Policies on Lon Nol Soldiers, Population Growth, and Forced Marriage Take Center Stage in Document Presentation

On Wednesday, June 26, 2013, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia continued to hear the presentation of key documents, first from the Prosecution and then from the Civil Parties. All parties were present at the proceedings with Nuon Chea observing from his holding cell due to health reasons. In the public gallery were 299 students from Takeo, and 197 military cadets from Kampong Speu.

The Prosecution Continues to Present Documents on the Treatment of Lon Nol Soldiers

Assistant Prosecutor Dale Lysak continued to present to the court key documents that he said showed a policy of targeting Lon Nol soldiers and officials. He stressed that he had already shown on Tuesday a document that stated that 162 former soldiers and their relatives were killed alone in one month.

The first document to be highlighted before the court today was a list of “Prisoners who Were Government Officials.” Mr. Lysak stressed that the very title of this document was significant. An additional list showed 188 other officials and intellectuals who were killed in 1976.

Next the minutes of a Standing Committee meeting, in which the resignation of Sihanoukwas discussed, were put before the court. Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, and Khieu Samphan, among a number of others, attended the meeting, according to the document. At the start of section 2 of the minutes, the following opinion of Angkor was expressed regarding the reason for Sihanouk’s resignation: “Fundamental class conflict [existed] between him and his family and the revolution. He cannot live with us. In the past he could, only as a tactic.”

The meeting was reconvened on March 13, 1976. According to its minutes, the committee decided to let Sihanouklive but not to leave the country. With regard to his children, the meeting minutes stated that someone was to “send a wire for his children to come immediately, explaining they are coming for New Year and independence celebrations. We want to solve this problem cleanly.” Later in the document the committee explained its decision in the following terms: “We must end feudalism just like this; the chess game has gotten to that point.” The king, it said, must be “cleaned.”

Moving on, Mr. Lysak then presented documents directly related to the military. A report from Division 310, which was dated May 26, 1976, demonstrated the use of biographies. “In special battalion 312, there remain three comrades who still hide their biographies,” the report stated. In one of these, the person in question claimed not to have political backgrounds, though on investigation the Khmer Rouge found his father to have been a soldier. The other two had similar family links to the Lon Nol military.

Following this, part of the minutes of a meeting of September 9, 1976, was read to the court. “Mostly, the civilians are good,” it claimed, “but there are bad elements.” Recently one former Lon Nol soldier had been arrested, the document maintained, noting also that other such soldiers must be rounded up.

Further minutes showed that “those who came to us from the Vietnamese and the children of soldiers and police were purged.”

Mr. Lysak proceeded to present documents on the targeting of enemies in the zones and autonomous regions, starting with a list of Kampuchea Cham people from one commune. This, he explained, was put before the court as it demonstrated the taking of biographical information, including rank under the previous regime. The rank of family members was also included in the document. Two further lists were cited with similar biographical lists for the members of different communes.

In addition to lists, a number of reports were shown to the court that showed what happened to those identified as being former Lon Nol soldiers. In one document the author claimed that after having received successive requests to be vigilant, he could now list a number of people who had been arrested. Further, a report from Kampot stated that 393 persons from 106 military families had been smashed by Angkor in that province, leaving 292 persons from military families.

Another report, dated April 28, 1977, read by the prosecutor, stated, “We have examined and purged the enemy, having received the instructions of the party.” The report then listed a number of further soldiers and requested orders from Angkor as to how to deal with them. Similarly, a document from Taphem to a district chief included a “request for advice” and stated, “For those people who held a ranking position, we will send them out to you consecutively. For soldiers and teachers who attempted to destroy our revolution, please send us instructions.”

Mr. Lysak next read an interview with a regional youth chairman. The chairman was asked where the prisoners came from and why they were detained in prison, to which he responded that the majority were “brothers and sisters” from the cities – a mix of soldiers and base people. The youth chairman did not know who had sent them there but understood that killings had begun on 17th April and were initially conducted by the Khmer Rouge army. When new prisoners arrived, they had to provide biographies; anyone who said he was a soldier would disappear.

