Star Witness Holds Her Own Under Grilling
Nuon Chea put in a surprise appearance at the Tribunal today in order to ask questions of star witness Elizabeth Becker. The journalist and author had been called to the Chamber to enlighten the hearing with her extensive knowledge of the Khmer Rouge years. But the day began with Nuon Chea exercising his right to challenge the material before the court. His first question concerned why, when the United States came to invade Cambodia in 1970 to 1973, they bombed for 200 days and nights. A total three tons of bombs were dropped. Many innocent Cambodians died and houses, rice fields and pagodas were destroyed. Nuon Chea wanted to know “Why? What was the reason for the bombardment?”
Ms. Becker said that after the coup, the US government fully supported the Khmer Republic and
its government. By 1972, there was a fear that the Khmer Republic would lose and also a belief by the Nixon administration that the bombing would drive the Khmer Rouge to the negotiating table. When that failed, they wanted a situation in which the US could withdraw. Eventually, the US Congress did not want any more reports of people killed or damage to the infrastructure of the country. They passed a law (later upheld by the United States Supreme Court) and the bombing ended on August 15, 1973.
Nuon Chea followed up by asking if Ms. Becker felt “the US was responsible for the tragedy involved in the bombing or was it because the US is a powerful country so it can invade at its own discretion?”
The journalist was quick to state that “of course” the US was responsible for the destruction. She related an incident of some two weeks ago in which a group of Americans tried to prosecute a “citizen’s arrest” on Henry Kissenger for his actions concerning the bombing of Cambodia. She said “it is a live issue.” Ms. Becker did not think the US could invade whenever it wanted to as international law says no, that it cannot.
Mr. Koppe then resumed his cross-examination of Ms. Becker revealing that he “had been surprised by (her) answer of yesterday to take Sambath Thet “with a grain of salt.” Ms. Becker corrected the misunderstanding. She said she had been referring to the testimony of the two cadres which she thought should be “taken with a grain of salt.” Counsel delved further to enquire why she had then dismissed their testimony. The journalist said that all the researchers had searched the files and come up empty handed of support for the cadre line that “everyone knew of the plot to overthrow Pol Pot.” She maintained this “was only officials rationalizing what they did.”
Next, Mr. Koppe read in excerpts from an interview given by Sambath Thet on Cambodian Radio, August 13, 2014, after the judgment was rendered in Case 002/01. Sambath Thet spoke of “those who caused the starvation and ruin…are still living;” “that lower rank people acted excessively;” “that some who want to testify are fearful of doing so and need security;” and that Sambath Thet believes that there was a civil war after 1975 between two opposing factions.
Mr. Koumjian objected to Mr. Koppe reading only small portions of a long interview and then giving his view not that of Sambath Thet. The Co-Prosecutor said that “Sambath has made Nuon Chea responsible for the killings.” Koppe defended that this “is unfair and not helpful to the truth finding process” at which point the Co-Prosecutor challenged him to find one passage where Sambath actually says that there was an ongoing civil war. Koppe did not rise to it instead arguing that he was quoting from a recent interview and is entitled to ask the question.
Judge Fenz put an end to the debate. “The Chamber shares the Prosecutors concern over the selective use of, or misrepresentation of, documents and then asking for comments on them.”
She then ruled than Mr. Koppe could ask if there was a civil war but not for comment on selective passages.
Ms. Becker repeated her previous answer of yesterday that there was no civil war.
Mr. Koppe then read extensively from a report prepared by Geng Biao dated January 16, 1979, and marked “exclusively for internal use (of the Chinese Communist Party politburo) on the situation in Cambodia after the fall of Pol Pot.” The publication further attested that Geng Biao “had been appointed by the Chairman to make a preliminary opinion as well as principles and policies for the future.” Mr. Koppe averred that these remarks proved that this document was “the actual Chinese perspective.” He continued to read that Ho Chi Minh had talked to Mao about an Indo-Chinese federation and that Cambodia was divided into three factions: Cambodian workers and peasants represented by Pol Pot and Khieu Samphan; Royal forces comprised of Sihanouk and Lon Nol, and a pro-Vietnam group of 4,000 cadres.
