PHNOM PENH: A rare survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime's main
jail told Tuesday how torturers ripped out his toenails and gave him
electric shocks to try to make him confess to being a CIA agent.
Former mechanic Chum Mey told Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes
tribunal how he pleaded for his life as he was tortured for 12 days and
nights at the 1975-1979 communist movement's Tuol Sleng detention centre.
The 63-year-old is the second survivor to give evidence at the
trial of prison chief Duch, who is accused of overseeing the torture and
extermination of 15,000 people who passed through the facility.
Chum Mey said he had been working at a sewing machine factory in
1978 when he was brought to Tuol Sleng to be tortured on suspicion of
espionage.
"While I was walking inside I said (to a guard), 'Brother,
please look after my family.' Then the person kicked me on to the ground,"
Chum Mey said, adding the man swore at him and told him he would be
"smashed".
Chum Mey told judges he was photographed, stripped, handcuffed
and yanked by his earlobes to interrogators.
"They asked me to tell them the truth - how many of us joined
the KGB and CIA," Chum Mey said, referring to the Soviet and US intelligence
agencies. "I told them I did not know any CIA or KGB. Truly, I did not know
those terms."
He went on to describe how interrogators beat him as he pleaded
for his life, and proceeded to torture him for 12 days and nights.
He trembled in pain after they removed his toenails and heard
"some sort of sound" after they electrocuted him, he said.
"The method used was always hot. It was never cold, as Duch has
said," Chum Mey said, describing degrees of torture.
Earlier in his trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity,
the 66-year-old Duch begged forgiveness from the victims after accepting
responsibility for his role in governing the jail.
But he has consistently rejected claims by prosecutors that he
had a central role in the Khmer Rouge's iron-fisted rule and says he never
personally executed anyone.
Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998, and many believe the
tribunal is the last chance to find justice for victims of the communist
regime, which killed up to two million people.
- AFP/yb
Copyright © 2009 MediaCorp Pte Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Learning to Teach About the Khmer Rouge
By Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer
Original report for Washington
29 June 2009
Education officials this week are learning how to teach more history about
the Khmer Rouge regime, as a course from the Documentation Center of
Cambodia gets underway.
In a one-week course that began this weekend, 24 officials from the Ministry
of Education will hear from genocide experts and receive training from a new
manual designed specifically for teaching about the regime.
Cambodian students have until recently learned very little about the
traumatic period in their country’s history, and studies indicate they
sometimes learn little from their parents about it.
“Our teaching [on the Khmer Rouge regime] is unique compared to teaching on
this genocidal topic in other countries 40 years ago or in the last
century,” Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center, told VOA
Khmer. “Our teaching is to teach Cambodian victims to become educators, and
we don’t narrowly concentrate on our country.”
Among the trainers are David Chandler, professor of history from Monash
University and a well-regarded historian on Cambodia, Ros Chantraboth, a
Cambodian historian, George Chigas, associate director of Yale University’s
Cambodia Genocide Program, and Dy Kham Boly, the author of “A History of
Democratic Kampuchea.”
“In this teacher’s manual we organize the teaching chapter by chapter,” Dy
Kham Boly said. “Students are asked to read survivors’ accounts and later
role play.”
Tuon Sa Im, secretary of state of the Ministry of Education, said that the
24 officials trained next week will then transfer their knowledge to history
teachers at Cambodia’s junior high and high schools. The ministry hopes to
finish training teachers by 2010.
Loung Ung’s Blog is proudly powered by WordPress
Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).
Original report for Washington
29 June 2009
Education officials this week are learning how to teach more history about
the Khmer Rouge regime, as a course from the Documentation Center of
Cambodia gets underway.
In a one-week course that began this weekend, 24 officials from the Ministry
of Education will hear from genocide experts and receive training from a new
manual designed specifically for teaching about the regime.
Cambodian students have until recently learned very little about the
traumatic period in their country’s history, and studies indicate they
sometimes learn little from their parents about it.
“Our teaching [on the Khmer Rouge regime] is unique compared to teaching on
this genocidal topic in other countries 40 years ago or in the last
century,” Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center, told VOA
Khmer. “Our teaching is to teach Cambodian victims to become educators, and
we don’t narrowly concentrate on our country.”
Among the trainers are David Chandler, professor of history from Monash
University and a well-regarded historian on Cambodia, Ros Chantraboth, a
Cambodian historian, George Chigas, associate director of Yale University’s
Cambodia Genocide Program, and Dy Kham Boly, the author of “A History of
Democratic Kampuchea.”
“In this teacher’s manual we organize the teaching chapter by chapter,” Dy
Kham Boly said. “Students are asked to read survivors’ accounts and later
role play.”
Tuon Sa Im, secretary of state of the Ministry of Education, said that the
24 officials trained next week will then transfer their knowledge to history
teachers at Cambodia’s junior high and high schools. The ministry hopes to
finish training teachers by 2010.
Loung Ung’s Blog is proudly powered by WordPress
Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).
Responding to genocide: The role of institutions
George Chigas
In the aftermath of genocide, what are our primary objectives?
In the aftermath of genocide, our responses should be guided by two interrelated objectives. The first deals with the plight of individual survivors, primarily in terms of what is called “the process of healing.” This involves attempts to restore the survivor’s sense of self-worth and trust in others that were severely diminished during the genocide but are necessary for normal life. Affirming the truth of the genocide, the guilt of the perpetrators and the innocence of the victims are integral elements of this process. The second objective deals with issues of truth and justice on communal, national and international levels. This often manifests itself in efforts to fulfill the elusive promise of “never again.” Here, we find initiatives to build civil society, the rule of law and historical memory, both within the country where the genocide took place and on an international level. Both of these objectives are ongoing and unrelenting, and fully achieving them is perhaps impossible. Most survivors never fully heal or achieve “closure” in the aftermath of genocide. And the threat of future genocides is never fully vanquished.
What’s at stake as we pursue these objectives?
Despite the tremendous challenges to achieving our objectives, the stakes couldn’t be higher. For survivors, what’s at stake is the ability to exert some degree of control over the traumatic events that can disrupt their personal and family lives in very fundamental ways, from the ability to sleep at night to the ability to experience love and happiness. For the larger society (i.e., those who did not directly experience the crimes of the genocide), as well as survivors, what’s at stake has to do with our fundamental belief in the goodness of humanity and our capacity to prevent or at least deter what Raphael Lemkin identified as humanity’s most evil crime.
How effective have we been at achieving our objectives?
In the aftermath of genocide, we have seen survivors and members of the larger society, such as politicians, lawyers, academics, therapists, activists, concerned citizens, etc., working together to further the process of healing and the cause of justice. Despite our best efforts, however, our ability to further these central objectives has consistently fallen short. As the ongoing genocide in Darfur , Sudan , sadly attests, genocides continue to take place with alarming frequency and severity, and the growing number of survivors debilitated by traumatic experiences is in the tens of millions. Yet, genocide is an extremely complex problem that is as old as humankind, and our organized efforts to address these problems are relatively new. As far as we may have come over the last fifty years, we clearly have a long way to go. As we attempt to improve the effectiveness of our responses to genocide, we must constantly ask ourselves what helps and/or hinders our efforts to pursue our objectives and how does this happen.
How do institutions affect our efforts?
One conclusion that I keep coming back to is this: although the results of our efforts (both good and bad) are ultimately realized on a personal level, they are usually enabled and supported (financially, organizationally and otherwise) by established institutions (e.g., political and judicial systems, universities, foundations, publishers, etc), which, in turn, fundamentally help and/or hinder our individual efforts. It stands to reason that the more aware we are of the way these institutions influence our individual efforts, the more effective we will be in pursuing our ultimate objectives. As we consider how political, legal, academic and literary institutions influence our efforts to further the process of healing and the cause of justice, one of the first things we observe is the way these institutions function according to rules, priorities and conventions that are not always consistent with our objectives. In order to understand this better, we will look at each of these institutions in turn beginning with political institutions or governments.
How do political institutions (e.g., national and international governmental organizations) help our efforts to further the process of healing and the cause of justice?
Political institutions affect our efforts more than any other institution because they provide the overarching framework in which we conduct our activities. Without the support of governments it would be very difficult to obtain the necessary permission, financial and legal support, security, etc. to conduct our activities. Thus, political institutions exert the first and perhaps most profound influence on our efforts and have the greatest potential to help or hinder our objectives.
How do political institutions hinder our efforts?
Most people would agree that a government’s first responsibility is to safeguard its nation’s security and socio-economic interests. However, depending on its specific strategies for pursuing these objects, a government’s policies can prohibit or severely limit our efforts to further the process of healing and the cause of justice. The rationale for these policies can cover a wide range. At one end of the spectrum there may be a general disregard for victims and justice as the state single-mindedly pursues its political and economic priorities. At the other end, there may be a genuine attempt to take into account the needs of victims and the cause of justice as it attempts to safeguard its nation’s security and socioeconomic interests. For the most part, however, governmental priorities have historically subordinated the needs of victims and the cause of justice to the nation’s so-called strategic and national interests thereby hindering our efforts.
What can be done to minimize the extent to which political institutions hinder our efforts?
Until very recently, the needs of survivors and the cause of justice were seen to be in competition with the state’s vital interests. According to this thinking, a state must choose one or the other; you can’t have both. However, this assumption is being seriously challenged, and a new political perspective is emerging. Samantha Power has written extensively about the US government’s responses to genocide in the 20th century, arguing that the needs of survivors and civil society did not figure highly in an administration’s political calculus because the general public did not make responding to genocide more costly politically than the risks (e.g., economic, political, military, etc) inherent in responding to this most heinous of crimes. Darfur is instructive here as well. Since 2003, widespread public response to the genocide in Darfur , Sudan , has shown how organized public demands for effective government response to genocide that prioritizes the needs of victims and the cause of justice can change the political calculus. To wit, for the first time in history, an acting head of state has been indicted for the crime of genocide as it is taking place. Slowly but surely, the political framework for responding to genocide is being reconfigured as the cause of justice and the state’s vital interests are no longer seen to be in opposition. According to this argument, they are in fact directly linked, such that you can’t have one without the other. In a promising development along these lines, the new Obama administration, has argued that a state can be true to its ideals without compromising its security or national interests. This position represents an important and significant departure from traditional policies based on realpolitik. In terms of our discussion here, this shift in priorities has significant implications for the extent to which political institutions can help or hinder our efforts in the future.
How do legal institutions help our efforts to pursue the process of healing for survivors and the cause of justice?
While all of the institutions discussed here are important and necessary in different ways, legal responses can potentially provide the greatest direct help to our efforts to pursue healing and justice. It is important to note that in practice legal systems are often powerless without the support of political institutions. In the same way that political institutions provide the overarching framework for other efforts to pursue healing and justice, political institutions provide the necessary support to legal systems to open cases and pursue alleged perpetrators to stand trial. With political support, however, legal systems can help our efforts in ways that are not possible for any other institution. It is in the courtroom that the guilt of the perpetrators and the innocence of the victims are publically affirmed according to the rule of law. During the legal proceedings, evidence is presented and an official historical record is established. It is here that survivors, under oath, have the opportunity to bear witness to the crimes they suffered and have these crimes publically acknowledged by the larger society. In legal custody, perpetrators are for the first time stripped of their power and claims of impunity and held accountable for their crimes. In full public view, the self-worth of the victims, eradicated under the genocide, can be partially restored according to the rule of law. Upon the trial’s conclusion, the cause of justice is furthered as legal precedents are established that help to build the still-fragile body of international law against genocide and crimes against humanity. Thus, as with political systems, legal systems provide an essential context for pursuing our objectives. And like political systems, we find that the priorities and systemic realities of legal systems can both help and hinder our efforts.
How do legal institutions hinder our efforts?
As with political institutions, there is a range of systemic reasons why legal institutions do not always help our efforts as much as we would like. At one end of the spectrum is undue political influence on the legal process. Although legal systems are designed to be independent of political influence, this is only an ideal. In practice, political interference can delay or manipulate legal attempts to hold the perpetrators of genocide accountable for their crimes. If excessive political influence or corruption renders the trial illegitimate in the eyes of the domestic or international community, the testimony of the victims and the historical record established during the proceedings are also discredited. Nothing could be more harmful to the process of healing for survivors than to have their personal accounts of the crimes they experienced discredited and dismissed by the larger society.
At the other end of the spectrum are the legal system’s honest attempts to meet international standards of justice. Ironically, in some cases, the court’s attempts to ensure due process in accordance with established standards of justice can lead to delays and added costs that ultimately hinder the objectives of healing and justice. In the case of genocide, much of this problem can be attributed to the lack of precedent and experience in adjudicating these complex crimes. As legal systems struggle with these challenges, it is important for participants and observers to try as much as possible to take a pragmatic, long-term view. At the same time, as with the example of political institutions, it is important for the general public to hold the legal system to the highest standards possible.
It is a difficult and often frustrating process, especially for victims and their families, as we try to balance the pressing need for swift justice with the need to allow legal systems the time to build their capacity to handle these complex cases.
How do academic institutions help our efforts?
Academic institutions make an invaluable contribution to the process of healing and the cause of justice by providing the necessary resources for producing an accurate historical account of the genocide. We should note here that depending on the particular time and place, academic institutions are generally more independent of government support than legal institutions and are therefore able to respond to cases of genocide earlier and more freely than legal institutions. Historians and social scientist are often the first to conduct much of the primary research and analysis subsequently used by political institutions to formulate policy. Thus, academic institutions can influence the design of the overarching political framework in which our efforts, as well as those of other institutions, work. Additionally, once legal systems have the political support to pursue cases of genocide, they often depend heavily on the work of academics to determine the facts of each case. In these important ways, academic institutions help our efforts directly and vis-à-vis political and legal institutions by documenting the historical truth of the genocide in general and the responsibilities of individual perpetrators in particular. This help is essential to both the process of healing and the cause of justice.
How do academic institutions hinder our efforts?
As with political and legal systems, academic institutions can limit or hinder the process of healing and the cause of justice for a range of reasons. At one end of the spectrum is the politics of academia. Ideally, universities have an obligation to support the pursuit of knowledge and truth in an independent and unbiased way. In practice, universities have limited resources to provide to faculty to conduct their work and award these resources based on one’s status and ability to add to the institution’s prestige. Under these circumstances, even the most scrupulous academics in search of the historical truth are affected by the competition or infighting that can permeate the ivory towers of academia.
With an emotionally charged subject like genocide, the race to produce the definitive historical record or determine the underlying ideology and motivations of the genocidal state is all the more imperative and compelling. In pursuit of the prize, attention can become deflected from the kind of intellectual inquiry that fundamentally contributes to our understanding and knowledge of the events, and individual positions can become unnecessarily entrenched and personal.
At the other end of the spectrum is the academy’s honest obligation to “get it right.” Accomplished historians and social scientists feel a powerful responsibility to themselves, to the institution that represents them and to the cause of justice and truth to marshal all their intellectual capabilities and energy to contribute to a viable solution to this horrific problem. Again, however, because he stakes are so high, the ultimate purpose of one’s work can become deflected and become more focused on arguing the veracity of one’s theory and the failings of others. While intellectual debate is essential to the academy’s objective to further knowledge and truth, again, the debate can become overly personal at the expense of healing and justice.
How do literary institutions help our efforts?
Literary institutions (e.g., publishers, cultural institutions, etc) provide a much needed forum for survivors to bear witness to the crimes they experienced. In the form of memoires, autobiography and historical fiction, survivors are able to give voice to their experiences and in doing so begin to make sense of and gain a degree of control over the traumatic events that can be so disruptive to their daily lives. Also, by speaking on behalf of those who died, these writers are able to reconcile the conflict between speaking and silence that haunts many survivors. By publishing these personal accounts and making them available to the larger society, publishers enable the exchange between the larger society and survivors that is essential for the process of healing and the cause of justice.
How do literary institutions hinder our efforts?
As with the obligation of academic institutions to “get it right,” in an effort to safeguard the historical truth of the genocide and sacred memories of those who died, literary institutions can impose criteria that may be unnecessarily detrimental to our primary objectives of healing and justice. Terrence Des Pres has noted that responses to the Holocaust have long been governed by three implicit rules, namely the need to use a solemn tone, to be historically accurate and to treat the Holocaust as a unique event in history.
Of course, there are very good reasons for this. Using a solemn tone shows respect for the millions who suffered and died under the Nazis. Maintaining strict adherence to historical accuracy ensures that deniers and revisionists of these crimes will not be given the opportunity to undermine the truth of the events. And treating the Holocaust as a unique event prohibits comparisons with other events which can mitigate the absolute and unprecedented evil of the crimes committed. When representations of the Holocaust meet these governing criteria, they are considered legitimate and acceptable. When they do not, however, as with legal proceedings that fall short of minimal standards of justice, they may be rejected or possibly condemned for betraying the memory of those who died or, worse, assisting the perpetrators and their sympathizers in their attempt to produce revisionist accounts that erase these crimes from the historical record. Again, nothing could be worse for the process of healing or the cause of justice.
At the same time, however, these rules can also lead to the rejection of Holocaust representations that may not comply with these conventions, yet make a valuable contribution to our understanding of the events and ultimately the cause of justice. For example, until recently, the use of comedy to represent the Holocaust was considered unconscionable. Like historical revisionism, Holocaust laughter was believed to betray the dignity of the victims and the truth of the crimes they suffered.
What can be done to minimize the extent to which literary institutions limit our efforts?
Over time, exceptions have been made for representations that do not adhere to these criteria. There is now greater acceptance of Holocaust representations that do not use a solemn tone, such as Art Spiegleman’s Maus that uses a comic strip format to describe his personal account of the Holocaust. Another more recent example is Roberto Benigni’s 1997 film Life is Beautiful. In the film, an Italian Jewish family is brought to a Nazi death camp. In an effort to protect his son from the horrors of their predicament, the father convinces his son that they are engaged in a game in which the person with the most points for not complaining, running away, etc., wins a real tank. Some critics derided the film and its use of comedy as inappropriate at best and a naïve rejection of the reality of the Holocaust at worse. However, many more critics argued that the film is able to bring audiences closer to the horrific tragedy of the Holocaust than many other more conventional representations.
According to this argument, the father’s pathetic use of comedy effectively relates the sense of helplessness and powerlessness felt by parents during the Holocaust to protect their beloved children and provide for their happiness, a universal value shared by all. In this way, although the film does not add to our historical knowledge of the Holocaust, it does enable us to connect to the horror of the experience of the victims, which is typically seen as too horrible to understand and therefore beyond or outside of our lives. The point here is that the success of Life is Beautiful would not have been possible fifteen or twenty years ago when the conventions governing acceptable responses to the Holocaust were more narrow and rigid.
Summary
To summarize, we find that our efforts to further the process of healing and the cause of justice are both helped and hindered by the political, legal, academic and literary institutions that enable and support our efforts. Further, the way these institutions affect our efforts is a function of the priorities, rules and conventions that govern their activities.
Also, while some of the reasons these institutions hinder our efforts may be currently beyond our reach to change, in other cases, we have made progress in getting these institutions to change or revise their priorities to be more consistent with our common objectives. Finally, it is vitally important to understand that despite the limitations and shortcomings of these institutions, it is not an option to reject them. They are essential to our attempts to further our objectives. Accepting this reality and working with and within these institutions to enhance their capacities as we simultaneously work to further our objectives is one of the great challenges of our work. Taking a long-term, patient and pragmatic approach, while simultaneously balancing the need for timely and effective action, provides our best way forward.
