Cash woes may spell end for butchers

Entering Khmer Rouge territory is like walking into the heart of a most peculiar dream.

Stunted adults in torn green uniforms emerge from behind piles of rotting logs to stare and sneer. Many are crippled and missing a leg, an arm or an eye. Children in red scarves scamper through the mud that bogs down rusting tanks, buses and diggers, oblivious to the young soldiers toting guns nearby.

You cannot help but wonder at what a strange, marginalised existence the average foot-soldier in the world's last Maoist rebellion must have led in the Thai border jungles that steam just beyond the clearing.

As Khmer Rouge families defect to the Cambodian Government or flee to Thai border camps as fighting continues, new light is slowly emerging on the way they have been forced to live in recent times.

Few outside the leadership had any idea what Pol Pot looked like or who exactly was in charge, but all respected the 'organisation'. Justice for those not willing to fight, persistent thieves or prostitutes could be swift and brutal. Executions were not uncommon. Others were kept exposed to the sun in cramped cages.

'We knew we were different, but we had our own form of civilisation,' said defector Hom. 'There was order and you could live safely as a family. Not everything was bad about Khmer Rouge morality.' More is also being learned about the present leadership under such shadowy figures as Ta Mok, the one-legged veteran known as 'the Butcher', Noun Chea and Khieu Samphan, for years the group's public face.

Internal documents recently published by the Phnom Penh Post suggest a cold, paranoid leadership. They portray radicals with little grasp of reality under increasing pressure - men still eyeing another crack at ultimate rule. The Cambodian Government of Hun Sen, the Vietnamese and even the Khmer Rouge's resistance allies are all targets for hatred.