Hunger and Theft Under Khmer Rouge

From Prisoners of Class: A Historical Memoir of the Khmer Rouge Revolution, by Chan Samoeun, tr. by Matthew Madden (Mekong River Press, 2023), Kindle pp. 378-381:

The Organization at the farm gives orders to stop the roasting of rice grains. Everyone who is permanently stationed at the farm is authorized to confiscate any pot, dish, pan, or other equipment used for roasting paddy rice. It is quieter than before, but some people continue to do it. They roast the rice in pots, kettles, or cans covered with a lid so that the popping can’t be heard from very far away.

Whenever they see anyone stationed at the farm coming near, they panic, sometimes picking up the pot or kettle they are using to roast and running away, sometimes abandoning it and saving themselves. I don’t make any effort to suppress this activity, for I know hunger the same as they do. Sometimes I sneak some paddy rice from stalks whose grains are still young and tender and chew on them. Sometimes I sneak grains of rice that have just sprouted on the rice stalks and chew them; sometimes I chew grains of ripe paddy rice raw; and sometimes I chew grains of milled rice or kernels of ripe corn I come across at the economy kitchen.

But some people take no pity on others, especially the young men who keep the oxen for trampling the rice at the threshing yard (the farm personnel help trample the rice that the mobile young women bring in). They act macho, walking around confiscating other people’s equipment to show off. They steal, they roast, but there is no one to catch them, for they are the catchers.

Now there is nobody who does not steal. Everybody steals according to their own abilities and opportunities. Some steal a little, others steal a lot; some steal secretly, while others steal openly.

The cadres steal a lot, and openly. They steal from the mobile units to bring back to the cooperatives. Nobody dares to see them stealing, and they don’t bother to hide it. They steal it openly, and the economy team prepares it for them.

As for myself, I steal secretly, and I steal “legally” (though of course there’s no such a thing as legal stealing) without anybody knowing that I am stealing. I appear to be very proper, when in fact I am a secret thief, stealing from the pigs. Some of the finer rice dust is eaten by the pigs, and some is eaten by me. Sometimes I roast it, and sometimes I eat it raw. As for the courser bits, before I pour the rice dust into the manger, I mix it with water in a bucket, then take my hand and stir its so that the broken rice ends and chaff ends settle to the bottom of the bucket, then pour out only the rice dust and water mixture into the manger. The rice ends are for me; I wash these many times with water to remove the chaff ends and cook them in the small pot left to me by the late Bong Yong. So long as there are any course rice ends in the rice dust, I get some rice ends to eat every meal. The pigs don’t know that I’m stealing from them, as they are animals; they are ignorant; they are stupid. They only thank me and love me for bringing them rice to eat every meal and for hauling water for them to bathe in. But if they did know, they wouldn’t dare object, for I am their cadre. I have the right to beat them, to deprive them of food, to cut off their rations.

Some days I sneak a chicken egg and the hen doesn’t dare squawk at me, as I am her master. But if there are other chickens with her, even if I am standing right there, she will chase them all over, pecking and attacking them mercilessly. Perhaps this is a case of “being angry at the cow and smiting the plow.”

Oh, how nice to be a cadre! Even if only the cadre of the chickens, ducks, and pigs—still it is a great way to live.

In summary, apart from the chickens, ducks, and pigs, everybody is a thief. So why is it necessary to catch people stealing, if you are also a thief? Some people want to catch others to hide their own deeds, to improve their own ability to steal.

But it is hunger that has taught people to fight for survival. The higher-ups give orders to confiscate equipment used to roast rice grains, and a number of dishes, pots, and kettles are taken away by them. But the stomachs remain hungry as before, unchanged.

How great is this hunger? Very great! So great that a sated person could never understand or even imagine it!

Even without dishes or pots, people sit around the fire, take out the paddy rice grains they have hidden in their pockets, and place them on the ashes of the fire with small coals hiding beneath. The roasting grains pop and fly onto the dirt, and they pick them up one by one, place them on the palms of their hands, and clean them off by blowing on them puff puff and then plop them into their mouths. Is this not the behavior of a hungry person? And is this not stealing? Why not come and confiscate the coals as well?

