So after listening to "Holiday in Cambodia" by the Dead Kennedys not too long ago, I began to want to explore "The Killnig Fields" again.
Which got me into other movies about Cambodia during the dark days of the Khmer Rouge back in the latter half of the 1970's. And that is how I learned about this particular movie.
What makes this one unique is that it is, more or less, an amateur film. But it actually interviews people who took part in the killings.
Yes, it features interviews with people who actively took part in the killings, and who some people would view as war criminals and crimes against humanity. This includes Nuon Chea, the number two ranked official of the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot had been known as Brother Number One. Nuon Chea was known as Brother Number Two.
Hearing this, you cannot help but think of George Orwell and the infamous "Big Brother" who was watching over everyone. The benevolent dictator, so to speak. Pol Pot and Nuon Chea were portrayed almost as family, watching over everyone and having everyone's best interests in mind. For the most part, Nuon Chea looks like a harmless old man. You likely would not look at him twice if you came across him back in those days in Cambodia. Yet every now and then, as he explains the doctrine by which some of the most grievous crimes in the 20th century were perpetrated, you get a glimpse of a man with a stony expression and no flexibility - and little to no apparent remorse.
Communist regimes in world history have been known to go to extremes. Notoriously, the Soviet Union had the punishing gulag system, and millions of people were killed specifically under Stalin. East Germany had the Stassi, one of the most efficient and feared secret police in the world. China had millions of people die during Mao's "Great Leap Forward."
Yet, the Khmer Rouge was even more extreme in it's vision of implementing policies intended to produce a "pure" society. First of all, it emptied the cities of all people. Some people referred to this as "death marches." Everyone was relocated to the countryside, to what would come to be known in time as the "Killing Fields." They did not believe in modern amenities, so there was no economy, no real market, and no money. Any intellectuals were regarding with extreme skepticism and were often killed. Even the appearance of intelligence, like wearing glasses, could prove dangerous and single people out as targets to be eliminated.
We hear the word "angkar" in most of these movies regarding this era in Cambodian history. It is the Cambodian word for "the organization," which took the form of the leaders of the group taking order from above in the rice fields. While the specifics regarding what happened in Cambodia are very different than elsewhere, this is one little bit of familiarity. Crimes against humanity are generally dismissed as people simply following orders from above.
The worst area for the killings, or the area with the most concentration of killings and crimes during the genocide, is in the northwest of Cambodia. This is where most of the killings took place. And it targeted ethnic minority people, in an extreme, crazed vision of creating a "pure" Cambodian state. Crimes and immense suffering and mass killings were perpetrated in Cambodia. Yet, we hear Nuon Chea blaming Americans, blaming the Vietnamese, and the enemy from within, those in Cambodia who were supporters of the Vietnamese (roughly at 41:09). Everyone is at fault except, of course, for himself and the leadership of the Khmer Rouge.
Of course, he stresses that it was not a kill first policy. No, the policy was first to try and re-educate them. These people were given two or three warnings to stop their treacherous activities.
Next, they would be required to present their revolutionary personal history and to make self-criticism. Show their allegiance to the Revolution and the greater cause.
If that didn’t work, they would then be expelled from party.
After all of that, if this behavior still not was corrected, Nuon Chea says “they had to be solved. These people were categorized as criminals.”
What did they do? How was this done?
Again, Nuon Chea explains:
“They were killed and destroyed. If we had let them live, the party line would have been hijacked.
"They were enemies of the people.”
So what did Nuon Che ultimately think of Pol Pot’s decision kill all traitors?
In his own words:
“At the time I agreed. I just wanted to get the problem solved. It was the correct solution.”
When asked by the movie maker whether it would not have been better to have these violators jailed rather than imprisoned, he states simply that this is a matter of opinion. He explained the urgency of the moment, at least as he saw it. The country was in danger of being taken over by Vietnam.
