'Gentle, intelligent' man turned tyrant: photographer plans Pol Pot memorial

Nhem En (above) was recruited at 17 to be photographer for Pol Pot. Photo: Lindsay Murdoch

January 7, 2012
Lindsay Murdoch, Angkor Wat
The Sydney Morning Herald

MANY of the photographs taken at Cambodia's notorious Tuol Sleng interrogation centre are too gruesome to publish: a man shot in the head crawls through his own blood before his executioner finishes his grisly work.

Victims stare without expression from images hanging on the walls of the centre where the women were dubbed ''she-animals'' and the men enemies and traitors of Pol Pot's 1970s revolution.

One photograph shows a mother cradling her sleeping baby. Another shows a girl's delicate beauty, defying the horror of the moment.

But Nhem En, 52, Pol Pot's official photographer, says he cannot describe how he felt taking 10,000 photographs of Tuol Sleng's victims.

''I had no feelings about that … I had the responsibility to do my work 100 per cent for the organisation,'' Nhem En says, referring to Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge that was responsible for one of the worst genocides of the 20th century.

Jolydays from hell

"To me he [Nhem En seen with KR memorabilia for sale] was one of the most evil men I ever met and should be locked up, but it turned out he was deputy governor of a district, because the Khmer Rouge are still sort of in charge." - Dom Jolly (Photo: The Phnom Penh Post)

Bargain hunting ... Dom was tempted to buy Khmer Rouge dictator Pol Pot's shoes for £500,000

Monday, September 06, 2010
By DOM JOLY
Excerpt from The Sun (UK)

COMEDIAN and travel writer Dom Joly has journeyed the globe - only to discover that his weird take on life as portrayed in his show Trigger Happy TV is not a patch on bizarre behaviour in the real world. His particular joy is to visit where the average holidaymaker would never dream of going.

Now he has written a book - The Dark Tourist - about his experiences.

Here he takes us through a few of his odder adventures...

I'M not really sure why I have this desire to travel to strange places.

But because I grew up in Lebanon, I always quite liked the fact that people would say: "Oh, that must be dodgy."

I quite liked feeling: "Yeah, I'm a bit tough," whereas I actually knew there are some really nice bits of Lebanon.

Even so, I think that just growing up there naturally gave me a slight adrenalin fixation. I get really bored on normal holidays. I don't like beaches.

I think a lot of the world has been kind of Starbucks-ised.

About the only places you can go to now to learn something new, sadly, are these kind of dodgy places I find so interesting.
CAMBODIA

ON day one I was sitting by the swimming pool and a man came up and said: "Would you like to meet a man selling Pol Pot's shoes?" Of course I would.

So I went with this guy miles out of town to this house. This other guy came in and after we chatted, he fetched some shoes and a camera.

This was the guy who photographed every person who went into the Killing Fields before they were executed by the Khmer Rouge regime in the Seventies.

To me he was one of the most evil men I ever met and should be locked up, but it turned out he was deputy governor of a district, because the Khmer Rouge are still sort of in charge.

He had a picture of himself with Pol Pot, Cambodia's former dictator. I asked him how much the shoes were and they were a snip at half a million pounds!

He claimed if I paid it he would use the money to set up a museum for the victims of the Killing Fields, but I found that very hard to believe.

I found Cambodia a fascinating country of contrasts. There were minefields everywhere, while in other parts backpackers wandered happily. Then someone invites you to pay $500 to blow up a cow with a rocket-propelled grenade, which is a major tourist attraction.

I didn't, by the way.

"The Conscience of Nhem En" On HBO: A Review

Nhem En (Photo: AP)

July 7, 2009
By Elyssa Spitzer
Huffington Post

The Conscience of Nhem En, premiering tonight on HBO at 8:00, tells the story of the havoc - both psychological and physical - that the Khmer Rouge's reign wrecked on the Cambodian people. 1.7 million people died in a supposed effort to seek out CIA and KGB agents within Cambodia from 1975-79. "Very few people were actually guilty," said the documentary's eponymous Nhem En, a photographer who at age 16 took roughly 6,000 photos of prisoners before each headed to a near-certain death. "But each person had to give a name and that person said another name." And in the absurdity of the Khmer Rouge, all those named died.

The story is an important one to tell. Relative to other such human travesties, the Khmer Rouge is not often discussed, (at least in the world I have experienced). Perhaps the silence is the result of an innate sense of guilt Americans feel hearing the tale. The United States was not uninvolved in Pol Pot's rise to power - a point the film drives home within the first half-minute with the subtitles, "During the Vietnam War, the United States carried out massive, covert bombing of Cambodia, contributing to the rise of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge." But whatever the reason the story is not discussed, The Conscience of Nhem En is a certain step to clarity, and in that sense it is worth watching.

