Tuol Sleng daughters reconcile the past

Huy Senghul (left) and Norng Chen Kimty stand in front of a photo of Norng Chen Kimty’s father Norng Chanphal, seen on the left in the background photo. Photo by: John Anthony

Wednesday, 14 September 2011
John Anthony
The Phnom Penh Post

Huy Senghul and Norng Chen Kimty’s fathers were tormentor and victim, respectively, at the Khmer Rouge’s infamous Tuol Sleng interrogation facility, but the two now work together, at times sharing a desk, to document the crimes of the genocidal regime.

Their fathers, former Tuol Sleng executioner Him Huy and child survivor Norng Chanphal, have since quite remarkably reconciled, and the children now work as researchers at the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, a key source of written evidence for the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.

Both daughters share a common goal: to search for the truth about those slain during the three years, eight months and 20 days that the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia.

Duch sheds light on one testimony, while his lawyers discredit another

Kambol (Phnom Penh, Cambodia). 17/02/2009: Phork Khan and lawyer Martine Jacquin, at the opening of Duch’s trial at the ECCC (Photo: John Vink/ Magnum/ file picture)

10-07-2009
By Stéphanie Gée
Ka-set

Wednesday July 8th, the hearing opened with a twist in the case of witness Norng Chanphal, aged 8 when he was taken to S-21 with his mother. Phork Khan, another civil party, then finished testifying, after other contradictions were highlighted in his statement. He was then succeeded by a survivor of re-education centre Prey Sar (S-24), whose insufficiently focused examination lost sight of the facts being judged. The tribunal’s public gallery, which contains 500 seats, has continued to be filled with visitors. Last week, 2,078 people made the trip to the court to attend Duch’s trial.

Witness Chanphal’s mother was killed in S-21

The co-Prosecutors did not wait to announce the “good news:” the Documentation Centre of Cambodia (DC-Cam) had just found the biography of Norng Chanphal’s mother, established in S-21. In the absence of such a document, the accused had said, during the survivor’s testimony on Thursday July 2nd, that the woman had not been imprisoned in the detention centre – nor had her son, as a consequence. After the new document was shown on the screen, the defence bowed while the accused recognised its authenticity and offered his apologies, through the intermediary of the judges, to Norng Chanphal. “The document is new. I was not aware of it at the time he testified, but I accept it.” As no parties raised any objection, the document was considered as added to the file and presented to the court.

An inaccurate written statement

The hearing of civil party Phork Khan, started on the previous day, resumed with questions from the office of the co-Prosecutors. He said he had not returned to the place he believed to be Choeung Ek, where he miraculously escaped certain death. With help from local human rights NGO Adhoc, Phork Khan filed an application to join Duch’s trial as a civil party in 2008. The application file contained his story, as recorded by the organisation. In light of the many contradictions that appeared on the previous day between his written and oral statements, the co-Prosecutors proceeded to some checking: “Were you read the document?” “I read it briefly [when it was communicated to me by the NGO],” the witness answered. “I did not read everything very carefully. I was told it was very urgent to send the document back quickly, so I hastily thumbprinted it.” And it was obvious he did not have a chance to proofread or update the statement before he appeared in court.

Click to Read More...

S21 child barred as civil party

Friday, 20 March 2009
Written by Georgia Wilkins and Neth Pheaktra
The Phnom Penh Post

Judges deny alleged Tuol Sleng survivor legal status at tribunal

A MAN believed to be a child survivor of the notorious Tuol Sleng detention centre will not be allowed to represent himself as a civil party in the upcoming trial of Kaing Guek Eav, the prison's chief, judges ruled earlier this month.

Though more than 12,000 men, women and children perished at the camp, known as S21, under the Khmer Rouge regime, Norng Chunphal was lucky enough to hide in a pile of clothes when the last remaining prisoners were slaughtered.

The 39-year-old applied to become a civil party two days after the cut-off for applicants in February, and judges have now ruled against allowing discretion to his case.

"I am not very happy with this decision because I really wanted to be one of the civil parties in this case," Norng Chunphal told the Post.

"I was late to apply because I work in a rural area.... But I don't have any other choice except to be a witness, and I think I can participate in the trial to bring justice to the victims, especially the victims of S-21 prison in which my parents were detained and killed," he added.