Khmer Rouge vs. Religion

From Prisoners of Class: A Historical Memoir of the Khmer Rouge Revolution, by Chan Samoeun, tr. by Matthew Madden (Mekong River Press, 2023), Kindle pp. 411-412:

Every aspect of faith—religion, neak ta [tutelary deities], ghosts, demons—has been erased. The monks have all been defrocked and forced out of the priesthood to live as laymen. All wats and temples have been abandoned and converted into pig farms, warehouses, and granaries, or torn down completely in some cases, like the temple in Wat Trapeang Thmor.

But some temples possess great power and cause peril for those who tear them down. I hear that this was the case when the Organization ordered the tearing down of the temple in Wat Chey in the town of Phnom Srok.

A story is told: One day Comrade Hat, the chairman of Phnom Srok district, ordered someone to tear down a neak ta shrine. The man was hesitant because he had known the power of the neak ta, but he did not dare to argue with the decision of the Organization. Perceiving the reticence of the man, Comrade Hat secretly followed him and spied on his activities. Carrying a hatchet and a crowbar, the man walked to the neak ta shrine, knelt down, placed his palms together and reverenced the neak ta, and said out loud, “Comrade Hat has ordered me to take down your shrine. If you are displeased, please take it out on him!”

Understanding the mindset of the people, Comrade Hat showed himself before the neak ta and stopped the man from tearing down the shrine. In fact, during the war, the Khmer Rouge soldiers all followed gurus and carried protective magic amulets such as chae kach [small elephant tusk embedded in a tree], khnay tan [boar's tusk], katha [prayer scroll] necklaces, yoant [magical drawing] scarves, etc. That is to say, they also believed in and reverenced supernatural objects. Now the senior levels of the Organization have given them orders to erase these beliefs, and they have to comply, but in their feelings they are still uneasy, still frightened, especially when they hear that the people who follow their orders place the responsibility for it on them.

Khmer Rouge Division of Labor

From Prisoners of Class: A Historical Memoir of the Khmer Rouge Revolution, by Chan Samoeun, tr. by Matthew Madden (Mekong River Press, 2023), Kindle pp. 330-332:

We may have finished our tasks at one worksite, but the work of the Revolution has no end, and there is no time for rest. To rest from revolutionary labor is to rest from eating; that is, to die. So long as we still live, there is revolutionary labor for us to perform at all times. The people in the cooperative villages are no different from those of us in the mobile units. When one assignment ends, another assignment begins: plowing; transplanting; harvesting; threshing; clearing land to make fields; planting tubers, taro, sugar cane, corn, and beans; building paddy dikes; digging canals; sowing; transplanting…

The old men who cannot walk far, lacking in strength, plant tobacco and vegetables; raise chickens, ducks, and pigs; watch fields; weave kanhchraeng, kanhcheu, chang’er, l’ey, and bangky baskets; and repair and make oxcarts, plows, and harrows. The old women watch small children, raise silkworms, weed and care for mulberry orchards, weave silk, card silk, spin silk, weave kramas [a traditional cottage industry in the area], etc. Everywhere is like everywhere else: there is no end to activities, and nobody ever complains that there is not enough work or that they have nothing to do.

...

1976 was a period of harsh oppression in terms of revolutionary work and discipline. The Revolutionary Army was busily engaged in activity at the worksites. The chhlop [informer] units would collect intelligence at nighttime to get a feel for the mentality, stance, and viewpoint of the young men and young women toward the Revolution. Many young men and women from the mobile units were taken away to be clubbed to death at night, near the base of the causeway, just for reminiscing about songs from the old society, being perceived as resistant to revolutionary labor, not respecting the Organization’s appointments, etc.