Mr. Koumjian requested that counsel read the last sentence on the page of the report “to put it in context.” Mr. Koppe shot back that he “object(ed) to being interrupted on such a basis.”
The President asked that the expert be given a set of the documents so she could see all of the material and properly answer. Mr. Koppe provided same.
Mr. Koppe cited again that the Communist Party recognized that there were three factions within DK. Prefacing that she was putting aside Sambath as a civil war was not mentioned in his movie, Ms. Becker explained that the document “reflect(ed) what the DK had told China but not what the research says.” For example, there was no evidence of DK troops with Lon Nol remnants.
She disagreed with Mr. Koppe’s contention that the Chinese had a separate intelligence position from within DK as the Chinese had told her they had been “ham struck” and did not have good intelligence. Mr. Koppe fought back using Ben Kiernan’s claim that there had been an opposing faction trying to sabotage Pol Pot from the beginning, and gave as examples a bombing in Siem Reap in 1976 and attempts to poison Pol Pot and Nuon Chea.
Civil Party Lead Co-Lawyer Marie Guiraud asked to which book of Ben Kiernan counsel was referring, and expressed that she “wanted him to stop testifying.” Replying in kind, Mr. Koppe said he “would like her to know the case. Why an objection now to information that anyone can read anywhere?” Ms. Guiraud requested that her colleague “be courteous,” that it was not a question of knowing the case but rather that there are rules. She accused him, “since the beginning… (of) misrepresent(ing) the evidence he is presenting.” She asked Mr. Koppe to give references to text about which he speaks.
The President told Mr. Koppe “to clearly refer” to documents under discussion.
Mr. Koppe moved on to Ms. Becker’s interview with Ieng Thirith. The journalist had written that Thirith had told her that things that should not be happening were happening and had been reported higher up, and that Pol Pot thought these occurrences were sabotaging the revolution. Ms. Becker concluded that these remarks by Thirith, made after the overthrow, were rationalization. What she felt the interview showed was “the sheer incompetence of the DK.” She gave as examples that materials had not been sent, directives not obeyed; illiterate cadres could not read reports. She knew it was typical of a police state to have huge problems of control but held that “it was something for Thirith to admit to it.”
The next topic was the Black Paper’s contention that the opposing faction included a Workers’ Party. Ms. Becker explained that this was a theme after1977 and a rationale for large-scale purges of cadres. She testified that there was no proof of a secret party operating in DK.
Suon Visal, Nuon Chea defence counsel, explored the details of the press trip in 1978. Ms. Becker said that, during their two weeks in Cambodia, they had travelled extensively to the east to Kampong, northwest to Siem Reap, Kandal to Sihanoukville and around Phnom Penh. The major people that she had interviewed were in her book, When the War Was Over, but she could not remember them all. She had concentrated on researching certain themes including: living conditions, the military situation, what was going on in the northwest, rice exports, fishing issues around Tonlé Sap, the possibility of Cambodia holding back Vietnam at the border, and policy interviews with Ieng Sary and Pol Pot.
Although generally escorted with armed guards, Ms. Becker had escaped on several occasions, always to be found and brought back. After the third time, the guesthouse was locked. During her short periods of freedom, she was unable to get any information from people because she did not find any people. The Central Market was empty with no people; the schools and parks “were empty of life.” Behind the facade, she saw decrepitude of buildings falling apart, some being used for storage.
Mr. Visal wanted more details of the murder of Malcolm Caldwell but Ms. Becker was at a loss as to what more she could contribute to the scene. The President termed it a repetitive question and disallowed it. However, Ms. Becker did add that she later saw the man in the baseball cap who had pointed a gun at her when she was taken up to Caldwell’s bedroom. His dead body was there along with Caldwell’s.
Suon Visal recalled that leng Sary said the killer was Vietnamese. Ms. Becker said she did not know, as she had not seen the guards arrested. Her information source was documents from Toul Sleng that revealed the killers as their stewards. She could not answer who organized the murder although she “had looked into it quite a bit.” Ms. Becker repeated her comment of yesterday that “if forced to answer she thought it was probably someone within DK unhappy with the opening up of Cambodia to an unfriendly foreign delegation.”