Researchers located the child survivor only last month when newly obtained archival footage from Vietnam indicated that he, along with his brother and two others, were likely to be alive.

After the court's Victim's Unit denied his late application, lawyers for the survivor filed a motion to appeal the deadline.

"Yes, I believe it is unfair, but I believe that we would have had no chance whatsoever [to appeal or request a reconsideration], as they would have respected the discretion of the presiding judge," civil party lawyer Alain Werner said, who confirmed Norng Chunphal had been added to their witness list.

"... the judges, all along ... were extremely clear about the fact that they would not accept any application filed late.... So we do not want to fight a lost battle, and a request to include him as a witness was the best solution given the circumstances," he added.

"Practically, that will mean that his testimony will carry more weight. But, of course, he will not be entitled to reparation [as a civil party]. And that is unfair," he said.

As the only child to survive the prison, there was a significant push to include him as a party to the proceedings, with lawyers focusing on the issue at the initial hearing of the case in February.

According to the court's rules, the president of the chamber may, by special decision, extend or shorten the deadline. However a decision, dated March 11 but obtained by the Post Thursday, says that Norng Chunphal's reason for missing the deadline was not deserving of discretion.

"...considerable efforts were made by the ECCC to inform the public of the existing deadlines....Consequently, the trial chamber denies the motion," it said.

Though the decision is classified "public", it has not been posted on the ECCC website.

Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, whose researchers led the hunt to find the surviving children, said he was disappointed with the decision.

"He put his application in late. It is not his fault but it is the law," he said.
"This will hopefully serve as a case to improve the current procedure of reaching out to what is the most vital audience - victims in remote areas," he added.

The substantive part of Kaing Guek Eav's trial, the first at the war crimes court, begins on March 30.

Though Norng Chunphal has been added onto the civil parties' witness list, it is up to judges as to whether or not he will be called upon during the trial.

Norng Chanphal, a surviving child of S-21, pleads to become Civil Party at Duch trial

Ta Lorng, (Kompong Speu, Cambodia), 24/02/2009. Norng Chanphal, one of the four children who survived S-21. (Photo: Vandy Rattana)

04-03-2009
By Duong Sokha, with Stéphanie Gée
Ka-set

Norng Chanphal is the last victim who submitted an application to become a civil party before the Khmer Rouge court as part of Case 1, the trial of Khmer Rouge torturer Duch. He did so on February 4th exactly, i.e. two days after the official deadline for applications and 13 days before the opening of the technical preparation hearing of the trial of S-21 director at the Trial Chamber. Introducing himself as a key-witness on the basis that he survived, as a child, the hell of the detention and torture centre, Chanphal caused a stir with his sudden show-up. Ka-set went to meet Norng Chanphal in the province of Kampong Speu.

Click to Read More...

Soldier Defends Tuol Sleng Film

Former Vietnamese Army photographer, Ho Van Tay, right, and reporter Dinh Phong, left, gather with Cambodian Norng Chanphal, 39, along with his daughters Chen Amara, 6, and Chen Kimty, 13, at Toul Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, Feb 15, 2009. Chanphal was one of five children discovered by the former Vietnamese Army journalists when the infamous S21 prison was liberated in January of 1979. A U.N.-backed genocide tribunal is set to begin on Feb. 17, 2009, to try five Khmer Rouge leaders accused of crimes against humanity. Kaing Guek Eav, the commander of Toul Sleng under the Khmer rouge, also known 'Duch' will be the first leader tried. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

By Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
20 February 2009

A Vietnamese soldier and cameraman defended as “true” a film he shot of Tuol Sleng prison during the ouster of the Khmer Rouge, which could be used as evidence in tribunal proceedings.

Ding Phong, now 71, shot footage of Tuol Sleng prison as Vietnamese forces liberated Phnom Penh in Januray 1979, but the film has come under criticism from defense lawyers for former Khmer Rouge leaders facing atrocity crimes trials.

“The documentary shot in Tuol Sleng is true,” Dinh Phong said Thursday, before returning to Vietnam after a six-day visit to Cambodia to deliver his film to researchers. “What we shot 30 years ago is the truth.”

Lawyers for Khmer Rouge prison chief Duch, who is the first to face trial under the tribunal, said the films were not unbiased.

