Showing posts with label Fall of Phnom Penh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fall of Phnom Penh. Show all posts
Monday, September 10, 2012
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Roland Neveu: The Fall of Phnom Penh
All photos: Roland Neveu
Saturday, April 17, 2010Traversing The Orient Magazine
Georgie Walsh gains insight into the fall of Phnom Penh through the powerful and harrowing images of the French Photojournalist, Roland Neveu
Those with a keen interest in modern history may well be familiar with the work of the French photojournalist Roland Neveu. His pictures have been featured on the cover of Time Magazine whom he worked for throughout the 80’s -covering numerous stories including missionaries in New Guinea and the war in Lebanon from 1982 to 1985.
He took the first images of Soviet prisoners in Afghanistan’s mudjahedeen holy war, the wars in Lebanon and conflicts in Central America. He was also the first to photograph victims of AIDS in Uganda in 1986. He has worked as a stills photographer on many films including the blockbusters Platoon, Born on The Fourth of July, Thelma and Louise and The Doors. As a documentary filmmaker he covered the fall of Marcos in the Philippines, the Touaregs rebellion in the Sahara in 1990 and the plight of Kurd refugees after the Gulf War in 1991.
For his latest project, Roland has returned to the day that launched his career and the work he is most famous for, the fall of Phnom Penh in April 1975.
When Roland first set foot in Cambodia it was 1973 and he was visiting as a sociology student with the dream of becoming a photojournalist. In his student days he photographed anti Vietnam War protests for left wing news organizations. However, before he turned his lens on the fall of Phnom Penh all his work as a photographer had been largely unrecognised and unpaid.
During this period media channels throughout the world were saturated with coverage of the war in Vietnam. With this in mind Roland and a fellow student decided to turn their focus on Cambodia – a country that was teetering on the edge of civil war. They stayed three months and Roland sold his first photo to AP (Associated Press) before returning to France to fulfill his military obligations.
During military service Roland kept a close eye on the turmoil in Cambodia with intent to return once his time was served. Cambodia had gotten under his skin and he had a sixth sense that things were about to explode in the country. As he had previously been lucky to sell the pictures he took of war in Cambodia he thought, with hard work and more experience, he would be able to capture the situation better and in turn make more sales.
He returned to Phnom Penh in March 1975. The city had changed since his first visit and with refugees coming in from the countryside the population had grown to more than two million.
Times were tough. Inflation had gone through the roof and surviving off no more than three US dollars a day meant even obtaining food became a challenge.
Roland confides in his book, The Fall of Phnom Penh, “From a purely selfish point of view I can say that the fall came as a relief to me. Inside the French Embassy compound, I didn’t have to worry anymore about food as there was simply nothing to eat. Everybody was in the same situation. All that really mattered at that time was the story.” And the story he was to cover would launch his career as a world renowned war photographer.
He woke on April 17th 1975, to witness the first batch of Khmer Rouge soldiers entering Phnom Penh. This was the first time he’d seen a Khmer Rouge soldier in the flesh. He was not sure how they would react to having their photo taken. They did not seem to mind so Roland set off on foot, unsure what the situation was, capturing images of these soldiers. He hitched a ride on one of the Khmer Rouge commandeered trucks entering Phnom Penh and rode with the soldiers down Monivong Boulevard that cuts through the centre of the city. He captured many images along the way, some in colour but most taken with black and white film. As the truck reached the other side of town more Khmer Rouge soldiers climbed aboard. These soldiers weren’t as friendly as the first ones had been, one pointed a gun to Roland’s stomach and demanded he hand over his camera and film.
Luckily for Roland, at that very moment several shots were fired and everyone jumped for cover providing a escape route for the young photographer. Not wanting to risk any more chances of loosing the film – let alone his life -he walked back to the French Embassy for safety and to at least try and find out what was going on.
The situation was uncertain and it was to stay that way for the two weeks he spent inside the Embassy. Over a thousand people were stranded inside its gates; journalists, diplomats and foreigners and also about five hundred Cambodians unsure of what the future was to be for Cambodia. The final decision made by the new Khmer Rouge run government was to evacuate all foreigners to Thailand by truck while all Khmer citizens were made to stay.
What was to follow would be one of the worst genocides of the 20th century.
Roland spent the next four years travelling to various parts of the world including visits to the refugee camps along the Thai/Burmese border. However, gaining access to the country was near impossible until 1979 when the Khmer Rouge regime collapsed under the Vietnamese invasion.
In January 1981 he was invited to Phnom Penh to celebrate the two year anniversary of the Vietnamese military victory over the Khmer Rouge. It had been almost six years since he was last in the city and he was amazed at how unrecognizable it was. The population had diminished from two million down to barely a hundred thousand and the streets were almost empty. He was also shocked to discover the torture centre of S-21 and the now famous killing fields at Choeung Ek.
Though his career has taken him to countless places, a big part of Roland’s heart remains in Cambodia where he returns frequently to photograph. He currently has a couple of projects on the go. One is a photographic travelogue on Cambodia called Beyond Angkor. The other is a book of war stories and photography from around the world.
The Fall of Phnom Penh book is available at leading bookstores in SE Asia or can be purchases directly at www.asiahorizons.com with PayPal.
For information on purchasing prints Roland can be contacted at rolandneveu@gmail.com
Those with a keen interest in modern history may well be familiar with the work of the French photojournalist Roland Neveu. His pictures have been featured on the cover of Time Magazine whom he worked for throughout the 80’s -covering numerous stories including missionaries in New Guinea and the war in Lebanon from 1982 to 1985.
He took the first images of Soviet prisoners in Afghanistan’s mudjahedeen holy war, the wars in Lebanon and conflicts in Central America. He was also the first to photograph victims of AIDS in Uganda in 1986. He has worked as a stills photographer on many films including the blockbusters Platoon, Born on The Fourth of July, Thelma and Louise and The Doors. As a documentary filmmaker he covered the fall of Marcos in the Philippines, the Touaregs rebellion in the Sahara in 1990 and the plight of Kurd refugees after the Gulf War in 1991.
