BBC Timewatch - Pol Pot: The Journey to the Killing Fields

The Toul Sleng secondary School is hidden behind a fence

in a quiet district of the Cambodian Capital Phnom Penh

It's been empty for almost 30 years

a silent witness to the agony of a nation

thousands of men women and children were tortured in its classrooms

they were then driven to the outskirts of the city and executed

nearly 2 million people died in the killing fields of Cambodia

a quarter if the country's population lost in less than four years

one man above all was responsible for this secret genocide

he used hunger and terror to control not just what his people did and said

but what they wore

where they lived even who they loved

Pol Pot

Cambodia was closed to the world

and no true record was filmed of his new society

but drawing on his words and the testimony of those

who knew him well, this is the story of Pol Pot's

Journey to the Killing Fields

in 1997 a few monhs before he died

Pol Pot gave a rare and surprising frank

interview with and American journalist

he spoke of the revolution he led and his childhood

I was born in January 1925

I remember this because my mother

wrote it in chalk on the wall of the house

I am the son of a peasant

and when I was young

I used to help my parents in the field

Pol Pot or Saloth Sar to give him his true name

was from the sort of land owning family

he would later denounce as parasites

we were neither rich nor poor

we just made a fair living

we needed some help at harvest time

and we were able to employ our neighbours

to help us harvest the rice and plow the fields

as a child Saloth Sar was a good kind gentle and hard working

When I say this some people dont believe me

we used to swim in the river together

we played everywhere

all sort of games

ever since my childhood

i've tried never to talk about myself

that's really just part of my nature

I'm taciturn. I'm really quite modest

in the evenings Sar and his brothers

would listen to traditional tales of the Khymer Kings

and the teachings of the Buddha

Cambodia was a poor peasant society

most people travelled no more than a few miles from their rice fields

but Saloth Sar's father wanted a different life for his son

when Sar was nine he was sent to the capital Phnom Penh

It was in the streets of Phnom Penh

that saw Phnom Penh the Sar came into contact with Cambodia's other world

the country was ruled by a Khymer King

but in name only the French were the colonial masters

the priviledged were educated by the colonialists in their language

Saloth Sar was one of the privileged

he studied French literature

and history

the revolution of 1789

and the reign of terror that followed it

school friends remembered Sar as an amusing companion but closed

for a talent even then for hiding his thoughts

he was not an especially abled student

no one could recall Soleth Sar showing any interest in the future of his country

and yet the ordered world of the Khmer Kingdon

was about to be turned upside down

the French were engaged in a bitter struggle to hold onto power

in neighbouring Vietnam

where a determined communist army was fighting for independence

Communist Viet Minh Guerillas

have begun to train small bands of Cambodians

their attacks were confined to a few remote border posts

but their cry National Independence

was beginning to resound throughout Indochina

When Saloth Sar was 20 he made a pilgramige with friends to the great forest temples of Angkor

built at the high point of Khmer civilisation more than 700 years ago

they remain the symbol of national pride and independence

the visit would leave a lasting impression on the students

who became Pol Pot

if our people could built Angkor Wat they could do anything

we must revive our national soul and pride in order

to defend the nation

build the country well

and preserve it forever

it was the beginning of a political journey

that would change the course of Saloth Sar life forever

in 1949 Sar was one of a small and very privileged
band of students to be given

a scholarship to study in the capital of the colonial empire

Paris glittered with new life

after the austerity of the war years

at first Saloth Sar's chief interest was in living life to the full

but that changed in the winter of 1950

I met some students with progressive views

and I often stayed with them and little by little

they began to influence my views

these meetings would take place at my place

we discussed things

we exchanged ideas and two tendencies emerged

one in favour of a struggle for independence

by peaceful means

and the other

was a radical group that was in favour of armed struggle

Saloth Sar was of the radical view

it seemed to him that the war against French colonialism

was being fought and won everywhere by Communists

the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was honoured

in the streets of Paris

a quarter of the French population voted Communist

the small group of radical students that had met Vannsak's appartment

in was drawn into the party

Saloth Sar was among them

Sar had become a revoltionary

intent above all on the overthrow of Cambodia's colonial masters

in 1953 he decided to return home to fight for independence

he sought out the most disciplined and effective of the groups

fighting the French in Indochina

the Communist Viet Minh

but in his first months in the jungle the comrade who had return from Paris to fight

