Interviewer: Would you talk about what it was like when the Khmer Rouge took over? Please give an account starting with the overthrow of Sihanouk.
Chhit Do: When Sihanouk was overthrown, the idea was to create a republic throughout the country.
Chhit Do: When this happened, there was propaganda made saying that the overthrow and expulsion of Sihanouk had been carried out in order to make a country a republic of the type existing in other countries, because, they said, at that time there weren't that many monarchical countries left in the world, that, internally, a monarchy was not progressive...
Interviewer: What year was it that you met Pol Pot?
Chhit Do: In 1977, March 1977.
Interviewer: What kind of a meeting was it?
Chhit Do: It was a meeting about purification of the power structure in Kampuchea.
Interviewer: And did Pol Pot seem like a nice guy?
Chhit Do: He seemed like a nice guy when he talked, but what happened afterwards was not nice.
Interviewer: Now jet's talk about the Khmer Rouge and the Yuon at the time of the overthrow of Sihanouk.
Interviewer: What did the Khmer Rouge do? Were the ordinary folks pleased or displeased, or what?
Chhit Do: On this matter of the Khmer Rouge and Sihanouk, well, when Sihanouk was overthrown, the ordinary folks were not pleased.
Chhit Do: Those under Lon Nol were not pleased and neither were those under the Khmer Rouge.
Chhit Do: In short, nobody was pleased when Sihanouk was initially overthrown.
Chhit Do: This was the beginning of it all and when demonstrations were carried out, with a procession reaching all the way to the Chroy Changvar bridge.
Chhit Do: I didn't go see this myself, but I heard others talking about it, about how they got together and demonstrated all the way to Kampong Cham.
Interviewer: Yes, but what kind of propaganda did the Khmer Rouge make about Sihanouk?
Chhit Do: Their propaganda about Sihanouk said...
Chhit Do: You know, at that time, they weren't yet doing any anti-Sihanouk propaganda, but internally, among themselves, and this is what they told me, they were in cahoots with the government soldiers to overthrow Sihanouk.
Chhit Do: They could do this because they were doing work with schoolteachers, with school directors, and the like, a lot of work.
Chhit Do: The Khmer Rouge for the most part worked in, I don't know what exactly the French term is, the "civil" sector.
Chhit Do: Among the civil servants there were a lot of Khmer Rouge, a lot in the Khmer Rouge party.
Chhit Do: They were schoolteachers, chiefs of high school teaching staffs, in the schools, working in the provincial treasury offices.
Chhit Do: There were a lot of them in places like these.
Interviewer: Who took over after Sihanouk had been overthrown?
Chhit Do: After Sihanouk had been overthrown, Lon Nol took over.
Interviewer: What about where you yourself were?
Chhit Do: Well, after Sihanouk had been overthrown, we still had the same old provincial governor, his name was...
Interviewer: No, but didn't the Yuon come in and take over?
Chhit Do: It was same time after Sihanouk had been overthrown that the Yuon arrived.
Chhit Do: Lon Nol had been in power less than a year when the Yuon came, maybe about three months.
Chhit Do: In the district where I was living, the Yuon came right into the district administrative seat.
Interviewer: And did the Yuon and the Khmer Rouge get along with each other or what?
Chhit Do: After the Yuon arrived, they were there with the Khmer Rouge, and the two of them got along with each other for a period of about two or three months or so.
Interviewer: And what was going on then?
Chhit Do: They were in consultation with each other and were working with each other.
Chhit Do: The Yuon were responsible for fighting with the enemy soldiers, and the Khmer Rouge were responsible for political education among the people, teaching them to hate Lon Nol and to fight the government soldiers...
Chhit Do: but they didn't really say anything about fighting the government soldiers.
Chhit Do: They said we were fighting with American imperialism.
Chhit Do: If it had been a matter of fighting with Lon Nol, the Khmers wouldn't have had the heart to do it, because they felt that if it was a war between Khmers, they wouldn't fight.
Chhit Do: This was because back then, the Khmers still loved one another.
Chhit Do: In 1970, if called upon to fight Lon Nol, they wouldn't have fought.
Chhit Do: So they said, "If you don't fight Lon Nol, then Lon Nol will go over to the Americans.