For his latest project, Roland has returned to the day that launched his career and the work he is most famous for, the fall of Phnom Penh in April 1975.
When Roland first set foot in Cambodia it was 1973 and he was visiting as a sociology student with the dream of becoming a photojournalist. In his student days he photographed anti Vietnam War protests for left wing news organizations. However, before he turned his lens on the fall of Phnom Penh all his work as a photographer had been largely unrecognised and unpaid.
During this period media channels throughout the world were saturated with coverage of the war in Vietnam. With this in mind Roland and a fellow student decided to turn their focus on Cambodia – a country that was teetering on the edge of civil war. They stayed three months and Roland sold his first photo to AP (Associated Press) before returning to France to fulfill his military obligations.
During military service Roland kept a close eye on the turmoil in Cambodia with intent to return once his time was served. Cambodia had gotten under his skin and he had a sixth sense that things were about to explode in the country. As he had previously been lucky to sell the pictures he took of war in Cambodia he thought, with hard work and more experience, he would be able to capture the situation better and in turn make more sales.
He returned to Phnom Penh in March 1975. The city had changed since his first visit and with refugees coming in from the countryside the population had grown to more than two million.
Times were tough. Inflation had gone through the roof and surviving off no more than three US dollars a day meant even obtaining food became a challenge.
Roland confides in his book, The Fall of Phnom Penh, “From a purely selfish point of view I can say that the fall came as a relief to me. Inside the French Embassy compound, I didn’t have to worry anymore about food as there was simply nothing to eat. Everybody was in the same situation. All that really mattered at that time was the story.” And the story he was to cover would launch his career as a world renowned war photographer.
He woke on April 17th 1975, to witness the first batch of Khmer Rouge soldiers entering Phnom Penh. This was the first time he’d seen a Khmer Rouge soldier in the flesh. He was not sure how they would react to having their photo taken. They did not seem to mind so Roland set off on foot, unsure what the situation was, capturing images of these soldiers. He hitched a ride on one of the Khmer Rouge commandeered trucks entering Phnom Penh and rode with the soldiers down Monivong Boulevard that cuts through the centre of the city. He captured many images along the way, some in colour but most taken with black and white film. As the truck reached the other side of town more Khmer Rouge soldiers climbed aboard. These soldiers weren’t as friendly as the first ones had been, one pointed a gun to Roland’s stomach and demanded he hand over his camera and film.
Luckily for Roland, at that very moment several shots were fired and everyone jumped for cover providing a escape route for the young photographer. Not wanting to risk any more chances of loosing the film – let alone his life -he walked back to the French Embassy for safety and to at least try and find out what was going on.
The situation was uncertain and it was to stay that way for the two weeks he spent inside the Embassy. Over a thousand people were stranded inside its gates; journalists, diplomats and foreigners and also about five hundred Cambodians unsure of what the future was to be for Cambodia. The final decision made by the new Khmer Rouge run government was to evacuate all foreigners to Thailand by truck while all Khmer citizens were made to stay.
What was to follow would be one of the worst genocides of the 20th century.
Roland spent the next four years travelling to various parts of the world including visits to the refugee camps along the Thai/Burmese border. However, gaining access to the country was near impossible until 1979 when the Khmer Rouge regime collapsed under the Vietnamese invasion.
In January 1981 he was invited to Phnom Penh to celebrate the two year anniversary of the Vietnamese military victory over the Khmer Rouge. It had been almost six years since he was last in the city and he was amazed at how unrecognizable it was. The population had diminished from two million down to barely a hundred thousand and the streets were almost empty. He was also shocked to discover the torture centre of S-21 and the now famous killing fields at Choeung Ek.
Though his career has taken him to countless places, a big part of Roland’s heart remains in Cambodia where he returns frequently to photograph. He currently has a couple of projects on the go. One is a photographic travelogue on Cambodia called Beyond Angkor. The other is a book of war stories and photography from around the world.
The Fall of Phnom Penh book is available at leading bookstores in SE Asia or can be purchases directly at www.asiahorizons.com with PayPal.
For information on purchasing prints Roland can be contacted at rolandneveu@gmail.com
Phnom Penh (Monivong Blvd) on 17 April 1975
Phnom Penh, 17 April 1975: A Khmer Rouge soldier poses for my camera in the early hours. (Photo source: unknown, Originally posted by Kenneth at Khmer's website forum)
Monivong Boulevard, 17 April 1975: In the early morning, as the last fighting rages in the Tuol Kok area, soldiers and civilians retreat towards the city center. (Photo source: unknown)
Monivong Boulevard, 17 April 1975: A family carrying all of its worldly possessions searches for a place to go as the Khmer Rouge order the population to evacuate the city. (Photo source: unknown)
Monivong, 17 April 1975: Moments later, at a street corner off Monivong, government soldiers surrender their arms under the watchful eyes of the victors. (Photo source: unknown)
Mid-morning, 17 April 1975: A column of Khmer Rouge regulars moves deeper into the city along the Monivong Boulevard in the vicinity of Chamcarmon. (Photo source: unknown)
Monivong Boulevard, 17 April 1975: Throughout the morning, a procession of sympathizers and guerrillas ride around on trucks and army personnel carriers commandeered by infiltrated Khmer Rouge. (Photo source: unknown)CAMBODIA: The Last Days of Phnom-penh
Monday, Apr. 28, 1975
Time Magazine (USA)
Time Magazine (USA)
Silence finally fell across Cambodia's battlefields last week after five years of fratricidal fighting that claimed as many as 1 million casualties, leveled once graceful Cambodian cities and scorched the tranquil countryside. Admitting the futility of further resistance, the remaining leaders of the Khmer Republic drove to a prearranged meeting place—Kilometer 6 on Route 5—and there surrendered to officers of the Communist-dominated Khmer Rouge insurgents. Not since Seoul was overrun by North Korean attackers nearly a quarter-century ago had a national capital fallen in combat to Communist troops.
