"Khmer Rouge" and the tragedy of Kampuchea. Paul Pot. On April 17, 1975, Khmer Rouge troops entered Phnom Penh. An experiment began in the country, which led the country to horrific consequences. The desire of the Khmer communists to build a "100% communist society" cost the entire Khmer people too much. But it is impossible, apparently, to consider the events solely from the angle of the influence of Maoism or the desire of some individuals to carry out the planned experiment. The communists of Cambodia had a definite ideological basis for their policy. The leaders of the Communist Party, developing the concept of the Cambodian revolution, used certain provisions of Marxist political economy and philosophy, especially the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the idea of destroying hostile classes and, in general, all enemies of the revolution. Of course, Mao Zedong had a great influence on Pol Pot and his supporters. Pol Pot recognized in Mao Zedong "the great teacher of the world proletariat." Using the provisions of Marxism, Leninism and Maoism, the Pol Potites invented a new society, but in this respect they were not the only ones. Most of their provisions were reflected in the old ideas of Bakunin anarchists and the maximalist radical theories of G. Marcuse and D. Cohn-Bendit, fashionable in the 60s.
The concepts and works of one of the main ideologists of the Pol Pot group, Hu Yun, who came up with the theory of two economic systems, were widely disseminated in Cambodia. He called one of them "natural, or natural", the other - "commodity". All the troubles of social life, the division of labor and class inequality, according to this theory, gave rise to the commodity system, which had to be destroyed and replaced by a “natural system”, where production is carried out not for sale, but to satisfy the needs of each family and collective. In this conglomeration of ideas, the basic principles were born political activity Pol Pot and his associates.
There is a question of ownership main question any revolution. The view of the leaders of the Communist Party of Cambodia on private property as a source of exploitation had its own deep roots, going deep into the traditionalism of the Khmer people. Private property in the country arose relatively recently. For centuries, the Khmer village developed on the basis of corporate property, the right to which was exercised by the state and, to a lesser extent, by the peasant community. For many centuries before the advent of private property, the state granted and took away land, organized the laying of roads, canals, etc. The state, represented by the monarch and officials, controlled not only material wealth, but also human life itself. Therefore, Pol Pot's announcement of a "society of pure collectivist socialism" as an ideal social order was understandable to the bulk of the Khmer population. According to the theory of Samphan, the closest associate of Pol Pot, it followed that Cambodia, in order to achieve progress, had to turn back, renounce capitalist development.
The absolutization of Khmer ideas about property allowed the Khmer Rouge to begin the socialization of property and the complete elimination of any form of entrepreneurship. In this case, Pol Pot acted as an extreme conservative, making an attempt to forcibly squeeze modern means of production into the framework of the old property relations. Hu Yong dreamed of turning back to the "golden age" of the peasant. In these dreams, cooperatives were presented as a tool of the poorest people. According to the plans of the party leaders of the Communist Party, the peasantry should unite into cooperatives, and then into communes. In them, everything was subject to socialization, with the exception of personal items. The whole country was seen as a community of communes.
In the post-war period in Cambodia, the industrial industry and cities were just beginning to develop on the basis of the development of private property and the market. Therefore, for Pol Pot and his supporters, cities became the epitome of exploitation. The idea was promoted that the city is a huge pump that draws vitality from a Khmer village. The migration of the urban population to the villages for agricultural work began, which led to the desolation of cities, to the complete collapse of the economic foundations of the state and devastation. The ideas of M. Bakunin contain the idea that in the community of communes there should be no commodity-money relations. In the Pol Pot "republic" in 1975, the complete liquidation of money circulation, the currency-financial and credit-banking systems was carried out, the transition to natural exchange of goods was carried out. Bakunin could be proud that for the first time in the world his ideas were almost fully implemented. The intention was to create a "state unprecedented in the world" without cities, money and property. But instead of "general prosperity", the country was impoverished and ruined. Crowds of hungry refugees have become a typical phenomenon in the daily life of the country.
Sihanouk actually contributed to the rise to power of Pol Pot. Until the beginning of 1976, NEFC formally continued to exist, and the Khmer Rouge continued to use it as a screen. Sihanouk returned from China to Cambodia only in the fall of 1975 and was immediately placed under house arrest. Opponents of the monarchy, the leaders of the Communist Party destroyed many members of the Sihanouk family, relatives and associates. Sihanouk survived only because Mao Zedzsh and Kim Il Sung called him a personal friend. The Communists tried to the end to use the authority and influence of Sihanouk in the country. After the elections to the Assembly of People's Representatives, the formal resignation of Sihanouk was accepted at its first and last meeting. In the initial period of the "experiment" Sihanouk was a hostage to the political actions of Pol Pot.
The Khmer Rouge adopted a republican form of government and proclaimed a new constitution in January 1976, as they were well aware of the need to legalize their dictatorship. According to the constitution, the country was named Democratic Kampuchea (the ancient name of the country). With this, the Pol Potites tried to link the country with deep traditions, in fact, returning the Khmer people to medieval antiquity. In the proclaimed Democratic Kampuchea, Khieu Samphan became president, Ieng Sari took over as minister of foreign affairs. However, all power was concentrated in the hands of Pol Pot, who was the prime minister of the republic. He created a totalitarian regime, which had no equal in the history of the second half of the 20th century.
In the theory and practice of the Khmer Rouge, the idea of equality was traced literally in everything. Having come to power and solving national problems, Pol Pot and his supporters announced that national question not in the country. There is only one nation and one language in the country, Khmer. The Party has set itself the task of eradicating the consciousness of nationality, ethnic characteristics, and the customs of national minorities. Use of Vietnamese, Thai and Chinese banned under pain of death. In this regard, the problem of religion was resolved by itself. It was considered harmful to the cause of the revolution, and therefore it was simply banned.
Almost everything that the Pol Potites did could not be carried out without violence. Violence and terror became the main companion of power, without which it became impossible to carry out any action. Once Pol Pot said that "all enemies are around." The revolutionary uncompromisingness of Pol Pot's followers, born and nurtured by a ten-year civil war in the jungle, gave rise to an unlimited faith in violence as the most effective tool for solving any problems. Having occupied Phnom Penh, the Khmer Rouge faced a huge number of difficulties, it was almost impossible for an illiterate representative of the state apparatus to cope with them by civilized means. Having abandoned the previous administration, the Pol Potites created their own system of government, but on principles brought from the jungle of guerrilla warfare.
The civil war taught the Khmer Rouge to disregard human life. Terror continued throughout the period of Pol Pot's rule. Of the seven and a half million people in the country, more than three million people died during the persecution and terror organized by Pol Pot. Although these figures are now disputed by historians, who call the death toll more than a million people, all the same, these figures are horrifying. For the Khmer people, the regime and transformations of Pol Pot became the greatest tragedy, which brought not only the death of a huge mass of people, but also threw the country back into the environment of medieval society. Pol Pot returned Cambodia, which was at the stage of capitalist development, to its medieval state. However, one should pay attention to the fact that Pol Pot and his small handful of supporters would hardly have been able to carry out these transformations, numerous in scope. Communist leaders relied on a monolithic and fanatical-bred political party, a kind of "order of the sword." The Communist Party took advantage of the critical situation of the Khmer population, exhausted by the civil war. Almost half of the country's population became refugees, lost their homes and jobs. It was this layer that was the breeding ground for Pol Pot's party. The promise to build a just society in a short time resonated not only with the disadvantaged population, but also with the intelligentsia.
Pol Pot managed to attract a significant part of the intelligentsia to participate in a unique experiment in the world. Sihanouk recognized for Pol Pot a rare gift of a populist, the ability to appeal to people in such a way that they believed him and followed him. According to the memoirs, Pol Pot was friendly, gentle and polite in dealing with people, smiling, always endearing to his interlocutor. Of course, Pol Pot was an adventurer and revolutionary fanatic who neglected the personal aspects of his life. He, like many other leaders of the East, tried to play the role of the messiah in his people and country. He went to this all his life and believed in his destiny. His real name is Salst Sar, then during the period of revolutionary struggle and underground activity, he changed his name. Pol Pot managed to get a good education in France, he was a graduate of the Sorbonne, although he came from a large middle peasant family, where he was the seventh child. Like many other students in Paris, he was involved in the radical left movement, got acquainted with the works of Trotsky, Stalin, etc. At home, he was actively involved in the activities of the Khmer People's Revolutionary Party and in 1963 became its general secretary, and at his urging it was reorganized into the Communist Party of Cambodia (CCP). The pinnacle of his activity was the leadership of the transformations in Kampuchea as Prime Minister.
The events in Kampuchea were drawn into a whirlpool of foreign policy contradictions, although Pol Pot and his entourage were least interested in participating in international affairs. Carrying out a policy of "self-reliance", the Khmer Rouge pursued an isolationist policy, as far as it was possible at that time. The complexity of the foreign policy situation was that all the countries of Indochina were in the focus of the struggle between Moscow and Beijing. In many ways, these contradictions determined the content and outcome of the political struggle in Kampuchea and beyond. Mao Zedong simultaneously extended a helping hand to the Khmer Rouge and provided asylum to Sihanouk. Beijing looked like a peacemaker, and at the same time it was preparing the necessary base in Kampuchea for anti-Soviet and anti-Vietnamese policy. China supplied Pol Pot with weapons and everything he needed. In joint political documents, Beijing and Pol Pot's followers branded Soviet "hegemonism."
The USSR influenced events in Kampuchea using Vietnamese positions in Indochina. Until the overthrow of Pol Pot, the Soviet Union was stubbornly silent about the crimes of the Kampuchean communists. In 1978, Vietnam joined the CMEA and at the same time began to receive large quantities of weapons. In November of the same year, the main treaty between Vietnam and the USSR was signed, which also had a military meaning. This treaty was a death sentence for the Pol Pot regime. In turn, Phnom Penh hoped for help from Beijing. A collision became inevitable. The first major military skirmishes began as early as January 1977, when the Khmer Rouge regularly shelled Vietnamese territory, and by the end of the year, border battles began. In the summer of 1978, after a large-scale Pol Pot "purge" from Kampuchea, a stream of refugees poured into the border zone of Vietnam. People fled persecution in the jungle and in Vietnam. From among those who fled in the eastern zone, they managed to create organized groups of armed people who were ready to fight against the Kampuchean regime. They were led by Heng Samrin. Hanoi got Khmer allies.
The decision to invade Kampuchea was taken in Hanoi at the plenum of the Communist Party of Vietnam in February 1978, and in April the Hanoi radio called on the Khmer people to overthrow the Pol Pot regime. In January 1979, the Vietnamese entered Phnom Penh. In China, no one expected the Khmer to receive such a crushing defeat. Pol Pot fled, but the Khmer Rouge managed to hold on to the mountainous area along the Thai border. The Khmer Rouge war continued and did not stop until the end of the 90s.
