Pol Pot: Death Deprives Justice

Author(s): M. S. Shivakumar
Source: Economic and Political Weekly , Apr. 25 - May 1, 1998, Vol. 33, No. 17 (Apr. 25 -
May 1, 1998), pp. 952-954
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/4406690

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 Rouge movement was outlawed in 1994 but
Pol Pot: Death Deprives Justice Thai support did not completely dry up.
Now, in the changed circumstances, will the
M S Shivakumar international community continue its efforts
to prosecute surviving KhmerRouge leaders?
Saloth Sar (later came to be known as Pol
Pol Pot, deposed leader of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge movement,
Pot and died
also called Brother Number One,
leaving many questions unanswered. Was he a failed visionary or ahis position in the party hierarchy)
indicating
mere pawn in the superpower game? Why was Pol Pot allowed to in 1925 in Kampong Thom
was born
evade arrest and trial? province, north-east Cambodia (then called
as Kampuchea), a former heartland of the
French protectorate. He was the youngest
ON April 15, 1998, Pol Pot, one of the determining the exact cause of his death,
child of nine siblings and grew up in a
century's most infamous communist leader, which some observers say, will now be a
relatively prosperous farming family. Having
whose regime is blamed for the deaths of mystery forever. studied at a Buddhist monastery and a Roman
nearly two million people, died of a heartPol Pot's sudden death came at a time Catholic school, Sar won a scholarship, in
when the entire Khmer Rouge movement
attack at the age of 73. Fewer than 20 soldiers 1949, to study radio and telecommunication
and civilians attended the cremation three was on the brink of collapse, following the
electronics in Paris. However, the young
days later (April 18), in a field outside thecapture of their primary stronghold, Anlong activist devoted most of his time to radical
wooden hut where he purportedly died of Veng (bordering Thailand), amid revived student politics and Marxism. The works of
natural causes. His wife and daughter were international attempts, particularly by Hothe
Chi Minh, Gandhi, Mao and Stalin drew
absent, as were long-time Khmer Rouge US, to see Pol Pot arrested and tried by himancloser to social and political issues. He
comrades such as leng Sary, Ta Mok, Khieu helped Kampuchean students in France to
international tribunal on charges of genocide.
Samphan and Nuon Chea. No orations wereSome believe that the infamous leader was form the 'Cambodian Circle of Marxist
made. The man who led the Khmer Rouge murdered by his own colleagues (tacitly Students' and published a student magazine
movement for 37 years, before his own supported by others in Phnom Penh, who entitled Original Khmer. These writings
followers sentenced him to life imprisonment at one time or other were members of the included fierce attacks on King Sihanouk
Khmer Rouge and currently hold positions
in a show trial last year, died without friends, and on the monarchy. Along with leng Sary,
power or party. Relatives of the victims of of power in the government) to ensure that another Kampuchean student, he admired
his reign of terror could take some solace he never testified before an international Josef Stalin for his tactic in controlling the
from the fact that the man who mastermindedtribunal. Khmer Rouge watchers were organisational structure ofaCommunistParty
one of the most horrific so-cial experimentsdivided over whether the guerrillas' reports by holding the dossiers, but also took a great
in history received little recognition at the
of his fatal heart attack are true, or designed
interest in Stalin's treatment of the question
end. to mask a plot to keep him from appearing of 'national minorities'. Saloth Sar, leng
In Cambodia, public reaction to his death in a war crimes tribunal. Many analysts Sary, Khieu Sam-phan, and the other 20 plus
