Besides physical brutality, the most important means the Khmer Rouge use to control the country are propaganda and mind control. They boast that rice yields are better than ever and that workers sing joyful songs in the fields when in reality both the rice and the workers are dying. When a poor yield is acknowledged, it is not due to overworking the soil and poor planning by the leaders, but because of the laziness and bad character of the workers. When the war begins, the country’s official radio station proclaims that Democratic Kampuchea is routing the Vietnamese; in reality, the Khmer Rouge are losing more ground every day. The soldiers in the camps never tell anyone outright that they are going to be executed; they ask them to help move a cart stuck in the mud or that they are going to get some medicine.

Year Zero is a concept the Khmer Rouge use to indicate that 1975 is the first year in the country’s new history. Arn hears the term for the first time in the children’s work camp: “Every day, the Khmer Rouge tell us we have to forget the past. This is Year Zero, they say; nothing has come before.