A search for redemption

Former Khmer Rouge soldier Houn Kin, 64, who joined the revolution in 1970, speaks to the Post yesterday outside the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia in Phnom Penh. (Photo by: Heng Chivoan)

Wednesday, 07 December 2011
Cheang Sokha
The Phnom Penh Post

On the outskirts of Phnom Penh yesterday, as a one-time leader of the Khmer Rouge continued to distance himself from the mass bloodshed of the regime’s 1975-79 rule, a former lowly cadre was taking full responsibility for the life he took.

Former Khmer Rouge soldier Houn Kin, 64, who joined the revolution in 1970, said that he accepts his guilt in the slaying of a fellow Cambodian he knew only as Thoun, who was brought to him for execution after being implicated as an intelligence agent of then-Prime Minister Lon Nol in Kampong Thom province.

“I was ordered to take Thoun, who was implicated as a Lon Nol spy. I don’t know why I was ordered to kill him. I just obeyed the order, otherwise I cannot save myself,” said Houn Kin, who for the first time attended an evidence hearing against one of the three Khmer Rouge defendants.

Letter sent to the ICJ by Mr. Yin Sem, a former KR mole in the Lon Nol regime regarding the KR genocide

(Unofficial translation from French by Luc Sâr)

Mr. Yin Sem

To: International Court of Justice
Peace Palace
Carnegieplein 2
2517 KJ The Hague
Netherland

Marseille, 28 April 2011

I was born in Svay Rieng, Cambodia, on 12 December 1942. I was a teacher in Cambodia between 1960 and 1970; a cadre of the Ronakse [communist front] responsible for intelligence collecting missions for the People’s tribunal. I was sent by the [Khmer Rouge] Angkar [organization] to [infiltrate] in Mr. Lon Nol’s Khmer Republic in 1973. I was then an army officer [in the Lon Nol regime] holding a rank of lieutenant, working in the military intelligence service (known as 2nd Bureau) between 1973 and April 1975. I then belonged to Division 304/K11, and I was then in charge of pointing out all officers I knew who would be susceptible to sabotage the then-current [Lon Nol] regime. I decided to quit the Ronakse on March 9, 1975.

With this letter, I declare to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that, due to my position and rank in the army, I had to participate in the genocide orchestrated by the [Khmer Rouge] Angkar.

Today, through my declarations, I would like to testify to the ICJ on the massacre of two million Cambodians – a testimonial that appears important to me vis-à-vis the difficulties in assembling elements of the investigation in this case – so that light can be shed [on this case] and so that true responsibilities could be revealed since the investigation into this case appears to be on a dead end [especially] in regards to the true history of this genocide.

I avail myself to the court so that I can be heard in this case, and I stand ready for any summons that the court deems necessary sending them to me.

(Signed) Mr. Yin Sem

Khmer Rouge see the light

Parishioners at a service in Battambang’s Samlot district. (Photo by: Sun Narin)

TUESDAY, 03 MAY 2011
SUN NARIN
The Phnom Penh Post
Battambang province

“I want God to forgive what I did during the regime,” said former Khmer Rouge member Mann Man, 50. “I want my soul to be open and laid to rest by God.”

Last week, investigating judges at the Khmer Rouge tribunal announced that they had concluded investigations in the court’s controversial third case.

Despite the gravity of the crimes the court is tasked with investigating, many observers believe judges have no intention of taking this case – which has run into opposition from Prime Minister Hun Sen and other officials – to trial.

Battambang province’s Samlot district was one of the last redoubts for the Khmer Rouge insurgency, and remains home for former KR navy commander Meas Muth and many other former cadres. The area would be an obvious starting point should the tribunal choose to make arrests in its final cases, but whatever the outcome of these investigations, many Samlot residents are more concerned with judgment of a different sort.

Ex-Khmer Rouge in former stronghold play the numbers game

Oct 3, 2010

Comrade Mey Mak

By Robert Carmichael
DPA

So there remains the possibility that 67-year-old Comrade Duch will be the only person held accountable for one of the 20th century's most destructive regimes.

Pailin, Cambodia - 'They do not have blood on their hands,' said Mey Mak, Pailin's bespectacled deputy governor, of the four former Khmer Rouge leaders indicted last month by the war crimes court.

'Khieu Samphan, for example, he was responsible for the economy. Ieng Sary just went in and out of the country, and Ieng Thirith was only in charge of the social affairs ministry.'

'So it seems to me that they are victims,' he said of the movement's former head of state, foreign minister and minister of social affairs respectively.

