Pol Pot Last Day
Far Eastern Economic Review
Dying Breath
The inside story of Pol Pot's last days
and the disintegration
of the movement he created
By Nate Thayer in Preah Vihear province
April 30, 1998
As
Pol Pot's body lies bloating 100 metres away in a spartan shack, exhausted
Khmer Rouge leaders gather in a jungle-shrouded ammunition depot filled
with home-made mines and crude communications equipment. Explosions
of heavy artillery and exchanges of automatic-weapons fire echo in
the mountains as the Khmer Rouge's remaining guerrillas hold off government
troops.
 |
|
Ta
Mok |
Ta Mok, the movement's strongman, vows to fight on, and blames his longtime comrade-in-arms for the Khmer Rouge's desperate plight. "It is good that Pol Pot is dead. I feel no sorrow," he says. Then he levels a bizarre accusation against the rabidly nationalistic mass murderer: "Pol Pot was a Vietnamese agent. I have the documents."
A young Khmer Rouge fighter, his leaders only metres
away, leans close to a visiting reporter and whispers
in Khmer: "This movement is finished. Can you get
me to America?"
Besieged in dense jungles along the Thai border, the
remnants of the Khmer Rouge are battling for survival
in the wake of three weeks of chaotic defections and
the loss of their northern stronghold of Anlong Veng.
Having lost faith in the harsh leadership of Ta Mok,
several commanders are negotiating to defect to the guerrilla
forces loyal to deposed Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh.
Ta Mok's growing paranoia and isolation were only some
of the revelations to come out of an exclusive tour of
shrinking Khmer Rouge-held territory north of Anlong
Veng the day after Pol Pot's death. Khmer Rouge cadres
and Pol Pot's wife recounted the last, ignominious days
of his life, as he was moved through the jungle to escape
advancing troops.
 |
Pol
Pot |
There was no visible evidence that the former Cambodian dictator was murdered. Cadres say he died of a heart attack on the night of April 15. In the days after his death, Khmer Rouge envoys held secret peace talks in Bangkok with Cambodian Defence Minister Tea Banh, and had their first direct contact with U.S. officials in more than two decades. Yet at the same time, Khmer Rouge holdouts were joining up with Ranariddh's rebel forces, making it likely that the insurgency will continue as Cambodia prepares for crucial elections in July.
The Khmer Rouge weren't trying to expose their shaky
future when they allowed a REVIEW reporter to enter their
territory, but to prove to the world that the architect
of Cambodia's killing fields was indeed dead. Leading
the way to Pol Pot's house to display the ultimate proof,
a cadre warns against stepping off the path. "Be
careful, there are mines everywhere."
The sickly-sweet stench of death fills the wooden hut.
Fourteen hours have passed since Pol Pot's demise, and
his body is decomposing in the tropical heat. His face
and fingers are covered with purple blotches.
Khmer Rouge leaders insist that Pol Pot, aged 73, died
of natural causes. Already visibly ill and professing
to benear death when interviewed by the REVIEW in October,
he had been weakened by a shortage of food and the strain
of being moved around to escape the government offensive.
"Pol Pot died of heart failure," Ta Mok says.
"I did not kill him."
That night, Ta Mok had wanted to move Pol Pot to another
house for security reasons. "He was sitting in his
chair waiting for the car to come. But he felt tired.
Pol Pot's wife asked him to take a rest. He lay down
in his bed. His wife heard a gasp of air. It was the
sound of dying. When she touched him he had passed away
already. It was at 10:15 last night."
There
are no signs of foul play, but Pol Pot has a pained expression
on his face, as if he did not die peacefully. One eye
is shut and the other half open. Cotton balls are stuffed
up his nostrils to prevent leakage of body fluids. By
his body lie his rattan fan, blue-and-red peasant scarf,
bamboo cane and white plastic sandals. His books and
other possessions have been confiscated since he was
ousted by his comrades in an internal power struggle
10 months earlier. Two vases of purple bougainvillea
stand at the head of the bed. Otherwise, the room is
empty, save for a small short-wave radio.