The defeat of the Pol Potites meant the defeat of China. The Chinese could not forgive Vietnam for such a daring act against Chinese interests. In January 1979, Deng Xiaoping in the United States uttered the words of threats against Vietnam. In February 1979, the People's Liberation Army of China crossed the Vietnamese border. This fact is discussed in our section on the history of Vietnam. The war did not take on a wide scope, but both sides drew the appropriate conclusions. The Pol Potites continued to receive the necessary economic and military assistance from China. They were supplied with Chinese weapons through the territory of Thailand and successfully resisted the government army. The Khmer Rouge were sure that with the help of China they would return to Yelasti,
With the defeat of Pol Pot and the entry of Vietnamese troops into the territory of Kampuchea, a regrouping of political forces takes place again in the country. From January 1979, power passed to the People's Revolutionary Council of Kampuchea, created with the support of the Vietnamese, headed by Heng Samrin. The new regime has attempted to restore normal life in the country. The government gradually introduced a commodity-money system, restored the rights of believers, etc. Completely destroyed Kampuchea could be restored only with the economic and military assistance of Vietnam, behind which stood the Soviet Union. The Vietnamese troops had to liquidate the main Pol Pot bases in the country, but they continued to control the border area with Thailand. A tribunal was set up in Phnom Penh that sentenced Pol Pot to death in absentia. A significant part of the Khmer Rouge broke with the former Communist Party, recognizing the previous experiments as a "tragic mistake." This allowed in the future to solve many problems by peaceful means. Focusing on Vietnam, Heng Samrin set a course for the gradual creation in Kampuchea of the prerequisites for the transition to the construction of socialism.
After the Vietnamese drove the Khmer Rouge out of Phnom Penh, Sihanouk went into exile for the second time. He settled in Pyongyang, where Kim Il Sung built him a villa and paid for his expenses. But in 1982, Sihanouk left his voluntary imprisonment and left for the PRC. In negotiations with Sihanouk, China managed to achieve the unification of all the opposition forces of Vietnam and the USSR into a single coalition. In June 1982, Pol Pot's colleague Khieu Sam-fan, the head of the free Khmer Son San, and the democratic monarchist Sihanouk met in the capital of Malaysia. They signed an agreement to establish a "coalition government of the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea in Exile". The ultra-lefts, to some extent admitting their mistakes, the republicans and monarchists united in the struggle against the pro-Vietnamese regime. There has never been such a coalition. Nationalism took over. The influence of Vietnam on events in Kampuchea gradually weakened.
The presence of Vietnamese troops in Kampuchea created a tense atmosphere both within the country and in the international arena. The People's Republic of Kampuchea (as it was called under Heng Samrin) was recognized only by the countries of the socialist community, except for Romania, as well as their allies in the countries of the "third world". As for the United States, China and most of the UN member countries, they continued to officially recognize the coalition government in exile. The period of perestroika in the USSR also led to a weakening of the attention of the Soviet Union to political events in Southeast Asia. The USSR gradually left Vietnam. Forced to leave Kampuchea and Vietnamese troops. With the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Kampuchea in 1989, a new page and a new turn began in the history of the Khmer state.
In world history, there are several names of dictators who caused large-scale wars and the deaths of millions of people. Undoubtedly, the first in this list is Adolf Hitler, who became the measure of evil. However, in Asian countries there was an analogue of Hitler, who, in percentage terms, caused no less damage to his own country - the Cambodian leader of the Khmer Rouge movement, the leader of Democratic Kampuchea, Pol Pot.
The history of the Khmer Rouge is truly unique. Under the communist regime, in just three and a half years, the country's 10 million population was reduced by about a quarter. The losses of Cambodia during the reign of Pol Pot and his associates amounted to 2 to 4 million people. Without in the least underestimating the scope and consequences of the Khmer Rouge domination, it is worth noting that their victims are often counted as those killed by American bombings, refugees and those killed in clashes with the Vietnamese. But first things first.
humble teacher
The exact date of birth of the Cambodian Hitler is still unknown: the dictator managed to wrap his figure in a veil of secrecy and rewrote his own biography. Historians agree that he was born in 1925.
Pol Pot himself said that his parents were simple peasants (this was considered honorable) and he was one of eight children. However, in fact, his family occupied a fairly high position in the power structure of Cambodia. Subsequently, Pol Pot's older brother became a high-ranking official, and his cousin became the concubine of King Monivong.
It is worth mentioning right away that the name under which the dictator went down in history is not his real name. His father named him Saloth Sar at birth. And only many years later, the future dictator took the pseudonym Pol Pot, which is an abbreviated version of the French expression "politique potentielle", which literally translates as "the politics of the possible."
Little Sar grew up at a Buddhist monastery, and then, at the age of 10, was sent to a Catholic school. In 1947, thanks to the patronage of his sister, he was sent to study in France (Cambodia was a colony of France). There, Salot Sar became interested in left-wing ideology and met future associates Ieng Sari and Khieu Samphan. In 1952 Sar joined the French Communist Party. True, by that time the Cambodian had completely abandoned his studies, as a result of which he was expelled and was forced to return to his homeland.
The internal political situation in Cambodia in those years was not easy. In 1953 the country gained independence from France. The European colonizers could no longer hold Asia in their hands, but they were not going to leave it either. When Crown Prince Sihanouk came to power, he severed ties with the US and tried to forge strong ties with communist China and pro-Soviet North Vietnam. The reason for breaking off relations with America was the constant incursions into the territory of Cambodia by the American military, who were pursuing or looking for North Vietnamese fighters. The United States took into account these claims and promised not to enter the territory of a neighboring state again. But Sihanouk, instead of accepting the US apology, decided to go even further and allowed North Vietnamese troops to be based in Cambodia. In the shortest possible time, part of the North Vietnamese army actually "moved" to the neighbors, being inaccessible to the Americans, which caused great displeasure in the United States.
The local population of Cambodia suffered greatly from such a policy. The constant movement of foreign troops was detrimental to agriculture and simply annoying. The dissatisfaction of the peasants was also caused by the fact that the already modest stocks of grain were redeemed by government forces several times cheaper than the market value. All this led to a significant strengthening of the communist underground, which included the Khmer Rouge organization. It was Salot Sar who joined her, who, after returning from France, worked as a teacher at school. Taking advantage of his position, he skillfully introduced communist ideas among his own students.
Rise of the Khmer Rouge
Sihanouk's policies led to a civil war in the country. Both Vietnamese and Cambodian soldiers robbed the local population. In this regard, the Khmer Rouge movement received huge support, which captured more and more cities and settlements. Villagers either joined the communists or flocked to big cities. It is worth noting that the backbone of the Khmer army were teenagers 14-18 years old. Saloth Sar believed that older people were too susceptible to the influence of Western countries.
In 1969, against the backdrop of such events, Sihanouk was forced to turn to the United States for help. The Americans agreed to restore relations, but on the condition that they be allowed to attack North Vietnamese bases located in Cambodia. As a result, both the Viet Cong and the civilian population of Cambodia were killed during their carpet bombing.
The actions of the Americans only aggravated the situation. Then Sihanouk decided to enlist the support of the Soviet Union and China, for which he went to Moscow in March 1970. This caused indignation in the United States, as a result of which a coup took place in the country and an American protege, Prime Minister Lon Nol, came to power. His first step as head of the country was the expulsion of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia within 72 hours. However, the communists were in no hurry to leave their homes. And the Americans, together with the South Vietnamese troops, organized a ground operation to destroy the enemy in Cambodia itself. They were successful, but this did not bring Lon Nol popularity - the population was tired of other people's wars.
Two months later, the Americans left Cambodia, but the situation in it was still extremely tense. A war was going on in the country, in which pro-government troops, the Khmer Rouge, the North and South Vietnamese, as well as many other small groups participated. From that time until today, a considerable number of various mines and traps have remained in the jungles of Cambodia.
Gradually, the Khmer Rouge began to take the lead. They managed to unite under their banners a huge army of peasants. By April 1975, they surrounded the capital of the state, Phnom Penh. The Americans - the main support of the Lon Nol regime - did not want to fight for their protege. And the head of Cambodia fled to Thailand, and the country was under the control of the communists.
In the eyes of the Cambodians, the Khmer Rouge were real heroes. They were greeted with applause. However, after a few days, Pol Pot's army began to rob civilians. At first, the dissatisfied were simply pacified by force, and then they moved on to executions. It turned out that these outrages were not the arbitrariness of frenzied teenagers, but a targeted policy of the new government.
The Khmers began to forcibly resettle the inhabitants of the capital. People at gunpoint were lined up in columns and expelled from the city. The slightest resistance was punishable by firing squad. In a matter of weeks, two and a half million people left Phnom Penh.
An interesting detail: among the expelled were members of the Salot Sarah family. They found out that their relative became the new dictator by chance, when they saw a portrait of the leader, which was sketched by a Cambodian artist.
Politics of Pol Pot
The rule of the Khmer Rouge differed significantly from the existing communist regimes. The main feature was not only the absence of a cult of personality, but the complete anonymity of the leaders. Among the people, they were known only as Bon (elder brother) with a serial number. Pol Pot was the older brother #1.
The first decrees of the new government declared a complete rejection of religion, parties, any free thought, medicine. Since there was a humanitarian catastrophe in the country and there was a catastrophic shortage of medicines, a recommendation was made to resort to "traditional folk remedies".
The main emphasis in domestic policy was placed on the cultivation of rice. The leadership gave the order to collect three and a half tons of rice from each hectare, which in those conditions was almost unrealistic.
Fall of Pol Pot
The Khmer leaders were extreme nationalists, in connection with which ethnic cleansing began, in particular, the Vietnamese and Chinese were destroyed. In fact, the Cambodian communists staged a full-scale genocide, which could not but affect relations with Vietnam and China, which initially supported the Pol Pot regime.
The conflict between Cambodia and Vietnam grew. Pol Pot, in response to criticism, openly threatened the neighboring state, promising to occupy it. The Cambodian border troops staged sorties and dealt harshly with the Vietnamese peasants from the border settlements.
In 1978, Cambodia began to prepare for war with Vietnam. Every Khmer was required to kill at least 30 Vietnamese. There was a slogan in use that said that the country was ready to fight with its neighbor for at least 700 years.
