Attacks on Khmer Rouge were backpacker's death warrant, says former diplomat

Hostage … David Wilson pleaded for a ransom to be paid.

November 7, 2011
Lindsay Murdoch
The Sydney Morning Herald

A former diplomat says the failure of the Australian government to halt Cambodian military attacks on a Khmer Rouge base effectively ''issued death warrants'' for kidnapped Australian backpacker David Wilson and his two travelling companions in 1994.

Alastair Gaisford, a diplomat at the Australian embassy in Phnom Penh at the time, says Australia, Britain and France ''clearly abrogated their consular duties to their own hostage citizens'' by ''failing to act immediately and directly against, if only to postpone'' the attacks until the hostages could be released after the paying of a ransom.

Australia was gripped by the plight of Mr Wilson when he and his two companions were kidnapped from a train in southern Cambodia only three months after Khmer Rouge guerillas had murdered Australian cafe owner Kellie-Anne Wilkinson and her two British travelling companions.

Former Khmer Rouge Recalls Fall of Phnom Penh

Him Huy, 54, a former Khmer Rouge soldier. (Photo: by Chun Sakada)

Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Tuesday, 19 April 2011

“Heavy weapons and light weapons both were used by Khmer Rouge in the attack.”

On April 17, 1975, Him Huy, an 18-year-old soldier within the Khmer Rouge revolution, found himself on Road 24, passing Kandal province’s Sa’ang district as part of a concerted attack on the capital, Phnom Penh.

“That day, all units and divisions came from every side into Phnom Penh,” Him Huy told “Hello VOA” Monday, recalling the day 36 years later. “Heavy weapons and light weapons both were used by Khmer Rouge in the attack.”

By the end of the day, the city had fallen to the revolution, and Year Zero had begun. Him Huy, who led a group of 12 soldiers into the city for the attack, would find himself assigned to a former high school the Khmer Rouge turned into a prison, S-21, or Tuol Sleng.

Sacrava's Political Cartoon: Y Chhean

Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)

Third Khmer Rouge suspect charged in the killing of British mine clearer

Thursday, November 15, 2007
The Associated Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: Authorities have arrested a third former Khmer Rouge soldier for his alleged role in the killing of a British mine clearance expert and his Cambodian interpreter 11 years ago, officials said Thursday.

The arrest of Cheap Chet, 33, came after two other ex-Khmer Rouge soldiers were detained Tuesday in connection with the 1996 killing of Briton Christopher Howes and his interpreter Huon Huot.

All three were charged with premeditated murder, said Ke Sakhan, a Phnom Penh Municipal Court investigating judge. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

The two other soldiers — Khem Ngun and Loch Mao — were also charged with illegal confinement, which carries a 10-year sentence.

Khem Ngun defected to the government in 1998 and was awarded the rank of major general in the Cambodian army. Loch Mao became a local government official after leaving the Khmer Rouge, which collapsed in 1998.

Howes, of Bristol, England, and a group of his Cambodian co-workers were abducted in March 1996 by Khmer Rouge guerrillas while clearing mines in an isolated area about 17 kilometers (10 miles) north of the Angkor Wat temple, the country's most popular tourist destination.

Howes, who was 37 at the time, persuaded the guerrillas to free his colleagues while he and Huon Huot remained hostages for ransom.

Their fate was unknown until a team of detectives from Scotland Yard said about two years later that they had firm evidence the two had been taken to the Khmer Rouge stronghold of Anlong Veng and killed soon after their abduction.

Witnesses said Khem Ngun had given the order to kill Howes.

However, the Cambodian government was unwilling to arrest him, apparently for fear of losing the trust of Khmer Rouge guerrillas who were then in the process of defecting.

Reacting to the news of the arrests Wednesday, Howes' 80-year-old father, Roy Howes, said he was pleased, not only for himself and the interpreter's family, but also "for the people of Cambodia."