The fourth person indicted was Nuon Chea, known as Brother Number Two, and regarded as the movement's chief ideologue.

Mey Mak, who worked for a decade as secretary to the Khmer Rouge's late leader Pol Pot, was speaking at a public meeting in late September in the former Khmer Rouge stronghold of Pailin in western Cambodia.

Senior members of the UN-backed war crimes tribunal had travelled there from Phnom Penh 400 kilometres away to explain the court's work.

Their trip into the movement's old heartland came just days after the court indicted the four surviving former leaders for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Across Cambodia their indictments are regarded as long overdue. But that is not the case in former strongholds such as Pailin, where the defendants used to live.

Mey Mak told the audience of several hundred police, military and civilians, most of whom former Khmer Rouge, that power lay in Pol Pot's hands. Therefore trying anyone else was inherently unfair.

His comment drew a dry response from international co-prosecutor Andrew Cayley.

'I certainly anticipate in this trial, as in many others I have done, that responsibility will be laid at the feet of the dead, and the living will claim innocence,' Cayley said.

The court estimates that up to 2.2 million people died during the Khmer Rouge's catastrophic rule between 1975 and 1979. More than a million likely died violently.

But it turned out that the former cadres at the gathering were more interested in another number: How many people does the court want to try? The answer, Cayley told them, is no more than 10.

The first defendant was Comrade Duch, who was jailed in July for 30 years for his role as commandant of the S-21 torture and execution centre. Then there are the four former leaders, whose trial will likely start next year.

Lastly, the court is investigating five more, who remain unidentified.

'Those five may or may not go to trial, depending on the work of the investigating judges and what they find,' Cayley said. 'So with those 10, that is it.'

It is an answer that goes down well in places like Pailin, but which mystifies the rest of Cambodia. How can no more than 10 people be held accountable for so many deaths?

A large part of that answer is politics, which has constrained the court since before its inception. Many senior figures in Cambodia's government were in the Khmer Rouge, and a court with a wide remit might reveal some uncomfortable truths.

Further afield, the United States and China were among the countries involved in supporting the movement at one point or another, but would rather the spotlight shone elsewhere.

Other nations were involved too, but politics has dominated the life of this tribunal. It will likely rear its head again if - as some expect - the court eventually shelves the five new investigations.

Doing so would suit Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has come out strongly against them. And it seems unlikely that many of the court's Cambodian staff would feel comfortable going against the premier's wishes.

Mey Mak suggested the court should focus more on national reconciliation and less on investigating the five new suspects, although he conceded that trying the four ex-leaders fits with the tribunal's legal remit.

'But like me and others, they wanted to escape from the regime and could not,' he said, before asking his home audience: 'How could they have escaped?'

Just how responsible these four were for what happened lies at the heart of the tribunal's second case. But a more pressing fact is that the youngest defendant is 78, and one or more might not survive a lengthy trial.

So there remains the possibility that 67-year-old Comrade Duch will be the only person held accountable for one of the 20th century's most destructive regimes.

Ex-Khmer Rouge commander jailed for backpacker murders seeks pardon

Chhouk Rin (Center)

Jan 25, 2010
DPA

Phnom Penh - A former Khmer Rouge commander jailed for the killings of three Western backpackers in 1994 is to seek a royal pardon on the grounds of ill health, local media reported Monday.

Chhouk Rin, who was jailed for life 10 years ago for his role in the killings, is reportedly suffering from AIDS, malaria and liver disease.

'I will submit a document requesting the king pardon him before the [November] Water Festival this year,' his lawyer Puth Theavy told the Phnom Penh Post newspaper.

Chhouk Rin's wife said her husband is in poor health, and called on the government to assist in his release.

'Since my husband was arrested and imprisoned [in 2005], looking after my family has become increasingly difficult,' she told the newspaper.

Chhouk Rin was convicted for his role in the murders as were the provincial Khmer Rouge commander Sam Bith, who has died in jail, and Sam Bith's deputy Nuon Paet.

Under Cambodian law Chhouk Rin must serve 20 years of his life sentence before he can be considered for a pardon. The 56-year-old was convicted in absentia in 2000 and only arrested and jailed in late 2005, so to date has served just five years.

Ten Cambodians died when Chhouk Rin's forces attacked a train in southern Cambodia in 1994.

The three Westerners - Australian citizen David Wilson, Frenchman Jean-Michel Braquet, and Briton Mark Slater - were abducted and held at a Khmer Rouge mountain stronghold. They were killed after two months when a ransom payment fell through.

