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Monday, February 3, 2014

COMRADE DUCH THE BOOKKEEPER OF DEATH: KANG KEK IEW



            On this date, 3 February 2012, Kang Kek Iew AKA Comrade Duch was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. I will post the information about him from Wikipedia and other sources before giving my comments. 



Kang Kek Iew (also Kaing Guek Eav or Duch) before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.
Born
17 November 1942 (age 71)
Kampong Chen, Kampong Thom Province, French Indochina
Nationality
Cambodian
Other names
Comrade Duch
Hang Pin
Years active
1975–1979
Known for
Director of the S-21 prison camp, Leader of Santebal
Religion
Christianity

Kang Kek Iew or Kaing Kek Iev, also romanized as Kaing Guek Eav (Khmer: កាំង ហ្គេកអ៊ាវ), nom de guerre Comrade Duch or Deuch (មិត្តឌុច); or Hang Pin, (born 17 November 1942) is a war criminal and former leader in the Khmer Rouge communist movement, which ruled Democratic Kampuchea from 1975 to 1979. As the head of the government's internal security branch, he oversaw the Tuol Sleng (S-21)prison camp where thousands were held for interrogation and torture. The first Khmer Rouge leader to be tried by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for the crimes of the regime, he was convicted of crimes against humanity, murder, and torture for his role during the Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia and sentenced to 30 years imprisonment. On February 3, 2012, his sentence was extended to life imprisonment by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.


Kang Kek Iew A.K.A Comrade Duch (PHOTO SOURCE: http://talk-real-khmer-rouge.blogspot.com.au/2009/06/kang-kek-iew.html)
Early years

Kang Kek Iew was born in Choyaot village, Kampong Chen subdistrict, Kampong Thom Province, and is of Chinese-Khmer ancestry. A star pupil in his school, he passed his Brevet d'Etudes Secondaire de Première in 1961 at the age of nineteen. He finished the first half of his Baccalaureate in 1962 at the Lycée Suravarman II in the town of Siem Reap. The same year he was offered a place in the prestigious Lycée Sisowath in Phnom Penh where he completed his Baccalaureate in mathematics, scoring second in the entire country.

 

Kang Kek Iew A.K.A Comrade Duch (PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2093976/)
Induction into the Khmer Rouge

In 1964, Kek Iew began studying for his teaching certificate in Mathematics, a subject he loved, at the Institut de Pédagogie. The Institute was a cradle of activism under the directorship of Son Sen who was later to emerge as the Defence Minister of the Khmer Rouge and Duch's immediate superior.

On 28 August 1966, Kek Iew got his teaching certificate and was posted to a lycée in Skoun, a small town in Kampong Cham Province. He was a good teacher, remembered as earnest and committed by his pupils. He joined the Communist Party of Kampuchea in 1967. Following the arrest of three of his students, he fled to the Khmer Rouge base in Chamkar Leu District where he was accepted as a full member of the Communist Party of Kampuchea.

A few months later, he was arrested and tortured at the Prey Sar prison by Norodom Sihanouk's police for engaging in communist activities. He was held without trial for the next two years. In 1970, when he was released following the amnesty granted to political prisoners by Lon Nol, he joined the Khmer Rouge rebels in the Cardamom Mountains bordering Thailand.


In the maquis

Communist groups in France's former colonies in Indochina borrowed the French World War II expression 'maquis' when referring to their resistance movements in the jungles.

In the zone under the control of the Khmer Rouge, Kek Iew took on his nom de guerre Comrade Duch (IPA:[dojc]) and became a prison commandant. He was appointed the head of Special Security by his immediate superior Vorn Vet. In the forests of Amleang, Thpong District, Duch set up his first prison, code-named 'M-13'. Two years later, he also established a second prison 'M-99' in nearby Aoral District.

Assisted by his two deputies, Comrade Chan and Comrade Pon, Duch began perfecting his interrogation techniques and the purging of perceived enemies from the Khmer Rouge ranks. Prisoners at these camps, mostly from the ranks of the Khmer Rouge, were routinely starved and tortured to extract real and made-up confessions. On January 6, 1979, he was ordered by his superior to kill the remaining prisoners. Few prisoners left the camps alive.

While in the maquis (secret forest), Duch married Chhim Sophal, aka Rom, a dressmaker from a nearby village.