Conclusions and general observations
To conclude this paper, I would like to suggest some general guidelines that seem to have been useful. As stated above, although our efforts to further our objectives are enabled and supported by institutions, on a day-to-day basis, they take place between individuals in the form of a personal exchange. Also, the exchange typically takes place in relation to an object (a policy, a trial, a law, a book, a film, a news article, etc) that has been sponsored and produced by the institution.
There are countless examples of these kinds of exchanges. In Cambodia , they will soon take place in high schools among teachers and students in reference to an historical account of the genocide written by Dy Khamboly. In addition, they are taking place in homes between survivors and their children in relation to news stories of Duch’s ongoing trial in the ECCC. They are taking place online between readers and critics in relation to Harper Collins’ publication of Loung Ung’s First They Killed My Father. They are taking place in universities among professors and students in relation to David Chandler’s and Ben Kiernan’s and Steve Heder’s published theories on the underlying ideology of the Khmer Rouge leadership. They are taking place in medical offices between therapists and survivors in relation to accounts of the crimes she witnessed as a child. In other words, these individual exchanges can and do take place in countless contexts and in countless ways.
My central argument here is that the extent to which these exchanges help or hinder the process of healing and the cause of justice is a function of how well we, as individuals, understand and respond to the influences exerted by these larger institutions on our efforts. The work of DC-Cam’s staff to document mass graves and prisons throughout the country; interview survivors and perpetrators in distant villages; engage the general population in the day-to-day events of the Khmer Rouge trials; work with domestic and international governments, legal systems, universities, etc, certainly provides an excellent model to emulate . As I follow the work of DC-Cam’s research and documentation teams to document the events of the genocide, preserve memory and pursue truth and justice, it seems to me that some of the key elements of their success are: their humility and awareness of their limitations; the patient persistence of their efforts to build institutional and community capacity; the importance they place on being good listeners and promoting compassion and mutual respect; their pragmatic approach based on the understanding that the process of healing and the cause of justice are life-long pursuits; etc. These values and methods will certainly be invaluable to Cambodia ’s teachers as they embark on this important phase of their country’s growth and development.
George Chigas. Served as Associate Director of Yale University ’s Cambodia Genocide Program (CGP), professor at the University of Massachusetts , and currently Adjunct Professor in Asian studies at Cornell University . Author of the translation of a Cambodian literary classic titled, “The Story of Tum Teav,” published by the Documentation Center of Cambodia, 2005.
(This paper is prepared for the DC-Cam’s Genocide Education Project -- National Training Teacher for Lower and Upper Secondary School of Cambodia. Senate Library, Phnom Penh , Cambodia , June 29-July 7, 2009)
In the aftermath of genocide, what are our primary objectives?
In the aftermath of genocide, our responses should be guided by two interrelated objectives. The first deals with the plight of individual survivors, primarily in terms of what is called “the process of healing.” This involves attempts to restore the survivor’s sense of self-worth and trust in others that were severely diminished during the genocide but are necessary for normal life. Affirming the truth of the genocide, the guilt of the perpetrators and the innocence of the victims are integral elements of this process. The second objective deals with issues of truth and justice on communal, national and international levels. This often manifests itself in efforts to fulfill the elusive promise of “never again.” Here, we find initiatives to build civil society, the rule of law and historical memory, both within the country where the genocide took place and on an international level. Both of these objectives are ongoing and unrelenting, and fully achieving them is perhaps impossible. Most survivors never fully heal or achieve “closure” in the aftermath of genocide. And the threat of future genocides is never fully vanquished.
What’s at stake as we pursue these objectives?
Despite the tremendous challenges to achieving our objectives, the stakes couldn’t be higher. For survivors, what’s at stake is the ability to exert some degree of control over the traumatic events that can disrupt their personal and family lives in very fundamental ways, from the ability to sleep at night to the ability to experience love and happiness. For the larger society (i.e., those who did not directly experience the crimes of the genocide), as well as survivors, what’s at stake has to do with our fundamental belief in the goodness of humanity and our capacity to prevent or at least deter what Raphael Lemkin identified as humanity’s most evil crime.
How effective have we been at achieving our objectives?
In the aftermath of genocide, we have seen survivors and members of the larger society, such as politicians, lawyers, academics, therapists, activists, concerned citizens, etc., working together to further the process of healing and the cause of justice. Despite our best efforts, however, our ability to further these central objectives has consistently fallen short. As the ongoing genocide in Darfur , Sudan , sadly attests, genocides continue to take place with alarming frequency and severity, and the growing number of survivors debilitated by traumatic experiences is in the tens of millions. Yet, genocide is an extremely complex problem that is as old as humankind, and our organized efforts to address these problems are relatively new. As far as we may have come over the last fifty years, we clearly have a long way to go. As we attempt to improve the effectiveness of our responses to genocide, we must constantly ask ourselves what helps and/or hinders our efforts to pursue our objectives and how does this happen.
How do institutions affect our efforts?
One conclusion that I keep coming back to is this: although the results of our efforts (both good and bad) are ultimately realized on a personal level, they are usually enabled and supported (financially, organizationally and otherwise) by established institutions (e.g., political and judicial systems, universities, foundations, publishers, etc), which, in turn, fundamentally help and/or hinder our individual efforts. It stands to reason that the more aware we are of the way these institutions influence our individual efforts, the more effective we will be in pursuing our ultimate objectives. As we consider how political, legal, academic and literary institutions influence our efforts to further the process of healing and the cause of justice, one of the first things we observe is the way these institutions function according to rules, priorities and conventions that are not always consistent with our objectives. In order to understand this better, we will look at each of these institutions in turn beginning with political institutions or governments.
How do political institutions (e.g., national and international governmental organizations) help our efforts to further the process of healing and the cause of justice?
Political institutions affect our efforts more than any other institution because they provide the overarching framework in which we conduct our activities. Without the support of governments it would be very difficult to obtain the necessary permission, financial and legal support, security, etc. to conduct our activities. Thus, political institutions exert the first and perhaps most profound influence on our efforts and have the greatest potential to help or hinder our objectives.
How do political institutions hinder our efforts?
Most people would agree that a government’s first responsibility is to safeguard its nation’s security and socio-economic interests. However, depending on its specific strategies for pursuing these objects, a government’s policies can prohibit or severely limit our efforts to further the process of healing and the cause of justice. The rationale for these policies can cover a wide range. At one end of the spectrum there may be a general disregard for victims and justice as the state single-mindedly pursues its political and economic priorities. At the other end, there may be a genuine attempt to take into account the needs of victims and the cause of justice as it attempts to safeguard its nation’s security and socioeconomic interests. For the most part, however, governmental priorities have historically subordinated the needs of victims and the cause of justice to the nation’s so-called strategic and national interests thereby hindering our efforts.
What can be done to minimize the extent to which political institutions hinder our efforts?
Until very recently, the needs of survivors and the cause of justice were seen to be in competition with the state’s vital interests. According to this thinking, a state must choose one or the other; you can’t have both. However, this assumption is being seriously challenged, and a new political perspective is emerging. Samantha Power has written extensively about the US government’s responses to genocide in the 20th century, arguing that the needs of survivors and civil society did not figure highly in an administration’s political calculus because the general public did not make responding to genocide more costly politically than the risks (e.g., economic, political, military, etc) inherent in responding to this most heinous of crimes. Darfur is instructive here as well. Since 2003, widespread public response to the genocide in Darfur , Sudan , has shown how organized public demands for effective government response to genocide that prioritizes the needs of victims and the cause of justice can change the political calculus. To wit, for the first time in history, an acting head of state has been indicted for the crime of genocide as it is taking place. Slowly but surely, the political framework for responding to genocide is being reconfigured as the cause of justice and the state’s vital interests are no longer seen to be in opposition. According to this argument, they are in fact directly linked, such that you can’t have one without the other. In a promising development along these lines, the new Obama administration, has argued that a state can be true to its ideals without compromising its security or national interests. This position represents an important and significant departure from traditional policies based on realpolitik. In terms of our discussion here, this shift in priorities has significant implications for the extent to which political institutions can help or hinder our efforts in the future.
How do legal institutions help our efforts to pursue the process of healing for survivors and the cause of justice?
While all of the institutions discussed here are important and necessary in different ways, legal responses can potentially provide the greatest direct help to our efforts to pursue healing and justice. It is important to note that in practice legal systems are often powerless without the support of political institutions. In the same way that political institutions provide the overarching framework for other efforts to pursue healing and justice, political institutions provide the necessary support to legal systems to open cases and pursue alleged perpetrators to stand trial. With political support, however, legal systems can help our efforts in ways that are not possible for any other institution. It is in the courtroom that the guilt of the perpetrators and the innocence of the victims are publically affirmed according to the rule of law. During the legal proceedings, evidence is presented and an official historical record is established. It is here that survivors, under oath, have the opportunity to bear witness to the crimes they suffered and have these crimes publically acknowledged by the larger society. In legal custody, perpetrators are for the first time stripped of their power and claims of impunity and held accountable for their crimes. In full public view, the self-worth of the victims, eradicated under the genocide, can be partially restored according to the rule of law. Upon the trial’s conclusion, the cause of justice is furthered as legal precedents are established that help to build the still-fragile body of international law against genocide and crimes against humanity. Thus, as with political systems, legal systems provide an essential context for pursuing our objectives. And like political systems, we find that the priorities and systemic realities of legal systems can both help and hinder our efforts.
How do legal institutions hinder our efforts?
As with political institutions, there is a range of systemic reasons why legal institutions do not always help our efforts as much as we would like. At one end of the spectrum is undue political influence on the legal process. Although legal systems are designed to be independent of political influence, this is only an ideal. In practice, political interference can delay or manipulate legal attempts to hold the perpetrators of genocide accountable for their crimes. If excessive political influence or corruption renders the trial illegitimate in the eyes of the domestic or international community, the testimony of the victims and the historical record established during the proceedings are also discredited. Nothing could be more harmful to the process of healing for survivors than to have their personal accounts of the crimes they experienced discredited and dismissed by the larger society.
At the other end of the spectrum are the legal system’s honest attempts to meet international standards of justice. Ironically, in some cases, the court’s attempts to ensure due process in accordance with established standards of justice can lead to delays and added costs that ultimately hinder the objectives of healing and justice. In the case of genocide, much of this problem can be attributed to the lack of precedent and experience in adjudicating these complex crimes. As legal systems struggle with these challenges, it is important for participants and observers to try as much as possible to take a pragmatic, long-term view. At the same time, as with the example of political institutions, it is important for the general public to hold the legal system to the highest standards possible.
It is a difficult and often frustrating process, especially for victims and their families, as we try to balance the pressing need for swift justice with the need to allow legal systems the time to build their capacity to handle these complex cases.
How do academic institutions help our efforts?
Academic institutions make an invaluable contribution to the process of healing and the cause of justice by providing the necessary resources for producing an accurate historical account of the genocide. We should note here that depending on the particular time and place, academic institutions are generally more independent of government support than legal institutions and are therefore able to respond to cases of genocide earlier and more freely than legal institutions. Historians and social scientist are often the first to conduct much of the primary research and analysis subsequently used by political institutions to formulate policy. Thus, academic institutions can influence the design of the overarching political framework in which our efforts, as well as those of other institutions, work. Additionally, once legal systems have the political support to pursue cases of genocide, they often depend heavily on the work of academics to determine the facts of each case. In these important ways, academic institutions help our efforts directly and vis-à-vis political and legal institutions by documenting the historical truth of the genocide in general and the responsibilities of individual perpetrators in particular. This help is essential to both the process of healing and the cause of justice.
How do academic institutions hinder our efforts?
As with political and legal systems, academic institutions can limit or hinder the process of healing and the cause of justice for a range of reasons. At one end of the spectrum is the politics of academia. Ideally, universities have an obligation to support the pursuit of knowledge and truth in an independent and unbiased way. In practice, universities have limited resources to provide to faculty to conduct their work and award these resources based on one’s status and ability to add to the institution’s prestige. Under these circumstances, even the most scrupulous academics in search of the historical truth are affected by the competition or infighting that can permeate the ivory towers of academia.
With an emotionally charged subject like genocide, the race to produce the definitive historical record or determine the underlying ideology and motivations of the genocidal state is all the more imperative and compelling. In pursuit of the prize, attention can become deflected from the kind of intellectual inquiry that fundamentally contributes to our understanding and knowledge of the events, and individual positions can become unnecessarily entrenched and personal.
At the other end of the spectrum is the academy’s honest obligation to “get it right.” Accomplished historians and social scientists feel a powerful responsibility to themselves, to the institution that represents them and to the cause of justice and truth to marshal all their intellectual capabilities and energy to contribute to a viable solution to this horrific problem. Again, however, because he stakes are so high, the ultimate purpose of one’s work can become deflected and become more focused on arguing the veracity of one’s theory and the failings of others. While intellectual debate is essential to the academy’s objective to further knowledge and truth, again, the debate can become overly personal at the expense of healing and justice.
How do literary institutions help our efforts?
Literary institutions (e.g., publishers, cultural institutions, etc) provide a much needed forum for survivors to bear witness to the crimes they experienced. In the form of memoires, autobiography and historical fiction, survivors are able to give voice to their experiences and in doing so begin to make sense of and gain a degree of control over the traumatic events that can be so disruptive to their daily lives. Also, by speaking on behalf of those who died, these writers are able to reconcile the conflict between speaking and silence that haunts many survivors. By publishing these personal accounts and making them available to the larger society, publishers enable the exchange between the larger society and survivors that is essential for the process of healing and the cause of justice.
How do literary institutions hinder our efforts?
As with the obligation of academic institutions to “get it right,” in an effort to safeguard the historical truth of the genocide and sacred memories of those who died, literary institutions can impose criteria that may be unnecessarily detrimental to our primary objectives of healing and justice. Terrence Des Pres has noted that responses to the Holocaust have long been governed by three implicit rules, namely the need to use a solemn tone, to be historically accurate and to treat the Holocaust as a unique event in history.
Of course, there are very good reasons for this. Using a solemn tone shows respect for the millions who suffered and died under the Nazis. Maintaining strict adherence to historical accuracy ensures that deniers and revisionists of these crimes will not be given the opportunity to undermine the truth of the events. And treating the Holocaust as a unique event prohibits comparisons with other events which can mitigate the absolute and unprecedented evil of the crimes committed. When representations of the Holocaust meet these governing criteria, they are considered legitimate and acceptable. When they do not, however, as with legal proceedings that fall short of minimal standards of justice, they may be rejected or possibly condemned for betraying the memory of those who died or, worse, assisting the perpetrators and their sympathizers in their attempt to produce revisionist accounts that erase these crimes from the historical record. Again, nothing could be worse for the process of healing or the cause of justice.
At the same time, however, these rules can also lead to the rejection of Holocaust representations that may not comply with these conventions, yet make a valuable contribution to our understanding of the events and ultimately the cause of justice. For example, until recently, the use of comedy to represent the Holocaust was considered unconscionable. Like historical revisionism, Holocaust laughter was believed to betray the dignity of the victims and the truth of the crimes they suffered.
What can be done to minimize the extent to which literary institutions limit our efforts?
Over time, exceptions have been made for representations that do not adhere to these criteria. There is now greater acceptance of Holocaust representations that do not use a solemn tone, such as Art Spiegleman’s Maus that uses a comic strip format to describe his personal account of the Holocaust. Another more recent example is Roberto Benigni’s 1997 film Life is Beautiful. In the film, an Italian Jewish family is brought to a Nazi death camp. In an effort to protect his son from the horrors of their predicament, the father convinces his son that they are engaged in a game in which the person with the most points for not complaining, running away, etc., wins a real tank. Some critics derided the film and its use of comedy as inappropriate at best and a naïve rejection of the reality of the Holocaust at worse. However, many more critics argued that the film is able to bring audiences closer to the horrific tragedy of the Holocaust than many other more conventional representations.
According to this argument, the father’s pathetic use of comedy effectively relates the sense of helplessness and powerlessness felt by parents during the Holocaust to protect their beloved children and provide for their happiness, a universal value shared by all. In this way, although the film does not add to our historical knowledge of the Holocaust, it does enable us to connect to the horror of the experience of the victims, which is typically seen as too horrible to understand and therefore beyond or outside of our lives. The point here is that the success of Life is Beautiful would not have been possible fifteen or twenty years ago when the conventions governing acceptable responses to the Holocaust were more narrow and rigid.
Summary
To summarize, we find that our efforts to further the process of healing and the cause of justice are both helped and hindered by the political, legal, academic and literary institutions that enable and support our efforts. Further, the way these institutions affect our efforts is a function of the priorities, rules and conventions that govern their activities.
Also, while some of the reasons these institutions hinder our efforts may be currently beyond our reach to change, in other cases, we have made progress in getting these institutions to change or revise their priorities to be more consistent with our common objectives. Finally, it is vitally important to understand that despite the limitations and shortcomings of these institutions, it is not an option to reject them. They are essential to our attempts to further our objectives. Accepting this reality and working with and within these institutions to enhance their capacities as we simultaneously work to further our objectives is one of the great challenges of our work. Taking a long-term, patient and pragmatic approach, while simultaneously balancing the need for timely and effective action, provides our best way forward.
Conclusions and general observations
To conclude this paper, I would like to suggest some general guidelines that seem to have been useful. As stated above, although our efforts to further our objectives are enabled and supported by institutions, on a day-to-day basis, they take place between individuals in the form of a personal exchange. Also, the exchange typically takes place in relation to an object (a policy, a trial, a law, a book, a film, a news article, etc) that has been sponsored and produced by the institution.
There are countless examples of these kinds of exchanges. In Cambodia , they will soon take place in high schools among teachers and students in reference to an historical account of the genocide written by Dy Khamboly. In addition, they are taking place in homes between survivors and their children in relation to news stories of Duch’s ongoing trial in the ECCC. They are taking place online between readers and critics in relation to Harper Collins’ publication of Loung Ung’s First They Killed My Father. They are taking place in universities among professors and students in relation to David Chandler’s and Ben Kiernan’s and Steve Heder’s published theories on the underlying ideology of the Khmer Rouge leadership. They are taking place in medical offices between therapists and survivors in relation to accounts of the crimes she witnessed as a child. In other words, these individual exchanges can and do take place in countless contexts and in countless ways.
My central argument here is that the extent to which these exchanges help or hinder the process of healing and the cause of justice is a function of how well we, as individuals, understand and respond to the influences exerted by these larger institutions on our efforts. The work of DC-Cam’s staff to document mass graves and prisons throughout the country; interview survivors and perpetrators in distant villages; engage the general population in the day-to-day events of the Khmer Rouge trials; work with domestic and international governments, legal systems, universities, etc, certainly provides an excellent model to emulate . As I follow the work of DC-Cam’s research and documentation teams to document the events of the genocide, preserve memory and pursue truth and justice, it seems to me that some of the key elements of their success are: their humility and awareness of their limitations; the patient persistence of their efforts to build institutional and community capacity; the importance they place on being good listeners and promoting compassion and mutual respect; their pragmatic approach based on the understanding that the process of healing and the cause of justice are life-long pursuits; etc. These values and methods will certainly be invaluable to Cambodia ’s teachers as they embark on this important phase of their country’s growth and development.
George Chigas. Served as Associate Director of Yale University ’s Cambodia Genocide Program (CGP), professor at the University of Massachusetts , and currently Adjunct Professor in Asian studies at Cornell University . Author of the translation of a Cambodian literary classic titled, “The Story of Tum Teav,” published by the Documentation Center of Cambodia, 2005.
