Vann Nath, first survivor to testify, shares his hope for justice but interrogation misses the mark

Phnom Penh (Cambodia). 09/05/2001: Vann Nath during the shooting of “S-21, The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine” by Rithy Panh ©John Vink/ Magnum

Ka-set

By Stéphanie Gée
30-06-2009

Only one day, as scheduled by the Trial Chamber, to hear a crucial witness such as painter Vann Nath, whose life was spared in the death antechamber only thanks to the portraits of Pol Pot he was asked to make… One may have wondered whether that would be enough. However, the hearing on Monday June 29th was adjourned earlier than planned. The first survivor of S-21 called to testify since the start of the trial on March 30th recounted his experience with dignity, simplicity and precision, without ever resorting to dramatic effects. But the judges and the parties were often short of questions, most of which were off the mark.

A few preliminaries…
Before hearing the highly-anticipated witness, president Nil Nonn announced the Trial Chamber’s decision to withdraw from the witness list a number of people originally scheduled to testify. For instance, Nic Dunlop, the photographer who had discovered Duch and penned “The Lost Executioner”, will not appear in court, nor will “KW06” and other similarly code-named witnesses. The judge explained the aim was to carry out a “speedy trial” and avoid redundant testimonies.

As for the theory of joint criminal enterprise, which the co-Prosecutors wish to apply in this trial, the Chamber was considering to make a decision on this mode of responsibility “at the same time as the judgment on the merits.”

Incomprehension over the arrest
Centre stage for Vann Nath, 63 years old and seriously weakened by illness. Deep voice, half-closed eyes, and natural nobility. His answers were well-articulated, precise and honest. Like those he offers to the young Cambodian generation, until now severed from the memory of the Khmer Rouge tragedy, in his tireless work to preserve and transmit history. He recounted his story, the one he told in the book “A Cambodian Prison Portrait – One Year in the Khmer Rouge’s S-21”. On December 30th 1977, he was arrested by the Angkar, the organisation concealing the Communist Party of Kampuchea, while he worked in the rice fields in North-West Cambodia. Summoned under a false pretext, he ended up being subjected to a tough interrogation and accused of being a “traitor.” He turned silent for a moment, controlling his emotion, before resuming his story.

Kambol (Phnom Penh, Cambodia). 29/06/2009: Vann Nath, survivor of S-21, the detention and torture centre directed by Duch, testified in the latter’s trial ©Stéphanie Gée

The Battambang native did not understand what fault he may have committed. His interrogators suggested he must be guilty. “Try and remember because the Angkar never makes a mistake when it arrests someone,” he recalled being told. He was led to a room where he discovered a whole array of torture instruments – from plastic bags to pliers – and a blood-stained chair. He was inflicted electroshocks until he fainted and was reanimated by having water splashed at him. He was then asked to give the names of his “accomplices.” Back then, he feared imminent death. Deprived of food, he and others were taken by truck to an unknown destination. On arrival, they were taken out of the truck, blindfolded and tied together around their necks with the same rope. They barely managed to stand. “The guards around us laughed and kicked us. I did not understand what I could have done, what I was accused of.”

In S-21, Vann Nath lost his humanity
Vann Nath talked about the “inhumane” conditions imposed on the prisoners in S-21, the fateful destination of this trip. Only a couple of spoonfuls of rice gruel twice a day, very strict rules for prisoners, such as the prohibition to talk, to make any noise, to do anything, even move, without being authorised to do so by the guards. “I lost my humanity there… It was a relationship you can only imagine between humans and animals,” the painter said gravely. And when the prisoners were ordered to do exercise while their feet were shackled to the same beams, they did so in a state of unimaginable weakness and with the energy of despair. “We had to keep jumping until the guards ordered us to stop.” Washing consisted in guards splashing fifteen prisoners at once with a hose for five minutes. “So, we never really washed and we suffered all kinds of skin diseases, while the floor remained wet after the shower…” Wracked by hunger, he recounted, those who managed to catch insects fallen off the ceiling gulped them down, unbeknownst to the guards. Death was constantly lurking. “We sometimes ate our meals next to prisoners who had already died. It didn’t do anything to us because we were reduced to an animal state.”

Vann Nath turned into a portrait-maker for Pol Pot
After a month of this treatment, he was called to the ground floor. There, “Brother of the East”, the name Duch used to hide his identity – something he realised after the Democratic Kampuchea regime fell – told him the Angkar needed a portrait. He showed him a photograph of a person he did not know and who was none other than Pol Pot. For the first time since he was interned, he was authorised to eat rice. “My jaw ached so much I could barely chew.” The first portrait he made was a failure. He requested to paint in colours, as he did not master black and white. He realized it would be his last chance, but he passed the second test and therefore painted until early January 1979, when the regime fell.

