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p The Peking leaders are trying to impose on the world the Maoist thesis of “surrounding the town with villages”. In Kampuchea they have begun to implement this. In an attempt to prove their loyalty to their “elder brother”, the country’s rulers have decided to simply “eliminate the towns”. They are pursuing a policy of forcibly deporting the townspeople into rural regions and gathering them together into “ communes" that in fact, are disguised concentration camps.

p The handful of people living in Pnom Penh do not, of course, belong to the town’s native population. They are party workers, experts, civil servants, and military men. The Pochentong Airport building is unharmed, and whenever important guests are expected, it is decked out with flags. The government members drive around in Mercedes limousines and other West European cars, official vehicles being the only ones allowed on the city streets. The desolate highways into the capital are lined with empty buildings (in particular, the university). The traffic lights are not working. The petrol pumps are closed. In the centre of the city stands the enormous Monorom Hotel, all boarded up. There is not a soul in sight on the broad avenue intersecting Pnom Penh from north to south. The sidestreets leading to it, like many other previously busy transport arteries, are blocked.

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p Young soldiers in black working clothes and armed with Chinese machine-guns, control the traffic. The Central Post Office is closed, swallows sweeping through the huge hall and nesting under the pelmets.

p There is no postal service.

p Money has long been out of circulation. The National Bank lies in ruins. There is a single shop open in the city, and that can only be used by foreigners. Once a week, they could buy Scotch whiskey, American butter and French wines there, but only for American dollars.

p The former library has become a warehouse. The only regular information service is the state radio, while the Revolution newspaper comes out only three times a month.

p With the exception of the Chinese embassy, all foreign embassies are situated on one street. They have no telephone connection with one another or with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The freedom of movement of foreign diplomats and other foreigners in Kampuchea is strictly limited.

p Journalists were shown the agricultural production “ commune" in the south of the Takeo Province, where about 10,000 people lived. Most of them turned out to be former inhabitants of Pnom Penh. Men and women live separately, and breakfast, lunch and dinner are taken in groups of 600. Each member of the “commune” has the right to one set of clothes, consisting of a shirt and a pair of trousers, a year. Here there is no financial remuneration, the only payment for work being a food quota of mainly rice. The school teachers are unqualified, being simply appointed from among those considered by the government to be “reliable”.

p A Chinese freighter lies by the wharf in the port of Kamfong Cham. The harbour is almost empty, apart from a few small motor boats. Not long ago a large amount of military hardware, including recoilless antitank rifles, self-propelled weapons, as well as long range artillery, were off-loaded here from just such a Chinese vessel.  [62•* 

p From the journal Swiss Review of World Affairs
(Switzerland)

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p Ma Bunn Khok, a Pnom Penh student, lived through the city’s evacuation. He tells of reprisals against unarmed people, of how the sick and wounded were cast out of the hospitals, of how the city’s inhabitants were banished to the countryside. In the course of two years, his “work group" went to five regions to do a wide variety of jobs. Ma Bunn dug canals, cut down trees, and picked cotton. His account gives an impression of the daily life of the “new population”. A few stolen potatoes meant the death sentence. Dissatisfaction with the poor food—the same. Late for work—the death sentence.

p Men and women live separately in different camps. True, marriage was allowed. You only have to write an application to the camp commander and you will be “helped” to choose a wife, but even then you can see her only once every ten days for a couple of hours. The poor food and heavy work mean that nursing mothers lose their milk and the infantile death rate is horrific. All personal possessions are confiscated—watches, rings, images of Buddha, underwear. “The authorities”, Ma Bunn says, “didn’t bother to waste time on political discussions. They just ordered you to work, and that’s all. I know that they took away all books, burned libraries and destroyed museums. They permitted me to keep three dictionaries, so that they’d have something to make cigarettes out of.”

p From the Italian newspaper Corriere delta Sera

p “Our village used to be very peaceful. But after April 17, 1975 the new authorities forced us to set up a ’commune’. Boys with whips and rifles became the bosses there. We have to get up at six every morning, and work without a breather till noon. Then there is a short break for a cup, of rice—then back to work. We finish late in the evening. ’Heh! Get a move on!’ they order us. ’We need lots of rice for war reserves.’ There is absolutely no machinery available. Everything is done by hand. In fives, or tens of the old and sick, we drag heavy ploughs like oxen.

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p “Those who can’t work are killed. Anyone who dares to groan from hunger or, God forbid, pick up a crab, snail or herb to eat later on, is declared an ’oppositional element’, ’dangerous to the system’ and beaten to death. To beat and kill people is an everyday thing for them. In fact, it’s easier to kill than to beat—less trouble.

p “We had a family, relatives and neighbours, but now they’ve all gone. You aren’t allowed to visit a sick father or cry if your husband dies.”

p From an account given by a Kampuchean refugee—the peasant woman Sai Tkhan from Swairieng Province

p “They took away all our money and only allowed barter, and then only within the co-operative and with the permission of the authorities. Exchange on an individual basis was forbidden. All our property was written down. If you had two chickens and one disappeared, you’d be punished. Anyone found guilty three times would disappear from the village without trace and for ever. The Angka Loeu representatives would come at dusk, take the victim away and no one would ever hear anything more of him.

p “My brother had a coconut palm growing in his garden. They carefully counted the number of coconuts. One evening my brother ate one to stay his hunger. But he was found out. Two days later they came for him, and he disappeared for ever.”

p From the testimony of a Kampuchean refugee

p “We are warned that meetings between girls and boys are forbidden. Young people aren’t even allowed to talk to one another. If a young man and a girl flirt with each other, they are executed, because love is considered a crime in Kampuchea.”

p From the account given by 30-year-old Mon Seu, who escaped from Kampuchea

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p Millions of men and women work from dawn to dusk in the rice paddies under the intensive surveillance of armed guards.

p In Thailand, I asked one of the refugees what they had been fed.

p “A little rice and a cup of coffee a day. During the day and in the evening they gave us soup made of leaves, slightly salted. Only the leaders ate meat and fish. Children received half portions.”

p “What about in the morning?" I asked again.

p “Nothing at all. From six o’clock till noon we worked on an empty stomach. People died of starvation. Anyone who complained was executed. Only the authorities had enough to eat. Even the recruits conscripted into the army often went hungry, though they were entitled to more than we peasants were.”

p “And those that didn’t work?”

p “Everyone worked, men and women. Even old people, but they were given lighter jobs—weaving baskets and things like that. Six-year-old children were forced to collect excrement and mix it with fallen leaves to make fertiliser.”

p “What if you fell ill?”

p “There were no chemists or medicines at all. People treated themselves with herbs and roots. If a peasant fell sick and didn’t go to work, he would be warned that he was setting a bad example. If he didn’t get up for a week, they took him away.”

p “What was the money situation?”

p “There just wasn’t any. They abolished money in Kampuchea.”

p “Then how did you buy what you needed?”

p “What does ’buy’ mean? There were no shops, and nothing to buy anyway—no clothes, no shoes^nothing. No one cooked at home anymore. Twice a day the ’organisation’ handed round soup, and everybody ate together, in one place. There weren’t any private houses anymore either. When the people banished from the towns arrived in the villages they had to build themselves huts and weren’t allowed to take over deserted houses.”

From the French newspaper France Soir