Closing Order of Case 002 against Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith

In preparation for the start of trial hearings beginning on 27 June 2011 of Case 002 against the surviving Khmer Rouge senior leaders Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith, KI Media is starting a new series in posting installations of the public document of the Closing Order of Case 002.  The Closing Order of the Co-Investigating Judges forms the basic document from which all the parties (Co-Prosecutors, Co-Lead Lawyers for all civil parties, Defense Lawyers) will be making their arguments before the Trial Chamber judges (one Cambodian President, 2 Cambodian Judges, 2 UN judges).  Up until now, the hearings involving these four surviving senior Khmer Rouge leaders have been in the Pre-Trial Chamber over issues of pre-trial detention and jurisdictional issues.  Beginning in June 2011, the Trial Chamber will hear the substantive arguments over the criminal charges (e.g. genocide, crimes against humanity, penal code of 1956).  Available in Khmer and French.  Contact the ECCC for a free copy.

CLOSING ORDER

of Co-Investigating Judges You Bunleng and Marcel Lemonde, 15 September 2010

D. TREATMENT OF TARGETED GROUPS 

205. One of the five policies was to implement and defend the CPK socialist revolution through the targeting of specific groups by whatever means necessary. This measure adversely affected many groups of people within Cambodia at that time, directly or indirectly. The Co- Investigating Judges have been specifically seized of acts of the CPK targeting the Cham, Vietnamese and Buddhist groups, and the targeting of former officials of the Khmer Republic (including both civil servants and former military personnel and their families), occurring throughout Cambodia from the early stages of CPK control over certain parts of the territory before 1975 and continuing until at least 6 January 1979.

206. The Co-Investigating Judges are seized of treatment of the Cham in the Central, East and Northwest Zones; of the Vietnamese in Prey Veng and Svay Rieng Provinces in the East Zone and during incursions into Vietnam; of Buddhists throughout Democratic Kampuchea; and of former officials of the Khmer Republic during the movement of the population from Phnom Penh. This last incident constitutes only one of several occurrences of a pattern of targeting former officials of the Khmer Republic.⁶⁹⁸ 

207. An objective of this policy was to establish an atheistic and homogenous society without class divisions, abolishing all ethnic, national, religious, racial, class and cultural differences. This is evidenced through Party documents relating to class. In 1974, an article written by Pol Pot in Revolutionary Flag set forth the notion that a "special class" existed in Cambodian society, comprised of "soldiers, police and Buddhist monks" ⁶⁹⁹ The notebooks of cadre that appear to refer to this article state that all national minorities were also considered to be part of this "separate special class type".⁷⁰⁰ Other classes such as the feudalists, capitalists and bourgeois were described as opponents of the revolution.⁷⁰¹ In September 1975, the implementation of this objective evolved when the CPK proclaimed these classes and the special separate class types abolished, declaring that the only classes that existed were workers and peasants, and that all of the other classes had been melded into these two groups.⁷⁰² At this time, or shortly thereafter, Phnom Penh radio made its last references to Buddhist monks,⁷⁰³ Cham⁷⁰⁴ and other "national minorities".⁷⁰⁵ Although senior Party authorities continued to talk about a Cambodian population incorporating non-Khmer nationalities into 1976,⁷⁰⁶ by August 1977, the national minorities' de facto abolition and assimilation was officially stated to have advanced to the point where the country was described as "99 per cent" Khmer.⁷⁰⁷ Another objective of this policy was to eliminate enemies and to destroy certain groups, as such, in whole or in part. The targeting of specific groups was a key means by which the CPK did "whatever can be done that is a gain for the revolution"