“This is a documentary which has a political character,” said Kar Savuth, an attorney for Duch, or Kaing Kek Iev, who saw his initial trial hearing this week. “It cannot be used [as evidence] in the trial.”

“What he mentioned is an accusation,” Dinh Phong said, denying the political assertion.

Tribunal prosecutor Chea Leang has requested that two Vietnamese filmmakers, who have donated their films to the Documentation Center of Cambodia, be brought before the Trial Chamber of the Khmer Rouge tribunal, to defend their work.

Dinh Phong said Thursday he would only answer questions outside the court.

The butcher of Tuol Sleng

The UN-backed genocide tribunal began trying 5 former Cambodian leaders for the death of 1.7 million people this week

February 20, 2009
The Electric New Paper (Singapore)

AMID the quiet countryside once filled with anguished screams of the innocent, the former maths teacher added up the figures and made an entry into a notebook.

Kaing Guek Eav, the butcher of Tuol Sleng, was carefully tabulating the misery, torture and death he had inflicted on his fellow Cambodians.

Better known as Duch, he oversaw the Khmer Rouge's security apparatus and ran the regime's killing machine with cold, numerical precision, reported the Phnom Penh Post.

The Khmer Rouge's reign of terror in Cambodia lasted from 1975 to 1979. About 1.7million people (over a quarter of the population then) died in the Khmer Rouge's self-inflicted genocide.

And Duch was the chief executioner who oversaw the torture and extermination of 16,000 men, women and children at Tuol Sleng centre.

On the run since 1979, he was finally caught in 1999.

He is now on trial for crimes against humanity in Cambodia.

One New Paper journalist who visited the centre three decades after the killing said it still made her hair stand.

That is of little wonder if you read how The Times described the situation there through the eyes of some former guards and prisoners.

Him Huy, a seasoned executioner at Tuol Sleng, said he would study the list of names of people he would kill that night. When the silent, terrified prisoners had been lifted on to his lorry, he drove them out to the pretty orchard on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.

There, he took them one by one to the ditches that had been freshly dug, forced them to kneel and clubbed them to death with an iron bar.

'Sometimes it took just one blow, sometimes two,' he told The Times.

'After I clubbed them, someone else would slit their throats. But every time I clubbed someone to death, I would think, tomorrow, this might be me kneeling here, with one of the other guards killing me.'

Climate of fear

No one was safe.

'Out of my interrogation unit of 12, only I survived,' said Prak Khan, a soldier who became a torturer at the prison.

Bou Meng, an artist who was taken to S-21 in 1977, remembers how Duch would visit the room where he and dozens of other prisoners were shackled to the floor.

'He ordered me to beat the man beside me with a bamboo cane while he watched,' he said. 'Then Duch ordered the man to beat me. You could see the pleasure in his face.'

Duch was a frequent visitor to the torture rooms, where he drove the interrogation units to ever harsher techniques as they worked through the day and night in four-hour shifts.

Screaming all around

'The sound of screaming was all around us all the time,' said Vann Nath, a former prisoner and now a renowned artist.

Duch kept a meticulous record of the prison's workings and read every confession.

Often, he would send them back with corrections marked in red pen, as if they were the test papers of a reluctant student.

'Sometimes the confessions came back saying, 'must get more from the prisoner',' said Prak Khan.

The prisoners were deemed guilty simply because they had been accused - and it was the interrogators' duty to force them to admit that guilt.

Many admitted to crimes they did not even understand. 'I had not even heard of the CIA,' said Bou Meng.

'But they beat me with bamboo rods and electric cables until I confessed that I worked for the CIA and the KGB.'

'We kept torturing them until they confessed,' said Prak Khan. 'If they didn't, the torture got worse. We pulled out their finger and toenails and gave them electric shocks.

'Sometimes we would tie a bag over their heads so they suffocated. We'd take it off just as they were about to fall unconscious. If they still didn't confess, they'd be killed.'

Some inmates were sent to a clinic to 'donate' blood to the army hospitals.

Prak Khan, whose interrogation room was adjacent to the doctors' clinic, said: 'They would bring the prisoners blindfolded and tie them to the beds with their legs and arms spread out. They attached lines to their arms.