White Flags. Although government leaders had been vowing "to fight until the last drop of blood," there was no attempt at a last-ditch stand. Instead, with the city's last defenses collapsing before the rebels' relentless pounding, the government military command ordered its troops to surrender their weapons to the insurgents. As announcements blared from loudspeakers mounted on army trucks, white flags and banners sprouted everywhere—from downtown buildings and shops, from the masts of government gunboats in the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers, from armored personnel carriers of the government's 2nd Infantry Division.
Then the black-uniformed rebels started entering the capital, first from the north and then from the west and south. Initially, at least, there was none of the carnage that some government officials had predicted. Neither was there the stony silence that has greeted conquerors in other civil wars. The rebels were given a tumultuous welcome. Streets were crowded as the besieged city's inhabitants cheered and waved white flags or strips of white cloth. About the only shooting came from jubilant insurgents triumphantly firing into the air.
There were, to be sure, some ominous notes. When the Khmer Rouge seized the government radio station, a rebel spokesman said menacingly in a broadcast: "We did not come here to talk. The Lon Nol clique [a reference to the President, who fled about a month ago] and some of its officers should all be hanged." Fearing reprisals from the Communists, a number of government officials and military officers, plus an estimated 2,000 other Cambodians, took refuge in the Hotel Le Phnom, which the International Red Cross had declared a neutral zone.
At the Ministry of Information, meanwhile, the Khmer Rouge commander in Phnom-Penh broadcast an appeal to all "ministers and generals who have not run away" to meet with him to "help formulate measures to restore order." At week's end, although almost all communication with Phnom-Penh was closed, there were unconfirmed reports that the Khmer Rouge had beheaded some members of the former government. There was no word as to the fate of Premier Long Boret, who was said to have been arrested while attempting to escape by helicopter.
The surrender ended a bloody chapter that began in March 1970, after a bloodless coup ousted Prince Norodom Sihanouk as chief of state. The new regime, headed by General Lon Nol, almost immediately launched a campaign to drive Hanoi's troops from their base camps inside Cambodia and quash the Khmer Rouge, a ragtag band of 3,000 to 5,000 leftist guerrillas. After initial hesitations, Washington backed the new regime. The U.S. invasion of Cambodia in 1970, directed against North Vietnamese sanctuaries, was partly designed to help Lon Nol. Also helpful were $1.8 billion in aid and thousands of bombing missions flown by the U.S. until Congress banned them in August 1973.
Swelling Ranks. For the first two years of the war, highly professional North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers fought beside the Khmer Rouge; as volunteers and conscripted peasants swelled their ranks, the rebels fought alone. By the time the U.S. bombing ceased, the Communists claimed 90% of Cambodia's territory and were on the outskirts of the capital. Only the stubborn and unexpected resistance of the government's poorly paid troops kept Phnom-Penh from falling in 1973 or 1974. This year, when the insurgents blockaded the Mekong River and cut off all land access to the capital, the government had to rely on a U.S. airlift for food, fuel and ammunition.
It was thus just a matter of time before the capital would fall and, as last week began, an insurgent victory was imminent. After the evacuation of the U.S. embassy (TIME, April 21), the Phnom-Penh government stood alone. "We feel completely abandoned," said Premier Long Boret, who stated at the time that he had decided to remain in Cambodia. Any hope of resupplying or defending the capital ended when the U.S. airlift halted the day the embassy closed.
Soon after the U.S. evacuation, the insurgents, as if waiting for a signal that Washington had finally, irrevocably given up on Cambodia, began what proved to be the final assault of the war. Reinforced by units brought in from the provinces and from blockade stations along the Mekong River, about 40,000 Khmer Rouge troops attacked the capital from all sides.
The road between Phnom-Penh and Pochentong Airport was severed; suburbs to the northwest of the city fell; in the south, in the southwest, on the Mekong riverbank across from the capital's east side, insurgents rolled easily over government defenders. Highly accurate U.S.-made 105-mm. howitzers, captured from government forces, were brought within range of the airport to support a punishing rebel ground assault. After a three-day-long seesaw battle, first the control tower and then the airfield fell.
As the Khmer Rouge pushed forward, setting fire to houses and refugee camps, thousands of new refugees preceded them. The endless stream, including government soldiers who had shed their uniforms and insurgents who were attempting to infiltrate Phnom-Penh, pressed toward the capital on foot, in oxcarts and by motorbike.
Ghost Town. As the battle moved closer to Phnom-Penh, military police used rifle butts in a futile attempt to control the mobs of refugees flowing into the city. After a disaffected air force pilot bombed the military command headquarters (killing seven), a 24-hour curfew was imposed for one day while police went from house to house to search for infiltrators. Hospitals were crowded to two and three times their capacity. The small French community, anticipating the imminent arrival of the insurgents, began affixing the Tricolor to their houses; Paris had already recognized the Khmer Rouge. Meanwhile, the evacuated U.S. compound looked like a ghost town, picked clean of all movable objects by the Cambodian employees and police assigned to guard it.
By midweek, Phnom-Penh radio admitted that the situation "is boiling hotter and hotter." The insurgents had moved their 105-mm. howitzers close enough to shell downtown Phnom-Penh. The army's ammunition was nearly exhausted. "The end is fast approaching," a Cambodian employee of TIME cabled. "All is about to be lost. There will be no more escape."
Belatedly, the regime sought some political alternative to complete surrender. Only hours after interim President
Saukham Khoy fled Cambodia along with the U.S. diplomats, Long Boret announced a three-month suspension of the National Assembly and the creation of a seven-man "Revolutionary Committee," headed by Armed Forces Chief of Staff Sak Suthsakham, to rule the country. The committee offered the rebels a cease-fire if they would permit national elections to determine the future government of the country. The insurgents ignored the proposal.
With the military situation rapidly deteriorating, the government dropped its demands for elections. Via the Red Cross, it sent an urgent message to Prince Sihanouk, who had been titular head of the Khmer Rouge. The government offered a complete cease-fire and full transfer of powers to the insurgents. Its only condition: no reprisals. From Peking, where he lives in exile, Sihanouk spurned the proposals. He denounced the members of the Revolutionary Committee as "traitors who deserve hanging and should try to escape while they can." He urged the government's soldiers to "lay down their arms, raise the white flag and surrender." With that, the government surrendered completely and unconditionally.