was trusted with no more than the camp's vegetable patch

almost everyone there was Vietnamese there were only a handful of Cambodians

and for a long time there was nothing for me to do

and after a while they let me work in the kitchen

but really the Cambodians were there in name only

just how dependant the Cambodians were

on their Vietnamese comrades became all too obvious

only months after Solath Sar joined the struggle for independence

in 1953 the French agreed to pull out of Cambodia and Vietnam

but in Cambodia it was not a Communist leader

who became the symbol of national independence

but the young King Sihanouk

the Viet Minh controlled more than a third of the country

but they chose not to fight on for a Socialist Republic

in Cambodia

they made peace with the King

the Cambodians were forced to bury their weapons in the forest

after the peace agreement was signed

I returned to the capital and resumed my work

in the political underground

in public I worked as a school teacher

in geography history and morals

in private in the political underground

I made contact with not just students

and intellectuals

but also workers and peasants

we lived openly as ordinary people but

in secret we were working for the party

it was at this time that Soleth Sar met the man who became

his closest political ally Brother Nr 2 Nuon Chea

he is accused of sharing responsibilty for the Killing Fields

Solath Sar had a certain skill at bringing new people in to the party

he was a modest charming person but he was clever and good at explaining things in a way

people could understand

Solath Sar would speak of this time

as one of untiring work for the party

but there is another

a half hidden story

the man who in Paris helped kindle Sar's interests in politics

had returned home to campaign in his country's first free elections

he came and had breakfast

with me every morning and we talked together and prepared the electoral

campaign of the Democratic Party

but it was not just a shared interest in the election

that drew Sar to Vannsak's

house every day

her name was Sun Son Meli

her mother was a princess living at the royal palace

she used to meet Solath's Sar at my house

at that time she loved him

she hoped that Solath Sar would become an important figure

but any hope Sar may have had for a life with

Sun Son Meli free of revoltionary struggle

crumbled within a year of his return to the city

the winner of the country's first election was Sihanouk

the King had renounced his throne to take part

but not his powers

and he had ensured his own victory by arresting his political opponents

taking part in elections

that is just for propaganda

in the end and election is a power struggle and those who have power

in their hands are the ones who determine

the final result

it was a turning point for Sar

an end to hopes for democratic change in Cambodia

and even more painful was the personal loss

he experienced in its wake

it really marked his life Sun Son abandoned Solath Sar

to go out with Sihanouk's second in command

she gave herself to someone richer and better known

than Solath Sar

the poor revoltionary without a revolution

within a year Solath Sar had married

but a very different sort of woman

it wasn't surprising that he married Khieu Ponnary

because she was a committed member of the Communist Party

and she had been educated in France too

she was the most respected woman professor in Cambodia

it was to prove the perfect revoltionary marriage

the couple began to throw themselves into party work

the risks were greater than they had ever been

Prince Sihanouk had launched a campaign against the Communist Party

he'd begun to call it by a new name

the Khmer Rouge

more and more people were imprisoned

there were more killings

people were bribed persecuted and just gave up

and so our support base in the cities was under siege

Tuo Smout the party secretary was arrested by the security police

they took him to the outskirts of Phnom Penh and killed him

I went to see Solath Sar who was a member of the party's standing committee

I was the deputy secretary of the party

but I told him that I didnt want to lead it

i asked him to accept the leadership in my place

Nuon Chea had ensured that his comrade Solath Sar

would become Brother Nr 1

the police kept following me and knew my name

but had no idea of my postion

but by 1963 it was clear that I could no longer stay in Phnom Penh

and I returned to the forest to the Makee it would be another 12 years before he returned to Phnom Penh