'The tubes led to a bottle on the floor. They pumped all the blood out until the bodies were limp. Then they threw the bodies into pits outside.'

Hell for guards too

The guards lived through their own hell. Him Huy, known to the prisoners as 'Cruel Him', said: 'One day I would be guarding prisoners with another soldier and that afternoon the other soldier would be arrested. You always expected to be arrested.'

Prak Khan often recognised old friends among the people taken into S-21.

'When I heard the names of people I knew, I pretended I didn't know them,' he said.

'If I showed I recognised them I would be killed too.'

Norng Chan Pal, a child survivor of the prison, told a press conference on Monday that he wanted Duch to face justice 'because Duch's hands are full of blood,' reported AFP.

Now, 49, he cried as he described making a recent visit to the prison, which is now a genocide museum, and returning to the spot where he last saw his own mother.

'I miss my mother,' he said.

'I looked at the place where my mother looked at me through a window on the second storey. I never saw her again.'

Long Overdue: The Khmer Rouge is finally made responsible for its atrocities

Thursday, February 19, 2009
By THE HARVARD CRIMSON Staff
Harvard University (USA)

After a decade of tedious negotiations and delays, the former Khmer Rouge officer Kaing Guek Eav—known to the world as “Duch”—has finally been brought to trial.While in charge of a notorious Khmer Rouge prison camp in the late 1970s, Duch oversaw the systematic mass murder of approximately 15,000 inmates. Now he sits in a Phnom Penh courtroom, watching his own fate unfold.

Some might say that the actions of an evil but long-gone Cambodian regime 30 years ago have little bearing on the world of today. But the Khmer Rouge’s brutal genocide, which eliminated about one-fourth of Cambodia’s population, deserves to be prosecuted accordingly.

Even though Duch himself cannot possibly account for more than a small fraction of Khmer Rouge atrocities, it is important to recognize the regime’s crimes on an individual basis through international law. While the 10 years of disorganization between Duch’s discovery in 1999 and the beginning of his trial this past week leave much to be desired in terms of legal procedure, it is comforting that the tribunal prosecuting Duch in Phnom Penh has been organized with the support of the United Nations.

Though it might be difficult to determine proper punishment for a man who killed and ordered the deaths of so many fellow citizens, we are glad to see that the death penalty will not be an option. Fortunately, in the system that will try Duch and other former Khmer Rouge officials, criminals will be brought to justice with the humanity and due process that their victims were denied.

In this vein, it is essential that Duch be offered a fair trial. This week, there has been much debate as to whether to allow Norng Chan Phal, a rare survivor of Duch’s infamous S-21 camp, to be part of the prosecution, even though he missed the filing deadline by two days. While it may seem harsh, Phal should be excluded. The rules—trivial as they may seem— must be upheld above all else. The trial must be conducted with meticulous attention to legal procedure as a tribute to Duch’s prisoners, who were never given such an opportunity.

There is no way to truly make amends for the cold, calculated murder of one-fourth of a nation’s people. But the trial of Kaing Guek Eav allows at least some measure of justice for the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge.

Khmer Rouge Child Survivor Speaks Out

Norng Chan Phal, speaking at a conference on Monday in Phnom Penh.

By VOA Khmer, Washington
Video Editor: Manilene Ek
18 February 2009

On the eve of the first ever trial for crimes committed under the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, a previously unknown survivor from a notorious torture camp has emerged, 30 years on, to tell his story.

Norng Chan Phal: "Because they (the S-21 guards) were in a rush one Khmer Rouge soldier came back to find us but because he was in a rush he cound not find us. I hid there and hoped my mum would come and find us there."

Norning Chan Phal was one of five children found by a Vietnamese camera team who stumbled upon the abandoned S-21 prison in January 1979, following the Vietnamese invasion that overthrew the Khmer Rouge. Ho Van Tay, was the Vietnamese cameraman who discovered the torture camp.

Ho Van Tay: "We were really shocked when we entered some of the cells. We saw women's bodies which were still shackled to a very large iron pole. This showed the brutality of the Khmer Rouge."

At a news conference in Phnom Penh on Monday (February 16 2009) he wept as he recalled seeing his mother kicked and pushed by the camp guards- he did not see her again.