When the president incongruously asked him how he took out his clothes with his legs shackled, Vann Nath brought his foot close to his face, in sight of everyone, and made a demonstration, as if he had done that gesture on the very eve. The old painter confirmed that he was not interrogated in S-21. But he heard, on a daily basis, the cries and screams that came from the building.

By being posted in the artists’ workshop working for the glory of the regime, located within S-21, Vann Nath enjoyed better detention conditions. Better food, right to sleep on a mat without being chained… Very often, or even everyday, Duch came to inspect the workshop. “Each time he came in, we had to go and stand in a corner and wait for his instructions. We had to fear and respect him as the most eminent Angkar person in the prison.” If an artist did not work well, he ended up subject to the whims of the guards who would correct him.

Paintings to depict the horror
Vann Nath answered the questions soberly, while, a few meters away, the accused remained impassive. Drawings and paintings by the witness were shown on the screen, illustrating the detention conditions and acts of torture inflicted upon the prisoners, as he saw them, as they were reported to him, or sometimes, as he imagined them. Vann Nath commented the images, the ones after the others. He could have been usefully provided with a rule to allow him to point out the details better. Here, a scene of suffocation by immersion into water, as a prisoner who suffered the experience described it to him; there, a naked woman whose “female attributes” were taken away, with pliers on her nipples, and an interrogator near her taking insects, millipedes, out of a box. “A prisoner, a carpenter, told me he had been asked to feed the insects,” the witness reported. Another picture was of a man whose nails were being ripped off. The man, who later became the director of the Tuol Sleng Museum created in the very premises of S-21, and since deceased, had asked Vann Nath to paint this torture scene, which he had experienced. He also immortalised with his brushes the picture of a man carried away like an animal, hands and feet tied to a stick, because he could no longer walk. A scene that “shocked” him, as the blindfolded man was still alive.

The day when Phnom Penh was captured by the Vietnamese troops, they were a dozen to be ordered to leave the premises. On January 10th, Vann Nath decided to go back, despite the fear of being killed by the Vietnamese. When he arrived in the deserted capital, he was welcomed by “friendly” Cambodian soldiers accompanying the neighbouring country’s military. When he returned to his home in Battambang, he reunited with his wife, but discovered that their two children had not survived.

Testifying against oblivion
Judge Lavergne then asked him to explain the difficulties encountered after his release from S-21 and the tragic experience he lived there. “The sufferings and the separation I had to endure during the year of detention and for the duration [of the regime] cannot be easily forgiven. I tried though. I tried to forget, but these are memories that still haunt me. You cannot forget. I don’t think I can ever forget what happened to me.”

“As we have seen, you have painted many pictures – you even came back on the site shortly after your release to paint pictures [in S-21]. You have participated to documentaries. You have written a book. Could you tell us why it is important for you to be able to testify?”, judge Lavergne asked him. “I had this thought while I was still detained. I told myself that if I survived and if I was able to leave S-21, I would gather these events to show what happened, so that young people knew the sufferings we went through. […] I wanted those who arrived with me in S-21 not to be forgotten and [I wanted people to know they] had committed no crime that justified their arrest. […] I had to say it. […] That is why I was determined and tried to explain this story to the young and the children, in various programs, so that the young generation knows what happened and so that history does not repeat itself.”

Justice for the dead
“Do you expect anything special from this trial?”, the French judge continued. “From the start, since 1979, I never imagined that one day, I would be able to stand before a tribunal and share my experience for the public and the young people, so that they understand what happened to me. Today, I have the possibility to testify publicly. It is a privilege and I am not asking for anything else. What I wish is something immaterial: it is justice for those who are dead. My only hope is that justice be given. That is what I expect from the Chamber. And I hope that in the end, when the tribunal is finished, justice will have been rendered, that it will be tangible. That is the result I am waiting for.”

The judge then returned to an incident between another painter, Bou Meng, and Duch. Vann Nath recalled that Bou Meng was tortured for a mistake he made, although he did not know which one. He was taken away and only reappeared two weeks later, chained, very pale and with long hair. When he saw him, his heart started beating very fast. Duch asked him to kneel before the others and apologise. Later, he asked if “despicable Meng could still be useful or whether he should be used to make compost.” The painter did not understand the meaning of those last words, which he then took literally. He asked that Meng be forgiven and given a second chance, a request that was heard.

In the afternoon, surprising questions that bore no relevance for the substance of the case were asked to Vann Nath. For instance, judge Ya Sokhan asked him whether he looked at the plate number of the truck that took them to S-21… Alternatively, he was made to repeat what he had already explained.

