TNAG-1066-FCO40-1316-Human-rights-in-Hong-Kong-1981 — Page 205

E/CN.4/1503

Annex II page 22

63.

As

a further step towards levelling society, private households were practically abolished in 1977. All meals had to be taken in communal kitchens, thus virtually eliminating Indeed, families were frequently split, the family life. children being taken to work away from their parents' influence. Schools had in any case been closed, most teachers liquidated.

64.

run by a Reports indicate that the local communities were tripartite leadership consisting of an appointed village presi- dent responsible for gathering security information about the people under his surveillance, a vice-president for economic affairs and a member in charge of social affairs. Order was enforced by Khmer Rouge troops stationed in camps located between co-operatives, by local informers within each co-operative and by the authority of the local leaders. In the general atmosphere of fear which prevailed, partly accounted for by dissensions and purges within the ranks of the Khmer Rouge, implications that people were easily expendable discouraged resistance and usually made the mobilization of troops unnecessary.

65. People were engaged not only upon the rehabilitation of devastated stretches of the countryside and upon seasonal work of planting and harvesting, but also upon a new system of hydraulics introduced by the Khmer Rouge in defiance of the well-tested traditional methods. The wholesale destruction of centuries-old dykes was to make the country much more vulner- able in times of heavy rains. In 1976 and 1977 floods, followed by drought, diminished the yields of two successive crops. Economic hardship thus went hand in hand with the suppression of religion, education and indeed all that represented the former society, including traditional songs, festivals and modes of dress.

66. Meanwhile, border tensions with Viet Nam had caused increasingly serious military clashes, and escalated to Viet Nam's military action of December 1978 and the change of govern- ment in Phnom Penh. From this time on, tens of thousands of people were to be forced along by the retreating Khmer Rouge forces into the mountainous regions to the west of the country. Throughout 1979, armed struggle and social upheavals precluded planting and opened the way for a widespread scarcity of food, aggravated further through the dislocation of the collective system by the reuniting of hundreds of thousands of dispersed families who attempted to return to their former villages.

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