However, 700 years were not needed. At the end of December 1978, the Cambodian army attacked Vietnam. Vietnamese troops launched a counterattack and in exactly two weeks defeated the Khmer army, consisting of teenagers and peasants, and captured Phnom Penh. The day before the Vietnamese entered the capital, Pol Pot managed to escape by helicopter.
Cambodia after the Khmers
After the capture of Phnom Penh, the Vietnamese planted a puppet government in the country and sentenced Pol Pot to death in absentia.
Thus, the Soviet Union received two countries under its control. This categorically did not suit the United States and led to a paradoxical situation: the main stronghold of world democracy supported the communist regime of the Khmer Rouge.
Pol Pot and his associates fled into the jungle near the border between Cambodia and Thailand. Under pressure from China and the United States, Thailand offered asylum to the Khmer leadership.
Since 1979, Pol Pot's influence has been slowly but surely waning. His attempts to return to Phnom Penh and dislodge the Vietnamese from there failed. In 1997, by his decision, one of the high-ranking Khmer leaders, Son Sen, was shot along with his family. This convinced the supporters of Pol Pot that their leader had lost touch with reality, as a result of which he was removed.
In early 1998, the trial of Pol Pot took place. He was sentenced to life imprisonment under house arrest. However, he did not have to sit in captivity for a long time - on April 15, 1998, he was found dead. There are several versions of his death: heart failure, poisoning, suicide. Thus, the cruel dictator of Cambodia ended his life ingloriously.
French Indochina ordered a long life in 1954: observing international agreements, France left the Indochinese peninsula. Thus, new independent states appeared on the world map: Laos, Cambodia and two Vietnams. After that, interesting times began on the peninsula, in the era of which, as you know, you don’t wish anyone to live.
Vietnam and Laos also distinguished themselves in every possible way, but still, Cambodia, aka Kampuchea, deserves the palm for the Khmer Rouge and for Monsieur Pol Pot personally. No other regime in the entire human history, apparently, destroyed so many of its population in such a short time: in the four years of his reign, Pol Pot exterminated every seventh Cambodian. And no other regime of the world has been so illogical and so obviously abnormal.
brother number one
In fact, his name was not Pol Pot (Cambodians generally rarely call their children Paul, they much prefer names like Khtau or Tjomrayn). The future shaker of the country was named Saloth Sar, and, like many dictators, his origins are dark and confusing. According to one version, he is generally the nephew of a courtier and almost royal blood. He himself liked to describe the hardships of his impoverished peasant childhood under the yoke of the accursed imperialists. But most likely, the main biographers of Pol Pot are right - the Australian researcher Ben Kiernan and the American historian David Chandler, who, having shaken up the proven facts of the genealogy of our hero, considered that in fact he belonged to a prosperous semi-rural, semi-bureaucratic family, and his sisters are native and cousin - were court dancers and royal concubines (of whom, however, there were many in the palace).
We must give the biographers their due: they were truly detective work, because Pol Pot avoided any publicity so much that in the first year of his reign, virtually no one in Kampuchea, not to mention the outside world, knew who was hiding under the name Brother number one - he managed take over the country incognito. The nickname Pol Pot, taken ten years earlier, according to some surviving former associates, was an abbreviation of the French "politique potentielle" ("powerful politician") and was a form of the term "leader". Only in the second year of Pol Pot's reign did a fuzzy photograph that got into the Western press make it possible to establish that the executioner of Cambodia was a virtuous and modest school teacher Saloth Sar, who was identified by his former associates in the Communist Party of Indochina.
Based on the premise that all human atrocities are the result of childhood shocks, historians desperately wanted to find evidence that Pol Pot was an innocent victim of circumstances, a plaything in the hands of fate, who turned a kind boy into a terrible scarecrow. But all the surviving acquaintances and relatives of Pol Pot assured in chorus that he was a sweet and quiet child, whom his relatives loved, who received a very decent education on a state scholarship, and who looked least like an unfortunate ragged child of the third world. Yes, in a French college he was forced to speak French and play the violin, but no traces of other imperialist tortures could be found in Pol Pot's life.
In 1947 he left to study in Paris, where he became a staunch anti-Westernist, joined the French Communist Party and even published a couple of articles about the oppression of the workers, but he still remained an even, friendly and pleasant young man with no special ambitions and no special talents. And when he returned home, he began to actively cooperate with local communists, while working at the same time as a teacher in a lyceum, until a full-scale war broke out in the country.
Civil War in Cambodia
Now it will be very interesting. Anyone who manages to follow the logic of what is happening to the end will receive a bonus. In 1954, after liberation from the French protectorate, Cambodia received the status of a neutral country with a more or less constitutional monarchy. The rightful heir, Prince Sihanouk, came to power, chosen by the state council from among the possible contenders, of whom, with such an abundance of concubines, you yourself understand, there were always enough in the palaces. The prince was not a communist, but he had, it must be admitted, very similar convictions to the communists. He wanted to be friends with China in every possible way, to help the Northern, pro-Soviet, Vietnam fight against the Southern, imperialist. At the same time, Cambodia broke off diplomatic relations with the main imperialists of the world - the United States, after the Americans wandered a little beyond their borders, sorting out relations with the Viet Cong *.
*Note Phacochoerus "a Funtika: « The Viet Cong was the name given to the fighting units of the South Vietnamese communists, who, while cooperating with the troops of North Vietnam, nevertheless maintained a certain autonomy. If an article sometimes contains only “Viet Cong” or one “Northern Vietnamese”, then consider that the author is simply too lazy to always mention them together».
14 years - the average age of the Khmer Rouge army fighters
3,000,000 of Cambodia's 8,000,000 inhabitants were immediately disenfranchised
1,500,000 Kampucheans died during the four years of Khmer Rouge rule
2,500,000 people had to leave all cities in 24 hours
20,000 photographs of Tuol Sleng prisoners become the basis of the Genocide Museum
04/16/1998 biology and history together finished with Pol Pot
The Americans apologized and categorically forbade their soldiers from even approaching the Cambodian borders. In exchange, Prince Sihanouk, with a grand gesture, allowed the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops to pass through the Cambodian territories and set up bases there. What Prince Sihanouk was thinking at that moment, only the Buddhas know, since even a not very intelligent fifth grader could predict the further development of events. For a while, the Vietnamese communists played the "I'm in the house" game.
They attacked the South Vietnamese troops, after which they ticked into Cambodia, on the border of which their pursuers were forced to stop and look plaintively at the cheerful haze over the hearths of the Viet Cong bases. I must say that the local population was not enthusiastic about the Vietnamese soldiers running around their country. In addition, they really did not like the fact that Sihanouk considered it possible to send his soldiers to take away grain from the peasants (more precisely, to forcibly redeem it for a penny). Not surprisingly, Cambodia's own communist underground began to enjoy enormous support from the famine-stricken peasants. The largest of these organizations was called the Khmer Rouge, and it was run by a sweet schoolteacher named Pol Pot. Yes, he never became a bright leader and a genius that serious mature revolutionaries would follow, but he knew how to work well with children. Under his wing, he, as befits a teacher, took youth: peasant teenagers 11-12 years old were recruited into the Khmer Rouge, and Pol Pot himself repeatedly said that for the good of Kampuchea it would be necessary to kill everyone over fourteen, since only a new generation able to create a new ideal country.
Popular uprisings and terrorist attacks by the Khmer Rouge forced Prince Sihanouk to wake up a bit and assess the state of affairs in the lands entrusted to him. And in the country there was - let's call a spade a spade - a civil war. The Khmer Rouge took control of settlements and raided government organizations. The Viet Cong felt at home here and took what they wanted, including driving peasants to fight in their ranks. The peasants fled from all this beauty to the cities, a qualitative famine began ... And then Prince Sihanouk rushed to the United States for help. Relations were restored, the States bombed areas where the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese bases were located. But Sihanouk still did not dare to officially ask the Americans for help in the civil war: political convictions interfered. Then the prince was quickly overthrown by his ministers, led by Prime Minister Lon Nol, who demanded that the North Vietnamese withdraw their troops from Cambodian territory in 72 hours.
The North Vietnamese spoke approximately in the same spirit that you, my dear, would not go to drown in the Mekong. Then Lon Nol appealed to the Americans. In 1970, early-gray President Richard Nixon, already torn to pieces at home by pacifists, took another highly unpopular step and ordered a ground operation in Cambodia. For two months, the Americans and the South Vietnamese kicked out the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong from Cambodia - I must say, very, very successfully. But the States, which themselves were already on the verge of riots in connection with the colossal anti-war movement in the country, were forced to withdraw their troops. Cute girls in knitted scarves with pacifists achieved their goal: the States helped the Cambodian authorities with money and equipment, but they avoided hostilities. The dove of peace laid a rotten egg on the heads of the Cambodians: after the American troops left, a full-fledged civil war broke out here with the participation of government troops, the Khmer Rouge army (which had already subjugated some areas), other anti-government groups, South Vietnamese and North Vietnamese. Cambodia still tops the sad list of "The most mined countries in the world": the jungle and rice fields here are still stuffed with terrible traps that the parties poured into each other.
True, there were no very large-scale battles - rather, there was a guerrilla war of everyone against everyone. And in 1975, the Khmer Rouge won this war. Having killed several tens of thousands of soldiers and officials, on April 17 they captured the capital Phnom Penh, announced the creation of a new state, Democratic Kampuchea, and began to live and live.
They hated the Vietnamese so passionately that in the end they entered the war with the Vietnam that had united by that time, lost it and were driven back into the jungle. Thus, the Khmer Rouge held on to power for four years, but managed to make a serious claim in the fight for the title of the bloodiest regime of all time. We will discuss these four years in more detail in the next chapter.
And here's what's interesting. Nobody liked the Khmer Rouge because they were a completely crazy bunch of bastards. The refugees who were lucky enough to crawl away from Democratic Kampuchea, in unison, told monstrous things about the order that had reigned in the country: about mass executions, about infant corpses along the roads, about terrible famine and fanaticism of the authorities ... But even less the UN and NATO countries liked the fact that the pro-Soviet Vietnam after the fall of the Khmers, it actually gained another province, as a result, the position of the USSR in the South Asian region was dangerously strengthened, tipping the scales of geopolitical harmony. Therefore, the UN was very careful with the recognition of the deeds of the Pol Pot communists as genocide - unlike the Soviet Union, where any Octobrist at school listened to the nasty uncle Palpot, and in the yard - the popular ditty "For ... boo-torment, like Pol Pot Kampuchia!"
And here is the promised bonus. Today, communists and nationalists, nostalgic for the USSR, love to justify the Khmer Rouge, while scolding the Americans, who at one time also worked hard to justify these Khmer Rouge at least a little. Why this is happening is for psychoanalysts from geopolitics.
