(You can see the destroyed National Bank building.)

You should have a look at the French archives. Some interesting and official DK film to be found there.

I understand what you say about the problems of semantics and when it is related to something so clearly abhorrent as that which happened in Cambodia from April 17 1975, that it can come across as making excuses for the Khmer Rouge. The politocide, or even democide labels are persuasive, and anyway some workable definition has to be used to somehow categorise crimes and if convicted, then fit the punishment accordingly. But my problem with the genocide label is that Democratic Kampuchea and its policy, even though there was a general agreement on the rural-based rationale for carrying out at least the first stages of their social revolution there was a lot of variation on how this generally agreed policy was interpreted and implemented at the local level in the various zones of the country. Despite the outward impression of uniformity, the situation was troubled and fragmented internally.

There was never a central government directive for rural cadre to ‘exterminate’ all towns people or those who had chosen the enemy camp by fleeing to the urban areas the Lon Nol government controlled, or those identified with whatever sociological labels that were, as you say, arbitrarily applied to those who were seen to be on the wrong side of the 1970-75 war. There was a directive to execute, upon identification, officers of the Lon Nol military (with a clear reason following a bitter war) and high-level civil servants of the republican government, but with regard to the opposing army, this was not always carried out. This is also not to deny that killings separate to this did happen on a large scale against those seen to be enemies (i.e. those who did not join the Khmer Rouge rural cooperatives during the war), but it would be best to look at how the Communists’ poor-peasant orientation was able to harness peasant resentment or hatred of the towns and transform it into a political force, and can be blamed for allowing such abuses to occur perpetrated by regional cadre, even if they were not always desired, or rather, were not official government policy. And the incidences of a revengist attitude expressed by the base peasantry indulging in a little schadenfreude when seeing the urban evacuees struggle to adjust to rural life. The DK government actually had a three-part system of hierarchy – of full-rights, candidate and depositee statuses – which the state was to use in allowing those placed into each category, varying levels of access to political participation, and a share of resources, but you’re right that for the most part, in practice, there was the two-part distinction of old and new people. Creating artificial social divisions by fiat, cutting the feet to fit the shoes.

A general picture of DK can be seen, but we have two themes at play which complicate matters: regional variation and level of central government control of the implementation of policy locally. There were significant regional variations, some of them objective and temporal (bad weather conditions, lack of prior development) or subjective (cadre interpretation of policy and its implementation, their quality, education-level and experience in positions of authority, the CPK purge waves, massacres etc) which either positively or adversely affected the populations of certain areas whether cadre, soldier or labourer. Most deaths were caused through the want of a better word enslavement and the overwork or neglect, lack of medical treatment etc of the labouring population, and who were to build this new infrastructure required for the mass production of rice. Then there is the centralisation drive, never completed, of which the regional administrations were subject, and the terror used as the principal method for subordinating them to the central government. The starvation was through incompetency and the impossible pace with which the revolution was driven. I’m not making excuses for Khmer Rouge policy, for irrational ideological or political considerations were placed above more practicable solutions to the problems faced by the government. It is evident that the Pol Pot line disregarded the skills and education of ‘new’ people which was undeniably important for the success of the rapid development they wanted to make happen. And let’s be clear here, this change was to be brought about involuntarily for a large part of the labouring population. It was forced. I’m not agreeing with that, but I think it is important to look from the Khmer Rouge point of view in order to better understand why they made the disastrous choices they did. They (The Party Centre at least) wanted to transform Cambodia into a modern and abundant country within a compressed timescale. Had the regime survived, then it perhaps would have resembled yet another variation of a Communist-ruled ‘socialist’ state using an official and approximated Marxist-Leninist ideology, and with, in our terms, an unacceptable level of repression. But this is ‘what if ‘stuff, because they never got past first base. I am still not convinced genocide is the right term to describe the rapid degeneration of their revolution. It does offer to people, however, a way to get a sense of scale, an appreciation of the enormity of the death and suffering caused by the DK government. With my admittedly limited understanding of international law (complete and utter dilettante), the gross crimes of the Khmer Rouge, of which there were many, fit somewhere on the sliding scale of ‘crimes against humanity.’

