By Stéphanie Gée
Ka-set
The hearing of Tuesday May 26th was marked by a statement from the accused Duch aimed to explain, among others, that the personal conflict between the secretary general of the Vietnamese Communist Party, Le Duan, and Brother nº1, Pol Pot, degenerated into a bloodbath. Indian journalist Nayan Chanda, specialist on political issues in Indochina, finished his testimony, not without recalling Vietnam's dampened hopes in relation to its Khmer Rouge comrades. After him, Craig Etcheson came back to the stand, once again more as a matter of form...
The fate of the “Hanoi Khmer”
Nayan Chanda recalled that in 1975 and 1976, Vietnamese officials made visits to Cambodia, in what were as many attempts for negotiations that all failed. At the most, as the Indian expert remembered, local agreements were made in the months following the Khmer Rouge victory in April 1975, which allowed for the forced repatriation to Cambodia by the Vietnamese authorities of Khmer nationals who had taken refuge on their soil. In some cases, these repatriations were carried out on the basis of one person being exchanged for one head of cattle.
Nayan Chanda then read a relevant section taken from David Chandler's book “Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot's Secret Prison”: “He wrote that the accused was able to elaborate a very sophisticated concept of treason, between 1972 and 1973. It discussed chains of traitors and a secret operation that was then implemented by the Khmer Rouge to purge those who were called the 'Hanoi Khmer', who had come back in 1970 after years of exile in Northern Vietnam to help the revolution there. In 1973, hundreds of them were arrested and assassinated in the utmost secrecy, after Vietnamese had withdrawn most of their troops from Cambodia. Some managed to flee to Vietnam after their detention, others were arrested after April 1975, many were arrested in the special zone. The stealthy and pitiless aspects of this purge campaign may have answered to the emerging administrative style that was specific to Duch. This campaign already foretold the operating mode of S-21.”
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The fate of the “Hanoi Khmer”
Nayan Chanda recalled that in 1975 and 1976, Vietnamese officials made visits to Cambodia, in what were as many attempts for negotiations that all failed. At the most, as the Indian expert remembered, local agreements were made in the months following the Khmer Rouge victory in April 1975, which allowed for the forced repatriation to Cambodia by the Vietnamese authorities of Khmer nationals who had taken refuge on their soil. In some cases, these repatriations were carried out on the basis of one person being exchanged for one head of cattle.
Nayan Chanda then read a relevant section taken from David Chandler's book “Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot's Secret Prison”: “He wrote that the accused was able to elaborate a very sophisticated concept of treason, between 1972 and 1973. It discussed chains of traitors and a secret operation that was then implemented by the Khmer Rouge to purge those who were called the 'Hanoi Khmer', who had come back in 1970 after years of exile in Northern Vietnam to help the revolution there. In 1973, hundreds of them were arrested and assassinated in the utmost secrecy, after Vietnamese had withdrawn most of their troops from Cambodia. Some managed to flee to Vietnam after their detention, others were arrested after April 1975, many were arrested in the special zone. The stealthy and pitiless aspects of this purge campaign may have answered to the emerging administrative style that was specific to Duch. This campaign already foretold the operating mode of S-21.”
Click to Read More...
