Pol Pot (103 page)

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Authors: Philip Short

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‘Slaves we are’
:
Yi Tan Kim Pho,
Cambodge,
p.113.
310
Along the roadside
:
Picq,
typescript,
pp. 9—11.
Convoys
:
Ponchaud,
Year Zero,
pp. 31–2; Haing Ngor,
Odyssey,
p. 100. Both describe goods being sent to the Eastern Zone (which they assumed, wrongly, meant they were taken to Vietnam). That plunder was also sent to other Zones is clear from the discussions between Zone leaders on how the ‘booty’ should be shared out.
311
Foreign Ministry . . . work for diplomats
:
This account of B-1 is drawn largely from Picq,
typescript.
312
Bank Buildings . . . increasingly close
:
Ieng Sary and Phi Phuon (interviews); Pâng, confession, May 28 1978.
Lived apart . . . chores
:
Ieng Sary, interview.
313
Cathedral
:
Father Ponchaud remembered having been told by an elderly colleague when he had arrived in Cambodia in 1965 that, to Khmers, the Phnom was a site of mystical power, ‘the religious and spiritual nexus, assuring the community of Heaven and Earth’. ‘If ever this country gets a nationalist government,’ the old priest had added,’the Cathedral will be the first thing to go’ (interview). But it was solidly built and took many months to demolish (In Sopheap, interview; Ong Thong Hoeung,
Récit,
p. 31).
Rest of . . . coconut palms
:
Szymusiak,
Stones,
p. 50;Yi Tan Kim Pho,
Cambodge,
p. 227; PinYathay,
Stay Alive,
p. 76; Martin,
Alimentaire,
p. 358; Y Phandara,
Retour,
p. 67.
314
–15
Boot camp . . . hungry all the time
:
Long Nârin, interview. According to Laurence Picq, two students were allowed to return in December 1972 and fifteen more a month later. A third group returned in December 1973. Suong Sikoeun left Beijing in May 1974 (interview).
315
‘There will always . . . kill them’
:
Long Visalo, interview.
316
‘Thin as nails’
:
Ong Thong Hoeung,
Récit,
p. 10.
They told us . . . mentality
:
Long Visalo, interview.
316
–17
How do we . . . reasonable
:
Ibid.
317
–18
Ultimate aim . . . evil
:
Picq,
typescript,
pp. 241; Ong Thong Hoeung,
Récit,
pp. 20–1.
319
That first year
:
Martin,
Alimentaire,
p. 349. See also Yi Tan Kim Pho,
Cambodge,
pp. 74–5; PinYathay,
Stay Alive,
pp. 100 and 130. There was also severe hunger in Siem Reap (Schanberg,
Death and Life,
p. 45), Preah Vihear (De Nike et al., p.95) and no doubt other areas. Laurence Picq at B-I heard reports of starvation for the first time in the spring of 1976 (
Horizon,
p. 67), Sihanouk a few months earlier (
Prisonnier,
pp. 46–7).
320
‘Too much’
:
Chandler et al.,
Peang Sophi,
p. 7; see also Kiernan,
Rural Reorganisation,
p. 52.
Pursat . . . year was out
:
Szymusiak,
Stones,
p. 95; Kiernan and Boua,
Peasants and Politics,
p. 354; PinYathay,
Stay Alive,
pp. 102, 131–2 and 140; Schanberg,
Death and Life,
p. 45.
‘Narrow path’
:
Pol Pot,
Report,
p. 188.
321
Leadership recognised . . .per day
:
‘The rice ration should be two milk cans per person per day . . . If there is a shortage it will affect people’s health, and then the workforce will be reduced’ (minutes of the CPK Standing Committee meeting, Feb. 28 1976, DC-Cam). See also Pol Pot,
Four-Year Plan
(pp. 111–12), which sets the ration at between 1.5 and 3 milk cans per person. Given that these documents, especially Standing Committee minutes, which were circulated to fewer than ten people, were highly restricted and never intended to go further, one may assume that the views Pol expressed were those he genuinely held.
‘Most important medicine . . . among us’
:
.
Tung Padevat,
June 1976; Pol Pot,
Preliminary Explanation,
p. 127.
One free day . . . and up to fifteen
:
Pol Pot,
Four-Year Plan,
p. 112. See also Criddle and Butt Mam,
Destroy,
p. 158; PinYathay,
Stay Alive,
p. 89; Stuart-Fox,
Murderous Revolution,
p. 45; Haing Ngor,
Odyssey,
p. 274; and Kiernan,
Rural Reorganisation,
p. 65.
‘There’s not enough’
:
Pol Pot,
Preliminary Explanation,
p. 158.
322
Those we surprised
:
Quoted in Martin,
Shattered,
pp. 167–8.
Couplet
:
Locard,
Petit Livre Rouge,
