AsiaLIFE

It has been a long time coming, but soon sentence will be passed on Kang Guek Eav (better known as Duch) the former head of S-21 detention centre. Reporter Luke Hunt has been following the case of the first man to stand trial at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal from its outset.

Ever since Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen went to the United Nations more than 11 years ago and asked for an international war crimes tribunal, incompetence and corruption have reared and political brinkmanship has flourished.

The result was a painful process that threatened to derail genuine and marathon efforts by a few to find some kind of justice for the survivors of the Killing Fields and deal with Pol Pot's henchmen. Allegations of kickbacks against the Cambodian judiciary and funding shortfalls continued to dog the trial as it finally got underway in February.

Getting things going wasn’t helped when one defense lawyer Jacques Verges – famous for defending the likes of Klaus Barbie and Carlos the Jackal – failed to show up at the start. But thousands of spectators have turned-up at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) hoping to catch a glimpse of this country's former masters and tormentors.

At least they have not been disappointed.

On centre stage Case 001, the trial of Kang Guek Eav, got underway. As former head of the dreaded S-21 detention centre, his evidence has gripped Cambodians and long-time observers alike, casting a fresh light on the inner workings of Pol Pot's regime. Also known as Duch, his testimony leaves little doubt as to the calculating brutality inflicted by the leaders of the ultra-Maoists, before and after they came to power in April 1975.

These include former foreign minister Ieng Sary, who habitually produced a doctor’s certificate to excuse himself from pre-trial hearings, and his wife the former social affairs minister Ieng Thirith, often referred to as the First Lady of The Khmer Rouge. She has already horrified her own defence team by blaming Duch and Brother Number Two Nuon Chea for the deaths of thousands, including her own students.

Khieu Samphan, a former head of state, rounds out the final four to stand trial in case 002. Like Duch they stand charged with crimes against humanity, murder and torture. They will plead not guilty.

More recently they were also charged with genocide, and the prosecution has flagged the prospect that others might face charges if the UN and Cambodian sides of the court can agree on who should be placed in the dock.

Duch is expected to be sentenced in late March or early April. At 67 – much younger than the other cadre – he has a realistic chance of serving his sentence and living out the rest of his life a free man.

The next trial is unlikely to get underway until 2011. Delays are frustrating but nothing new. Getting to this point has proved a mighty endurance feat and sorely tested the resolve of all involved. Surviving leaders could die before facing justice.

On the manicured lawns surrounding the special chambers on the dusty outskirts of the capital, photographer Nic Dunlop holds his own occasional court. He sits slightly uncomfortable with his own publicity and the notion of celebrity journalism.

But Dunlop also knows a chance ride in the back of a pick-up truck a decade ago landed him a place in history, and an entire circus of judges, lawyers and perhaps the most difficult war crimes tribunal ever.

“It wasn’t simply a desire to see the Khmer Rouge bought to justice. It wasn’t a crusade to bring down the Khmer Rouge but it was more about trying to understand what made them kill like that,” he says. “Photography has enabled me to do that.”

As a child Dunlop first saw the photos of S-21 when they were published around the world in 1980, revealing the full horrors of the Killing Fields and the industrial scale slaughter of men, women and children at a suburban school in Toul Sleng that Duch had converted into a death camp.

Dunlop was haunted by them. He came to Cambodia as a late teenager in 1989 and visited S-21. There, amid the thousands of black and white prints of the victims, he saw the photograph of Duch, the camp commandant. Permanently etched on Dunlop’s mind was that picture. He also carried it in his wallet. It showed the well-defined lines, wide eyes, distinctive jaw and jutting ears of Pol Pot’s most effective executioner.

A career in photography and assignments in Southeast Asia followed. Then in 1999 while on the job in the remote village of Samlot near the Thai border, Dunlop hitched a ride with Canadian de-miners.

As they left he spotted the face from the photo and recognised it immediately.

“It was a very ordinary day,” he remembers. “It was an incredible accident. I never really thought I’d find him. I’m not a newsman, as a photographer I like to do longer term projects.”

Duch had left the Khmer Rouge a few years earlier, become a born again Christian and returned to teaching. He was working for the American Refugee Committee under the name Hang Pin when Dunlop approached him.

