This interview was recorded by Mr. Pin Samkhon of Radio Free Asia’s Khmer Service, in Anlong Veng on the 2nd of April 1998, two weeks before Pol Pot died in April, 1998.
Translated from Khmer by Khmerization
http://khmerization.blogspot.com/
Pol Pot: First, because our country is a small country, we have to protect it and not to let it become another Kampuchea Krom. Secondly, I knew the Vietnamese very well. I don’t talk about the ordinary Vietnamese people. The majority of the Vietnamese people are good people. But the Vietnamese leaders I knew them very, very well. I can even name them all. They are very, very bad. They have had a strategy of swallowing Cambodia and they hated me so much because I resisted against them, like Vo Van Giap, Pham Van Dong and many other Vietnamese leaders etc, they are really bad people. I knew these people very, very well. In front of us they say one thing. Behind us they say another thing. For example, about the border agreements. We have agreed at the administrative, the provincial and at the district levels but they changed their mind and attacked us and said that we attacked them first. How can we attack them? Cambodia is a small country with a small population and small poorly-equipped army. So we have always wished to live in peace with our neighbours. Vietnam had always wanted Cambodia to become part of the Vietnamese Indochinese Federation, before and even now.
Samkhon: Have they changed?
Pol Pot: They have not changed. At the moment I have nothing much to say but I wish to say a little about their puppet, the Cambodian People’s Party. Before it was called the Indochinese Communist Party. And later it was divided and splintered into three parties, ie: the Workers’ Party of Vietnam, the Khmer People’s Revolutionary Party and the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party. It was divided into three parties but in fact they were like one country having the same strategy. That’s why they called the three countries the “Three Brothers“. We will never be able to be free from them because Vietnam has a strategy of protecting its own territorial boundaries. I said to them: you have encroached on Cambodian land how can you say you are protecting your borders? So we must protect our country as well. This is the first thing I wanted to tell you.
Secondly, they said that they need more land to accommodate their population because they have too many people, about 70 million of them now. So in my nationalistic heart I will never allow Vietnam to take over Cambodia. I swore to people that I’d rather die than let the Vietnamese take over my country. Now we have seen that Laos has already been swallowed by Vietnam through the 1977 agreement.
Samkhon: How many years was the agreement with Cambodia?
Pol Pot: No, that was Vietnam’s agreement with Laos which abolished all borders demarcations between the two countries in order to make these two countries become one. I went to see Le Duan and proposed to him that we must establish a friendship and cooperative treaty between Cambodia and Vietnam but he didn’t answer me. He didn’t answer me at all.
Samkhon: That was before 1975?
Pol Pot: That was in 1975. And from then on Vietnam started to attack us along the border areas. So I felt that I have been stabbed in the heart because I was in charge of the country. They have taken over our border areas, that was one thing. But the other thing was that our people have no land to live. And when Vietnam toppled Democratic Kampuchea (Khmer Rouge regime) in 1978, it had its plans worked out already before establishing a Revolutionary Liberation Front. This front was not established by Hun Sen, Chea Sim and others but it was established by another leader named So Phim. But later the Hun Sen-Chea Sim clique fled to Vietnam and was later installed by the Vietnamese invading forces when it toppled the Democratic Kampuchea regime on the 7th of January 1979. This Cambodian People’s Party, which was called the Cambodian Revolutionary Party, appointed Heng Samrin as it head of state and Hun Sen as its minister for foreign affairs and so on and so forth.
Samkhon: What do you think was Vietnam’s strategy?
Pol Pot: Its strategy was not to fight Cambodia by military means but to use and incite Khmers to fight Khmers. Like now we see that they have incited Sam Rainsy, the Khmer Nation Party, Funcinpec party etc.to break up and now they have all been splintered. Its no one else’s but it’s their works (the CPP and Vietnam). Like when Samdech Krom Preah (Norodom Ranariddh) won the election. They attacked his forces first but they said that his forces attacked them instead. These people depended on the support of the Vietnamese forces because the Vietnamese have logging businesses and drug trafficking businesses with them in order to get the money to finance the Cambodian People’s Party and bribe people from other parties to cause trouble within their parties and to splinter and beak up those parties in order to weaken them. That’s what happened. I have cried for Cambodia many times. I don’t think that all Khmer people wanted the Vietnamese to swallow our country, firstly. And secondly, no Khmer like the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). The CPP has always claimed that they have immense popular support. But if the election was held democratically like in France, the United States or Australia they will not even get 10% of the votes. That’s what I would like to tell you.
