes comments from our readers.

 

 

Sour Creampuffs

Phnom Penh Post

Letter to the Editor

Friday, 12 February 1993

 

As a long-term resident of Cambodia who has been subjected to Mr. Thayer's Errol Flynnish style of journalism for most of that time, I must take exception to the use of the word "creampuff." It is extremely difficult to make a good creampuff in the tropics.

The term one should apply to this journalist is lightweight twerp.

Bill Lohan, Cambodia

Gentle Journalism

Phnom Penh Post

Letter to the Editor

Friday, 09 April 1993

I feeling so sorry for your reporter Kate Thayer called Gream Puff and Light Weight Werp in letters. So unfair! I read her interview with Mr. Khieu Samphan so interesting. Mr. Khieu Samphan of course is very bad man hates Vietnam people but reporter did no thing wrong. She just write down everything what she told very obedient and polite and not ask rude questions of important man her superior. Why call Gream Puff and Eroll Fling? My friends and I in the Ho Chi Minh Ladies Sewing Circle say, carry on Kate! Keep writing in your own gentle and lady like way!

Ho Chi Minh Ladies Sewing Circle

Khmer Rouge Chic 

Phnom Penh Post

Letter to the Editor

Friday, 26 February 1993

The Post editor was kind enough to take the heat of poor Nate Thayer in answer to Phil Schuler's accusation of 'cream puff journalism' (Feb. 3 Post 2/3), But I fail to see why inclusion of the questions would have mitigated the impression. Didn't Thayer write the piece as published?

In addition to the list of names Thayer says he has been called, there was 'Khmer Rouge-chic' which I applied to some of his writing (see Indochina Issues 93, August 1991), and he attracts those names because of a persistence in treating the Khmer-Rouge as just ordinary guys with good intentions.

He asks for it again in his photo (Post, same issue, p.6) of a gentle Khmer Rouge soldier tenderly offering a smoke to a Vietnamese soldier, presumably a prisoner, when there is good information that the usual fate of captured Vietnamese was death.

In his latest article, "What role for Khmer Rouge", he quotes Pol Pot's talk of February 1992, in which he should have seen that Khmer Rouge obsession with the 'Youn' was a major theme. The Khmer Rouge imagine (and since it was a secret talk to his own cadres I assume it is what Pol Pot believes, not propaganda for affect) that the 'Youn' control Cambodia, that a 'Youn' army is what they are fighting, that there is now a U.S.-'Youn' alliance with the U.S. pressuring China, through human rights issues, to join the 'Youn', and that the object of the Khmer Rouge is to liberate Cambodia from the 'Youn'.

Those are the paranoid schizophrenics who are causing such international hand-writing over how to bring them into the 'peace process'. The present Khmer Rouge leadership should be kept out and isolated until they are no longer a threat, in particular because of their Vietnam policy which promises to keep Indochina in conflict for years ahead. This is not what the international community likes to think of, for anti-Vietnamese prejudice is widespread, not only among Khmer chauvinists, and the Khmer Rouge have played a useful role which several great powers may think should not go unrewarded.

Some heat should nevertheless be taken off Nate Thayer, for he is only following a trendy line which parallels the 'peace process' and is clearly reflected in the Paris Accords and the draft documents which preceded them, all designed to treat the Khmer Rouge as ordinary people in order to use them against the State of Cambodia. Observant readers like Schuler should focus their attention and ire on the entire UNTAC operation which is destroying Cambodia and giving new opportunities to an unreconstructed Khmer Rouge leadership, precisely as Pol Pot predicted in his remarks of February 1992.

 

Khieu Samphan:Gloomy Prospects for Khmer Elections

Friday, 06 November 1992

By Nate Thayer

The following interview with Khieu Samphan, president of the Partie of Democratic Kampuchea, was conducted at the Khmer Rouge compound in Phnom Penh.


Phnom Penh Post: What's your assessment of the status of the peace process, one year after the signing of the Paris peace accords?

Khieu Samphan: Two key agreements have yet to be implemented. First, [there's] no control or verification of the withdrawal of Vietnamese forces from Cambodia. Secondly, agreements on the role of the Supreme National Council (SNC) have not been implemented.

We know that these two issues are interrelated. We have to have the SNC play a role; if the SNC has no role to play UNTAC will cooperate with the Phnom Penh regime. That is why UNTAC uses the phrase "pragmatic necessity," which means UNTAC relies on the Phnom Penh regime to implement the Paris accords.

How can UNTAC exercise the control and verification of the withdrawal of Vietnamese forces under these circumstances? Actually the Vietnamese forces, soldiers, officers, advisors and experts are the ones who maintain this regime in place. These Vietnamese forces are now in place to maintain the puppet army, secret police, and administrative apparatus.

If UNTAC relies on the Phnom Penh regime, UNTAC will not be able to find these forces, so this is the cause of the current deadlock. If we do not tackle the root cause of the current deadlock, we will not be able to break this deadlock.

Post: UNTAC may decide to hold the elections without the participation of the Partie of Democratic Kampuchea. What will it take for the PDK to join in the electoral process?

Khieu: As far as the election is concerned, if they have a plan to hold the election without the PDK (Partie of Democratic Kam-puchea), is this in accordance with the Paris agreements? What will the result of such elections be? The Vietnamese forces are still in Cambodia.

Such elections would offer Cambodia to the Vietnamese; this [all] the Cambodian people in Cambodia and living abroad will not accept.

So the question is whether UNTAC is going to hold the election without the participation of the PDK or implement the Paris agreement in its entirety. Such elections without the participation of the PDK run counter to the Paris agreement and we will oppose it.

Post: How do you assess the economic and security situation in Cambodia at present?

Khieu Samphan: Now everybody is talking about the corruption of [the Phnom Penh] regime being on the increase, and the riel has lost its value. The devaluation of the riel has created problems within all strata of the Cambodian people-between the poor and the Phnom Penh regime, state employees and the Phnom Penh regime, and soldiers of their own regime.

When UNTAC is trying to come to the rescue of the riel, this will only create problems between the Cambodian people and UNTAC.

[With] corruption and the devaluation of the riel spreading, this is a situation that creates more problems.

The Cambodian people are suffering. What will their reaction be to a situation where they see no hope? Anarchy perhaps, but the situation is they oppose the Vietnamese regime.

Let me turn to a specific problem: banditry. There are indeed elements not under any control. There are elements of the Phnom Penh army they cannot control. But [also], there is organized banditry by the Vietnamese and the Phnom Penh party.

How can we resolve this problem of banditry if the SNC continues to be denied its role? If the SNC is given its role, the Cambodian people [would] join the SNC in opposing banditry. Otherwise it will increase.

I think in any country where you have a government that is not supported, you will not be able to control banditry.

Post: How do you respond to charges that the Khmer Rouge blew up two bridges in Kompong Thom last month and is launching a dry season offensive?

Khieu Samphan: These accusations are not true.

Last year during the 14th dry season, during the whole dry season, the Vietnamese launched military operations against our forces-now they are doing the same in Battambang, Pursat, route 6, 21, 7.

During the 15th dry season there might be complicated problems. As the Vietnamese launch military attacks against our forces we will be compelled to fight back.

Post: Do you think that the peace accords are in danger of collapsing, returning Cambodia to a state of civil war?

Khieu Samphan: There is no peace now-the situation is the same as before [the signing of the Paris accords].

If they [UNTAC] have no political objective to get rid of the PDK, they will implement the Paris accords on the role of the SNC. Other measures to try to avoid giving the role to the SNC would not resolve the problem, and would be tantamount to trying to get rid of the PDK.

I am speaking very frankly here; if they try to do this, it is an abandonment of the Paris accords. We will not accept this. We should not underestimate or overlook the reaction of the Cambodian people.

I have told Akashi very clearly, if you try to paint a situation [of optimism that the peace plan is succeeding], you won't change the situation. I also try to convey that I am trying to cooperate with UNTAC.

I agree with you that we are on very dangerous ground. We are at an unpredictable juncture. I cannot say I am optimistic or not, [but] whoever does not implement the Paris agreements will encounter problems. They will increase the problems themselves.

There might be the possibility of anarchy by Cambodian people who might explode against the Vietnamese settlers themselves because of land stolen from the Cambodian people.

To sum up, UNTAC alone cannot control and verify the withdrawal of the Vietnamese forces and resolve the problem of crime in the cities, because of lack of support from the Cambodian people.

So far, [UNTAC] has tried to help the Phnom Penh party. As to when they will see that what they are doing is not working, I hope it will be soon. We hope that UNTAC will [realize that] before it is too late.

Chinese City of Dreams By Nate Thayer

Chinese City of Dreams

By Nate Thayer

Phnom Penh Post

August 12 1994

THE Cambodian government has finally rejected a massive project to create a Chinese-controlled city, "a new Hong Kong", in the heart of Cambodia after more than a year of official support that almost saw the project approved.

The project called for an investment of more than $1 billion by Chinese-controlled companies in exchange for Cambodian authorities turning over a 20 sq km plot of land adjacent to Phnom Penh and agreeing to allow 200,000 ethnic Chinese to immigrate to inhabit and develop the land.

The scheme would have effectively created the fourth biggest city in Cambodia and some Cambodian official supporters say it was designed to replace Phnom Penh as the commercial capital.

Cambodian government officials say that the plan is not yet dead. More subtle revised versions of the bold initiative may be submitted for approval which include promises of large-scale investment in return for rights of immigration of overseas Chinese.

The Cambodia-China City Company (CTGC) was created by the Overseas Construction Company of the China Non-Ferrous Metal Company, of Beijing, which is "managed" by Wu Chheang Chang, son in law of Chinese paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, according to Cambodian government and company documents obtained by the Post.

The contract between the government and the two companies called for the "development right for 20 square km as a joint capital of the Cambodia-China City and shall provide favorable policies including the right of residence of 200,000 immigrants who shall organize, build, and live in the Cambodia-China city."

Since March of 1993, the contract received the approval of at least eight Cambodian government bodies, including the National Investment Committee, the office of the Council of Ministers, and the governor of Kandal Province, which adjoins Phnom Penh municipality.

The huge project would have been located in Kandal Steung district, immediately adjacent to Phnom Penh city.

On March 15 the Kandal provincial governor requested the Cambodian Development Council - a powerful board headed by Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh that overseas all investment policy in Cambodia - to approve the project "to reconstruct and develop Cambodia, bring Chinese and overseas Chinese throughout the world to Cambodia, and invest in the building of a Cambodia-China City in Kandal Steung district."

The contract specifically called for Chinese citizens - representatives of the CNFC - to assume the political authority of deputy governor of the city.

Cambodian government officials who supported the project say that the idea was "to create a new city of Phnom Penh. Rather than restoring and rehabilitating Phnom Penh, create a new Phnom Penh - a new Hong Kong in Cambodia." Indeed, government sources say that the overseas Chinese the project had in mind were primarily Hong Kong residents fearful of a looming 1997.

While there were vague references to what kind of investment the new city would entail, the proposals were remarkably lacking in detail about the purpose of the massive project beyond the right to the huge plot of land - nearly as big as Phnom Penh itself - and the granting of a legal right of immigration of 200,000 ethnic Chinese.

On June 25, Co-Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh requested that the Cambodian Development Council "examine and give [an] opinion immediately on the project" and reminded the CDC that the "company has made the above proposal once already, recently in Beijing."

The reference to Beijing, according to senior Cambodian government officials, was regarding a message from King Sihanouk - who is convalescing there - that the government should examine the proposal seriously.

On June 28, Keat Chhon, the deputy head of the CDC and the Minister of State for Reconstruction and Development, replied to Prime Minister Ranariddh. He said that "the proposal to establish a Cambodia-China City involves the use of 20 sq km of land for a period of 70 years, permission for 200,000 Chinese immigrants to live together on this land together with the use of $1,000 million of capital to develop this area. I believe that this is not a mere ordinary investment problem but rather a national political issue because it involves 200,000 immigrants. In addition 20 sq km is an extremely large piece of land.

"If foreigners live together there it may become a foreign city in the middle of Cambodia. It is my opinion that dealing with this issue exceeds the competence of the CDC. Therefore, I suggest that this problem be submitted to the Council of Ministers to examine and decide," he told the Prime Minister.

In July, the Council of Ministers - headed by the two Prime Ministers and vested with the authority to approve any such project-rejected the proposal based on concerns over massive foreign immigration.

But in many ways Cambodia presents an ideal place for such a move, and Cambodian government sources say that this proposal and others on a smaller scale are not dead yet.

Historically refered to by China "as the rice bowl of Asia", Cambodia is rich in untapped resources, sparsely populated, bordered by booming Thailand and Vietnam, and blessed with the Mekong River and the Sihanoukville deep water port to the south.

Cambodia's nine million people over 181,000 square km is ripe for immigrants compared to neighboring Vietnam and Thailand's populations of 80 and 60 million respectively.

But Cambodia suffers from an almost non existent skilled labor force after two decades of warfare and economic devastation.

Some Cambodian official planners say that Phnom Penh's infrastructure is in such poor condition that it would be cheaper to build a whole new capital from scratch-and they see an ethnic Chinese controlled capital as the quickest and most promising means for seeing economic development in the country.

 

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."

Thai Border: A Wild West of Anarchy By Nate Thayer

Thai Border: A Wild West of Anarchy

By Nate Thayer

Phnom Penh Post

Friday, 20 November 1992

BANGKOK, Thailand-Thai officials, black market traders, and U.N. workers who have operated on the Thai-Cambodian border for years say U.N. efforts to impose economic sanctions against the Khmer Rouge will be virtually impossible to enforce.

The U.N. hopes to pressure the Khmer Rouge into rejoining the deadlocked peace process, in part by sealing the 830-kilometer border, where Khmer Rouge timber and gem concessions add millions of dollars a year to the coffers of the powerful guerrilla faction.

Except for a strip of only a few kilometers near the Thai border town of Aranyaprathet, the central government is not in control of most of the border, from the Gulf of Thailand to Laos.

