Pol Pot explains big exodus from cities

Press, 4 October 1977, Page 8

Pol Pot explains big exodus from cities

NZPA-Reuter Peking: The Cambodian Prime! Minister (Mr Pol Pot) has i said there have been a num-i ber of border clashes and blamed them on “enemies’, seeking to overthrow his i country’s communist Gov-' eminent. The New China News : Agency also quoted him as telling a press conference in. Peking that Cambodia’s' cities had been evacuated to force enemy spies into communis t-controlled rural areas, and that the 1970 coup that brought in the Lon Nol regime had given the communists the people’s support needed for their

i take-over of Phnom Penhp .five years later. ■ I Foreign correspondents in! i Peking were not invited to 1 ■jthe press conference held by I Mr Pol Pot during an offi- ■| cial visit to China that has i i been termed “a complete ! success” by both sides. I Mr Pol Pot said enemy . ; agents in Cambodia had iibeen smashed with the evaci. nation of the cities, and! ( those outside would not dare >to take "reckless actions.” . The movement of possibly! 1 millions of people to the ) countryside — coupled with! » reports of a huge death toll i — had long intrigued West- > ern analysts. r “This (the evacuation) was

I decided before victory was! |won, that is, in February! !1975, because we knew that before the smashing of all sorts of enemy spy organisations, our strength was not strong enough to defend the revolutionary regime,” ■N.C.N.A. quoted Mr Pol Pot |as saying. “Judging from the struggle waged from 1976 to 11977, the enemy’s secretagent network lying low in ,our country was very masj sive and complicated. But 'when we crushed them it ■ was difficult for them toj stage a comeback. Their forces were scattered in various co-operatives which are in our own grip”