The premise of the film is powerful because the reality of the Khmer Rouge is horrifying. Do not watch it if the aim is to see something uplifting that makes you think positively about humanity. This documentary shows the worst of our species, our unfathomable ability to do harm to our own. Skulls are shown, stored in containers en mass. Eerily uniform headshots show thousands of Cambodians headed to their near-certain death. And perhaps most terrifying is the interview with Nhem En in which he unapologetically defends his taking of photos rather than trying to save his muses: "Well, it's human nature... People do what they have to do to survive."

The film seems grey, almost hollow; only in the very beginning and end does music lighten the heavy footage. There are extended moments of silence that leave time for reflection, and the silence is quite uncomfortable. But the discomfort is, I assume, intentional. Watching former prisoners walk through the halls of the Tuol Sleng Prison should not be an undisturbed experience.

The narrative is not told as an emotional one but rather as a straight history; if anything, it is too cold. Men and women list off the family members they lost to Pol Pot. One man lost his parents and all six of his siblings. Another woman lost nine children. No one was untouched. But as they list off the depletion of their families for the camera, none cry. It has become a fact of life for them, and their matter-of-factness when listing off their losses is disconcerting, unnerving. However, to the film's credit, the abysmal is coupled with human resilience. The documentary concerns itself with the past, but it is deeply rooted in the present and the emotional carryover that results from the Khmer Rouge.

Did I enjoy watching The Conscience of Nhem En? No. But I am glad I saw it.

$790,000 "ghost" dollars offer to Nhem En for Pol Pot's shoes

'Ghost' dollars offered for Pol Pot's shoes: report

Thursday, May 21, 2009

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — A Cambodian photographer's attempt to sell the sandals of late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot has yielded only one bid -- 790,000 fake dollars offered in protest at the sale, a report said.

Nhem En, who photographed inmates at the regime's main torture centre and also snapped pictures at official regime ceremonies, announced last month he was selling the footwear along with two cameras.

The shoes belonging to Pol Pot, who died in 1998, were made of car tyre, while the two cameras were manufactured in Germany and Japan.

But "bidder" Pok Leak Reasey told English-language Phnom Penh Post newspaper that he was offering 790,000 fake dollar bills traditionally used to make offerings to spirits of the dead.

"And the reason why I have offered the money in ghost notes is because I want to say that all material remaining from the regime is worth nothing," he said, according to the paper.

Ghost money is used during funeral rites in many parts of Asia.

Up to two million people died of starvation, execution, overwork or torture as the Khmer Rouge, which ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, dismantled society in a bid to forge a communist utopia.

The former chief of Tuol Sleng prison, Kaing Guek Eav -- better known as Duch -- is currently on trial for crimes committed during the regime.

Cambodia's UN-backed court also plans to try four other senior Khmer Rouge leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Sacrava's Political Cartoon: my small BAG

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

Nhem En intends to become a millionaire: More Pol Pot's memorabilia put on sale ... including Pol Pot's toilet

Khmer Rouge photographer wants to sell Pol Pot's sandals, toilet

Mon, 18 May 2009
DPA

Phnom Penh - A former Khmer Rouge official photographer has put on sale for 1.5 million dollars what he claims to be Pol Pot's clothes, sandals and toilet, along with thousands of photographs and other artifacts he collected during the genocidal regime's 1975-79 rule. "I will sell Pol Pot's sandals, toilet, his uniform and cap, thousands of photographs and the two cameras I used during the Khmer Rouge period," said Nhem En, who was recruited to take photographs of detainees when they arrived at Tuol Sleng torture prison in Phnom Penh.

"I am asking for 1.5 million dollars, but the price is negotiable," he added.

Nhem En said he would use the money to establish a Khmer Rouge museum in Anlong Veng, a small town near the Thai border where the Maoist group hid in a jungle fortress until it disbanded in 1998.

"I am selling these items, but I have others that will be housed in the museum," he said. "I have already asked for donations for this museum from the US, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, Vietnam, South Korea and Thailand, but none have provided funding."

His appeal came as the trial of the former head of Tuol Sleng prison resumed before Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes tribunal.

Kaing Guek Euv, known by his revolutionary alias Duch, faces charges of crimes against humanity, torture, premeditated murder and breaches of the Geneva Conventions, allegedly committed at the school-turned-prison, where at least 15,000 men, women and children were imprisoned and tortured before being murdered in the "killing fields" on the outskirts of the capital.

Nhem En said the millions of dollars in international donor funding spent on bringing Duch and four other Khmer Rouge leaders to trial would be better invested in his museum.

"Nobody in the Cambodian government supports my museum plan, so it will need a great deal of international funding to be established," he said.

In April, Nhem En offered to sell Pol Pot's shoes and toilet for 500,000 dollars and said he would keep the other items to be housed in the museum.

Up to 2 million people died during through execution, starvation or overwork during the Khmer Rouge's rule.

Pol Pot's shoes, S-21 cameras up for sale

Monday, 20 April 2009
Written by Sam Rith
The Phnom Penh Post

FORMER Tuol Sleng prison photographer Nhem En has made an open call for offers on two of his cameras and a pair of Pol Pot's shoes to fund a museum in his hometown, the former communist stronghold Anlong Veng.

