New Film Tells Story of One Woman's Escape

A new film explores one woman's dramatic escape from the Khmer Rouge. "The End/Beginning," written and narrated by Cambodian-American Sophal Ear, tells the story of his mother's flight from Cambodia through Vietnam. Sophal Ear says he sees it as "a chance to extend the legacy of my mother to thousands of people, maybe hundreds of thousands of people." The short film follows Sophal Ear as he retraces his mother's escape route from the Cambodian countryside through Vietnam. (Men Kimseng interviewing the writer.)

Khmer Rouge justice a race against time

With defendants before the Extraordinary Chambers for the Courts well into old age and failing in health, efforts are being made to speed up the trial process amid shocking testimony of relatives sacrificed to prove party loyalty

Bangkok Post, May 27, 2012

Cambodia's Khmer Rouge tribunal has been dogged by controversy since the first public hearings were held in November 2007, including allegations of corruption, funding issues and disputes over the scope of the tribunals.

But the biggest risk to finding justice for the two million people who perished under Pol Pot is the age and health of the surviving leaders. This was borne out over the past two weeks, with Ieng Sary, 86, hospitalised for bronchitis and grinding the entire trial to a halt.


The former foreign minister is considered the frailest of the three currently in the dock for genocide and crimes against humanity. His 80-year-old wife, Ieng Thirith, has already been ruled medically unfit for trial and remains in detention while undergoing further psychiatric evaluation.

Doctors say Ieng Sary has stabilised but warned he also suffers from chronic health conditions, including heart and back problems, and this can only deteriorate. This has prompted the Open Society Justice Initiative, which is monitoring the trial, to suggest Ieng Sary might have to be severed from the process.

His lawyer, Michael Karnavas, said his client did not want to hold up proceedings and had no objection to missing testimony from witnesses deemed less relevant. However, he added that Ieng Sary would not waive his right to be present during the hearings that touched on him either directly or indirectly.

Tribunal spokesman Lars Olsen told Spectrum that Ieng Sary's condition was a major concern.

"Ieng Sary is recovering in the detention centre after having been discharged from hospital on Tuesday. We expect that he will be participating in the hearings starting from [tomorrow]," he said.

Also before the Extraordinary Chambers for the Courts in Cambodia (ECCC) are Nuon Chea, the 85-year-old chief ideologue and No2 to Pol Pot, and Khieu Samphan, 80, a former head of state whose economic theories came into play after April 1975, when the ultra-Maoists won absolute control of what would become Democratic Kampuchea.

All three deny charges of crimes against humanity and genocide.

"We are of course mindful of the advanced age and health conditions of the accused persons, and the trial chamber is constantly working to ensure that the process can be as swift as possible," Mr Olsen said.

Ta Mok, a senior Khmer Rouge military figure, died aged 80 in 2006 while awaiting trial, and all remaining members of the Standing Committee which wrote and deployed Khmer Rouge government policy have died through age and illness or been killed in brutal factional brawling within their own ranks.

Pol Pot died in 1998 while under house arrest imposed by Ta Mok.

Significant changes have been made to speed up the trial process. Case 002 was split into several mini-trials, designed to make the proceedings more manageable, with the first trial to form some of the basis of subsequent trials.

Mr Olsen added that two-way audio and video links in the holding cells in the basement of the courtroom had also helped, allowing the accused to participate remotely when ill health prevents them from sitting in the main courtroom.

TEMPORARY REPRIEVE: The hospitalisation of former Khmer Rouge foreign affairs minister Ieng Sary has halted his trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Ieng Sary's medical exit followed another marathon session of sensational revelations of atrocities allegedly committed by Pol Pot and his henchmen between 1975 and 1979. Critical for the prosecution was how the regime had turned on itself.


Among the most startling evidence was testimony that Nuon Chea had sent two nieces _ Lach Vary and Lach Dara, both Chinese-trained doctors who worked for the regime's health ministry _ along with their husbands and another two nephews to the dreaded S-21 torture and extermination camp.

It was also heard that Pol Pot had dispatched a sister-in-law to a security centre where she perished. It was a macabre game of one-upmanship, proving their loyalty by sending those closest to them to a horrible death in order to purify the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) of unwanted influences.

Much of the evidence was produced by the prosecution's star witness, Kang Guek Eav, also known as Duch, who was jailed for life in Case 001 after being found guilty of crimes against humanity and the deaths of at least 12,000 people at S-21, which he ran.

The actual S-21 death toll has been estimated to be much higher, probably 24,000 people. Duch testified he had met regularly with Nuon Chea or Son Sen for updates on confessions and camp operations, a charge Nuon Chea has denied.

"I reported to him about the confessions, and he instructed and advised," Duch said, adding that a typical meeting lasted 10 minutes and was held every three to five days. "The power was concentrated in the hands of the secretariat of the Communist Party, Pol Pot and Nuon Chea."

Duch's evidence was damning. He said in 1977 Nuon Chea had replaced Son Sen as head of Santebal _ the Khmer Rouge secret police. Son Sen survived the reshuffle of posts but was killed along with his family 20 years later amid a violent factional split.

Favouritism was strictly forbidden and Nuon Chea had sought to prove his purity among the CPK by dispatching his own kin to the "killing fields". His ruthlessness was corroborated by evidence from Saloth Ban, 67, who worked for Ieng Sary as secretary-general of the foreign ministry and was also Pol Pot's nephew. He told the court that he was always terrified for his life and his immediate family, adding: "I had such fear, and I think others had bigger fear than me."

He said Pol Pot's oldest sister-in-law, Khieu Thirath _ who is also the sister of Ieng Thirith _ was killed in a Khmer Rouge security centre.

Khieu Thirath's other sister, Khieu Ponnary, was the first Cambodian woman to receive a baccalaureate degree and had married Pol Pot in 1956 but she suffered chronic schizophrenia as the regime began to assert itself over the country.

Others to perish as the regime turned on itself were members of the royal family headed by Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the current king father, who initially supported the regime with China's encouragement.

Members of the Standing Committee like Vorn Vet, the deputy prime minister in charge of economy, and his entire family were also sent to S-21 where they were tortured and killed in the second half of 1978, just as the Vietnamese and Cambodian defectors were plotting their invasion.

Further questioning of Duch by deputy co-prosecutor William Smith revealed Nuon Chea had ordered the executions of all remaining prisoners of S-21 in January 1979, as Pol Pot was hastily arranging a retreat into the countryside before the invading Vietnamese arrived in the capital.

"There were more than 100 prisoners, even over 500, I feel," the former mathematics teacher and born-again Christian said, adding the job was completed inside three days.

He also added to previous testimony he gave in Case 001 incriminating Khmer Rouge superiors in the executions of Westerners _ an American, a New Zealander, an Australian and a Briton _ captured off Cambodia's southern coast in 1977.

"After the interrogations, there would be a decision to smash. The smashing was to be conducted in a form of burning to ash," Duch said. "I was following the order from Nuon Chea, and I implemented the order." The court had earlier heard how one of the Westerners was burned alive.