Samkhon: If I am not wrong, are you claiming that Hun Sen will try to win the election by all means and after winning the election he will abolish and open up the border to make Vietnam and Cambodia one country?
Pol Pot: They have already opened up the border.
Samkhon: When?
Pol Pot: Since a long time ago. Samdech Krom Preah has said that the Vietnamese have come to cut down the columns of the Khmer people’s houses. And when he wanted to send our troops to investigate the claims Hun Sen told him to bring the coffins as well. That’s very insolent. So who he has to depend on for support? Our people from the eastern part, like in Takeo for example, has nothing to use for firewood. They don’t even have cow dung to burn for fuel. They lived a miserable and wretched life. They have suffered so much. So how can we solve this problem? If we try to solve it they will divide us from the Upper Cambodia down to the Lower Cambodia (Kampuchea Krom). In Kampuchea Krom people are waging a struggle too but at a smaller scale because the world has not paid much attention to their plight and because they don’t want to support any separatist groups. But for the Upper Cambodia we get international support but even them can’t help. Samdech Krom left Cambodia on the 30th (July 1997?) but on the 29th the CPP’s people assassinated a colonel loyal to Samdech Krom Preah. On the day Samdech Krom Preah returned to Phnom Penh they organised a demonstration against him. You asked that we have already joined the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). Yes, it’s true that we have joined ASEAN but Khmers are still fighting against Khmers and the CPP has won, not by political means but by military means, because the Vietnamese were behind them, behind the curtain. As you can see they were not afraid of ASEAN. There were some people who thought that when we joined ASEAN, ASEAN will put pressures on them. But as you can see ASEAN cannot do anything because the Vietnamese did not attack us directly but it used a its proxy, the CPP, to launch the attack. So ASEAN cannot do anything. And they always use the policy of “non-interference” to stop ASEAN from intervening. Even Hun Sen dares to say like that too, so the ASEAN Troika dare not say anything. They dare not interfere but they did help. That’s what happened.
So our people from Kampuchea Krom must struggle, even a small scale struggle, against the land confiscation. They even have weapons, but not much, for their struggle. But it was not a large armed struggle. That’s why we need ASEAN, the United Nations and our friends combined, in order to solve the current (1997 coup) crisis. This is what I think. I am not a fortune-teller. I say this because it’s for our Khmer survival. If we lose our motherland where can we live? I cannot run away from my country. I would rather die here with my people. I cannot run anywhere because I can’t even walk. Thank you so much…
------
Khmerization’s comment: The opportunity to interview Pol Pot was one in a life time but Mr. Pin Samkhon did not asked any relevant and important questions. Many questions that need to be asked remained unanswered. It seemed that he went to the interview unprepared. Now the opportunity has passed as Pol Pot has left our world. So most of the unanswered questions will remain to be unanswered forever. It is sad.
Translated from Khmer by Khmerization
http://khmerization.blogspot.com/
Pol Pot: First, because our country is a small country, we have to protect it and not to let it become another Kampuchea Krom. Secondly, I knew the Vietnamese very well. I don’t talk about the ordinary Vietnamese people. The majority of the Vietnamese people are good people. But the Vietnamese leaders I knew them very, very well. I can even name them all. They are very, very bad. They have had a strategy of swallowing Cambodia and they hated me so much because I resisted against them, like Vo Van Giap, Pham Van Dong and many other Vietnamese leaders etc, they are really bad people. I knew these people very, very well. In front of us they say one thing. Behind us they say another thing. For example, about the border agreements. We have agreed at the administrative, the provincial and at the district levels but they changed their mind and attacked us and said that we attacked them first. How can we attack them? Cambodia is a small country with a small population and small poorly-equipped army. So we have always wished to live in peace with our neighbours. Vietnam had always wanted Cambodia to become part of the Vietnamese Indochinese Federation, before and even now.
Samkhon: Have they changed?
