Showing posts with label Van Nath. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Van Nath. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
Friday, January 23, 2009
Survivor Welcomes Impending Trial of Duch
By Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Washington
22 January 2009
Washington
22 January 2009
A survivor of Cambodia’s killing fields says he welcomes the news that jailed prison chief Duch will finally see trial, with the date of his initial hearing fast approaching.
Van Nath, who survived the Tuol Sleng prison where Duch was the director and where at least 12,000 Cambodians were tortured and later executed, said the upcoming trial, scheduled for February and March, was “the chance we have been waiting for, so long coming.”
Van Nath, 64, was among only a handful of inmates to survive the prison, which has been turned into a museum in Phnom Penh. He survived because he was able to paint portraits of Pol Pot and other leaders.
“But most important is the day of liberation, Jan. 7,” he said, referring to the day in 1979 when Vietnamese forces pushed the Khmer Rouge, out of Phnom Penh. “I was out of prison on that day.”
For his role as director of Tuol Sleng, Duch, 66, whose real name is Kaing Kek Iev, faces charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The initial hearing of his trial under the Khmer Rouge tribunal will be held Feb. 17. His trial is expected to begin in earnest in March.
Tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath called the beginning of the trial “a response to the expectations of millions of people and the victims who suffered under the regime of Democratic Kampuchea."
Van Nath, who survived the Tuol Sleng prison where Duch was the director and where at least 12,000 Cambodians were tortured and later executed, said the upcoming trial, scheduled for February and March, was “the chance we have been waiting for, so long coming.”
Van Nath, 64, was among only a handful of inmates to survive the prison, which has been turned into a museum in Phnom Penh. He survived because he was able to paint portraits of Pol Pot and other leaders.
“But most important is the day of liberation, Jan. 7,” he said, referring to the day in 1979 when Vietnamese forces pushed the Khmer Rouge, out of Phnom Penh. “I was out of prison on that day.”
For his role as director of Tuol Sleng, Duch, 66, whose real name is Kaing Kek Iev, faces charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The initial hearing of his trial under the Khmer Rouge tribunal will be held Feb. 17. His trial is expected to begin in earnest in March.
Tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath called the beginning of the trial “a response to the expectations of millions of people and the victims who suffered under the regime of Democratic Kampuchea."
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Survivor recalls horrors of Cambodia genocide
Cambodia's notorious Tuol Sleng Prison, where some 14,000 were held, is now a museum.
This painting depicts one of the Pol Pot regime's most heinous crimes: the slaughter of infants.CNN Chief International Correspondent
Editor's note: Christiane Amanpour is currently in production on a major CNN documentary that focuses on those people who stood up and said, "Listen! We must stop the killing. Stop the genocide."
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (CNN) -- A recently disclosed memo gave U.S. interrogators the ability to use harsh methods -- what many call "torture" -- to extract information from terrorist suspects after 9/11. Around the world, critics saw it as another blow to American prestige and moral authority.
The 2003 document also invokes wartime powers to protect interrogators who violate the Geneva Conventions, for example, by the use of waterboarding -- when a prisoner is made to think he is drowning.
Half a world away, the divisive debate over whether waterboarding constitutes torture comes into sharp relief at the infamous S-21, Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
This is where the genocidal regime of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge imprisoned and brutalized its enemies from 1975 to 1979. I visited the once secret S-21, now a museum, with Van Nath, a former inmate. He remembers being brought here blindfolded and terrified:
"I thought that was the end of my life," he told me. "In my room people kept dying, one or two every day."
Van Nath was kept in a room packed with 50 other inmates, shackled together and forced to lie down.
"We could not sit. If we wanted to sit, we had to ask permission first. No talking, whispering or making noise," he told me.
Van Nath described how male prisoners were whipped raw, their fingernails were yanked out, they were hogtied to wooden bars. Prison guards mutilated women's genitals, ripped off their nipples with pliers. And worst of all, babies were ripped from their mothers' arms and slaughtered.
Van Nath was accused of being a CIA agent and given electric shock torture, but he survived when his jailers found out he was one of Cambodia's most prominent painters. And what did they make him paint?
"Pol Pot's picture. Big pictures," he told me. "I had to paint the same one again and again. If they didn't like my painting, that would have been the end of my life."
So when Pol Pot finally fell in 1979, Van Nath returned to paint what he had really seen and heard at S-21. He did it as a memorial to the 14,000 who had been tortured and executed in the prison. It's one of the few public reminders of the regime's crimes.