A section from the Khmer Rouge magazine Revolutionary Flag was presented to the court. It contained an announcement from the Central Committee that any district with the best qualification for building socialism would receive a Red Flag award. In 1976 the districts were to receive the award because they were models for “strong and profound class struggle, especially from inside the party.”

Mr. Lysak gave examples of such a “profound class struggle.” He cited an October 29, 2009, interview by the Office of the Co-Investigating Judges (OCIJ) with of a deputy militia chair. When he was asked whether people were evacuated from Phnom Penh to be executed, he replied, “As far as I know they were taken for execution. Evacuees were taken to a village where they had to write out their biography. Those who were soldiers disappeared from the cooperative.”

A further OCIJ interview was presented to the court. The interviewee, who was not named, was a District 12 soldier and later a guard of a prison. In the interview he stated that the prisoners were people accused of being the enemy, “such as the 17 April people for instance.” The enemy would also include anyone who had done something wrong, such as “moral offences, transplanting the wrong kind of rice, or being a Lon Nol solider.” As a guard the interviewee had heard interrogations many times. These frequently involved the interrogated person being asked if they were a Lon Nol soldier or a member of the CIA. “If the prisoner answered ‘no,’ ‘M’ would beat the prisoner.”[2] When asked how people had died, he recounted that prisoners died from diseases or a lack of medicine or food. The interviewee added that, in 1975, he had watched the Khmer Rouge walking hundreds of 17 April people and Lon Nol soldiers to be killed at Phnum Proek and Krang Lvea “without any interrogations.” He then confessed that he participated, along with a 30-soldier unit, in taking these people to their deaths.

The next document to be cited was the August 1977 issue of Revolutionary Flag, which published a presentation to the West Zone cadre that took place in July 1977. The speech concerned implementation of policies in the second semester of 1977. In particular, it was said that “many co-operatives were controlled by former Lon Nol soldiers. … In district 18 this was not just a few. From what I know, some have former regime soldiers as their head. More than a few are responsible for leadership of the communes.” Later in the presentation the cadre were instructed to “attack and smash the no-good elements controlling the communes.” This was so that communes would become “good and clean in accordance with the class line.”

Staying on this point, Mr. Lysak quoted a telegram from April 1976 to the court. It was from a Central Zone Secretary and was copied to Nuon Chea. Section 1 was entitled “Enemy Situation.” “In general the situation is stable,” it claimed, though the enemy does “make propaganda [about] the regime being strict, about the new rice irrigation program, and about food shortages.”

Regarding the above activity, the zone had instructed the sectors to track such activity. “We captured some elements. We tracked agents and will take additional measures,” the telegram stated. An additional document noted the arrest of former Lon Nol soldiers hiding themselves in collectives.

Two final documents on this point were read, both of which regarded the North Zone. One was a telegram from 1977, in which it was said, “At the bases, the offices, the ministries, and in the military offices, we have encountered many enemies burrowing from within. … These enemies, who were former officials, soldiers, or the police of former regimes, were discovered one by one.”

In the subsequent document highlighted for the court, it was reported, “In this dry season the remaining enemy took action in the work sites. These enemies contacted former officials, soldiers, and police. When we knew who they were, we systematically purged them.”

At this stage in the proceedings Mr. Lysak handed over to his national colleague, Senior Assistant Prosecutor Dararasmey Chan, who introduced that he would present on the regulation of marriage during the Democratic Kampuchea period. Breaking down this topic, he would initially look at the Khmer Rouge regime’s population growth policies, before then looking at the documents on the revolutionary family.

