Memorandum from Brent Scowcroft to President Gerald R. Ford Regarding Life inside Cambodia

CONFINTLA-L 2 Virtually everyone has been made a member of a "production cooperative" and forced into agricultural work. To exert control over the population, the Communists have divided cooperatives into ten-man and ten-woman work groups. These groups are further subdivided into three person cells with the tenth person serving as group leader. Each person within a cell is responsible for the other two and should any one member flee, the remaining members of the cell may be executed. Work hours are from dawn to dusk and sometimes even longer. In one province people worked by torchlight after dark until 9 or 10 p.m., and slept at the work site so they could begin work early the next morning. Standards of health have declined drastically and disease is rampant. There are widespread epidemics of malaria, dysentery, and cholera in various parts of the country. Remaining medical facilities are open only to Communist cadre. Most doctors are no longer allowed to practice but are either forced into manual laboror executed. In several areas the family unit is being destroyed with children permanently separated from their parents and husbands and wives placed in separate work groups. The Embassy report concludes that Cambodia is under the control of a xenophobic collective leadership dedicated to attaining a radical change in the social, political, and economic makeup of the country in the shortest time possible. In its determination to achieve results, it appears willing to use any means possible. Other reports reaching us confirm the level of brutality which this Embassy Bangkok airgram portrays. FORD a CONFIDENTIAL