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Authors: Philip Short

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Chandler,
Facing,
p. 213.
‘Were they found’
:
Joel R. Charny, ‘Appropriate Development Aid for Kampuchea’, in Ablin and Hood,
Agony, p.
250.
Object lesson
:
Meyer,
Sourire, pp.
211—17, and 283–4.
291
‘Not irrational’
:
Pierre Brocheux, in Camille Scalabrino et al.,
Cambodge, Histoire et Enjeux
:
1945–1983,
L’Harmattan, Paris, 1985, pp. 230–1.
‘Boldly to encourage . . . machines’
:
Pol Pot,
Report,
pp. 206–7;see also Standing Committee meeting of Mar. 30 1976, in Chandler et al.,
Pol Pot Plans,
p. 3.
292
‘Last . . .political rights’
:
Heder,
Occupation,
p. 6; Ebihara,
Revolution and Reformulation,
p. 25.
293
‘If our people’
:
Pol Pot,
September 27 speech.
Convinced him
: In Sopheap, Khieu Samphân, pp. 99–100.
‘Run really fast’:
Minutes of Standing Committee meeting, Feb. 4 1976, in Doc. 32(N442)/T8355,VA.
‘No let-up’:
In Sopheap, interview. He gives a slightly different version in
Khieu Samphân, p.
103.
294
How must we organise
:
Pol Pot’s report to the Western Zone Party Conference,
Tung Padevat,
June 1976. A translation is given in Chandler et al.,
Pol Pot Plans
, pp. 13–35; for the quoted section, see pp. 20 and 26.
Cutting-edge
:
CPK CC Resolution, June 1976, Doc. 32(N442)/T8310,VA.
‘Simplistic’
:
Ieng Sary, interview.
295
Six months
:
Khieu Samphân,
thesis,
p. 79; Smith,
Interpretive Accounts,
p.5.
Theravada Buddhism
:
Jerrold Schecter,
The New Face of Buddhism,
Coward-McCann, New York, 1967, p. 17.
Recounted the experience
:
Sihanouk,
My War,
pp. 123–4.
Palm sugar:
Ly Hay, interview.
He explained . . . following orders
:
Pol Pot,
Talk with Khamtan.
‘Inert’
:
Kirk,
Revolution,
p. 222.
296
Immense apparatus
:
Quoted in Burchett,
Triangle,
p. 95.
Closer and closer
:
Pol Pot,
Report,
p. 207.
Necessity for Work
:
Ieng Sary,
Der Spiegel,
May 2 1977.
296
—7
Two days later . . . behind them
:
Unless otherwise specified, this account of the
Mayaguez
affair is drawn from Robert Rowan’s book,
The Four Days of Mayaguez,
Norton, New York, 1975.
297
Malaria
:
Pâng, confession, May 28 1978.
To the Silver Pagoda
:
Phi Phuon, interview.
Reassure Vietnam
:
Pol Pot,
Talk with Khamtan.
June 2 . . .geography
:
Kampuchea Dossier,
vol. 1, p. 67.
298
Pol offered . . . victories to come
:
Mosyakov,
Khmer Rouge,
p. 26.
‘Cordial’
:
Nhan Dan,
Hanoi, Aug. 2 1975.
Repatriation . . . other way
:
It is worth stressing that the repatriations did not begin in April 1975; they had been under way since August 1973. For the figure of 150,000, see Chanda,
Brother Enemy,
p. 16. Most sources agree that the departure of Vietnamese continued until late 1975 or early 1976 (
Black Paper,
p. 73; Serge Thion, ‘Chronology’, in Chandler and Kiernan,
Aftermath,
p. 304; Ponchaud,
EFA 13,
p. 17, and
Vietnam-Cambodge,
pp. 1237–8).
Playing for time
:
Khieu Samphân, interview.
298
—9
Pol flew . . . not clear
:
These details were furnished by a Chinese historian who wishes to remain anonymous; see also Pâng, confession, May 28 1978. Siet Chhê was known to the Chinese as Du Mu, from his revolutionary alias, Turn; and Ney Sarann as Ming Shan, from his alias, Men San. Pâng was also present. Citations are taken from the transcript of the meeting held in the Chinese Central Archives. Extracts are cited in CWIHP, 77
Conversations,
p. 194.
299
‘Better to kill’:
For a description of Chinese communist extremism in the late 1920s and early 1930s, see Short,
Mao,
pp. 223–4, 268–75, 277–81, 306, 308–9 and 314. The slogan about killing the innocent resurfaced in Vietnam in the early 1950s, but in attenuated form: ‘Better to kill ten innocent people than let a guilty person escape’. Under the Khmers Rouges, the wording was identical to that in Jiangxi. It is unlikely that the Jiangxi slogan was known to the Vietnamese, and still less to the Khmers. One must conclude that peasant-dominated revolutions lead, in their early stages, to similar types of excesses.
