The History Project Part IV

Under The Khmer Rouge

When Angkor Chum was placed under the control of the communists, the Khmer Rouge leadership was concentrating its efforts on capturing the city of Phnom Penh and bringing the entire country under its control. Until 1975, it is doubtful to assume that the various social programs that the communist movement later became famous for were implemented. The areas in Cambodia’s southwest were used as vehicles for these programs instead, which became national when Phnom Penh was captured in April of 1975. These included the formation of cooperative farms, the forced movement of some of the population, the repression of Buddhism, and the dress code that required everyone to wear black. A description from a refugee in Kampong Speu province of Khmer Rouge soldiers taking over his village could have been true for other parts of the country as well: “In 1972 the Red Khmers took over my village. I don’t know how they got there. I just saw them when they came. I don’t know where they lived…They would come by and give you a schedule of what to do and how to live…You could not refuse to do anything.” This description mirrors what people in Angkor Chum thought of the Khmer Rouge soldiers. Oem Hom commented that they were not friendly with the people, and that they fished and ate mostly by themselves. The irony here is that the people living in Angkor Chum were mostly what they are now: farmers grouped in small villages living off the land. These people were supposed to be the base of the revolution, but paranoia and fear kept the Khmer Rouge soldiers confused about what they were actually supposed to be fighting for.

The period of from the fall of Phnom Penh in April 1975, to the Vietnamese invasion in December 1978 is one of the most tragic periods of Cambodia’s history. Trying to explain what the Khmer Rouge leadership wanted to accomplish is difficult. The utopian vision that Pol Pot and his followers wanted to force upon the average citizen of the country is nebulous at best. If any kind of brief description to describe what the communist leadership believed in, it would be the one used by Chandler: In essence, they sought to transform Cambodia by replacing what they saw as impediments to national autonomy and social justice with revolutionary energy and incentives. Family life, individualism, and an ingrained fondness for what they saw as “feudal” institutions stood in the way of this revolution. They claimed that the poor people had always been enslaved and exploited by those in power, and through this revolution they would master’s of their own country.

Under the “Four Year Plan” set forth by Pol Pot in 1977, rice production was to exponentially in order to used for commercial gains. Rice would then be sold to other nations in order to buy arms, equipment, and industry needed to build Cambodia into a nation with a strong independent proletariat. While rice had formed the majority of exports from Cambodia from as early as the 1920’s, the idea of cultivating “three tons [of unhusked] rice per hectare,” as the slogon went, was unreasonable. The people working in the rice fields throughout the country often suffered severely from exhaustion in trying to accomplish this goal. Forced to participate in building this utopia, the victims of Pol Pot’s vision number in the millions.

Angkor Chum was not immune to the tragedy of the time. Official documents and the stories of older generations of the district can paint of grim picture of what the area was like during the era of Pol Pot. How the area was organized seems to resemble a method used in other parts of the country, with mostly everyone working in the fields and supervised by soldiers. Village chiefs still retained their local influence, but reported to the soldiers and their superiors. According to Kroo Sambok, the separation between the village chief and the soldiers was an important one because it allowed the village chief some measure of control over who was punished by the soldiers. For whatever reason, the soldiers would often accuse people of being enemies and would punish them as they saw fit. However, the village chief of Thmei would often protect people as best he could by sending them away or saying that he had already been punished.

During this time, the site of the present day district office was a prison known to the local people as “Tuol Bos Preal.” People accused as being an enemy would be sent to this place to be punished. Kroo Sambok can recount some of the more bizarre acts of violence committed against these people. Hoes that were ordinarily used for tilling the soil were used to bludgeon people to death, as well as tiger traps. Another punishment involved the use of a horse. If a person was accused of stealing from the angka (organization or hierarchy, used here to mean “stealing from the people”) they would tie a person’s hands behind their back, get them to run, and then make the horse run after them. If the accused did not run, the horse would trample them. All of these methods precluded the soldiers from using the ammunition in their firearms, both of which were rare in Democratic Kampuchea. Loung Ung, who recounts growing up under the Khmer Rouge period in First They Killed My Father, recounts a speech made by a child soldier:

"Met Bong picks a rifle from the pile, the same kind that I have seen many times before on the shoulders of the Khmer Rouge. 'This is a weapon I wish we had more of but they are very expensive. The ammunition is very expensive too, so we have few rifles to waste.'"

Although these words were spoken in the west of the country, they were probably true for many other parts as well.

All of the social directives put in force by the Khmer Rouge were present in Angkor Chum. People were moved from one place to another, dressed in black, worked long hours in the fields growing rice, and ate together in communal dining halls. While no one who came to work in Angkor Chum was from a major city like Battambang or Phnom Penh, people were moved from one district of Siem Reap to another. People were moved from Pourk and Sar Sar Sdam to Angkor Chum and vice versa. If a person became sick or injured, they were moved to different places. When Oem Seh became disabled, he was moved from this area to an area near the Kulen mountain named Svay Leu.

If this policy of constantly moving people around did not destroy the unity of the family, the practice of eating communally certainly did. This effectively disrupted the ability of families to cook, make conversation, and allow themselves some privacy. The rationale for this action was that “capitalist framework,” which included families eating together, was still in place in China and North Korea, hindering their progress towards a truly socialist state. This was an extremely unpopular policy, and most Cambodians had little to no understanding as to how complex nineteenth century ideals bore any relevance their daily lives. This was probably true of even the ones trying to live up to these ideals. Sharing food in a central location was probably just another way for the soldiers to monitor the civilian population, whom they largely regarded as containing enemies.

Many people died in Angkor Chum from 1976 to 1979. Official documents from the Documentation Center of Cambodia show that a mass burial site exists near the former prison bearing the name of Tuol Bos Kuy. According to these documents, a survey in 1999 found the presence of nearly several hundred people buried among four different graves. How many of the people buried there were killed directly by the soldiers or by mass starvation and forced labor is unknown.