Closing Order of Case 002 against Senior KR Leaders Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith

In light of the HISTORIC (!) start of MOST COMPLEX (sic!) trial hearings beginning on 27 June 2011 and again ANOTHER HISTORIC (!) START of this same MOST COMPLEX (sic!) on 21 Nov. 2011 of Case 002 against the surviving Khmer Rouge senior leaders Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith, KI Media is posting installations of the public document of the Closing Order of Case 002 (Indictment).  The Closing Order of the Co-Investigating Judges forms the basic document from which all the parties (Co-Prosecutors, Co-Lead Lawyers for all civil parties, Defense Lawyers) will be making their arguments before the Trial Chamber judges (one Cambodian President, 2 Cambodian Judges, 2 UN judges).  Up until now, the hearings involving these four surviving senior Khmer Rouge leaders have been in the Pre-Trial Chamber over issues of pre-trial detention and jurisdictional issues.  Beginning in June November 2011, the Trial Chamber will hear the substantive (sic!) arguments over the criminal charges (genocide, crimes against humanity, penal code of 1956, etc., only the Phase I Movement in April 1975).  Available in Khmer, English and French. Contact the ECCC for a free copy. 

 

CLOSING ORDER

of Co-Investigating Judges You Bunleng and Marcel Lemonde

15 September 2010

IX. ROLES OF THE CHARGED PERSONS

A. NUON CHEA

 Participation in the Common Purpose

Targeting of Groups 

Treatment of Vietnamese

982.            This group was targeted while Nuon Chea was Deputy Secretary and a full-rights member of the Standing Committee.

983.            From 1975 to 1976, Nuon Chea endorsed and disseminated the CPK policy to expel all the Vietnamese people in Cambodian territory and send them to Vietnam through meetings he led in the early days of the regime⁴⁰⁸³ and through his role in the production of Revolutionary Flag and Revolutionary Youth magazines.

984. In 1977 and 1978, Nuon Chea provided information intended to engender fear and hatred of the Vietnamese or to otherwise win support for the targeting of this group, through his continued involvement in the production of CPK propaganda magazines and radio broadcasts. The Black Paper which Nuon helped write also contained extracts denouncing the strategy of Vietnam to annex and swallow Cambodia together with references inciting hatred towards the Vietnamese.⁴⁰⁸⁴

985. During the visit of the Workers' Party of Denmark in July 1978, Nuon Chea delivered a speech in which he stated "The other contradiction is external, Vietnam, in particular, is trying to undermine our party by military, political, economic and ideological means ".⁴⁰⁸⁵ At a speech at a banquet on 3 September 1978, Nuon Chea stated "At present, under the correct leadership of the Communist Party of Kampuchea and Comrade Secretary Pol Pot, the people and the Revolutionary Army of Kampuchea have smashed all the acts of subversion, attempts at coups d'etat and acts of aggression, expansion, annexation and swallowing of territories cruelly, barbarously and successively perpetrated by Vietnam against Democratic Kampuchea. Through this, the people and the Revolutionary Army of Kampuchea have also crushed the Vietnamese strategy of 'Indochina Federation' aiming at swallowing the Kampuchea's territory and exterminating the Kampuchea's race, and thus inflicted an ignominious defeat on the Vietnamese strategy 'lightning attack, lightning victory'".⁴⁰⁸⁶ This speech was made in the context of mass killings of Vietnamese civilians in Prey Veng and Svay Rieng and in other parts of Cambodia, as set out in the section of the Closing Order regarding the treatment of Vietnamese.

986. Nuon Chea was kept apprised by the zones and military commanders of the implementation of the CPK policy to kill members of the Vietnamese community. On 1 April 1978, [REDACTED] of Centre Division 164, reported in a secret telephone message to Nuon Chea and Ieng Sary that 120 Vietnamese had been captured and shot between 27 and 30 March 197 8.⁴⁰⁸⁷ Other instances of killing, "smashing" and attacking Vietnamese civilians and the destruction of Vietnamese property were also communicated to Nuon Chea.⁴⁰⁸⁸ Nuon Chea was also kept informed by detailed reporting from lower-level cadres on mass killings of Vietnamese civilians in Vietnam. On 14 August 1977, a telegram sent to Mo-81 by the Cambodian Ambassador to Vietnam and copied to Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary and Office 870 reported that "The Kampuchean army has committed mass killings of 1,000 ordinary Vietnamese people at Ha Tien in Kien Giang province" ⁴⁰⁰⁸⁹

987. The killings may have been linked to the "betrayal" of the East Zone leaders, in particular Sao Phim. There is evidence that Nuon Chea participated actively in the purge of Sao Phim and of the East Zone⁴⁰⁹⁰ before becoming for a period de facto Secretary of the East Zone.⁴⁰⁹¹

988. Regarding Vietnamese soldiers and civilians arrested in the context of the armed conflict with Vietnam, they were generally arrested in or near the main conflict zone on the border with Vietnam. Nuon Chea was kept informed by telegrams of the capture, detention, interrogation or killing of some Vietnamese soldiers, civilians or spies in or near the battlefields by military commanders.⁴⁰⁹² For instance, a telegram written by witness [REDACTED] states "We would like to report nine Yuon people fleeing from their country. According to their interrogations, they said the Yuon had assigned them to come to spy inside Kampuchea and live with the Kampuchean people in order to grasp the Kampuchean people. Now we have swept them away". He explains that he sent this telegram to Office 870 which he understands included Nuon Chea.⁴⁰⁹³ Telegram 60, dated 29 October 1977 and copied to Nuon Chea, requested instructions from Office 870 about arrested Vietnamese and asked "We would like to know what M [Office] 870 is going to do with Vietnamese caught at villagers' houses in Tadev Village. If M [Office] 870 wants these Vietnamese, we will send them. Now they are kept being interrogated" ⁴⁰⁹⁴ ages 17 and 27. They were sent to S-21" ⁴⁰⁹⁶ Duch repeatedly states that Vietnamese soldiers and Vietnamese civilians were treated like all the other detainees in S-21,⁴⁰⁹⁷ the only exception being that Vietnamese confessions were recorded for propaganda purposes and broadcast on the radio.⁴⁰⁹⁸ Duch explains that this decision was made by Nuon Chea.⁴⁰⁹⁹ Duch also added during his trial that "The essence of the confessions of those Vietnamese was sent to Uncle Nuon. Therefore, whatever it is he would adjust it and then he would send it to me and I would make some changes. So the purpose of the propaganda was determined from the upper echelon" ⁴¹⁰⁰

990. Finally a telegram dated 15 June 1977 addressed by Vy alias Um Neng, in his then capacity as Secretary of the Northeast Zone to "Respected Brother" and copied to Nuon Chea reports of the arrest of 209 Vietnamese Jarai by Division 801.⁴¹⁰¹ As described in the section of the Closing Order regarding the Au Kanseng Security Centre, they were subsequently executed.