Pol Pot with Khmer Rouge leaders Ieng Sary, left, and Son Sen
Khmer Rouge No. 2 says regime acted for Cambodians
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- The deputy leader of the Khmer Rouge regime blamed for 1.7 million deaths in Cambodia's "killing fields" insisted Tuesday he carried out its policies for the sake of Cambodians and to protect the country from invaders.
"I had to leave my family behind to liberate my motherland from colonialism and aggression and oppression by the thieves who wish to steal our land and wipe Cambodia off the face of the Earth," Nuon Chea said in his first public comments at the trial.
"We wanted to free Cambodia from being a servant of other countries, and we wanted to build Cambodia as a society that is clean and independent, without any killing of people or genocide," he said.
The communist movement's chief ideologist did not directly respond to the horrors that prosecutors described a day earlier at the start of the U.N.-backed tribunal for him and two other top Khmer Rouge leaders.
Instead, Nuon Chea gave a political history of the movement and Cambodia, insisted his role was patriotic, and blamed neighboring Vietnam for much of the country's troubles.
The tribunal is seeking justice on behalf of the 1.7 million people - as much as a quarter of Cambodia's then-population - estimated to have died from executions, starvation, disease and overwork when the Khmer Rouge held power in 1975-79.
The three most senior surviving leaders - Nuon Chea, 85; former head of state Khieu Samphan, 80; and former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary, 86 - are charged with crimes against humanity, genocide, religious persecution, homicide and torture. They have long denied blame.
Khmer Rouge Ideology / Code
-------------------------------------
-Create a classless society, simply by eliminating all social classes except for the ‘old people’ – poor peasants who work the land
-In order to be loyal to the state, the Khmer Rouge enforced the breaking of ties to religion and family
-all children from the age of 8 were separated from their parents and placed in labour camps, which taught them that the State was their ‘true’ parents
-Factories, hospitals, schools and universities were shut down. Lawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers and qualified professionals in all fields were thought to be a threat to the new regime.
-All political and civil rights were abolished. Religion of all kinds was banned as were music and radios. Money was abolished and all aspects of life were subject to regulation
-People were not allowed to choose their own marriage partners. They could not leave their given place of work or even select the clothes that they would wear.
-By instigating ‘Year Zero’ Pol Pot wished to create a State focussed on their rural idyll, with all citizens pledging loyalty to the State in a way which prohibited all personal, community or religious allegiances
- All Khmer were forced to wear a checkered "krama"(scarf) and black outfit to show no class , The "krama" is what distinctly separates the Khmer (Cambodians) from their Thai, Vietnamese, and Laotian neighbors.
Khmer Rouge rule began April 17, 1975, when it captured Phnom Penh to end a bitter five-year civil war and immediately forced the evacuation of the capital, where 1 million people had sheltered. The country was almost sealed from the outside world and most people were forced to work on giant rural communes as the Khmer Rouge attempted to create a pure agrarian socialist society.
Economic and social disaster ensued, but the failures only fed the group's paranoia, and suspected traitors were hunted down, only plunging the country further into chaos.
