Of the hundreds of Cambodian refugees I interviewed since 1975, writes H. Kamm for @nytimes, not one could give a definite answer to the question of who the leader is. Most have heard the names of two or three [Pol Pot, Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan], 1 or 2, some none.

Former Thai Foreign Minister Maj Gen Chatichai Choonhaven seals a deal with the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh for his company to fly daily flights between Bangkok and Siem Reap to carry tourists to the famous Angkor Wat temples.

China is helping the Khmer Rouge to build an airfield near Phnom Penh capable of handling both jet fighters and bombers having an estimated 20,000 advisors and technicians in Cambodia, reports the Far Eastern Economic Review. Radio Phnom Penh asserts that a member of the “Monong national minority” in Vietnam had accused Hanoi of being ‘the crudest exterminators of the national minorities.” (It is a very rare that the Khmer Rouge officially recognise a minority group by name)

Vietnam’s official daily Nhan Dan says “no amount of Chinese aid could save the Khmer Rouge Government which was on the verge of a total collapse”. “The fate of Cambodia will not be decided by China but by its people, who bitterly hate the Khmer Rouge”. https://t.co/6LDii3dcJN

“Like Australia, both Japan and the US are repelled by the violations of human rights taking place in Cambodia, but regional ‘balance of power’ politics oblige them to see that Cambodia is preserved as an independent state, free from🇻🇳domination”, writes FEER. The Vietnamese Army newspaper, Quan Doi Nhan Dan, rejects charges by Khmer Rouge Prime Minister Pol Pot that Vietnam was preparing a major offensive against Cambodia and called his regime “the most odious henchmen of the Chinese authorities.”