It was also in 1976 that my next younger brother Samat was taken from the hospital and killed. Friends who used to work with him think, some of them, that my brother was killed because of viewpoints incompatible with the cadres in charge, while others think that my brother was killed for taking something that belonged to somebody else. Which of these opinions is true? It’s all very unclear, all speculation. The truth, the plain reality, is that my brother was arrested, his arms tied behind him, and marched away to be killed. These circumstances, dying by being taken away and clubbed to death, is the legacy of all Life Slaves. Nobody laughs at anyone, and nobody sneers at anyone. Each person thinks only of working to redeem his own life.

Water Outranks the Khmer Rouge

From Prisoners of Class: A Historical Memoir of the Khmer Rouge Revolution, by Chan Samoeun, tr. by Matthew Madden (Mekong River Press, 2023), Kindle pp. 308-310:

The sun is very hot, and water vapor rises from under the layer of dead leaves up into the sky, so that you can see the hazy waves. The sky is cloudy, and the air is still, and we each feel like suffocating. Now and then, someone gets dizzy and passes out, so everybody is pulling hair and pinching skin [to revive each other].

We wait expectantly for the people we secretly sent out looking for water, who don’t return until at least noon, and for the water truck whose shadow is nowhere to be seen. Oh, holy angels above, why such bad karma? If they want to kill us, why don’t they just kill us quickly? Why leave us to suffer such drawn-out agony? If they spare us in order to work, why don’t they provide adequate rice and water? As for food, when they starved us to the point of measuring and distributing dry rice with a spoon, we still worked hard, following the directions and the rules of the Revolution without daring to do anything that could be called a reaction against the Organization’s leadership.

Now we see clearly what is the thing which can make us forget about work and the Organization’s disciplinary line; what can make us forget death from failing to obey the Organization’s orders. We don’t want to die, but we are all dying, dying from despair of living.

If we endure working even another hour, we will pass out and fall over dead, one by one. If we stop working and rest, we can live for another three or four hours waiting for the water truck. If the water truck shows up within this time, we will live! But if they take us away to kill us while waiting for help, what of that? No, nobody can take us away to be killed now, as the unit leaders and soldiers are all as thirsty as we are; and even if they weren’t thirsty, the twenty or thirty of them don’t have the ability to kill the tens of thousands of us in the space of just two or three hours.

Right now, the unity of our unit is equal to when we were raising the dams at Trapeang Thmor. We are all united in sitting down and lying down and watching the road for the water truck. Ever since we started to live in this revolutionary society, many people have been taken away to be killed because of hunger, from daring to steal paddy rice, milled rice, corn, or tubers; but nobody has dared to put up any resistance. Now people do dare: they dare to go on strike and refuse to work, a strike without any preparation and no leader.

No, this strike actually does have clear leadership. The leader, who is as strong as life itself, is Thirst. Water has blocked the wheel of history from rolling forward for an hour now. Water is powerful! More powerful than human life! More powerful than the Revolution!

Khmer Rouge Great Leap Forward

From Prisoners of Class: A Historical Memoir of the Khmer Rouge Revolution, by Chan Samoeun, tr. by Matthew Madden (Mekong River Press, 2023), Kindle pp. 263-266, 269:

But then we reach the Great Leap Forward offensive, and the mode of working changes. When the work first began, only Ta Val’s brigade and the district young men’s and young women’s units kept working twenty-four hours per day. They would take shifts both day and night, one unit up and another down. But starting in early April, all of the units begin to work both day and night, and there are no more individual allotments.

...

In one day and night there are three shifts. In my unit, the men and women take turns working at night. Because of this, the working hours are not the same. The men start work at six o’clock in the morning and continue until eleven or noon, then take a lunch break. In the afternoon we work from twelve or one o’clock and take a dinner break at six o’clock. At night we work from ten o’clock until three in the morning. We have two chances to sleep at night, from seven to nine thirty, and again from three thirty to five thirty in the morning. In total, in one day and one night, the men work for sixteen hours and sleep for four and a half hours.

