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Interview with
Van Rith
in Khpop commune, S'ang district, Kandal province
20 February 2003
by Youk Chhang
"The DK leaders had their own crystal clear
principles regarding who was to know what and what someone was
not to know. This is a very important part of the story. It was
not the case that everything was generally known. There was
somebody who was leader at each and every level." Rith asserted
he only learned of the size and composition of the Central and
Standing Committees when he read about it in Indradevi
magazine.
Rith was an avid reader starting
from around age 17 or 18, when he was a student at Lycee
Sisowath, devouring both newspapers and books, including the
works of Tes Savut, a returnee from France, while participating
in demonstrations against oppression of all kinds, having been
impressed by the anti-colonialism of Prince Yutevong and Sok Bun
Sav, and such men's foundation of various associations. Among
the demonstration leaders were Ieng Sary, Son Sen and Iem Ret.
The assassination of Iev Koeus shocked him deeply, making him
realize how things really were, stoking his nationalism and his
attraction to democracy and liberalism, as espoused in Iev Keous'
song about democracy being like a torrent of water flowing down
from a mountain, i.e., unstoppable. He was deeply influenced by
the nationalist sentiments of the era, including the official
nationalism taught in the schools, which stressed the
avariciousness of the Thai and Vietnamese. Meanwhile, he
listened to the radio, including VOA, eventually buying his own
radio to do so in 1956.
Rith was imprisoned in Posat in
July 1952, after he participated in the demonstrations that
year. Following the demonstrations, he and other participants
had fled to Kampung Chhnang, where Rith had an uncle who worked
for the cadastral service and was a member of the Democrat
Party. Rith was in particular trouble because he had criticized
the fact that Monique had won a beauty contest in which she was
the only contestant, and Sihanouk was angry at him personally,
especially since Sihanouk also heard the students had been
gossiping about the fact that the King did dancing cheek to
cheek with Monique, critical gossip that was deemed lese
majesty. Rith was turned in by followers of Lon Nol's Neang Kun
Hing party, being arrested on 10 July 1952. Under police
interrogation, he admitted talking about the beauty contest and
the dancing. He was taken to Kampung Chhnang and tried by the
court there, sentenced to five years, with three years reduction
because he was a minor, although five or six others tried for
the same offense got the full five years. He was transferred to
Phnom Penh, where Democratic Party lawyers intervened on his
behalf, while has parents went to get help from Chuon Nat
because one of those convicted as his student, and Rith was
released. Chuon Nat explained to Rith that he himself had almost
been imprisoned in connection with the liberal arts affair,
admonishing him to pay attention to his studies and not get
involved in the opposition.
He was
involved with the Democratic Party during the 1955 elections,
and was aggrieved by the repression of it in connection with the
electoral campaign. Although it lost, it did not cease
activities, instead creating various organizations and movements
– in which Rith participated as a student -- to support policies
of peace, independence and neutrality. He continued to follow
things into the 1960s, including Sihanouk's "invitation" to the
34 to form a government, to which Ieng Sary responded with a
petition vowing loyalty to Sihanouk's policies of peace,
independence and neutrality, declaring that there was no need to
form any government other than that appointed by the Prince.
By this
time, Rith had become a reserve 2nd lieutenant in the
army, serving under Um Savut, who used him to spy on the
progressives, attending meetings and reporting back. He joined
the Sangkum and was also a member of the Red Cross.
According to Rith, Ieng Sary's father was a Chinese businessman,
his mother a Vietnamese, so Sary had never known hardship,
having subsequently lived only in Phnom Penh and France. When
Sary went into the jungle in 1963, it was very difficult for
him, and he immediately fell very ill, unable to do much. He was
older and more theoretically sophisticated than Pol Pot, but Pol
Pot had already established a much stronger base of support
among the veterans, including Sao Pheum, creating a front among
veteran and other elements, unifying them under his line.
After
being arrested, Tou Samut was detained at Um Savut's Banteay
Sloek, to which Rith was attached, after which he was
transferred to another location, where he was killed. Rith
presumed this was on Lon Nol's orders. Um Savut warned Rith that
he needed to be careful
Later,
Rith worked for the Ministry of Finance, but also had a friend
teaching at Kampucheabot, with whom he had political discussions
and who was a lawyer for a political prisoner, who complained of
being dunked in water during interrogation, as a result of which
he had made false confessions.
In
1968, Rith was imprisoned for the second time. He was severely
beaten and tortured with mock drowning during interrogation and
convinced that – like others – he would never be released. One
prisoner detained before him had jumped out of window to kill
himself. Many others were tortured even more severely, including
the wives of prisoners who refused to confess, with one of these
women later becoming a military cadre in Sector 33. Rith
insisted that Khmer Rouge torture was no different from – indeed
a continuation of – Sangkum-era torture, with techniques such as
immersion in water and use of plastic bags being adopted from
Sangkum-era practices.
Democrat Party ideas stuck with him right through to 1970,
reemerging after the coup, amidst the several social and
political contradictions that boiled up after the coup.
