The word Cambodians used for KR who turned them in was very revealing. They all say, “KR who defected to the government side were given amnesty.” Defected? Isn’t that something that happens between hostile governments of two separate countries? Much of Cambodia’s military and police were made up of these soldiers who defected. Basically they just changed one uniform for another. I personally knew a high ranking officer who had fought in five different armies, Lon Nol’s government, the KR, Khmer Serey, Vietnamese, and later the Cambodian government army.
The story of Duch is inconceivable. In his memoir, Van Nath, one of only two remaining survivors of S 21, describes how, after the Vietnamese invasion, he was serving in the Vietnamese army, and doing some work at the prison, which was now being opened as a tourist attraction. One day, he surveyed the crowd of visitors, and couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw Duch, dressed as a farmer, coming into the prison as a tourist. Van Nath notified the guards, who eventually intervened. By coincidence, on the same day, a French film crew were making a film at the prison. Van Nath insisted that they include Duch in the film. The film is the best part of a visit to the prison. In the film Van Nath walks Duch through his paintings of people being tortured and executed and asks. “I only painted these from my imagination. But is this how you did it?” At first Duch doesn’t want to answer, but Van Nath gets a bit tough with him, and he finally admits that he tortured and killed people in this manner.
“Duch’s whereabouts were completely unknown to us,” began Youk Chang, explaining how Duch eventually wound up in the custody of the Cambodian government. “He was on his way to Thailand. But, the spies turned him in. So he was arrested. The others defected to the government, and got amnesty. Duch had broken KR law article one, arrested before enlightenment.”
“The purpose of this trial is to bring the central leadership to justice,” he concluded.
Duch, who, since the death of Pol Pot, is arguably the mot infamous of the ex-KR administration, is in jail. But there were 194 other prison chiefs who are not.
“The other prisons were worse.” Said Youk Chang. “There were cases of 10,000 prisoners in a prison with no roof. There was no hygiene at all. They were simply tortured and killed, without any procedure, and with no documentation.”
Youk Chang explained that these murders were only known about because of the bodies found in mass graves.
“Only 14 people ever survived Toul Slang,” said Youk Chang, in a chilling voice. “Most of the other prisons had no survivors.”
Youk Chang explained why the provincial prisons were so much worse than S 21. “Prisoners in provinces were considered to be guilty of being enemies of Anka, the Khmer Rouge organization. In S 21, they were seen as traitors or suspects.”
With the potential for a court date in the near future, we asked if there were any execution orders that bore Duch’s signature.
“Most documents were signed by higher authority, ordering an execution,” began Youk Chang. “But Duch signed documents stating that he had carried out the executions.”
“I would love to find a document with Pol Pot’s signature,” joked Richard.
Apparently there were few, if any documents linking Pol Pot directly to any executions. So, the question was, exactly what law had he broken, or what would be the charges leveled against him, posthumously.
“Pol pot didn’t personally kill people. But he made policy which killed people.”
One defense argument has been that the policies of the KR were too broad, and easily misinterpreted or abused. It had also been suggested that central leadership, in Phnom Penh, was unaware of the atrocities being committed in the provinces. There was some logic to this argument. Communication in modern Cambodia is difficult enough; given bad roads and lack of technology in the provinces. How much more difficult must it have been in 1975 to communicate with provinces, especially since the KR were officially anti-technology, and many of them were illiterate.
But a counter argument was that the KR effectively controlled every single aspect of the lives of every Khmer, from waking, to working, to sleeping, and even to thinking. Former prisoners have reported that they were beaten for changing position in their sleep, without permission.
If they could control everything, right up to how people slept, then why couldn’t they control their soldiers who were committing genocide?
There has been speculation that if the proceedings happened at all, that they would be halted before they reached any type of conclusion.
“They will take place through completion,” Youk Chang assured us. “It would be difficult for anyone to oppose the trials.”
His next statement summed up the desperation of the plight of Cambodia. “There are a lot of questions of how the trials will effect the government and other organizations. But no one cares about the people.”
It was apparent that Richard really liked Youk Chang. We both did. It was amazing, how much he knew, and what facts he had off the top of his head. In fact when we asked him about Van Nath, the famous painter of Toul Slang, he had said “Oh, I will give you his phone number.” He began writing on a piece of paper, and we both thought he had the number committed to memory. It turned out he was just writing a post-it note so he would not forget to look up the number after the meeting. But, Youk Chang was so sharp we both believed he had all relevant facts, related to the KR, in his head.
Of all the thousands of writings at DCCAM, there was almost no signage at S-21, the Khmer Rouge prison. And, what signage there was, was written in French. Oddly, there was a government push to paint and refurbish S-21, which most people felt took away from the impact of the place. But, there was no mention of a project to create good signage.
“Rebuilding S-21 is a sin,” Richard told the director, who thoroughly agreed.
“Don’t bother with the Killing Fields,” added the director. “There is no documentation and no information, just walking around in an open field. There are only cattle and beggar children there.”
You would think they would be able to keep both of those out of there, I thought.
The meeting went well, and the director told Richard to come any time, and take any photos he wanted.