not as Solath Sar but as Pol Pot

at first he was forced to rely again on his North Vietnamese comrades for food and shelter

they had established new camps on the Cambodian border

and were striking deep in South Vietnam

a powerful new enemy

had taken the place of the French in the South

one dedicated to preventing the spread of Communism

the United States

American bombers would fly Sortie after Sortie

in search of North Vietnamese Guerillas

dropping hundreds of thousands of tonnes of explosives

on a country they weren't at war with

over the next 10 years

nearly 150,000 Cambodians would die in American raids

most of them innocent villagers

Americans carried out more and more bombings and

the more they bombed us the more people came to join us

our forces were getting stronger

by 1968 Solath Sar and his comrades had established their own forest camps along the Vietnamese border

their forces were now known to all as the Khmer Rouge

Our leadership or command centre was known as K5

it was located quite far away from any of the local villages

camp K5 was where all the important meetings were held and

where Solath Sar lived

he had his own guards

lots of them

Solath Sar was no longer the first among equals

but the all powerful party chief Pol Pot

it wasn't just Solath Sar but all the leaders

we all changed our names to hide ourselves from the enemy

secrecy was vitally important without it

we couldn't win the war

Pol Pot chose to live apart

known only to a small circle within the party

and it was in this small circle that he began to fashio the new Cambodian Communism

I was in a very isolated rural area

and it was here that my views changed a good deal

it was really what we saw in the country

that made an impression on us

we studies a lot of papers mainly from the Soviet Union and China

we did put some of these theories into practice

but we adapted them to the situation in our own country

the lifeblood of Pols revolution

would be the country's poorest

non of the party's leaders were peasants

but Pol believed they'd risen above their origins by

by purifying themselves in the revolutionary struggle

new recruits to the Khymer Rouge were to follow

their example by dedicating themselves to the will of the party

leadership

to Angkar

they were often locked in a bamboo cell until

they had proven their obedience

and loyalty

from the first Pol imposed a rigid monastic disiplline

on the movement

everyone was required to attend regular lifestyle

meetings under the direction of a senior party official or cadre

nothing was to be hidden from Angkar

one by one those present were asked to confess their weaknesses and seek forgiveness

the same monastic discipline was expected of the peasants

living in the areas captured by the Khmer Rouge

but its soldiers were popular in the villages

if we stayed in a village

we would help clean the house

refill the water supply

my men looked after the villages

and what they saw what we were prepared to do for them

they began to support us

supply us with rice and many other things

at first there was only a trickle of new recruits

in 1970 it become a flood

an unlikely ally began to pull more and more peasants into the ranks of Pol Pol's army

with deep love for his motherland affectionately kisses a handful of dirt he has gathered

Cambodia's former King Sihanouk had been ousted

in a military coup

he now sought to make common cause with the Khmer Rouge

he was allowed to direct his own record of a visit to its jungle camps

the first public glimpse into its secretive world

Pol Pot was careful to remain in the shadows

but his revolution had for now drawn a new authority from the King's visit

by 1974 60,000 men and women armed with Chinese made weapons were

fighting in the ranks of the Khmer Rouge

Pol Pot's forces controlled two-thirds of the country

and even with American help

the new military government was losing its grip on the rest

in December 1974

Pol gave orders for the final assault on the capital Phnom Penh

refugees from the country filled the streets of a city that now numbered more than 2 million people

as the Khmer Rouge began to tighten its grip

those who could fled the city

the American Ambassador and his staff left on April the 12th

5 days later

all effective resistance ceased

the war was over

then suddenly it was so quiet

I stopped hearing the sound of the rockets

I stopped hearing the sound of the guns

I dont see the airplanes

i I dont see anything like that anymore

after 20 years of thinking planning fighting

Pol Pot was free to build his new society

by the new revolutionary calendar

April the 17th 1975

was Day One Year Zero

we welcomed the Khmer Rouge by raising any white material we could find

we thought it was the end of the war

then we were told to move on

Government soldiers who hadn't changed into civilian clothes were just shot dead on the spot

