(8 Jan 1998) T/I: 11:32:52 GS 10:27:57
Pol Pot is alive and not well in the Khmer Rouge stronghold of Anlgong Veng. A videotaped interview - shot Sunday (4/1) in Anlgong Veng - with Pol Pot disproves last week's reports that the former Khmer Rouge leader had been taken to China for medical treatment. The interview was only the second one in 18 years that Pol Pot has granted to an outsider.
In the recording Pol Pot appears extremely weak and Cambodia analyst David Ashley, commenting in London on the interview, said the architect of Year Zero and the killing fields admits that he is politically finished and believes his life is almost at an end.
SHOWS
ANLGONG VENG, THAI/CAMBODIA BORDER - 04/01
NO ACCESS JAPANESE BROADCASTERS.
00.00 WS Pol Pot walking, supported by aides.
00.08 MS Pol Pot walking, supported by aides.
00.15 SOT Pol Pot (in Cambodian) saying he is on his own and gets few visitors apart from the odd family member
RESTRICTIONS END.
LONDON, UK - 08/01
00.29 WS David Ashley, Khmer Rouge expert.
00.34 CU Ashley's hand
00.36 SOT Ashley (in English) saying: "He doesn't want to talk about that period. The only things he says are in general terms, that throughout his career he only fought against the Vietnamese to stop Cambodia being swallowed by the Vietnamese."
00.50 CU Monitor screen showing Pol Pot.
00.52 CU Ashley PAN across to monitor.
00.55 SOT Ashley (in English) saying: "He looks very weak he does look very ill he continually complains in the interview about his health, about problems with his eye. He's blinded in his left eye. He says that he's had heart palpitations in the last month and his health is deteriorating. And he says, for what it's worth, that his life is almost at an end.
ANLGONG VENG, THAI/CAMBODIA BORDER - 04/01
NO ACCESS JAPANESE BROADCASTERS.
01.19 WS Pol Pot walking with aides.
01.23 MS Pol Pot getting into car.
01.44 VISION ENDS.
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