(This paper is prepared for the DC-Cam’s Genocide Education Project -- National Training Teacher for Lower and Upper Secondary School of Cambodia. Senate Library, Phnom Penh , Cambodia , June 29-July 7, 2009)
Monday, June 29, 2009
Khmer Rouge tribunal hears first testimony from survivor of regime's deadliest torture center
A foreign photographer, left, takes a photo of Vann Nath, 63, a survivor
from the S-21 prison during the Khmer Rouge regime on a screen at a court
press center during the U.N.-backed tribunal Monday, June 29, 2009, in Phnom
Penh, Cambodia. The first suvivor from the Khmer Rouge's notorious prison
told the U.N.-backed genocide tribunal Monday that life of the prisoners at
the S-21 was worsen then in the hell. He was called by the tribunal to
testify against Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, is being tried by the genocide
tribunal for crimes against humanity, war crimes, murder and torture. (AP
Photo/Heng Sinith)
SOPHENG CHEANG, Associated Press Writer
11:02 PM PDT, June 28, 2009
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — One of the only survivors of the Khmer Rouge's
main torture center gave a long-awaited testimony Monday, weeping as he
recounted the conditions at a facility where 16,000 others were tortured
before execution.
Vann Nath, 63, escaped execution because he was an artist and took the job
of painting and sculpting portraits of the Khmer Rouge's late leader, Pol
Pot. His special status did not spare him misery.
"The conditions were so inhumane and the food was so little," Vann Nath told
the tribunal, tears streaming down his face. "I even thought eating human
flesh would be a good meal."
Van Nath said he was fed twice a day, each meal consisting of three
teaspoons of rice porridge.
"I lost my dignity," he said. "They even gave animals more food."
The testimony came at the trial of Kaing Guek Eav — better known as Duch,
who headed the S-21 prison in Phnom Penh from 1975-1979. Up to 16,000 men,
women and children were tortured under his command and later taken away to
be killed. Only 14 people, including Vann Nath, are thought to have
survived.
Duch, 66, sat silently in his chair and watched Van Nath closely as he
spoke. Duch is charged with crimes against humanity and is the first of five
defendants scheduled for long-delayed trials by the U.N.-assisted tribunal.
Duch has previously testified that being sent to S-21 was tantamount to a
death sentence and that he was only following orders to save his own life.
Vann Nath said he was arrested Dec. 30, 1977 from his home in northwestern
Battambang province where he worked as a rice farmer. He was accused of
trying to overthrow the Khmer Rouge and of being an enemy of the regime — a
common accusation against prisoners. He arrived at S-21 on Jan 7, 1978 and
was kept there until the regime collapsed about one year later.
Prisoners were kept shackled and ordered not to speak or move, Vann Nath
told the court.
"We were so hungry, we would eat insects that dropped from the ceiling," he
said. "We would quickly grab and eat them so we could avoid being seen by
the guards."
"We ate our meals next to dead bodies, and we didn't care because we were
like animals," he added.
The regime's radical policies caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million
people nationwide by execution, overwork, disease and malnutrition.
Most prisoners were tortured into giving fanciful confessions that suited
the Khmer Rouge's political outlook, though they generally had been loyal
members of the group.
Duch is the first senior Khmer Rouge figure to face trial and the only one
to acknowledge responsibility for his actions. Senior leaders Khieu Samphan,
Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary and Ieng Sary's wife, Ieng Thirith, are all detained
and likely to face trial in the next year or two.
from the S-21 prison during the Khmer Rouge regime on a screen at a court
press center during the U.N.-backed tribunal Monday, June 29, 2009, in Phnom
Penh, Cambodia. The first suvivor from the Khmer Rouge's notorious prison
told the U.N.-backed genocide tribunal Monday that life of the prisoners at
the S-21 was worsen then in the hell. He was called by the tribunal to
testify against Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, is being tried by the genocide
tribunal for crimes against humanity, war crimes, murder and torture. (AP
Photo/Heng Sinith)
SOPHENG CHEANG, Associated Press Writer
11:02 PM PDT, June 28, 2009
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — One of the only survivors of the Khmer Rouge's
main torture center gave a long-awaited testimony Monday, weeping as he
recounted the conditions at a facility where 16,000 others were tortured
before execution.
Vann Nath, 63, escaped execution because he was an artist and took the job
of painting and sculpting portraits of the Khmer Rouge's late leader, Pol
Pot. His special status did not spare him misery.
"The conditions were so inhumane and the food was so little," Vann Nath told
the tribunal, tears streaming down his face. "I even thought eating human
flesh would be a good meal."
Van Nath said he was fed twice a day, each meal consisting of three
teaspoons of rice porridge.
"I lost my dignity," he said. "They even gave animals more food."
The testimony came at the trial of Kaing Guek Eav — better known as Duch,
who headed the S-21 prison in Phnom Penh from 1975-1979. Up to 16,000 men,
women and children were tortured under his command and later taken away to
be killed. Only 14 people, including Vann Nath, are thought to have
survived.
Duch, 66, sat silently in his chair and watched Van Nath closely as he
spoke. Duch is charged with crimes against humanity and is the first of five
defendants scheduled for long-delayed trials by the U.N.-assisted tribunal.
Duch has previously testified that being sent to S-21 was tantamount to a
death sentence and that he was only following orders to save his own life.
Vann Nath said he was arrested Dec. 30, 1977 from his home in northwestern
Battambang province where he worked as a rice farmer. He was accused of
trying to overthrow the Khmer Rouge and of being an enemy of the regime — a
common accusation against prisoners. He arrived at S-21 on Jan 7, 1978 and
was kept there until the regime collapsed about one year later.
Prisoners were kept shackled and ordered not to speak or move, Vann Nath
told the court.
"We were so hungry, we would eat insects that dropped from the ceiling," he
said. "We would quickly grab and eat them so we could avoid being seen by
the guards."
"We ate our meals next to dead bodies, and we didn't care because we were
like animals," he added.
The regime's radical policies caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million
people nationwide by execution, overwork, disease and malnutrition.
Most prisoners were tortured into giving fanciful confessions that suited
the Khmer Rouge's political outlook, though they generally had been loyal
members of the group.
Duch is the first senior Khmer Rouge figure to face trial and the only one
to acknowledge responsibility for his actions. Senior leaders Khieu Samphan,
Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary and Ieng Sary's wife, Ieng Thirith, are all detained
and likely to face trial in the next year or two.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Burying Asia's savage past
Jun 25th 2009
From The Economist print edition
Balancing reconciliation with justice may be impossible. A tiny bit of
either would be nice
Illustration by M. Morgenstern
FOR several weeks a neat former schoolteacher has sat in a Phnom Penh dock,
detailing before the tribunal how meticulously he used to carry out the
orders of his bosses. As a child, he said by way of clarification, he had
always been “a well-disciplined boy, who respected the teachers and did good
deeds”. This is Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, former commandant of Tuol Sleng,
a Khmer Rouge torture-centre and prison, which 14,000 men, women and
children entered but only a dozen survived. Duch has admitted blame for the
horrors at Tuol Sleng. According to the New York Times, he couldn’t bear to
hear the late Pol Pot claim that Tuol Sleng was a fabrication of his
enemies. He thus seems certain to be the first person convicted for playing
a part in Khmer Rouge atrocities from 1975-79 that killed up to 2m
Cambodians.
This is not unqualified good news. Justice comes years too late. The United
Nations and Cambodia haggled for a decade just over the details of the
court, eventually set up in 2007. The costs have been gargantuan, though,
according to its outgoing chief foreign prosecutor this week, it is still
“underfunded and under-resourced”. Political meddling is high, and
corruption apparently abounds. Some of the senior Khmer Rouge leaders who
gave Duch his orders await trial, but they are frail and may not live long.
Besides, Cambodia’s strongman leader, Hun Sen, is a former Khmer Rouge
himself and may be unwilling to see too much dug up. Duch may be the first
to be tried, but also the last.
Asia has plenty of killing grounds, and their story is similar. In
Timor-Leste two truth-seeking commissions have looked respectively into the
death of 200,000 people during Indonesia’s scorched-earth occupation after
1975, and into an orgy of arson and killing by the Indonesian army and its
vigilante henchmen after East Timorese voted for independence in 1999. By
coming up with a record, and by even eliciting an admission of blame by
Indonesia, the reports exceeded expectation. Yet many Timorese want a proper
reckoning. Reconciliation can get in the way. The reports have gathered
dust. Timor-Leste’s present leaders argue that, with aid scarce, filling
bellies trumps paying for tribunals.
Above all, they do not want to open old wounds. Timor-Leste’s first
president, Xanana Gusmão, who like Nelson Mandela was a former prisoner of
the old regime, also followed Mr Mandela in calling for forgiveness. His
successor, José Ramos-Horta, has since pardoned the very few men to have
been imprisoned for the 1999 violence. A culture of amnesty prevails. There
is little evidence that it has helped stability. On the contrary,
Timor-Leste has seen gang warfare, a mutiny by part of the army and an
assassination attempt on Mr Ramos-Horta.
Political leaders’ wish to sweep the past under the rug is such an Asian
habit that suspicions are aroused when a government seems too keen to try
the opposite. Take Bangladesh. The Awami League under Sheikh Hasina wants to
try 50 Bangladeshis for atrocities in the 1971 war of secession, in which
perhaps 3m died. The suspects include nearly the entire current leadership
of Jamaat-e-Islami, the biggest Islamic party and a former coalition partner
of Sheikh Hasina’s nemesis, Khaleda Zia. Jamaat-e-Islami’s youth wing, in
league with the West Pakistani army, specialised in killing intellectuals.
Still, Sheikh Hasina’s nakedly political motives would undermine a tribunal’s
credibility abroad.
In the end the international response makes, or more usually breaks, the
search for justice, which almost always needs foreign support. Who, for
instance, pays for reparations? In Cambodia it will not be the doddery
former Khmer leaders. In Timor-Leste it was suggested that those who sold
arms to the Indonesian army should stump up a share. And pigs may fly. As
tribunal costs (and failures) mount, the United Nations and rich-world
donors tend to slough off responsibility.
More than that, the process of justice and reconciliation is usually hostage
to hard-nosed geopolitics. In private, diplomats from China, staunch ally of
the Khmer Rouge and still Cambodia’s chief patron today, put down the
tribunal’s aims. It is easy to forget how the United States also backed the
Khmers Rouges as victims of Vietnamese expansionism. Support for the
Indonesian army during the cold war meant that America overlooked atrocities
in East Timor. That had changed by 1999. But after September 11th Indonesia,
the scourge of East Timor, became a chief ally in the war against terror. A
newly democratic Indonesia is hardly to blame for its army’s past. Besides,
many Indonesians were themselves victims of state-backed violence during the
Suharto era.
Might is right
Similarly, hard-nosed geopolitics bodes ill for any accounting in Sri Lanka,
now that the Sri Lankan army has defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam, with both sides accused of war crimes. For the process to start now
is out of the question. Domestic critics of the army’s conduct fear for
their lives as “traitors”. But the response of the UN Security Council was
dismal during this year’s military endgame, in which tens of thousands of
civilians were trapped. Though the UN agrees that “timely and decisive”
action should be taken when governments fail to protect their own people,
lobbying for pressure on Sri Lanka by the West was mild, and cynical
opposition to council action by China and Russia, two chief sellers of arms
to Sri Lanka, was vigorous.
As for China itself, Banyan lived a decade ago in a Beijing compound whose
backdoor guard, a soft-spoken bourgeois type, had not exchanged a word with
the frontdoor guard, his tormentor during the Cultural Revolution, since the
last ghastly struggle session in 1969. The era remains nearly off-limits for
public debate, and the only reckoning was the show-trial of the Gang of Four
in 1981. In that light, any attempt at a first draft of historical honesty,
as in Cambodia or East Timor, looks far better than nothing.
From The Economist print edition
Balancing reconciliation with justice may be impossible. A tiny bit of
either would be nice
Illustration by M. Morgenstern
FOR several weeks a neat former schoolteacher has sat in a Phnom Penh dock,
detailing before the tribunal how meticulously he used to carry out the
orders of his bosses. As a child, he said by way of clarification, he had
always been “a well-disciplined boy, who respected the teachers and did good
deeds”. This is Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, former commandant of Tuol Sleng,
a Khmer Rouge torture-centre and prison, which 14,000 men, women and
children entered but only a dozen survived. Duch has admitted blame for the
horrors at Tuol Sleng. According to the New York Times, he couldn’t bear to
hear the late Pol Pot claim that Tuol Sleng was a fabrication of his
enemies. He thus seems certain to be the first person convicted for playing
a part in Khmer Rouge atrocities from 1975-79 that killed up to 2m
Cambodians.
This is not unqualified good news. Justice comes years too late. The United
Nations and Cambodia haggled for a decade just over the details of the
court, eventually set up in 2007. The costs have been gargantuan, though,
according to its outgoing chief foreign prosecutor this week, it is still
“underfunded and under-resourced”. Political meddling is high, and
corruption apparently abounds. Some of the senior Khmer Rouge leaders who
gave Duch his orders await trial, but they are frail and may not live long.
Besides, Cambodia’s strongman leader, Hun Sen, is a former Khmer Rouge
himself and may be unwilling to see too much dug up. Duch may be the first
to be tried, but also the last.
Asia has plenty of killing grounds, and their story is similar. In
Timor-Leste two truth-seeking commissions have looked respectively into the
death of 200,000 people during Indonesia’s scorched-earth occupation after
1975, and into an orgy of arson and killing by the Indonesian army and its
vigilante henchmen after East Timorese voted for independence in 1999. By
coming up with a record, and by even eliciting an admission of blame by
Indonesia, the reports exceeded expectation. Yet many Timorese want a proper
reckoning. Reconciliation can get in the way. The reports have gathered
dust. Timor-Leste’s present leaders argue that, with aid scarce, filling
bellies trumps paying for tribunals.
Above all, they do not want to open old wounds. Timor-Leste’s first
president, Xanana Gusmão, who like Nelson Mandela was a former prisoner of
the old regime, also followed Mr Mandela in calling for forgiveness. His
successor, José Ramos-Horta, has since pardoned the very few men to have
been imprisoned for the 1999 violence. A culture of amnesty prevails. There
is little evidence that it has helped stability. On the contrary,
Timor-Leste has seen gang warfare, a mutiny by part of the army and an
assassination attempt on Mr Ramos-Horta.
Political leaders’ wish to sweep the past under the rug is such an Asian
habit that suspicions are aroused when a government seems too keen to try
the opposite. Take Bangladesh. The Awami League under Sheikh Hasina wants to
try 50 Bangladeshis for atrocities in the 1971 war of secession, in which
perhaps 3m died. The suspects include nearly the entire current leadership
of Jamaat-e-Islami, the biggest Islamic party and a former coalition partner
of Sheikh Hasina’s nemesis, Khaleda Zia. Jamaat-e-Islami’s youth wing, in
league with the West Pakistani army, specialised in killing intellectuals.
Still, Sheikh Hasina’s nakedly political motives would undermine a tribunal’s
credibility abroad.
In the end the international response makes, or more usually breaks, the
search for justice, which almost always needs foreign support. Who, for
instance, pays for reparations? In Cambodia it will not be the doddery
former Khmer leaders. In Timor-Leste it was suggested that those who sold
arms to the Indonesian army should stump up a share. And pigs may fly. As
tribunal costs (and failures) mount, the United Nations and rich-world
donors tend to slough off responsibility.
More than that, the process of justice and reconciliation is usually hostage
to hard-nosed geopolitics. In private, diplomats from China, staunch ally of
the Khmer Rouge and still Cambodia’s chief patron today, put down the
tribunal’s aims. It is easy to forget how the United States also backed the
Khmers Rouges as victims of Vietnamese expansionism. Support for the
Indonesian army during the cold war meant that America overlooked atrocities
in East Timor. That had changed by 1999. But after September 11th Indonesia,
the scourge of East Timor, became a chief ally in the war against terror. A
newly democratic Indonesia is hardly to blame for its army’s past. Besides,
many Indonesians were themselves victims of state-backed violence during the
Suharto era.
Might is right
Similarly, hard-nosed geopolitics bodes ill for any accounting in Sri Lanka,
now that the Sri Lankan army has defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam, with both sides accused of war crimes. For the process to start now
is out of the question. Domestic critics of the army’s conduct fear for
their lives as “traitors”. But the response of the UN Security Council was
dismal during this year’s military endgame, in which tens of thousands of
civilians were trapped. Though the UN agrees that “timely and decisive”
action should be taken when governments fail to protect their own people,
lobbying for pressure on Sri Lanka by the West was mild, and cynical
opposition to council action by China and Russia, two chief sellers of arms
to Sri Lanka, was vigorous.
As for China itself, Banyan lived a decade ago in a Beijing compound whose
backdoor guard, a soft-spoken bourgeois type, had not exchanged a word with
the frontdoor guard, his tormentor during the Cultural Revolution, since the
last ghastly struggle session in 1969. The era remains nearly off-limits for
public debate, and the only reckoning was the show-trial of the Gang of Four
in 1981. In that light, any attempt at a first draft of historical honesty,
as in Cambodia or East Timor, looks far better than nothing.
Friday, June 26, 2009
DUCH’S SLAVE LABOR CAMP
Observing the ECCC. Daily Report; please visit: www.cambodiatribunal.org
DUCH’S SLAVE LABOR CAMP
June 24, 2009
By Laura MacDonald, Member of the New York Bar and Consultant to the Center
for International Human Rights, Northwestern University School of Law
Download this blog entry as a PDF
“Re-Education” at Prey Sar
Today, Kaing Guek Eav (alias Duch) answered questions from the Trial Chamber
regarding operations at Prey Sar, another secret detention facility under
Duch’s authority better known as S-24.
Although S-24 has been referred to throughout the proceedings as a
“re-education camp,” Duch made clear today that re-education was merely a
façade and S-24 was in fact a slave labor camp contributing to the Communist
Party of Kampuchea (CPK) policy of extermination. While the number of S-24
detainees is unclear and will likely remain so, out of many hundreds or
thousands detained there, only thirty were released – military combatants
sent back to their unit. All others were eventually sent to Tuol Sleng
prison (S-21) or the killing fields at Choeung Ek where they were tortured
and killed.
While those sent to S-21 were established “enemies” of the CPK to be
smashed, those sent to S-24 were considered “elements” because it was
unclear if they were enemies or friends. The CPK logic seems to have been
that such people of unclear status should be sent to forced labor camps to
be put to work and monitored to ensure they would not cause any issues for
the CPK. Elements sent to S-24 were often wives, children, or other
relatives of those sent to S-21. They were not told the reasons for their
detention or given a chance to contest it.
Elements were divided into three categories – good, fair, and serious –
based on the threat they posed. Those in the serious category were spied on
the most, detained in more secure quarters, and sent to S-21 more quickly.
Good behavior could not move a detainee from one category to another.
All detainees were deprived of fundamental rights, such as freedom of
movement and speech. Healthcare was “almost non-existent.” S-24 detainees
were given slightly better food rations than prisoners at S-21 because they
needed some strength to work. While Duch claims he did not authorize
interrogation and torture at S-24, he believes his deputy, Comrade Hoy, may
have used such techniques without his knowledge.
At S-24, detainees were “subject to forced labor like animals.” Cadre forced
detainees to work in the rice fields at least eight hours a day, beating and
scolding them if they tried to rest. If there was sufficient moonlight,
sometimes they worked through the night. While rice production was the main
task, detainees also had to dig canals, cultivate vegetables, make jam, and
raise animals. When asked if detainees were sometimes forced to pull plows
like animals, Duch said “I cannot say no.” Children apparently worked
through the night searching for mice.
