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After years under assumed names, Comrade Duch is facing justice,
writes Connie Levett.
He introduced himself as Hang Pin, just another Cambodian camp
worker in a white T-shirt emblazoned with the American Refugee
Committee logo, helping out on the Thai-Cambodian border.
He didn't look like a monster, but a British photographer, Nic
Dunlop, recognised him immediately as Comrade Duch, head of the
notorious Khmer Rouge Security Prison 21 (S-21), where 17,000
people were interrogated, tortured and finally sent for execution.
Duch meticulously documented his work, leaving behind a haunting
gallery of frightened and defiant faces - now the Tuol Sleng
museum.
This week, 28 years after the regime fell, Hang Pin - whose real
name is Kang Kek Ieu but who was known as Comrade Duch - now 64,
became the first man charged in relation to the Cambodian genocide.
After years of wrangling over funding, and the independence of the
genocide tribunal, the charge has raised hopes among the scarred
population that justice may yet be done.
Dr Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Centre of
Cambodia, said that although the world knew who the prime suspects
were, it was "very significant for Cambodia to have a judicial
process which responded to the call for justice".
The centre has, for 10 years, been chronicling the genocide that
killed more than 1.7 million people between 1975 and 1979. "Every
one of us lost at least one family member," Dr Chhang said,
describing the genocide trials as a real foundation to bring
closure so people could go on with their lives.
Vann Nath, one of only seven survivors of S-21, is keen to
testify. "If they don't bring them to court, [the Khmer Rouge]
won't know what they did was wrong. We need them to be responsible
for what they did. If we don't do it, the young generation will
not know what is wrong and what is right," he told the Herald this
year. Vann Nath survived because Duch liked his painting style,
setting him to work creating portraits of Brother No. 1, Pol
Pot.
Pol Pot, who led the murderous regime, died in 1998, never
having to account for his actions. Brother No. 3, Ta Mok, the
military commander, died last year.
Twenty years after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime, Duch must
have felt quite comfortable with his new identity. In Samlaut
village in 1999, "Hang Pin" was friendly and off guard - telling
Dunlop he had been a mathematics teacher and fled Phnom Penh when
the Khmer Rouge took power. In fact, he fled the capital in 1979
and did not leave the party until 1992. He then converted to
Christianity and worked, under assumed names, for the United
Nations and other aid bodies, in the refugee camps.
What he could not know was that Dunlop had made it a personal
mission to find him. Working as a freelance photographer in
Cambodia, he carried Duch's photo in his pocket and showed it to
villagers wherever he went, asking, "Have you seen this man?" When
he saw Hang Pin, he knew immediately.
"They thought I was mad," said Dunlop, who is now based in
Bangkok. He did not confront Duch on the first day, discreetly
taking photos before returning with another journalist a few weeks
later to challenge him as to his identity. Duch did not deny
it.
Duch rationalised his actions, saying he was just following
orders and would have been killed himself had he not.
"It's true he was following orders but in terms of being able
to influence decisions that were made, he also has a
responsibility," Dunlop said.
"A key part of his case in this tribunal is whether he remains
true to what he told me in 1999, which is 'Yes, I am responsible
but so are these other people. I did follow the orders.' If he
confesses to that it should be an incredible testimony."
In 1999 Duch told Dunlop that Pol Pot; Brother No. 2, Nuon Chea;
and Ta Mok all knew what was going on inside S-21. Khieu Samphan,
the chief ideologue, was also aware but less so.
The tribunal has indicated it will charge another four
as-yet-unnamed Khmer Rouge leaders. Duch's testimony could assist
in their prosecution.
Dr Chhang describes him as "a join between the lower and higher
levels of the regime. He was chief of a prison, one of 189 across
the country but his prison was at a level where most of the
prisoners were officials of the Khmer Rouge itself, who had become
enemies who needed to be purged."
Duch's trial is expected to begin early next year. Dunlop, who
wrote about his search for Duch in The Lost Executioner, is not
sure if he will attend.
"It seemed inconceivable to me growing up in the West that
things like this could occur. [What happened in] Cambodia
represented everything evil in the world," he said.
In trying to comprehend how it could happen, he realised it is
important to understand the perpetrators as much as it is to
empathise with victims.
"At the end, these monsters so-called are people, human beings.
There was nothing to indicate [Duch] was anything other than
ordinary. The thing is we can relate to these people, they are not
different to us."
Source: Sydney
Morning Herald
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