Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist Recalls the Evacuation of Phnom Penh

Journalist and author Sydney Schanberg testified via video link from the U.S. on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, June 5, 2013, a witness and an expert gave evidence at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) in Case 002 against accused Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan. In the morning session, journalist and author Sydney Schanberg, famously depicted in the 1984 film The Killing Fields, gave evidence by video link. In the afternoon, the court heard expert testimony from Dr. Chhim Sotheara. Both hearings were attended by over 280 students from Kampoon Cham Province.

Sydney Schanberg Testifies on Evacuation of Phnom Penh

The ECCC started early today to hear the testimony of Mr. Schanberg, who testified via video link from the U.S. The court commenced Mr. Schanberg’s evidence, having confirmed that all parties were present with the exception of Nuon Chea, who due to health reasons is following the case from a holding cell.

Mr. Schanberg, 79, proceeded to confirm that he understood that he was under oath and that he was a self-employed journalist and writer, who was resident in New Paltz in upstate New York. Following a question from the Trial Chamber President Nil Nonn, he was unable to confirm that he had been interviewed by a Co-Investigating Judge.

After a brief misunderstanding over who would begin examining Mr. Schanberg, the court accepted counsel’s consensus, and the National Senior Assistant Prosecutor Veng Huot began questioning. He started by reading a short passage from Mr Schanberg’s diary entry of April 17, 1975, the day on which the Khmer Rouge took control of Phnom Penh and evacuated the city:

We head for the hotel now, and we see for the first time clearly the forced evacuation. Teams of insurgent soldiers waving pistols and rifles, some shouting and some using bull horns, were ordering people to leave their homes and head for the countryside. People were told they would be given instructions where to go when they got out of the city. When a family moved too slowly for the rebels, the insurgents fired shots into the air.

The passage went on to describe people leaving the hospital, some limping and others on crutches, on hospital beds and with plasma IVs still attached to their arms.

Mr. Huot proceeded to ask where Mr. Schanberg had seen these people. In response, the witness explained that he saw them in several places in the city, including Preah Ket Mealea Hospital. There, Mr. Schanberg said, he witnessed a complete absence of doctors, who had not come into work due to the Khmer Rouge invasion of Phnom Penh. “People were bringing in wounded relatives” Mr. Schanberg told the court. “People were lying on the floor; blood was dripping down the steps.”

He further testified that he saw people exiting Phnom Penh throughout the day; leaving hundreds at a time, they filled the roads from one side to the other. “All through the day you saw these people being driven … like you drive cows, out of the city.” These people had been told that the Americans were going to be bombing the city, he recalled; the roads were “scattered with the shoes and sandals people had lost as they were forced to run quickly in these crowds.”

Under direct examination from Mr. Huot, Mr .Schanberg explained that he could not see any doctors or nurses providing medical care to those being evacuated from the hospital. In one instance, he recounted, the patients were told they were being taken to a hospital on a road south of Phnom Penh. This hospital outside Phnom Penh was known to Mr. Schanberg as a mental institution with only one doctor and lacking in the “modern ways to deal with the wounds that these people had.” Despite this, he testified, all those in hospital were evacuated; they were not supplied with any food or water by the Khmer Rouge, just “driven out like cattle.”

These evacuees were being ushered out of Phnom Penh by teams of “insurgent” soldiers, the witness stated, confirming, “As far as I could tell all of them belonged to the Khmer Rouge army and wore the uniforms of that army.” At times during his testimony he suggested that the soldiers were firing bullets into the air in celebration of their military victory, while at other times the shooting appeared to be in order to frighten people into leaving their houses.

When asked what happened to those who were too sick to leave the hospitals in Phnom Penh, Mr. Schanberg said that he could only guess but that two weeks later when he himself left Phnom Penh there were bodies along the roads that he assumed were people who died on their way out of the city. On the subsequent days, he said, he did not see many people leaving the city, “just a few stragglers.”

After leaving the hospital that he was visiting on April 17, Mr. Schanberg recounted, he was arrested by the Khmer Rouge along with the group of journalists with whom he was traveling. He was driven to a location on the Mei Kong River.[2] As he exited the vehicle he had been transported in, which he described as “tank-like,” the journalists found themselves surrounded by men with guns.