300
Entranced
:
See the transcript in the Chinese Central Archives of Mao’s meeting with Sihanouk, Penn Nouth, Khieu Samphân and Khieu Thirith on Aug. 27 1975, at which he explicitly endorsed the policy of evacuating the cities.
‘No. We couldn’t’
:
Transcript of Mao’s meeting with Le Duan, Beijing, Sept. 24 1975, held in the Chinese Central Archives.
301
Non-committal smile
:
Transcript of Zhou Enlai’s meeting with Sihanouk and Khieu Samphân, Beijing, Aug. 26 1975, held in the Chinese Central Archives. See also Sihanouk,
World Leaders,
pp. 99–100.
Failed to agree
:
See the transcripts of Pol’s meetings with Hua Guofeng in Beijing on Sept. 29 and 30 1977 for an example of one such disagreement over the role of non-ruling communist parties in South-East Asia (Doc. 32(N442)/T8300,VA).
Four days later . . . greet them
:
Ieng Sary and Mey Mak, interviews.
301
–2
Deng told him . . . discontinued
:
According to the Vietnamese-language text (Doc. 32(N442)/T8300,
supra
), the military agreement was signed in Beijing on Feb. 6 1976 by Son Sen and Wang Hongwen, then ranked third in the Chinese leadership and Vice-Chairman of the CPC CC Military Commission. Given the content and importance of the agreement, a leader at Wang’s level would have been expected to participate (Deng Xiaoping could not sign because by then he was under house arrest). De Nike et al. (p. 381) mistakenly identify the Chinese signatory as Wang Shangrong, a Deputy Chief of the Chinese General Staff who led the negotiating team which drew up the accord.
302
More than three hundred . . . to China
:
Ibid. Chinese technicians were normally rotated through Cambodia for stays of three to six months (Quan Yuhui, interview). According to Tuon, a Jarai cadre who handled liaison between ‘870’ (the CPK CC General Office) and the Chinese and North Korean aid missions, there were never more than a thousand Chinese in Cambodia at any one time (interview, Pailin, Nov. 20 2001). In 1976, Cambodia sent 471 air-force trainees and 157 naval trainees to China. According to Kân (interview), they remained there for up to two years.
300 million:
Fang Weizhong (ed.),
Zhonghua renmin gongheguo jingi dashiji,
Social Science Press, Beijing, 1984, p. 552, quoted in Ross,
Tangle,
p. 75.
303
‘Greatly eased’
:
Chandler et al.,
Pol Pot Plans,
p. 15 (where this phrase is translated as ‘maximally softened’).
Medical check-up:
Páng, confession, May 28 1978.
304
Hou Yuon . . . house arrest
:
Ping Sây and Suong Sikoeun, interviews.
305
–6
We must fix . . . masses
:
Cited in In Sopheap,
Khieu Samphân,
pp. 108–10.
306
Three tons
:
Ibid. For the reference to paddy, and not milled rice, see Pol Pot,
Report
, p. 187, and
Abbreviated Lesson,
p. 220.
Two tons
:
Sihanouk, speech to parliament, quoted in Massenet to MAE, No. 1295/AS, July 23 1963, in c. CLV 16, QD.
In May . . . state power
:
Pol, quoted in In Sopheap,
Khieu Samphân,
p. 106.
Non Suon
:
Non Suon, confession, Jan. 16 1977.
That summer
:
Criddle and Butt Mam,
Destroy,
p. 50. Denise Alfonso also remembered being shown specimens of the new currency at a village thirty miles south of Phnom Penh, apparently in July 1975 (De Nike et al., p. 443). See also Pich Chheang, interview, Anlong Veng, Dec. 10–11 2001; and Doc. No. 3, Sept. 19 1975, quoted in Kiernan,
Regime,
p. 94.
307
Mok favoured . . . views
:
Phi Phuon, interview.
The State . . . this matter
:
In Sopheap,
Khieu Samphân.
308
September
19
: Doc. no. 3, Sept. 19 1975, quoted in Kiernan,
Regime,
p. 99. Laurence Picq was told when she arrived in Phnom Penh in October 1975 that ‘money had been abolished’ (
Horizon,
p. 11).
I found myself . . . kept
:
Thiounn Mumm, interview.
He once told
:
Pol Pot,
Preliminary Explanation,
p. 129.
‘Shortages of food . . . different regions’
:
Quoted in In Sopheap,
Khieu Samphán,
p. 109. At the CPK Standing Committee meeting in Kompong Som he also noted the plight of the urban deportees (Dossier L01022, Aug. 20–4 1975, DC-Cam).
309
Ox
:
PinYathay,
Stay Alive,
p. 170. See also Stuart-Fox,
Murderous Revolution,
p. 53, where the animal is described as a buffalo.

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