Mr. Chan presented to the court a copy of Revolutionary Flag magazine from December 1976. It contained a presentation on the “Ninth Anniversary of the Magnificent Army,” which was purportedly given by Nuon Chea. Regarding the mission of continuing to expand the army, Nuon Chea was quoted as saying, “For us, building the country well is the goal of socialism. Sorting out the livelihood quickly was a priority. We need 15 to 20 million people. … For our population to increase the livelihood must develop and the people must be healthy.”

Next a speech that was made by Ieng Sary to the UN General Assembly’s 32nd session and 28th plenary meeting of October 11, 1977, was quoted. This, Mr. Chan said, was especially important as it demonstrated the perceived need for a greater population. “We are endeavoring very rapidly to improve the conditions and health of our people as we need a population of 15 to 20 million in ten years’ time,” Mr. Sary claimed. In a later part of the speech he said that “with regard to our long term aspirations, the road is long.” The population growth was needed so that the Khmer Rouge could continue to defend prosperous Kampuchea. There was no reason to maintain the current size of the population, which left the country far short of capacity, argued Ieng Sary.

The Democratic Kampuchea (DK) regime created some statistics on alleged population growth, which Mr. Chan then presented to the court. In a recorded interview, Nuon Chea said, “We are faced with the problem of being sparsely populated.” There were natural resources, which might have been exploited if the population were larger. Democratic Kampuchea has always required a rapid increase in its population, claimed Nuon Chea, and the four-year plan aimed to increase the population accordingly. The Khmer Rouge statistics suggested that from March to December 1976 the population had increased by 160,000 (two percent). In 1977 it increased by 220,009, and in 1978 it increased by 260,000. This increase was the result of “Democratic Kampuchea protecting the peoples’ living conditions,” Nuon Chea was recorded as saying.

The next topic covered was the notion of a “Revolutionary Family” and how considering one’s own family interests was considered a betrayal of the party and the people. Mr. Chan quoted a September/October 1976 issue of the Revolutionary Youth magazine, in which it was written that “private ownership, organized by one’s family or clique, and not standing up for the organizational line of the party” is wrong. Later the document lists the problems with private ownership: “Anyone who thinks about family interest ‘deceives’ the revolution, seeking family happiness rather than happiness within the party.”

Family members were seen as private possessions, the court was told. In a 1975 Revolutionary Youth article it was claimed that “in our revolution’s ranks our combatants sacrifice private possessions such as housing, farms, family, children, parents, and other property in order to serve the revolution and the party.” The revolutionary youth must be informed that negative ideologies still existed and that vigilance was needed in order to resist them, the magazine went on to claim. These were to be “completely eliminated.”

In another issue of the magazine, from November 1978, a propaganda story concerning a fifteen-year-old child was included. In that story, the youth said, “I have no parents or siblings. I am the child for the communist party. My parents and siblings were smashed by the Yuon enemy. Now I am living in a new family. My parents are none other than the CPK. I will now strive my best.”

Moving on, Mr. Chan presented a document that he asserted was the most important for this topic. Initially published in 1974, but then republished under the DK regime, the document was entitled “Revolutionary World Views regarding the Matter of Family.” In this document it was written that inside zones controlled by the enemy, many youth had absorbed the worldview of the “oppressor class.” They seek out spouses due to material greed, it said. “That is, today they seek out happiness by breaking out from the fate of the entire nation and people,” it continued.

As for us, the revolutionary youth, we consider matters of family being inseparable from the entire national and people. When our nation is oppressed by the feudalists or capitalist, our families are exploited. In order that our families to know happiness and peace, our entire nation of people must be liberated from exploitation by the capitalists and feudalists. … So, building a revolutionary family is not for personal happiness, or to build children, it is so that the party can liberate the nation, the people, and the poor class, and advance to communism.

Further down in the same article it was stated that “the strategic enemies and the class enemies who are still living in liberated zones use the maneuver of wanting to hit us in the guts by inserting their people to bore in and attack our people, by attracting their relatives, and exploiting family relationships so as to betray the revolution.” As a result the revolutionary youth must pay attention and be vigilant to how families are built: “If we do not respect organizational discipline, if we do not take firm stances, we will build families incorrectly and not in accordance with the family line.” The document goes on to say that liberal family building causes many “bad things.”