Thus,
Rith was an intellectual who joined the revolution from the
city, doing so in the context of the turmoil and recriminations
after Sihanouk was disposed. Both he and his wife feared
imprisonment and were responding to Sihanouk's earlier appeal.
Prominent intellectuals like Chuon Cheuan were fleeing, and so
Rith did, too, in 1971. He asked around about the route out,
talking especially to other old friends from Democrat Party
days. He considered himself a patriot, like the others who were
fleeing. He finally made to the liberated zones in May 1972.
Upon arrival, he was not greatly trusted, being considered a
johny-come-lately intellectual, with a bad class background. He
began as a Front cadre, who had entered the liberated zones
because he had lots of friends there.
Meanwhile, his own parents had fled the liberated zones to come
to Phnom Penh, in part because they had displayed a photograph
of him in his 2nd lieutenant's uniform, but also
because all his relatives were teachers and so many people in
his village were civil servants, so the Vietnamese accused the
whole village of being Lon Nol and killed almost everybody.
Sector 25 bordered on Viet Nam and was economically
very well-endowed. During the first Indochina War, much of it
had been occupied by the Viet Minh with a view to exploiting it
for its richness in fish, as well as for strategic reasons: to
prevent the French navy from attacking down the Tonle Bassak.
Rith had seen all this as a child. After the 1970 coup, the
Vietnamese again came in everywhere, presenting themselves first
as the Sihanouk Front army, and then the Khieu Samphan army, as
Khieu Samphan had a good name in what was his old constituency.
They were all over this sector and much of the Southwest in
1970-1971, organizing the army in the Southwest. In Rith's
sector, the Vietnamese set up a sector army committee comprising
Seng Pum, a Vietnamese; Huot Se, who was a neutral figure but
had previously served in the Vietnamese army; and Sok But
Chamraoen, who had not previously been involved in the struggle,
who had been a real hooligan. But Chamraoen had come down from
Phnom Penh in 1970 and ingratiated himself to the Vietnamese,
who appointed him committee member in charge of economy, which
primarily meant the fishing grounds, so that they could get
whatever fish they needed from him. But Chamraoen had a fridge
full of booze and lots of women.and lots of women.
Rith recalled having seen photographs distributed by
Sihanouk, showing Non Suon in the pre-1954 period dressed in
Vietnamese garb, and Rith believed that Suon had been completely
under Vietnamese direction.
The CPK policy was to fight on two fronts, "the
battlefield fighting the Americans and Lon Nol, and also the
battlefield to get away from the Yuon," so that no one could
accuse the CPK of being a Vietnamese lackey. The documents were
absolutely clear on this, so the policy was to create an army of
its own. This was done in 1972, when Rith was already in the
liberated zone and had met back up with all his old Democrat
Party friends, including Von Vet, who was one of them, someone
whom Rith had met during the 1955 elections. Von Vet was very
pleased to see Rith and said he had reported to the higher
levels about his arrival, and the higher levels said they
remembered Rith, too. In July 1972, the higher levels instructed
that he be assigned to go down into the districts, but before
that he was sent for military training north of Phnom Penh,
training in fact to become a political commissar. Rith told Von
Vet he was afraid he couldn't handle combat, but Von Vet said he
shouldn't worry. As an intellectual, Rith was adept at being a
political commissar, which involved the presentation of
documents to those who weren't very well educated, and he was
praised for his loyalty to the party. So when the Special Zone
was organized, he was considered the only one who could sort
things out in Sector 25, which was chaotic because of the
presence of so many Vietnamese. The place had pioneered by Non
Suon, who was there first and was well acquainted with Sao Pheum,
but because Rith was locally well known – and his name had
appeared as number 90 in the list of 91 intellectuals in the
liberated zones, he was well-received by the population and
welcomed by Non Suon, who treated him well. For his part, Rith
respected Non Suon. Rith spoke at rallies, and – being a
well-spoken intellectual – was much applauded by the masses.
As a result, the masses came to Rith, complaining
that the sector cadre were corrupt and lackeys of the
Vietnamese, who were picking the fruit off the trees, which
infuriated the masses. Rith concluded that unless Cambodians
conducted a struggle completely on their own, they would end up
as lackeys of the Vietnamese, telling the people that if they
wanted to avoid this, they should join the army and fight.
Sihanouk's original appeal for people to join the
maquis had created the foundation for the liberation army.
Without it, people would not have joined the army in large
numbers, as the did in response to his appeal. This made it
possible for Khmer to do things on their own. So a
concentration of sector forces was begun, with the help of a
battalion sent down by the higher ups, led by Nat, who was a
native of the sector (from Prek Ampil). Nat, who had been in the
liberated zones since maybe 1968, was a knowledgeable veteran of
guerilla warfare. As part of the process of the organization of
sector forces, Rith was assigned chairman of the sector military
office. This meant setting up venues for study sessions,
ensuring there was enough food for those attending. Indeed, Rith
was responsible for all logistics, as well as documentation. Von
Vet was impressed with his work and protected him once when it
was suggested he should be arrested, saying he was doing a good
job, that although he was only a Front cadre, he was key to the
expansion of the army. As it advanced with each Lon Nol defeat,
Rith moved his office forward. Soon, it was at Tonle Bati. The
FANK Division 7 under Un Kauv was defeated, and 105mm howitzers
were captured.