"These people have wrecked my family," he told The Associated Press from his home in Backwell, England. "We have never, ever recovered from this. The pain is permanently with us."

Former KR Soldier: Pot Pol, Son Sen, and Ta Mok Are Real Criminals

Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Rasmei Kampuchea newspaper
Translated from Khmer and posted at KRtrial.info

Kamrieng-Battambang: Kamrieng is a district governed by former Khmer Rouge (KR) soldiers who integrated with the government in 1996. The leaders in the area who have positions in the government seem to be hesitated in giving any comment on the trials of top leaders of the Democratic Kampuchea Regime. In contrast, former KR soldiers some of whom are now the disabled or become ordinary people are still trying to protect their former leaders.

Though they dare not to disagree openly, those former KR soldiers claimed about their former leaders’ innocence and accused the deceased people such as Pol Pot, Son Sen, and Ta Mok, who they think should be tried, of atrocities.

“Concerning the trials of the top leaders of the Democratic Kampuchea regime, it’s the responsibilities of the government and the United Nations. We “small people” do not have any comment,” recently said Nob Sovann, Kamrieng’s deputy governor, a former KR soldier in division 705. “We are so tired of war, but now we’re having peace. Everything must be done in conform to law,” said the deputy, adding that he didn’t disagree with the trials since the court would be a good sample for younger people to realize that the people who committed atrocities would be punished.

However, a former KR soldier whose lower right leg was lost said on the condition of anonymity that he didn’t know what the living KR leaders had committed from 1975 to 1979 since he had been fighting along the Vietnamese bother to protect the country. But, after the regime collapsed, he has been living along Thai border in the forest in Kamrieng. He has noticed that the KR leaders who are living nowadays are “good people”, and that they may have been under the order of Pol Pot, Son Sen and Ta Mok only.

“When [I] was fighting, Uncle Ieng Sary was mostly abroad and Uncle Khieu Samphan was a scholar. Other [KR] leaders were all respectfully meek,” said the former KR soldier, adding that the trials of those people were not right since they seem not to have killed the people.

The disabled former KR soldier claimed that Pol Pot, Son Sen, and Ta Mok were the people who should have been punished since while they were alive they were very cruel and never absolved anyone.

Nob Sovann, however, claimed about his stance that everything should be done in accordance with law. He pointed out that his former soldiers didn’t react anything to the trials. “I know their minds clearly,” he said.

Surviving the Khmer Rouge

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13, 2007

Al Jazeera

Cambodian and international judges have agreed rules for the long-delayed tribunal to try leaders of the former Khmer Rouge regime. Two survivors from the time and a former Khmer Rouge prison guard told Al Jazeera their memories of a brutal period in Cambodia's history:


My name is Pol Phala, I was 25 years old and a housewife at the time. Now I am 59.

When the Khmer Rouge arrived in Phnom Penh on April 17, they moved citizens out of the city. They allowed me to rest one day because I had a miscarriage, and then they forced me to carry on walking.

I looked like an animal, walking along covered in blood. Frankly, we were like animals, but our food was worse than animals'.

Along the way I often saw dead bodies. I did not know what to do, how to escape, where to go.

The village where I arrived, Sambo village, had already been prepared. First they ordered us to make dykes in rice fields and later to build a big dam.

We worked using our hands. It was hard and when we did not finish they did not allow us to eat.

If a person didn't work according to their orders they would kill us. They always said 'keeping you is no gain and losing you is no loss'.

They hit people with hoes in front of us because they wanted us to see and then they took the bodies away. So we had to do what they wanted us to do.

I felt frightened all day and every night.

They did not allow us to live together. My husband, mother and children went to work in different places.

We rarely met – only at Khmer Rouge festivals. Only then we knew our kids were still alive, and my husband. When we lived separately we did not know where they were.

During the regime those working got more and more sick and died. All of us were thin. No one was fat. If they were fat they were swollen and sick.