"The decision to arrest was made by the Standing Committee in a broad sense, but in a more practical sense it was brother Pol who made the decision and in some cases brother Nuon was the one who made such decisions," he said.

The Vietnamese-backed invasion forced the leadership into the remote countryside, where Duch informed Nuon Chea that the hasty retreat had meant he had left damning S-21 documents behind. This included hundreds of forced confessions and photographs of tortured prisoners that would eventually be used to secure the convictions against him in Case 001.

Brother No2 was unimpressed.

"On my side, we destroyed them all. You were very bad that you could not manage this," Duch quoted Nuon Chea as saying. They are still not on good terms and more recently Nuon Chea described Duch as "rotten wood".

The evidence has put the defence firmly on the back foot.

Assuming Ieng Sary does overcome his health issues, the hearings at the ECCC will resume this week and a concerted counter-attack by counsel for the accused can be expected over the coming months.

According to Mr Olsen this could continue into next year.

"It is important however to be aware that the chamber cannot cut corners," he added. "Just because the accused persons are of advanced age they are still entitled to enjoy the same fair trial rights as any other defendant."

Khmer Rouge Survivor Finds Love and Healing

Like many people who lived through the Khmer Rouge regime, Loung Ung has to deal with the memories of the horrors that had happened to her and her family.

But instead of keeping it inside, Loung Ung found a channel to heal by writing books. She has written not one but three books. In her first book, "First they Killed my Father" Loung says she wants to tell her readers "what it took to survive wars." In her second book, "Lucky Child" she tells the story of growing up in America. Speaking to VOA Khmer in a recent interview, Ung said in her third book, "Lulu in the Sky", she wants to "tell the story about culture and the vibrancy of the Khmer history."We, as Khmer, are working to survive and we are claiming our laughter, our family and our culture. So it's a happy book in a sense that my family and I are reunited and I was able to find love, healing, and my reconnection to Cambodia." "Lulu in the Sky" was published on April 17, 2012. Loung says she chose the date to remember "the lives lost" and "to claim the lives that are still here."

Omen for the year of the Dragon - ប្រផ្នូលឆ្នាំ រោង

តើពាក្យ​ “ខ្មែរ​ក្រហម” មាន​កំណើត​មក​ពីណា? (ចុះពាក្យកន្តឿតាំងតុសំដៅទៅលើអ្នកណា?)

Sihanouk, the Pink Prince

Sihanouk: The Pink Prince in Beijing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl8w01kGU38

​ថ្ងៃ អង្គារ 01 វិច្ឆិកា 2011
ដោយ សេង ឌីណា
 Radio France Internationale

Click the control below to listen to the audio program:

Click here to download or listen to the audio program in MP3

បច្ចុប្បន្ន​នេះ “ខ្មែរក្រហម” គឺជាពាក្យ​ដែល​ត្រូវបាន​គេប្រើ​ជាទូទៅ​សំដៅលើ​ចលនា​ខ្មែរ​កុម្មុយនិស្ត​មួយក្រុម​ដឹកនាំ​ដោយ ប៉ុល ពត គឺ បក្ស​កុម្មុយនិស្ត​កម្ពុជា ដែល​ក្រោយ​មក​បាន​ឡើងកាន់​អំណាច​បង្កើត​ជា​របប​កម្ពុជា​ប្រជាធិបតេយ្យ។ តើ​ហេតុអ្វី​បាន​ជា​គេហៅ ពួកខ្មែរកុម្មុយនិស្ត​ថា​ជា “ខ្មែរក្រហម”?

បទ​អត្ថាធិប្បាយ​របស់ សេង ឌីណា

ដើមកំណើត​នៃ​ពាក្យ “ខ្មែរក្រហម”

ពាក្យថា “ខ្មែរក្រហម” ត្រូវបាន​ប្រើ​ជា​ដំបូង​ដោយ​សម្តេច​ នរោត្តម សីហនុ។ នៅក្នុង​អំឡុង​ទសវត្សរ៍​ឆ្នាំ៥០ សម្តេច​ នរោត្តម​ សីហនុ ដែល​ជា​ប្រមុខ​ដឹកនាំ​ចលនា​សង្គម​រាស្រ្តនិយម បាន​ធ្វើការ​បែងចែក​ខ្មែរ​ជា​បី​ពណ៌ ដោយ​យោង​ទៅតាម​និន្នាការ​នយោបាយ​របស់​ពួកគេ គឺ “ខ្មែរ ស” សំដៅ​លើ​ខ្មែរ​អ្នក​រាជានិយម “ខ្មែរខៀវ” ជា​ខ្មែរ​អ្នក​សាធារណរដ្ឋ​និយម និង “ខ្មែរក្រហម” គឺ​ក្រុម​ខ្មែរ​កុម្មុយនិស្តនិយម។ ក៏ប៉ុន្តែ ពីដំបូង ពាក្យថា “ខ្មែរក្រហម” នេះ ត្រូវបាន​ប្រើ​ដោយ​សំដៅ​លើ​ក្រុម​ឆ្វេងនិយម ​នៅក្នុង​ចលនា​សង្គម​រាស្រ្តនិយម​របស់​ព្រះអង្គផ្ទាល់។

គួររំឭកថា នៅពេលនោះ ក្រុម​ខ្មែរ​កុម្មុយនិស្ត​នៅ​មិនទាន់​ជា​កម្លាំង​នយោបាយ​សំខាន់​ប៉ុន្មាន​ទេ។ ខ្មែរ​កុម្មុយនិស្ត​មួយចំនួន ដូចជា ខៀវ សំផន ហ៊ូ នឹម និង ហ៊ូ យន់​ ជាដើម នៅធ្វើ​នយោបាយ​ក្នុង​ចលនា​សង្គម​រាស្រ្តនិយម​ ហើយ​ខ្លះ​ថែមទាំង​ធ្លាប់​ត្រូវបាន​តែងតាំង​ឲ្យ​កាន់តំណែង​​នៅក្នុង​រដ្ឋាភិបាល​ទៀតផង។

Sihanouk's declaration on 23 March 1970 (5 days after his removal from power)

http://www.box.net/shared/3m09xnsz7dil6oglf5qm

Open Letter to Prince Sihanouk by Sisowath Sirik Matak (Aug. 27, 1973) - in Khmer, English and French

http://www.box.net/shared/vftf15h9hhpc6bosg6rs

"Vous les Americains Sont Pires que les Francais." -- you Americans are worse than the French

Chip Beck's sketch of General Khy Hak

General Khy Hak's final fate:

11th Brigade Commander, General Khy Hak was executed with his wife and five children in 1975

"Vous les Americains Sont Pires que les Francais."

"Vous les Americains Sont Pires que les Francais" is the title of Chapter 27 of Never Fight Fair!, an oral history of the SEALS by Orr Kelly. Chapter 27 is a reminiscence of William G. "Chip" Beck, who served as an advisor with the Cambodian Army as it fought a desperate battle against the Khmer Rouge rebels from January 1974 until that fateful April 1975. Beck tells the story of the heroic resistance of the anti-communist Cambodians and especially of one man, Khy Hak who most exemplified and personified that resistance. An excerpt:



I was an advisor to the 11th Cambodian Brigade at the time. I was the only American in Kompong Thom, this little town in central Cambodia. There were two other foreigners there -- a Norwegian doctor and a French priest. He had been there twenty-eight years and spoke Cambodian like a native. We used to call his congregation "the Christian soldiers." After he said Mass, he would go out and show them how to put up a machine gun emplacement with effective cross fire.

