Latest tourist attraction has 'bloody' past

Vaeng Vanhorn, 30, the wife of fisherman Heng Meng, dumps freshly caught fish into a bucket near the Trapeang Thma dam in Banteay Meanchey province. Photograph: Heng Chivoan/Phnom Penh Post

Comrade Im Chaem (Photo:Im Navin, RFI)

Monday, 20 August 2012
May Titthara and Bridget Di Certo
The Phnom Penh Post

The brilliant green rice paddies of Banteay Meanchey’s Phnom Srok district stretch as far as the eye can see this time of year. Locals are thankful for the bounty, but it’s a gratitude tempered by the painful history of its source – the Khmer Rouge-era Trapeang Thma dam.

The construction of the massive dam and its associated canal network transformed the area’s once-volatile agricultural fortunes with the introduction of year-round irrigation. Building it today would cost in the millions, but in the late 1970s, the price was paid in human life.

“The authorities celebrate ceremonies every year, especially during the water festival, to dedicate to the spirits of the victims who died during the construction of that dam,” Heng Meng, 34, said as he arranged his fishing net by the edge of the dam.

Im Chaem fed up with questions about her work under the KR regime

Im Chaem (Photo: Im Navin, RFI)

01 May 2012
By Im Navin
Radio France Internationale
Translated from Khmer by Soch

Im Chaem, the former KR cadre, said that she is fed up with the repeated questions on her work under the Pol Pot regime. Im Chaem was the former governor of Preah Netr Preah district in Banteay Meanchey province, a location where researchers have found that no less than 40,000 people died under her rule. However, right now, from her home in Anlong Veng district, Oddar Meanchey province, Im Chaem indicated that she has nothing to do with the death of people under the Pol Pot regime.

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Case 004 suspect Im Chem sets retirement for June

Khmer Rouge tribunal Case 004 suspect Im Chem speaks to the Post at her home in Oddar Meanchey province in 2009. Robbie Corey-Boulet

Wednesday, 18 April 2012
May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

Though the crimes against humanity suspect has rarely come to work for the past few months, Im Chem yesterday denied a local media report that she had resigned as deputy commune chief, saying she would retire after commune elections on June 3.

The 70-year-old, who served as governor of Preah Netr Preah district in the Khmer Rouge’s northwest zone from 1978 to 1979, said she would end her decade-long position as deputy commune chief of Trapaing Tav in Oddar Meanchey province’s Anlong Veng district.

“I am not resigning from my position. I am retiring because I am too old, so I want to take my old age to respect to Buddha,” she said.

Ball rolling on KRT cases

Khmer Rouge tribunal Case 004 suspect Im Chem speaks to the Post at her home in Oddar Meanchey province in 2009. Robbie Corey-Boulet

Tuesday, 06 March 2012
May Titthara and Bridget Di Certo with additional reporting by Shane Worrell
The Phnom Penh Post

Ek Tha, of the Council of Minister’s Press and Quick Reaction Unit said the government’s position remains unchanged and that it is up to the Supreme Council of Magistracy to approve UN-nominated Kasper-Ansermet before he has any legal authority to act.

After nearly four years of controversy and stalling, the Khmer Rouge tribunal has made moves to formally inform suspects in government-opposed cases 003 and 004 of the charges against them – a critical step in the momentum of the two cases.

Im Chem, who oversaw the Khmer Rouge regime’s largest irrigation project, told the Post yesterday that five representatives from the court had come to her home last week and read out the case against her.

“I denied all their accusations against me, because I did not kill people like they accused,” Im Chem said. “Their accusations were not true.”

The now deputy commune chief in Oddar Meanchey province said two foreigners and three Cambodians had come to her house unexpectedly and handed her “many many documents”, including a notice that she has the right to “go to Phnom Penh to find a lawyer”.

“I said I don’t need a lawyer and that I would not be going to Phnom Penh,” Im Chem said by phone from her home in Anlong Veng district, a former Khmer Rouge stronghold.