Ms. Becker defined the leadership of DK as Pol Pot, Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea and Vorn Vet. Pot Pot, Brother Number One, was Prime Minister, General Secretary, and in charge of the country; Nuon Chea was Brother Number Two; Ieng Sary was Foreign Minister. The President ruled she did not have to answer counsel’s further enquiry as to the functions of these men as the question was repetitive.
After the break, the President noted that Nuon Chea had returned to his holding cell for health reasons. About this, Civil Party Lead Co-Lawyer Marie Guiraud had “a short comment.” She remarked on “how often Nuon Chea appears physically, even if briefly, in the courtroom, but he chooses to be absent while civil parties describe the crimes.” She pointed out that, today, Nuon Chea could sit for an entire session. Ms. Guiraud was also upset that Nuon Chea exercises “his
“á la carte right to silence when he promised that he would answer questions but today he breaks silence to put questions to the VIP expert Becker.” All of which she wanted on the record.
Judge Nil Nonn determined that since everything is in the transcript there was no need to emphasize her remarks by requesting that they be put on the record.
Suon Visal asked Ms. Becker to supply the roles of Vorn Vet and Son Sen. She believed that Son Sen was military and Vorn Vet was industry but allowed that she could be wrong. Again, she denied the thesis that the Vietnamese invasion had a humanitarian purpose and strongly asserted that “it was an invasion as a result of the border war that had a humanitarian consequence.”
Anta Guissé went over Ms. Becker’s early career and asked if the Far East Economic Review was focused on economic issues. The journalist described it as “a Hong Kong-based, politically-oriented publication with an economic-business component.” Ms. Becker confirmed that she had covered the ongoing war in Cambodia from 1972-1974. During that time, she had travelled throughout Cambodia and the provinces including combat areas. Figures in her book about the consequences of the US bombing in the first half of 1973 (for example, three million hectares of farmland falling to 500,000 hectares), she had accessed from the World Bank. The information on the bombing came via access to information and was now part of the public record. Ms. Becker had seen “clusters of destruction.” She had measured bomb craters to verify from the size that they were, indeed, from B52’s. Ms. Becker related that “the bombing was a huge issue” in the US so reporting it for the US public was very important. Her focus had been on how much the bombing had destroyed. She had also interviewed refugees to ask them about the losses in their families.
As Pol Pot’s position as “leader of the nation” was not known to the world immediately, Mr. Visal asked when Ms. Becker knew Pol Pot was the leader. In 1974, Ms. Becker had written “Who Are the Khmer Rouge.” Saloth Sar was identified then as head of the Khmer Rouge but she did not learn his nom de guerre was Pol Pot until sometime in 1977. She did not remember the exact date. She said “Chinese documents from 1973, described Khieu Samphan as leader of GRUNK but Nuon Chea and Saloth Sar were there and it was beginning to be known who was in charge.”
Ms. Becker agreed with Mr. Visal that the problems between Vietnam and Cambodia did not start with DK, that they were “historical, and …continue today.” Mr. Visal wanted to know why
Lon Nol had ordered the Vietnamese into detention camps in 1970. Ms. Becker explained that, officially, the Vietnamese were the traditional enemy. Lon Nol learned where the camps were when he had implemented an agreement to send material from Sihanoukville over to the eastern sanctuaries for Vietnam. And there was a backdrop of racism to the event. The Vietnamese were murdered in a pogrom. This infuriated the US who wanted an alliance between Saigon and Phnom Penh. She said the US blocked the Mekong after this.
Ms. Guissé read in from Ms. Becker’s writings that “former allies became the enemy.” Ms. Becker said that the change was very quick. Caldwell had also been taken back by this. It was clearly part of the Sino-Soviet split. Her surprise at the historical problems being then current she attributed to “not being brilliant.” Nayan Chanda had written in Brother Enemy that it “caught us all by surprise.” But, in 1974, when she had reported “on the tension between the Vietnamese communists and the Cambodian communists, the equilibrium was very much in doubt.”
