Detained Khmer Rouge chief torturer revisits living nightmare of his past atrocities

The Associated Press
February 27, 2008

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: A detained Khmer Rouge official faced his past atrocities Wednesday during a return to the prison he directed where thousands were tortured before being sent for execution in the 1970s.

Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, was taken to the Khmer Rouge's notorious S-21 prison by Cambodia's U.N.-assisted tribunal investigating a case against him.

Duch, 65, has been charged with crimes against humanity for his role as commandant of the Khmer Rouge's largest torture facility. He is one of five former high-ranking Khmer Rouge officials being held for trial by the tribunal.

Three of the S-21 prison survivors who are still alive said they were invited to join the visit Wednesday. They said they do not harbor anger toward Duch anymore, but, if given an opportunity to face him during the visit, they would ask him why they had been imprisoned and tormented.

Bou Meng, 67, said he and his wife, Ma Yoeun, were both put in S-21 prison in 1977 and that his wife was later executed.

"I just want to ask him what she may have done wrong that they had to kill her. Where is my wife?" said Bou Meng, who was spared because he was a painter and painting Pol Pot's portrait.
Pol Pot, the late Khmer Rouge leader, died in 1998.

Duch has been detained since July last year pending long-delayed trials, which the tribunal says will start this year.

The S-21 prison, also known as Tuol Sleng, is now a genocide museum. Its walls are lined with grim pictures of the prisoners who died there.

An estimated 1.7 million people died during the 1975-79 communist Khmer Rouge regime, which cut off contact with the outside world and forced the entire population into agricultural collectives, leading to starvation and disease.

Some 16,000 men, women and children were believed to have been held at S-21, now the Tuol Sleng genocide museum. Only 14 are thought to have survived.

Duch's return to the S-21 prison was his first in nearly 30 years since the Khmer Rouge regime was toppled from power by an invading Vietnamese army.

He was accompanied by tribunal officials in a so-called reenactment that involves taking the accused to the crime scene to be questioned about what happened in the past. The event was closed to the public and media.

"He is revisiting his past atrocities although he is not going to see blood stains or hear the scream of prisoners any more," said Youk Chhang, the director of Documentation Center of Cambodia, a center researching the Khmer Rouge atrocities.

"Tuol Sleng is a living nightmare for us," Youk Chhang said.

On Tuesday, Duch was moved to tears as he led the officials through the "killing field" at Choeung Ek, a site outside of the capital where most of S-21 prisoners were executed and dumped in shallow mass graves.

Reach Sambath, a tribunal spokesman, said Duch wept during the 3 1/2 hour visit as "the accused explained what happened ... when he was the chief of S-21."

"We noticed that he was feeling pity, tears were rolling down his face two or three times," Reach Sambath said.

He said Duch was especially moved when he stood before a tree with a sign describing how executioners disposed of their child victims by bashing their heads against its trunk.