So from 1972, there was no Vietnamese involvement in
the Sector 25 military, the chairman of which was Sok. The
legend about the existence of a Vietnamese special forces unit
at Kah Khael that intervened in various battles was not true. It
just ripped off the local economy and brought bombing down on
the people there, which Rith as convinced the Vietnamese did on
purpose. Soon the people knew that Rith was in favour of having
the Sector troops drive the Vietnamese out, and they were
mustered to do so, driving the Vietnamese right down to the
border. This was in accordance with political instructions from
Von Vet, who was mostly north of Phnom Penh, only occasionally
coming south for visits. All the instruction materials came from
there, insisting on the principle of independence, self-reliance
and being the master of one's own destiny, which meant not
relying on foreigners, otherwise one day one would end up as
debt slaves to them. So all the fighting was done without
foreign training, on the basis of learning lessons from combat
itself. Ammunition, weapons and food had to be captured from the
enemy. And the reality was that in almost every battle, the FANK
soldiers broke and fled. Lessons were learned and war booty
captured in every battle. Experience was the teacher. The troops
themselves invented flying mines, field radio systems and secret
codes, without Vietnamese or Chinese help.
From
listening to FANK radio communications it was learned that a
major cause of low FANK morale was that although there was a pay
system, the commanders took all the money, leaving the ordinary
soldiers with nothing to spend. By contrast, the peasant
combatants of the liberation army fought even if they had
nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep, eating what they could find
and sleeping on the ground. They joined the army from 12 years
up, starting out carrying rice and graduating into combat. And
they truly believed that unless they did the fighting
themselves, somebody else would take over. They were taught to
turn their grievances into anger, and – like the people – they
were very angry at US imperialism because of the bombing, the
indiscriminate B52 strikes, and at the constant shelling.
Although nobody wanted communism, people hated imperialism and
the rich, so they supported the Khmer Rouge. The rich whose
houses were destroyed by the bombing and shelling also supported
the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge leadership was also good: some
being quite well educated. Von Vet had attended lycee in
Batdambang. (Nat?) was also a lycee student who had then worked
for the electricity service. And it was precisely because the
leadership was Khmer that the people supported it. The principle
of independence/self-reliance meant no foreign leadership. If
there had been foreign leadership, there would have been no
support. There was support because the Khmer Rouge were against
the Americans, Lon Nol and the Vietnamese. So when the time came
to attack Phnom Penh, the people were really revved up, and two
divisions had been formed: Division 11 and Division 12, plus a
regiment for Sector 25. There was also a Division 13 north of
Phnom Penh. After 17 April, Division 703 was formed from the
south, and Division 801 from the north.
Before the attack on Phnom Penh, a battlefield
committee was formed to coordinate everything. Previously, the
zone and the sectors had functioned separately, and the sector
forces were jealous of the zone forces, which fought better and
were more prestigious. To transcend this, a Special Zone South
of Phnom Penh Battlefield Committee was formed with Von Vet as
Chairman, Non Suon as Vice-Chairman, division secretaries Nat
and Sok as members, with Rith as a member in charge of the
Office. They worked out a clear-cut strategy to cut off supplies
to Phnom Penh so it could be liberated, the capture of Kah Peam
Reang being the key, so it was a main objective for 1 January
1975. Troops from river districts who knew how to swim were used
for this attack. The permanent cutting of the river was achieved
with mines supplied from the Special Zone headquarters north of
Phnom Penh. With the East Zone in control of the east bank of
the Mekong and the Special Zone in control of the west, the
mines were deployed across the river to block it completely. The
East and Special Zones then cooperated in the attack on Neak
Leuang, which was commanded by a former governor of Svay Rieng
with whom Rith had studied at Lycee Sisowath.
East and Special Zone troops then moved upriver to
attack Phnom Penh, the Special Zone units capturing 155mm and
105mm howitzers on the way. They wanted to use these to shell
Phnom Penh, but orders came down from above not to do this, so
that the people would not be killed.
On the other hand, the policy vis-a-vis enemy-held
cities and towns was to dry them out economically by blocking
all communications routes, the people in the liberated zones
being mobilized to physically cut the roads. This was part of
the people's war of a liberation army that lacked supplies and
especially heavy weapons.
Rith also claimed that the liberation army captured
very few FANK prisoners, maintaining that as the people's army
was numerically and materially weak compared to FANK, its usual
tactic was to surround and besiege FANK outposts, wait until
FANK contingents were hungry and tired, then attack with 105mm
fire and flying mines while contacting them over the radio and
telling them they would be allowed to escape if they left behind
their weapons. In most battles, those FANK soldiers who were not
killed simply fled. There was no policy to capture them, as
there was no food with which to feed them. Sector 25 forces
relied on paddy milled in Prek Lovea for its ration, and there
was not any surplus to feed prisoners of war.
So, according to Rith, there the military operated
no prisons, either at the front or in the rear, and held no
prisoners, as there was nothing to feed them with. Nor were
those fleeing according to specified escape routes fired upon,
as FANK soldiers were considered fellow Khmer who wanted to
live.