At this stage in the proceedings Mr. Huot handed over questioning to TarikAbdulhak, International Senior Assistant Prosecutor, to continue direct examination.

Mr. Abdulhak explained that he would be revisiting some of the areas covered by his colleague, in a bid to elaborate “a little further.” He started by investigating the claim that had been made by the Khmer Rouge on April 17, 1975, that U.S. bombing was imminent in Phnom Penh. Mr. Schanberg stated that he had no indication that Americans were planning a bombing, as U.S. bombing that began 1970 was cut off in 1973. There was no bombing after that, he said, “at least no bombing I observed or heard about from other sources.”

Mr. Abdulhak returned to the subject of the hospital to clarify whether the movement of patients to the hospital in the south occurred only once, or whether it was an organized effort to remove all patients to that hospital. In response, the witness stated that not all patients were removed from the hospital. Regardless of who was taken to the hospital in the south, though, Mr. Schanberg said he was confident that patients could never have been properly treated there.

Moving to the treatment of supply boats and planes delivering food and munitions to Phnom Penh, Mr. Abdulhak read to the court two extracts from Mr. Schanberg’s diary. First, from January 21, he read, “The supply convoy under cover of darkness moves into Cambodia and starts up the river taking shore fire almost immediately. I return to Phnom Penh.”

Then, from January 29, the prosecutor read:

In my absence, supply ships from the convoy have begun hobbling into Phnom Penh: two on January 23rd, three on January 26th, and one more on the 27th. A few more ships are struggling to make it through. All arrived show rocket and shell damage; moreover, reports say at least two tankers were sunk or beached on the way up, and that other cargo vessels were forced to turn back to South Vietnam.

The witness established, in response to a question, that the reason these convoys were necessary was Cambodian had moved out of rural areas and into the cities before 1975 due to the civil war raging. “Food was the missing need” at that time, he recalled, and through the countryside children could be seen with “red hair and bellies,” symptoms of starvation. In addition, he said, there was only enough fuel to keep the lights on for an hour or two a day.

Mr. Schanberg further testified that he had no reason to doubt that it was the Khmer Rouge who were firing on the convoys. All of the reports he had heard suggested it was them, and they had a distinct uniform from the Vietnamese.

Next the prosecutor read a passage from the book The Killing Fields: Facts behind the Film, in which a New York Times article by Mr. Schanberg was reproduced. In that article it was reported that the Cambodian insurgents had laid mines in the Mekong River and had sunk 19 vessels over a 10-day period, halting traffic on the river. Mr. Schanberg confirmed that this information came from the few boats that had managed to get through. Ultimately, he stated, American relief planes had to be relied upon to drop food and munitions from the sky.

The testimony moved on to whether the Khmer Rouge facilitated humanitarian aid efforts. The witness asserted that in fact the Khmer Rouge did just the opposite: “They were looking to build their war machine … [and] had no intent on bringing food in for people who were not part of their machine.”

Shelling of Phnom Penh before April 17, 1975

Moving on from the evacuation of Phnom Penh and the provision of humanitarian aid, Mr. Abdulhak asked about the shelling of Phnom Penh that was recounted in Mr. Schanberg’s diary. The diary records the witness’s account, read to the court by the prosecutor, of a rocket falling on an affluent Phnom Penh school, killing ten children, immediately wounding 25 to 30 more, and leaving “mangled children on the classroom floor.” Mr. Schanberg explained that such rocket attacks were an everyday occurrence – the Khmer Rouge used Chinese-made rockets with home-made wooden launchers. There was no way to direct them to specified targets, the witness testified, so they were in effect a “morale killer, which fell down here there and everywhere.”

Mr. Abdulhak next posed a question on the Khmer Rouge insurgent’s use of artillery fire on the airport, at which point Son Arun, the national lawyer for Nuon Chea objected on the grounds that the matters being discussed occurred prior to April 1975 and so were outside of the temporal jurisdiction of the court. In response Mr. Abdulhak argued that the objection was unfounded given that the court has already heard a month of evidence relating to events before April 1975. Given that both the accused have argued that their actions were justified on humanitarian grounds, he asserted, it is of direct relevance to the case how the Khmer Rouge treated people in the weeks and months before the fall of the city. The objection was dismissed by the court, and the prosecutor proceeded to ask questions about the shelling of the airport.