Dog nominated 4-golden star general by Hun Xen? (Chien nommé général 4 étoiles par Hun Xen?)

Y Chhien handsomely compensated by Hun Xen for kowtowing to Hanoi about 07 January?

Y Chhien nominated to 4-golden-star general by Hun Xen

Thursday, January 21, 2010
By E.B.
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Luc Sâr

The Pailin governor was given a promotion. He is now joining the rank of 2,000 other generals in the RCAF.

It was during the inauguration of business buildings and new army barracks inside the Cambodian Royal Navy headquarters held in Phnom Penh on Monday 18 January, that the Pailin governor, Y Chhien received the precious honor from Hun Sen’s hand, The Cambodia Daily reported.

Hun Xen also indicated that he wanted to promote soldiers who have served in the army in the past. Y Chhien, Pol Pot’s former bodyguard and secretary of the KR division 415, is joining the rank of about 20 generals who hold the rank of 4-golden stars.

In 2006, among the 110,000-soldier-strong RCAF, 613 held the rank of general, i.e. a ratio of 1 general per 179 soldiers. This ratio is far higher than that of the US army in 2004. In the US, the ratio is one general per 1,347 soldiers.

Khmer Rouge twisted prisoner's ankles with pliers

Wednesday, July 08, 2009
By SOPHENG CHEANG

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — A woman tortured by the Khmer Rouge testified Wednesday that she has spent most of her life trying to forget the horrors she endured in the 1970s and never spoke of the past, even to her husband and children.

Chin Meth, now 51, told the U.N.-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal that her ankles and wrists still bear scars where she was bound for beatings — attacks that sometimes lasted until she passed out. Her testimony is the first by a female survivor.

"They beat me with a wooden stick. They twisted my ankles with pliers," she said, speaking softly and staring straight ahead. "While they tortured me, they tied my hands behind my back and beat me very seriously. It was terrifying."

Her testimony came at the trial of Kaing Guek Eav — better known as Duch — who headed the regime's notorious S-21 prison in Phnom Penh. Up to 16,000 people were tortured under his command and later taken away to be killed during the Khmer Rouge's 1975-1979 rule. Only a handful survived.

Chin Meth, a former Khmer Rouge soldier, said she was arrested in 1977 and accused of being a spy for the CIA or Russia's KGB — a common accusation leveled at prisoners. She was sent to S-21 and kept there for 15 days of hard torture, she said.

"I told them I have no idea what the CIA or KGB is," she said.

She was transferred to a different prison in Kandal province, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of the capital, where other soldiers from her unit were being kept for "re-education."

At the new prison, she was held in a house not a cell and security guards ordered her to look after fruit and vegetable gardens that fed the Khmer Rouge officers. She stayed there until Vietnamese forces invaded to oust the Khmer Rouge in 1979, and then embarked on three decades of trying to forget.

"I did not want to hear anything about my past," she said. "When I got married, I never told my story to my husband and children."

"When I heard the word 'prison,' I felt so much suffering," she said.

S-21, also known as Tuol Sleng, is now a genocide museum with pictures of prisoners lining its walls. Chin Meth said she visited the prison for the first time in November 2007 after filing her initial testimony with the tribunal, which was seeking survivors' accounts.

"I saw my picture, and the pictures of my friends. I almost fainted, but someone caught me," she said.

Duch (pronounced DOIK) told Wednesday's hearing that he doubted Chin Meth spent time at S-21, because the only survivors were prisoners with skills who could serve the Khmer Rouge. All others under his command were sent for execution. He then suggested she might have survived a different prison, known as S-24, which was more of a "re-education" facility.

Three S-21 survivors testified recently. They included two artists who painted propaganda portraits of Khmer Rouge leaders and a mechanic who fixed the officials' cars, tractors and typewriters.

Duch, 66, is the first senior Khmer Rouge figure to face trial and the only one to acknowledge responsibility for his actions. He is charged with crimes against humanity and is the first of five defendants scheduled for long-delayed trials by the U.N.-assisted tribunal.

Senior leaders Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary and Ieng Sary's wife, Ieng Thirith, are all detained and likely to face trial in the next year or two.

Cambodia arrests man for British deminer murder

Wed May 7, 2008

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodia has arrested and charged a former Khmer Rouge soldier in connection with the murder of a British de-miner more than a decade ago, a judge said on Wednesday.

Sin Dorn, 52, was formally charged on Tuesday with the abduction and premeditated murder of Christopher Howes of UK-based charity Mines Advisory Group in the northern province of Siem Reap in 1996. His Cambodian translator was also killed.

