 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
The Banyan Tree: Untangling Cambodian History
by Bruce Sharp
The banyan tree grows throughout Cambodia. It may reach a height of over 100 feet, and as it grows, new roots descend
from its branches, pushing into the ground and forming new trunks. The roots grow relentlessly; many of the ancient
temples of Angkor have toppled as these roots have become embedded in the cracks and crevices between their
massive stones. A single tree might have dozens of trunks, and it is often impossible to tell which is the original.
This is Cambodia today: a thousand intertwined branches, a thousand stories woven together, a thousand currents of
history swirling in different directions. To understand Cambodia in the present, it is necessary to look at Cambodia in
the past.
Part One: The Seeds
In the early 1960s, to much of the outside world, Cambodia seemed to be an insignificant country. For Americans, it was known only
as the site of the magnificent temples of Angkor Wat: a small, quiet nation sharing a border with Vietnam.
Vietnam, by contrast, was well known to Americans. The cold war was raging, and in the eyes of the American public the front line of
that war was clearly marked by the boundary between the communists in the north, and the noncommunists in the South. South
Vietnam was perceived as the first domino; Cambodia was merely the next. The subtleties of history, the blurred lines of political fact
and fiction were lost in the analogy.
If the Americans knew little about Cambodia, it is probably also true that the Cambodians knew little about America. The leader of
Cambodia, however, fully understood what the American presence in Vietnam meant. Prince Norodom Sihanouk had led Cambodia
since its independence from France in 1953. Formerly the King, he had abdicated the throne in 1955 to run in elections for head of
state, and he had survived on the political stage through a mixture of political acumen and ruthlessness. As American involvement in
Vietnam deepened, Sihanouk realized that maintaining his rule would require a delicate balancing act. He could not afford to make
enemies of either the Americans or the Vietnamese communists.
When the Vietcong began to use areas inside Cambodia as a sanctuary from which to launch guerrilla attacks into South Vietnam,
Sihanouk's position became increasingly precarious. Keeping the Vietnamese out by force was scarcely an option; his own army
consisted of fewer than 30,000 poorly equipped troops. In comparison, by the end of 1964 the Vietnamese communists were fielding
an army of roughly 180,000. Sihanouk's reluctance to move against the Vietnamese was strengthened by his conviction that the
communists would eventually be victorious.
To further complicate matters, Sihanouk's autocratic style of governing was beginning to alienate the more well-educated elements of
Khmer society. The opposition from the left was particularly vocal, and Sihanouk began to rely more and more on repression to quell
dissent. That repression was largely orchestrated by one of the most pro-American members of Sihanouk's government, General Lon
Nol.
The leftists in Cambodia had originally concentrated on a political struggle against Sihanouk. By 1967, however, as it became clear
that political opposition was both futile and increasingly dangerous, the Cambodian communists began to focus on armed struggle.
They did not, however, constitute as serious threat to Sihanouk's regime. Even as late as 1969, the communists -- or, as Sihanouk
derisively called them, the Khmer Rouge -- were estimated to have only about 2500 troops.
Though the Khmer Rouge were only a minor threat, the war in Vietnam was rapidly becoming a major one. The presence of the
sanctuaries was a source of constant frustration for the Americans. At first, with rare and relatively minor exceptions, American forces
did not pursue guerrillas beyond the border. Later, however, American commanders began to believe that the Cambodian sanctuaries
were crucial for Vietnamese logistics, and that they also served as the headquarters for the communist war efforts throughout
Vietnam. In February 1969, General Creighton Abrams, the commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, requested permission to attack
Vietnamese troops inside Cambodia. President Richard Nixon quickly agreed, and on March 18, 1969, American B-52s launched the
first of many secret bombing raids over Cambodia. Sihanouk had, in fact, confidentially told an American ambassador that he would
not object if American forces engaged in "hot pursuit" of Vietnamese forces in unpopulated areas of Cambodia. But the extent of the
attacks would later become a source of bitter recriminations. Former American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger would claim that
Sihanouk was "...inviting this sort of pressure as a means of evicting these invading forces" from Khmer territory. Sihanouk himself
would dispute that contention: "I did not know about the B-52 bombing in 1969... the question of a big B-52 campaign was never
raised." In the end, the castigations of the politicians scarcely mattered. The war had come to Cambodia.
One year after the bombing began, Sihanouk made a mistake that would ultimately set the stage for disaster. Demonstrations
protesting the Vietnamese presence in Cambodia broke out in Phnom Penh, the capital, while Sihanouk was vacationing in Paris.
Although he was still fairly popular in rural areas, many Cambodians were losing patience with Sihanouk; they resented the corruption
of his regime and his repression of dissent. Misjudging the extent of the discontent, Sihanouk declined to return to Cambodia. He left
Paris and continued on to Moscow, and on March 18, 1970 -- one year to the day after the first U.S. bombing strike -- he was
overthrown in a coup led by Lon Nol and Prince Sirik Matak. Sirik Matak quickly faded into the background. Lon Nol was the real
power, and his regime was instantly recognized by Washington; the Americans surmised, correctly, that Lon Nol would permit more
aggressive moves against the sanctuaries. The Khmer Rouge, meanwhile, saw an opportunity to turn Sihanouk's ouster to their
advantage. If the Prince could be persuaded to ally himself with his former enemies, the rebels would gain significant popular support.
Determined to avenge his betrayal by Lon Nol, Sihanouk acquiesced. On March 23, he announced that he would join the Khmer
Rouge in a bid to overthrow the new government. The battle lines were drawn.
by Bruce Sharp
The banyan tree grows throughout Cambodia. It may reach a height of over 100 feet, and as it grows, new roots descend
from its branches, pushing into the ground and forming new trunks. The roots grow relentlessly; many of the ancient
temples of Angkor have toppled as these roots have become embedded in the cracks and crevices between their
massive stones. A single tree might have dozens of trunks, and it is often impossible to tell which is the original.
This is Cambodia today: a thousand intertwined branches, a thousand stories woven together, a thousand currents of
history swirling in different directions. To understand Cambodia in the present, it is necessary to look at Cambodia in
the past.
Part One: The Seeds
In the early 1960s, to much of the outside world, Cambodia seemed to be an insignificant country. For Americans, it was known only
as the site of the magnificent temples of Angkor Wat: a small, quiet nation sharing a border with Vietnam.
Vietnam, by contrast, was well known to Americans. The cold war was raging, and in the eyes of the American public the front line of
that war was clearly marked by the boundary between the communists in the north, and the noncommunists in the South. South
Vietnam was perceived as the first domino; Cambodia was merely the next. The subtleties of history, the blurred lines of political fact
and fiction were lost in the analogy.
If the Americans knew little about Cambodia, it is probably also true that the Cambodians knew little about America. The leader of
Cambodia, however, fully understood what the American presence in Vietnam meant. Prince Norodom Sihanouk had led Cambodia
since its independence from France in 1953. Formerly the King, he had abdicated the throne in 1955 to run in elections for head of
state, and he had survived on the political stage through a mixture of political acumen and ruthlessness. As American involvement in
Vietnam deepened, Sihanouk realized that maintaining his rule would require a delicate balancing act. He could not afford to make
enemies of either the Americans or the Vietnamese communists.
When the Vietcong began to use areas inside Cambodia as a sanctuary from which to launch guerrilla attacks into South Vietnam,
Sihanouk's position became increasingly precarious. Keeping the Vietnamese out by force was scarcely an option; his own army
consisted of fewer than 30,000 poorly equipped troops. In comparison, by the end of 1964 the Vietnamese communists were fielding
an army of roughly 180,000. Sihanouk's reluctance to move against the Vietnamese was strengthened by his conviction that the
communists would eventually be victorious.
To further complicate matters, Sihanouk's autocratic style of governing was beginning to alienate the more well-educated elements of
Khmer society. The opposition from the left was particularly vocal, and Sihanouk began to rely more and more on repression to quell
dissent. That repression was largely orchestrated by one of the most pro-American members of Sihanouk's government, General Lon
Nol.
The leftists in Cambodia had originally concentrated on a political struggle against Sihanouk. By 1967, however, as it became clear
that political opposition was both futile and increasingly dangerous, the Cambodian communists began to focus on armed struggle.
They did not, however, constitute as serious threat to Sihanouk's regime. Even as late as 1969, the communists -- or, as Sihanouk
derisively called them, the Khmer Rouge -- were estimated to have only about 2500 troops.
Though the Khmer Rouge were only a minor threat, the war in Vietnam was rapidly becoming a major one. The presence of the
sanctuaries was a source of constant frustration for the Americans. At first, with rare and relatively minor exceptions, American forces
did not pursue guerrillas beyond the border. Later, however, American commanders began to believe that the Cambodian sanctuaries
were crucial for Vietnamese logistics, and that they also served as the headquarters for the communist war efforts throughout
Vietnam. In February 1969, General Creighton Abrams, the commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, requested permission to attack
Vietnamese troops inside Cambodia. President Richard Nixon quickly agreed, and on March 18, 1969, American B-52s launched the
first of many secret bombing raids over Cambodia. Sihanouk had, in fact, confidentially told an American ambassador that he would
not object if American forces engaged in "hot pursuit" of Vietnamese forces in unpopulated areas of Cambodia. But the extent of the
attacks would later become a source of bitter recriminations. Former American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger would claim that
Sihanouk was "...inviting this sort of pressure as a means of evicting these invading forces" from Khmer territory. Sihanouk himself
would dispute that contention: "I did not know about the B-52 bombing in 1969... the question of a big B-52 campaign was never
raised." In the end, the castigations of the politicians scarcely mattered. The war had come to Cambodia.
One year after the bombing began, Sihanouk made a mistake that would ultimately set the stage for disaster. Demonstrations
protesting the Vietnamese presence in Cambodia broke out in Phnom Penh, the capital, while Sihanouk was vacationing in Paris.