Mr. Schanberg’s testimony, aided through extracts from his diary read by the prosecutor, was that shelling had continued to move further and further into the airport and that shells were only falling when airplanes were on the ground. The witness surmised that this set-up suggested that the Khmer Rouge had a “forward observer,” someone on the ground able to tell them when to fire. The inability to land supplies was a significant event, according to Mr. Schanberg, as it meant Phnom Penh became a prison. He testified that Phnom Penh’s population had doubled to two million people during the war, as people fled the countryside; these people were now prisoners due to the shelling.

During Mr. Schanberg’s evidence on the shelling, a further objection was raised by Nuon Chea’s defense team. Victor Koppe, international lawyerfor Nuon Chea, objected on the grounds that the witness was being asked questions as though he were an expert, whereas in fact he was before the court as a witness. This objection was upheld by the court, with Judge Cartwright stating that “the chamber wishes to avoid any appearance that this witness claims particular expertise.”

However, an additional objection was raised just one question later when Mr. Schanberg described the effect that the shelling had on the regime’s ability to deliver food and aid to the city. To the prosecutor’s question on this topic, the witness replied that the shelling “reduced the amount of supplies, and as the insurgency continued, less and less food and other needs – fuel – was getting in. That’s all it was. Like a noose tightening around the city.” Mr. Koppe objected, requesting not only that questions be phrased so as not to illicit conclusion but also that the witness be instructed to refrain from sharing conclusions and making sweeping statements. President Nonn made such an instruction, telling the witness that he must tell the “truth which he had observed directly.”

Treatment of Foreign Journalists and Lon Nol Officials during Evacuation

Mr. Abdulhak moved to the events of April 17, 1975, asking first about Khmer Rouge soldiers. He compared two statements, one from an American diplomatic cable, which described the Khmer Rouge as indecisive and disorganised, with a statement made in one of Mr. Schanberg’s articles that described the soldiers as determined tough and disciplined and in good health.[3] A further cable read to the court, which Mr. Schanberg affirmed, claimed that although the Khmer Rouge soldiers were primarily pheasants, the regime had an educated class of officers who were able to speak French.

Regarding these educated officers, Mr. Schanberg explained that his main interaction them had arisen after his arrest. When he was unloaded from the tank-like vehicle, he recounted, he witnessed a group of officers having lunch. His assistant, Dith Pran, kept approaching the officers and claiming that the group of journalists were not Americans but rather Canadians who were in Cambodia to report the Khmer Rouge victory; Mr. Pran also told them he had heard on the radio that the press were to be allowed to operate. Eventually, the witness recalled, a general gave in, and after he consulted with a local headquarters, the journalists were released. Passionately, Mr. Schanberg told the court that Mr. Pran had saved their lives and that he was a great man.

Bringing the subject of questioning back to Mr. Schanberg’s arrest, Mr. Abdulhak next enquired about two men who accompanied the journalists in the “carrier,” or tank-like vehicle. The witness explained that despite being in civilian clothes, both of these men were military officers of the Lon Nol regime, one of them actually being the deputy commander of the navy. At one point, the witness recalled, this man attempted to hide his wallet in Mr. Schanberg’s bag, as he feared his identity documents would cost him his life; they eventually hid the wallet under a sandbag on the vehicle’s floor. The men were never released, Mr. Schanberg said.

After his release, Mr. Schanberg continued, he witnessed the rounding up of former officials, government ministers, and military leaders. In examining this topic, Mr. Abdulhak cited a diary passage in which Mr. Schanberg claimed, “Rumors have crept up again that Lon Nol had gone into exile. He is one of the seven traitors that have been marked for execution.” The witness testified that it had become clear on more than one occasion that these “seven traitors”[4] were wanted for execution by the Khmer Rouge, as decided at a “Chair’s Congress Session.” Following the fall of Phnom Penh, a radio broadcast was interrupted, Mr. Schanberg recalled, and it was declared by a Khmer Rouge spokesperson that “we did not come here talk; we enter [Phnom Penh] not for negotiation but as conquerors.” The spokesperson went on to say that all ministers and generals who had not run away should come and meet with the Khmer Rouge at the Ministry of Information, the witness said. When Mr. Schanberg himself went to the Ministry of Information, he found approximately 50 officials outside, trying to appear relaxed and “easy,” yet clearly looking uneasy. There were a number of ministers known to him there, he recalled, as well as women who worked at the Red Cross.