"I would like to call on both national and international, private and state companies to start bidding on a pair of Pol Pot's shoes and two cameras for the [starting] price of US$500,000," Nhem En, now deputy governor of Anlong Veng district, Oddar Meanchey province, said Sunday.

He said he used the cameras, one German and one Chinese, to photograph prisoners at Tuol Sleng before their death, which are now viewed by tourists visiting the genocide museum. He added that the cameras shot about 80 percent of S-21's pictures, which is why he set the starting price so high.

"Right now, I do not have enough money to continue setting up my museum. That's why I decided to offer a pair of Pol Pot's shoes and two cameras for auction," he said.

Nhem En said he will hold a news conference soon to announce details of the sale.

The ex-cadre has struggled to finance his museum despite numerous calls for donations. So far, he says, he has spent about $200,000 on buying and clearing some 50 hectares of land.

Nhem En says the museum, if it's built, will showcase items and photos from the Khmer Rouge era, including a walking stick owned by deceased former leader Ta Mok.

Auctioning history

Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, said it was Nhem En's individual right to sell the items, as they were his own private property. However, he questioned the merit of having the items in the private sphere, as opposed to in a museum.

"It does not matter [if Nhem En sells the items], but I think it would be better to keep the cameras and the shoes in a museum to show the younger generation," he said. "If Tuol Sleng museum is able, it should request to keep the items there. Once things are put on auction, you do not know where they will end up."

Him Chhem, minister of culture and fine arts, said he had not yet been informed about the sale but said he would find out whether the items were the rightful property of Nhem En.

Pol Pot's shoes up for sale [-Nhem En tries to cash in on Khmer tragedy?]

Nhem En

April 20, 2009
AFP

PHNOM PENH - A PHOTOGRAPHER for the Khmer Rouge said on Monday he is putting leader Pol Pot's sandals up for auction along with a pair of cameras used to picture life under his brutal regime.

Nhem En, who photographed inmates at the notorious S-21 torture centre and also snapped pictures at official ceremonies for the Cambodian regime, told AFP bidding for the items would open at US$500,000 (S$750,000)

'Now I offer for auction a pair of Pol Pot's sandals and my two cameras that I used to shoot Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge leaders, as well as those who died and were victimised at S-21,' Nhem En said.

The sandals belonging to Pol Pot, who died in 1998, were made of car tyre, while the two cameras were manufactured in Germany and Japan, he added.

Nhem En, now a deputy governor of northwest Anlong Veng district, said he hoped to use the money to construct a museum to showcase photographs and items from the Khmer Rouge period, including Pol Pot's old toilet.

'I call for an auction of the items because I need the money to build a big museum in Anlong Veng,' he said.

Up to two million people died of starvation, execution, overwork or torture as the Khmer Rouge, which ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, dismantled society in a bid to forge a communist utopia.

The former chief of S-21 prison, Kaing Guek Eav - better known as Duch - is currently on trial for crimes committed during the regime. Cambodia's UN-backed court also plans to try four other senior Khmer Rouge leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

'THE CONSCIENCE OF NHEM EN'

Nhem En

Bou Meng, a former prisoner of S-21

October 1, 2008
Marc Loftus
mloftus@postmagazine.com
Post Magazine (USA)

LOS ANGELES — Academy Award-winning filmmaker Steven Okazaki (Days of Waiting,1990) spent much of January in Cambodia, producing his latest documentary, The Conscience of Nhem En. The hour-long program, which will air on HBO in 2009, takes an intimate look at the country 30 years after the end of the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror.

From 1975-1979, the Khmer Rouge rounded up men, women and children, and sent them to a school in Phnom Penh, which had been converted into a prison. The prisoners were registered and photographed, and were then tortured or immediately killed. Of the 17,000 who entered the S-21 facility, only eight are known to have survived. In this documentary, three tell their stories, as does Nhem En, a 16-year-old at the time, who photographed thousands of prisoners before they were executed. His testimony lacks regret or sympathy.

“The interesting thing for me was the photographer,” says Okazaki of Nhem En. “He was a Khmer Rouge soldier, who was trained in lighting and photography, but he is not a traditional sort of character to build a movie around. He was 16 years old and he is kind of a cold, cold person. It became sort of the challenge of this film: to build it around someone who actually is not admirable.”

PRODUCTION & POST

Okazaki traveled to Cambodia to conduct research for the film and was surprised to find so many of the interview subjects available. He decided to begin production immediately. Outfitted with just a single Sony HVR HDV camera, and assisted by an associate producer, he spent 17 days shooting interviews and capturing stills of the surviving prisoner photos. Many were intentionally destroyed by fire once the Khmer Rouge’s reign came to an end.

“When the Vietnamese came in, I think they immediately realized the importance of them and preserved them, and decided that the prison would become a museum,” says Okazaki. “There is an exhibit there and they’ve mounted the photographs, sort of haphazardly. And sometimes you don’t know what it is that you are looking at.

