Khieu Samphan Denies Tribunal Charges

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
26 November 2007

Former Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan said through his attorneys Monday the tribunal investigators had done nothing but recount his functions within Democratic Kampuchea.

The jailed leader said he was only a figurehead and did not make policy or decisions, and that the tribunal courts had not presented criminal evidence sufficient to detain him.

Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, said Monday the courts likely had enough evidence to hold him, as investigators prepare for trial.

Khieu Samphan was charged with atrocity crimes and jailed in Phnom Penh last week, following similar arrests of two other leaders, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith. Along with chief ideologue Nuon Chea and prison chief Duch, five total are detained and awaiting trial.

Seng Theary, executive director of the Center for Social Development, said it was "not surprising" that Khieu Samphan was denying his role in the Khmer Rogue, but that he should not be believed.

Contorted logic? Khieu Samphan claims that "suffering can be wrong but good"

Wrongly suffered but ended up good?

Wrongly suffered and ended really bad?

Khieu Samphan: Suffering Can Be Wrong but Good

By Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
15 November 2007

Click here to listen Heng Reaksmey Q&A with Khieu Samphan, Part III

[Editor's note: Three hours before he suffered an apparent stroke Tuesday, Khieu Samphan gave a 20-minute phone interview to VOA Khmer. He was taken to a Phnom Penh hospital Wednesday, and has not talked to the media since his arrival. What follows is part three of a four-part series detailing Tuesday's interview.]

There had been mass killings, yes. And they affected almost every family. But Khieu Samphan, former nominal head of the regime responsible for the killings, said Tuesday he could not explain this.

"I can't," he said. "That's what encouraged me to do research, and now I know it."

Khieu Samphan has published two books since the fall of the Khmer Rouge. His own research did not show that the Khmer Rouge was intent on killing its own people, he said.

"So, they need more research. That is just my own view. I just want to urge Cambodian people to learn more about their own history and do more research on the killing," he said. "I totally understand that almost every family was affected by the killing. That is completely true, but why did that happen?"

"You can put the blame on the Khmer Rouge because they governed the country, but what else besides that?" he continued. "Why did the killing happen? We suffered from all kinds of bad things, trying to escape B-52 bombing, so I mean we came all the way from all kinds of suffering just to kill our own people? That is why I was wondering. Don't just believe anything they say."

Human society is different from "insects," he said, which "do things according to instinct."

"People do not just follow what their leaders said," he said. "They can't just enter a crab hole according to a leader's order. They followed what is right, but not just anything, such as the case of rebellion in Samlot at that time. Why is that?"

The history of the Khmer Rouge needs more research, he said. Historians "got things right on B-52 bombardment, but they did not get the truth about Khmer Rouge mass killings."

The role of Cambodia's army fighting Cambodians "needs to be found out," he said, hinting that researchers had glossed over portions of history. "Unfortunately, researchers did not find that. I don't blame them, as they are foreigners. Instead, I appreciate the fact that they managed to achieve that amount of work. But I just want them to do more research on that."

Asked what principles were used by the Khmer Rouge to govern, Khieu Samphan said only, "law came from the party, and the party came from the struggle. And for the struggle to succeed, we needed people."

Without similar struggle principles, Mao Zedong could not have liberated China, so the principles were good, Khieu Samphan said.

"China would not have existed through today without Mao Zedong's contribution," Khieu Samphan said. "How poor was China in the past? How badly was China insulted by the French and the English? In Shanghai, in French and English homes, at the entrance there was always a sign saying, 'No dogs or Chinese.' And now look at China! Some countries are afraid that China will become a superpower. I guess it's just economically powerful. And now look at Vietnam after its liberation, how fast it developed its economy."

"So, it does not really matter if a country has a communist regime," he continued. "If we talk about Khmers, if we had managed to liberate our country and had smooth reconstruction, even if we endured some suffering, such as starvation, it would have been wrong, but it would have been good."

There were those who considered Cambodians who were "evacuated" from the cities "war victims," he said, "but my research suggested that there was a law decree about that at the time, and even Pol Pot himself at that time again and again said not to consider the evacuated as war victims."

"We need to make sure that we treat good people or hard working people well and those who opposed us accordingly," he said.

"Regarding the killing, suffering, and starvation, I think it was not Pol Pot who caused it," Khieu Samphan said. "He alone could not do it all. Pol Pot was in charge of investigating and arresting important cadre, probably hundreds of people, not thousands. The arrests kept increasing because these cadre had their own networks, conflicts, jealousy. That is why there were extrajudicial killing."

Eventually, he said, an expression emerged from eastern zones: "No gain in keeping, no loss in killing."

