Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
leaders deserved to be tried for crimes against humanity, not feted in international confer-
ence halls—it was also pragmatic. The alternative was no superpower accord, no peace
agreement, and no chance of ending the civil war. “It was as much as could be done at the
time,” said one American diplomat involved in the peace negotiations.
The dilemma was that the Khmer Rouge were even less likely to uphold the terms of
the treaty than was the SOC. As Khieu Samphan put his signature to the Paris treaty,
“Brother Number One” remained holed up on the Thai border, where he had spent most
of the decade since his fall from power in 1979. In the intervening years Pol Pot's black
hair became flecked with white, and he had fathered his first child, a daughter, on whom
he lavished his attentions. But his political views remained as uncompromising as ever.
At Office 87, his border headquarters a few kilometers from the Thai town of Trat, Pol
Pot spent his time in the company of loyal disciples, holding forth on points of revolu-
tionary doctrine, plotting his return to power.
The historian David Chandler wrote that of all Cambodia's prerevolutionary social in-
stitutions, Office 87—a cluster of buildings behind barbed wire fences under 24-hour
guard by the Thai military—most closely resembled a Buddhist monastery, dedicated to
the careful cultivation of a revolutionary eschatology that would lead to the cleansing of
Pot rarely appeared in public, and moved along the border in four-wheel drives with tin-
ted windows. But for Cambodians inside the country he was alive in every rumor and in
every distant gunshot, a phantom presence who simultaneously threatened future miser-
ies and promised deliverance from foreign invaders. He emanated a terrible power from
afar.
The Khmer Rouge were divided on how to approach the peace settlement. On one
hand, the treaty offered the PDK a potential route to international legitimacy, via UN-
backed elections. On the other, token adherence might be used as cover to advance re-
volutionary aims and lay the groundwork for a power grab once the UN was gone. For
the time being, the Khmer Rouge remained well armed and economically self-sufficient.
In October 1989, taking advantage of the Vietnamese military withdrawal, PDK forces
occupied Pailin, a northwestern town situated in rugged country rich with sapphires and
rubies. By the time the aid from China had dried up, the PDK were bringing in as much
as $5 million each month from logging concessions and gem mining operations leased
gem-rich dirt rumbled back and forth across the border around the clock. Pailin became
a mini-boomtown complete with Thai karaoke bars, 24-hour electricity, and even a small
population of Burmese migrant workers. The rebel-held entrepôt ran on Thai baht and US
dollars; “Hun Sen money” was not welcome.
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