I had responsibility for an area between Kompong Thom and Siem Reap, where Ankgor Wat is. I used to travel back and forth in that whole northern area.

I started out based in Siem Reap but I was so impressed by the quality of the officers and what they were doing with the men in Kompong Thom that I went back to the embassy and told them they needed a full timer down there with the 11th Cambodian Brigade. They agreed.

The provincial governor was also a general whose name was Teap Ben. He was the political provincial advisor and senior military person. The man in charge of most of the combat forces was Col. Khy Hak, probably one of the two military geniuses I have met in my life. The guy didn't go to school until he was eleven years old and ended up completing the national military academy at age eighteen at the top of his class.

Khy Hak had studied everything from Napoleon to Mao Tse Tung. In his library I found these huge books on the Napoleonic battles. There were maps where he had drawn in red and blue where the troops had gone and where they had made their mistakes. He could think in strategic terms. He could send massive troop units going out but also have his men infiltrate into the Khmer Rouge as guerrillas. He could fight as a guerrilla or a major tactician.

When the war started, these two guys were at Siem Reap, a little outpost. They were maybe a major and a captain at the time. That became one of the few places where, when the North Vietnamese and the Khmer Rouge started running over Cambodia, they didn't get very far. They were not guys who sat in there offices and worried about their next corruption deal. They would go out and fight with the troops.

Khy Hak got wounded, for the first time in his life, during the battle for Ankgor Wat. Instead of being evacuated, he had his men put him on a door and carry him into battle while he was still bleeding. It was an incredible battle because Khy Hak has a sense of history. He didn't want to use heavy artillery to take out the North Vietnamese because he was afraid of destroying the historic ruins of Ankgor wat. So he had his men go in and fight hand to hand, tactical, down and dirty.

Kompong Thom had been overrun and almost taken by the Khmer Rouge in 1973, the year before I got there, and when they sent Teap Ben and Khy Hak, literally, the Khmer Rouge were in downtown Kompong Thom. The helicopter flew these two guys in, wouldn't even land, as the troops were fighting to get back into the city. Literally, they retook the city house by house.

By the time I got there, the Khmer Rouge were still surrounding the town and attacking it, if not every day, every week. I was just so impressed by what was going on I decided to make my own headquarters there. The longer I stayed and saw what they were doing, the more impressed I got.

At one point in the dry season, Khy Hak had had enough of being surrounded by the Khmer Rouge and said he was going to take back the territory beyond the town perimeter. . . Khy Hak decided he and his brigade, under cover of darkness, would walk out of Kompong Thom along Highway 5 and wreak havoc among the Khmer Rouge. And they did. In the course of three days they walked a hundred miles and they brought back 10,000 people from among the Cambodian population. By the time a month and a half was finished, they had brought back 45,000 people from the communist zone, brought them back into a little town that previously had only 15,000 people in it.

When Khy Hak went out there, he didn't force the people to come back at gunpoint. He would get up on a tree stump or a chair and talk to the villagers.

He told them, "Look, there's corruption in the government, there's corruption in the army. But if you come back I will try to protect you. The Khmer Rouge will try to stop you from going. I will help you get back. Once you reach safety in Kompong Thom, they will try to attack us and kill you. I will try to protect you. It's going to be hard to feed you. You will have to grow your own crops. We can't count on anybody but ourselves. But you know what it's like out here under the communists. Choose. Make your choice."

And they made their choice, by the thousands.

I flew out in a chopper after the operation got going and I couldn't believe my eyes. . . I stayed out there with troops for three days. I really wasn't supposed to but Khy Hak challenged me, "How do you know that I won't lie to you? Or someone will ask you if I'm lying. See for yourself. You can tell them the truth." so I stayed there . . . As Khy Hak had predicted, the more refugees we got into the town, the more of a political embarrassment it was for the Khmer Rouge. They intensified the pressure on Kompong Thom in March and April of 1974. . .

(Short of rice for the refugees and unable to get enough from USAID, Khy Hak staged a raid out into the countryside)

. . . in an area where the Khmer Rouge had been stockpiling rice they had taken from farmers. . . As we were pulling out, some mortar rounds started falling. Khy Hak got on the radio -- the Khmer Rouge had the same radios he had -- and issued a challenge: "This is Col. Khy Hak. Here is my precise position. I will wait here for one hour. There is no need for you to shoot at unarmed civilians who can't defend themselves. If you want to fight somebody, fight me. I will wait. If you are not here in an hour, I will figure you are too afraid to do it."

They didn't come. . .

(Beck tells the story of the bloody and heroic defense of Kompong Thom against overwhelming numbers of Khmer Rouge.)

The day the siege of Kompong Thom was broken, with three hundred Khmer Rouge left dead on the battlefield, the headlines in the world press, one major newspaper -- I can't remember which one -- said: "Rebel rockets hit Phnom Penh; Three Killed."

These defenders had killed three hundred to one thousand enemy soldiers in bloody combat but there was never a story told about this.

For the rest of the dry season, things were pretty calm there. Khy Hak was promoted to general the final year, in 1975, in the final months in Phnom Penh.

He and I had worked out a plan where I would take his wife and children and set them up on an escape route I had set up in northern Cambodia for the civilians.

I didn't know when Operation Eagle Pull (the American evacuation) was going to go. When I found out, I was several hundred miles away from his family. I couldn't get to them directly. I had somebody else go over to the house to ask Mrs. Khy Hak to leave with them. She refused. She didn't know her husband wanted her to leave.

By the time he was able to get back to Phnom Penh, to the center of town as the perimeter was falling, there was no way to get her out. He put his wife and his five children -- beautiful little children, from four years old to eight -- in a jeep. The Khmer Rouge caught them approaching the airport and took them over to a pagoda.

One of my Cambodian soldiers who went back in and talked to witnesses said they killed the little kids. They executed the children, then they shot his wife. After making him witness that, they executed him. So they got their revenge on him.

Chip Beck's sketch of General Khy Hak.

We then started hearing of many atrocities being committed. (After Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge on 16 April 1975, as many as four million Cambodians were slain by the victors over the next two years.) The Khmer Rouge would get on the single sideband radios that had been part of the military network. After the Americans had made the evacuation in Eagle Pull, the Khmer Rouge would get on the radio and hold the key so you could hear the office people being tortured and murdered on the air. . .

Unlike Vietnam, the Cambodians could have held out. We, the advisors, were told we could supply the Cambodian army as long as they could fight. That's what we told them. After we evacuated the country, that order was rescinded.

The French died at Dien Bien Phu. They were soundly defeated but they fought and we just went out the back door.

We, the advisors who had lived with these people, sometimes for years, had to sit there and listen to them on the radio calling to us, saying, "Where are our supplies? We're still fighting. We're holding out."