p. 175. Keng Vannsak argued that the phrase was intended to be taken literally—‘man was reduced to an object of profit and loss’ (quoted in Burchett,
Triangle,
p. 94).
323
In Samphân’s words
:
Quoted by Long Visalo, interview.
Incantation
:
Forest,
Colonialisation sans heurts,
p. 493.
324
Like the monks
:
Minutes of CPK Standing Committee meeting, June 1 1976, DC-Cam.
Called for ‘renunciation’
:
Ponchaud,
EFA
17, pp. 4–5.
‘Renunciation of feelings’
:
This citation is from Pin Yathay but I have misplaced the reference to the text in which it occurs.
325
The whole aim
:
George Orwell,
1984,
Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1970, pp. 45–6.
‘Entangled’
:
Pol Pot,
Preliminary Explanation,
p. 158.
326
150,000
:
Dossier L01045, Nov. 30 1975, in which an Eastern Zone official complained to Pol that the ‘dispersal strategy’ was being obstructed by Northern and North-Western Zone leaders who were ‘refusing to accept Islamic villagers’ (DC-Cam). See also Stuart-Fox,
Murderous Revolution,
p. 87, and Kiernan,
Eastern Zone Massacres,
pp. 39—41. It may be argued, of course, that ‘dispersal’ was itself a form of racism; but in that case the same label must be accepted for such measures as school bussing in the United States to achieve desegregation. That, too, involved the dispersal of pupils of one race among those of another.
Not racism
:
Serge Thion makes this point well in his essay, ‘Genocide as a Political Commodity’, in Kiernan,
Genocide and Democracy, pp.
171–2.
327
Glasses
:
I owe this detail to Michael Vickery.
Not America
:
Prasso, p. 4. In the same spirit, when Samphán was teaching in the 1960s, he was puzzled that one of his students, an Indian girl from Pondicherry, stayed in Cambodia rather than ‘going home to India’ (I owe this anecdote to Henri Locard).
‘Not hard’:Vann
Nath,
Portrait, p.
24. See also Smith,
Interpretive Accounts, p.
5; Ben Kiernan, ‘Letter to the Editor of
The Times’,
Aug. 11 1977, in
JCA,
vol. 7, 1977, p. 547, quoting Peang Sophi as saying that working conditions in Cambodia in 1975—6 were less arduous than in his Melbourne factory.
327
–8
Even usually critical . . . spend money
:
Pin Yathay,
Stay Alive,
p. 47; Stuart-Fox,
Murderous Revolution,
p. 46; Haing Ngor,
Odyssey,
p. 269; Ponchaud,
Year Zero, p.
183, and
Cathédrale, pp.
236–7; Edwards,
Ethnic Chinese, p.
145.
CHAPTER TEN: MODEL FOR THE WORLD
329
‘Do you intend’
:
Transcript of Mao’s meeting with Khieu Samphân, Ieng Sary, Sihanouk and Penn Nouth, Apr. 2 1974, Chinese Central Archives, Beijing.
‘Don’t be frightened . . . disagreement’
:
Transcript of Mao’s meeting with Sihanouk, Penn Nouth, Khieu Samphân and Khieu Thirith, Aug. 27 1975, Chinese Central Archives, Beijing. According to Sihanouk (
Calice,
Part 2, Ch. 1, p. 3), Kim II Sung also raised with the Cambodians the issue of his return.
331
To say nothing
:
Ong Thong Hoeung,
Récit,
p. 9.
More truthful . . . abroad:
Osborne,
Prince of Light,
p. 230. See also Sihanouk,
Prisonnier,
pp. 17–18, for his account of similar discussions with his family in Europe in December.
December 31
. . .
ridiculous
:
Sihanouk, ibid, pp. 18–19.
333
Diplomatic missions
:
‘Speech by the Party Secretary to the Council of Ministers’, Apr. 22 1976, in Dossier D695, DC-Cam.
‘Bowled me over’. . .furgens
:
Sihanouk,
Prisonnier,
pp. 41, 66 and 70; see also pp. 32–3.
334
Memoirs
:
Sihanouk,
Prisonnier,
pp. 82 and 85.
334
–5
But then . . . react negatively
:
Ibid., pp. 88–9; Minutes of CPK Standing Committee meeting, Mar. 11 1976, Dossier D7562, DC-Cam. Sihanouk referred in particular to the accreditation of Meak Touch, the new DK Ambassador to Vientiane, whose arrival to take up his post was reported by Radio Phnom Penh on Mar. 6. The timing, while not conclusive, supports the view that the credentials issue was an important factor.
334
Untrustworthy
:
These comments were made at a Standing Committee meeting on Mar. 30 1976 (Doc. 32(N442)/T8322,VA: this version gives details not contained in the Khmer-language text, Dossier D693, at DC-Cam).
336
To Pol . . . except us

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