Foreigners burned in streets under Pol Pot regime

Sunday Star Times
31/03/2009

Foreign prisoners at Tuol Sleng prison, New Zealander Kerry Hamill possibly among them, were burned in the streets of Phnom Penh during the Pol Pot regime, the Khmer Rouge Tribunal was told today.

The public trial of the head of the torture centre and prison Kaing Guek Eav or Duch before New Zealand Judge Dame Silvia Cartwright, French judge Jean-Marc Lavergne and Cambodian judges Nil Nonn, Ya Sokhan, and Thou Mony began yesterday, but only for three hours after time was taken to make rulings on defence objections.

The trial is the first of senior leaders in the Khmer Rouge regime under which 1.7 million Cambodians died to be heard before the UN-backed dual international Cambodian Court.

After giving the court a few biographical details, including that he worked in China after the regime fell, Duch, 66, sat in the dock facing the judge's panel and flanked by the defence and prosecution on either side. From time to time he took notes and when his image appeared on the screen in front of him – also projected in the auditorium – he looked uncomfortable.

On the other side of thick bullet proof glass survivors and other Cambodians sat along with a large contingent of foreign media and observers.

The bulk of the day was spent hearing the indictment against Duch.

Mr Hamill, brother of rower Rob Hamill, ended up at S-21 when the yacht he and friends were sailing strayed into Cambodian waters in August 1978. One crewman, Canadian Stuart Glass, was shot while Mr Hamill and Briton John Dewhirst were taken for interrogation.

Mr Hamill wrote a 4000 word confession about involvement with the CIA, a typical story for many of the thousands incarcerated then executed.

Documented figures put Tuol Sleng's toll at 12,380 but other reports put it between 14,000 and 17,000.

At least 10 foreigners were among the toll. Inmates were interrogated and tortured before being taken to a killing field for execution.

Others died of their injuries, disease or starved.

The court was told that a witness twice saw foreigners being burned in main streets in Phnom Penh along with rubber tyres.

The witness' evidence is yet to be presented to the court.

The court also heard of macabre medical experiments where over a thousand inmates had blood taken which was given to hospitals, sometimes they died of blood loss. Inmates were also subjected to live dissections and experiments with drugs.

After the lunch break the defence requested to be allowed to make balancing claims about Duch's character. He is now a Christian. After a 30 minute adjournment that was refused. The court rose at 3pm as the prosecution did not want to shorten its opening statements and the court declined to run an extra hour than scheduled to 5pm. The trial will resume at 9am (local time) today.

Amnesty International researcher Brittis Edman said outside court it was disappointing the court sat for such a short period given some people had travelled far for the hearing, some only to attend one day.

"There are lots of people who have travelled far. . . its quite a lot of money."

She hoped victims would get to have their say during the trial and that problems could be worked through. There was a concern the victims weren't being given a role.

"The role of the victims remains very, very crucial."

However the start of the trial was a first step given it took 30 years to hold it.

"First of the fact the trial is starting today does give hope. . . it was a short start, but it was a start and that's something to acknowledge."

Anthropologist Prof Alex Hinton, who has written a book about genocide under the Khmer Rouge, said today was important as the historical facts had been put on the record.

He said the blood letting of prisoners encapsulated the dehumanisation of prisoners.

"I think it was emotional. . . it effects anyone who hears something about people being burned in tyres, having their blood drained out of their bodies, being tortured in all sorts of different ways. . . you can imagine the impact that it has upon Cambodians after what they've gone through."

Duch faces charges including crimes against humanity, breaches of the Geneva Convention and violations of the Cambodian penal code including premeditated murder.

Maggie Tait travelled to Cambodia with the assistance of the Asia New Zealand Foundation.

The hearing continues.

- NZPA

Khmer Rouge suspect faces survivors at Cambodian genocide trial

A tourist visits Toul Sleng Genocide museum. The former commander of the torture prison, Kaing Guek Eav, is the first of five former Khmer Rouge leaders being tried for crimes against humanity. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/David Longstreath

Whistler Question
March 30, 2009

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - The man accused of overseeing the torture and execution of enemies of Cambodia's former Khmer Rouge rulers faced scores of his victims Monday, as the first trial for one of the communist group's leaders opened at a genocide tribunal.

Victims of the 1975-79 regime, some missing limbs, mixed with earnest law students in a modern courtroom to watch the trial of Kaing Guek Eav, who ran the main prison where every inmate "was destined for execution," according to the indictment.

The 66-year-old defendant, widely known as Duch, showed no emotion as court officials read the litany of horrors that took several hours and was broadcast live countrywide.

"Several witnesses said that prisoners were killed using steel clubs, cart axles, and water pipes to hit the base of their necks," the indictment said. "Prisoners were then kicked into the pits, where their handcuffs were removed. Finally the guards either cut open their bellies or their throats. After the executions were complete, the guards covered the pits."

Despite the emotional weight of the moment, a polite calm prevailed among the 500 spectators and the robed judges and lawyers, who conducted the proceedings on a stage behind a glass wall.

The UN-backed tribunal on the outskirts of the capital, Phnom Penh, is seeking to establish responsibility for the reign of terror under Pol Pot, the group's leader who died in 1998. An estimated 1.7 million Cambodians died of starvation, medical neglect, slave-like working conditions and execution under the Khmer Rouge, which ruled from 1975 to 1979.

Duch is charged with committing crimes against humanity and war crimes, as well as torture and homicide. He ran the group's main prison, the notorious torture centre known as S-21, or Tuol Sleng, in Phnom Penh. As many as 16,000 men, women and children were brutally tortured there before being sent to their deaths.

Duch holds the distinction of being not only the first member of the Khmer Rouge to face trial for the regime's atrocities, but also the only one of five set to be tried to express remorse or take responsibility for his actions.

Five hundred seats are allotted for the public in the auditorium-like courtroom, and scores of survivors travelled from around the country to witness the trial.

Among them was Svay Simon, a 64-year-old farmer whose leg was blown off by a Khmer Rouge bomb in 1975. He lost 10 relatives, including his sister and brother, to the regime.

"I never thought I would have a chance to see Duch and sit in on this trial," he said, walking with a cane as he entered the courtroom.

After all the politics and procedural wrangling that delayed a trial for years, it was a dramatic moment when the five crimson-robed judges took their seats on the top tier of a podium to launch the proceedings.

No less dramatic was when Duch was asked to identify himself and gave his name as, "Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch," - his nom de guerre (pronounced "Gang Geck Ee-uu" and "Doik") - before reciting a brief curriculum vitae.

"Cambodians have been waiting 30 years for the Khmer Rouge to be tried for the violence and suffering they inflicted upon the population," said Alex Hinton, director of Rutgers University's Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights. "That day has arrived."

Duch's job was to extract confessions of counterrevolutionary activity, but "every prisoner who arrived at S-21 was destined for execution," said the indictment, which was issued last year when Duch was formally charged.

"Interrogators used several forms of torture in order to extract confessions from prisoners. According to Duch, only four methods of torture were allowed: beating, electrocution, placing a plastic bag over the head and pouring water into the nose." It says he also acknowledged that he knew about the practice of puncturing or removing finger and toenails, and that there was evidence that "at least one prisoner was force-fed excrement."

Execution inevitably followed torture and was equally gruesome. The indictment alleges that "some prisoners were killed by having large quantities of blood withdrawn by medics," leaving them unconscious and gasping.

Duch's French lawyer, Francois Roux, said last month that his client wished "to ask forgiveness from the victims, but also from the Cambodian people. He will do so publicly. This is the very least he owes the victims."

Duch disappeared after the group fell from power, living under two other names. He returned to teaching and converted to Christianity before he was discovered by chance by a British journalist in the Cambodian countryside in 1999.

Since then he has been in detention awaiting trial. Only now, after years of political and procedural wrangling, is his case ready to be heard.

Human rights groups want the number of defendants increased beyond Duch and the four senior Khmer Rouge leaders being held for trial in the next year or so.

Critics of the tribunal also charge that Cambodia's government has sought to limit its scope because other suspects are now loyal to Prime Minister Hun Sen, and to arrest them could be politically awkward.

Cambodian state television and radio were broadcasting Monday's proceedings live, and 70 per cent of the country's 14.3 million people were expected to tune in, Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said. The verdict at the end of the trial is also expected to be broadcast live.

The trial resumes Tuesday.