"The authorities were searching for him for several years, but couldn't find him. We finally arrested him and have thrown him in jail," investigating Judge Ke Sakhan told Reuters.

Sin Dorn is the fourth Khmer Rouge soldier to be arrested in connection with the murder. He was found in the north of the country near the former Khmer Rouge stronghold of Along Veng where Pol Pot died.

Howes's death at the hand's of Pol Pot's ultra-Maoist guerrillas shocked most people in the war-scarred southeast Asian nation, where a street in the capital has since been named in his honour.

(Reporting by Ek Madra: Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

Former S-21 Photographer Plans Display

Nhem En (Photo: DC-Cam)

By Chiep Mony, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
29 January 2008

A former photographer for the Tuol Sleng prison plans to erect a giant display in the former Khmer Rouge district of Anlong Veng.

Nhem En will put up a six-meter long billboard Feb. 5 in Anlong Veng, where he is the deputy governor and where Pol Pot was cremated in 1998.

Tuol Sleng, also known as S-21, was the notorious Phnom Penh prison were as many as 16,000 Cambodians were tortured and later executed under the Khmer Rouge.

The chief of the prison was Kaing Khek Iev, alias Duch, who faces Khmer Rouge tribunal charges of crimes against humanity.

Nhem En will hang from the billboard some of the thousands of photographs of leaders he has in his collection.

He will not display photographs of killings, but he will also not seek to “glorify the Khmer Rouge,” he told VOA Khmer.

The display will cost him $3,500 of his own money, he said.

“We want to show, as history, that which people want to see,” said Yim Thin, deputy governor of Odar Meanchey province, where Anlong Veng is situated.

Horrors of Pol Pot's regime was also made possible by the former KR soldiers and commanders currently in the CPP

Cambodia observes anniversary of fall of Khmer Rouge

Mon, 07 Jan 2008
DPA

Phnom Penh - Cambodia remembered the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime Monday with a celebration at the headquarters of the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP). "Despite passing a period of 29 years, we all still remember the horrors caused during the period of three years, eight months and 20 days by Pol Pot's Democratic Kampuchea regime after it took power on April 17, 1975," CPP and Senate President Chea Sim said in a speech to about 5,000 CPP loyalists.

"They reduced the country's social infrastucture to complete ruin while depriving individuals of rights and freedoms and reducing them to slaves living inhumane lives," he added in a speech to mark the 1979 anniversary when Vietnamese-backed troops retook Phnom Penh.

For the second year in a row, Chea Sim reaffirmed the CPP's commitment to a UN-Cambodia tribunal established to try former Khmer Rouge leaders despite allegations by some groups that the CPP had tried to stall the hearings.

Five former Khmer Rouge leaders are in custody awaiting trial on charges of human rights abuses and war crimes. Hearings are hoped to get under way early this year, but those close to the court have already expressed concerns that the tribunal's 56-million-dollar budget would not be enough.

Many prominent CPP members are former Khmer Rouge who became disillusioned with the movement's ultra-Maoist policies, under which up to 2 million Cambodians perished.

Key CPP cadre, including Prime Minister Hun Sen, defected to Vietnam and returned with Vietnamese backing to oust the Khmer Rouge from power.

Other parties have accused the CPP of hijacking the anniversary, but CPP officials maintained many opposition leaders fled the civil war and were not in Cambodia at the time and so do not understand history accurately.

Top CPP leaders afraid of being uncovered by the KR Tribunal?

Cambodia's ruling party warns against politicising genocide trials

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — Cambodia's powerful ruling party Monday warned against politicising the country's genocide trials, while voicing its support for prosecuting leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime.

Speaking at a ceremony marking the 29th anniversary of the ouster of the Khmer Rouge, Chea Sim, president of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP), said he believed the trials had international backing.

But he also lashed out at "absent-minded elements" and "ill-willed political circles" who oppose efforts by Cambodia to reconcile after years of civil strife, which include trying those behind the Khmer Rouge killing fields.

"We condemn any acts to use the courts with the aim of creating instability or disrupting society," he said.

The five top surviving leaders of the regime, blamed for the deaths of up to two million people through overwork, execution or starvation between 1975 and 1979, were arrested last year by Cambodia's UN-backed genocide tribunal.

The first public trials are expected to be held this year, but the tribunal has been plagued over the last decade by delays amid concerns over political interference.

