Interview With Nuon Chea, Brother Number Two of the Khmer Rouge Regime- part eight (final part).

Picture: (R-L) Nuon Chea (second), Ieng Sary and Son Sen (with glasses).

This is the eighth 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: The top party leaders were Saloth Sar, Ieng Sary, yourself, Ta Mok and Son Sen. Who else were the leaders?
Chea: I have to tell you that there were many generations of the party’s leaders. The first party leaders, not the administrative leaders, were Tou Samouth, Saloth Sar, myself, Ieng Sary, Brother Numbers Three and Four respectively. As for Khieu Samphan he joined us later. This is the core leadership who have re-formed the party because after the Geneva Agreement in 1954 many of our leaders were persecuted. Some have become inactive, some have defected and confessed. You know how the authority during the Lon Nol-Kou Roun operated. I don’t want to mention about the top hierarchy. I am talking about those who were directly involved with the movement who were mainly farmers.
We wanted to teach the farmers about the theory. But it was very hard to teach farmers the theory. But it was easier to teach them the on-the-job experience. This is why we had conflicts. The intellectuals had the education, the theory but they lacked experience. So the two camps cannot work together. This is not an easy task. The intellectuals have the theoretical education. What they do they follow the theory. But the farmers had experiences so they followed their experiences. In the meetings, if the chairperson didn’t blend the two ideas, both sides will claim that their ideas were better so at the end we don’t know which ones we have to take. So in my observations I found that the ones who know the theory and the ones who had hands-on experiences were so different.
For example, some Europeans compared Buddhism to an opium but in the views of the Asians Buddhism is not an opium. So likewise, Lenin’s theory was very hard to understand. Even we read Mao Tse-tung’s summary of that theory we could not even comprehend all. And the theory of Lenin, Marx and Engels were even harder to comprehend. So regarding the theory, if we allow the intellectuals to discuss things even they take 10 days they can’t come up with the decision. But if we allow the farmers to do the same things it will take them 1-2 days and they will complete the tasks because they have hands-on experiences.
But these two schools of thought can work together we if know how to compromise. So the middle class, the intellectuals and students were our auxiliary forces but it was the farmers and the peasants who were the real force behind our revolutionary struggle.
Borin: I haven’t heard about Ta Mok before. I only heard about him around in the 1990s.
Chea: It was because in the past he carried out his activities in secret like me as well. The secret members never become famous. Those who were publicly well known were those people like Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan, Hou Youn, Mey Mann. Secretive members like me were at the bottom of the society. On one knew us.
Borin: You have become well known since April 17th, (1975). People knew your name since then but we heard Ta Mok’s name only in the 1990s.
Chea: No, he was a member of the movement for a very long time and he was the one who had built up our grassroots party base. People who built up grassroots support base were always very secretive and those kinds of people knew how to maintain their secrets very effectively.
Borin: After the (Khmer Rouge) victory from 1975 to 1979, what were Ta Mok’s roles in the affairs of the state at that time?
Chea: He was in charge of the Military Committee but he was also a member of the Central Committee as well.
Borin: He and Son Sen, who was more senior in rank?
Chea: Ta Mok was more senior. Son Sen only joined the movement later, when he fled from the Teachers’ Training College. Those intellectuals were like this: during the Sangkum Reastr Niyum they received strong influences from Son Ngoc Thanh and they really respected and loved Son Ngoc Thanh. What kind of a person was Son Ngoc Thanh? He was an egotistic nationalist. He was an ultra-nationalist but was not an open-minded one. To be a nationalist doesn’t mean that you have to hate other countries. We must love others as well as our nation and we love others for the sake of our nation.
Borin: You said that he was not open-minded, who was he not open-minded to?
Chea: Mostly he was not open-minded toward Vietnam. In Vietnam there were good Vietnamese and there were bad Vietnamese.
Borin: So your party was also a nationalist party but a nationalist who had good relations with Vietnam?
Chea: We had some conflicts with each other as well. It didn’t mean that we always get along but we can always resolve our disputes based on our mutual respect. We have resolved our problems based on fairness, mutual respect and mutual interests. That was how we resolved our disputes. But we cannot accept the notion of Vietnam being our god-brother. This was what we cannot accept.
Borin: Your faction of the Democratic Kampuchea with Saloth Sar as leader and the new faction with Heng Samrin, Chea Sim and Hun Sen as leaders both had good relations with Vietnam. How were the two relationships different?
Chea: Both Heng Samrin and Chea were the remnant veterans resistance fighters against the French colonial rule. This was what I have observed: when we made an effort to have a good relationship with each other Vietnam had always tried to divide us. This was normal because Vietnam had always wanted to control our party but we didn’t allow them to have total control of our party. They pretended to have a good relations with the party’s top hierarchy but they really controlled grassroots bases.
Take me for example. I never had any major problems with Vietnam. Whatever we could not resolve we left them aside. But Vietnam had always pretended to have good relations with the party’s top hierarchy but deep down they really controlled our party’s grassroots.
They always pretended to agree with us but after the meeting they never abide by the agreements. That’s why I always reminded myself of a Khmer proverb which says that:” Don’t ever trust a foreigner”. This is true because Vietnam had always wanted to control Cambodia since many generations. But if they wanted to country the whole of Cambodia they must control the party first. If they had total control of our party then they can control everything. That was why we tried to free ourselves from their control.// END// To return to part one click here.

1. To read Pol Pot's interview click here.

2. To read Khieu Samphan's interviews click here.
3. To read Duch's Biography: The Lost Executioner.

To listen to part seven please click here. http://www.rfa.org/service/audio_popup.html?file=http://www.rfa.org/khmer/audio/2007/10/12/hbs0930-nc7.mp3
To listen to part eight please click here.http://www.rfa.org/service/audio_popup.html?file=http://www.rfa.org/khmer/audio/2007/10/16/hbs1001-nc8.mp3