Pol Pot: They have not changed. At the moment I have nothing much to say but I wish to say a little about their puppet, the Cambodian People’s Party. Before it was called the Indochinese Communist Party. And later it was divided and splintered into three parties, ie: the Workers’ Party of Vietnam, the Khmer People’s Revolutionary Party and the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party. It was divided into three parties but in fact they were like one country having the same strategy. That’s why they called the three countries the “Three Brothers“. We will never be able to be free from them because Vietnam has a strategy of protecting its own territorial boundaries. I said to them: you have encroached on Cambodian land how can you say you are protecting your borders? So we must protect our country as well. This is the first thing I wanted to tell you.
Secondly, they said that they need more land to accommodate their population because they have too many people, about 70 million of them now. So in my nationalistic heart I will never allow Vietnam to take over Cambodia. I swore to people that I’d rather die than let the Vietnamese take over my country. Now we have seen that Laos has already been swallowed by Vietnam through the 1977 agreement.
Samkhon: How many years was the agreement with Cambodia?
Pol Pot: No, that was Vietnam’s agreement with Laos which abolished all borders demarcations between the two countries in order to make these two countries become one. I went to see Le Duan and proposed to him that we must establish a friendship and cooperative treaty between Cambodia and Vietnam but he didn’t answer me. He didn’t answer me at all.
Samkhon: That was before 1975?
Pol Pot: That was in 1975. And from then on Vietnam started to attack us along the border areas. So I felt that I have been stabbed in the heart because I was in charge of the country. They have taken over our border areas, that was one thing. But the other thing was that our people have no land to live. And when Vietnam toppled Democratic Kampuchea (Khmer Rouge regime) in 1978, it had its plans worked out already before establishing a Revolutionary Liberation Front. This front was not established by Hun Sen, Chea Sim and others but it was established by another leader named So Phim. But later the Hun Sen-Chea Sim clique fled to Vietnam and was later installed by the Vietnamese invading forces when it toppled the Democratic Kampuchea regime on the 7th of January 1979. This Cambodian People’s Party, which was called the Cambodian Revolutionary Party, appointed Heng Samrin as it head of state and Hun Sen as its minister for foreign affairs and so on and so forth.
Samkhon: What do you think was Vietnam’s strategy?
Pol Pot: Its strategy was not to fight Cambodia by military means but to use and incite Khmers to fight Khmers. Like now we see that they have incited Sam Rainsy, the Khmer Nation Party, Funcinpec party etc.to break up and now they have all been splintered. Its no one else’s but it’s their works (the CPP and Vietnam). Like when Samdech Krom Preah (Norodom Ranariddh) won the election. They attacked his forces first but they said that his forces attacked them instead. These people depended on the support of the Vietnamese forces because the Vietnamese have logging businesses and drug trafficking businesses with them in order to get the money to finance the Cambodian People’s Party and bribe people from other parties to cause trouble within their parties and to splinter and beak up those parties in order to weaken them. That’s what happened. I have cried for Cambodia many times. I don’t think that all Khmer people wanted the Vietnamese to swallow our country, firstly. And secondly, no Khmer like the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). The CPP has always claimed that they have immense popular support. But if the election was held democratically like in France, the United States or Australia they will not even get 10% of the votes. That’s what I would like to tell you.
Samkhon: If I am not wrong, are you claiming that Hun Sen will try to win the election by all means and after winning the election he will abolish and open up the border to make Vietnam and Cambodia one country?
Pol Pot: They have already opened up the border.
Samkhon: When?