Although he was still fairly popular in rural areas, many Cambodians were losing patience with Sihanouk; they resented the corruption
of his regime and his repression of dissent. Misjudging the extent of the discontent, Sihanouk declined to return to Cambodia. He left
Paris and continued on to Moscow, and on March 18, 1970 -- one year to the day after the first U.S. bombing strike -- he was
overthrown in a coup led by Lon Nol and Prince Sirik Matak. Sirik Matak quickly faded into the background. Lon Nol was the real
power, and his regime was instantly recognized by Washington; the Americans surmised, correctly, that Lon Nol would permit more
aggressive moves against the sanctuaries. The Khmer Rouge, meanwhile, saw an opportunity to turn Sihanouk's ouster to their
advantage. If the Prince could be persuaded to ally himself with his former enemies, the rebels would gain significant popular support.
Determined to avenge his betrayal by Lon Nol, Sihanouk acquiesced. On March 23, he announced that he would join the Khmer
Rouge in a bid to overthrow the new government. The battle lines were drawn.
Part Two: Descending
Lon Nol's position was a difficult one. By 1970 there were believed to be some 40,000 Vietnamese troops in the sanctuaries.
Furthermore, many of the weapons and supplies for communist troops in South Vietnam came through Cambodia. The Vietnamese
would not abandon the sanctuaries willingly.
Once Lon Nol had effectively ended Cambodia's neutrality and cast his lot with the Americans, both the Americans and the
Vietnamese discarded their last vestiges of restraint. On April 30, American and South Vietnamese government troops invaded
southeastern Cambodia. But the elusive communist "headquarters" were not found, and the communist troops simply retreated
deeper into Cambodia. As they did, the Vietnamese communists were cast in the role of surrogates, fighting Lon Nol's troops while the
Khmer Rouge grew in strength.
Lon Nol soon proved to be incompetent both as a military leader and as a chief of state. The corruption within his administration was
worse than that under Sihanouk, and many Cambodians began to believe that the country would be better off under the Khmer
Rouge. Many of the peasants detested Lon Nol; they believed that Sihanouk - the onetime King - was Cambodia's rightful ruler.
Relatively few people understood that the Khmer Rouge had no intention of allowing Sihanouk to wield any real power. The real
leader of the Khmer Rouge was a failed electronics student who had become a communist while studying in Paris. His name was
Saloth Sar, and he would later become known under his nom-de-guerre: Pol Pot.
As the fighting began to spread throughout Cambodia, North Vietnamese troops consistently routed the inexperienced Cambodian
army. In August of 1971, Lon Nol mounted an ambitious offensive -- "Chenla II" -- in an attempt to regain lost territory. It was a poorly
conceived campaign, and the result was a crushing defeat from which the Republic's forces never recovered. It soon became
apparent that without massive American aid the government would collapse. That assistance came in the form of military hardware
and air support.
American bombing quickly became the centerpiece of Lon Nol's defense. Before Congress brought the bombing to a halt in August
1973, nearly 540,000 tons of bombs had been dropped on Cambodia, at a cost to the U.S. of nearly $7 billion.
The cost to Cambodia was higher still. The bombing campaign resulted in an inestimable number of innocent deaths. In one instance,
the government-held town of Neak Luong was inadvertently bombed because of an error by the bomber's crew. One hundred
thirty-seven people were killed, and more than 205 were wounded. On another occasion, near the village of Saang, peasants in a
funeral procession unknowingly walked into a B-52 target area. Hundreds were killed. The incident underscored the tragedy of the
bombing campaign: even when the strikes were on target, civilian deaths were inevitable.
Most of the Cambodians who witnessed such carnage place the blame squarely upon the Americans and Lon Nol. Their anger led
many of them to join the Khmer Rouge, and by late 1972 the Khmer Rouge army had grown to some 50,000 soldiers.
As the Khmer Rouge grew, they became increasingly independent of their Vietnamese allies. Relations between the two groups had
often been strained; aside from historical animosities, the Cambodian communists greatly resented the Vietnamese for not having
actively supported their bid to overthrow Sihanouk in the late Sixties.
When the Vietnamese and the Americans signed the Paris Peace agreement in 1973, the Vietnamese quickly began to withdraw their
troops from Cambodia. At the same time, shipments of Chinese arms destined for the Khmer Rouge failed to arrive, and the Khmer
Rouge may have believed that the weapons had been stolen by the Vietnamese. Additionally, under the terms of the Paris accords,
American air raids in Laos and North Vietnam were halted; and since the Khmer Rouge had refused to negotiate at Paris, there were
now more U.S. aircraft available for strikes in Cambodia. To the Khmer Rouge, the increased bombing was the result of a betrayal by
the North Vietnamese: the Vietnamese had bought a reprieve for themselves by sacrificing their allies.
It scarcely mattered. The Khmer Rouge continued to make gains on the battlefield. Government forces were beset not only by
incompetence, but by corruption as well. Many of Lon Nol's officers sold materials, supplied by the U.S., to the Khmer Rouge:
gasoline, medicine, even ammunition. In one incident in 1973, mortar rounds from Kompong Cham were sold to the communists, who
then used the shells in an attack which virtually destroyed the town. Another common practice among corrupt officers was to pad the
payroll by exaggerating the number of soldiers in their unit and pocketing the excess pay. Other officers went still further: they kept
the salaries of the real soldiers as well.
The country spiraled toward destruction, its people trapped between the two armies. Both sides sent children, barely in their teens,
into combat. Lon Nol had already displayed his brutality in pogroms against ethnic Vietnamese living in Cambodia, killing thousands
and sending 200,000 others into exile. The Khmer Rouge were rumored to be even more savage; tales from villages captured by the
communists spoke of old women being nailed to the walls of their houses and burned alive, of children being torn limb from limb. One
of the few detailed accounts of the Khmer Rouge policies and strategies came from Ith Sarin, a Khmer Rouge defector, in a book
called Regrets For The Khmer Soul. In typical fashion, Lon Nol responded to the book's dire warnings by jailing its author.
As the war raged on, the Khmer Rouge began to seem invincible; their troops fought with a relentlessness and tenacity that amazed
even seasoned veterans. Lon Nol's demoralized army shrank before the onslaught. The bravery of individual soldiers could not
compensate for their army's ineffective and corrupt leadership. The territory held by the Republic was reduced to little more than a
handful of enclaves around the major cities.
With the Khmer Rouge clearly holding the upper hand, they rebuffed attempts to end the war through negotiations. By 1975, the
situation for the Khmer Republic was clearly hopeless. Finally, on April 1, as insurgent rockets burst within a few hundred yards of his
plane, Lon Nol fled the country. The U.S. embassy was closed and evacuated on April 12. From within the besieged capital, Premier
Long Boret offered to surrender on the sole condition that there be no reprisals against those who had been loyal to the Republican
government. The Khmer Rouge refused, and the government finally surrendered unconditionally on April 17, 1975.
As the first Khmer Rouge troops entered the capital, they were greeted by crowds waving makeshift white flags. The war was over.
The cheering crowds could not know that the next three years of "peace" would lead to more deaths than the last five years of war.
The Banyan Tree: Untangling Cambodian History
Part Three: Toppling the Past
Throughout Cambodia the announcement of the government's surrender was met with relief. The fear, hunger, and exhaustion that
had characterized life during wartime would at last be over. In Phnom Penh, particularly, the news was seen as cause for jubilation.
The population of the city, about 600,000 before the war, had swollen to roughly two million with the constant flow of refugees
generated by the war. For the refugees in particular, living conditions had been horrid. Many had no jobs; they lived in fetid camps,
suffering from malnutrition and disease as the Khmer Rouge rained rockets and artillery fire into their midst. Now, crowds lined the
streets, hailing their liberators.
The victorious soldiers did not share the sense of joy. Grim and unsmiling, still weary from battle, they made their way toward the
center of the city. Having consolidated their positions, they immediately issued an order to the population: Evacuate the city.
Under the pretense that the Americans were going to bomb the city, the Khmer Rouge forced the bewildered population out into the
streets. In many cases entire families were given only ten minutes to prepare for what they were told would be a three-day journey.
The same scenario was played out in nearly all of the country's major cities and towns. No one was exempted; even hospitals were
emptied. Patients staggered into the streets, their wounds untreated; families pushed along their loved ones, still strapped in their
beds, bottles of blood and plasma held aloft in a desperate bid to fight off death. Doctors performing surgery were ordered at
gunpoint to abandon their patients. Stragglers and those who refused to obey were often executed on the spot. The roads out of the
cities were clogged with the exodus.The stocks of food and water accumulated for the refugees were inadequate; many succumbed to
heat and exhaustion, with infants, the old, and the sick the first to die. Their relatives were forced to leave the bodies at the roadside.
All in all, it is estimated that some 20,000 people died in the evacuation.
Khmer society was about to be re-invented. The Khmer Rouge proclaimed it to be "Year Zero." Immediately upon the surrender of the
republican government, Pol Pot put forth an eight-point program:
1. Evacuate people from all towns.
2. Abolish all markets.
3. Abolish Lon Nol regime currency, and withhold the revolutionary currency that had been printed.
4. Defrock all Buddhist monks, and put them to work growing rice.
5. Execute all leaders of the Lon Nol regime beginning with the top leaders.
6. Establish high-level cooperatives throughout the country, with communal eating.
7. Expel the entire Vietnamese minority population.
8. Dispatch troops to the borders, particularly the Vietnamese border.
As the people made their way out of the cities and into the countryside, it became clear that the Khmer Rouge did not intend to allow
them to return. Evacuees were ordered to write their biographies, explaining who they were and what type of work they had done
under the old regime. The Khmer Rouge were not looking for technical expertise. They were looking for enemies.
High officials of the deposed government, including Prince Sirik Matak and Premier Long Boret, were executed immediately. Military
officers -- generally all those above the rank of lieutenant -- were also executed. In many cases their families were killed as well.
Pol Pot's goal was to transform Cambodia into a completely self-sufficient agrarian communist state. The revolution justified
everything; human life was expendable. A Khmer Rouge saying made the point clearly: "To preserve you is no gain, to destroy you is
no loss."
Though the Khmer Rouge claimed that their revolution tore down class barriers and made everyone equal, in practice the new system
created two very distinct classes: "old people" and "new people." The old people were rural people who had come under the control of
the Khmer Rouge before the end of the war; new people were the city dwellers who had been evacuated from the cities after April 17.