is far from straightforward, as even today, believe that powerful interests in Thailand,
members of this small group of left-wing
it is difficult for many Cambodians to come China and the US, as well as remaining students in Paris were to go many different
to terms with the horrors of the Khmer Rouge hardline leaders of the rebels, could have ways over the next four decades and emerged
regime, nearly 20 years after its rule ended. been incriminated if Pol Pot had told all to as influential leaders of the Kampuchean
Between April 1975 and January 1979, when a court of law. communist movement.
Pol Pot ruled, nearly a quarter of the innocent On the issue of Pol Pot and the Khmer Returning home in 1953, Sar spent the last
Cambodian population died. Almost every Rouge, the approach of the international
year of the independence war in the jungle,
family has lost someone near and dear. There with the communist-led Issaraks of which
community has repeatedly been ambivalent
is probably no adult in Cambodia today and dubious. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge
his former Paris student day friends were
unscarred by the loss of a close relative. No received assistance from the governmentsalso
ofmembers. He then scaled the ranks of
one knows who was ultimately responsible Thailand, China and the US at different the less influential underground Cam-bodian
for the death of those two million people. times during the past 30 years, for variousCommunist Party and became its secretary-
For Cambodians, the Khmer Rouge leaders compelling geopolitical reasons. All throughgeneral in 1962. The next decade was spent
have always remained mythical and shadowy the past four decades, China, closest ally oflearning communist tactics from friends in
figures of fear. "I need Pol Pot to say Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, has stood byChina and Vietnam. Pol Pot was able to
something about the past, to say why he did them even at times of great internationalintegrate three main communist factions (pro-
what he did", Dy Sokhon, a taxi driver, said isolation and even embarrassment. From Vietnam group led by Heng Samrin and Pen
on hearing the death of Pol Pot (The 1980, and at least until 1991, China, Thailand,
Sovann, pro-national chauvinist group led
Cambaoia Daily, April 20). Because of such the US and its allies formed a block to by Pol Pot, and the Khmer-Chinese
feelings, perhaps, many seem reluctant to let impose a trade and economic embargo on
Friendship Association) and provide adistinct
Pol Pot die without his facing the country. Vietnam-occupied Cambodia. In substance,
pro-China tilt with heightened nationalistic
Those who survived the Khmer Rouge's the US effectively used (along with passions.
China These events coincided with the
and allies) the Cambodian card against
brutal four-year rule believe that justice was US involvement in the Vietnam war which
not done. The reaction of the Cambodian Vietnam which even resulted in a Khmer
quickly drew Cambodia - a small, over-
Rouge representative occupying the
government tended to be somewhat cau- whelmingly rural south-east Asian country
tious as they demanded an autopsy testCambodian
to seat at the UN. Only after 1993, - into the conflict as North Vietnam troops
verify his identity and the cause of death.
did the US agree to assist in capturing and sought refuge from American ground attack.
A senior Thai military officer involvedbringing
in to trial Pol Pot and other senior In 1973, Saloth Sar and his group gained
testing Pol Pot's remains dismissed reports
Khmer Rouge leaders. Thailand's help to the the decisive, but not necessarily irreversible,
Khmer Rouge was crucial during the upper hand in Cambodian politics. From
that he was poisoned. The quick cremation
of Pol Pot has cheated the world of resistance period (1979-91). The Khmer February to August of that year, more than

