“What We Are Doing Was Never Done Before” – Interview with Leng Sary, 1978

Since April 1975, Kampuchea has been ruled by communists almost under total exclusion from world publ
-icity. Refugees tell of a barbaric “stone age socialism” with hundreds of thousands of victims, but up to now
none of the Kampuchean leaders have commented on such tales. Now, for the first time, Vice-Premier &
Foreign Minister Ieng Sary has given his point of view to the Western media about the principles of the new
regime. Spiegel: Minister, it is now two years that you have been in power, and the world hears only terrible
news from your country. What kind of society are you building?

Leng Sary: There is no example for the revolutionary experiment of the Khmer. We intend to achieve some
-thing that has never been materialized in history, for there are no models—neither the Chinese nor the
Vietnamese models are applicable to us. We are reorganizing the country whereby we use agriculture as
the basis. With what agriculture can achieve, we will build an industry which will in turn serve agriculture.
The Khmer people have experience in growing rice throughout the centuries, and we will have to begin
with rice cultivation. 80% of Kampucheans make their living from agriculture.

Spiegel: How many inhabitants are there in Kampuchea?

Leng Sary: We have just completed a census throughout the cooperatives. According to it, there
are 7,760,000 inhabitants in Democratic Kampuchea. 80% of the people are under 35 years of age.

Spiegel: When the people have returned to the rice fields, what are you going to
do with the towns? Are you going to leave them to the jungle like the old Angkor?

Leng Sary: Not at all. The towns will remain. We only want to bring them back to human dimensions.
After the initial evacuation, the towns are now again populated. Phnom Penh has today 200,000 in-
habitants; Kompong Som, 50,000; Battambang, 20,000. The parts of the towns that are unpopulated
are now being changed into industrial areas. The walls of the town’s buildings are being pulled down
and small factories are built in their place.

Spiegel: You are supposed to have abolished money in Kampuchea, and
supposedly private property no longer exists. How does such a society function?

Leng Sary: It is still too early to broadcast what we are doing in our country. As we do not copy other
models, we have to learn by experimenting. We started in 1973 in the liberated zone with agricultural
cooperatives. Now we have cooperatives all over the country. The large ones embrace 2,000 families;
the smallest, 50. The cooperatives are the units that deal with the people’s needs, e.g., rice distribution
and living quarters.

Spiegel: And how is the agricultural situation?

Leng Sary: Naturally, we still have some great difficulties, but after the war years we have already done
a great deal in the reconstruction of the country. The railway lines between Phnom Penh and Kompong
Som, as well as Phnom Penh and Poipet on the Thai border, are usable and are open again. All the
people have taken part in huge canal-building works. Rice production in 1976 was higher than in 1975.
This year will produce a surplus of rice for export for the first time. As for the rice supply, we are self-
sufficient. As a result of the war, we still have malaria and other diseases, but there is no more starvation
—not even in parts of the country where people starved before the war. Many factories have resumed
work; others have not, e.g., the refinery at Kompong Som.

DS: And what is the price in human lives that you have paid to achieve this?

Leng Sary: During the war, our side lost at least 600,000 people, plus all the wounded and disabled.
The first months were very hard after the liberation of Phnom Penh. Between 2,000 and 3,000 people
died during the evacuation of the town, and several thousand died in the rice fields.

DS: But refugees report the execution of hundreds of thousands, mainly former military personnel and
functionaries of the Lon Nol regime. According to recently published books by the Frenchman François
Ponchaud and the Americans Anthony Paul and John Barron, the number of people killed in Kamp
-uchea since April 1975 has been estimated at at least one million.

Leng Sary: These people are crazy! Only the hardest criminals were executed. At the time
of the liberation of Phnom Penh, the former soldiers discarded their uniforms and mixed into
the civilian crowds. They work as well as everybody else nowadays. Do you know, one day
when I visited a co-operative, a farmer recognized a former major who was working in the
rice fields. The farmer accused him of being a criminal and demanded his execution. But the
co-operative stated that after liberation he had behaved himself and worked well, and that
he should be spared. This major still works there as a farmer.

DS: Have you introduced re-education courses for former military personnel?

Leng Sary: No, we did not do it like in Vietnam. We did not put people into camps
but left them with the co-operatives. The group looks after them. Why should we
have killed all these people? We need an enormous workforce to rebuild the country.

DS: Refugees report that you deported people for forced labor.

Leng Sary: But no! How can people work when they are forced? We achieved good results
because people saw the necessity for such work, and the revolutionary leaders and soldiers
set good examples and worked alongside them.

DS: And how do you educate the Kampucheans of tomorrow?

Leng Sary: In Democratic Kampuchea there are elementary schools where children enter at age
five. These schools are located in co-operatives and factories, where the pupils study for two to
three hours daily as well as gaining experience in manual work. The high schools are located in
the districts, and there the pupils both study and work. With the exception of medicine, which is
taught in municipal hospitals and medical centers, there is as yet no college-level study.

DS: There is concern about the fate of Prince Sihanouk. It is said that he was executed or woun
-ded when he tried to flee the palace and fought the Khmer Rouge. What really happened to him?

Leng Sary: He lives and resides in the former royal palace. After his resignation, he asked to leave
and go abroad. We made it clear to him that it would not be in the country’s or his own interest. Had
he left, he would not have been considered a patriot, but a kind of Kampuchean Bao Dai.