Pol Pot listened religiously to Voice of America broadcasts
on that radio, but the April 15 news on the Khmer-language
service may have been too much to bear. The lead story
was the REVIEW's report that Khmer Rouge leaders--desperate
for food, medicine and international support--had decided
to turn him over to an international tribunal to face
trial for crimes against humanity. "He listened
to VOA every night, and VOA on Wednesday reported your
story at 8 p.m. that he would be turned over to an international
court," says Gen. Khem Nuon, the Khmer Rouge army
chief-of-staff. "We thought the shock of him hearing
this on VOA might have killed him."
A week earlier, Nuon had said that Pol Pot knew of the
decision, but now he says the ageing leader had not been
fully informed. "We decided clearly to send him"
to an international court, says Nuon, "but we only
told him that we were in a very difficult situation and
perhaps it was better that he go abroad. Tears came to
his eyes when I told him that."
Perched nervously by the deathbed is Pol Pot's wife,
a 40-year-old former ammunition porter for the Khmer
Rouge named Muon. Clutching her hand is their 12-year-old
daughter, Mul. A peasant woman, Muon says she has never
laid eyes on a Westerner before. She corroborates Ta
Mok's account of Pol Pot's death. "Last night, he
said he felt dizzy. I asked him to lie down. I heard
him make a noise. When I went to touch him, he had died."
Pol Pot married her after his first wife went insane
in the 1980s as the Khmer Rouge tried to survive in the
jungle after their reign of terror was ended by invading
Vietnamese troops. Muon seems oblivious to her husband's
bloodstained past, caught only in the anguish of the
present.
"He told me a few weeks ago: 'My father died at
73. I am 73 now. My time is not far away,'" she
says. "It was a way of telling me that he was preparing
to die." Reaching down to caress his face, she bursts
into tears. "He was always a good husband. He tried
his best to educate the children not to be traitors.
Since I married him in 1985, I never saw him do a bad
thing."
Asked about his reputation as a mass-murderer, her lips
quiver and she casts a terrified glance at senior Khmer
Rouge cadres hovering nearby. "I know nothing about
politics," she says. "It is up to history to
judge. That is all I want to say."
She has reason to be terrified. "As to what I will
do with his family, I haven't decided," says Ta
Mok. "If I let them go, will they say anything bad
about me? Maybe they might be used by Hun Sen,"
he says, referring to his nemesis, the Cambodian premier.
Outside the front door is a small vegetable garden tended
by Pol Pot's wife and daughter; next to it, a freshly
dug trench where Pol Pot and his family were forced to
cower as artillery bombarded the jungle redoubt in recent
weeks.
Pol Pot's last days were spent in flight and fear of
capture--a humiliating end for the man who ruled Cambodia
from 1975 to 1979. According to his wife and Khmer Rouge
leaders, he dyed his hair black on April 10 in a desperate
attempt to avoid capture by mutinying Khmer Rouge troops
as he fled to the Dongrek mountains north of Anlong Veng.
"Pol Pot feared that he could be caught. By dying
his hair he was trying to disguise himself. For such
a person to do that, it showed real fear in his mind,"
says Gen. Nuon.
The guerrillas had been unable to provide their ousted
leader with sufficient food since being forced from their
headquarters in late March. "For the last few weeks
he had diarrhoea and we haven't had much food because
of the fighting with the traitors," recounts Ta
Mok.
As Pol Pot fled, the remnants of the movement he created
38 years ago crumbled before his eyes. A few days before
his death, he was being driven with his wife and daughter
to a new hideout by Gen. Non Nou, his personal guard.
From his blue Toyota Land Cruiser, Pol Pot saw Khmer
Rouge civilians--cadres say around 30,000--who had been
forced from their fields and villages by government troops
and Khmer Rouge defectors.
"When he saw the peasants and our cadres lying by
the side of the road with no food or shelter, he broke
down into tears," says Non Nou. His wife echoes
the account, and quotes Pol Pot as saying: "My only
wish is that Cambodians stay united so that Vietnam will
not swallow our country." Pol Pot never expressed
any regrets, she says. "What I would like the world
to know was that he was a good man, a patriot, a good
father."