Norng Chan Phal: "Whenever I go to Tuol Sleng I think of my mum and I am shocked because I see the place where she was kicked. The guard kicked her from behind and pushed her hard. Whenver I remember I am still so shocked."

Duch, who converted to Christianity, has asked for forgiveness from his victims. His trial is expected to last up to 4 months.

Information for this report was provided by APTN.

Former prison chief on trial for Khmer Rouge atrocities

February 18, 2009
Anne Barrowclough, Phnom Penh
The Australian

THE torturer-in-chief of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime went before a UN-backed genocide tribunal yesterday for the long-awaited first trial into the "Killing Fields" atrocities of 30 years ago.

The 66-year-old former maths teacher Kaing Guek Eav -- better known as Duch -- sat in the dock for an initial hearing into charges that he ran the main prison centre for the hardline communist regime that killed up to two million people.
Duch was the director of the infamous Tuol Sleng prison, the interrogation centre that came to symbolise the horrors of Pol Pot's regime.

Between 1976 and 1979 up to 17,000 men, women and children were sent to his prison to be tortured and killed. Only a handful survived.

His trial, and those of four other Khmer Rouge leaders that will follow, are hugely significant for Cambodia, where a culture of impunity has meant the leaders of one of the most genocidal regimes in modern history have gone unjudged and unpunished.

It will give the Cambodian people their first opportunity to understand what went so wrong in their country, and why so many of their lives were destroyed.

Hundreds of victims of the regime, along with the few remaining survivors of Tuol Sleng, packed the courtroom of the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia along with diplomats, foreign observers and Buddhist monks to watch the proceedings. They were separated from Duch by bullet-proof glass.

Many had travelled from remote rural villages to the courtroom, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, to see justice finally done.

Duch, pasty-faced from nine years in prison and wearing a freshly pressed, pale blue shirt, watched the judge intently, his face impassive.

His guard dropped only when trial chamber president Nil Nonn announced he would be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity. His shoulders moved as he gave a small sigh, and he dropped his eyes.

"This is momentous, historic," said Theary Seng, who was orphaned by the regime and is now a spokesman for Pol Pot's victims.

"After my mother was taken to be executed I felt like I was an empty shell, and I have never stopped feeling like that. There is a great level of satisfaction that today has come."

At the back of the court, one of those victims sat alone, watching his former tormentor intensely.

"When I see Duch I feel angry all over again," he said, never taking his eyes off the man who was responsible for the deaths of his parents.

Norng Chan Phal was eight when he was taken to Tuol Sleng with his mother and younger brothers after his father, a Khmer Rouge cadre, was arrested by the regime. He never saw his parents again.

In 1979, as the regime fell and its soldiers fled, a Vietnamese film crew found him, naked and starving, lying in piles of rubbish. He was too weak to stand, as were the four children with him. Alongside them lay a dead toddler.

Duch was arrested in 1999 when a journalist found him working as a Christian aid worker in the jungle, and was transferred to the tribunal in July 2007.

He has previously expressed regret for his crimes.

Tuol Sleng was at the heart of the Khmer Rouge security apparatus and thousands of inmates were taken from there during Duch's tenure for execution at nearby Choeung Ek, an orchard now known as the "Killing Fields".

Led by "Brother Number One" Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge was responsible for one of the worst horrors of the 20th century, wiping out nearly a quarter of the population -- 1.7 million people -- through starvation, overwork and execution. Rising to power as a tragic spin-off from the US conflict in Vietnam, the movement emptied Cambodia's cities to take society back to a rural "year zero", purging city dwellers, intellectuals and even people who wore glasses.

The Times, AP, AFP

Khmer Rouge child survivor speaks out

February 17, 2009
By Sopheng Cheang
AP

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- The first known child survivor of the Khmer Rouge's largest torture center said Monday he and his brother hid in a pile of rags as captors who killed his mother fled approaching Vietnamese troops 30 years ago.

Norng Chan Phal, now a 38-year-old father of two, was eight when the Vietnamese stormed into Phnom Penh to end the Khmer Rouge reign of terror. He was held at the notorious S-21 prison where some 16,000 men, women and children were brutally tortured and executed.

Camp commander Kaing Guek Eav, goes before a U.N.-backed tribunal Tuesday. Better known as Duch, he will be the first of five former Khmer Rouge leaders to stand trial for crimes against humanity.