Take water torture, for instance. Van Nath remembers it as if it were yesterday. I gasped as I entered a room filled with his vivid depictions.
One of his paintings shows a prisoner blindfolded and hoisted onto a makeshift scaffold by two guards. He is then lowered head first into a massive barrel of water. Another shows a prisoner with cloth over his face, writhing as an interrogator pours water over his head.
Van Nath still remembers the accompanying screams: "It sounded like when we are really in pain, choking in water," he told me. "The sound was screaming, from the throat. I suppose they could not bear the torture.
"Whenever we heard the noises we were really shocked and scared. We thought one day they will do the same thing to us."
As he talked and showed me around, my mind raced to the debate in the United States over this same tactic used on its prisoners nearly 40 years later. I stared blankly at another of Van Nath's paintings. This time a prisoner is submerged in a life-size box full of water, handcuffed to the side so he cannot escape or raise his head to breathe. His interrogators, arrayed around him, are demanding information.
I asked Van Nath whether he had heard this was once used on America's terrorist suspects. He nodded his head. "It's not right," he said.
But I pressed him: Is it torture? "Yes," he said quietly, "it is severe torture. We could try it and see how we would react if we are choking under water for just two minutes. It is very serious."
Back then, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge cadres recognized this for what it was and used it with brutal efficiency. The Cambodian genocide ultimately killed 2 million people.
Fourteen thousand of them had passed through the gates of hell at Tuol Sleng Prison.
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (CNN) -- A recently disclosed memo gave U.S. interrogators the ability to use harsh methods -- what many call "torture" -- to extract information from terrorist suspects after 9/11. Around the world, critics saw it as another blow to American prestige and moral authority.
The 2003 document also invokes wartime powers to protect interrogators who violate the Geneva Conventions, for example, by the use of waterboarding -- when a prisoner is made to think he is drowning.
Half a world away, the divisive debate over whether waterboarding constitutes torture comes into sharp relief at the infamous S-21, Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
This is where the genocidal regime of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge imprisoned and brutalized its enemies from 1975 to 1979. I visited the once secret S-21, now a museum, with Van Nath, a former inmate. He remembers being brought here blindfolded and terrified:
"I thought that was the end of my life," he told me. "In my room people kept dying, one or two every day."
Van Nath was kept in a room packed with 50 other inmates, shackled together and forced to lie down.
"We could not sit. If we wanted to sit, we had to ask permission first. No talking, whispering or making noise," he told me.
Van Nath described how male prisoners were whipped raw, their fingernails were yanked out, they were hogtied to wooden bars. Prison guards mutilated women's genitals, ripped off their nipples with pliers. And worst of all, babies were ripped from their mothers' arms and slaughtered.
Van Nath was accused of being a CIA agent and given electric shock torture, but he survived when his jailers found out he was one of Cambodia's most prominent painters. And what did they make him paint?
"Pol Pot's picture. Big pictures," he told me. "I had to paint the same one again and again. If they didn't like my painting, that would have been the end of my life."
So when Pol Pot finally fell in 1979, Van Nath returned to paint what he had really seen and heard at S-21. He did it as a memorial to the 14,000 who had been tortured and executed in the prison. It's one of the few public reminders of the regime's crimes.
Take water torture, for instance. Van Nath remembers it as if it were yesterday. I gasped as I entered a room filled with his vivid depictions.
One of his paintings shows a prisoner blindfolded and hoisted onto a makeshift scaffold by two guards. He is then lowered head first into a massive barrel of water. Another shows a prisoner with cloth over his face, writhing as an interrogator pours water over his head.
Van Nath still remembers the accompanying screams: "It sounded like when we are really in pain, choking in water," he told me. "The sound was screaming, from the throat. I suppose they could not bear the torture.
"Whenever we heard the noises we were really shocked and scared. We thought one day they will do the same thing to us."
As he talked and showed me around, my mind raced to the debate in the United States over this same tactic used on its prisoners nearly 40 years later. I stared blankly at another of Van Nath's paintings. This time a prisoner is submerged in a life-size box full of water, handcuffed to the side so he cannot escape or raise his head to breathe. His interrogators, arrayed around him, are demanding information.
I asked Van Nath whether he had heard this was once used on America's terrorist suspects. He nodded his head. "It's not right," he said.