"I was just wondering where the words came from, because I never heard of this, even in the meeting of the Central Committee or the Permanent Committee," he said. "So it must have come from those regional leaders…who once lived with the Vietnamese."

Later, he said, he was "shocked" to hear that a starving person could be killed for stealing a yam.

"I did not know that until late 1989," he said, "when a Khmer Rouge soldier told me about it."

Khieu Samphan 'Fine' After Apparent Stroke, Family Claims

Former Khmer Rouge leaders Ieng Sary, left, and Khieu Samphan, right, look on during funeral services for Khieu Ponnary, the first wife of Pol Pot in 2003.

By VOA Khmer Stringers
Original reports from Phnom Penh
13 November 2007

Listen Mean Veasna reports on Khieu Samphan's stroke
Listen Heng Reaksmey Q&A with Khieu Samphan

One of the last surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge suspected under investigation by the tribunal was recovering at his Pailin home following an apparent stroke Tuesday evening, a member of the family told VOA Khmer.

Khieu Samphan, former nominal head of the regime, collapsed and was unconscious "for a while," a man who answered Khieu Samphan's phone and claimed to be his son told VOA Khmer.

"He has high blood pressure," the man said. "He was lying in the hammock at around 6 pm. Then he complained that he didn't feel well. He then tried to get up, but he collapsed. He had no feeling in half of his body. He lost total movement in half of his body."

"He is now in Pailin," the man said, "and he's fine now."

A neighbor told the Associated Press Khieu Samphan was speaking with difficulty and was hard to understand. Family and local doctors gathered at the house to attend to him, AP reported, citing Khieu Samphan's daughter, Khieu Rattana.

The apparent stroke came a day after the arrest of two top leaders, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith, both of them charged Monday with atrocity crimes.

Khieu Samphan collapsed just hours after he gave a 20-minute interview to VOA Khmer over the phone.

The aging leader, believed to be 76, said Tuesday afternoon he was "not afraid," but ready to go to the courts willingly. The former prime minister of the regime said he had "reason" to appear in court, to explain how he defended Cambodia from takeover in the 1960s and 1970s.

"If the court summons me, I will go, and I don't need to be arrested," he said.

"I had no power," he said of his position at the head of a Democratic Kampuchea presidium, or executive committee. He was, he said, "just a symbol, a representative."

Khieu Samphan was attached to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea in 1971 and headed central headquarters in 1977. Two others in the presidium were "So Phim, first vice chairman, secretary of the Eastern region, [and] Ros Nhim, called Mou Sambath," he said Tuesday.

"I am not afraid" of being arrested, Khieu Samphan said. "I have never done anything wrong to the nation, the people. I have never sold the country or stolen from the country, not even one dime. I want to clarify about what I did from 1975 to 1979."

Media reports have said that as head of state he should have known what was happening, but Khieu Samphan said Tuesday every person had "discipline" and kept information to themselves.

"The discipline was clear, and all levels had to adopt this discipline," he said. "I do not mean that as head of state I did not have to respect the discipline… no. This was tied to me personally. I must not want to know, to hear, other people's business. Other people were tied to it too. They did not dare tell me anything. I stayed in one place, and did not go anywhere. I did not know."

Khieu Samphan: the evacuations in 1975 were Pol Pot's idea. So too was discipline.

Khieu Samphan: 'Why Would It Kill Its Own People?'

Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Exclusive Interview from Phnom Penh
15 October 2007

Click here to listen Heng Reaksmey interview in Khmer

[Editor's note: Head of state and spokesman for the Khmer Rouge when it rose to power, Khieu Samphan is widely believed under investigation by the special tribunal courts for trial on atrocity crimes. On Oct. 11, he gave VOA Khmer his longest interview since the indictments of two of his comrades, chief ideologue Nuon Chea and torture center director Duch. This is part three of a five-part series.]

The Khmer Rouge was formed to fight foreigners, not kill its own, the former public face of the regime said.

"Why would it kill its own people?" Khieu Samphan asked. "For what reason? Who would live in the country then?"

Khieu Samphan, who has already selected a foreign attorney to defend him against possible indictment by Cambodia's hybrid tribunal, said he had not heard of the killing fields, of the starvation suffered by his countrymen, until at least the 1980s.

Cambodians "were hungry and dug up tubers. I didn't know it was like that. I found out at the end of 1989."

Given room to speak, Khieu Samphan raises points that have been raised before, shifting blame from the Khmer Rouge for its autogenocide to foreign powers, often the Vietnamese and the Americans.