Asked how she wanted her father remembered, Pol Pot's
only child stands with her head bowed, eyes downcast
and filled with tears. "Now my daughter is not able
to say anything," interjects Muon. "I think
she will let history judge her father."
History will have to, because death has deprived the
world of the chance to judge the man responsible for
the deaths of more than 1 million people.
 |
| Ieng
Sary |
Although Pol Pot has cheated justice, other leaders of that regime remain at large, including Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, who are sheltering with Ta Mok. Others, such as Keo Pok, Mam Nay and Pol Pot's former brother-in-law, Ieng Sary, have defected with their troops to the government side since 1996.
Although Pol Pot's life will stand as the darkest chapter
in Cambodian history, his death is likely to be just
a historical footnote. What's more likely to affect Cambodia's
future is the continuing disintegration of the Khmer
Rouge. This is prompting desperate attempts by what's
left of the movement to find security.
The day after Pol Pot died, senior Khmer Rouge officials
travelled to Bangkok, where they held secret negotiations
with Cambodian Defence Minister Tea Banh. There, they
offered for the first time to cooperate with elements
of the Cambodian government. "Yes, we are prepared
to negotiate. We are in the process," says Ta Mok.
"But I am not going to be a running dog of Vietnam
like Ieng Sary. In a nutshell, we want to dissolve the
Hun Sen government and establish a national government
that includes all national forces."
Interviewed on April 18, one of the chief Khmer Rouge
negotiators, Cor Bun Heng, said of the unprecedented
meeting: "It was a good beginning and cordial. But
these things take time." Added the other senior
negotiator, Gen. Nuon: "We believe that the only
way out is national reconciliation between all the parties.
We know that the entire Cambodian population wants peace."
What's more, Nuon and Cor Bun Heng said they met secretly
on April 17 with American officials in Bangkok, and laid
out their demands for a political settlement. It was
the first official, direct contact between the United
States and the Khmer Rouge for at least two decades.
U.S. officials wouldn't comment.
In the jungles, Ta Mok knows that his capture and trial
is sought by the international community. He wants to
use Pol Pot's death to wipe the slate clean. "The
world community should stop talking about this now that
Pol Pot is dead. It was all Pol Pot. He annihilated many
good cadres and destroyed our movement. I hope he suffers
after death," he says. He then asks a visiting reporter
to get hold of a satellite telephone for him, sketching
a collapsible phone he has seen. "I want a good
telephone. One that I can call anywhere in the world."
But working the phone will not prevent Ta Mok from rapidly
losing the loyalty of his own commanders. Privately,
many of his top officers and cadres hold him responsible
for the collapse of the movement since he seized control
from Pol Pot last July. "He is very tired,"
says a senior Khmer Rouge official. "No man can
shoulder all the political, diplomatic and military burdens
by himself." Others are less kind. "He has
no more support from many of his own people," whispers
one cadre. "But we don't know where to go. Cambodia
has no good leaders."
Fear was in the faces of many leaders and cadres still
holed up near the Thai border--and for good reason. "There
may be more traitors, it is normal. But in the end they
will all die," Ta Mok says. He's a man of his word:
Three top commanders arrested with Pol Pot last year
were executed in late March because some of the fighters
who mutinied were loyal to them. "It was a decision
made by the people," Ta Mok shrugs.
He gives the impression of being increasingly out of
touch with reality, seeing enemies everywhere and unwilling
to compromise. His brutal tactics are also a source of
unease among his remaining loyalists. "Our movement
will only get stronger. We have sent our forces close
to Phnom Penh and they have carried out their tasks successfully,"
he says. The "task" he boasts of was the recent
massacre of 22 ethnic Vietnamese, including women and
children, in a fishing village in Kompong Chhnang province.