Phal said at a news conference Monday he and three other children, including his brother, lived through the ordeal, but that his mother was killed. Earlier, only 14 adults were believed to have survived incarceration.

Phal's story surfaced last week when previously unseen footage was shown of Vietnamese troops entering the prison, also known as Tuol Sleng. It showed living children and many adult corpses, some decapitated.

Duch is accused of having committed or abetted a range of crimes including murder, torture, rape and persecutions on political grounds.

The charges stem from the Khmer Rouge's 1975-79 brutal rule over Cambodia, during which at least 1.7 million people died of disease, starvation or execution.

Phal, who grew up in an orphanage, said his father was arrested and taken to Tuol Sleng in 1978. Six months later his mother was arrested, and he and his brother were sent to the prison with her.

His mother was put in a cell on the second floor while he and his brother were sent to the prison kitchen. They helped tend the vegetable garden.

“I saw my mom look through the window at us. The next day I never saw my mother again,” he said.

Phal broke down in tears at a news conference as he described revisiting Tuol Sleng, which is now a genocide museum.

Phal said he and other children hid in a pile of discarded prisoners' clothing in January 1979. The prisoner guards shouted at them to come as they loaded the prisoners in trucks to take them away before the arrival of Vietnamese forces.

“A woman came to put the kids in the vehicle. I called my sibling to hide in the clothes. Because they were in a rush they couldn't find us. I hid there and hoped my mother would come and find us,” he said.

The Vietnamese soldiers gave them food and later took them to the hospital.

Two of the Vietnamese photographers who shot the films — Ho Van Tay and Dinh Phong — were also at the news conference.

They said they arrived at Tuol Sleng and found five children who had been hiding. One of them later died.

The films were recently given by the Vietnamese government to the Cambodia Documentation Center, a U.S.-funded effort which has collected some 1 million documents related to the Khmer Rouge era.

Khmer Rouge Torture Centre Survivor Talks

Khmer Rouge S-21 survivor Phal weeps during a conference in Phnom Penh

Monday February 16, 2009
Sky News

A child survivor of the Khmer Rouge's largest torture centre has emerged from obscurity to tell his story on the eve of a crimes against humanity trial in Cambodia.

Norng Chan Phal, now a 39-year-old father of two, said he was eight when the Vietnamese stormed into Phnom Penh to end the Khmer Rouge reign of terror.

He was held at the notorious S-21 prison where some 16,000 men, women and children were brutally tortured and executed.

Phal came forward last week after a film from Vietnam was screened showing Vietnamese troops entering the prison, also known as Tuol Sleng.

The man who ran the prison, Kaing Guek Eav, is due to go before a UN-backed tribunal on Tuesday.

Better known as Duch, he will be the first of five former Khmer Rouge leaders to stand trial for crimes against humanity.

He faces charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and homicide while he ran the centre.

It comes 30 years after the fall of Cambodia's "Killing Fields" regime.

Nearly every Cambodian family lost loved ones during the 1975-79 period of Khmer Rouge rule that claimed an estimated 1.7 million lives.

Phal has said he will present himself at the trial, according to The Phnom Penh Post.

"I haven't presented myself before because I felt hesitant," he told the newspaper.

"The Khmer Rouge tribunal has been delayed and left victims to feel hopeless about justice.

"It has meant that the regime's top leaders died one by one."

Child survived Khmer Rouge torture center

Former Vietnamese Army photographer, Ho Van Tay, right, and reporter Dinh Phong, left, gather with Cambodian Norng Chanphal, 39, along with his daughters Chen Amara, 6, and Chen Kimty, 13, at Toul Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, Feb 15, 2009. Chanphal was one of five children discovered by the former Vietnamese Army journalists when the infamous S21 prison was liberated in January of 1979. A U.N.-backed genocide tribunal is set to begin on Feb. 17, 2009, to try five Khmer Rouge leaders accused of crimes against humanity. Kaing Guek Eav, the commander of Toul Sleng under the Khmer rouge, also known 'Duch' will be the first leader tried. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

By SOPHENG CHEANG

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — The first known child survivor of the Khmer Rouge's largest torture center said Monday he and his brother hid in a pile of rags as captors who killed his mother fled approaching Vietnamese troops 30 years ago.

