23 The party itself was a moving target. An interrogator at S-21 noted in 1976:”The Party changes rapidly and frequently; [it] changes the prisoners we have to interrogate, the way of making up documents, the methodology of interrogation. We must adjust to the system in time, leaping along with the movement“ (quoted in Chandler, Tragedy, pp. 287—288). Similarly, a 1977 Tung Padevat editorial demanded:”How are good, average, not good, risky, strong and not strong [cadre] to be judged? They are to be judged by the movement ... [and] the masses will know when something is wrong that it isn’t the Party, but this or that individual not putting into practice the Party line“ (Tung Padevat, [October-November 1977]: 37; Heder’s translation). Heder, in his ”Khmer Rouge Opposition“ likens the process of analyzing data from Tuol Sleng to ”toying with a kaleidoscope, turning a jumble of data around and around in combinations until some patterns emerge that look like they might reflect something real.“

24 For a discussion of the staff at S-21, see Chandler, Voices from S-21, Chapter Two. Over seventy S-21 workers were purged between 1976 and January 1979. Their confessions are of special interest. On Duch, see Chandler, Voices from S-21, Chapter Two; Vickery, Cambodia, 1975—1982, pp. 151-152; and Becker, When the War Was Over, pp. 272-273. In 1971 the French scholar François Bizot was detained for three months by the CPK near Udong. During that time, he was made to prepare three detailed autobiographical statements of the sort that later formed the bases for S-21 confessions. His interrogator was Duch, who impressed Bizot as ”a man of principle“ completely devoted to the revolutionary cause. Author’s interview (July 1989).

25 See Chan Chakrei’s confession; and Chatupom nei paenka yothea 76 [On the nature of the 1976 military plan], dated June 6, 1976. Heder’s argument, contained in”Khmer Rouge Opposition to Pol Pot,“ is that although hundreds of prisoners were accused of being pro-Vietnamese, hardly any pro-Vietnamese sentiments or statements supporting the Vietnam Workers’ party surface in the texts. It is possible that soldiers in Division 170 mutinied in large part for better living conditions and the right to get married. See Vietnam Courier, ed., Kampuchea Dossier II (Hanoi, 1978), p. 65; and Steve Heder to author (letter of August 1991). For a discussion of the 1976 purges, see Chandler, Voices from S-21, Chapter Three.

26 See Keo Meas’s confession (September-October 1976).

27 See Ney Saran’s confession (September-October 1976). The fact that only one copy of the memoranda survives in the S-21 archive suggests that they never left the prison.

28 See Non Suon’s and Sien An’s confessions. Suon’s contains biographies of several party leaders, including Pol Pot; this is reproduced as Appendix 1. See also Hak Sien Lamy’s confession (December 1976), which claims knowledge of Vietnamese plans to attack Cambodia militarily by the middle of 1976.