The new people were viewed with hatred and suspicion by the Khmer Rouge.
Khmer Rouge leaders were obsessed with the idea that their revolution be "pure." This absolutism was made manifest in many ways.
With no markets and currency, the population was entirely dependent upon "Angkar" -- the organization -- for their needs. Books and
all printed materials were forbidden. Virtually all private property was banned; except for clothing and a handful of personal effects,
everything was the property of the state. Communism became the new national "religion"; monks were defrocked or even executed,
and Buddhism was outlawed. No travel was allowed without expressed permission from Angkar. A curtain of darkness enveloped
Cambodia; the outside world vanished beyond a border sown with mines and armed guards. Even Prince Sihanouk was uncertain
about what was happening inside the country; the Khmer Rouge kept him in Beijing until December 1975, insisting that they were not
yet ready for his return. When he did finally return, he became for all intents and purposes a prisoner, confined within the royal
palace in the virtually deserted capital.
Within Cambodia, conditions varied widely from region to region. Some areas had been decimated by the war, while others had been
spared the worst of the fighting. New people sent to relatively undamaged areas were fortunate: others were deported to virgin forest,
where they were first ordered to build their own shelter, then to clear the land and plant rice. Conditions also varied depending on the
manner in which local cadres chose to implement the central government's decrees. Not all of the Khmer Rouge surrendered their
humanity to the revolution, and they tempered their orders with a sense of realism and mercy.
Generally, however, life under the Khmer Rouge did follow certain patterns. The cultivation of rice -- for centuries the foundation of
Khmer civilization -- was the cornerstone of the communists' vision for the future. A propaganda slogan stated the premise clearly:
"With rifles in one hand and hoes in the other, our workers, peasants, and revolutionary armed forces are striving grandly to build
democratic Kampuchea."
Typically, men and women were organized into separate work brigades, and families were often split up as members were sent to
work in different areas. In most areas, "schooling" (more accurately: indoctrination) was available only for very young children;
children as young as six were assigned to "weak strength" work groups which also included the elderly. The weak strength groups
performed such tasks as collecting manure, tending small gardens, or raising chickens. The "full strength" groups did the heavy work:
digging canals and reservoirs, building dikes, logging, planting and harvesting the rice fields. They often worked from sunup to
sundown, or even well into the night if there was enough moonlight, or if they had not met their work quota. Most areas followed a
schedule of ten days of work, then one day of rest. They toiled in identical all-black clothing; expressions of individuality were not
tolerated.
The idea that the people of Cambodia could have any use beyond that of a draft animal seemed to have never occurred to the Khmer
Rouge. Anyone who offered advice to the Khmer Rouge was implicitly suggesting that Angkar's plan could be improved upon, and
that perhaps Angkar was not infallible. Such a suggestion could easily lead to death. The Khmer Rouge saw intelligence not as a
virtue, but as a threat. In many areas, educated persons were marked for execution as enemies of the state; many "new people"
would later attribute their survival to having hidden their intelligence. College students, teachers, and doctors in particular were
singled out as targets. Of approximately 270 doctors who remained in Cambodia after 1975, only about 40 survived Pol Pot's reign.
Many other groups were also at risk. Former republican soldiers were often executed, along with their families. Civil servants and
members of ethnic minorities, too, often fell victim to the violence. As many as 100,000 ethnic Vietnamese were executed, and about
225,000 ethnic Chinese and 90,000 Chams are believed to have died of disease, starvation, or execution. Publicly speaking a
language other than Khmer was punishable by death.
Executions were carried out in a number of different ways. Often victims were taken away to "killing fields" where they were forced to
kneel in front of trenches before being killed by a blow to the head with a pickaxe or shovel. At times large groups of people were shot
together; other individuals were suffocated by a plastic bag tied over their heads. Executions were also sometimes performed publicly.
Some victims were beaten to death; others were disemboweled, and their livers were cooked and eaten by their killers. Whole families
were often killed for the minor infractions of a single person. The Khmer Rouge did not want to leave surviving relatives who might
harbor a grudge against Angkar. At times, the methods employed matched the darkest propaganda of wars gone by: Infants were
smashed against trees, or thrown into the air and impaled on bayonets or bamboo stakes.
Nowhere was the brutality of the Khmer Rouge more clearly exemplified than at Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh. Tuol Sleng had
originally been built as a secondary school during Sihanouk's regime. When the Khmer Rouge came to power, the buildings were
converted to a prison -- or, more accurately, a torture and interrogation center.
Most of those incarcerated at Tuol Sleng were Khmer Rouge cadres who had fallen under suspicion during a series of purges. Many
were women, and about 2,000 were children who had been taken to the prison along with their parents. Records from the prison
indicate that at least 14,000 persons had been imprisoned there by January 1979.
Of those 14,000, there were seven known survivors.
Generally, Tuol Sleng held between 1000 and 1500 inmates at a time. Prisoners were brutally tortured in an attempt to extract
"confessions" detailing counter-revolutionary plots masterminded by the Americans, the Soviets, or the Vietnamese. Among the
preferred methods: pulling out fingernails, suffocating victims by temporary hanging, or crushing their nipples with pliers. Once a
confession had been completed to Angkar's satisfaction, the prisoner was taken away to be killed. Prison records, which are
incomplete, indicate that the highest single-day total of executions was on May 27, 1978, when 582 persons were sent to their death.
Death was coming to those in the countryside as well. In addition to the ever-present threat of execution, malnutrition and disease
began to take a heavy toll on the population. The communal eating that Pol Pot had called for was instituted throughout most of the
country by 1976. Seated together at long tables sheltered under thatch roofs, all of Angkar's slaves ate together. In prosperous
regions, the food was generally rice, occasionally with some fish as well. In other areas, the only food was a watery rice soup. Only the
Khmer Rouge ate their fill; others went hungry. In some areas people were allowed to forage for food when they were not working;
they sometimes managed to catch fish or rabbits, and they could occasionally pick fruit. The less fortunate settled for field crabs, rats,
lizards, or snakes. In still other areas, however, foraging for food was strictly forbidden. As men, women, and children starved to
death, Angkar murdered people for the crime of trying to feed themselves. The welfare of the population often seemed completely
irrelevant to the Khmer Rouge. One refugee recalled that, in order to kill the sparrows who ate the rice at harvest time, his work group
was ordered to cut down the trees where the birds nested. "While people were dying of hunger a mile away, we were out chopping
down fruit trees."
The main cause of the food shortages was not that insufficient rice was grown; the problem was that the rice was not distributed.
Production quotas for each region were determined by the government in Phnom Penh, and local authorities were expected to send a
set amount of rice to the central government. The quotas, however, were wildly unrealistic, and when they were not met local leaders
were faced with a choice: send the amount requested to Phnom Penh and let their people starve, or admit failure to their superiors.
Given the manner in which the regime dealt with failure and dissent, it is not surprising that many chose to pretend that the quota had
been met.
The lack of food was compounded by a lack of medical care. Having emptied the hospitals during the evacuation of the cities, and
having targeted doctors for elimination, the Khmer Rouge left the responsibility for treating the sick and injured in the hands of
untrained young "revolutionaries" with predictably disastrous results. At the local level, cadres explained that only the methods of their
ancestors would be used to treat illness; nothing would be taken from Western science. The leaders of the central government, like
Pol Pot, Ieng Sary, and Khieu Samphan, were certainly well-educated enough to know that such folk remedies did not represent a
viable substitute for modern medical science. But Cambodia could not produce modern pharmaceuticals domestically, and purchasing
them abroad would have compromised the "purity" and "self-sufficiency" of the population.
Conditions worsened in 1977 and 1978. While there were fewer executions in 1976 and 1977 than there had been in 1975, the
atmosphere was still one of brutality, repression, and fear. With a demoralized work force succumbing to disease and malnutrition, the
country could no longer sustain itself. As their failure became apparent, the Khmer Rouge began to search for scapegoats.
Intellectuals and persons with ties to the former government were still targets, but now the main focus shifted: Thousands of
communist party members were imprisoned and executed as the Khmer Rouge began to devour their own ranks in a series of bloody
purges. But internal purges were not enough. Without an external threat, the Khmer Rouge could not hope for internal support. Pol
Pot had always manipulated the hatred of others to his own ends, and he would do so again now. Vietnam became the new enemy.
The Khmer Rouge had not forgotten their bitterness at the way the Vietnamese had given their own struggle against the American's
precedence over the Cambodians communists' struggle against first Sihanouk and then Lon Nol. Ideology, too, was a factor; Vietnam
was firmly rooted in the Soviet camp, while the Khmer Rouge were allied with the Chinese. Vietnam's own relations with China were
particularly strained, mainly because of Vietnam's crackdown on her own ethnic Chinese. History, too, played a part, since ancient
Vietnamese and Khmer empires had waged war on one another almost incessantly over the course of centuries. The single greatest
factor, however, may have been the arrogance of the Khmer Rouge. Having withstood the American bombing and triumphed against
Lon Nol, they had come to believe that they were invincible. Pol Pot capitalized on minor border disputes to claim that the Vietnamese
had designs on Khmer territory. After a series of Khmer Rouge raids on villages inside Vietnam, heavy fighting broke our along the
border in late 1977 -- ironically, at the same location where American forces had invaded some seven years earlier.
The fighting proved disastrous for the Cambodians, and Pol Pot concluded that his invincible army must surely have been infiltrated
by Vietnamese spies. He responded with what may have been the most violent of the numerous purges of his bloody reign. The
violence was directed primarily at party members in the Eastern Zone, the region bordering Vietnam.
A number of soldiers from the East managed to escape the purges by fleeing to Vietnam. There was unmistakable irony in their fate:
Troops who had been fighting against the Vietnamese weeks earlier now ran to them for salvation.
One of the men who escaped to Vietnam was a division commander named Heng Samrin. His arrival was a blessing for the
Vietnamese: they wanted to be rid of Pol Pot, but they needed another Cambodian to take his place. Heng Samrin was deemed
suitable for the role, and on Christmas Day, 1978, an invasion force of 90,000 Vietnamese and 18,000 dissident Cambodians poured
across the border into Cambodia.