Rights groups and some opposition politicians have accused the government of trying to derail the trials for fear of exposing atrocities committed by former regime cadres currently serving in Prime Minister Hun Sen's administration.

Hun Sen himself was a former Khmer Rouge military commander who later fled to Vietnam and returned as part of a Hanoi-backed military force that helped overthrow the regime in January 1979.

Defying the odds

Reason for living: Ek Leng with his wife, Kan Vy, whose love has enabled him to keep going.

Monday December 3, 2007
The Star (Malaysia)

A stone’s throw from the Kampung Speu physical rehabilitation centre is the home of former mine victim Ek Leng.

An ex-Khmer Rouge soldier, Ek Leng was involved in a battle against the Vietnamese army before stepping on a mine in 1982 at Battambang province.

He lost both his legs (upper limbs included) in that incident.

“When I regained consciousness, I realised I was already in hospital. I thought I would die soon but it didn’t happen,” said the 50-year-old.

And in Ek’s case, love transformed everything. Love gave him a new lease of life and showed him that there were things he could look forward to every day.

“My wife helped me see life in a new light,” Ek admitted unabashedly. “Despite my disability, she never gave up on me.

“I was touched by the girl who loved me for who I was, and we got married in 1985, three years after I had my legs amputated.”

Ek met his wife, Kan Vy, when she was hired to cook for the soldiers. Both of them had a lot in common since they came from the same town.

Love was indeed in the air in his wooden home built on stilts, where Ek has heart symbols glued onto a frame holding the couple’s wedding photograph, and on his modified tricycle, which is his mode of transportation nowadays.

He has also become a coach for a wheelchair race team which he leads in an annual national competition in Phnom Penh.

Sport has become therapy for him and many of his friends, too, as it helps keep them occupied and prevents their minds from wallowing in the past.

He rears chicken on the spacious grounds of his home, and had been invited by the community on numerous occasions to give motivational talks to other disabled persons.

“I earn about US$45 (RM152) as a coach, and receive a government allowance of US$25 (RM84).

“My biggest achievement is having a job, compared to others who are not so lucky.

“I also buy young calves and sell them at a higher market price once they have become adults. Cows are assets to Cambodians.

“All this money helps fund my three children’s education in university,” said the cheerful Ek.

Continuing our journey three hours northwest towards the province of Pursat to meet another victim, we rolled pass verdant fields, simple thatched shacks built of wood or palm leaves, the many pagodas with their spiral architecture, people thronging wet markets and food stalls, and long stretches of undeveloped land.

Our taxi driver Pen Sophat seemed bent on using the horn to ward off motorcyclists who veered dangerously in the middle of the two-lane road, or cars heading for us in the opposite direction as they attempted to overtake.

But using their horns is second nature for drivers in Cambodia. And the daredevils that they are, they only slam on the brakes when they are inches away from the vehicle in front!

Turning off the main road, the route leading to the home of Heng Sophal was a rough and bumpy one, with deep potholes and puddles of water.

His shack, made of dried palm leaves, was a small cubicle where his family sleeps and cooks in. Heng makes a living climbing palm trees to tap and extract their fresh sap, which is then cooked into a sticky sugary pulp for sale.

The gaps in his home are no protection against the rain, so when it pours, the whole family shift their sleeping positions to another corner of the hut.

The place was pervaded by poverty, yet Heng did not once indulge in self-pity. He happily regaled us with adventures of his everyday job, and demonstrated to us how he would climb a tree, using a thin long tree trunk with protruding stumps as his ladder and his prosthesis from the ICRC.

“I stepped on a mine when I was 14 while looking for my buffalo near the mountains.

My leg had to be amputated below the knee.

“Most of the time, I rely a lot on my hands for strength. We need to be independent and earn our own income because no one can help us if we don’t,” said the 28-year-old.

Heng earns about RM5 a day from the palm sugar, which his 23-year-old wife has to diligently stir while it boils in a wok, and harvests his own rice that yields about 500kg a year, which is sufficient for his family’s consumption.

The government, he said, has also implemented a programme to help poor villagers earn a living through a buffalo adoption scheme.

“Poor families get an adult female buffalo so that it can give birth, and when the baby is old enough to work, the government will take back the adult female so we can still use the baby to make a living.”

And with that, Heng gathered his two young children and wife to pose for a family photo, before sending us off with true hospitality and a broad smile.

He may be poor, lives a life that is most basic, and has to deal with the unfortunate fate of a mine victim, but Heng’s optimism reminded us that it is important not to despair or give up hope even in the most trying times because life has to go on.