AP
PHNOM PENH (Cambodia) - A FRENCH scholar who was imprisoned by a Khmer Rouge official now on trial for crimes against humanity said on Wednesday that his captor was a 'monster' but did not mistreat him.
Francois Bizot testified before Cambodia's UN-assisted genocide tribunal in its second week of trying Kaing Guek Eav, the main jailer for the Khmer Rouge during their 1975-79 regime.
Kaing Guek Eav (pronounced Gang Geck EE-UU) - better known by his alias, Duch - commanded Phnom Penh's S-21 prison, also known as Tuol Sleng, where as many as 16,000 men, women and children are believed to have been tortured before being executed.
In addition to crimes against humanity, 66-year-old Duch (pronounced Doik) is charged with war crimes as well as murder and torture.
The Khmer Rouge seized Mr Bizot in Cambodia's countryside while he was doing research on Buddhism in 1971, during the civil war that led to the group's seizure of power. He was accused of being a foreign spy and held in Khmer Rouge territory for three months before he was cleared and released on Christmas Day, though he said he had expected to be executed.
Duch has already given the tribunal his account of his activities up to the Khmer Rouge seizure of power, but Mr Bizot was the first witness to take the stand. He has written a book about his experiences.
Mr Bizot said he was testifying in memory of his fellow inmates at Duch's M-13 jungle prison. But he also acknowledged a certain sympathy for contending aspects of Duch's personality.
'I must come to terms with what's in me with relation to a double reality, the reality of a man who was the force of a state institutional massive killing, and I cannot imagine being in his shoes today with so much horror left behind,' Mr Bizot declared.
'On the other hand, the recollection I have today of a young man who committed his life to a cause and to a purpose that was based on the idea that it was not only legitimate, it was deserved,' he said, referring to the idealistic social impulses that drove Duch to join the communist revolutionaries.
Francois Bizot testified before Cambodia's UN-assisted genocide tribunal in its second week of trying Kaing Guek Eav, the main jailer for the Khmer Rouge during their 1975-79 regime.
Kaing Guek Eav (pronounced Gang Geck EE-UU) - better known by his alias, Duch - commanded Phnom Penh's S-21 prison, also known as Tuol Sleng, where as many as 16,000 men, women and children are believed to have been tortured before being executed.
In addition to crimes against humanity, 66-year-old Duch (pronounced Doik) is charged with war crimes as well as murder and torture.
The Khmer Rouge seized Mr Bizot in Cambodia's countryside while he was doing research on Buddhism in 1971, during the civil war that led to the group's seizure of power. He was accused of being a foreign spy and held in Khmer Rouge territory for three months before he was cleared and released on Christmas Day, though he said he had expected to be executed.
Duch has already given the tribunal his account of his activities up to the Khmer Rouge seizure of power, but Mr Bizot was the first witness to take the stand. He has written a book about his experiences.
Mr Bizot said he was testifying in memory of his fellow inmates at Duch's M-13 jungle prison. But he also acknowledged a certain sympathy for contending aspects of Duch's personality.
'I must come to terms with what's in me with relation to a double reality, the reality of a man who was the force of a state institutional massive killing, and I cannot imagine being in his shoes today with so much horror left behind,' Mr Bizot declared.
'On the other hand, the recollection I have today of a young man who committed his life to a cause and to a purpose that was based on the idea that it was not only legitimate, it was deserved,' he said, referring to the idealistic social impulses that drove Duch to join the communist revolutionaries.
No comments:
Post a Comment