Caught between defectors & sealed border

PHNOM PENH, June 14: Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, who presided over one of the century's most brutal regimes, has been surrounded by defecto...

PHNOM PENH, June 14: Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, who presided over one of the century’s most brutal regimes, has been surrounded by defectors, and his days may be numbered, a senior Cambodian military officer said on Saturday.

Nhek Bunchhay, the Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff, told a press conference that Pol Pot had fled to the Thai border, but was ringed by some 1,000 guerrillas who had defected from the Khmer Rouge. He said the frontier had been sealed to prevent his escape.

Son Sen, the man known as the movement’s chief executioner during its genocidal heyday, his wife and eight other family members were killed, including several grandchildren who reportedly had their skulls run over by a truck, said Cambodian Government officials who had been holding the peace talks.

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During the Khmer Rouge’s reign from 1975-79, Son Sen ran Tuolsleng, a one-time Phnom Penh secondary school converted into a prison, where an estimated 20,000 “enemies of the state” were tortured before being killed in a nearby field.

The officer speculated that Pol Pot would continue to kill those around him and in the end commit suicide.

This would effectively end a 30-year-old Maoist movement which emerged from the jungles, defeated a US-backed Government and then imposed a reign of terror on Cambodia in the mid-1970s.

As many as 2 million Cambodians died of starvation, disease and widespread execution as Pol Pot’s small band sought to create a totally classless, peasant society.

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Bunchhay said the Government, working with the guerrilla defectors, would try to convince the 200-odd fighters still with Pol Pot to lay down their arms. This might enable Pol Pot to be captured alive, he said.

Pol Pot fled from his last stronghold at Anlong Veng in Northern Cambodia on Wednesday after ordering the execution of the former Khmer Rouge Minister of Defense Son Sen, whom he accused of committing treason.

The officer said Pol Pot was holding out about 15 kms (nine miles) north-west of Anlong Veng astride the Thai border. Thailand has in the past had close ties with the Khmer Rouge.

Pol Pot was reported holding hostage other senior Khmer Rouge leaders who had been negotiating a peace pact with the Central Government, but whom Pol Pot regarded as traitors. Bunchhay said these included long-time loyalists and central committee members Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea and Ta Mok.

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The rebel group’s latest fracturing was apparently triggered by progress in peace talks with members of the rebel group, negotiations in which Pol Pot has not taken part.