The defense of Pol Pot's regime rested with an army of roughly 73,000 troops. Despised by the own people, confronted by a much
better-equipped, brilliantly-led invasion force, the Khmer Rouge were routed with stunning ease. Within two weeks, the Vietnamese
had captured Phnom Penh. The battered remnants of the Khmer Rouge retreated into the mountains and jungles along the Thai
border.
Forced back against a wall, the previously xenophobic Khmer Rouge suddenly launched desperate pleas for assistance. Their
greatest asset became the long-neglected Prince: Norodom Sihanouk was flown out of Cambodia and sent to the United Nations,
where he gave an impassioned speech on behalf of the Khmer Rouge.
Within Cambodia, the Vietnamese -- long regarded with hatred and suspicion by Cambodians -- were suddenly seen as saviors. The
darkest period in the nation's history had ended. In three-and-a-half years, out of a population of eight million people, more than two
million people had died. And still, the misery was not over.
The Banyan Tree: Untangling Cambodian History
Part Four: Twists and Uncertainty
For many Cambodians, the early months of 1979 were marked by chaos and confusion. In many areas, no one knew about the
fighting with Vietnam; in some towns villagers awoke one morning to find that the Khmer Rouge had suddenly vanished in the night.
Others, less fortunate, found themselves caught, literally, in the crossfire of battle. Still others were held captive as slaves and porters
by the retreating Khmer Rouge. All semblance of order vanished.
As the Khmer Rouge withdrew, they often confiscated and destroyed rice to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Vietnamese. In
some areas, the Vietnamese, too, were accused of having confiscated much of the existing harvest. Much more simply rotted in the
fields as liberated Cambodians abandoned their collectives en masse. Some returned to their homes from the days before the
revolution. Hundreds of thousands of others fled toward Thailand. By October and November 1979, what had been a trickle of
refugees became a torrent. The terrible mismanagement by the Khmer Rouge, the war and the dislocation had suddenly brought a
new agony to Cambodia: Famine.
The refugees who poured into Thailand were a testimony to the torment: skeletal apparitions cloaked in tattered rags; children with
brittle limbs and distended stomachs; weary mothers, their breasts dry from malnutrition, clutching starving infants who had not the
strength to lift their heads. Witnesses to the exodus grappled for a way to describe what they saw. They could only invoke the names
of Auschwitz, of Dachau, of Belsen. A brace of crude, fetid refugee camps sprung up along the Thai border. Hundreds died in the first
horrid weeks, their bodies laid to rest in mass graves.
A massive campaign to aid the Cambodians took shape. The United Nations, the Red Cross, and a brace of smaller organizations
began providing food and medical assistance to the refugees at the border. But inside Cambodia, providing aid was more difficult.
Despite the appalling brutality of Pol Pot's regime, the international community still considered the Khmer Rouge to be the legitimate
government of the country. Heng Samrin was seen as a puppet, brought to power by an invading foreign army. The U.N. refused to
confer recognition on the new government.
The Phnom Penh government's bitterness toward the U.N. was compounded by the fact that the relief efforts along the Thai border
were clearly aiding the Khmer Rouge. Some of the refugee camps, in fact, were under direct control of the Khmer Rouge. Civilians
trapped in those camps were in desperate need of food, but there was no way to insure that any aid they received would not
ultimately fall into the hands of Khmer Rouge guerrillas.
Similarly, there were also concerns that aid sent to Phnom Penh might wind up in the hands of Vietnamese soldiers. The Vietnamese
often seemed to be deliberately hampering efforts to provide aid. The few relief officials who were allowed into Phnom Penh were not
allowed to set up radio communications, and since there were no working telephone lines out of Phnom Penh, the only outside
contact was through the daily Red Cross flight to Bangkok. They were instructed not to speak to anyone in the street, and the
government's propaganda radio accused them of being spies. The government also insisted that the distribution of aid be handled
not by international personnel, but by their own officials. The government also refused to allow any aid to be shipped overland from
Thailand.
Ultimately, much of the aid that did reach the interior of the country was distributed along the Thai border to Cambodians who carried
it back into their own country in oxcarts and on rickety bicycles. While malnutrition continued to be a problem, by the end of 1979 the
worst of the food shortages had passed.
As the months passed, the Vietnamese consolidated their hold on Cambodia. By the end of the year, there were nearly 225,000
Vietnamese troops occupying the country. But as time passed, many Cambodians began to suspect that the Vietnamese had no
intention of ever leaving. Others noted bitterly that many, if not most, of the officials of the new government were former Khmer
Rouge; the new government even continued to celebrate the anniversary of the Khmer Rouge takeover as a national holiday. And
while conditions inside the country had improved infinitely since the horrors of previous years, Heng Samrin's government was
frequently accused of widespread human rights violations.
Along the Thai border, the remaining Khmer Rouge forces soon regrouped and stepped up guerrilla attacks against the Vietnamese.
Prince Sihanouk, meanwhile, withdrew from the Khmer Rouge and announced the formation of his own resistance group, and Son
Sann, a former Prime Minister under Lon Nol, formed a third group. The Khmer Rouge, with extensive support from China, were the
strongest of the three groups militarily. But they could scarcely hope to win much support diplomatically. The United States and other
Western nations were determined to keep the Vietnamese isolated politically, but to do so by supporting the Khmer Rouge was
virtually unthinkable. The solution ultimately reached by the West was scarcely better. Under unrelenting pressure from the United
States, the three groups banded together into a single coalition in 1982 -- with Sihanouk once again serving as the titular head.
As the Third Indochina War dragged on, a pattern soon became apparent. During the rainy season, the guerrillas would step up their
activity, only to be driven back by Vietnamese offensives during the dry season. The refugee camps, often used as bases by the
guerrillas, frequently came under artillery fire from the Vietnamese; once again innocent women, men, and children were caught in the
middle.
The Banyan Tree: Untangling Cambodian History
Part Five: New Roots, New Growth, New Upheaval
Within Cambodia, a sense of normalcy slowly returned. But the coalition continued to occupy Cambodia's seat in the U.N., and the
crushing effects of war and international embargo kept the country one of the poorest in the world. In 1987, per capita income was
estimated to be only $160 annually -- ranking 195th out of the world's 203 countries. It was a situation that could not continue
indefinitely. The isolation carried a heavy price for Vietnam as well as Cambodia. Bogged down by the continuing fighting, and faced
with the prospect of diminishing Soviet support as the global political situation changed, in June 1988 the Vietnamese announced
plans to begin a gradual troop withdrawal. Their stated goal was to have all of their forces out of Cambodia by 1990.
The Vietnamese announcement cleared the way for real progress toward peace. In July 1988, leaders of the four warring factions
held their first face-to-face meeting, in Indonesia. The talks were inconclusive, but they did pave the way for future progress.
The announcement of a Vietnamese withdrawal had another effect, as well: it sent supporters of the guerrilla coalition scrambling for
a new policy. After years of propping up an alliance formed around the Khmer Rouge, they were now faced with the horrible prospect
that Pol Pot might return to power in the vacuum created by the Vietnamese withdrawal. They had forgotten the old adage: Be careful
what you wish for. You might get it.
As the Vietnamese troops pulled out, however, the situation on the battlefield remained largely unchanged. The Phnom Penh
government's army consisted of about 35,000 troops; they held their own in most areas, and the guerrillas made only minor inroads
into their territory.
Gradually a framework for peace began to emerge. In 1990 the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council put forth a plan
calling for the creation of a Supreme National Council (SNC) to be composed of six representatives (two from each faction) of the
guerrillas. As negotiations continued, a series of ceasefires were declared and more or less ignored. A formal ceasefire was finally
adopted in May 1991, and despite constant violations by the Khmer Rouge, the agreement held.
Norodom Sihanouk, meanwhile, after "retiring" and "returning from retirement" several times, was elected to a position as the
thirteenth member of the SNC, as its nonvoting chairman.
On October 23, 1991, the agreement was at last signed and formally accepted by all sides. The plan called for each army to
demobilize 70% of their troops, while the interim functioning of the government would be handled by the U.N. until elections could be
held in May 1993. It was the largest and costliest peacekeeping operation ever undertaken by the U.N., calling for nearly 22,000
soldiers and administrators.
It was also in October 1991 that an internal shakeup within the Phnom Penh government led to the removal of Heng Samrin from his
position as General Secretary of the communist party. Samrin, who had opposed a U.N. role in Cambodia, was replaced by Chea Sim.
Hun Sen, who had long held the post of Foreign Minister, was chosen to represent the Phnom Penh government in the upcoming
election for Premier. Like Heng Samrin, Hun Sen was a former Khmer Rouge cadre who had defected from the Eastern Zone in 1977.
By November 1991, U.N. personnel began arriving in force. Sihanouk, too, returned to Cambodia, greeted by cheering crowds. Khmer
Rouge representatives to the SNC arrived as well, but were greeted less warmly: their villa was attacked by a mob, and Khieu
Samphan, the leader of their delegation, was beaten and nearly murdered. He fled the capital in an armored car.
Against this uncertain backdrop, the U.N. began the massive task of repatriating the nearly 370,000 refugees from the camps in
Thailand. Sporadic fighting continued in the countryside, however, and the Khmer Rouge grew increasingly intransigent. They first
denied U.N. peacekeepers access to areas under their control, then refused to disarm. The Phnom Penh government, too, was
accused of violence directed at Sihanouk and Son Sann loyalists. Their actions, however, paled in comparison to those of the Khmer
Rouge. The Khmer Rouge began a campaign of harassment directed at the U.N. Several peacekeepers were kidnapped, and others
were murdered. Several civilians, particularly ethnic Vietnamese, were also massacred. In April 1993, the Khmer Rouge closed their
offices in Phnom Penh and sent a letter to the U.N. withdrawing from the peace process, under the pretense that there were millions
of Vietnamese still in the country illegally. Still, however, the other parties moved forward as planned. By the end of April, the last of
the refugees had been repatriated.
As the Khmer Rouge stepped up their threats to disrupt the elections scheduled to begin on May 23, many observers feared that the
specter of violence would keep the voter turnout low, enabling the Khmer Rouge to claim that the winner of the elections did not in
truth have wide popular support.