Crucially, the prosecutor then cited a document on the choosing of spouses. “How should the revolutionary youth choose a spouse?” it was asked rhetorically. In order to achieve the mission of the revolution properly, the youth must be vigilant in selecting its spouses. A number of prescriptions were made:

1. Do not choose recklessly all over the place. The youth must have regard to sexual morality. Additionally, applications must be made to the party.
2. Organizational policy must be absolutely respected. Only the organization and the collective can make a proper assessment.
3. Do not go “helter-skelter in a rush.” It is important to look at a potential spouse’s background first.
4. If both are inside the ranks, it is imperative to choose someone who has a solid revolutionary stance, whatever their position may be.

On the subject of life after marriage, a quote was provided to the court:

We must have the clear view that our spouse is one inseparable part of the revolutionary family. Our husband or wife is one of the masses and part of the revolutionary movement. It is necessary to gradually educate and build them to understand the revolutionary line. Do not leave them alone just to do housework. We the husband must educate them to follow the party line, and hand them over to the collective to help educate and build.

Spoiling’s one’s spouse should be avoided, the document stated, and a cadre should not believe their spouse is special to them. In addition, one’s spouse should not be “built” to follow their own family emotions: “Only by handing the family to the collective to educate and build, can our families prosper well.”

Presenting his final three documents, Mr. Chan drew the court’s attention to an interview by Ieng Sary, given in New York on December , 1980. In that speech he decreed that some freedoms are to be given back to the people, such as the freedom to marry whom they wished. In that article it was stated that the deputy prime minister spelled out details of new programs that would mean that political parties would now be allowed, as well as freedom of religion and education and for families to be allowed to live together.

Mr. Chan concluded his presentation with an excerpt from a book by Philip Short:

The family continued to exist, but its primary purpose became to beget children for the service of the party. Ties between individual family members were diluted within the larger community. “Mothers should not get too entangled with their offspring,” Pol told the Central Committee. Similarly, if a man felt a sentimental attachment developing with a woman he should “take a collectivist stance and resolve it. To do otherwise is to have a very strong private stance.” Marriage, not merely between party members but between any two people, was a party and not an individual affair. Free choice of spouse was explicitly condemned. To underline the social aspect, weddings were celebrated collectively for a minimum of 10 couples. After the marriage had been consummated, the couple often lived apart, subject to the death penalty.

Civil Parties Present Key Documents

As the floor was handed over to the Co-Lawyers for the Civil Parties to begin their document presentation, Co-Lawyer for Khieu Samphan Anta Guissé lodged a preliminary objection. Having looked through the documents proposed by the civil parties, she argued that they were overly concerned with the situation on the ground and not with the theoretical existence of a policy. Ms. Guissé wished for the court to reaffirm its holding of the prior day that evidence must be related to the existence of policy, not its implementation.

Nuon Chea’s co-lawyer Victor Koppe concurred with the objection and claimed that it was “dawning on” the defense teams that the way the prosecution was presenting on the Joint Criminal Enterprise topics could have far-reaching effects. He sought guidance on how the defense teams should deal with issues that were not part of this case but had been presented upon by the prosecution.

In response Civil Party Lead Co-Lawyer Elisabeth Simonneau Fort stated that her objective was to establish the existence of the five policies – their theoretical existence and not their implementation. Since the co-prosecutor referred to elements regarding implementation, there was an implicit decision that implementation is intrinsically bound to policy, she argued. The Civil Parties were of the view that within certain documents there would be great difficulty removing implementation from policy, she asserted, noting that it may happen that the demonstration of a systematic character includes both implementation and existence.

