Kambol (Phnom Penh, Cambodia). 18/05/2009: The court buildings, located 20 kilometres from the centre of Phnom Penh, on the 16th day of hearing at Duch's trial.
(Photo: John Vink/ Magnum)18-05-2009
By Stéphanie Gée
Ka-set
After two weeks of suspension, the trial of the former director of S-21, Duch, resumed with difficulty on Monday May 18th, with delay and bungles in the versions of the documents to be distributed for reading, concerning the positions of the defence team in relation to the chapters of the closing order relating to the implementation of the policy of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) in the Phnom Penh detention and torture centre. By the end of the day, U.S. expert Craig Etcheson, investigator with the office of the co-Prosecutors of the court, started testifying on the structure of Democratic Kampuchea, which he has studied closely.
An almighty Permanent Committee
The word “smash”, dear to the Khmer Rouge propaganda even before 1975, has often been used in the debates. As the fifth week of trial started, Duch insisted on clarifying the meaning given to this word. “The word 'resolve' was used before and was replaced by 'smash' under Son Sen. It is not a word I chose... What it meant was to arrest someone secretly, interrogate that person using torture, then execute him or her secretly without his or her family knowing. [...] The word meant that under no circumstances could a person who had to be smashed be released and that it was not about following a judicial process. Back then, there were no laws or courts and the Standing Committee [of the CPK] concentrated in its sole hands the three powers [legislative, executive and judicial].” The role of confessions Duch declared during the investigation that “the contents of confessions [was] the most important task for S-21.” He acknowledged during the hearing that some of them were quoted in the two official journals (Revolutionary Flag and Revolutionary Youth) or, upon order from a higher echelon, were recorded to be broadcast during political meetings or on the waves of the propaganda radio, the Voice of Democratic Kampuchea. For the most part, they were confessions of Vietnamese prisoners, broadcast in their entirety, and Cambodian prisoners considered as important, for whom only extracts were used. The goal, Duch recalled, was to disclose the names of the traitors to the party. However, the role of S-21 was not to determine if the detainees were actually traitors, because the simple fact they were arrested and transferred to this centre were enough to establish their guilt. In confessions sometimes as thick as several hundreds of pages, prisoners were, under duress, required to write a political autobiography, confess their alleged crimes and alleged membership of intelligence agencies (CIA, KGB or bodies of the Vietnamese Communist Party), and accuse other alleged enemies of the revolution. The accused recognised they were documents written with political ends and serving as excuses for the elimination of those who represented obstacles. Lists of enemies were therefore established on the basis of those forced denunciations.
Click to Read More...
An almighty Permanent Committee
The word “smash”, dear to the Khmer Rouge propaganda even before 1975, has often been used in the debates. As the fifth week of trial started, Duch insisted on clarifying the meaning given to this word. “The word 'resolve' was used before and was replaced by 'smash' under Son Sen. It is not a word I chose... What it meant was to arrest someone secretly, interrogate that person using torture, then execute him or her secretly without his or her family knowing. [...] The word meant that under no circumstances could a person who had to be smashed be released and that it was not about following a judicial process. Back then, there were no laws or courts and the Standing Committee [of the CPK] concentrated in its sole hands the three powers [legislative, executive and judicial].” The role of confessions Duch declared during the investigation that “the contents of confessions [was] the most important task for S-21.” He acknowledged during the hearing that some of them were quoted in the two official journals (Revolutionary Flag and Revolutionary Youth) or, upon order from a higher echelon, were recorded to be broadcast during political meetings or on the waves of the propaganda radio, the Voice of Democratic Kampuchea. For the most part, they were confessions of Vietnamese prisoners, broadcast in their entirety, and Cambodian prisoners considered as important, for whom only extracts were used. The goal, Duch recalled, was to disclose the names of the traitors to the party. However, the role of S-21 was not to determine if the detainees were actually traitors, because the simple fact they were arrested and transferred to this centre were enough to establish their guilt. In confessions sometimes as thick as several hundreds of pages, prisoners were, under duress, required to write a political autobiography, confess their alleged crimes and alleged membership of intelligence agencies (CIA, KGB or bodies of the Vietnamese Communist Party), and accuse other alleged enemies of the revolution. The accused recognised they were documents written with political ends and serving as excuses for the elimination of those who represented obstacles. Lists of enemies were therefore established on the basis of those forced denunciations.
Click to Read More...
No comments:
Post a Comment