Khmer Rouge mentality survives

After being wrapped in mystery and unseen for 18 years, the former Cambodian ruler Pol Pot recently was seen on television screens around the world as a result of the scoop given to Nate Thayer of the Far Eastern Economic Review, as he witnessed Pol Pot's trial in a jungle clearing. Our Asia correspondent Harvey Stockwin examines the incident, and suggests that fewer questions have been answered than many have assumed.

HONG KONG (JP): Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge leader, and ruler of Cambodia 1975-1979, one of the great genocidal monsters of the twentieth century, is definitely still alive.

At 82, Pol Pot, who has not been seen since 1979, is visibly an old and sick man. Yet he was still capable of recently launching, in June this year, yet another purge against some of his top colleagues.

The 10,000 or so guerrilla remnants who have followed Pol Pot in the past are holed up on the Cambodian-Thai border, at Anlong Veng, north-north-west of Phnom Penh. From there, these Khmer Rouge remnants are trying to convey the image that Pol Pot has been sentenced to life imprisonment and removed from any leadership role, even though he has not been purged in the same ruthless way that he killed his opponents.

Younger members of those remnants are trying to bury the Khmer Rouge image and to say that they now support liberal democracy as part of a National Solidarity Party (NSP).

The other former Khmer Rouge faction which still controls territory is under the leadership of Pol Pot's brother-in-law Ieng Sary. It has nothing to do with Amlong Veng and the NSP while remaining in control of another enclave on the western border of Cambodia around the town of Pailin.

The risk of all-out civil war within Cambodia between the former Khmer Rouge factions and the forces loyal to former first prime minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh on one side, and the forces loyal to current sole Prime Minister Hun Sen on the other, appears to be small -- although it cannot be ruled out.

The risk of some degree of violent conflict still remains high, given Hun Sen's obvious preference for physically eliminating top Ranariddh supporters and other opponents. The royalists face the bleak choices of either giving up or fighting back, of either allying themselves with those they detest or giving in to those they hate.

That risk will increase if Hun Sen decides that the way to regain international legitimacy is to capture Pol Pot, and surrender him to an international court for trial on the charge of crimes against humanity.

These are the known facts and realities which any Cambodian- watcher can assert with reasonable certainty, after a week in which the media itself became a controversial part of the Cambodian story.

This was because Nate Thayer, correspondent of the Hong Kong- based Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER), was given a scoop by Pol Pot's followers. Since he disappeared from view in 1979, there was uncertainty whether Pol Pot still existed.

Thayer's noteworthy achievement was hyped by the Dow-Jones publicity machine (Dow Jones owns the FEER and the Hong Kong- based Asian Wall Street Journal, as well as other media interests) as "one of the world's greatest scoops -- the trial of the notorious Khmer Rouge guerrilla Pol Pot in the jungles of Anlong Veng .... Nate Thayer, a recognized guru of Cambodia- watchers, is the first foreign journalist to see Pol Pot in 18 years..."

Hype is, of course, an endemic disease in today's profit- stressing, television-conditioned media. But the choice of the word "guru" was unfortunate, given that gurus are supposed to be those who have attained truth and enlightenment. Even after Thayer's extensive and courageous reporting, Cambodian truth remains as complex and as obscure as ever.

One major trouble with modern media is that it is insufficiently detached and self-critical. This can be a crucial flaw at a time when the media is subject to an increased degree of manipulation by governments or guerrillas.

It is an old and useful rule that, if a journalist is offered an exclusive scoop, he should be cautious. Why the generosity?

If the offer comes from a political group with known totalitarian inclinations, he should be additionally wary. What political gain is the group seeking? What truth is still being concealed?

If the exclusivity is attached to the trial of one of the leading political butchers of our time, a man responsible for the death of between one and two million Cambodians, then wariness plus journalistic introspection is called for. In what way am I being used? Should I insist that others also be allowed to report this momentous event?

Sadly, in the exclusive Cambodian coverage provided by the FEER, there is little evidence of such detachment or self- questioning, though Thayer admits that his hosts "wanted to attract international support for their struggle to unseat Hun Sen".

Instead, Thayer's lengthy report provides the conclusions which those offering him the exclusive scoop wanted to put across. Thayer asserts that the Khmer Rouge that once ruled Cambodia "no longer exists", that Pol Pot's "ouster was authentic" and he is "genuinely finished". Moreover, his visit "opened an unprecedented window into the inner workings of one of the world's most secretive guerrilla movements".

In a nutshell, the Khmer Rouge remnants seek legitimacy and the FEER gave them some.

Yet as other expert Cambodian-watchers, who do not claim guru- status, were quick to point out, the show trial itself was replete with many old-style Khmer Rouge tactics and behavior. This suggested that the Khmer communist mentality which has wrought so much death and destruction on Cambodia was still alive and well.

At the "trial" witnessed by Thayer, the horrendous crimes of 1975-1979 were never mentioned.

Pol Pot was "tried" merely for "destroying national reconciliation" and for having ordered the death of some of his colleagues, notably former Defense Minister Son Sen and his family, only a few weeks ago. When the American ABC News, which bought Thayer's exclusive video footage for a considerable sum, released a trial transcript, it consisted mainly of insults hurled at Pol Pot.

The constant refrain to the trial, reported by Thayer, is the crowd chanting "Crush! Crush! Crush! Pol Pot and his clique!"

The video was said to show Pol Pot looking "defeated", but equally the pictures could mean that he was just bored -- he had to sit through the proceedings, but already knew that he would not die for his crimes, that his real crimes would not even be mentioned.

Those at the trial, Thayer says, still treated their former leader with respect, with some even bowing when he was taken away -- hardly a sign of conversion to liberal democracy. Thayer was not allowed to see where Pol Pot was taken for his life imprisonment. The older leaders of the Khmer Rouge, such as Khieu Samphan, Noun Chea, and Ta Mok, failed to put in an appearance at Pol Pol's "trial". This gave younger leaders plenty of time to talk about the NSP. But the absence of the older leaders could as easily signify that they are still in charge but did not wish to show it.

For these and other reasons, there are good grounds for concluding that the Khmer Rouge mentality endures, and, despite Thayer's permitted scoop, that mentality still manages to keep quite a few windows tight shut.

Hence the cautious conclusions at the beginning of this article, about what we can safely say we know about Cambodian reality.

Above all else, Pol Pot and those who assisted him in the decimation of the Khmer race have yet to recognize the evil of their ways -- let alone pay for their crimes.