Women: the underrated credit plight

Taipei Times

By Ruth Sutherland
THE GUARDIAN, LONDON
Tuesday, Mar 31, 2009

“Factories are closing everywhere — and now the women are being approached by sex traffickers asking if they want to go and work in the West.” — Jitra Kotchadet, union leader, Thailand.

“I lost my job, I’ve been evicted from my house and my belongings confiscated by the landlord. Now I rent a small room with my husband and two children. We’ve had to cut our spending on food.” — Kim Sunheap, Cambodia.

There, in two short quotations, is the female face of the credit crunch in the developing world. They come from a report by Oxfam International ahead of the G20 summit highlighting the devastating effect of the crisis on women and children in poorer countries. Research has also been published by the World Bank pointing to the severe vulnerability of women and girls, as well as by the International Labour Organisation, which predicted a bigger rise in female unemployment than male in many regions.

These largely unpublicized reports are reminders that behind the political rows, grandstanding, incomprehensible acronyms and banker-baiting, women in poor countries are paying a ruinously heavy price for the follies and mistakes of the Western financial system.

One school of thought states that to discuss the gender aspects of the credit crunch — or even to assert there are any — is an intellectually enfeebled form of self-indulgence by privileged Western feminists. Yet, as these reports make clear, the crunch is visiting an economic blight on women and children with effects that could reverberate for generations. For them, the impact of the credit crunch is not a matter of debate in the blogosphere; it is literally a matter of life and death.

Millions will lose their jobs without any safety net — Oxfam cites cases of women being forced to sign resignation letters so their employers can avoid paying redundancy; families will go hungry; there will be lower levels of schooling for girls; and, most horrific of all, the World Bank predicts the crunch will cause a surge in infant mortality, with up to 2.8 million more babies dying between now and 2015 if the crisis persists.

The Bank points out that falls in GDP lead to much greater increases in female infant mortality than male. No explanation is offered for this discrepancy; the likely causes scarcely bear thinking about.

The persistent unwillingness to concede that the crunch will affect women more than men because of pre-existing inequalities threatens to cause long-lasting damage to developing economies. As Oxfam director Barbara Stocking puts it: “If you hurt women’s incomes, everything unravels.”

Numerous studies have shown that reducing gender inequality leads to improved economic growth. Educating women is a key driver of prosperity because when girls become mothers they have better-planned families and their children are better nourished and educated. When poor women gain an income, they have a much higher propensity than men to reinvest it in family and community. Instead of denying or ignoring the harm being done to women, there should be a recognition at the G20 of the positive role we can play in countering the crisis, particularly in the developing world.

Responses to the credit crunch should include an explicit focus on women, which, as I have said before, means seats and voices at the top tables. It also means making sure that fiscal stimulus programs are not just about “jobs for the boys” in industries dominated by men. The crisis threatens to reverse the slow and sometimes painful progress that has been made toward equality and financial independence for women; in the rich world, that is bad enough, but in developing nations, it is many, many times worse.

It’s a point so obvious that it shouldn’t need making, but it seems it still has to be said: If you hurt women, you hurt men and children too.

Yet women need not be defined as victims of the crisis; if our economic role is fully recognized and respected, we can be powerful players in rebuilding out of the rubble.

The right to land in dialogue between Sweden and Cambodia

ScandAsia.com

By Charlotte Lund Dideriksen

A hundred thousand people in Cambodia have been forced to move from their land. Sweden drew attention to the humanitarian situation of the homeless in the first dialogue meeting between Sweden and Cambodia.

The first dialogue about human rights between Sweden and Cambodia took place at the end of February in Phnom Penh. The theme was land rights. The participants made a field visit to the place to which families from a slum area in the city had been forced to move by being evicted. They were given an opportunity to speak both to those who had received new housing and those who had become homeless.

The UN estimates that around 100 000 people in Cambodia have been forced to move from their land in the last ten years, and that at least as many will be evicted in the next few years. Although compensation is given, poor people in urban slum areas are primarily affected. In the mountain areas, traditional ways of life in entire societies are threatened by collapse when owners are forced to leave their property through expropriation.

The humanitarian situation of the homeless important. The Swedish delegation urged the Cambodian authorities to take measures to alleviate the humanitarian situation of the homeless and to investigate the abuses claimed to have taken place during the evictions. The delegation also urged the authorities to establish guidelines for future evictions together with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (COHCHR), should such evictions be necessary.

Other discussions covered legislative work in human rights, the fight against corruption and impunity, measures to prevent torture, the conditions of work of NGOs and the trials of the Khmer Rouge.

Sweden is to examine the possibility of supporting Cambodia in its work on human rights, including training officials, reporting to the UN Human Rights Committees and upgrading Cambodia's national committee for human rights.

Vietnam, Cambodia boost cooperation in information and communications

VOV News
03/30/2009

Vietnam wants to strengthen cooperation with Cambodia, particularly in the field of the media, said Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung while receiving Cambodian Minister of Information, Khieu Kanharith, in Hanoi on March 30.

PM Dung stressed that the two countries should pay more attention to personnel training and investment in infrastructure to promote the dissemination of information, helping to boost bilateral cooperation and refute hostile forces’ slanderous allegations.

He spoke highly of the effective cooperation between Vietnam’s Ministry of Information and Communications and Cambodia’s Information Ministry, saying this has made practical contributions to tightening bilateral ties.

He also conveyed his best regards to Cambodia’s Prime Minister and other senior leaders.

Minister Khieu Kanharith thanked Vietnam for its valuable assistance to Cambodia. He pledged to work closely with Vietnam’s Ministry of Information and Communications to promote the exchange of delegations, the building of information institutions, staff training and infrastructure development for broadcasting activities in order to strengthen mutual understanding for the sake of stability, peace and development in both countries.

Cambodia's long road to justice

The former Khmer Rouge stronghold of Pailin is enjoying a mini-boom after years of war

Al Jazeera

Monday, March 30, 2009
By Stephanie Scawen in Pailin, Cambodia

It is said that in life there are only two certainties – death and taxes. But Cambodia could add a third – the road to Pailin is always difficult.

Stretching 83 back-breaking kilometres west from Cambodia's second city of Battambang it seems the road has always been in a potholed state of disrepair.

A decade ago it was pitted with deep craters from years of fierce fighting between Khmer Rouge forces and the Cambodian armed forces.

Both sides of the track littered with danger signs warning of landmines. The journey took a mind-rattling five hours.

In the intervening years it has been repaired, the ruts from rainy season damage rolled flat, the travel time quickened, only for the wheels of countless heavy trucks bearing timber and other goods to tear it apart once more.

Now the road is in upheaval again - this time for the better - as Chinese money pays for it to be completely rebuilt, with sturdy new bridges and drainage channels to replace the rusting steel and timber structures that have somehow held together all these years.

For years the residents of Pailin lived in the shadow of conflict [AP]

The reconstruction of Route 57 to Pailin reflects Cambodia’s own struggle to reconcile with its bloody history and that of its former Khmer Rouge leaders, many of whom made Pailin their home.

In late 1998 Nuon Chea, the Khmer Rouge's Brother Number Two, and the former Head of State Khieu Samphan had just come out of Pailin’s jungles to meet Cambodia's prime minister, signalling a final end to years of hostilities between the last remaining Khmer Rouge guerrillas and the government.

Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge's former leader, had died earlier the same year while held under house arrest by his former military commander, Ta Mok, a man known to many as "the Butcher".

Change in the air

A decade later, Pailin is still the dusty frontier town it has always been, with ramshackle buildings, a bustling market and a few dubious-looking restaurants.

But change is in the air. A new Honda motorbike dealership is doing brisk trade, a Suzuki store is opening soon. Lockups compete to sell the latest mobile phone and all along the road from Pailin to the Thai border 15 kilometres away, construction is under way.

Down at the border there are duty free shops selling wines, cigarettes and liquor. Bright lights flash from the casinos attracting gamers from the other side of the international crossing.

The teak forests and thick bamboo groves that used to surround the town have disappeared, replaced by hectares of flat land given over to farming.

Pailin's population has tripled in the past decade

The gem mining that once funded the Khmer Rouge war effort has also gone, as have the people scrabbling behind earthmovers hoping to find a ruby or sapphire chip they could sell for a few riel or baht.

The forested track I first walked tentatively down with a TV crew to try to confront Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan in early 1999 is now unrecognisable.

Only the concrete post that supported a bamboo pole barring the path to the leaders’ homes remains to mark the way.

At the time there was a guard post manned by a Khmer Rouge soldier with an AK47. As we approached he furiously dialled his war-time field telephone.

Minutes later another soldier appeared brandishing a rocket launcher and a rack of five grenades. We were being warned.