It is expected that Khieu Samphan, 43, will quickly emerge as the major figure in the new government (see box below). For most of the war, the French-educated Samphan was Deputy Premier to Sihanouk, but it was clear all along that it was he who held the power, not the exiled prince.
A soft spoken Marxist, Samphan is expected to try to transform his nation into a one-party Communist-dominated state. In fact, in those areas that have been controlled by the insurgents for some time, there have been zealous efforts to sweep away the traditional easygoing habits of old Cambodia. A highly politicized, regimented life has been stressed, peasants have been herded into communes, and the state has acquired a dominant authority over private activities.
What role awaits Sihanouk is highly uncertain. In a series of statements last week, the mercurial prince insisted that he is neither a Khmer Rouge nor a Communist but a neutralist. "I am a very independent man," he said. He may have some voice in the new regime, perhaps as its representative abroad, though he has indicated that what he would really like is to be named lifetime head of state. Whatever the role, he said, he would advocate a Cambodia that would be nonaligned, progressive and nonCommunist. That would surely bring him into conflict with Khieu Samphan, who would surprise nobody by keeping Sihanouk in a figurehead role for a decent interval and then dumping him.
Rumbling Trucks. The most urgent task confronting the new regime is, of course, administration of the country. Some 2 million refugees (from a population of only 7.6 million) must be fed and sheltered. Government troops must be demobilized and put to work. The shattered economy must be reconstructed; in particular the lush ricelands, which once yielded surpluses, must be restored to productivity. Order must be restored in the capital, swollen to three times its normal population. In a calculated effort to thin out teeming Phnom-Penh, presumably to get refugees into the countryside to plant rice in time for the rainy season and perhaps to facilitate the search for hidden government and army officials, rebel sound trucks rumbled through Phnom-Penh toward week's end, warning of immediate attack. Panicked, thousands of refugees fled the city.
One advantage enjoyed by the Khmer Rouge is its apparent popularity among the general public, possibly because of relief and gratitude that the war is finally over. That reservoir of good will could quickly dry up, however, if the new rulers launch widespread reprisals or move quickly to create a harsh, regimented state. Addressing himself to these potential pitfalls, Khmer Rouge Politburo Member Chau Seng assured a Paris press conference last week that while "there will be some trials in Phnom-Penh, we will judge in a humane way." The new regime will in turn be judged—by its own citizens and by the rest of the world—on the basis of just how humanely it does behave.
White Flags. Although government leaders had been vowing "to fight until the last drop of blood," there was no attempt at a last-ditch stand. Instead, with the city's last defenses collapsing before the rebels' relentless pounding, the government military command ordered its troops to surrender their weapons to the insurgents. As announcements blared from loudspeakers mounted on army trucks, white flags and banners sprouted everywhere—from downtown buildings and shops, from the masts of government gunboats in the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers, from armored personnel carriers of the government's 2nd Infantry Division.
Then the black-uniformed rebels started entering the capital, first from the north and then from the west and south. Initially, at least, there was none of the carnage that some government officials had predicted. Neither was there the stony silence that has greeted conquerors in other civil wars. The rebels were given a tumultuous welcome. Streets were crowded as the besieged city's inhabitants cheered and waved white flags or strips of white cloth. About the only shooting came from jubilant insurgents triumphantly firing into the air.
There were, to be sure, some ominous notes. When the Khmer Rouge seized the government radio station, a rebel spokesman said menacingly in a broadcast: "We did not come here to talk. The Lon Nol clique [a reference to the President, who fled about a month ago] and some of its officers should all be hanged." Fearing reprisals from the Communists, a number of government officials and military officers, plus an estimated 2,000 other Cambodians, took refuge in the Hotel Le Phnom, which the International Red Cross had declared a neutral zone.
At the Ministry of Information, meanwhile, the Khmer Rouge commander in Phnom-Penh broadcast an appeal to all "ministers and generals who have not run away" to meet with him to "help formulate measures to restore order." At week's end, although almost all communication with Phnom-Penh was closed, there were unconfirmed reports that the Khmer Rouge had beheaded some members of the former government. There was no word as to the fate of Premier Long Boret, who was said to have been arrested while attempting to escape by helicopter.
The surrender ended a bloody chapter that began in March 1970, after a bloodless coup ousted Prince Norodom Sihanouk as chief of state. The new regime, headed by General Lon Nol, almost immediately launched a campaign to drive Hanoi's troops from their base camps inside Cambodia and quash the Khmer Rouge, a ragtag band of 3,000 to 5,000 leftist guerrillas. After initial hesitations, Washington backed the new regime. The U.S. invasion of Cambodia in 1970, directed against North Vietnamese sanctuaries, was partly designed to help Lon Nol. Also helpful were $1.8 billion in aid and thousands of bombing missions flown by the U.S. until Congress banned them in August 1973.
Swelling Ranks. For the first two years of the war, highly professional North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers fought beside the Khmer Rouge; as volunteers and conscripted peasants swelled their ranks, the rebels fought alone. By the time the U.S. bombing ceased, the Communists claimed 90% of Cambodia's territory and were on the outskirts of the capital. Only the stubborn and unexpected resistance of the government's poorly paid troops kept Phnom-Penh from falling in 1973 or 1974. This year, when the insurgents blockaded the Mekong River and cut off all land access to the capital, the government had to rely on a U.S. airlift for food, fuel and ammunition.
It was thus just a matter of time before the capital would fall and, as last week began, an insurgent victory was imminent. After the evacuation of the U.S. embassy (TIME, April 21), the Phnom-Penh government stood alone. "We feel completely abandoned," said Premier Long Boret, who stated at the time that he had decided to remain in Cambodia. Any hope of resupplying or defending the capital ended when the U.S. airlift halted the day the embassy closed.
Soon after the U.S. evacuation, the insurgents, as if waiting for a signal that Washington had finally, irrevocably given up on Cambodia, began what proved to be the final assault of the war. Reinforced by units brought in from the provinces and from blockade stations along the Mekong River, about 40,000 Khmer Rouge troops attacked the capital from all sides.