Finally they ran out of ammunition. That's the only thing that made many of these people surrender and then they were executed by the Khmer Rouge.

One of the last transmissions -- the last transmission I ever heard out of Cambodia -- was a Cambodian colonel, just before they killed him. You could hear them breaking down the door. You could hear him say, "Vous les Americains Sont Pires que les Francais." -- you Americans are worse than the French.

Khmer Republic 1970-1975

KI-Media Note: The following is a compilation of documentaries (mainly from French news agencies) during the period between 1970 and 1975, i.e. under the Khmer Republic regime. The length of the compilation is approximately 120 minutes and it is mostly in French. The compilation is attributed to former Khmer Republic army officers and officials. Nevertheless, these reports can be qualified as independent and they are usually not always favorable toward the Lon Nol regime. Obviously the reports are shown only on the Khmer Republican side as the KR do not allow any access to reporters. Watching the interviews in these reports, with 20/20 hindsight, it is incredible to see the naiveté and the foolishness of some individuals from that period ... as well as, the persistent violence, the human suffering and the leadership blindness.

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Part 5 of 15 (Missing: Removed)

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Letter from Mr. Christopher Evola

Submitted to KI-Media for publication
Christopher Evola
(currently residing in Ankara, Turkey)
05 Jan 2010

To Whom It May Concern

The Khmer Rouge were effectively forgiven by the Vietnamese by being brought back into functional positions in government and society. And they were also forgiven by the U.S. and other members of the UN who recognized them as the legitimate government in Cambodia during the Vietnam Era. I can’t think of any parallel with the Nazis. The outside powers sanitized and entitled the KR long before the Cambodian people themselves had the capability to address the issue. Both the Vietnamese and the UN used the KR as a Cold War tool for their own purposes, which over-rode concern for genocide. This is the basis for the confusion in the world’s responses to the Nazis and the KR: we still needed the KR. Insofar as we conceded the usefulness of ignoring the genocide, and insofar as it was nevertheless real, we ourselves are main players in the indifference to human rights that has now become such a repulsive item on our plate. The solution to problems such as this is not just to rely upon an analysis of how such horrid regimes can spontaneously arise, but rather to do whatever is necessary to strengthen our worldwide commitment to human rights. The solution to the Cambodia problem lies in our own hearts. It’s either that, or give up.

What Is Success?

First published in February 2008 in The Phnom Penh Post as part of the Voice of Justice columns. We go from one year to another, since our nation's new birth as a democracy in 1993, with the hope that our "leaders" would learn from the past and provide us opportunities to also learn from the past and move away from it. But each year, we are more and more dismayed as they perpetuate the fear, violence and poverty of the past, and believe we should take it with a grateful smile because they "put an end to the Khmer Rouge".

Let us put an end to this revisionist history and get two things clear:

One, it was liberation (thank you) through invasion (not "volunteer humanitarianism"). With physical occupation for the next decade (leading to international sanction and the radical K5 Plan - a brainchild of General Le Duc Anh - killing unknown, unremembered tens of thousands; arrested by the collapse of the Soviet Union) and mental occupation to this day. (Why the chicanery and obfuscation surrounding the pulling out of a few illegal border posts in the middle of rice fields of Khmer farmers leading to the breathtaking measure of re-stripping the opposition leader of his parliamentary immunity, his arrest warrant, and the draconian arrests of innocent Svay Rieng villagers only trying to protect their homes? Why Vietel, owned by the Vietnamese military, is given arguable treasonous privileges in the sensitive telecommunications sector? Is it true Vietel bypassed the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications? Why call it a national airline when it's really owned and controlled by Vietnam?)**

Two, the Khmer Rouge regime has ended, yes, but not the KR mentality of leadership. If so, then please, do not obstruct the work of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal to try the additional very reasonable 6 more suspects.

** A word of caution to us Cambodians with regards to our ugly language toward each other, the Vietnamese people and others: They want to live peacefully just like you and me. Please stop the ugly language. Their condescension and racial slurs against us cannot, do not justify similar treatment. Also, the ugly language makes it more difficult for individuals like Sam Rainsy, Rong Chhun, Son Soubert and other human rights activists to raise serious legitimate concerns on the very real problem of territorial encroachments and the deep grievances of landless villagers. Our anger should be directed at our "leadership" and the policies which have created this oppressive environment, not at the innocent people who are only trying to live. I am deeply proud to know that my parents gave refuge to their Vietnamese neighbors during the pogroms of the early 1970s, most shamefully ordered by General Lon Nol. (I intentionally chose this photograph to accompany this column because I've been told I look 'Vietnamese' and I think Vietnamese women are beautiful - so, thank you for the compliment!) Remember how we felt when we were mistreated as refugees; let us not perpetuate the same madness. We should follow the example of Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."

WHAT IS SUCCESS?

In this culture where we worship money, brute power, materialism, where form, posturing and external appearance pass for dignity and meaning, it should not be surprising then if society defines "success"—through words or action—as the pursuit and obtainment of these things.

However, permit me to be a social contrarian and posit alternative, less glamorous perspectives.

Success is the ability to see things in their true light. It is to know that one's worth derives not a cent from another's derision and even less from another's praise. To accept the latter is to accept it at the full venom of the former. Clarence Darrow states it another way: one shouldn't take either gratification or disappointment too seriously.

Rather, success is the realization of one's inherent value as drawn solely, completely in being made in the image of God. It is the ability to discern strength in gentleness and kindness and the courage to pursue them.

Success is the integrity to stand up to injustice and say "Enough!" at the expense of one's reputation and well-being. In speaking truth to power, mental poise shields one from the spin doctors and all other machinations of character assassination because one's actions are not guided by the opinions of the fickle and gossip-prone public; rather, a reasoned conscience directs one's path.

Success is longsuffering. It is a virtue that is obtained only through the actual experience of waiting. Amidst the waiting hope dwells. Twinned to long-suffering (or patience) is forbearance, the ability to show mercy and love amidst being wronged.

St. Augustine, in The City of God (Book I, Chapter 9) speaks of suffering. "... the fire which makes gold shine makes chaff smoke; the same flail breaks up the straw, and clears the grain... Thus, the wicked, under pressure of affliction, execrate God and blaspheme; the good, in the same affliction, offer prayers and praises. This shows that what matters is the nature of the sufferer, not the nature of sufferings. Stir a cesspit, and a foul stench arises; stir a perfume, and a delightful fragrance ascends. But the movement is identical."

Success is the refusal to succumb to one's circumstances. But success is more than the refusal to succumb. It is living with passion, with exuberance, with meaning.

Success is to let go of the past, to live in the present, and to build for the future. Certainly, it is important to know and learn from history. However, I see Cambodians' inclination to dwell on the past counter-productive in two ways.

First, we Khmers euphorically and intently focus on the glory of the Angkor period and pay scant attention on working in the present and future. Don't misunderstand me; I am first among Khmer admirers. But let us not be trapped by past illusions; there's much work to be done presently that requires our full mental exertion.

