By the end of 1979, Pol Pot had emerged from hiding long enough to be photographed in a fortified camp in eastern Thailand. He remained in the area through the 1980s. In 1990 the camp was known as Office 87, echoing the code name “870” that had formerly designated the Central Committee. Occasionally, Pol Pot moved his headquarters into Cambodia. From these bases he supervised the rebuilding of the DK army.

When the fighting died down toward the end of 1979, more than 100,000 Red Khmer, perhaps half of them combatants and support personnel, had slipped or stumbled into Thailand, where they were housed for a time with mostly hostile Khmer refugees in hastily established refugee camps. By the middle of 1980, DK forces and those living under their protection had been regrouped into tightly disciplined camps of their own. As many as 300,000 Cambodian refugees from other camps were eventually granted asylum in other countries, and they set off to start new lives overseas. Roughly the same number drifted into the camps in the 1990s and were unable to find shelter in foreign nations. Those in DK camps were not allowed by their mentors to be interviewed for resettlement or even to leave the camps.

In some respects, Pol Pot’s time in hiding on the frontier echoed his briefer exile along the Vietnamese border from 1963 to 1965. On both occasions, he depended on foreigners for his survival, while Cambodian cadre visited him regularly for instruction and advice. The contrasts between the two periods are more important than their similarities. In 1963, holed up in Office 100, Saloth Sar had fewer than 20 people with him. Sixteen years later, he commanded the remains of a national army and perhaps 100,000 followers. In 1963-1965 he was a hostage of the Vietnamese, themselves absorbed in fighting a major war. After 1979 he was still dependent on foreign assistance, but it came from far more powerful and more prosperous patrons—China, Thailand, and the United States.