The road between Phnom-Penh and Pochentong Airport was severed; suburbs to the northwest of the city fell; in the south, in the southwest, on the Mekong riverbank across from the capital's east side, insurgents rolled easily over government defenders. Highly accurate U.S.-made 105-mm. howitzers, captured from government forces, were brought within range of the airport to support a punishing rebel ground assault. After a three-day-long seesaw battle, first the control tower and then the airfield fell.
As the Khmer Rouge pushed forward, setting fire to houses and refugee camps, thousands of new refugees preceded them. The endless stream, including government soldiers who had shed their uniforms and insurgents who were attempting to infiltrate Phnom-Penh, pressed toward the capital on foot, in oxcarts and by motorbike.
Ghost Town. As the battle moved closer to Phnom-Penh, military police used rifle butts in a futile attempt to control the mobs of refugees flowing into the city. After a disaffected air force pilot bombed the military command headquarters (killing seven), a 24-hour curfew was imposed for one day while police went from house to house to search for infiltrators. Hospitals were crowded to two and three times their capacity. The small French community, anticipating the imminent arrival of the insurgents, began affixing the Tricolor to their houses; Paris had already recognized the Khmer Rouge. Meanwhile, the evacuated U.S. compound looked like a ghost town, picked clean of all movable objects by the Cambodian employees and police assigned to guard it.
By midweek, Phnom-Penh radio admitted that the situation "is boiling hotter and hotter." The insurgents had moved their 105-mm. howitzers close enough to shell downtown Phnom-Penh. The army's ammunition was nearly exhausted. "The end is fast approaching," a Cambodian employee of TIME cabled. "All is about to be lost. There will be no more escape."
Belatedly, the regime sought some political alternative to complete surrender. Only hours after interim President
Saukham Khoy fled Cambodia along with the U.S. diplomats, Long Boret announced a three-month suspension of the National Assembly and the creation of a seven-man "Revolutionary Committee," headed by Armed Forces Chief of Staff Sak Suthsakham, to rule the country. The committee offered the rebels a cease-fire if they would permit national elections to determine the future government of the country. The insurgents ignored the proposal.
With the military situation rapidly deteriorating, the government dropped its demands for elections. Via the Red Cross, it sent an urgent message to Prince Sihanouk, who had been titular head of the Khmer Rouge. The government offered a complete cease-fire and full transfer of powers to the insurgents. Its only condition: no reprisals. From Peking, where he lives in exile, Sihanouk spurned the proposals. He denounced the members of the Revolutionary Committee as "traitors who deserve hanging and should try to escape while they can." He urged the government's soldiers to "lay down their arms, raise the white flag and surrender." With that, the government surrendered completely and unconditionally.
It is expected that Khieu Samphan, 43, will quickly emerge as the major figure in the new government (see box below). For most of the war, the French-educated Samphan was Deputy Premier to Sihanouk, but it was clear all along that it was he who held the power, not the exiled prince.
A soft spoken Marxist, Samphan is expected to try to transform his nation into a one-party Communist-dominated state. In fact, in those areas that have been controlled by the insurgents for some time, there have been zealous efforts to sweep away the traditional easygoing habits of old Cambodia. A highly politicized, regimented life has been stressed, peasants have been herded into communes, and the state has acquired a dominant authority over private activities.
What role awaits Sihanouk is highly uncertain. In a series of statements last week, the mercurial prince insisted that he is neither a Khmer Rouge nor a Communist but a neutralist. "I am a very independent man," he said. He may have some voice in the new regime, perhaps as its representative abroad, though he has indicated that what he would really like is to be named lifetime head of state. Whatever the role, he said, he would advocate a Cambodia that would be nonaligned, progressive and nonCommunist. That would surely bring him into conflict with Khieu Samphan, who would surprise nobody by keeping Sihanouk in a figurehead role for a decent interval and then dumping him.
Rumbling Trucks. The most urgent task confronting the new regime is, of course, administration of the country. Some 2 million refugees (from a population of only 7.6 million) must be fed and sheltered. Government troops must be demobilized and put to work. The shattered economy must be reconstructed; in particular the lush ricelands, which once yielded surpluses, must be restored to productivity. Order must be restored in the capital, swollen to three times its normal population. In a calculated effort to thin out teeming Phnom-Penh, presumably to get refugees into the countryside to plant rice in time for the rainy season and perhaps to facilitate the search for hidden government and army officials, rebel sound trucks rumbled through Phnom-Penh toward week's end, warning of immediate attack. Panicked, thousands of refugees fled the city.
One advantage enjoyed by the Khmer Rouge is its apparent popularity among the general public, possibly because of relief and gratitude that the war is finally over. That reservoir of good will could quickly dry up, however, if the new rulers launch widespread reprisals or move quickly to create a harsh, regimented state. Addressing himself to these potential pitfalls, Khmer Rouge Politburo Member Chau Seng assured a Paris press conference last week that while "there will be some trials in Phnom-Penh, we will judge in a humane way." The new regime will in turn be judged—by its own citizens and by the rest of the world—on the basis of just how humanely it does behave.
CAMBODIA: Long March from Phnom-Penh
Monday, May. 19, 1975
Time Magazine (USA)
Time Magazine (USA)
The curtain of silence that has concealed Cambodia from Western eyes ever since the Khmer Rouge capture of Phnom-Penh on April 17 opened briefly last week, revealing a shocking portrait of a nation in torturous upheaval. Eyewitness reports by the few Western journalists who stayed on in the Cambodian capital after the closing down of the American embassy indicated that the country's new Communist masters have proved to be far more ruthless, if not more cruel and sadistic in their exercise of power than most Western experts had expected.
Phnom-Penh has become a ghost city, forcibly and quickly emptied of most of its 2 million inhabitants. Perhaps as many as half of Cambodia's 7.6 million people have become victims of a massive dislocation, a forced march of city dwellers who have been ordered by the Khmer Rouge government to take to the roads and paths and become rice growers in the countryside. Even hospitals have been evacuated, and doctors stopped in mid-surgery, so that the patients, some limping, some crawling, could take their part in the newly proclaimed "peasant revolution."