Second, we Khmers are psychologically scarred by the evil unleashed by the Khmer Rouge. Let us face this dark period of history straight-on—by seeing it for what it is, dealing with it privately, and holding the perpetrators to justice publicly. Let us not see ourselves as victims of past evils to justify our present state of malignity; we need not be the products of our environment; the ability to love is always within us. We need to want it, to reach for it. It hurts my ears to hear the oft-repeated justification for corruption, "In Cambodia, one must learn to flow with the meandering river in order to survive and get anything done."

Success is to be sure-footed and not wince in the face of intimidation. It is to realize that intimidation is nothing other than insecurity disguised as authority. Success is freedom of the soul. It is to chip away at that overwhelming sense of hopelessness imposed by poverty, by tradition, by social expectations, by institutions, by history, by unjust laws, by one's own self.

Life functions on two levels simultaneously, on a social and an individual plane. On the social level, institutions and laws proscribe our activities. Individually, our mind proscribes our limitations.

It is disingenuous to think that our individual choices are not informed by societal laws and institutional constructs, in particular, as beneficiaries of these laws. Alternatively, it is as disingenuous to ignore the uniqueness and ability of each individual to make choices and be held accountable for his choices.

We must be held accountable for the choices we do make, but we must also be mindful that not every choice has the same quality.

Theory must be tempered with reality, justice with mercy.

This should be a sobering reminder to all of us who too easily believe that we have achieved all by our own individual merit.

This said, the external environmental factors do shape the development of one's mind, but they do not necessarily have to be proscriptions absent the individual's permission.

Freedom of the soul finds root in this mental poise.

Success deletes from one's thinking that 'philosophy of the stop sign'. No. Don't. Can't. Yield.

Success moves one from self-pity and envy to gratitude.

Success is the training of the mind to meditate on what is praiseworthy, excellent, right, true, pure, lovely, admirable, and noble.

It is to understand that the pursuit of these qualities takes place .in the shadow of appearances, posturing, and the aggressiveness of every day commonalities.

Because things are not what they seem, generosity of spirit and love must be present at all times, but they must exist within a definite boundary. Growth of character corresponds with the ability to ever expand this boundary. Let others call it naiveté, but naiveté functions in ignorance with no boundary. At some point in time, enough is enough and it must be called.

Success is to know and not care whether someone else knows that you know. It has no room for pride.

Theary C. SENG, former director of Center for Social Development (March 2006—July 2009), founded the Center for Justice & Reconciliation (www.cjr-cambodia.org) and is currently writing her second book, under a grant, amidst her speaking engagements.

To Ki-Media team - video reporting on Cambodian refugees in french

Facing the Genocide ... from Cambodia to Isère (France)

"Face au génocide, du Cambodge à l'Isère" (Exposition)
Uploaded by telegrenoble. - Independent web videos.

Dear Ki-Media team,

I'm a regular reader of your blog. Interested in Cambodian issues, I've realized a short video-reporting on cambodian refugees in Grenoble (France), after an exhibition in a local museum entitled "Facing the genocide...From Cambodia to Isère". It's been broadcasted on a local TV called Telegrenoble and it is available for viewing at the following links:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xa4twb_face-au-genocide-du-cambodge-a-lise_creation

Thinking it could be interesting for the readers of your blog (especially those speaking french), I'd appreciate it if you could spread it and show it on your page.

Thanks...keep up the good work.

Pierre Pellicer / Telegrenoble

Politiktoons No. 69: When the war was over...

Click on the cartoon to zoom in

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

Krohorm Samlab Khmer Samrab Yuon - "The communists killed Khmers for Yuon": A Poem in Khmer by Sam Vichea

Poem in Khmer by Sam Vichea (on the web at http://kamnapkumnou.blogspot.com)

Trials in Cambodia Expose the Cogs in a Killing Machine

By SETH MYDANS
The New York Time
Published: March 7, 2009

“I am a victim of the Khmer Rouge,” he said without hesitation. “I did not volunteer to work at S-21"

Posted at: http://cambodianbrightfuture.blogspot.com/
ANLONG SAN, Cambodia — “We were victims, too,” said Him Huy, the head of the guard detail at the Tuol Sleng torture house, who took part in the executions of thousands of people at a Khmer Rouge killing field.

As the prisoners knelt at the edges of mass graves with their hands tied behind them, executioners swung iron bars at the backs of their heads, twice if necessary, before they toppled forward into the pits.

“I had no choice,” Mr. Him Huy, 53, said. “If I hadn’t killed them, I would have been killed myself.”

As the trials of five senior Khmer Rouge figures get under way near Phnom Penh, the capital, they raise questions about the guilt — or victimhood — of lower ranking cadres like Mr. Him Huy, the people who carried out the arrests, killings and torture, who are unlikely to be tried.

As guard and executioner at Cambodia’s most prominent torture house, Mr. Him Huy personifies the horror of the Khmer Rouge years, from 1975 to 1979, when at least 1.7 million people died of starvation and overwork as well as torture and execution.

But in the severe and paranoid world of the Khmer Rouge prison, guards and torturers themselves worked under threat of death, and Mr. Him Huy saw a number of his colleagues kneel at the edges of their graves for that blow to the back of the neck.

“I used an iron bar about that long,” he said, spreading his hands wide as he told his story late last month, “and about as thick as my big toe.”

At night, sometimes two or three times a week, Mr. Him Huy said, he drove trucks full of prisoners to the Choeung Ek killing field, where he logged them in 20 or 30 or 80 at a time and then confirmed that they had been killed.

He asserted that he had personally killed only five people, as demonstrations of loyalty to his superiors.

At least 14,000 people were arrested and interrogated at Tuol Sleng prison, which was officially known as S-21 and is now a museum. Only a handful survived.

Mr. Him Huy is back home now in this village 50 miles south of Phnom Penh. A farmer and the father of nine, he is optimistic, hard-working and quick to smile, seemingly comfortable to be who he is and at ease with his memories. His neighbors seem to like him.

“Even the young people, when they have a party they always invite him,” said his wife, Put Peng Aun. “If there’s a party, he’s got to be there.”

Asked to describe himself, Mr. Him Huy said: “I’m not a bad person. I’m a good man. I never argue with anyone. I never fight with anyone. I have good intentions as a human being.”

But some of those who knew him at the prison remember him harshly. One survivor, Bou Meng, said Mr. Him Huy beat and tortured him, poking at his wounds with a stick. “His face was so mean,” Mr. Bou Meng told the Documentation Center of Cambodia, a private research center. “Today he looks gentle.”

Two of Mr. Him Huy’s co-workers at Tuol Sleng, quoted by the historian David Chandler in his book on the prison, “Voices From S-21,” remembered him as “a seasoned killer, an important figure at the prison and a key participant in the execution process.”

Mr. Him Huy is evasive about the extent of his duties at the prison. But whatever he did there, he said, he performed on pain of death.

“I am a victim of the Khmer Rouge,” he said without hesitation. “I did not volunteer to work at S-21"

“We were all prisoners, those who killed and those who were killed,” he said. “And in fact, for a lot of the staff there, the day came when they were killed, too. In the daytime we’d be eating together, and in the evening some were arrested and killed.”