Pol Pot: Since a long time ago. Samdech Krom Preah has said that the Vietnamese have come to cut down the columns of the Khmer people’s houses. And when he wanted to send our troops to investigate the claims Hun Sen told him to bring the coffins as well. That’s very insolent. So who he has to depend on for support? Our people from the eastern part, like in Takeo for example, has nothing to use for firewood. They don’t even have cow dung to burn for fuel. They lived a miserable and wretched life. They have suffered so much. So how can we solve this problem? If we try to solve it they will divide us from the Upper Cambodia down to the Lower Cambodia (Kampuchea Krom). In Kampuchea Krom people are waging a struggle too but at a smaller scale because the world has not paid much attention to their plight and because they don’t want to support any separatist groups. But for the Upper Cambodia we get international support but even them can’t help. Samdech Krom left Cambodia on the 30th (July 1997?) but on the 29th the CPP’s people assassinated a colonel loyal to Samdech Krom Preah. On the day Samdech Krom Preah returned to Phnom Penh they organised a demonstration against him. You asked that we have already joined the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). Yes, it’s true that we have joined ASEAN but Khmers are still fighting against Khmers and the CPP has won, not by political means but by military means, because the Vietnamese were behind them, behind the curtain. As you can see they were not afraid of ASEAN. There were some people who thought that when we joined ASEAN, ASEAN will put pressures on them. But as you can see ASEAN cannot do anything because the Vietnamese did not attack us directly but it used a its proxy, the CPP, to launch the attack. So ASEAN cannot do anything. And they always use the policy of “non-interference” to stop ASEAN from intervening. Even Hun Sen dares to say like that too, so the ASEAN Troika dare not say anything. They dare not interfere but they did help. That’s what happened.
So our people from Kampuchea Krom must struggle, even a small scale struggle, against the land confiscation. They even have weapons, but not much, for their struggle. But it was not a large armed struggle. That’s why we need ASEAN, the United Nations and our friends combined, in order to solve the current (1997 coup) crisis. This is what I think. I am not a fortune-teller. I say this because it’s for our Khmer survival. If we lose our motherland where can we live? I cannot run away from my country. I would rather die here with my people. I cannot run anywhere because I can’t even walk. Thank you so much…
------
Khmerization’s comment: The opportunity to interview Pol Pot was one in a life time but Mr. Pin Samkhon did not asked any relevant and important questions. Many questions that need to be asked remained unanswered. It seemed that he went to the interview unprepared. Now the opportunity has passed as Pol Pot has left our world. So most of the unanswered questions will remain to be unanswered forever. It is sad.
23 comments:
if you can ask Pol Pot now, what would you want to know? What should we Khmer learn about this tragic history, and the downfall of our Khmer nation to Vietnam because of our past mistakes? And most importantly, the death of many of citizens life?
Without a doubt Pol Pot is very patriotic man!
If Pol Pot is so patriotic and willing to sacrifice his life for the love of Cambodia and why he created so much suffering for Cambodian people under his rule?
Let face it! According to Pol Pot Cambodia is very weak country with no weapons whose leaders have so little experience in politic! What the Cambodian leaders and Cambodian people didn't know is that the political game was already set up in not in their favor and all was needed are participants!
Cambodian leaders were such a fool to participate in such political game and look at what become of Cambodia now!
Pol Pot can't be blame for everything that happens to Cambodia! Even today, Cambodia as a country continue to be fucked over by same those who set up the political game!
It is God intention to create man to kill another man!
As Pol Pot has mentioned before he died,vietnam is the main key and important roles of the killing field in Cambodia.One part of vietcongs secretly hiding in Pol Pot's armies to weak down the physically and mentally of regime then another part made the invasion simultaneously after which they set up a fake crooked government's staffs by vietnam(present government)that's why as you see Cambodia become a anarchy country,there is no real law,only fake and for show to the international foreign countries for their sake, a lot of corruptions,stealing,killings...ect.
All these are the vietnamese Indochina Federation plan.
Oh zip it, guys. Pol Pot had lost srok Khmer to Yuon, and we aint gonna followed no stupid advice from him.
Furthermore, his propaganda isn't working for him either. He's the one who killed Khmers and we'll condemned him for it. Vietnam has nothing to do with it. If they want to kill khmer, it is a lot easier for them to do it in South Vietnam. They need not to come all the way here for that. I can't believer how stupid he is.
You're right 6:35 AM saying that Pol Pot was the one who kill Khmer but you are truely wrong wrong wrong wrong to say Vietnam has nothing to do with it.
Yuon is absolutely behind the curtain as Pol Pot said in both past and present.
