Khmer Rouge
by Rory Byrne
In less than four years, the Khmer Rouge killed a quarter of the population of Cambodia - men, women and children alike. Many were crudely tortured with electric batons, thumbscrews or pliers before being murdered, while others died of starvation or overwork. Now, after years of delay, the UN says it's ready to prosecute the surviving Khmer Rouge leaders, many of whom have been living comfortably in retirement.
Just outside the town of Pailin in western Cambodia, two lopsided hills rise from the plain. Between the two hills are a complex of caves known locally as 'the killing caves.'
The caves were the site of atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge between 1976 and 1978. It's thought that more than 10,000 people died here, crudely tortured before being thrown into the rocky caves from a hole above. Today, smashed skulls are piled high in a makeshift memorial inside the main cave.
The killing caves are just one of many hundreds of sites all over Cambodia filled with the remains of the victims of the Khmer Rouge, as the Communist Party of Kampuchea came to be known.
The genocidal guerrilla movement was founded in the mid-1960s by a small group of Paris-educated Maoists led by Saloth Sar, later known as Pol Pot or 'Brother Number One'.
On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh, overthrowing the corrupt US-backed government. So began 'Year Zero,' a ruthless attempt to build a rural communist utopia by returning Cambodia to the Stone Age. Money and private property were outlawed, religion was banned and all the cities were cleared. Machinery was replaced by manual labour. The population was forced to slave in huge collectives growing rice for export, even as they starved.
The Khmer Rouge also unleashed a series of purges aimed at 'purifying' Cambodia of all 'foreign' influence. Teachers, doctors, lawyers, artists, students and other educated people were murdered alongside ethnic minorities and those accused of having "Khmer bodies but foreign minds." Whole families were killed to reduce the risk of revenge. According to the Cambodian Genocide Project, between 1.7 million and 2.2 million people died, out of a population of about 8 million.
In 1979 the Khmer Rouge were finally overthrown when Vietnamese troops
invaded following years of armed border incursions. They fled intto the jungles,
concentrating themselves around Anlong Veng in the north and Pailin in the west.
>From there they launched a guerrilla war supported by Britain, the US and
Thailand. Cambodia, it seems, had been liberated by the wrong country -
Soviet-backed Vietnam.
Travelling on from the killing caves towards Pailin, the road worsens. At some points you're forced off the road into neighbouring fields, where enterprising youths charge a toll at makeshift roadblocks. Skull and cross-bone signs remind you that this is the most heavily-mined area in all of Cambodia, itself the most heavily-mined country in the world. The Khmer Rouge mined this area to limit Cambodian Army incursions, enabling them to secure Pailin as an autonomous stronghold, cut off from the rest of Cambodia. Although the central authorities nominally regained control of the area when the Pailin Khmer Rouge defected to the government in 1998, little has changed on the ground.
Pailin is a down-and-dirty frontier town fuelled by gem-mining and illegal logging. In the open-sided cafes that fill the town centre, former Khmer Rouge soldiers sit glued to cheaply-made war movies playing on deafeningly loud TVs. Street vendors sell barbecued chicken and pork among the piles of rubbish and flies.
Most of the people here live in a shabby collection of timber of concrete-block huts that fill the town.
Head towards the outskirts, and you'll find the more attractive chalets, many recently erected by the old warlords, now Pailin's nouveaux riches. In one such chalet lives Khieu Sampha (74), nominal Head of State of Democratic Kampuchea (DK), as Cambodia was renamed by the Khmer Rouge.
Samphan, known as Brother Number Five, was a member of the ruling five-man 'Centre' group, that controlled and directed the revolution. The epitome of the 'yes' man, Samphan was a Pol Pot loyalist, as well as the public face of the regime, representing DK at the UN even after the Khmer Rouge were ousted.
Samphan is covered in sun-spots but he looks well for his age. He smiles a lot and is impeccably polite. It's hard to connect this seemingly refined old man with the atrocities he is associated with.
When asked about the impending UN genocide trials, where Samphan will be a leading defendant, the old man says he's unconcerned.
"Why should I worry about that?" he asks, looking uncomfortable, "I'm old and will answer to God." So does he take any responsibility for the millions of deaths perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge? "Millions?" he asks, "how do you know that?"
"Well what about the mass graves that litter the country?" I asked.
"Many people were killed in those years, but who killed them is unclear. Many had died from US bombing as well as being killed by the Vietnamese," says Samphan.
However he does eventually admit that "mistakes were made," during the DK period and that "many killings did occur." He says that he's "very sorry about that", but that he "knew nothing of the extent of killing fields until recently." With that the old man ends the interview, saying his wife will be home soon.
About 12 kilometres further away, right on the Thai border, in a small compound surrounded by bamboo groves and tall grass, lives Nuon Chea (77) Brother Number Two, and the man said to be closest to Pol Pot. The only remaining sign that this was once amongst the most secretive hide-outs for the Khmer Rouge leadership is a discarded anti-aircraft gun at the compound's entrance, its double cannons half-buried in the tall grass.
Noun Chea, his wife tells me, is sick in bed, but brief negotiations, and the payment of $20, ostensibly to buy medicine, soon raises him from his sick-bed.
Surprisingly for a communist ideologue, and perhaps a reflection of the new political realities governing Cambodia, large portraits of Cambodia's king and queen dominate one wall of Chea's spartan shack, while a Buddhist shrine complete with burning incense and offerings sits against another.
Noun Chea's skin is much lighter than most Cambodians. His lacquered grey hair is combed back, his face is dominated by a pair of oversized Gucci sunglasses.
"Parlez-vous Francais?", he asks, as he shakes my hand. "Un peu", I admit. We conduct the interview through my interpreter.
Echoing Samphan, Chea says he's unworried about going on trial: "why should I worry now?", he shrugs, "I am old and sick. Either way, I don't care." He lifts his skirt to reveal his bandaged knees and varicose veins.
I ask him whether he accepts any responsibility for the millions of deaths that occurred during the DK regime.
"These things never happened. Our enemies said these things to destroy our revolution," he says. "The revolution tried to create a society where people could love each other as brothers and sisters." "But what about the killing fields?" I asked.
"I know many people died during that time, but not who killed them and why. I don't deny that we made some mistakes, but in principle we were right."
I ask him about the allegations made by Kang Kek Iev, better known as "Brother Duch," commander of the notorious S-21 prison in Phnom Penh where over 16,000 prisoners were tortured and murdered. Duch, in prison awaiting trial, is quoted as saying that he took orders directly from Nuon Chea.
"Nuon Chea wanted me to give him pictures of their dead bodies for proof [that they had been executed]," recalled Duch in a recent interview. Duch also recounted how, before the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Nuon Chea ordered him to kill the last prisoners at S-21. "I asked Nuon Chea to allow me to keep one Vietnamese prisoner alive to use for propaganda on the radio, and he replied, "no, kill them all. We can always get more and more."
Chea categorically denies this. "I never gave such an order. I am not a bad man. I sleep well at night and my conscience is clear," he says.
At this point Noun Chea declares the interview over and struggles to stand up with the help of his wife. I whip out my camera and snap. The flash seems to startle him and he sits back down in his chair.
Suddenly Chea is as cold as ice. He stares straight ahead, whispering in a hushed monotone. My ashen-faced interpreter stares at the ground saying nothing.
After a couple of minutes Chea again shakes my hand and says goodbye with a nod of his head.
It seems Chea had complained bitterly about his "human rights" having being violated by the photograph.
He had threatened my interpreter for bringing me there: "You stupid Khmer. I know you. I've seen you before. I should have you killed."
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