Aside from the Khmer Rouge, the Cambodian-Thai frontier is home to a powerful plethora of shady businessmen, rebel groups, warlords, fortune seekers, gangsters, and assorted bad guys who have operated without serious hindrance for generations.

Since the days of the anti-French resistance in the 1940s, Khmer rebels and outlaws have used the sanctuary of the mountain and jungle escarpment to fight whoever was in power in Phnom Penh. Scores of other warlords have maintained small armies that control trading routes.

Since 1979 the border has been home to the three Khmer resistance factions. The signing of peace accords in October 1991 resulted in the factions' foreign backers cutting off all supplies, forcing the groups to seek revenue elsewhere.

Now that there is "peace" in Cambodia, some of the rebel armies have embarked on an orgy of lucrative trading. No longer under the control of their nominal commanders, dozens of separate military units are carving out control of their own plots of Cambodia, selling everything from toothpaste to surface-to-air missiles. While some of the trading ends up in the central coffers of these groups, most is controlled by loosely-monitored bands of independent operators.

With the peace plan mandating that the Cambodian armies disarm and turn their weapons over to the United Nations, many of the soldiers have opted for a more profitable alternative. The frontier has turned into one of the biggest arms bazaars in Asia, with thousands of weapons being sold in recent months.

Arms traders recently offered the Phnom Penh Post a selection of SAM-7 surface-to-air missiles at 280,000 Baht (U.S. $11,200) each. Tanks, helicopters, artillery, and assorted light weaponry and ammunition are also available.

Intelligence officials and black market arms dealers say that the border has attracted representatives of a number of groups from around Asia looking for weapons. They say that the notorious Burmese drug warlord Khun Sa recently purchased two surface-to-air missiles, as did anti-Burmese Karen rebels. Anti-government guerrillas from the Philippines and Sri Lanka have also made inquiries, as have representatives from Sikh separatist organizations in India and Muslim separatists from the Burmese-Bangladeshi border.

"I think you should buy them," said the arms dealer with a look of alarm. "Some of the people I am dealing with seem to be very dangerous people. It is better that you have them all.''

Black market traders on the Thai border, who operate easily with Cambodian guerrillas as well as Thai officials, say that processed heroin is available for sale, as are ancient Khmer artifacts looted from temples, and even uranium.

The border has also turned into a freeway for cars stolen in Thailand and slipped over the border, where hundreds of vehicles have showed up in Phnom Penh to be openly sold in the markets. Some are seen with military license plates of the Phnom Penh regime attached to make transport across western Cambodia less difficult at checkpoints.

Across from southeast Thailand, more than a 100,000 Thais and Burmese have crossed the border to seek their fortune in Khmer Rouge-controlled ruby mines, a major source of income for the faction. The miners say that they can carry out handfuls of gems worth millions of baht in their pocket, and they laugh at the thought that the blue-bereted UN peacekeepers will be able to stop them.

Thai Minister of Parliament Thanit Traivut, who represents the border province of Trat adjoining the Khmer Rouge-controlled gem mines, told the Post that 57 Thai companies now operate in the ruby area, with nearly 1,000 earth-moving vehicles. He said that U.N. sanctions could cause the companies, which have invested more than 3 billion Thai baht on equipment, to lose their shirts.

One rai (1,600 square meters) of earth is leased to the mostly small companies at a cost of 2 million baht (U.S. $40,000). Whole divisions of Khmer Rouge fighters have turned into "economic cadre" to provide security, build roads, and check permission papers of the Thai miners. The miners say that no Cambodians are allowed to work in the area.

On the northern borders, controlled by the notorious one-legged Khmer Rouge commander Ta Mok, Thai logging companies said to be linked with senior members of the Thai military have paid millions of dollars for the right to cut logs in Cambodia.

The Thai government has sold the rights to 17 entry points to Thai companies who in turn are given the right to tax logs coming into Thailand. Senior Thai officials are reportedly on the receiving end of some of the profit.

According to traders, the highly-secret Thai intelligence unit known as 838, which was responsible for covert liaison and weapons supplies to the Khmer Rouge during the 13-year war against the Vietnamese, receives 40 baht (U.S. $1.60) for each cubic meter of wood that crosses into Thailand.

Through a complicated procedure of payoffs, Thai loggers pay fees of around 5,000 baht (U.S. $197) per cubic meter for soft wood, and considerably higher for hardwoods. Several Thai companies, known to be controlled by Thai organized-crime groups, are involved in the logging concessions, with the sanction of several well-known Thai political figures.

Thanit Traivut, in an interview with the Post, said that UNTAC officials have asked Thailand to be prepared to close the border by the end of the year. He said that Thailand "will request to postpone [implementation of sanctions] until next year in order to allow Thai companies to recoup their losses.''

Furthermore, the Phnom Penh regime is involved in buying logs from their enemies-the Khmer Rouge-paying fees to the Khmer Rouge in many areas in order to transport logs through Cambodia, often to the port at Kompong Som. This adds further complications to the effectiveness of U.N. sanctions, which are not directed at the Phnom Penh regime.

In case U.N. officials are looking for reference points to study in their effort to impose the sanctions, they need look no further than the Thai border to the west with Burma.

There Khun Sa, reputed to be the world's number one opium trader and with a U.S. arrest warrant à la Manuel Noriega on his head, controls a section of Burma from which he exports the drug through Thailand.

Despite the efforts of hundreds of U.S. drug and intelligence agents, and with the stated support of both the Thai government and military, the flow of opium and its derivative heroin continues virtually unabated.

One Thai weapons trader, reflecting on the reaction of the Khmer Rouge if the United Nations attempts to cut its purse strings, said: "Right now the Khmer Rouge do not hurt the U.N. But if the U.N. does that, they will have to kill them. You know, they don't like foreigners anyway."

Another Thai arms dealer, with long experience running weapons through Thai borders with several neighboring countries, said: "It will be easy to order sanctions, but impossible to enforce. The order just comes from air-conditioned rooms. But in the field, too many people are making money."

"See Angkor and Die" By Nate Thayer

"See Angkor and Die"

By Nate Thayer

Phnom Penh Post

Friday, 03 December 1993

Renée Grass died happy here in Cambodia a few days ago after travelling across the world to have her last dream come true.

The 83 year old Belgian woman, frail from the passage of time, knew that she had entered the autumn of her life, several people who were on the tour to Angkor last weekend said. She travelled alone to Cambodia because her dying wish was to see the temples of Angkor.

"She told everybody ' I want to see Angkor before I die' ", said Dr. Xavier Baranger, who was called to treat her after she collapsed and died on November 25 in Phnom Penh.

She arrived in the capital last week and was booked on a tour to visit Angkor over the weekend. Several other travellers and the tour guides suggested that perhaps the trip to Siem Riep and the difficult walk through the temple complex was too strenuous for her, " but she refused their advice because she had this goal," Dr. Baranger said.

Hours after she visited the temples, she became ill, and a special airplane from Aviation Sans Frontier evacuated her to Phnom Penh.

She died the next day in her room at the Hotel Cambodiana, with the doctor and hotel staff by her side.

"I've seen situations like this before, when old people have one last goal in life, and when they have achieved it, they pass away content," said the doctor.

Madam Grass probably didn't know that King Sihanouk completed shooting of his latest film "Voir Angkor Et Mourir" (See Angkor and Die) at the temple complex only months ago.

Renée Grass travelled widely up until her last days. Her passport was full of visas from Argentina to Italy in recent months. She told others on the tour that she had no children and was a widow.

"She told people ' If I die travelling, just cremate me where I am," according to the doctor. Her body was cremated at Wat Lanka here in Phnom Penh on Monday.

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.]

Editor's death rattles press By Nate Thayer

Editor's death rattles press

By Nate Thayer

Phnom Penh Post, Sept 23-Oct 6, 1994

        The Sept 7 assassination of Non Chan, a well-known editor of a
popular Khmer newspaper, came as little surprise to local journalists and
human rights groups.
        The newspaper's staff, which had been openly critical of the
government, had received numerous death threats in recent months.  Its
previous editor resigned in late July after being warned he would be
killed.  The newspaper, Samleng Yuvachun Khmer (Voice of Khmer Youth), had
been officially warned by the government on at least three occasions since
June, and its journalists threatened with arrest, lawsuits, and
confiscation of their equipment if they continued writing articles critical
of the government and its leaders.
        The newspaper, formerly sympathetic to the ruling Funcinpec party,
had been openly critical of Funcinpec leader Prime Minister Norodom
Ranariddh in recent months, accused high officials of corruption and called
for a political solution with the Khmer Rouge to end the civil war.
        Investigators say that the broad daylight killing near Wat Phnom by
uniformed men on a motocycle remains unsolved, but comes amidst a general
crackdown against critics of the government, particularly human rights
groups and journalists.
        Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh has ordered his government to put
a stop to criticism which he says is harming its image and the ability of
the country to attract foreign investment, tourism and vital military and
other aid from donor countries.
        Two high level US delegations arrived last week to discuss military
and other support to Cambodia, which the government views as critical to
waging a fight against the Khemr Rouge and strengthening the government,
which is still wracked with internal disputes after an aborted coup attempt
in July.
        The Post has learned that Prime Minister Ranariddh and Second Prime
Minister Hun Sen have drawn up plans for a major government reshuffle
expected to be announced in coming weeks.  The final details of the
reshuffle have yet to be decided but it could affect more than two dozen
ministers, governors, and military commanders in a shake up designed to
strengthen the hand of the two Prime Ministers after the coup attempt and
to reorganize a military that has proved ineffectual in dealing with the
Khmer Rouge on the battlefield.
        But many of the changes are opposed by the Cambodian People's Party
leadership, which is now deeply split between Hun Sen loyalists and a
strong faction loyal to Party boss Chea Sim and Interior Minister Sar
Kheng.
        Government sources say that Foreign Minister Prince Norodom
Sirivudh, Finance Minister Sam Rainsy, and the commanders of all five
military regions are targeted for removal from their current positions.  A
number of other ministers may also be shifted, senior government sources
say.
        But all sides agree that any shifts will have to be approached
delicately and with some degree of prior consensus between the factions
that make up the goverment to avoid provoking another coup attempt.
        While Ranariddh and Hun Sen are attempting to construct a formula
to consoldiate power and ease tension within government ranks, they are
also threatening key foreign support by cracking down on government
critics.
        "The question of the murder of this jouranlist is something which
shocked us and we deplore it.  It's been the topic of meetings I've had
here from the top to the bottom,"  US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
Peter Tomsen said on Sept 14.  His visit came on the eve of a senior US
military delegation which is tasked with recommending the nature of US
military support now under consideration by Washington.
        "A free press is absolutely essential to a democracy.  If you don't
have a free press then a democratic process is just not possible," Tomsen
said.
        Another editor was killed under mysterious circumstances in June, a
further eight papers have been warned by the government, one editor jailed
for writing articles "causing social unrest" and "dissension that threatens
the solidarity of the leadership", and the government says it is now
preparing lawsuits against five others.
        Minister of State for Information Khieu Kanharith said the day
after Chan's murder:  "If he hadn't been killed, we would have sued him."
        Amnesty International had a different response in a Sept 9
statement. "The unexplained death of this man, and other acts of
intimidation, add to the pressures on journalists to exercise self
censorship.  The right to freedom of expression is at stake in Cambodia, as
journalists have come under increasing pressure in recent months not to
criticize the government."  It added that Non Chan "apparently had no
enemies, personal or financial disputes, [and] might have been killed
because of the articles he printed in his publication."
        Four newspapers have elected to stop printing since the killing and
many of their staff have gone into hiding.  "In this country now, you
cannot say the truth.  If you say the truth you are the enemy," said one
journalist with Samleng Yuvachun Khmer.  "The government is afraid of the
truth."
        Two well-known human rights groups have been threatened by the
government with closure or legal action since the killing of the editor for
insinuating that the killing may have been politically motivated.
        A letter this week signed by the chief of the cabinet of Prime
Minister Ranariddh, Ly Thuch threatened to take action against the
Cambodian League for Defence and Promotion of Human Rights, Licadho.
        The group had signed a joint statement by local human rights
organizations calling for an investigation on whether the assassins were
connected with the government.
        "Your action can be brought to court as it can be considered an
inducement to public disorder and to provoke anarchy,"  Prince Ranariddh's
office said.
        Last week, another well-known human rights group, the Khmer
Institute for Democracy, was threatened with closure after it released a
statement calling for an end to harassment of local jouralists in the wake
of the killing.
        Two days after the murder of Non Chan, the five-year-old daughter
of an official of the United Nations Center for Human Rights was kidnapped,
shot, and dumped in the street near Phnom Penh's Royal Palace.
        Investigators say that the act may have been a simple car robbery,
but privately UN officials have their doubts.
        They say that the center had been receiving threats for recent
investigations over military human rights abuses and were actively
investigating the murder of local journalists.
        They say that the girl Marica Oliveros, a Spanish national, was
shot point blank through the thigh, without any obvious motive or
provocation, after she was kidnapped.
                   

 

Security jitters while PMs away--Nate Thayer

Security jitters while PMs away
By Nate Thayer

(Note: The Phnom Penh Post, and its Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Michael Hayes, at a news conference held by the Cambodian Minister of Information Khieu Khanharith, was informed that a criminal complaint was filed against the Post and Hayes personally for the publication of the below article.  Khanharith said the case was filed by both Prime Ministers and the charges were “disseminating disinformation” and “creating political instability”. After a substantial international reaction, the government never pursued the charges.)