“We presented him with the evidence and he confessed before us.” It was an extraordinary moment explains Dunlop as the Khmer Rouge was highly secretive and finding answers was difficult. “Duch said the truth should be known and on the public record – that surprised me.”

“Oddly, he noticed that I was carrying a Leica and commented that this was an expensive camera. I wondered how he knew that and then I remembered he had his own extensive photo collection back at S-21.”

Dunlop and the journalist Nate Thayer met with Duch a handful of times, recording his interviews as he revealed the grisly details of his stewardship at Toul Sleng.

Duch was arrested by the authorities. Dunlop wrote ‘The Lost Executioner’ winning widespread praise. And, defying the expectations of many, the first trial of a senior cadre and is now done.

Prisoners were routinely beaten, faced electric shocks and had their toenails torn out. They were whipped and faced water-boarding. Surgery was performed on prisoners without anaesthesia and blood was extracted from them until they lay dying.

Pivotal to understanding this was light shed on M-13, a previously little known death camp established in 1971 in a communist held zone when Pol Pot's forces were still battling the US-backed Lon Nol government for control of the country.

“It’s really important in the telling of history what happened 30 years ago,” said Khmer American author and lawyer Theary Seng. “The Khmer Rouge tribunal is now shedding light on this very, very dark period.”

The court heard at least 300 people perished in M-13 near Omlaing, about 80 kilometres west of Phnom Penh, which Duch said was designed to "detain, to torture, and to smash, that is to kill" between 1971 and 1975. However, sources outside the court have said thousands died here and that Duch used this camp to hone his own brand of sadism.

Importantly M-13 became a prototype for centres like S-21 – where probably far more than the accepted figure of around 16,000 people, were systematically exterminated after Pol Pot seized control of Cambodia, renaming it Kampuchea. Duch stood trial for the deaths of 12,000.

Almost all were sent to the Killing Fields on the outskirts of town, told to their dig their own shallow graves, bludgeoned with an ox-cart axle, had their throats slit and bodies dumped.

The court heard that at least another 196 death camps were operating when the Vietnamese invaded and in January 1979 forced the Khmer Rouge leadership into the countryside from where they would continue to fight for the next two decades. Like the death tolls at M-13 and S-21, the number of camps was in reality much higher than the accepted figure in court. Nevertheless, Seng said Duch’s testimony left a powerful mark.

Evidence offered in case 001 included testimonies from the victims, S-21 guards and relatives of the dead, which included an Olympic rower from New Zealand. He confronted his brother’s killer after wishing him dead.

Cheam Soeu, a former Toul Sleng guard, told how four westerners – an Australian, an American, a New Zealander and a Briton – were brought there and eventually killed. He says one was taken outside the jail by three guards, told to sit down, a tire was placed over him and he was set a light. Cheam Soeu could not say which westerner had died.

Kerry Hamill of New Zealand was one of three westerners killed after their yacht was blown off course into Cambodian waters in 1978.

His brother, a rowing legend in his home country, perhaps spoke on behalf of many families. Slowly, he read a victim impact statement to the trial and wept.

He told Duch that he had ruined his family and that his parents had learned of their son’s death two months later from a newspaper report.

“At times, I have imagined you shackled, starved, whipped and clubbed, viciously. I have imagined your scrotum electrified, being forced to eat your own faeces, being nearly drowned and having your throat cut," said Hamill, referring to some of the horrors faced by prisoners.

But the extent of his crimes was probably best captured by a Vietnamese cameraman who entered Toul Sleng with Hanoi’s invasion in late 1978.

Footage shot was ruled inadmissible by judges after it was challenged by the defence for its authenticity.

But Greg Stanton, President of Genocide Watch has no doubts to its authenticity. “It makes Nazi death camps look tame,” he says. “It’s black and white, silent, about 10 minutes. It shows bodies chained to beds. Bodies were shackled at the ankles and disembowelled. It’s the most horrible thing on earth.”

Each day the war crimes trial was in sitting, Cambodians by the hundreds attended hearings in the public gallery. Thousands more were glued to their television sets to hear the evidence from centre stage.