War Crime Tribunal Notified a Key Suspect

Im Chaem, 66, is a suspect in the controversial case 004, and prosecutors say she was involved in a “common criminal plan, or joint criminal enterprise,” along with a second suspect, Ta Tith, to “execute all perceived enemies of the [Khmer Rouge] regime.” (Photo: VOA Khmer)

Sunday, 04 March 2012
Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer | Washington

“They informed me about my rights to answer their questions or remain silent. I told them that there is nothing much I can answer.”

The UN-backed war crime tribunal has notified Im Chaem, a former mid-level Khmer Rouge cadre, of her alleged crimes and asked the suspect to prepare for future indictment.

Im Chaem, former head of Khmer Rouge security center in Battambang’s Preah Netpreah district, where an estimated 40,000 people died under the regime, received a surprise visit by a Khmer Rouge tribunal investigation team earlier this week.

“They informed me about my rights to answer their questions or remain silent,” Im Chaem told VOA Khmer by phone on Thursday. “I told them that there is nothing much I can answer.”

Group calls for KRT probe

Co-investigating judges You Bunleng (left) and Siegfried Blunk shake hands in December 2010 in Phnom Penh. (Photo by: Eccc)

Thursday, 22 September 2011
Bridget di Certo
The Phnom Penh Post

A key Khmer Rouge Tribunal monitoring body has again called for the United Nations to conduct an independent investigation into allegations that the co-investigating judges at the tribunal are deliberately stymieing investigations into cases 003 and 004.

Referring to a recent decision by Co-Investigating Judges Siegfried Blunk and You Bunleng to deny victim status to an apparently legitimate applicant in Case 003, the Open Society Justice Initiative has reiterated recommendations it made to the UN in June to examine “questions of judicial independence, misconduct, and competency” of the two co-investigating judges.

The woman – whose spouse was executed by the Khmer Rouge – was granted victim participation rights in Case 002 on the basis of the same facts in her Case 003 application.

Scenes From a Khmer Rouge Trial Gone Wrong

"Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea attends a hearing for former Khmer Rouge leaders on the outskirts of Phnom Penh / Reuters

Sep 21 2011
By Julia Wallace
The Atlantic

"I have no intention of going to court. I'm happy because I feel protected by the government, especially Prime Minister Hun Sen." - Im Chaem

The UN-backed trial is faltering under corruption and infighting, leaving Cambodians to wonder if they will ever see justice

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- Sem Hoeurn spent three years, eight months and 20 days of her childhood a virtual slave in the service of a government she knew only as Angkar -- the Organization.

Hoeurn was 10 years old when the paranoid and murderous Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh, seized power, and attempted to engineer an "awesomely great leap forward" that ultimately led to the deaths of some 1.7 million people. She was conscripted into a children's labor unit and ordered to collect piles of bones from execution sites to dispose of in nearby rice paddies. By the time the regime was ousted nearly four years later in 1979, Hoeurn's father and brothers had all been tortured and executed by Angkar, which had the all-seeing "eyes of a pineapple," as one revolutionary dictum had it.

But this summer, along with hundreds of other victims of the regime, Hoeurn finally caught a glimpse of the aged and ailing remnants of Angkar in person for the first time as they shuffled into the dock at the UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal, where a landmark trial against the Khmer Rouge regime's four senior-most surviving leaders began on June 27. The eyes of the Cambodian people were at last on them.

"When I first saw the four accused, the bitter memory of mass killing under the Pol Pot regime came back to my mind," Hoeurn said. "I wanted to run into them and tear them apart."

Former Khmer Rouge Deny War Crimes Charges (VOA)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTBFpAzJ4-c

Former Khmer Rouge Deny War Crimes Charges

Ta An (Photo: The Phnom Penh Post)

Im  Chaem

Meas Muth (Photo: The Phnom Penh Post)

August 31, 2011
Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer | Battambang, Cambodia

The world is watching as citizens in some Middle Eastern countries seek justice against recently toppled leaders of sometimes brutal governments. In Cambodia, the reign of the Maoist Khmer Rouge ended decades ago, but efforts to bring those responsible to justice continue. Three of those facing prosecution may finally face justice after many years in the Khmer Rouge tribunals.