I was scared because I was in military uniform

and I rushed home to get changed

Pol Pot had ordered his forces to take the first great step forward

as soon as they occupied the city

2 million people

the entire population of the capital

were to be driven from their homes

they announced that everybody

the whole family must leave Phnom Penh and

and travel at least 3 kilometers from the city

they said the Americans were going to bomb the Phnom Penh and we would die

i saw people dying in the road

pregnant women

women who had just given birth to babies

sick people forced out of hospitals

some were helped by family members who could push them in carts

some who didn't have fmily

to help and just lay outside the hospital waiting to die

the was no American air raid

just the determination of the party leaders

to begin building their new society

no matter the cost

if we wish to defend the fruits

of the revolution

there must be no let-up

we must strike while the iron is hot to build Socialism

the party must exercise its leading role

with the use of cutting-edge violence

this is the most important factor

the decisive factor

the power that drives things forward

the Khmer Rouge had established check points on the roads beyond Phnom Penh

those who passed through them were

assigned a district where they could

begin their re-education as workers in the fields

camera's watches books

anything that set the people of the city apart

from the peasant were confiscated by Angkar

soldiers and officials in the former government were separated from the rest

their families would never see them again

in the streets the people had left behind

Pol's peasant soldiers were busy destroying

the symbols of a modern civilised world they didn't understand

the old and the sick they found hiding in their homes

were executed

lots of people died during the evacuation of the city

not many people died

later on yes

but during the evacuation they were still physically strong

in reality 20,000 people died on the roads out of Phnom Penh

they were casualities in a new war

one that was to be fought by the party

on the home front

how should we organise our action

it is the same as in war

we must prepare offences for the whole country

we learn this in the war

if the command is strong we will win

the same goes for building uo the economy

the new Democratic Kampuchea had taken

a deliberate step back in the dark ages

Angkar wanted everyone to be a peasant

the people of the countries, town and cities were

to purify themselves through manual labour

everyone had to work in the fields and dress in the same way

but not everyone in the new socialist were equal

the city people were the new people

they treated us very differetnly from the country people

they swore at us and used filthy language

they said we wer capitalists

I must admit that I didn't know how to farm

I didn't even know what a rice seedling was

first in the queue for food in the communal kitchens were the poorest peasants

they were entitled to the full ration

last to be served were the new people from the towns

and there was never enough

food was control

hunger a weapon for re-education

foraging for more food was forbidden

those caught picking fruit were guilty

not just of stealing from Angkar but

of an even more serious crime

individualism

if you didn't follow the rules then you would be criticised and forced

to bend to them

the policy was to make the people be of one mind

whether you wanted to or not

you would bend to the rules and behave like the rest

this lesson was drummed into the new peasants by

Khmer Rouge cadre

in Pol's new society

everything was to be shared

even children

they were to live from the age of seven with

their Khmer Rouge instructors

love was selfish too now Angkar would chose who men and women

should marry in the interests of everybody

they made a statement saying that these two are falling in love

without permission from the Angkar

what should we do

I mean I was there also as cheerer

kill them kill them and kill them

and then the cadres took the hose and hit the man

I can see it today how strong a human can resist to die

when you hit you go back like this

when you hit you push back like this

and the blood is coming from the eye the ear and the nose

and then they unblindfolded the lady

and she looks like a piece of white paper

I didn't know how frightened she was and how scared she was

but then they hit her

and I don't think both were dead yet

and they pushed them into the grave

that they dug in front of the Pol

and then they buried them

I think that they were buried alive

there was only the will of Angkar

those that defied it