This point was reinforced by Senior Assistant Prosecutor Vincent De Wilde, who in a lengthy address argued that where the court is examining the existence of a policy that may not have been explicitly communicated it was important that reports on implementation could be examined in order to examine the interaction between policy and its implementation. In support of this view he cited the judgment in the Blagojević case in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in which the trial chamber had held that it could infer the existence of a plan (or policy) from the fact that 7,000 people were murdered in five days. Thus implementation was intrinsically linked to policy.

Clearly angry and gesticulating passionately, Ms. Guissé told the tribunal that this was at the “very heart of what I tried to make my objection about.” She argued that the court was very subtly sliding towards another case and that in order to defend her client she must know the case before him. The defense could not respond to evidence out of scope, she asserted, as it would not have called evidence or cross-examined the evidence of the prosecution accordingly. There could be “no fair trial if we are going to stray to the subsequent trial segments.”

Mr. Koppe again concurred with Ms. Guissé, stating, “Our client is not being accused with anything to do with forced marriage. We have a big problem if we are going into these policies without being able to defend ourselves against them.”

After a bench conference, Judge Silvia Cartwright presented the judges’ holding. In a diplomatic yet inconclusive statement, she stated that defense counsel would be entitled to comment on any document during their response times and that the chamber would make its own determinations as to the value of each document in reaching its verdict. She also emphasized that Case 002/01 covered the policies only as to their existence.

Ultimately Ms. Simonneau Fort was allowed to proceed with the presentation of her documents. By way of introduction she explained that as usual, she would be reading out short extracts from the statements of the Civil Parties thematically, looking first at the policy of creating cooperatives and work sites.

The first document the Civil Party Co-Lawyer presented to the court was a statement by a civil party that said, “Non assigned me to work in the rice paddies. This time I had to transplant rice. Comrade Nun forced me to work and transplant up to 120 units. If we did not reach this target we would be punished.” Further on in the statement the party said, “Under the regime the slogan was ‘to have you is no gain, to lose you is no loss.’”

Again Ms. Guissé objected, this time on the grounds of relevance. However her objection was overruled by the president, who sharply reprimanded her for not allowing the Civil Parties to present their documents.

The second document to be presented by Ms. Simonneau Fort was another civil party statement, in which it was said that “the Khmer Rouge summoned meetings during the night during which directives such as a requirement of three tons of rice to be produced per hectare were given.”

One of the policies discussed yesterday was the creation of irrigation; Ms. Simonneau Fort continued. On this subject she drew the court’s attention to a civil party statement in which it was purported by a child that “everybody had to be assigned to the construction of dykes and pits.” They were asked to go from one area to another in order to carry out the construction work.

Also on the topic of dykes, a statement was quoted that described how the Khmer Rouge gave orders for the construction of rice paddies and the cleaning of forests. There was an absolute condition that a dike of 50 meters had to be built every day, or the worker concerned would be expelled from the commune. In a separate statement, a civil party wrote that “a portion of the rice was taken by the government after the harvest.” Healthy people were sent to work on construction. At first people agreed to take part in the construction projects; however, over the year, “doubt set in.”

“My children were sent to the children’s unit,” one civil party recalled. “We had to clear some 20 acres of land; if we did not reach this goal, we would not receive any rice.”

Concerning the construction of the January 1st Dam, a civil party statement explained how “later on the Khmer Rouge in the village were transferred to work on the construction of the dam. At the time, the Khmer Rouge who were responsible for the area received orders from the upper echelons to send hundreds of men to assist with the construction.” Another party stated, “I was ordered to build dams and dig dykes. At the time Angkor made me work day and night, and I was only given one can of rice a day.” Later he was transferred to extract rocks during airport construction.

A second objective was discussed, which was the formation of cooperatives for security purposes. The civil party statement cited first on this topic said that, while living in a commune, “my family and myself were constantly called the 17 April people; we were forced to work harder than the base people and received less food.” It was then said in a separate statement:

When someone was ill and could not go to work, the Khmer Rouge said that the illness was in their head and they were lazy. When people had to rest in the evening, the head of the militia confiscated personal effects, such as watches and money, and sought to find out our position under the Lon Nol regime. Those people who had been evacuated were known as 17 April people and were observed at all times.

