Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (Photo: AP)PHNOM PENH (AFP) — The man who ran Cambodia's notorious Tuol Sleng torture machine returned there Wednesday for the first time in nearly 30 years where he was to confront some of the very few who survived.
Only around a dozen of the estimated 16,000 people who were herded, bound and blindfolded, into one of the Khmer Rouge's most horrific killing centres are known to have lived through the ordeal.
One of them, Chum Mey, said he was ready to confront his chief tormentor, prison chief Duch, who returned Wednesday to the former school turned torture centre which he ran with brutal efficiency during Cambodia's 1970s genocide.
Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, is one of five former Khmer Rouge leaders facing UN-backed trials for atrocities allegedly committed under the communists' rule.
Judges were to ask Duch, a 65 year-old former maths teacher, to walk them through Tuol Sleng's dilapidated class rooms, re-enacting for them the daily routine that helped shape his alleged crimes, officials said.
"This is to clarify the situation," tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath told AFP Wednesday, adding that a number of Tuol Sleng survivors and former guards would also be present.
Each side would be able to confront or question the other through the judges, he said, shortly before Duch was brought to the prison under armed police guard.
"An on-site investigation or 'reconstruction' is a normal investigative action," the tribunal said in a statement issued earlier.
But it will be anything but normal for Chum Mey, a mechanic who like other Tuol Sleng survivors was spared only because he possessed a skill that was useful to his captors.
For decades the terror of the Khmer Rouge years has invaded his quiet life on the outskirts of the capital Phnom Penh. On Wednesday, that bitter black shadow was to take form again.
"I want to talk to him. I want the judges and prosecutors to see where I was tortured," he told AFP late Tuesday, anticipating his meeting with Duch.
"If they do not see that this place is real, then anything I say to them is meaningless."
For Chum Mey, the exercise of forcing Duch to return to this scene of evil is a bid to deprive him of the denials that have become so common among former top Khmer Rouge officials, most of whom refuse to take responsibility for the apocalypse that engulfed Cambodia between 1975 and 1979.
Up to two million people died of starvation and overwork, or were executed by the Khmer Rouge, which dismantled modern Cambodian society in its effort to forge a radical agrarian utopia.
Cities were emptied and their populations exiled to vast collective farms, while schools were closed, religion banned and the educated classes targeted for extermination.
Duch, a Christian who was seized by Cambodian authorities in 1999 and held at a military prison until his transfer to the tribunal on July 31, is charged with crimes against humanity.
"The re-enactment is good, it means he (Duch) cannot say he did not do anything. I want him to show the judges the places of torture, show them where he gave the orders to bring people to be executed," Chum Mey said.
"I want him to recall the stories and answer everything."
Duch, who has not denied his Tuol Sleng role, took court officials Tuesday through another of the regime's monuments to brutality, the Choeung Ek killing fields where as many as 20,000 people -- most of them prisoners at Tuol Sleng -- were murdered.
There he knelt and prayed several times, weeping for the regime's victims, Reach Sambath said, calling the visit a significant step towards justice.
Forgiveness, however, might be a harder thing to wrestle from the living, Chum Mey said.
"For me, if you, Duch, do not reveal what happened, I will not forgive you," he said.
Only around a dozen of the estimated 16,000 people who were herded, bound and blindfolded, into one of the Khmer Rouge's most horrific killing centres are known to have lived through the ordeal.
One of them, Chum Mey, said he was ready to confront his chief tormentor, prison chief Duch, who returned Wednesday to the former school turned torture centre which he ran with brutal efficiency during Cambodia's 1970s genocide.
Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, is one of five former Khmer Rouge leaders facing UN-backed trials for atrocities allegedly committed under the communists' rule.
Judges were to ask Duch, a 65 year-old former maths teacher, to walk them through Tuol Sleng's dilapidated class rooms, re-enacting for them the daily routine that helped shape his alleged crimes, officials said.
"This is to clarify the situation," tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath told AFP Wednesday, adding that a number of Tuol Sleng survivors and former guards would also be present.
Each side would be able to confront or question the other through the judges, he said, shortly before Duch was brought to the prison under armed police guard.
"An on-site investigation or 'reconstruction' is a normal investigative action," the tribunal said in a statement issued earlier.
But it will be anything but normal for Chum Mey, a mechanic who like other Tuol Sleng survivors was spared only because he possessed a skill that was useful to his captors.
For decades the terror of the Khmer Rouge years has invaded his quiet life on the outskirts of the capital Phnom Penh. On Wednesday, that bitter black shadow was to take form again.
"I want to talk to him. I want the judges and prosecutors to see where I was tortured," he told AFP late Tuesday, anticipating his meeting with Duch.
"If they do not see that this place is real, then anything I say to them is meaningless."
For Chum Mey, the exercise of forcing Duch to return to this scene of evil is a bid to deprive him of the denials that have become so common among former top Khmer Rouge officials, most of whom refuse to take responsibility for the apocalypse that engulfed Cambodia between 1975 and 1979.
Up to two million people died of starvation and overwork, or were executed by the Khmer Rouge, which dismantled modern Cambodian society in its effort to forge a radical agrarian utopia.
Cities were emptied and their populations exiled to vast collective farms, while schools were closed, religion banned and the educated classes targeted for extermination.
Duch, a Christian who was seized by Cambodian authorities in 1999 and held at a military prison until his transfer to the tribunal on July 31, is charged with crimes against humanity.
"The re-enactment is good, it means he (Duch) cannot say he did not do anything. I want him to show the judges the places of torture, show them where he gave the orders to bring people to be executed," Chum Mey said.
"I want him to recall the stories and answer everything."
Duch, who has not denied his Tuol Sleng role, took court officials Tuesday through another of the regime's monuments to brutality, the Choeung Ek killing fields where as many as 20,000 people -- most of them prisoners at Tuol Sleng -- were murdered.
There he knelt and prayed several times, weeping for the regime's victims, Reach Sambath said, calling the visit a significant step towards justice.
Forgiveness, however, might be a harder thing to wrestle from the living, Chum Mey said.
"For me, if you, Duch, do not reveal what happened, I will not forgive you," he said.
1 comment:
Saang Baap baan Baap! Saang la-or baan la-or! What goes around will come around.
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