Chhit Do: It's necessary to get some guns and get together an army to make war on Lon Nol.
Chhit Do: Even though those soldiers carrying guns for Lon Nol are Khmer flesh and blood, if you don't go and fight them, if you don't have the guts to shoot them, these guys will certainly go over to the Americans, and in the days to come the Americans will rule over our entire country." This was the education they gave.
Interviewer: Was it the Khmer Rouge or the Yuon who talked this way?
Chhit Do: It was the Khmer Rouge who said this.
Interviewer: And in what year did the split between the Khmer Rouge and the Yuon come?
Chhit Do: Well, subsequently, after they had been together with each other for some time, after the Khmer Rouge had been with the Yuon for some time, the Yuon set up a power structure throughout the country.
Chhit Do: It had been set up by 1971.
Chhit Do: There were sub-district chairmen, district governors, provincial governors and so on, all just exactly like in the old days, except that every last one of them was a Yuon.
Chhit Do: All the deputy chairmen and vice governors were Khmer.
Chhit Do: The Khmer Rouge were not satisfied with things being this way, didn't trust this power structure, and so they asked the Yuon to withdraw their troops, but the Yuon did not do so.
Chhit Do: And when the Yuon did not withdraw their troops, the Khmer Rouge then said, "Don't you respect Khmer sovereignty and territorial integrity? You have come here as enemies, not as friends.
Chhit Do: You've violated our territory and then even set up a structure of power.
Chhit Do: Back at the time of the Indochinese Summit Conference you agreed with five principles, that you wouldn't do anything to adversely affect the Khmer people, that you wouldn't set up a power structure over the Khmer people, and that you didn't have the right to do anything at all on your own, that you came as a full fledged friend, not as an enemy.
Chhit Do: If you come and set up a power structure, the country and the Khmer people cannot but be displeased."
Interviewer: Was there fighting between the two?
Chhit Do: Yes, there was fighting, afterwards, when the Yuon refused to withdraw their troops.
Interviewer: Please tell us what happened at Angkor.
Chhit Do: They still refused to withdraw, even after the two sides talked it over.
Chhit Do: So then the Yuon threw the accusation back at the Khmer Rouge, saying that these Khmer Rouge were not really the unallied Khmer Communists, that they were Khmers who had rather all come from the Americans, from Lon Nol - infiltrators who had come to carry out a campaign against them.
Chhit Do: Having said this, the Yuon sent troops to encircle Angkor.
Chhit Do: There were Yuon troops everywhere, completely surrounding Angkor, all along the temple walls.
Chhit Do: And then they opened fire, shooting into the place where the Khmer Rouge stayed.
Chhit Do: The Khmer Rouge ran for it.
Chhit Do: Some got away.
Chhit Do: Some were killed.
Chhit Do: And as some had been killed, the Khmer Rouge withdrew their troops.
Chhit Do: The Khmer Rouge didn't have any troops left.
Chhit Do: They were all withdrawn and retreated to Chikreng.
Chhit Do: Only a few were left.
Chhit Do: Then, after a period lasting about a week or maybe a little bit longer...
Interviewer: Yes, but did the Khmer Rouge kill any Yuon?
Chhit Do: Later, they killed some.
Interviewer: Why?
Chhit Do: They killed some because these Yuon, some of these Yuon, were, well, you know, they weren't perfect, either, you know.
Chhit Do: Sometimes, they ran out of things.
Chhit Do: They had a proper educational code.
Chhit Do: And when they first arrived, they tried really hard to do things right, but after some time had passed, they didn't have anything to eat, or anything to trade for food, and they would steal chickens and so on, and so they were hated.
Chhit Do: The Khmer Rouge never killed any Yuon themselves.
Chhit Do: The people would kill them in anger.
Chhit Do: These killings occurred in 1972, and quite a good number were killed, killed in the paddy fields while walking alone.
Chhit Do: The people who were displeased with them would kill them.
Chhit Do: The people knew by then that this was really a Yuon army, not a Sihanouk army.
Chhit Do: At first, the Yuon troops had said that they were Sihanouk troops, that they were Sihanouk's 'offspring,' that Sihanouk had sent them to fight.