Feast of obedience
On April 17, having occupied Phnom Penh and other large cities, having launched thousands of juvenile savages with machine guns into their streets, the Khmer Rouge informed the townspeople that all of them, without exception, from now on become "bourgeois" and "test subjects", are affected in their rights and must leave the cities at 24 hours with children and the elderly. From that day on, they are called "people of April", because while all the good guys were making a revolution, these traitors and imperialist hirelings sat out in the cities and drank the blood of the working people. In fact, in the cities by that time, most of the inhabitants were peasants who had fled there from the war, but in the eyes of the Khmer Rouge they were not at all close to class - on the contrary, they were pitiful cowards and traitors.
Fall of Phnom Penh (1975)
The "People of April", under pain of immediate execution, were ordered to line up in columns, and, accompanied by heavily armed teenagers, two and a half million people - a third of all the inhabitants of the country - crawled in their own way. way of the cross. We must pay tribute to Pol Pot's equanimity: along with other "people of April", members of his family set off on the road, including the family of his older brother, in whose house he actually grew up. This brother died on the road, his wife was beaten to death, but the dictator's sister survived, who later was able to tell the world this interesting fact. However, none of the family could have imagined then that the faceless leader who sent them to their death was their dear brother Saloth Sar.
To understand the vigor with which the new Kampuchea was built, you need to know that, in general, this is a small and not too crowded country. In 1975, its population was between 8 and 8.5 million. In four years, Pol Pot and his associates destroyed at least a seventh of the Cambodians (this, according to the most careful calculations, is usually called a figure twice as large).
The program for the development of Democratic Kampuchea, created by the Khmer Rouge government, was preserved, because it was printed in the only remaining newspaper in the country, the Revolution, which was published every ten days and was intended for top party members who had the misfortune of being literate - it was read to the rest of the population by radio. This document is extremely fascinating, containing a lot of amazing information.
For example, here is an excerpt from the chapter on cultural development:
“Having rejected the bourgeois, alien culture, the victorious people spend their leisure time listening to revolutionary poems and songs, as well as easily studying politics and culture.”
And these were the plans for the growth of the welfare of the Cambodian people:
“In 1977, everyone will be given two sweet meals a week.
In 1978, one sweet meal every other day.
In 1979, sweet meals will be given to everyone daily.
The chapter on imports begins with the words:
“We will import bolts, nuts and more sophisticated equipment…”
TOOL SLENG
The Khmer Rouge did not keep any documentation of executed, starved and diseased people for a very good reason: most of them could neither read nor write.
The bodies of the dead were simply stuffed into pits or dumped in the forest, so that in addition to mines, the land of Cambodia is also littered with skeletons. The only place where they tried to register prisoners in any way was the S-21 prison in Phnom Penh, located on Tuol Sleng hill, whose name eloquently translates as Poison Hill.
Since the cities were empty and there were only revolutionaries and members of their families, it is not surprising that in Tuol Sleng they exterminated mainly "traitors" from their own ranks. Many photographs of prisoners and their "confession letters" were found in the prison archive.
Most of those held here are Khmer teenagers. It is known that at least half of the approximately 20,000 prisoners who came here in four years were killed after severe torture. It now houses the Genocide Museum.
However, both the language in which the program was written and the mention of sweet dishes in it are far from accidental. As already mentioned, almost all Khmer Rouge were children. The average age of the fighters was 14 years old, and these peasant children, who grew up during the war, had no idea at all about the structure of life on Earth. It was convenient to work with such material: they were not afraid of death, did not ask difficult questions, did not suffer from excessive civility, and firmly believed everything that their leaders said. They knew how to handle machine guns perfectly, they were much worse with hoes, and they didn’t know how to read, write and think at all, but that was just a plus. Because it was precisely such brave soldiers that Pol Pot needed, or, as they began to call him, Brother number one (the rest of the government members were brothers under different numbers, up to brother number eight).
The cities stood as deserted and terrible monuments to themselves. The “People of April” were sent to rural and forest areas, where, under the supervision of the Khmers, they set up camps, cleared the forest, cleared the fields with their bodies and began to implement the main plan of the party, which was called “We will give three tons of rice per hectare!”. Rice was badly needed by Pol Pot. His power was quickly recognized as legitimate by China, which promised to provide Kampuchea with the necessary equipment, primarily military, if, of course, the Khmer comrades had currency. And the easiest way to exchange currency is for rice, which itself is actually a currency. Pol Pot never farmed in his life. His closest associates were also not big specialists in rice growing.
From what ceiling they took this figure - three tons per hectare - is difficult to answer. Now, with modern technology and fertilizers, hybrid varieties can bring more than ten tons, but in the 70s, when the green revolution was just beginning, one and a half tons per hectare was an excellent result. As the Revolution pointed out, "three tons of rice per hectare will be a brilliant testament to the collective revolutionary will of the people." They became. Since a dispute with top officials was considered a rebellion and was punishable by immediate execution, the overseers of the labor settlements did not write truthful reports - they sent peppy reports to the center, knowing for sure that they would not be able to collect any three tons per hectare. Fleeing from the regular execution, they quickly sold the harvested rice to the Chinese and fled the country, leaving the "April people" to die of hunger. Least of all, however, Pol Pot was worried about the "people of April": they were still subject to destruction.
Hoe on points
Khmer Rouge wedding
As soon as he came to power, Pol Pot abolished money, religion, private property, women's long hair (as too unhygienic and bourgeois), education, books, love, family dinners, diversity in dress and medicine. All this was considered alien to the true Kampuchean spirit. And the "April people", and progressive peasants and workers, and Khmer soldiers, and members of the government had to wear the same black cotton suits - trousers and a shirt.
There was no difference between men's and women's clothing. All fed together long tables, since Pol Pot personally insisted that the traditions of family dinners are a bourgeois ceremony, a hotbed of musty philistine ideas. They entered into marriage on the orders of the authorities, who made up suitable couples to their liking. Teenagers from among the military were appointed doctors. Since there were no medicines anyway, and they were not able to produce them in Cambodia, the order was given to focus on the "old traditions of traditional medicine." Of course, at first there were doctors, teachers and even unfinished engineers in the country, but Pol Pot hated the intelligentsia with a completely bestial passion, they were not even ranked among the “people of April”.
These were official enemies who were forbidden to marry and have children, they were used for the hardest work, and those who were too weak or sick were slaughtered especially zealously. Those of the doctors who still managed to survive were strictly forbidden to engage in treatment. Books in many settlements were completely banned. Wearing glasses was also terribly persecuted - putting glasses on your eyes was tantamount to admitting that you were a secret bookworm practicing seditious thoughts. It was possible to kill a person suspected of hiding his education even without the consent of his superiors. The only thing that was strictly forbidden was to waste valuable cartridges on such rubbish, so young Khmers had to learn how to break their heads with hoes and clubs. Children aged 5-6 years were taken away from their parents and sent to separate children's settlements, where they learned rural work, fighting in the jungle and revolutionary chants. At the age of 11 they were drafted into the army.
Are the Khmer Rouge still with us?
Oddly enough, but there were many Cambodians who were quite satisfied with this state of affairs. It's nice to know that the neighbor's pants are no better than yours; it's easy to live when you don't have to think about anything; the heavy burden of freedom of choice has been lifted from your shoulders, and you know, clear the reeds and sing about the sacred hatred of the workers ... So, when the Vietnamese expelled Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge from most of Cambodia, locking them in the remote mountainous regions, at least a hundred thousand peasants left next. For almost twenty years, the Khmer did not give up. Kampuchea, which has become Cambodia again, has long been living in love and friendship with most of its enemies, the United States is integrating it into the world economy, a descendant of Sihanouk who is fond of ballet sits on the throne, political parties succeed each other at the helm - and the Khmer Rouge all march around the fires with chants and make military sorties into the territory of the slaves of imperialism...
The confrontation lasted until 1998, when the sick and old Pol Pot finally let go of the reins of power. The Khmer Rouge themselves arrested their former leader and tried - however, they only sentenced him to house arrest. But it no longer mattered, since on April 16, 1998, Pol Pot died. A few months before his death, he managed to give an interview for the Hong Kong magazine Far Eastern Economic Review, where he said that “everything he did, he did out of love and pity for the people,” and categorically refused to plead guilty to the genocide of his people, emphasizing that all this is an invention of the enemies. After his death, the Khmer organization crumbled completely. Former Khmer Rouge, except for very odious characters, are not particularly persecuted, some of them today even occupy quite high government posts.
According to an unspoken social contract, it was decided, perhaps, for all the inhabitants of Kampuchea not to arrange noisy trials over such a still recent and painful past.
Prince of Cambodia.
The tragedy of Cambodia is a consequence of the Vietnam War, which first broke out on the ruins of French colonialism, and then escalated into a conflict with the Americans. Fifty-three thousand Cambodians died on the battlefields.
Prince Norodom Sihanouk, ruler of Cambodia and heir to its religious and cultural traditions, renounced his royal title ten years before the start of the Vietnam War, but remained head of state. He tried to lead the country along the path of neutrality, balancing between warring countries and conflicting ideologies. Sihanouk became king of Cambodia, a French protectorate, back in 1941, but abdicated in 1955. However, then, after free elections, he returned to the leadership of the country as head of state.
During the escalation of the Vietnam War from 1966 to 1969, Sihanouk fell out of favor with Washington's political leadership for not taking decisive action against arms smuggling and the establishment of Vietnamese guerrilla camps in the jungles of Cambodia. However, he was also quite soft in his criticism of the US-led punitive air raids.
On March 18, 1970, while Sihanouk was in Moscow, his Prime Minister, General Lon Nol, with the support of the White House, staged a coup d'état, returning Cambodia to its ancient name Khmer. The United States recognized the Khmer Republic, but a month later they invaded it. Sihanouk found himself in exile in Beijing. And here the ex-king made a choice, entering into an alliance with the devil himself.
Entry into power.
Pol Pot's real name is Saloth Sar (also known as Tol South and Pol Porth). He was born in the rebellious province of Kampong Thom. Pol Pot, who grew up in a peasant family in the Cambodian province of Kampong Thom and received his primary education in a Buddhist monastery, was a monk for two years, allegedly receiving the science of tolerance and humility there. However, what was actually taught and taught in Buddhist monasteries is well known. These are the techniques of various schools of oriental martial arts, meditation, occultism, etc. Therefore, it is not difficult to guess who instructed the future Pol Pot on the "true path".