As for errant cadre who had no fighting spirit and
combatants who misbehaved, who broke the strict discipline both
on and off the battlefield, there was a place for those removed
from the ranks: Voat Kandal, where such liberals (serei)
were sent to clear land and plant vegetables with a diet of rice
and salt and re-education. They were then given the opportunity
to volunteer to go back into combat, but if they made mistakes
again, they would be returned and put to work at the Economy
place, in Prek Lovea, where the rice mill was, at the
pig-raising unit on Phnum Veang, or at the fishing grounds. Most
of this ill-disciplined elements couldn't resist booze and
women. Rith claimed none were executed, declaring those involved
in fishing got fat because they had all the fish they could eat.
According to him, this was the only way to run a people's army,
because if combatants were ill-treated for just minor behaviour,
the parents of peasant boys would not allow them to go into
battle. For this reason, the same kind of re-education was
applied to those who deserted in combat.
Rith denied that there was any attempt to round up
all former FANK and make them prisoners of war, asserting that
there was complete chaos and that it would have been impossible
to carry out comprehensive detention, given that FANK soldiers
were fleeing in every direction, without looking back. Already,
on 16 April, when the general officers fled, ordinary soldiers
knew everything was over, and – anyway – there was nowhere to
put them.
However, there was agitation in the liberated zones
to capture kinh, who were said to be sent to do wrecking.
At every rally, victory over the CIA was proclaimed. Later, KGB
and the Viet Nam-ists were added. This was generalized
throughout the liberated zones. The result was that
interrogations concentrated on this.
After April 1975, Rith visited Viet Nam as part of a
Commerce Ministry delegation, at a time when Viet Nam was
provided some rice as aid. Rith went down the Mekong to Viet
Nam, meeting Teu Kam there. Teu Kam also came to Phnom Penh as
part of an official delegation which – among other things –
wanted to recover the gold secretly hidden in Phnom Penh by
Vietnamese Communist operatives before 1970. It was hidden in
Tuol Svay Prey. Teu Kam had once become a Buddhist monk in Phnom
Penh as part of his attempt to become as Khmer as possible.
After 1975, Rith took some of his forces from Sector
25 with him to Phnom Penh, especially those who had worked in
the transport corps, to work under him at state warehouses. He
claimed all of them survived, as none of them were ill-treated,
such that to this day, they consider Rith as being their father,
grateful that he never raised his hand or his voice to them. The
parents, who know how bad things were with other cadre, thank
Rith for keeping their children alive.
According to Rith, Meah Mut fought his from the
Southwest into Phnom Penh, being put in charge of the Prey Sar
prison, where a warehouse that was on an old FANK base was
bombed by the US following the Mayaguez incident. Rith said that
Mut was at this time a member of the General Staff, in charge of
the Navy.
Rith described his work as purely technical, relying
on his commercial expertise, stressing that he had never held
ministerial rank and that in the CPK system, no one ever worked
on their own. The Party enveloped everything, but through a
system of fiefdoms, with usurper kinglets (sdech kranh)
ruling over each Zone and over Phnom Penh: Mok in the Southwest,
Pheum in the East, Koy Thuon in the North, Nheum in the
Northwest, Si in the West, each overseeing the economy, politics
and executions, "enjoying total delegated authority" (mean
seut tâmleak teang âh).
He claimed that he only learned from his recently
readings the composition of the CPK Central Committee and its
Standing Committee.
Rith evaluated the DK regime's good point as its
nationalism, the fact that there were "no foreigners," that
things were "set up independently, without relying on
foreigners." Even more importantly, the regime was absolutely
dedicated to preserving Cambodia's territorial integrity,
absolutely opposed to any seizure of Cambodian territory by the
Vietnamese and totally determined not to let anyone look down on
Khmer. Rith insisted that the Vietnamese intended to swallow
Cambodia and make it part of an Indochinese Federation. He
maintained that Democratic Kampuchea had succeeded in
frustrating the Vietnamese desire to defeat Cambodia militarily
in one blow, by being able to maintain Cambodia's UN seat
through military resistance after 1979, having previously foiled
Vietnamese efforts to overrun Cambodia, at least in places. He
further stated that Democratic Kampuchea's infliction of
casualties on the Vietnamese was the main reason for the
ultimate signing of the Paris Agreements.
However, Rith said it was a huge mistake not to have accepted
any aid from the West or China after liberation. When Pol Pot
went to China, he asked Mao only for 2,000,000 hoes, refusing
Mao's offers of rice and other assistance, saying the people
would sort this out for themselves, by farming the fields
themselves.
On the other hand, citing articles in Entratevi
(issues 44 and 80), Rith also declared that the Kamping Puoy
reservoir, built during 1976 and inaugerated in 1977, and the
Trapeang Thmar reservoir are still in operation and appreciated
by the people today, demonstrating that DK did achieve some
useful things, there was good with the bad. He conceded
thousands or tens of thousand of people conscripted for
reservoir construction died, noting it has been alleged that
this was the regime's fault because it should have used
machinery. However, he asserted that relying on heavy machinery
was not an option because the people could not even drive cars
or motorcycles, much less operate earthmoving vehicles. He said
they would have wrecked such vehicles, incurring huge repair
costs or thousands or tens of thousands of dollars per vehicle.