Detainees were also forced to attend weekly “criticism meetings” in which
they analyzed their own loyalty and that of their peers. Aside from this
view into the minds of detainees, cadre also monitored them and spied on
their personal conversations. When enough negative information was
collected, cadre reported to Duch who determined if detainees should be sent
to S-21 for interrogation or straight to Choeung Ek to be slaughtered. No
matter how hard they worked or how well they behaved, one by one all
detainees were smashed.
As with S-21 and Choeung Ek, Duch’s obvious strategy was to distance himself
from daily operations at S-24 as much as possible. Duch claims he only
visited S-24 four times and never inspected or observed the conditions. He
gained information only through weekly reports from Hoy. While his knowledge
of operations was lacking, his authority over S-24 was clear. He maintained
that the CPK upper echelon had the authority to arrest people and people
them to S-24, but once people were there Duch made the decisions. He
admitted that he alone decided whether cadre working at S-24 should be sent
to S-21 and whether detainees should be immediately slaughtered at Choeung
Ek rather than interrogated at S-21.
Many times each day Duch offers variations on the following: I did not see
it with my own eyes, but based on my analysis I conclude X might have
happened. Most of Duch’s testimony consists of his “conclusions” from and
“analysis” of surviving documents he has studied over the course of the
proceedings, rather than his personal recollections. In this way, his
opinion-based answers resemble expert testimony in an American court.
International Co-Prosecutor to Resign September 1st
After yesterday announcing his resignation due to “personal family matters”
effective September 1st, chief international co-prosecutor Robert Petit
appeared at the ECCC’s weekly press conference today to try to put the media
speculation to rest. He reiterated his reasons for leaving were completely
personal and had absolutely nothing to do with his responsibilities at the
court. Amid allegations he is leaving because of his disagreement with the
national co-prosecutor over whether to pursue more former Khmer Rouge
leaders, Petit urged the media not to read anything into his departure.
Petit opined that his departure will not have any effect on the court in
general and the Duch trial in particular. He explained that the Office of
Co-Prosecutors has used a team-approach to case development all along and
that his capable deputy is prepared to lead the team until further notice.
Moreover, Petit explained that his disagreement with the national
co-prosecutor has been fully briefed by both sides and submitted to the
Pre-Trial Chamber, which has all the information it requires to make a
ruling. Petit made an unspecific reference to other ad hoc international
tribunals, stating that they had all experienced changes in key personnel
and, with the exception of losing sitting judges, there had been no
significant impact on a case.
On a separate matter, Petit described some of the challenges faced by the
court. He called the ECCC “under-funded and under-resourced” for the tasks
with which it is entrusted. He opined that the court is still not doing a
good job communicating to the Cambodian people what it is doing and why, and
explained that it will be challenging for the court to leave a lasting and
meaningful legacy. He said the court also faces issues external to it.
Alluding to political interference by Cambodian officials, Petit said he
finds it “disturbing” that elected officials and other parties think they
can tell the court what it should do. It is widely believed Cambodian
officials instructed the national co-prosecutor not to pursue Khmer Rouge
leaders beyond the five already in process.
Public Affairs officials said they expect a new international co-prosecutor
to be appointed before Petit’s departure but refused to comment on who it
might be.
DUCH’S SLAVE LABOR CAMP
June 24, 2009
By Laura MacDonald, Member of the New York Bar and Consultant to the Center
for International Human Rights, Northwestern University School of Law
Download this blog entry as a PDF
“Re-Education” at Prey Sar
Today, Kaing Guek Eav (alias Duch) answered questions from the Trial Chamber
regarding operations at Prey Sar, another secret detention facility under
Duch’s authority better known as S-24.
Although S-24 has been referred to throughout the proceedings as a
“re-education camp,” Duch made clear today that re-education was merely a
façade and S-24 was in fact a slave labor camp contributing to the Communist
Party of Kampuchea (CPK) policy of extermination. While the number of S-24
detainees is unclear and will likely remain so, out of many hundreds or
thousands detained there, only thirty were released – military combatants
sent back to their unit. All others were eventually sent to Tuol Sleng
prison (S-21) or the killing fields at Choeung Ek where they were tortured
and killed.
While those sent to S-21 were established “enemies” of the CPK to be
smashed, those sent to S-24 were considered “elements” because it was
unclear if they were enemies or friends. The CPK logic seems to have been
that such people of unclear status should be sent to forced labor camps to
be put to work and monitored to ensure they would not cause any issues for
the CPK. Elements sent to S-24 were often wives, children, or other
relatives of those sent to S-21. They were not told the reasons for their
detention or given a chance to contest it.
Elements were divided into three categories – good, fair, and serious –
based on the threat they posed. Those in the serious category were spied on
the most, detained in more secure quarters, and sent to S-21 more quickly.
Good behavior could not move a detainee from one category to another.
All detainees were deprived of fundamental rights, such as freedom of
movement and speech. Healthcare was “almost non-existent.” S-24 detainees
were given slightly better food rations than prisoners at S-21 because they
needed some strength to work. While Duch claims he did not authorize
interrogation and torture at S-24, he believes his deputy, Comrade Hoy, may
have used such techniques without his knowledge.
At S-24, detainees were “subject to forced labor like animals.” Cadre forced
detainees to work in the rice fields at least eight hours a day, beating and
scolding them if they tried to rest. If there was sufficient moonlight,
sometimes they worked through the night. While rice production was the main
task, detainees also had to dig canals, cultivate vegetables, make jam, and
raise animals. When asked if detainees were sometimes forced to pull plows
like animals, Duch said “I cannot say no.” Children apparently worked
through the night searching for mice.
Detainees were also forced to attend weekly “criticism meetings” in which
they analyzed their own loyalty and that of their peers. Aside from this
view into the minds of detainees, cadre also monitored them and spied on
their personal conversations. When enough negative information was
collected, cadre reported to Duch who determined if detainees should be sent
to S-21 for interrogation or straight to Choeung Ek to be slaughtered. No
matter how hard they worked or how well they behaved, one by one all
detainees were smashed.
As with S-21 and Choeung Ek, Duch’s obvious strategy was to distance himself
from daily operations at S-24 as much as possible. Duch claims he only
visited S-24 four times and never inspected or observed the conditions. He
gained information only through weekly reports from Hoy. While his knowledge
of operations was lacking, his authority over S-24 was clear. He maintained
that the CPK upper echelon had the authority to arrest people and people
them to S-24, but once people were there Duch made the decisions. He
admitted that he alone decided whether cadre working at S-24 should be sent
to S-21 and whether detainees should be immediately slaughtered at Choeung
Ek rather than interrogated at S-21.
Many times each day Duch offers variations on the following: I did not see
it with my own eyes, but based on my analysis I conclude X might have
happened. Most of Duch’s testimony consists of his “conclusions” from and
“analysis” of surviving documents he has studied over the course of the
proceedings, rather than his personal recollections. In this way, his
opinion-based answers resemble expert testimony in an American court.
International Co-Prosecutor to Resign September 1st
After yesterday announcing his resignation due to “personal family matters”
effective September 1st, chief international co-prosecutor Robert Petit
appeared at the ECCC’s weekly press conference today to try to put the media
speculation to rest. He reiterated his reasons for leaving were completely
personal and had absolutely nothing to do with his responsibilities at the
court. Amid allegations he is leaving because of his disagreement with the
national co-prosecutor over whether to pursue more former Khmer Rouge
leaders, Petit urged the media not to read anything into his departure.
Petit opined that his departure will not have any effect on the court in
general and the Duch trial in particular. He explained that the Office of
Co-Prosecutors has used a team-approach to case development all along and
that his capable deputy is prepared to lead the team until further notice.
Moreover, Petit explained that his disagreement with the national
co-prosecutor has been fully briefed by both sides and submitted to the
Pre-Trial Chamber, which has all the information it requires to make a
ruling. Petit made an unspecific reference to other ad hoc international
tribunals, stating that they had all experienced changes in key personnel
and, with the exception of losing sitting judges, there had been no
significant impact on a case.
On a separate matter, Petit described some of the challenges faced by the
court. He called the ECCC “under-funded and under-resourced” for the tasks
with which it is entrusted. He opined that the court is still not doing a
good job communicating to the Cambodian people what it is doing and why, and
explained that it will be challenging for the court to leave a lasting and
meaningful legacy. He said the court also faces issues external to it.
Alluding to political interference by Cambodian officials, Petit said he
finds it “disturbing” that elected officials and other parties think they
can tell the court what it should do. It is widely believed Cambodian
officials instructed the national co-prosecutor not to pursue Khmer Rouge
leaders beyond the five already in process.
Public Affairs officials said they expect a new international co-prosecutor
to be appointed before Petit’s departure but refused to comment on who it
might be.
Cambodia’s search for peace after genocide
Cambodia’s search for peace after genocide
Back in the summer/fall of 2005, I was working on what was intended to be a
short article for Swindle magazine. It was a piece that was going to look at
the significance of Parallel World’s Cambodian Rocks compilation of
garage/psych-rock from the pre- and post-Vietnam War era. The compilation
featured music performed and recorded by Cambodian musicians channeling the
style of American and British rock acts of the day, mostly to cater to U.S.
servicemen frequenting small clubs and bars on the border between Vietnam
and Cambodia. The recordings were lo-fi but displayed impressive
musicianship and raw energy, not to mention stylistic twists that
foreshadowed a burgeoning rock scene in Southeast Asia.
The 'Cambodian Rocks' compilation captured the creative output of the
country's slain musicians.
But when I began digging into the research for the article and attempting to
track down the artists responsible for the music, I sadly learned that most,
if not all, had likely been slaughtered during the Khmer Rouge regime’s rule
in Cambodia. Going into the article, I was aware of the Cambodian genocide
(mainly as a result of seeing the 1984 film, The Killing Fields), but was
admittedly unaware of just how much misery the regime had inflicted on the
Cambodian people. Fascinated by these musicians who for the most part simply
vanished, I continued digging deeper, and the piece quickly transformed from
a short article about a music compilation to a 5,000 word story about the
embattled survival of Cambodia’s artistic and intellectual communities (see:
“Eve of Destruction,” Swindle).
The most difficult part of the story though was that there was no definitive
ending. Not necessarily for me as a writer, but for the Cambodian people. No
justice had ever been served for the 1.7 million Cambodians who died at the
hands of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. At the time I wrote the article and up
until last year, the international community was still squabbling over the
establishment of a war crimes tribunal to prosecute the surviving members of
the Khmer Rouge, who have dwindled to a mere dozen or so.
This past March, however, the tribunal was convened. And while it has
already been plagued by claims of corruption (read here), the country’s
national nightmare is now, more than three decades later, being put under
the microscope (Note: The New York Times‘ Seth Mydans has been providing
stellar coverage. So too has the Cambodia Tribunal Monitor). Front and
center in the trial is a man named Kaing Guek Eav, aka ‘Duch,’ who was a
torture chief at the infamous Tuol Sleng, or S-21, prison (now a genocide
museum). So far, the most profound aspect of the trial has been Kaing Guek
Eav’s apology for his actions. His apology may be nothing more than
political posturing, but it is the very nature of what this tribunal is
seeking to extract from those on trial. With the lionshare of the Khmer
Rouge already dead, including Pol Pot, the most heinous offender, there will
be no long prison sentences for those who killed and slaughtered their
fellow countrymen. Though the tribunal is being viewed as a serious matter,
it is hard to see it as anything more than a purely symbolic gesture — a
means to give some sense of closure to the Cambodians who lost so many of
their family members in the genocide.
I was curious though how Cambodians and Cambodian-Americans perceived the
tribunal. Was it a sign of progress and final justice? Or was it too long
overdue? I contacted some people who had been helpful to me back in 2005,
and some new people as well. What I found was a mixed reaction to the
proceedings.
“The process is most important for Cambodia and its genocide survivors, so
they can move forward and shape the future,” says Youk Chang, Executive
Director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, a project begun by the
Cambodian Genocide Center at Yale University. “[The apology] from Duch has
no significance, court is not a forum where a criminal seeks forgiveness.
Cambodians understand this very well. It is time for a conviction and it is
time for a final judgement so they may be able to forgive.”
Youk Chang makes a valid point. Duch made his apology, however strategic it
may have been, but the words of an alleged torture chief who ordered or
committed so many atrocities has little to no weight. Justice is, after all,
the end goal.
“[Cambodians] are all well prepared not to get too excited,” Chang says.
“They [are] reserved: wait and see. They are not only the victims, but also
prosecutors, defense, and judges. They are [now] taking charge of their own
history.”
Prach Ly, a Cambodian-American rapper from Long Beach, tells me the tribunal
is a major topic of discussion in his neighborhood. “The Cambodian people
are more tuned in than ever,” Ly says. “Talk of genocide and ‘the killing
fields’ are everywhere.” But he goes on to say many Cambodians are still
living in fear because they believe members of the Khmer Rouge may still
live among them. “How can you blame them?” he says. “These are the same
people who witnessed their families murdered in front of their eyes.”
Ly says even though more than three decades have passed and most of the
Khmer Rouge are now dead, that doesn’t change the fact that nearly 2
million people were murdered. “That is a reminder of reality and what had
happened,” he says. “The aftermath of the war still lingers over us to this
day. The people want to know what happened, who was involved, and why it
happened.”
Socheata Poeuv, the filmmaker behind the acclaimed documentary New Year
Baby, believes the tribunal is an “opportunity for the country itself to
engage in a much-needed dialogue about the Khmer Rouge genocide.” But she
also admits that she and others in the Cambodian-American community have
their reservations about the overall effectiveness of the tribunal.
“I would characterize reception to the tribunal as a cautious moral
support,” Poeuv says. “Due to the delay, and the allegations of corruption,
many still doubt that the Cambodian government is invested in delivering
justice on behalf of its people. For many survivors, the loss of their
entire family and the trauma they suffered continue to stay with them
regardless of the trial.”
-------------------------------
Canadian prosecutor at Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal resigns
Tue, 2009-06-23 09:13.
By: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.cjad.com/news/56/948520
Back in the summer/fall of 2005, I was working on what was intended to be a
short article for Swindle magazine. It was a piece that was going to look at
the significance of Parallel World’s Cambodian Rocks compilation of
garage/psych-rock from the pre- and post-Vietnam War era. The compilation
featured music performed and recorded by Cambodian musicians channeling the
style of American and British rock acts of the day, mostly to cater to U.S.
servicemen frequenting small clubs and bars on the border between Vietnam
and Cambodia. The recordings were lo-fi but displayed impressive
musicianship and raw energy, not to mention stylistic twists that
foreshadowed a burgeoning rock scene in Southeast Asia.
The 'Cambodian Rocks' compilation captured the creative output of the
country's slain musicians.
But when I began digging into the research for the article and attempting to
track down the artists responsible for the music, I sadly learned that most,
if not all, had likely been slaughtered during the Khmer Rouge regime’s rule
in Cambodia. Going into the article, I was aware of the Cambodian genocide
(mainly as a result of seeing the 1984 film, The Killing Fields), but was
admittedly unaware of just how much misery the regime had inflicted on the
Cambodian people. Fascinated by these musicians who for the most part simply
vanished, I continued digging deeper, and the piece quickly transformed from
a short article about a music compilation to a 5,000 word story about the
embattled survival of Cambodia’s artistic and intellectual communities (see:
“Eve of Destruction,” Swindle).
The most difficult part of the story though was that there was no definitive
ending. Not necessarily for me as a writer, but for the Cambodian people. No
justice had ever been served for the 1.7 million Cambodians who died at the
hands of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. At the time I wrote the article and up
until last year, the international community was still squabbling over the
establishment of a war crimes tribunal to prosecute the surviving members of
the Khmer Rouge, who have dwindled to a mere dozen or so.
This past March, however, the tribunal was convened. And while it has
already been plagued by claims of corruption (read here), the country’s
national nightmare is now, more than three decades later, being put under
the microscope (Note: The New York Times‘ Seth Mydans has been providing
stellar coverage. So too has the Cambodia Tribunal Monitor). Front and
center in the trial is a man named Kaing Guek Eav, aka ‘Duch,’ who was a
torture chief at the infamous Tuol Sleng, or S-21, prison (now a genocide
museum). So far, the most profound aspect of the trial has been Kaing Guek
Eav’s apology for his actions. His apology may be nothing more than
political posturing, but it is the very nature of what this tribunal is
seeking to extract from those on trial. With the lionshare of the Khmer
Rouge already dead, including Pol Pot, the most heinous offender, there will
be no long prison sentences for those who killed and slaughtered their
fellow countrymen. Though the tribunal is being viewed as a serious matter,
it is hard to see it as anything more than a purely symbolic gesture — a
means to give some sense of closure to the Cambodians who lost so many of
their family members in the genocide.
I was curious though how Cambodians and Cambodian-Americans perceived the
tribunal. Was it a sign of progress and final justice? Or was it too long
overdue? I contacted some people who had been helpful to me back in 2005,
and some new people as well. What I found was a mixed reaction to the
proceedings.
“The process is most important for Cambodia and its genocide survivors, so
they can move forward and shape the future,” says Youk Chang, Executive
Director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, a project begun by the
Cambodian Genocide Center at Yale University. “[The apology] from Duch has
no significance, court is not a forum where a criminal seeks forgiveness.
Cambodians understand this very well. It is time for a conviction and it is
time for a final judgement so they may be able to forgive.”
Youk Chang makes a valid point. Duch made his apology, however strategic it
may have been, but the words of an alleged torture chief who ordered or
committed so many atrocities has little to no weight. Justice is, after all,
the end goal.
“[Cambodians] are all well prepared not to get too excited,” Chang says.
“They [are] reserved: wait and see. They are not only the victims, but also
prosecutors, defense, and judges. They are [now] taking charge of their own
history.”
Prach Ly, a Cambodian-American rapper from Long Beach, tells me the tribunal
is a major topic of discussion in his neighborhood. “The Cambodian people
are more tuned in than ever,” Ly says. “Talk of genocide and ‘the killing
fields’ are everywhere.” But he goes on to say many Cambodians are still
living in fear because they believe members of the Khmer Rouge may still
live among them. “How can you blame them?” he says. “These are the same
people who witnessed their families murdered in front of their eyes.”
Ly says even though more than three decades have passed and most of the
Khmer Rouge are now dead, that doesn’t change the fact that nearly 2
million people were murdered. “That is a reminder of reality and what had
happened,” he says. “The aftermath of the war still lingers over us to this
day. The people want to know what happened, who was involved, and why it
happened.”
Socheata Poeuv, the filmmaker behind the acclaimed documentary New Year
Baby, believes the tribunal is an “opportunity for the country itself to
engage in a much-needed dialogue about the Khmer Rouge genocide.” But she
also admits that she and others in the Cambodian-American community have
their reservations about the overall effectiveness of the tribunal.
“I would characterize reception to the tribunal as a cautious moral
support,” Poeuv says. “Due to the delay, and the allegations of corruption,
many still doubt that the Cambodian government is invested in delivering
justice on behalf of its people. For many survivors, the loss of their
entire family and the trauma they suffered continue to stay with them
regardless of the trial.”
-------------------------------
Canadian prosecutor at Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal resigns
Tue, 2009-06-23 09:13.
By: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.cjad.com/news/56/948520
Khmer Rouge prison chief 'shocked' by his past
Khmer Rouge prison chief 'shocked' by his past
By Patrick Falby – 4 hours ago
PHNOM PENH (AFP) — A Khmer Rouge prison chief has told Cambodia's UN-backed
war crimes trial that he was "shocked" when confronted with his bloody past
and has prayed annually for forgiveness.
Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, is on trial for overseeing the torture
and extermination of 15,000 people who passed through the hardline communist
movement's notorious Tuol Sleng prison, also known as S-21.
"When I arrived at S-21, I was shocked for the numerous things that happened
there. I saw the victims or the survivors -- three of them -- who stood
before me. What happened in the past came back into my mind," Duch said.
The 66-year-old was describing his visit with court investigators last year
to the former prison, which now serves as a genocide museum, so that he
could re-enact his crimes.
Duch's defence team proceeded to show a short video of the visit, in which
he attempts to speak but begins to sob uncontrollably, removes his glasses
and is comforted by his lawyer.
"I made a speech for the souls of those who died. This is something that I
can never forget, the trip to Choeung Ek (the so-called killing field where
prisoners were killed) and S-21 in Phnom Penh," Duch said.
He told the court he became consumed with sorrow after fleeing the prison in
the face of Vietnam's 1979 invasion of Cambodia, and began to make an annual
prayer offering.
"First I asked forgiveness to my parents, then I asked forgiveness from all
my teachers, then I asked forgiveness to the victims of all the crimes,"
Duch said.
He then asked judges for permission to make a statement to the daughter of
one of Tuol Sleng's victims who was sitting in court.
However trial chamber president Nil Nonn denied the request, telling him he
would only be allowed to use testimony to speak to victims near the end of
proceedings.
Earlier in the day, Duch told the court he was twice incriminated in written
confessions by prisoners interrogated at his jail, and both times he left
the text for his superiors to see in trust that his loyalty would save him.
"I did not make any changes to it because if I did, people would notice that
I deleted my name because I did not want to be implicated," Duch said.
Swiss lawyer Alain Werner asked Duch how he then avoided being interrogated
and executed, which was standard practice for those named in confessions
during the 1975-1979 regime.
"Why did nothing happen to you even though you were implicated twice in
confessions? Was it because you were protected by your superiors... who
admired your zeal?" Werner said.
Duch answered that the confessions, by a purged superior and a former
teacher, were not particularly strong, but added: "The fact is I survived
because I insisted I was loyal to (Khmer Rouge leaders)."
As his trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity began in March, the
former maths teacher begged forgiveness from the victims of the movement and
accepted responsibility for his role at Tuol Sleng.
But Duch has consistently rejected claims by prosecutors that he had a
central role in the Khmer Rouge's iron-fisted rule. He maintains he tortured
only two people himself and never personally executed anyone.
The court does not have the authority to impose the death penalty, but Duch
faces a life sentence for war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and
premeditated murder.
Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998, and many believe the tribunal is
the last chance to find justice for victims of the communist regime, which
killed up to two million people.
However the troubled tribunal also faces accusations of interference by the
Cambodian government and claims that local staff were forced to pay
kickbacks for their jobs.
Copyright © 2009 AFP.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Youk Chhang, Director
Documentation Center of Cambodia
P.O. Box 1110
66 Sihanouk Blvd.,
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
t: +855 23 211 875
f: +855 23 210 358
h: +855 12 905 595
e: dccam@online.com.kh
www.dccam.org
Observing the ECCC. Daily Report; please visit: www.cambodiatribunal.org
Transform the River of Blood into a River of Reconciliation. A River of Responsibility.
Break the Silence.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gr3iUwP4JRLjgD6fuasPo_j25wDg
Khmer Rouge prison chief 'shocked' by his past
By Patrick Falby – 4 hours ago
PHNOM PENH (AFP) — A Khmer Rouge prison chief has told Cambodia's UN-backed
war crimes trial that he was "shocked" when confronted with his bloody past
and has prayed annually for forgiveness.
Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, is on trial for overseeing the torture
and extermination of 15,000 people who passed through the hardline communist
movement's notorious Tuol Sleng prison, also known as S-21.
"When I arrived at S-21, I was shocked for the numerous things that happened
there. I saw the victims or the survivors -- three of them -- who stood
before me. What happened in the past came back into my mind," Duch said.
The 66-year-old was describing his visit with court investigators last year
to the former prison, which now serves as a genocide museum, so that he
could re-enact his crimes.
Duch's defence team proceeded to show a short video of the visit, in which
he attempts to speak but begins to sob uncontrollably, removes his glasses
and is comforted by his lawyer.
"I made a speech for the souls of those who died. This is something that I
can never forget, the trip to Choeung Ek (the so-called killing field where
prisoners were killed) and S-21 in Phnom Penh," Duch said.
He told the court he became consumed with sorrow after fleeing the prison in
the face of Vietnam's 1979 invasion of Cambodia, and began to make an annual
prayer offering.
"First I asked forgiveness to my parents, then I asked forgiveness from all
my teachers, then I asked forgiveness to the victims of all the crimes,"
Duch said.
He then asked judges for permission to make a statement to the daughter of
one of Tuol Sleng's victims who was sitting in court.
However trial chamber president Nil Nonn denied the request, telling him he
would only be allowed to use testimony to speak to victims near the end of
proceedings.
Earlier in the day, Duch told the court he was twice incriminated in written
confessions by prisoners interrogated at his jail, and both times he left
the text for his superiors to see in trust that his loyalty would save him.
"I did not make any changes to it because if I did, people would notice that
I deleted my name because I did not want to be implicated," Duch said.
Swiss lawyer Alain Werner asked Duch how he then avoided being interrogated
and executed, which was standard practice for those named in confessions
during the 1975-1979 regime.
"Why did nothing happen to you even though you were implicated twice in
confessions? Was it because you were protected by your superiors... who
admired your zeal?" Werner said.
Duch answered that the confessions, by a purged superior and a former
teacher, were not particularly strong, but added: "The fact is I survived
because I insisted I was loyal to (Khmer Rouge leaders)."
As his trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity began in March, the
former maths teacher begged forgiveness from the victims of the movement and
accepted responsibility for his role at Tuol Sleng.
But Duch has consistently rejected claims by prosecutors that he had a
central role in the Khmer Rouge's iron-fisted rule. He maintains he tortured
only two people himself and never personally executed anyone.
The court does not have the authority to impose the death penalty, but Duch
faces a life sentence for war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and
premeditated murder.
Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998, and many believe the tribunal is
the last chance to find justice for victims of the communist regime, which
killed up to two million people.
However the troubled tribunal also faces accusations of interference by the
Cambodian government and claims that local staff were forced to pay
kickbacks for their jobs.
Copyright © 2009 AFP.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Youk Chhang, Director
Documentation Center of Cambodia
P.O. Box 1110
66 Sihanouk Blvd.,
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
t: +855 23 211 875
f: +855 23 210 358
h: +855 12 905 595
e: dccam@online.com.kh
www.dccam.org
Observing the ECCC. Daily Report; please visit: www.cambodiatribunal.org
Transform the River of Blood into a River of Reconciliation. A River of Responsibility.
Break the Silence.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gr3iUwP4JRLjgD6fuasPo_j25wDg
Khmer Rouge prison chief 'shocked' by his past
By Patrick Falby – 4 hours ago
PHNOM PENH (AFP) — A Khmer Rouge prison chief has told Cambodia's UN-backed
war crimes trial that he was "shocked" when confronted with his bloody past
and has prayed annually for forgiveness.
Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, is on trial for overseeing the torture
and extermination of 15,000 people who passed through the hardline communist
movement's notorious Tuol Sleng prison, also known as S-21.
"When I arrived at S-21, I was shocked for the numerous things that happened
there. I saw the victims or the survivors -- three of them -- who stood
before me. What happened in the past came back into my mind," Duch said.
The 66-year-old was describing his visit with court investigators last year
to the former prison, which now serves as a genocide museum, so that he
could re-enact his crimes.
Duch's defence team proceeded to show a short video of the visit, in which
he attempts to speak but begins to sob uncontrollably, removes his glasses
and is comforted by his lawyer.
"I made a speech for the souls of those who died. This is something that I
can never forget, the trip to Choeung Ek (the so-called killing field where
prisoners were killed) and S-21 in Phnom Penh," Duch said.
He told the court he became consumed with sorrow after fleeing the prison in
the face of Vietnam's 1979 invasion of Cambodia, and began to make an annual
prayer offering.
"First I asked forgiveness to my parents, then I asked forgiveness from all
my teachers, then I asked forgiveness to the victims of all the crimes,"
Duch said.
He then asked judges for permission to make a statement to the daughter of
one of Tuol Sleng's victims who was sitting in court.
However trial chamber president Nil Nonn denied the request, telling him he
would only be allowed to use testimony to speak to victims near the end of
proceedings.
Earlier in the day, Duch told the court he was twice incriminated in written
confessions by prisoners interrogated at his jail, and both times he left
the text for his superiors to see in trust that his loyalty would save him.
"I did not make any changes to it because if I did, people would notice that
I deleted my name because I did not want to be implicated," Duch said.
Swiss lawyer Alain Werner asked Duch how he then avoided being interrogated
and executed, which was standard practice for those named in confessions
during the 1975-1979 regime.
"Why did nothing happen to you even though you were implicated twice in
confessions? Was it because you were protected by your superiors... who
admired your zeal?" Werner said.
Duch answered that the confessions, by a purged superior and a former
teacher, were not particularly strong, but added: "The fact is I survived
because I insisted I was loyal to (Khmer Rouge leaders)."
As his trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity began in March, the
former maths teacher begged forgiveness from the victims of the movement and
accepted responsibility for his role at Tuol Sleng.
But Duch has consistently rejected claims by prosecutors that he had a
central role in the Khmer Rouge's iron-fisted rule. He maintains he tortured
only two people himself and never personally executed anyone.
The court does not have the authority to impose the death penalty, but Duch
faces a life sentence for war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and
premeditated murder.
Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998, and many believe the tribunal is
the last chance to find justice for victims of the communist regime, which
killed up to two million people.
However the troubled tribunal also faces accusations of interference by the
Cambodian government and claims that local staff were forced to pay
kickbacks for their jobs.
Copyright © 2009 AFP.
By Patrick Falby – 4 hours ago
PHNOM PENH (AFP) — A Khmer Rouge prison chief has told Cambodia's UN-backed
war crimes trial that he was "shocked" when confronted with his bloody past
and has prayed annually for forgiveness.
Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, is on trial for overseeing the torture
and extermination of 15,000 people who passed through the hardline communist
movement's notorious Tuol Sleng prison, also known as S-21.
"When I arrived at S-21, I was shocked for the numerous things that happened
there. I saw the victims or the survivors -- three of them -- who stood
before me. What happened in the past came back into my mind," Duch said.
The 66-year-old was describing his visit with court investigators last year
to the former prison, which now serves as a genocide museum, so that he
could re-enact his crimes.
Duch's defence team proceeded to show a short video of the visit, in which
he attempts to speak but begins to sob uncontrollably, removes his glasses
and is comforted by his lawyer.
"I made a speech for the souls of those who died. This is something that I
can never forget, the trip to Choeung Ek (the so-called killing field where
prisoners were killed) and S-21 in Phnom Penh," Duch said.
He told the court he became consumed with sorrow after fleeing the prison in
the face of Vietnam's 1979 invasion of Cambodia, and began to make an annual
prayer offering.
"First I asked forgiveness to my parents, then I asked forgiveness from all
my teachers, then I asked forgiveness to the victims of all the crimes,"
Duch said.
He then asked judges for permission to make a statement to the daughter of
one of Tuol Sleng's victims who was sitting in court.
However trial chamber president Nil Nonn denied the request, telling him he
would only be allowed to use testimony to speak to victims near the end of
proceedings.
Earlier in the day, Duch told the court he was twice incriminated in written
confessions by prisoners interrogated at his jail, and both times he left
the text for his superiors to see in trust that his loyalty would save him.
"I did not make any changes to it because if I did, people would notice that
I deleted my name because I did not want to be implicated," Duch said.
Swiss lawyer Alain Werner asked Duch how he then avoided being interrogated
and executed, which was standard practice for those named in confessions
during the 1975-1979 regime.
"Why did nothing happen to you even though you were implicated twice in
confessions? Was it because you were protected by your superiors... who
admired your zeal?" Werner said.
Duch answered that the confessions, by a purged superior and a former
teacher, were not particularly strong, but added: "The fact is I survived
because I insisted I was loyal to (Khmer Rouge leaders)."
As his trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity began in March, the
former maths teacher begged forgiveness from the victims of the movement and
accepted responsibility for his role at Tuol Sleng.
But Duch has consistently rejected claims by prosecutors that he had a
central role in the Khmer Rouge's iron-fisted rule. He maintains he tortured
only two people himself and never personally executed anyone.
The court does not have the authority to impose the death penalty, but Duch
faces a life sentence for war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and
premeditated murder.
Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998, and many believe the tribunal is
the last chance to find justice for victims of the communist regime, which
killed up to two million people.
However the troubled tribunal also faces accusations of interference by the
Cambodian government and claims that local staff were forced to pay
kickbacks for their jobs.
Copyright © 2009 AFP.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Youk Chhang, Director
Documentation Center of Cambodia
P.O. Box 1110
66 Sihanouk Blvd.,
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
t: +855 23 211 875
f: +855 23 210 358
h: +855 12 905 595
e: dccam@online.com.kh
www.dccam.org
Observing the ECCC. Daily Report; please visit: www.cambodiatribunal.org
Transform the River of Blood into a River of Reconciliation. A River of Responsibility.
Break the Silence.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gr3iUwP4JRLjgD6fuasPo_j25wDg
Khmer Rouge prison chief 'shocked' by his past
By Patrick Falby – 4 hours ago
PHNOM PENH (AFP) — A Khmer Rouge prison chief has told Cambodia's UN-backed
war crimes trial that he was "shocked" when confronted with his bloody past
and has prayed annually for forgiveness.
Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, is on trial for overseeing the torture
and extermination of 15,000 people who passed through the hardline communist
movement's notorious Tuol Sleng prison, also known as S-21.
"When I arrived at S-21, I was shocked for the numerous things that happened
there. I saw the victims or the survivors -- three of them -- who stood
before me. What happened in the past came back into my mind," Duch said.
The 66-year-old was describing his visit with court investigators last year
to the former prison, which now serves as a genocide museum, so that he
could re-enact his crimes.
Duch's defence team proceeded to show a short video of the visit, in which
he attempts to speak but begins to sob uncontrollably, removes his glasses
and is comforted by his lawyer.
"I made a speech for the souls of those who died. This is something that I
can never forget, the trip to Choeung Ek (the so-called killing field where
prisoners were killed) and S-21 in Phnom Penh," Duch said.
He told the court he became consumed with sorrow after fleeing the prison in
the face of Vietnam's 1979 invasion of Cambodia, and began to make an annual
prayer offering.
"First I asked forgiveness to my parents, then I asked forgiveness from all
my teachers, then I asked forgiveness to the victims of all the crimes,"
Duch said.
He then asked judges for permission to make a statement to the daughter of
one of Tuol Sleng's victims who was sitting in court.
However trial chamber president Nil Nonn denied the request, telling him he
would only be allowed to use testimony to speak to victims near the end of
proceedings.
Earlier in the day, Duch told the court he was twice incriminated in written
confessions by prisoners interrogated at his jail, and both times he left
the text for his superiors to see in trust that his loyalty would save him.
"I did not make any changes to it because if I did, people would notice that
I deleted my name because I did not want to be implicated," Duch said.
Swiss lawyer Alain Werner asked Duch how he then avoided being interrogated
and executed, which was standard practice for those named in confessions
during the 1975-1979 regime.
"Why did nothing happen to you even though you were implicated twice in
confessions? Was it because you were protected by your superiors... who
admired your zeal?" Werner said.
Duch answered that the confessions, by a purged superior and a former
teacher, were not particularly strong, but added: "The fact is I survived
because I insisted I was loyal to (Khmer Rouge leaders)."
As his trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity began in March, the
former maths teacher begged forgiveness from the victims of the movement and
accepted responsibility for his role at Tuol Sleng.
But Duch has consistently rejected claims by prosecutors that he had a
central role in the Khmer Rouge's iron-fisted rule. He maintains he tortured
only two people himself and never personally executed anyone.
The court does not have the authority to impose the death penalty, but Duch
faces a life sentence for war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and
premeditated murder.
Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998, and many believe the tribunal is
the last chance to find justice for victims of the communist regime, which
killed up to two million people.
However the troubled tribunal also faces accusations of interference by the
Cambodian government and claims that local staff were forced to pay
kickbacks for their jobs.
Copyright © 2009 AFP.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Youk Chhang, Director
Documentation Center of Cambodia
P.O. Box 1110
66 Sihanouk Blvd.,
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
t: +855 23 211 875
f: +855 23 210 358
h: +855 12 905 595
e: dccam@online.com.kh
www.dccam.org
Observing the ECCC. Daily Report; please visit: www.cambodiatribunal.org
Transform the River of Blood into a River of Reconciliation. A River of Responsibility.
Break the Silence.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gr3iUwP4JRLjgD6fuasPo_j25wDg
Khmer Rouge prison chief 'shocked' by his past
By Patrick Falby – 4 hours ago
PHNOM PENH (AFP) — A Khmer Rouge prison chief has told Cambodia's UN-backed
war crimes trial that he was "shocked" when confronted with his bloody past
and has prayed annually for forgiveness.
Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, is on trial for overseeing the torture
and extermination of 15,000 people who passed through the hardline communist
movement's notorious Tuol Sleng prison, also known as S-21.
"When I arrived at S-21, I was shocked for the numerous things that happened
there. I saw the victims or the survivors -- three of them -- who stood
before me. What happened in the past came back into my mind," Duch said.
The 66-year-old was describing his visit with court investigators last year
to the former prison, which now serves as a genocide museum, so that he
could re-enact his crimes.
Duch's defence team proceeded to show a short video of the visit, in which
he attempts to speak but begins to sob uncontrollably, removes his glasses
and is comforted by his lawyer.
"I made a speech for the souls of those who died. This is something that I
can never forget, the trip to Choeung Ek (the so-called killing field where
prisoners were killed) and S-21 in Phnom Penh," Duch said.
He told the court he became consumed with sorrow after fleeing the prison in
the face of Vietnam's 1979 invasion of Cambodia, and began to make an annual
prayer offering.
"First I asked forgiveness to my parents, then I asked forgiveness from all
my teachers, then I asked forgiveness to the victims of all the crimes,"
Duch said.
He then asked judges for permission to make a statement to the daughter of
one of Tuol Sleng's victims who was sitting in court.
However trial chamber president Nil Nonn denied the request, telling him he
would only be allowed to use testimony to speak to victims near the end of
proceedings.
Earlier in the day, Duch told the court he was twice incriminated in written
confessions by prisoners interrogated at his jail, and both times he left
the text for his superiors to see in trust that his loyalty would save him.
"I did not make any changes to it because if I did, people would notice that
I deleted my name because I did not want to be implicated," Duch said.
Swiss lawyer Alain Werner asked Duch how he then avoided being interrogated
and executed, which was standard practice for those named in confessions
during the 1975-1979 regime.
"Why did nothing happen to you even though you were implicated twice in
confessions? Was it because you were protected by your superiors... who
admired your zeal?" Werner said.
Duch answered that the confessions, by a purged superior and a former
teacher, were not particularly strong, but added: "The fact is I survived
because I insisted I was loyal to (Khmer Rouge leaders)."
As his trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity began in March, the
former maths teacher begged forgiveness from the victims of the movement and
accepted responsibility for his role at Tuol Sleng.