Photographic display of inmates in Tuol Sleng (one panel out of the many on display). Photo taken by me (Gary Jones) April 2004
Leading the Santebal and Tuol Sleng

After the Khmer Rouge victory in April 1975 Duch and his men set up prisons throughout the capital including the infamous Tuol Sleng prison. Duch's request for a transfer in May 1975 to the Industrial Sector of government was denied. The Tuol Sleng prison camp was initially headed by In Lon aka Comrade Nath with Duch acting as deputy. Subsequently, In Lon was transferred and Duch promoted to be the Director. By May 1976 all the prisons in Phnom Penh were consolidated and relocated to Tuol Sleng. Prisons like Tuol Sleng were created to cleanse the ranks of the Khmer Rouge of suspected enemies of the revolution.

Duch ordered the execution of prisoners after their interrogation was completed. For example, on a list containing the names of 17 prisoners (eight teenagers and nine children), he wrote the order “Smash them to pieces.” On a longer list of detainees, his annotation reads “smash: 115; keep: 44 persons.” The text below this annotation reads “Comrade Duch proposed to Angkar; Angkar agreed.” On a list of 20 female detainees, Duch wrote annotations for each of them, ordering: “take away for execution,” “keep for interrogation” or “medical experiment". At least 100 detainees died after having their blood drawn for transfusions for wounded soldiers. Surgical operations were also performed on detainees in order to train medical staff.

Duch impressed his superiors with his work and was appointed the head of Democratic Kampuchea's dreaded "special branch" – the Santebal.

As the party purges increased towards the end of the Democratic Kampuchea period, more and more people were brought to Duch, including many former colleagues including his predecessor at Tuol Sleng, In Lon. Throughout this period, Duch built up a large archive of prison records, mug shots and extracted "confessions".

On 7 January 1979, Duch was amongst the last Khmer Rouge cadres to flee Phnom Penh after it fell to the Vietnamese army. Though he was unable to destroy much of the prison's extensive documents, he saw to the execution of several surviving prisoners before he fled the city.


Kaing Guek Eav aka Duch - Final Judgement (PHOTO SOURCE: http://alfredmeier.me/2012/01/31/eccc-final-judgement-of-appeals-in-case-001/)
After the fall

Duch reached the border with Thailand in May 1979. Details of his whereabouts at this time were sketchy. It is believed that he went to the forests of Samlaut where he was reunited with his family. Here Duch was demoted by Brother Number Two, Nuon Chea, for having failed to destroy the documents at Tuol Sleng. At the border, he learned to speak Thai and taught himself English. He later taught English and mathematics at a refugee camp in Borai just inside Thailand.

In June 1986, Duch was sent to China to teach as a Khmer language expert at Beijing's Foreign Language Institute. He returned to the Thai-Cambodian border a year later and changed his name to Hang Pin. He worked as a senior bureaucrat just inside the Cambodian border at Pol Pot's secretariat at Camp 505. Shortly after the Paris agreement in October 1991, he moved with his family to a small isolated village called Phkoam close to the Thai border where he bought some land and began teaching in the local school. He was known as a good teacher, but one with a fiery temper.

In 1995, following an attack on his home that killed his wife, Duch sold all his possessions, secured a transfer to Svay Chek College, and moved there with his children. Shortly after his wife's murder, Duch began attending the prayer meetings of the Golden West Cambodian Christian Church held in Battambang by Christopher LaPel, an evangelical Khmer-American. Duch was baptized by LaPel and eventually became a lay pastor. LaPel was later to observe that although he did not know Duch's real identify at the time, there were clues. For example, before his conversion, Duch had said to Lapel that he had done a lot of bad things in his life. Later, Duch was to say, "I don’t know if my brothers and sisters can forgive the sins I've committed against the people".


Discovery

Close to his identity being discovered, Duch accepted a transfer to Samlaut as Director of Education. When fighting broke out in 1996 following the split of the Khmer Rouge and the coup to oust Prince Rannaridh in 1997, he fled with his family to the Ban Ma Muang camp just inside Thailand. At the camp, he worked for the American Refugee Committee as the Community Health Supervisor. In late 1998, he returned to Cambodia when fighting subsided. He settled in the village of Andao Hep in Rattanak Mondul and worked closely with World Vision International, the Christian relief agency.

The photojournalist Nic Dunlop tracked Duch down in Samlaut. In 1999, Nate Thayer, who had previously interviewed Pol Pot and Ta Mok, and Dunlop interviewed Duch for the Far Eastern Economic Review. Duch surrendered to the authorities in Phnom Penh following the publication of his interview.


Kang Kek Iew (also Kaing Guek Eav or Duch) before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. He was responding to the testimony given by his former subordinate Him Huy who was a Khmer Rouge prison guard.
Trial

On 31 July 2007, Duch was formally charged with war crime and crimes against humanity and detained by Cambodia's United Nations-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Duch, represented by Cambodian lawyer Kar Savuth and French lawyer Francois Roux, appealed against his provisional detention by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia based on the more than eight years he spent without trial in Cambodian military detention. The appeal was unsuccessful and on 14 August 2008, the tribunal issued its indictment after completing their investigation of Duch.

