Asiaweek : March 19 , 1999

BIG BURDEN

Cambodia has to decide whether to convene a tribunal to investigate Khmer

Rouge atrocities

By Dominic Faulder

THE MAN KNOWN AS Ta Mok had an accurate nickname - "the butcher." He had

known violence all his adult life. In the 1940s he resisted French rule. In

the 1970s he was with the Khmer Rouge, his enemy the U.S.-backed Lon Nol

regime. For decades he was Pol Pot's most feared general, his chief

executioner. The two only fell out when their mad and bloody revolution was

in its final death throes.

Now Ta Mok, 72, is in prison. He was captured by Cambodian troops near the

Thai border, not far from his old redoubt at Anlong Veng. Ironically his

cell is located nearby the old Tuol Sleng prison-torture compound, where

alleged enemies of the Khmer Rouge regime were "interrogated" to exact

confessions before they were dispatched to the killing fields. Tuol Sleng is

now a memorial, dedicated to the some 1.7 million Cambodians who died in the

1975-1979 genocide.

Ta Mok is not talking much. He maintains he was a relatively low-ranking

official ignorant of any genocide. "The interrogators and guards burst out

laughing," when they heard that, said Phnom Penh deputy governor Chea

Sophara. Ta Mok was a big fish. He commanded a division along the Vietnam

border which was responsible for numerous atrocities on both sides of the

line. He was in charge of purging squads that wiped out virtually everyone

resident in designated areas. Some believe Ta Mok has more blood on his

hands than any living Cambodian, maybe anyone living - period.

Now he is in custody, what to do with him? If the liberal foreign powers

have their way, he will undoubtedly be one of the showpieces of an

international tribunal. The crimes that Ta Mok and his colleagues committed

were crimes against humanity, they argue. Thus the world has a transcendent

interest in seeing that details of the genocide are laid bare. The argument

is that criminals of Ta Mok's stature must be brought to justice, punished

and permanently denied any role in Cambodian public life.

But what the world wants may not square with Cambodian realities. In

December Prime Minister Hun Sen literally rolled out the red carpet for Nuon

Chea, Pol Pot's political deputy, and longtime frontman Khieu Samphan (the

"acceptable face" of the Khmer Rouge). Also treated with respect was former

Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary, who received a limited royal pardon

in 1996 and now lives peacefully in Pailin in western Cambodia.

They are not free for lack of evidence. The Documentation Center of Cambodia

has amassed many incriminating facts. For example, Ieng Sary is said to have

been personally responsible for summoning back Cambodian students and

diplomats from abroad. Some 800 of them were then murdered. "With Nuon Chea,

even a lousy lawyer could press charges," says Youk Chhang, director of the

documentation center. "His name is everywhere, 'suggesting' executions."

Two other key Khmer Rouge figures are thought to be dead but may still be at

large. Son Sen, Pol Pot's defense minister, was supposedly murdered on Pol

Pot's order in June 1997. Youk Chhang has very serious doubts. Numerous

rumors also surround the former Tuol Sleng commandant named Deuch. He fled

to the Thai border and was sighted at various times during the 1980s. Among

the commanders certainly alive is Ke Pauk. Like Ta Mok, he led a division

and is said by some to have purged up to 100,000 people. Yet soon after his

defection one year ago, he was made a one-star general in Cambodia's army.

Below them are hundreds of Khmer Rouge cadres with blood on their hands

still living peacefully in Cambodia (see Killers and Survivors and

Interview).

Hun Sen equivocates over the tribunal not only for "national reconciliation"

reasons but because of economic necessity and geopolitics. Some think his

government's time and money could be better spent concentrating on

rebuilding the country. In December Hun Sen told Asiaweek he favored a court

convened in Cambodia with foreign assistance but outside U.N. auspices. (In

a small step in that direction, Ta Mok's prosecutors have already sounded

out help from France.) Hun Sen also fears that a Security Council veto by

China would delay justice. He recently visited Beijing. It's a safe bet that

the Chinese told him they could do without an an international inquisition.

In recent letters to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Hun Sen argued for

an investigation of Cambodia's history from 1970 to last year, not just the

genocide. But he later cautioned that a tribunal might panic former Khmer

Rouge cadres "into turning back to the jungle and renewing guerrilla war."

He has also been mulling the South African example of a "truth and

reconciliation" commission.

