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| Khmer Rouge leaders Pol Pot (from left), Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen and Vorn Vet are seen in this undated file photo. Photograph: DC-CAM |
Tuesday, 29 May 2012
Bridget Di Certo
The Phnom Penh Post
Senior Khmer Rouge leader Son Sen’s younger brother took the stand at the tribunal yesterday and delivered his insights into a regime governed by secrecy and information control.
Ny Kan said he was not completely certain what his brother’s role in the regime was, only attesting that he was “leading the army for a while”.
“Secrecy was so high, discipline was so firm – I had to be given tasks from other people, I had no opportunity to choose them,” the now-adviser at the Ministry of National Defence said yesterday.
Either loss of memory or loss of nerve dominated Ny Kan’s responses to prosecution questioning yesterday.
He needed to be reminded several times about an interview he gave to former BBC correspondent Philip Short for his biography Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare.
However, when asked if he felt any trepidation in his testimony, Ny Kan said: “I joined forces with the Cambodia People’s Party, so I do not feel pressure anymore. I am operating more freely now.”
The 69-year-old said he joined the revolution movement in the 1960s because he had the “necessary skills” – meaning he was literate.
As a propaganda official during the time of Democratic Kampuchea, Ny Kan said he moved around a lot and was tasked with making banners for the evacuation of Phnom Penh in April 1975.
He described the situation as “very chaotic”.
“There were a lot of people in Phnom Penh before it was liberated, and people had to come out of their homes and flooded the roads,” he said of city dwellers evacuating the city by foot.
The threat of aerial bombardment – the Communist Party of Kampuchea’s stated motivation for evacuating Phnom Penh – had everyone living in fear, Son Sen’s brother said.
He recounted how Khmer Rouge forces had dug a network of trenches and tunnels under six-metre-high anthills along the abandoned railway between Phnom Penh and Battambang to try and protect themselves from aerial attacks he said were the responsibility of either forces loyal to Lon Nol or American B-52 bombers.
At this time, “all the pagodas in the country” were destroyed by bombs from the B-52s and monks flocked to join the revolutionary forces, he said.
After that, there were “no more pagodas where people could go and visit as religious believers”, he added.
Throughout proceedings, a still-recovering Ieng Sary remained in the holding cells beneath the courtroom.
Doctors last week said the former Khmer Rouge deputy prime minister’s heart condition is not expected to improve.
Ny Kan’s testimony continues today.
9 comments:
The most ugly uniforms in the world worn by motherfucker khmer rouge
who cares what else is the distraction. we know under that stupid, primitive KR regime, millions of people perished and cambodia was destroyed. these stupid, tyrans were responsible for their revolutionary, primitive, backward way, you know. they must be held responsible for their primitive ideology, you know.
you know, primitive was that regime way of life then. they forced cambodia from civilization into primitive stone age society, as a result millions of people could not stand it and cannot adjust to that kind of overnight change from being in civilization to primitive stone age society, really! why these stupid KR people like being primitive is beyond anyone's imagination, you know. and they were supposed to be western educated people? something was wrong there, i think. from now on, cambodia should not like primitive society any more, really! get rid of primitive way of life, ok! primitive way of life belongs to a hilltribe, not the whole cambodia, ok! get educated for a change, really!
if you read the KR leaders history, they live in the jungle and was inspired by primitive hilltribe of northen cambodia, etc, so they applied that inspiration to the rest of cambodia when they came into power, and look what happened to cambodia then. millions of people died as a result of force to that primitive way of life. before the KR era, cambodia was so developed and civilized in many ways. so, go and read your history book and you will know, really! i say it's time to turn all those hilltribes people into civilization with the rest of cambodia, stop isolate them and encourage them to stay primitive again. integrate them all into khmer civilization again, ok! i hate hilltribe, primitive people and society, you know! i think they should belong only in the history textbook, really!
maybe too they tried to save money. these ugly, black, primitive uniform did not cost them anything, except slave labor of the entire cambodia country, you know. how primitive of them, really! now you see what primitive society can do to a country like cambodia then. do not embrace primitive way of life again, ok! it's so stone age and outdated, to say the least, you know. cambodia should avoid that at all cost from now on, ok!
it is like certain wild animals belongs to the zoo, not let loose living in the jungle of cambodia, you know!
imagine if your country is going primitive, you all be going the same fate like the stupid, ignorant, primitive KR regime, you know.
These educated leaders use their knowledge to munipulated inocent Real Khmere.
These leaders never told the people about their plants. The only thing that they did from the begining was promising Khmere to have a better life in the future.
These leaders are Chinese/Khmere, they are not real Khmere. If they told the people the true, no body would follow them.
These leaders's parent came from China and live in Cambodia. They complainted that they don't own the land and most of the land belong to the rich Khmere.
It was true because most of Khmere own the land in the country side and that how they made a living by doing farming.
The real Khmere heritaged the land from their ancestors. Most of real Khmere they only farm for six months and they enjoy life the next six months. Life was easy and peaceful.
These Chinese immigrants came to lived in Cambodia than they stired up trouble in the country.
This is the side that nobody want to talk about but it is true !!!!
did you all know the KR regime exploit fear in people during their rule from 1975 to 1979. yes, they exploit fear in the people. everyone lived in fear during that time they were in power, you know.
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