Chhit Do: But when the people realized that they weren't really Sihanouk troops and after they had been stealing chickens and so on, the people hated them and when they were walking alone along the paddy dikes, they would be killed.
Chhit Do: The thing that was wrong with these Yuon was that they were stealing.
Interviewer: And so the peasants hated the Yuon, but did they love the Khmer Rouge?
Chhit Do: Back then, they loved the Khmer Rouge.
Chhit Do: But the Khmer Rouge were also saying at that time that they were Sihanouk's 'offspring.'
Interviewer: And why was it that the people loved the Khmer Rouge?
Chhit Do: They said that Sihanouk was the chairman of their Front.
Chhit Do: They realized, that in fact he was the monarch, but in their education they said that when the liberation movement had been launched, he had been a monarch, but now that there was going to be a republic, he would be considered the unique Chairman of the Front.
Chhit Do: He unified the nation.
Chhit Do: He could not join in making revolution like everybody else because he was the Chairman of the Front, the unifier of the nation, who was to educate and instruct any part of society that could to join its forces with the revolution.
Chhit Do: And because, unlike everybody else, he didn't know how to plant vegetables or plow fields.
Chhit Do: But he had educated people to believe in the revolution, to go ahead and go on over to the revolution, because the revolution would make for national process in this way or that way.
Chhit Do: This is how the Khmer Rouge educated the people.
Chhit Do: And at the same time this education prevented complications with the intellectuals among the cadres on the issue of making communism but bringing the monarch into the communist state power, you know, because some of the big shots were perplexed.
Chhit Do: They asked, "We say we hate the monarchy and we want to dissolve the monarchy.
Chhit Do: So what are we doing making the monarch the Chairman of our Front?"
Chhit Do: So the answer would be that the Khmer Front was very big and very broad, and that no matter what kind of force was involved, we had to bring it in to work with us, as long as it was making revolution and no matter what power structure that force or that person had previously been a part of.
Chhit Do: When that power structure was dissolved and abandoned, when there was a new leader, it wouldn't matter what someone had done in the old days, even if that person had been a cabinet minister, or whatever, as long as they agreed to work in the fields, they could also stay on as part of the new structure of power.
Interviewer: And when did the split between the Khmer Rouge and the people occur?
Chhit Do: The peasants and the Khmer Rouge split in the latter half of 1973 and the beginning of 1974, because the peasants began to see that they didn't have any faith in the Khmer Rouge any more, the Khmer Rouge lost credibility.
Chhit Do: They said that if things went on like they were the people wouldn't get anything out of it.
Chhit Do: All they were getting was death, the deaths of their children, who were going off to war, going off to the battlefield and all getting killed.
Chhit Do: What's more it wasn't any Americans that they were fighting.
Chhit Do: It was other Khmers just like themselves.
Chhit Do: There weren't any Americans to be seen among the troops on the Lon Nol side.
Chhit Do: There were just the government troops themselves, and so they saw that we were fighting among ourselves.
Chhit Do: Meanwhile, there wasn't any rice, there wasn't anything to eat.
Chhit Do: Out there in the countryside there wasn't any salt, there was nothing to wear, there wasn't anything at all.
Chhit Do: The longer we fought the poorer we got, and so the people lost faith and started going over to the Lon Nol side whole villages at a time and...
Interviewer: Did the Khmer Rouge kill ordinary people at this time? Here we are talking about the year 1973 when Sihanouk arrived at Angkor.
Interviewer: Did you meet with him? Please clearly describe the Sihanouk force.
Chhit Do: When the Sihanouk force arriced at Angkor, I went to meet him, I went to welcome him to the Kulen Mountain.
Chhit Do: I went for ten days.
Chhit Do: We packed rice and carried it up the mountain for ten days [inaudible], and just one day after Sihanouk left the mountain, B-52s dropped bombs where we had been.
Chhit Do: If Sihanouk had stayed just one more day on the Kulen Mountain, the B-52s would have dropped bombs on him.
Chhit Do: The bombs were dropped all over the area and felled many trees which blocked the road.
Interviewer: What was it like when you saw Sihanouk arrive? Did you get to shake his hand?
Chhit Do: I did not shake his hand, I went...
Chhit Do: this is the way the Khmer Rouge handled his arrival: they mandated that no one was to order others around and made everyone obey.