Ta An is accused of being part of a killing campaign during the Khmer Rouge's rule in the late 1970s.

But he denied overseeing genocide. He said he was transferred to Kompong Cham province, where some 150,000 died, after the killing took place.

“When I arrived, that was finished already, from the bottom up to the highest levels. I focused on re-organizing new villages and communes. I was not involved in anything at all,” he said.

Im Chaem Denies Prosecution's Charges - VOA News

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSB9Wv9XpRM

Press Release From The Co-investi​gating Judges Regarding Civil Parties In Case 004

http://www.box.net/shared/uxgc4b4dtfxukcvenn83


http://www.box.net/shared/p0ze0l7n9bgirjqzixf4

Statement by the Internatio​nal Co-Prosecu​tor Regarding Case File 004

5 August 2011

PRESS RELEASE

STATEMENT BY THE INTERNATIONAL CO-PROSECUTOR

REGARDING CASE FILE 004

The International Co-Prosecutor, Andrew Cayley, makes this public statement pursuant to Article 12(2) of the ECCC Agreement and Internal Rules 21(c) and 54 to ensure that the public is duly informed about ongoing ECCC proceedings in Case 004, taking into consideration the interests of victims and witnesses, the rights of suspects and the requirements of the investigation.

On 24 June 2011, in Case 002, the Pre-Trial Chamber ruled that the Co-Investigating Judges are legally obliged by ECCC Internal Rule 21(1)(c) to keep victims informed “throughout the proceedings” about the crimes under investigation; and that it is not sufficient merely to do so “before the end of the judicial investigation.” As concluded by the Pre-Trial Chamber, in order for the “fundamental rights of the victims” to be “duly safeguarded,” the Co-Investigating Judges must provide “proper and timely information … to the victims throughout the pre-trial phase.” The purpose of this requirement is to ensure that victims have a reasonable opportunity to file civil party applications based on the specific crimes under investigation in a particular case.

In accordance with the Pre-Trial Chamber’s decision, the International Co-Prosecutor filed a request on 28 July 2011 respectfully asking the Co-Investigating Judges to issue a public statement by 5 August 2011 describing the crimes and offences under investigation in Case 004.

Khmer Rouge crimes in legal limbo

Comrade Im Chaem (R) (Photo:AP)

Bandit You Bunleng and Her Doktor Siegfried Blunk

Knut Rosandhaug (Photo: The Phnom Penh Post)

Jul 24, 2011
Jared Ferrie
The National (UAE)

CHIANG MAI // During the Khmer Rouge years, Im Chaem had the dubious honour of receiving visits from the movement's supreme leader and chief architect of its genocidal policies.

Pol Pot would meet with her at a construction site where she oversaw work on the regime's largest irrigation project, built by the forced labour of thousands of diseased and starving workers. Her other duties included heading a security centre in which 40,000 people died.

Those are some allegations contained in a confidential court document obtained by The National, which describes charges against Ms Im and two other suspects, Ta An and Ta Tith.

None of the suspects are likely to see the inside of a courtroom, let alone a jail cell. The case appears too politically sensitive for a UN-backed tribunal, which was set up to try leaders of the regime that presided over the deaths of about two million people between 1975 and 1979.

ECCC: Case 002 starts amid criticism

Thirty-two years after the fall of one of the 20th century’s bloodiest regimes, a tribunal in Cambodia will begin trying the four most senior Khmer Rouge leaders still alive. But the trial commences under a cloud of controversy, with observers questioning the UN-backed court’s independence.

21 June 2011

Jared Ferrie

By International Justice Tribune

On June 27, the Trial Chamber will begin a four-day “Initial Hearing” to decide on the final witness list and to hear preliminary objections. Witnesses and suspects are due to take the stand in August.