“The interesting thing about the photographs is, they could have just done bad mug shots. But for some strange reason, they used a large format camera and lighting, and did these quite beautiful portraits of the people before they were killed. Some of the people clearly know that they are about to die, but some people look strangely oblivious to what is going on.”

Okazaki, who has a film background, says he transitioned directly to digital video, having never worked with analog formats. He’ll often work with editors on his projects, but in this case, decided to cut the film himself, working on a PC-based Avid Media Composer.

“I like the Sony Mini HDV cameras a lot and wanted to try it,” notes the filmmaker. “We’ve had some difficulty with the Avid and working with the footage — as opposed to Final Cut Pro. It’s been a bit of a struggle on this project, bringing it into it and spitting it out. We just did the final cut and are starting the sound cutting, and finishing everything up, hopefully, in the next couple of weeks.”
Okazaki is also serving as narrator for the film. “I prefer not to do it,” he says of the role, “but it just seemed that the filmmaker’s point of view really helped the film a lot in terms of what you were seeing.”

His LA office is in the same building as Fantasy Studios, so he often booked sessions to record wild narration, knowing what he was cutting upstairs. “I am not a professional narrator and had to go in there constantly, so it was great to just go down two floors and cut narration and try different things.”

At press time, Fantasy Studios (www.fantasystudios.com) engineer Jesse Nichols had worked with Okazaki nearly a dozen times, recording VO for the film. Nichols has been at Fantasy for seven years.

For The Conscience of Nhem En, Nichols and Okazaki worked in whatever room was available. Nichols would build an isolation booth, laying down carpet and configuring three gobos in a triangular fashion. He used a Neumann TLM103 for VO, noting that is has similar characteristics to the popular U87, but in a smaller package, allowing for better placement. Recording was done to a Mac-based Digidesign Pro Tools system.

“I only filter a little low end to take the room out,” says Nichols, who rolls off 70Hz and below. The pre-amp is up loud, he notes, and he’ll add a limiter on the input, just in case of spikes during the reading. Okazaki reads without picture and “his deadpan delivery” works very well, Nichols notes. He’ll give Okazaki a CD with 16-bit/48kHz WAV files for his Avid edit.

Okazaki has worked with HBO Documentaries for about 12 years and describes the relationship as “a dream situation for a filmmaker,” in part because of its flexible deadlines. “I’ll ask, ‘When do you want the film?’ And they’ll say, ‘When it’s the film you want it to be,’” says Okazaki. “The creative group there is really wonderful.”

Asia: Guarding memories of Pol Pot era for future generations

Location where Pol Pot was cremated is now turned into a worshiping shrine (Photo: impressive.net)

02/01/2008
By AYA KIMURA
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN (Japan)

ANLONG VENG, Cambodia--The enormity of Pol Pot's crimes almost defies description. His genocidal policies in the latter 1970s are thought to have claimed up to 1.7 million lives, resulting in the so-called killing fields that took Cambodia back to the year zero.

And yet efforts are now under way to preserve sites associated with the brutal regime to teach future generations about the country's unspeakable horrors of not so many years ago.

A three-hour car trip northward from Siem Reap, where the World Heritage Angkor Wat ruins are located, brings a visitor to Anlong Veng, a county that borders Thailand.

It was in this area that the Khmer Rouge, which used terror to control Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, held out until it collapsed in 1998. I came here, hoping to learn more about the reign of dread that gripped Cambodia in those days.

I came across a boy who offered me what he said were cremated remains of Pol Pot. There was no way to tell whether the sooty white fragments in his bag were genuine, or even human. The boy said he kept the remains to "show off to my customers."

The site where Pol Pot was cremated after his death in 1998 is not even fenced. Burned incense sticks lie scattered about. Amid the shrubbery, a light-blue signboard proclaims, "The cremation place of Pol Pot."

Pol Pot and his henchmen established the government of Democratic Kampuchea in 1975 after toppling the pro-U.S. government headed by a former Prime Minister Lon Nol.

Starvation, overwork and executions were central to the regime's efforts to create an agrarian utopia. Pol Pot's extreme policies denied the existence of a class structure and resulted in the mass confiscation of personal property. Urban residents were forcibly relocated to rural areas to work as laborers.

On Dec. 25, 1978, Vietnam launched a full-scale invasion of Cambodia seeking to end Khmer Rouge border attacks. On Jan. 7, 1979, Phnom Penh fell and Pol Pot was deposed. His faction fled to the northwest and continued to battle the government's forces.

The county government of Anlong Veng in the northwest is now working to preserve Khmer Rouge sites and promote them as tourist spots. It has listed 15 sites, including the place where Pol Pot was cremated and the homes of former military chief Ta Mok and other executives of the genocidal regime.

The project, which started around 2000, has made little progress beyond the erection of a few signboards.

For Cambodians, the 15 venues conjure up horrific memories. For this reason, no one has sought to refer to them as "historical sites."

Ceang Sokheng, 42, who works for the preservation project as chief of the Anlong Veng office of the Ministry of Tourism, lost his parents in 1975. He was 10 years old when his father, a member of the national parliament, was rounded up by the Khmer Rouge. His mother, who tried to intervene, was also carted off.