Even during the Second World War, Salot Sar joined the Communist Party of Indochina. In the fifties he studied electronics in Paris and, like many students of that time, became involved in the left movement. Here Pol Pot heard - it is still not known whether they met - about another student, Khieu Samphan, whose controversial but imaginative plans for an "agrarian revolution" fueled Pol Pot's great-power ambitions. In Paris, he joined the ranks of the French Communist Party and became close to other Cambodian students who preached Marxism in the interpretation of Maurice Teresa. Returning to his homeland in late 1953 or 1954, Saloth Sar began teaching at a prestigious private lyceum in Phnom Penh. At the turn of the sixties, the communist movement in Cambodia was split into three almost unrelated factions operating in different parts of the country. The smallest, but the most active, was the third faction, which rallied on the basis of hatred for Vietnam. In 1962, Tu Samut, secretary of the Cambodian Communist Party, died under mysterious circumstances. In 1963, Salot Sar was approved as the new party secretary. He became the leader of the Khmer Rouge, the communist guerrillas of Cambodia. Salot Sar left his job at the Lyceum and went into hiding. By the beginning of the 1970s, the Salot Sarah group had seized a number of posts in the highest party apparatus. He destroyed his opponents physically. For these purposes, a secret security department was created in the party, which was personally subordinate to Saloth Sar.
In 1975, the Lon Nol government, despite the support of the Americans, fell under the blows of the Khmer Rouge. American B-52 bombers carpet-bombed that tiny country with as many tons of explosives as had been dropped on Germany in the last two years of World War II. Vietnamese fighters - the Viet Cong - used the impenetrable jungle of a neighboring country to set up military camps and bases for operations against the Americans. These strongholds were bombed by American planes. The Khmer Rouge not only survived, but also captured Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, on April 23, 1975. By this time, the Salot Sarah group occupied strong, but not sole positions in the leadership of the party. This forced her to move. With his characteristic caution, the head of the Khmer Rouge stepped into the shadows and began to prepare the ground for the final seizure of power. To do this, he resorted to a number of hoaxes. Since April 1975, his name has disappeared from official communications. Many thought he was dead.
On April 14, 1976, the appointment of a new prime minister was announced. His name was Pol Pot. The unknown name caused surprise at home and abroad. It did not occur to anyone, except for a narrow circle of initiates, that Pol Pot was the disappeared Saloth Sar. Difficult situation, in which the Pol Pata faction found itself by the autumn of 1976, was aggravated by the death of Mao Zedong. On September 27, Pol Pot was removed from the post of prime minister, as announced, "for health reasons." Two weeks later, Pol Pot became prime minister again. New Chinese leaders helped him. The dictator and his henchmen set out to destroy everyone they considered potentially dangerous, and indeed destroyed almost all the officers, soldiers and civil servants of the old regime. Little is known about Pol Pot. This is a man with the appearance of a handsome old man and the heart of a bloody tyrant. It was with this monster that Sihanouk teamed up. Together with the leader of the Khmer Rouge, they vowed to merge their forces together for a common goal - the defeat of American troops.
The dictator outlined an audacious plan to build a new society and declared that it would take only a few days to implement it. Pol Pot announced the evacuation of all cities under the leadership of the newly minted regional and zonal leaders, ordered the closure of all markets, the destruction of churches and the dispersal of all religious communities. Having been educated abroad, he harbored a hatred for educated people and ordered the execution of all teachers, professors and even kindergarten teachers.
Wheel of death.
On April 17, 1975, Pol Pot ordered the forced assimilation of 13 national minorities living in Democratic Kampuchea. They were ordered to speak Khmer, and those who could not speak Khmer were killed. On May 25, 1975, Pol Pot's soldiers carried out a massacre of Thais in the province of Kah Kong in the southwest of the country. 20,000 Thais lived there, and after the massacre, only 8,000 remained.
Inspired by the ideas of Mao Zedong about communes, Pol Pot launched the slogan "Back to the village!". In pursuance of it, the population of large and small cities was evicted to rural and mountainous areas. On April 17, 1975, using violence combined with deceit, the Pol Potites forced more than 2 million residents of the newly liberated Phnom Penh to leave the city. All indiscriminately - the sick, the old, the pregnant, the crippled, the newborn, the dying - were sent to the countryside and assigned to communes of 10,000 people each. Residents were forced to overwork, regardless of age and health status. With primitive tools or by hand, people worked 12-16 hours a day, and sometimes longer. According to the few who managed to survive, in many areas their daily food was only one bowl of rice for 10 people. The leaders of the Pol Pot regime created a network of spies and encouraged mutual denunciations in order to paralyze the will of the people to resist. The Pol Potites tried to abolish Buddhism, a religion practiced by 85 percent of the population. Buddhist monks were forced to give up their traditional dress and forced to work in "communes". Many of them were killed. Pol Pot sought to exterminate the intelligentsia and, in general, all those who had some kind of education, technical connections and experience. Of the 643 doctors and pharmacists, only 69 survived. Pol Potov's people eliminated the education system at all levels. Schools were turned into prisons, places of torture, and manure stores. All books and documents stored in libraries, schools, universities, research centers were burned or looted.
His "killing fields" were strewn with the corpses of those who did not fit into the framework of the new world formed by him and his bloodthirsty minions. During the reign of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, about three million people died - the same number of unfortunate victims perished in the gas chambers of the Nazi death factory Auschwitz during World War II. Life under Pol Pot was unbearable, and as a result of the tragedy that broke out on the land of this ancient country in Southeast Asia, its long-suffering population came up with a new eerie name for Cambodia - the Land of the Walking Dead.
According to Samphan's theory, Cambodia, in order to achieve progress, had to turn back, renounce capitalist exploitation, fattening leaders fed by the French colonial rulers, abandon devalued bourgeois values and ideals. Samphan's perverted theory was that people should live in the fields, and all the temptations of modern life should be destroyed. If Pol Pot, say, had been run over by a car at that time, this theory would probably have died out in coffee houses and bars without stepping over the boundaries of Parisian boulevards. However, she was destined to become a monstrous reality.
Pol Pot's twisted dream of turning back time and forcing his people to live in a Marxist agrarian society was helped by his deputy, Ieng Sari. In his policy of destruction, Pol Pot used the term "get out of sight". "Cleaned" - destroyed thousands and thousands of women and men, old people and babies.
Buddhist temples were desecrated or turned into soldiers' brothels, or even just slaughterhouses. As a result of the terror, out of sixty thousand monks, only three thousand returned to the destroyed temples and holy cloisters.
In the “commune” of Psot, reprisals usually took place in the following way: a person was buried up to his neck in the ground and beaten with hoes on the head. They didn’t shoot - they took care of the bullets. “Those who had reached the age of fourteen or fifteen were forcibly sent to the so-called “mobile brigades” or to the army ... Pol Potov’s men prepared killers by recruiting 14-17 year old teenagers who were told that if they did not agree to kill, then after painful torture they would be killed themselves. In addition, the selected teenagers were deliberately corrupted, accustomed to murder, drunk with a mixture of palm moonshine with human blood. They were told that they were “capable of anything”, that they became “special people” because they drank human blood.” In this cannibalism we also see traces ancient religion Cambodia. The entire population of the country was divided into three categories. The first included residents of remote mountainous and forest regions of the state. The second consisted of residents of those areas that were controlled by the overthrown pro-American regime of Lon Nol. The third group consisted of former military personnel, the old administration, their families and the entire (!) population of Phnom Penh. The third category was subject to complete destruction, and the second partial.
Such was the course of the faithful Marxist Pol Pot, who well mastered the principles of the class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat. On April 16, 1975, over two million people were evicted from Phnom Penh, and they were not allowed to take anything with them. “In accordance with the order, all residents were obliged to leave the city. It was forbidden to take food and things. Those who refused to obey the order or hesitated were killed and shot. Neither the elderly, nor the disabled, nor pregnant women, nor the sick who were in hospitals escaped this fate. People had to walk, despite the rain or the scorching sun ... During the journey they were not given any food or medicine ... Only on the banks of the Mekong, when the Phnom Penh people were transported to remote areas of the country, about five hundred thousand people died. According to another plan by Pol Pot, the villages were to be destroyed. The massacre inflicted on them defies description: “The population of the village of Sreseam was almost completely destroyed ... the soldiers drove the children, tied them in a chain, pushed them into funnels filled with water and buried them alive ... , and pushed down. When there were too many people to be eliminated, they were gathered in groups of several dozen people, entangled with steel wire, passed current from a generator installed on a bulldozer, and then they pushed the unconscious people into a pit and covered them with earth. Even his own wounded soldiers, Pol Pot ordered to be killed so as not to spend money on medicines.
Following the example of his teachers Stalin and Mao Zedong, Pol Pot also fought against the intelligentsia. “The intelligentsia was completely destroyed: doctors, teachers, engineers, artists, scientists, students were declared mortal enemies of the regime. At the same time, anyone who wore glasses, read books, knew a foreign language, wore decent clothes, in particular European cut, was considered an intellectual. How can one not remember the 20-30s in the USSR, when people were also fired and killed for wearing a tie, ironed clothes? When everyone was forced to walk in blouses and wrinkled trousers. “Schools were either destroyed or turned into prisons, places of torture, warehouses for grain and fertilizers. Books from libraries, institutes, research centers, museum property were destroyed, and the most valuable objects of ancient art were stolen.” And again the analogy with the USSR, where the most valuable works of art were sold abroad, while others were destroyed. “The bloody experiment of Pol Pot led to the destruction of all Cambodian cities with their industry and developed infrastructure, to the physical elimination of millions of people, especially educated and specialists, to the transformation of the country into a huge concentration camp, where the Khmer Rouge ruled with impunity.
For the Pol Potites, oriented towards the values of Marxist socialism, a person's life was worth nothing: in order not to waste bullets, people were killed with shovels and other improvised means, starved, not to mention sophisticated bullying. It is worth noting in this connection that the attempts of communists in a number of countries, primarily Soviet ones, to dissociate themselves from these crimes and not to see in them repressions akin to all communist dictatorships are unconvincing. Of course, the Khmer Red Terror can be perceived as a caricature, but if you look closely and compare it with what has become known about our Red Terror behind last years open publications and revelations, then there will be no doubts about kinship. The source of the Khmer Rouge's convictions, as well as their arrogance and disrespect for people's lives, is still the same - the Marxist theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the idea of \u200b\u200bdestroying hostile classes and, in general, all enemies of the revolution, which, as you know, can include anyone who does not kill with a shovel (and, on occasion, himself, too).