Two cars with blacked-out windows appeared and sped past heading for the Thai border.

Former Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea lived freely in Pailin for several years [AFP]

Perhaps Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan were inside, but we did not hang around to find out.

It would be another eight years and four more trips to Pailin before I came face to face with Nuon Chea, when the ageing former Brother Number Two finally agreed to talk to Al Jazeera in June 2007.

It was one of the last interviews he did before being detained by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia or ECCC – the hybrid United Nations-Cambodian body that will try the former Khmer Rouge leaders.

The journey to Pailin from Battambang then took just two hours, but the ECCC still took Nuon Chea south by helicopter.

He left behind many other former Khmer Rouge members, among them Kong Duong a pleasant, smiling man, who is now Pailin's chief information officer.

He is also the former boss of Pailin radio – a station which ironically used to broadcast the songs of a popular female singer who was herself murdered by the Khmer Rouge.

Kong Duong says he only joined the Khmer Rouge in 1979, after the invading Vietnamese army forced the group from power. He fled into the jungles to fight for the country’s liberation.

But he is no fan today of the Maoist extremism which the Khmer Rouge used so ruthlessly to all but destroy Cambodia's people.

Now in his new role as Pailin's information officer he is helping to transform the town.
"Pailin has moved on," he insists.

New work ethic

"The development of capitalism is a good thing. When we lived under communism the aim was equality, no-one wanted to compete. People were poor then because there was no competition. Capitalism is good for development because people work hard and compete."

One of those signing up to Pailin's new capitalist work ethic is Kiet Boren, a casino worker from Battambang who came to Pailin 10 years ago, seeing the opportunity to make money in a 'new province'.

After decades of war, Pailin is keen to present a new face to the outside world

Kiet Boren is just one of the thousands of migrants who have helped boost Pailin’s population three-fold in the last 10 years.

He says he plans to use the money he's making to start up his own business in the future.

Like many people here he knows about the Khmer Rouge trials only just beginning in Phnom Penh after years of delays, but he does not spend much time thinking about it.

Kong Duong agrees. "I don’t think the priority for people here is justice or the Khmer Rouge trial," he says.

"Their priority is daily life, and whether they can sell their cassava at the market, or earn enough money to send their kids to school."

The new road to Pailin is due to be finished towards the end of next year, which may just coincide with the start of the second Khmer Rouge trial, predicted to include all five surviving leaders.

Just like the physical road, after years of delays Cambodia's long road to justice is finally nearing completion.

Main Trial for Prison Chief Gets Underway

Kaing Kek Iev, standing behind his lawyers on Monday.

By Reporters, VOA Khmer

Original reports from Cambodia

30 March 2009

A former math teacher who came to be the head of a murderous Khmer Rouge prison system sat before a panel of trial judges on Monday, more than three decades after his regime fell and after years of worry none of its leaders would ever see a day in court.

The prison chief, Duch, 66, sat in the dock with a still face, listening closely before five judges of the Khmer Rouge tribunal’s Trial Chamber. The indictment included war crimes, crimes against humanity, murder and torture. During a three-hour opening day, Duch wore glasses and read along as the charges were read. He answered questions with a strong, clear voice.

Duch, whose real name is Kaing Kek Iev, was in charge of the now infamous Tuol Sleng prison, known to the Khmer Rouge as S-21, where traitors to the revolution and others were sent for torture and confession.

Once inside the walls of Tuol Sleng, prisoners were shackled to beds, kept in tiny cells, beaten, electrocuted, and made to confess crimes against the Angkar, the Organization.

“My feeling is very angry and very happy, mixed,” prison survivor Bu Meng, who was present at the court Monday, told reporters. “I am angry that Duch killed my wife. And I am very happy because the court is trying the Khmer Rouge leaders. Duch’s trial is very valuable for humanity around the world, and for Cambodians, and for me.”

An estimated 16,000 prisoners went through Tuol Sleng, a former Phnom Penh high school, before they were executed at a site on the outskirts of the capital, Choeung Ek, which was also administered by Duch, along with a second prison in Phnom Penh, Prey Sar.

Bu Meng, who was arrested in 1976 as an “enemy of the revolution” for his participation in the Lon Nol government, was released from the prison only when Vietnamese and Cambodian forces ousted the Khmer Rouge.

“I hope there will be justice in coming days,” he said.

Monday marked the most significant trial date so far for the tribunal, officially known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, or ECCC, which has been dogged by accusations of corruption and mismanagement.

Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan said the trial marked “the end of impunity in Cambodia.”

The tribunal is currently holding four other former leaders of the regime: chief ideologue Nuon Chea, head of state Khieu Samphan, foreign minister Ieng Sary and his wife, former social affairs minister Ieng Thirith.

Each is facing charges for either for war crimes, crimes against humanity, or both. None is facing charges of genocide. Nearly 2 million Cambodians perished under the Khmer Rouge, officially called Democratic Kampuchea, from April 1975 to January 1979.

Kek Galabru, president of the rights group Licadho, said Duch’s trial “gives once again hope for justice to victims, who have been waiting 30 years.” She said she expected more former leaders to face indictments.

US Ambassador Carol Rodley, who attended the opening session, was “gratified that it’s proceeding, and in the following weeks and months we’ll monitor the ECCC closely,” embassy spokesman John Johnson said.

The US played a key role in forging a tribunal agreement between the Cambodian government and the UN. Initial negotiations began and faltered as early as 1997, started up again in 2003, and concluded in 2005. The court stood up in 2006, but was delayed by disagreements between international and Cambodian judges and prosecutors on internal regulations and other matters. Its first arrests came in 2007.

More than 500 people, ranging from international diplomats to young Cambodian students, as well as 200 journalists from around the world, attended Monday’s proceedings, the most significant session of Duch’s trial to date.

Phy Sophoan, a student from the Royal University of Law and Economy, said she expected the trial to “provide justice for the Cambodian people.”

Some observers expressed shock on seeing Duch, wearing a collared shirt tucked neatly into his pants, healthy, answering questions posed by judges.

“Duch is apparently brave, [but] he is not enthusiastic,” said Om Cheantha, a farmer from Kampong Cham who lost her husband and brother under the Khmer Rouge, in 1976. “But he killed several million people. We wish the courts will condemn him fairly, for the deaths of millions of Cambodians.”

To hear more reaction from people in Phnom Penh, click here.

To hear from family and neighbors around Duch’s hometownin Stung district,Kampong Thom province, click here.

To hear what people in the former Khmer Rouge zone of Samlot district, Battambang province, are saying, click here.

Prisoners tortured and starved, Khmer Rouge tribunal hears

IANS

Monday 30th March, 2009

Detainees in the Khmer Rouge's most notorious prison were tortured and starved and used for medical experiments, according to a pre-trial investigation whose results were read out Monday as Cambodia's UN-backed genocide tribunal began the most crucial stage of the long-awaited trial of the regime's former chief torturer.

In the tribunal's first trial, Kaing Guek Eav, known by his revolutionary name Duch, faces charges of crimes against humanity, premeditated murder, torture and breeches of the Geneva Conventions, allegedly committed more than three decades ago when he was chairman of the Tuol Sleng torture facility, also known as S-21.

'Several witnesses said Duch was feared by everyone at S-21,' said the findings of the investigation, which led to Duch's indictment. 'Duch said that the role of S-21 was not to determine whether detainees were traitors as their guilt was already established by the fact that they had been arrested and sent to S-21.'

Duch has previously admitted guilt for crimes committed at the Phnom Penh prison, which was established shortly after the Khmer Rouge came to power and was aimed at 'smashing' enemies of the regime. At least 12,000 men, women and children were tortured there and sent to be murdered in the Khmer Rouge's 'Killing Fields' during the ultra-communists' 1975-79 rule.

The findings said prisoners were routinely tortured, shackled in tiny cells for almost 24 hours a day, were not permitted to speak unless being interrogated, received barely any food and were 'forced to urinate in jerry cans and defecate in ammunition boxes'.

'Evidence suggests that S-21 personnel performed medical experimentation on prisoners,' the findings said.

Duch, 66, dressed in a white shirt and grey trousers, sat quietly in the dock during the session, occasionally taking notes.

Prosecutors and defence lawyers were scheduled to deliver their opening addresses during Monday's session, which began the first substantial hearing of Duch's trial, but presiding judge Nil Nonn granted an adjournment until Tuesday morning on a request by national co-prosecutor Chea Leang, who wanted enough time to deliver the prosecution's full two-hour opening statement.