Again, this notion of purity comes up. We are basically asked to accept that all of the crimes were by outsiders: Americans, Vietnam, and agents within Cambodia who supported the Vietnamese outsiders. Thus, outsiders themselves. In other words, threats to the pure vision of this new Cambodian revolution, which was creating a just society without exploitation or oppression.
That, at least, is what Nuon Che and other high-ranking Khmer Rouge leaders claimed. Again, he explains a little bit more in detail.
First, they needed to defend the nerve center of the Party.
Secondly, they needed to solve the problem and stop the rot from spreading.
Then he pauses to explain:
“Who decided to kill these people? It was Pol Pot who made the decision. As for the ordinary people, neither Pol Pot nor I knew they were killed.”
This feels like a mixed bag. Indeed, there might technically be a kernel of truth there, one which Nuon Che clearly grasps onto in order to deflect accusations of being responsible, of being guilty.
Yes, neither he nor Pol Pot could possibly know everyone, specifically, whom they ordered killed. Yet, does that really divorce them of the responsibility for ordering the killings? Are they perhaps innocent because they could not possibly know all of the estimated two million people who were killed during their time in power?
He then returns to talking of Pol Pot, specifically about sweeping out traitors:
“We had to solve the traitor problem in the way we did so it didn’t get out of control and infect the innocent people lower down. So we dared to conclude our decision was correct. If we had shown mercy to these people the nation would have been lost.
"We would research, not arrest people randomly.
“I have feelings for both the nation and the individual. But I clearly distinguish between them. If we must choose one or the other, I choose the nation. The individual I cast aside. They must be solved first”
“I’ve always said I made mistakes. I am regretful and I have remorse. I am sorry for our regime, I am sorry. We won the war, we beat the enemy but then we were defeated. The people were left still poor and suffering."
By now, we begin to feel that we understand how the leaders of the Khmer Rouge justified their actions. But if it is unclear, we see Nuon Che reacting to the footage of another dictator being hanged. At first, he seems to have a difficult time believing that this is actual footage of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein being hanged. At the time that the movie was made, all of this had just happened. So it was at first difficult for him to believe that this really was actual footage of the hanging. But once he accepts that it is real, he has this to say:
“This was the end of a patriot in an unfair society. In spite of his arrest he showed he was a winner, not a loser.”
Quite an unusual stance regarding Saddam Hussein. While I myself was always opposed to the invasion of Iraq, I also, like most people, recognized that Hussein was a monster. That he used chemical weapons on his own people, and was a brutal dictator with a horrific history of human rights abuses. So while people like me were less than thrilled about the whole U.S. invasion of Iraq, that hardly meant that we were suddenly sympathetic to him, much less viewed him as some kind of a hero. To hear someone else seemingly glorifying Saddam Hussein and referring to him as a patriot and a winner felt strange. Yet, it also helps to understand how he could have helped to orchestrate the massive crimes which he was at least a large part of in Cambodia.
Of course, not all of the subjects in this movie are of high-ranking Khmer Rouge officials. In fact, three of the men who actually got their hands dirty and did the killings participated in the interviews to make this movie. Like Nuon Che, most of them at first seem hesitant to admit to having done anything wrong. Over time, however, they come to admit their role, and then describe the killings. Describe the places, the circumstances, and yes, often, explaining that they were merely following orders. That they themselves tried to resist, but went ahead once their families were threatened. They did what they had to do, in other words. How much of that is true or now is part of the debate.
One of the men gives a demonstration of the physical act of the killings. A plastic knife is used, and nobody is actually killed. Yet, the now old man - decades removed from the actual killings - seemed to get back into the practice easily enough. From behind, he roughly grabs the man's face and then puts the plastic, non-lethal knife to the throat. No, it is not an actual killing, but we certainly get an idea that it likely did not look far off from this. It was one of the most disturbing parts of the film.
Towards the end of the movie, these three farmers are brought to meet Nuon Che, or Brother Number Two. They instantly recognize him and view him as the venerated leader, an almost sacred man, seemingly, to them.