Chhit Do: They wanted an orderly manner - in French it meant "serious" - as soon as Sihanouk arrived, because he has this characteristic...
Chhit Do: Socialist, no, not socialist, his character was that of a capitalist, it did not fit in the communist ideology, so the communists mandated that no one was to order others around, but to act properly.
Chhit Do: Everyone was aware of the strict rule, so each one stayed still, nobody moved around.
Chhit Do: We were told we must not shake hands with Sihanouk, not greet Sihanouk, no matter how the high ranking officials acted toward him.
Chhit Do: We just stood still to welcome them normally.
Chhit Do: Sihanouk went up to the stage.
Chhit Do: Frankly speaking, when he went up to the stage to speak, Hou Yuon and Hu Nim appeared to introduce themselves.
Chhit Do: He said, this is Hou Yuon and this is Hu Nim and this is Khieu Samphan, this is Khieu Ponnary.
Chhit Do: They introduced themselves, but only Hou Yuon, Hu Nim, Khieu Ponnary, and Khieu Samphan only, at the time they did not show Pol Pot.
Chhit Do: Nobody knew who Pol Pot was, none of the revolutionaries knew that Pol Pot was the president of the communist party, they did not know that at all.
Interviewer: Did the villagers welcome him and shake his hand? How was that?
Chhit Do: The villagers also welcomed him, but the Khmer Rouge did not allow anyone to act submissively.
Chhit Do: They did not allow bowing out of respect, so this made people scared to welcome him.
Chhit Do: Some of them who knew the laws said, "It took this kind of revolution to make all of us humans equal.
Chhit Do: The king looks like normal citizen and the citizens look like the king.
Chhit Do: It's better this way, because before we had to kneel, and now when Sihanouk comes we do not have to kneel, we can just shake hands and speak to each other normally.
Chhit Do: So just clap hands to celebrate and that is enough, no need to kneel or bow, making things complicated like before, no more."
Interviewer: Did Sihanouk give a speech or not?
Chhit Do: Sihanouk gave a speech, but a speech that was coerced.
Chhit Do: It was not a speech from his own mind, because they did not allow him to speak as he wanted.
Chhit Do: In the Khmer Rouge term it is called a path, and everyone must follow the path and only talk about our theories never about capitalism.
Chhit Do: They only allowed talk about the ideology, the liberation front ideology.
Interviewer: Later on, before Sihanouk arrived, or after Sihanouk arrived, did they change the propaganda about Sihanouk or was it the same propaganda?
Chhit Do: After Sihanouk arrived, they escalated the propaganda and began using the word communist openly.
Chhit Do: Sihanouk had returned and the Khmer Rouge had made it clear that they not only wanted Sihanouk to return to the country, but they had brought him here.
Chhit Do: At the time they only had support from half the country.
Chhit Do: The Khmer Rouge were trying to persuade the people, and I was also involved with persuading the people.
Chhit Do: The people had not completely believed in the Khmer Rouge, and if they had not brought Sihanouk to show to the people they would have joined the Lon Nol side.
Chhit Do: And then the American would make contact with Sihanouk, got rid of Lon Nol and made Sihanouk commander in chief to replace him.
Chhit Do: That meant this war would return Sihanouk back to monarchy like before.
Chhit Do: Therefore they took him from China so that the Americans would not try to make contact with him and brought him back to let the people see him inside Cambodia in 1973.
Chhit Do: That was their political strategy, it was like that.
Chhit Do: They took him out of China.
Chhit Do: If he stayed in China at that time, the foreign minister and he were to go to Beijing, so they had to take him out of China.
Chhit Do: It is clear that this was the plan of the Khmer Rouge.
Chhit Do: They had major meetings which they called "secret committee meetings" to discuss bringing Sihanouk back to the country.
Chhit Do: Not so people would bow in front of him, it was not for that.
Chhit Do: However we welcomed Sihanouk so that he would not be disappointed.
Chhit Do: If he had been disappointed he may have returned to China, and if he then sided with the Americans then we would not win the war.
Interviewer: But afterward did they began to criticize Sihanouk or not?
Chhit Do: They criticized him.
Chhit Do: They considered Sihanouk...
Chhit Do: as the leaders of the Communist Party said, people still believe more in Sihanouk.
