19 September 2007
AFP
PAILIN, Cambodia - A shaking, frail old man being helped to dress by police officers. That was one woman’s last glimpse of Nuon Chea, a former Khmer Rouge leader who allegedly devised the regime’s brutal machinery of death.
Peering through the window of Nuon Chea’s house moments before he was led away by authorities Wednesday, Sok Sothera, a neighbour in this tiny jungle hamlet in northwest Cambodia, told AFP “he was shaking.”
“His legs looked like they would collapse,” said Sok Sothera, who a year ago moved next door into the house once belonging to another regime cadre, former head of state Khieu Samphan.
“Two policemen had to hold him up” as they walked him to a waiting pickup truck, she said.
The 82-year-old, known as “Brother Number Two”, was Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot’s most trusted lieutenant.
He is the first of several top cadre still living freely in Cambodia to be detained as momentum builds towards UN-backed trials of former regime leaders.
Hundreds of other villagers gathered in stunned silence as a convoy of nearly a dozen police and genocide court vehicles escorted Nuon Chea to a nearby helicopter.
It was to fly him to the capital Phnom Penh, where the Khmer Rouge tribunal is located.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” one woman exclaimed before refusing to say any more.
Earlier, armed security forces, including black-suited commandos carrying what appeared to be tear-gas rifles, sealed off the roads leading to Nuon Chea’s house while police and court officials spent a couple of hours inside.
Relatives, some bringing food, were turned away while others made frantic phones calls to family still inside the modest wooden home just metres from the border with Thailand.
Nuon Chea has lived in the house since surrendering to the government in 1998.
His grandson-in-law, Ou Boran, told AFP that authorities were looking for documents or any other correspondence, adding that Nuon Chea was allowed to eat a simple breakfast of rice with his wife.
After the chopper lifted off, Nuon Chea’s wife, surrounded by family, refused to speak.
“She’s sorry she cannot follow her husband,” said one older relative, who did not want to give his name.
Outside, Sok Sothera said she felt no such sadness.
“I have no regrets over this because many Cambodians died under his regime. I am happy that he could be brought to court,” she said.
But she also remembered this henchman in one of the 20th century’s most frightening regimes as a “kind man.”
“Since I moved here a year ago, he sometimes gave food to my children,” she said.
Peering through the window of Nuon Chea’s house moments before he was led away by authorities Wednesday, Sok Sothera, a neighbour in this tiny jungle hamlet in northwest Cambodia, told AFP “he was shaking.”
“His legs looked like they would collapse,” said Sok Sothera, who a year ago moved next door into the house once belonging to another regime cadre, former head of state Khieu Samphan.
“Two policemen had to hold him up” as they walked him to a waiting pickup truck, she said.
The 82-year-old, known as “Brother Number Two”, was Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot’s most trusted lieutenant.
He is the first of several top cadre still living freely in Cambodia to be detained as momentum builds towards UN-backed trials of former regime leaders.
Hundreds of other villagers gathered in stunned silence as a convoy of nearly a dozen police and genocide court vehicles escorted Nuon Chea to a nearby helicopter.
It was to fly him to the capital Phnom Penh, where the Khmer Rouge tribunal is located.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” one woman exclaimed before refusing to say any more.
Earlier, armed security forces, including black-suited commandos carrying what appeared to be tear-gas rifles, sealed off the roads leading to Nuon Chea’s house while police and court officials spent a couple of hours inside.
Relatives, some bringing food, were turned away while others made frantic phones calls to family still inside the modest wooden home just metres from the border with Thailand.
Nuon Chea has lived in the house since surrendering to the government in 1998.
His grandson-in-law, Ou Boran, told AFP that authorities were looking for documents or any other correspondence, adding that Nuon Chea was allowed to eat a simple breakfast of rice with his wife.
After the chopper lifted off, Nuon Chea’s wife, surrounded by family, refused to speak.
“She’s sorry she cannot follow her husband,” said one older relative, who did not want to give his name.
Outside, Sok Sothera said she felt no such sadness.
“I have no regrets over this because many Cambodians died under his regime. I am happy that he could be brought to court,” she said.
But she also remembered this henchman in one of the 20th century’s most frightening regimes as a “kind man.”
“Since I moved here a year ago, he sometimes gave food to my children,” she said.
1 comment:
Nobody are borned to be killed, FOOL! May be you was borned the wrong way or your mother trop you on the way to the toilet!
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