But I pressed him: Is it torture? "Yes," he said quietly, "it is severe torture. We could try it and see how we would react if we are choking under water for just two minutes. It is very serious."
Back then, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge cadres recognized this for what it was and used it with brutal efficiency. The Cambodian genocide ultimately killed 2 million people.
Fourteen thousand of them had passed through the gates of hell at Tuol Sleng Prison.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Life at a Khmer Rouge torture center caught on canvas
Photo AFPMCOT (Thailand)
This painting depicts memories of 63-year-old Vann Nath from his days of captivity under the Khmer Rouge. Prisoners were confined to a metal bar. Almost everyday prisoners died. Their corpses were not taken away immediately. Those still alive had to sleep and eat alongside the bodies, knowing the same thing could happen to them.
As the painter Vann Nath can well portray the ill-fated detainees as he was among those confined to a metal bar.
Vann Nath is one of seven survivors- three of which are still alive today- of the dreadful Khmer Rouge’s secret prison where 14,000 men, women and children were interrogated, tortured and executed during 1975 and 1979.
Vann Nath was tortured and nearly killed. Fortunately, his painting skills saved his life, as he was put to work painting and sculpting portraits of the regime’s leader, Polpot.
In 1979, the artist prisoner escaped from S-21 as the Pol Pot regime collapsed under the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. As a survivor, the Cambodian government asked Vann Nath to paint scenes he witnessed in S-21 to show the secret horrors of the ‘Killing Fields’. These works still hang in the former torture center which today is a museum.
Vann Nath said he found difficulty in creating the paintings as it reminded him of the painful years.
“Sometimes it’s very hard. When I start painting, it reminds me of all the pain and the faces of all my friends who were killed. Everyday I can not live peacefully. Sometimes I don’t want to hear and to know anything about it,” said Vann Nath.
However, Vann Nath keeps painting because he wants to let the world know about the endurance of Cambodian people during the Pol Pot regime and to show the younger generations the misery of their ancestors so the regime would never be allowed to resurface.
A series of paintings by Vann Nath, entitled “Endurance” will be shown for the first time in Bangkok at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand until the end of February.
As the painter Vann Nath can well portray the ill-fated detainees as he was among those confined to a metal bar.
Vann Nath is one of seven survivors- three of which are still alive today- of the dreadful Khmer Rouge’s secret prison where 14,000 men, women and children were interrogated, tortured and executed during 1975 and 1979.
Vann Nath was tortured and nearly killed. Fortunately, his painting skills saved his life, as he was put to work painting and sculpting portraits of the regime’s leader, Polpot.
In 1979, the artist prisoner escaped from S-21 as the Pol Pot regime collapsed under the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. As a survivor, the Cambodian government asked Vann Nath to paint scenes he witnessed in S-21 to show the secret horrors of the ‘Killing Fields’. These works still hang in the former torture center which today is a museum.
Vann Nath said he found difficulty in creating the paintings as it reminded him of the painful years.
“Sometimes it’s very hard. When I start painting, it reminds me of all the pain and the faces of all my friends who were killed. Everyday I can not live peacefully. Sometimes I don’t want to hear and to know anything about it,” said Vann Nath.
However, Vann Nath keeps painting because he wants to let the world know about the endurance of Cambodian people during the Pol Pot regime and to show the younger generations the misery of their ancestors so the regime would never be allowed to resurface.
A series of paintings by Vann Nath, entitled “Endurance” will be shown for the first time in Bangkok at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand until the end of February.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Exhibition reveals history
01-30-2008
CCTV.com
CCTV.com
As people in many parts of the world get ready to celebrate elsewhere it's time for remembrance.
A group of artists in Cambodia create a "Khmer Rouge exhibition." They are showing the world, through Art, the tragedy that took place in their homeland under Pol Pot's brutal rule nearly three decades ago.
Under the Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot nearly three decades ago, an estimated 17,000 to 20,000 Cambodians were crammed into the notorious Tuol Sleng prison. Previously the building had served as a high school.
Van Nath was a prisoner of the Khmer Rouge. Today an exhibition at Phnom Penh's Meta House gallery allows him to portray his memories on canvas and tell his story to the world.
Trained as an artist during the Khmer Rouge regime,Nath was forced to work in the 1970s painting pictures of Pol Pot.