Pol Pot's decree effectively eradicated ethnic minorities. The use of Vietnamese, Thai and Chinese was punishable by death. A purely Khmer society was proclaimed. The forcible eradication of ethnic groups had a particularly hard effect on the Chan people. Their ancestors - people from today's Vietnam - inhabited the ancient Kingdom of Champa. The Chans migrated to Cambodia in the 18th century and were engaged in fishing along the banks of Cambodian rivers and lakes. They professed Islam and were the most significant ethnic group in modern Cambodia, preserving the purity of their language, national cuisine, clothing, hairstyles, religious and ritual traditions.
Young Khmer Rouge fanatics attacked the vats like locusts. Their settlements were burned, the inhabitants were expelled into the swamps, teeming with mosquitoes. People were forcibly forced to eat pork, which was strictly forbidden by their religion, the clergy were ruthlessly destroyed. At the slightest resistance, entire communities were exterminated, and the corpses were thrown into huge pits and covered with lime. Of the 200,000 vats, less than half survived. Those who survived the beginning of the campaign of terror later realized that instant death was better than hellish torment under the new regime.
According to Pol Pot, the older generation was corrupted by feudal and bourgeois views, infected with "sympathy" for Western democracies, which he declared alien to the national way of life. The urban population was driven from their habitable places to labor camps, where hundreds of thousands of people were tortured to death by overwork.
People were killed even for trying to speak French - the biggest crime in the eyes of the Khmer Rouge, as it was considered a manifestation of nostalgia for the country's colonial past.
In huge camps with no amenities other than a straw mat as a bed for sleeping and a bowl of rice at the end of the working day, in conditions that even prisoners of Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War would not envy, merchants, teachers, entrepreneurs, only survivors because they managed to hide their professions, as well as thousands of other townspeople. These camps were organized in such a way as to get rid of the elderly and the sick, pregnant women and young children through "natural selection".
People died in hundreds and thousands from disease, hunger and exhaustion, under the clubs of cruel overseers. Without medical assistance With the exception of traditional herbal treatments, the life expectancy of the prisoners in these camps was frustratingly short. Stalin and Hitler are resting.
At dawn, people were sent in formation to the malaria swamps, where they cleared the jungle for 12 hours a day in an unsuccessful attempt to win new cropland from them. At sunset, again in formation, urged on by the bayonets of the guards, people returned to the camp to their bowl of rice, liquid gruel and a piece of dried fish. Then, despite the terrible fatigue, they still had to go through political classes on Marxist ideology, in which incorrigible "bourgeois elements" were identified and punished, while the rest, like parrots, kept repeating phrases about the joys of life in the new state. Every ten working days, a long-awaited day off was due, for which twelve hours of ideological studies were planned. The wives lived separately from the husbands. Their children began to work from the age of seven or were placed at the disposal of childless party functionaries, who brought them up fanatical "fighters of the revolution."
From time to time, huge bonfires made of books were made in the city squares. Crowds of unfortunate tortured people were driven to these fires, who were forced to chant memorized phrases in chorus, while the flames devoured the masterpieces of world civilization. "Lessons of hatred" were organized, when people were whipped in front of portraits of the leaders of the old regime. It was an ominous world of horror and hopelessness. In the "commune" it was strictly forbidden to read ... If they found a magazine or a book, they dealt with the whole family ...
Pol Potovtsy broke off diplomatic relations in all countries, postal and telephone communications did not work, entry into and exit from the country were prohibited. The Cambodian people found themselves isolated from the whole world.
To strengthen the fight against real and imaginary enemies, Pol Pot organized a sophisticated system of torture and executions in his prison camps. As in the days of the Spanish Inquisition, the dictator and his henchmen proceeded from the premise that those who fell into these cursed places were guilty and they had only to admit their guilt. In order to convince its followers of the need for brutal measures to achieve the goals of "national revival", the regime gave torture a special political significance.
Documents seized after the overthrow of Pol Pot show that Khmer security officers, trained by Chinese instructors, were guided by cruel ideological principles in their activities. Interrogation Manual S-21, one of the documents later handed over to the UN, stated: "The purpose of torture is to get an adequate response from the interrogated. Torture is not used for entertainment. Pain must be inflicted in such a way as to cause a quick reaction "Another goal is the psychological breakdown and loss of will of the interrogated. During torture, one should not proceed from one's own anger or self-satisfaction. Beating the bearer should be done in such a way as to intimidate him, and not beat him to death. Before proceeding to torture, it is necessary to examine the state of health of the interrogated and examine instruments of torture.You should not try to kill the person being interrogated without fail.During interrogation, political considerations are the main thing, inflicting pain is secondary.Therefore, you should not forget that you are engaged in political work.Even during interrogations, you should constantly conduct agitation and propaganda work.At the same time, you must avoid indecision and hesitation during torture, when possible receive answers from the enemy to our questions. It must be remembered that indecision can slow down our work. In other words, in propaganda and educational work of this kind, it is necessary to show determination, perseverance, and categoricalness. We must proceed to torture without first explaining the reasons or motives. Only then will the enemy be defeated."
Among the many sophisticated torture methods used by Khmer Rouge executioners, the most favorite were the notorious Chinese water torture, crucifixion, and strangulation with a plastic bag. Site S-21, which gave the document its title, was the most infamous camp in all of Cambodia. It was located in the northeast of the country. At least thirty thousand victims of the regime were martyred here. Only seven survived, and even then only because the administrative skills of the prisoners were needed by their masters to manage this terrible institution.
But torture was not the only tool to intimidate the already frightened population of the country. There are many cases when the guards in the camps caught the prisoners, driven to despair by hunger, eating their dead comrades in misfortune. The punishment for this was a terrible death. The guilty were buried up to their necks in the ground and left to a slow death from hunger and thirst, and their still living flesh was tormented by ants and other living creatures. Then the heads of the victims were cut off and put on stakes around the settlement. A sign was hung around the neck: "I am a traitor to the revolution!"
Dit Pran, Cambodian translator for American journalist Sydney Schoenberg, lived through all the horrors of Pol Pot's rule. The inhuman ordeals he had to go through are documented in the film "Field of Death", in which the suffering of the Cambodian people first appeared before the whole world with stunning nakedness. The heartbreaking narration of Prana's journey from civilized childhood to the death camp horrified viewers. “In my prayers,” Pran said, “I asked the Almighty to save me from the unbearable torment that I had to endure. But some of my loved ones managed to flee the country and take refuge in America. For their sake, I continued to live, but it was not life but a nightmare."
The foreign policy of the Pol Pot regime was characterized by aggressiveness and disguised fear of powerful powers. After the final approval in power, Pol Pot decided to isolate himself from the outside world. In response to Japan's proposal to establish diplomatic relations, the Pol Potites said that Cambodia "would not be interested in them for another 200 years." Exceptions to the general rule were only a few countries for which Pol Pot, for one reason or another, had personal sympathy. In January 1977, after almost a year of silence, shots were fired on the Cambodian-Vietnamese border. Detachments of the Khmer Rouge, having crossed the Vietnamese border, killed the inhabitants of the border villages with clubs. In 1978, Vietnam signed a pact with China, Kampuchea's only ally, and launched a full-scale invasion. Dec. 1978 Vietnamese troops, who had been in conflict with the Khmer Rouge for many years over disputed border areas, entered Cambodia with the help of several motorized infantry divisions, supported by tanks. The country fell into such decline that, due to the lack of telephone communications, it was necessary to deliver combat reports on bicycles. The Chinese did not come to the aid of Pol Pot, and in January 1979 his regime fell under the onslaught of the Vietnamese troops. The fall was so rapid that the tyrant had to flee from Phnom Penh in a white Mercedes two hours before the triumphant appearance in the capital of the army of Hanoi. However, Pol Pot was not going to give up. He fortified himself in a secret base with a handful of his loyal followers and formed the National Liberation Front of the Khmer People. The Khmer Rouge retreated in an organized manner into the jungle on the border with Thailand.
In early 1979, the Vietnamese occupied Phnom Penh. A few hours earlier, Pol Pot left the deserted capital in a white armored Mercedes. The bloody dictator hurried to his Chinese masters, who provided him with shelter, but did not support him in the fight against the heavily armed Viet Cong.
When the whole world became aware of the horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime and the devastation that reigned in the country, aid rushed to Cambodia in a powerful stream. The Khmer Rouge, like the Nazis in their time, were very pedantic in recording their crimes. The investigation uncovered journals in which daily executions and torture were recorded in the most detailed way, hundreds of albums with photographs of those sentenced to death, including the wives and children of intellectuals liquidated in the initial stages of terror, detailed documentation of the notorious "killing fields". These fields, conceived as the basis of a labor utopia, a country without money and needs, in fact turned out to be mass graves of the day of burial of people crushed under the yoke of cruel tyranny. “After three years of the existence of the Pol Pot regime, Kampuchea was called nothing more than a “huge concentration camp”, a “giant prison”, a “state of barracks socialism”, where blood flows like a river and a policy of genocide against its own nation is ruthlessly and systematically carried out.” Of the country's 8 million people, 5 million survived.
After the overthrow.
On August 15-19, 1979, the People's Revolutionary Tribunal of Kampuchea tried the case on charges of genocide by the Pol Pot-Ieng Sari clique. Pol Pot and Ieng Sari were found guilty and sentenced to death in absentia. The Pol Potites left Kampuchea in a very difficult state. Despite all this, representatives of the Khmer Rouge, led by Khieu Samphan, remained in Phnom Penh for some time. The parties have been looking for ways to mutual reconciliation for a long time. The support of the United States helped the Pol Potites to feel confident. At the insistence of the superpower, the Pol Potites retained their place in the UN. But in 1993, following the Khmer Rouge's boycott of the country's first UN-monitored parliamentary elections, the movement hid entirely in the jungle. Every year contradictions grew among the leaders of the Khmer Rouge. In 1996, Ieng Sari, who was deputy prime minister in the Pol Pot government, went over to the side of the government with 10,000 fighters. In response, Pol Pot traditionally resorted to terror. He ordered the execution of Defense Minister Son Sen, his wife and nine children. The tyrant's frightened associates organized a conspiracy led by Khieu Samphan, Ta Mok, the commander of the troops, and Nuon Chea, the most influential person in the Khmer Rouge leadership at present. In June 1997, Pol Pot was placed under house arrest. He was left with his second wife, Mia Som, and daughter, Seth Seth. The dictator's family was guarded by one of Pol Pot's commanders, Nuon Nu.
In early April 1998, the United States suddenly began to demand the transfer of Pol Pot to the international tribunal, pointing out the need for "just retribution." Washington's position, difficult to explain in the light of his past policy of supporting the dictator, caused a lot of controversy among the leadership of Angka. In the end, it was decided to trade Pol Pot for their own safety. The search for contacts with international organizations began, but the death of the bloody tyrant on the night of April 14-15, 1998 immediately solved all problems. According to the official version, Pol Pot died of a heart attack. His body was cremated, and the skull and bones left after the burning were handed over to his wife and daughter.
