DUCH TALKS TORTURE, VIETNAMESE AT KRT

On his fourth day of testimony for Case 002/02 against Khmer Rouge leaders Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, former S-21 chief Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, continued to deny any instances of rape took place at the infamous Khmer Rouge detention center and was questioned further about interrogation tactics as well as the treatment of Vietnamese prisoners.

Continuing her line of questioning on rape at S-21, Civil Party Co-Lawyer Marie Guiraud described a sexual assault involving a stick that was confirmed at the center by previous witnesses and asked Mr. Guek Eav what had been done to the soldier after he was accused.

In line with last week’s testimony, Mr. Guek Eav said he tried to punish the soldier, but was not allowed to because of “party rules.”

“I was angry. I told them to remove him from the women’s interrogation unit and I reported it to Son Sen,” he said. “I do not have the authority to make an arrest, so I tried to transfer him to another post. But no one reacted to my report so no one was ever arrested.”

He claimed to have created a special interrogation unit made up of the wives of the facility’s leaders because of the incident, but Ms. Guiraud immediately showed he may have been lying – two interrogators who worked at S-21 and testified previously said they had never seen any female interrogation unit and were often asked to interrogate women themselves.

She then moved on to sex and marriages at S-21, and questioned what happened to prisoners caught having sex.

“If people were caught in action outside of marriage, they were smashed,” he said. “Some were allowed, but most were arrested for misconduct.”

He added that the issue became more of a problem later on in the Khmer Rouge reign, even saying one man fled and joined an opposing army because his request for marriage was rejected.

Mr. Guek Eav harped on this point, often saying only cases like these, where prisoners were caught having consensual sex, were the only ones found. Rape, he said, was nonexistent.

“There were no cases of violent rape,” he said. “But there were cases of love.”

Torture and the Vietnamese

Mr. Guek Eav continued his attempts to partially absolve himself when questioned about torture tactics used at S-21. National Civil Party Lead Co-Lawyer Pich Ang asked him about testimony from a witness who claims to have had the nails on his big toes removed with pliers and a finger broken. Interrogators also put needles into his toes repeatedly.

“I instructed him [his subordinate] to stop this kind of practice,” he said of the toe nail removal. “I authorized electrocution. But I forbid them from killing any prisoners because we needed their confession.”

The need for confessions took new importance with Vietnamese soldiers who had been captured by the Khmer Rouge. Starting in January 1978, after the first Vietnamese soldier was brought to S-21, recordings of their confessions would be broadcast over loudspeakers on direct orders from Mr. Chea.

Mr. Chea would often edit the confessions to fit the needs and desires of the Khmer Rouge leaders. They even took the time to create a film about the Vietnamese army, using detained soldiers to act in the film before murdering them outside S-21.

Despite constant denials, obfuscations and question-dodging, Mr. Guek Eav did openly question and criticize the Khmer Rouge tactic of burying the dead after they were killed, saying the practice was not part of Khmer culture. Buddhist tradition generally calls for cremation as opposed to burials.

“For prisoners, after they were smashed, they were buried,” he said. “That was against our tradition. Against our customs.”

http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/26076/duch-talks-torture--vietnamese-at-krt/

DUCH DENIES RAPE AT S-21

Before starting his third day on the witness stand, Kaing Guek Eav, the former head of Khmer Rouge detention center S-21, was told by the court’s president that he was free to incriminate himself, as his trial had finished and he is already serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity.
 

Yet when asked yesterday about multiple accusations of rape at S-21 by Civil Party Co-Lawyer Marie Guiraud during testimony for Case 002/02 involving Khmer Rouge leaders Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, Mr. Guek Eav vehemently denied the charges, exclaiming: “Who dared to engage in sexual rape? Nobody.
 

“I don’t believe it was that easy to rape a woman in the open,” he added. “That person would have been beheaded.”
 

Ms. Guiraud continued to ask him about specific testimony from previous witnesses who claimed to have either seen or heard about rapes at the detention center. But Mr. Guek Eav refused to accept the allegations, even going so far as to defend the same Khmer Rouge leaders he had spent the previous days incriminating.
 