Phnom Penh Post

Mar 24 - April 6, 1995

        The absence of much of the country's leadership while attending
ICORC in Paris earlier this month set off a chain of events reflecting the
deep distrust dividing the three primary factions within the government and
official jitters about activities of critics outside of the government.
        While life in the city remained normal and serene on the surface,
behind the scenes various political power blocs were on the alert for
perceived enemies.  Rumors of possible demonstrations, coup attempts,
prison breakouts and palace intrigue swept government military and
intelligence circles in the absence of the two prime ministers.
        Second Prime Minister Hun Sen left Cambodia to join First Prime
Minister Ranariddh in Paris on Mar 10, making it the first time since last
August that both prime ministers had been absent from the country at the
same time.
        Last August, the two prime ministers insisted at the last minute
that Co-Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sar Kheng accompany
them on their state visit to Malaysia, afraid to leave him in Phnom Penh,
according to government and diplomatic sources.  In his capacity as
co-deputy prime minister, Sar Kheng shares the role of head of government
with Co-Deputy Prime Minister Ieng Kiet in the absence of the prime
ministers.
        But this time, the prime ministers neglected to sign the documents
formally transferring authority in their absence.  Diplomats and government
sources say that for 24 hours until Mar 11 there was no one formally in
power in Cambodia until the leaders were tracked down in France and
convinced to sign the papers.  Meanwhile, Hun Sen ordered his secret police
to monitor closely the telephone conversations, movements and meetings of
Sar Kheng while the second prime minister was overseas, according to senior
govenment sources.
        On Saturday, Mar 11, Sar Kheng dispatched "several hundred"
security personnel on high alert to monitor "unusual movements around the
city by military [personnel and] because of rumors of demonstrations or
coup attempts," according to sources close to him.
        In separate events, the military was put on alert and large numbers
of troops were dispatched by different political leaders--often without
informing or coordinating with each other--in preparations to put down
possible disturbances.
        Co-Defense Minister Tea Chamrath on Mar 22 denied that there was
any unusual military activity.  "There are no troop movements, everything
is normal," he told the POST, saying that there was no increased state of
alert. But several other senior officers confirmed a "state of alert,
precautionary measures because of rumors of demonstrations."
        Sar Kheng was not informed of hundreds of provincial based forces
loyal to Hun Sen who were secretly brought in from the provinces on Sunday,
Mar 12 and remained stationed at press time on key roads on the outskirts
of Phnom Penh waiting for orders to enter the city in case of disturbances.

        "We were ordered to come here to protect against a possible coup
attempt by the CPP," said one soldier interviewed by the POST in a
frightened whisper,saying his commander had ordered absolute secrecy of
their mission.  His unit of 300 was brought from Kompong Cham and stationed
at a pagoda 12 kilometers north of Phnom Penh in Bak Kheng village.  "We
were told that if nothing happens in two weeks we wil go back, but there
might be another time."
        As well, 300 "special troops" brought in from Kampot are located on
Route 3 on the outskirts of Phnom Penh for similar purposes, said a senior
military general, "They are the troops of the second prime minister," he
said.  Other similar strike forces are located on other major routes
entering the city, say military and diplomatic sources, but no clear figure
of exactly how many could be confirmed.
        Senior Hun Sen loyalists in the military insist they had strong
evidence that a demonstration was scheduled for Thursday, Mar 16 by
"military personnel, intellectuals, and students.  Their slogans were the
necessity of national reconciliation, support the King, and oppose
corruption," according to a senior diplomat with close ties to the CPP.
Hun Sen loyalists inside the military assured diplomats:  "The CPP is fully
aware of the situation and it is completely under control.  Nothing will
happen."
        "We were told there was a plan for demonstrations or coups against
the government so that is why there are troop movements," said a perplexed
senior diplomat, "but maybe the main reason is simple distrust among the
factions in the leadership."
        On Tuesday, Mar 14, CPP strongman Chea Sim requested an audience
with the King and informed him of possible coup attempts in the making.
One source quoted Chea Sim as telling King Sihanouk, "According to the
rumor there will be a coup and this coup will come from the Royal Palace.
But, of course, we don't believe you are involved."
        Said a diplomat close to the CPP: "The meaning of Chea Sim's visit
to King Sihanouk was:  'If you [should] dare do something, the reaction
will be very strong.' "
        Within 48 hours Sihanouk abruptly announced that he would be
departing for Beijing for medical reasons, citing test results from doctors
at the Pasteur Institute that required follow up by Chinese doctors.  But
sources close to the King acknowledge that "The King is not happy that
people are using his name.  he is accused of joining Sam Rainsy or Son Sann
or trying to make a coup.  He doesn't want to be forced to be involved or
be seen as a mastermind."  The King departed for Beijing Mar 22.
        At the same time, rumors of an attempted prison breakout of
convicted coup plotter Sin Sen from Phnom Penh's T-3 jail led to secret
police cordoning off the jail on Mar 16 and reinforcements sent to beef up
prison security, ordered by Funcinpec Co-Minister of Interior You Hokry.
Sources close to Sar Kheng say that he was not informed of the security
reinforcements at T-3 until afterwards.  "You Hokry ordered Funcinpec men
to be on alert," said a senior govenrment source close to You Hokry, "He
does not trust Sar Kheng or Hun Sen--so he ordered his own troops to be on
alert, not just T-3 but all over the city.  You Hokry has no confidence in
anyone, that is clear."
        According to sources close to You Hokry, he received intelligence
around Mar 13 that guards at T-3 were "preparing to look the other way" as
an attempt would be made to breakout Sin Sen.  You Hokry dispatched 40
additional plain clothes guards on Mar 16, bringing to a total of 90 the
number of guards at the prison by the end of the week.  Roads around T-3
were blocked to traffic, and undercover security patrols remained heavy at
press time.  All visits to Sin Sen by family and doctors were suspended ,
according to prison officials.  You Hokry acknowledged the increased
security at T-3, when contacted by the POST on Mar 22, but deemed it a
"routine precaution; it is normal,"  he said.
        The last time Hun Sen was in Paris in August for medical treatment,
accused Sin Sen coup collaborator Sin Song escaped from prison under
circumstances that strongly suggest official assistance from sectors of the
government, government and diplomatic sources agree.
        The backdrop to all these high level official jitters are persistent intelligence reports that there may be further disturbances,including Khmer Rouge terrorist attacks, in Phnom Penh around the Khmer New Year and 20th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge victory in
mid-april.   Rumors of secretly planned demonstrations that openly confront
the government and call for a return to power of the king abound.
        Government intelligence sources say they have firm evidence that
the Khmer Rouge have infiltrated explosives and special units into Phnom
Penh in recent weeks for such a purpose. "We know that the Khmer Rouge have
smuggled at least two 107 rockets from Kompong Thom, but we lost track of
them outside of Phnom Penh.  We do not know where they are now," said a
senior government official.
        One hundred seven mm rocket launchers are a portable weapon with a
firing range of seven kilometers, and officials fear that the rebels may
fire them into the city, according to sources.
        But even many of the senior government sources say that in fact
there is little hard evidence that disturbances are planned.  "The one
thing that is sure is that nobody trusts each other.  That is very clear,"
said one senior government official.
        Other officials say that the insistence that antigovernment
activity is imminent may be just pretext to use to crackdown on dissent
within the government which has greatly angered senior officials in recent
months.  'It's like they're preparing public opinion," said an official in
reference to official intelligence of demonstrations of khmer Rouge
terrorism.  "These rumors of manifestations ["demonstrations"]  are mainly rumors with no substance when you look behind each one.  They may be creating an atmosphere to use as a pretext to crackdown."  He cited the constitutional allowance for the prime ministers
to "declare a state of emergency" in the case of civil unrest.
        Human rights officials say that the prime ministers' call to shut
down the UN Centre for Human Rights, the numerous censures of opposition
press in recent months, and the legal preparations by the government to
charge maverick MP Sam Rainsy with what ammounts to treason, are the
beginning of an official effort to put an end to criticism of the
government that leaders say undermines its image at home and abroad as a
democratic country.
        On the night of Mar 22, 15 armed men from the government's
Bodyguard Protection Unit came to Rainsy's house and ordered Rainsy's
bodyguards to return to their barracks.  Interior Minister You Hokry
confirmed later that night that the move was an official order.  "It is not
the job of the government to protect MPs," he said.
        The bodyguards were the same personnel who had protected Rainsy
before he was sacked last September as finance minister.  Senior government
officials say it is part of an officially sanctioned campaign of
intimidation that has been ordered by senior officials to begin against
Rainsy with the objective of frightening him to silence his criticism or
leave the country.  "There will be a show of force.  Rainsy is in big
trouble, real danger," said the official, with close ties to the government
security apparatus.  "They will at first only try to frighten him and his
wife.  But they will do whatever is necessary to stop him in the end."
        The official said that the strategy, led by the second Prime
Minister Hun Sen, is based on the theory that if Rainsy is allowed to
succeed in his criticism it may give ammunition to other government
critics, many now frightened into silence, to speak out.  "If Rainsy is
allowed to win, other MPs could view him as a martyr. Then other voices
will be raised.  It is unacceptable to allow the National Assembly to
become a real democratic institution.  The two PMs must maintain control
over the National Assembly [and] not allow it to be an independent force."

        Prime Minister Ranariddh said last week, "I am sorry Sam Rainsy was
finance minister.  I am sorry he is in Funcinpec.  I am sorry he is a
Khmer."

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.

Ambiguous Alliances: Can the Khmer Rouge survive Pol Pot? Nate Thayer

Ambiguous Alliances: Can the Khmer Rouge survive Pol Pot? (Authors note: This article was published the day before Hun Sen launched a succesful coup deposing co-PM Ranariddh)

Far Eastern Economic Review

By Nate Thayer in Phnom Penh
July 3, 1997
It's the philosopher's classic conundrum-in reverse. From the dense jungles of northwestern Cambodia has come the sound of a giant tree falling. But since nobody in Phnom Penh has seen it happen, nobody's certain it has.

              Now, internal Khmer Rouge documents obtained by
              the REVIEW throw the first clear light on the
              bizarre developments surrounding Pol Pot's
              recent "arrest" by former loyalists-and on the
              path the rebel movement aims to take towards
              political legitimacy. The documents suggest that
              the events of early June were precipitated by a
              deal struck in May, after three months of secret
              negotiations, between moderate elements of the
              Khmer Rouge and the Funcinpec party of First
              Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh.

              The deal, in turn, is rooted in the long-running
              feud between Cambodia's two premiers, both of
              whom are jockeying for alliances ahead of
              general elections scheduled for 1998. It seeks
              to unite the disparate political and military
              forces-Funcinpec, opposition leader Sam Rainsy's
              Khmer National Party and the Khmer
              Rouge-arraigned against the Cambodian People's
              Party of Second Prime Minister Hun Sen. The
              rivalry between the two prime ministers may
              offer the Khmer Rouge an opportunity to return
              to the legitimate political arena, analysts say.

              The two premiers recently made a rare display of
              solidarity when they appeared together on June
              21 to announce the seizure of Pol Pot and agreed
              that he should be brought before an
              international tribunal. But seasoned Cambodia
              watchers say the two men were putting on a show
              for an international audience. Behind the public
              smiles, they say, the Ranariddh-Hun Sen rivalry
              remains intense. Indeed, some political analysts
              worry that the shifting alignments in Phnom Penh
              could eventually throw the country back into
              civil war.

              Ranariddh's courting of the Khmer Rouge is rich
              with irony. In 1970, his father, Prince Norodom
              Sihanouk, had formed a similar alliance with a
              relatively unknown Pol Pot. At the time, their
              common enemy was the United States-backed Lon
              Nol regime.

              In 1970, the Khmer Rouge needed Sihanouk's
              prestige to emerge from the jungles and onto the
              political stage. Now, the rebels are banking on
              Ranariddh's legitimacy to revive their fortunes.

              But there is one crucial difference: Funcinpec
              cannot ally itself with a Khmer Rouge that
              includes the widely reviled Pol Pot. Sources
              close to the negotiations say the Khmer Rouge
              leadership was told they would have to separate
              themselves from Pol Pot in order to make the
              alliance palatable for local and international
              consumption. The 69-year-old guerrilla leader
              apparently went along with the deal until he
              realized it would mean his own eviction and
              perhaps exile.

              The Khmer Rouge documents explain what happened
              next. Pol Pot called a meeting of senior leaders
              on the night of June 9, at a jungle encampment
              near his headquarters at Anlong Veng in the
              northern jungle. When former Defence Minister
              Son Sen refused to turn up, a Pol Pot loyalist
              was dispatched to execute him, his wife and 16
              members of his family. Khmer Rouge army chief Ta
              Mok, apparently sensing that a purge was under
              way, slipped out of the meeting and fled into
              the thick jungle.

              The events of the next few days remain shrouded
              in confusion. Pol Pot loyalists maintained
              control of Khmer Rouge Radio at least until June
              12, when they broadcast a report denouncing Son
              Sen as a "traitor." The radio then fell silent.

              It came back to life briefly on June 16, to
              announce that "treason of Pol Pot took place on
              the night of June 9 to June 14 . . . This
              incident was resolved and normalcy restored as
              of June 14."

              One Khmer Rouge document, dated June 18, says
              that the leadership uncovered a plan by Pol Pot
              to kill other senior cadres in an attempt to
              scuttle the deal with Funcinpec. "Pol Pot had
              prepared a plan to kill the just and good
              leaders and cadres who are loyal to our
              principles and our good leadership," says the
              document. Pol Pot's actions, it adds,
              compromised the "internal solidarity . . . and
              the spirit of our agreements." Sources close to
              the Khmer Rouge say this is a reference to the
              deal with Funcinpec.

              There are other, more obvious indications of a
              Funcinpec-Khmer Rouge alliance. Recent Khmer
              Rouge Radio broadcasts have expressed support
              for the National United Front, an anti-Hun Sen
              coalition created by Ranariddh and Rainsy
              earlier this year. In a May 21 internal document
              obtained by the REVIEW, Khmer Rouge President
              Khieu Samphan said "it should be possible for
              all national forces to unite within the
              framework of the NUF." The previous day,
              Ranariddh had announced "a very great welcome"
              to Khieu Samphan and the Khmer Rouge into the
              alliance.

              Ranariddh has since admitted to secretly meeting
              Khieu Samphan on June 1 in the remote northern
              provincial capital of Preah Vihear. In the days
              following Pol Pot's apparent ouster, Khmer Rouge
              Radio openly said the guerrillas would "uphold
              the stand of supporting the National United
              Front with . . . Ranariddh as the chairman."

