The following is part five of a six-part interview between Khieu Samphan, the nominal Khmer Rouge head of state, and Mr. Sam Borin of Radio Free Asia. This interview was conducted in January, 2004 and was re-broadcast in November, 2007.
Translated from Khmer by Khmerization
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Borin: What was the date and month when you first met Ta Mok?
Samphan: When I left Phnom Penh it was in 1967, April or something like that. I cannot remember the month but I remembered the year clearly.
Borin: Due to some records we knew that you and your former comrade Pol Pot, alias Saloth Sar, studied at Kampong Cham College together. This is the first point. And the other point is that both of you studied in France together. When you entrusted your security to the Khmer Rouge movement, did you know at that time that your former comrade Pol Pot was the leader of the Communist Party of Cambodia?
Samphan: No, in fact I did not know clearly that he was the president of that party. But I knew Pol Pot, alias Saloth Sar, when we studied in Kampong Cham together. He was one grade ahead of me. Sencondly, he was older than me so we were not very close at that time. But I noticed that he was a sportsman, a soccer player. He was also a musician, a violin player. When there was a students' performance at the school he was the one who helped to organise it and he played the music for the performance. I never knew that the Saloth Sar I knew in Kampong Cham was in fact Pol Pot later on. When we left Kampong Chan he took a senior high school diploma exam before me. I can't remember whether he had passed the exam or failed. And I didn't know where he had gone to study after that. And when I went to study in France I never met him because when I went there he had already returned to Cambodia.
Borin: When you had returned back to Cambodia, did you know where Saloth Sar was working at that time?
Samphan: I knew that he was a teacher at Chamroeun Vichea College. But I never pay attention to what he was doing at that time because I was not interested. I just knew from some people that he worked there as a teacher.
Borin: When you sought refuge and protection from the Communist Party of Cambodia, when was the first time you met Saloth Sar?
Samphan: I only met Pol Pot after the coup d'etat in 1970.
Borin: Where did you meet him?
Samphan: I met him at Stung Chinit (Chinit River) along the border of Kampong Thom province and Kampong Cham, north of Phnom Trong, near the Kan Ven? Centre. So I met him only after the 1970 coup in his capacity as the leader of the Communist Party of Cambodia. I was very, very surprised because I never thought that the Saloth Sar I knew at Kampong Cham College can be this important.
Borin: Mr. President, I still can remember in your previous comments that before the 1970 war, there was a war between the authority of the Sangkum Reastr Niyum and the communist resistance. Is that true that the first war occurred in Samlaut?
Samphan: No, in fact the first conflict did not happen in Samlaut. Samlaut was a peasants' uprising who revolted against the authority who confiscated their lands. Now, after more studies we found out that it was the case. It was an instantaneous peasants uprising without any involvement from the Communist Party Cambodia or the Khmer Rouge leaders at all. But there were some Khmer Rouge leaders who lived there also took part in the uprising. But it was not orchestrated or organised by the Khmer Rouge movement. Pol Pot said later that he did not support that uprising because if there was an uprising like that the armed forces will use the excuse to destroy the movement. We knew that the Samlaut crackdown was so heavy-handed, violent and brutal. Too many peasants were killed, about one thousands of them. And the survivors managed to escape to Vay Chap Mountain. And Vay Chap Mountain was where the former anti-French resistance fighters and the Viet Minh fighters had hidden their weapons. Vay Chap Mountain now doesn't have much forest and jungle but at that time the areas along Route Six was a dense jungle. So when those peasants reached the Khmer Rouge base they were provided for and trained as fighters. And the Samlaut uprising has coined a term "hunt down the Khmer Rouge".
Borin: Who coined the phrase "hunt down the Khmer Rouge"?
Samphan: It was a slogan from the authority. It was from Lon Nol's authority to be precise, because at that time everyone knew that Gen. Lon Nol was very fiercely against the Vietnamese communist. So by being strongly anti-Vetnamese communist he was also fiercely against the Khmer Rouge. And at that time the term "Kher Rouge" had already been coined. At that time when there was an uprising they always blamed it on the Khmer Rouge. Even there was a students demonstration they blamed it on the Khmer Rouge. When there was a students demonstration in Siem Reap they blamed it on the Khmer Rouge. So the incident in that year was not yet a war. And the reasons that they used to accuse me of supporting the Samlaut Uprising was because I, Hou Youn and other intellectuals were leftist politicians. That's why there were arrest warrants to put us on trial in the military court.
The Samlaut Uprising was in fact not very significant but due to the brutal crackdown it was similar to the brutal crackdown carried by Suharto and Nasution against the communists in Indonesia. That's why there was a talk of the town among people living in Phnom Penh that in Cambodia there was also a "Suharto-Nasution" as well. That's was what happened. I cannot take for granted the accusation against me at that time. The Khmer Rouge from the resistance base have told me that if I did not escape I will face grave danger to my life. So they said that I must escape and they will help to facilitate my escape.
Borin: I remembered that you said that before the 1970 war there was a war before that, what was that war?
Samphan: After the crackdown in Samlaut there were crackdowns in other rural areas and in Phnom Penh as well. So the Khmer Rouge realised that if they don't have any weapons to resist and to fight back against Gen. Lon Nol's army they all will be massacred like those people who escaped to Vay Chap Mountain as well. So they decided to take up arms combining with their political struggle. That was their aims. They realised that they cannot continue their political struggle alone. They must combine armed struggle with political struggle. But at that time the Khmer Rouge had no weapons and began searching for backers. So they decided that they must look to the North Vietnamese. That was what I was told later because at that time I didn't know anything clearly.
And at that time the North Vietnamese refused to provide us with weapons. Even with one gun they refused to give us. But when they refused our request they have their own reasons because at that time they need to transport their weapons through Kampong Som port as all weapons from China have to go through Kampong Som port because the Ho Chi Minh Trail was heavily bombarded by the American planes. All forces travelling from North Vietnam were almost destroyed before they reached Cambodian territories. All the weapons transported by trucks were almost completely destroyed so the Ho Chi Minh Trail cannot be used since 1967. That's why they used the Kampong Som port to transport the weapons instead. When the ships arrived the trucks belonging to the Royal Cambodian Armed forces were waiting to transport them through Phnom Penh, with full military escort, to the eastern borders. The trucks often stopped by in Phnom Penh to pick up food supplies such as rice to give to the Vietnamese. So if the Vietnamese provide us with weapons they were afraid that His Majesty (Sihanouk) and the royal government, which was led by Gen. Lon Nol, would close their supply routes so they cannot give us the weapons. But on the side of the Khmer Rouge, who was persecuted and cracked down on everywhere, were very, very angry. That was the beginning of the disputes between the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese. So after that, where did the Communist Party of Cambodia get their weapons? They took them from the government military warehouses of Gen. Lon Nol. Lon Nol at that time was both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence and the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces as well. So the Khmer Rouge stole weapons from government military warehouses, like where I lived in Kampong Speu there were lots of weapons being stolen from the government in that areas. Our soldiers surrounded the warehouses and went in to take the weapons. Why we can take the weapons from there as there were people guarding the warehouses? We can do that because we have our agents there whom we recruited from peasant families to act as our secret agents. That's how we get our weapons because those secret agents were also carrying weapons as well...//(To be continued in part 6..).To read part six click here.
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