72

(SPK—TASS, February 7, 1979)

p On February 5, 1979, the Kampuchean Information Agency (SPK) gave the following commentary on the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique’s crimes on the Chup plantation:

p The Chup rubber plantation is situated in the Tkhobum Komong district of Kampong Tiam Province, where for the last few years there has been a strong resistance movement against the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary regime. The workers and peasants here had already suffered cruel and bloody reprisals. According to the plan worked out by the central authorities, in mid-1978 troops from other regions were brought here and they began the methodical destruction of one village after another, murdering all men, women, old people and children without distinction.

p An SPK correspondent came to the Chup plantation after its liberation, met with those who had survived and saw with his own eyes the open graves, wells filled to Jthe top with corpses, and terrible graveyards among the rubber trees. The search for evidence of the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique’s crimes is not yet over, but in some places where terrible brutality was inflicted on the people, dozens of thousands of bodies have already been discovered.

p We came to the forest near the village of Sreseam Khumtire, about 1,100 metres from road No. 7. In an area of about three hectares of cattle pasture, not far from the enterprise, 30 round pits about 5 metres wide and more than ten metres deep were discovered. Under some thirty centimetres of soil lay human bodies, several dozen in each pit, mostly women and children.

p Cham Saun, 21 years old, recounts, weeping, that five 01 the eight members of her family had perished. On the first night her elder brother Cham Khoan and younger brothers Cham Kran (10 years) and Cham Chran (2 years) were 73 seized. Only her father, mother and three sisters were left. The village was overflowing with soldiers; there was simply nowhere to hide. The five surviving members of the family lay silently in their house, frightened to even breathe loudly or to cry. The next night the soldiers took the father and the mother, who was six-months pregnant. Knowing that their parents were going to die, the sisters began to cry, begging mercy for them. The black-shirt soldiers’ reply was to beat them half to death. Cham Saun does not even know where the bodies of her family lie.

p She also recounted how the soldiers burst into houses and killed all the men, including boys, in order, so they explained, to “destroy even the roots of those who opposed the Angka Loeu”. Then they started on the women and old people. The population of Sreseam village was almost totally annihilated. After the liberation, only 200 people returned from hiding in the jungle.

p In the same village, near two old bomb craters, lie piles of children’s hats, clothes and sandals. The local people tell how the soldiers herded all the children together there, tied them up, pushed them into the water-filled craters and buried them alive.

p Not far from Sreseam village in the Pieng Cheng woods, near a camp for wounded government soldiers, there were another 12 bomb craters containing about 3,000 dead bodies. On the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique’s orders, two bulldozers were sent there. A ditcher was used to dig a trench 3 metres wide, 6 metres long and 2 metres deep. People were herded to the edge of the trench, hit on the back of the head with a spade or hoe, and pushed in. When too many people had to be exterminated, they were collected into groups of several dozen, tied with steel wires, through which an electric shock was sent from a generator mounted on the bulldozer, then thrown, unconscious, into the pit and covered with earth. One of the two bulldozers is still there. When the graves were opened, it was discovered that many of the victims had split skulls, broken spines and legs, and tied hands.

p In the camp for the wounded many bodies were buried under the banana trees. On the surface alone the remains of 74 several dozen people are visible. The local people say that the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique sent in soldiers from different divisions to secretly kill the wounded, so that they would not require treatment. The most common method of disposing of the bodies here was to throw them into the wells from which drinking water was drawn and cover them up with stones. We were advised by the locals to visit the villages of Thonot Totoung, Sle Kodyong, Lokdap Pran, Cheroiko, Chupkrau, Trap Erang, Krauko and everywhere we found wells full of human bodies. In Thonot Totoung village we saw three wells, with black frothing water and three skulls sticking above the surface. Each well contained several dozen corpses.

p Five kilometres to the east of the Chup plantation near road No. 7 is the town of Suong, the centre of the Tabaung Khomum district. The town consisted of nine villages, each of which previously had from a thousand to two thousand inhabitants. During one month of terror more than three thousand were killed. Khoi Sum, chairman of the Ton village, arranged for us to meet Nong Kha, three of whose family had perished. “There is probably not a single house in the village,” he said, “where no one fell victim. In the families of Kat Suon, Chan Mon, Chin Kan, Khat Neap, and Tang Sokhim, from five to twelve people were killed. For example, in one evening twelve of Tang Sokhim’s family were murdered.”

p In June 1978, the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique sent a company of blackshirts to the village. When night fell they began to force their way into the houses and kill the people. In one grave we saw bodies, stripped naked with their hands tied with nylon rope, and a hoe was sticking out of a pile of bodies.

p It will take a long time yet to count all those who perished. There are both locals and people brought here from far away. They were killed simply because they lived in this region, where the resistance movement was gaining momentum. The Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique ordered the extermination of all people living in military zone No. 203, because, in the authorities’ opinion, “if a military zone turns against the regime, it will be followed by the districts, the districts by 75 communities and villages, and then by the entire population.”

p The Ghup plantation is only a drop in the ocean of blood spilt by the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique in Kampuchea.

Martha Rojas