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 (or, Indictment). The Closing Order of the Co-Investigating Judges forms the basic document from which all the parties (co-prosecutors, lead co-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 is hearing the substantive (sic!) arguments over the criminal charges   (genocide against Buddhists, genocide against Vietnamese, genocide against Cham Muslims, crimes against humanity at the 200 prisons, mass crimes in countless killing fields, Eastern Zone purges, penal code of 1956, etc.) of only the Phase I Movement in April 1975.

 Available in Khmer, English and French. Contact the ECCC for a free copy.  

 

CLOSING ORDER (or, INDICTMENT)

of Co-Investigating Judges You Bunleng and Marcel Lemonde

15 September 2010

 

IX. ROLES OF THE CHARGED PERSONS

C. KHIEU SAMPHAN⁴⁶¹⁶

Participation in the Common Purpose

 

Security Centres and Execution Sites

1164.       Through his various roles within the CPK, Khieu Samphan participated in the reeducation of "bad elements" and the killing of "enemies", both inside and outside the Party ranks.

Participation in the Creation of this Policy

1173. During the CPK regime, Khieu Samphan was involved in the continued planning of this policy by his attendance at Standing Committee meetings or through access to their minutes.⁴⁷⁹² Further, as a member of the Central Committee, Khieu Samphan may have participated in the formulation and implementation of the 30 March 1976 Directive, which delegated the power to smash inside and outside the ranks to the zone and autonomous sector committees.⁴⁷⁹³ He also may have addressed this policy through his involvement with the Council of Ministers. ⁴⁷⁹⁴ Further, in July 1975, Khieu Samphan attended a RAK gathering at which this policy was discussed.⁴⁷⁹⁵ He also participated in the reaffirmation of this policy at the People's Representative Assembly conference of 11-13 April 1976, which he chaired in his role as President of the State Presidium.⁴⁷⁹⁶

1174. One witness states that Khieu Samphan issued a statement in February or March 1978 ordering that the persons who had been arrested should be pardoned.⁴⁷⁹⁷ This was within the context of a June 1978 Central Committee Directive entitled "Guidance of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea on the Party's Policy towards Misled Persons who have joined the CIA, served as Yuon agents or joined the KGB and Opposed the Party, Revolution, People and Democratic Kampuchea". This directive appeared to prescribe reeducation for those who joined the CIA, KGB and Vietnamese before July 1978, but ordered the Party and the Kampuchean people to eliminate networks which continued to oppose the Party from July 1978 onwards.⁴⁷⁹⁸ Further, in September 1978, Khieu Samphan attended a large assembly in Phnom Penh together with other senior leaders of the CPK at which Pol Pot announced to hundreds of attendees that the military and the base no longer had the right to arrest anyone. From that point, they only had the right to question people and report to the Centre.

Endorsement of this Policy

1175. During the CPK regime, Khieu Samphan gave speeches and radio broadcasts disseminating and endorsing this policy both nationally and internationally, by appealing to the people to attack the enemies of the CPK.⁴⁸⁰⁰

1176. On 15 April 1977 during a mass rally marking the second anniversary of 17 April 1975, Khieu Samphan spoke of the great achievements of the revolution and declared that the army and "cooperative peasants" had not allowed any enemy from outside or from within to "sabotage the revolution". He called for the ongoing defence of the country by "resolutely suppressing all categories of enemies, preventing them from committing aggression, interference or subversion against us. We must wipe out the enemy in our capacity as masters of the situation, following the lines of domestic policy, foreign policy and military policy of our revolutionary organization ... we must further steel ourselves, remain alert, constantly maintain the spirit of revolutionary vigilance and continue to fight and suppress all stripes of enemy at all times"⁴⁸⁰¹ This speech effectively endorsed the purges of the old and new North Zones and related purges in ministries and offices of the Party Centre. Furthermore, this speech was given in the context of the publication in April 1977 of a Revolutionary Flag magazine, which called for the smashing of the remnants of the Vietnamese community in Cambodia, as well as other enemies of the CPK.⁴⁸⁰²

1177.       On 17 April 1978 during the third anniversary mass meeting Khieu Samphan ordered that the first task of the people was to defend the country against the Vietnamese, who were "spying and setting up cells"⁴⁸⁰³ in Cambodia by "carrying out well the line of the Party both in internal and external defence" ⁴⁸⁰⁴ He stated that "our daily activities to radically and forever eliminate from the Kampuchea's territory the enemy aggressors of all kinds, especially the Vietnamese enemy aggressors, annexationists and swallowers of territories". ⁴⁸⁰⁵ This speech effectively endorsed the recent and ongoing purges in Cambodia, in particular in the East Zone. It further supported a speech by Pol Pot, published in the April 1978 Revolutionary Flag magazine, which more specifically described the purge of traitors and bad elements in the ranks, including in ministries and offices.⁴⁸⁰⁶

Knowledge and Implementation of this Policy

1178.       Although there is no evidence that Khieu Samphan personally visited security centres or execution sites,⁴⁸⁰⁷ he was aware of and involved in the identification, arrest and elimination of real and perceived enemies, both inside and outside the CPK ranks, throughout Cambodia.

1179.       Khieu Samphan confirmed that he was aware of arrests and detentions in Preah Vihear province because a member of his wife's family was arrested.⁴⁸⁰⁸ After the arrests were reported to Khieu Samphan, they were released.⁴⁸⁰⁹ Duch states that Kang Chap alias Se, the Secretary of the New North Zone, was himself arrested after he ordered the arrest of Khieu Samphan's family.⁴⁸¹⁰ One witness states that he regularly sent telegrams to Khieu Samphan from Sector 103, reporting on arrests and detentions in Preah Vihear province but that he never received a response.⁴⁸¹¹

1180.       With regard to the killing of Vietnamese soldiers, on 30 December 1977, Khieu Samphan issued a statement on behalf of the CPK Government to the army and the people, giving details of alleged acts of aggression by Vietnam against Cambodia⁴⁸¹² and reporting that the  RAK "have been successfully wiping them out since 1975".'⁴⁸¹³ He further called for action, stating that "The CPK Central Committee, the Cambodian People's Representative Assembly and the Government of Democratic Cambodia appeal to the entire party, the entire Revolutionary Army and the entire Cambodian people to . prevent the Vietnamese aggressor enemy from annexing and swallowing up our territory. The Cambodian Revolutionary Army and the entire Cambodian collective people, under the leadership of the CPK will certainly totally repulse the aggressive, expansionist and annexationist Vietnamese enemy from Cambodian territory ".⁴⁸¹⁴ He explained that the CPK's policies of the armed conflict were "firmly adhering to tactical guerrilla warfare and full-scale warfare to smash the enemies forces".⁴⁸¹⁵ He gave statistics about the numbers of Vietnamese who had been killed in 1975, 1976 and 1977.⁴⁸¹⁶

1181.       With regard to morality, the policy of the CPK was that perpetrators of rape were to be punished as set out in the section of the Closing Order regarding the Factual Findings of the Joint Criminal Criminal Enterprise. There is no evidence to suggest that Khieu Samphan was aware that perpetrators of rape were not being punished.