Tales of Brave New Kampuchea

Death and starvation for the good of "the organization "

"At present, the general situation of the revolution in Kampuchea is excellent, considering the fact that ours is a backward country just freed from devastating war launched by the U.S. imperialists."

So said Cambodia's Premier Pol Pot at a banquet in Peking some weeks ago. After the leader of Kampuchea, as Cambodia was renamed when its Khmer Rouge Communists seized power in 1975, visited China, some changes in Southeast Asia's most militantly xenophobic regime appeared. Obviously at Peking's urging, the government once again acknowledged, though not diplomatically, neighboring Thailand, with whom it had previously had little contact. Last month the country's Foreign Minister, Ieng Sary, came to New York City, where he played host at a United Nations cocktail party for 200 diplomats. He even provided the entertainment: a film extolling the glories of brave new Kampuchea.

For a close-as-possible look at the new Cambodia, which is all but closed to foreigners, TIME Correspondent David DeVoss visited three camps in Thailand, at the border provinces of Surin, Chantha-buri and Trat, which have been set up for some of the thousands of refugees who have run the gauntlet of mines, snipers and punji stick booby traps along the frontier to reach freedom. His report:

Backward is one way to describe the country. Brutal, according to those who have escaped, is more apt. Significantly, the escapees include more and more former Khmer Rouge fighters who once served as the enforcers for Angka Loeu, the "Organization on High," which runs the country as a Communist fiefdom.

Many of the Khmer Rouge fled Cambodia following an internecine struggle inside Angka six months ago. The reason for the purge: some of the older organization men dared to propose moderating changes in what had become in effect a penal society. They were eliminated for making these suggestions. In the village of Tien Kam, for instance, the Khmer Rouge "controller" was killed by a girl of 18--who then took his place.

The new controllers, who wear red scarves as signs of power, have proved to be even more vicious than the old ones. Thus instead of moderating as the regime matures and becomes more economically secure, Cambodia is retrogressing. Says Tap Ereth, a former soldier who returned to his village to farm after the fall of the non-Communist government in 1975: "From 6 in the morning until the moon began to rise, the controllers yelled at us to grow more rice. We did grow more, but it was always taken away."

Cambodian cities, including Phnom-Penh, have become little more than transportation railheads for rural cooperatives as the government, citing a threat from "spies" of all sorts, forced people into the countryside. The cooperatives are spartan. Some of the refugees in Thailand are from a typical cooperative in a village called Kok Tlok. As they describe it, the village, really a large plantation, houses 10,000 residents in thatched huts, with up to three families in each hut. The cooperative is run by only five controllers, and were it not for the gaunt residents' tattered clothes--the regime issues new garments only once a year--Kok Tlok might appear to be a pleasant pastoral setting.

But the refugees say death is everywhere. Seemingly simple misdeeds such as fraternization outside one's immediate family, being awake after 9 p.m., falling asleep at the nightly political lecture are punished with death. Every month about 250 villagers die from starvation, but to eat a chicken or suggest killing a cow is treason. Says Soeung Meayeat, 28, who escaped six months ago: "There is nothing to do when parents die and children are taken away except wait for death so you can see them again."

Children are separated into communal work camps at the age of twelve and strictly segregated by sex. Single youths are required to chop trees, dig irrigation ditches and clear stumps. Since they work harder than others in a cooperative, they receive more food. But even they do not always get enough. At Pronet Phrac, a work camp west of Battambang, only ten youths are assigned to catch fish for 8,000 residents. Result: four or five people die of exhaustion every day.

In the youth camps, lust is as deadly as exhaustion. Young men and women can be executed merely for talking to one another or sitting together. The only opportunity to find a mate is in the fields. When a likely spouse appears, an elderly emissary inquires about his or her availability; if both the boy and the girl are willing, the cooperative's controller is asked to sanction marriage. Says Bousa Voen, 22, a refugee at Surin, in broken but poignant English: "I never talked to my husband before we marry. He just know I beautiful and want to make love."

Since the Communists took control, if refugee reports are correct, at least 500,000 people out of a population that once totaled 7 million have either been executed or have died from a variety of causes. Premier Pol Pot has declared that another 2% of the population are still "enemies of democratic Cambodia." Presumably they are in danger of what the government euphemistically describes as "the elimination of contradictions."

Cambodia has become a net exporter of rice. There is food available, but so much is reserved for export that the standard meal has become fish gruel and banana leaves. Even that is served in communal dining halls, which helps accomplish two government aims: to break up family life and limit opportunities to hoard food, which is needed for escape. Family names are being wiped out in the new order. Cambodians are now referred to by their controllers and the government simply by surname, with the term met (comrade) in front. Comrades are expected to do what they are told. The alternative, aside from death, is escape to Thailand, but that is becoming more difficult. Most of the people in the refugee camps had set out to leave the country with friends or family who were ambushed and killed along the way.

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