Mr. Schanberg continued, recounting that the group was organized into three lines – officials, military, and ministers – by the 10 to 15 Khmer Rouge soldiers present; officials, military and ministers. A speech, described by Mr. Schanberg as a “consolatory,” was given by a Khmer Rouge officer, in which he declared that there were only seven traitors and that the other captives would be treated “equitably.” At one stage, Mr. Schanberg said, a French reporter asked the Khmer Rouge officer whether these men would be allowed to leave the country, to which the officer laughed and said it would be a decision made by the government, not the military. During this discussion, the witness recalled, Long Boret, then Prime Minister of Cambodia, arrived. When asked what happened at this point, Mr. Schanberg replied, “They later announced that they had executed him [Long Boret]. … I told him how brave he was. ‘Let’s not get arrested again’ went through my head.”

As a result, Mr. Schanberg stated, the journalists left the Ministry of Information. A few days later, after they had sought refuge in the French Embassy, Long Boret’s wife drove to the embassy seeking refuge, he recounted; because the French had been told by the Khmer Rouge that they could not offer refuge to any “high-grade people,” she was turned away. Similarly, heavily armed Khmer Rouge soldiers came to the gates of the embassy on April 20, 1975, in order to collect the “high officials” who had been hiding there. While the French consul stated to Mr. Schanberg that “if and when we [hand over the Cambodians], we are no longer human,” he ultimately did order all Cambodians to leave the embassy, the witness stated. A few did remain, Mr. Schanberg said, and some made it onto the convoy that ultimately took the inhabitants of the embassy out of Cambodia.

At this point, Mr. Schanberg’s testimony was ended for the day. Mr. Schanberg shall continue to give evidence on Thursday, June 5, 2013, via video link.

Expert Testimony of Dr. Chhim Sotheara

In its afternoon session the ECC heard evidence from Dr. Chhim Sotheara, a medical expert and director of the Transcultural Psychosocial Organization (TPO). Before the testimony commenced, Mr. Koppe highlighted that a request had been made for extra time to be assigned for the cross-examination of the witness due to the allegedly sweeping statements he had given in Case 001. International Civil Party Lead Co-Lawyer, Elisabeth Simonneau Fort,described this request as “improper,” as it pre-empted the evidence of the witness before it was given. Ultimately President Nonn resolved to consider the request at the end of the direct examination of the prosecution and the civil parties.

After he was led to the stand, Dr. Sotheara stated that he is 45 years old and lives in Sen Sok District, working as a medical expert and as the Chief Executive of TPO. He was first examined by Pich Ang, National Civil Party Lead Co-Lawyer, who asked him to explain his academic credentials. Dr. Sotheara stated that he studied medicine, concluding in 1992, before studying psychology at the University of Oslo in Norway, where he concluded in 1998. Between 1999 and 2000, he obtained a Masters Degree at the University of New South Wales in Australia and at present he is pursuing a PhD in psychology at Monash University, also in Australia. He explained that he is one for the foremost experts in Cambodia on the trauma after the Khmer Rouge regime, having worked with the victims of S21 detention center and the regime generally. Specifically, he has worked with Civil Parties in both cases 001 and 002.

With regards to the victims with whom he has worked, Dr. Sotheara testified that generally, the majority were traumatized. “From outward appearance it seems they are normal,” he stated, but following a more in-depth investigation into their circumstances, he said it becomes clear they are traumatized. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, and paranoia can all result from the serious torture that had been inflicted upon them, Dr. Sotheara testified.

