Former KR Intellectual Expresses Contrition

The first time Mey Mann met a pleasant fellow named Saloth Sar was during a one-month
boat trip in 1949, when the two were head­ed to France as winners of a scholarship to study abroad. In France, while Mey Mann was studying to be a construction engineer and Saloth Sar was pur­suing a degree in radio electricity, the two became involved in the

communist movement. It was a heady time as they both were swept up in the fight to liberate their country. Looking back at those times, Mey Mann, now 80, says he never should have gotten involved with Saloth Sar, later known by his rev­olutionary name Pol Pot. And he never should have joined the movement that became the Khmer Rouge, blamed for the deaths of more than 1 million Cambodians.

"I regret very much what I did; Mey Mann said Sunday during at interview at his son's Phnom Penh home. "I joined the movement because I thought something good would come out of it. Bu finally, it turned bad and now nr name is connected to a bad thing." Mey Mann, who lives in Battambang, never held a high position in the Khmer Rouge regime spending the 19779 years as ; farmer in Prey Veng and Battambang provinces.

It was only in 1980 that he held a position in Democratic Kampuchea, as second deputy director of the Cambodian Red Cross, which was headed by Ieng Thirith, the wife of former Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister leng Sary. In 1985, he joined the Site 8 refugee camp along the Thai border. Most of Mey Mann's work for the Khmer Rouge came before the revolutionaries took power in 1975.

In his five years in France, Mey Mann was part of the circle of Cambodian stu­dents that produced some of the leaders of the Khmer Rouge, including Ieng Sary. Mey Mann said he saw Pol Pot only a few times a year in France at communist meetings. "He was very gentle, very friendly and fair, "Mey Mann said of Pol Pot. "But at that time, I didn't think he would be­come the leader because there were others who were more active than him."

Pol Pot was the first of the stu­dents to return to Cambodia, in 1953, and was given the task of analyzing the various movements that were established to fight for independence. This included the Vietminh in the Indochinese Communist Party-comprised of Cambod­ians, Vietnamese and Laotians and the Vietminh-backed Khmer Issarak Association, according to Mey Mann.

"Finally Pol Pot chose the Vietmint " Mey Mann said. "When I came back to Phnom Penh, seven other students and I decid­ed to follow Pol Pot." Mey Mann went to Prey Veng's Kamchay Mear district where the Vietminh base was lo­cated. Pol Pot and Tou Samouth, who became party secretary of Khmer Issarak in 1960, were also at the base. But there was little to do as the Vietnamese communists did most of the work, and Mey Mann returned to Phnom Penh a few months later.

After Cambodia won indepen­dence in 1954 with the Geneva a Vietnamese cadre who became the first Vietnamese ambassador to Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge regime. In his public life, Mey Mann worked in a factory and in secret, he worked on communist propa­ganda and rallied the people, telling them to go to the jungle to liberate Cambodia. He sent medi­cine, maps and correspondences to resistance forces in the jungle, while Pol Pot hid Vietnamese cadre in Cambodia-a marked difference in Pol Pot's later atti­tude toward the Vietnamese. Pol Pot eventually became paranoid about a Vietnamese invasion, which later led to the long years of fighting between the Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese troops.

"I didn't like what Pol Pot was doing because the Vietnamese were illegal immigrants." Mey Mann  said. "And I don't know why Pol Pot ended up   hating the Viet names so much after he helped them. Maybe he saw things he didn't like when he worked with the Vietminh. "When Mey Mann saw his work culminate in the April 1975 victory of the Khmer Rouge, he was rewarded by being forced to leave Phnom Penh along with the rest of the city's population. "I worked for them for a long time, but in the end, they kicked us out," he said "Then many of my friends were killed, and my three sons were killed. Mey Mann and his nine children were moved first to Prey Veng. In 1977, his family was "moved to Battambang, where his sons were killed.  

"I always heard people crying and imploring someone not to kill them," Mey Mann said. As the fighting between the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge intensified, Mey Mann moved in 1978 to Malai, which was to become a Khmer Rouge strong­hold after the Vietnamese ousted the Cambodian cadre in 1979. In 1980, Mey Mann became a Cambodian Red Cross official and was the Democratic Kampu­chea representative to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cult­ural Organization. He saw Pol Pot once a year for meetings until 1983.

In that year, Pol Pot asked Mey Mann what he saw during his years in the countryside during the Khmer Rouge rule and what mistakes were made during that period. "I told him that we had two major mistakes," Mey Mann said. "One was we had a principle that we wanted all people to be clean and pure in the same way. Our second mistake was we devel­oped too fast, and that's why the Khmer Rouge had to flee to the border. "Poi Pot said nothing and just smiled, but I think he was angry," Mey Mann said. "I didn't talk to Pol Pot again after that "When Mey Mann joined the refugee camp, he disassociated himself from the Khmer Rouge. After the 1991 Paris Peace Ac­cords, Mey Mann began working

                                                                                AND THET SAMBATH

• Windfall for oudong landowners
• Meeting focuses
• Cambodian Artifacts 
• Lost and Found 

• Hun Sen Says
• French Group Urges
• Cambodia's Last Polio Victim

• Odong Land Protected

• New Smakers

• Minister of Cabinet
• Introduction