Ms. Becker was asked to explain the problem between Vietnam and Cambodia over the Brevier Line. Succinctly, the ‘born teacher’ advanced that “it was a French colonial line that did not represent their territory. The dispute went from resolving the Brevier Line to DK perceiving Vietnam as interfering in the internal life of Cambodia. Many, many in DK were accused of being agents of Vietnam.”
The counsel was curious as to whether or not the witness had talked to her State Department, her Defence Department and/or the CIA before her 1978 visit. The reporter clarified that she did not do this often, but her newspaper was worried about her safety so she had consulted the State Department. It was no press briefing, just a background briefing on safety and security in Cambodia. The State Department told her that friendly delegations had been well treated and so would she be. Ms. Becker knew that the State Department shared military information with many countries and that their opinion would have been based on the best available information.
Ms. Becker said there had been no information on the eventuality of Phnom Penh falling because no one had a presence in the country. Not France, not Australia. The US did not have a presence in Vietnam either. Cambodia was a self-isolated country.
While she was in Cambodia in 1978, Ms. Becker did not witness heavy artillery on the part of the Vietnamese but Pin had told her about it. When she was on the border, she could see a clear exchange of artillery fire which she had identified from the sound and the smoke. During the war, she did not witness gas but had heard of it. Ms. Becker had taken photos of the destruction that were now with the court.
After lunch, Ms. Guissé continued her cross-examination with Ms. Becker’s visit to Kampong on December 20, 1978. Ms. Becker only had a short time to speak with a few refugees there about their experiences. They told her that they had come to Cambodia for food and to earn a living, “to make money.” The researcher had observed that conditions in the refugee camp were different from the conditions in the cooperatives.
The protocol for Ms. Becker’s interview with Pol Pot was different from that of the other interviews about which they were told in advance. The handlers could not promise Pol Pot so every day when they woke up, the reporters asked. She did not feel that Pol Pot’s desire to meet with them was an aspect of opening up the country. Pol Pot, himself, said he only wanted to talk about the coming war with Vietnam. Ieng Sary talked about the opening up, not Pol Pot. Ms. Becker had a lot of information before her visit and it was quite clear the State Department knew a war was happening. It was a matter of severity. And the war had been the central point through most presentations including the visit to the crocodile tanks.
Ms. Guissé asked if it made sense in the context of the Cold War and alliances that Vietnam would feel it could invade Cambodia. Ms. Becker did not think that this was bizarre as the Sino-Soviet split was critical to the war. Caldwell had said that “Cambodia reminded him of Scotland and Vietnam was England.”
After Caldwell was killed, Ms. Becker said they were “all very disturbed” not just Thiounn Prasith. Dudman had told her that Prasith’s explanation for the murder was that it was a political act to discredit DK in the world over not being able to protect their friends. That it was done to hurt the image of Cambodia. The Cambodian government had everything to lose. And if they had wanted to group of three dead, the government could have easily contrived an accident or an ambush and killed them all. Further, Caldwell had always been sympathetic to, and enthusiastic about, the Cambodian revolution.
The counsel read from Philip Short’s book Pol Pot: History of a Nightmare which provides a different version of the murder. Short claims a Vietnam commando “was behind it” to prove Cambodian incompetence and that there was no guarantee of security in Phnom Penh. Ms. Becker said she first heard that theory from Ieng Sary at the secular ceremony held for Malcolm Caldwell. Sary had also blamed the Vietnamese.
In Ms. Becker’s interview with Ieng Sary, July 22, 1981, in New York, Ieng Sary expressed that he was worried about Vietnam. He did not say anything about internal problems. Reports of attempts to assassinate Pol Pot and other leaders or attempted coups would show up in the confessions of those who were killed but Ms. Becker did not accept that this was real evidence of anything. Cambodia did not have a legal system to present evidence so it was impossible to measure the accuracy of the accusations. People were brought in and killed on suspicions. “Ieng Thirith had mentioned this, that or the other to (her) but nothing matching that there had been an attempted coup d’état. That internal struggles were part of the tension both between the center and the regions and in the center outside of the regions, is all through the records.”
