45 See Steve Heder, ”Kampuchea’s Armed Struggle: The Origins of an Independent Revolution,“ BCAS 10, 4 (1978): 2-23; and Livre noir, pp. 71ff.

46 Taing Kim Men’s interview (June 1989). I am grateful to Kate Frieson for a transcription of this interview, which we carried out together. Taing Kim Men noted that Sar’s bodyguards were ”minority people. When they spoke Khmer, I could hardly understand a word.“ Men saw Saloth Sar again in 1977, when Men was working near Pech Nil. Pol Pot visited his work site in a white Toyota van ”that looked like an ambulance.“ Pol Pot remembered him from their previous meeting and called out to him”affectionately“

47 Author’s interview with Thiounn Mumm. I am grateful to Ian Cummins for tracking down the Axelrod quotation for me. Compare Pol Pot’s eulogy for Mao Zedong, September 18, 1976: ”He dedicated his physical, moral, and intellectual strength to revolution. His whole life was dedicated to the revolutionary struggle“ (FBIS, Daily Reports, September 20, 1976).

48 I am grateful to a Cambodian official for providing me with access to these texts in 1990. They are dated October 1975 (1 set); November 1975 (1 set); January 1976 (1 set); February 1976 (3 sets); March 1976 (7 sets); May 1976 (2 sets); and June 1976 (2 sets). See also ”Decisions of the Central Committee on a Variety of Questions,“ another text from March 1976, in Chandler, Kiernan, and Boua, eds. and trans., Pol Pot Plans the Future, pp. 1-8. Ben Kiernan obtained the Khmer original in 1986. The fate of documents recording Central Committee meetings after June 1976 is unknown, but the possibility that they were culled by the Vietnamese after January 1979 should not be dismissed out of hand.

49 Ka prochum achhimtray thngai 9-10-75 [Meeting of the Central Committee permanent (group), October 9, 1975].

50 I am grateful to Steve Heder for identifying these figures.

51 See also minutes of meeting held on November 2, 1975, dealing in part with relations with Thailand. Biographical information on more than one hundred guards at S-21, the DK interrogation facility in Phnom Penh, suggests that most of them”entered the revolution“ immediately before or after April 1975 and underwent brief courses of political training before being assigned to S-21. More than half of these guards came from dombon 25.

52 See Chandler, Kiernan, and Boua, eds. and trans., Pol Pot Plans the Future, pp. 1-8; and notes from Central Committee meeting of March 12, 1976.

53 See the minutes of the standing committee meeting on March 11, 1976. On the DK constitution, see David P. Chandler, ”The Constitution of Democratic Kampuchea,“ Pacific Affairs (Fall 1976): 506-515; and Becker, When the War Was Over, pp. 218ff. For Sihanouk’s account, see Prisonnier des khmers rouges, pp. 97ff.; and FBIS, Daily Reports, February 8, 1979: ”I resigned as Head of State in April 1976. After trying to make me reverse my decision, they kidnapped me.“

54 See the minutes of the standing committee meeting on March 8, 1976: Ompi pannyha boh chnaot 20—3—76 [On the difficulties of the March 20, 1976, elections].