Duch’s Last Revolutionary Efforts

Kok-Thay Eng



In the mid-1990s Duch lived with his wife in Pkoam commune, Svay Check district, Banteay Mean Chey province. At this time this commune was at a crossroad between Khmer Rouge activities and the Royal Government’s control. Naturally security was weak. Crimes occurred often. According to Pen Poan, who was the head of Pkoam lower secondary school, Duch volunteered as a teacher in his school in around 1993. He taught physics and chemistry. Pen Poan said that Duch called himself Hang Pin. Pen Poan did not know that the person he recruited to teach 12 to 14 year-old students of grades 7 and 8 was a former chief of the most notorious prison during Democratic Kampuchea regime.



Pen Poan received a biography from Duch portraying himself as a former teacher in the Sangkum Reast Niyum regime. A teacher in this period under Sihanouk government was a respectable person. Teachers from this regime were usually professional, resolute and dedicating. With this kind of experience, it seemed that Pen Poan did not request for further inquiry into Duch’s personal history. However, Pen Poan added that at that time refugees from camps along the Thai border started to repatriate into Cambodia . Some refugees were trained in certain skills which can be useful when they repatriate. Thus for Poan, Duch seemed to be a former teacher who was also trained in one of those camps. Poan only knew that Duch was the former head of S-21 when he was arrested in 1999.



Duch moved to work in the educational department of Svay Chek district, approximately 30 km from the Pkoam lower secondary school, after his wife was killed in a robbery in 1995 and Duch himself was stabbed in the back. Poan said that Duch was fleeing crimes in the commune, but in the educational department Duch was paid for his job as he became a full-time staff. He later moved to Svay Chek lower secondary school, teaching French language. Hun Smean, the head of the school, described Duch as an excellent teacher who was disciplined and taught students well. Like many leaders of the Khmer Rouge, Duch started his career as a math teacher before joining the revolution. Being a science teacher, Duch seems to have an orientation toward preciseness and detail. Poan added that students in Pkoam lower secondary school called Duch as a grand teacher (krou ta).



The accounts of Duch’s colleagues again reinforced the portrayal of Duch as a docile and devoted teacher. However Duch’s description of his own life at the time revealed a slightly different story, suggesting that this quietness and dedication was part of a larger revolutionary plot, similar to what many Khmer Rouge revolutionaries did during the “struggle” period in the 1950s and 1960s. Duch agreed with the testimony of his former colleagues, but added many more accounts of his own. Teaching was a profession that Duch took up in 1985 and 1986 when he taught Angkar’s children, including his own, in Samlot.



In June 1986, Sou Met asked Duch to change his name and moved out of Samlot. Again, being a communist revolutionary, Duch had to ponder at the task of making up another name. He chose Hang Pin. He liked the name Pin because according to Chuon Nat dictionary, this name suggests “greatness.” He adopted the surname Hang from the family name of his mother’s side. It was actually “Hong” but in an attempt to further disguise the name from anyone who might try to trace it, Duch made it sound Hang. Thus he called himself Hang Pin when he left Samlot originally to Kdeb Thmar village then to Pkoam commune, under Sou Met’s order. This departure was planned to achieve two goals: to teach and probably recruit more people, and to earn a living for himself and his family. This was necessary because after the Paris Peace Accord in 1991, the future of the Khmer Rouge was rather bleak. At that time integration into the Royal Government of Cambodia was the main focal point. Duch described these two goals as Phenka Sethakech (economic goals), a very familiar Khmer Rouge jargon.



Indeed, Duch’s colleague in Pkoam commune never knew that Duch was very much a secret revolutionary hiding in their commune, actively serving the remaining of the Khmer Rouge’s revolution. Duch lived in Pkoam commune until 1994. His wife was killed on November 11, 1995. Before his arrest in 1999, Duch moved back and forth between refugee camps, Samlot and Svay Chek district. In these last few years Duch’s activity was more for survival than for the greatness of communism. He began losing faith in materialism which he adopted in the 1950s and 60s and chose idealism (Kumnit Niyum). He abandoned communism and chose Christianity.



Duch said that he chose Christianity for practical as well as spiritual purposes. Being a revolutionary who despised the idea of an enemy, in Christianity Duch said, he was taught to love his neighbors and enemies as his friends. Being a Christian, Duch said, would give his family some economic security. He said if he were killed, his children would be taken care of by Christian churches. However, this care for his family angers some villagers who participated in the court. Nget Chhoeun, 63, said that her husband and his siblings were killed by the Khmer Rouge. Duch cared so much for his family members, but he cared little for other’s. She said, “This is hypocrisy.”