In a 2001 book about the prison staff called “Victims and Perpetrators?” the Documentation Center calculates that at least 563 members of Tuol Sleng’s staff, about one-third of the total, were executed while working there.

In a distilled and horrific way, Tuol Sleng was a microcosm of the nation, where half-starved and overworked people lived in constant fear of being arrested and killed, often for reasons they never learned.

The first defendant in the United Nations-backed tribunal is Mr. Him Huy’s former boss, the commandant of Tuol Sleng prison, a tough, sharp-eyed man named Kaing Guek Eav and generally known as Duch. His trial began two weeks ago.

It was Duch who signed execution orders for both prisoners and errant staff members. Indeed, Mr. Him Huy rose to become fifth or sixth in the chain of command after his superiors were pulled from their jobs and killed.

“Yes, I did kill people,” he said. “I did transport people to Choeung Ek. I did verify lists of people at Choeung Ek. But Duch ordered me to do all of that.”

Many Cambodians appear to accept this common defense among former Khmer Rouge cadres: that they had no choice but to be cruel, fearing for their own lives. It is a defense Duch himself has offered in the past.

Chum Mey, another survivor of Tuol Sleng, described 12 days and nights of torture and terror, but without bitterness toward his abusers. “My thought is not to put the blame on Him Huy because I don’t know what I would have done in his place,” he said. “I don’t think I would have been able to disobey.”

Like most other guards and torturers at the prison, Mr. Him Huy was recruited young — easily molded, brutalized and indoctrinated into the paranoia and extremism of this closed world.

The son of a clerk at a fishing company, he joined the Khmer Rouge insurgency at the age of 12 and was transferred to work in the prison when he was 18.

After the fall of the Khmer Rouge, he spent a year in a local jail as punishment for his role in the regime, as many former Khmer Rouge cadres did.

Thirty years have passed since the Khmer Rouge were ousted by Vietnam. Mr. Him Huy is no different from his neighbors, raising a big family and tending to his beans and corn and rice.

At the end of a long interview, he headed back to his bean field, filling a canister with pesticide and marching down the rows of long yellow beans, swinging a hose from left to right.

He made sure, he said, to walk with the wind behind him so that none of the pesticide would blow back in his face.

From the archive: Dodging Khmer Rouge bullets on a Mekong run

February 1, 2009
The Sunday Times (UK)

March 10, 1974: The world’s most dangerous boat trip, to Phnom Penh

By Jon Swain

I JOINED Convoy TT173 at Saigon and selected a freighter called Bonanza Three: her wheelhouse, our refuge during the attack, was protected by a thick wall of sandbags and her skipper, Captain Herri Pentoh, was a “real crackerjack”, according to a US aid official on the Phnom Penh run.

Captain Pentoh, a wiry 27-year-old Indonesian with long, greasy hair, stood in the wheelhouse gazing awkwardly at the river bank through binoculars, partly because the solid wall of sandbags restricted his vision, but mostly because, like Nelson, he had only one good eye. The other, made of glass, gave a wild, staring accent to his face.

Bonanza Three, anchored in the oily waters of Saigon harbour, seemed an ugly, rusty old tub, fit for the scrapyard, and that was the reason why she had been chosen for the Mekong River run: her owner thought her expendable. Happily for him, the American government is committed to Phnom Penh’s survival and, so far at least, it has always made it worth his while to gamble the ship and the lives of his crew for a quick return.

“The risks are high, but generally so are the profits,” explained Johnny Khoo, manager of the Singapore-based shipping company that runs her. It is understood that profits fluctuate around £17,000 a trip.

The big joke aboard Bonanza Three was the loo. Apart from making privacy a farce, fist-sized shrapnel holes in the door and wall made it all too obvious that the consequences of using it at the wrong moment could prove disastrous. Happily, the Khmer Rouge gunners, notoriously bad shots, have never caught anyone with their pants down.

The ship’s radio officer, I was told, was “absent”. Only later did I discover that the poor fellow had been killed two months before, blasted in his cabin by a rocket. Members of the crew had scooped up the pieces in a plastic bag and are still trying to erase this from their memories.

The convoy passed the first big danger point almost unchallenged. At Peam Chor, 15 miles beyond the frontier, the Mekong suddenly curves and narrows to a 500-yard channel – an ideal and frequent ambush spot. Conspicuous to our straining eyes were the hulks of two ammunition barges sunk 10 days before, during the last run. All that remained were pieces of rusty machinery poking from the sluggish water.

With the sleepy little town of Neak Leung just a fading smudge to stern, the danger seemed over. Even Captain Pentoh relaxed, unzipping his flak jacket and pulling off his helmet, for he knew that no convoy had been hit on the home run for nearly a year.

The ambush came quickly, with a rocket attack on the lead ship, the Monte Cristo, as she steamed past the Dey Do plywood factory only 12 miles from Phnom Penh.

From the wheelhouse on Bonanza Three, two ships astern, it was impossible to assess the damage, but flames and a feather of black smoke on the Wing Pengh, the ship 300 yards from our bows, denoted that she, too, had been hit.

Machinegun bullets clanged and rattled off the hull. In the wheelhouse, the little Cambodian pilot carried on with his instructions, his voice as steady as a rock, his fear betrayed only by his delicate fingers tightly wrapped round a small ivory Buddha.

The words “starboard easy” had just left his lips when the rocket burst aft. The explosion felt like a heavy blow in the back. Nobody moved or said anything, except the captain, who said, “Bloody hell, we’ve been hit”, then looked around embarrassed.

Nobody bothered to leave the wheelhouse and inspect the damage until we were safely tied up at Phnom Penh’s dirty brown waterfront an hour or so later. The rocket had missed the steering column by a fraction of an inch; had it hit, Bonanza Three would have been sent circling out of control. A winch was badly damaged and there were a lot of holes, but she had survived yet another Mekong River run.

Pinned to a blackboard in the press briefing centre in Phnom Penh that evening, the Cambodian high command’s communiqué tersely read: “A convoy of five cargo ships, two petrol tankers and three ammunition barges has anchored at the port of Phnom Penh after passing up the Mekong without incident.”

The Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh in 1975. Millions of Cambodians died in the “killing fields” massacres that followed

Travel blog: Cambodia's Khmer Rouge and prison S-21

S-21 Prison, Cambodia

Wednesday, 19 Nov 2008
Nicholas Claxon
TravelBite.co.uk

Nick Claxton has never ventured outside of Europe before but a combination of too many years in London, a lack of proper responsibilities and an unhealthy admiration for Michael Palin now means he is spending a year travelling the globe. A terminally-disorganised 24-year-old taking on the world - solo. Here is his 20th blog entry:

Leaving the Angkor temples was a bit of a wrench. Taking some time out in Siem Reap and being more leisurely on our trips to see the ruins would have been great. But my sister's schedule was tighter than mine - Charlie's time was running out and she had a flight to catch back into the UK and reality.