But Duch has consistently rejected claims by prosecutors that he had a
central role in the Khmer Rouge's iron-fisted rule. He maintains he tortured
only two people himself and never personally executed anyone.
The court does not have the authority to impose the death penalty, but Duch
faces a life sentence for war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and
premeditated murder.
Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998, and many believe the tribunal is
the last chance to find justice for victims of the communist regime, which
killed up to two million people.
However the troubled tribunal also faces accusations of interference by the
Cambodian government and claims that local staff were forced to pay
kickbacks for their jobs.
Copyright © 2009 AFP.
DETAILS ABOUT DUCH’S ROLE AT S-21 EXPLORED, WHILE DETAILS ABOUT CIVIL PARTIES’ ROLE IN TRIAL AVOIDED
Observing the ECCC. Daily Report; please visit: www.cambodiatribunal.org
DETAILS ABOUT DUCH’S ROLE AT S-21 EXPLORED, WHILE DETAILS ABOUT CIVIL
PARTIES’ ROLE IN TRIAL AVOIDED
June 22, 2009
By Laura MacDonald, Member of the New York Bar and Consultant to the Center
for International Human Rights, Northwestern University School of Law
Operations at Duch’s “Execution Chamber”
Following intense questioning last week from all five Trial Chamber judges
on the operations of Tuol Sleng prison (S-21) and the killing fields at
Choeung Ek, Kaing Guek Eav (alias Duch) was on the dock this morning to
answer lingering questions from the prosecution and civil parties on the
same topic.
The Cambodian Co-Prosecutor announced his questions were intended to show
Duch’s participation in the arrest, interrogation, torture, and killing of
S-21 prisoners. In contrast to the detailed but general questions from the
judges last week, the prosecution presented Duch with a series of specific
documents, mainly prisoner confessions Duch had annotated by hand, and some
very interesting testimony emerged. While Duch received orders from the
upper echelon of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) regarding how to
interrogate and torture high-ranking or important prisoners, he admits he
had the responsibility and authority for ordering torture of ordinary
prisoners. Annotations show Duch gave specific interrogation instructions
regarding what questions should be asked and what level of torture should be
used. For example, Duch instructed an interrogator to beat a female prisoner
until she admitted that she traveled to Vietnam not for medical treatment
but for treacherous activities.
The prosecution also presented a hand-written letter from Duch to an
interrogator giving the interrogator authority to torture a certain
high-ranking prisoner to death. Duch explained that this letter was “a
trickery” later shown to the prisoner to entice him to cooperate and
confess. Duch has maintained that he prohibited interrogators from torturing
prisoners to death, although he admits those who violated this rule went
unpunished.
For the first time today, Duch admitted that torture was sometimes used to
reprimand prisoners for bad behavior, rather than solely to extract
confessions. Describing the one time Duch admits to beating a prisoner, he
said he slapped the prisoner to punish him for lying.
Responding to questions on the popular topic of food for prisoners, Duch
tried to justify the extremely scant rations by explaining that S-21 was not
like a regular law enforcement prison, rather it was a “depository for
people to be killed” or “an execution chamber.” Duch said he does not deny
his crimes against humanity regarding food rations.
When asked how Duch looked at his family at night after putting children to
death during the day, Duch explained that his child’s survival was dependent
on his survival and that he had to follow orders to protect his wife, six
siblings, and parents.
Duch’s Line Drawing
Over the course of the last week, it has become clear that Duch makes strict
distinctions among practices that are not logically separate. For instance,
last week and again today, Duch explained how he secretly sabotaged a
medical experiment of high-ranking CPK member Nuon Chea by swapping powder
in capsules that he suspected to be poisonous with a safe powder before
administering the capsules to prisoners. He passionately explained that he
did not want to kill those prisoners with his own hands, but showed no
emotion when he described ordering that those same prisoners be “smashed”
shortly thereafter. Is ordering that a blindfolded prisoner be stabbed in
the neck so different than giving them a poisonous capsule? While Duch
admits that his role makes him more responsible for killing prisoners than
those who carried out their executions, Duch still seems to equate direct
physical contact with direct responsibility at an emotional level.
Duch also draws curious distinctions among various forms of torture. While
Duch admits to authorizing beatings, suffocation, dropping water in
nostrils, and electrocution to male genitals, he was adamantly opposed to
pulling out fingernails and toenails. He describes this form of torture as a
“criminal act” that he prohibited immediately after becoming aware of it.
While at times he seems opposed to a form of torture merely because it was
unauthorized, such as the forced eating of excrement, he also admits to
allowing interrogators to continue using the unauthorized psychological
torture of forcing prisoners to pay homage to a dog because of the
effectiveness of the practice. Duch also appears extremely disgusted by the
sexual abuse of at least one female that occurred.
While there are undoubtedly explanations one could give for such
distinctions, Duch does not offer any. He acts as though such distinctions
are a matter of common sense.
Did Duch Do More at Lunch Than Eat?
In a series of narrow questions, International Co-Prosecutor William Smith
probed Duch’s working habits at length with particular focus on his lunch
and dinner breaks. Duch described 12-hour working days in which he had two
meals at a communal dining hall and spent the rest of his time secluded in
his office with daily visits from his deputy, Comrade Hor, and assistance
from his three communications clerks. Smith worked hard to establish that
Duch ate two meals a day in a room surrounded by guards, interrogators, and
all other staff from S-21. Duch claims he did not speak to anyone except his
regular tablemates, such as Comrade Hor, and that he ate quickly so he could
rest and return to work. Given that Duch claims he visited S-21 rarely and
had limited knowledge of day-to-day operations, one can only presume Smith
will later seek to establish through witness testimony that Duch gave orders
or had some sort of meaningful interaction during his dining breaks.
Given that Duch claims he followed CPK upper echelon orders out of fear,
Smith also asked a series of questions aimed at demonstrating Duch, in fact,
was not very fearful. Duch agreed that his superiors did not complain about
his work and trusted him because of his loyalty and honesty. However, Duch
described living in constant fear, which escalated when his former superior,
Von Vet, was arrested. Duch claims at that point he could not eat or work
because he was “waiting for death.” Smith, however, presented a document
with Duch’s annotations from that time period, which confirmed he had in
fact continued working.
The Ongoing Debate on the Role of the Civil Parties
No one in the courtroom dares to deny the importance of the civil parties,
but no one has been able to articulate clearly what their role is.
On June 16, after the Chamber allocated time to the parties for questioning
Duch on S-21 operations, International Defense Counsel Francois Roux started
up a debate over the role of the civil parties when he lumped them together
with the prosecution. Roux insisted that the time imbalance – six hours to
the “super prosecution” and only four hours to the defense – could be the
subject of an appeal at a later stage. That day, the prosecution clearly
articulated its unique role, while the civil parties explained they were not
a duplication of the prosecution, but rather sought to voice the victims’
point of view. The Chamber cut off the debate without comment and moved on.
Today, a similar debate arose in a different context. While one of the civil
party lawyers was questioning Duch on the medical experiment he sabotaged,
Roux objected that the civil parties were not directly affected by the issue
at hand since no civil parties were injured. Roux said their questions
should express the viewpoint of the victims and not repeat the work of the
prosecution.
Civil party lawyer Silke Studzinsky sought guidance from the Chamber on how
to respond to such a fundamental attack on the role of the civil parties,
while civil party lawyer Alain Werner seemed to give Roux the benefit of the
doubt, opining that Roux was not attacking the role the civil parties had
been playing the entire trial, but merely asking them not to be repetitive.
Roux was, in fact, making the broader challenge. Roux responded that while
he was not seeking to restrict the role of the civil parties, he wanted
their role to be “completely distinct” from the prosecution. Roux read aloud
from a treatise which described victims as playing a “secondary role.” He
said their questions should relate to the suffering of the victims only and
parties must stick to their roles to ensure an equitable trial.
After further heated comments from the civil parties, the Chamber
intervened. In brief remarks, President Nil Nonn cited ECCC Internal Rule
23.1 and said that the Chamber will allow civil party questions to support
the prosecution. He provided some reminders to parties about keeping
questions short and relevant, but provided no further clarification on the
role of the civil parties. Without further Chamber comments on the matter,
one can assume this will not be the last time the role of the civil parties
is debated.
Internal Rule 23.1 states that “[t]he purpose of Civil Party action before
the ECCC is to: a) Participate in criminal proceedings against those
responsible for crimes within the jurisdiction of the ECCC by supporting the
prosecution” (emphasis added). Also somewhat on point, Rule 90 states that
after the judges question the Accused, “the Co-Prosecutors and all the other
parties and their lawyers shall have the right to question the Accused.”
There is no mention of substantive limits on the civil parties.
Managing Time Sometimes Wastes Time
Since the closed trial management meeting on June 11, the Chamber has had an
increased focus on time management and has implemented new limits on the
parties. Today was the first time such time limits have been imposed. After
its three-hour window expired for questioning Duch, the prosecution
petitioned for a 20-minute extension to cover “core” topics. After a
10-minute debate in which the defense argued the prosecution should better
manage its time and matters of such importance should have been prioritized,
the Chamber sought clarification as to what the prosecution wished to
achieve with its questions and allowed them to proceed.
--------------
JAVIS WRONG CHOICE FOR VICTIMS' UNIT
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2009062226618/National-news/Jarvis-wrong-choice-for-Victims-Unit.html
---------------------
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Youk Chhang, Director
Documentation Center of Cambodia
P.O. Box 1110
66 Sihanouk Blvd.,
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
t: +855 23 211 875
f: +855 23 210 358
h: +855 12 905 595
e: dccam@online.com.kh
www.dccam.org
Observing the ECCC. Daily Report; please visit: www.cambodiatribunal.org
Transform the River of Blood into a River of Reconciliation. A River of Responsibility.
Break the Silence
DETAILS ABOUT DUCH’S ROLE AT S-21 EXPLORED, WHILE DETAILS ABOUT CIVIL
PARTIES’ ROLE IN TRIAL AVOIDED
June 22, 2009
By Laura MacDonald, Member of the New York Bar and Consultant to the Center
for International Human Rights, Northwestern University School of Law
Operations at Duch’s “Execution Chamber”
Following intense questioning last week from all five Trial Chamber judges
on the operations of Tuol Sleng prison (S-21) and the killing fields at
Choeung Ek, Kaing Guek Eav (alias Duch) was on the dock this morning to
answer lingering questions from the prosecution and civil parties on the
same topic.
The Cambodian Co-Prosecutor announced his questions were intended to show
Duch’s participation in the arrest, interrogation, torture, and killing of
S-21 prisoners. In contrast to the detailed but general questions from the
judges last week, the prosecution presented Duch with a series of specific
documents, mainly prisoner confessions Duch had annotated by hand, and some
very interesting testimony emerged. While Duch received orders from the
upper echelon of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) regarding how to
interrogate and torture high-ranking or important prisoners, he admits he
had the responsibility and authority for ordering torture of ordinary
prisoners. Annotations show Duch gave specific interrogation instructions
regarding what questions should be asked and what level of torture should be
used. For example, Duch instructed an interrogator to beat a female prisoner
until she admitted that she traveled to Vietnam not for medical treatment
but for treacherous activities.
The prosecution also presented a hand-written letter from Duch to an
interrogator giving the interrogator authority to torture a certain
high-ranking prisoner to death. Duch explained that this letter was “a
trickery” later shown to the prisoner to entice him to cooperate and
confess. Duch has maintained that he prohibited interrogators from torturing
prisoners to death, although he admits those who violated this rule went
unpunished.
For the first time today, Duch admitted that torture was sometimes used to
reprimand prisoners for bad behavior, rather than solely to extract
confessions. Describing the one time Duch admits to beating a prisoner, he
said he slapped the prisoner to punish him for lying.
Responding to questions on the popular topic of food for prisoners, Duch
tried to justify the extremely scant rations by explaining that S-21 was not
like a regular law enforcement prison, rather it was a “depository for
people to be killed” or “an execution chamber.” Duch said he does not deny
his crimes against humanity regarding food rations.
When asked how Duch looked at his family at night after putting children to
death during the day, Duch explained that his child’s survival was dependent
on his survival and that he had to follow orders to protect his wife, six
siblings, and parents.
Duch’s Line Drawing
Over the course of the last week, it has become clear that Duch makes strict
distinctions among practices that are not logically separate. For instance,
last week and again today, Duch explained how he secretly sabotaged a
medical experiment of high-ranking CPK member Nuon Chea by swapping powder
in capsules that he suspected to be poisonous with a safe powder before
administering the capsules to prisoners. He passionately explained that he
did not want to kill those prisoners with his own hands, but showed no
emotion when he described ordering that those same prisoners be “smashed”
shortly thereafter. Is ordering that a blindfolded prisoner be stabbed in
the neck so different than giving them a poisonous capsule? While Duch
admits that his role makes him more responsible for killing prisoners than
those who carried out their executions, Duch still seems to equate direct
physical contact with direct responsibility at an emotional level.
Duch also draws curious distinctions among various forms of torture. While
Duch admits to authorizing beatings, suffocation, dropping water in
nostrils, and electrocution to male genitals, he was adamantly opposed to
pulling out fingernails and toenails. He describes this form of torture as a
“criminal act” that he prohibited immediately after becoming aware of it.
While at times he seems opposed to a form of torture merely because it was
unauthorized, such as the forced eating of excrement, he also admits to
allowing interrogators to continue using the unauthorized psychological
torture of forcing prisoners to pay homage to a dog because of the
effectiveness of the practice. Duch also appears extremely disgusted by the
sexual abuse of at least one female that occurred.
While there are undoubtedly explanations one could give for such
distinctions, Duch does not offer any. He acts as though such distinctions
are a matter of common sense.
Did Duch Do More at Lunch Than Eat?
In a series of narrow questions, International Co-Prosecutor William Smith
probed Duch’s working habits at length with particular focus on his lunch
and dinner breaks. Duch described 12-hour working days in which he had two
meals at a communal dining hall and spent the rest of his time secluded in
his office with daily visits from his deputy, Comrade Hor, and assistance
from his three communications clerks. Smith worked hard to establish that
Duch ate two meals a day in a room surrounded by guards, interrogators, and
all other staff from S-21. Duch claims he did not speak to anyone except his
regular tablemates, such as Comrade Hor, and that he ate quickly so he could
rest and return to work. Given that Duch claims he visited S-21 rarely and
had limited knowledge of day-to-day operations, one can only presume Smith
will later seek to establish through witness testimony that Duch gave orders
or had some sort of meaningful interaction during his dining breaks.
Given that Duch claims he followed CPK upper echelon orders out of fear,
Smith also asked a series of questions aimed at demonstrating Duch, in fact,
was not very fearful. Duch agreed that his superiors did not complain about
his work and trusted him because of his loyalty and honesty. However, Duch
described living in constant fear, which escalated when his former superior,
Von Vet, was arrested. Duch claims at that point he could not eat or work
because he was “waiting for death.” Smith, however, presented a document
with Duch’s annotations from that time period, which confirmed he had in
fact continued working.
The Ongoing Debate on the Role of the Civil Parties
No one in the courtroom dares to deny the importance of the civil parties,
but no one has been able to articulate clearly what their role is.
On June 16, after the Chamber allocated time to the parties for questioning
Duch on S-21 operations, International Defense Counsel Francois Roux started
up a debate over the role of the civil parties when he lumped them together
with the prosecution. Roux insisted that the time imbalance – six hours to
the “super prosecution” and only four hours to the defense – could be the
subject of an appeal at a later stage. That day, the prosecution clearly
articulated its unique role, while the civil parties explained they were not
a duplication of the prosecution, but rather sought to voice the victims’
point of view. The Chamber cut off the debate without comment and moved on.
Today, a similar debate arose in a different context. While one of the civil
party lawyers was questioning Duch on the medical experiment he sabotaged,
Roux objected that the civil parties were not directly affected by the issue
at hand since no civil parties were injured. Roux said their questions
should express the viewpoint of the victims and not repeat the work of the
prosecution.
Civil party lawyer Silke Studzinsky sought guidance from the Chamber on how
to respond to such a fundamental attack on the role of the civil parties,
while civil party lawyer Alain Werner seemed to give Roux the benefit of the
doubt, opining that Roux was not attacking the role the civil parties had
been playing the entire trial, but merely asking them not to be repetitive.
Roux was, in fact, making the broader challenge. Roux responded that while
he was not seeking to restrict the role of the civil parties, he wanted
their role to be “completely distinct” from the prosecution. Roux read aloud
from a treatise which described victims as playing a “secondary role.” He
said their questions should relate to the suffering of the victims only and
parties must stick to their roles to ensure an equitable trial.
After further heated comments from the civil parties, the Chamber
intervened. In brief remarks, President Nil Nonn cited ECCC Internal Rule
23.1 and said that the Chamber will allow civil party questions to support
the prosecution. He provided some reminders to parties about keeping
questions short and relevant, but provided no further clarification on the
role of the civil parties. Without further Chamber comments on the matter,
one can assume this will not be the last time the role of the civil parties
is debated.
Internal Rule 23.1 states that “[t]he purpose of Civil Party action before
the ECCC is to: a) Participate in criminal proceedings against those
responsible for crimes within the jurisdiction of the ECCC by supporting the
prosecution” (emphasis added). Also somewhat on point, Rule 90 states that
after the judges question the Accused, “the Co-Prosecutors and all the other
parties and their lawyers shall have the right to question the Accused.”
There is no mention of substantive limits on the civil parties.
Managing Time Sometimes Wastes Time
Since the closed trial management meeting on June 11, the Chamber has had an
increased focus on time management and has implemented new limits on the
parties. Today was the first time such time limits have been imposed. After
its three-hour window expired for questioning Duch, the prosecution
petitioned for a 20-minute extension to cover “core” topics. After a
10-minute debate in which the defense argued the prosecution should better
manage its time and matters of such importance should have been prioritized,
the Chamber sought clarification as to what the prosecution wished to
achieve with its questions and allowed them to proceed.
--------------
JAVIS WRONG CHOICE FOR VICTIMS' UNIT
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2009062226618/National-news/Jarvis-wrong-choice-for-Victims-Unit.html
---------------------
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Youk Chhang, Director
Documentation Center of Cambodia
P.O. Box 1110
66 Sihanouk Blvd.,
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
t: +855 23 211 875
f: +855 23 210 358
h: +855 12 905 595
e: dccam@online.com.kh
www.dccam.org
Observing the ECCC. Daily Report; please visit: www.cambodiatribunal.org
Transform the River of Blood into a River of Reconciliation. A River of Responsibility.
Break the Silence
Khmer Kampuchea Krom: From Justice Voyage to Memorial Initiative
DOCUMENTATION CENTER OF CAMBODIA
MAGAZINE: Searching for the Truth, June 2009
Khmer Kampuchea Krom: From Justice Voyage to Memorial Initiative
Sok-Kheang Ly
Khmer Rouge (KR) crimes against the Cambodian people proved to be one of the worst atrocities in human history. The KR’s rule during 1975-1979 caused approximately 1.7 million people to die unnatural deaths. Among the victims, Khmer Krom were one of the groups accused of being traitorous. Many Khmer Krom families were killed off, while some survived and struggled to overcome their losses. This bitter past has plagued their entire lives, filling them with painful anger. In some cases, they have desired revenge against those who hurt them and killed their family members. However, their anger has reduced as the years have gone by.
