Vann Nath with a canvas he painted while in jailBy Sebastien Berger in Phnom Penh
Telegraph (UK)
(Filed: 03/07/2006)
Almost 30 years after being arrested and tortured by the Khmer Rouge, Chum Mey finally hopes that justice will be done.
International judges arrived in Phnom Penh last night to be sworn in to the Extraordinary Chambers, a United Nations-backed court to try the leaders of the Maoist regime that oversaw the deaths of 1.7 million people.
The need for justice has become ever more pressing as the victims and perpetrators grow older. But the establishment of the court has been plagued by government orders.
Pol Pot died in 1998 but his deputy Nuon Chea, his brother-in-law and foreign minister Ieng Sary, and the Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan all live freely in Cambodia. Of those likely to be accused by the tribunal only two, the military commander Ta Mok and Duch, the head of the Tuol Sleng torture pri-son in the capital, are in custody.
Chum Mey, now a soft-spoken 76-year-old, was detained in Tuol Sleng prison in 1978. Out of at least 14,000 people who were taken there by the Khmer Rouge, he is one of only seven to have come out alive.
His nightmare began when he worked as a sewing machine repairman. He arrived for work to be told: "Don't you realise you are a traitor? You are going to die."
The prison operated on the principle that Angkar, the faceless "organisation" that controlled every aspect of life in Cambodia, was never wrong. To have been arrested was proof of guilt.
Stripped and shackled, he was beaten for four hours on end twice a day for 12 days. He was twice given electric shocks, and had two of his toenails ripped out.
"Why did you join the CIA?" he was asked. "Are you a member of the KGB?"
But he never "confessed" and the torture stopped only when the authorities decided they could use his mechanical skills.
Even so in his cell he could hear the screams of those being tortured, and he lived in dread of the three lorries that came to collect prisoners for execution every night. "We had to wait and see," he said. "I will never forget it.
"If our names were on the list then we would die. It could be me or it could be another prisoner. I couldn't sleep until after the trucks left."
Despite all that was done to him, it is only when he speaks of his wife Sam Savon, two sons and daughters, that his eyes fill with tears.
"This has been so painful all my life," he said.
The surviving Khmer Rouge leaders who escaped the Vietnamese invasion in 1979 and waged civil war until the late 1990s have never faced justice for their butchery.
About a sixth of the population died in the country's notorious Killing Fields from overwork, starvation and execution after the twisted dream of an agrarian socialist utopia turned into a paranoid nightmare. Chum Mey welcomed the prospect of the regime's leaders being brought to trial.
"I want to see them in court being questioned by the judge," he said.
"They must apologise to the Cambodian people that they have done something wrong."
Vann Nath, another survivor of Tuol Sleng, who was kept alive to paint portraits of Pol Pot, said: "This is very important. It will help everyone.
"We want the people who committed the crimes to be aware they did something wrong.
"So far they claim they never did anything wrong."
International judges arrived in Phnom Penh last night to be sworn in to the Extraordinary Chambers, a United Nations-backed court to try the leaders of the Maoist regime that oversaw the deaths of 1.7 million people.
The need for justice has become ever more pressing as the victims and perpetrators grow older. But the establishment of the court has been plagued by government orders.
Pol Pot died in 1998 but his deputy Nuon Chea, his brother-in-law and foreign minister Ieng Sary, and the Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan all live freely in Cambodia. Of those likely to be accused by the tribunal only two, the military commander Ta Mok and Duch, the head of the Tuol Sleng torture pri-son in the capital, are in custody.
Chum Mey, now a soft-spoken 76-year-old, was detained in Tuol Sleng prison in 1978. Out of at least 14,000 people who were taken there by the Khmer Rouge, he is one of only seven to have come out alive.
His nightmare began when he worked as a sewing machine repairman. He arrived for work to be told: "Don't you realise you are a traitor? You are going to die."
The prison operated on the principle that Angkar, the faceless "organisation" that controlled every aspect of life in Cambodia, was never wrong. To have been arrested was proof of guilt.
Stripped and shackled, he was beaten for four hours on end twice a day for 12 days. He was twice given electric shocks, and had two of his toenails ripped out.
"Why did you join the CIA?" he was asked. "Are you a member of the KGB?"
But he never "confessed" and the torture stopped only when the authorities decided they could use his mechanical skills.
Even so in his cell he could hear the screams of those being tortured, and he lived in dread of the three lorries that came to collect prisoners for execution every night. "We had to wait and see," he said. "I will never forget it.
"If our names were on the list then we would die. It could be me or it could be another prisoner. I couldn't sleep until after the trucks left."
Despite all that was done to him, it is only when he speaks of his wife Sam Savon, two sons and daughters, that his eyes fill with tears.
"This has been so painful all my life," he said.
The surviving Khmer Rouge leaders who escaped the Vietnamese invasion in 1979 and waged civil war until the late 1990s have never faced justice for their butchery.
About a sixth of the population died in the country's notorious Killing Fields from overwork, starvation and execution after the twisted dream of an agrarian socialist utopia turned into a paranoid nightmare. Chum Mey welcomed the prospect of the regime's leaders being brought to trial.
"I want to see them in court being questioned by the judge," he said.
"They must apologise to the Cambodian people that they have done something wrong."
Vann Nath, another survivor of Tuol Sleng, who was kept alive to paint portraits of Pol Pot, said: "This is very important. It will help everyone.
"We want the people who committed the crimes to be aware they did something wrong.
"So far they claim they never did anything wrong."
3 comments:
very sad soory to hear from you.., and you are the hero, and one of the very lucky one during the crusual regime..!!
very sad soory to hear from you.., and you are the hero, and one of the very lucky one during the crusual regime..!!
This man (Chum Mey) had been tru so much pain and torture in his life. May GOD save him and privide him peace in his after life. Eventhough he's still alive, his life is empty and SAD...
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