Nil Nonn opened the hearing just after 10 a.m. (0300 GMT) and asked Duch a series of brief questions to verify his identity.

The judge then ordered the court's registrar to read out the findings of the pre-trial investigation for the first time.

Duch, a former mathematics teacher and born-again Christian, is one of five former Khmer Rouge leader facing trial for their roles in the deaths of up to 2 million people - or a quarter of Cambodia's population at the time - through execution, overwork or starvation.

The first stage of the trial began in February and the current hearing has been scheduled to run for at least 40 days.

Tuol Sleng survivors, witnesses and experts have been called to testify during the hearing.

Duch faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

CAMBODIA: Khmer Rouge Trials May Expose US, China

Analysis by Marwaan Macan-Markar

PHNOM PENH, Mar 30 (IPS) - Limits placed on a United Nations-backed war crimes tribunal in prosecuting surviving leaders of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime may not prevent revelations about international actors linked to Cambodia's dark period.

It ranges from the period of Khmer Rouge history that the court will consider, a geographic limit to account for only atrocities committed by Cambodian nationals, and who among the surviving Khmer Rouge leadership can be hauled before the tribunal of foreign and local jurists.

Already, Noam Chomsky, linguist and trenchant critic of Washington’s foreign policy has fired a salvo ahead the opening session of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), as the tribunal is formally known.

On Monday, Kaing Khek Eav, or ‘Duch,’ took the stand at the ECCC to mark the beginning of the tribunal, which comes 30 years after the extremist Maoist group was driven out of power by Vietnamese troops.

Duch was the chief jailor of Tuol Sleng, a former high school in the Cambodian capital, which became the largest detention and torture centre of the Khmer Rouge.

Between 12,380 to 14,000 men, women and children were tortured and then killed under Duch’s watch. Many victims were accused of having links with the U.S. spy agency, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Only 11 people survived.

In all, the Khmer Rouge was responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million people, nearly a quarter of the country’s population at that time, as they sought, between April 1975 and June 1979, to create an agrarian utopia.

But, as Chomsky asserts in the ‘Phnom Penh Post’, an English-language daily, the Khmer Rouge’s brutality against fellow Cambodia citizens did not emerge out of a political vacuum.

Chomsky points a finger at leading figures of the U.S. political establishment like Henry Kissinger, a member of the late president Richard Nixon’s administration, who should also be held accountable for creating the conditions that paved the way for the rise the Khmer Rouge.

‘’It (the trial) shouldn’t be limited to the Cambodians,’’ says Chomsky in an interview that appeared on the weekend. ‘’An international trial that doesn’t take into account Henry Kissinger or other authors of the American bombings and the support of the KR (Khmer Rouge) after they were kicked out of the country, that’s just a farce.’’

‘’The records say that the US wanted to ‘use anything that flies against anything that moves’ (during the bombing of Cambodia), which led to five times the bombing that was reported before, greater that all bombings in all theatres of World War Two, which helped create the Khmer Rouge,’’ he asserted.

Washington began flying sorties over Cambodia in the mid-1960s to crush parts of the country being used by North Vietnamese troops. These bombing raids using B-52 planes were kept a secret from the U.S. public for years.

During the Nixon years, from 1969 to 1973, an estimated 500,000 bombs were dropped, resulting in the deaths of close to 600,000 Cambodian men, women and children.

But the relatives of these victims will not have their day in tribunals such as the ECCC.

It stems from the limit of ‘’territorial jurisdiction’’ and ‘’temporal jurisdiction’’ written into the language of the laws to establish the special tribunal.

Washington, in fact, had a role in a placing such limits on how far across geography and time the war crimes tribunal could reach when a law to deal with the genocide in Cambodia was being shaped in the early 1990s.

‘’It is the policy of the United States to support efforts to bring to justice members of the Khmer Rouge for their crimes against humanity committed in Cambodia between April 17, 1975 and January 7, 1979,’’ Washington declared at the time as it threw its weight behind the effort to investigate a grisly period of Cambodia’s past.

China, however, may have more to worry, given its direct role in assisting the Khmer Rouge during the period the ECCC is examining. Beijing reportedly pumped in a billion U.S. dollars to help the Khmer Rouge, in addition to providing other material and diplomatic support.

The Asian giant wanted to draw Cambodia into its orbit to counter the growing influence of its communist adversary, the Soviet Union, and its Vietnamese ally.

The current Cambodian government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, in fact, has grown nervous about the prospect of Beijing’s role during the Khmer Rouge genocide surfacing during the trial. After all, China has emerged as a dominant economic player, investing nearly 1.5 billion US dollars in 2007.

‘’The government would like to keep China’s name out of the trial. It does not want to upset the good relations between the two countries,’’ a highly-placed Cambodian official told IPS on condition of anonymity. ‘’What happened then was Cold War politics. But we have moved on; we have mended fences.’’

Hun Sen, himself, hopes to benefit from an initial decision by the ECCC to prosecute Duch and four other surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge. Such a limit will ensure that he and other senior members of his government who held roles of commanders or ranked as officials in the Khmer Rouge regime will not have to account for their role in the genocide.

‘’Many more people need to face the court to really deliver justice to the millions of victims of these horrific crimes,’’ says Brittis Edman, Cambodia researcher for the rights watchdog Amnesty International. ‘’The Extraordinary Chambers must urgently expand its prosecution strategy to investigate and prosecute more cases before it is too late.’’

Khmer Rouge trial: the British victim John Dewhirst

(AFP Photo/Adrees Latif)
Kang Kek Ieu, alias Comrade Duch, ran Tuol Sleng, where John Dewhirst died

From Times Online

March 30, 2009
Anne Barrowclough

As hundreds of Cambodians crowded into a courtroom today to see the chief torturer of the Khmer Rouge finally brought to trial, a lawyer in Britain quietly got on with her work. Only those closest to her know how, 30 years ago, Kang Kek Ieu, alias Comrade Duch, destroyed Hilary Holland’s family.

In 1978 Ms Holland’s brother, John Dewhirst, aged 26, was captured by the Khmer Rouge and sent to be tortured and killed at Tuol Sleng, the regime’s infamous prison. He was the only Briton among 17,000 Cambodians to die at the prison. Three decades on, as Cambodia watches the first trials of the Khmer Rouge’s leaders, his fate continues to devastate his sister.

"The horrific circumstances and the manner of how John was killed still makes it so difficult to cope with," Ms Holland told The Times from her home in Cumbria.

The young Newcastle teacher had been sailing through the Gulf of Thailand with two friends in July 1978 when their boat was intercepted by a Khmer Rouge patrol boat.

The boat’s skipper, Stuart Glass, a Canadian, was killed instantly. John and the other crew member, Kerry Hamil, a New Zealander, were sent to Tuol Sleng, a former school turned into a torture centre presided over by Duch.

They were tortured until they “confessed” to being CIA agents and taken to Cheong Ek, a pretty orchard on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. There they were bludgeoned to death with an iron bar.

Back in Britain Ms Holland was increasingly concerned at her younger brother's unusual silence, but it was not until she switched on the news one evening that she learnt he had become a victim of a regime she had hardly heard of. Shortly afterwards the Foreign Office called to tell her that John had been captured and imprisoned. He was almost certainly dead, they said.

The pain of that moment has never left her. "It was indescribable," she said. "I don't think I have got the words to explain how I felt. I used to think that if you could die from emotions like this I would have died.

"I have experienced death – I have experienced the death of my husband when I had two young children. But this is completely different."

Yesterday, in a wood-panelled courtroom on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital city, Duch identified himself quietly before charges of crimes against humanity, war crimes, premeditated murder and torture were read to a UN-backed war crimes tribunal.

He is the first of five former leaders of the Khmer Rouge to be brought to trial, 30 years after the fall of Pol Pot and his regime.

Nearly two million Cambodians died between 1975 and 1979 as Pol Pot pursued his ideal of an agrarian communist utopia. Tuol Sleng was the most notorious Khmer Rouge prison: of the 17,000 people sent there, only 15 are known to have survived.

Behind a bulletproof screen at the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia, the 66-year-old former maths teacher who presided over their suffering listened impassively as the court was told that the sole purpose of Tuol Sleng – known by the Khmer Rouge as S-21 – was to kill its inmates.

According to the thick file of charges read to the court: "Every prisoner who arrived at S-21 was destined for execution. The policy at S-21 was that no prisoner could be released... prisoners brought to S-21 by mistake were executed in order to ensure secrecy and security."