The suspects in the court’s second case, known as Case 002 are: Nuon Chea, the regime’s chief ideologue, known as “Brother Number Two”; former foreign minister Ieng Sary; his wife, Ieng Thirith, who was Minister for Social Affairs; and Kheiu Samphan, the regime’s former head of state.

Last summer, in Case 001, judges sentenced torture centre chief Kaing Guek Eav, better known by his revolutionary name, “Duch”. He has filed an appeal.

Prosecutors have built two more cases – known as 003 and 004 – against an additional five suspects. But the Cambodian government has told the UN it will not allow those trials to go forward. And the investigating judges have been accused of bowing to political pressure by failing to properly investigate Case 003, thereby examining no evidence that would necessitate bringing the politically sensitive case to trial.

Tribunal Case Applicant Names Three More Suspects

Cambodia-American lawyer Seng Theary (right) comforting a KR victim during Duch's verdict (Photo: Reuters)

Im Chaem (R) is all smile (Photo: AP)

Monday, 20 June 2011
Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer | Phnom Penh

“As you are and will be already congregating in Phnom Penh in the coming days for the opening hearings of Case 002, I request that you take this opportunity also to complete the application for Cases 003 and 004.”

Cambodian-American lawyer Seng Theary announced Monday she plans to apply as a civil party for the Khmer Rouge tribunal’s Case 004, the second of two controversial cases at the UN-backed court.

In so doing, she named three high-level Khmer Rouge cadres, Im Chaem, Ta Tith and Ta Tha, for crimes related to two security centers where up to 30,000 people died.

Seng Theary, who is the head of the Association of Khmer Rouge Victims in Cambodia, said she would file her complaint to push the case through the court, which has been accused of dragging its feet on two cases, Nos. 003 and 004.

Prime Minister Hun Sen and other Cambodian officials oppose both cases going forward, because they say they could stir up surviving Khmer Rouge members.

Pressure Mounts on Tribunal Over Further Cases

Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Wednesday, 11 May 2011

"Only four people have applied to become civil party complainants in Case 003."

Lawyers for the victim participants of the Khmer Rouge tribunal said Tuesday the court violated their rights by not releasing enough information to them about a potential case at the court, which is facing increasing pressure to conduct further trials.

Controversial Case 003, which could see two more Khmer Rouge leaders indicted, saw investigating judges issue conclusion on April 29, which should have given prosecutors and civil parties both 15 days to appeal for more investigation.

However, civil party participants were not given access to the case file, which prevented them from taking “any meaningful actions,” lawyers Silke Stuzenski and Hong Kim Suon said in a statement.

As a result, civil party complainants—who are supposed to participate in trials as a means of national reconciliation for the genocide—face a “high risk” of rejection from the case, the lawyers wrote.

Under court rules, victims are supposed to demonstrate they are victims of particular crimes by the accused. But the names of the accused in Case 003 have remained confidential with the court, making such a petition impossible. Only four people have applied to become civil party complainants in Case 003, a court official said.

Case 004 in the spotlight

Theary Seng (Photo: Roland Neveu)

Friday, 06 May 2011
James O'Toole
The Phnom Penh Post

Local activist Theary Seng has announced plans to file a civil party application at the Khmer Rouge tribunal against a trio of former cadres she says are the subject of investigation in the court’s controversial fourth case.

Theary Seng identified the following three people as Case 004 suspects in a statement yesterday: Im Chem, a KR district chief in Banteay Meanchey province; Yim Tith, aka Ta Tith, deputy secretary of the KR’s Northwest Zone; and Aom An, aka Ta An, deputy secretary of the KR Central Zone.

The tribunal has yet to confirm the identities of the suspects in this case, though Im Chem in particular has been widely suggested as a possible defendant.