Relying on machinery would have been a very dangerous path, Rith
insisted, declaring that burrowing of money to purchase
expensive machinery that no one knew how to operate was the
reason for the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe.
Therefore, Pol Pot's policy of relying on national strength and
rapid construction of water works to build the country quickly
to preclude a Vietnamese invasion made sense, even though this
policy entailed both good and bad aspects. Rith added that this
policy had been explained to the Chinese delegation that visited
Cambodia in late 1977.
Meanwhile, handicraft production continued, as did factory
production, with veteran and new workers working alongside each
other, Rith declared.
The
idea of independence/self-reliance was that the people would
feed themselves by farming the fields, relying on their age-old
agricultural knowledge, then proceeding to export of paddy,
which would be made possible in the first instance by
construction of canals, dams and reservoirs, so that production
would no longer be reliant upon the weather, but there would be
no immediate need for science. This, according to Rith, was
based on the same assumptions as Sangkum-era construction of
dams in the late 1950s.
However, Rith said, the DK leadership was wrong to
think only about producing and exporting paddy, and not about
more lucrative and easy-to-grow export crops for which there was
an established foreign demand. For example, in S'ang, the
previous production of peanuts, sesame, green beans, etc, was
halted, leaving the people only to farm paddy, even though
people had no experience in paddy production. Similarly, the
people in Loek Daek district, highly skilled at fishing and
making fish sauce, were forced to learn how to grow paddy. The
overemphasis on paddy production thus led to starvation. Instead
of producing high value items that were simple to grow and sell,
everybody had to concentrate on paddy, which requires enormous
experience and skill to grow but did not fetch a good price. At
the same time, local trade relations allowing specialization,
such as between S'ang district of Kandal province and Bati and
Prey Kabbas districts of Takaev province, were abolished,
creating further hardship.
So the bad aspect of the regime was that although
the people were supposed to have enough to eat, they did not.
Another problem with the regime was the arbitrary
reality of appointments to local positions of power. In
practice, the line calling for appointment of poor peasants as
village, cooperative and subdistrict cadre meant that anyone of
that class background was appointed, even if the reason for
their poverty was that they were hooligans, people who had sold
off their family inheritance to pay off gambling debts. Once in
power, the ignorant poor – having no idea how to make a proper
living -- were even more oppressive than their predecessors,
Rith maintained. This was what led to slaughter, as a result of
internal contradictions and infiltration by Vietnamese
intelligence, because the Vietnamese had originally appointed
most of these local cadre, who acted like overseers, not cadre.
Rith said that 18-19 members of his (extended) family died
because of these know-nothing cadre.
The opposition to expertise was another bad point.
Cadre appointed on the basis of class background meant that no
one had technical expertise, the concept of which including
basic skills like bookkeeping. In fact, Rith said, cadre had
neither technical nor political knowledge.
Rith maintained that recognition of the incapacity
of cadre in technical matters led to the decision not to put
money into circulation. After the money was printed in China,
brought to Cambodia via Hanoi and was about to be put into
circulation, it was explained in meetings that this was in fact
no simple matter, requiring zone and sector cadre with banking
skills and an understanding of counterfeiting. There was also
concern that these cadre would take advantage of their control
of money to make themselves rich by stuffing it in their
pockets. So it was decided not to go ahead. The intention was
originally there, but the policy was reversed.
In this
regard, Rith said that although Democratic Kampuchea was
supposed to have no rich and no poor, in fact there were super
rich and super poor. The super rich emerged immediately after
the war when some cadre accumulated material wealth, including
by ripping off evacuees, something that happened to Rith's own
older sibling, a schoolteacher, who was ultimately executed by
an uneducated cadre. Such persons, Rith declared, could never
have properly handled money.
Rith
asserted that Koy Thuon was the ringleader of a traitorous plot
involving money. According to Rith, Thuon was a link of Hâng
Thun Hak, a Khmer Serei, and they conspired with Hing Kunthun,
the director of the Khmer Commercial Bank, to get riels out of
the country so that they could be spent once money was put back
into circulation. Rith was told this by someone who said this
plot was part of a larger plan by Koy Thuon and other North Zone
elements to take power with Khmer Serei help. As evidence in
support of this, Rith recalled that a false Front set up by Lon
Nol had appeared at the Ministry of Information on 17 April
1975, maintaining that this implicated the North Zone forces
that had seized the Ministry in such a plan.
Rith attributed the CPK's wrong decisions above all
to Pol Pot and other leftists in the leadership who considered
everything modern as feudal-capitalist and began attacking
others for being petty bourgeois and intellectuals. They were
not in favour of expertise or of knowledge and know-how.