Chhit Do: But as for us, we do not believe in Sihanouk, and whoever is pledged to be a member of the party must not believe in his authority.
Chhit Do: Starting from the lowest members of the party they were persuaded not to believe, but as for the people, they still allowed it and even wanted them to believe.
Chhit Do: Secret meetings were held among the elected committee members in which they said, "If in your head you still believe Sihanouk, you are not a part of the revolution." In the secret meetings they said Sihanouk is the enemy of the revolution.
Interviewer: As a member of the committee, what were you taught?
Chhit Do: I was taught about politics.
Interviewer: How was it taught?
Chhit Do: I was sent to study political documents.
Chhit Do: One of documents they made me study was about the ideology, about the current situation.
Interviewer: You studied only this one area?
Chhit Do: Yes, about the concept of the current situation, and their ideology, and materialism.
Interviewer: How did you study, was there a school for you to go to...
Chhit Do: There was a school, in fact a huge school.
Interviewer: Where did you go to school?
Chhit Do: I studied at...
Chhit Do: at first I enrolled at labor center.
Chhit Do: The class was held in a huge forest.
Chhit Do: That school was built to teach the high ranking members of the committee.
Chhit Do: I went to school, one week at a time, to study politics.
Chhit Do: Only politics for one week.
Chhit Do: We were closely watched by security guards.
Chhit Do: We learned about making conversation, asking and answering questions, and took notes of the questions.
Chhit Do: We took notes of the questions that we wanted to ask, wanted to pose and answer, to solve the riddles.
Chhit Do: This is how politics was taught: to pose riddles to each other back and forth.
Chhit Do: But we were not angry at one another, even though I made accusations against them.
Chhit Do: They wanted us to accuse each other about such and such, like treason.
Chhit Do: They wanted to know our feeling, do we got mad if they accused us, or this comrade was seen in an act of treachery the other day, such and such.
Chhit Do: We would not have gotten mad, we replied that on that day.
Chhit Do: We did this and that.
Chhit Do: To think about it, that political school was solely about accusing each other, and that also includes the high ranking officers.
Chhit Do: If the accusation involved the highest ranking officers, they would remove the weapons in case someone got mad and to prevent anyone from using weapons.
Chhit Do: Because at that political school there was once a quarrel - a quarrel but not angry at each other, they just acted normal as if nothing had happened.
Chhit Do: In this communist regime, they argued really seriously, one must strongly defend his position.
Chhit Do: If we want to find out who has the best arguing skills and who is good at solving problems, the only way to find out was to talk with each other.
Chhit Do: They removed the weapons, and if someone refused to accept the accusation, they said were told they had to accept no matter what.
Chhit Do: Whatever the accusation, we had to accept it.
Interviewer: Regarding the daily living, were there bombs dropping and a lack of food, and so on? Please describe the daily life during the Khmer Rouge era before 1975, life from the start of the war.
Chhit Do: It was in 1970 and the purchasing of goods was not difficult, but starting from '72 it was not easy at all.
Chhit Do: Life was very difficult.
Interviewer: Please describe the difficulties.
Chhit Do: People's life was difficult.
Chhit Do: First, there was the lack of clothing, second was the lack of food.
Chhit Do: There was not enough, that was a summary of life on the Khmer Rouge side.
Chhit Do: If it was not for their belief in Sihanouk, nobody would have stayed, they would have deserted because it was very hard.
Chhit Do: It was hard in every possible way.
Interviewer: Was it hard because of the lack of supplies or of the bombings?
Chhit Do: The hardship was also because of the bombings and not being able to farm.
Chhit Do: People were busy fighting the war, all the young labor force went to war.
Chhit Do: There were only the elders left, not many crops were produced.
Chhit Do: Therefore there was nothing to eat, and so where did the Khmer Rouge get the rice? It was from the elders who produced it.
Chhit Do: And with the Khmer Rouge it was not like they were buying.
Chhit Do: They ordered people to give, to make donation, and they were ordered to support them.
Interviewer: And this support was required?
Chhit Do: At the beginning they required that such and such village must provide this much and that much.
Chhit Do: Therefore it was a requirement and no matter how scarce, the villagers must absolutely have supplies for them.