              Later, after a brief street battle on June 17
              between bodyguards loyal to the two premiers in
              Phnom Penh, Khmer Rouge radio announced an
              "appeal to all combatants," to "unite in
              launching an offensive against the puppets, with
              Hun Sen as the most active ringleader, in an
              increasing vigorous and militant manner."

              Hun Sen's response was to issue Ranariddh an
              ultimatum on June 18: The first prime minister,
              he said, must choose to "join the Khmer Rouge or
              [remain in] the Royal government."

              Earlier, on June 6, Hun Sen said Ranariddh was
              "rescuing the Khmer Rouge from ruin" and "taking
              the wrong route by using the Khmer Rouge's Khieu
              Samphan as a political counterweight to us."

              The effectiveness of that counterweight is far
              from certain. For one thing, there's still
              considerable confusion over Pol Pot's fate. Nor
              is it clear who is in control of the Khmer
              Rouge-and whether the current leadership can
              recast the rebels as a moderate, politically
              acceptable force. Rebel radio has announced that
              "a new era has begun," but has said little about
              Pol Pot's hardline comrades-in-arms.

              For instance, no mention has been made of Nuon
              Chea, Pol Pot's chief ideologue, or of Ta Mok,
              the military commander who directly controls the
              bulk of the rebel troops. Cambodian military
              officials who have been meeting with the rebels
              in recent days say Ta Mok-one of the architects
              of the Khmer Rouge's "killing fields" rule from
              1975 to 1979-was a key figure in organizing the
              purge of Pol Pot. Analysts say it would be just
              as hard for Ranariddh to do a deal with Ta Mok
              as it was with Pol Pot.

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.

 

 

"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."

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.

Cambodian rebels arrive for reconciliation talks-By Nate Thayer

Cambodian rebels arrive for reconciliation talks

By Nate Thayer

Associated Press

Wednesday, November 13,1991

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia —For 13 years, they tried to capture the Cambodian capital by force. On Tuesday, anti-Communist guerrillas flew into Phnom Penh to begin reconciliation talks under a UN mediated peace plan.

Leaders of the Western-backed Khmer People's National Liberation Front arrived for a meeting of the Supreme National Council, an interim government headed by resistance leader Prince Norodom Sihanouk. Sihanouk, 69, is due to arrive, Thursday, and a huge welcome is expected for the onetime king and head of state. Sihanouk was overthrown in a coup by pro-U.S. officers in 1970.

The four-faction Supreme Council is to run Cambodia until 1993, when UN-supervised elections are scheduled. "We are very happy to be home. It is the first time in more than 16 years," said the non-Communist Liberation Front's Cabinet chief, Pen Thol. "Achieving peace was difficult, but reconstruction of our country and building a better life will be much harder," he told The Associated Press.

Cambodia was embroiled in civil war until the Communist Khmer Rouge took over in 1975. The Khmer Rouge ruled for four bloody years, leaving hundreds of thousands of people dead from starvation, disease and executions, until they were ousted by the Vietnamese.

Cambodia's main rebel groups

• Khmer Rouge: The strongest guerrilla group, the Communist Khmer Rouge ruled from 1975 to 1978 with repressive regime believed responsible for 1 million deaths from executions, famine and unrest. Ousted by Invasion of Soviet-backed Vietnamese forces. Estimated strength: 30,000 troops. Led publicly by Khteu Samphan and Son Sen, but there Is speculation former dictator Pol Pot may still be In charge.

• Prince Norodom Sihanouk's Group: Sihanouk's 29-year rule ended In 1970 military coup. From exile, Sihanouk directed noncommunist guerrilla forces with estimated 20,000 fighters. Sihanouk led rebel coalition in peace talks.

• Khmer People's National Liberation Front: Led by former Cambodian Prime Minister Son Sann, It is other major non-communist guerrilla force. Made pact with Sihanouk's forces In 1982.

A coalition of 13 international aid agencies issued a statement Tuesday expressing fears over Khmer Rouge participation in the interim council. The International Cooperation for Development and Solidarity said it was concerned "about the absence of any judicial action" against Khmer Rouge leaders. "The international community has an obligation to the (Cambodian) people to prevent a return to the human rights abuses of the 1970s," it said.

The Liberation Front guerrillas fought from the jungles along the Thai border for years,' hoping to topple the pro-Hanoi government. The guerrillas were in a loose coalition with the Khmer Rouge and a group loyal to Sihanouk.

An advance team from Sihanouk's followers has already arrived in Phnom Penh. The Khmer Rouge are to arrive next week •

A UN-brokered peace accord signed in Paris last month officially ended the conflict and set in motion an international effort to monitor the cease-fire, disarm the combatants, help reconstruct this country of 6 million residents and organize elections.

The truce itself has gotten off to a rocky start, with all factions trading accusations of violations. "We cannot build trust after 13 years of fighting overnight," said Pen Thol. "If we all work sincerely, the interests of the country and the people can come to a common ground."

Also arriving Tuesday was the French general who will head the advance UN military contingent observing the truce. He promised to deal with the hundreds of thousands of mines littering the countryside from years of war.

Meanwhile, curious onlookers continued to gawk at the Phnom Penh villa where the first UN troops are staying. The Australians staying there said Cambodians were particularly puzzled by a flag depicting a kangaroo in boxing gloves.

Cambodia talks to move to capital-By Nate Thayer

Cambodia talks to move to capital

By Nate Thayer

Associated Press

Wednesday, June 26,1991

 

PATTAYA, Thailand — Prince Norodom Sihanouk said the three Cambodian rebel factions agreed Tuesday that the unity commission negotiating a settlement of the 13-year-old civil war should move to the capital.

No timetable was set, but he suggested the move to Phnom Penh could come this summer. Sihanouk, the former ruler of Cambodia who heads a guerrilla group, said the three rebel groups and the government were trying to settle how to monitor their latest agreement on a cease-fire. The truce pact was signed Monday.

Tuesday's agreement to establish the headquarters of the Supreme National Council in Phnom Penh came on the second day of peace talks between the three-party rebel coalition and the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen. "When Hun Sen gives me the signal, I will go immediately to Phnom Penh, perhaps in August," Sihanouk said. "We have achieved our national reconciliation and Phnom Penh does not belong exclusively to Mr. Hun Sen."

There was no immediate comment from the other participants at the talks. The council is comprised of representatives of the government and the guerrilla groups —Sihanouk's force, Son Sann's Khmer People's National Liberation Front and the Communist Khmer Rouge.

The council was formed to negotiate the implementation of a UN Security Council peace plan, which the government thus far has partly rejected. After a settlement, the council is supposed to help guide the nation in the period before UN-supervised elections.

Sihanouk said the members of the council would take their own armed guards to Phnom Penh. The rebel leaders have not been in Phnom Penh since they fled the Vietnamese invasion force that entered the capital in late 1978, drove out the Khmer Rouge regime and installed the current government. "From now on, the Supreme National Counc.il is operational," Sihanouk told reporters. "The Cambodian nation at last has a unified government.. . . There is a cease-fire and cessation of arms supplies, at least on paper, and the headquarters of the SNC is in Phnom Penh."

Previous truces have fallen apart, and Monday's agreement on an indefinite cease-fire left many issues unresolved, including how to halt combat and disarm the opposing groups. The prince said the council had not settled those differences, but added that a monitoring team of government and guerrilla members would be formed and a UN role would be explored. The Khmer Rouge had proposed a 700-man UN monitoring team, but the government apparently rejected the idea. Hun Sen has opposed a UN military force in Cambodia.

A UN monitoring force is called for under the peace plan approved Nov. 26 by the U.N. Security Council. The rebel groups have fully accepted the plan, which also calls for demobilization of the four factions and extensive U.N. involvement in the country's administration and military affairs before UN-supervised elections. Hun Sen's government has rejected disarmament before elections because it fears the Khmer Rouge will cheat. It is demanding measures that would prevent the group from returning to power. Hundreds of thousands of people died of famine, disease or execution during the Khmer Rouge's 3 1/2 years in power.

"Plane crash bomb theory is fading"--By Nate Thayer

Plane crash bomb theory is fading

By Nate Thayer

Associated Press

Friday, May 31,1991

BANGKOK, Thailand — Early indications from the investigation into the crash of an Austrian jet are pointing away from a bomb, experts close to the probe said Thursday. One said speculation now focuses on engine failure. But the investigators all stressed that no firm conclusions could be drawn yet and no possibility had been excluded.

Meanwhile, the jet's "black boxes" were being sent to the National Transportation and Safety Board in Washington for examination, Thai officials said. The Lauda Air Boeing 767 crashed late Sunday in northwest Thailand, 16 minutes after takeoff from Bangkok.  All 223 people aboard the plane were killed. It was the first crash of a Boeing 767 and the 12th worst in commercial aviation history.

Previously, speculation had focused on a bomb. But one European aviation expert close to the investigation said Thursday that "no evidence of any sort of explosive device" had been found so far. "Most attention is now focused on the possibility of an engine implosion," said the expert, speaking on condition of anonymity. He said that one wing, with an engine attached, was found 12 miles from the rest of the wreckage and significantly intact, possibly indicating the wing broke off first and then the plane crashed. However, other experts have said the distance of the wing from the wreckage is in dispute.

In Seattle, Boeing spokesman Jack Gamble challenged the claim that one wing was found 12 miles from the wreckage. "Both the engines and the wings are in the general area of the fuselage that they've found," he said. "The story is out that one wing is 12 miles away from the rest of the airplane, and that's not true."

A U.S. aviation official said investigators would have expected to see the wreckage spread over a larger area if a bomb was involved. "If it had been an explosive device  you would expect a larger area of debris," said Don Smith, regional manager for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration based in Singapore. But he would not speculate as to the cause of the crash.

An official of the Thai Aviation Department who flew over the site said "We are still looking at every aspect including engine failure. There was no shrapnel, no evidence" of an explosive device, he said.

"N. Korea courts the U.S." AP By Nate Thayer

N. Korea courts the U.S.

By Nate Thayer

April 17, 1992

The Associated Press

PYONGYANG, North Korea— North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung, who celebrated his 80^th birthday on Wednesday, was quoted as saying it is time for better relations with the United States. "There is spring between the people of our country and the people of the United States, spring begins," Kim was quoted as saying in the Washington Times. "My wish is to establish (a U.S. Embassy in Pyongyang) as quickly as possible." He also reportedly said North Korea would turn over more remains of U.S. soldiers from the 1950-53 Korean War.

Tens of thousands North Koreans danced in Pyongyang's streets to celebrate Kim's birthday. Fireworks lasted more than two hours, and neon signs flashed socialist slogans.

Meanwhile, a senior official of the North Korean Ministry of Atomic Energy said Tuesday that international inspection of North Korean nuclear facilities could start any time after the end of May. At that time, "when they come for a first inspection, it is their decision; not ours," said Choe Jung-sung. He was referring to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, with which North Korea has concluded a safeguards agreement.

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

“Cambodian guerrillas advance attack” – Associated Press reporter Nate Thayer

“Cambodian guerrillas advance attack”

EDITOR'S NOTE – Associated Press reporter Nate Thayer was the first to travel in an area of Cambodia where guerrillas have claimed recent victories. Returning, he was wounded by shrapnel from a land mine that destroyed the truck in which he was riding and killed the driver.

By NATE THAYER

Associated Press Writer

October 16, 1989

ROUTE 69, Cambodia (AP) —Following their capture of three towns, Cambodian guerrillas have begun a coordinated attack on the only big town blocking their advance to the strategic city of Sisophon, which is controlled by the Vietnam-installed government. The guerrillas claim they already have taken frontline positions at Svey Chek. The offensive began Saturday, and all day the area reverberated with hundreds of artillery blasts.

More than 1,000 guerrillas were seen Saturday trekking on the roads to Svey Chek from the recently captured towns of Thmar Puok, Banteay Chmar and Kandoul. Following them were convoys of people carrying ammunition and more than 50 ox carts full of ammunition, mortars, rockets and anti-tank weapons.

The Khmer People's National Liberation Front claimed it seized Thmar Puok and Banteay Chmar, along Highway 69 leading to Sisophon, and Kandoul, just west of the highway, days after launching a "general offensive" on Sept. 30. A 16-hour, 94-mile tour Saturday of the towns and several captured artillery bases showed they were firmly under the Liberation Front's control. Field commanders said the Liberation Front was attacking Svey Chek in uncommon coordination with its two partners in the resistance coalition, the Khmer Rouge and the forces of Prince Norodom Sihanouk.

The guerrillas are trying to topple the government Vietnam installed after it invaded Cambodia in late 1978. Their attacks intensified after Vietnam made what it called the pullout of its last troops from Cambodia on Sept. 26. Capturing Sisophon, a major military base for operations in northwestern Cambodia, would be a major victory for the guerrillas, who have not seized any areas of such significance.

The tour began at a Liberation Front base along the Thai border south of the Dong Ruk mountains, where the guerrillas showed off captured equipment — more than 1,000 automatic rifles, heavy machine guns, mortars, many cases of anti-personnel mines and teletype machines with Soviet lettering. The journey into Cambodia was on motorcycles, with about 20 Liberation Front guerrillas. It was slow and grueling, covering roads drenched by monsoon rains. Everywhere were captured artillery positions, virtually all capable of hitting Site 2, the Liberation Front's major civilian base just inside Thailand. Three destroyed tanks, four destroyed heavy trucks and heavy artillery guns were abandoned on the roads. Everywhere were former government soldiers who had defected to the guerrilla side. The three captured towns appeared only lightly defended and there were no signs the guerrillas expected a counteroffensive.

U.N., Government Reports Cite Killings by Cambodian Military Officials - Nate Thayer

U.N., Government Reports Cite Killings by Cambodian Military Officials

The Washington Post

August 13, 1994

| Nate Thayer

A Cambodian military network that terrorized political opponents during last year's U.N.-supervised election campaign has continued to murder, kidnap, extort and commit a variety of atrocities under the country's new coalition leadership, according to investigations by the Cambodian government, the United Nations and human rights organizations.

