The Times Online (UK)
Khmer Rouge leader who inflicted untold miseries on his people during and after the regime of Pol Pot
BY GENERAL consent the most cruel and wantonly violent of the Khmer Rouge leaders who transformed the Cambodian countryside into the infamous killing fields in the terrible era of Pol Pot’s regime in the 1970s, Ta Mok was for three years in charge of the southwest of the country, which became notorious for its executions, torture and slave labour, even by the black standards of the Khmer Rouge.
After the overthrow of the Pol Pot regime by Vietnam in 1979, Ta Mok continued, as a trusted lieutenant of Pol Pot, to control a force of thousands of guerrillas in the north of the country, and this always threatened the stability of the governments in Phnom Penh that succeeded that of the Khmer Rouge. Finally, with the Khmer Rouge guerrilla movement falling into disarray in the mid-1990s, he overthrew his old boss, who had remained until then its de facto leader. But with the Cambodian Government growing stronger, Ta Mok not long afterwards became a fugitive himself, and he had been in custody ever since his capture by government forces in 1999.
He faced charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. But he remained brazen in the face of his accusers, claiming that he could prove collusion by the American and British Governments in the Khmer Rouge’s activities both during their period of power and during the guerrilla conflict that racked the country afterwards. The US and Britain, he averred, were blinded to all atrocities by their dislike of the Soviet-backed Vietnamese regime, and Cambodia simply became a pawn in Cold War politics. In the event, illness prevented Ta Mok from being brought to trial, to the dismay of the relatives of his countless victims, to whom a judicial process and his conviction for his crimes would also have been a means of healing to some degree Cambodia’s deep wounds.
Born in Takeo, in southern Cambodia, Ta Mok, whose real name was Ung Choeun, came of peasant stock, unlike some other Khmer Rouge leaders who were Paris-educated intellectuals. With the effortless wartime Japanese control of French Indo-China demonstrating the weakness of the French hold on the region, he joined nationalist resistance against the colonial power after the defeat of Japan. As the most promising route to effective resistance he joined the Communist Party which was being built up by Pol Pot, taking the nom de guerre Ta Mok — “respected grandfather”.
He became an influential guerrilla leader in the civil war in the jungles, which ended in the Chinese-backed fighters of Pol Pot overthrowing a weak pro-US Government and entering Phnom Penh in triumph in 1975.
On the road to power in Phnom Penh he had already made a reputation for himself as the perpetrator of a number of gratuitous massacres. With Khmer Rouge in power, he proceeded to subject his fief, the southwest of the country, where he set up communes through which he exerted an absolute authority, to a reign of terror unexampled in the annals of Pol Pot’s bloody tyranny. When, in 1978, the Khmer Rouge itself began to suffer from the effects of rivalries and infighting, he was sent by Pol Pot to the region bordering Vietnam, where he conducted a brutal purge of dissenters, real or imagined.
But the Khmer Rouge’s days were by now numbered. Raids on a number of Vietnamese villages gave its regime the pretext it was looking for. In the following year a Vietnamese invasion drove the Khmer Rouge from power in Phnom Penh back into the jungles from where they had come.
The end of its formal power by no means meant the end of the Khmer Rouge’s malign influence on Cambodia. Basing himself in the northern frontier area adjoining Thailand, Ta Mok remained one of Pol Pot’s principal lieutenants in a spate of ruthless guerrilla attacks that were to harass the Phnom Penh Government for a decade and more. When under pressure from government forces, he was able to slip away over the northern border into Thailand, where he maintained several homes and military compounds for his followers. Ta Mok maintained good relations with Thai military men and frequently used a vehicle with Thai army plates. He had no difficulty in supplying his men from Thai traders with whom he was also on good terms. In spite of his bloody reputation he enjoyed considerable popularity among the many Cambodians who inhabited that part of Thailand. The loss of a leg to a landmine in the early 1980s only added to his rugged image.
In 1989 Vietnam withdrew from Cambodia, leading to the establishment of a coalition Government in Phnom Penh. Pol Pot refused to have anything to do with a UN-backed peace process that then ensued, and the Khmer Rouge and Ta Mok continued to maintain themselves in the jungles of the north against the Phnom Penh regime. But by the mid-1990s Khmer Rouge troops, and even some of its leaders, had begun to defect under the inducements of amnesty from Phnom Penh.
With the Khmer Rouge falling into disarray, Ta Mok turned against Pol Pot and put him under lifelong house arrest. When the Cambodian Government launched a strong attack on the Khmer forces, Ta Mok fled into the jungle, taking Pol Pot with him. The circumstances of the Khmer leader’s death in April 1998 have remained something of a mystery. After his body was unceremoniously burnt, Ta Mok exulted over the remains of his old chief, declaring him to be “nothing more than cow dung”, and adding gratuitously: “Actually cow dung is more useful because it can be used as fertiliser.”
The Cambodian Government now offered Ta Mok amnesty, but he refused to accept it, and continued the fight in the jungle until he and a small band of followers were surrounded and seized in 1999. He was taken to Phnom Penh where he was held in a military prison while Cambodian judges and those appointed by the UN assembled to form a tribunal to try him and other Khmer Rouge leaders for their crimes. Last month he had been transferred from prison to a Phnom Penh hospital suffering apparently from tuberculosis and respiratory complications.
Ta Mok, Khmer Rouge miliary leader, was born in 1926. He died on July 21, 2006. He was believed to be 80.