were bad elements and bad elements

were taken into the forest

district officials wielded almost absolute power

no matter their education or age

she was our village chief from the Western Zone

her name was Comrade Ode

she was 12 years old and she ran the whole village

if she said you go you go

you stay you stay

you die you die

Pol told his comrades that the purity of their revolution

was an example to the rest of the Communist world

in April1976 his new government held

a parade in Phnom Penh

to celebrate the progress it had made in just a year

the enthusiasm was genuine

the party believed the country was marching into a new

enlightened age of perfect equality

re-educating the people on the land was the first priority for the revolution

more important than industry trade and even money

money is an instrument that

creates privilege and power

those that posses it can use it

to bribe our party cadres

undermine our system

money constitutes a danger

both now and in the future

we must not be in a hurry to use it

Pol promised clinics and schools

but those responsible for building them were

busy in their ministry's vegetable gardens

the new government officials were even encouraged to grow

rice in the city's empty streets

and on its basketball courts

Angkar condemned sport as Bourgeois

ministry officials were so busy

proving they were peasants too

there was almost no effective control over what was happening in the countryside

radio Phnom Penh was the voice of the new society

the people were forced to listen to monologues about

outstanding successes

some scripted by Pol himself

the reality was very different

the party leadership had demanded 3 tons of

unhusked rice per hectare

and yet its new army of peasants was barely

managing to deliver one ton

a camera crew from communist Yugoslavia

was able to glimpse and record something of the truth

it was an extraordinary sight

thousands of dedicated workers building canals and dams for

Angkar but close by rice fields were almost empty

two thirds of the people in my commune worked

elsewhere building dams digging canals

and so on

just a third actually worked in the rice firelds growing rice

and the rice they produced just couldn't feed everyone

a third of the population was sick hungry or both

thousand were dying of malnutrition

and Pol's vision of the New Democratic Kampuchea

was dying with them

but Pol's confidence in his new society

was unshakeable if the revolution was fading

there could only be one explanation

there is a sickness inside the party

now as our socialist revolution advances

we can locate these ugly microbes

they will rot society rot the party and rot the army

they have been infiltrating the party and they remain

it was a fear of hidden enemies born

in the years of secret struggle in the jungle

the leaders of the party were turning on the

party itself blaming it for the hunger in the countryside

some of the people who were in charge of districts

and provinces were our enemies

they were in our party

they destroyed our rice yield

our policy was to feed the people well

and equally

but these traitors didn't follow our policy and we

couldn't control them because there weren't enough senior

party cadres

the leadership had lost control

of most of the country

a lot of it

is that why the purges started of the party

yes that is right

the enemies of Angkar were taken to a former school

on the outskirts of Phnom Penh

Toul Sleng

it was known simply as S21

the state secret interrogation centre

it would hold those who had once been the revolution's most loyal supporters

more than 14,000 people would pass through this

prison in a little over three years

the truck came along this road and stopped

at the main gate

we then took the prisoners from here and walked them

to the registry where the registrar team made

a list of all their names and

then they were sent to Nyem Ens photographic group

in this building here

everyone who arrived at S21 was photographed for the prison records

some of the prisoners were very frightened they were

trembling some were all right but they did not know

what was going on

they hadn't been interrogated yet

I never thought that I would be arrested

but when I arrived here

I knew I was going to die

that was why I begged them to take

care of my family

I was kicked to the groung just for asking the question

Chum Mey was just one of just 7 prisoners to

survive out of the 14,000 that passed through the S21

he'd been working as a mechanic for the Khmer Rouge

to this day I want to know what I've done wrong

that they should be so cruel to me

to kill my family all my children

what mistakes did I make

why?

