Thet Sambath interviews Nuon Chea

It is estimated that between 2 and 3 million people were killed by the Khmer Rouge before North Vietnamese troops put an end to the carnage and the regime in 1979. Unlike several other films that deal with mass atrocities (Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman’s Nanking of 2007 being one of them), Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath’s 2010 documentary Enemies of the People makes an attempt to answer “why?” 

The film details a multi-year journey by Phnom Penh Post writer Thet Sambath to conduct interviews with Khmer Rouge cadres and leaders, with the objective of recording on film their reminiscences of killing. Sambath’s own family was killed by the Khmer Rouge, a fact he refuses to disclose to #2 Khmer Rouge official Nuon Chea until their final interviews. As Sambath notes several times in this documentary, his aim is not to seek revenge, but to gain a better understanding of how this genocide could have occurred in the first place. Readers of books such as David Chandler’s Brother Number One: a Political Biography of Pol Pot already know many of the gruesome details, such as the fact that much of the killing was done by teenagers taking orders under threat of being killed themselves. Sambath here interviews some of these former killers, now in their 50s and 60s, who express remorse and lead him to their superiors. 

Sambath’s interviews were successful, in part, because of his respectful socializing, referring to these older individuals as “uncle,” and painstakingly gaining their trust. Eventually, after years of visiting Nuon Chea’s house in the town of Pailin, Chea begins to disclose the political reasons for killing. It was to save the country from its enemies, he states, and no individual was more important than solidifying the country. He expresses no remorse, other than feeling sorry that Sambath’s family was killed. 

The film works well on the premise of being one man’s journey to understand the truth, and leaves the grisly footage of Tuol Sleng and the killing fields to the end. Many of today’s travelers to Cambodia wish to understand more of why this cataclysmic event occurred. Enemies of the People is an important document in the written and cinematic literature, an essential one to understanding how Cambodians today deal with a war upon its own people that has had an effect on every family in Cambodia.

Of his film, Sambeth says: “Some may say no good can come from talking to killers and dwelling on past horror, but I say these people have sacrificed a lot to tell the truth. In daring to confess they have done good, perhaps the only good thing left. They and all the killers like them must be part of the process of reconciliation if my country is to move forward.”