952 Economic and Political Weekly April 25, 1998

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3,00,000 tons of US bombs fell on After a series of Chinese-backed border
sites: by monopolising the distribution of
total and by locating the work sitesconfrontations
Kampuchea, 50 per cent more than thefood; at with Vietnam, the Khmer
tonnage dropped on Japan throughoutconsiderable
the distances from roads and other Rouge government fell in 1979 when
second world war. The number of population centres. In reality, unfortunately,Vietnam invaded Cambodia. Khmer Rouge
Kampucheans killed and wounded philosophy resulted in developing ancadre once again moved to the northern
this during
the bombardment is in the hundreds of
approach that comprised one part Stalinismjungle bordering Thailand and played a lead
thousands. Economic destruction wasand three parts paranoia. role in the 'resistance movement' that was
immense. The massive suffering of the 1973
Throughout their tenure in power, thebacked by the US, China and most other
Khmer Rouge considered bourgeoisie as anations (except Vietnam, the Soviet Block
US bombing and the outrage it provoked,
constant and severe threat to their ideals.
gave Pol Pot a political leverage within and India). Throughout the 1980s Cambodia
national politics which he may not have
While became a thorny issue for Vietnam, as both
in power, in fact, Pol Pot went a step
gained otherwise. As fierce hatredsfurther
were and continued to enflame class hatred the US and China mustered sufficient
born in thousands of peasant hearts, the to survive in power. For example,
in order international support to isolate Vietnam on
he stated that he did not want Kampuchea's
shrieking, militaristic slogans of chauvinism that score. The Vietnamese withdrew from
and the shrill authoritarianism behind it Cambodia in 1989 and the Khmer Rouge
future to allow a materially rapacious social
elite like the one that sold the country signed
no longer fell on the deaf ears of peasants to the Paris Peace Accord in 1991.
living a poor but relatively stable existence However, they later withdrew from the
foreigners in the past, referring to French-
on a family farm. These events resulted protected
in King Sihanouk and US-backed reconciliation process, boycotted the UN-
different communist factions, within the Lon Nol regimes. This moral independence mediated elections in 1993 and resumed
Kampuchean political spectrum, joining model differed from hat of some party cadre their guerrilla war, controlling resource-rich
forces to fight the common enemy, setting who were attracted to the Vietnamese socialistareas in the north-west, and claiming
the scene for ousting the US-backed approach, particularly that favouring the use continuing Vietnamese presence. Ultimately,
Kampuchean leadership. of machinery in the development of modern national reconciliation and the peace process
Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge (Red Khmers) agriculture. This ideological variationsuffered.
seized power in April 1975. When he took gradually led to divisions in the ranks as Pol Pot officially gave up the leadership
over, the anger against the then US-backed some of them, in the later years, moved at the end of 1989 but remained politically
regime was near total and popular support closer to Vietnam. active. However, the Khmer Rouge began
for the Khmer Rouge was remarkable. Meantime, the war-ravaged, cash-strapped to split as international support began to
However, immediately after assuming power, economy continued to deteriorate. Despite diminish and divisions grew among the ranks.
In 1996, leng Sary, long-time associate of
Pol Pot quickly set about transforming the the formation of rural collectives, agriculture
country into an utopian agrarian society by was stagnating and food shortages soared. Pol Pot, defected and sided with government
emptying the cities, abolishing money, Left with few options, Pol Pot increased the forces. A succession struggle among the
cadre ensued which resulted in the execution
private property and religion, and setting up militaristic approach and insisted that the
rural collectives. This'purification campaign' main task for the Khmer Rouge was to push of top leaders such as Son Sen. The Khmer
proved to be a violent and inhumane social on with their own revolution and seek the Rouge movement began to disintegrate and
Pol Pot was purged and placed under house
experiment that claimed the lives of countless establishment of a property-less, cash-less,
Cambodians through execution, forced equitable and just agrarian society. Under arrest. Ta Mok, who deposed Pol Pot as chief
labour, disease and starvation. Anyone the disguise of agrarian movement, political last year, commands a shrinking number of
thought to be an intellectual or educated in executions, forced labour and starvation the Khmer Forces and the remnants of the
any way was killed (for example, those deaths continued. Against this background, embattled Khmer Rouge are gradually
wearing spectacles were easy targets). Why training programmes, organised by the party,defecting to the government. It is apparent
was the movement he lead so brutal? An and often only known about at that level, that Pol Pot's death has effectively ended
produced waves of progressively tougher
understanding of Pol Pot's ideological beliefs one of the world's most secretive communist
may explain that issue. cadres as far as population control and movements.

