Phnom Penh - Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot (72) is unrepentant for the genocide committed under his regime which is believed to have killed as many as two million Cambodians, a Hong Kong-based magazine said yesterday. "I came to carry out the struggle, not to kill people," he says in an exclusive interview with the Far Eastern Economic Review today. "Even now, and you can look at me: Am I a savage person? My conscience is clear."
However, Pol Pot did admit his movement had "made mistakes" during its 1975-79 rule, but said he and the Khmer Rouge leadership had been forced to take action by Vietnam.
"Naturally, we had to defend ourselves," he said in his first interview in 18 years. "The Vietnamese . . . wanted to assassinate me because they knew without me they could easily swallow up Cambodia."
The Khmer Rouge was driven out of Phnom Penh in January 1979 and into the jungle by the Vietnamese army after Hanoi complained of border incursions by Pol Pot's troops.
Pol Pot also denied the existence of the Khmer Rouge's notorious Tuol Sleng or S-21 detention centre in Phnom Penh, saying it was an invention of Vietnamese propaganda. In addition, he blamed Hanoi's agents for almost all the deaths during the Khmer Rouge period, including the victims of mass starvation, but said estimates of millions dead were too high.
The number of Cambodian refugees seeking shelter in Thailand from factional fighting at home has risen to 60,000, the Thai military said yesterday.