Rith contended that those most victimized by the
regime were the petty bourgeoise, especially democrats who
joined the revolution, because they wanted to exercise their
freedom of expression, to put forward their views, but could not
do so. Rith himself was in this category, but lasted a long time
because he was seen as one united front cadre who could organize
specific things with regard to foreign trade, things that only
someone with education could do. However, Rith said, his days
were numbered. Generally, it was the uneducated who ill-treated
the educated, especially in some villages, districts, sectors
and zones where those in charge declared themselves talented
proletarians, making a distinction between those who knew only
how to talk and those who really knew how to get things done.
They had become haughty and highhanded with everybody they
considered an intellectual or petty bourgoeis, no longer
thinking about gathering forces like before. This, Rith
declared, was what got people killed.
According to Rith, one PRC delegation, led by
Foreign Trade Minister Li Qiang (sp?), came to Cambodia in early
1976, signing two or three agreements, including a commercial
agreement. The DK side requested a loan of 140 million Chinese
yuan and $US 20 million. It was Rith's job to activate the
spending of these funds, and on 4 April 1976 he went to China
and Hong Kong for one week to discuss Cambodia's requirements
with Chinese leaders and to explore the opening of an office in
Hong Kong, where a Chinese company helped introduce him to
businessmen. These funds were not aid, but loans, to be repaid,
with the accounts held in a Chinese bank. The 140 million yuan
were split between A and B accounts. The A funds were for
purchase of Chinese goods, which were imported to Cambodia, with
all the paperwork done by the Chinese. The B account was for
crediting Cambodia for the purchase of initial exports: cut
wood, coconuts, whatever could be gathered up and sent by boat
to China. The first major import was raw materials for the
Chakrei Ting cement factory, as cement production was considered
essential to national reconstruction. Chinese technicians came
pursuant to a technical cooperation agreement with China to get
the factory up and running quickly. Other imports aimed at
supporting agriculture.
Commerce funds were not used for the purchase of weapons.
According to Rith, the story that export sales were used to
finance the purchase of weapons, which in turn were used to kill
people, is false. The supply of weapons was pursuant to separate
agreements starting with GRUNK, which did not affect commercial
transactions.
Imports were done via paper transactions inside the
Bank of China, orders being placed by ministries in Phnom Penh
and the Cambodia paperwork being done by Rith.
As for the US$20 million, the Cambodians proposed
using it to purchase spares for western equipment, including
tractors and vehicles, and the Chinese turned it over to
Cambodia, with Rith going to Hong Kong to arrange for its use,
although the Chinese introduced him to all the necessary
businesses. Purchases were made via letters of credit, from the
international market, from firms in the US, Australia, Japan and
Africa. Rith set up the "Ren Fung (sp?)" company, buying to
service the needs of the tire and other factories, while selling
national produce, including rubber, on the Singapore market,
using the procedures to buy engine oil.
As for the 140 million yuan, this money was used to
purchase lathes and the latest Chinese rice milling equipment.
Imported machinery was warehoused in riverfront buildings from
Voat Onnalaom to the Chroy Changvar bridge and KM6, where much
of it remained due to a lack of means for transport, as the
boats built at Chroy Changvar were made of wood.
Rith affirmed that Sar Keum Lamut in fact knew
nothing about Democratic Kampuchea finances, the only person
other than Rith who handled money being Ieng Sary. According to
Rith, a Chinese official (La Mengqiang?) told him in April 1976
that Sary never deposited money in a Chinese bank or accounted
for expenditures, but simply stuck cash in his pocket. Ieng Sary
also gave him constant grief, opposing Rith's appointment as
trade representative in Hong Kong because Sary wanted to appoint
one of his own cronies. Sary continued to oppose him even though
he was good at his job, getting results.
Rith recalled that in 1975, there had been a move to
dismiss Sary was foreign minister because he was not accepted
internationally, neither by the Chinese nor the Thai, and to
replace him with Khieu Samphan. This did not happen, but left
hard feelings, and from then on, there was a fear that Ieng Sary
would try to win over some armed forces to make a coup, hard
feelings that underpinned the situation that finally emerged in
1996, building on earlier conflicts, those of 1963-1964, or even
those back in France, from which time Ieng Sary had wanted to be
the leader.
Sun Ti was married to Rith's cousin by birth, having
joined the revolution via his uncle. So – Rith insisted – he
could not have been a KGB. He was forced to "confess" this to
implicate unit chiefs in the foreign ministry in order to get to
Son Sen and arrest him. This was when Son Sen was in the East,
and was trying to convince Pol Pot to ease tension, not to
fight, not to be so aggressive, as there was no international
support. He came with a memorandum, but Pol Pot refused to see
him. The "confession" aimed to implicate Ni Kân and Thim, thus
getting to Son Sen.