Chhit Do: There were few people who worked and the food was scarce.
Chhit Do: Food supplies were very, very scarce.
Interviewer: But was there a fear of bomb drops, were there people killed by bombs?
Chhit Do: There was.
Chhit Do: There were some who got killed by the bombs, there were some deaths.
Chhit Do: Khmer Rouge soldiers also got killed along with the villagers.
Interviewer: Did the Khmer Rouge use the bombings in order to incite anger against the Americans?
Chhit Do: Yes they did.
Chhit Do: They accused them for the bombings.
Chhit Do: They said, "We must remember this and get revenge on the Americans." And "That was the savagery of the Americans, because we the people never instigated a war with America at all.
Chhit Do: But the Americans brought in the airplanes.
Chhit Do: Cambodia never had airplanes, only Americans did, and they used the airplane to drop bombs on people's heads! Therefore we should feel resentful and we must fight.
Chhit Do: America is far away but it got itself involved here."
Interviewer: I wanted to ask once again about the bomb drops, how did they politicize the bomb drops? How did they create propaganda about the bombings?
Chhit Do: On the Khmer Rouge side?
Interviewer: That's correct.
Chhit Do: They made propaganda that the government forces had already sold their land to America because Lon Nol wanted power.
Chhit Do: He wanted to become the president, and if America did not help and support Lon Nol, he would lose the war against Sihanouk.
Chhit Do: Lon Nol therefore had no choice but to join the Americans and asked the Americans to drop bombs and kill the entire population.
Chhit Do: Then the Americans would come in and easily take control of Cambodia just like the French did before.
Chhit Do: They said it like that, but they added that when the French came and took control of Cambodia it was not as bad because their physical size is not as big as Americans.
Chhit Do: The Khmer Rouge said that an American is two to three times bigger than a Frenchman! Therefore they would have tremendous strength to use against the Khmer people, and burden us very heavily, not like when the French were here.
Chhit Do: When the French were here, it was bearable because they are not as big as Americans.
Chhit Do: That was what they said would happen - it won't be like it was before.
Chhit Do: The law in the country was very strict back then.
Chhit Do: They called it, or used the word authority.
Chhit Do: I do not know how to say "authority" in French.
Chhit Do: It’s a non-cultural word I do not know the meaning of it.
Chhit Do: Fascist authority.
Interviewer: About the bombings, did the people demonstrate and protest against the Americans?
Chhit Do: They did demonstrate and protest against the Americans, and the Khmer Rouge told them to go look at the bomb sites.
Chhit Do: There are deep huge trenches.
Chhit Do: They used the sites of the bombings, the sizes of the trenches made by the bombs, the shrapnel of the bombs that were left behind to show the villagers and said, "Look at the size of the shrapnel! The size of a man! And they use the bombs the size of a rice bag to drop on us like that, to destroy, to flatten everything.
Chhit Do: To destroy the country, not just to defeat its enemy, but so there won't be anyone left to rebuild the country! Because the way they dropped the bombs was to kill everyone, but because we know where to hide that's why we are still alive!"
Chhit Do: They used the bombs and the bomb trenches and the shrapnel to brainwash people, to spawn anger at the Americans.
Chhit Do: They said it was not like that with the Japanese, when Americans dropped the atomic bomb during World War II.
Chhit Do: They said, "We must not let go of our anger at the Americans from now on, never let go until we all die, we must never surrender.
Chhit Do: For as long as we are alive we will keep on fighting!" That was how they persuaded the people.
Interviewer: [inaudible] the villagers, were they pleased with the bombings or did they hate American?
Chhit Do: During that time the villagers were scared of the airplanes, scared of the guns and whenever they heard an airplane coming...
Chhit Do: it's normal, in a war, those who have never experienced war do not know, sometimes you wet your pants whenever the bombs are dropped.
Chhit Do: They would fire huge amounts of rockets on us, each time about two hundred rockets and up to almost four hundred rockets.
Chhit Do: The tremendous explosions made it so we could not hear anything at all for two or three days.
Chhit Do: If someone was mentally weak he would go crazy during silence.
Chhit Do: Until we were able to hear and speak again we lost our minds, lost our senses for a while.
Chhit Do: People were scared and ready to believe anything they were told.