The women begin work at four o’clock in the morning and work until eleven o’clock or noon. In the afternoon they work from noon or one o’clock until six o’clock. At night they work from seven to ten o’clock. The women sleep only once per night, from ten thirty at night until three thirty in the morning. In total, in one day and one night the women work for sixteen hours and sleep for five hours.

...

When the sky is bright and clear, the economy team (cooks) carry rice and water to us at the edge of the pit. During the transplanting season, we were so hungry for rice. We wanted to eat rice so badly! The word rice would make our mouths water like dogs that have seen a piece of meat. But now, the word rice has a different meaning, a bitter flavor. If they weren’t afraid that we wouldn’t have the strength to dig and haul dirt, we wouldn’t have rice to eat. Now they give us abundant rice. Leftover rice is thrown out because the economy team doesn’t even have time to dry it.

But it isn’t rice for which we hunger now, it is sleep. We can’t get enough sleep. But nothing is up to us to decide. We have neither time nor rights to think about anything. The Revolutionary Organization is the one who does the thinking, who resolves everything. We have only our strength to do the labor, and that is sufficient for them; they are content with that.

We drop our hoes, baskets, and yoke poles in one spot, and then we each untie our own bags and take out our bowls and spoons, dish up our rice, and sit around the soup pot and try to swallow, try to chew, but without heart, and without daring to prolong the moment. We can barely finish eating the rice before we must rush to pick up our hoes and baskets and get back to work right away.

The Organization tells us, “People can rest, but the hoes, bangky baskets, and yokes must never rest!” Dear God! Each person has one hoe, one yoke pole, and one set of bangky baskets. If a person rests, how is the equipment supposed to keep moving? This kind of language makes us all shrink in fear, not daring to rest or take time to eat.

...

It’s not only the unit cadres who watch over us personally and supervise our work activities; clandestine chhlops from the region work among our units as well. Their presence intimidates us, and we work hard without daring to converse with one another. They come to assess our mentality toward the work and toward the leadership of the Party. Every thoughtless utterance which they perceive to be an objection to the Revolution is a danger to our lives. They can take you away without even telling you what you have done wrong. They take you away secretly. Only the people in your unit will know that you have been taken away to be killed; other units will have no idea.

How many people have already been taken away and killed at this worksite? Nobody knows. My older sister tells me to be cautious. A few people have already died in the special unit just for saying, “Gee, this rice looks a bit spoiled.” They were dragged away immediately and clubbed to death beside the base of the dam.

The economy unit rises to cook the rice in the middle of the night. They cook a pot and dump it into a large basket, then another and another. Because the earlier rice and the later rice are all piled together, sometimes this causes it to take on a sour, spoiled smell. Saying that the rice is spoiled means that you are not pleased with the Party, that you are hindering the work of the Revolution.

The fragility of life fills us all with terror! Each of us works to appease Yama so that he will spare us to live another day.

...

If you are too lazy to work, the Organization says, “To keep you is no gain, to remove you is no loss,” and the Organization will take you away and club you to death. Actually, we Life Slaves don’t dare be lazy, as we are afraid to die. We do whatever they want us to, so long as they don’t kill us.

Domestic Abuse Law in China, 2011

From Seeing: A Memoir of Truth and Courage from China's Most Influential Television Journalist by Chai Jing, trans. by Yan Yan, Jack Hargreaves (Astra House, 2023), Kindle pp. 88-90:

In 2011, Kim Lee, an American citizen, posted a picture on the Internet in China. In it, her ninety-kilogram husband rode on her back, pulling on her hair and smashing her head into the ground. After he’d struck her over ten times, she sustained injuries to her head, knees, ears, and more. Her husband was Li Yang, a Chinese celebrity who’d founded a famous English-language education brand. They used to work together.

The day the assault occurred, Kim needed her husband’s help with paperwork. She wanted to take their three children to the United States to visit her mother, but her driver’s license and teacher’s certificate were expired. Li Yang said he didn’t have time to provide the assistance she needed because he was only at home two days a month, otherwise occupied with touring the country. After arguing for several hours, he screamed, “Shut your mouth.”