The dire predictions turned out to be unfounded. Despite the threats, 4.2 million of the 4.7 million registered voters went to the polls.
The FUNCINPEC party, headed by Sihanouk's son Norodom Ranariddh, won 58 of the 120 seats in the National Assembly; the Phnom
Penh faction won 51 seats, Son Sann's faction won 10 seats, and a right-wing party won the remaining seat. Initially, however, the
Phnom Penh government contested the results, and it was not until June 21 that Hun Sen formally conceded that they had lost the
election. However, fearing that the country would be ungovernable without some semblance of a consensus, Ranariddh consented to
allow Hun Sen to assume the role of "co-prime minister." The Khmer Rouge, meanwhile, began stepping up their attacks against the
fledgling government.
Despite the prominent roles played by Hun Sen and Ranariddh, there remained a part for Cambodia's consummate politician:
Sihanouk himself. Reviled by many, but revered by still more, Sihanouk declared that he had "no right to resist the will of the
Cambodian people" who were calling on him to return to the throne. On September 24, 1993, he signed a new constitution and once
again assumed the position of King of Cambodia. His powers, however, were limited. Under the terms of the constitution, the king was
selected by a five-member throne council. In poor health, Sihanouk spent much of his time outside the country, seeking medical
treatment, and the majority of power remained in the hands of the two Prime Ministers.
The Khmer Rouge, meanwhile, continued their attacks, routinely targeting civilians, and sowing land mines in rural areas. They still
enforced their policies through mass murder: In October 1994, for example, a group of seventy villagers in Battambang province were
captured by the guerrillas, who opened fire on them for no apparent reason. Fifty were killed.
Still, it was clear that the balance of power had shifted. Isolated diplomatically and economically, the Khmer Rouge at last began to
disintegrate. Defections took a heavy toll on their ranks in the wake of the 1993 elections. In August 1996, Ieng Sary, one of the
highest ranking members of the Khmer Rouge (by some accounts second or third in rank, below Pol Pot) defected to the government
in exchange for amnesty, taking many of his soldiers with him.
Unfortunately, violence between the factions in Phnom Penh escalated drastically as the Khmer Rouge disintegrated. Hun Sen still
controlled the strongest segment of the military, and he did not hesitate to exploit his power. In one particularly brutal attack, dozens
of supporters of a popular opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, were killed in a grenade attack on a peaceful demonstration in Phnom
Penh in March 1997. The violence underscored a disturbing truth: the demise of the Khmer Rouge would not necessarily mean the
onset of peace.
In June 1997, rumors began to suggest that several more high-ranking Khmer Rouge officials were considering peace negotiations.
Determined to continue fighting, Pol Pot responded in typical fashion: He executed his longtime Defense Minister, Son Sen, and ten
members of Son Sen's family. The execution further splintered the remaining guerrillas. It was Pol Pot's final mistake: the last of his
devout followers could no longer deny the brutality and futility of their leader's methods. Pol Pot was effectively overthrown by an
internal rebellion in the fall of 1997, and was "convicted" in a Khmer Rouge show trial. Confined to "house arrest" in the last enclave
of Khmer Rouge control, he died on April 15, 1998. Official accounts claimed that he succumbed to illness. Others suggested that he
was murdered by his former followers.
In Phnom Penh, meanwhile, the collapse of the Khmer Rouge led to a cynical contest between Ranariddh and Hun Sen. Each man
courted the defecting Khmer Rouge, knowing that the last of the guerrillas could tip the balance of power in his favor.
In July 1997 Hun Sen dispensed with the any pretense of cooperation. He overthrew Ranariddh in a coup. Ranariddh went into exile,
while a handful of outnumbered, outgunned soldiers held on to a small stretch of territory close to the Thai border. Meanwhile, the UN
estimated that at least 90 members of Ranariddh's party were murdered during and immediately after the coup.
The coup, however, once again left Cambodia diplomatically isolated. Under a Japanese-brokered peace plan, Ranariddh was tried in
absentia on the Hun Sen government's charges that he was conspiring with the Khmer Rouge and smuggling arms; after his
conviction, he was pardoned by the King and allowed to return to Cambodia to participate in the elections scheduled for July 1998.
However, Hun Sen's forces continued their campaign of intimidation: A dozen opposition candidates were murdered in the weeks
preceding the elections. The violence made a mockery of the international community's pledges to uphold "free and fair" elections.
Hun Sen won the elections, but the opposition protested the results. Again responding with force, Hun Sen dispatched riot police to
quell the protests. At least 18 persons were killed. The protests, however, brought the country's government to a virtual halt. In
November of 1998, an agreement was reached under which Hun Sen became the Prime Minister, while Ranariddh accepted a position
as President of the National Assembly.
In the wake of the agreement, a measure of stability has returned to Cambodia. Meanwhile, attempts to establish a tribunal to try
former Khmer Rouge officials have stagnated. A climate of corruption, intimidation, and impunity remains, and the country's dismal
human rights record shows few signs of improvement.
More than twenty-five years after Year Zero, the Cambodian people are still waiting for a future where their hopes will be fulfilled. The
greatest obstacle is the legacy of the last three decades. If the future is to be brighter, Cambodia must build upon her greatest asset:
the resourceful of her people. Her fate rests on whether the new government chooses to harness the Cambodian people, or to bind
them.
No tree can survive when cut from its roots. But the roots which sustain the tree may destroy the foundation of all structures
in their path. It is this which must be remembered, when the seeds are sown.
Lon Nol's position was a difficult one. By 1970 there were believed to be some 40,000 Vietnamese troops in the sanctuaries.
Furthermore, many of the weapons and supplies for communist troops in South Vietnam came through Cambodia. The Vietnamese
would not abandon the sanctuaries willingly.
Once Lon Nol had effectively ended Cambodia's neutrality and cast his lot with the Americans, both the Americans and the
Vietnamese discarded their last vestiges of restraint. On April 30, American and South Vietnamese government troops invaded
southeastern Cambodia. But the elusive communist "headquarters" were not found, and the communist troops simply retreated
deeper into Cambodia. As they did, the Vietnamese communists were cast in the role of surrogates, fighting Lon Nol's troops while the
Khmer Rouge grew in strength.
Lon Nol soon proved to be incompetent both as a military leader and as a chief of state. The corruption within his administration was
worse than that under Sihanouk, and many Cambodians began to believe that the country would be better off under the Khmer
Rouge. Many of the peasants detested Lon Nol; they believed that Sihanouk - the onetime King - was Cambodia's rightful ruler.
Relatively few people understood that the Khmer Rouge had no intention of allowing Sihanouk to wield any real power. The real
leader of the Khmer Rouge was a failed electronics student who had become a communist while studying in Paris. His name was
Saloth Sar, and he would later become known under his nom-de-guerre: Pol Pot.
As the fighting began to spread throughout Cambodia, North Vietnamese troops consistently routed the inexperienced Cambodian
army. In August of 1971, Lon Nol mounted an ambitious offensive -- "Chenla II" -- in an attempt to regain lost territory. It was a poorly
conceived campaign, and the result was a crushing defeat from which the Republic's forces never recovered. It soon became
apparent that without massive American aid the government would collapse. That assistance came in the form of military hardware
and air support.
American bombing quickly became the centerpiece of Lon Nol's defense. Before Congress brought the bombing to a halt in August
1973, nearly 540,000 tons of bombs had been dropped on Cambodia, at a cost to the U.S. of nearly $7 billion.
The cost to Cambodia was higher still. The bombing campaign resulted in an inestimable number of innocent deaths. In one instance,
the government-held town of Neak Luong was inadvertently bombed because of an error by the bomber's crew. One hundred
thirty-seven people were killed, and more than 205 were wounded. On another occasion, near the village of Saang, peasants in a
funeral procession unknowingly walked into a B-52 target area. Hundreds were killed. The incident underscored the tragedy of the
bombing campaign: even when the strikes were on target, civilian deaths were inevitable.
Most of the Cambodians who witnessed such carnage place the blame squarely upon the Americans and Lon Nol. Their anger led
many of them to join the Khmer Rouge, and by late 1972 the Khmer Rouge army had grown to some 50,000 soldiers.
As the Khmer Rouge grew, they became increasingly independent of their Vietnamese allies. Relations between the two groups had
often been strained; aside from historical animosities, the Cambodian communists greatly resented the Vietnamese for not having
actively supported their bid to overthrow Sihanouk in the late Sixties.
When the Vietnamese and the Americans signed the Paris Peace agreement in 1973, the Vietnamese quickly began to withdraw their
troops from Cambodia. At the same time, shipments of Chinese arms destined for the Khmer Rouge failed to arrive, and the Khmer
Rouge may have believed that the weapons had been stolen by the Vietnamese. Additionally, under the terms of the Paris accords,
American air raids in Laos and North Vietnam were halted; and since the Khmer Rouge had refused to negotiate at Paris, there were
now more U.S. aircraft available for strikes in Cambodia. To the Khmer Rouge, the increased bombing was the result of a betrayal by
the North Vietnamese: the Vietnamese had bought a reprieve for themselves by sacrificing their allies.
It scarcely mattered. The Khmer Rouge continued to make gains on the battlefield. Government forces were beset not only by
incompetence, but by corruption as well. Many of Lon Nol's officers sold materials, supplied by the U.S., to the Khmer Rouge:
gasoline, medicine, even ammunition. In one incident in 1973, mortar rounds from Kompong Cham were sold to the communists, who
then used the shells in an attack which virtually destroyed the town. Another common practice among corrupt officers was to pad the
payroll by exaggerating the number of soldiers in their unit and pocketing the excess pay. Other officers went still further: they kept
the salaries of the real soldiers as well.
The country spiraled toward destruction, its people trapped between the two armies. Both sides sent children, barely in their teens,
into combat. Lon Nol had already displayed his brutality in pogroms against ethnic Vietnamese living in Cambodia, killing thousands
and sending 200,000 others into exile. The Khmer Rouge were rumored to be even more savage; tales from villages captured by the
communists spoke of old women being nailed to the walls of their houses and burned alive, of children being torn limb from limb. One
of the few detailed accounts of the Khmer Rouge policies and strategies came from Ith Sarin, a Khmer Rouge defector, in a book
called Regrets For The Khmer Soul. In typical fashion, Lon Nol responded to the book's dire warnings by jailing its author.
