Cambodia - Khmer Rouge politics

(9 Mar 1998) T/I: 10:15:21 GS 10:24:09 (13/03/1998)


For more than three decades, Pol Pot ruthlessly controlled the Khmer Rouge. He is most notoriously known for his reign of terror in the 1970s during which more than one million Cambodians were executed, tortured or starved to death.
Since his overthrow in June 1997, the Khmer Rouge's new leadership has tried to distance itself from Pol Pot's brutality. Ta Mok, the Khmer Rouge commander who ousted Pol Pot, says "Pol Pot is now in prison. He knows himself he has committed big faults."
Pol Pot's ouster was prompted by the June 10th murder of his long-time comrade-in-arms Son Sen and 14 of Son Sen's family members, including grandchildren. Ta Mok considers those killings one of Pol Pot's most serious crimes along with "killing Khmer Rouge cadres in the past, many
of them." Mok was also on Pol Pot's death list but he escaped and captured his long-time leader on June 19th.
Five weeks later, on July 25, Pol Pot was presented before a "people's
tribunal" in the Khmer Rouge stronghold of Anlong Veng and sentenced to life imprisonment for Son Sen's killing.
Mok's effort to overcome the Khmer Rouge's reputation earned under Pol Pot's leadership belies his own past. Known to some in the outside world as "the butcher," he is reputed to have overseen the killing of thousands of Khmer Rouge cadres accused of conspiring with Vietnam in 1978. And his rejection of Pol Pot is primarily due to Son Sen's killing not because of the crimes of the 1970s.
While Mok is clearly the strongman of the Khmer Rouge, the official leader is Khieu Samphan. From the group's enclave he continues to head the fight to see the Khmer Rouge play a role in Cambodian politics.
Mok accuses the Vietnamese-backed Prime Minister Hun Sen of selling Cambodia's resources to foreigners and creating divisions among Cambodians. The Khmer Rouge claims it has 10-12 thousand troops based in its isolated territory near Cambodia's northern border with Thailand. Other estimates range from five to seven thousand. Most recently, the group's soldiers have helped forces loyal to the ousted co-premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh in their fight to hold onto their only territory in northwestern Cambodia. That fighting has virtually come to a standstill after declarations of a ceasefire late last month.
It is unlikely the Khmer Rouge will play any real role in Cambodia's parliamentary elections, scheduled for July. Despite that, the group is determined to stay together, hold onto their stronghold and try to influence Cambodia's future from their isolated enclave.

SHOWS:

KHMER ROUGE HEADQUARTERS, ANLONG VENG, CAMBODIA - RECENT
VS Khmer Rouge (KR) soldiers walking to staging area before going to "front lines";
ws tracking KR soldier;
vs KR soldiers
cleaning weapons;
SOT (in Khmer) with Ta Mok, the Khmer Rouge strongman known to the outside world at "the Butcher" know to his people as "grandpa Mok", saying: "We as the masters of the lands we have no other choice but to continue the struggle to defend the lands we live in, no matter how fierce Hun Sen, no matter how cruel his troops are, we have to fight to live";
VS soldiers standing in formation on parade ground;
ms old soldier resting;
ws KR working on Soviet tank which was captured from Phnom Pehn government;
WS exterior landmine factory;
ms KR soldier with prosthetic leg constructing landmines;
vs landmine construction process;
ws landmines;

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