Rith himself was falsely implicated in 18 documents
extracted from kids working for him, but the reality was that he
was considered as somebody still influenced by the Democrat Part
ideas of his youth, and he had indeed joined the revolution
precisely because he detested rule by a mysterious
interconnected factional group. Moreover, he had discovered that
the revolution had made his mother thin as a rail, being forced
to eat boiled hard maize, even though she had no teeth. He met
her, and she said this was the last time they would meet,
because there was nothing more to eat. Upon return from seeing
her, Rith informed Khieu Samphan, who was in charge of Commerce,
that at least in Sector 25 there was nothing to eat, asking him
why – given the sector's richness in fish, bananas, morning
glory, etc – arrangements were not made for the people there to
trade these items with Takeo and Kampung Speu for rice, or to
allow the people there simply to go ahead and eat bananas and
fish. Rith spoke extensively to Khieu Samphan about the misery
of the people, revealing this hidden reality at a time when the
radio was talking about a phenomenally great leap forward,
proclaiming everyone was comfortable and happy, getting yields
of ten to 20 tons. He pointed out that growing paddy was not the
solution to everything.
After
this, he was furiously hated and had constant problems, and thus
kids working for him were beaten and duped into implicating him
in their responses. However, he could not yet be arrested,
because there was no one at the Ministry of Commerce who could
replace him, and luckily for him, in 1979, everything fell apart
and everyone fled west, putting an end to everything for the
time being, at least until things could be sorted out in the
west. Before the fall, an ex-school teacher from Takeo, named
Lonh Sen, was placed next to him at the ministry, but he knew
nothing compared to Rith, who had studied banking and commerce,
having a Third Degree certificate from a two year course and
done a three year course in banking, as well as having worked in
the Ministry of Finance. Combined with his military experience,
this made him virtually irreplaceable. Compared to him, Rith
insisted, the cadre around him were like blind men, some of them
literally having only one eye.
At the
time of the Vietnamese invasion in late December 1978, a Chinese
economy and trade delegation was visiting Cambodia, working with
Rith on a wide variety of issues. At a soiree on 28 December,
Chinese ambassador Sun Hao invited Ieng Sary and Rith to brief
him on the situation. At this time the CPK was urgently
strengthening its relations with Thailand to counter the
Vietnamese threat, and Sun Hao conveyed a message from Thai
Prime Minister Kriangsak Chunhawan that Thailand was prepared to
allow its ports to be used to tranship any Chinese supplies
Cambodia needed, and also to provide any other help. However,
Sary said everything was alright, that there was no problem, and
did not report the conversation to Pol Pot. The result was that
there were no clear contingency plans when the Vietnamese
arrived in Phnom Penh.
Rith also stated that advancement at Ieng Sary's
Ministry of Foreign Affairs depended on supporting and exalting
Ieng Sary.
Rith
also recalled the case of Reuan, the wife of Seua Vasy alias
Deuan, maintaining that she rose to a high position because of
her husband's status, which she used in a factional way to do
whatever she wanted, thus provoking Laurent Picq's ire, whom
Reuan mistreated because Reuan, like Deuan, was a factory
worker. Rith pointed out that the only person Picq wrote
positively about was Ni Kân, explaining that he treated her
relatively well because he was relatively intellectual, whereas
the others treated her badly, behaviour that Rith attributed to
Ieng Sary.
As for
Khieu Samphan, Rith stated that "he only knew what was going on
at the summit, the theory of it, not being one of the lower
downs who was actually doing things" (koat doeng tae a
kâmpoul loe te, a treuhsadey vea te, dâl a cheak-sdaeng khang
kraom neh, koat mean neak thoe na).
Pol
Pot, Rith declared, thrived on flattery (si chor),
reacting to it by increasing the action which caused the
flattery. To tell him the truth was fatal (yok karpeut tov
niyeay meun slap te). He only liked those who came with
reports of phenomenal development and great leaps forward. He
was furious when Rith, who had previously believed the
propaganda published in
Kampuchea
magazine and broadcast over Democratic Kampuchea radio, reported
the reality of starvation in S'ang. This was the reality the led
the veterans of the Viet Minh-era struggle to oppose the regime
with the slogan, "farm with rain, eat rice; farm with
irrigation, eat gruel," and also led to opposition by the East
Zone. The post-war line of socialist construction caused one to
divide into two, a split, leading to turmoil, resulting in
measures being taken against opposition, with the people being
the victims of uneducated cadre.
In this
regard, Rith cited Nate Thayer's interview with Pol Pot in
asserting that the Party Secretary had executed 14,000 cadre who
had wrongly implemented the line by killing Cambodia's own
people, cadre who had been prohibited from doing so but
disobeyed. Their victims, he explained, lived outside of Phnom
Penh, in grassroots governed everywhere by the kind of cadre
Rith described. Nothing worked in any of the zones. The Centre
gave them instructions about the exercise of political and
economic power, but implementation was up to the zones
themselves, so everything depended on the kinds of persons who
were in charge of the zones, because they put their links in
place as subordinates in the sectors, which did the same in the
districts, which did the same in the cooperatives and
subdistricts. The military at the zone and sector levels
similarly were links of those above them. If the Centre gave
them a hard time in a way that adversely affected their
interests, there could be a blow up, as in the first such case,
with the North Zone when measures were taken against Koy Thuon,
who refused to follow orders, who when ordered things left then
right, and was a rightist especially when it came to women, song
and drink.
