Closing Order of Case 002 (Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith)

PART ONE: FACTUAL FINDINGS

I. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

18.               The existence of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) was not officially announced until September 1977, when the party had already been in power for more than two years (it appears that the term "Angkar", which had been in use since the 1940s meant "Organization", and described the Party as a whole but also the leaders at different levels, without further specificity). However, groups espousing communist ideology had been in existence in Cambodia for many years beforehand. Despite the fact that the party has had a tendency to re-write its own history,²⁵ it is possible to ascertain its development through a number of key dates of relevance to the judicial investigation.²⁶ 

19.               One of the first communist organizations in the region was the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP), which was strongly influenced by Vietnamese communists and founded in 1930. The party was officially dissolved in 1951 and its former members were supposed to establish separate revolutionary organizations for each country. The new party created in Cambodia was the Khmer People's Revolutionary Party ("KPRP"), which tried to dominate the Issarak groups fighting for independence.²⁷ Independence was finally proclaimed in 1953 and recognized at the 1954 Geneva Conference. 

21. Immediately after the 1954 Conference, the communist movement initially created a public group, the Pracheachon, and sought socialist reform through the democratic process. However, facing the repression by the authorities, the leaders of the Workers Party increasingly considered armed struggle necessary for victory and began preparations for it.³³ Already in 1960, the Workers Party established a "Secret Defense Unit"³⁴ to protect its cadres and political activities, as well as to "smash" the enemy. Duch states that this policy was adopted at the first Congress "to entice the forces that can be lured; to neutralize the forces that can be neutralized; to isolate and smash the isolated forces"^[1] 

22. After the disappearance in 1962 of the Secretary of the Workers Party, Tou Samouth, (whose disappearance was never elucidated), a Second Party Congress was held in late February 1963. Saloth Sar became the new secretary and Nuon Chea remained deputy secretary.³⁶ This Congress was held in Phnom Penh, and the participants were again a small group that included Ieng Sary and Sao Phim (both of whom were elected full rights members of the Standing Committee), Ta Mok, Vorn Vet, Son Sen, Ruos Nheum and Kung Sophal.³⁷ A few months later, after the government published a list of 34 known "leftists,"³⁸ Pol Pot and a number of the other named Party leaders, including Ieng Sary and Son Sen, fled the capital. They took refuge at a Vietnamese base on the border, where they later established an office known as Office 100.³⁹ By 1965, they were joined by their spouses Khieu Ponnary, Ieng Thirith and Yun Yat.⁴⁰ Nuon Chea, whose identity had remained secret and hence was not on the "list of 34", stayed in Phnom Penh and assumed responsibility for Party operations in the capital and most of the zones.⁴¹

23. In January 1965, the Workers Party approved a resolution that rejected the possibility of a "peaceful transition" to socialism, and confirmed that it was "absolutely necessary to use revolutionary violence" in the struggle against the imperialists.⁴² In a Central Committee meeting held in September or October 1966, the leaders decided to change the name of the Party to CPK (although that decision was kept secret until the next Party Congress), to relocate Office 100 to Ratanakiri province, and that each zone would begin preparations for armed struggle.⁴³ In 1967, several Party leaders agreed to launch a general uprising in 1968.⁴⁴ Shortly thereafter, a new Central Committee headquarters (also called Office 100) was established in Ratanakiri, a few kilometres away from Office-102, the Northeast Zone Office used by Ieng Sary (who had been appointed Zone Secretary).⁴⁵

Revolutionary Army of Kampuchea ("RAK").⁴⁷ In the following months, guerrilla attacks continued by CPK forces throughout the country.⁴⁸

25. On 18 March 1970, Prince Norodom Sihanouk was overthrown by General Lon Nol and Prince Sirik Matak, who established a regime which was later called the "Khmer Republic".⁴⁹ On 23 March 1970, Sihanouk announced the formation of the National United Front of Kampuchea ("FUNK"), and called on his countrymen to rise up against the new government.⁵⁰ Prince Sihanouk and the CPK formed an alliance as well as a government-in- exile based in Beijing called the Royal Government of National Union of Kampuchea ("GRUNK"). It was officially announced on 5 May 1970.⁵¹ Norodom Sihanouk was President of the FUNK, the Prime Minister of the GRUNK was the non-communist Penn Nouth,⁵² and Khieu Samphan was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence. Ieng Thirith was appointed Vice-Minister for Culture, Education and Youth in the GRUNK by August 1970.⁵³

26. Around this time, the CPK leaders left Ratanakiri. A several month trip began, south of the Steung Chinit River on the border of Kampong Cham and Kampong Thom provinces, the location of the headquarters of North Zone Secretary Koy Thuon.⁵⁴ Pol Pot and Nuon Chea first stayed at a base code-named K-1, located in Dangkda village northeast of Speu Subdistrict.⁵⁵ At the end of 1970, they moved to a larger base close by on the northern side of the Chinit River code-named S-71.⁵⁶ The Party leaders based at this site included Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, and Chhim Sam Aok alias Pang.⁵⁷

27. Ieng Sary went to Hanoi in December 1970 to organise the radio (the "Voice of the FUNK"), which was placed under the authority and control of Ieng Thirith⁵⁸ until May 1975. Thereafter, in April 1971, he travelled to Beijing to stay with Sihanouk and to serve as the "special emissary of the resistance movement" ⁵ At his villa in Beijing, Ieng Sary had a direct telegraph link to S-71.⁶⁰

28. In early 1971, the CPK Central Committee met for the first time since October 1966 for a three-day meeting at S-71. 27 of its members attended the meeting, including Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Sao Phim, Vorn Vet, Ta Mok, Ruos Nheum, Kung Sophal, Chou Chet, Kang Chap, Koy Thuon, Ke Pork, Seua Vasi alias Doeun and Pang.⁶¹ zone secretaries, and military commanders such as Ke Pork.⁶³ The Congress officially ratified the CPK name that had been adopted five years earlier, and elected a new Central Committee that included Khieu Samphan as an "alternate" or "candidate" member.⁶⁴

30. In May 1972, the new Central Committee met and issued a directive to Party members to intensify the struggle against the "various oppressive classes" and approved plans for the collectivisation of agriculture.⁶⁵ Cooperatives were officially imposed by the CPK in the areas they controlled one year later on 20 May 1973.⁶⁶

31. Later in 1973, the CPK established a new forward base near Chrok Sdech village west of Oudong in Kampong Tralach Leu District, close to the location of Vorn Vet's Special Zone headquarters and the command post of Son Sen.⁶⁷ 25 CPK battalions took up positions around Oudong, and attacked the former royal capital on 3 March 1974. ⁶⁸

32. In June 1974, the Central Committee met in Prek Kok Subdistrict, close to the former location of K-1, and "resolved to mount the decisive offensive to liberate Phnom Penh and the entire country". The final assault on Phnom Penh began in January 1975.⁷⁰ In early March 1975, Pol Pot established a command base in Sdok Taol village in Oudong or Ponhea Leu District, only 20 kilometres from the capital.⁷¹ On 1 April 1975, after CPK forces "liberated Neak Loeung," Lon Nol resigned and went into exile in Hawaii.⁷² On the morning of 17 April 1975, CPK forces entered Phnom Penh.⁷³