He never saw them again and later realized they had been executed.

"When I was ordered (by the ministry) to transfer to this (Anlong Veng) office seven years ago, I felt tormented," Ceang said, recalling the hardship of the Pol Pot era that made him and his older brother orphans.

When Ceang was instructed to relocate, the Khmer Rouge had already collapsed. However, many former soldiers still lived in the area. It was very unsafe to travel about and he lived in constant fear of being killed.

"Though they were Cambodians just as I was, I was not able to trust them," he said.

In Anlong Veng, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge are still revered by some people. They speak with pride about Ta Mok, the faction's military chief, saying he built schools and hospitals for them.

"Ta Mok made it possible for us to make a living. He was a very good man. I cannot describe in words how good he was," said Kong Mean, 50, a former Khmer Rouge soldier.

Ceang's fears for his safety while in Anlong Veng gradually eased. But even now, he says he does not think the local people have any idea what he endured.

It was this realization that made him think that Cambodians must not allow the Pol Pot era to fade into history. Thus, he supports the move to preserve the various sites.

"I must convey the era to future generations so as to prevent a recurrence (of similar tragedies)," Ceang said. "Though memories of the era still torment me, I don't find myself thinking any more that I want to forget it."

Many of the 15 listed sites are located in mountains covered by jungle. They include an underground bunker where Pol Pot went into hiding, and an artificial pond to secure water.

Ta Mok's former home is located on a steep cliff, offering panoramic views from an elevation of several hundred meters. Rong Saroeung, 58, has been operating a restaurant on the site since 2000.

"Thailand is planning to help develop this place as a tourist spot that leads to Angkor Wat. It's a business chance for us," he said.

A wide paved road from Thailand was completed in 2006, and the number of Thai tourists has since increased.

As a Cambodian government soldier, he fought gunbattles with the Khmer Rouge. He also experienced the terrors of land mines.

"Crimes are not what individuals judge. The judgments must not be given based on hatred either. They must be given based on laws," Rong said.

The county government of Anlong Veng also has plans on the drawing board for a museum dedicated to the Khmer Rouge era. As yet, not a single brick has been laid due to construction costs of some $500,000 (about 54 million yen).

"We need a place that teaches us accurately what happened," said Anlong Veng's deputy governor, Nhem Ein, 47.

When he was 16 years old, Nhem Ein was forced to take photographs of detainees awaiting torture and death at the infamous Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh. Had he refused, he would have been executed.

"I was not able to think about anything except how to survive," he said. "From now on, we can only study what took place during that period and reflect on those days. Really, we have just reached the starting point."

The Documentation Center of Cambodia is busy gathering records of the genocide. According to the center, a total of 391 execution sites, 194 prison sites and nearly 20,000 mass graves have been found across the country.

"We leave residents living in the area of each site to decide how to preserve it and convey its history to future generations," said Youk Chhang, the center's director. "That is because each site is part of the residents' own history."

A 60-year-old woman who had come from Phnom Penh stood quietly at the site where Pol Pot was cremated. Her six brothers and sisters perished in the killing fields.

She stared at the cremation site for a while and then silently joined her hands together.

"We are all equal after we die. I do not hold a grudge (against Pol Pot)," she said.

The woman pondered what kind of people the Khmer Rouge were and what had gone wrong with their lives to allow them to inflict such brutality.

"I came to this town because I wanted to get close to the answers as much as possible," she said.

More than 400 Cambodians visit the Khmer Rouge sites each month. For many, it's a chance to experience the remnants of a dark chapter of Cambodia's modern history, even at the expense of opening up emotional scars again.

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.

Please come to visit those who starved, tortured, maimed and killed your loved ones

Private company plans to develop Anlong Veng region

03 November 2007
By Mayarith
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

The Anlong Veng deputy district governor indicated that a private company plans to provide between $1 to $2 million to develop the former Khmer Rouge village, located in Oddar Meanchey province, next to the Thai border, into a tourist zone.

The Anlong Veng region was a hot battlefield in the past, and it also serves as a grave for the former KR leaders: Pol Pot, Son Sen, Ta Mok. The plan to transform this region into a tourist zone was in the work for a long time already.

Nhem En, the Anlong Veng deputy district governor and a former KR soldier and S-21 photographer, told RFA this Saturday about the name of the Siem Reap-based company that wants to fund the development of the former KR village: “The company belongs to Mrs. Em Sophary, she is a jewelry store owner in Angkor city (Siem Reap). She is cooperating with me, she has the money and owns a number of lands, and I have a document, together, we will (re)construct Anlong Veng …”

Nhem En added: “… and she plans, along with me, to drop $1 to $2 million to form a conservatory in all the former KR region in Anlong Veng. First, on my side, I want to build a museum, I want to re-organize Ta Mok’s house, Ta Pol Pot’s house, the graves of Ta Pol Pot, Ta Son Sen, and Ta Mok. In summary, all of them, I will create a conservatory out of all of them, and turn them into a tourist zone.