Theary Seng’s announcement follows a similar move last month in which she lodged a civil party application for Case 003 against former KR navy commander Meas Muth and air force commander Sou Met, both of whom have long been named as potential suspects. She said yesterday that the court’s complete lack of transparency in its Case 003 and 004 investigations had pushed her to take her complaint public.

“These judges are hiding behind the confidentiality issue, they are abusing the confidentially issue,” she said. “I’m taking my fight [to] the public arena because it’s my only safeguard.”

Press Release: Theary Seng appealing ECCC decision re Meas Muth and Sou Met; lodging new applicatio​n against Im Chaem, Ta An, Ta Tith

Civil party applicant Theary Seng appealing ECCC decision regarding Meas Muth and Sou Met of Case 003, lodging another application against CPK Secretaries madam Im Chaem, Ta An, Ta Tith of Case 004

_____________________

PRESS RELEASE
_____________________

PHNOM PENH, 5 May 2011:  The overt political interference into Cases 003 and 004 of the United Nations-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (“ECCC”) by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and the UN’s subsequent collusion as reflected by the action (or more correctly, inaction) of the international co-investigating judge, is an affront to victims of the Khmer Rouge.  We deserve more than the cheap justice that is being administered right now by these cases.  We appeal to the donors and the international community to put an end to this legal fiction that is being written for us vis-à-vis these cases—that there are two standards of justice: dignified justice for people of the developed world; and cheap, tattered justice for the poor, like us Cambodians.

On 3 April 2011, I, Theary Chan SENG, submitted a very public application entitled “Civil Party Application to Case No. 003/004” with the ECCC Victims Support Section, which was filed with the Co-Investigating Judges (“CIJs”) 19 days later on 22 April, as verbally confirmed to me that same evening by ECCC Public Affairs chief Reach Sambath when we were guests on a Radio Free Asia call-in show. 

In this one application, I publicly named and expressly hold Khmer Rouge military commanders Meas Muth and Sou Met directly, personally, individually responsible to me for the Crimes against Humanity (including the legal elements of murder, extermination, enslavement, imprisonment, torture, political persecution) in their roles as commanders of the Navy and Air Force of Democratic Kampuchea, respectively, and for their material contribution in developing and implementing the common design and purpose of a joint criminal enterprise which impacted the whole of Cambodia.  That is to say, as a matter of international law, they are directly responsible for my legal injuries during the fall and exodus out of Phnom Penh (Phase I Movement) when my father, a Lon Nol military commander, “disappeared”; and the movement of the population of the East Zone (Phase 3) when the Khmer Rouge imprisoned my family and me first at Wat Tlork and then Boeung Rai Security Centers, where I experienced and witnessed, inter alia, the death of my mother, among the 30,000 (thirty-thousand) lives estimated to have been extinguished at Boeung Rai.  Here, the legal nexus are the CRIMES, not the geographically districts and zones they physically commandeered, vis-à-vis me as an applicant, except for their criminal actions as they were related to the capture and exodus out of Phnom Penh in 1975 when we shared proximity.

On late Friday afternoon, 29 April 2011, the CIJs publicly announced the closing of investigation of Case 003 in one sentence.   

On late Tuesday, 3 May 2011, following a long holiday weekend, my lawyer Mr. Choung Chou-Ngy signed for the receipt of two separate documents (dated the same day as the closing of investigation announcement) with the decisions of the CIJs, both documents classified “Confidential”, even though the names of the five charged persons are not mentioned.

Since the lodging of my first application on 3 April 2011 until now, I have received additional information which will allow me to demonstrate legal injuries “as a direct consequence of at least one of the crimes against the Charged Person” pursuant to Rule 23bis with greater clarity the names of the Charged Persons, their crimes and category of whether they fall in Case 003 or Case 004.

Consequently, I will appeal the CIJ decisions of my one application to “Case No. 003/004” naming Meas Muth (also spelled Meah Mut and aka Khe Muth) and Sou Met with the Pre-Trial Chamber which I have until May 16 to submit.  These two military commanders are grouped in Case 003. 