After the praise, however, they begin to express their fears for their roles in the killings.
The ambiguity of how such mass killings - such genocide - could have happened, and who specifically gave the orders, is then explained:
At roughly 1:10:00 into the movie, the uncertainty of it all is explained as to how these killings were ordered:
“It might have been from the district level or even the regional or even as high as the Zone. Zone level means the central committee level but then people said, “No, not from the Centre. Then I heard it reached Pol Pot. People kept pointing higher and higher. No one was found responsible.”
Does that not resemble the defense by high-ranking Nazis at Nuremberg?
However, Nuon Che comforts these men. He thanks them, praises them for being patriots true to the vision of the Party, before explaining the whole thing to them:
“They are not after people like you. Their accusations are against me. Am I right? But that’s okay. I have already fortified my spirit. I will talk about it at the court to open their eyes. Who killed Cambodian people. It was USA and Vietnam. Not Cambodian killing Cambodian, right?”
“We tried our best to serve the nation and the people. Especially poor farmers. We preserved the country and stopped it falling to the hands of the enemy. You were the fighters. You should be proud. You know the word “proud?” It means one is happy with oneself. You had no intention, you were just following orders.
“So according to Buddha’s teachings, you need fear no punishment. If there is no intention, there can be no sin, you understand? You did not have the intention, therefore you did not commit any sin. You can start life again."
Thus, we get a strange mixture of Nuon Che somehow managing to explain away any sense of his own responsibility while also making sure that these men can be at peace with themselves, even after the crimes that they have committed. Crimes which Nuon Che and Pol Pot ordered them to do, of course. But there is the sense that, at least for Nuon Che, everything is okay. He even explains it according to Buddha's teachings, which the horrors of the Khmer Rouge apparently were in complete accordance with, at least according to him.
However, the final part of the movie reveals that these men are not so easily or quickly comforted. They go back to some of the rice paddies and what now is generally known as the Killing Fields." It is nighttime now, and they go by torchlight. It seems, on the surface, to be a relatively peaceful, benign scene.
Yet, these men are clearly bothered. Not fully comforted by Nuon Che's rationales, they seem to still be haunted by the guilt of their actions. We hear one of them explaining:
“I don’t know what I’ll be reborn as in the next life. How many hols of Hell must I go through before I can be reborn as a human being again? I feel desperate, but I don’t know what to do.
“I will never again see sunlight as a human being in this world. This is my understanding of Buddha’s Dharma. I feel desolate."
There is a final mention of one disturbing practice: sipping the fluids from a human gall bladder. They describe the taste, and each of them uses the same word: it is bitter.
And that is how this disturbing film concludes.
One other thing: also towards the end of the movie, the interviewer finally reveals to Nuon Che that his own family - every single member - was killed during the darks days of Khmer Rouge rule in the country. Nuon Che hardly seems shocked, and actually sounds gracious towards his interviewer. Is this real sadness, or just an appropriate act to make him appear in a better light?
Such a determination is ultimately up to the viewer.
Now, this is not a happy movie. This focuses on a very disturbing chapter in history. Yet, it is a chapter in history that remains mostly in the shadow. Most people do not seem to know much about what happened in Cambodia in the late 1970's, during the days of the Khmer Rouge regime. But this film goes a long way to shedding light on that very dark chapter. And it was not done with a big budget or big names, or a massive Hollywood production. Just one guy with a camcorder, who took time off on his own to try and make a movie that would help keep history alive.
To that end, it was very successful.
This movie is highly recommended to anyone who wants to learn more about the Khmer Rouge, or genocides more generally. Indeed, you really do get a picture that there is a universality to how these things can happen, whether it is in the rigidly cold Soviet Union, or Nazi Germany in the middle of Europe, or in the African Bush in Nigeria or Rwanda, the desert of South Sudan, or in the ride paddies of Southeast Asia.
I believe that this shows what average people can do, or can make, if they are truly determined to do a thing. What a movie!
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