Ghna Chapter 2 Summary

Chapter two
2.1 - The tasks of monks imposed by the Khmer Republic (1970-1975)
Although the government policy of the Lon Nol government was not described in Buddhist terms, the regime played a major role in the politicization of the Sangha. The government used the various groups of monks in three ways. First, monks were used to counter communist propaganda of the FUNK. This happened particularly in the provinces Pursat, Svay, Rieng, and Takes. Monks who spread the Republic message were either persuaded by the regime or joined the ‘holy war’ voluntarily. The regime used especially ‘pliant monks’ for this task because those could be convinced with little persuasiveness. The monks and officials had to spread slogans like ‘If communism comes,

The evacuated ‘new people’ were deployed for growing rice and they were told insult such as: ‘Keeping you is no profit, losing you is no loss’. New people had considerably less right than base people. The former were not allowed to vote for the National Assembly election in March 1976. On the other hand, base people were allowed to vote. This scission is also visible in the tasks which different group of monks were assigned. The former group of patriotic monks, who had peasant backgrounds, became the so-called base monks. The monks remaining in the cities became known as the ‘new monks’. This group was evacuated when the Khmer Rouge conquered cities. They had to walk long distances without food and after this walk, they had to disrobe and were put to work. Due to the view that base monks had more revolutionary potential and that they were less of a threat, this group was merely targeted a few months later. Around July 1975, they also had to disrobe and work in the rice