The painter reported an anecdote, when a member of the interrogators’ unit asked him for some of the cement he was preparing for a Pol Pot sculpture. “I thought it was to plug a crack in a water jar.” But shortly afterwards, he saw a prisoner come back with cement on his head…

In S-21, “Duch controlled everything”
That was all for the judges and the floor went to the co-Prosecutors, who had 30 minutes. Robert Petit made his comeback after being absent from the trial since April 20th. “Did you confess anything [when you were interrogated in Kandal]?”, “Do you recognise the premises on this aerial shot of S-21?”, “Could you tell us in which building you were detained when you arrived in S-21?”, “Where was the artists’ workshop?”, “So, when Duch came to visit you in the workshop, he had to go through the whole compound?” Nath was not quite sure. “Did Duch ever look scared, depressed or anxious to you?” Nath answered: “S-21 was his dominion and he was its chief. I can’t see what he would have been scared of. He controlled everything. His subordinates respected and feared him. I think he was a smart chief and back then, I saw him rather as an efficient director.”



Kambol (Phnom Penh, Cambodia). 29/06/2009: Kar Savuth, co-lawyer for Duch (in the background), during Vann Nath’s testimony at the ECCC ©Stéphanie Gée

Robert Petit then requested if two video clips shot in Tuol Sleng a few days after the fall could be shown – the judges decided that the two items would be added to the case file subject to a review of their relevance and authenticity during the trial. He argued that the witness could help establish the interest of the footage for the Chamber. As the defence issued objections against the videos, saying they were fabricated images, the president recalled, the Chamber decided to postpone to a later date discussion on those items and therefore rejected the request. The co-Prosecutors had no more questions.

Vann Nath saw Duch hit detainees
The civil party co-lawyers had ten minutes for each group. They resumed the interrogation but also missed their target. One of them seemed to discover that Vann Nath made his series of paintings describing scenes in S-21 after the fall of Pol Pot’s regime… The witness consistently answered with honesty, distinguishing clearly the times when he inferred facts, when he reported what he had been told or what he had witnessed, and when he did not know.

Alain Werner, co-lawyer for civil party group 1, returned to Bou Meng’s humiliation, when he returned to the workshop, as Vann Nath described it in his book, and noted an interesting detail: “You wrote that the accused kicked Bou Meng in his head, just in front of you, and Bou Meng collapsed on the floor. Do you remember that?” “Yes, I remember it.” It is a cause for regret that there were not more questions asked during this day on Duch’s attitude in S-21, while the witness used to see him regularly. The Swiss lawyer asked him for the reason why the artists were posted “in a place within S-21, in the middle of the cries of those being tortured” and not outside. But Vann Nath answered he did not know. He confessed that although he was shocked to hear the prisoners’ screams, he ended up getting used to it.

Why Vann Nath did not want to join as a civil party
Kar Savuth, the Cambodian co-lawyer for the accused, tried to get the witness to say it was possible the guards tortured the prisoners without Duch’s knowing. But Vann Nath stated he could not draw such a conclusion based on what he saw. “Did you ever see [the accused] torture a prisoner during your detention?” “Severe torture, no. But he did hit and kick prisoners,” the witness answered.

His international colleague, Marie-Paule Canizares (who was standing for François Roux in his absence), asked Vann Nath to explain why he had not wished to join as a civil party. “People have different goals. As for me, my main concern is to take care of my health. I was afraid I would not be able to come regularly to the trial. Secondly, I think it is not a purely personal issue. This is something that is of interest to all of the Cambodian people. So, I did not want to become a civil party. But if the Chamber wishes to hear me as a witness, I am entirely ready to testify. Also, in general, people who become civil parties ask for reparations. But in my case, I am not asking for any reparation.”

A question of the defence rejected
Then, the lawyer asked the following question to the witness: “Do you think that the position of the accused, who recognises the great majority of the crimes he is accused of as well as the victims’ suffering, can help you and other victims to consider that justice is given, at least partially?” The international co-Prosecutor intervened, observing that “the question may pertain to plea, but is certainly outside of the expertise, knowledge and definitely the relevance of the witness’ testimony” and called the “irrelevant” question to be rejected. The president agreed with Robert Petit and recalled that only “questions related to the facts must be asked.” The defence had no more questions.

Vann Nath was thanked for his participation by the president before the hearing was adjourned earlier than usual. Shame. By asking him better questions, the witness would have likely been able to shed more light on the role played by Duch in S-21 and contradict an accused who has recognised his crimes but also multiplied omissions and lies in his statements.

Tomorrow, another S-21 survivor will be called to take the stand.