every day I ask myself this question

the photograph was taken of the prisoners

in their first hours of captivity

are a lasting record of the men women

and children who passed through the S21

normally when they arrested the husband

his wife was also taken

it was very rare for a husband

to be arrested without his wife

if the prisoner had a baby then we photographed them together

once the prisoners had been photographed

they were taken to the cells

this is cell number 1 number 2 and 3

this cell number 3 where they put me

those the interrogators wished to question closely where

held on their own

this was the chain for my feet

they took off my handcuffs and

then the blindfold and then they let

me go to sleep

to move your body over

you need to ask for permission

the guards walked up and down the corridor

if you didn't ask permisson

they would give you a hundred lashes

it was like this every day for 12 days and 12 nights

it was really terrible

children too young to be interrogated were

separated from their mothers

they told the mothers that they would take

their children to the children's centre

and the mothers had to let it happen

my boss Mr Peng

he took charge of the children

his men took them not far from here

and then killed them

they took me for interrogation here

they asked me

when did you join the CIA

when did you join the KGB

they said I had to tell Angker everything

or I would die

I honestly didn't know what the CIA or KGB were

they pulled out my toe nails

the toe nails on both feet

by using pliers to tear them out

on the third day they gave me electric

shocks because I kept denying

their accusations

after 12 days of torture

Chum Mey confessed

everybody confessed in the end

Chum Mey's confession was typed and

carefully filed with his photograph

in the prison's archive

it was and unstoppable tide

every man and woman tortured was forced to give the

machine new names

for some of its files the prison office

ordered a second photograph

when the prisoner had died under torture

sometimes the photographer was called to the interrogation

room while the prisoner was dying like

this man

those who survived interrogation

made one last journey

they were driven to a place called Choeung Ek on the

outskirts of the city

I was the one who drove them to Choeung Ek

the prisoners were killed in the open

space on the slope there

there were grave pits that were already dug

and the prisoners were taken to them one by one

they were told to kneel down and they were hit with

a long metal pole

an axle of an ox cart

after they had been struck

their throats were cut to make sure they were dead

no one wanted to kill

but we had to carry out our orders

this is the killing field of Choeung Ek

but there were other killing fields

200 prisons 20,000 grave sites

the remains of men women and children

are scattered across the Choeung Ek

field to this day

many of those who died here

were among Pol Pot's most loyal supporters

many former comrades of yours

senior members of the party

were purged and lost their lives

not many some didn't admit their mistakes

but others knew and they admitted them in our meetings

and they were accepted

we didn't kill many

we killed only the bad people

not the good

for Pol the purges were a great victory

but his ruthless pursuit of the imaginary enemy within

would lead to the final collapse of the revolution he was trying to defend

there was a new enemy beyond the

country's border

Vietnam

there had been a bitter border dispute

the old comrades were close

to outright war

but in the Spring of 1978

Pol ordered his last and bloodiest purge

this time the blow fell in the country's Eastern Zone

the vital security area on the border with Vietnam

the soldiers and party officials who were expected to repel

an invasion were driven by the

lorry load to local interrogation centres

a hundred thousand men

their wives and their children were executed

I saw these people in a school building

they were being blind folded and shot

I asked the executioners

if babies in their mother's arms were traitors too

I ordered them to release the prisoners

the total number was about a thousand people

but only 600 were released

400 people had been killed before I got there

I told them we need people to defend the country

and if thousands were being slaughtered

who would be there to do it

the Vietnamese invasion began

in the country's Eastern Zone

on Christmas day

in 1978

13 days later Phnom Penh fell

the collapse was total

Pol Pot slipped back into the forest

the long nightmare

3 years 8 months and 20 days was over

and at last the world knew of the Killing Fields

where nearly 2 million people had died

this was the end of Pol Pot's revolutionary dream

it was not the end of Pol

the Khmer Rouge would fight on in the jungle for

almost 20 years

Pol Pot died in 1998

6 months before he died

he spoke to an American journalist

about the revolution he had lead

he was asked whether he felt any responsibility

for the suffering the deaths of

so many of his own people

I want to tell you

my conscience is clear

everything I have done is first

and foremost for the nation and the people

the people of Cambodia

how could his conscience be clear

when so many people had lost their lives

1.7 million people

I'm not sure about the numbers

but for him his conscience was clear

it was our enemies in the party

without his knowledge

Pol Pot's deputy lives a quiet comfortable life in Cambodia

every year on the anniversary of the fall of Phnom Penh

people gather at the Choeung Ek Killing Fields

to demand justice for the dead

no one had ever been put on trial

the United Nations would like to call those

who were responsible before

an international tribunal

but until now they have been sheltered

by a Cambodian government

that is dominated by former members

of the Khmer Rouge

the chief architect of the revolution is beyond

international justice but his legacy

haunts his country

to this day