Ms. Becker defined “the center” for Mr. Kong as “the top, the national leadership.”
In reply to an entry in Ms. Becker’s book that called Ta Mok and Sao Phim strong zone secretaries who interpreted policies as they saw fit, the author defined strong as meaning strong controls like a strong governor, a strong leader. She said Ta Mok was “the stronger character.”
There was greater tension when the center tried to impose power over the zones. Tensions were a prelude to purges. Mistakes or accidents were feared because either could start an investigation which could lead to a purge. There could be tensions inside the zones. She cited the Eastern Zone as an example where there were tensions not just over power and resources but also over policy issues such as how to treat people (perhaps by moving them between cooperatives). The implosion of the Eastern Zone was preceded by the flight of cadre to Vietnam before the Vietnamese invasion.
Sihanouk told the Chinese about the fear of the Vietnamese. In 1970, the Vietnamese fought for the Khmer Rouge. After the peace accord, the Vietnamese eventually left and the Khmer Rouge took over. But, “the Khmer Rouge fear of Vietnamese behind every push led to war. Cambodian leadership even today fears a Vietnamese invasion and blames their problems on Vietnam.”
Ms. Becker concluded that, if there had been a court to sort out evidence of a plot, the situation would have been different.
Ms. Guissé brought up that there for no desire for war initially. Ms. Becker agreed. “Cambodia was not going to negotiate over the he greatest Brevier Line but the war was over the land route.” Counsel went on to quote Ms. Becker that “the greatest crime of the DK was to attack members of the party which led to destabilization” and, further, that “Pol Pot and Ieng Sary are responsible for the holocaust.” Ms. Becker said it was “not an issue, that of course former Khmer Rouge are in power today. They escaped the purges and became a front for the Vietnamese occupation.”
Ms. Becker was grilled over her bona fides as a researcher based on the criticisms of David Chandler that she was not an academic. In a prickly exchange, counsel raised that Chandler found fault with her methods on historical work “not being scholarly.” Becker did not know the article to which Ms. Guissé was referring but the journalist did know that Chandler had written contacts asking them not to use her book in universities on the basis that it was not thorough enough, she did not use “precise methods” of academia in writing it or exact quotations. The discussions she had had with Chandler were positive and she questioned the authenticity of the referenced article, where it had been published and the date. (Ms. Guissé identified the source as an 1986 issue of Indo–China). Ms. Becker opined that “it was an unusual position to say it is a good book but she is not an academic.” She called it “a very old fashion view,” one which Chandler has not discussed with her. She posited that he “may have changed his standards,” but the book is used in universities by academics today. She pointed out that Chandler used the criticism on only one journalist who wrote a book and she noted that she was the only female journalist who wrote such a book.
Khieu Samphan National Co-Lawyer, Kong Sam Onn, wanted to know how Ms. Becker had acquired her knowledge of Cambodian culture. Ms. Becker asked him to be more specific but reiterated that her initial understanding was acquired at university where she had intensive studies on Southeast Asia. She could not remember the names of the courses after some 40 plus years. Her reporting enriched her understanding, and she had taken Khmer language lessons. Mr. Kong was concerned about a passage in her book stating that a Cambodian folktale illustrated that “lies reflect cruel acts that were unexplainable.” Ms. Becker tried several times to communicate to the counsel that she “was only using the folktale to show that Cambodia was not an entirely passive, gentle culture as depicted in French prejudices (‘Cambodia as a gentle land, they would never do this’), but rather a very rich, complicated culture.” She had compared the folktale she chose with others in the book Khmer Folktales. She denied the lawyer’s accusation that she had said Cambodia was “a non-gentle land” and asserted “it was a matter of there being more sides to it as a sophisticated culture with a more complicated story.” She further denied saying that it was a violent culture but that the country has “a gentle streak and a violent streak.”
The President told the witness that she did not have to answer Mr. Kong’s next question on land management by kings as it was too far outside useful facts of the case.