Another civil party described how “those who were accused of being lazy were tortured by the Khmer Rouge.”

Moving on, Ms. Simonneau Fort read out a statement regarding a man who had died from dysentery after the Khmer Rouge had accused him of being lazy and refused him medicine. Another Civil Party’s statement documented how she was maltreated when she was ill: “The Khmer Rouge did not believe I was ill and accused me of being lazy. I was thus punished.”

On the topic of investigations into personal background, the co-lawyer presented a passage in which it was claimed by a civil party that she had witnessed cooperative members being interrogated and those who admitted to a role under the Lon Non regime disappeared and never came back.

When it came to sexual conduct, the Khmer Rouge were just as harsh, Ms. Simonneau Fort asserted. One party recalled how she witnessed three people being sentenced to death:

I was summoned to a meeting in a local pagoda. I went to that meeting. All participants were asked to look at a man and two women who had flouted the moral conduct rules. The Khmer Rouge told us not to follow their example as all three were going to be killed.

Ms. Simonneau Fort then presented statements on the objective of the Khmer Rouge to abolish private life. One party had recounted, “In 1976, the Khmer Rouge militia men split us into groups according to physical strength. My two children were sent to the children’s unit, my niece was sent with her grandmother, and I was sent to the middle-age group.”

The next quote read continued on the subject of family life, saying, “In early 1976, we were not authorized to eat in our homes. What little food was left was taken by Angkor, and we were ordered to eat in common in the same kitchen.” Another statement recalled how communal eating occurred even in the middle of building construction: “The Khmer Rouge settled us in a village in the middle of the forest and asked us to build out huts ourselves. No one was allowed to eat alone. “

Having provided the court with an additional account in which it was said that the Khmer Rouge always split up family members, Ms. Simonneau Fort then turned to her final document on family life under the Khmer Rouge. “We were peasants; the Khmer Rouge troops confiscated the personal effects of the inhabitants and ordered everyone to dress in black,” it was stated.

Changing topic completely, the civil party co-lawyer turned to the subject of enemies and their re-education. She quoted a statement in which it was recalled, “We had to say whether in the past we had been civil servants, soldiers, or students. We were told to tell the truth, and if we did so we would be able to return to our work.” Those who revealed a link were sent for re-education and were never seen again, the party claimed.

On the same topic another civil party recollected how “Angkor asked us for the second time to reveal our prior occupation. If we told the truth, we would be sent for education to build a stronger Angkor.” Additionally it was said by a different party, “Those who wanted to have work exaggerated their position in the Lon Nol regime but were then killed as a result.” A statement was then cited in which the civil party referred to the policy of security centers being constructed across Cambodia.

Ms. Simonneau Fort next addressed the policies for the elimination of enemies and the definition of enemies. She quoted a civil party who stated:

I was able to see a number of people being arrested. I was told these people had been sent for re-education; however we never saw them again. We knew that being sent for education simply meant being sent for execution. People were arrested if they stole food or if their biographies were bad.

It was recollected by another civil party how “during work hours the militia men would observe us constantly. If we said anything inappropriate, we would be sent for re-education. Saying we were tired would lead to condemnation.”

A number of the civil parties recalled seeing workers punished for stealing food, due to its scarcity. A passage was quoted in which a father was caught stealing food for his family and sent for “re-education.” The same policy apparently applied to children, with one civil party recounting that “one of my nephews was accused of stealing a chicken. The other children denounced him, and the police took him to a re-education or detention center.”

On the topic of intrusive investigations undertaken by the Khmer Rouge, evidence was given that the Khmer Rouge were “good at investigating; they went around looking for soldiers, doctors, teachers and then killed them and their whole families.” Three other accounts were given of investigations into personal background, leading to people being taken away for re-education.