Naive Glee. Eyewitness accounts contained scenes of savage contrast. Many of the Khmer Rouge soldiers who first entered Phnom-Penh were country boys who joyfully climbed aboard abandoned automobiles and rammed them, more by accident than design, against walls or telegraph poles; with naive glee, they looted stores for wristwatches but threw jewelry away because they had no use for it. Yet their leaders appeared to be tough disciplinarians who were more concerned about ideology than about the plight of the country's war-weary people. There were also reports of public executions, but these were not confirmed by eyewitnesses.
Cambodia's new leaders were apparently driven by a xenophobic determination to rid the country of foreign influence, not just the taint of "Americans and other imperialist lackeys" but also the influence of even the Chinese and North Vietnamese. Moscow, which had maintained diplomatic relations with the former Lon Nol government almost to the end, was rejected utterly: the second floor of the Soviet embassy was strafed with machine-gunfire, and the seven Russian diplomats there ordered to go to the French embassy compound to be evacuated with the other foreigners. From that precarious vantage point, they saw hundreds of thousands of Cambodians moved out of the capital, as Sydney H. Schanberg of the New York Times (see THE PRESS) put it, "in stunned silence—walking, bicycling, pushing cars that had run out of fuel, covering the roads like a human carpet."
The enforced mass exodus from the capital was carried out, it seemed, in desperate, mindless haste. The rice harvest will not be in until November. What will the millions of refugees in the countryside eat between now and then? If the new government refuses foreign aid, as it has said it will do, who will provide the seed for next year's crop? "Was this just cold brutality," wrote Schanberg, who stayed behind when Phnom-Penh fell last month, "a cruel and sadistic imposition of the law of the jungle? ... Or is it possible that, seen through the eyes of the peasant soldiers and revolutionaries, the forced evacuation of the cities is a harsh necessity? Or was the policy both cruel and ideological?"
The foreign survivors were obviously of two minds. One Western doctor suggested that the Communists had evacuated the hospitals because "they could not cope with all the patients—they do not have the doctors—so they apparently decided to throw them all out and blame any deaths on the old regime." Another foreign observer called the exodus "pure and simple genocide. They will kill more people this way than if there had been hand-to-hand fighting in the city."
The early hours of the rebel take-over were a time of wild unreality. Westerners and Cambodian civilians gathered at the Hotel Le Phnom cheered as the first Khmer Rouge soldiers arrived. They were smiling and friendly, and the euphoria lasted for several hours. Only later did foreigners and city dwellers alike realize that these first soldiers were actually members of a 200-man private band led by a daredevil freelance general, Hem Keth Dara, 29, and not really part of the Khmer Rouge at all. They were quickly replaced by tough, disciplined soldiers, heavily laden with arms, who swept through the city with loudspeakers. "Leave your homes immediately!" they ordered. When their instructions were not quickly obeyed, the soldiers sometimes punctuated them with random rifle shots. The frenzied evacuation of the city was soon under way. At the Information Ministry, Schanberg reported, a stern young officer held a formal press conference for Western journalists. Present were some Cambodian prisoners, many of whom had been ranking members of the old regime. Among them was former Premier Long Boret, who had elected to stay behind to help negotiate the surrender. The Khmer Rouge officer insisted that there would be no reprisals, but few of the prisoners appeared to be convinced by his soothing words.
Fallen City. After the surrender of the city, Red Cross authorities had tried to convert the Hotel Le Phnom into a protected international zone. But at 5 p.m. on the day of the takeover, Khmer Rouge troops ordered the hotel evacuated within 30 minutes. Hundreds of foreigners fled to the French embassy compound; most of them remained there for 13 days, while fires and shooting broke out sporadically in the fallen city.
The scene within the compound, where about 1,300 foreigners and Cambodians sought shelter, was one of deprivation, acrimony and tedium. There was no running water, and food was limited. Though the Khmer Rouge guards stole a few watches and other valuables, they generally treated the foreigners correctly if sternly. As the days passed, one baby was born, another died. When the seven Russian diplomats arrived from their abandoned embassy, they were loaded down with huge supplies of tinned meat and vodka. They refused to share the goods with the other inmates, thereby becoming the bitter tar gets of Westerners' jokes about revisionist influence.
The most heartbreaking moment, the journalists reported, came when the Khmer Rouge ordered the 500 Cambodians in the group to leave the compound and join the peasant revolution. Wives were separated from husbands, husbands from families. About 150 Montagnards, the mountain tribesmen from Viet Nam, also had to leave. One of them told American Businessman Douglas Sapper that since he had fought with them in Viet Nam, he was their blood brother. A Montagnard officer's wife pressed the American to take her five-day-old baby, asking him to raise it. "They asked me for help I couldn't give," Sapper said last week. "I've never felt so completely powerless. I don't ever in my life want to go through that again."
Terrible Regret. The first group of about 580 foreigners was evacuated two weeks ago, but journalists who left Cambodia at that time agreed to withhold their stories until the second group of 550 arrived safely in Thailand last week. Apparently because they did not want to accept foreign help, the Khmer Rouge refused an offer by France to provide an evacuation plane. They insisted that all the foreigners, including the aged and sick, endure a 250-mile truck ride to the Cambodian border. Instead of using a direct route, the evacuees rode along winding dirt roads that had served as the guerrillas' supply routes during years of fighting. To Correspondent Schanberg, it appeared that "these areas had been developed and organized over a long period and had remained untouched sanctuaries throughout the war." He gained the impression that "the countryside organization was much stronger than anyone on the other side had imagined."
When the first convoy of 25 trucks reached its destination, said Sapper, there was "an indescribable happiness walking across that bridge into Thailand," but also a terrible regret because "I left behind too many people who I know will not come out well." At the moment, indeed, the fate of the Cambodian people that he and other foreigners left behind is an agonizingly unanswerable question. The makeup of the new government is not yet clear, and the danger of factional fighting appears great. A fortnight ago, the Khmer Rouge leadership reportedly held a "national congress" in Phnom-Penh, with Khieu Samphan, the military commander and Deputy Premier, in attendance. Few Khmer Rouge leaders have publicly mentioned Prince Norodom Sihanouk. Though he remains the titular head of the new government, it is hard to imagine the temperamental but still popular prince fitting easily into the present company in Phnom-Penh.