Meanwhile, on March 9, Ta Mok was charged under a law outlawing the Khmer

Rouge which has questionable relevance to the genocide. Officials say it may

take eight months to prepare their case, longer if he is charged with

specific killings. Even if found guilty, the severest sentence is life

imprisonment since the death penalty is no longer on the books. For most,

such punishment will not fit the crimes of Ta Mok and his ilk.

======================================

'I REGRET NOTHING'

So says In Sopheap, a top Khmer Rouge "intellectual"

In Sopheap is one of five Khmer Rouge "intellectuals" who defected last year

after the Cambodian army finally overran the guerrilla movement's

headquarters at Anlong Veng. He now lives modestly with his family in a

newly built house on the outskirts of Pailin in western Cambodia. Educated,

urbane and charming, 56-year-old Sopheap is not the kind of Khmer Rouge most

people know. Sopheap missed the 1975 Khmer Rouge "liberation" of Phnom Penh

as he was in Hanoi. He returned to the capital shortly afterward and

remained there as a senior foreign ministry official until the Vietnamese

invaded in December 1978. Eventually, Sopheap was posted as Democratic

Kampuchea's ambassador to Cairo from 1984 to 1993; during that time, he

helped negotiate the 1991 Paris Peace Accords. When the Khmer Rouge decided

not to contest the U.N.-supervised election two years later, Sopheap and

other intellectuals ended up in the "liberated" zones of northwestern

Cambodia. In a rare interview with Special Correspondent Dominic Faulder,

Sopheap reflected on a failed revolution that has devastated his country.

Excerpts from two conversations:

What are you doing now?

I am looking for a job, but I am not in a hurry because of the atmosphere in

Phnom Penh. Cambodia is not yet very good. There is still political

hostility and instability. There is a lot of misunderstanding about the

Khmer Rouge. In the present atmosphere, you cannot say what you want. What

we want now is to give some respite to our people.

How did you come to be a Khmer Rouge?

I don't know if you can imagine the atmosphere in the 1960s, when there were

progressive democratic and Khmer Rouge movements. I began my activist life

when I was in high school, defending the Sihanoukist policy of peace and

neutrality. I do not know if I was a Marxist or not at that time, but I was

a progressive. At that time, the Khmer Rouge were something rather

respectable, battling Lon Nol's coup [against King Sihanouk]. Lon Nol was

very corrupt and reactionary. His government had no root inside the country.

We never called ourselves Khmer Rouge; we were progressives against Lon

Nol's reactionaries. Khmer Rouge can mean everything. For most honest

people, it was a democratic movement. It was not my fault if Pol Pot and the

leadership deviated [from our original principles] in 1975.

What did you find when you returned to Phnom Penh in 1975?

I was a little bit surprised. When the war ended, I expected to meet my

family and friends, but the city was empty. The declared policy was to

defend and rebuild the country. I worked within this framework at the

foreign ministry. There was only a small staff and we were very busy.

Normally, I did not sleep until 2 a.m. every night. I left Phnom Penh on

Jan. 6 or 7, 1979. On the 11th, I went to Beijing with Ieng Sary. For me,

Phnom Penh is still 1968 [when I first left the country to study in Paris].

Did you not realize that something was amiss in Phnom Penh?

I am not defending people who killed people. [But] how could you reproach

people who had been fighting foreigners and the corrupt regime of Lon Nol?

Of course we saw that people were very miserable, but we thought it would be

temporary. I did not know about the killings. I believed communists were

very good, that they did not kill people but sent them instead for

re-education. Even now, I don't know where [the torture center] Tuol Sleng

is, though I did hear about [its codename] S-21. I did not imagine people

were being tortured or killed. We [intellectuals] knew nothing about

military plans or strategies. I knew very few commanders. The cadres had no

confidence in people like me. Six of my sisters and brothers disappeared

during this period. I lost a lot of people. The Khmer Rouge are Cambodians

too. I agree with Hun Sen when he says we were all victims of the Khmer

Rouge. Finding out gave us great sorrow, but it was not like someone

suddenly coming to you and saying your parents have died. We had our

suspicions, but gave them the benefit of the doubt. Revolution is always

very demanding, but we did not realize the sacrifice would be so big.

What was Pol Pot like?