Cambodia Starts Khmer Rouge Trial

November 2, 2007
Vittorio Hernandez - AHN News Writer

Phnom Penh, Cambodia (AHN) - Nhem En, a government photographer, was the first witness in the Khmer Rouge trial that began Thursday in Cambodia. He testified against Kaing Geuk Eav, the prison commandant who ran the S-21 torture camp in Phnom Penh.

Nhem took the black and white pictures of the 14,000 prisoners of the S-21 camp. Only six detainees survived the prison camp, where many were tortured and maimed. He told The Daily Telegraph before he testified, "It's hard to say if they knew they would die or not."

Nhem was a teenager when the Khmer Rouge regime took power in 1975 and ruled Cambodia for three years with an iron fist. He was forbidden to talk to the detainees, who often asked him the reason why they were imprisoned.

It is estimated at least 1.7 million Cambodians or a fifth of the nation's population died from torture, hunger or fatigue during the Khmer Rouge era.

Thirty years later, Cambodia is now dealing with the wounds of the regime by putting on trial officers of the authoritarian government. It is also constructing a Khmer Rouge Historical Museum in Anlong Veng, where Nhem En now serves as deputy governor. He plans to donate his personal collection of 2,000 photos, 1,000 songs and other wartime documents in the proposed museum, expected to cost $300,000.

S21 photographer first Khmer Rouge witness

01/11/2007
By Thomas Bell in Phnom Penh
The Daily Telegraph (UK)

When the Khmer Rouge's victims arrived at the S-21 torture camp in Phnom Penh, the first face they saw after the blindfold was removed belonged to Nhem En.

He was the official photographer.

The men, women and children in the notorious black and white images who appear to be staring death in the face were mostly looking at him.

Today he appeared as the first witness before Cambodia's genocide tribunal as prosecutors make their case against the prison's commandant Kaing Geuk Eav, better known as Duch, for crimes against humanity.

"It's hard to say if they knew they would die or not," he told The Daily Telegraph before giving his testimony in camera.

After months of torture, death awaited every prisoner. Over 14,000 people were sent to S-21 but only half a dozen survived.

"I realised that many times they arrested people who had done nothing," he said. "People from my village confessed to being in the CIA.

"In the end, everyone confessed to something.

"Most people went on to name every person they could think of as an accomplice before they were killed with an iron bar.

"Conversation with the prisoners was discouraged.

"Sometimes they would say, 'why have they arrested me?' and I would say, 'I don't know. My only job is to take your photo'.

"It was a job," he said, "and if you did it wrong you were dead for sure.

"You knew that. I was responsible for taking care of my own head. I took care of it."

The teenage photographer was also responsible for developing and printing the images.

"I did it all," he said with a glimmer of pride. "It was tough work."

After seizing the capital and declaring "year zero" in 1975, the Maoist Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia for three years, eight months and 20 days before the regime collapsed under the weight of its own insanity and in the face of a Vietnamese invasion.

During that period at least 1.7 million people, over one fifth of the population, were executed or died of torture, starvation and overwork.

After losing power, party workers retreated into Cambodia's jungles to wage a guerrilla war.

Nhem En, 47, finally left the Khmer Rouge in 1995 under a government amnesty.

Today he is a deputy district governor for the ruling party.

He has gold teeth, a gold watch and a chunky gold ring and he discusses his old job without shame or remorse.

"Of course I felt sad for them, but there was nothing I could do," he said of the victims he catalogued.

"As a Buddhist person of course I feel for others." But he does not believe he has bad karma.

"You do good things, you receive good things," he said. "I've become a district governor. I didn't bribe anyone.

"I love my country and I did the job for my country.

"Calling me an artist is kind of correct. As a photographer you try to make it look good," he said, before complaining: "My photos are famous around the world but no-one ever thinks of my copyrights."

He is also angry at the money offered to him by the court to cover his travel expenses.

"I'm living history," he insisted. "They should give me more. The court only offered me $5 and I don't need that money. I'm a deputy governor!

"I did my job and I have my pride. Why do they offer me $5? It's not enough for my breakfast!"

Witness to Khmer Rouge brutality to testify at trial

Nhem En, right, former chief photographer at a torture center run by Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, poses for photograph with two Buddhist monks at Tuol Sleng genocide museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (Heng Sinith/The Associated Press)

Friday, October 26, 2007
By Seth Mydans
Posted by The International Herald Tribune

PHNOM PENH: He had a job to do and he did it supremely well, under threat of death, within earshot of screams of torture: methodically photographing Khmer Rouge prisoners and producing a haunting collection of mug shots that has become the visual symbol of Cambodia's mass killings.

"I'm just a photographer; I don't know anything," he said he told the newly arrived prisoners as he removed their blindfolds and adjusted the angles of their heads. But he knew, as they did not, that every one of them would be killed.

"I had my job, and I had to take care of my job," he said in a recent interview. "Each of us had our own responsibilities. I wasn't allowed to speak with prisoners."