As the war raged on, the Khmer Rouge began to seem invincible; their troops fought with a relentlessness and tenacity that amazed
even seasoned veterans. Lon Nol's demoralized army shrank before the onslaught. The bravery of individual soldiers could not
compensate for their army's ineffective and corrupt leadership. The territory held by the Republic was reduced to little more than a
handful of enclaves around the major cities.
With the Khmer Rouge clearly holding the upper hand, they rebuffed attempts to end the war through negotiations. By 1975, the
situation for the Khmer Republic was clearly hopeless. Finally, on April 1, as insurgent rockets burst within a few hundred yards of his
plane, Lon Nol fled the country. The U.S. embassy was closed and evacuated on April 12. From within the besieged capital, Premier
Long Boret offered to surrender on the sole condition that there be no reprisals against those who had been loyal to the Republican
government. The Khmer Rouge refused, and the government finally surrendered unconditionally on April 17, 1975.
As the first Khmer Rouge troops entered the capital, they were greeted by crowds waving makeshift white flags. The war was over.
The cheering crowds could not know that the next three years of "peace" would lead to more deaths than the last five years of war.
The Banyan Tree: Untangling Cambodian History
Part Three: Toppling the Past
Throughout Cambodia the announcement of the government's surrender was met with relief. The fear, hunger, and exhaustion that
had characterized life during wartime would at last be over. In Phnom Penh, particularly, the news was seen as cause for jubilation.
The population of the city, about 600,000 before the war, had swollen to roughly two million with the constant flow of refugees
generated by the war. For the refugees in particular, living conditions had been horrid. Many had no jobs; they lived in fetid camps,
suffering from malnutrition and disease as the Khmer Rouge rained rockets and artillery fire into their midst. Now, crowds lined the
streets, hailing their liberators.
The victorious soldiers did not share the sense of joy. Grim and unsmiling, still weary from battle, they made their way toward the
center of the city. Having consolidated their positions, they immediately issued an order to the population: Evacuate the city.
Under the pretense that the Americans were going to bomb the city, the Khmer Rouge forced the bewildered population out into the
streets. In many cases entire families were given only ten minutes to prepare for what they were told would be a three-day journey.
The same scenario was played out in nearly all of the country's major cities and towns. No one was exempted; even hospitals were
emptied. Patients staggered into the streets, their wounds untreated; families pushed along their loved ones, still strapped in their
beds, bottles of blood and plasma held aloft in a desperate bid to fight off death. Doctors performing surgery were ordered at
gunpoint to abandon their patients. Stragglers and those who refused to obey were often executed on the spot. The roads out of the
cities were clogged with the exodus.The stocks of food and water accumulated for the refugees were inadequate; many succumbed to
heat and exhaustion, with infants, the old, and the sick the first to die. Their relatives were forced to leave the bodies at the roadside.
All in all, it is estimated that some 20,000 people died in the evacuation.
Khmer society was about to be re-invented. The Khmer Rouge proclaimed it to be "Year Zero." Immediately upon the surrender of the
republican government, Pol Pot put forth an eight-point program:
1. Evacuate people from all towns.
2. Abolish all markets.
3. Abolish Lon Nol regime currency, and withhold the revolutionary currency that had been printed.
4. Defrock all Buddhist monks, and put them to work growing rice.
5. Execute all leaders of the Lon Nol regime beginning with the top leaders.
6. Establish high-level cooperatives throughout the country, with communal eating.
7. Expel the entire Vietnamese minority population.
8. Dispatch troops to the borders, particularly the Vietnamese border.
As the people made their way out of the cities and into the countryside, it became clear that the Khmer Rouge did not intend to allow
them to return. Evacuees were ordered to write their biographies, explaining who they were and what type of work they had done
under the old regime. The Khmer Rouge were not looking for technical expertise. They were looking for enemies.
High officials of the deposed government, including Prince Sirik Matak and Premier Long Boret, were executed immediately. Military
officers -- generally all those above the rank of lieutenant -- were also executed. In many cases their families were killed as well.
Pol Pot's goal was to transform Cambodia into a completely self-sufficient agrarian communist state. The revolution justified
everything; human life was expendable. A Khmer Rouge saying made the point clearly: "To preserve you is no gain, to destroy you is
no loss."
Though the Khmer Rouge claimed that their revolution tore down class barriers and made everyone equal, in practice the new system
created two very distinct classes: "old people" and "new people." The old people were rural people who had come under the control of
the Khmer Rouge before the end of the war; new people were the city dwellers who had been evacuated from the cities after April 17.
The new people were viewed with hatred and suspicion by the Khmer Rouge.
Khmer Rouge leaders were obsessed with the idea that their revolution be "pure." This absolutism was made manifest in many ways.
With no markets and currency, the population was entirely dependent upon "Angkar" -- the organization -- for their needs. Books and
all printed materials were forbidden. Virtually all private property was banned; except for clothing and a handful of personal effects,
everything was the property of the state. Communism became the new national "religion"; monks were defrocked or even executed,
and Buddhism was outlawed. No travel was allowed without expressed permission from Angkar. A curtain of darkness enveloped
Cambodia; the outside world vanished beyond a border sown with mines and armed guards. Even Prince Sihanouk was uncertain
about what was happening inside the country; the Khmer Rouge kept him in Beijing until December 1975, insisting that they were not
yet ready for his return. When he did finally return, he became for all intents and purposes a prisoner, confined within the royal
palace in the virtually deserted capital.
Within Cambodia, conditions varied widely from region to region. Some areas had been decimated by the war, while others had been
spared the worst of the fighting. New people sent to relatively undamaged areas were fortunate: others were deported to virgin forest,
where they were first ordered to build their own shelter, then to clear the land and plant rice. Conditions also varied depending on the
manner in which local cadres chose to implement the central government's decrees. Not all of the Khmer Rouge surrendered their
humanity to the revolution, and they tempered their orders with a sense of realism and mercy.
Generally, however, life under the Khmer Rouge did follow certain patterns. The cultivation of rice -- for centuries the foundation of
Khmer civilization -- was the cornerstone of the communists' vision for the future. A propaganda slogan stated the premise clearly:
"With rifles in one hand and hoes in the other, our workers, peasants, and revolutionary armed forces are striving grandly to build
democratic Kampuchea."
Typically, men and women were organized into separate work brigades, and families were often split up as members were sent to
work in different areas. In most areas, "schooling" (more accurately: indoctrination) was available only for very young children;
children as young as six were assigned to "weak strength" work groups which also included the elderly. The weak strength groups
performed such tasks as collecting manure, tending small gardens, or raising chickens. The "full strength" groups did the heavy work:
digging canals and reservoirs, building dikes, logging, planting and harvesting the rice fields. They often worked from sunup to
sundown, or even well into the night if there was enough moonlight, or if they had not met their work quota. Most areas followed a
schedule of ten days of work, then one day of rest. They toiled in identical all-black clothing; expressions of individuality were not
tolerated.
The idea that the people of Cambodia could have any use beyond that of a draft animal seemed to have never occurred to the Khmer
Rouge. Anyone who offered advice to the Khmer Rouge was implicitly suggesting that Angkar's plan could be improved upon, and
that perhaps Angkar was not infallible. Such a suggestion could easily lead to death. The Khmer Rouge saw intelligence not as a
virtue, but as a threat. In many areas, educated persons were marked for execution as enemies of the state; many "new people"
would later attribute their survival to having hidden their intelligence. College students, teachers, and doctors in particular were
singled out as targets. Of approximately 270 doctors who remained in Cambodia after 1975, only about 40 survived Pol Pot's reign.
Many other groups were also at risk. Former republican soldiers were often executed, along with their families. Civil servants and
members of ethnic minorities, too, often fell victim to the violence. As many as 100,000 ethnic Vietnamese were executed, and about
225,000 ethnic Chinese and 90,000 Chams are believed to have died of disease, starvation, or execution. Publicly speaking a
language other than Khmer was punishable by death.
Executions were carried out in a number of different ways. Often victims were taken away to "killing fields" where they were forced to
kneel in front of trenches before being killed by a blow to the head with a pickaxe or shovel. At times large groups of people were shot
together; other individuals were suffocated by a plastic bag tied over their heads. Executions were also sometimes performed publicly.
Some victims were beaten to death; others were disemboweled, and their livers were cooked and eaten by their killers. Whole families
were often killed for the minor infractions of a single person. The Khmer Rouge did not want to leave surviving relatives who might
harbor a grudge against Angkar. At times, the methods employed matched the darkest propaganda of wars gone by: Infants were
smashed against trees, or thrown into the air and impaled on bayonets or bamboo stakes.
Nowhere was the brutality of the Khmer Rouge more clearly exemplified than at Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh. Tuol Sleng had
originally been built as a secondary school during Sihanouk's regime. When the Khmer Rouge came to power, the buildings were
converted to a prison -- or, more accurately, a torture and interrogation center.
Most of those incarcerated at Tuol Sleng were Khmer Rouge cadres who had fallen under suspicion during a series of purges. Many
were women, and about 2,000 were children who had been taken to the prison along with their parents. Records from the prison
indicate that at least 14,000 persons had been imprisoned there by January 1979.
Of those 14,000, there were seven known survivors.
Generally, Tuol Sleng held between 1000 and 1500 inmates at a time. Prisoners were brutally tortured in an attempt to extract
"confessions" detailing counter-revolutionary plots masterminded by the Americans, the Soviets, or the Vietnamese. Among the
preferred methods: pulling out fingernails, suffocating victims by temporary hanging, or crushing their nipples with pliers. Once a
confession had been completed to Angkar's satisfaction, the prisoner was taken away to be killed. Prison records, which are
incomplete, indicate that the highest single-day total of executions was on May 27, 1978, when 582 persons were sent to their death.