Be brave and don't be blind for interest you get from CPP. You will bring nothing along when you die but curse.
who care about the past...think about now...hun sen is ayorng yuon per pol pot statement......why all of u. and u. still support this hun sen....yuon a yorng....before it is too late...stand up and fight for it...and let your pass go....and save our beloved cambodia....not just u lost all the family...me too...but what is important,,is to save our country from yuon....or u will be like cham and lao.....anotherthing...how do you know that not yuon pol pot kill our people...and actually not real pol pot...do u know who...may be "krom hun sen " at those time....
I've been reading comments posted here, out of all. I realize that there are some Vietnamese in here coming to KI-media to post and say evil things. These evil find ways to instigate Cambodian, sometimes pretend to be Cambodian and speak so harsh against Cambodian to make us look bad. GO away Vietnamese instigator. GO away!
Go home Viet instigator!Don't say that Vietnam has nothing to do with Cambodia. They full bloody hand, everybody know that your vietcong government is a murder in southeast asia. Only a matter of time, VC be punished!
Stop hiding, stop pretending. ah yuon jaoh masiet!.
When it come down to khmer's problems, i blamed fucking S.O.B SiHANOUK then anybody else.He is the one who was PRO communist yuon from the beginning.When yuon was divided in two , this S.O.B sided with COMMUNIST north.Now, they become one, and even stronger. Well fuck you S.O.B you had done it.Khmer race is AH POUCH THORK TEAP , LNGORNG KHLAO ,oy vea ngorp choy mray srolash tov .
Just imagine this , combine the khmer rouge forces and the Republic forces together for
the defense of our motherland,and settle down our differences politically , who know, may be 1.7 millions plus lives have been saved until today , and yuon will never dare to invade in the first place .But AH POUCH THORK TEAP NIS LNGORNG CHOY MRAY RORK LEAK DAK KHMEAN.
Parachey ah khmer choy mray.
fuck ur VC! we will get ur ass someday!
King Sihanouk sided with the North Vietcong because the South Vietnamese fuck Cambodian people over with their tanks and bullets which took many innocence Cambodian lives!
Sometimes I just want to blame King Sihanouk for siding with the North Vietcong but it is better to see the Viet killing another Viet!
In this case I agree with King Sihanouk strategy!
SIHANOUK is the only responsible of the killing field.
Lon nol told him to come back to Cambodia in order to lead the country like before but he refused.
He put the KR and the vietcong in the same field.
The KR members are surely the criminals.
But without the KR Cambodia is already a part of Vietnam.
Sihanouk is the killer of our parents and families (even if he never want this).
Well, if Vietcongs are murderers, then why is it that Ah Khmer-Yuons are still alive to today, moron (8:41)?
During the Pol Pot regime, youns were really inside Cambodia.
At a night, we suddlendly heard noises of weapons for a short time and thousands of youns soldiers surrended our village and there were no KR soldiers and no victims.
So, I think that the vietcongs were among the KR soldiers.
these khmers are forever ignorant. The KR who killed or starved your family were not KR soldiers. They were the cadres in the village.
If yuons were in Cambodia, 7:55, they were here to rescue us from the brutal KR, not to kill Khmer. They don't have to go to Cambodia for that, get it?
Before the Khmer Rouge came to power and why would the Vietcong make such an effort to have their troop in Cambodia for? Why? Why?
This is the most fundamental question that demands an answer from those Cambodian people who claimed that the Vietcong just want to rescue Cambodian people and that the reason the Vietcong come to Cambodia!
It is a fact that the Vietcong were planning their invasion way before the Khmer Rouge came to power! How is it possible to invade a country without having army in that country! How? You don't have to look far to understand the so called "invasion by military" and a good example would be Uncle SAM army in Iraq!
The Vietcong can no longer deny that their presence in Cambodia is an act of invasion and in a time of war it is the Cambodian population who are suffering the most from the killing, starvation, and become enslave to political factions!
What do you mean why? How are you going to oust the French without their help?
What? I am talking about the Vietcong not the French!
You want to win so bad huh? Ahahha
7:16, I am not at war with you, dude. Thus, I am not looking for victory. I am here just to establish the truth, and that is both the Viet and French were here. Had the French not being here, the Viet would not had being here either.
Are you telling me that the Vietcong never kill Khmer people?
The French were in Cambodia to protect Khmer from the Vietcong and the Thaicong!
What does joah masiet mean exactly?
What does joah masiet mean?
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