Anne Barrowclough, Phnom Penh
The Australian
THE torturer-in-chief of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime went before a UN-backed genocide tribunal yesterday for the long-awaited first trial into the "Killing Fields" atrocities of 30 years ago.
The 66-year-old former maths teacher Kaing Guek Eav -- better known as Duch -- sat in the dock for an initial hearing into charges that he ran the main prison centre for the hardline communist regime that killed up to two million people.
Duch was the director of the infamous Tuol Sleng prison, the interrogation centre that came to symbolise the horrors of Pol Pot's regime.
Between 1976 and 1979 up to 17,000 men, women and children were sent to his prison to be tortured and killed. Only a handful survived.
His trial, and those of four other Khmer Rouge leaders that will follow, are hugely significant for Cambodia, where a culture of impunity has meant the leaders of one of the most genocidal regimes in modern history have gone unjudged and unpunished.
It will give the Cambodian people their first opportunity to understand what went so wrong in their country, and why so many of their lives were destroyed.
Hundreds of victims of the regime, along with the few remaining survivors of Tuol Sleng, packed the courtroom of the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia along with diplomats, foreign observers and Buddhist monks to watch the proceedings. They were separated from Duch by bullet-proof glass.
Many had travelled from remote rural villages to the courtroom, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, to see justice finally done.
Duch, pasty-faced from nine years in prison and wearing a freshly pressed, pale blue shirt, watched the judge intently, his face impassive.
His guard dropped only when trial chamber president Nil Nonn announced he would be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity. His shoulders moved as he gave a small sigh, and he dropped his eyes.
"This is momentous, historic," said Theary Seng, who was orphaned by the regime and is now a spokesman for Pol Pot's victims.
"After my mother was taken to be executed I felt like I was an empty shell, and I have never stopped feeling like that. There is a great level of satisfaction that today has come."
At the back of the court, one of those victims sat alone, watching his former tormentor intensely.
"When I see Duch I feel angry all over again," he said, never taking his eyes off the man who was responsible for the deaths of his parents.
Norng Chan Phal was eight when he was taken to Tuol Sleng with his mother and younger brothers after his father, a Khmer Rouge cadre, was arrested by the regime. He never saw his parents again.
In 1979, as the regime fell and its soldiers fled, a Vietnamese film crew found him, naked and starving, lying in piles of rubbish. He was too weak to stand, as were the four children with him. Alongside them lay a dead toddler.
Duch was arrested in 1999 when a journalist found him working as a Christian aid worker in the jungle, and was transferred to the tribunal in July 2007.
He has previously expressed regret for his crimes.
Tuol Sleng was at the heart of the Khmer Rouge security apparatus and thousands of inmates were taken from there during Duch's tenure for execution at nearby Choeung Ek, an orchard now known as the "Killing Fields".
Led by "Brother Number One" Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge was responsible for one of the worst horrors of the 20th century, wiping out nearly a quarter of the population -- 1.7 million people -- through starvation, overwork and execution. Rising to power as a tragic spin-off from the US conflict in Vietnam, the movement emptied Cambodia's cities to take society back to a rural "year zero", purging city dwellers, intellectuals and even people who wore glasses.
The Times, AP, AFP
The 66-year-old former maths teacher Kaing Guek Eav -- better known as Duch -- sat in the dock for an initial hearing into charges that he ran the main prison centre for the hardline communist regime that killed up to two million people.
Duch was the director of the infamous Tuol Sleng prison, the interrogation centre that came to symbolise the horrors of Pol Pot's regime.
Between 1976 and 1979 up to 17,000 men, women and children were sent to his prison to be tortured and killed. Only a handful survived.
His trial, and those of four other Khmer Rouge leaders that will follow, are hugely significant for Cambodia, where a culture of impunity has meant the leaders of one of the most genocidal regimes in modern history have gone unjudged and unpunished.
It will give the Cambodian people their first opportunity to understand what went so wrong in their country, and why so many of their lives were destroyed.
Hundreds of victims of the regime, along with the few remaining survivors of Tuol Sleng, packed the courtroom of the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia along with diplomats, foreign observers and Buddhist monks to watch the proceedings. They were separated from Duch by bullet-proof glass.
Many had travelled from remote rural villages to the courtroom, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, to see justice finally done.
Duch, pasty-faced from nine years in prison and wearing a freshly pressed, pale blue shirt, watched the judge intently, his face impassive.
His guard dropped only when trial chamber president Nil Nonn announced he would be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity. His shoulders moved as he gave a small sigh, and he dropped his eyes.
"This is momentous, historic," said Theary Seng, who was orphaned by the regime and is now a spokesman for Pol Pot's victims.
"After my mother was taken to be executed I felt like I was an empty shell, and I have never stopped feeling like that. There is a great level of satisfaction that today has come."
At the back of the court, one of those victims sat alone, watching his former tormentor intensely.
"When I see Duch I feel angry all over again," he said, never taking his eyes off the man who was responsible for the deaths of his parents.
Norng Chan Phal was eight when he was taken to Tuol Sleng with his mother and younger brothers after his father, a Khmer Rouge cadre, was arrested by the regime. He never saw his parents again.
In 1979, as the regime fell and its soldiers fled, a Vietnamese film crew found him, naked and starving, lying in piles of rubbish. He was too weak to stand, as were the four children with him. Alongside them lay a dead toddler.
Duch was arrested in 1999 when a journalist found him working as a Christian aid worker in the jungle, and was transferred to the tribunal in July 2007.
He has previously expressed regret for his crimes.
Tuol Sleng was at the heart of the Khmer Rouge security apparatus and thousands of inmates were taken from there during Duch's tenure for execution at nearby Choeung Ek, an orchard now known as the "Killing Fields".
Led by "Brother Number One" Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge was responsible for one of the worst horrors of the 20th century, wiping out nearly a quarter of the population -- 1.7 million people -- through starvation, overwork and execution. Rising to power as a tragic spin-off from the US conflict in Vietnam, the movement emptied Cambodia's cities to take society back to a rural "year zero", purging city dwellers, intellectuals and even people who wore glasses.
The Times, AP, AFP
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