Confidential U.N. and government documents charge that senior military officials in western Cambodia, including the commanders of elite intelligence units, have set up secret detention centers, tortured and killed prisoners who were held without charge, engaged in criminal rackets and practiced cannibalism.

The detention centers were ordered closed two years ago by a U.N. peacekeeping and administrative mission, but they have continued to operate as part of a network that has turned increasingly from political repression to criminal money-making activities, the documents said.

In one facility, at least 35 persons have been executed since August 1993, according to the U.N. Center for Human Rights based in the capital, Phnom Penh.

Soldiers involved in the network routinely ate parts of the bodies of executed prisoners and forced other captives to clear mines, a confidential May 10 report compiled by the U.N. center said.

Although the U.N. center's findings have been largely confirmed by other human rights groups and by the government's Military Prosecutor's Office, the coalition government has declined to press charges. Instead, it has denied that two detention facilities exist here and asserted that there is "no witness or evidence to confirm" the execution of at least 35 people.

Human rights investigators said the network has curtailed its abuses lately amid U.N. and government inquiries. They said at least two persons are still illegally detained at a facility at Chheu Kmau, about 20 miles northeast of this western provincial capital. Another detention site, a room at the Battambang provincial military headquarters, apparently is no longer in use, investigators said.

Most of the implicated senior officers continue to control military intelligence operations in key western provinces and have even been promoted.

The same units and leaders were involved in the killings of numerous political opposition party workers in 1992 and 1993, according to confidential reports of the U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia, or UNTAC, as the former peacekeeping mission is known. Since then, the units have also killed suspected petty criminals and agents who fell from favor, investigators said.

The accused officers belonged to the army of Cambodia's former communist government, which lost the U.N.-supervised elections in May last year. The army was reconstituted as the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, but large parts of it remain intact under the old leadership.

In its May 10 report, the U.N. center said it had "investigated and documented a series of murders and other criminal activities attributed to a military intelligence unit designated S-91. The investigation established beyond a reasonable doubt that several of the highest military intelligence officers in the province, including the leadership of the agency, were directly responsible for these murders."

In August 1993, an UNTAC report said that despite a U.N. operation to close a secret S-91 detention center a year earlier, the unit "once again uses the same building for interrogation and torture, continues to have the same leadership and continues to conduct illegal activities including abduction, torture and summary killing."

U.N. investigators reported that in August 1992, the chief of S-91, Gen. Toan Saveth, ordered the execution of three former antigovernment guerrillas after learning that UNTAC was going to visit the secret prison in which they were held.

Saveth, the regional military intelligence chief for Battambang and two neighboring provinces, was arrested recently after an unrelated incident in which he shot at police who tried to stop him at a checkpoint.

Other officers implicated in human rights violations by U.N. and other reports include Saveth's deputy, the chief of staff of the Fifth Military Region and the head of the region's Special Intelligence Battalion.

The U.N. report, which has been distributed to senior Cambodian government leaders, said investigations had established the officers' "direct responsibility in these illegal detentions and murders." It said top political, military and police authorities in the province knew of these activities but made no real effort to stop them.

The royalist party Funcinpec won the 1993 election in Battambang, but the coalition arrangement allowed the former ruling People's Party to keep control of the province. The officials who kept posts include the controversial governor, Ung Sami, a nephew of powerful People's Party chairman Chea Sim.

The U.N. Human Rights Center described the Chheu Kmau detention site, at which it documented 35 killings, as merely a "discovered island in the archipelago of criminal activities" in the province. It said military personnel were using their "wide and uncontrolled powers" to kidnap, rob and execute prosperous traders in addition to real or suspected Khmer Rouge guerrillas.

Although the government denies the existence of the detention centers, the Military Prosecutor's Office had confirmed in a confidential report the S-91 unit's involvement in abductions, executions and cannibalism and asked the Defense Ministry to "control and destroy immediately these two secret camps."

U.N. and human rights sources called the government's report a "coverup" that reflected its anxiety to avoid undermining requests for military assistance from foreign countries, notably the United States, Australia and France.

According to the U.N. Center for Human Rights, several eyewitnesses said military personnel at Chheu Kmau regularly cooked and ate the livers of executed prisoners.

Khmer Rouge leader returns, is beaten by Cambodian mob -Nate Thayer

Khmer Rouge leader returns, is beaten by Cambodian mob

Chicago Sun-Times

November 27, 1991 | Nate Thayer

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia An angry mob screaming "Dog!" and "Murderer!" today surged past police and beat a top leader of the Khmer Rouge, the Communist guerrilla group whose reign of terror in the 1970s left hundreds of thousands dead.

The government ordered in armored personnel carriers to evacuate Khieu Samphan, the right-hand man to top Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, as the crowd prepared to lynch him. Khieu Samphan and Son Sen, another Khmer Rouge leader, and their aides were flown back to Bangkok, Thailand.

Bleeding from the head and chest, Khieu Samphan cowered in a bedroom as security officers prevented him from being strung up by a wire tied to a ceiling fan.

"Please help me, please don't leave me," he pleaded, asking three foreign photographers to say in the room.

Only hours earlier, Khieu Samphan ended his exile and returned to Phnom Penh to take part in a UN-backed plan to end 13 years of civil war between the Khmer Rouge, its two non-Communist guerrilla allies and the government Vietnam installed after invading Cambodia in 1978.

The attack delayed what would have been the first meeting of a national reconciliation council and appeared to jeopardize a UN-brokered peace accord signed last month in Paris by all four warring factions.

The government, in a statement carried by its official news agency, said it remained fully committed to the peace pact. Under the accord, a Supreme National Council led by Prince Norodom Sihanouk would help pave the way for elections in 1993.

More than 10,000 angry demonstrators converged on the villa housing the Khmer Rouge delegation today after the 60-year-old Khieu Samphan's return. Khieu Samphan was one of the prime architects of the Khmer Rouge's murderous regime, which killed hundreds of thousands of people as the group tried to turn the country into a vast rural commune. Khieu Samphan is now the group's president.

After storming and ransacking the villa, the mob broke into the second-story room where Khieu Samphan was hiding. Reporters saw him huddled against a wall, wearing a steel helmet and bleeding profusely. He apparently had been struck by a rock.

As thousands of protesters ringed the house, six government armored personnel carriers moved into position outside. One backed into the front entranceway and Khieu Samphan, with several other members of his delegation, clambered onto the back of the vehicle.

Khmer Rouge Attack Train In Cambodia - The Washington Post

Khmer Rouge Attack Train In Cambodia

The Washington Post

July 29, 1994 | Nate Thayer

Suspected Khmer Rouge guerrillas this week blew up a train, gunned down passengers and abducted scores of people including three Western tourists, government officials and diplomats confirmed today.

The attack Tuesday on a passenger train bound for the southern port city of Sihanounkville left at least nine people dead, the officials said. After blowing the train up with mines about 80 miles south of the capital, the gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons on cars packed with up to 1,000 civilian passengers, then marched scores of people off into the jungle, investigators said.

Most of the Cambodian hostages were later released, but three Western tourists - from France, Australia and Britain - and three Vietnamese apparently were taken hostage, diplomats and railroad officials said.

The attack came a month after Cambodia passed legislation outlawing the Khmer Rouge following the breakdown of peace talks in early June. The legislation effectively ended hopes of a political settlement with the rebel faction, which has been waging a low-intensity guerrilla war off and on for 15 years since being ousted from power.

During nearly four years of brutal rule after seizing power in 1975, the radical Communist Khmer Rouge presided over the deaths of more than 1 million Cambodians. The faction boycotted U.N.-sponsored elections held in May 1993 under a $2 billion U.N. peace plan. In recent months, the guerrillas have stepped up activity against the shaky, year-old coalition government of former battlefield enemies that emerged from the elections.

According to intelligence sources here, leaders of the Khmer Rouge have ordered their combatants to capture foreigners to pressure the international community to halt support for the young government.

The Khmer Rouge may be targeting Westerners from countries accused of backing the new government, including the United States, Australia and France, the sources said. Vietnam, which invaded Cambodia and drove the Khmer Rouge from power in 1979, has long been a hated enemy of the group.

Earlier this month, Australian and British investigators announced that skeletal remains found in the same area as the train attack were believed to be those of two young women and a man from Britain and Australia who were abducted by suspected Khmer Rouge guerrillas in April.

An American medical volunteer was captured by the Khmer Rouge in the same area in March, but she was released more than a month later.

In June, two Belgian tourists disappeared in an area under Khmer Rouge control in northwestern Cambodia. Their fate remains unknown.

Earlier this month, a team of 90 U.S. military personnel arrived in Cambodia to begin repair work on a highway and bridges in the vicinity of Tuesday's train attack. The Americans also plan to train Cambodians in clearing land mines.

In an interview last month, a senior Khmer Rouge official warned that U.S. military personnel would be considered targets "whose safety we cannot guarantee" if they were deployed in Cambodia.

U.S. officials have expressed concern about the team's safety in view of the latest violence.

Bandits, including members of the Cambodian army, also have been known to attack and rob trains and motor vehicles in Cambodia. The area in which Tuesday's train attack occurred, however, has long been dominated by the Khmer Rouge.

In response to last month's legislation formally outlawing the group, the Khmer Rouge declared a provisional government based in a remote jungle zone, effectively partitioning the country. Analysts said the result is likely to be an increase in fighting.

Ousted Cambodian Prince Seeks Foreign Supporters; Ranariddh Criticizes U.S. Response to Coup - The Washington Post

Ousted Cambodian Prince Seeks Foreign Supporters; Ranariddh Criticizes U.S. Response to Coup

The Washington Post

August 15, 1997 | Nate Thayer

As Cambodian leader Hun Sen consolidates his power in Phnom Penh following a successful coup there last month, the rival he ousted is stepping up efforts to rally international opposition to the takeover and is openly criticizing the Clinton administration's response.

Prince Norodom Ranariddh, whom Hun Sen deposed as first prime minister in the coup on July 5 and 6, called on the United States to take a tougher stand on Cambodia and reveal what it knows about possible terrorism, drug trafficking and human rights violations by Hun Sen's supporters.

In an interview here on Monday, Ranariddh said Hun Sen's takeover of the shaky coalition government will not lead to greater stability in Cambodia, as some U.S. officials have theorized, but to a renewal of that nation's long-running civil war and a new lease on life for the notorious Khmer Rouge guerrillas. "I have clearly warned the U.S. if you do not help me put pressure on Hun Sen, you will have civil war -- a bloody civil war -- and you cannot help but have the participation of the Khmer Rouge," Ranariddh said at the house of Cambodia's ambassador to Thailand, a member of the prince's royalist party, known as Funcinpec. "The Khmer Rouge are coming back, but they are coming back as nationalists, as patriots, not as killers." While Hun Sen's coup was aimed at scuttling a political alliance between Funcinpec and remnants of the Khmer Rouge, it has driven the royalists and the rebels together militarily as they try to defend territory in northwestern Cambodia from attack by Hun Sen's forces. In response to the coup, the Khmer Rouge has stepped up its condemnation of Hun Sen as a "puppet" of neighboring Vietnam, which installed him in power after the Vietnamese invaded in 1979, ending nearly four years of bloody Khmer Rouge rule under Pol Pot. Because of Cambodians' widespread fear and resentment of Vietnam, a historical adversary, the Khmer Rouge propaganda appears likely to strike a more responsive chord in the wake of the coup, particularly since the group formally broke with Pol Pot in a show trial on July 25. In the interview, an emotional Ranariddh accused Washington of ignoring human rights violations by Hun Sen, notably a March 30 grenade attack that killed at least 17 people and wounded more than 100 at an opposition political rally in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital. Because the injured included an American, Ron Abney of the Washington-based International Republican Institute, an FBI team was sent to investigate. It has produced an internal report that implicates a bodyguard unit loyal to Hun Sen, government sources have said. However, according to other sources close to the investigation, the report is not being released because of U.S. concerns that it would upset internal political stability in Cambodia. "We have to talk about the grenade attack," Ranariddh said. "President Clinton must release the FBI investigation. They know Hun Sen is a terrorist, but why are the Americans hiding the information, protecting Hun Sen?" Ranariddh also accused Washington of concealing connections between Hun Sen and suspected drug traffickers who have bankrolled his projects and helped fund last month's coup. "We should bring Hun Sen to an international trial," Ranariddh said. "They are terrorists, they are drug traffickers, and they have committed crimes against humanity." At least 41 of Ranariddh's supporters were tortured and executed following the coup, and hundreds more are missing, according to international human rights groups. Soldiers have taken scores of bodies to Buddhist temples and incinerated them, the groups say. "My priority is a political struggle, but the people will not let such a regime last," Ranariddh said. "With or without Ranariddh, Cambodia will have a resistance. It is not a problem between Hun Sen and Ranariddh. It is a problem between dictatorship and democracy." He added, "It will be a big mistake if the world community thinks strengthening Hun Sen will mean stability." Ranariddh's Funcinpec party "is now in the process of reorganizing militarily and politically," he said. Facing an arrest order by Hun Sen if he returns to Cambodia, Ranariddh vowed to go to Funcinpec-held territory in the country's northern jungles if the fighting continues. When his military commanders call him, he said, "I will not hesitate for one second to go back to lead the resistance."

Cambodians OK new step toward peace

Cambodians OK new step toward peace

Chicago Sun-Times

June 25, 1991 | Nate Thayer

PATTAYA, Thailand Cambodia's warring factions moved another step toward peace Monday when they signed an agreement under which they would stop receiving foreign arms.

The accord also put in formal wording a truce declared Sunday between the Vietnam-installed government in Phnom Penh and the three guerrilla groups.

Despite the moves, the quest for a lasting end to the 12-year-old civil war faced major obstacles. Previous cease-fires have fallen apart, and the new pact left unresolved such issues as how to halt the combat and disarm the fighters.