Van Nath, artist & Survivor from tuol sleng , said, "If I compare the prison where I was to Nuon Chea prison, it is very different. The prison at the Khmer Rouge court was very good. It had televisions, electricity, mattresses and enough food to eat. At the prison where I was, I was in handcuffs 24 hours a day with no food and no medicine. Now even with today's good prisons, prisoners can still ask to be released on bail.
They complain that they can not stay there. But what about me and the nearly 20,000 people imprisoned at Tuol Sleng?"
The gallery's owner says the exhibition is aimed at helping the country to speak openly about its past.
Nicolas Mesterharm, owner meta house, said, "The young generation we work with knows a little bit. So we try to educate them. We try to bring young and older artists together. Through art, we try to address genocide and the Khmer Rouge atrocities in a society that has not learnt to speak openly about what happened 25 years ago."
The exhibition comes at a time when a joint court established by the Cambodian government and the United Nations is bringing to trial senior members of the Khmer Rouge for crimes against humanity, including genocide.
A group of artists in Cambodia create a "Khmer Rouge exhibition." They are showing the world, through Art, the tragedy that took place in their homeland under Pol Pot's brutal rule nearly three decades ago.
Under the Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot nearly three decades ago, an estimated 17,000 to 20,000 Cambodians were crammed into the notorious Tuol Sleng prison. Previously the building had served as a high school.
Van Nath was a prisoner of the Khmer Rouge. Today an exhibition at Phnom Penh's Meta House gallery allows him to portray his memories on canvas and tell his story to the world.
Trained as an artist during the Khmer Rouge regime,Nath was forced to work in the 1970s painting pictures of Pol Pot.
Van Nath, artist & Survivor from tuol sleng , said, "If I compare the prison where I was to Nuon Chea prison, it is very different. The prison at the Khmer Rouge court was very good. It had televisions, electricity, mattresses and enough food to eat. At the prison where I was, I was in handcuffs 24 hours a day with no food and no medicine. Now even with today's good prisons, prisoners can still ask to be released on bail.
They complain that they can not stay there. But what about me and the nearly 20,000 people imprisoned at Tuol Sleng?"
The gallery's owner says the exhibition is aimed at helping the country to speak openly about its past.
Nicolas Mesterharm, owner meta house, said, "The young generation we work with knows a little bit. So we try to educate them. We try to bring young and older artists together. Through art, we try to address genocide and the Khmer Rouge atrocities in a society that has not learnt to speak openly about what happened 25 years ago."
The exhibition comes at a time when a joint court established by the Cambodian government and the United Nations is bringing to trial senior members of the Khmer Rouge for crimes against humanity, including genocide.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Pol Pot artist links past to present with "Art of Survival"
PHNOM PENH Jan 28 (Reuters Life!) -- Cambodian artist Van Nath's talents saved his life in the 1970s, when he was forcibly put to work painting pictures of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot.
Now the artist, one of a handful of remaining survivors of the regime's notorious Tuol Sleng prison, hopes his latest works will expose the reality of Pol Pot's rule to a new generation.
On show at Phnom Penh gallery Meta House as part of the "Art of Survival" exhibition, his paintings of prison life are aimed at helping visitors deal with the trauma of the Khmer Rouge's 1974-1979 rule, when an estimated 1.7 million people were executed or died of starvation, torture or disease.
But they also hold a mirror up to the present, said Van Nath, throwing the treatment of Khmer Rouge officials currently on trial for crimes during Pol Pot's rule, including "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, who has been linked to Tuol Sleng, into sharp relief.
"If I compare the prison where I was to Nuon Chea prison, it is very different. The prison at the Khmer Rouge court is very good. It has televisions, electricity, mattresses and they have enough food to eat," he told Reuters.
"At the prison where I was, I was in handcuffs 24 hours a day with no food and no medicine. Now even with today's good prisons, prisoners can still ask to be released on bail. They complain that they cannot stay there. But what about me and the nearly 20,000 people who were imprisoned at Tuol Sleng?" Van Nath said.
An estimated 17,000 to 20,000 Cambodians were crammed into Tuol Sleng, also called "Security Prison 21" or "S-21" under the Khmer Rouge, a black-shirted communist guerrilla movement who declared war on modernity after overrunning Phnom Penh in 1975.
They were ousted four years later by a Vietnamese invasion.
Of the tens of thousands accused of betraying the regime at Tuol Sleng, only a dozen are known to have made it out.
The plain three-storied high school building, in a quiet quarter of the capital, is now a public memorial site and museum.