Norng Chan Phal, now a 38-year-old father of two, was eight when the Vietnamese stormed into Phnom Penh to end the Khmer Rouge reign of terror. He was held at the notorious S-21 prison where some 16,000 men, women and children were brutally tortured and executed.

Camp commander Kaing Guek Eav, goes before a U.N.-backed tribunal Tuesday. Better known as Duch, he will be the first of five former Khmer Rouge leaders to stand trial for crimes against humanity.

Phal said at a news conference Monday he and three other children, including his brother, lived through the ordeal, but that his mother was killed. Earlier, only 14 adults were believed to have survived incarceration.

Phal's story surfaced last week when previously unseen footage was shown of Vietnamese troops entering the prison, also known as Tuol Sleng. It showed living children and many adult corpses, some decapitated.

Duch is accused of having committed or abetted a range of crimes including murder, torture, rape and persecutions on political grounds.

The charges stem from the Khmer Rouge's 1975-79 brutal rule over Cambodia, during which at least 1.7 million people died of disease, starvation or execution.

Phal, who grew up in an orphanage, said his father was arrested and taken to Tuol Sleng in 1978. Six months later his mother was arrested, and he and his brother were sent to the prison with her.

His mother was put in a cell on the second floor while he and his brother were sent to the prison kitchen. They helped tend the vegetable garden.

"I saw my mom look through the window at us. The next day I never saw my mother again," he said.

Phal broke down in tears at a news conference as he described revisiting Tuol Sleng, which is now a genocide museum.

"I look at the place where I saw my mother through the window and I still pity her for being kicked and pushed by the Khmer Rouge," he said.

Phal said he and other children hid in a pile of discarded prisoners' clothing in January 1979. The prisoner guards shouted at them to come as they loaded the prisoners in trucks to take them away before the arrival of Vietnamese forces.

"A woman came to put the kids in the vehicle. I called my sibling to hide in the clothes. Because they were in a rush they couldn't find us. I hid there and hoped my mother would come and find us," he said.

The Vietnamese soldiers gave them food and later took them to the hospital.

Two of the Vietnamese photographers who shot the films - Ho Van Tay and Dinh Phong - were also at the news conference.

They said they arrived at Tuol Sleng and found five children who had been hiding. One of them later died.

The films were recently given by the Vietnamese government to the Cambodia Documentation Center, a U.S.-funded effort which has collected some 1 million documents related to the Khmer Rouge era.

First Khmer Rouge war crimes to start soon

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia, Feb. 16 (UPI) -- A survivor of the Khmer Rough death camps said he decided to come forward to get justice for his parents who were killed at one of the facilities.

Norng Chan Phal, 38, is expected to testify during the trial of Toul Sleng's prison director, Kaing Kech Ieu, also known as Comrade Duch, the first trial of a major Khmer Rouge officer in 30 years, The Times of London reported. A pretrial hearing for the camp director is scheduled for Tuesday on his alleged crimes against humanity, torture and homicide committed while he was the prison's director.

Testimony presented by Norng Chan Phal, who was a child when imprisoned, during the U.N.-authorized trial will offer the first direct account of child prisoners at Tuol Sleng.

Between 1975 and 1979 about 17,000 men, women and children accused of counterrevolutionary crimes were sent to Tuol Sleng. Only 14 adults and five children were found alive at the camp, the British newspaper said.

Norng Chan Phal on Monday spoke of his arrest and incarceration in the prison's children's unit. He said he never saw his mother after the second day he, his mother and two siblings were taken to the camp.

"Duch has blood on his hands," Norng Chan Phal, who has been living in rural Cambodia since his release 30 years ago, told The Times.

About 1.7 million people died during the four years Khmer Rouge was in power, overthrowing the U.S.-backed government in 1975. Pol Pot died in 1978.

Tuol Sleng survivor misses deadline, chance to become civil party

Sunday, 15 February 2009
Written by Elena Lesley
The Phnom Penh Post

Court monitor ADHOC (the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association) has decried the tribunal's refusal to accept Tuol Sleng survivor Norng Chan Pal as a civil party in the case of "Comrade Duch."

Researchers for DC-Cam recently located Norng, one of five child survivors identified in archival footage of Tuol Sleng. He was detained there with his mother.