The UN Genocide convention defines the term as ‘acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group’ – but as highlighted, KR victims were persecuted largely on political grounds. For me, it is a superficial difference, particularly since there seems agreement that political enemies were only excluded to keep Stalin’s USSR as a signatory to the original convention. Change the word to “Politocide”, replace “national, ethnical, racial or religious group” with “political group”, and keep the definition and you have something that fits DK rather well.

Adding to this, a lot of the political groupings were as arbitrary criteria for persecution as race or ethnicity, in the sense that those allocated to those groups had very limited control over their allocation – middle and upper peasants, semi-proletariats, these were labels applied from outside by the KR. In real life terms these people were just struggling to make a living and to improve the standard of life of their families.

The only exception to this, it could be argued, is the “base” and “new” people split, with refugees having the choice to flee to the cities or flee to the KR communes before April 17th. But then, what sort of a choice is that? And besides, taking the approach that base people were defined as such because they chose to not support the KR takes the KR’s analysis at face value and legitimises it, looking at the situation from their point of view, their own logic as it were. Not that I am accusing you of doing this Pineapple, I just think that in a legal framework, yes, DK was not Genocidal, but this is only because the wording of the law is and always will be flawed. In terms of the “spirit” of the law, in my opinion the Cambodian situation is pretty clear cut.

As for the sentence I personally was disappointed as I think it sends out a message of impotence and may seriously undermine the court. Thet Sambath of the PPP has a different opinion, as expressed here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2010/jul/27/khmer-rouge-war-crimes-sentence?intcmp=239 I think its an interesting view that to nail the 4 “old guards” as you put it, you need one of their hatchet-men on side.

Finally, I’m sure you will have come across this already but I only recently discovered the Enemies of the People film, to be released here in the UK in October. I absolutely can’t wait, for me Nuon Chea was always surrounded with the most mystery and the hardest to gain access to in terms of the documents I have come across. Perhaps this film will spread some light for future scholars, particularly if Sambath publishes the transcripts of all the interviews that did not make it into the feature.

link here for reference: http://enemiesofthepeoplemovie.com/watch-clip/

Did I mention that Thiounn brothers are nephews of Bunchan Mol? I will translate some, it’s not that interesting but there’s a reason it’s called The Khmer Mentality, Charit Khmer. In the first chapter he deals with his escape from Phnom Penh, he took the bicycle to Chbar Ampeou and then took the ship toward Prek Kdam, so to make a loop and not to go Thailand by route 5 but bypass it little bit so to escape the French agents. His uncle Puc had a contact with Thais so it was really him who organized the Issaraks, in How Pol Pot came to Power it doesn’t say it clearly, but in Charit Khmer it’s clear that Puc who was the mastermind and without his money and Thai contacts nothing would ever be.

Next chapter in revealing psychological stand off, Bunchan Mol faces his comrade in arms as they try to execute the innocent. He is not brave enough to really intervene, taking more or less bystander position while his comrades torture and kill. There’s some interesting passages that I will translate, where he slams the Khmer mentality, especially following the story of Dap Chhuon, who according to Bunchan Mol, came and begged to be allowed into the movement, by addressing him Preah Tech Preah Kun, an obsolete form by which a commoner would address a feudal master. Dap Chhuon is the worst manifestation of Charit Khmer according to Bunchan Mol, corrupt and power hungry he murders without giving a second thought. We know how Dap Chhuon ended.

Next chapter describes an attack on Siem Reap where three groups were to attack simultaneously but failed. One group got hold of some arms, loaded those arms in the car to shortly realize that nobody can drive it!

This is about the third of the book. There I stopped since I got fresh loads of scans coming from the library and each and every was interesting too, enough to distract me.

I tried to reread it, but bad quality could not motivate me much. I remember I spent a lot of time thinking about first ICP and Chinese CP cells in Cambodia, trying to catch the atmosphere, etc. I got lost on the Issarak part, I needed to read Bunchan Mol the same time, but really bad quality of book really discouraged me, plus the poor light in our floor did not do its job. I stopped too. There’s another account of Issaraks A history of the Cambodian independence movement, 1863-1955. I’ve just realized its in my library. So for the full account of Issaraks I need 3-5 books to be read the same time.