He was very approachable. There was no problem speaking to him. He always

knew how to evaluate his words. The victims of Pol Pot believed in him and

blamed the security men. You will never see a document signed by Pol Pot

ordering someone to be killed. When he spoke, he could be very reasonable.

At meetings he always talked about having a policy of great union, yet

afterward people disappeared. When you look at the killings, he must have

been mad. Why did it happen? I can't give a satisfying response.

What should be done?

When Hun Sen accepted [former Khmer Rouge leaders] Khieu Samphan and Nuon

Chea, it was the right thing to do. There are many crimes in Cambodia which

cannot be fought. I think it is better to leave it to history to draw the

appropriate lesson coolly. Hun Sen, [opposition leader Sam] Rainsy and

[Prince Norodom] Ranariddh all talk about [establishing] law. This is the

right way for everyone. Pushing Hun Sen is not the right way. Encouraging

him is better.

Do you have regrets?

I regret nothing. I did my job as a good patriot. I did nothing wrong. As a

man, I am among the best sons of Cambodia. I was a good Khmer Rouge. I am

proud of my life. I did not participate in any wrongdoing or killing. I

regret that after 30 years of war Cambodia has gone backward. We are behind

the society of 1970. It will take some time to reach a new state of

evolution. There will be no miracles. To see the country in this state makes

me sad.

============================

Asiaweek, March 19,1999

WIDE-RANGING CONCERN

Though a tribunal would essentially be investigating the issue of Khmer

killing Khmer, the inquiry would also drag in a host of other players,

international as well as domestic. Here are some, and where they stand:

IN FAVOR OF A TRIBUNAL

- THE U.N. But China might veto it in the Security Council.

- THE U.S. Washington's role is controversial given its involvement with

Lon Nol, who ousted Prince Norodom Sihanouk in 1970. This provided the

Khmer Rouge with a more focused nationalist agenda. The radical fervor

was fueled by U.S. bombing in the early 1970s, which resulted in heavy

Cambodian casualties.

- THE E.U. President Jacques Chirac of France, Cambodia's onetime

colonial ruler, supports a tribunal, as do the other European powers,

though all are aware of the practical problems involved.

- JAPAN, Cambodia's biggest donor. Talks about the tribunal in

connection with the aid Cambodia desperately needs.

- AUSTRALIA AND THE PHILIPPINES. Canberra and Manila have been mentioned

as possible venues for a tribunal outside Phnom Penh.

- VIETNAM. Well, wouldn't say no. Early on backed the Khmer Rouge, but

kicked them out in 1979. Has a few scores to settle since the Khmer

Rouge reverted to form and fanned passionate anti-Vietnamese xenophobia

(a national Cambodian pastime).

- KING NORODOM SIHANOUK. Nominally leader of the Khmer Rouge front that

won control in 1975, but soon incarcerated. Willing to abdicate briefly

to testify as a private citizen if given the chance.

- PRINCE NORODOM RANARIDDH, Sihanouk's son and president of the National

Assembly. Flirted disastrously with Khmer Rouge hardliners in 1997 but

now a born-again advocate of justice.

- SAM RAINSY, leader of the opposition. Wants any tribunal to

investigate all mass murderers, including those he alleges are in the

cabinet and top strata of Cambodian society.

UNDECIDED

- HUN SEN, Cambodia's prime minister. Prior to the ASEAN summit in Hanoi

in December, was clearly in favor of a foreign-assisted tribunal in

Phnom Penh outside U.N. auspices. Has since been procrastinating without

quite ruling it out. Hun Sen's dilemma is real. He must balance the

material and security needs of 11 million living Cambodians against the

rights of 1.7 million dead ones.

- ORDINARY CAMBODIANS. Justice does not figure much in their experience,

and a tribunal is an almost extraterrestrial proposition. Polls in

Cambodia are pretty dubious, but a referendum on the issue - along with

local elections due at year's end - might be an option.

AGAINST

- CHINA. Deeply embarrassed by the genocide, and not just because it was

the chief source of aid and materiel to the Khmer Rouge in the late

1970s and throughout the 1980s. In their awesome arrogance, the Khmer

Rouge ignored warnings and managed to improve upon the mistakes of the

Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

- THAILAND. Officially, this is an internal Cambodian affair.