Mr. Kong delved into the history of the Indo-China Communist Party. Ms. Becker related how
Ho Chi Minh had been initially instructed to set up the communist party in Southeast Asia Indo-China-wide meaning Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Then the Comintern decided that there would be enough members for each of the countries to have its own separate communist party. When counsel asked “What gentleman is Comintern?,” the patient Ms. Becker explained to him that the “old Soviet Comintern had an interest in how the communist parties were organized.”
Ms. Becker did not write any articles about border clashes during 1972-74, because there were none. “At that stage, in 1970, after the US invaded the sanctuaries, communists spread across Cambodia and brought Lon Nol to its knees. The Vietnamese army was an ally of the Khmer Rouge in this.” Mr. Kong followed up by asking if they were always allies. Ms. Becker reported that, in 1974, she was aware of tensions between the Vietnamese Communist Party and the Cambodian Communist Party but there were no border clashes. She had relied heavily on Ith Sarin’s book, Regrets of a Khmer Soul, to describe these tensions in When the War Was Over.
Mr. Kong had Ms. Becker repeat once again that the invasion was not humanitarian in nature but to do with border conflict. She did not know of any agreement between the United Front of Cambodia and the Vietnamese army concerning the border. Ms. Becker did receive a lot of information, though, in 1976-79, about the fighting on the border. She did not report on it then because she did not get a visa to DK until 1978. She had relied on information from other reporters and information services.
Counsel had Ms. Becker go over again the history of the Indo-China Party following which he asked essentially the same question to the point where Ms. Becker declared she did not know what more she could add. She did try and clarify for him that, after 1975, the United Front for Indo-China was not a party but the message was that there were three parties fighting American imperialism together and that this was a united Indo-China front. Mr. Kong claimed he“didn’t get the response wanted” but that he would move on.
Ms. Becker answered the next question as to why the former allies chose war as a solution with a simple: “they could not agree on the border.” DK believed that the Vietnamese were trying to undermine them. She referred him to Nayan Chanda’s book, Brother Enemy. Mr. Kong asked two questions that resulted in the President requesting that he “be clearer, more specific.”
Again, he came back with a demand to know why war was resorted to when there was an opportunity for a peaceful solution. Ms. Becker could only say that why they chose a military solution was a major question. She thinks the leaders “confused border issues and power issues and backed themselves into a corner.” He wanted her to elaborate but she said it “was a conundrum not easily explained.” Ms. Becker had not covered the negotiations between DK and Vietnam during the DK era because she lived in Washington and none of the meetings were held in the United States. Later on, she did report on the many problems that the two countries had to solve. She talked to representatives of both Vietnam and Cambodia at the United Nations. Often an explication of the problems was given to her in hard-to-understand handouts. By 1977, there were serious issues.
The questions had reminded Ms. Becker that in 1974, a Vietnam versus China border clash resulted in China taking the Paracel Islands. It was a signal that border issues were coming back to life after the American War, as is the case today.
Mr. Kong queried Ms. Becker on what she knew about “the three ghosts” and about Khieu Samphan. The researcher detailed that when Khieu Samphan was in the Sihanouk cabinet
“people were wondering how he was doing so well but then he fled”. He became head of GRUNK and under the DK he was “the face of the regime.” Khieu Samphan met foreign delegations as head of state and travelled as a head of state. From Foreign Broadcast Information, Ms. Becker had learned that he went to Spain but she could not remember the year or the purpose of the trip. Khieu Samphan was one of only a few DK leaders allowed to travel outside of Cambodia. Hu Nim, Hou Yuon and Khieu Samphan were known as “the three ghosts,” men of such high esteem and good reputation that “when they disappeared from view it was feared that it would be impossible to reach agreement on a peace accord if they were dead.”
Ms. Becker replied to her last question on the stand (to give the structure of the Communist Party of Kampuchea) by saying, most reasonably, that she was unable to do so “in a few minutes.”
After a long three days of testimony, Elizabeth Becker was dismissed with the gracious thanks of President Nil Nonn.