The guards were children, illiterate, between 15 and 16-years-old.

They killed the men after the dams were complete and especially before the rice harvest, they really killed. For example, if one family had 10 members, five members had to be killed.

I never dared hope I would survive. When we were liberated we felt that we had a new life.

What I remember most is the separation and the killing.

If they try the Khmer Rouge, I will feel very happy. I want to tell people that the Khmer Rouge mistreated the Khmer people.


My name is Lon Him. I was a commerce student in Phnom Penh when I was removed and became a farm slave.

When I saw the Khmer Rouge for the first time, I seemed to feel happy because the war was ended and I could carry on my studies.

But my hope lasted only one day.

The next day they pointed guns at us and removed us from Phnom Penh. Some people who did not obey the order were shot instantly right in front of Ooma-Laum pagoda. I witnessed it with my own eyes.

In the village first they order us to work in a rice plantation. Sometimes they ordered us to carry rice plants about 5 km away. I carried rice sacks for 12 hours each day.

I was a human plough, without enough food to eat. We had banana tree pieces mixed with a little rice to cook porridge.

If we were lazy we would be badly treated. Some people were taken away, especially those who were literate and talkative.

The people who survived were those who kept their backgrounds hidden and personal information about knowledge, jobs and other things.

I dared not tell them which level of study I had got and what my job was.

I had one friend who studied with me at the faculty and he became the commune chief secretary and later when it was found that he had a higher education they took him away to be killed and they detained me for two days in order to investigate.

I said I never studied and just knew the guy when I was in the village, otherwise I was also dead.

The Khmer Rouge militia carried rifles but they were so small their guns were bigger than these young kids.

I saw about 10 places where people were lying dead, hit on the back of the head. Some of the killing places were not seen. For example in Nor-ea pagoda, only the smell hit you when we walked nearby.

My father could do nothing because he was too old and by June 1976 he died.

He was sick and we did not have medicine to treat him – we couldn't find anything except tree bark. He had diarrhoea. He just lay on a mat.

I still feel angry because eight of my brothers and sisters died, four before the Khmer Rouge, four after. They considered us as animals but we are human beings.

The Khmer Rouge are human beings but they have no morals at all.

The world should help find justice. For the trial I don't know much about it but it must bring justice because the dead people, those who lost family members and the poor survivors, did not know why the deaths happened. So it needs to be considered by the world.

My name is Hum Hoy, I'm 52 years old and I'm a farmer.

In 1976, my military commander took me to the prison. They allowed me to eat and sleep there.

After staying there a few days doing nothing, I was ordered to be a guard outside of the prison, stationed at a street away from the actual prison.

There were nine people staying with me. I don’t know what the prisoners had done, why they were sent in and my duty was just guarding – but only the outside.

I never went inside the prison so I never tortured prisoners.

But after a period, one day there were some executions and one prisoner remained. Duch [the head of the infamous S-21 interrogation and torture centre in Phnom Penh] asked me 'are you committed?'

To become a cadre, you have to be committed and I said 'yes, I am committed'.

Then I took an iron bar from someone and hit the prisoner on the neck from behind. I dropped the bar and the other executioner put the bar in the grave.

I couldn't refuse to do it so when he asked me like that I had to do it. If I refused he would say that I am not committed. Because in every meeting they always said we had to be dedicated to the fight against the enemy. If anyone is not dedicated he or she was the enemy of the revolution.

So everyone was ordered to spy on each other and if they saw any mistakes he or she must denounce them.

I had no intention to mistreat anyone because each of us wants to live , even I wanted to live but the order we could not refuse. We had to follow, if we didn't we would be arrested.

I was afraid every day and every night.

I didn't intend to be there because they made me go there. I could not escape it.

If I had run I did not know where to go, so I decide to stay and wait until I died as well.

If the high ranks ordered it, we had to follow them in order to survive. I didn't do anything wrong because I never asked to go there. They sent me.