The REVIEW has learned that many of the estimated 1,600
guerrillas still nominally under Ta Mok's command have
pledged allegiance to the forces loyal to Ranariddh's
Funcinpec party, who occupy nearby jungles. Cadres say
that in negotiations with Funcinpec's Gen. Nyek Bun Chhay,
they have pledged loyalty to Ranariddh's party and agreed
to force Ta Mok into "retirement."
Scores of uniformed Funcinpec troops, including senior
commanders, are fighting alongside Ta Mok loyalists north
of Anlong Veng. Gen. Meas Sarin, a Funcinpec commander
and governor of Preah Vihear province before Hun Sen's
coup in July, is present at Khmer Rouge headquarters.
He says 600 Funcinpec troops are fighting government
forces alongside Ta Mok's commanders. The heavy fighting
nearby is audible during the interview.
This presents a political dilemma for Ranariddh. He has
pledged to abide by a Japanese peace plan that aims to
create conditions for Funcinpec to campaign freely ahead
of the July elections--something Hun Sen has resisted.
The Japanese plan specifically calls for the severing
of links between Funcinpec troops and Ta Mok's guerrillas.
For the moment, Ranariddh is choosing denial. "I
do not have any cooperative relations with the Khmer
Rouge," he said on April 17. "Rumours currently
circulating to the effect that forces loyal to me are
supporting the Khmer Rouge forces in Anlong Veng are
not true."
That's not the only obstacle facing Japan and Asean as
they try to find a formula that would allow Ranariddh
to return home to campaign for the polls. The job was
already hard enough for the Thai, Philippine and Indonesian
foreign ministers who met King Norodom Sihanouk in Siem
Riep in mid-April. But then Sihanouk made it harder by
telling them Ranariddh should pull out of the elections--and
Cambodian politics altogether--and instead prepare to
be king, according to furious Funcinpec members.
Meanwhile, Cambodia's neighbours are becoming increasingly
exasperated by the seemingly endless war. Interviewed
in Bangkok, Thai Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan expresses
optimism that elections could be held in Cambodia, but
also voices a warning. "Without a resolution to
the Cambodian conflict, the region is being perceived
as insecure, unstable. That prevents further cooperation
and development for Asia," he says, pointing to
plans to develop the Mekong basin that are now delicately
poised.
China, previously hesitant about taking part in the Mekong's
development, is now willing to participate, Surin says.
That means that Cambodia, at the heart of the Mekong
Basin, is now the major remaining obstacle. "The
region is being denied this development by the existing
Cambodian conflict," says Surin. "Certainly,
there is a sense of Cambodia fatigue in the international
community. Cambodians should realize that."
Nate
Thayer, winner of the 1998 ICIJ Award for Outstanding
International Investigative Reporting, is the Southeast
Asia correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review.
In July 1997, after years of cultivating sources, Thayer
was allowed in to the remote northern Cambodia field
headquarters of the Khmer Rouge for a "people's
tribunal" of their ousted former leader Pol Pot.
Three months later, Thayer repeated his exclusive coverage,
this time conducting the first interview with Pol Pot
in 18 years. It was also the only interview before Pol
Pot - blamed for the deaths of more than 1 million Cambodians
between 1975 and 1978 - died.
Thayer, a native of Washington, D.C., had spent years cultivating sources in Thailand, Cambodia, and beyond, trying to track down the elusive Pol Pot. A contributor to Jane's Defence Weekly, The Associated Press, and more than 40 publications, Thayer began writing for the Far Eastern Economic Review in 1989 and made dozens of reporting trips into resistance-controlled Cambodia. The physical toll of his work included hospitalization 16 times for cerebral malaria and broken bones and shrapnel wounds after his truck hit an anti-tank mine.
Thayer's dogged reporting also earned him The World Press Award, the 1997 "Scoop of the Year" British press award, and the 1998 Francis Fox Wood Award for Courage in Journalism. While a 1996-1997 visiting scholar at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Thayer received a grant to write a book on Cambodian politics, which will be published next year.
While the focus of Thayer's reporting has been Asia, he has also covered the former Yugoslavia, Albania, Cuba, and Mongolia. He continues to concentrate on international organized crime, narcotics trafficking, human rights, and areas of military conflict.