During his trial Duch’s brutality will be described in detail. On his orders, victims were plunged head first into tanks of water, often drowning; they were given electric shocks to their genitals and their ear drums. The strongest were hooked up to intravenous pumps and literally bled dry.

It was cruel fate that delivered John Dewhirst into Duch’s hands. The carefree, adventurous young man had taken a break from his teaching job in Japan to go sailing with his two friends on their motorised junk Foxy Lady. Their boat drifted into Cambodian waters but, to the Khmer Rouge, their presence had no innocent explanation.

Yet even after she had heard of his incarceration in S-21 his sister hoped his friendly nature would help him to survive. "I thought if anyone could develop a personal relationship with his jailers, it would be him," she said. "I thought he would charm his way out of there."

She had no way of knowing that nothing could have saved him – although the meticulous Duch, who catalogued the details of all his prisoners, described him as a "polite" young man.

Before he died John was forced to write a detailed confession explaining how he was recruited and trained to be a CIA spy.

The confession, in Cambodian and English, entitled “Details of my course at the Annexe CIA college in Loughborough, England”, claims that John was recruited into the CIA by his father and from 1972 to 1976 was taught CIA techniques, including photographic skills and weapons-handling, by retired agents at his teacher-training college in Loughborough.

The confession, a mixture of the dull and the ludicrous, claims that Loughborough was one of six CIA colleges in Britain. Others, John wrote, were in Cardiff, Aberdeen, Portsmouth, Bristol and Doncaster. His college, he said, was run by “retired Colonel Peter Johnson” while the bursar was a CIA major.

Among many bizarre admissions was a claim that his father was a CIA agent whose cover was “headmaster of Benton Road Secondary School”.

The confession is signed and dated 5/7/1978. John's thumbprint sits along his signature. Like those made by thousands of innocent inmates at S-21, the confession was probably dictated by his interrogators on Duch’s orders.

Hilary Holland wants answers. She wants the Khmer Rouge leaders to admit their guilt and to explain why they destroyed so many lives. "There must be a public accountability," she said. "I would like it to be seen that they understand what they did. We still seem to know so little."

It is too painful for Ms Holland to attend Duch's trial, but she is relieved that after all this time the leaders will finally be brought to justice.

"No one is going to undo the horrors, but bringing these people to account is important. I don't care what happens to them but I would like them to tell the truth, to explain their motivation."

Duch, who was arrested in 1999 after being tracked down by a journalist, is alone among the defendants in expressing remorse and has agreed to co-operate with the tribunal.

At a procedural hearing last month, he made it clear through his lawyer that he would use his trial to apologise to his victims, although he did not expect “immediate” forgiveness.

His French lawyer, Francois Roux, said: "After ten years of prison at last the day is coming where he can in public respond to the questions."

But Duch cannot expect no forgiveness from Ms Holland. "People like Duch, who ordered the atrocities, were the worst," she said.

Khmer Rouge Court offers an opportunity for Cambodian would-be jurists to compete for eloquence

Phnom Penh (Cambodia), 20/03/ 2009. Law students having their annual moot court at law school. The focus case in the final competition is the Khmer Rouge.
©Vandy Rattana

Ka-set

By Stéphanie Gée
27-03-2009

The Khmer Rouge tribunal found itself in the dock at the Royal University of Law and Economics in Phnom Penh. Depending on the side they were told to work on, students had to defend it or condemn it, as part of the first edition of their moot court. Debates were held in French – to celebrate the “Fête de la francophonie” – a detail which often added heaviness to the language of these would-be jurists, who stretched arguments they took here and there in the media, using relevant but also disturbing reasoning sometimes. We attended three of the sparring matches including the final, presided over in the jury by co-Investigating Judge at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal Marcel Lemonde.


The tribunal: useful or useless?
The usefulness of the court was roughly presented by young speakers who enunciated disjointed lists of arguments: “finding justice”, “seeking the truth”, “not leaving culprits wandering free and putting an end to impunity”, “strengthening the legal system”, “closing that dark chapter and writing it down in History for younger generations and for it to never happen again”, “catching national and international attention”, “healing the trauma of survivors”, asserting “the stability of Cambodia”, etc. One of the students points out the pragmatic advantage in the creation of the Extraordinary Chambers if the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). After quoting the names of two persons from the university of Law who found employment at the hybrid court, he declares, out of the blue and his face illuminated by a smile: “This is an employment opportunity for us jurists!”

Standing opposite, their opponents remain unruffled. “The ECCC will fail to put an end to impunity”, “political and legal obstacles are many”, “the court’s mandate is limited: it must happen in Cambodia, it only concerns the period going from April 17th 1975 to January 6th 1979 and has only prosecuted five persons!”, “the mixing of Cambodian and international judges together and the use of three official languages make the process more complex”, etc... “Do you believe that justice can be found in such conditions?”, a student asks, with the voice of someone who will not be fooled. “And why judge Duch [the former director of torture centre S-21] before all the other ones who are old and on the verge of dying in their prison cell?” “What about corruption? What about bad communication at the tribunal? Citizens are ill-informed... This is a disaster! “And what about problems of funding? And the slowness of the proceedings? Those who plead in favour of the tribunal sometimes find it hard to play opposite them. “How can you already say that that court is doomed to failure?”

Students keen to exercise their free will
With her tiny and piping voice, a student goes back over the question of the number of people under prosecution. “So you think there were only five of them leading the country? No, the other persons accountable must be found, and we must not push aside the request made by Mister... er... What’s his name again? Oh, Mister Robert!” In the opposite camp, everyone is laughing up their sleeve and someone reminds her of the international co-Prosecutor’s name: “Mr. Robert Petit!”. Not taken aback by the situation, she continues. “What if we arranged a sort of conciliation between victims and former Khmer Rouge leaders – it wouldn’t cost any money! We do that when it comes to labour law, between employers and employees, so why not do it in this case? Well, I prefer saying no more, since we haven’t studied conciliation in class yet!”

At the end of these duels for selection, students sitting among the audience assure us, placing their hand over their heart, that they would have opted in favour of the tribunal if they had been given the choice. However, after insisting, a few students plainly admit that they are more like detractors of the ECCC.

“Too much money has been spent on that tribunal when only a handful of people have been put under prosecution and the country is poor!”, third-year student Sambo says. “And why aren’t Civil Party lawyers paid by the tribunal like those for the accused?”, Keam adds in a reproving tone. Their fellow student Revatey, sporting a solid stature and expressing herself in clear French, does not beat around the bush. The 20 year-old, despite the outward appearances of a well-brought-up young woman who looks slightly timorous, strikes: “This is a political tribunal!”. She explains: “The United Nations encourage this tribunal because they want to make China lose face, but China does not want these trials as they supported the Khmer Rouge! And when China makes donations to Cambodia, the court encounters problems... It is like a game between big nations. But politics should not be mixed with law! The things that matter are the effectiveness of this tribunal and the good will of its protagonists”. Without any surprise, Revatey ends up in the final round... on the side of detractors of the tribunal.

Tie in the debates and advantage for the accused
For this moot court, which was organised this time in a lecture theatre at the University, Revatey and her colleague decided to stigmatise Cambodian magistrates at the ECCC, who according to them should not be there. “They are ill-trained, it is even said that one of them doesn’t have a degree, and they are affiliated to the ruling party, the CPP!” Without any inhibition whatsoever as to their critical reasoning, they persevere: “What is that tribunal for? Strengthening our legal system, they say, but there are other means to do so!”

The camp of supporters then defends the “unique and original” aspect of the tribunal and the respect of the “right to a fair trial”. “Peace and justice are indi.. indisss.. – the young woman is desperately stuck on the word. Her colleague comes to her aid: "In-di-sso-cia-ble"! She continues: “We cannot leave this trial in the hands of internationals when they don’t know our history and law well!” And to debunk any oncoming criticism from the opposite side, her colleague declares, learnedly and standing as stiff as a lamp post: “There is no such thing as absolute justice; it is all about relative justice!”

Revatey tries again and puts the United Nations in the dock: “The UN have long acknowledged Khmer Rouge as holders of the seat for the representation of Cambodia and now they are encouraging the holding of these trials. Why did they change their position? Are the United Nations truly independent?” And she goes back over the corruption charges staining the hybrid court. The opposite side retorts: “This is a serious accusation and as a jurist you should support it with evidence. Do you have any?”, the boy asks with the face of a primary school teacher who points out the errors of a pupil. “And if the UN have acknowledged the Khmer Rouge it is only normal since the latter fooled the whole world when they gave to their regime the name of Kampuchea Democratic”, he says, against all expectations.