BY GENERAL consent the most cruel and wantonly violent of the Khmer Rouge leaders who transformed the Cambodian countryside into the infamous killing fields in the terrible era of Pol Pot’s regime in the 1970s, Ta Mok was for three years in charge of the southwest of the country, which became notorious for its executions, torture and slave labour, even by the black standards of the Khmer Rouge.
After the overthrow of the Pol Pot regime by Vietnam in 1979, Ta Mok continued, as a trusted lieutenant of Pol Pot, to control a force of thousands of guerrillas in the north of the country, and this always threatened the stability of the governments in Phnom Penh that succeeded that of the Khmer Rouge. Finally, with the Khmer Rouge guerrilla movement falling into disarray in the mid-1990s, he overthrew his old boss, who had remained until then its de facto leader. But with the Cambodian Government growing stronger, Ta Mok not long afterwards became a fugitive himself, and he had been in custody ever since his capture by government forces in 1999.
He faced charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. But he remained brazen in the face of his accusers, claiming that he could prove collusion by the American and British Governments in the Khmer Rouge’s activities both during their period of power and during the guerrilla conflict that racked the country afterwards. The US and Britain, he averred, were blinded to all atrocities by their dislike of the Soviet-backed Vietnamese regime, and Cambodia simply became a pawn in Cold War politics. In the event, illness prevented Ta Mok from being brought to trial, to the dismay of the relatives of his countless victims, to whom a judicial process and his conviction for his crimes would also have been a means of healing to some degree Cambodia’s deep wounds.
Born in Takeo, in southern Cambodia, Ta Mok, whose real name was Ung Choeun, came of peasant stock, unlike some other Khmer Rouge leaders who were Paris-educated intellectuals. With the effortless wartime Japanese control of French Indo-China demonstrating the weakness of the French hold on the region, he joined nationalist resistance against the colonial power after the defeat of Japan. As the most promising route to effective resistance he joined the Communist Party which was being built up by Pol Pot, taking the nom de guerre Ta Mok — “respected grandfather”.
He became an influential guerrilla leader in the civil war in the jungles, which ended in the Chinese-backed fighters of Pol Pot overthrowing a weak pro-US Government and entering Phnom Penh in triumph in 1975.
On the road to power in Phnom Penh he had already made a reputation for himself as the perpetrator of a number of gratuitous massacres. With Khmer Rouge in power, he proceeded to subject his fief, the southwest of the country, where he set up communes through which he exerted an absolute authority, to a reign of terror unexampled in the annals of Pol Pot’s bloody tyranny. When, in 1978, the Khmer Rouge itself began to suffer from the effects of rivalries and infighting, he was sent by Pol Pot to the region bordering Vietnam, where he conducted a brutal purge of dissenters, real or imagined.
But the Khmer Rouge’s days were by now numbered. Raids on a number of Vietnamese villages gave its regime the pretext it was looking for. In the following year a Vietnamese invasion drove the Khmer Rouge from power in Phnom Penh back into the jungles from where they had come.
The end of its formal power by no means meant the end of the Khmer Rouge’s malign influence on Cambodia. Basing himself in the northern frontier area adjoining Thailand, Ta Mok remained one of Pol Pot’s principal lieutenants in a spate of ruthless guerrilla attacks that were to harass the Phnom Penh Government for a decade and more. When under pressure from government forces, he was able to slip away over the northern border into Thailand, where he maintained several homes and military compounds for his followers. Ta Mok maintained good relations with Thai military men and frequently used a vehicle with Thai army plates. He had no difficulty in supplying his men from Thai traders with whom he was also on good terms. In spite of his bloody reputation he enjoyed considerable popularity among the many Cambodians who inhabited that part of Thailand. The loss of a leg to a landmine in the early 1980s only added to his rugged image.
In 1989 Vietnam withdrew from Cambodia, leading to the establishment of a coalition Government in Phnom Penh. Pol Pot refused to have anything to do with a UN-backed peace process that then ensued, and the Khmer Rouge and Ta Mok continued to maintain themselves in the jungles of the north against the Phnom Penh regime. But by the mid-1990s Khmer Rouge troops, and even some of its leaders, had begun to defect under the inducements of amnesty from Phnom Penh.
With the Khmer Rouge falling into disarray, Ta Mok turned against Pol Pot and put him under lifelong house arrest. When the Cambodian Government launched a strong attack on the Khmer forces, Ta Mok fled into the jungle, taking Pol Pot with him. The circumstances of the Khmer leader’s death in April 1998 have remained something of a mystery. After his body was unceremoniously burnt, Ta Mok exulted over the remains of his old chief, declaring him to be “nothing more than cow dung”, and adding gratuitously: “Actually cow dung is more useful because it can be used as fertiliser.”
The Cambodian Government now offered Ta Mok amnesty, but he refused to accept it, and continued the fight in the jungle until he and a small band of followers were surrounded and seized in 1999. He was taken to Phnom Penh where he was held in a military prison while Cambodian judges and those appointed by the UN assembled to form a tribunal to try him and other Khmer Rouge leaders for their crimes. Last month he had been transferred from prison to a Phnom Penh hospital suffering apparently from tuberculosis and respiratory complications.
Ta Mok, Khmer Rouge miliary leader, was born in 1926. He died on July 21, 2006. He was believed to be 80.
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