Unofficially, Thailand is also deeply embarrassed by the corrupt

military and business groups who profited in the 1980s from a black

trade with the Khmer Rouge (and others) in arms, logs and gems. But

Thailand also gave refuge to nearly 400,000 Cambodian refugees and was

in no way involved in the actual genocide. The military recently acted

decisively to ensure that key Khmer Rouge figures are not allowed

sanctuary onThai soil.

- MYANMAR. The generals hate this kind of talk given the ethnic thumping

and other abuses under their belts.

- KHMER ROUGE STALWARTS like Ieng Sary, Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan and the

just-arrested Ta Mok. For all the obvious reasons.

==========================

The Age

Saturday 18 April 1998

Pol Pot's legacy of horror

By ROBERT TEMPLER

Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge, was one of the most reviled figures of

the 20th century. In his four years as Prime Minister of Democratic

Kampuchea, he tried to remake an impoverished South-East Asian nation into a

model of radical Maoism.

His paranoia and brutality sent it into a chasm of darkness in which as many

as two million died. Pol Pot's enduring legacy is the thousands of mass

graves that litter Cambodia, but he was chillingly unrepentant up to his

death at 73, saying recently that his "conscience was clear".

Scholars will long debate what drove a man described by those who knew him

as gentle and unassuming to create a system under which family life was

erased, children became torturers, and even loyal followers of the regime

were bludgeoned to death in their thousands.

Pol Pot came to power in April 1975 and set about creating what the Khmer

Rouge saw as a rural Utopia without money, or private property. The cities

were emptied and Cambodia's history began again at Year Zero.

There are few clues in his childhood to explain the violence he unleashed in

later life. His father was a moderately wealthy farmer and his mother had

connections at the royal court in Phnom Penh. At the age of six he was sent

to the city for his education and later attended a boarding school for

bright students.

In 1948 he was among the first students sent on government scholarships to

go to university in France.

His political ideas began to form in Paris where he aimlessly studied radio

engineering, failing to get a degree but becoming drawn to the optimistic

vision of communism then circulating. In an interview in October 1997, Pol

Pot said he began reading about the French revolution, spending his

scholarship money on second-hand books and copies of the French Communist

Party newspaper, L'Humanite.

Opposition to French rule in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos was centred in the

Indochina Communist Party, which attracted many students at the time. With

Communist victories in China and across Eastern Europe, Marxism seemed the

way to liberate Cambodia from the French. Pol Pot began to attend study

sessions organised by the French Communist Party.

Another person who went to the meetings would later describe him as "the

most intelligent, the most convinced, the most intransigent. It was he who

animated the debates and most impressed the newcomers".

Pol Pot returned to Cambodia in 1953, just before the country won its

independence under King Sihanouk, who abdicated to take up a position as

head of government. It was at this time that his revolutionary fervor

developed, he later said.

Shocked on his return by the poverty of his relatives, he was driven to

political action. In 1956, he began teaching at a private college, where

according to his biographer, David Chandler, he was remembered for his mild,

affable manner and his knowledge of French literature. He was already

leading a clandestine life in the Indochina Communist Party, building up

networks of supporters. In 1960, Sihanouk, later Prince Sihanouk, launched a

crackdown on the Communists during which the party's secretary, Tou Samouth,

disappeared. Pol Pot stepped into his shoes and emerged as the head of the

party's Cambodian section.

Accusations would later surface that Pol Pot had connived in Samouth's

murder to clear his route to the top in what was his first act of political

violence. Pol Pot, however, denied any role in the killing.

In 1963, he fled to the countryside to lead the resistance against Sihanouk.

From then on, he would become Brother Number One, the shadowy head of the

Communist Maquis on the run in camps in north-eastern Cambodia. In 1965, he

went to Hanoi, where tensions were building with the Vietnamese. Pol Pot

bristled at what he saw as their superior attitude and demands that the

Cambodians hold off from armed struggle against Sihanouk until North Vietnam

had won its war against the US.

He later went to China, where the Cultural Revolution was swirling. Pol Pot

was said to have been impressed by Mao Zedong's vision of permanent

revolution, his harnessing of young impressionable minds, and the

destruction of all vestiges of history.

The armed struggle began in 1968 when Khmer Rouge guerrillas clashed with

the army and police. The situation in Cambodia began to unravel, and in 1969

the United States began its secret bombing of Vietnamese bases in Cambodia.

