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KRouge prison chief denies waterboarding
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
PHNOM PENH (AFP) — The former Khmer Rouge prison chief has denied he waterboarded or suffocated detainees as he detailed his torture techniques to Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes trial.Duch -- whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav -- apologised at the start of his trial last month for the torture and extermination of 15,000 people who passed through the regime's Tuol Sleng prison, also known as S-21.But he said he had not used the simulated drowning technique called waterboarding, and had not put plastic bags over prisoners' heads because of the danger they could suffocate to death.
"The kind of waterboarding technique was not employed and the plastic bag was also not a kind of technique," Duch said.
Duch said he discussed interrogation tactics with Khmer Rouge cadres soon after he began working at the prison.
"There were two techniques. The normal beating technique and the electrocution technique with use of a telephone (line)... which was connected to an electric current to electrocute prisoners. That was true," Duch said.
The United States has been heavily criticised for using waterboarding to interrogate suspected Al-Qaeda prisoners, with many commentators citing it as a brutal method of the Khmer Rouge.
Duch is charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and premeditated murder over the extermination of thousands of people between 1975 and 1979 at Tuol Sleng and the nearby "Killing Fields."
However, he has denied prosecutors' claims that he played a central role in the Khmer Rouge's iron-fisted rule, and maintains he never personally executed anyone.
He faces life in jail but the court does not have the power to impose the death penalty. Four other senior leaders from the regime are scheduled to be tried within the next year.
Many believe the UN-sponsored tribunal is the last chance to find justice for victims of the regime, which killed up to two million people through starvation, overwork, torture and execution.
The Khmer Rouge were ousted in 1979 by Hanoi-backed forces who discovered Tuol Sleng and established the facility as a museum to display the regime's crimes.
Read more!
KRouge prison chief denies waterboarding
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Duch -- whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav -- apologised at the start of his trial last month for the torture and extermination of 15,000 people who passed through the regime's Tuol Sleng prison, also known as S-21.
But he said he had not used the simulated drowning technique called waterboarding, and had not put plastic bags over prisoners' heads because of the danger they could suffocate to death.
"The kind of waterboarding technique was not employed and the plastic bag was also not a kind of technique," Duch said.
Duch said he discussed interrogation tactics with Khmer Rouge cadres soon after he began working at the prison.
"There were two techniques. The normal beating technique and the electrocution technique with use of a telephone (line)... which was connected to an electric current to electrocute prisoners. That was true," Duch said.
The United States has been heavily criticised for using waterboarding to interrogate suspected Al-Qaeda prisoners, with many commentators citing it as a brutal method of the Khmer Rouge.
Duch is charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and premeditated murder over the extermination of thousands of people between 1975 and 1979 at Tuol Sleng and the nearby "Killing Fields."
However, he has denied prosecutors' claims that he played a central role in the Khmer Rouge's iron-fisted rule, and maintains he never personally executed anyone.
He faces life in jail but the court does not have the power to impose the death penalty. Four other senior leaders from the regime are scheduled to be tried within the next year.
Many believe the UN-sponsored tribunal is the last chance to find justice for victims of the regime, which killed up to two million people through starvation, overwork, torture and execution.
The Khmer Rouge were ousted in 1979 by Hanoi-backed forces who discovered Tuol Sleng and established the facility as a museum to display the regime's crimes.
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30 years on, spotlight on Cambodia’s killing fields once more
Now, as a handful of Khmer Rouge leaders face a UN-backed trial 30 years after the fall of the regime, journalist Dan Rivers, the CNN correspondent in Bangkok, has revisited Cambodia’s dark years with his camera crew to re-capture the memories of horror and take stock of the ongoing trial, tainted with allegations of corruption.
His documentary “Killing Field: Long Road to Justice”, will be aired May 1 (at 8.30 a.m. in India).
“The reason why I wanted to explore the Khmer Rouge massacre once more was that the trial was on and after 30 years, I wanted to do an in-depth story. Quite a lot of people don’t know. Perhaps Cambodia is too remote and forgotten,” Rivers told IANS on phone from Hong Kong.
Rivers, in his movie, goes in quest of Ta Chan, the chief interrogator of the Khmer Rouge’s notorious S-21 prison camp. Ta Chan, in the documentary, is shown on a tour of Khmer Rouge jungle prison.
“There were at least 189 torture camps in Cambodia,” says Rivers.
As S-21 commandant Comrade Dutch and four of his Khmer Rouge colleagues currently face the UN-backed trial, Ta Chan continues to live in a remote Cambodian village.
Rivers tracks down the village and talks to Ta Chan’s family as the alleged former torture mastermind ducks the lens. The documentary chronicles details of the torture - that was part of S-21 daily regime. It resulted in 14,000 deaths.
“Many historians like to compare the Khmer Rouge atrocities with the Nazi holocaust. But the scale of killing in Cambodia was incredible. (Between you and me) A lot more people were killed than that officially registered,” Rivers said.
An estimate says the Khmer Rouge killed a greater proportion of its own people - over 1.7 million men, women and children - than any other regime in the 20th century.
Everyone in Cambodia, says Rivers, has a story to tell. “You can’t meet anybody who has not been touched by the violence. Pol Pot’s (the Khmer Rouge leader) legacy continued till the 1990s. The country is still in the process of recovery,” the journalist says.
Pol Pot died in 1998 just before he could be brought to justice.
One of the docu-feature’s most extraordinary moments is when a survivor of S-21 sees himself in an old footage shot on the day he was rescued.
“Nong Champal was nine years old in 1979 when he was rescued from a jungle camp. His mother was killed by the Khmer Rouge,” said Rivers. Even today, the 39-year-old breaks down as he recounts the horrors of the death camp.
Everyone wants Ta Chan to be prosecuted, says Rivers.
“But with the United Nations being forced to accept a hybrid court system with the Cambodian government, corruption is eating into the trial,” he says.
Rivers also probes the allegations of kickbacks at the Phnom Penh trial of Khmer Rouge leaders.
The costs of the proceedings are spiralling out control, according to him. “The trial budget would have swollen to more than $100 million by the end of this year.”
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Land dispute in Phnom Penh
28 April 2009
By Nhim Sophal
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Tola Ek
Click here to read the article in French
The construction site involved – known under the name of “Bassac Gardens” – is a real estate development project on a plot of land occupied by 222 families from the Reak reay community.
Currently, 54 families are still protesting. They demand for $30,000 in compensation before leaving the location, whereas the Canadia Bank was only willing to offer $20,000.
“We suggested to the [Bank] management to remove the fence built around the plot without authorization, and to continue to negotiate directly with the residents without resorting to the local authorities,” said Bunthat, one of the residents received by Pung Kiev Se.
The Canadia Bank management promised to think about the problem caused by the fence which disturbs the daily life of the residents. Am Sam Ath, an investigator for the Licadho human rights group, believes that the Reak Reay case is not that different from other land dispute cases, and he said that the residents will have a hard time protecting their land.
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