This article will look into the historical background of the Khmer Krom, including why the KR regime policies targeted them for purges. Having suffered from a horrendously large number of killings, members of this community visiting the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) with DC-Cam were asked to reflect on these past crimes after witnessing the ongoing court proceedings against Duch, chief of the former S-21 prison. Although justice is now within their grasp, some proposed that in addition a memorial where people could hold religious ceremonies for the victims be constructed and dedicated to the Khmer Krom who died at that time.
Background of Khmer Krom
The Khmer Kampuchea Krom, hereafter Khmer Krom or lower Khmers, live in the lower Mekong Delta but share a common race and identity as Khmer since the existence of Kok Thlork kingdom during the first century.[1] Their settlement, now in South Vietnam , was controlled by Cambodia until 14th century. However, French colonialism changed Cambodian borders by ceding the lower Mekong Delta to Vietnam in the late 19th century.[2]
Since then, there has been a large influx of Khmer Krom migrating and settling within the contemporary borders of Cambodia . During the reign of Preah Bat Monivong (1927-1941), many Khmer Krom left the Preah Trapeang province of Vietnam for Bakan district, Pursat province, after they found that area conducive for agriculture.[3] However, Meas Chanthan with the Khmer Krom name Kim Ya Thay said that even before arriving in Pursat, Khmer Krom came to Reang Sy commune, Battambang province in the 1910s and moved to Pursat only when there was a war between Cambodia and Thailand .
Both Thay and Tep Huoy, also a Khmer Krom, said that Prey Chheu Teal village, now called Rumlech village, has become a rallying point among Khmer Krom. Huoy’s parents migrated there from Tra Ving province along with another 16 Khmer Krom families. Van San, a Khmer Krom, said his ancestors also came from Tra Ving province of Vietnam to live in Kampong village in 1922. At that time, only 10 Khmer Krom families came with them but the settlement increased to 150 families by the early 1970s. There were at least two reasons for their migration: to escape the war in Vietnam and to find land for farming.
Chao Ny , an An Giang-born Khmer Krom, said that at the beginning, Khmer Krom could travel back and forth between Vietnam and Cambodia . For example, their children were sent for education in Cambodia . Chao Sao was a Khmer Krom who came to study in Cambodia and continued his doctorate degree in law in France . However, migration was restricted or cut off during the deteriorating political situation between Vietnam and Democratic Kampuchea in 1970s.[4]
In contemporary Cambodia , Khmer Krom live mostly in Pursat, Kampong Cham, Kampong Chhnang and Takeo provinces. Many find it hard to recognize who is Khmer Krom. According to Ben Kiernan, Khmer Krom can be recognized by their accent,[5] which is different from one that is Vietnamese. DC-Cam researcher Kim Keo Kanitha, who is also a Khmer Krom, wrote that Khmer Krom could be recognized by their clothes.[6] Ny agreed with both observations. He added that Khmer Krom often have surnames such as Chao, Thach, Kim, Seun, Taing, Seung, and Tep, which makes it possible to trace their identity.
Khmer Krom: Victims of DK Policy
Although they have a common race, religion, tradition, and culture with other Khmer, Khmer Krom were targeted by the Khmer Rouge regime. DC-Cam researcher Tieng Sopheak Vichea has provided three arguments for the killings. First, Khmer Krom were accused of serving as Vietnamese spies for the Ho Chi Minh Youth Labor Party. Second, they were considered to be members of the Indochinese Freedom Solidarity Movement led by Chao Dara, better known as Field Marshal Lon Nol. Third, they were arrested and detained on suspicion of being Vietnamese spies when Khmer Rouge attacked Vietnam in 1977 and 1978.[7] So, the mistreatment stemmed from their perceived political and military involvement during the old regime. San acknowledged that many Khmer Krom did in fact serve the Lon Nol regime.
It is generally acknowledged that shortly after its total victory, the KR began to single out all former government officials, capitalists, feudalists, and many groups whom they branded as reactionary elements. Ny recalled that in 1975, Chao Sao was an early victim of the KR regime. At that time, Khieu Samphan ordered two soldiers to search for Sao. Five days later, they came across him at Prek Kdam, around 15 kilometers north of Phnom Penh . Samphan wrote a letter to ask Sao to return to Phnom Penh . However, Sao refused to return to Phnom Penh unless all evacuees were allowed to return. Then, a new order came urging him to follow, otherwise he would be killed. He was finally killed along with all his family members.
Thay said that in 1976 and 1977 many Khmer Krom who served as commune and district cadres were killed. He pointed out that at first Khmer Krom were not accused of being Vietnamese. But the situation got worse from July 1978 when the Cambodia-Vietnam war took place. The killings were aimed at Khmer Krom’s main forces, old people, women and then children.
Huoy agreed with Thay. She said Khmer Krom in Rumlech commune were screened and sent to live in Khnar Torting beginning in June 1978. The KR provided them several days to mobilize their family members to come together and work there. However, Khmer Krom family reunions were just KR political ploys aimed at exterminating them altogether at one time. The killings each time numbered from 500 to 700 people. Khmer Krom survivor Kim Sour said he escaped the killings because he had been imprisoned at Veal village. His parents did not know that he was there.
All of these interviewees observed consistently that the KR targeted them when the KR ignited a border war with Vietnam . Thay said that at first Vietnamese people were searched and killed. Later, Khmer Krom were targeted because the KR considered them to be Vietnamese or Vietnamese spies. Ny emphasized that Khmer Krom were branded as “Vietnamese heads with Khmer bodies.” In some cases they were considered to have two different brains.
San, who lost his parents and five siblings, pointed out that the killings ceased when people from the Eastern Zone were sent to Pursat province. At that time, the KR used Khmer Krom to kill the Easterners. Their turn would be next. However, with the KR toppled by Vietnamese forces in 1979, some Khmer Krom managed to survive the regime.
Kanitha, a former DC-Cam researcher specializing on Khmer Krom, has written that: “based on documents found at S-21, 40 Khmer Krom were sent there.... In 1977, eight prisoners were killed and 3 prisoners in 1978.”[8] In Rumlech village, Kanitha spoke to Prak Sarin who said that there were 500 Khmer Krom families with up to four thousand members by 1964. Sarin observed that all Khmer Krom in this village were killed off during the DK.
General Perception on Court Proceedings
All of the 130 villagers attending the Duch hearing at the ECCC with DC-Cam, especially Khmer Krom, consider themselves to be representing those who died at that time. They want to see justice delivered for Khmer Krom and all Cambodian people. A sense of satisfaction, joy, anger, sorrow and hope came to their minds as they stepped into the courtroom for the first time. Huoy and Ny said they had waited a long time to participate in and observe the court proceedings against Duch.
Thay believes that with the joint cooperation between the UN and Cambodia we can have justice from the ECCC because it will be monitored. He added that it is in accordance with the rule of law that the perpetrators be tried and sentenced for their crimes. However, he worried about influences that might put justice, fairness and independence at risk. Ny further stressed that the trial against Duch, head of notorious Tuol Sleng prison, represented the first process against Khmer Rouge leaders since 1979. This trial brought back bitter memories of what the people suffered during the regime.
Kim Sour, a Khmer Krom, said, “It reminded me of being handcuffed for three days and tortured. I was asked, ‘who are you?’ I said I am a farmer. [Then] they kept asking me about my connections. The torture caused me to fall unconscious many times. I was accused of serving as a Vietnamese spy. In fact, I was not involved in that activity. I was working for the regime in a mobile unit.” This led Sour to conclude that prison chiefs like Duch hurt prisoners in a very brutal way. As his anger ran high, he decided to join the army after 1979 in order to take revenge against those mistreated him. However his soldierly life did not make his attempt a success; rather he lost one of his legs in addition to losing all of his family members who were accused of being enemies and killed by the KR.
Observing the trial and reflecting the crimes they experienced in their communities, Huoy expressed frankly that the accused should have been placed in the same condition as prisoners during the regime. However, at the same time she said that survivors should not take up violent acts. Justice would help them refrain from participating in a new round of violence. In her view, reconciliation is a theoretical concept that we should keep in mind and turn to practice to help each individual and the whole society. San echoed Huoy by emphasizing that he felt relieved when seeing the trial. At the very least, he said, his sufferings were not ignored. Ny had no objection to San and Huoy’s views. Nevertheless, he underlined that reconciling with the tremendous losses and forced family separation is difficult. He believed that justice alone can provide relief to only 20 to 30 percent of survivors. Among the interviewees, most said that retributive justice could bring them a certain degree of closure.
Memorial for Khmer Krom
During its three years, eight months and twenty days, the DK regime claimed the lives of a huge number of human lives and brought untold sufferings on the Cambodian people. Justice for the survivors could come when the ECCC begins trying all five KR leaders in custody. Duch is the first KR leader to face the trial. Apart from justice, survivors struggle to deal with the traumatic psychological scars and mental illness. This prompts them seek out a variety of processes that could help them.
Although the regime ended thirty years ago, efforts by Khmer Krom to build a memorial dedicated to families of Khmer Krom has proven to be a time consuming task. Thay, who initiated the erection of the memorial, described how he came up with the idea. He stressed that shortly after 1979 a wooden memorial was constructed to properly preserve the remains of Khmer Krom and other victims. Later, the decaying construction threatened the victims’ remains. Then, monks attempted to protect the bones by provisionally burying them. Thay decided to rent four trucks to carry and bury the remains in Rumlech pagoda pending a new construction. Unfortunately, his plan did not get off the ground until now. The bones are under threat from natural erosion and animals such as cows and pigs that consume them.
When DC-Cam’s Living Document project invited Thay to observe the court proceedings against Duch, he took the opportunity to express his wishes for a memorial. He explained to me that the proposed memorial would play a vital role in helping Khmer Krom victims and survivors. He said that first, the Khmer Krom have a desire to express love and respect to their ancestors who were killed during the KR regime. They want their souls to rest in a safe and peaceful place. Second, it would be a meaningful and helpful process to help reduce the survivors’ trauma. Third, it could serve as an educational center to teach the younger generation to remember the past and help prevent the reoccurrence of mass atrocities.
Thay remains steadfast in making his proposal a reality. He believes that his proposed memorial, called “Rumlech Historical Memorial,” will attract the general public’s attention and generous contributions. Sour, Huoy and Ny appreciated the initiative and pointed out that the memorial will help survivors religiously, culturally and mentally. San, whose seven family members were killed, welcomed the initiative but was skeptical about its construction. San’s cautiousness is because building it requires financial contributions and political approval. For this reason, Thay called on the general public and the international community to contribute to the memorial construction in memory of all Khmer Krom who were killed during the KR regime.
Sok-Kheang Ly is the outreach coordinator of Living Document Project at the Documentation Center of Cambodia .
[1] Sopheak Vichea, Tieng, “Khmer Kampuchea Krom Prisoners,” Searching for the Truth, Issue 2, February 2000.
[2] Ciociari, John, “Khmer Krom and KR Trial,” Searching for the Truth, Issue 104, August 2008.
[3] Kim Kanitha, Keo, “Rumlech Commune: Khmer Kampuchea Krom Under KR’s Control,” Searching for the Truth, Issue 59, November 2004.
[4] Chhang Youk wrote about Nyieng Thi Leuy, Ieng Sary’s mother, Searching for the Truth, Issue 21, September 2001.
[5] Kienan, Ben, Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power and Genocide in Cambodian, (Yale University, 1996), p.298.
[6] Kim Kanitha, Keo, “Khmer Kampuchea Krom in the mind of Khmer Rouge,” Searching for the Truth, July 31, 2002.
[7] Sopheak Vichea, Tieng, “Khmer Kampuchea Krom Prisoners,” Searching for the Truth, Issue 2, February 2000.
[8] Kim Kanitha, Keo, “Khmer Kampuchea Krom in the mind of Khmer Rouge,” Searching for the Truth, July 31, 2002.
--------------------------------
PHNOM PENH POST
KHMER KROM SURVIVORS FIND RELIEF IN VISIT TO KHMER ROUGE TRIBUNAL
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2009061926580/National-news/Khmer-Krom-survivors-find-relief-in-visit-to-Khmer-Rouge-tribunal.html
-------------------
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Youk Chhang, Director
Documentation Center of Cambodia
P.O. Box 1110
66 Sihanouk Blvd.,
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
t: +855 23 211 875
f: +855 23 210 358
h: +855 12 905 595
e: dccam@online.com.kh
www.dccam.org
Observing the ECCC. Daily Report; please visit: www.cambodiatribunal.org
Transform the River of Blood into a River of Reconciliation. A River of Responsibility.
Break the Silence
MAGAZINE: Searching for the Truth, June 2009
Khmer Kampuchea Krom: From Justice Voyage to Memorial Initiative
Sok-Kheang Ly
Khmer Rouge (KR) crimes against the Cambodian people proved to be one of the worst atrocities in human history. The KR’s rule during 1975-1979 caused approximately 1.7 million people to die unnatural deaths. Among the victims, Khmer Krom were one of the groups accused of being traitorous. Many Khmer Krom families were killed off, while some survived and struggled to overcome their losses. This bitter past has plagued their entire lives, filling them with painful anger. In some cases, they have desired revenge against those who hurt them and killed their family members. However, their anger has reduced as the years have gone by.
This article will look into the historical background of the Khmer Krom, including why the KR regime policies targeted them for purges. Having suffered from a horrendously large number of killings, members of this community visiting the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) with DC-Cam were asked to reflect on these past crimes after witnessing the ongoing court proceedings against Duch, chief of the former S-21 prison. Although justice is now within their grasp, some proposed that in addition a memorial where people could hold religious ceremonies for the victims be constructed and dedicated to the Khmer Krom who died at that time.
Background of Khmer Krom
The Khmer Kampuchea Krom, hereafter Khmer Krom or lower Khmers, live in the lower Mekong Delta but share a common race and identity as Khmer since the existence of Kok Thlork kingdom during the first century.[1] Their settlement, now in South Vietnam , was controlled by Cambodia until 14th century. However, French colonialism changed Cambodian borders by ceding the lower Mekong Delta to Vietnam in the late 19th century.[2]
Since then, there has been a large influx of Khmer Krom migrating and settling within the contemporary borders of Cambodia . During the reign of Preah Bat Monivong (1927-1941), many Khmer Krom left the Preah Trapeang province of Vietnam for Bakan district, Pursat province, after they found that area conducive for agriculture.[3] However, Meas Chanthan with the Khmer Krom name Kim Ya Thay said that even before arriving in Pursat, Khmer Krom came to Reang Sy commune, Battambang province in the 1910s and moved to Pursat only when there was a war between Cambodia and Thailand .
Both Thay and Tep Huoy, also a Khmer Krom, said that Prey Chheu Teal village, now called Rumlech village, has become a rallying point among Khmer Krom. Huoy’s parents migrated there from Tra Ving province along with another 16 Khmer Krom families. Van San, a Khmer Krom, said his ancestors also came from Tra Ving province of Vietnam to live in Kampong village in 1922. At that time, only 10 Khmer Krom families came with them but the settlement increased to 150 families by the early 1970s. There were at least two reasons for their migration: to escape the war in Vietnam and to find land for farming.
Chao Ny , an An Giang-born Khmer Krom, said that at the beginning, Khmer Krom could travel back and forth between Vietnam and Cambodia . For example, their children were sent for education in Cambodia . Chao Sao was a Khmer Krom who came to study in Cambodia and continued his doctorate degree in law in France . However, migration was restricted or cut off during the deteriorating political situation between Vietnam and Democratic Kampuchea in 1970s.[4]
In contemporary Cambodia , Khmer Krom live mostly in Pursat, Kampong Cham, Kampong Chhnang and Takeo provinces. Many find it hard to recognize who is Khmer Krom. According to Ben Kiernan, Khmer Krom can be recognized by their accent,[5] which is different from one that is Vietnamese. DC-Cam researcher Kim Keo Kanitha, who is also a Khmer Krom, wrote that Khmer Krom could be recognized by their clothes.[6] Ny agreed with both observations. He added that Khmer Krom often have surnames such as Chao, Thach, Kim, Seun, Taing, Seung, and Tep, which makes it possible to trace their identity.
Khmer Krom: Victims of DK Policy
Although they have a common race, religion, tradition, and culture with other Khmer, Khmer Krom were targeted by the Khmer Rouge regime. DC-Cam researcher Tieng Sopheak Vichea has provided three arguments for the killings. First, Khmer Krom were accused of serving as Vietnamese spies for the Ho Chi Minh Youth Labor Party. Second, they were considered to be members of the Indochinese Freedom Solidarity Movement led by Chao Dara, better known as Field Marshal Lon Nol. Third, they were arrested and detained on suspicion of being Vietnamese spies when Khmer Rouge attacked Vietnam in 1977 and 1978.[7] So, the mistreatment stemmed from their perceived political and military involvement during the old regime. San acknowledged that many Khmer Krom did in fact serve the Lon Nol regime.
It is generally acknowledged that shortly after its total victory, the KR began to single out all former government officials, capitalists, feudalists, and many groups whom they branded as reactionary elements. Ny recalled that in 1975, Chao Sao was an early victim of the KR regime. At that time, Khieu Samphan ordered two soldiers to search for Sao. Five days later, they came across him at Prek Kdam, around 15 kilometers north of Phnom Penh . Samphan wrote a letter to ask Sao to return to Phnom Penh . However, Sao refused to return to Phnom Penh unless all evacuees were allowed to return. Then, a new order came urging him to follow, otherwise he would be killed. He was finally killed along with all his family members.
Thay said that in 1976 and 1977 many Khmer Krom who served as commune and district cadres were killed. He pointed out that at first Khmer Krom were not accused of being Vietnamese. But the situation got worse from July 1978 when the Cambodia-Vietnam war took place. The killings were aimed at Khmer Krom’s main forces, old people, women and then children.
Huoy agreed with Thay. She said Khmer Krom in Rumlech commune were screened and sent to live in Khnar Torting beginning in June 1978. The KR provided them several days to mobilize their family members to come together and work there. However, Khmer Krom family reunions were just KR political ploys aimed at exterminating them altogether at one time. The killings each time numbered from 500 to 700 people. Khmer Krom survivor Kim Sour said he escaped the killings because he had been imprisoned at Veal village. His parents did not know that he was there.
All of these interviewees observed consistently that the KR targeted them when the KR ignited a border war with Vietnam . Thay said that at first Vietnamese people were searched and killed. Later, Khmer Krom were targeted because the KR considered them to be Vietnamese or Vietnamese spies. Ny emphasized that Khmer Krom were branded as “Vietnamese heads with Khmer bodies.” In some cases they were considered to have two different brains.
San, who lost his parents and five siblings, pointed out that the killings ceased when people from the Eastern Zone were sent to Pursat province. At that time, the KR used Khmer Krom to kill the Easterners. Their turn would be next. However, with the KR toppled by Vietnamese forces in 1979, some Khmer Krom managed to survive the regime.
Kanitha, a former DC-Cam researcher specializing on Khmer Krom, has written that: “based on documents found at S-21, 40 Khmer Krom were sent there.... In 1977, eight prisoners were killed and 3 prisoners in 1978.”[8] In Rumlech village, Kanitha spoke to Prak Sarin who said that there were 500 Khmer Krom families with up to four thousand members by 1964. Sarin observed that all Khmer Krom in this village were killed off during the DK.
General Perception on Court Proceedings
All of the 130 villagers attending the Duch hearing at the ECCC with DC-Cam, especially Khmer Krom, consider themselves to be representing those who died at that time. They want to see justice delivered for Khmer Krom and all Cambodian people. A sense of satisfaction, joy, anger, sorrow and hope came to their minds as they stepped into the courtroom for the first time. Huoy and Ny said they had waited a long time to participate in and observe the court proceedings against Duch.