This was topped by a weekly programme – Duch on Trial – which had an estimated audience of 2.5 million people. It wrapped-up the week’s events at the ECCC and was the backbone for perhaps the most talked about issue in the country. As a result Cambodian Television Network (CTN), by far Cambodia’s biggest broadcaster, became an important bellwether for the trial as interest exploded towards the end of Duch’s trial.

These are points not lost on the likes of Helen Jarvis, who has been involved with the trial process for over a decade. As head of the court’s victims unit she says many of the victims will be relieved that the court had wrapped up the trial.

“For the last seven months they have been here almost every single day, and have been following the ups and downs, they’ve been on the edge of their seats, crying, angry, upset, worried,” she said. “Their emotions have been absolute high pitched for seven months.”

In urging the court to jail Duch for 40 years, after taking into consideration the 10 years already served, co-prosecutor William Smith from Australia said his crimes were comparable with Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union.

Smith was also critical of the defence arguing that Duch had not accepted full responsibility for his actions. Duch pleaded no contest.

The prosecution's demand for a 40-year sentence also came after the tribunal heard a complaint from the defense over the legality of Duch's detention, the tribunal ruled on Jun. 15 last year that Duch had been illegally detained for about four years.

Its criticism of the Cambodian judiciary was unprecedented and it found Duch deserved to be compensated, making a life sentence for Duch's crimes at S-21 an improbability.

As such legal observers said that – with time off for good behaviour – this meant Duch and his defense team could expect to see his sentence reduced by up to 10 years.

That decision was pivotal to closing arguments although never directly referred to. It also goes some way in explaining Duch’s antics on the final day when he stunned the court and changed his plea from no contest and asked for an acquittal.

Initially his lawyer Francois Roux compared his client’s crimes with those committed by Albert Speer, the Minister of Armaments and War Production for Adolf Hitler in World War II and Dragan Obrenovic.

Obrenovic, the Bosnian Serb army brigade commander, was tried for war crimes in connection with the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. Eight thousand men and boys were killed.

They were sentenced to 20 and 17 years imprisonment respectively.

Roux won few fans with his final arguments.

“I apologise in advance to the victims for what I am about to say,” Roux said from behind the bullet-proof glass. He then claimed the total number of deaths under Duch’s stewardship was less than one percent of those who perished across the country at that time.

Then on the final day, his local lawyer Kar Savuth perhaps highlighted differences between the Cambodian and international camps by ignoring Roux’s well-rehearsed strategy and suggested Duch should be released immediately.

This perhaps explains Duch’s final move. Speaking in his own defence, Duch said within the ranks of the Khmer Rouge “the collective led but the individual had responsibility.” Then he asked to be acquitted and released from the chamber. It was as if the ramifications of Duch’s own admission had failed to register on his own personal moral compass.

In comparing the evidence offered before the court with the information Duch surrendered a decade ago, Dunlop said the truth had been told in varying degrees.

“We look at him in the context of today. It’s been 10 years since we first met. He’s been truthful up to a point, there is a measure of sincerity. There is consistency in what he says but he’s had 10 years to script it,” he said. “The Prosecution asserts he lacks sincerity and lacks empathy for the victims, perhaps, but 10 years ago he wasn’t reading an apology from a piece of paper.”

“It’s like we are taking down a brick wall – brick by brick – a wall that separates his emotional life and reality. Duch is being tried for the crimes he committed but not for the type of person he is. He always seemed disconnected.”

Therein lies the rub, what makes a man like Duch? According to Roux, the former maths teacher was “a decent man by all accounts” before the advent of Pol Pot.

“A Christian convert made him much more interesting,” Dunlop said. “Being honest with oneself and for the general good is central to being a Christian and Duch’s needs are seen in his position with the Khmer Rouge and later as a Christian.

“I think he is one of those people who requires a structure. He needs a group but I’m not sure that he has the courage of his convictions,” he said. “I think he has minimalised his individual responsibility while accepting a broader guilt.”

Going forward Duch has probably proved his worth, provided a rich backdrop and solid foundations for the trials yet to come. And they are expected to extend beyond 2015.