Simultaneously, I will submit a second civil party application involving the crimes committed against me by CPK Secretary “Me” Im Chaem of Region 5, particularly of the mass graves in Phum Travong in Preah Net Preah district (Northwest Zone); CPK Secretary “Ta” An of Region 41 (Central Zone, mainly of Kampong Thom, Pol Pot’s birthplace province) also believed to be deputy to Ke Pauk (also spelled Kae Pok, now deceased named in Seven Candidates for Prosecution by Steve Heder and Brian Tittemore); and “Ta” Tith (brother of “Ta” Mok, the “butcher”, who died under police custody also named in Seven Candidates for Prosecution) who was CPK Secretary of Kirivong District 109 of Region 13 (Southwest Zone, where the butcher Ta Mok ruled along with his network of family members in senior positions in the Zone—two brothers-in-law, including Ta Tith, four sons, two daughters and five sons-in-law, including Meas Muth) and instrumental in the 2^nd Phase Movement of the Southwest Zone population to the northwest where he terrorized Region 1 (Northwest Zone).  It is believed that these military commanders (including Meas Muth and Sou Met) of the Southwest and Central Zones were also instrumental in the purges of the East Zone where I was imprisoned during the Khmer Rouge years.  These three CPK Secretaries are grouped in Case 004.  I have until 15 days after the closing of investigation into Case 004, which the CIJs have yet to announce.

The CIJs have woefully failed in their Rule 56 responsibility in keeping the public informed generally, and in providing adequate, timely information to victims in order that we may file civil party applications specifically.  Even with sufficient information, it still takes great energy, time and resources to put an application together for any educated, well-informed victim.  Now consider the difficulty in light of the stress of political pressure, of intimidation, of lack of information giving by the ECCC of the average Cambodian victim.  This ECCC which initially, genuinely, substantively, unprecedentedly embraced victims into its process as “civil parties” (of which I was the first) is quickly turning against victims and their meaningful participation.

For further information, please contact me at +855.12.222.552 or theary.seng@gmail.com or visit www.thearyseng.com where I have consolidated information surrounding the law and controversies of Case 003 and Case 004.

Maps of KR zones/districts culled from Ben Kiernan's The Pol Pot Regime (Click on each map to zoom in)

 

Civil Party Application Case 003-004 - Ms. SENG Chan Theary
http://www.scribd.com/full/54661373?access_key=key-u8r77cpjhg3k4cg0dh4

"Charged Persons" of Case 003/004 Named in PUBLIC Documents (a Compilation)

"Charged Persons" of Case 003/004 Named in PUBLIC Documents (a Compilation)
http://www.scribd.com/full/52628662?access_key=key-113lz36kjhd63zxdvs9e

No more than ten former members of the Khmer Rouge will be prosecuted before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

Source: International Justice Tribune, September 2009

No more than ten former members of the Khmer Rouge will be prosecuted before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). On September 7th, the interim international co-prosecutor William Smith submitted to the office of the co-investigating judges what he said were his final requests for investigation. They relate to five individuals, charged in two separate submissions, thus adding to the five people already prosecuted in 2007.

By Thierry Cruvellier, Phnom Penh

The identities of the accused have not been released, but it is widely expected that former high-ranking military leaders Sou Met and Meas Mut make up one of the new cases, while it’s thought the other case involves three Khmer Rouge cadres who acted at the district level.

The Cambodian government has publicly and unequivocally opposed all prosecutions other than the five that have been under way for the last two years. 

The Cambodian co-prosecutor Chea Leang appeared to support her government, when she opposed the additional investigations requested by her international colleague. But after nine months of deliberation, in an August 18th decision made public September 2nd, the five judges of the pre-trial chamber indicated that they had not been able to resolve the disagreement between the co-prosecutors—the three Cambodian judges opposed the new submissions, while their two international colleagues gave their approval. In the absence of a super majority of four votes, the international prosecutor is thus free to act.