Cambodia's torture prison survivors testify at tribunal

July 3, 2009
ABC Radio Australia

In Cambodia, evidence is being heard against the former head of the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, Comrade Duch.

Only a handful of prisoners survived Tuol Sleng, during the four years of Khmer Rouge rule. Yesterday, a former child survivor, now aged 39, cried as he told the Khmer Rouge Tribunal of being separated from his mother at the jail.

Presenter: Robert Carmichael
Speakers: Bou Meng, S21 survivor

Click to listen to the audio program (Windows Media)

(sounds from court)

CARMICHAEL: There is a famous black and white photograph taken in Cambodia in the early 1980s. It shows seven men standing with their arms around each other outside a non-descript building.

The photograph is remarkable not for its quality or composition, but for the experience the seven men shared. They were the only known survivors of the former Khmer Rouge prison known as S-21, where perceived enemies of the Khmer Rouge state were imprisoned, tortured and murdered.

More than 15,000 people were sent to S-21 between 1975 and January 1979, when the Khmer Rouge regime was finally overthrown. Just a handful survived.

Although the seven men were prisoners and therefore marked out for certain death, they survived because they had skills useful to the prison commander, Comrade Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav.

In the three decades since that photograph was taken outside S-21, four of the seven men have died.

But this week in Phnom Penh, the remaining three gave evidence to the UN-backed tribunal, where the former commander of S-21, Comrade Duch, is on trial for crimes against humanity.

Their testimony brought to life the horrors of the time, during which two million Cambodians died.

Bou Meng, an artist who testified on Wednesday, survived 18 months at S-21. When he was arrested and taken to S-21 in mid-1977 he was shackled with other prisoners to a metal bar in what had been a classroom at the former school.

MENG (translated): In that room there were about 30-40 of us. In one corner I saw a tall, white foreigner who was detained there as well near me. He received the same thin gruel ration as the rest of us. We had very little rice. I was so skinny. I had no strength.

CARMICHAEL: All three men spoke of the agonising lack of food and water, and of being treated worse than animals. And they told of torture - beatings and whippings, electric shocks, toenails pulled out with pliers. The purpose was to get them to confess to being part of an imagined KGB/CIA plot against the state, after which they would be killed. It was standard procedure at S-21.

The presiding judge asked Bou Meng whether he was told why he and his wife - whom he never saw again - had been arrested.

They didn't tell us anything, Bou Meng replied. They just told them that the Orwellian state - known as Angkar - was all-seeing and all-knowing.

MENG (translated): I said, 'My wife and I are orphans. What mistakes have we made?' They replied, 'You, you contemptible. You don't have to ask. You know that Angkar has many eyes like a pineapple. If you hadn't made a mistake, Angkar would not have arrested you.'

CARMICHAEL: Bou Meng and his wife were falsely accused. So were many of S-21's inmates, including the other two witnesses who spoke this week.

Vann Nath, who is also an artist, told the court that S-21 had robbed him of his dignity.

Up to 60 prisoners were shackled in large common rooms. He said prisoners died one after another, and late in the evening the corpses would be unshackled and removed.

He told the judges that he ate his meals next to the dead, and said he didn't care because the prisoners had become like animals.

After more than a month, one of the guards came for him. Vann Nath gave up hope, knowing he would now be killed.

But Comrade Duch, the prison commander, put Vann Nath to work alongside Bou Meng painting giant canvases of the senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge. Vann Nath survived for a year.

The third witness, a mechanic called Chum Mey, told the court how he was arrested and taken to S-21. He too was tortured and forced to confess to being part of a spurious CIA/KGB network designed to bring down the state.

But as with the two artists, Chum Mey had a skill. Duch needed someone who could fix sewing machines, a water pump, typewriters. And so Chum Mey was put to work.

Recalling their memories was unsurprisingly distressing. All three men broke down in the witness box during the day they were given to testify.

Their harrowing testimony highlights the personal losses carried by millions of Cambodians. Bou Meng's wife disappeared at S-21 and was almost certainly murdered there. Chum Mey's wife and four children all died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. Vann Nath's wife survived the Khmer Rouge years, but their two children died.

The three made it clear that they can't escape their pasts. As Vann Nath told the court: Even though I have tried my best to forget, what happened at S-21 still haunts me.

It haunts Chum Mey and Bou Meng too, as Bou Meng said over and over again. The former painter still can't understand why he was arrested.

MENG (translated): In our cooperative my wife and I worked hard every day. Even today I cannot think what mistake I made.

CARMICHAEL: This is Robert Carmichael in Phnom Penh for Connect Asia.