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

 

Targeting of Groups

1187.        Through his various roles within the CPK, Khieu Samphan participated in the targeting of particular groups of people.

1188.       As a member of the Central Committee, Khieu Samphan would have participated in the formulation of the September 1975 Party document that specified that the only classes that existed were workers and peasants and that all other classes had been melded into these groups. Indeed, in late-1975, Khieu Samphan explained to a group of returned students in Cambodia that there were only two social groups in existence in Cambodia, the workers and the peasants.⁴⁸⁵² Khieu Samphan expanded on this theory during a December 1975 national congress that formally adopted the Constitution of Democratic Kampuchea.⁴⁸⁵³ He delivered the keynote speech at this gathering and emphasized that the Constitution guaranteed that the country was run by a "worker-peasant administration" overseeing a system of collective labour in agriculture and other realms.⁴⁸⁵⁴ He endorsed the Constitution's banning of reactionary religion, commenting that the country's enemies were attempting to use "a religious cloak" against it, which must be opposed "at all costs".⁴⁸⁵⁵ In this manner, he generally affirmed and contributed to the execution of this policy. Indeed, his statements were made at around the same time that the CPK affirmed its intention to abolish all national minorities and other groups.

Treatment of Former Officials of the Khmer Republic

1189.       As explained above, on 26 February 1975, Khieu Samphan released a communique on behalf of the FUNK and in his position as the chairman of the national congress of the FUNK. Khieu Samphan reported that the FUNK had held a two-day congress and issued pronouncements on a number of policies and issues. Khieu Samphan stated that the "seven traitors in Phnom Penh ... Lon Nol, Sirik Matak, Son Ngoc Thanh, Cheng Heng, In Tam, Long Boret andSosthene Fernandez" should be killed.⁴⁸⁵⁶ Out of the seven named individuals only Long Boret and Sirik Matak remained in the country.⁴⁸⁵⁷ Sirik Matak attempted to take refuge in the French embassy but was later handed over to the CPK. ⁴⁸⁵⁸ They were both executed by the CPK⁴⁸⁵⁹, as confirmed by Ieng Sary.⁴⁸⁶⁰ Khieu Samphan made several additional public statements about the "traitorous Lon Nol clique"⁴⁸⁶¹

Treatment of Buddhists

1194. This group was targeted while Khieu Samphan was a senior leader of the CPK who regularly participated in Standing Committee meetings. Through his various roles in the CPK, Khieu Samphan contributed to and assisted in the execution of this policy, in particular through his speeches regarding the establishment of an atheistic and homogenous society without class divisions, abolishing all ethnic, national, religious, racial, class, political and cultural differences.

Treatment of Cham

1195. This group was targeted while Khieu Samphan was a senior leader of the CPK who regularly participated in Standing Committee meetings. Through his various roles in the CPK, Khieu Samphan contributed to and assisted in the execution of this policy, in particular through his speeches regarding the establishment of an atheistic and homogenous society without class divisions, abolishing all ethnic, national, religious, racial, class, political and cultural differences.

Treatment of Vietnamese

1196. During an armed conflict, every State has the duty to protect its territory. Nevertheless, Khieu Samphan disseminated information to the people of Cambodia that they were in jeopardy of oppression at the hands of the Vietnamese, and provided information intended to engender fear and hatred of the Vietnamese or to otherwise win support for the targeting of this group. Khieu Samphan gave a number of speeches and radio broadcasts containing information about the Vietnamese being "enemy aggressors, annexationists and swallowers of territories"⁴⁸⁶² who were "consumed with sinister ambition of swallowing the Kampuchea's territory in conformity with its plan of 'Indochina Federation'".⁴⁸⁶³ He appealed to the people to fight the Vietnamese.⁴⁸⁶⁴

1197. In particular, on 17 April 1978 during the third anniversary mass meeting he ordered that the first task of the people was to defend the country against the Vietnamese, who were "spying and setting up cells"⁴⁸⁶⁵ in Cambodia by "carrying out well the line of the Party both in internal and external defence" ⁴⁸⁶⁶ 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 ".⁴⁸⁶⁷ 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 Factual Findings of Crimes.

1198.       As set out in the sections of the Closing Order regarding the Factual Findings of Joint Criminal Enterprise and the Factual Findings of Crimes, the Revolutionary Youth and Revolutionary Flag Magazines, which Khieu Samphan would have read, were used by the CPK Centre to incite hatred of the Vietnamese, order the expulsion of Vietnamese from Cambodian, order the "purging" and "sweeping clean" of all Vietnamese people and those connected to the Vietnamese, and from April 1977, order the mass killings of Vietnamese civilians remaining in Cambodia.