Survivors of Khmer Rouge atrocities witness the first formal trial of chief torturer  |  | |
PHNOM PENH: - Survivors of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge atrocities reacted with pain, anger and relief as they watched Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot's chief torturer in the dock, 30 years after the fall of a regime blamed for 1.7 million deaths.
Nearly 800 people, including saffron-robed Buddhist monks who were persecuted during the 1975 to 1979 Khmer Rouge era, flocked to see the first formal trial of a senior Pol Pot cadre by a United Nations-backed tribunal.
Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch and the ex-commandant of the notorious S-21 prison, sat impassively as a judge read the opening statements in court yesterday.
The proceedings are mostly procedural, with the main trial starting only next month and a verdict due by September.
The French-speaking teacher- turned-torturer occasionally donned reading glasses, an ironic twist since the Khmer Rouge targeted those who wore spectacles, seeing it as a mark of the intelligentsia and enemies of the revolution.
Artist Vann Nath managed to get a seat near Duch. He is one of only a handful who survived S-21, saved because he was chosen to paint portraits of Pol Pot.
'This is the day we have waited for for 30 years. But I don't know if it will end my suffering,' he told reporters.
'It is a very important day for me,' said Mr Chum Mey, another survivor of the notorious Tuol Sleng detention centre. 'I will be a witness and I want to see Duch and ask why he imprisoned me.'
Sen You Sos, who lost 18 relatives during the regime, said: 'The Khmer Rouge were so brutal. They killed their own people.' Mr Them Khean, 65, who lost 10 relatives to starvation and torture, added: 'I want to see what Duch has to say about his past crimes.'
Mr Va Boeurn, 66, said he wanted to see Duch's face to try to understand how a human being could commit such heinous acts.
Now a born-again Christian, Duch has confessed to his crimes but said he was just following orders and expressed remorse on the eve of his trial.
Taken to the scene of his alleged crimes last year, he wept and told some of his former victims: 'I ask for your forgiveness. I know that you cannot forgive me, but I ask you to leave me the hope that you might.'
The trial marks a turning point for the strife-torn country where nearly every family lost someone under the Khmer Rouge. It ends a decade of delays at the Cambodian-UN tribunal due to wrangling over jurisdiction and cash.
A bid to go after other suspects was brushed aside last month by the tribunal's Cambodian co-prosecutor, who said it would not help national reconciliation.
But questions have already been raised about the reluctance to recommend further indictments.
Foreign and Cambodian analysts say the government, fearing that a widening circle of defendants could reach into its own ranks, wishes to limit the number of defendants, thereby harming the tribunal's credibility.
The greying 66-year-old Duch is one of five ageing senior cadres charged for their roles in their leader Pol Pot's 'Year Zero' revolution. It was to achieve an agrarian utopia where society would be 'purified' of all foreign influences, in favour of an extreme form of communism.
Duch is expected to be a key witness in the trials of 'Brother Number Two' Nuon Chea, the regime's ex-president Khieu Samphan, and Ieng Sary, its foreign minister, and his wife.
The four have denied knowledge of any atrocities by the Khmer Rouge during its rule, which began by driving everyone out of the cities with whatever they could carry.
If convicted, the five could face life in prison.
Most of Duch's victims were tortured and forced to confess to a variety of crimes - mainly being CIA spies - before being bludgeoned to death in a field on the outskirts of the city.
Women and children were also killed. Only a few survived.
'Duch's hands are full of blood. It's time for Duch to pay for his actions,' said child survivor Norng Chan Phal, 39, whose mother was killed at S-21 months before Vietnamese soldiers toppled Pol Pot's regime in 1979.
REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, ASSOCIATED PRESS
