December 1990



Survivors of Pol Pot Fear His Return After Loss of Soviet Aid


by Richard S. Ehrlich

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- Survivors of Pol Pot's macabre reign, which left more than one million people dead, will mark his overthrow on Monday January 7 fearful of his possible return because of an unending civil war and sudden loss of Soviet aid.

Some cynical diplomats warn Cambodia's communist regime enjoys using the threat of Pol Pot's return as a way of cowing the population and keeping them loyal.

The government denies such deviousness and insists it wants China, the United States and other foreign powers to stop helping Pol Pot's rebels so free elections can be held to bring peace.

Blitzkrieg Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia and toppled Pol Pot on January 7, 1979, ending almost four years of his bizarre, back-to-the-jungle rule in which he tried to purge all foreign influence by torturing and slaughtering people in a paranoiac "killing fields" frenzy.

On Monday, the government plans to stage a modest, formal ceremony followed by a concert featuring musicians from neighboring Thailand.

Vietnam pulled its army out in 1989, 10 years after ousting Pol Pot and installing the current regime.

Today, Pol Pot is desperately staging a come-back with help from dethroned Prince Norodom Sihanouk.

Pol Pot's merciless, battle-hardened Khmer Rouge guerrillas creep through the jungles of this devastated Southeast Asian nation, brainwashing isolated villagers with exaggerated anti-government propaganda and plotting to strangle the impoverished cities.

While the world squabbles about how to stop Pol Pot, life for most of Cambodia's long-suffering people continues to descend into a strangely primitive, stark and vulnerable society.

The capital, Phnom Penh, is a vast, rotting slum.

Many homeless residents cook with campfires on street corners where flames crackle in front of decrepit buildings as pedestrians walk by.

Due to fuel and equipment shortages, many sidewalk cafes also cook with outdoor campfires.

Repairmen also use curbside fires to mend flat tires and other broken items.

Adding to the flickering urban scenes are vendors who ignite Bunsen burners to illuminate their wares at night in neighborhoods where electricity is scarce.

Pigs, chickens, dogs, geese and other animals compete with half-naked children and shriveled, emaciated old people for scraps of food in squalid, garbage-strewn streets.

The poorest eat and sleep next to fetid gutters while diseased or weak individuals languish wherever they can.

Barbers often cut hair by setting a chair on the sidewalk, resting a mirror on a tree trunk and letting discarded locks fall in the street.

The more fortunate shop in open marketplaces which stock an array of items including Japanese electronics, local gold jewelry, and small, crucified, disemboweled monkeys alongside bales of legal marijuana -- the latter two items for traditional medicinal use.

New shops selling cars, motorcycles, photo supplies and clothes have recently opened or expanded, showing that money and expensive goodies are flowing into Cambodia -- albeit controlled by a miniscule elite.

Middlemen also do good business by smuggling American and other Western goods from Singapore across Cambodia into Vietnam which is suffering a U.S.-led international economic embargo.

Residents in Phnom Penh, meanwhile, have strung rusty barbed wire across their gates, windows, doors, balconies, stairways and fences -- turning some homes into miniature fortresses.

Some enclaves display reconditioned mansions, though most neighborhoods are lined with formerly beautiful, French-style homes which have either been taken over by vagrant squatters, crumbled in disrepair or were stripped and left to decay, giving the capital an appearance of being dotted with hundreds of baroque haunted houses.

Life in the countryside is worse.

More than 100,000 people have been forced to flee their rural homes during the past year because Pol Pot's insurgents have unleashed relentless, scattered assaults.

The government has pushed some hard-to-defend villagers into hurriedly built, squalid camps pending resettlement elsewhere in a policy of reluctantly sacrificing some areas of Kompong Speu province southwest of Phnom Penh, officials said.

"If an area like around Kompong Speu is not strategically important to the Cambodian government, why should they keep their [government] forces there? said a Soviet diplomat, endorsing the government's consolidation of some villages.

Skirmishes by roaming bands of rebels have created havoc for villages and towns, especially in the western provinces of Battambang, Oddar Meanchey and Siem Reap near Cambodia's border with Thailand where the guerrillas enjoy sanctuary and supply routes.

Other insecure areas closer to Phnom Penh include the provinces of Kompong Speu, Kompong Thom and Kompot, though the government has used the start of the current dry season to increase its defenses there.

Moscow assists the regime with military advisers and ammunition, but is slashing financial aid because the Kremlin has its own internal financial woes.

"So far, we have not cancelled our military assistance," the Soviet envoy said in an interview.

"We are not going to supply to Cambodia another squadron of [aircraft] fighters, but we are supplying ammunition to the armaments which they already have.

"This means providing bullets, mortars and maybe artillery shells. No more tanks and no rockets, and so far no more artillery guns," added the senior Soviet diplomat who asked not to be named.

Elections meanwhile are Cambodia's only hope for peace, but staging polls requires a cease-fire, free campaigning and international supervision.

Cambodia's strict, one-party government demands the top 10 or so Khmer Rouge leaders, including Pol Pot, must be barred from running for office because they are guilty of "genocide" against fellow Cambodians and have been condemned to death 12 years ago by a Vietnamese war crimes tribunal.

Pol Pot's guerrillas and Western leaders, however, want the United Nations to take over key ministries and administer Cambodia under the auspices of a U.N. peace-keeping force to ensure an atmosphere of neutrality.

The regime wants to restrict the U.N. to simply monitoring the campaigning and voting.

"Both sides -- the regime and opposition -- are not interested in solving the problem," a suspicious East European diplomat said in an interview.

"They live a very comfortable life while the people are living in a terrible state.

"And peace does not only depend on elections, because everyone knows that two to five years later, they will start the war again if the regime in Phnom Penh, or the Khmer Rouge, are not satisfied" with the outcome of the polls, the East European envoy said.

Foreign Ministry Press Director Chum Bun Rong insisted the government was "sincere" in seeking a peaceful settlement.

"We accept people from all countries to verify the election. The U.N.'s military role is one point to be discussed," Chum Bun Rong said.

He said the government's candidates would win "at least 80 percent" of the vote.

Prince Sihanouk would bag a remaining 15 percent while Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge would trail with only one to two percent, mostly from their own guerrillas and their relatives, he added.

The Soviet diplomat however speculated Pol Pot's candidates would win an impressive 15 percent, Sihanouk would score 30 percent, and "the government will get more than half" the votes.

A young Cambodian college student, reflecting on these predictions, said: "I think the government is not popular, but most young people don't think like me.

"They learn the new [current] government is the best."

Many Cambodians agree the current regime, despite being comprised of many former Khmer Rouge members, is much better than Pol Pot, and they depend on it to protect them from his return.

Older people wistfully recall Sihanouk's reign as a time of relative tranquility.

These days, however, U.S. aid to Sihanouk's rebels often ends up in the hands of Pol Pot's guerrillas because they cooperate on the battlefield, according to diplomats, guerrillas and officials.

"Nobody wants Pol Pot except America," complained one upper-class shop owner.

"America is crazy."

Washington backs the rebels to weaken Prime Minister Hun Sen and force him to call elections in which the U.S. expects Sihanouk to do well.

Many diplomats, Cambodian officials and others, however, fear that policy has created a new Khmer Rouge Frankenstein which is merely using Sihanouk to wedge Pol Pot back into power.


Copyright by Richard S. Ehrlich


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Richard S. Ehrlich's Asia news, non-fiction book titled, "Hello My Big Big Honey!" plus hundreds of photographs are available at his website http://www.oocities.org/asia_correspondent

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