In February 2008, as part of the judicial process, Duch was taken to the scene of his crimes. He reportedly collapsed in tears after stating, "I ask for your forgiveness – I know that you cannot forgive me, but I ask you to leave me the hope that you might."

On 16 February 2009, the UN supervised trial of Duch began at a Phnom Penh court. Duch was prosecuted by international co-prosecutors William Smith and Anees Ahmed and was charged with "personally overseeing the systematic torture of more than 15,000 prisoners." The presiding judge of the case was Nil Nonn. Duch was tried by a panel of five judges — three Cambodian, one French and one New Zealander — according to a 2003 pact between Cambodia and the United Nations establishing the tribunal.

On 30 March 2009, Duch testified that US policies in the 1970s contributed to the brutal regime's rise to power. "I think the Khmer Rouge would already have been demolished," he said of their status by 1970. "But Mr Kissinger (then US secretary of state) and Richard Nixon were quick [to back coup leader Gen Lon Nol], and then the Khmer Rouge noted the golden opportunity." "Because of this alliance, the Khmer Rouge were able to build up their power over the course of their 1970–75 war against the Lon Nol regime", Duch said.

On 31 March 2009, Duch, in a statement in front of the Cambodia tribunal, accepted responsibility for torturing and executing thousands of inmates, expressed "heartfelt sorrow" for his crimes and vowed to cooperate fully with the tribunal.

Duch surprised the tribunal on 27 November 2009 with a plea to be released. In his final statement before the tribunal he acknowledged his involvement in Khmer Rouge-era crimes, including the execution of more than 12,000 Tuol Sleng prisoners, but said they were committed by a "criminal party". Duch also noted that he had served more than 10 years in detention, and stressed that he had been fully cooperative with the tribunal. There were also conflicting closing arguments from Duch's defense team. His Cambodian lawyer, Kar Savuth demanded his client’s acquittal and release, while his international counterpart, François Roux pressed judges to hand down a lenient sentence.

At the conclusion of the trial, prosecutors asked that Duch be given 40 years in prison if convicted. On 26 July 2010, Duch was found guilty of crimes against humanity, torture, and murder; he was sentenced to 35 years' imprisonment, with a pre-trial detention credit of 11 years being applied to his sentence and an additional controversial five year deduction because his period of pre-trial detention exceeded the maximum allowed under Cambodian law. On 3 February 2012, an upper court U.N. war crimes tribunal rejected his appeal and extended his sentence to life in imprisonment because of his "shocking and heinous" crimes. This ruling is final with no other chance for appeal.



Monday, Jul. 12, 1999
The Killer and the Pastor
By CAROLINE GLUCK

CAROLINE GLUCK BattambangAre some acts of evil simply too heinous to be forgiven? Not according to Cambodian-born pastor Christopher LaPel. Three years ago, he baptized a man he believed to be a teacher in the muddy waters of the River Sangke in western Cambodia's Battambang province. After more than 20 years of hiding the truth, that same man recently revealed his true identity: Kang Khek Ieu, better known by his revolutionary name Duch, head of the Khmer Rouge's secret police. The man also confessed responsibility for the deaths of at least 12,000 people. I was shocked when I found out who he really was, because what he did was so evil, says LaPel, whose parents, brother and sister died during the Khmer Rouge reign of terror from 1975 to '79, along with nearly 2 million others. Then I reflected: it's amazing; it's a miracle. Christianity changes people's lives. If Jesus can change Duch, he can change anyone.

Few other Cambodians are likely to share this view or forgive the man who presided over the Khmer Rouge's security network. Many have reacted to news of his conversion to Christianity with skepticism. Duch, who was arrested by Cambodian authorities in May following his confession, is awaiting trial at a military detention center just a few blocks from S-21 (or Tuol Sleng), the top security prison he once commanded. Thousands of men, women and children were interrogated and tortured there before being executed.

Clad in a baseball cap, T shirt and flipflops, LaPel is an unlikely looking pastor. Though he makes his home in Los Angeles, he returned to Cambodia last week to conduct baptisms and training sessions so Cambodians can carry out missionary work in their communities. LaPel first met Duch (pronounced dook) in late 1995. Calling himself Hang Pin, Duch arrived with a colleague to take part in a two-week Christian leadership training course in the village of Chamkar Samrong in Battambang province, a former resettlement area for Cambodian refugees. According to LaPel, Duch initially was quiet and withdrawn. He said he was not a believer but had come at the urging of his friend. After listening to LaPel's sermons and teachings, however, Duch asked to be baptized. He changed totally after receiving Christ--180 degrees, says LaPel with a smile. He turned from hatred to love. He said he had never felt love in his childhood or when he grew up. So when he turned to Christ, love filled his heart.