Kim said, “Everything in my life is under your control, you can’t tell me to shut my mouth.”

When he held her hair and pinned her head to the ground, he shouted, “I will end this once and for all.”

Had it gotten any more serious, he later admitted, “I might have killed her.”

For the first time, it made the violence in elite urban families public and caused a strong social reaction. Kim refused to give any interviews, but when Old Fan sent her the footage we’d shot at the women’s prison, she agreed to talk to us. “I did not know that there were so many women living like this in China. If I stay silent, who will be there to protect my daughters?”

In the footage, I asked the female inmates, “When you testified in court, did you talk about the domestic abuse you suffered?”

They all said no.

No one bothered to ask them. The murder of a husband by an abused woman was considered ordinary murder, not “self-defense,” because it did not occur while the abuse was “ongoing” and the “abuse” was not considered a long-term process. During questioning, when an inmate wanted to talk about how her years of marriage had been, the prosecutor would interrupt her: “Are we here to listen to your life story? Get to the part where you murdered someone!”

After being assaulted, Kim Lee reported it to the police. A police officer tried to dissuade her: “You know, this isn’t America.” She said, “Of course, but there must be a law in China that says men can’t go around beating up women.” He said, “You’re right, men can’t beat up women, but husbands can beat up wives.”

No Peace Dividend for Japan's Navy

From Geography and Japan's Strategic Choices: From Seclusion to Internationalization, by Peter J. Woolley (Potomac Books, 2005), Kindle pp. 145-147:

While Japan’s participation in UN operations constituted a dramatic change in defense policy, it was not the only change. A number of unforeseen circumstance were converging in the post-Cold War age, some in Japan’s favor, others not.

In the early 1990s predictions abounded that the U.S. economy would falter without the huge Cold War expenditures on defense. But after a brief recession in 1992 the U.S. economy boomed while it was the Japanese economy that stalled. The stock market was depressed, GNP stagnated, and commercial bank debt mounted to alarming levels. The United States sought a “peace dividend” from the Cold War’s end and cut defense spending. Japan did not.

While the United States drew down its navy, its intelligence operations, and its active duty army divisions, Japan continued to spend at its Cold War pace for several years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. By 1994 its defense budget had increased in constant dollars by almost a third over what it was in 1984. In 1995, the government made some cuts not because it apprehended a favorable change in the strategic environment but because the economy was stalled and the budget pressures were irresistible. Even so, the cuts were minimal. The maximum number of troops authorized for the ground forces was cut to 145,000 from 185,000. Since the GSDF only employed 150,000 and not the maximum of 185,000, the effect of the cut was small. The maritime forces retired the oldest vessels and gave up the equivalent of just one escort division consisting of a few destroyers and some antisubmarine aircraft. The air forces eliminated one F-4 fighter squadron. Not only did Japan not draw down its forces significantly but its relative strength in force stood out all the more starkly against the background of international change in defense postures—the most significant being the deterioration of Russia’s Pacific fleet.

For many years the old Soviet fleet continued to be regarded in official reports as large and potent but unofficial reports suggested otherwise. Sailors were underfed and in ill health, while ships were undermanned. Many had left or deserted the service and had not been replaced. Supplies, including fuel, had become tenuous and supply officers corrupt. The ships deployed less and less frequently and confined their exercises to local waters. Repairs were not made as spare parts were scarce. Not only were some ships not sea-worthy but some had sunk at their moorings. Since it takes many years and great efforts to build an effective navy, it was less and less likely that the Russian fleet could recover. By the end of the decade, Japan had sixty principle surface combatants compared to forty-five for Russia’s Pacific fleet. Neither fleet had an aircraft carrier.

As the demise of the Russian fleet became more obvious, analysts scrutinized Chinese naval forces more closely. Many suggested that China had hegemonic ambitions and its naval force, the PLAN, was growing quickly. The U.S. assistant secretary of defense asserted, “the Chinese are determined, through concealment and secrecy, to become the great military power in Asia.”