Nor does anyone know to what extent the new rulers will carry out vengeful reprisals. The foreign evacuees saw a few bodies on the roads and highways last week, but these could have been "accidental" victims of the forced march to the countryside. What seems certain is that Cambodia's period of zealous self-imposed isolation will continue. Radio Phnom-Penh reported last week that the nation's new leaders were busy campaigning to "clear the country of the filth and garbage left behind by the war of aggression." Though it also spoke of rebuilding the country's industry, the broadcast left little doubt that the government's chief aim would be to restore farm production so that Cambodia might be "completely independent of all foreigners." Meanwhile, the ousted President of the fallen Cambodian government, Marshal Lon Nol, was quietly adjusting to a new life with his family in a $103,000 bungalow in suburban Honolulu. At Camp Pendleton, Calif., the man who replaced him briefly as head of state, Saukham Khoy, 60, disclosed that Lon Nol had been paid $1 million by his own government to leave the country on April 1. "It was a good buy," Saukham Khoy insisted last week. In Hawaii, Lon Nol had no comment.
Phnom-Penh has become a ghost city, forcibly and quickly emptied of most of its 2 million inhabitants. Perhaps as many as half of Cambodia's 7.6 million people have become victims of a massive dislocation, a forced march of city dwellers who have been ordered by the Khmer Rouge government to take to the roads and paths and become rice growers in the countryside. Even hospitals have been evacuated, and doctors stopped in mid-surgery, so that the patients, some limping, some crawling, could take their part in the newly proclaimed "peasant revolution."
Naive Glee. Eyewitness accounts contained scenes of savage contrast. Many of the Khmer Rouge soldiers who first entered Phnom-Penh were country boys who joyfully climbed aboard abandoned automobiles and rammed them, more by accident than design, against walls or telegraph poles; with naive glee, they looted stores for wristwatches but threw jewelry away because they had no use for it. Yet their leaders appeared to be tough disciplinarians who were more concerned about ideology than about the plight of the country's war-weary people. There were also reports of public executions, but these were not confirmed by eyewitnesses.
Cambodia's new leaders were apparently driven by a xenophobic determination to rid the country of foreign influence, not just the taint of "Americans and other imperialist lackeys" but also the influence of even the Chinese and North Vietnamese. Moscow, which had maintained diplomatic relations with the former Lon Nol government almost to the end, was rejected utterly: the second floor of the Soviet embassy was strafed with machine-gunfire, and the seven Russian diplomats there ordered to go to the French embassy compound to be evacuated with the other foreigners. From that precarious vantage point, they saw hundreds of thousands of Cambodians moved out of the capital, as Sydney H. Schanberg of the New York Times (see THE PRESS) put it, "in stunned silence—walking, bicycling, pushing cars that had run out of fuel, covering the roads like a human carpet."
The enforced mass exodus from the capital was carried out, it seemed, in desperate, mindless haste. The rice harvest will not be in until November. What will the millions of refugees in the countryside eat between now and then? If the new government refuses foreign aid, as it has said it will do, who will provide the seed for next year's crop? "Was this just cold brutality," wrote Schanberg, who stayed behind when Phnom-Penh fell last month, "a cruel and sadistic imposition of the law of the jungle? ... Or is it possible that, seen through the eyes of the peasant soldiers and revolutionaries, the forced evacuation of the cities is a harsh necessity? Or was the policy both cruel and ideological?"
The foreign survivors were obviously of two minds. One Western doctor suggested that the Communists had evacuated the hospitals because "they could not cope with all the patients—they do not have the doctors—so they apparently decided to throw them all out and blame any deaths on the old regime." Another foreign observer called the exodus "pure and simple genocide. They will kill more people this way than if there had been hand-to-hand fighting in the city."
The early hours of the rebel take-over were a time of wild unreality. Westerners and Cambodian civilians gathered at the Hotel Le Phnom cheered as the first Khmer Rouge soldiers arrived. They were smiling and friendly, and the euphoria lasted for several hours. Only later did foreigners and city dwellers alike realize that these first soldiers were actually members of a 200-man private band led by a daredevil freelance general, Hem Keth Dara, 29, and not really part of the Khmer Rouge at all. They were quickly replaced by tough, disciplined soldiers, heavily laden with arms, who swept through the city with loudspeakers. "Leave your homes immediately!" they ordered. When their instructions were not quickly obeyed, the soldiers sometimes punctuated them with random rifle shots. The frenzied evacuation of the city was soon under way. At the Information Ministry, Schanberg reported, a stern young officer held a formal press conference for Western journalists. Present were some Cambodian prisoners, many of whom had been ranking members of the old regime. Among them was former Premier Long Boret, who had elected to stay behind to help negotiate the surrender. The Khmer Rouge officer insisted that there would be no reprisals, but few of the prisoners appeared to be convinced by his soothing words.
Fallen City. After the surrender of the city, Red Cross authorities had tried to convert the Hotel Le Phnom into a protected international zone. But at 5 p.m. on the day of the takeover, Khmer Rouge troops ordered the hotel evacuated within 30 minutes. Hundreds of foreigners fled to the French embassy compound; most of them remained there for 13 days, while fires and shooting broke out sporadically in the fallen city.
The scene within the compound, where about 1,300 foreigners and Cambodians sought shelter, was one of deprivation, acrimony and tedium. There was no running water, and food was limited. Though the Khmer Rouge guards stole a few watches and other valuables, they generally treated the foreigners correctly if sternly. As the days passed, one baby was born, another died. When the seven Russian diplomats arrived from their abandoned embassy, they were loaded down with huge supplies of tinned meat and vodka. They refused to share the goods with the other inmates, thereby becoming the bitter tar gets of Westerners' jokes about revisionist influence.