Pran was lucky enough to survive this bloody Asian nightmare and reunite with his family in San Francisco in 1979. But in the remote corners of a devastated country that survived a terrible tragedy, there are still mass graves of nameless victims, over which mounds of human skulls rise with mute reproach. It is unlikely that Pol Pot knew the work of the artist Vereshchagin, but he seems to have decided to recreate his painting "The Apotheosis of War" in real life.
In the end, thanks to military might, and not morality and law, it was possible to stop the bloody slaughter and restore at least a semblance of common sense to the tormented land. Britain should be given credit for speaking out in 1978 against human rights violations after reports of rampant terror in Cambodia through intermediaries in Thailand, but this protest went unheeded. Britain issued a statement to the UN Commission on Human Rights, but a Khmer Rouge spokesman hysterically retorted: "The British imperialists have no right to talk about human rights. The whole world is well aware of their barbaric nature. Britain's leaders are drowning in luxury, while the proletariat has the right only unemployment, sickness and prostitution."
Pol Pot, who seemed to have gone into oblivion, has recently reappeared on the political horizon as a force claiming power in this long-suffering country. Like all tyrants, he claims that his subordinates made mistakes, that he faced resistance on all fronts, and that those who died were "enemies of the state." Returning to Cambodia in 1981, in a secret meeting among his old friends near the Thai border, he declared that he was too gullible: "My policy was correct. Overzealous regional commanders and leaders on the ground perverted my orders. Accusations of massacres are vile a lie. If we really destroyed people in such numbers, the people would have ceased to exist long ago."
"Misunderstanding" at the cost of three million lives, almost a third of the country's population, is too innocent a word to describe what was done in the name of Pol Pot and on his orders. But, following the well-known Nazi principle - the more monstrous the lie, the more people are able to believe in it - Pol Pot was still eager for power and hopes to gather forces in rural areas, which, in his opinion, are still loyal to him. He again became a major political figure and was waiting for an opportunity to reappear in the country as an angel of death, seeking revenge and completing the work he had previously begun - his "great agrarian revolution."
By the way, the United States then ensured that the Pol Potites retained a place in the UN. This is another example of American "democracy". In 1982, Pol Pot regains power, holding it until 1985, when he suddenly announces his resignation. Soon civil war breaks out again in the country, and the aged dictator returns to political life again, leading the pro-communist Khmer Rouge group. Now he is already ordering the execution of his own ministers, fearing treason on their part. The composure shown by him in the murder of his closest supporters inspires horror in his entourage. And it decides, in order to save its own life, to remove Pol Pot from power, which they managed to do in June 1997. For the next year, the dictator lived under house arrest until he died in 1998. According to beliefs, Pol Pot's body was burned at a ritual fire. By the way, before putting the body in the coffin, the nostrils of the dead man were plugged with cotton so that the spirit of the dead man would not escape the fire. Such was the people's fear of a man who is "rightly called the most terrible villain of the outgoing century."
When the police arrested us and extorted money, when they explained to us in a 5-star hotel why they had rats, in many other situations the explanation of these phenomena by the defendants themselves was surprisingly similar: “We are a poor developing country, so a) pay a bribe, b ) we have rats, c) everything is bad. It seems to me that the main trap of poor underdeveloped countries, including Russia, by the way, is that poverty and underdevelopment have become an excuse, almost the pride of the local population. So sometimes beggars are proud of their poverty and even think that the rich owe them something for this... Welcome to Cambodia!
Cambodia is a feudal state. After Angkor, starting from the 13th century, 33 misfortunes befell the country, the country was conquered by Siam, then became a French colony, all this was accompanied by constant wars, devastation and poverty. The most terrible times for the country came from 1963 to the 1990s, when the civil war broke out, and then Salot Sar came to power, nicknamed "politique potentielle" (the politics of the possible), abbreviated as "half sweat". Pol Pot studied in France and became a psycho-revolutionary there. In general, almost all the colonies of France in the second half of the 20th century became the bloodiest territories in the world with civil wars and tyrants who studied in Paris. But back to Cambodia.
If you ask me, I would call Pol Pot not only a psycho, but also a convinced agent of China. Because, apart from the benefit of China, the logic in its actions cannot be traced exactly any-how. And plus this bestial cruelty towards compatriots, including family members, brothers for example. It seems that under the guise of Pol Pot, a Chinese special agent was nominated as the leader of the revolution. Having come to power, for 3.5 years Pol Pot concentrated all his efforts on 3 directions.
The first direction is the eviction of 100% of the population from cities. From Phnom Penh, a city with a population of 2.5 million, the entire population was evicted in 72 hours. At the same time, all schools were closed, non-Khmer nationality or wearing glasses was sufficient for execution or, in case of saving cartridges, execution with a hoe. It is impossible to count the number of executions, historians estimate from 1 to 3.2 million people, plus you also have to take into account starvation and death from disease during the hellish migration of peoples. This happened in 1975-1978, i.e. now the older generation is alive. As they say in Cambodia, the reign of Pol Pot affected all active segments of the population, right 100% of the people. According to Pol Pot himself, the eviction of cities and the destruction of the education system was done in order to prevent the uprising of the opposition. Formally, he came to power as a result of peasant uprising, so he seems to have defended them, planning to make 100% of the country's population uneducated peasants. For cheap total control and a guarantee that this country will never play independently - a perfectly sound solution.
By the way, the guides talk about Pol Pot very moderately cautiously, something like: "Everything is not so simple, you can't hang everything on one Pol Pot, the war has been civil for 30 years..."
* - this is me and the director of the village school.
A few words about geopolitics - in the late 70s, the USSR triumphantly reigned in Indochina thanks to the victory of North Vietnam in the war. The United States was losing ground, remaining essentially only in Thailand. The USSR also had unlimited influence on Laos and in general had certain types to Cambodia. By the end of the 70s, the USSR was already China's geopolitical opponent in the region, and China decided to play its game, relying on Pol Pot's support. Then the United States joined China in this support.
The second trick Half a sweat flowed from the first. Paul pot increased the number of peasants and the area under crops, the main state task was to increase the production of rice. It was in the 12th century that Angkor increased rice production and achieved 4 crops due to irrigation systems and technologies, Pol Pot acted much dumber and the results were appropriate. As during the famine in Ukraine in the 30s, the crops were taken away from the peasants. But if the USSR at least this crop was redistributed within one country, then Pol Pot drove all the rice to China, where at that time the new leader of China, Deng Xiaoping, was carrying out an industrial revolution with might and main, which in essence was the exact opposite of Pol Pot's strategy. Dan, on the contrary, forced the peasants to give up agriculture and move to the cities, to engage in production. At the same time, everything was not so good with food, so the falling crops had to be somehow compensated.
The third trick Pol sweat was completely insane, but also extremely necessary for China. The most effective fighters in Indochina have always been the Vietnamese, they just proved it once again by defeating the best American army in the world and creating a socialist state with the support of the USSR. Deng Xiaoping, who, on the contrary, began to build relations with the United States and talk about market socialism, a strong socialist state posed a threat to his new policy.
Pol Pot with his relatively small army, rather weakly armed, began with constant provocations, and then came to full-fledged aggression against Vietnam, invading the country. If you look at the elongated map of Vietnam, then the provocations of Cambodia, located in the south, greatly distracted Vietnam from the northern threat from China, where the 600,000th contingent of the Chinese army was concentrated.
As a result, Vietnam invaded Cambodia and with lightning speed defeated Pol Pot's troops, armed with almost hoes, and established the power of the Communist Party there, headed by Heng Samrin, one of Pol Pot's comrades-in-arms who went over to the side of Vietnam. Almost immediately, China attacked Vietnam, however, Vietnam quickly repelled this attack, despite the many times superior enemy forces. China realized in its own skin that a battle-hardened army is a terrible weapon, and the conflict gradually faded away. During this conflict, Pol Pot tried to return to power not only China, but also the United States, supplying it with weapons. Such a touch - a delegation headed by Paul then spoke at the UN, complaining to the world community about the atrocities of the Vietnamese military. Still, politics is a cynical thing, and the French and the British, the Americans, but not the Asians or the Russians, made it cynical. And the UN defended Pol Pot, yes ...
By the way, Pol Pot, loyal to China, fought in the forests for almost 20 more years, but these were already local-level clashes, because the big powers were no longer interested in this. If you want to know the fact about the reign of Pol Pot, which shocked me the most - the average life expectancy in the country in 1977-1979 was about 19.5 years, this is a statistical fact! Nineteen and a half years!!! Now 70.
In the future, the political structure of Cambodia really began to resemble a feudal state, the leading roles were and are all the same Khmer Rouge, literally a few people were imprisoned for atrocities, even Pol Pot died a natural death. And they also restored the puppet figure of the king. But the absolute ruler of the Cambodian feud is the commander of the Khmer Rouge Hun Sen, a guy from the people, fought, lost an eye in battles, and switched over to the side of the Vietnamese in time. He became the second person in Cambodia already in 1985, and since 1991, one can say, the absolute ruler. This is the longest reign in Asia, of course, it cannot be compared with Zimbabwe, but nevertheless.
Yes, there is also a king in Cambodia. Wikipedia writes: "Hun Sen managed to maintain power even when the monarchy was restored in Cambodia." Indeed, the monarchy was restored, so they decided to end the long-term civil war, it was a kind of compromise in 1993, 5 years before Pol Pot's death, Pol Pot's opponents were already fighting for power. King Sihanouk even achieved the rule of two prime ministers - Hun Sen and his son, Norodom Ranarit.
In 1997, Hun Sen finally won, he is still a Khmer Rouge and a desperate militant. During the most real battles, his group turned out to be more desperate and won, although the forces were generally equal. He did not overthrow Sihanouk, he simply limited his rights and opportunities. And after his death, he chose another king for himself, the most harmless of the sons of King Sihanouk, Norodom Sihamoni. The 63-year-old king lived all his life in Prague and Paris, was engaged in ballroom dancing. He ascended to the post of king from the position of president of the Khmer Dance Association. In Cambodia, all residents are absolutely sure of his non-traditional sexual orientation, at 63 he is not married and has no children. In general, incomparable values, purely to wave the monarchy in front of the West.
