Kambol (Phnom Penh, Cambodia). 08/06/2009: The court building on day 24 of Duch’s trial at the ECCC
©John Vink/ MagnumKa-set
http://cambodia.ka-set.info
By Stéphanie Gée
08-06-2009
Duch’s trial entered its seventh week, which last day of hearing, Thursday, will not be open to the public, as it was announced on Monday June 8th. A trial management meeting in camera is scheduled to determine the next schedule of hearings and examine the request of Silke Studzinsky that civil parties be authorised to participate to such technical discussions. Monday’s debates were sometimes desultory and often repetitive in relation to what has already been said since the start of the trial. The accused did not fail to point it out and therefore used his right to remain silent. Duch also proved again his elephant memory when it came to date and figures.
Justifications for arrests came from above Duch
Interrogated by the Cambodian co-Prosecutor on the fate reserved for the detainees in S-21, Duch recalled Pol Pot’s saying: those who are sent to you, you must guard them. However, he recognised he was ordered by his superiors to release three individuals, all members of the United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races (UFLOR). The former director of S-21 added that in most cases, the people arrested were accused of being guilty of “moral misconduct.” Such was the case for the Khmer Rouge Minister of Commerce, Koy Thuon, brought to S-21 in early 1977 and accused of adultery… Duch concluded that the category of the alleged crime mattered little, as long as their perpetrators confessed. If people were arrested and sent to S-21, they had to be considered as enemies.
The justifications for the arrests were developed by the ruling sphere, Duch explained. He related a conversation with his then superior: “I told him that in the Northern zone, they starved the population, but my superior retorted that it was the enemies who starved the population.” The accused repeated at every opportunity: “We could not reject the orders given” and “I recognise my responsibility in those crimes,” in particular the killing of babies and children in his security centre. However, he stressed that he asked his superiors that artists detained in S-21 not be smashed and claimed he thus saved six lives. Without even looking at his notes, Duch cited from memory the documents relating to the issues being debated, even knowing their code number by heart.
“Sharpening the swords”
The television screen showed a black and white picture of a young and smiling Duch, posing in front of a microphone at the school of political training that opened near his house. “Yes, in S-21, I was the one who had authority over the microphone,” the accused acknowledged. He had full control over the training – which followed the party line and the principles of the class struggle and “quick attack, quick success” – of his staff, and more specifically, of his interrogators who were instructed to consider as enemies all those they interrogated to extract confessions. He specified that in the Khmer Rouge jargon, it was called “sharpening the swords.” “If we had strayed from the party line, we would have gotten into trouble… […] My work consisted in checking that the party line was applied properly.”
Duch disagreeing with Craig Etcheson
Later, Alain Werner, co-lawyer for civil party group 1, interrogated Duch and confronted him with statements or excerpts of the report of expert Craig Etcheson, who was heard during the last hearings. The accused thus explained that the process to pull out names of incriminated individuals in the confessions – to facilitate their reading by his superiors – had been established before he became in charge of S-21. He insisted that such lists of names were prepared only on the basis of the prisoners’ confessions, “I have never fabricated these documents for other names to be included.” He repeated that confessions were transmitted to his superior, Son Sen, who then annotated them for the attention of Pol Pot or Nuon Chea for them to take a decision. The document then returned to Son Sen before being sent to the zone secretaries.
When Alain Werner interrogated him on the specificity – highlighted by Craig Etcheson – of the confessions or torture practices in S-21, in comparison to other security centres, Duch eluded his questions. He had no communication with the other centres and did not know what happened there. Few or no documents have survived in other security centres to be able to make a comparison with S-21… “I think this is something that should be discussed. But I do not want to shy away from my responsibility in the extermination of 14,000 people.” However, he was ready to confirm he had read some 200,000 pages of confessions from the time he directed S-21, an assessment based on the number of hours he worked in this centre “where work never stopped.”
Duch said he did not understand the conclusion reached by the American, that is the analysis of the confessions extorted from the S-21 detainees and Duch’s work fuelled the paranoia of the regime and supported the purge policy. He added that he referred to the Trial Chamber who will rule on this matter. Also, he refuted the assertion by the expert – an investigator with the office of the co-Prosecutors – that he had “direct, personal and daily” relations with leading figures of the regime, his superiors Son Sen and Nuon Chea, unlike the other security centre directors. “My superior was a meticulous person who worked hard and demanded that his subordinates work hard. […] There were no personal or private relations between us, but a monitoring and implementation of my duties.”
The treatment of prisoners
Interrogated later in the day by Silke Studzinsky, co-lawyer for civil party group 2, who returned to the process of dehumanisation of the detainees, Duch admitted that interrogators spoke to prisoners with contempt, sometimes forcing them to worship pictures of dogs in order to debase them. “Back then, I thought it was good to teach such a method to avoid the beating of detainees. In hindsight, I recognise that it was a criminal act and I accept my responsibility. […] I realise today that these crimes are punishable under the law…”
Photo by: Christopher Shay