An OCIJ interview was then read to the court. In response to the question of whether the Khmer Rouge questioned and arrested people, the civil party responded, “At the time the Khmer Rouge did not mete out bad treatment; they told people those who had worked for the Lon Nol should reveal themselves and would be re-educated.” Further, the interviewee told the OCIJ that “there were self-criticism sessions during which the villagers would denounce those who did not work. Those who were denounced twice would be sent for execution.”

Ms. Simonneau Fort continued to read to the court accounts of civil parties who had been sent to do hard labor, having been accused of being an enemy, or had seen loved ones executed or disappeared. Two statements, which are illustrative of the others cited, included a woman who was arrested after the Khmer Rouge discovered her husband had been a Lon Nol soldier and another party who stated that, “in July 1978, 16 of my loved ones were massacred by the Khmer Rouge; they were accused of being a member of the network of a Khmer Rouge leader who had been accused of being against revolutionary Angkor.”

After a short recess, Ms. Simonneau Fort turned to her final topic—punitive measures aimed at specific groups. Religious buildings were used for alternative purposes under Democratic Kampuchea, one statement claimed, recounting the story of how one pagoda “became a prison where people who were regarded as enemies were tortured. Angkor forced us, myself and others, to stop being monks.”

Such defrocking was common, other statements asserted, and the Muslim minority in Cambodia also suffered. A civil party who is a Cham Muslim said in his statement that “religion, tradition, and the customs of Muslim Khmer were forbidden at all costs by the Khmer Rouge. They forced us to eat pork, made women cut their hair, and they confiscated Korans.” Similar persecution was meted out against the Vietnamese, known as Yuon, further statements said. “All religious practices and beliefs were forbidden” the court heard. “I was not aware of the execution of Buddhist monks, but I was aware they were forced to defrock and were sent away.” The party also recounted that one pagoda was turned into a canteen, where Cham Muslim people were forced to eat pork.

Civil Party Statements on Forced Marriage

The final topic covered by the civil party lawyer was the policy of forced marriage. Ms. Simonneau Fort began by quoting a civil party who stated that “at the end of 1978 I was forced to marry. Angkor had proposed the marriage. Angkor had agreed to this, organized the ceremony, and that is where we made our vows.” Similarly, a subsequent civil party statement said, “I was spared a forced marriage, but I couldn’t avoid it the third time. “

Another party had a similar experience, stating, “I could not refuse. I was told no one could disobey. … She told me all women must obey Angkor’s order. If any disobeyed, they would be executed.”

Marriage ceremonies were reportedly large, with one civil party recounting being asked to say a few words on behalf of the sixty couples present.

A number of statements were read to the chamber that demonstrated that those being married had no choice as to whom they could marry. In addition, language such as “darling” could not be used. “Mrs. Sue, my boss, decided I had to get married. At the time it was the officials who decided such matters,” one party recalled. The ceremony itself involved each couple having to exchange their marriage vows one after another, the party said; the couples were told to love each other and to do the tasks assigned by Angkor, while doing their best to produce children for Angkor.

This concluded the evidence of the civil parties.

Prosecution Falters on Addressing the Role of Nuon Chea
Following the civil party presentation, the prosecution was again given the floor in order to present on the role of Nuon Chea. However, they were clearly caught off guard at the speed at which the civil parties had concluded, and it took Deputy Co-Prosecutor Seng Bunkheang a number of minutes to actually arrive in the courtroom to present their case.

Quite quickly it arose that the other parties had not yet been provided a document list on this topic, and the prosecution made it quite clear that they would rather present their case on the following day. As such the court briefly addressed issues concerning the forthcoming sessions before adjourning. It was determined that the chamber would allow the Nuon Chea defense extra time to prepare its response. As such the following week would be assigned to testimony of remaining witnesses, and the subsequent week would contain Nuon Chea’s response.

The court adjourned to reconvene on Thursday, June 27, 2013.