"The declaration is one thing. The implementation is another," cautioned Prince Norodom Ranariddh, son of the resistance leader, Prince Norodom Sihanouk.

The 12 members of the Supreme National Council, from the Cambodian government and guerrilla factions, signed the five-point pact on the first day of talks at this beach resort near Bangkok. The national council seeks to implement a United Nations Security Council peace plan drafted late last year. The talks have been mired by bickering over the role of the world body and other issues.

Under the peace plan as drafted, the UN would be extensively involved in Cambodia's administration and military affairs before elections.

The rebels have accepted the plan, but the Cambodian government has rejected demobilization before elections are held and is demanding measures to prevent any takeover attempt by Communist Khmer Rouge rebels.

Sihanouk denounced Prime Minister Hun Sen's reservations about the peace proposal. Sihanouk said a UN representative told him the UN Security Council would not monitor the truce or other agreements unless the entire plan was accepted.

"Sihanouk is putting the squeeze on Hun Sen," one diplomat said, on condition of anonymity. "He knows that Hun Sen knows you cannot have a cease-fire and cessation of arms without the UN plan."

The Supreme National Council said Monday it would "implement the unlimited cease-fire and undertake to stop receiving foreign military aid as from 24th June, 1991." Sihanouk is to direct future meetings of the council and lead a delegation to the UN.

Tycoon Says He Financed Hun Sen Coup; $1 Million Underwrote Cambodian Takeover

Tycoon Says He Financed Hun Sen Coup; $1 Million Underwrote Cambodian Takeover

The Washington Post

July 24, 1997 | Nate Thayer

A powerful Cambodian businessman and suspected drug kingpin says he gave more than $1 million in cash and gold to co-prime minister Hun Sen and his allies to fund a coup that ousted rival government leader Prince Norodom Ranariddh this month.

Theng Bunma, reputedly Cambodia's wealthiest man and a staunch supporter of Hun Sen, told Western journalists in an interview in Phnom Penh last week that he had called Hun Sen during the July 5-6 coup to offer his support. Among those present at the interview was an Australian television news crew, which made a tape available to The Washington Post.

"I gave him {Hun Sen} $1 million to do whatever to control the situation," Bunma told the reporters. "He asked me if I had the money in Cambodia. I said no, but I would send 100 kilograms {220 pounds} of gold in a plane into Cambodia." That amount of gold is worth about $860,000. Bunma, who is president of the Cambodian Chamber of Commerce and owns holdings worth an estimated $400 million in Cambodia, also said he paid three renegade members of Ranariddh's Funcinpec party $50,000 each to support Hun Sen's coup. The tycoon made it clear that he saw the takeover as good for his business interests, but he did not explain why he was revealing a role in bankrolling it. The U.S. government believes that Bunma, in addition to owning a hotel, a bank and an import-export company in Cambodia, is the country's biggest heroin trafficker. In the interview, Bunma reiterated his previous denials of involvement in drug trafficking. "I was accused of being a drug trafficker, and I am telling you, drug trafficking, I really hate that," he said. "I have never done it." In a briefing in Washington Tuesday, however, State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said, "We have reliable reporting that he {Theng Bunma} is closely and heavily involved in drug trafficking in Cambodia." He said the United States "does not have evidence that links Hun Sen himself, personally, to these accusations of narcotics trafficking" but that "we think the Cambodian government can do a lot more to purge itself of obvious corruption in the government, of obvious linkages between . . . members of the government and narco-traffickers." In an interview with The Washington Post in Bangkok Saturday, Ranariddh charged that Bunma and another wealthy suspected drug trafficker, Mong Rethy, have long been bankrolling Hun Sen. "He gets money from them, and they are drug traffickers," Ranariddh said. "I ask now that President Clinton . . . make public the investigation of the {Drug Enforcement Administration} on drug trafficking in Cambodia," Ranariddh added. "The DEA knows clearly." "The mafia is now in charge in Cambodia," Ranariddh declared, saying he was referring to "people like Theng Bunma, who is very, very powerful." During the coup, more than 300 of Hun Sen's troops, backed by tanks, were dispatched to protect Bunma's property. In the interview last week, Bunma expressed appreciation for that action and support for Ranariddh's ouster. "I say what {Hun Sen} did was correct," Bunma said. "Why? One reason. Take the example of my hotel." Ranariddh's troops wanted to destroy it, he said, but Hun Sen "put three tanks and soldiers around to protect it." Bunma said that he gave $50,000 each to three Funcinpec politicians opposed to Ranariddh -- provincial governors Toan Chhay and Duong Khem and minister of state Ung Phan -- to "encourage them" and cement their support for Hun Sen's coup. According to Western military sources in Phnom Penh, Bunma also has provided Hun Sen in recent days with Russian-made Mi-26 transport helicopters to ferry troops to front-line positions in northwestern Cambodia to battle Funcinpec loyalists. The helicopters are owned by Bunma and piloted by hired Russian crews. Intelligence sources say the helicopters also have been used to carry Southeast Asian heroin to Cambodian ports as part of international smuggling operations.

Cambodian peace may depend on UN troops - Chicago Sun-Times

Cambodian peace may depend on UN troops

Chicago Sun-Times

January 2, 1992 | Nate Thayer

1

PHNOM PENH Cambodia could return to war if the United Nations does not send peacekeeping troops and administrators quickly to oversee the fragile peace accord, a U.S. congressman warned Wednesday.

"So far the peace agreement has succeeded in bringing an end to the fighting, but it could very easily fail if UN forces do not arrive soon," said Rep. Stephen Solarz (D-N.Y.), who is on a congressional fact-finding mission to this country.

The Vietnam-installed government and three rebel groups signed a peace accord in October that created a Supreme National Council to work with the United Nations to administer the country until elections in 1993.

All the parties called Monday to speed up the deployment of 10,000 UN peacekeepers.

Officials said a void in political leadership since the peace plan was signed threatens to plunge the country back into conflict.

An inaugural meeting of the reconciliation council was aborted twice by mob violence and instability in the capital.

A crowd beat and nearly killed Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan on his arrival from 13 years of exile on Nov. 27, forcing him to flee the country. The mob was enraged by the Khmer Rouge killing of hundreds of thousands of people during its fanatical Communist rule in 1975-78.

Last month, anti-government riots left at least eight people dead and 16 others wounded.

The government sent troops to regain control of the streets and banned any demonstrations.

Second Thoughts for Pol Pot; Fallen Tyrant Defends His Brutal Regime but Now Wants Cambodia Tied to West - The Washington Post

Second Thoughts for Pol Pot; Fallen Tyrant Defends His Brutal Regime but Now Wants Cambodia Tied to West

The Washington Post

October 28, 1997 | Nate Thayer

In a clearing of the thick teak jungles of northern Cambodia, Pol Pot looked sadly across a wooden table and expressed the wish that his life's work be undone.

"When I die, my only wish is that Cambodia remain Cambodia and belong to the West," said the tyrant who presided over one of the most murderous regimes of modern times. "It is over for communism, and I want to stress that. . . . When I say Cambodia {should} be part of the West, I mean that if you belong to the West, at least there is no fascist regime."

This might seem a strange statement, coming from a man who seized power in 1975 by defeating a U.S.-backed government and who tried to transform Cambodia into a communist agrarian utopia. But it fits with the current position of Pol Pot's captors, who allowed him to be interviewed Oct. 16 as part of an effort to reach out to the West in general, and the United States in particular. Accounts of the interview by this correspondent first appeared last week in the Far Eastern Economic Review and the Wall Street Journal. As unrealistic as this effort might appear to outsiders, the Khmer Rouge remnants led by Ta Mok, 71, a feared guerrilla commander who lost a leg to a land mine, clearly hope that their purge of Pol Pot will encourage support for their struggle against the Phnom Penh government of Hun Sen. First installed as prime minister by Vietnamese occupation forces in the 1980s, Hun Sen forced his way into a coalition government after losing U.N.-sponsored elections in 1993, then overthrew his royalist partner in July. "When the Cambodian people hear our new slogans, they will surely send money to help our struggle," Ta Mok declared in a separate interview, pointing to freshly painted revolutionary slogans on the walls of a meeting hall. Among the slogans were "Defeat to the race-exterminating Vietnamese enemy," "Down with Pol Pot and his genocidal clique" and "Cambodians do not kill Cambodians." While Ta Mok expressed open revulsion for his former mentor, blaming him for the deaths of "hundreds of thousands" of Cambodians during the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge rule and the suffering of millions more, Pol Pot seemed oddly complacent about the former followers who turned against him and sentenced him to "life imprisonment" at a show trial here in July. The revolt against Pol Pot had little to do with the "genocide" that he is accused of waging against his own people during his rule, but was triggered by the massacre of the former Khmer Rouge defense minister and his family during a Pol Pot-ordered purge in June that also had targeted Ta Mok. Although he acknowledged that he is finished, "both politically and as a human being," Pol Pot made it clear he takes comfort from the fact that his disciples are carrying on the driving passion that guided his leadership of the Khmer Rouge for more than 30 years: a deep-seated hatred of the Vietnamese. "We had no reason to kill our own people," Pol Pot said in dismissing the charges of genocide. "But of course things happened that made people suffer." He insisted that his leadership had saved the country from an expansionist Vietnam. "Without our struggle, Cambodia would have been swallowed by the Vietnamese in 1975," he declared. He said his distrust of Vietnam dates back to at least 1970, when he met Vietnamese leaders who, he said, "tried to flatter me . . . but they wanted to assassinate me in order to swallow Cambodia. They asked us to not fight and to wait until they liberated Saigon and then they would come liberate us. I knew then that they wanted to be our masters." It is Pol Pot's obsession with Vietnam, a theme he returned to repeatedly, that allows him to justify to himself all the excesses of his rule. "Everything I have done and contributed is first for the nation and people and race of Cambodia," he said. "Our movement made mistakes like every other movement in the world. We were young. But without our struggle, there would be no Cambodia today." He even claimed that the infamous Tuol Sleng school-turned-prison, where at least 16,000 Cambodians were tortured into signing "confessions" before they were executed, was a fabrication of the Vietnamese. Pol Pot claimed that he first heard of Tuol Sleng from a Voice of America broadcast at a jungle hideout after being driven from power. "People talk about Tuol Sleng, Tuol Sleng, Tuol Sleng, but when we look at the pictures, they are all the same," he said. Referring to the displays of skulls at the site, now a museum documenting Khmer Rouge brutality, Pol Pot asserted, "When you look closely . . . they are smaller than the skulls of the Cambodian people." During the two-hour interview, his first in 18 years, Pol Pot often became annoyed when challenged or interrupted. But he maintained a gentle demeanor, never raised his voice and often looked pained when defending himself against the charges of genocide against his nation. He became animated and seemed eager to talk only when the subject turned to such matters as his health and his family life, and he sought to elicit sympathy for his own tribulations. "You look at me from the outside and you don't know what I have suffered," he said. "If you allow me, I would like to tell you about my sickness." He went on to describe a catalogue of health problems that had been publicly unknown, including serious heart disease, chronic respiratory difficulties that require an oxygen tank by his bed, and a stroke in late 1995 that has left him blind in one eye and partially paralyzed on his left side. "Two or three times I almost died," he said. He complained about scholars who wrote that he was not particularly bright, saying, "That is not entirely accurate. . . . I was not a bad student. I was average." During his student days in France, where he studied radio-electricity from 1949 to 1953 and joined the French Communist Party, "I studied just enough to keep my scholarship," he said. "The rest of the time I just read books." Pol Pot said he was born in January 1925, making him 72, and said he had lied about his age to qualify for the scholarship in France. He previously was thought to be 69. Among his early influences, he said with no apparent irony, was Mohandas K. Gandhi. He said he was never "from the traditional school of communism" and that he was influenced "a little from here, a little from there." Now living his dying days in the forbidding jungles of northern Cambodia, he comforts himself with his radio and his 12-year-old daughter, born of his marriage in the 1980s to a Khmer Rouge porter much younger than he. "I listen to the radio every morning," he said. "The Voice of America. But they don't have much news in the morning. The evening news is better."

Cambodians Describe Atrocities By Hun Sen's Forces, Vow to Resist; Supporters of Ranariddh Flee to Jungle Stronghold - The Washington Post

Cambodians Describe Atrocities By Hun Sen's Forces, Vow to Resist; Supporters of Ranariddh Flee to Jungle Stronghold

The Washington Post

July 28, 1997 | Nate Thayer

After a two-week cross-country trek by motorcycle and on foot, Gen. Nhek Bun Chhay, the most hunted man in Cambodia, straggled into this jungle stronghold with tales of atrocities by government forces and vows to resist the recent coup by co-prime minister Hun Sen.

Wearing flip-flops on his badly swollen feet and Buddhist amulets around his neck, Nhek Bun Chhay held court in shorts last week as he and other royalist commanders laid plans to lead a resistance army against what they described as Cambodia's new dictatorship. Surrounding their conclave near Cambodia's northern border with Thailand were soldiers loyal to the royalist party, known by its acronym, Funcinpec, as well as tanks and artillery.

