Phnom Malai
Encyclopedia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
.
The district became a Khmer Rouge
Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge literally translated as Red Cambodians was the name given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, who were the ruling party in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen and Khieu Samphan...
stronghold and battleground through the 1980s and 1990s.
Today it is a remote and sparsely populated border area with scattered settlements mostly made up of former rebels.
History
Refugees from refugee camps in Aranyaprathet, Thailand, were forcefully sent back across the border in 1980 to areas under Khmer Rouge control and many of them ended up in Phnom Malai. The process was organized by pro-Democratic KampucheaDemocratic Kampuchea
The Khmer Rouge period refers to the rule of Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen, Khieu Samphan and the Khmer Rouge Communist party over Cambodia, which the Khmer Rouge renamed as Democratic Kampuchea....
cadres, but it was presented to the press as "voluntary". It was supported by the US government, who took a dim view of the existing pro-Vietnamese Cambodian regime
People's Republic of Kampuchea
The People's Republic of Kampuchea , , was founded in Cambodia by the Salvation Front, a group of Cambodian leftists dissatisfied with the Khmer Rouge, after the overthrow of Democratic Kampuchea, Pol Pot's government...
, as well as countries like Malaysia, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
and Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, whose representative exhorted the disoriented refugees to "go back and fight."
By 1981 Phnom Malai was not self-sufficient, the Khmer Rouge uniforms and weapons came from China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, channeled through the Thai military, and the food from markets across the border in Thailand.
In this period, the Khmer Rouge was able to rebuild its military, now titled the
"National Army of Democratic Kampuchea
National Army of Democratic Kampuchea
The National Army of Democratic Kampuchea was a Cambodian guerrilla force. NADK were the armed forces of the Party of Democratic Kampuchea , operating between 1979 and the late 1990s.-History:...
" (NADK), as well as its infamous ruling party, the
Communist Party of Kampuchea
Communist Party of Kampuchea
The Communist Party of Kampuchea, also known as Khmer Communist Party , was a communist party in Cambodia. Its followers were generally known as Khmer Rouge .-Foundation of the party; first divisions:...
(CPK), the sinister and shadowy "angkar", as the Party of Democratic Kampuchea
Party of Democratic Kampuchea
Party of Democratic Kampuchea was a political party in Cambodia, formed as a continuation of the Communist Party of Kampuchea in December 1981. In the mid-1980s it publicly claimed that its ideology was "democratic socialism," having ostensibly renounced Communism.-History:The dissolution of CPK...
.
By mid-1980s, with the cooperation of the West and China, the Khmer Rouge had grown to about 35 to 50 thousand troops and committed cadres.
Pol Pot
Pol Pot
Saloth Sar , better known as Pol Pot, , was a Cambodian Maoist revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 until his death in 1998. From 1976 to 1979, he served as the Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea....
lived in the Phnom Malai area, giving interviews in the early 1980s accusing all those who opposed him of being traitors and "puppets" of the Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
ese until he disappeared from public view. In 1985, his "retirement" was announced, but he kept hiding somewhere close by, still pulling the Khmer Rouge strings of power.
Phnom Malai was the location where in 1981 Pol Pot made his famous declarations denying guilt for the brutalities of the organization he led:
-
- [Pol Pot] said that he knows that many people in the country hate him and think he’s responsible for the killings. He said that he knows many people died. When he said this he nearly broke down and cried. He said he must accept responsibility because the line was too far to the left, and because he didn’t keep proper track of what was going on. He said he was like the master in a house he didn’t know what the kids were up to, and that he trusted people too much. For example, he allowed [one person] to take care of central committee business for him, [another person] to take care of intellectuals, and [a third person] to take care of political education.... These were the people to whom he felt very close, and he trusted them completely. Then in the end ... they made a mess of everything.... They would tell him things that were not true, that everything was fine, that this person or that was a traitor. In the end they were the real traitors. The major problem had been cadres formed by the Vietnamese.
The Khmer Rouge base complex at Phnom Malai was overrun by the PRK army during the 1985 dry season. Its headquarters were completely destroyed; the Vietnamese attackers suffered substantial losses during the attack. Pol Pot was able to flee across the border to Thailand, where he lived until his death in 1998.