p The main cause of the Pol Pot regime’s speedy downfall was its policy of cruelly suppressing human rights.

p Soon after the regime was set up, literally hundreds of thousands of the country’s people were executed without being charged with anything whatsoever; the inhabitants of Pnom Penh and other cities were forcibly resettled in the countryside and not allowed to take any possessions or household utensils with them. When they arrived, they were 170 compelled to live, eat and work in groups; families and married couples were separated.

p For the purposes of brainwashing, adults were forced to do collective agricultural labour; adolescents of both sexes were put to work in factories. Trade and money were abolished, all essentials being centrally distributed. Such a policy is completely alien to scientific socialism and communism.

p It was not from the “propaganda writings" of the Kampuchea United Front for National Salvation or from the Vietnamese side that these facts were gleaned. They are dealt with in detail in a report by the United Nations, certain governments and international organisations in accordance with a decision taken by the UN Human Rights Commission on March 8, 1978. US President J. Carter and other people who usually trumpet on about “human rights" now prefer to be non-committal about the trampling of human rights by the Pol Pot regime. Unthinkable but true!

p The KUFNS Programme published on December 2, 1978 proclaims not only an independent economic policy geared to building socialism in the country and a course aimed at settling conflicts with neighbouring states on the basis of mutual respect for each other’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, but also the freedom of place of residence and of travel, the freedom to set up organisations, freedom of religion, to restore family life, the dissolving of forced marriages, the freedom to choose one’s own spouse and other basic demands.

p In the eight point minimum programme that was published immediately following the liberation of Pnom Penh, the main part gives concrete official commitments primarily concerning respect for human rights.

The demands enumerated above must be seen as a reflection of the actual situation in the country as it stands, characterised by a wide and active protest voiced by all sections of the Kampuchean population against the reckless anti-democratic policies of the Pol Pot regime.