Still too early to judge the tribunal
Judge Lemonde, as the president of the jury, intervenes and tells the disputants: “You have been harsh with Cambodian judges – bad reputation, lack of competence and independence, corruption... – but what do you think of international judges?” The two girls stand up to him. The first one utters a quiet “nobody’s perfect”, which generates laughter in the room, and the second one dispels all doubts: “We do not believe that the UN are independent and have good will in the creation of that tribunal!” Shortly after, she confidently asks the adverse party: “Do you believe that international judges are fair and effective?”. Her boldness entertains the audience. Marcel Lemonde negligibly slumps into his seat, smirking. He is the one who will have the final word to issue the “verdict”.

The co-Investigating Judge at the ECCC announces: “I am compelled to declare victors those who assert that the tribunal is unfair. This is heart-wrenching. But I think that it is easier to attack the tribunal than to defend it. Whether the tribunal is fair or not, what I would have said is: “Let’s see later! It is a bit too early to judge the justice it can render! [...] People will be able to call the trial fair if the rules of fair trial are respected and if it is understandable by all. “Justice is not perfect”, he admitted. “And besides, a court rarely provides satisfaction for everyone. The Judge, defending the holding of these trials in Cambodia – otherwise it would be meaningless - , reminded the audience of the fact that judges were not historians but were there “to deal out justice”. Marcel Lemonde then expressed his wish that “those who take part in the tribunal do their best for all Cambodians and for humanity”... And also that those who defend the tribunal win during the next debates.

ECCC Resumes Trial of Former DK Prison Chief

Chief Khmer Rouge torturer Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch (R), reads a document before his trial on the outskirts of Phnom Penh March 30, 2009. Duch faced trial for crimes against humanity on Monday, the first involving a senior Pol Pot cadre 30 years after the end of a regime blamed for 1.7 million deaths. [Photo: Xinhua/Reuters]

2009-03-30
Xinhua
Web Editor: Liu Donghui

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) here on Monday resumed its trial of former Democratic Kampuchea's (DK) central prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch.

Charges were read at the court that he oversaw the death of some 15,000 people at his prison, which was called S-21 or Toul Sleng in Phnom Penh.

ECCC started trial in February against 66-year-old Duch, who faced charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Convention of 1949, homicide and torture, as well as other offenses which are defined and punishable under the law of ECCC.

He was first detained by the order of provisional detention on July 31, 2007, and could face maximum term of life in prison if the charges were found true.

Duch was the first DK leader that ECCC put on trial. There are still four other senior DK leaders under detention at ECCC, awaiting their trials.

DK ruled Cambodia in the late 1970s and was widely believed responsible for the death of millions of Cambodian people.

ECCC was co-installed by the United Nations and the Cambodian government two years ago in order to put the surviving DK leaders on trial.

Q+A-Cambodia's Khmer Rouge tribunal

Reuter

Pol Pot's chief torturer took the stand on Monday, charged with crimes against humanity in the first trial of a top Khmer Rouge cadre 30 years after the end of a regime blamed for 1.7 million deaths in Cambodia. Skip related content

Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, faces charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity while chief of the S-21 torture centre, where more than 14,000 died during the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge era.

Below are some questions and answers about the tribunal:

WHY HAS IT TAKEN SO LONG FOR THE TRIALS TO START?

Cambodia asked the United Nations and the international community to help set up a tribunal more than a decade ago, but the government sought to retain control of the court. The plan languished for years, with draft laws flying back and forth.

The U.N. gave the go-ahead for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, as the joint tribunal is known, in 2005.

The trial, originally expected to cost around $20 million a year over three years, was delayed by bail hearings, appeals and pre-trial machinations. The tribunal has asked donors for a $143 million budget to run until 2010, and raised about $100 million so far.

HOW DOES THE JOINT TRIBUNAL WORK?

Conducted under a modified form of Cambodia's French-based judicial system, Cambodian and foreign judges and prosecutors will work together and try to reach unanimous decisions. If they cannot all agree, then a decision requires a "super-majority."

The Trial Chamber of three Cambodian and two foreign judges requires four to agree on a verdict. The seven-judge Supreme Court Chamber -- comprising four Cambodians and three foreigners handling appeals -- must have five judges in agreement.

Sentences can range from a minimum five years to a maximum of life in prison. There is no death penalty in Cambodia. The court can also seize money or property acquired unlawfully.

Advocates hope the tribunal will serve as a model of professionalism for the country's judiciary. But critics say its integrity is already threatened by allegations of corruption and political interference, which the government has denied.

WHO HAS BEEN CHARGED SO FAR?

Duch is among five ageing and infirm senior cadres facing various charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. A verdict in his trial is expected in September.

Trial dates have not been set for ex-president Khieu Samphan, former foreign minister Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith, and "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea.

Pol Pot died in 1998 and there are fears that his surviving allies will die of old age before they face trial.

WILL ANYONE ELSE BE INVESTIGATED?

Cambodia's prosecutor opposed a bid by her foreign counterpart to go after six more suspects, citing the need for national reconciliation. Critics saw a political move to stop the court from digging too deep and perhaps unearthing secrets about some former Khmer Rouge figures in the government.

The government denies meddling and Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge commander, has said he supports the tribunal. There is no evidence linking him to any atrocities.

More broadly, some critics say the role of the United States and China in supporting Pol Pot's regime should also be probed.

The court says it can only try individuals for crimes committed in Cambodia between April 17, 1975 and January 6, 1979, and cannot try countries or organisations.

HOW WILL IT AFFECT CAMBODIANS?

Survivors and other civil parties will be allowed to ask questions and file motions through their lawyers.

Survivors hope the trials will bring closure to their grief, and mark a new era of peace and justice. They also hope it will educate young Cambodians about an era they know little about.

More than half the country's 14 million people were born after Pol Pot was ousted in 1979.

Despite an education campaign, a pre-trial survey found 85 percent of respondents "had little or no knowledge" of the tribunal, although court officials disputed its findings.

(Reporting by Darren Schuettler; Editing by Alan Raybould and Sugita Katyal)

Thirty years on, Khmer Rouge torturer in dock

Chief Khmer Rouge torturer Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, stands between his lawyers for his trial on the outskirts of Phnom Penh March 30, 2009.
REUTERS/Pring Samrang/Pool

Mon Mar 30, 2009

By Ek Madra

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Pol Pot's chief torturer took the stand on Monday, charged with crimes against humanity in the first trial of a top Khmer Rouge cadre 30 years after the end of a regime blamed for 1.7 million deaths in Cambodia.

Duch, former chief of the S-21 prison where more than 14,000 "enemies" of the ultra-Maoist revolution died, stood before a five-judge panel and calmly answered questions about his background.

"I have been notified of the charges against me," the 66-year-old former maths teacher told the joint U.N.-Cambodian tribunal as hundreds of onlookers watched from a public gallery.

Prosecutors began laying out their case against Duch, accusing him of "crimes against humanity, enslavement, torture, sexual abuses and other inhumane acts" while chief of S-21, also known as Tuol Sleng and now a museum.

Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, is expected to enter a plea later this week. If found guilty in a verdict expected in September, he could face a maximum of life in prison in Cambodia, which has no death penalty.

The born-again Christian has expressed remorse for the S-21 victims, most of them tortured and forced to confess to spying and other crimes before they were bludgeoned to death in the "Killing Fields" outside the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh.

During questioning by court investigators before his trial, Duch said he was just following orders.
"No one could have sent people to S-21 without the decision of the standing committee of the Khmer Rouge," Duch was quoted as saying in the prosecutor's statement read out on Monday.
Survivors reacted with pain and anger as they watched Duch, dressed in a white shirt and dark pants, in the dock.

"Duch killed thousands of people, but he showed no regret. I just don't understand," said Om Chantha, a 69-year-old widow whose husband, a doctor, was killed by the Khmer Rouge.

MORE SUSPECTS?

The trial, held in a specially built court on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, marks a turning-point for the strife-torn country, where nearly every family lost someone during Pol Pot's "Year Zero" revolution to achieve an agrarian utopia.

Duch is expected to be a key witness in the future trials of those also deemed "most responsible" for one of the darkest chapters in the 20th century.

The other four -- "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, the regime's ex-president Khieu Samphan and Ieng Sary, its foreign minister, and his wife -- have denied knowledge of any atrocities.
Advocates hope the tribunal -- formally known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) -- will serve as a model of professionalism for the country's erratic and politicized judiciary.