The most significant area of Marxist- movements were concerned. Administrative Cambodia was swept up in the holocaust
Leninist influence upon the Pol Pot group measures were seen as capable of totally of the US war against the Vietnamese in the
was in its use of organisational strategy transforming
and the entire society in a very
1960s, and suffered the agony of American
control techniques very similar to thoseshortof period of time, on condition that theysaturation bombing and the Pol Pot regime
Stalinist Russia. Among those tactics were were backed by the construction of a new in the 1970s. If US bombing propelled the
the aspiration to use quasi-absolute power moral and political universe. The Khmer Khmer Rouge to seize power, why did China
through control of the military and party Rouge believed that victory is historically back Pol Pot until his death? Many analysts
apparatus at the highest level. The Khmer inevitable, so setbacks encountered were notargue that the repression of the Pol Pot
seen as against the mainstream of social
Rouge chose their cadre on the basis of skill, regime was modelled on Maoist China, and
class background and effectiveness within development. The political approach, the tacit Chinese support to Pol Pot's experiment
a given group. They enjoyed no special evacuation of the cities, was a means of from the very beginning was most obvious
privileges. Many survivors of that period dealing with an enemy of little perceived as at that time there were thousands of Chinese
socio-economic substance. Further,
have testified that the mechanics of reorgani- technical experts living in Cambodia, mainly
sation went fairly smoothly, indicating Kampuchea's historical predicament had
working in industry, transport and energy.
considerable skill on the part of the Khmer provoked intense nationalist fervour It is believed that the logic of the cultural
Rouge in managing its affairs. Most Khmer among the Khmer Rouges. Pol Pot merely revolution, radically applied in Pol Pot's
seized the nationalist card and pursued
Rouge efforts appealed to the youth and poor Cambodia,
an was to make revisionism in the
expansionist approach, invading border
peasants, who joined them in large numbers. future impossible, and hence the Revolution
areas of Vietnam. It was meant to distract
However, they were able to retain control eternal. However, in the late-1980s mounting
over large groups of people in four ways:
people's attention from mainstream issues. problems and overwhelming evidence against
However, this was also presumably done at
threat and collective memory of force; by Pol Pot forced China to distance itself. In
the insistence of China.
controlling movement in and out of the work reality, after normalising its relations with