That was three decades ago, when the photographer, Nhem En, now 47, was on the staff of Tuol Sleng prison, the most notorious torture house of the Khmer Rouge regime, which caused the deaths of 1.7 million people from 1975 to 1979.

This week he was called to be a witness at an upcoming trial of Khmer Rouge leaders, one of whom was his commandant at the prison, Kaing Geuk Eav, known as Duch, who has been arrested and charged with crimes against humanity.

The trial is months away, but prosecutors are interviewing witnesses, reviewing tens of thousands of pages of documents and making arrests.

As a lower-ranking cadre, Nhem En is not in jeopardy of arrest. But he is in a position to offer some of the most personal testimony at the trial, about the man he worked under for three years.

In the interview, Nhem En spoke with pride of living up to the exacting standards of a boss who was a master of negative reinforcement.

"It was really hard, my job," he said. "I had to clean, develop and dry the pictures on my own and take them to Duch by my own hand. I couldn't make a mistake. If one of the pictures was lost I would be killed."

But he said: "Duch liked me because I'm clean and I'm organized. He gave me a Rolex watch."

Fleeing with other Khmer Rouge cadre when the regime was ousted by a Vietnamese invasion in 1979, Nhem En said he traded that watch for 20 tins of milled rice.

Since then he has adapted and prospered and is now a deputy mayor of the former Khmer Rouge stronghold Anlong Veng. He has switched from an opposition party to the party of Prime Minister Hun Sen and today he wears a wristwatch that bears twin portraits of the prime minister and his wife, Bun Rany.

Last month an international tribunal arrested and charged a second Khmer Rouge figure, who is now being held side by side with Duch in a detention center. He is Nuon Chea, 82, the movement's chief ideologue and a right-hand man to the Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, who died in 1998.

Three more leaders were expected to be arrested in the coming weeks: the urbane former Khmer Rouge head of state, Khieu Samphan, along with the former foreign minister, Ieng Sary, and his wife and fellow central committee member, Ieng Thirith.

All will benefit from the caprice of Nuon Chea, who complained that the squat toilet in his cell was hurting his ailing knees and was given a proper sit-down toilet in its place.

Similar toilets are being installed in the other cells, said a tribunal spokesman, Reach Sambath, "So they will all enjoy high-standard toilets when they come."

It is not clear whether any of the cases will be combined. But even if the defendants do not see each other, their testimony, harmonious or discordant, will put on display the relationships of some of the people who once ran the country's killing machine.

Already in a 1999 interview, Duch implicated his fellow prisoner, Nuon Chea, in the killings, citing among other things a directive that said: "Kill them all."

Nhem En's career in the Khmer Rouge began in 1970 at the age of 9 when he was recruited as a village boy to be a drummer in a touring revolutionary band. When he was 16, he said, he was sent to China for a seven-month course in photography.

He became the chief of six photographers at Tuol Sleng, where at least 14,000 people were tortured to death or sent to killing fields. Only a half dozen inmates were known to have survived.

He was a craftsman and some of his portraits, carefully posed and lighted, have found their way into art galleries in the United States.

Hundreds of them hang in rows on the walls of Tuol Sleng, which is now a museum, the faces frightened, bewildered, but mostly blank and enigmatic. They are staring at Nhem En.

The job was a daily grind, he said: up at 6:30 a.m., a quick communal meal of bread or rice and something sweet, and at his post by 7 a.m. to wait for prisoners to arrive. His telephone would ring to announce them: sometimes one, sometimes a group, sometimes truckloads of them, he said.

"They came in blindfolded and I had to untie the cloth," he said.

"I was alone in the room, so I am the one they saw. They would say, 'Why was I brought here? What am I accused of? What did I do wrong?' "

But Nhem En ignored them.

" 'Look straight ahead. Don't lean your head to the left or the right.' That's all I said," he recalled. "I had to say that so the picture would turn out well. Then they were taken to the interrogation center. The duty of the photographer was just to take the picture."

Ex-Tuol Sleng Photographer Summoned

Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
23 October 2007

The Khmer Rouge tribunal has summoned as a witness Tuol Sleng photographer Nhem En, to appear before investigating judges.

Nhem En said Tuesday he had received a summons earlier this month, requesting him at the courts Nov. 1. He will be the highest-profile witness so far to undergo questioning by tribunal judges.

"I got the letter of invitation of Oct. 17, and they asked me to go on Nov. 1," Nhem En said. "I will go to see the court and testify, without fear" of being prosecuted.

His summons is likely for the case against Kaing Khek Iev, alias Duch, the former director of Tuol Sleng, where up to 16,000 Cambodians were executed and dumped into mass graves outside the capital.

Held by military courts since 1999, Duch was turned over to the tribunal in July. A hearing to decide whether he will be released ahead of trial will be held Nov. 15, tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said.