In the three weeks since Hun Sen deposed Cambodia's other co-prime minister, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, and effectively annulled the results of a 1993 U.N.-sponsored election won by Funcinpec, thousands of refugees have fled here, to Funcinpec-controlled areas near the Thai border, to seek sanctuary and join a political and military resistance. Many have come with horrific tales of massacres and torture. Some, including senior opposition officials, were denied refuge in the U.S. Embassy and other embassies, human rights workers said. In an interview here Friday, Nhek Bun Chhay, formerly the deputy armed forces chief of staff and a top Ranariddh aide, said Hun Sen's forces captured five of his bodyguards and gouged out their eyes under interrogation before killing them. Western human rights officials in Phnom Penh, the capital, confirmed the atrocity. At least 30 of Nhek Bun Chhay's soldiers were executed after surrendering and their bodies were burned with gasoline and tires, the general said. He said he believes about 500 of his troops have been killed. "There are people hiding in the jungle in just about every province," Nhek Bun Chhay said. "I have never seen in my life this kind of violence. The killing is still going on." He said that during his flight, he and his followers fought eight major battles with about 3,000 pursuing troops and that leaflets bearing his picture and offering a $50,000 reward were dropped on villages along the way. "Hun Sen is hunting down our people, killing them, arresting them," said another general, Serei Kosal, who arrived in borrowed shorts and shoeless a week before Nhek Bun Chhay. "Why hasn't the world condemned the coup-makers and acted in support of democracy?" Nhek Bun Chhay and Serei Kosal were among four top Funcinpec officials targeted by Hun Sen's forces during the coup. The two others were captured and summarily executed, one of them after being tortured in Hun Sen's residential compound, according to human rights officials and Cambodian intelligence officers. Serei Kosal said the scattered Funcinpec forces are "fighting for democracy" and desperately need supplies such as hammocks, mosquito nets, canned fish and walkie-talkies. But he vowed to battle on in any case. "If the international community abandons us," he said, "we will fight even if we all die, because we are fighting against dictatorship." During a trip of more than 120 miles through resistance-controlled zones abutting the border with Thailand, other Funcinpec commanders regrouping in the north and northwest expressed similar determination to rally their forces, which now include about 10,000 troops backed by tanks and artillery. Before the coup, Funcinpec was estimated to control about a third of the 87,000-member Royal Cambodian Armed Forces. "We won the elections, but the communists have gone against the will of the people," said Lt. Gen. Khan Savoeun, a Funcinpec loyalist who headed Cambodia's Fifth Military Region before the coup by Hun Sen and his formerly communist Cambodian People's Party. Khan Savoeun spoke surrounded by Russian-made T-54 tanks, armored personnel carriers, heavy artillery and antiaircraft guns -- an arsenal that was not enough to prevent his position from being overrun the next day. While the extent of the killing by government forces since the coup remains uncertain, refugees here and human rights officials in Phnom Penh painted a grim picture of torture and summary executions. They said some atrocities may have been ordered by the coup leaders, many of whom, like Hun Sen, are former members of the radical communist Khmer Rouge movement. Human rights officials said more than 40 senior Funcinpec officials have been executed and that hundreds of other people have been killed in fighting. "We have many cases of bodies found, hands tied behind their back, with bullets in the head," said a Western human rights investigator. "But sometimes we arrive too late for the bodies and only have the ashes. They are literally incinerating the evidence." In a statement from Beijing, where he is undergoing medical treatment, Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk, Ranariddh's father, denounced "unimaginable cruelty" by Hun Sen's forces. "A certain number of so-called `extremist' Ranariddh supporters had their eyes gouged out before they were put down like rabid dogs," he wrote. "Many others were tortured to death in especially diabolical ways." Gen. Chau Sambath, a top military adviser to Ranariddh, was captured while trying to flee the capital by motorcycle. According to human rights officials and Cambodian intelligence officers, he was taken to Hun Sen's personal compound on July 8 on the outskirts of the city and tortured before being executed. The sources say his fingernails were pulled out and his tongue yanked from his mouth with pliers before he was finally killed by Gen. Him Bun Heang, the chief of security for Hun Sen's personal bodyguard unit. Another senior Funcinpec official, Ho Sok, the secretary of state for the interior, reportedly was executed on the grounds of the Interior Ministry by the personal bodyguards of Gen. Hok Lundy, the national police chief and a top Hun Sen loyalist. According to Amnesty International, Ho Sok was captured "while attempting to find a country that would give him asylum." He had taken refuge at the Embassy of Singapore, but was expelled at the request of Hun Sen forces and arrested as he attempted to drive to the luxury Cambodiana Hotel, where many foreigners and Funcinpec officials had sought sanctuary in the days after the coup. An Interior Ministry spokesman confirmed the killing, saying it was committed by "people who were angry with him." "They {government forces} are arresting people everywhere," said Sok Nuon, a policeman from Kompong Chhnang Province. He had shed his uniform and said he had come from central Cambodia the day before and had not eaten in four days. Speaking at this mountain redoubt, where several thousand new refugees have massed, he added: "They are arresting people in their houses, in the jungles, along the road -- anybody they think works for Funcinpec." Several hundred Funcinpec officials, at least 24 members of parliament, journalists for independent newspapers and officials associated with other political parties have fled to Thailand by air, land and sea. Many journalists have received death threats and have left the country or escaped to newly created resistance areas. At least 19 newspapers have ceased publishing. "Soldiers came to my house with rocket launchers looking for my steering committee members," said Sam Rainsy, Cambodia's most prominent opposition politician and head of the Khmer Nation Party. "All my people are in hiding, have fled to the jungle or are out of the country. . . . The soldiers told people at my office, `We will not even let a baby asleep in a hammock stay alive.' " He said the warning reminded him of the language of the Khmer Rouge, whose brutal rule in the late 1970s left more than 1 million Cambodians dead. "We cannot operate any more," Sam Rainsy said of his party. "Democracy is finished." In the wake of the coup, human rights officials and Cambodians opposed to Hun Sen have criticized the response of Western governments, notably those of the United States and Australia, whose embassies in Phnom Penh reportedly refused requests for asylum from some government officials and members of parliament who feared for their lives. U.S. Embassy officials said they had no clearance from Washington to offer political asylum to anyone and claimed they were not approached directly by any Cambodians for sanctuary on embassy grounds. Officials said Ambassador Kenneth Quinn personally sought out senior Funcinpec officials during the height of street battles to offer assistance and that embassy cars were used to ferry some officials to the airport to board evacuation flights. But human rights workers asserted that the embassy rejected their pleas for emergency visas for legislators who were in danger. "It is an absolute disgrace the way Western embassies have reacted," said a Western human rights official in Phnom Penh. "We have begged them to open their gates for people who are clearly targeted for persecution, and the Americans, the Australians, flatly said no. These are the embassies that had pushed people to exercise their rights, have said they supported human rights and free expression and opposition politics. But when these very values were trampled upon and those who exercised their rights were targeted, they did nothing to help." According to human rights workers, among those refused sanctuary in a Cambodiana Hotel ballroom, which the U.S. Embassy rented as a haven for Americans, was Som Wattana, a Cambodian correspondent for the Voice of America, who received death threats in the aftermath of the coup. He has since fled the country. "Our primary concern was to protect the safety and welfare of American citizens," said an embassy spokeswoman. She added, "We were not open for visas during the fighting." Ranariddh, in an interview in Bankok, said, "Hun Sen has ordered the mass execution of members of our elected government. He is responsible for the killings of hundreds of innocent people. . . . Before recognizing this government in Phnom Penh, before shaking their bloody hands, the United States should . . . investigate the killings." Some Western embassies "think that Cambodia is not ready for democracy," said Stephen Heder, an American Cambodia specialist who teaches at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London and who was in Phnom Penh during the coup. "They don't seem to fathom how extraordinarily unpopular Hun Sen is."

Nate Thayer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nate Thayer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Nate Thayer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nate Thayer (born April 21, 1960) is a journalist who interviewed Pol Pot. He was the Cambodia correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review, a respected investigative publication that published from 1946 to 2009. His journalism has focused on international organized crime, narcotics trafficking, human rights, and areas of military conflict.

Nate Thayer discussing Pol Pot's trial, July 1997.

Contents  [hide]  1 Publications, honors and awards 2 Career 2.1 Thayer at Pol Pot's Trial 2.2 Nightline controversy 2.3 Interview with Pol Pot 2.4 Thayer and the death of Pol Pot 2.5 Interview with Kang Kek Iew 2.6 Subsequent work 3 References 4 External links

[edit] Publications, honors and awards

Thayer has written for Jane's Defence Weekly, Soldier of Fortune, The Associated Press and for more than 40 other publications, including The Cambodia Daily and The Phnom Penh Post. Thayer’s reporting earned him The World Press Award, the 1997 “Scoop of the Year” British press award, and the 1998 Francis Frost Wood Award for Courage in Journalism, given by Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York to a journalist "judged to best exemplify physical or moral courage in the practice of his or her craft."^[1] He was a visiting scholar at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University^[2] as well as the first recipient of the Center for Public Integrity's ICIJ (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists) Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting in November, 1998.^[3] 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 factional characters."^[4]

According to Vaudine England of the BBC, "Many of the region's greatest names in reporting made their mark in the pages of the Review, from the legendary Richard Hughes of Korean War fame, to Nate Thayer, the journalist who found Cambodia's Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot."^[5]

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 whom he believed stole his story and deprived him and the Far Eastern Economic Review of income.^[6][7]

Since 1999 Hofstra University's Department of Journalism and Mass Media Studies in the School of Communication has awarded the Nate Thayer Scholarship 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.^[8]

[edit] Career

Thayer was born in 1960^[9] in Massachusetts, the son of Harry E. T. Thayer who was United States Ambassador to Singapore from 1980 to 1985. He studied at the University of Massachusetts Boston. From 1980 to 1982 he was involved with the Boston-based Clamshell Alliance, acting as spokesman during protest events at the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant^{[10][11][12][13]} as well as anti-draft protests.^[14]

He began his career in Southeast Asia on the Thai-Cambodian border, taking part in an academic research project in which he interviewed 50 Cham survivors of Khmer Rouge atrocities at Nong Samet Refugee Camp in 1984.^[15][16] He then returned to Massachusetts where he worked briefly as the Transportation Director for the state Office of Handicapped Affairs.^[17][18] Thayer himself noted, "I got fired. I was a really bad bureaucrat."^[19]

He later worked for Soldier of Fortune Magazine reporting on guerrilla combat in Burma,^[20] and in 1989 he began reporting for the Associated Press from the Thai-Cambodian border.^[21] In October 1989 he was nearly killed when an anti-tank mine exploded under a truck he was riding in.^[22] In 1991 he moved to Cambodia where he began writing for the Far Eastern Economic Review.^[23][24]

In August 1992 Thayer traveled to Mondulkiri Province and visited the last of the FULRO Montagnard guerrillas who had remained loyal to their former American commanders.^[25] Thayer informed the group that FULRO's president Y Bham Enuol had been executed by the Khmer Rouge seventeen years previously.^[26] The FULRO troops surrendered their weapons in October 1992; many of this group were given asylum in the United States.^[27][28]

In April 1994 Thayer participated in (and funded) the Cambodian Kouprey Research Project, a $30,000, two-week, 150 km field survey to find the rare Cambodian bovine known as the kouprey.^[29] Thayer later wrote: "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."^[30]

On July 3, 1994 Thayer was asked help negotiate Prince Norodom Chakrapong's release and safe passage to the airport after the prince had been accused by Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh of plotting a coup d'etat.^[31][32] Thayer was subsequently expelled from Cambodia by Prince Ranariddh, but he returned anyway.^[33]

In early 1997 he was again expelled from Cambodia for exposing connections between Prime Minister Hun Sen and heroin traffickers.^[34][35] Thayer then decided to pursue a fellowship at Johns Hopkins University.

[edit] Thayer at Pol Pot's Trial

Pol Pot´s trial, reported by Nate Thayer, August 2, 1997

Nate Thayer became world famous in July 1997 when he and Asiaworks Television cameraman David McKaige managed to visit the Anlong Veng Khmer Rouge jungle camp inside Cambodia where Pol Pot was being tried for treason.^[36] Thayer had hoped for an interview but was disappointed:

"Pol Pot said nothing. They made it clear and I believed them, that I was to interview Pol Pot after the trial. Pol Pot literally had to be carried away from the trial--he was unable to walk--and I was not able to talk to him. I did try to talk to him... he did not answer any questions, and he did not speak during the trial.^[37]"

Thayer noted, "Every ounce of his being was struggling to maintain some last vestige of dignity."^[38]

Thayer believed that the trial had been staged by the Khmer Rouge for him and McKaige:

"It was put on specifically for us, to take the message to the world that Pol Pot has been denounced. They had reported on their radio, on June 19, that Pol Pot had been purged. No one believed them. After five years of lying over their radio, there was no reason anyone should take what they say credibly. It was clear to them that they needed an independent, credible witness to show what was happening."^[39]

[edit] Nightline controversy

According to Thayer, Ted Koppel of ABC News made a verbal agreement with Thayer to use footage from the trial on Nightline, then violated that agreement:^[40]

"[Koppel] returned home with a copy of my videotape. I gave it to him in exchange for his strict promise that its only use would be on Nightline. However, once he had the copy of the tape, ABC News released video, still pictures, and even transcripts of my interviews to news organizations throughout the world. Protected by its formidable legal and public relations department, ABC News made still photographs from the video, slapped the “ABC News Exclusive” logo on them, and hand delivered them to newspapers, wire services, and television...All of these pictures demanded that photo credit be given to ABC News... The story won a British Press Award for “Scoop of the Year” for a British paper I didn’t even know had published it...I even won a Peabody Award as a “correspondent for Nightline." But I turned it down—-the first time anyone had rejected a Peabody in its 57-year history."^[41]

ABC News responded that they had "agreed to pay Nate Thayer the sizable sum of $350,000 for the rights to use his footage of former Cambodian dictator Pol Pot. Despite the fact that ABC provided prominent and repeated credit and generous remuneration for his work, Mr. Thayer initiated a five-year barrage of complaints coupled with repeated demands for more money."^[42] In 2002 Thayer sued Koppel and ABC News for $30 million in punitive damages and unspecified compensatory damages.