Thay believes that with the joint cooperation between the UN and Cambodia we can have justice from the ECCC because it will be monitored. He added that it is in accordance with the rule of law that the perpetrators be tried and sentenced for their crimes. However, he worried about influences that might put justice, fairness and independence at risk. Ny further stressed that the trial against Duch, head of notorious Tuol Sleng prison, represented the first process against Khmer Rouge leaders since 1979. This trial brought back bitter memories of what the people suffered during the regime.
Kim Sour, a Khmer Krom, said, “It reminded me of being handcuffed for three days and tortured. I was asked, ‘who are you?’ I said I am a farmer. [Then] they kept asking me about my connections. The torture caused me to fall unconscious many times. I was accused of serving as a Vietnamese spy. In fact, I was not involved in that activity. I was working for the regime in a mobile unit.” This led Sour to conclude that prison chiefs like Duch hurt prisoners in a very brutal way. As his anger ran high, he decided to join the army after 1979 in order to take revenge against those mistreated him. However his soldierly life did not make his attempt a success; rather he lost one of his legs in addition to losing all of his family members who were accused of being enemies and killed by the KR.
Observing the trial and reflecting the crimes they experienced in their communities, Huoy expressed frankly that the accused should have been placed in the same condition as prisoners during the regime. However, at the same time she said that survivors should not take up violent acts. Justice would help them refrain from participating in a new round of violence. In her view, reconciliation is a theoretical concept that we should keep in mind and turn to practice to help each individual and the whole society. San echoed Huoy by emphasizing that he felt relieved when seeing the trial. At the very least, he said, his sufferings were not ignored. Ny had no objection to San and Huoy’s views. Nevertheless, he underlined that reconciling with the tremendous losses and forced family separation is difficult. He believed that justice alone can provide relief to only 20 to 30 percent of survivors. Among the interviewees, most said that retributive justice could bring them a certain degree of closure.
Memorial for Khmer Krom
During its three years, eight months and twenty days, the DK regime claimed the lives of a huge number of human lives and brought untold sufferings on the Cambodian people. Justice for the survivors could come when the ECCC begins trying all five KR leaders in custody. Duch is the first KR leader to face the trial. Apart from justice, survivors struggle to deal with the traumatic psychological scars and mental illness. This prompts them seek out a variety of processes that could help them.
Although the regime ended thirty years ago, efforts by Khmer Krom to build a memorial dedicated to families of Khmer Krom has proven to be a time consuming task. Thay, who initiated the erection of the memorial, described how he came up with the idea. He stressed that shortly after 1979 a wooden memorial was constructed to properly preserve the remains of Khmer Krom and other victims. Later, the decaying construction threatened the victims’ remains. Then, monks attempted to protect the bones by provisionally burying them. Thay decided to rent four trucks to carry and bury the remains in Rumlech pagoda pending a new construction. Unfortunately, his plan did not get off the ground until now. The bones are under threat from natural erosion and animals such as cows and pigs that consume them.
When DC-Cam’s Living Document project invited Thay to observe the court proceedings against Duch, he took the opportunity to express his wishes for a memorial. He explained to me that the proposed memorial would play a vital role in helping Khmer Krom victims and survivors. He said that first, the Khmer Krom have a desire to express love and respect to their ancestors who were killed during the KR regime. They want their souls to rest in a safe and peaceful place. Second, it would be a meaningful and helpful process to help reduce the survivors’ trauma. Third, it could serve as an educational center to teach the younger generation to remember the past and help prevent the reoccurrence of mass atrocities.
Thay remains steadfast in making his proposal a reality. He believes that his proposed memorial, called “Rumlech Historical Memorial,” will attract the general public’s attention and generous contributions. Sour, Huoy and Ny appreciated the initiative and pointed out that the memorial will help survivors religiously, culturally and mentally. San, whose seven family members were killed, welcomed the initiative but was skeptical about its construction. San’s cautiousness is because building it requires financial contributions and political approval. For this reason, Thay called on the general public and the international community to contribute to the memorial construction in memory of all Khmer Krom who were killed during the KR regime.
Sok-Kheang Ly is the outreach coordinator of Living Document Project at the Documentation Center of Cambodia .
[1] Sopheak Vichea, Tieng, “Khmer Kampuchea Krom Prisoners,” Searching for the Truth, Issue 2, February 2000.
[2] Ciociari, John, “Khmer Krom and KR Trial,” Searching for the Truth, Issue 104, August 2008.
[3] Kim Kanitha, Keo, “Rumlech Commune: Khmer Kampuchea Krom Under KR’s Control,” Searching for the Truth, Issue 59, November 2004.
[4] Chhang Youk wrote about Nyieng Thi Leuy, Ieng Sary’s mother, Searching for the Truth, Issue 21, September 2001.
[5] Kienan, Ben, Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power and Genocide in Cambodian, (Yale University, 1996), p.298.
[6] Kim Kanitha, Keo, “Khmer Kampuchea Krom in the mind of Khmer Rouge,” Searching for the Truth, July 31, 2002.
[7] Sopheak Vichea, Tieng, “Khmer Kampuchea Krom Prisoners,” Searching for the Truth, Issue 2, February 2000.
[8] Kim Kanitha, Keo, “Khmer Kampuchea Krom in the mind of Khmer Rouge,” Searching for the Truth, July 31, 2002.
--------------------------------
PHNOM PENH POST
KHMER KROM SURVIVORS FIND RELIEF IN VISIT TO KHMER ROUGE TRIBUNAL
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2009061926580/National-news/Khmer-Krom-survivors-find-relief-in-visit-to-Khmer-Rouge-tribunal.html
-------------------
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Youk Chhang, Director
Documentation Center of Cambodia
P.O. Box 1110
66 Sihanouk Blvd.,
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
t: +855 23 211 875
f: +855 23 210 358
h: +855 12 905 595
e: dccam@online.com.kh
www.dccam.org
Observing the ECCC. Daily Report; please visit: www.cambodiatribunal.org
Transform the River of Blood into a River of Reconciliation. A River of Responsibility.
Break the Silence
Legal Strategy Fails to Hide Torturer’s Pride
Saturday, 20 June 2009
Legal Strategy Fails to Hide Torturer’s Pride
http://khmerization.blogspot.com/2009/06/legal-strategy-fails-to-hide-torturers.html
By SETH MYDANS
Published: June 20, 2009
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — He is deceptively unassuming, a small man in a neat
white shirt, sometimes wearing reading glasses as he studies the stack of
legal documents he brings with him every day from his cell to the courtroom.
He gives the judges a humble greeting, both palms pressed together, an
obsequiousness that has begun to be annoying to some who once suffered at
his hands and now sit across the courtroom from him.
But in nearly three months of trial proceedings, a harder man has emerged —
alert, vigorous, with a self-confidence that has begun to shade into
condescension as he corrects a lawyer or a witness about details of his life
as the chief torturer of the Khmer Rouge.
This is Kaing Guek Eav, 66, known as Duch (pronounced DOIK), the first
person to go on trial in the deaths of 1.7 million people from 1975 to 1979
when the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia.
Slow progress and other problems surrounding the United Nations-backed
tribunal have opened the possibility that Duch may be the only person ever
to be tried in one of the worst episodes of mass killing in the past
century. If convicted, he would face a possible life sentence for crimes
against humanity and war crimes as well as homicide and torture.
He is a man who chose his revolutionary name, Duch, to emulate an obedient
schoolboy in a children’s book, and he reached the peak of his career
overseeing a prison staff that tortured more than 14,000 people and sent
almost all of them to their deaths.
“I wanted to be a well-disciplined boy,” Duch told the court, “who respected
the teachers and did good deeds.”
Four higher-ranking leaders await their turns in prison cells, but they are
ill and growing older. Both money and political will are in question for a
long process that has become shadowed by allegations of corruption and of
political interference by the Cambodian government. In the courtroom, Duch
has clearly taken pride in the efficiency with which he ran the prison,
called Tuol Sleng, or S-21, and he seems to relish his role as the public
face of the Khmer Rouge, whose leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998.
Talking to journalists before his arrest 10 years ago, Duch said he had
decided to confess in order to prove that Tuol Sleng really did exist,
rebutting a claim by Pol Pot that it had been only a propaganda fiction
created by enemies of the Khmer Rouge.
“I could not bear what Pol Pot said so I had to show my face,” he said in
court. “For S-21, I was the chairman of that office. The crimes committed at
S-21 were under my responsibility!”
Under the guidance of an experienced and nimble French lawyer, François
Roux, Duch has constructed a complicated bait-and-switch defense since the
trial opened in March.
It began on his first day on the stand, when, reading a statement in what
seemed a rote manner, he took responsibility for the torture and killings,
saying, “I would like to express my regret and heartfelt sorrow.”
But the culpability he admits to has become more and more nuanced as he
distances himself from the worst brutality of the regime and places himself
within a chain of command where disobedience often meant death.
“The horrendous images of the babies being smashed against the trees, I didn’t
recognize it at first,” he testified recently. “But after seeing the
photographs I recalled that it had happened. It was done by my subordinates.
I do not blame them because this was under my responsibility.”
Court analysts say Duch and his legal team will not be able to avoid a
conviction and are working to soften his image to produce something less
than the maximum penalty of life in prison.
“He is winning the case, even though he’ll be convicted,” said Youk Chhang,
director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which has compiled much of
the evidence against him.
“He has managed not to let his brutality show,” Mr. Youk Chhang said. “I
feel so frustrated. It’s all collective responsibility. ‘Forgive me. I’m
sorry.’ It’s well prepared and the public buys it.”
A former high school math teacher, Duch seems to have approached the trial
with a well-prepared lesson plan and with little patience for those who
disagree with him or fail to grasp his version of the material.
At one point a judge reminded him that laughter was not an appropriate
response to a question.
He seems to find satisfaction in evading questions with long, pedantic
answers, correcting witnesses and sometimes taunting those who seek to pin
him down.
“Please do not interrupt me,” he said to one lawyer as he embarked on a new
digression. “Since you are asking a question which has already been asked, I
am not required to answer.”
At a pretrial conference with investigators, Duch seemed almost cocky,
according to a former prison guard named Him Huy, who is expected to testify
against him. As he left the room, Mr. Him Huy said, Duch looked back and
raised one fist, as if to say, “I’m O.K. I will prevail.”
This is the complicated, defiant man who is revealing himself in the
courtroom — the only one of the defendants to acknowledge guilt, and yet
seemingly all the prouder of it.
“It raises questions for all of us about how human beings become a part of a
project of mass murder,” said Alex Hinton, director of the Center for the
Study of Genocide and Human Rights at Rutgers University.
According to a psychological profile that formed part of the indictment, the
defendant is “meticulous, conscientious, control-oriented, attentive to
detail and seeks recognition from his superiors.”
Like the good schoolboy who is his namesake, Duch said, “In my entire life,
if I do something, I’ll do it properly.”
He taught himself how to torture, he said, picking up some beating
techniques from Cambodian and French police manuals and improvising the rest
through trial and error. He said he frequently had to instruct the young
farm boys he recruited as torturers not to get carried away and kill the
prisoner.
Once the confession was extracted, death was all but inevitable.
“Whoever was sent to S-21 was considered to be already dead,” Duch said.
But then, to the surprise of the courtroom, Duch said he did not believe
most of the confessions his torturers worked so hard to obtain. Some ran to
as many as 200 pages, which Duch meticulously annotated like a schoolteacher
and sent to his superiors.
“I never believed that the confessions I received told the truth,” he said.
“At most, they were about 40 percent true.”
As for the long lists of supposed accomplices the prisoners were forced to
name, Duch said he believed that only 20 percent were genuine.
These lists — whether he believed them or not — fed the prison’s killing
machine with more arrests, followed by the extraction of more names,
followed by more arrests, in a widening purge that spread to top members of
the party.
“The work expanded, people were arrested illegally, right or wrong,” Duch
said. “I considered it evil eating evil eating evil.”
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Youk Chhang, Director
Documentation Center of Cambodia
P.O. Box 1110
66 Sihanouk Blvd.,
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
t: +855 23 211 875
f: +855 23 210 358
h: +855 12 905 595
e: dccam@online.com.kh
www.dccam.org
Observing the ECCC. Daily Report; please visit: www.cambodiatribunal.org
Transform the River of Blood into a River of Reconciliation. A River of Responsibility.
Break the Silence.
Legal Strategy Fails to Hide Torturer’s Pride
http://khmerization.blogspot.com/2009/06/legal-strategy-fails-to-hide-torturers.html
By SETH MYDANS
Published: June 20, 2009
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — He is deceptively unassuming, a small man in a neat
white shirt, sometimes wearing reading glasses as he studies the stack of
legal documents he brings with him every day from his cell to the courtroom.
He gives the judges a humble greeting, both palms pressed together, an
obsequiousness that has begun to be annoying to some who once suffered at
his hands and now sit across the courtroom from him.
But in nearly three months of trial proceedings, a harder man has emerged —
alert, vigorous, with a self-confidence that has begun to shade into
condescension as he corrects a lawyer or a witness about details of his life
as the chief torturer of the Khmer Rouge.
This is Kaing Guek Eav, 66, known as Duch (pronounced DOIK), the first
person to go on trial in the deaths of 1.7 million people from 1975 to 1979
when the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia.
Slow progress and other problems surrounding the United Nations-backed
tribunal have opened the possibility that Duch may be the only person ever
to be tried in one of the worst episodes of mass killing in the past
century. If convicted, he would face a possible life sentence for crimes
against humanity and war crimes as well as homicide and torture.
He is a man who chose his revolutionary name, Duch, to emulate an obedient
schoolboy in a children’s book, and he reached the peak of his career
overseeing a prison staff that tortured more than 14,000 people and sent
almost all of them to their deaths.
“I wanted to be a well-disciplined boy,” Duch told the court, “who respected
the teachers and did good deeds.”
Four higher-ranking leaders await their turns in prison cells, but they are
ill and growing older. Both money and political will are in question for a
long process that has become shadowed by allegations of corruption and of
political interference by the Cambodian government. In the courtroom, Duch
has clearly taken pride in the efficiency with which he ran the prison,
called Tuol Sleng, or S-21, and he seems to relish his role as the public
face of the Khmer Rouge, whose leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998.
Talking to journalists before his arrest 10 years ago, Duch said he had
decided to confess in order to prove that Tuol Sleng really did exist,
rebutting a claim by Pol Pot that it had been only a propaganda fiction
created by enemies of the Khmer Rouge.
“I could not bear what Pol Pot said so I had to show my face,” he said in
court. “For S-21, I was the chairman of that office. The crimes committed at
S-21 were under my responsibility!”
Under the guidance of an experienced and nimble French lawyer, François
Roux, Duch has constructed a complicated bait-and-switch defense since the
trial opened in March.
It began on his first day on the stand, when, reading a statement in what
seemed a rote manner, he took responsibility for the torture and killings,
saying, “I would like to express my regret and heartfelt sorrow.”
But the culpability he admits to has become more and more nuanced as he
distances himself from the worst brutality of the regime and places himself
within a chain of command where disobedience often meant death.
“The horrendous images of the babies being smashed against the trees, I didn’t
recognize it at first,” he testified recently. “But after seeing the
photographs I recalled that it had happened. It was done by my subordinates.
I do not blame them because this was under my responsibility.”
Court analysts say Duch and his legal team will not be able to avoid a
conviction and are working to soften his image to produce something less
than the maximum penalty of life in prison.
“He is winning the case, even though he’ll be convicted,” said Youk Chhang,
director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which has compiled much of
the evidence against him.
“He has managed not to let his brutality show,” Mr. Youk Chhang said. “I
feel so frustrated. It’s all collective responsibility. ‘Forgive me. I’m
sorry.’ It’s well prepared and the public buys it.”
A former high school math teacher, Duch seems to have approached the trial
with a well-prepared lesson plan and with little patience for those who
disagree with him or fail to grasp his version of the material.
At one point a judge reminded him that laughter was not an appropriate
response to a question.
He seems to find satisfaction in evading questions with long, pedantic
answers, correcting witnesses and sometimes taunting those who seek to pin
him down.
“Please do not interrupt me,” he said to one lawyer as he embarked on a new
digression. “Since you are asking a question which has already been asked, I
am not required to answer.”
At a pretrial conference with investigators, Duch seemed almost cocky,
according to a former prison guard named Him Huy, who is expected to testify
against him. As he left the room, Mr. Him Huy said, Duch looked back and
raised one fist, as if to say, “I’m O.K. I will prevail.”
This is the complicated, defiant man who is revealing himself in the
courtroom — the only one of the defendants to acknowledge guilt, and yet
seemingly all the prouder of it.
“It raises questions for all of us about how human beings become a part of a
project of mass murder,” said Alex Hinton, director of the Center for the
Study of Genocide and Human Rights at Rutgers University.
According to a psychological profile that formed part of the indictment, the
defendant is “meticulous, conscientious, control-oriented, attentive to
detail and seeks recognition from his superiors.”
Like the good schoolboy who is his namesake, Duch said, “In my entire life,
if I do something, I’ll do it properly.”
He taught himself how to torture, he said, picking up some beating
techniques from Cambodian and French police manuals and improvising the rest
through trial and error. He said he frequently had to instruct the young
farm boys he recruited as torturers not to get carried away and kill the
prisoner.
Once the confession was extracted, death was all but inevitable.
“Whoever was sent to S-21 was considered to be already dead,” Duch said.
But then, to the surprise of the courtroom, Duch said he did not believe
most of the confessions his torturers worked so hard to obtain. Some ran to
as many as 200 pages, which Duch meticulously annotated like a schoolteacher
and sent to his superiors.
“I never believed that the confessions I received told the truth,” he said.
“At most, they were about 40 percent true.”
As for the long lists of supposed accomplices the prisoners were forced to
name, Duch said he believed that only 20 percent were genuine.
These lists — whether he believed them or not — fed the prison’s killing
machine with more arrests, followed by the extraction of more names,
followed by more arrests, in a widening purge that spread to top members of
the party.
“The work expanded, people were arrested illegally, right or wrong,” Duch
said. “I considered it evil eating evil eating evil.”
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Youk Chhang, Director
Documentation Center of Cambodia
P.O. Box 1110
66 Sihanouk Blvd.,
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
t: +855 23 211 875
f: +855 23 210 358
h: +855 12 905 595
e: dccam@online.com.kh
www.dccam.org
Observing the ECCC. Daily Report; please visit: www.cambodiatribunal.org
Transform the River of Blood into a River of Reconciliation. A River of Responsibility.
Break the Silence.
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About Me
- Duong Dara
- Dara Duong was born in 1971 in Battambang province, Cambodia. His life changed forever at age four, when the Khmer Rouge took over the country in 1975. During the regime that controlled Cambodia from 1975-1979, Dara’s father, grandparents, uncle and aunt were executed, along with almost 3 million other Cambodians. Dara’s mother managed to keep him and his brothers and sisters together and survive the years of the Khmer Rouge regime. However, when the Vietnamese liberated Cambodia, she did not want to live under Communist rule. She fled with her family to a refugee camp on the Cambodian-Thai border, where they lived for more than ten years. Since arriving in the United States, Dara’s goal has been to educate people about the rich Cambodian culture that the Khmer Rouge tried to destroy and about the genocide, so that the world will not stand by and allow such atrocities to occur again. Toward that end, he has created the Cambodian Cultural Museum and Killing Fields Memorial, which began in his garage and is now in White Center, Washington. Dara’s story is one of survival against enormous odds, one of perseverance, one of courage and hope.