At about this time the party’s Central Committee circulated a study document to cadre that gave details of an amnesty affecting many suspected enemies who remained at large. Those involved were people who had allegedly joined the CIA, the Vietnamese, and the KGB at various times in the past. In the topsy-turvy world of S-21, these nonexistent men and women, it was suggested, were known to the party, which was now prepared to forgive them. The amnesty affected different categories of offenders in different ways. Those who had worked for foreign intelligence services between 1946 and 1967—that is, between the beginning of the First Indochina War and the onset of armed struggle—were forgiven provided they had engaged in no traitorous activities since then. Those who committed offenses during the armed struggle (1967-1970) were similarly let off, as were those whose crimes fell between 1970 and 1975. In effect, the document amnestied people with connections to the Sihanouk and Lon Nol regimes. However, those who since April 1975 had “obstinately persisted in uniting to fight the Communist Party of Kampuchea, the workers’ and peasants’ state power, socialism or collectivism, who fought the Cambodian people and Democratic Kampuchea ... will be indicted, for they have chosen to join the traitors.” Those targeted were members of the party.20

For a regime that prided itself on “storming attacks” and “smashing enemies,” forgiveness was unfamiliar, but a commentary on the decree published in Tung Padevat provided a chilly rationale for slowing the purges and letting possible offenders off. People who had offended the party since 1975 and now agreed to “go all out to improve themselves and perform their tasks,” it seemed, would not be punished: “This is in accord with the Party’s line of saving human beings, because if we attack one [person, normally] it doesn’t affect just one, it affects four or five persons. We therefore want to increase the number of our friends while reducing the number of our enemies” (emphasis added).21 This unsettling passage corroborates the suspicion that arises from analyzing confessions at S-21 that perhaps three-quarters of the people brought there were indicted not for their activities but for their associations. Because of the small number of trained cadre in the Cambodian Communist party, the likelihood that members were acquainted with each other was high; knowing an enemy, or being related to one, was sufficient grounds for being put to death.

The Red Khmer may have thought that the amnesty would restore confidence in their regime by producing a sense of well-being that had been lacking. Perhaps they thought it would encourage people who disliked the regime to unite against Vietnam. A less generous reading would be that the amnesty was intended to flush out those enemies who, after being “forgiven,” remained counterrevolutionaries. Those who were genuinely innocent, in other words, had nothing to fear. For those who were guilty—thousands of moving, unidentified targets—it was only a matter of time.