[edit] Interview with Pol Pot

In October 1997, Thayer returned to Anlong Veng and became only the second western journalist (after Elizabeth Becker in 1978) ever to be granted an interview with the former dictator^[43][44] and, along with McKaige, was certainly the last outsider to see him alive.^[45] Thayer recounted the story of his interview with Pol Pot in his book Sympathy for the Devil: Living Dangerously in Cambodia - A Foreign Correspondent's Story.^[46] Pol Pot told Thayer:

"First, I want to let you know that I came to join the revolution, not to kill the Cambodian people. Look at me now. Do you think ... am I a violent person? No. So, as far as my conscience and my mission were concerned, there was no problem. This needs to be clarified...My experience was the same as that of my movement. We were new and inexperienced and events kept occurring one after the other which we had to deal with. In doing that, we made mistakes as I told you. I admit it now and I admitted it in the notes I have written. Whoever wishes to blame or attack me is entitled to do so. I regret I didn't have enough experience to totally control the movement. On the other hand, with our constant struggle, this had to be done together with others in the communist world to stop Kampuchea becoming Vietnamese. For the love of the nation and the people it was the right thing to do but in the course of our actions we made mistakes.^[47]"

[edit] Thayer and the death of Pol Pot

Thayer visited Anlong Veng again on April 16, 1998, only a day after Pol Pot had died. After photographing the corpse he briefly interviewed Ta Mok and Pol Pot's second wife Muon, who told Thayer, "What I would like the world to know is that he was a good man, a patriot, a good father."^[48] Thayer was then asked to transport Pol Pot's body in his pickup truck to the site a short distance away^[49] where it was later cremated.^[50]

[edit] Interview with Kang Kek Iew

In April 1999 Thayer, alongside photojournalist Nic Dunlop, interviewed Kang Kek Iew (Comrade Duch) for the Far Eastern Economic Review after Dunlop had tracked Duch to Samlaut and suspected strongly that he was the former director of the notorious S-21 security prison.^[51] Dunlop wanted Duch to provide clues that would reveal his identity, and Thayer began probing Duch's story that he was Hang Pin, an aid worker and a born-again Christian:

"Then Nate said, 'I believe that you also worked with the security services during the Khmer Rouge Period?' Duch appeared startled and avoided our eyes...Again Nate put the question to him...He looked unsettled and his eyes darted about...He then glanced at Nate's business card...'I believe, Nic, that your friend has interviewed Monsieur Ta Mok and Monsieur Pol Pot?'...He sat back down...and inhaled deeply. 'It is God's will that you are here,' he said."^[52]

Duch surrendered to the authorities in Phnom Penh following the publication of this interview.^[53][54] Dunlop and Thayer were first runners-up for the 1999 SAIS-Novartis Prize for Excellence in International Journalism, presented by the The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, for "exposing the inside story of the Khmer Rouge killing machine."^[55]

[edit] Subsequent work

Nate Thayer has also covered Albania,^[56] Indonesia,^[57] Mongolia^[58] and the Philippines.^[59] In 2003 he reported on the Iraq War in a five-part series for Slate Magazine.^{[60][61][62][63][64]} He also covered the Bangkok 2010 Redshirt riots.^[65][66] He has recently worked for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists' Center for Public Integrity writing a three month investigation on North Korea as a rogue state financed by criminal activity.^[67]

[edit] References

1. ^ "Hofstra forms journalism award selection committee." Long Island Business News, 04/06/98, Vol. 45 Issue 14, p. 19.
2. ^ Dale Keiger, "In Search of Brother Number One," Johns Hopkins Magazine, November 1997
3. ^ ICIJ Journalists: Nate Thayer
4. ^ Maud S. Beelman, "Reporting Across Borders," The Public i: Newsletter of the Center for Public Integrity, Vol 7, no. 2, Mar 1999.
5. ^ Vaudine England, "Leading Asian Magazine to Close," BBC Asia-Pacific News, September 22, 2009.
6. ^ "Your scoop? Nah. It's ours if we want it." The Independent, May 25 1998.
7. ^ Richard Linnett and Wayne Friedman, "Marketing the News: The Selling of Pol Pot," Advertising Age, 11/18/2002, Vol. 73, Issue 46.
8. ^ Hofstra University Student Information Package, Financial Aid Section, p. 45.
9. ^ Philip Gourevitch, The Talk of the Town, “Ink,” The New Yorker, August 18, 1997, p. 25.
10. ^ Randy Shipp, "Antinuclear coalition set for fresh assault on Seabrook," The Christian Science Monitor, May 22, 1980, p. 7.
11. ^ Michael Knight, "1,500 Repulsed at Seabrook Trying to Take Nuclear Site; Two Officers Injured On Easy Ground," New York Times, May 25, 1980, p. 22.
12. ^ "Clamshell Plan to Protest Reactor Move to Seabrook," Boston Globe, Feb 18, 1981, p. 1
13. ^ "250 Protest at Seabrook Nuclear Site," The Harvard Crimson, Wednesday, March 04, 1981.
14. ^ Edward Quill and Richard H. Stewart, "Draft Foes Partly Padlock Post Office," Boston Globe, Jul 23, 1980, p. 1.
15. ^ Ben Kiernan, "Orphans of Genocide: the Cham Muslims of Kampuchea Under Pol Pot," Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, Volume 20, Issue 4, 1988, p. 2.
16. ^ Ben Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79. New Haven: Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0300144345, 1996, p. 264.
17. ^ Frances Robles, "Many Who Depend on The Ride Say They Can't," Boston Globe, Aug 21, 1988 p. 33, Metro Section.
18. ^ Joe Ferson, "Handicapped Criticize MBTA on Van Service: Frequent Delays, Faulty Equipment Cited." Boston Globe, Sep 16, 1988, p. 82.
19. ^ Nate Thayer, "Finding Pol Pot: Nate Thayer's Story-Behind-the-Story." The Public i: Newsletter of the Center for Public Integrity, Vol 7, no. 2, Mar 1999.
20. ^ Thayer, "Finding Pol Pot," 1999.
21. ^ Nate Thayer, "Aid Workers Flee as Cambodia Fighting Intensifies," The Associated Press, 13 September 1989.
22. ^ "U.S. Reporter Injured, One Killed by Mine in Cambodia," 16 October 1989, Reuters.
23. ^ Nate Thayer, "Rubies are Rouge." Far Eastern Economic Review, Feb 7 1991, pp. 29-30.
24. ^ Andrew Sherry, "Nate Thayer vs. Pol Pot," April 5, 2005
25. ^ Nate Thayer, “Montagnard Army Seeks UN Help,” Phnom Penh Post, Sept. 12, 1992.
26. ^ Nate Thayer, "Forgotten Army: The Rebels Time Forgot," Far Eastern Economic Review, Sept 10, 1992, pp. 16-22.
27. ^ Nate Thayer and Leo Dobbs, “Tribal Fighters Head for Refuge in USA,” Phnom Penh Post, October 23 1992.
28. ^ Nate Thayer, "Trail of tears: 'Lost' Montagnard Army Vows to Fight On," Far Eastern Economic Review, Sept 10 1992, pp. 18-22.
29. ^ "Search for the kouprey: trail runs cold for Cambodia’s national animal". Phnom Penh Post, April 2006.
30. ^ Nate Thayer, "Motley crew moves out on jungle mission impossible," Phnom Penh Post, April 22, 1994.
31. ^ Nate Thayer, "Frantic calls from Regent's Rm 406," Phnom Penh Post, National News, 15 Jul 1994.
32. ^ Nate Thayer, "As It happened..." Far Eastern Economic Review, July 14, 1994, pp. 15-16.
33. ^ Philip Gourevitch, "Guns 'N Deadlines," HQ Magazine, Nov/Dec 1997, pp. 116-119.
34. ^ Nate Thayer, "Narco-nexus." Far Eastern Economic Review, April 24 1997, Vol. 160 Issue 17, p. 20.
35. ^ Nate Thayer, “Drug Suspects Bankroll Cambodian Coup Leader,” Washington Post, July 22, 1997.
36. ^ Nate Thayer, “Pol Pot, I Presume,”. Wall Street Journal, August 1, 1997.
37. ^ *"Cambodia: Trial of Pol Pot," interview with Gareth Evans and Tep Kunnal.
38. ^ Philip Gourevitch, The Talk of the Town, “Ink,” The New Yorker, August 18, 1997, p. 25.
39. ^ Keiger, 1997.
40. ^ Kelly Heyboer, "A Journalistic Coup Turns Sour," American Journalism Review, September 1997, pp. 10-11.
41. ^ Nate Thayer, "Freelancers’ Vital Role in International Reporting With the rise of media conglomerates, foreign news has been shoved aside." Nieman Reports, Dec 2001.
42. ^ Jeffrey Schneider, VP, ABC News, quoted in Richard Linnett and Wayne Friedman, "Marketing the news: the selling of Pol Pot." Advertising Age, 11/18/2002, Vol. 73, Issue 46; Section: Briefs.
43. ^ Nate Thayer, "Dying Breath The inside story of Pol Pot's last days and the disintegration of the movement he created," Far Eastern Economic Review, April 30, 1998
44. ^ Becker E. When the War was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution. 1st PublicAffairs ed. New York: PublicAffairs, 1998, ISBN 978-1891620003, p. 516.
45. ^ Nate Thayer, "Finding Pol Pot: Nate Thayer's Story-Behind-the-Story." The Public i: Newsletter of the Center for Public Integrity, Vol 7, no. 2, Mar 1999.
46. ^ Nate Thayer, Sympathy for the Devil: Living Dangerously in Cambodia - A Foreign Correspondent's Story. Penguin Putnam Inc., New York 1999, ISBN 978-0670885763
47. ^ Nate Thayer, "Day of Reckoning." Far Eastern Economic Review, 30 October 1997: pp. 14-20.
48. ^ Thayer, "Dying Breath," April 30, 1998.
49. ^ Gordon Sharpless "Anlong Veng: Normalcy returns to the former Khmer Rouge stronghold," Tales of Asia, July 2000
50. ^ Nury Vittachi, "A brief history of FEER," October 1, 2009.
51. ^ Nic Dunlop, The Lost Executioner: A Journey to the Heart of the Killing Fields. New York: Walker & Company, 2006.
52. ^ Dunlop, 2006, pp. 271-72.
53. ^ Stan Alcorn, "Photography in the Killing Fields," DART Center for Journalism and Trauma, March 2008.
54. ^ Nic Dunlop and Nate Thayer, "Duch Confesses," Far Eastern Economic Review, May 6, 1999; vol 170, no. 3:, p. 76.
55. ^ "Associated Press Team Wins ’99 SAIS-Novartis Prize," SAIS Reports, Johns Hopkins University, April/May 2000, p. 2.
56. ^ S. Jayasankaran, Nate Thayer, "From Logs to Lotus," Far Eastern Economic Review, 12 December 1996, cover story.
57. ^ Syamsul Indrapatra, Nate Thayer, Bertil Lintner, John McBeth, "Worse to come," Far Eastern Economic Review, 162.30 (Jul 29, 1999): 16-18.
58. ^ Nate Thayer, “Forward Steppes,” Far Eastern Economic Review, March 27, 1997, p. 20.
59. ^ Rigoberto Tiglao, Andrew Sherry, Nate Thayer, Michael Vatikoitis, "'Tis the season," Far Eastern Economic Review, 161:52, Dec 24, 1998: 18-20.
60. ^ Nate Thayer, "Live From Baghdad," Slate, March 19, 2003
61. ^ Nate Thayer, "The Bombing of Baghdad," Slate, March 22, 2003
62. ^ Nate Thayer, "Baghdad Gets Scarier," Slate, March 24, 2003
63. ^ Nate Thayer, "More American Bombs, and More Iraqi Defiance," Slate, March 24, 2003
64. ^ Nate Thayer, "The Road From Baghdad," Slate, March 28, 2003
65. ^ "Thai crisis : CTV News Channel: Nate Thayer in Bangkok."
66. ^ Michael Sheridan and Nate Thayer, "Vengeful redshirts threaten tourism: The Thai protest has spawned an underground militant wing in Bangkok," The Sunday Times, May 23, 2010
67. ^ Nate Thayer, profile

[edit] External links

• "Journalist Nate Thayer was on the scene in Cambodia recently when Pol Pot, the leader of the guerrilla force, the Khmer Rouge, was sentenced to life imprisonment in a show trial," NPR Interview, August 7, 1997
• "Continuing Unrest," PBS Interview with Sydney Schanberg and Nate Thayer, June 18, 1997.
• "Cambodia: Trial of Pol Pot," interview with Gareth Evans and Tep Kunnal.
• "Your scoop? Nah. It's ours if we want it," The Independent, 25 May 1998
• "Killing Fields Leader 'killed himself'," BBC News, January 21, 1999
• "70's Torturer in Cambodia Now 'Doing God's Work'," The New York Times, May 2, 1999
• "Former Khmer Rouge leader arrested," The New York Times, Sept 19, 2007
• "Alternative Wasn't There For Hun Sen," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Jan 5, 1999
• Nate Thayer, "Dying Breath: The inside story of Pol Pot's last days and the disintegration of the movement he created," Far Eastern Economic Review, April 30, 1998
• Nate Thayer, "The Road From Baghdad," Slate, March 28, 2003
• Nate Thayer's Interview with Pol Pot on YouTube, Part 1
• Nate Thayer's Interview with Pol Pot on YouTube, Part 2
• Dirck Halstead, "Rewind: Wars and Memories (PART I)" October 17, 1997
• "Educating Nate Thayer by Al Rockoff and Project Pineapple," June 9, 2010
• Andrew Drummond, "The Rebel Who Caught Pol Pot," The Times, July 30, 1997.

View page ratings

Rate this page

What's this?

Trustworthy

Objective

Complete

Well-written

I am highly knowledgeable about this topic (optional)

Categories: 1960 births | American journalists | Landmine victims | Living people | Peabody Award winners | Writers from Massachusetts | War correspondents | University of Massachusetts Boston alumni

• Log in / create account

• Article
• Discussion

• Read
• Edit
• View history

• Main page
• Contents
• Featured content
• Current events
• Random article
• Donate to Wikipedia

Interaction

• Help
• About Wikipedia
• Community portal
• Recent changes
• Contact Wikipedia

Toolbox

• What links here
• Related changes
• Upload file
• Special pages
• Permanent link
• Cite this page
• Rate this page

Print/export

• Create a book
• Download as PDF
• Printable version

Languages

• Deutsch
• Español

• This page was last modified on 29 September 2011 at 19:58.
• Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details.
  Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
• Contact us

• Privacy policy
• About Wikipedia
• Disclaimers
• Mobile view

• 
•