Despite his status as one of the torture center's few survivors, Norng has been told he cannot become a civil party in Duch's case. He missed the Feb. 2 filing deadline by two days.

"We consider any refusal to accept a civil party application in such circumstances as a serious breach of victim's right to participate in the Khmer Rouge trials, and derives from an internal rule that unnecessarily restricts victims rights beyond those enjoyed under Cambodian law," ADHOC wrote in a statement released Friday.

The ECCC's internal rules are more strict than those of the Cambodian Criminal Procedure Code, which allow civil parties to join a case anytime before the prosecutor begins his closing arguments.

"Victims should not be penalized for late applications given the clear limits of information and advice available relating to the ECCC," the statement continues. "Victims should not be forced to be spectators to a process that they wish to engage in."

ADHOC goes on to request that the court loosen its application rules and, at the very least, allow Tuol Sleng survivors to become civil parties in the case of Tuol Sleng's torture chief.

The debate over this missed deadline has raised a familiar question in my mind: Why do many Khmer Rouge survivors seem hesitant to come forward and participate in legal action against the regime's leaders? Yes, a good number of civil party applications and complaints have been filed, but I still encounter many people who I think could very well qualify as civil parties, yet they seemingly have no interest in doing so.

I would be curious to get your thoughts on this matter.

Is it because outreach efforts are insufficient? Are people nervous about the prospect of retribution? Do people distrust the court? Are some simply too emotionally scarred to dredge up their past sufferings?

Child of Khmer Rouge Prison Emerges

Former S-21 child prisoners: Norng Channy (L) and Norng Chanphal (R) (Photo: Mean Rith, RFA)

By Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
12 February 2009

Sitting at a small table in the office of the Documentation Center of Cambodia Wednesday, Nang Chan Sophal, 39, waited to watch a film of Tuol Sleng prison shot by Vietnamese soldiers in January 1979.

He is one of four children depicted in the film.

“They brought my father, but I don’t know when,” he said. “And three or six months later, Khmer Rouge soldiers came in two jeeps with five or six persons and arrested my mother in Phnom Sruoch district, Kampong Speu province.”

He gazed at the floor.

He is the first former child prisoner of Tuol Sleng to be publicly announced, just ahead of the trial of the man who once ran Tuol Sleng prison, Kaing Kek Iev. An initial hearing in his tribunal trial opens Feb. 17. More than 12,000 Cambodians were tortured at the site, to be later executed and dumped into mass graves.

Nang Chan Sophal was taken with his mother to the prison with his two younger brothers and sister, sometime in the middle of 1978. He was 7 or 8 years old.

For nearly one year, Nang Chan Sophal and his siblings stayed in Tuol Sleng with four or five other children. They were separated from the adults. They were not tortured or forced into labor, he said.

Every day, however, he would hear the tortured cries of prisoners as they begged their jailers to tell them what they had done wrong.

On Jan. 7, 1979, the day the Vietnamese ousted the Khmer Rouge from Phnom Penh, cadre of the regime tried to carry children with them in flight. He and his siblings hid in a pile of prisoners’ clothes, behind a building in Tuol Sleng. One soldier in particular came looking for them, passing the pile of clothes two or three times.

“I was waiting for my mother,” he said Wednesday. “I pictured her watching us through the window of the building as we hid. And then as the liberation came, all the gates of the prison were opened. Khmer Rouge soldiers went out, and then I was trying to find my mother everywhere in the prison. I couldn’t find her. I saw many bodies of those who had died very recently, on the beds, covered in documents, near typewriters. I sifted through the papers to see the bodies.”

He never found his mother. He was taken along with his siblings to a state orphanage. One brother, as well as his sister, were adopted by “foreigners” during the State of Cambodia. He has lost touch with them. Now a resident of Phnom Penh, Nang Chan Sophal drives a bulldozer for a living. His younger brother drives a tractor.

Earlier this month, he prepared a complaint against Kaing Kek Iev, better known as Duch, who faces a number of atrocity crimes charges for his role as Tuol Sleng chief.

“I heard that Duch would be tried soon, and it interested me to prepare the complaint for justice of the death of my parents, and for the nation, for other victims,” Nang Chan Sophal said.