He started the line of questioning by admitting to one rape at S-21 involving one of his old teachers.
 

“I only knew of one case. A young man raped my former teacher. It was related to a mistake made during the interrogation process,” he said. “I believe there were not many instances of rape at S-21.”
 

But as he was asked more questions about specific instances of rape, he became more bullish and animated, slamming any assumption that rape was allowed at S-21 and even saying the accusations were fabricated.
 

In between his vehement denials, he managed to slip in excuses about why he may not have known about rapes at S-21, claiming at one point that it was his subordinate Ta Hor’s responsibility to handle any cases of sexual assault.
 

“It was not my responsibility,” he said. “And this does not reflect CPK [Communist Party of Kampuchea] policy.”
 

Mr. Guek Eav, known to many as Duch, started the day with more questions from Assistant Prosecutor Dale Lysak about the specifics of interrogations at S-21. He told the court the methods of torture often changed based on who was in charge.
 

When Ta Nat, Mr. Guek Eav’s predecessor, was in charge, electrocutions were more common and more prisoners were killed during torture. But when he took the reins, physical beatings were more prevalent.
 

He revealed a variety of horrifying facts about interrogations, including that women were often tortured by the wives of those in charge of S-21, and electrocutions were carried out by attaching phone lines to each of a prisoner’s big toes. His superior Vorn Vet suggested they use plastic bags to suffocate prisoners because they would not leave any bruises.
 

But Mr. Guek Eav seemingly tried to absolve himself of some of the blame for the torture that took place at S-21, saying: “S-21 was only an instrument of the party.”
 

Once Mr. Lysak finished his questioning for the day, Ms. Guiraud began to ask questions about specific prisoners killed at S-21 and the situation surrounding their arrest, beginning with Chao Seng, founder of the Pedagogical Institute of Cambodia.
 

Mr. Guek Eav was particularly remorseful when asked about Mr. Seng, expressing multiple times that he wished he could meet with his wife and another relative to express his sorrow and anguish about what happened to him.
 

He told the court he had been instructed by superior Son Sen and the “party center” to arrest Mr. Seng, but to give him a different name in S-21’s records.
 

“I could not protect him. That is the truth. For me, Chao Seng did many good things,” he said. “I want to meet them [Mr. Seng’s wife and a relative] to express my regret and apologize that I could not protect their man.”
 

He says he tried to keep Mr. Seng alive, but was asked by Mr. Chea himself where he was and why he was still alive after a few months at S-21.
 

Ms. Guiraud then moved on to four westerners who were killed at S-21, focusing on Michael Scott Deeds and another man, both of whom were captured by Navy forces along the coast.
 

Mr. Guek Eav said once the men were brought to S-21, he was ordered by Mr. Chea to burn their bodies.
 

“He told me in person ‘we are not Cuba, exchanging prisoners for other prisoners or goods’,” he said. “They had to be burned to ashes so that there was no evidence remaining that any westerner was arrested and smashed by us. That was the strict instruction I had to follow.”
 

Mr. Guek Eav said the men were burned along with car tires and their ashes were dumped into a pond along Mao Tse Tung Boulevard.
 

He also took time out to refute the translation of a widely circulated quote attributed to him and to the larger Khmer Rouge propaganda machine by historians and witnesses. The oft-mentioned “It is better to arrest 10 innocent people than let one traitor go” was incorrect, according to Mr. Guek Eav.
 

“This is wrong. It has been mistranslated,” he said. “Son Sen told me ‘to keep is no gain, to remove is no loss’.”

http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/25992/duch-denies-rapes-at-s-21/

DUCH GRILLED ON CHILD MURDERS

In his second day of testimony for Case 002/02 at the Khmer Rouge tribunal yesterday, Kaing Guek Eav, the former head of Khmer Rouge detention center S-21, was grilled by Assistant Prosecutor Dale Lysak about how the Khmer Rouge, and specifically S-21 prison, dealt with relatives of prisoners, children of people who were executed and pregnant women.
 

Mr. Lysak touched on the subject during Mr. Guek Eav’s testimony on Tuesday and continued to dive deeper into understanding how the Khmer Rouge organized the detainment of women and children.
 