LaPel says Duch's transformation took on physical dimensions. The gaunt, withdrawn man began to appear more relaxed, teasing his fellow students. He even began dressing better, tucking his shirt tails into his long pants. A group photograph taken in 1995 shows a smartly dressed Duch in a pressed white shirt and dark trousers. He is standing next to Pastor Christopher, whose hand rests protectively on Duch's shoulder.

LaPel remembers Duch well. Then 54, Duch was older than the others but also one of the brightest. After his baptism, he began sitting in the front row of the sessions, taking meticulous notes and asking questions. Duch, the pastor recalls, was full of enthusiasm and said he couldn't wait to return to his village in Svay Chek district to start a church. He later went on to establish a house church with 14 families.

In retrospect, LaPel says there were signs pointing to Duch's real identity. Before he received Christ, LaPel recalls, he said he did a lot of bad things in his life. He said: 'Pastor Christopher, I don't know if my brothers and sisters can forgive the sins I've committed against the people.' He said he felt remorse for what he had done to innocent people, adding: 'Thank God that the Lord forgives me.' LaPel did not probe further. When he leads people to Christ, he says, he doesn't inquire deeply into their past; instead he focuses on their present beliefs. If they are willing to repent and accept Jesus as their Lord and saviour, I will lead them to the Lord, no matter what they've done wrong in the past.

LaPel still wasn't aware of the notorious Khmer Rouge security chief's true identity when they met a year later, during a second Christian leadership course. But if he had looked closely at a photograph that's now displayed in Tuol Sleng prison, he would have known straight away. LaPel has visited the jail several times: a close cousin, a former science professor, was tortured there and later killed; her photograph also hangs on the wall. Still LaPel says he doesn't feel personal hatred for the only member of the Khmer Rouge to have confessed a role in the movement's killing machine. He sees Duch's willingness to admit his guilt, stand trial and testify against others as positive--and proof that his conversion to Christianity is genuine.

As LaPel wades into the murky waters of a small village in Banteay Meanchey province to baptize more than 100 people, he is convinced that Duch's conversion can only help the cause of Christianity in Cambodia, a predominantly Buddhist country where Christians make up less than 0.5% of the population. This is a story of hope for the Cambodian people. They've been going through darkness for years. Accepting Jesus Christ brings light to their lives. It's time for Cambodians to turn from hatred to love. But requesting forgiveness may be too much to ask.


Comrade Duch in the Dock

Born-again Khmer Rouge prison director apologizes, asks for forgiveness in trial.

[ posted 4/2/2009 09:17AM ]

In four years, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge killed 1.7 million of their fellow Cambodians. In the first trial that addresses the horrors of the regime, the man known as Comrade Duch has asked forgiveness for crimes against humanity, war crimes, homicide, and torture.

Duch is the nom de guerre of Kaing Guek Eav. He ran Security Center 21, a prison where 17,000 people, including children were "smashed." As The Financial Times reports, that's "the Khmer Rouge's chilling euphemism for torturing and murdering victims as part of the regime's attempt to create a perfect agrarian society."

Duch is making the news for taking responsibility and apologizing - something none of the other accused have come close to. "At the beginning I only prayed to ask for forgiveness from my parents, but later I prayed to ask forgiveness from the whole nation."

Prayed? It's not a mistranslation. Duch was baptized under the pseudonym Hang Pin after his wife was murdered in 1996. Purpose Driven Connection published a story about his conversion and discovery by British journalist Nic Dunlop (Dunlop discovered Duch's identity; Mary Murphy wrote the Purpose Driven Connection article). Their reporter, Mary Murphy, spoke to his pastor the only one who has been let in to see him. He says Duch has been reading the Bible to prisoners and guards during his imprisonment.

However, Murphy reports,

Truth be told, it is hard to find many in Cambodia who believe in Duch's sincerity. [Chief investigator] Youk skirts around the spiritual implications of the question. He pauses for a while to collect his thoughts. "I think Duch was living with guilt and perhaps looking for something to reconcile with, within himself," he says. "Duch is looking for an exit strategy, an internal reconciliation with himself. But he dare not go to anybody here, because they are all his enemies. The only ones he can go to are Christians."

Buddhist monks I interview later at their temple are even more dismissive. "Duch has become a Christian to earn points," one monk scoffs. "In our belief, you take your sins with you to the next life. Duch will surely come back in a form befitting his crime."