At the beginning of 1970, Sihanouk left for his annual cure at a spa in

France and was deposed by his chief general, Lon Nol. The new right-wing

regime in Phnom Penh galvanised the Chinese and Vietnamese, previously only

lukewarm supporters of Pol Pot, and they stepped up help.

Sihanouk was set up in Beijing as the nominal head of a united front against

Lon Nol, while Pol Pot took command at a headquarters in north-eastern

Cambodia. He had just a few thousand men under arms but with Vietnamese

weapons and training they were becoming a more effective force. Vietnamese

troops, tempered by years of war in their own country, held off offensives

by Lon Nol.

US bombers took an enormous toll, beating back Khmer Rouge attacks on Phnom

Penh in 1973. A year later the guerrillas formed a noose around the capital.

Its population had swollen as people fled there to escape US bombings and

the rigid social control imposed in areas under the Khmer Rouge.

The final assault on Phnom Penh began in the dry season in 1975. At the

beginning of April, Lon Nol fled into exile and the US embassy was hurriedly

evacuated. On 17 April, Pol Pot's silent soldiers, many of them just young

teenagers in black pyjamas, arrived in the city and ordered all two million

people to evacuate. In the intense heat, people were forced on to the roads

on foot, families were separated in the crush, even hospital wards were

savagely cleared. As far as the Khmer Rouge were concerned, they were all

enemies.

Only when the city was empty did Pol Pot arrive to take over. He became

Prime Minister in the shadowy Government that presided over a smouldering

ghost town. He began to work on the four-year plan under which Cambodia

would make its great leap forward to socialism by 1979. Rice yields would be

tripled to three tonnes a hectare and a vast area would be planted in the

malarial jungles of north-eastern Cambodia. Those forced out of the cities,

known as "new people" because they were supposed to abandon all links with

the past, were sent to these areas to dig canals and clear fields .

Hundreds of thousands died of disease, hunger and beatings. Of a population

of seven million, as many as two million died. The Khmer Rouge cadres saw

them as expendable, telling them: "Keeping you is no gain. Losing you is no

loss."

Stubbornly ignorant of the realities of Cambodian agriculture, Pol Pot

believed rice exports would finance his new vision of a developed Cambodia.

Food production collapsed.

Believing that the family stood in the way of his radical vision of

socialism, he tried to break down the capitalist structure by splitting

families and forcing people to eat in communal halls.

Driven by the virulent Maoism of its isolated leaders and their vision of a

racially pure country, the revolution destroyed everything Cambodians held

dear, unravelling the connections of Buddhism, village life, friends and

family.

By 1977, Pol Pot's paranoia had started to fuel a series of rampaging,

self-destructive purges. The deaths and torture at Tuol Sleng, a school

turned into an interrogation centre named S-21, would be one of the most

macabre legacies. About 16,000 people, many of them Khmer Rouge cadres and

their families, passed through Tuol Sleng, where they were photographed and

their confessions kept in well-ordered files.

Tales of what was happening in Cambodia started to trickle out in 1977

through refugees fleeing to Thailand, but the closed country remained an

enigma.

Western analysts were able to connect the fact that Solath Sar and Pol Pot

were the same person only when he was photographed on a visit to Beijing.

However, hidden by the secrecy, Pol Pot's regime was starting to unravel.

Tensions were rising with the Vietnamese, who had sent troops across the

border to retaliate for Cambodian massacres on their side.

In December, he cut relations with Hanoi and accused Vietnam of aggression.

Hanoi, which had remained silent until then, began referring to his

"barbaric, mediaeval policies."

On 25 December 1978, Vietnam sent 100,000 men across the border and quickly

destroyed Cambodian defences. Sihanouk, who had spent the previous years

under house arrest, was hustled out on a plane to Beijing less than 24 hours

before the Vietnamese arrived in the capital.

Pol Pot fled to Thailand aboard a helicopter on the morning of 7 January

1979. That day marked the end of what Cambodians call "the era of the

contemptible Pot". But it did not mark the end of his career. Supported by

the Thai military, he was able to regroup on the frontier and rebuild some

of his guerrilla units.

His rhetoric turned more to stirring up the ancient passions of Cambodian

nationalism and the deep fear of being swamped by Vietnam. After 1981 he

disappeared from public view.

