This is the third of an eight-part interview with Nuon Chea, Brother Number Two of the Khmer Rouge regime, which was conducted and recorded by Mr. Sam Borin of Radio Free Asia about one year ago but was re-broadcast again in September 2007.
Translated from Khmer by Khmerization
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Borin: So you are saying that the victory of the Khmer Rouge movement was a victory of the people’s revolutionary struggle?
Chea: Yes, that’s right. It was the struggle of the people. It was not the Democratic Kampuchea alone who achieved the victory. Democratic Kampuchea was only a drop of water, I was only a drop of water in that victory. But the main forces were the farmers and the poor peasants who have united in their struggle to achieve that victory. And during that time His Majesty (Sihanouk) had also played a very important role too because he was the one who had appealed to the general population to go to the jungle to join the resistance fighters in fighting against the Lon Nol cliques. That was the most important mobilisation of the movement. So our resistance movement have grown very big and strong. At the grassroots level we have the farmers and peasants, the workers and the monks who had played a very important role. So the victory was achieved by a national movement headed by His Majesty (Sihanouk), not just the Democratic Kampuchea alone who achieved it. At that time we had a lot of intellectuals coming to join us but some of them cannot endure the jungle life and returned back the government side. That’s normal because life as the resistance fighters were not meant to be an easy life.
Borin: You have mentioned about His Majesty (Sihanouk). I wanted to know that when he was toppled in a coup d’etat he was overseas. Is that right?
Chea: He was overseas. He was travelling home via Russia.
Borin: I would like to know that when His Majesty joined the Democratic Kampuchea movement, did he joined by himself or was there any person who had convinced him to join?
Chea: From what I knew there were two reasons behind his decision to join the resistance. At that time Saloth Sar travelled to Hanoi. Another thing was that His Majesty was also a nationalist. Secondly, the Chinese and the Soviet Union had decided to support him. But the decision to join was his own. No one convinced him to join us. Everything depended on ourselves. Even if there was an outsider who try to convince us at the end it was left to ourselves.
Borin: It was true that it was his own decision but the Vietnamese, the Chinese and leaders such as Saloth Sar and so on, have they tried to make contact with him?
Chea: The Vietnamese and the Chinese have contacted him straight away. As far as I can remember Pham Van Dong went to see Chou Enlai in Peking (Beijing). He went to consult with His Majesty and told him that he has to join the struggle and become the head of the resistance movement. This history is very complex and most foreigners don‘t know about it. If we write a book it would be a very thick book.
Borin: I knew that you will have to go to the temple shortly, but I wish to ask you a few more questions in relation to the religion, especially Buddhism because from what you have said in the past and in your spiritual belief you seemed to be a very religious person. But the people have accused the Democratic Kampuchea regime of trying to destroy religion, especially Buddhism and our culture. How do you feel about those accusations?
Chea: They are right but they are also wrong to a certain extent because those who had joined the revolution did not understand about Buddhism. What is Buddhism and what is in Buddhism? They are Religious Materialism, Religious Selflessness, Religious Protocol and Religious Laws. We must combine religion with religious laws, knowledge and religious practices. We must not talk about religion, about religious protocol only. We can practise religion but that must be in comparable to the livelihood of the people. But what was most important was what’s inside our heart. That’s Nirvana. What is Nirvana? It is peace in our mind, the 4 precepts of Empathy, Compassion, the Middle Way and Forgiveness. I never see anybody practised these precepts. People only go to the temple just for the sake of going to the temple. So during our regime there were extremist elements inside our regime who have gone too far. Our society at that time has changed to become a communal society. It was a society where all the people, including the Buddhist monks, have to change their ways of thinking and their ways of life. That is not to say that we have legislated to ban people from becoming monks. At that time we have debated about this issue as well. We have come to the conclusion that we are at war so we must not worry about religion yet. We must be more concerned about farming first as agriculture is the basis of our religion. So we did not have time to think about religion because we were busy thinking about looking after the wounded people and about the medical care of the people because at that time we were fighting a big war. I do not believe that our communists wanted to destroy the religion but there were some extremist elements inside our party who reported to us that all the monks have left the monkhood voluntarily. I didn’t believe them but we had to allow things be like that so we can restore it in a reformed model. That’s what had happened. But please do not think that communists do not believe in religion.