A bid to go after more suspects was brushed aside in January by the tribunal's Cambodian co-prosecutor, who said it would not help national reconciliation. The government has denied meddling in the court, but rights groups are concerned.

"The Extraordinary Chambers must urgently expand its prosecution strategy to investigate and prosecute more cases before it is too late," said Brittis Edman, a Cambodia researcher for rights group Amnesty International.

(Writing by Darren Schuettler; Editing by Alan Raybould and Sugita Katyal)

Hearings begin in Khmer Rouge genocide trial

Tan Chhin Sothy / AFP/Getty Images
LINING UP: Cambodians gather for the trial of former Khmer Rouge prison chief Kaing Khev Iev.

Los Angeles Times

A former official under Pol Pot faces charges of crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and premeditated murder. The 1970s regime is blamed for 1.7 million deaths in Cambodia.

Brendan Brady, Special to The Times
March 30, 2009

Reporting from Phnom Penh, Cambodia — The first Khmer Rouge leader to stand trial for the mass murder of Cambodians more than three decades ago faced his first question from the tribunal today: The court's top judge, Nil Nonn, wanted to know the background of the man who ran the regime's most notorious death camp.

Kaing Khev Iev, better known by his nom-de-guerre Duch, matter-of-factly told the tribunal he had been a teacher in Battambang, a province of Cambodia. He is expected to admit to a lot more over the course of his landmark trial.

Kaing, 66, was head of the Khmer Rouge's Tuol Sleng prison, codenamed- S21, where more than 12,000 men, women and children were tortured before being executed in the nearby "killing fields" outside the capital city. He is one of five detained senior Khmer Rouge leaders believed to be the architects of the ultra-Maoist regime's fanatical rule in the late '70s under which an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians perished from overwork, starvation and murder.

The charges: crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and premeditated murder.

While the trial opened formally last month, today marks the beginning of substantive hearings during which prison guards, survivors and family members of those brutalized in S-21 will be called upon to tell their stories. Others who suffered were present at the court to watch.

Orm Chanta's husband did not pass through S-21, but what he suffered was just as cruel.

Chanta, 69, witnessed her husband being buried alive by Khmer Rouge cadre after they shot him. His crime, they said, without elaborating, was being "a traitor to the regime."

Chanta said that his education and profession – a doctor – made him suspicious to the regime, which brutalized the entire population but particularly targeted those with money, an urban background and an education as they were seen as the antithesis of the regime's vision of an agrarian peasant society.

"I have for a very long time been determined to come today to see if the pain in my heart can heal," she said, bursting into tears.

Duch's trial has opened the door to official accountability, but only after years of political obstruction, judicial bickering, corruption allegations and funding shortages.

The Cambodian side of the hybrid court has sunk financially from a funding halt following allegations in July that national staff were forced to pay kickbacks to secure their jobs. The situation escalated this month when judges announced that the Cambodian side did not have enough money to pay salaries to nationals in March.

Cambodian court officials have denied the allegations, and a review made last September by a United Nations oversight body has yet to be made public.

But the tribunal's deputy director of administration, Knut Rosandhaug, was quoted in a report by a German parliamentary delegation that met with him as saying, "The United Nations would suffer from a loss of credibility if they'd support a tribunal which is characterized by corruption."

International officials have never raised such strong objections in public, however.

Brad Adams, head of London-based Human Rights Watch in Asia, and an early member of the negotiations with the government to establish a war crimes court, said the U.N. "has undermined the court's entire mandate" by not taking the Cambodian side to task.

On another front, observers have urged the Cambodian side of the court to demonstrate its independence by allowing further investigations to begin.

Canadian prosecutor Robert's Petit's move to add to the docket a handful of unidentified figures he describes as key enforcers was blocked by his Cambodian colleague, Chea Leang, a niece of the current deputy prime minister.

She has argued that additional prosecutions could prove destabilizing, overstretch the tribunal's limited resources and would run against the spirit of the 2003 U.N. treaty establishing the court, which called only for "senior leaders" of the regime and "those who were most responsible" to be tried.

Many senior government posts are currently held by former Khmer Rouge, and experts say the government fears a wider roundup could expose them to scrutiny. While facing stiff resistance, Petit has argued that expanding the court's reach would play a key role in validating its work.

Adams, meanwhile, has lost hope. "The court has become so flawed and its goals so limited that it doesn't stand a chance of providing a minimum amount of justice," he said.

The country is divided over whether additional high-level officials should be tried – with 57% in favor and 41% opposed, according to a recent poll. The decision, however, will come down to the leverage of Cambodian versus international officials.

Unlike the other figures in detention, Duch, now a born-again Christian, has acknowledged his crimes and asked for forgiveness.

But a full confession, which Duch is expected to give, would not put an end to the trial. According to the tribunal's rules, Duch cannot plead guilty – a confession will be treated as an element of evidence. Duch is also expected to argue in court that he was following orders from his superiors and would have been killed had he not obeyed.

This defense holds no weight for Chanta.

"Even if he says that he is sorry, it is still over (for those who died)," she said. "He lives while so many were killed."

The other, more senior, Khmer Rouge leaders investigated by the court are: Khieu Samphan, the group's head of state; Ieng Sary, its foreign minister; his wife, Ieng Thirith, who was minister of social affairs; and Nuon Chea, the movement's chief ideologue.

All four are old and ailing, and their trials are unlikely to begin until next year. They face a maximum of life imprisonment. Were they alive, the regime's former top leader, Saloth Sar, better known as Pol Pot, and military chief Ta Mok, "The Butcher", certainly would have been included on the docket.

Special correspondent Keo Kounila contributed to this report.

Long-Delayed Khmer Rouge Genocide Trial Opens

A high school student of Kampong Cham looks over one of the many human skulls on display at the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, March 29, 2009. On Monday, March 30, Kaing Guek Eav, also known as "Duch" will go on trial for crimes against humanity. "Duch" was commander of the Toul Sleng prison under the Khmer Rouge where thousands were tortured and killed. (AP Photo/David Longstreath) (AP)

Khmer Rouge genocide trial airs charges of medieval-style torture and execution

By GRANT PECK Associated Press Writer

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia March 30, 2009 (AP)
The Associated Press

A former teacher accused of carrying out the murderous policies of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge went on trial Monday, as prosecutors opened their first case against the hard-core communists who turned the country into a killing field three decades ago.

The U.N.-assisted genocide tribunal's indictment against Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, delivered in an antiseptic modern courtroom, described medieval methods of torture and execution allegedly carried out by the defendant when he commanded the communist group's main prison when it held power in 1975-79. It adjourned before either prosecutors or the defense could deliver opening statements.

"Several witnesses said that prisoners were killed using steel clubs, cart axles, and water pipes to hit the base of their necks," it charged. "Prisoners were then kicked into the pits, where their handcuffs were removed. Finally the guards either cut open their bellies or their throats. After the executions were complete, the guards covered the pits."

Confession expected as Duch trial resumes

Photo by: AFP
A child looks at skulls inside a stupa at the popular tourist site Phnom Sampov near Samlot in Battambang province, some 291 kilometres northwest of Phnom Penh this month. The resumption of Duch's trial today may bring new light to bear on generations-old moral questions for the Kingdom.

The Phnom Penh Post

Written by Thet Sambath and Georgia Wilkins
Monday, 30 March 2009

SamlotTuol Sleng chief's admission of guilt would come amid questions of whether the perpetrators of Khmer Rouge atrocities can also be victims.

HIM Huy, one of the only surviving guards from Tuol Sleng prison, knows that he stands in the middle of one of Cambodia's greatest moral dilemmas: Can the perpetrators of the worst Khmer Rouge atrocities also claim to be victims of the regime?

The 53-year-old's stint at the Khmer Rouge's torture centre may have helped keep the wheels of the paranoid regime well-oiled, but Him Huy now says he was a prisoner of ideology and a slave to the orders of his higher-ups.

"I am also a victim of the Khmer Rouge. If I did not respect and practice Angkar's orders, I would have been executed like the other prisoners," he says.

This emotional moral quandary will begin to be publicly debated today, when the trial of Him Huy's former boss, prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, resumes and both victims and perpetrators take the stand to testify about the regime's most notorious detention centre.

"Right now, there isn't anything that exists that pulls the entire story together," says Alex Hinton, author of Why Did They Kill? Cambodia in the Shadow of Genocide.

"By the end of this, we will have a much more complete picture of how S-21 ran, with links all the way up to the central committee," he adds.