Chhit Do: What the Khmer Rouge said was credible because there were just so many huge bombs dropped.
Chhit Do: That's was what made it so easy for the Khmer Rouge to win the people over.
Chhit Do: And the shelling from the Lon Nol side was no little thing, either.
Chhit Do: It was massive.
Chhit Do: It came four hundred shells at a time.
Chhit Do: They would always use 105mm howitzers, four at a time.
Chhit Do: But as for me, after I had been in the war for a long time, by 1973, I never got down when I heard the whine of the shell.
Chhit Do: I didn't get down and that's what made the combatants dare to go forward.
Chhit Do: They said I was really fearless.
Chhit Do: They talked about me among themselves and had faith in me.
Chhit Do: But it was only because I knew that if I heard the sound of the shell, it had already gone past and so I didn't need to get down.
Interviewer: So there weren't any local people who were happy about the bombing?
Chhit Do: No, there weren't any local people who were happy about the bombing.
Chhit Do: It was because of their dissatisfaction with the bombing that they kept on cooperating with the Khmer Rouge, joining up with the Khmer Rouge, sending their children off to go with them, to join the Khmer Rouge.
Interviewer: So the bombing made the people happy with the Khmer Rouge?
Chhit Do: Yes, the people were willing to go along with the Khmer Rouge because of Khmer Rouge use of the bombing as a point in their political education.
Chhit Do: No matter what the Khmer Rouge did, they referred to this bombing.
Interviewer: So the American bombing was a kind of help to the Khmer Rouge?
Chhit Do: Yes, that's right.
Chhit Do: It was a kind of help.
Chhit Do: It helped to get them to come over to the Khmer Rouge and help, because the people saw, well, sometimes, the bombs fell and hit little children, and after that their fathers would all join the Khmer Rouge.
Chhit Do: There was a lot of bombing over a long period so naturally people were being killed.
Chhit Do: And when people were killed, this would become a point in political education.
Chhit Do: They would make a big point out of even a single death.
Chhit Do: But if the Khmer Rouge killed somebody, in contrast, they would try to make points in their political education to keep people from being scared, but of course the people were scared nevertheless.
Chhit Do: Everybody they killed had "betrayed the nation," "gotten in league with the Americans" or "was getting ready to completely destroy the nation" and so forth.
Chhit Do: By 1971 and 1972, when someone was executed, they would first hold a meeting.
Chhit Do: They would hold the meeting in order to get the people to believe that the person to be killed was in league with the Americans, was an American spy and that this had been clearly proven with no doubt, that he had been seen carrying out a campaign against the nation in this manner or that manner, that he had called in the planes to bomb this place and that place.
Chhit Do: And so people would say, "Yeah, I can believe that.
Chhit Do: It's true." But in fact I know, as I had an important position, I know that despite all the appearances, the Khmer Rouge still were doing things wrong.
Chhit Do: They did not recognize the worth of human beings.
Chhit Do: Because if they wanted to kill somebody they would just accuse the poor guy of all these things.
Chhit Do: The truth was that some people really had done the things they were accused of whereas others had not.
Chhit Do: Anyway, back in 1971-72, the people were supposed to raise their hands if they thought someone was really guilty.
Chhit Do: And then they would ask whether someone who was in league with the Americans should be allowed to live or should be killed.
Chhit Do: The people were supposed to deliver the sentence.
Interviewer: Did the Khmer Rouge kill a lot of villagers back in that period?
Chhit Do: Back in that period there had to be a mass meeting if there was going to be an execution.
Chhit Do: And there were quite a few executions.
Chhit Do: But without a meeting there couldn't be an execution, except in the case of government soldiers who had been captured.
Chhit Do: Captured government soldiers could be killed without mass meetings.
Chhit Do: From 1971 through 1973, the sub-district committee had the right to carry out an execution.
Chhit Do: At that time, however, I wasn't yet at the sub-district committee level.
Chhit Do: I was a cadre.
Chhit Do: When I was promoted to be the chairman for political affairs of the sub-district committee, by which time it was already the end of 1973, the decision had to be made at the sector level.
Chhit Do: Those at lower levels could not carry out an execution on their own.
Chhit Do: If they did, they would be punished.
Chhit Do: Things had been made more strict.