What I said were the truths. During the war whenever the American planes bombed us heavily we always prayed to the spirit of our fathers and mothers. We always prayed and sprayed the earthly dusts on our head, we prayed to the Buddha, we prayed to the Dharma and we prayed to the monks for them to protect us. So we communists believe in religion too but in a different way. We were not like people from the previous regimes who just prayed in front of the Buddha statue but inside them was empty. I wish to re-iterate here against that god is inside us, the Dharma is inside us. We cannot just chant the prayer out loud but inside of us we did not have any spiritual connections.
A few days ago there were two monks from Prey Veng province who were accompanied by two priests who came around to collect their alms and to raise funds to build their temple. I asked them what is the meaning of Meakha Buchea (alms giving ceremony)? They cannot answer me. And I asked again what does the word Buddha means? Still they cannot answer me.
I said oh God! Our Buddhism will disappear soon. So I agreed with the words of the Buddha who uttered that “my religion will disappear because of the actions of my followers”. Nowadays, many Buddhists went to the temple because they wanted to pray to the Buddha to give the right lottery numbers, not because they wanted to rid themselves of greed, bad intentions and angers. And some Buddhist monks have behaved inappropriately such as performing love spells, giving the so-called sacred waters and providing lottery numbers etc. That’s religious misconduct.
We all have to consider about this issue together. What I see to day is that we have a motto of Nation, Religion and King. But why at the village level we didn’t practise the five precepts (don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t drink, don’t commit adultery and don’t gamble). If we all practise these five precepts I think it will be very, very good. Today I see that some monks can’t even uphold the five precepts principle let alone the 270 precepts that they are required to uphold. So we have to understand all of these and when we understood all of these then we will realise that we cannot allow our religion to deteriorate anymore or we will be sinned.
Borin: I wish to go back to my question. In your capacity as the second in command of the Party and as a person who used to be a Buddhist monk. We saw that the reform of Buddhism under your regime was too extreme which has led to the destruction and ultimately the abolition of religion at that time. Do you agree with me that the Khmer Rouge regime had destroyed the Buddhist religion?
Chea: I do not agree with this assessment. We have reformed to rid of the old way in order to build a new way. We did not destroy it permanently. We only got rid of the bad elements in that religion and kept the good ones. Buddhism is not like Hinduism. What is the Buddhist Puritanism? What is Idealism in Buddhism? It is Nirvana. What is the principle of Nirvana? It is to rid yourselves of the bad deeds and do good deeds and have a pure mind. Everyday one has to know what are the causes of sufferings and find the ways to rid yourselves of all those sufferings by following the eight paths of the Buddha which I forgot what they are. But if we follow these paths it will lead to good things.
In our society in the past we believe in the four gifts of alms. But if there is no Buddhist virtues to support those gifts they will yield nothing. To achieve good deeds we don’t just consider about the four gifts alone but we must lead the people to achieve peace such as during the time of the god Ariyak Metrey. When it comes to god Ariyak Metrey all the people will just smile and become friendly toward each other when they saw god Ariyak Metrey because we all share the sufferings together, comfort together, become old together, get sick together and die together. So there is no reason to hate each other. Even I waged a war against the Americans and the Vietnamese but I never harboured any hatred against these people. I loved them very much. But I hated those aggressors who invaded other countries. So we have to differentiate these two kinds of people. The same with the Buddhist religion. I did not hate Buddhism but I don’t like those monks who do not follow the teachings of the Buddha. For example, some monks are wondering around asking and collecting donations in an anarchic way. If they still do like this our Buddhism will disappear.
Nowadays, not just the students who do not know how to show respect to the monks. Even our government officials don’t know how to show respect to the monks.
One day, a long time back, I went to the temple I saw one government official came to the temple. The monks asked him to chant a pray but he couldn’t do it. So even some government officials cannot even chant a prayer. So the people now practise Buddhism only as a lip service. We must practise Buddhism from our heart, from our flesh, from our blood and from our bones. If we can do like this our Buddhism will thrive.//(To be continued in parts 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8..) To read part four click here.
To listen to part two of the interview please click:http://www.rfa.org/service/audio_popup.html?file=http://www.rfa.org/khmer/audio/2007/09/28/hbs0925-nc2.mp3
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