“Spouses and children of enemies of the regime were treated the same way as enemies of the regime,” said Mr. Guek Eav, also known as Duch. “Even when senior regime officials were arrested, their wives were arrested too.”
 

But his cadres rarely interrogated wives or children, deeming them “not important.” He claimed that before April 1975, “children were spared and raised. In that time we had no principles to smash children.”
 

But later, he says he was “instructed to kill the wives of soldiers who we thought were spying on us,” illustrating symptoms of the paranoia within the Khmer Rouge regime that would later be touched on as well during his testimony.
 

He described an instance when a group of children was brought to S-21, and he complained to his superiors that “raising children at S-21 was impossible.”
 

“But the party center told me, ‘have a firm stance and separate friends from enemies’,” he said. “I tried my best to rescue the children, but my efforts were not successful.”
 

During the trial for Nuon Chea, Pol Pot’s deputy, and Khieu Samphan, the Khmer Rouge head of state, on a multitude of charges including genocide, Mr. Guek Eav went on to explain that when it came to the children of anyone they deemed a “traitor,” Son Sen himself said revenge should be everyone’s focus, and ‘eye for an eye’ should be a guiding principle.
 

Testimony on family purges then transitioned into the frequent Khmer Rouge purges of its own forces, and what happened to the family members of those killed. Mr. Guek Eav cited his own experience of being fearful of what might happen to him after one of his superiors, Vorn Vet, was arrested in 1978.
 

Mr. Vet and his deputy Cheng Orn were both detained along with their wives.
 

“There was no purpose interrogating the women,” he said. “The main focus was Brother Vorn. I assume his family was smashed.”
As regime forces arrested Mr. Vet, Mr. Guek Eav thought back to a meeting he had with him once, where he was told to be careful and watch who he trusted.
 

“I was so scared I could not work,” he said of the time after Mr. Vet had been arrested. “I had to stay along party lines because I was afraid I would be disappeared. If I was disappeared, my family would be disappeared as well.”
 

The fear and relentless paranoia was intentional, he said. Mr. Sen, head of the Communist Party of Kampuchea’s (CMK) security apparatus, reveled in “instilling fear” in his subordinates.
 

“Everyone was so fearful of being arrested because usually the arrests were done to people who were linked along the same lines,” he told the court. Even the interrogators at S-21, often attempting to confirm the paranoid suspicions of their superiors, were not safe from the purges.
 

Mr. Guek Eav said there were approximately 33 interrogators at S-21 at any given time, but the number fluctuated and often decreased “because some were found to be traitors and had to be smashed.”
 

Despite strict stipulations on so many aspects of life and specifically delineated party structures within the Khmer Rouge, Mr. Guek Eav said there were no specific rules on what to do with the family members of those being interrogated at S-21. Although party leaders told them to kill the children of “traitors” to stop “revenge killings,” Mr. Guek Eav claimed there was nothing specific ever said about what was to be done with detained family members. More often than not, everyone in the family was killed regardless of age, he said.
 

“If he only gave me instructions for four people, and not for the others, then they had to be smashed,” he added. “There was never any instruction not to kill children, women or pregnant women.”
 

Mr. Guek Eav confirmed an official document that said “interrogate four, smash the others,” at the bottom of a list of 18 family members, two of whom were four and six years old. All 18 were killed on April 7, 1977.
 

But throughout all of his testimony yesterday, it was often what he did not remember that ended up being the most harrowing.
 

Mr. Lysak went through a series of very specific instances hoping to get confirmation of murder from Mr. Guek Eav. But his repeated line of “I do not recall” left a disturbing pall in the courtroom. Many times he would say that so many people were killed or moved through S-21 that he was unable to remember specific situations.
 

He gave the same answer to two disturbing questions posed to him. There was a document from S-21 indicating that 160 children had been murdered in one day. Another said eight near-term pregnant women were executed in 1977 after being transported to S-21 from Prey Sar.
 

He could not recall the reason why either group was executed despite signing off on both.

http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/25930/duch-grilled-on-child-murders/