Rith
insisted that Koy Thuon indeed had problems with regard to such
matters, noting that he had known Koy Thuon for many years,
since their days as students together at Lycee Sisowath and
later when Koy Thuon attended Normal School and worked as a
teacher. They were like childhood friends. Rith insisted that
Koy Thuon was roguish and had links to Hang Thun Hak and others
of that ilk, links that continued during the 1970-1975 war and
connected Koy Thuon to the Khmer Serei. He remained at the rear
during the war, not accompanying his troops into battle, but
going around with a troupe of teenaged songstresses, while
cutting down people's trees to build wide roads. As his witness,
Rith named Si, a medic in Kampung Cham.
Then,
when measures were taken against Koy Thuon, it affected his
subordinates, because whenever measures were taken against a
boss, it affected the lower downs. This was the case whether it
was a zone or a sector, but wherever this happened, there was
unrest, as those lower down concluded if they did nothing, they
would be dead.
At the
same time, Rith contended that lower level cadre believed that
because Pol Pot expressed support for the Gang of Four in China,
they concluded that they should do what was done during the
Cultural Revolution, such as knocking down pagodas. Because the
leadership was leftist, subordinates behaved in a leftist
manner, taking Radio Beijing accounts of what the Gang of Four
advocated as their cue. This caused splits within the ranks of
which traitors took advantage, in Rith's view, to burn things to
a crisp on the outside while leaving things raw in the middle,
in order to open the way to a Vietnamese invasion, which the
people also therefore applauded. But the root cause was leftism,
manifest among other ways in indiscriminate attacks on
intellectuals, including those who had given up everything for
the revolution and who tended to be in favour of democracy and
liberty, regardless of whether they had studied in Phnom Penh,
France or the US, and spoke out, as a result of which they were
grievously victimized.
Asked
who ordered their execution, Rith reiterated that "in general
terms, the upper echelons did not give a green light for
killings" by the lower levels (khang loe, niyeay ruom, meun
baoek aoy sâmlap te), as "they gave very clear instructions
that before anyone could be killed, the decision to do so had to
be made at four levels, first district and then sector, zone and
centre, only after which could someone be killed" (koat mean
kar nae-noam chbas nas, kar sâmlap manus mneak toal tae mean kar
sâmrech 4 choan, pi srok, tâmbân, pheak, mochhoem, ban sâmlap
manus mneak ban). Their policy was to "go light on killings"
(aoy saoe slap) and deposit suspects with the Centre.
Thus, it was supposed to "not be the case that just anybody had
the right to kill" (meun maen neak-na mean seut sâmlap te),
but the lower downs did so. Rith recalled that one female cadre
from Kampung Tralach, Maen, who came for a study session in
Phnom Penh, bragged proudly of having killed 400 people at the
school she was attending. She was killing people who did not to
give her their watches and gold, the same kind of thing that
happened to Rith's relatives in Sector 25, where people were
executed after searches found they had gold or medications. Rith
stressed that "such were in fact not ordered by the higher ups,
but the lower downs proceeded with them through factional links"
(a-neung keu tha meun maen khang loe banhchea aoy sâmlap te,
pontae khang kraom neung via tov tam pak tam puok tam khsae).
Rith added that the upper echelons were aware this was going on,
which was why – in 1976 -- they took the measure of requiring
four levels of decision before anyone could be killed.
Rith
explained further that in Sector 25 there was a prison – known
as Office 15 – headed by Teng, a former municipal policeman who
had joined the urban movement, distributing leaflets, and then
was put in charge of security when he came to the countryside.
Once there, he arbitrarily rounded everybody up, although a
timely intervention on behalf of a relative could resolve in
that person not being subjected to punishment. However, Rith
said, Teng behaved according to individual whim and pride,
settling grudges and taking revenge, while adding that it was
the Party's leftist policies that gave him the opportunity to do
so because "this was what ensued from leftism" (a-chhveng
neung ao vea srâp tam neung tov). It would not have happened
under a correct policy, like the previous one of gathering
forces for political struggle, as a result of which everybody
embraced everyone else, not wanting anyone to be killed or
arrested by the enemy. However, as soon as they had power, once
there were liberated zones, this kind of thing immediately began
to emerge.
Conceding that many people, including his own relatives, said
that they were denied food for their labours, even where sources
of food were plentiful, as in Sector 25, Rith attributed this to
the leftism of cooperative chairmen who were poor, vengeful
trash, who imposed retribution on middle peasants, like Rith's
relatives, categorized as such because their homes had tiled
roofs, and were accused of having had enough to eat only because
they exploited the labour of others. In taking revenge once they
were on top, they killed people, acting outside their formal
authority, but pursuant to the Party leadership's leftist line,
taking their cue from Radio Beijing's accounts of the Cultural
Revolution in China.
Rith
affirmed that his account of events responded to accusations he
was responsible for the deaths of relatives in S'ang because he
served the revolution that killed them, but said he was did not
know whether everyone found it convincing, and that some still
blamed him for what had happened. He added that if he held an
official position and had money, such people would be
intimidated by him, but in the absence of such factors, the
situation he faced remained somewhat unsettled. He also said he
believed a historical debate about what had happened should not
take place yet, but be delayed until 40 or 50 years after the
events. He declared he would not appear on any national or
international stage, including any trial, wanting only to live
in peace.
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