Under examination, the doctor explained that PTSD is characterized by sudden triggers, which cause vivid flashbacks of traumatic events. He stated that paranoia is most common in those who had been accused of being spies by the Khmer Rouge and tortured; they believe they are being followed and that there is a spy tracking them down.[5]

Dr. Sotheara further explained that avoidance is extremely common, as victims do not want to trigger their symptoms and so will not talk about, or go near the site of, their trauma. Some distinctions between “textbook cases” and cases in Cambodia arise due to cultural differences, he said. “Our people are not outgoing and lacking in decision-making because of all the impact they suffered under the regime.” Regarding cultural differences, Dr. Sotheara recounted that Cambodian people are used to hearing that they should “grow a cotton tree,” an expression that means to remain silent.[6]

When asked by Mr. Angwhether victims for the Khmer Rouge are still traumatized to this day, Dr. Sotheara explained that if the victims have not been treated, the symptoms will remain with them. If they receive treatment they tend to get better, he said, noting, however, that this can take a long time and requires significant amounts of resources.

Mr. Ang inquired whether the civil parties in case 002 had the same experiences as those whom Dr. Sotheara had worked with before. Mr. Koppe objected to the inquiry, arguing that the expert could not know if they were not his patients and could not disclose if they were. The objection was upheld by Judge Cartwright, who instructed that the “lead co-lawyers should put to the expert some of the experiences of trauma that the civil parties have described in the courtroom and ask his opinion on them.”

A number of situations were then proffered to the expert by Mr. Ang, in order to ascertain the degree of trauma they would produce. Objections from Mr. Koppe were frequent, based on the witness being asked specific questions about civil parties rather than clinical questions about trauma in general.

The impact of the evacuation on children was the first scenario discussed. Dr. Sotheara explained, “As children, they do not have sufficient coping strategies. When they stay in a place, they have attachment. When evacuated they loose the attachment.” This would be compounded by the harsh conditions the child’s new location, he continued. The doctor further stated that such childhood trauma can lead to the loss of “future vision” and a sense of growth for the future.[7] It can also lead to anti-social behaviour and aggression, as well as difficulties if the person has to bring up their own children, he said. Those who lose parents suffer severe trauma and tend to lack a social support network, he stated, noting that later in life, these children are likely to feel regret and resentment at all that has happened to them. Citing a study of 700 victims by the Center against Genocidal Crime in Berlin, Dr. Sotheara said that the study found the childhood victims to be resentful for not having had sufficient support and for having lost their parents.

Mr. Ang turned the questioning to parents whose children had died. Dr. Sotheara reiterated that the loss of a loved one is a severe form of trauma. In the case of evacuation, this is coupled with the loss of property, he said; victims are likely to feel lonely, be in despair, and “not want to achieve everything in life.”

The effects of segregation of persons into “new people” – as the evacuees were known – and “base people” were then discussed. Noting that, after the evacuation of Phnom Penh, evacuees, or “new people” as they were known, where treated significantly worse than “base” people who were the original inhabitants of the countryside, Dr. Sotheara testified that “new people” likely “lost” their identity, which is a severe traumatic experience. As a result of the evacuation, and then segregation, they will have been detached from mainstream society, he concluded.

At this point, Ms. Elisabeth Simonneau Fort took over questioning on behalf of the civil parties. She initially explored the Cambodian concept of “Baksbat,” a term that had been used by the expertin his prior testimony to her colleague. Dr. Sotheara explained that this term means that “psychologically the person is damaged or broken.” He continued, however, to explain that in the specific situation of victims of the Khmer Rouge regime, the term “refers to the suffering received by the Cambodian people through the regime.” He further explained that avoidance was extremely prevalent in Cambodia, and was one of the reasons that some victims did not want to talk about events under the Khmer Rouge with their children. He testified:

The majority of [Cambodian people] seem to fall into avoidance as a symptom more than other people in the world in post-war traumatic experiences. … As for the victims, if I did not ask them, they will not tell me about that. They find it difficult to tell me. And even if, when I ask, the person would take some time to recollect himself or herself before he or she is able to tell me about the experience.

When asked whether he had met victims who had encountered perpetrators, Dr. Sotheara was clear that he had not; however, he did not believe many victims would wish to meet with perpetrators due to avoidance and fear of meeting a torturer.

