| By Sim Chi Yin | ||
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Folding his arms across his chest as he delivered a brief history lesson at the start of his testimony, former mathematics teacher Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, said that the Khmer Rouge would have been 'demolished' if not for US support for a coup led by General Lon Nol to oust Prince Norodom Sihanouk in 1970.
'Mr Kissinger and Richard Nixon were quick (to back coup leader General Lon Nol), and the Khmer Rouge noted the golden opportunity,' Duch said, referring to then US secretary of state Henry Kissinger and the president.
Cambodia became embroiled in the Cold War when the Nixon administration authorised secret bombings in the country in 1969 to disrupt an arms- and troop-supply route used by the Soviet-based North Vietnamese communists. Prince Sihanouk later joined forces with the Khmer Rouge and rallied Cambodians to fight Gen Lon Nol's regime, which fell to Pol Pot's army in 1975.
Duch, the 66-year-old former chief of the notorious S-21 prison, where more than 14,000 'enemies' of the revolution were tortured and killed, is the first of five detained Khmer Rouge leaders to be put on trial by a United Nations-assisted court helmed by Cambodian and international judges.
At the start of his trial last week, Duch became the first Khmer Rouge leader to publicly apologise for the atrocities of the regime, which killed at least 1.7 million Cambodians through starvation, overwork and execution before it fell in 1979.
But he yesterday cast himself as not just caught up in the revolutionary struggles of his time.
Speaking in a firm and confident voice, he described his journey from school teacher to chief of a prison code-named M-13 in central Cambodia, a predecessor of S-21, which under Duch's charge became the Khmer Rouge's largest execution centre.
Demonstrating his reputed photographic memory by rattling off a list of dates and cadres' names without once referring to his small stack of notes, Duch's personal account yesterday confirmed the man researchers and his former comrades had sketched previously as a meticulous perfectionist.
Duch, who had gone to the jungle to join the communist movement in 1967, told the court he had been chosen to head M-13 (in 1971 to 1975) because of his 'sincerity to the party'.
He took the job reluctantly, he said. 'The only thing I loved in my life was teaching. I hoped that once the revolution happened, they would allow me to continue teaching. I never thought about going on to do what I did.'
Duch, who confessed to the bulk of an account of mediaeval torture methods in the S-21 prison read out in court last week, readily admitted yesterday that M-13 laid the ground for a similar mission: 'detaining, interrogating and smashing' of 'spies'. 'Smashing' (a code word for killing) prisoners was the norm while releasing them was the exception, he said.
His testimonies this week cover his time running the earlier prison, laying the ground for the rest of his trial - which is slated to run till July. They also set the tone for his defence.
Duch, who faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment for crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and murder, is expected to argue that although he was S-21 chief, he merely executed orders from top leaders.
'I never thought of any other alternative but to follow orders because I was afraid to be killed.'
