Executioners Had Knives; Duch Had a Pen

“The Crocodiles Already Knew How to Swim”

Kaing Guek Eav (alias Duch) testified today about over 12,000 killings that took place under his authority at Tuol Sleng prison (S-21) and the killing fields at Choeung Ek during the Khmer Rouge period. Over nearly six hours, Duch took questions from the Trial Chamber in its most detailed examination to date. Perhaps due to the importance of the subject matter or the sheer length of questioning, even Cambodian judges Thou Mony and Ya Sokhan – who had not spoken a single word during the last month of proceedings – put questions to Duch.

On the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Choeung Ek is now an outdoor genocide museum of sorts with a memorial for victims of the Khmer Rouge and numerous mass graves labeled with signs explaining how many bodies were found in each and in what state. Early in his tenure as S-21 chairman, Duch selected Choeung Ek to serve as his main execution site because he was “afraid of epidemic” at S-21 where hundreds of victims had already been buried. Generally, when Duch determined that a prisoner had been thoroughly interrogated and a sufficient confession had been extracted, he would order that prisoner to be “smashed” at Choeung Ek. While Duch accepts responsibility for all these executions, at the same time he insists he was carrying out the order of the upper echelon of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) to kill these “enemies,” so his was a decision of timing and implementation rather than execution itself. Upon arrival at S-21, prisoners were considered “dead already”…

Read more: ctm_blog_6-17-2009