Open-Air TVs Show Pol Pot to Cambodians

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia —  Huddled shoulder to shoulder, some on tiptoes, market vendors, shoppers and taxi drivers crowded around the TV monitor to look at the man blamed for the deaths of more than 1 million Cambodians.

Boys and girls stood open-mouthed, eyeing the feeble, white-haired man--a bogeyman from horror stories suddenly become real.

Those old enough to remember him cried out in amazement: “That’s him! That’s him!”

The footage of toppled Khmer Rouge chief Pol Pot, obtained by a cameraman with American journalist Nate Thayer, was broadcast Tuesday on TV monitors in Phnom Penh’s central market and at the historic Wat Phnom temple.

ABC, which purchased the film, set up the monitors for its “Nightline” show to watch how ordinary Cambodians reacted to their first sight in 18 years of the secretive guerrilla, who is believed to be 69. The footage showed a humiliated, broken Pol Pot being tried by his former Khmer Rouge comrades Friday and sentenced to house arrest for life.

Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, killing hundreds of thousands of people by starvation, overwork and systematic execution in a quest to transform the nation into a Marxist agrarian utopia. Invading Vietnamese forces eventually ousted Pol Pot, sending him and his followers into the jungles to continue their guerrilla war.

Most passersby ignored the show Tuesday. Cambodians have endured years of conflicting rumors about the guerrilla leader’s whereabouts and even his death and in general are more worried about survival in a country still suffering the aftereffects of his reign of terror.

The emotions of those who did stop ranged from surprise to desire for a real trial, rather than the spectacle the Khmer Rouge held to publicly distance themselves from their longtime chief.

“I hate him. I wish they would just kill him,” declared a taxi driver who identified himself only as Savoeun.

Ke Chandara, 35, a motorcycle taxi driver, said he was surprised that anyone--even the Khmer Rouge--could catch and try Pol Pot, a nightmare figure of magical stature to most Cambodians.

Ke Chandara, who said his father’s fingernails were torn out by the Khmer Rouge, agreed with others that the trial and punishment were not legitimate and that Pol Pot should be tried by a U.N. tribunal.

“There’s no nation on Earth that killed its people in such a cruel way as Pol Pot,” he said.