Dirge of the Kampucheans

Red blood splatters the cities and plains of the Cambodian fatherland.

--National anthem of Kampuchea

Since the 1975 Communist takeover transformed Cambodia into Democratic Kampuchea, the prophecy of the new national anthem has been amply borne out. A series of political purges and a disastrous mass resettlement policy, combined with a nine-month-old border war with Viet Nam, have splattered, indeed drenched the country with blood.

Last week the regime of Premier Pol Pot was staggering under the weight of its own excesses. The government's ability to withstand Hanoi's military offensive was in jeopardy. Increasing numbers of once fanatically loyal Khmer Rouge were deserting to join the enemy forces. Peasants in Cambodian villages near the Vietnamese border had revolted, murdering the fierce Khmer "controllers" who police the villages. At the same time, 200 Cambodian civilians a week were desperately crossing minefields and other deadly border booby traps to take refuge in Thailand. More than 150,000 have already escaped to Viet Nam.

Pol Pot's four-month-old "purification" campaign promises to be more fearsome than the earlier massacres. According to an investigative report issued by the British Foreign Office last week, the earlier purges cost 100,000 lives "as the absolute minimum." In 1975-76, the victims were intellectuals, officials of the previous regime and members of the armed forces, once commanded by Marshal Lon Nol, who escaped to Hawaii in 1975. (Last week the deposed leader challenged Kampuchea's right to U.N. credentials.) In 1977 the government concentrated on killing regional Khmer Rouge commanders who had collaborated with the Vietnamese in the war against the U.S. The current purge aims to liquidate professionals, minor officials, and peasants and soldiers suspected of disloyalty. "The killing is proceeding methodically," observed a Thai military analyst in Bangkok. "Now they're getting down to cousins of cousins of Lon Nol's soldiers."

Responding to the purge threats, Khmer Rouge deserters combined with restive peasants to form a 25,000-man "liberation force" under the leadership of So Phim, a disaffected former Vice President of Democratic Kampuchea. The Vietnamese already occupy large areas of the so-called Fishhook region south of Mondolkiri province and a strategic bulge of Cambodia from Cheom Ksan to the Mekong River. They are now fighting for control of Parrot's Beak, where the U.S. invaded in 1970 (see map). Vietnamese troops are massing in Laos, near the Cambodian frontier. When the monsoon ends in October, clearing skies will make air support possible for a major Vietnamese push south from Laos and north from South Viet Nam. If that offensive takes place, most military analysts believe Hanoi could easily take Mondolkiri and Ratanakiri provinces in a drive to dominate all of Cambodia east of the Mekong.

That scenario for conquest could be risky for Hanoi. A full-scale attempt to take over Phnom-Penh might well bring Viet Nam into direct conflict with Cambodia's formidable ally, China. But some analysts doubt that Pol Pot can rely heavily on Peking. In the past month he has sent emissaries to China with pleas for supplementary military aid. Though he has received gratifying messages from Chairman Hua Kuo-feng ("We support your struggle"), no substantial increase in aid has been forthcoming. Diplomatic observers in Southeast Asia believe that if the Pol Pot regime should be toppled by Viet Nam or by a coup d'etat, Peking would withdraw from Cambodia, cutting its losses while attributing the defeat to the weaknesses of an unworthy ally.

Whoever rules Cambodia in the foreseeable future will reign over a devastated land. According to refugees who have escaped into Thailand, the once lush province of Battambang in Western Cambodia is bare of all fruit and bereft of most of its people. In eerily deserted villages, papaya trees stand like bean poles, their fruit, then their leaves, having been torn off by starving peasants. According to the British Foreign Office study, since 1975 an estimated 2 million Cambodians have died of starvation and disease as a result of a campaign to drive city dwellers into the countryside, where there was insufficient food. Mass killings in the political purges and escapes across the border have further reduced the population.

Typical is the village of Ko Tayou near the Thai border. Of its 1975 population of 500, only 100 have survived; of these 90 are women. To compensate for the sharply lowered productivity of the village, the Khmer Rouge controller drives the survivors out into the fields at 4 a.m. for a twelve-hour workday. The daily food ration per person is seven spoonfuls of boiled rice gruel. Since last July there have been four suicides. Other peasants have gone berserk in the fields or have retreated into total, pathological silence. One Ko Tayou villager who fled to Thailand last month was Kim Am, 42, a Canadian-trained physician who survived the purges by masquerading as an illiterate peasant. According to Kim, at least 80% of the Cambodians he observed before his flight were suffering from some form of mental illness. "The only emotional outlet in Cambodia is thinking about escape," he said. "Sometimes a change of environment can cure such problems, but I'm afraid most of our people have been permanently damaged." Which is another way of saying that Kampuchea's national song is no longer an anthem, but a dirge.

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