Luckily, getting across the centre of Cambodia is much faster than the rural route we took in from the west. Running from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh is the best road in all of Cambodia - sealed all the way - so it was just a five hours non-stop by mini-bus down to the capital US$10 (£6).

A short tuk-tuk ride got us to the Okay Guesthouse (twin room with A/C for US$8 [£5] a night) where we crashed out for an hour, before heading down to the riverside for some food. Although this was one of the most affluent areas of Phnom Penh, the darker underside of Cambodia's society was still on show.

Sit down outside of any of the cafes on the banks of the Mekong and your guaranteed to be swarmed by children as young as five soon enough. They're either begging or try to sell photocopied books to Westerners. Heart-rending stuff, but made worse since the kids rarely get to keep the money themselves - we were warned by expats that they are exploited by adult ring-leaders.

Poverty-stricken as parts of Phnom Penh may be, local clubs and bars offer a thriving, if seedy, nightlife (beware marauding legions of go-go girls!). But the city's main attractions are historical - the infamous Choeung Ek Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng prison.

Some 24,000 people were interred and tortured at Tuol Sleng over the four years of Pol Pot's regime - just a small portion of the estimated 1.7 million who were killed between 1975-9.

Officially designated S-21, the prison had previously been a school. Tiny wooden cells with shackles on the floor are distressing enough, but are as nothing to the rusting metal beds in classrooms-turned-torture chambers.

On the walls hang uncensored photos of the same room with a victim sprawled helplessly on the same metal bed - a grisly, disconcerting experience.

Nazi concentration camps had affected me similarly when younger, but what I found harder to comprehend at S-21 was that there have been very few repercussions for the culprits.

The UN regarded the regime as legitimate up until 1991 which helped Khmer Rouge leaders go into hiding in Cambodia, Thailand or beyond. Like Pol Pot himself, many have died of old age without being held to account and only a handful await trial.

I found this both baffling and disheartening even as a foreigner - especially after visiting the infamous Killing Fields just a short drive from Phnom Penh. Though tales of bones sticking out of the ground proved untrue, the rows of mass graves, the tattered clothing still buried in the mud and the towering pile of skulls in the memorial tell their own graphic, horrifying story.

Of course, some more frivolous distractions are also on offer around Phnom Penh. You can release some buttoned-up emotions by go-karting at the Kambol F1 Raceway (US$7 [£3] each for ten minutes) or try out anything from Colt.65s to M-16s at the nearby shooting range (prices vary depending on weapon and rounds used).

But the Killing Fields hadn't really put me in the kind of mood to pick up a gun and blast away. I'd realised a heavy shadow remained over Cambodia - it was still haunted by its past. But I couldn't understand why time hadn't been more effective in wiping the slate clean.

On my second trip to S-21, I got more than a simple hint. While waiting for some friends to finish their prison tour, I sat down to chat to a tour guide at the gate named Phong who was strumming a broken down guitar.

After discussing what I knew of the prison's history and sharing our view on why former leaders are still escaping justice, I asked how he had become a tour guide here.

He had a simple answer - he was a former S-21 prison guard. And unlike many of the thousands of former Khmer Rouge, Phong was willing to talk to me about it.

While he understood why the rest of the population has little sympathy for former Khmer Rouge comrades, Phong claimed to be just as much a victim as the eight inmates who survived S-21 and others who had suffered under the regime.

Indoctrinated to the cause as a child, he claimed ignorance and fear had forced him to carry out acts that still haunt his days and nights.

Being a tour guide at his former workplace was his penance. But, despite being desperate for money, he could only manage one or two tours a day before the emotions became too much for him.

Seeing firsthand the psychological damage inflicted on the other side of the Khmer Rouge divide helped me get an idea of why my over-riding Cambodian memories are of a society that's seized-up.

The wounds run so deep that trying to come to terms with a blemished sense of identity and national pride is hampered by both wanting to explain what occurred here and the desire to sweep it away and move on.

As an outsider, it was both demoralising and fascinating. Widespread child poverty and a chilling history show humanity near its worst. But genuine pride in the Angkor temples and hope for slow progress suggest brighter times are around the corner for this most enigmatic and engrossing of countries.

Political Cartoon: Let's learn to "Conjugate" with Khmer Rouge's Words

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

Pol Pot’s chief torturer comes to Christ

Friday 19 October 2007
By Dean Smith
Journal Chretien

The Khmer Rouge started as a Maoist, guerilla group in the Cambodian jungles. Run by a despot named Pol Pot, they overthrew the Cambodian government in 1975 starting a four year reign of terror.

In an effort to transform Cambodia into an agrarian society, Pol Pot emptied the cities forcing people into the country where hundreds of thousands starved to death and others murdered or simply worked to death. Phnom Penh, the capital city with a current population of 1.2 million, was turned into a ghost town in the late 70s.

One of the regime’s mottos was “To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss” and certainly they lived by it. There were mass executions of former government loyalists, intellectuals (this included people wearing glasses which indicated they could read) and non Cambodians such as Vietnamese and Chinese. Religious groups were also targeted particularly Christians and Muslims.

Though the Khmer Rouge was finally ousted by the Vietnamese in 1979, it’s estimated the Khmer killed 1.7 million Cambodians or nearly 20% of the population. The British movie, The Killing Fields, won three Academy Awards for it portrayal of this horrific time in Cambodian history.

The International community has made repeated attempts to have Cambodia come to terms with this dark period in its history. Finally after 30 years of prodding, the Cambodian government will hold trials in 2008 bringing to justice those responsible. The Cambodia government only allowed the trial — referred to as the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) — to proceed once certain conditions were met. First, the costs of the ECCC needed to be paid by the international community and the tribunal will not be allowed to prosecute any government officials with a Khmer past.

So instead, the ECCC will focus on former Khmer leaders who are not politically connected to the current regime. Though Pol Pot died in 1998 under mysterious circumstances, many former Khmer leaders walk free in the country. This includes Leng Sary, the foreign minister of the Khmer Rouge, who has lived in a mansion in Phnom Penn under police protection. Nuon Chea — Brother #2 — second in command behind Pol Pot was considered the master mind behind the Khmer genocide and lives in northwestern Cambodia. Nuon Chea was arrested in September and is the second person slated to face the tribunal.

The chief torturer and executioner

The first is a man named Khang Khek Ieu. He has been in jail since 1999 and was finally charged this past July. Khang whose revolutionary name was Duch (pronounced dook) was leader of the Khmer Rouge’s secret police and oversaw its prison camp system used to torture and execute individuals (men, women and children) considered enemies of the state.

Duch also commanded the notorious S-21 — known as Tuol Seng — the highest security prison in the regime where an estimated 12,000 people were imprisoned and executed. Most sent there were actually members of the Khmer Rouge, as Nuon Chea regularly purged the party of dissidents real or imagined. Using extreme measures of torture, S-21 routinely gained confessions before execution. Only a handful of people survived detention at S-21.

Duch has confessed his involvement and repeatedly stated he would “reveal the details of crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge.” To date, he is the only major leader of the Khmer Rouge to confess to his crimes.

Pol Pot’s torturer comes to Christ

Christopher LaPel — a Cambodian-born pastor living in Los Angeles — regularly travels to Cambodia to preach the Gospel and hold leadership training seminars.