The most heartbreaking moment, the journalists reported, came when the Khmer Rouge ordered the 500 Cambodians in the group to leave the compound and join the peasant revolution. Wives were separated from husbands, husbands from families. About 150 Montagnards, the mountain tribesmen from Viet Nam, also had to leave. One of them told American Businessman Douglas Sapper that since he had fought with them in Viet Nam, he was their blood brother. A Montagnard officer's wife pressed the American to take her five-day-old baby, asking him to raise it. "They asked me for help I couldn't give," Sapper said last week. "I've never felt so completely powerless. I don't ever in my life want to go through that again."
Terrible Regret. The first group of about 580 foreigners was evacuated two weeks ago, but journalists who left Cambodia at that time agreed to withhold their stories until the second group of 550 arrived safely in Thailand last week. Apparently because they did not want to accept foreign help, the Khmer Rouge refused an offer by France to provide an evacuation plane. They insisted that all the foreigners, including the aged and sick, endure a 250-mile truck ride to the Cambodian border. Instead of using a direct route, the evacuees rode along winding dirt roads that had served as the guerrillas' supply routes during years of fighting. To Correspondent Schanberg, it appeared that "these areas had been developed and organized over a long period and had remained untouched sanctuaries throughout the war." He gained the impression that "the countryside organization was much stronger than anyone on the other side had imagined."
When the first convoy of 25 trucks reached its destination, said Sapper, there was "an indescribable happiness walking across that bridge into Thailand," but also a terrible regret because "I left behind too many people who I know will not come out well." At the moment, indeed, the fate of the Cambodian people that he and other foreigners left behind is an agonizingly unanswerable question. The makeup of the new government is not yet clear, and the danger of factional fighting appears great. A fortnight ago, the Khmer Rouge leadership reportedly held a "national congress" in Phnom-Penh, with Khieu Samphan, the military commander and Deputy Premier, in attendance. Few Khmer Rouge leaders have publicly mentioned Prince Norodom Sihanouk. Though he remains the titular head of the new government, it is hard to imagine the temperamental but still popular prince fitting easily into the present company in Phnom-Penh.
Nor does anyone know to what extent the new rulers will carry out vengeful reprisals. The foreign evacuees saw a few bodies on the roads and highways last week, but these could have been "accidental" victims of the forced march to the countryside. What seems certain is that Cambodia's period of zealous self-imposed isolation will continue. Radio Phnom-Penh reported last week that the nation's new leaders were busy campaigning to "clear the country of the filth and garbage left behind by the war of aggression." Though it also spoke of rebuilding the country's industry, the broadcast left little doubt that the government's chief aim would be to restore farm production so that Cambodia might be "completely independent of all foreigners." Meanwhile, the ousted President of the fallen Cambodian government, Marshal Lon Nol, was quietly adjusting to a new life with his family in a $103,000 bungalow in suburban Honolulu. At Camp Pendleton, Calif., the man who replaced him briefly as head of state, Saukham Khoy, 60, disclosed that Lon Nol had been paid $1 million by his own government to leave the country on April 1. "It was a good buy," Saukham Khoy insisted last week. In Hawaii, Lon Nol had no comment.
Monday, January 07, 2008
In case you are curious, here's the actual story behind Hem Keth Dara's shortlived "Nationalist Movement"
Hem Keth Dara, son of General Hem Keth Sana, is seen, on this photo, brandishing a handgun in the street of Phnom Penh of 17 April 1975Excerpt from “Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia”, page 281
By Arnold R. Isaacs (1983), JHU Press.
The illusion of joyous reconciliation was fostered, briefly, when a contingent of black-clad soldiers marched down Phnom Penh’s Monivong Boulevard early on the morning of the 17th to take the surrender of the armor and infantry soldiers near the Hotel Le Phnom. After the government troops put down their weapons, they were smilingly told to go home. Civilians nearby began embracing and crying with joy, joined by the black-clad uniformed arrivals. Those not too elated to notice such things, however, quickly realized that these men were too clean, too neatly dressed, and too untired to be front-line troops. In fact, they were not Khmer Rouge soldiers at all but Phnom Penh students, led a general’s son named Hem Keth Data, whose bizarre attempt to take power before the Khmer Rouge arrived was apparently undertaken on behalf of the perpetually scheming Lon Non. In the confusion of the day Keth Dara succeeded a little later in taking control of the government radio station, announcing himself in a four-minute broadcast as head of the “Nationalist Movement.” His followers he called “younger brothers” who had seized Phnom Penh in order “to allow elder brothers from outside” – presumably the Khmer Rouge – to enter the city without fighting.
By Arnold R. Isaacs (1983), JHU Press.
The illusion of joyous reconciliation was fostered, briefly, when a contingent of black-clad soldiers marched down Phnom Penh’s Monivong Boulevard early on the morning of the 17th to take the surrender of the armor and infantry soldiers near the Hotel Le Phnom. After the government troops put down their weapons, they were smilingly told to go home. Civilians nearby began embracing and crying with joy, joined by the black-clad uniformed arrivals. Those not too elated to notice such things, however, quickly realized that these men were too clean, too neatly dressed, and too untired to be front-line troops. In fact, they were not Khmer Rouge soldiers at all but Phnom Penh students, led a general’s son named Hem Keth Data, whose bizarre attempt to take power before the Khmer Rouge arrived was apparently undertaken on behalf of the perpetually scheming Lon Non. In the confusion of the day Keth Dara succeeded a little later in taking control of the government radio station, announcing himself in a four-minute broadcast as head of the “Nationalist Movement.” His followers he called “younger brothers” who had seized Phnom Penh in order “to allow elder brothers from outside” – presumably the Khmer Rouge – to enter the city without fighting.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
17 April 1975: 32 years later, do you still remember where you were on that fateful day?
Citizens at first welcomed the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh (Photo: Historywiz.com)
The victorious Khmer Rouge paraded through Phnom Penh (Photo: Historywiz.com)
The forced evacuation of Phnom Penh in April 1975 (Photo: Historywiz.com)
Forced march (Photo: Historywiz.com)
Forced march (Photo: Khmer Rouge Trial Web Portal)
Forced labor (Photo: Khmer Rouge Trial Web Portal)
Forced labor (Photo: Khmer Rouge Trial Web Portal)
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