Economiic and Political Weekly April 25, 1998 953

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Vietnam in 1989, China and the US were military power can be used arbitrarily as a
leadership for a negotiated settlement with
less enthusiastic about Cambodia. But China Pol Pot? In fact, that time the Khmer Rouge,
tool for achieving political objectives without
continued to provide the Khmer Rouge anddid not know with whom to-negotiate, for the consent of the adversaries to conflict."
Pol Pot with significant moral support toUS-backed Lon Nol was already dying and Further, analysts admit that trying to pro-
thwart their prosecution by the internationalmost military leaders had fled the country, secute the former-Khmer Rouge who may
community. It really is still impossible to saywhile the US was grappling with its loss in
have made secret deals of immunity with the
exactly why China continued to support Pol the Vietnam war. government (for example, leng Sary, former
Pot, but it is clear that it did and that in the At the time of writing this piece, number two of the Khmer Rouge leadership)
international pressure is mounting for actionmay be destabilising. "Any serious tribunal
interest of their foreign policy China's leaders
prevented any prosecution of the Khmer
against the remaining leaders of the brutalwill have to look at the entire machinery that
Rouge and of Pol Pot himself. If China's 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime. On theworked at that time. To be fair, a wider net
influence on Pol Pot is obvious, we know question of a tribunal to try the Khmer Rougemust be cast around for those responsible,
little about the exact role of North Korea.
leaders, opinions differ. The Cambodian but this could bring further problems and
It is believed that North Korea shared Documentation Centre which has been
some negative repercussions. Some Khmer
resources and supported extensive purges
puttingby together evidence against the Khmer Rouge leaders have received royal pardon
the Khmer Rouge leadership. In the 1980s,
Rouge leadership for an international andwar
how the proposed tribunal will treat
Thailand allowed the international crimes tribunal said that the death of Pol Pot them? Reopening painful psychological
will not
community to set up refugee camps in affect
the its work. "The centre has wounds for genocide survivors and dealing
border areas. Later, the close economic
muchlink
more to do, more investigations into
with now-common members of society who
between some of the influential theThaiinvolvement
army of the members of the collaborated in the killings are huge obstacles
officials and Khmer Rouge leaders Steering Committee that supervised to
allowed the
contend with. Europe, 50 years after the
Khmer
the latter to live in relative freedom, Rouge regime," said Youk Chhang,
pros- holocaust, is still coming to terms with the
perity and carry on their fight against the
director of genocide. If so, why push Cambodian people
the investigation team. However,
government. It is widely believed that
while supporting so soon for an interrogation?" Probably
complete documentation
of the crimes, a well known Cambodian
without the support of the Thai authorities realising such complications, while the death
Khmer Rouge movement would have
political analyst, Sorpong Peou, summarisesof Pol Pot has rocketed across the inter-
collapsed earlier. the issue thus: "In the Cambodian context,national media, the local Khmer language
conflictthat
Available documents clearly establish resolution rejects the legalisticpress, television and radio were silent on the
it was the US's mishandling of approach
the Indo-to'dispute settlement. There are too subject.
China war that unexpectedly many built the
conceptual issues to be considered In Asian cultures, a dead person is treated
when one talks about punishing the
Cambodian problem and the subsequent with respect. However, in the case of Pol
genocidal regime. Ironically, a week before
genocidists. Answering those questions will Pot that tradition is not being followed. People
Pol Pot's death, the Americans wereonly leading
raise more questions. It will lead have started asking: How could Pol Pot live
Cambodia
a campaign to hand over Pol Pot alive nowhere. First, in a condition of so long evading arrest? And why did he die
to face
anarchy, it is extremely hard, if not totally now when the entire movement is on the
an international tribunal. Most interestingly,
on hearing of Pol Pot's death.impossible,
Henry to judge who is innocent and verge of collapse and his arrest was so
whoof
Kissinger, the former US Secretary is guilty.
State History is mutable. Second, imminent? Many questions remain. But Pol
during the Vietnam war, argued thethat US approach tends to be more Pot is dead. For some leaders, even death
legalistic
never supported Pol Pot and thatdetrimental
survivingto the peace process because cannot erase the evil of their legacy.
Khmer Rouge leaders should be brought to
face an international tribunal and justice be
done to Cambodia and its people. This REVIEW OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
demand in itself raises more questions on
the intentions of the US. Is it genuinely January 31, 1998
interested in bringing justice to Cambodians
or preparing to play the Khmer Rouge card Rights: Rethinking Theory and Practice
against China? Will Cambodia, once
State/Gender/Community: Citizenship in Contemporary India
again, become a pawn in the hands of super- -Nivedita Menon
powers? Was Pol Pot murdered by people
Current Impasse in Language of Rights: Questions of Context
who feared his testimony at an international
-Satish Deshpande
tribunal?
Was it not the US which in the first instance
'Right to Work':. Reading 'Rights' through Discourse on 'Work'
-Aditya Nigam
provoked a civil war in Cambodia (in the
Rights of Child Labour: Ethics, Production and Nation-State -Dunu Roy
1970s) and therefore, should not its surviving
leaders, including Henry Kissinger, be Displaced Persons and Discourse of Rights -Niraja Gopal Jayal
brought to face trial along with the Khmer Thinking through Rights: Exploring Grey Areas in the Theory
Rouge leadership, to share facts? This -Neera Chandhoke

becomes more apparent when we browse the The Review of Political Economy appears as a supplement to the last issues
available facts that establish that the Khmer
January and July.
Rouge and Pol Pot were at no stage, in the
For copies write to
early 1970s, the unchallenged leaders of the
revolution. Given the US's readiness to Circulation Manager
disclaim responsibility where it could not Economic and Political Weekly
achieve 'peace with honour', what alter- Hitkari House, 284,
natives were available, in 1975,to the Kampu- Shahid Bhagatsingh Road, Mumbai 400 001
cheans? Did the US back Kampuchean

954 Economic and Political Weekly April 25, 1998

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