It draws thousands of visitors every year, as do the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek, about 15 kilometres (9 miles) out of the capital, where the remains of many of Tuol Sleng's victims are buried in mass graves.
But some worry the country has not yet processed the trauma of the Pol Pot years, even as high-profile trials of former officials, including Tuol Sleng's former governor, Khang Khekh Ieu, or "Duch", make their way through a United Nations tribunal.
This is where artists such as Van Nath can contribute, said Metahouse gallery owner Nicolas Mesterharm.
"The young generation we work with knows a little bit, so we try to educate them and we try to bring young and older artists together," German-born Mesterharm told Reuters.
"We try to address that issue of genocide and the Khmer Rouge atrocities through art within the society that has not learnt yet to speak openly about what happened 25 years ago," he said.
A number of international documentaries and films, such as the 1984 Oscar-winning "Killing Fields", have brought the country's violent past to international audiences.
And several memoirs written by survivors of the regime sell at tourist sites such as Angkor Wat in the country's north, and Phnom Penh.
But book sellers often say they have not read the English-language stories themselves.
For many young Cambodians, like student Sar Sayana, exhibitions such as the Art of Survival give a more accessible window to the past.
"It is important that these artist know what happened and that they made this exhibition so that others can know all about it too," she said, walking through the gallery.
(Reporting by Chantha Lach, Editing by Gillian Murdoch)
Now the artist, one of a handful of remaining survivors of the regime's notorious Tuol Sleng prison, hopes his latest works will expose the reality of Pol Pot's rule to a new generation.
On show at Phnom Penh gallery Meta House as part of the "Art of Survival" exhibition, his paintings of prison life are aimed at helping visitors deal with the trauma of the Khmer Rouge's 1974-1979 rule, when an estimated 1.7 million people were executed or died of starvation, torture or disease.
But they also hold a mirror up to the present, said Van Nath, throwing the treatment of Khmer Rouge officials currently on trial for crimes during Pol Pot's rule, including "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, who has been linked to Tuol Sleng, into sharp relief.
"If I compare the prison where I was to Nuon Chea prison, it is very different. The prison at the Khmer Rouge court is very good. It has televisions, electricity, mattresses and they have enough food to eat," he told Reuters.
"At the prison where I was, I was in handcuffs 24 hours a day with no food and no medicine. Now even with today's good prisons, prisoners can still ask to be released on bail. They complain that they cannot stay there. But what about me and the nearly 20,000 people who were imprisoned at Tuol Sleng?" Van Nath said.
An estimated 17,000 to 20,000 Cambodians were crammed into Tuol Sleng, also called "Security Prison 21" or "S-21" under the Khmer Rouge, a black-shirted communist guerrilla movement who declared war on modernity after overrunning Phnom Penh in 1975.
They were ousted four years later by a Vietnamese invasion.
Of the tens of thousands accused of betraying the regime at Tuol Sleng, only a dozen are known to have made it out.
The plain three-storied high school building, in a quiet quarter of the capital, is now a public memorial site and museum.
It draws thousands of visitors every year, as do the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek, about 15 kilometres (9 miles) out of the capital, where the remains of many of Tuol Sleng's victims are buried in mass graves.
But some worry the country has not yet processed the trauma of the Pol Pot years, even as high-profile trials of former officials, including Tuol Sleng's former governor, Khang Khekh Ieu, or "Duch", make their way through a United Nations tribunal.
This is where artists such as Van Nath can contribute, said Metahouse gallery owner Nicolas Mesterharm.
"The young generation we work with knows a little bit, so we try to educate them and we try to bring young and older artists together," German-born Mesterharm told Reuters.
"We try to address that issue of genocide and the Khmer Rouge atrocities through art within the society that has not learnt yet to speak openly about what happened 25 years ago," he said.
A number of international documentaries and films, such as the 1984 Oscar-winning "Killing Fields", have brought the country's violent past to international audiences.
And several memoirs written by survivors of the regime sell at tourist sites such as Angkor Wat in the country's north, and Phnom Penh.
But book sellers often say they have not read the English-language stories themselves.
For many young Cambodians, like student Sar Sayana, exhibitions such as the Art of Survival give a more accessible window to the past.
"It is important that these artist know what happened and that they made this exhibition so that others can know all about it too," she said, walking through the gallery.
(Reporting by Chantha Lach, Editing by Gillian Murdoch)
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