January 28, 2013
PHNOM PENH (AFP) - Khmer Rouge cadres who shunned money in their pursuit of a Marxist utopia discarded hundreds of dollars in favour of a pair of underpants when they detained a US journalist, a court heard Monday.
Veteran US photographer Al Rockoff described the 1975 incident while
giving evidence at Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court, which is
trying former leaders of the fanatical movement.
Rockoff said that when he was briefly detained by the regime along with
fellow journalists including Sydney Schanberg, a stash of greenbacks
proved the lesser temptation for the cadres who searched their bags.
"One
Khmer Rouge held up a big wad of hundred dollar bills in one hand and
Sydney's underwear in the other. He put the money back in the blue hand
bag and kept the underwear," Rockoff said.
"I guess the money had no value at that time to him," he said.
Rockoff was testifying at the trial of top former regime leaders about
the Khmer Rouge's mass evacuation of Phnom Penh in April 1975 -- one of
the largest forced migrations in modern history.
Under the regime -- which abolished money -- more than two million
people were expelled from the capital at gunpoint and made to march to
rural labour camps.
Led by "Brother Number One" Pol Pot, who died in 1998, the Khmer Rouge
wiped out nearly a quarter of the population through starvation,
overwork or execution during its 1975-1979 rule.
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