Although the trial opened formally last month, Monday marks the beginning of the substantive hearings, in which survivors, prison guards and family members of the more than 12,000 men, women and children who were tortured at Tuol Sleng and sent to their deaths will be called upon to tell their stories.

A born-again Christian and former maths teacher, Kaing Guek Eav, better known by his revolutionary name Duch, has been described as both a meticulous, calculated killer, and a passive, subservient actor who slavishly passed on orders from the top.

Of the five former leaders detained at the Khmer Rouge tribunal, he is the only one to admit his role in killings that occurred during the 1975-79 regime - a confession that is likely to be repeated at his trial.

"The things that will emerge most clearly are how the entire S-21 apparatus worked, going all the way from arresting people to taking them to Choeung Ek or the grounds just outside S-21 and killing them," Hinton said.

But in every trial dealing with war crimes, Hinton said, the biggest ethical question is: how do you distinguish between good and evil in an ideology so extreme that it was kill or be killed?

Photo by: COURTESY OF DC-CAM
Duch (back row, second from right) photographed with other S-21 guards at Tuol Sleng during the regime.

"My brother had no power to decide who was killed. What he did was on the order of senior leaders," said Hong Kim Hong, Duch's sister who now works at Samlot district's health centre, told the Post last week.

"Ieng Thirith told the court it was Nuon Chea who ordered Duch to do it," she said, referring to an unprompted outburst by the former social affairs minister for the regime during her pretrial hearing.

"So it means that my brother is not guilty because he just did what the senior leaders told him to," she said.

Duch cannot plead guilty, as in civil law jurisdictions there is generally no such legal concept. In the court's hybrid system, a confession by the defendant will be treated like any other piece of evidence, and a full confession - which Duch is widely expected to give - does not prevent a full trial from occurring or relieve the plaintiff from its duty of presenting a case to the trial chambers.

For many who knew Duch when he found God, such as San Thy Matathe, a pastor who witnessed Duch's mid-1990s baptism in a western Cambodia river, the 66-year-old's decision to cooperate with the court was motivated by his new religion.

"If he had not believed in God, he would not have confessed his crimes," San Thy Matathe told AFP last week.

Although Him Huy has not found God like his former boss, he, too, says that telling the court in detail the ways in which he carried out orders to brutalise will give him closure.

"When I know clearly why there was an order to torture and to kill people, my conscience will be cleared," he said. "History pages will be closed by the ECCC. We will know who gave the orders and who was behind these massacres."

Fears of confessing
Him Huy is a public face on the thousands of cadres who made up an intricate hierarchy of regime officials, some defiant and others regretful about their roles as small pieces of the regime's machinery.

"[Testimonies at the court are] a very important step for the healing of a nation because reconciliation is not only about the victims or the winners of war, but the perpetrators and former enemies as well," says genocide researcher Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia.

But with the first trial at the court finally starting, many former perpetrators are afraid to come forward, even as witnesses, for fear of being imprisoned.

"My wife and I can't sleep well since court was formed. We are worried about security and we always think any day the court will summon me," says one former cadre who now lives under an assumed name.

Another high-ranking Khmer Rouge cadre, who was in charge of the northwest zone after the previous chief, Ros Nhim, was arrested in 1978, agreed.

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IF MORE KHMER ROUGE ... ARE ACCUSED AND DETAINED, THERE WILL BE PROBLEMS.
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"I am living in a quiet place, away from my village since the court was formed. I am worried the court will arrest me," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It is not only me, my former comrades who were senior officials are also hiding and trying to hide their background since the court was set up," he added.

A former cadre who wanted to be referred to only as Roeun, also questioned the value of the trials.

"Why is Duch being tried if he was a very low-ranking Khmer Rouge member? We are afraid we'll be the next to be arrested and tried because we are higher [ranking] than him," he said.

Expand the trials?
For many overseas observers, the trial must broaden its net regardless of the fears for national reconciliation and stability.

"Many more [former leaders] need to face the court to really deliver justice to the millions of victims of these horrific crimes," Amnesty International said Saturday in a statement, quoting Brittis Edman, Amnesty's Cambodia researcher.

Robert Petit, the court's foreign co-prosecutor, has said that he wants more former regime members investigated. However, his Cambodian counterpart, Chea Leang, disagrees on the basis of national security. The impasse has been made formal and sent to the pretrial chamber for a decision.

Many ex-Khmer Rouge agree with Chea Leang.

Meas Muth, a former military commander and widely considered to be on Petit's second list of suspects, said indicting more people would spark unrest.

"If more Khmer Rouge cadres are accused and detained, there will be problems and disorder in the former Khmer Rouge areas," Meas Muth said.

Regardless of whether more cadre are rounded up, for Youk Chhang the first trial is a huge step towards understanding - for everyone.

"There may be no single answer to what really happened. However, we all have the obligation to participate in the search for truth," he says.

Francois Roux, Duch's international co-lawyer, says that Duch will uphold a promise made last month to ask forgiveness for his role in the regime.

"I would like to repeat Duch's words: ‘I will apologise to the victims, but I won't ask the victims to pardon me yet."

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY NETH PHEAKTRA

Govt attacks teachers group over scathing school survey

Photo by: CHRISTOPHER SHAY
Cambodian school children in Ko Rong Samleom in Preah Sihanouk province.

The Phnom Penh Post

Written by Mom Kunthear and Christopher Shay
Monday, 30 March 2009

Ministry of Education calls the Cambodia Independent Teachers Association ‘a group of uneducated people' over its report.

THE Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport lashed out at the Cambodia Independent Teachers Association (CITA) on Friday following the group's release of a teacher survey critical of Cambodia's education system.

CITA claimed that underpaid teachers lead to a corrupt education system where students must pay teachers to attend class, forcing the poorest students to drop out and teachers to lose their social dignity.

In a press release, the Ministry of Education dismissed CITA's findings, calling the teachers association "a group of uneducated people".

In The, the director general of administration and finance at the ministry, said CITA's sample size of 460 teachers out of a workforce of more than 110,000 was not large enough for significant results and questioned how the respondents were chosen.

"I don't know where the statistics came from. It's unacceptable for that many teachers and students not to attend school, but that's not how it works," In The said, referring to CITA's claim that 53.9 percent of teachers occasionally skip school to earn money outside the classroom.

In The admitted that Cambodian schools still have room for improvement but said the picture is not nearly as bleak as the CITA survey suggests.

"Education in our country today is better than before because there are more schools, and we are still building more in people's communities."

But Rong Chhun, the president of CITA, said the Ministry of Education simply does not want to admit how poor the quality of schooling is in the Kingdom.

"The Ministry of Education's press release shows they just want to hide their weaknesses. They do not dare accept the truths about the system they created," he said Sunday.

Despite the government's dismissal of their conclusions, CITA is not alone in stressing the need to raise salaries.

The NGO Education Partnership said in a December 2008 report that raising teacher salaries was a "top priority".

"It is impossible to earn a living on a teacher's salary in Cambodia," the group said.

HRP activist killed in Kampong Cham

The Phnom Penh Post

Written by Meas Sokchea
Monday, 30 March 2009

Local police say the death of activist Sim Net was a result of a robbery, but the victim's brother claims politics motivated his killers.

A HUMAN Rights Party activist was gunned down as he returned home in Kampong Cham province's Kandoal Chrum commune on Friday night, police said Sunday, blaming robbers for the death.

Sim Net, the HRP's commune president, was shot four times as he rode his motorbike home from a festival at Udom Mony pagoda at around 11:30pm, according to Ponhea Kraek district Deputy Police Chief Keo Noreaphy.

While he would not comment in detail on the incident, Keo Noreaphy said police were viewing the killing as the result of a robbery.

Disputed motives
But Sim Yan, Sim Net's younger brother, disputed the police's version of events, saying that his brother was targeted for his political activism in the local community.

"My brother is the president of the Human Rights Party in the commune. He has a lot of popularity," he said. "He was shot four times by a group of four people."

Kampong Cham provincial police chief Nuon Samin told the Post Sunday that several suspects were being investigated in connection with the incident, but reiterated that the killing was not politically motivated.

"It is not a political story," he said. "When robberies happen to people in a political party, it is assumed to be a result of political motives; but when others are robbed why, don't we say they were politically motivated?"

HRP President Kem Sokha said he could not comment on the reason for the shooting, but added that the authorities should investigate before issuing pronouncements about its cause.

"I do not know whether it is robbery or a political killing. It must be investigated first," he said.