Continuing to explore the impact upon children, Ms. Simonneau Fort inquired whether Dr. Sotheara had worked with children who had denounced their parents or children who had been taken away from their parents to be brought up by the regime. Dr. Sotheara testified that he had worked with both these groups. Children who had denounced their parents he described as having “lost their carriage”; they required treatment before they could feel hope again. Children brought up by the regime were very severely traumatized, he stated; the harsh treatment of those in the “children’s unit” was highly unsuitable for health development.

In general, forcing someone to move has a profound effect upon them, Dr. Sotheara testified. He explained:

When we live somewhere, we have a connection with the place, with the people. This attachment is detached when people are forced to move. Their sense of security is diminished. If someone is forced to leave, they lose everything, their contact or attachment and their family. During the Khmer Rouge period, people were detached. It was not the evacuation per se which causes trauma but also the use of torture and harsh living conditions while being under constant threat.

Ms. Simmoneau Fort turned to the psychological impact of permanent hunger. Dr. Sotheara explained that a traumatic event is one that is so overwhelming that a person cannot cope and changing the thought processes and beliefs of that person, as well as his or her interactions with other people. Though contending that conditions of constant hunger were “bound” to change thought processes, Dr. Sotheara could not provide any more specific information on this point.

The civil party lawyer asked Dr. Sotheara about the status of those who had moved abroad. The expert stated that it was a misconception that those living abroad have a higher level of well-being; in practice they sustained suffering just like those in Cambodia, and they have lost their attachment. In response to a question she posed about whether the witness had “any idea” of the level of PTSD among expatriate Cambodians, Ms. Simonneau Fort received a forceful objection from Mr Koppe. “What kind of question is that?” he asked, specifically objecting to asking an expert if he had “any idea.” Upon rephrasing the question, Ms. Simonneau Fort was told by Dr. Sotheara that a scientific study had found the rate remained at 60 percent for PTSD and depression was at 50 percent.

Finally, the prohibition of religion and the psychological impact of the prohibition were briefly discussed. The doctor stated that religion is a prevalent coping mechanism in Cambodia, and so the restrictions placed on religion had a significant effect. This was especially so in the context of a regime with insufficient social assistance, he concluded.

Prosecution Examines Dr. Sotheara

International Senior Assistant Co-Prosecutor Vincent de Wilde examined Dr. Sotheara about the impact of the ECCC case itself upon the civil parties in Case 001. Although the parties had displayed symptoms prior to testifying due to it being a stressful experience, the expert recounted, in the long run, they had all displayed benefits of being able to speak out. In addition, Dr. Sotheara testified, other victims of the Khmer Rouge may identify with several parties, which could lead to a degree of recovery and reconciliation.

Mr de Wilde then asked whether survivors felt guilt about having made it through the regime when their loved ones had not. Studies have shown that this was common, replied Dr. Sotheara.

Finally, the denial of responsibility by the leaders of the Khmer Rouge and its effect on victims was addressed by the expert witness. Dr. Sotheara stated that those victims who feel they have achieved justice are more likely to recover. To some degree the process of the trial itself could have some healing effect, he proffered, though noting that victims would have to be clear in their mind what was happening. It is “not as easy” as just holding the trial, he concluded.

Bid for Extra Time by Nuon Chea Defense

As the prosecution’s examination had ended, the court returned to the subject of extra cross-examination time, raised by Mr. Koppe at the beginning of Dr. Sotheara’s testimony. Mr. Koppe explained that he had a number of aims that he would be unable to achieve in his allotted time. Specifically, he stated, the defense wished to (1) establish whether there is a bias against the accused; (2) question whether Dr. Sotheara has the academic credentials to be called an expert; (3) ask about the methodology used in his practice; and (4) ask questions about the doctor’s publications. Without the ability to scrutinize the expert, Mr. Koppe argued, Nuon Chea’s fair trial rights were at risk.

In response, the prosecution observed that the expert had been scheduled for a number of months and had originally been due to give evidence two weeks ago. It was further argued that the defense team had adequate time to prepare and file a motion for extra time in advance, as all the parties were working within the same time constraints. The court ruled that the defense team would be allocated Thursday afternoon to cross-examine the witness, with the exception of an additional 15 minutes to be allocated to the prosecution.

The proceedings will reconvene at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, June 6, with continued testimony of Mr. Schanberg.