Death was coming to those in the countryside as well. In addition to the ever-present threat of execution, malnutrition and disease
began to take a heavy toll on the population. The communal eating that Pol Pot had called for was instituted throughout most of the
country by 1976. Seated together at long tables sheltered under thatch roofs, all of Angkar's slaves ate together. In prosperous
regions, the food was generally rice, occasionally with some fish as well. In other areas, the only food was a watery rice soup. Only the
Khmer Rouge ate their fill; others went hungry. In some areas people were allowed to forage for food when they were not working;
they sometimes managed to catch fish or rabbits, and they could occasionally pick fruit. The less fortunate settled for field crabs, rats,
lizards, or snakes. In still other areas, however, foraging for food was strictly forbidden. As men, women, and children starved to
death, Angkar murdered people for the crime of trying to feed themselves. The welfare of the population often seemed completely
irrelevant to the Khmer Rouge. One refugee recalled that, in order to kill the sparrows who ate the rice at harvest time, his work group
was ordered to cut down the trees where the birds nested. "While people were dying of hunger a mile away, we were out chopping
down fruit trees."
The main cause of the food shortages was not that insufficient rice was grown; the problem was that the rice was not distributed.
Production quotas for each region were determined by the government in Phnom Penh, and local authorities were expected to send a
set amount of rice to the central government. The quotas, however, were wildly unrealistic, and when they were not met local leaders
were faced with a choice: send the amount requested to Phnom Penh and let their people starve, or admit failure to their superiors.
Given the manner in which the regime dealt with failure and dissent, it is not surprising that many chose to pretend that the quota had
been met.
The lack of food was compounded by a lack of medical care. Having emptied the hospitals during the evacuation of the cities, and
having targeted doctors for elimination, the Khmer Rouge left the responsibility for treating the sick and injured in the hands of
untrained young "revolutionaries" with predictably disastrous results. At the local level, cadres explained that only the methods of their
ancestors would be used to treat illness; nothing would be taken from Western science. The leaders of the central government, like
Pol Pot, Ieng Sary, and Khieu Samphan, were certainly well-educated enough to know that such folk remedies did not represent a
viable substitute for modern medical science. But Cambodia could not produce modern pharmaceuticals domestically, and purchasing
them abroad would have compromised the "purity" and "self-sufficiency" of the population.
Conditions worsened in 1977 and 1978. While there were fewer executions in 1976 and 1977 than there had been in 1975, the
atmosphere was still one of brutality, repression, and fear. With a demoralized work force succumbing to disease and malnutrition, the
country could no longer sustain itself. As their failure became apparent, the Khmer Rouge began to search for scapegoats.
Intellectuals and persons with ties to the former government were still targets, but now the main focus shifted: Thousands of
communist party members were imprisoned and executed as the Khmer Rouge began to devour their own ranks in a series of bloody
purges. But internal purges were not enough. Without an external threat, the Khmer Rouge could not hope for internal support. Pol
Pot had always manipulated the hatred of others to his own ends, and he would do so again now. Vietnam became the new enemy.
The Khmer Rouge had not forgotten their bitterness at the way the Vietnamese had given their own struggle against the American's
precedence over the Cambodians communists' struggle against first Sihanouk and then Lon Nol. Ideology, too, was a factor; Vietnam
was firmly rooted in the Soviet camp, while the Khmer Rouge were allied with the Chinese. Vietnam's own relations with China were
particularly strained, mainly because of Vietnam's crackdown on her own ethnic Chinese. History, too, played a part, since ancient
Vietnamese and Khmer empires had waged war on one another almost incessantly over the course of centuries. The single greatest
factor, however, may have been the arrogance of the Khmer Rouge. Having withstood the American bombing and triumphed against
Lon Nol, they had come to believe that they were invincible. Pol Pot capitalized on minor border disputes to claim that the Vietnamese
had designs on Khmer territory. After a series of Khmer Rouge raids on villages inside Vietnam, heavy fighting broke our along the
border in late 1977 -- ironically, at the same location where American forces had invaded some seven years earlier.
The fighting proved disastrous for the Cambodians, and Pol Pot concluded that his invincible army must surely have been infiltrated
by Vietnamese spies. He responded with what may have been the most violent of the numerous purges of his bloody reign. The
violence was directed primarily at party members in the Eastern Zone, the region bordering Vietnam.
A number of soldiers from the East managed to escape the purges by fleeing to Vietnam. There was unmistakable irony in their fate:
Troops who had been fighting against the Vietnamese weeks earlier now ran to them for salvation.
One of the men who escaped to Vietnam was a division commander named Heng Samrin. His arrival was a blessing for the
Vietnamese: they wanted to be rid of Pol Pot, but they needed another Cambodian to take his place. Heng Samrin was deemed
suitable for the role, and on Christmas Day, 1978, an invasion force of 90,000 Vietnamese and 18,000 dissident Cambodians poured
across the border into Cambodia.
The defense of Pol Pot's regime rested with an army of roughly 73,000 troops. Despised by the own people, confronted by a much
better-equipped, brilliantly-led invasion force, the Khmer Rouge were routed with stunning ease. Within two weeks, the Vietnamese
had captured Phnom Penh. The battered remnants of the Khmer Rouge retreated into the mountains and jungles along the Thai
border.
Forced back against a wall, the previously xenophobic Khmer Rouge suddenly launched desperate pleas for assistance. Their
greatest asset became the long-neglected Prince: Norodom Sihanouk was flown out of Cambodia and sent to the United Nations,
where he gave an impassioned speech on behalf of the Khmer Rouge.
Within Cambodia, the Vietnamese -- long regarded with hatred and suspicion by Cambodians -- were suddenly seen as saviors. The
darkest period in the nation's history had ended. In three-and-a-half years, out of a population of eight million people, more than two
million people had died. And still, the misery was not over.
The Banyan Tree: Untangling Cambodian History
Part Four: Twists and Uncertainty
For many Cambodians, the early months of 1979 were marked by chaos and confusion. In many areas, no one knew about the
fighting with Vietnam; in some towns villagers awoke one morning to find that the Khmer Rouge had suddenly vanished in the night.
Others, less fortunate, found themselves caught, literally, in the crossfire of battle. Still others were held captive as slaves and porters
by the retreating Khmer Rouge. All semblance of order vanished.
As the Khmer Rouge withdrew, they often confiscated and destroyed rice to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Vietnamese. In
some areas, the Vietnamese, too, were accused of having confiscated much of the existing harvest. Much more simply rotted in the
fields as liberated Cambodians abandoned their collectives en masse. Some returned to their homes from the days before the
revolution. Hundreds of thousands of others fled toward Thailand. By October and November 1979, what had been a trickle of
refugees became a torrent. The terrible mismanagement by the Khmer Rouge, the war and the dislocation had suddenly brought a
new agony to Cambodia: Famine.
The refugees who poured into Thailand were a testimony to the torment: skeletal apparitions cloaked in tattered rags; children with
brittle limbs and distended stomachs; weary mothers, their breasts dry from malnutrition, clutching starving infants who had not the
strength to lift their heads. Witnesses to the exodus grappled for a way to describe what they saw. They could only invoke the names
of Auschwitz, of Dachau, of Belsen. A brace of crude, fetid refugee camps sprung up along the Thai border. Hundreds died in the first
horrid weeks, their bodies laid to rest in mass graves.
A massive campaign to aid the Cambodians took shape. The United Nations, the Red Cross, and a brace of smaller organizations
began providing food and medical assistance to the refugees at the border. But inside Cambodia, providing aid was more difficult.
Despite the appalling brutality of Pol Pot's regime, the international community still considered the Khmer Rouge to be the legitimate
government of the country. Heng Samrin was seen as a puppet, brought to power by an invading foreign army. The U.N. refused to
confer recognition on the new government.
The Phnom Penh government's bitterness toward the U.N. was compounded by the fact that the relief efforts along the Thai border
were clearly aiding the Khmer Rouge. Some of the refugee camps, in fact, were under direct control of the Khmer Rouge. Civilians
trapped in those camps were in desperate need of food, but there was no way to insure that any aid they received would not
ultimately fall into the hands of Khmer Rouge guerrillas.
Similarly, there were also concerns that aid sent to Phnom Penh might wind up in the hands of Vietnamese soldiers. The Vietnamese
often seemed to be deliberately hampering efforts to provide aid. The few relief officials who were allowed into Phnom Penh were not
allowed to set up radio communications, and since there were no working telephone lines out of Phnom Penh, the only outside
contact was through the daily Red Cross flight to Bangkok. They were instructed not to speak to anyone in the street, and the
government's propaganda radio accused them of being spies. The government also insisted that the distribution of aid be handled
not by international personnel, but by their own officials. The government also refused to allow any aid to be shipped overland from
Thailand.
Ultimately, much of the aid that did reach the interior of the country was distributed along the Thai border to Cambodians who carried
it back into their own country in oxcarts and on rickety bicycles. While malnutrition continued to be a problem, by the end of 1979 the
worst of the food shortages had passed.
As the months passed, the Vietnamese consolidated their hold on Cambodia. By the end of the year, there were nearly 225,000
Vietnamese troops occupying the country. But as time passed, many Cambodians began to suspect that the Vietnamese had no
intention of ever leaving. Others noted bitterly that many, if not most, of the officials of the new government were former Khmer
Rouge; the new government even continued to celebrate the anniversary of the Khmer Rouge takeover as a national holiday. And
while conditions inside the country had improved infinitely since the horrors of previous years, Heng Samrin's government was
frequently accused of widespread human rights violations.
Along the Thai border, the remaining Khmer Rouge forces soon regrouped and stepped up guerrilla attacks against the Vietnamese.
Prince Sihanouk, meanwhile, withdrew from the Khmer Rouge and announced the formation of his own resistance group, and Son
Sann, a former Prime Minister under Lon Nol, formed a third group. The Khmer Rouge, with extensive support from China, were the
strongest of the three groups militarily. But they could scarcely hope to win much support diplomatically. The United States and other
Western nations were determined to keep the Vietnamese isolated politically, but to do so by supporting the Khmer Rouge was
virtually unthinkable. The solution ultimately reached by the West was scarcely better. Under unrelenting pressure from the United
States, the three groups banded together into a single coalition in 1982 -- with Sihanouk once again serving as the titular head.