Little is known about his personal life or personality other than

descriptions of him as calm and charismatic. He married Khieu Ponnary, a

teacher he met in Paris, in July 1956. A sombre, austere woman whose sister

was married to the Khmer Rouge leader Ieng Sary, she would eventually plunge

into madness and spent much of the 1980s in a hospital in Beijing. Pol Pot

married for a second time in the 1980s to a peasant woman in her 30s, called

Sar. She bore him his only child, a daughter born in 1986.

After ordering the execution of one of his lieutenants, Son Sen, who he

believed had tried to betray him, Pol Pot tried to flee but was captured and

tried by his former supporters, not for crimes against humanity but for his

role in the internal struggles of the Khmer Rouge.

His bizarre trial, at which crowds chanted slogans while he sat impassive

and unmoved, was filmed by an American journalist, Nate Thayer, who later

interviewed Pol Pot, his first contact with a Western journalist since the

early 1980s.

The interview revealed his profound delusions and his intense hatred of the

Vietnamese. He denied even knowing about the deaths at Tuol Sleng, which he

described as an "exhibition" set up by the Vietnamese. He told Thayer that

although the Khmer Rouge had made mistakes, their actions were justified by

the threat of annexation from Vietnam.

"I came to carry out the struggle, not to kill people," he said. "My

conscience is clear. As I told you before, they fought against us, so we had

to take measures to defend ourselves."

Pol Pot spent his last months under house arrest in a wood and thatch hut.

He was partially blind after a stroke in 1995. His books had been taken from

him and he complained of boredom, although he was allowed a radio on which

he listened to the Voice of America.

Although he talked about the deaths of his compatriots in a flat monotone,

he was animated when discussing his health, according to Thayer. "You look

at me from the outside. You don't know what I have suffered."

In 1987, he told a group of political students that as long as his followers

continued the fight against the Vietnamese, he would "die peacefully". His

weakened force of guerrillas are barely capable of fighting now. But Pol Pot

leaves behind a country and people still recovering from his years. When

Cambodian refugees from his terror arrived in the United States, some were

blind. Doctors could find no physical reason for their loss of sight, which

seemed to have been caused by intense trauma. Pol Pot's legacy was a country

where people willed themselves to blindness rather than witness more of the

agonies he wrought.

==============================

Asiaweek, March 19, 1999

SELECTIVE MEMORIES

The guards of Tuol Sleng are alive, well - and still very near

By Dominic Faulder/Phnom Penh

International pressure is mounting to bring the leaders of the Khmer

Rouge to justice for their crimes against humanity. Any justice that has

been dispensed so far in Cambodia has been very rough. In 1979, a

Vietnamese-convened court sentenced Pol Pot and his foreign minister,

Ieng Sary, to death in absentia, but the process was so hurried and

flawed that even their own defense lawyer called for the death penalty.

At the village level, some scores were settled swiftly and brutally. An

unknown number of Khmer Rouge cadres were simply lynched during the

Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. Some had their livers ripped out;

others were dropped head-down from coconut palms. The more fortunate

were locked up for varying periods.

Even so, Cambodians are painfully aware that members of the hated

regime's rank-and-file, many of them with blood on their hands, are

alive and well and living ordinary lives in their midst. Who knows? That

middle-aged pedicab driver may have been a torturer. That street hawker

may have helped transport victims to the killing fields of Choeung Ek.

Or what about that retired school teacher? Did he help keep meticulous

records of the people who passed through the "interrogation" centers?

Close to the banks of the Bassac River, not far from Phnom Penh, still

live people who worked at the notorious Tuol Sleng interrogation and

torture center. The former secondary school complex was used by the

Khmer Rouge from 1976 to 1979 to weed out politically unreliable cadres,

many of them high-ranking, for various "counter-revolutionary" offenses.

Nearly 17,000 passed through its gates, invariably marked for death once

they had provided detailed confessions of their supposed political sins.

Many innocent people were murdered. Even Tuol Sleng guards were killed

if they displayed the smallest kindness to their charges.

After years of painstaking research, there is substantial documentation

relating to the systematic killing of a large proportion of the some 1.7

million Cambodians who died during the 1975-79 reign of terror. Among

the documents are startling confessions signed by former Pol Pot cadres,

individually admitting to hundreds of murders. Many remain at large, but

their memories of those bloody years have suddenly become less exact,

now that the prospects of some kind of tribunal have become stronger.