What sort of form of life? The monk doesn't hesitate. "A bug."

Duch's defense is arguing that he shouldn't face the life sentence because he was following orders, trying to save his and his family's lives. He says he is a scapegoat for those who were higher up in the regime. The trial is expected to last a few months.



Comrade Duch, From Zero to Hero
by Timothy Tay

In 1975 communist Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot took control of Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, Year Zero was immediately declared as the year of the new beginning for the nation.

What unleashed from this revolutionary zeal was a scale in cruelty and brutality unrivalled since Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia resulting in genocide where 1.7 million Cambodians, a quarter of the existing population, perished.

There is no institution that symbolised the cruelty of the Pol Pot regime more than that of what took place at the high school of Tuol Sleng, converted into the regime's interrogation centre, codenamed S-21. Kang Kek Lew, "Comrade Duch", then aged 34, took charge of S-21.

By the time of the Khmer Rouge's defeat in 1979 by invading Vietnamese forces, more than 15,000 Cambodians and a few foreigners were sentenced to S21, none except for a dozen survived.

A news correspondence, Nic Dunlop, having earlier received a copy of the photo of Comrade Duch, in 1998 took on a personal mission to track Duch down. He found Duch, a provincial director of education, at the border with Thailand, by then he had become a born-again Christian in the process of building a church next to his house.
Duch acknowledged his identity only after a few meetings with Dunlop and then confessed of his crimes while at Tuol Sleng.

He spoke of his new found faith and said, "My life is now in God's hand." Nic Dunlop was pleasantly surprised at the ease of finding Duch and of his ready confession. 

Soon after Dunlop published his findings the authorities in Phnom Penh brought Duch back to Phnom Penh charged been a member of an outlaw party and immediately put into detention. Before Duch was to stand trial under a UN-convened tribunal fn1 to try war criminals he was brought to Tuol Sleng, now a museum.

He was immediately filled with sorrow and seeing some former detainees present at the scene he readily sought their forgiveness. 

At the initial tribunal hearings Duch was obviously in great remorse when he read out his confession, "I asked forgiveness to my parents, I asked forgiveness from all my teachers, and I asked forgiveness to the victims of all the crimes."

He went as far as encouraging his accusers and survivors of Tuol Sleng testifying at the tribunal to tell the truth, nothing but the truth, for "you cannot cover up a dead elephant with just two tamarind leaves. The world needs to know the truth." 

Several news coverage of Duch's criminal proceedings had made mention of the fact that Duch is now a Christian -- an obvious reference to the way Duch had conducted himself at the tribunal (see NTDTV report). 

Comrade Duch, one of today's most notorious mass murderers, had experienced the transforming power of faith in Jesus Christ not unlike what Paul experienced on the road to Damascus 2000 years ago.

The turnaround in Duch's life since becoming a Christian is also happening amongst many Cambodians, estimated at 2 percent of the current population of 14 millions.

In other parts of this great transformation story to come I will endeavour to cover the works of various people and agency, both Cambodian and foreigner, that had made Cambodia today one of the world's most exciting harvest fields.

OTHER LINKS:

PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO TO HEAR ONE OF KANG’S APOLOGIES ON 20 MARCH 2009:
In its judgement on appeals in Case 001 against Kaing Guek Eav alias Duch, the Supreme Court Chamber of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) affirmed the Trial Chamber's previous decision to compile and post on the ECCC's official website all statements of apology and acknowledgements of responsibility made by Kaing Guek Eav alias Duch during the course of the trial, including the appeal stage. This video clip is part of the audio and video version of this compilation. More information: http://www.eccc.gov.kh/en




Final statement from Kaing Guek Eav alias Duch 30 Mar 2011
Uploaded on Mar 30, 2011
Kaing Guek Eav alias Duch delivered a 25 minutes final statement to the Supreme Court Chamber of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia at the end of the Appeal Hearing in Case 001 on 30 March 2011. Kaing Guek Eav asked the Supreme Court Chamber to acquit him and release him. He was appealing a 35 years sentence imposed by the Trial Chamber on 26 July 2010. The Trial Chamber found him guilty of crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions for his role as Chairman of Khmer Rouge security center S-21. The Co-Prosecutors requested the Supreme Court Chamber to increase the sentence to 45 years of imprisonment.



MY THOUGHTS:
          Just like Rudolf Höss the Auschwitz Camp Commandant, Kang Kek Iew who became a Christian was remorseful for his war crimes. He gave repeated apologies and begged for forgiveness. Since he was given life imprisonment (which he deserved it, the UN did not want any death sentences), I hope he can witness to people in prison.

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