As the Third Indochina War dragged on, a pattern soon became apparent. During the rainy season, the guerrillas would step up their
activity, only to be driven back by Vietnamese offensives during the dry season. The refugee camps, often used as bases by the
guerrillas, frequently came under artillery fire from the Vietnamese; once again innocent women, men, and children were caught in the
middle.
The Banyan Tree: Untangling Cambodian History
Part Five: New Roots, New Growth, New Upheaval
Within Cambodia, a sense of normalcy slowly returned. But the coalition continued to occupy Cambodia's seat in the U.N., and the
crushing effects of war and international embargo kept the country one of the poorest in the world. In 1987, per capita income was
estimated to be only $160 annually -- ranking 195th out of the world's 203 countries. It was a situation that could not continue
indefinitely. The isolation carried a heavy price for Vietnam as well as Cambodia. Bogged down by the continuing fighting, and faced
with the prospect of diminishing Soviet support as the global political situation changed, in June 1988 the Vietnamese announced
plans to begin a gradual troop withdrawal. Their stated goal was to have all of their forces out of Cambodia by 1990.
The Vietnamese announcement cleared the way for real progress toward peace. In July 1988, leaders of the four warring factions
held their first face-to-face meeting, in Indonesia. The talks were inconclusive, but they did pave the way for future progress.
The announcement of a Vietnamese withdrawal had another effect, as well: it sent supporters of the guerrilla coalition scrambling for
a new policy. After years of propping up an alliance formed around the Khmer Rouge, they were now faced with the horrible prospect
that Pol Pot might return to power in the vacuum created by the Vietnamese withdrawal. They had forgotten the old adage: Be careful
what you wish for. You might get it.
As the Vietnamese troops pulled out, however, the situation on the battlefield remained largely unchanged. The Phnom Penh
government's army consisted of about 35,000 troops; they held their own in most areas, and the guerrillas made only minor inroads
into their territory.
Gradually a framework for peace began to emerge. In 1990 the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council put forth a plan
calling for the creation of a Supreme National Council (SNC) to be composed of six representatives (two from each faction) of the
guerrillas. As negotiations continued, a series of ceasefires were declared and more or less ignored. A formal ceasefire was finally
adopted in May 1991, and despite constant violations by the Khmer Rouge, the agreement held.
Norodom Sihanouk, meanwhile, after "retiring" and "returning from retirement" several times, was elected to a position as the
thirteenth member of the SNC, as its nonvoting chairman.
On October 23, 1991, the agreement was at last signed and formally accepted by all sides. The plan called for each army to
demobilize 70% of their troops, while the interim functioning of the government would be handled by the U.N. until elections could be
held in May 1993. It was the largest and costliest peacekeeping operation ever undertaken by the U.N., calling for nearly 22,000
soldiers and administrators.
It was also in October 1991 that an internal shakeup within the Phnom Penh government led to the removal of Heng Samrin from his
position as General Secretary of the communist party. Samrin, who had opposed a U.N. role in Cambodia, was replaced by Chea Sim.
Hun Sen, who had long held the post of Foreign Minister, was chosen to represent the Phnom Penh government in the upcoming
election for Premier. Like Heng Samrin, Hun Sen was a former Khmer Rouge cadre who had defected from the Eastern Zone in 1977.
By November 1991, U.N. personnel began arriving in force. Sihanouk, too, returned to Cambodia, greeted by cheering crowds. Khmer
Rouge representatives to the SNC arrived as well, but were greeted less warmly: their villa was attacked by a mob, and Khieu
Samphan, the leader of their delegation, was beaten and nearly murdered. He fled the capital in an armored car.
Against this uncertain backdrop, the U.N. began the massive task of repatriating the nearly 370,000 refugees from the camps in
Thailand. Sporadic fighting continued in the countryside, however, and the Khmer Rouge grew increasingly intransigent. They first
denied U.N. peacekeepers access to areas under their control, then refused to disarm. The Phnom Penh government, too, was
accused of violence directed at Sihanouk and Son Sann loyalists. Their actions, however, paled in comparison to those of the Khmer
Rouge. The Khmer Rouge began a campaign of harassment directed at the U.N. Several peacekeepers were kidnapped, and others
were murdered. Several civilians, particularly ethnic Vietnamese, were also massacred. In April 1993, the Khmer Rouge closed their
offices in Phnom Penh and sent a letter to the U.N. withdrawing from the peace process, under the pretense that there were millions
of Vietnamese still in the country illegally. Still, however, the other parties moved forward as planned. By the end of April, the last of
the refugees had been repatriated.
As the Khmer Rouge stepped up their threats to disrupt the elections scheduled to begin on May 23, many observers feared that the
specter of violence would keep the voter turnout low, enabling the Khmer Rouge to claim that the winner of the elections did not in
truth have wide popular support.
The dire predictions turned out to be unfounded. Despite the threats, 4.2 million of the 4.7 million registered voters went to the polls.
The FUNCINPEC party, headed by Sihanouk's son Norodom Ranariddh, won 58 of the 120 seats in the National Assembly; the Phnom
Penh faction won 51 seats, Son Sann's faction won 10 seats, and a right-wing party won the remaining seat. Initially, however, the
Phnom Penh government contested the results, and it was not until June 21 that Hun Sen formally conceded that they had lost the
election. However, fearing that the country would be ungovernable without some semblance of a consensus, Ranariddh consented to
allow Hun Sen to assume the role of "co-prime minister." The Khmer Rouge, meanwhile, began stepping up their attacks against the
fledgling government.
Despite the prominent roles played by Hun Sen and Ranariddh, there remained a part for Cambodia's consummate politician:
Sihanouk himself. Reviled by many, but revered by still more, Sihanouk declared that he had "no right to resist the will of the
Cambodian people" who were calling on him to return to the throne. On September 24, 1993, he signed a new constitution and once
again assumed the position of King of Cambodia. His powers, however, were limited. Under the terms of the constitution, the king was
selected by a five-member throne council. In poor health, Sihanouk spent much of his time outside the country, seeking medical
treatment, and the majority of power remained in the hands of the two Prime Ministers.
The Khmer Rouge, meanwhile, continued their attacks, routinely targeting civilians, and sowing land mines in rural areas. They still
enforced their policies through mass murder: In October 1994, for example, a group of seventy villagers in Battambang province were
captured by the guerrillas, who opened fire on them for no apparent reason. Fifty were killed.
Still, it was clear that the balance of power had shifted. Isolated diplomatically and economically, the Khmer Rouge at last began to
disintegrate. Defections took a heavy toll on their ranks in the wake of the 1993 elections. In August 1996, Ieng Sary, one of the
highest ranking members of the Khmer Rouge (by some accounts second or third in rank, below Pol Pot) defected to the government
in exchange for amnesty, taking many of his soldiers with him.
Unfortunately, violence between the factions in Phnom Penh escalated drastically as the Khmer Rouge disintegrated. Hun Sen still
controlled the strongest segment of the military, and he did not hesitate to exploit his power. In one particularly brutal attack, dozens
of supporters of a popular opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, were killed in a grenade attack on a peaceful demonstration in Phnom
Penh in March 1997. The violence underscored a disturbing truth: the demise of the Khmer Rouge would not necessarily mean the
onset of peace.
In June 1997, rumors began to suggest that several more high-ranking Khmer Rouge officials were considering peace negotiations.
Determined to continue fighting, Pol Pot responded in typical fashion: He executed his longtime Defense Minister, Son Sen, and ten
members of Son Sen's family. The execution further splintered the remaining guerrillas. It was Pol Pot's final mistake: the last of his
devout followers could no longer deny the brutality and futility of their leader's methods. Pol Pot was effectively overthrown by an
internal rebellion in the fall of 1997, and was "convicted" in a Khmer Rouge show trial. Confined to "house arrest" in the last enclave
of Khmer Rouge control, he died on April 15, 1998. Official accounts claimed that he succumbed to illness. Others suggested that he
was murdered by his former followers.
In Phnom Penh, meanwhile, the collapse of the Khmer Rouge led to a cynical contest between Ranariddh and Hun Sen. Each man
courted the defecting Khmer Rouge, knowing that the last of the guerrillas could tip the balance of power in his favor.
In July 1997 Hun Sen dispensed with the any pretense of cooperation. He overthrew Ranariddh in a coup. Ranariddh went into exile,
while a handful of outnumbered, outgunned soldiers held on to a small stretch of territory close to the Thai border. Meanwhile, the UN
estimated that at least 90 members of Ranariddh's party were murdered during and immediately after the coup.
The coup, however, once again left Cambodia diplomatically isolated. Under a Japanese-brokered peace plan, Ranariddh was tried in
absentia on the Hun Sen government's charges that he was conspiring with the Khmer Rouge and smuggling arms; after his
conviction, he was pardoned by the King and allowed to return to Cambodia to participate in the elections scheduled for July 1998.
However, Hun Sen's forces continued their campaign of intimidation: A dozen opposition candidates were murdered in the weeks
preceding the elections. The violence made a mockery of the international community's pledges to uphold "free and fair" elections.
Hun Sen won the elections, but the opposition protested the results. Again responding with force, Hun Sen dispatched riot police to
quell the protests. At least 18 persons were killed. The protests, however, brought the country's government to a virtual halt. In
November of 1998, an agreement was reached under which Hun Sen became the Prime Minister, while Ranariddh accepted a position
as President of the National Assembly.
In the wake of the agreement, a measure of stability has returned to Cambodia. Meanwhile, attempts to establish a tribunal to try
former Khmer Rouge officials have stagnated. A climate of corruption, intimidation, and impunity remains, and the country's dismal
human rights record shows few signs of improvement.
More than twenty-five years after Year Zero, the Cambodian people are still waiting for a future where their hopes will be fulfilled. The
greatest obstacle is the legacy of the last three decades. If the future is to be brighter, Cambodia must build upon her greatest asset:
the resourceful of her people. Her fate rests on whether the new government chooses to harness the Cambodian people, or to bind
them.
No tree can survive when cut from its roots. But the roots which sustain the tree may destroy the foundation of all structures
in their path. It is this which must be remembered, when the seeds are sown.
| A Brief History of the Pol Pot Era Kingdom of Cambodia |