The Khmer Rouge "fighting movement experienced plight, hunger, sickness, slept in trenches," Khieu Samphan said. "B-52 bombs were dropped [and] when you were just near them, you became crazy because you were so frightened."

The Khmer Rouge rose out of loyalty to its leaders, he said, as much as the bombing.

"Leaders would ask us to crawl into a crab hole," he said, a common Cambodian expression that describes loyalty.

The Khmer Rouge had loyalty structure where each person had a group, or strand, and every strand spied on the other, he said.

Khieu Samphan said the evacuations in 1975, when the Khmer Rouge took power, were Pol Pot's idea. So too was discipline.

"Those who were good and worked hard, should be encouraged," he said, "and those who opposed, should be dealt with accordingly."

Vietnamese interference might have been the reason so many people began starving once they were forced out of the city and into agricultural work camps, Khieu Samphan said.

"What did the starvation from 1975 to 1976 come from?" he said. "Not from Pol Pot. Could Pol Pot do it alone?"

Khieu Samphan: "The Khmer Rouge were ignorant ... Only Pol Pot knew"

Evacuation from Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975

Evacuation 'To Rescue the City Dwellers,' Khieu Samphan Says

Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Exclusive Interview from Phnom Penh
15 October 2007

Click here to listen Heng Reaksmey Interview in Khmer

[Editor's note: Head of state and spokesman for the Khmer Rouge when it rose to power, Khieu Samphan is widely believed under investigation by the special tribunal courts for trial on atrocity crimes. On Oct. 11, he gave VOA Khmer his longest interview since the indictments of two of his comrades, chief ideologue Nuon Chea and torture center director Duch. This is part four of a five-part series.]

When the Khmer Rouge defeated the forces of Lon Nol and marched into the capital, Khieu Samphan was against "evacuating" the cities. But it had to be done for the good of the city dwellers, the aging Khmer Rouge leader said.

"I think the evacuation was wrong, isolating the [Khmer Rouge] from national and international interests," he said. "I talked personally with Pol Pot. The principles of the Khmer Communist Party and Democratic Kampuchea were that if there were some issues to be addressed in the organization, and you talked, they did not punish you. But you should not criticize them from the outside, [which was] called 'attacking the path.'"

"Whatever the party decided was 'the path,'" he said. "Before they decided [it], they thought hard and were responsible. I talked with Pol Pot, and said it was wrong to [evacuate]. We would not have been able to solve things, and we would have been isolated from the nation, the people."

But the people were starving, he said, leaving them no choice. The corruption of the US-backed government of Lon Nol had led to their starvation.

"This is hateful," Khieu Samphan said. "So, in order to rescue the city dwellers, there was evacuation."

There was not enough food in the countryside, either, he said, so people ate bananas mixed with rice, or manioc. A little aid came, but it was not enough.

"China gave some aid but it did not have enough to feed its people either," he said.

"The Khmer Rouge were ignorant," he continued. "They did not know anything about medicine. They ate rat poison and they died. Are we, as Cambodians, happy to hear this? The French brought us civilization for 100 years, and some Cambodians were still this way? Did we know there were such Cambodians like those before? No we did not. Only Pol Pot knew."

'It Was Done Very Secretly,' Khieu Samphan Says of 1975 Evacuation

Forced evacuation of Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975

Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Exclusive Interview from Phnom Penh
15 October 2007

Click here to listen to Part 5 of Khieu Samphan's interview

[Editor's note: Head of state and spokesman for the Khmer Rouge when it rose to power, Khieu Samphan is widely believed under investigation by the special tribunal courts for trial on atrocity crimes. On Oct. 11, he gave VOA Khmer his longest interview since the indictments of two of his comrades, chief ideologue Nuon Chea and torture center director Duch. This is the final part of a five-part series.]

Khieu Samphan denied any knowledge about the decision to evacuate everyone from cities and towns on April 17, 1975.

"I did not know when the decision about the evacuation was made," he told VOA Khmer. "It was done very secretly."

The former nominal head of the regime, who could face indictment by the genocide tribunal said he knew nothing of widespread starvation and mass killing under the regime.

"Like I said before, I only stayed in one place, that is at the headquarters of the Democratic Kampuchea" in Phnom Penh, he said. "Don't just believe that the Khmer Rouge starved people. You have to do more research to find the truth."

Khieu Samphan admitted that Pol Pot had agreed "to arrest some people" after consulting with the Standing Committee of the communist regime, "but he did not go to arrest people in the fields."

The Khmer Rouge suffered from "warlords" in different zones, he said. "They were abusing power and did their own arrests and killings. That's why there was confusion, revenge, jealousy, and attempts [by them] to uproot one another.

"They did not follow any rules," he said. "They arrested people they did not like."