Khmer Rouge trials set to begin

"I will testify with my heart. I will give the money they offer me as a witness to beggars in need because offering money like this is to look at witnesses like dogs" - Nhem En angry response to ECCC stipend offer for witnesses

Phnom Penh (dpa) - One of a handful of survivors from Pol Pot's secret prison is expected to stand shoulder to shoulder with his former guard and the photographer who documented it all to testify against their former master, the men and their families said Tuesday.

The long-awaited $56-million joint UN-Cambodian court to try top former Khmer Rouge leaders has begun calling witnesses, and although their feelings are mixed, all have agreed to be heard.

Relatives of a former senior guard at S-21, or Toul Sleng Torture Centre, Him Huy, said he had been called to the stand to testify against the prison's former commandant, Kang Keng Iev, alias Duch.

Duch has been charged with crimes against humanity for his alleged crimes at one of the most infamous prisons in history.

The photographer who took many of the infamous portraits of the accused both pre- and post-mortem, Nhem En, said he has also been called to give testimony from November 1.

Experts have estimated that around 14,000 people died at the prison, which was designed to torture suspected spies before the survivors were shipped to the Killing Fields to be murdered.

Witnesses will be given food and accommodation as well as a 5 dollar a day stipend - a courtesy Nhem En angrily rejected.

"I will testify with my heart. I will give the money they offer me as a witness to beggars in need because offering money like this is to look at witnesses like dogs," Nhem En said by telephone.

En, who was recruited from a remote village aged just 16 and trained to document the brutality of the regime, said he believed the museum of his work he is setting up near his home in Anlong Veng, 500 kilometres north of the capital, will do more to help people understand the Khmer Rouge regime than the trial.

"But I will go and tell my story. I will go without documents. I will carry the pictures in my mind," he said, adding that he felt violated and patronised by the price being put on his life story.

One of just a handful of survivors who is expected to also testify, Vann Nath, said he didn't care about stipends. "Money is not important. I just want justice," Nath said.

Up to 2 million Cambodians died under the Khmer Rouge regime's 1975-79 Democratic Kampuchea regime in the ultra-Maoists failed attempt to turn the country into an agrarian utopia.

A spokesman for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Reach Sambath, said the court was simply grateful to witnesses who were happy to testify.

"We embrace principal and willingness. This tribunal is not about money," Sambath said.

Nhem En, the former S-21 photographer

Nhem En, 47, former chief photographer at a torture center run by Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, poses for photo with dozens photographs of former prisoners in a room of Tuol Sleng genocide museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Jan. 25, 2007. Nhem En said Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2007, he has been summoned to testify as a witness before the U.N.-supported Cambodian genocide tribunal. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Nhem En, 47, former chief photographer at a torture center run by Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, looks at his pictures document at the Documentation Center of Cambodia office in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Jan. 23, 2007. Nhem En said Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2007, he has been summoned to testify as a witness before the U.N.-supported Cambodian genocide tribunal. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Nhem En, 47, right, former chief photographer at a torture center run by Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, poses for photograph with two Buddhist monks at Tuol Sleng genocide museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Jan. 23, 2007. Nhem En said Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2007 he has been summoned to testify as a witness before the U.N.-supported Cambodian genocide tribunal. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Cambodian tribunal summons former Khmer Rouge prison photographer

Tuesday, October 23, 2007
The Associated Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: Cambodia's genocide tribunal has summoned a former photographer who captured thousands of haunting images of prisoners before they were tortured and executed by the Khmer Rouge, the photographer said Tuesday.

Nhem En, 47, said the tribunal's judges ordered him to appear before them on Nov. 1 "in regard to the criminal case of Duch," referring to his former boss, Kaing Guek Eav, who headed the Khmer Rouge's notorious S-21 prison and torture center.

Duch has been detained by the U.N.-backed tribunal on charges of crimes against humanity committed when the Khmer Rouge regime held power in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979.

The group's radical policies caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people from starvation, overwork, disease and execution.

Up to 16,000 suspected enemies of the regime were tortured at the prison before being executed in an area near the capital, Phnom Penh that later became known as the killing fields.

Only about a dozen of the prisoners are thought to have survived. The prison is now known as the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and is frequented by tourists.

Nhem En photographed thousands of prisoners before they were locked up, tortured and executed and their images are the centerpiece of the museum.

He has denied any involvement in the atrocities and said his job was merely taking pictures of the prisoners after they were brought to the prison.

"I will not oppose the summons. I support the tribunal to try the former Khmer Rouge leaders," Nhem En said.

KRT summons S-21 Photographer to act as a witness

Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

The KR Tribunal (KRT) has summoned the former photographer of the Tuol Sleng (S-21) prison to come to the tribunal to provide clarification on 01 November, so that the tribunal can gather information about the torture performed at the Tuol Sleng prison. RFA reported that Nhem En, the former photographer of the Tuol Sleng prison who currently lives in Anlong Veng, Oddar Meanchey province, recently received a copy of the summon from the KRT investigating judge for the 01 November clarification. Nhem En learnt to become a photographer in China, and he started taking pictures at the Tuol Sleng prison since 1976. He took pictures of prisoners brought in by the Khmer rouge for torturing at the Tuol Sleng prison before they were later killed.