In 1995, while in Chamkar Samrong a village in Battambang province, he met a withdrawn and gaunt man named Hang Pin, 54, who was encouraged to attend LaPel’s meetings at the urging of a friend.

After listening to LaPel’s sermons, Hang made a commitment to Christ and asked to be baptized. LaPel said this resulted in a remarkable transformation. Hang went from being withdrawn to open and laughing and concerned about how he looked. LaPel had no idea his newest disciple was the notorious leader of the Khmer Rouge secret police — Duch.

Looking back, LaPel told the Laredo Morning Times that the only hint he had of Hang Pin’s dark past was from a comment he made : “Pastor Christopher,” Hang Pin said, “I’m a sinner. I don’t think my brothers and sisters can forgive me because my sins are so deep.” [3]

After his conversion, Hang Pin returned to his village and started a church. He eventually went to work for a non government agency called the American Refugee Committee (ARC) in 1997 — all the while, maintaining his connection with LaPel and preaching the Gospel.

In search of Duch

As the Holy Spirit drew Hang Pin to salvation, British photographer and Journalist Nic Dunlop was in the country reporting on Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge past.

In his article “On the trail of Pol Pot’s chief executioner,” published in Prospect Magazine, Dunlop said he was drawn to S-21, which had been turned into a museum of the genocide.

Photos taken of the thousands people incarcerated there hung on the walls. He was mesmerized by their faces filled with desperation and terror. During one of his visits, he saw a picture of the camp commander — Duch. He obtained a copy thinking it might prove useful in identifying the former commander, if he ever came across him.

In 1999, while on one of his tours, Dunlop met Hang Pin in a village near the city of Samlot in Western Cambodia. Dunlop was convinced he had found Duch.

Dunlop returned a week later with a fellow reporter, Nate Thayer, to confront Hang Pin. Thayer asked Hang Pin if he ever worked for the Khmer Rouge. Hang Pin deflected the question stating he currently worked with ARC and was translating school text books. Thayer asked the question two more times and finally Hang Pin paused and said, “It is God’s will you are here.” [1]

“I have done very bad things in my life,” he told them. “Now is the time to bear the consequences of my actions.”

Duch confessed his involvement with the secret police and S-21. After Dunlop and Thayer broke the news, Duch went into hiding for a couple days before finally turning himself in to the police. Dunlop has no doubt Duch’s commitment to Christ played a role in his confession and arrest.

In a later interview with Thayer published in the Far Eastern Economic Review, Duch said he was willing to testify against other Khmer perpetuators and feared for his life because of his willingness to do so. “It is OK, they can have my body,” he said, “Jesus has my soul. It is important that this history is understood. I want to tell you everything.” [2]

This past June, I contacted Christopher LaPel and received an encouraging report about Duch who at the time was incarcerated in a military prison in Phnom Penh just a few blocks away from S-21. He has since been transferred to the ECCC detention center.

“Yes, I would like to answer your questions regarding Khang Khek Ieu or Hang Pin or Duch, one of my disciples and one of our leaders serving our Lord Jesus Christ in Northwest Cambodia before he came forward ... Yes, he is in jail in Phom Penh and he [is] still preaching and sharing God’s word with people around him.”

The work on the Cross

Duch’s conversion is a powerful testament of the complete work of Jesus on the Cross.

Paul said we are “justified by faith” (Rom 5:1). The word justification does not mean to infuse with righteousness ; rather it means you were declared not guilty because there is no evidence to condemn you. Paul explains in 2 Cor 5:21, “He (God) made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

At the moment of salvation, all of Duch’s acts of torture and murder were transferred on to Jesus and God no longer has any record of this sin. Though Duch will be found guilty of all charges in the earthly trial, he is acquitted of all charges in the heavenly.

In fact, Paul wrote : “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Rom 5:20). Where there is great sin, there will be more than enough grace to cover it.

LaPel forgives

When Christopher LaPel found out who his disciple was, he personally had to come to grips with the issue. His parents, brother and sister were killed during the Khmer Rouge reign of terror. One cousin, a science professor, even ended up in S-21 and her photo hangs on the wall.

“I was shocked when I found out who he really was,” Chris said in a TimesAsia article, “because what he did was so evil.” “Then I reflected it’s amazing ; it’s a miracle. Christianity changes people’s lives. If Jesus can change Duch, He can change anyone.” [4]

LaPel holds no anger towards Duch and has completely forgiven him.

Sources :

[1] On the trail of Pol Pot’s chief executioner, by Nic Dunlop (Prospect Magazine, August 2002)

[2] Duch implicates living Khmer Rouge leaders in killing (Far Eastern Economic Review : May 4, 1999)

[3] Christianity finds home in Cambodia, but death questioned, by Chris Fontaine (Laredo Morning Times : January 23, 2000)

[4] The killer and the Pastor, by Caroline Gluck (TimeAsia : July 12, 1999)

Others sources : Tribunal finally ready to probe « Killing Fields », by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail June 14, 2007 : Toronto, Ontario Canada) / Cambodian justice, a long time coming, by Noah Novogrodsky (National Post : October 1, 2007).

Khieu Samphan: "Black becomes white, and the truth becomes the enemy. Do not believe foreigners, and don't be divided"

'Truth Becomes the Enemy' for Former Public Face of Khmer Rouge

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

Listen Heng Reaksmey's 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 two of a five-part series.]

Khieu Samphan, the former public face of the Khmer Rouge, said this week the truth was being manipulated to become his enemy.

The Khmer Rouge had fought hard to keep Cambodia sovereign, "but in the end we are charged with genocide," Khieu Samphan said during a 90-minute phone interview with VOA Khmer.

In rhetoric peppered with the kind of paranoia that eventually manifested itself in homicidal purges within the regime, Khieu Samphan said Vietnam would have annexed Cambodia into an Indochinese federation had the Khmer Rouge not risen against it.

Vietnamese overtures to the Khmer Rouge to become "like the Viet Minh" were rebuffed, Khieu Samphan said, because Pol Pot wanted to be "independent and self-sufficient."

Khieu Samphan was educated in France. He moved back to Cambodia a math teacher and became progressively political. In 1967 he fled secret police of then-prince Norodom Sihanouk. He joined the communist guerrillas at Oral Mountain and rose through their ranks as they slowly took over the country. By the time the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh, he was one of the most-trusted leaders, becoming their spokesman and nominal head of state. He has said was not involved in the policies that led to the mass death and torture of his countrymen.

Khieu Samphan said this week he was an intellectual and did not command troops. "I cannot command my own people to die," he said.

He declined to say whom he thought might be indicted by Cambodia's hybrid genocide tribunal.

"I only want to talk about history, which is the truth, so that the Khmer people know their own history," said the man whose regime dismantled Cambodia's education system and executed its teachers.

"[The Khmer Rouge] fought very hard, we had a hard time, and there were many deaths, but in the end [we were] charged with genocide," he said. "Black becomes white, and the truth becomes the enemy. Do not believe foreigners, and don't be divided."