Hun Sen built an absolutely feudal state of the 21st century. This is especially felt outside the capital Phnom Penh. In a city like Siem Reap, a tax officer comes to a massage parlor, for example, and bargaining begins. Such concepts as reporting, checks and cash desks do not exist in nature. In fact, the tax is a bribe to the official who was assigned to feed on this area. The police live solely on bribes, the Ministry of Tourism - on extortion from travel companies, and so on. The top leadership of the country makes money on projects with Chinese investors. For example, the prime minister's wife owns the only private beach in the country, 3 kilometers long, which allows you to put sunbeds every 10 meters and only in one row. 10 hotels will be built on the same beach in any other place. In general, private beaches are prohibited in the country. And so in everything. Needless to say, the public beaches are full of rubbish and crowded, and along the beach there are terrible eateries with food that is cooked almost on fires?
The population of Cambodia is growing very fast, it has tripled in 40 years. GDP is also growing very fast, around 7% per year, slightly outpacing population growth. Therefore, GDP per capita last year exceeded $1,000 a year for the first time. In fact, I think in the gray area is 70-80% of the economy that is not counted in the statistics. Well, it doesn’t happen that the per capita income is $80 per month, and the rent of the cheapest apartment is $150 per month not in the capital, the products cost about the same as in other Asian countries, if not more expensive due to the lack of retail and logistics in the country.
This is how they live in the capital, in Phnom Penh. Of course, there are elite housing for a select few, but in general the whole country lives in poverty. And there are no prerequisites to get out of poverty - a growing population, lack of infrastructure and total corruption. What to say if the local currency riel is not a means of payment. Everywhere and always, all payments are made in dollars, even if it is the purchase of tickets at the state cash desks of Angkor. Riels are used instead of cents when you need to pay an amount that is not a multiple of the dollar. Since the rate of riel is 4000 to 1 dollar, this is just convenient. But no one will take cents, American money less than a dollar is not in use.
The only time I saw a lot of local money on the market in the capital, although in the capital all calculations and prices are only in dollars. And a lot of money in the photos at the police station. By the way, we got to the police twice. The police in Cambodia are such gopniks, in Georgia in the 90s they got me like that, extorting money under some kind of idiotic pretext.
In Cambodia, only a citizen of the country can be a guide. In general, finding a guide in Cambodia is a big problem, because they are simply not there as a class. But I was very lucky and I found a guide Alexander, who fully met my highest requirements for knowledge of history, in addition, he turned out to be an enthusiastic and very erudite specialist in India and Indochina. In a country like Cambodia, this was generally a huge success. By that time, everything had already been booked and paid for, but for the sake of Alexander, we canceled everything and did it all over again. Alexander, in turn, kindly agreed to postpone his vacation with his parents for a few days in order to accompany us.
So, in those places where there were gopniks from the Ministry of Tourism, like Angkor, we took a local guide who followed us and was silent. And this is what the gopniks from the Ministry of Tourism, together with the police, dug into. Allegedly, the "certified" guide was supposed to speak, and ours was silent, but everything was the other way around. Sasha made a big mistake that should not be allowed in dealing with gopniks, he tried to refer to his agreement with the Ministry of Tourism to work in this way, this was his 493rd excursion to Angkor. He tried to explain a few more perfectly logical things to these idiots. But logic does not work with gopniks, the main gopnik with a gun began to yell "this is my country", "disgrace the great cultural heritage of the Khmer people", waving his arms and spraying saliva. Here we had to join the dialogue, the police also arrived, and in the end we had to go to the police station.
We were on the territory of the temple, where you can not drive a car and where you can not smoke. The gopniks drove there in their cars and constantly smoked, and the main gopnik had a big black Lexus jeep without license plates, this is considered the most honorable car for them. Here we must also understand all the cynicism of the gopniks' pride in their "cultural heritage". These temples lay in ruins for 800 years and now only a small part has been restored. 100% of the work is carried out with the money of many different countries: Japan, Germany, India, China and others, Cambodia does not finance anything. Moreover, they take money and force them to pay exorbitant prices to their contractors, in fact a tax on the right to restore temples. The budgets there are tens of millions of dollars, gigantic money for Cambodia is spent on Angkor, it is no coincidence that Angkor Wat is even depicted on the country's flag.
As a result, after a 2-hour investigation involving 15 police officers/officials, Sasha was told the amount of the bribe: $500. This is already after the bargaining and after the policemen, acquaintances of Sasha, arrived from Siem Reap.
The second time we got to the police not because of the guide, but because of me. I decided to fly a copter over another temple that was in the forest. In fact, I flew a copter over the temples more than once, it is really forbidden only in Angkor. But usually I did this, being a kilometer away from the object, and here I was only a couple of hundred meters away and I was caught red-handed. The second time they also almost got caught, but I had already removed everything, they just drove off and asked "were we flying", it turned out "not we".
In general, again the same dances with howling, that "we have desecrated the temple", that it is forbidden, that we have a "big big problem", they will almost call the Minister of Defense now. It all looked very funny, the dude screamed, almost cried from resentment for the desecrated temple, raised his hands to the sky. Then he finished the performance, for about 10 minutes he "looked at the papers", said doomedly "very big problem" and handed me a piece of paper with $250 written on it.
I tell him, friend, you have such thickets that you can’t see anything from above, the shots turned out to be very bad (this is true). We're leaving tomorrow, there's no money left, we can't help you. He began to show me photos of people with money, a copter, a passport and tell me who paid him how much. The photo above shows that they have directly similar photos hanging in the police station. I said that I fully realized my fault, but I could offer him $20, no more. He again began to raise his hands to the sky and say something about the desecration of the temple and a terrible crime.
For 20 minutes we argued $20, no $250, $20, no $250. Then he said: eureka! And he ran for another smartphone, on which he showed me a photo of a Chinese with a copter and said that this Chinese paid him $350, which means that $250 is very profitable! To which I said that China is a big and rich country, and I am from a small and poor Russia. He says: "Not Russia, but correctly the USSR, a very large country." I had to tell him that the USSR had collapsed into 15 states, he was in shock and did not believe for a long time, but another policeman heard something about it and confirmed the correctness of my words. His demand dropped to $150, "well, you're going to have to meet you, a rogue from a small country." This is how I practically cashed in on the collapse of the USSR ...
In general, I offered him $45, he did not agree for a long time and wanted $150, called the "minister" and so on.
As a result, "we raked out everything that was out of our pockets," we accumulated $63 and $0.75 in local tugriks. I shoved this money into his hands, he continued to resist and eventually gave up: "Throw another $ 20, we take pictures with you and the copter and you are free." Already we wanted to go further, so we paid $83.75 and were allowed to take a photo. Now he will show people my photo with a copter, and I was still in a T-shirt with the inscription of the USSR and say: "Here is a guy from the USSR paid me $500!" Don't believe. USSR collapsed! Yes, Sasha was less fortunate the day before, but he received a master class from us on how to communicate with gopniks, since I have rich experience.
And we flew to Sihanoukville to the Prime Minister's wife's hotel. By the way, such a funny fact that as soon as somewhere in Cambodia you express complaints to locals in a hotel, for example, instead of sorry / sorry they say reproachfully: "we have a very poor developing country, we must understand, do not criticize, but better than money give!" Such militant beggars, when a beggar blames the "snickering west" for his poverty. The Soho Beach hotel itself, of course, does not pull for 5 stars, the prices are exorbitant by Cambodian standards, but compared to everything else, of course, it stands out in better side. The rest of Sihanoukville is a garbage dump, but you can find a few interesting restaurants. The sea is very average, too warm, but a gorgeous sandy beach. There are a lot of casinos in Sihanoukville, but the level is below the baseboard, of course. But I went to a poker club run by Russians, also a dump, of course, but such a sincere atmosphere, you can see that mostly regulars come here, in general I liked it. There are many Russians in Sihanoukville, there are even rich families. The fact is that about 1,500 employees of the large embassy of the USSR remained after the collapse of the Union in Cambodia, because they were recalled back, and there were Russians from Uzbekistan, for example. So they did not dare to go to Uzbekistan, where it was not clear whether the war would start in 1991, or something.
We asked about Polonsky, who was imprisoned in Cambodia and then extradited. In fact, he settled quite well in Cambodia, started a business project with one of the rich Russian families, all that. But then, first, he ruined relations with them, and then with the authorities, when they began to run into him. And even a very rich foreigner is still a second-class person in Cambodia, so they took him into circulation and that's how it all turned out.
We were in Phnom Penh for one day. There is only one road leading to the city, along which there is a permanent market, so traffic jams at the entrance are crazy, again, almost no one follows the rules. There are already a lot of black Lexus in Phnom Penh, many on thieves' plates of the police or the government, there the color of the numbers is different and it is very expensive to put such numbers.
The city center itself is almost modern, decent houses are being built. The capital looks booming. Since the airport is located almost in the center of the city, a foreigner who arrives and travels to the city may even think that Cambodia is a decent Asian country.
But in the very center of this "decent" country in a Buddhist temple, raw meat is thrust into stone statues, such a pagan sacrifice. In general, society is very distorted, it seemed to me. Almost 100% of the population over 50 participated in or suffered from hostilities in one way or another, many men fought, there are a huge number of disabled beggars throughout the country, they usually play some kind of musical instruments in tourist crowds. And at the same time, Pol Pot's daughter is a kind of "perishilton" of the local type, leads a bohemian lifestyle and constantly flashes in the gossip column, always in pink. Such a fifa. She married some rich official, houses, villas, Rolls-Royces. Yes, in Phnom Penh I saw not only a Ferrari, but also a Rolls-Royce. BUT right hand Pol Pot, one of the main flayers, is still the governor of one of the provinces.
On the embankment of Phnom Penh, the flags of "friend countries". Cambodia has many friends, 50 flags there. Well, Pol Pot spoke at the UN in general and was considered a victim of the Vietnamese invasion.
The city has several decent French establishments dating back to the colonial period. And there is a wonderful mansion with a rich history, which is under the protection of UNESCO. It has been abandoned for many years, because there is a bargaining for how much money the authorities will allow foreign sponsors to restore it for. So far, some enterprising Khmer arranges discos in the courtyard of this mansion, and the mansion itself is closed to the public. By the way, the enterprising Khmer unlocked the mansion for us without even hinting at a bribe, he just let us in. He has a warehouse of alcohol in his mansion, some incredible amount on the first floor. The second one is empty.
That's it, it's time to get out of this fabulous country. Angkor is worth a visit, but everything else is hard on the fan. Dirty, garbage, bad service, gopniks in uniform, bad infrastructure and all that.
A neighbor in Moscow asked me: "How did Nastya survive in Cambodia ?!" - Nastya's answer: "100 grams of cognac in the morning and a gold card, and even in Cambodia life is beautiful!" So don't think that we didn't enjoy the trip...
Our brave squad.
