Philip SHORT
Pseudonym: TCE-65
Cases: Case 002/01
Category: Expert
Background and role
Philip Short is a British journalist and author of the book: “Pol Pot: History of a Nightmare”.
1
He testified as an expert in Case 002/01 on the structure of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), the evacuation of Phnom Penh and other cities, and the roles of Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea.
2
Short studied Natural Science and English Literature at Cambridge University and worked as a foreign correspondent for the BBC for many years.
3
He was stationed, among other places, in Moscow, Beijing, Paris, Tokyo, and Washington.
4
Since the late 1960s he wrote several history and biography books, with a focus on biographies of political leaders.
5
His biography of Pol Pot, “Pol Pot: History of a Nightmare”, was published in Britain and the United States in 2004 and translated into many other languages.
6
Philip Short´s work on Pol Pot and Democratic Kampuchea
Short met the Ambassador of Democratic Kampuchea (DK), Pech Cheang, when he worked in Beijing in the 1970s.
7
In September 1977, he covered Pol Pot´s first official visit abroad to Beijing and became particularly interested in what happened in Cambodia,
8
though he was not able to visit Cambodia during the DK period.
9
Around 1999, Short decided to write a biography of Pol Pot.
10
From this moment on he started to seriously study the history of Cambodia and dedicated around five years to this research.
11
He also personally interviewed Khieu Samphan and Ieng Sary.
12
Other resources for his book included American archival material,
13
interviews with contemporary witnesses, information he received while traveling in the area and talking to villagers,
14
and confessions of Tuol Sleng prisoners.
15
Structure of the Communist Party of Kampuchea
Short gave a detailed account of his findings about the establishment, structures, and policies of the CPK, including the structure of DK, and the historical and political context in Cambodia and the region.
16
According to him, as laid down in the CPK Statute, the Standing Committee was the central body to determine policy.
17
The Central Committee could be regarded as not much more than an echo chamber.
18
The military was also under the control of the Standing Committee.
19
A judiciary never existed.
20
Over time, decisions were increasingly made by Pol Pot and Nuon Chea.
21
In Short´s view, which the Chamber did not adopt, while Pol Pot solicited the opinions of other members at Standing Committee meetings and incorporated their remarks in his conclusions, “the policy that emerged was that which Pol Pot had essentially decided himself before”.
22
The Trial Chamber referred to Short´s testimony in several instances when establishing facts on the CPK party structure
23
and the structure of DK.
24
Evacuation of Phnom Penh and other cities
There was a unanimous decision taken by the CPK Central Committee in September 1974
25
to evacuate Phnom Penh and other cities as soon as they were liberated.
26
Short opined that the evacuations of smaller cities, and in particular Oudong,
27
could be seen as “test runs”, as “it was the success (of) what happened at Oudong, which convinced the leadership that this was the way they should go with Phnom Penh….”
28
When Khmer Rouge forces entered Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975, they told residents to leave the city because of expected American air raids. This explanation was knowingly false, and it was brought up to persuade residents to leave without many belongings.
29
According to Short, when talking to foreigners Pol Pot gave two contradictory justifications for the evacuation of Phnom Penh: the food shortage and security concerns.
30
Short found the explanation that the city was evacuated because of an imminent food shortage to be “untrue and wholly unconvincing.”
31
Short opined that the CPK´s collectivisation policy was also not the main reason for the evacuation of Phnom Penh.
32
In his view, the main reasons for the evacuation of Phnom Penh and other cities were to exercise control over the population,
33
as city dwellers were generally considered enemies:
34
The fact was that if the city people were scattered in the countryside and the networks among them were all broken, they were much easier to control and any possibility of resistance to Khmer Rouge policies was greatly diminished. So if you read rebellion in that sense, it's absolutely true. That was a key reason. Perhaps not the absolutely dominant reason, but it was a key reason for the evacuation of the cities.
35
The Trial Chamber referred to Short´s testimony in several instances when establishing facts on the movement of the population before
36
and after April 1975,
37
about the existence of a pre-established plan
38
and justifications
39
for the evacuation of Phnom Penh.
Killing of former Khmer Republic soldiers
Short claimed that it was a “common practice” of the Khmer Rouge to execute former Khmer Republic soldiers and civil servants, before
40
and after April 1975.
41
After April 1975, deception was widely used to lure former Khmer Republic officials and soldiers into revealing their identities.
42
The Trial Chamber referred to his testimony when establishing facts on the luring and killing of former Khmer Republic soldiers.
43
The Supreme Court Chamber found that the Trial Chamber should have used more scrutiny when assessing Short’s sources regarding the execution of Khmer Republic soldiers following the evacuation of Oudong.
44
Role of Khieu Samphan
On five or six occasions,
45
Short met Khieu Samphan, who was more willing to talk about the early years of his life as an intellectual, economist, communist, and journalist than about what happened during the DK period.
46
For him as a historian these accounts of the times that preceded DK period were extremely interesting as well.
47
Short opined that Khieu Samphan did not belong to the inner circle of the party and was “nowhere near a decision-making role”, but nonetheless was always close to that inner circle.
48
According to Short, when Khieu Samphan was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the FUNK, he was merely a figurehead, as the position did not involve any real power.
49
Nevertheless, this appointment might have reassured the Cambodian elite at that time. He noted that Khieu Samphan had a reputation of being a good and honest man,
50
and thus, his appointment might have been a key element for the fact that the “Cambodian elite stubbornly refused to see the writing on the wall”.
51
In 1973, Khieu Samphan became an associate member of the Central Committee, but according to Short, he did not have an important role up to 1976.
52
Khieu Samphan, over time, won Pol Pot´s trust, precisely because he could be relied on to do what he was told to.
53
He was never a member of the Standing Committee,
54
but he was close to it and therefore aware of what was going on.
55
Khieu Samphan had a significant role, just because he was a part of a very small group of people who were allowed in the Standing Committee meetings.
56
The Trial Chamber in many instances referred to Philip Short´s testimony when establishing facts on the role of Khieu Samphan in the CPK over the years of his involvement.
57
It agreed with Short that Khieu Samhan had an influential role, but slightly deviated from his assessment regarding the extent of Khieu Samphan´s decision-making powers, considering his close relationship with Nuon Chea, Pol Pot, and Ieng Sary.
58
Role of Nuon Chea
Short testified about the important role that Nuon Chea had in the CPK and his relationship with Pol Pot, which he found “difficult to describe”.
59
He believed that Nuon Chea was not a member of the Military Committee and not involved in military decisions during that period,
60
and that the claim that he was acting Prime Minister was “made up to confuse the Vietnamese”.
61
Overall assessment
Short opined that the strategy mapped out by the CPK Standing Committee in May 1975 posed an “insuperable problem for even the most sympathetic foreign observer”, not because of the content, but because of the way it was implemented.
62
He found the DK to be:
…a slave state in which people had no money, had no choice over their personal lives, over anything they did. Over where they lived, how long they worked, who they lived with, in many cases. All the tiny choices which make up our everyday lives were removed, were forbidden.
And this is the tragedy of the Khmer Rouge regime. They did it for the most excellent of motives, which was to raise living standards in the countryside, to eliminate the poor so that everybody had a reasonable standard of living. But the methods they employed, for policies – ... of autarky, of relying on agriculture, which were not in themselves stupid. These policies could be justified. But the way they did it made it hell on earth, and very literally a slave state.
63
Videos