Sous Thy, 48, was Tuol Sleng's registrar and fourth-most senior

official. He was at the center of things and may know more about what

happened there than any other living person (though these days he tends

to be a little vague when questioned). Every day he was responsible for

drawing up neat lists of those who had arrived, those who were to be

tortured, and those to be executed. He was often present, witnesses say,

when prisoners were dispatched to the killing fields on the outskirts of

the city.

Today Sous Thy runs a motorcycle taxi about an hour's drive outside of

the city. He lives in a large, heavily shuttered house set up on

unusually high stilts. His family and neighbors are friendly to

strangers, but Sous Thy knows things that they don't. When a journalist

approaches him, he avoids eye contact and declines to discuss what he

saw and heard back when he was working in his office near the entrance

of the compound. "I don't want to say anything more; I have spoken to

others," he says, referring to Cambodian genocide investigators and

journalists.

Not far from his home lives Hum Huy, 45, often described as one of the

two most feared guards at Tuol Sleng (the other was a man named Peng).

Dirt poor, Hum Huy ekes out a living farming with his wife, eight

children and brother. In 1982, Hum Huy confessed to killing some 2,000

people. Today he claims to have made the figure up in order to make his

confession appear more credible. He now says that he in fact only killed

"four or five people" personally.

In truth, Hum Huy probably has no idea how many people he killed

directly or indirectly. He was responsible for "arrivals" and

"departures" (the latter invariably to execution grounds). Witnesses say

that he personally separated babies and older children from their

mothers before the women were executed. The children were not sent for

adoption or to orphanages but also murdered. Hum Huy also handled

transportation arrangements to Choeung Ek, where he handed the condemned

over to a man named Teng for execution. He does admit to watching

prisoners have their skulls bashed in. "It was always with an iron bar,"

he recalls.

One of the few Tuol Sleng inmates to survive was artist Vann Nath, who

has published a detailed account of his experiences there. He remembers

the male guards well. "I cannot forget Peng and Huy," he says. "Huy

didn't say much; he was responsible for checking prisoners in and out

and not letting them escape. He just followed orders." Peng, on the

other hand, "really enjoyed his work, and was always laughing," says

Vann Nath.

Tuy Kin no longer admits to knowing Hum Huy, though she mentioned him

and the camp commandant, known as Deuch, in a 1986 confession. She also

acknowledged killing about 300 people, but "only because I was ordered

do so." Her confession chillingly describes how she applied

electrocuting devices to prisoners. "I did feel sympathy, but there was

nothing I could do about it since it was an order."

Tuy Kin still strongly resembles the photographs of her found at Tuol

Sleng, but no longer has the same brutish demeanor of a peasant cadre

with the power of life or death in her hands. Today she denies ever

having been at Tuol Sleng, and she glances anxiously at her 18-year-old

daughter as a visitor pulls some photographs of her from an envelope.

She also denies knowing the contents of the confession that she signed.

Yet in that document she was very specific in some of her recollections.

For example: Camp commander Deuch was a violent man who "scorned and

arrested anyone opposing his orders."

When Vietnamese forces closed in on Phnom Penh in early January 1979,

the camp staff executed the last 13 inmates and then fled. Deuch escaped

toward the Thai border. Some say he was executed sometime in 1986; other

sources maintain that he runs an orchard in northwestern Battambang

province. Chief interrogator (read: torturer) Mon Nay is believed to

live in Pailin, western Cambodia, in "retirement." Another former Khmer

Rouge deeply involved in the purges, Ke Pauk, defected to the government

army last year and was recently made a general. But he spends most of

his time farming near the old holdout at Anlong Veng in the north.

Almost every Cambodian over the age of 25 carries vivid memories of some

horror or another during the terror. Among the most bitter should be

survivors of Tuol Sleng, like artist Vann Nath, who was spared from

death by Deuch. The commandant put him to work painting pictures of Pol

Pot. Vann Nath does not feel vengeance in his heart, even though he lost

two young sons to starvation during the Pol Pot years. He even forgave

the commune chief, "Comrade Luom," who had him arrested.

Yet Vann Nath is unexcited about an international genocide tribunal. It

was something that people like him might have desired before, but no

longer. He says:"What we wanted was Pol Pot, but he is dead. Now it's 20

years on, and the water has turned cold." Not everybody might be quite

so forgiving, of course. And that is why the likes of Ieng Sary and Ta

Mok are not the only veterans of the killing fields suddenly suffering

from amnesia.