Prosecution Witness Gives Testimony of Value to the Defence

A morning of seemingly-pedestrian testimony as Phneou Yav bore witness about his life from 1975-1979 under the Khmer Rouge. But what Mr. Phneou attested to arguably made him a more valuable witness for the defence than for the prosecution.

 

Co-Prosecutor de Wilde got into his questions by asking Mr. Phneou about his education. The witness had left school in “year nine of the old education system” and then ordained as a monk at age 18. Further background enquiries elicited that Phneou Yav did not know why Ta Seth, a village chief had been executed. He could only think that the man had “had an issue with the commandoes that stayed at his house.” And on miscellaneous items, the witness said that cooperatives began in 1975; there was communal dining starting from after the fall of Phnom Penh in 1975 to 1978; and there was no disagreement voiced against collective meals as “no one dared to protest.” In 1975, he could still exercise his right to live in his own house but he could not pick the fruit near his home because the fruit, coconut trees and cattle “were considered for communal use.” In 1975, private ownership had been abolished and all possessions collected for communal use. Once more, the witness testified that no one would protest out of fear of disappearance. Neither were they allowed to do anything on their own. For example, if they went fishing or catching frogs, their bounty would go for communal consumption if they were caught. They lived in fear of making a mistake, the punishment for which was to be taken away and killed. Mr. Phneou admitted that he did not actually see people being taken away because he was out ploughing the field, carrying earth or planting vegetables when these things happened.

 

Mr. Phneou reported that there were evacuees from both Phnon Penh and Takeo in his commune

Angk Ponnereay. When they arrived, there were in good physical condition and were instructed to build a dam. These people were “considered to be ‘new people’ and, also, ‘depositees’.”

Surprisingly, the witness said he did not think their personal belongings went to the commune.

“It seems to me that even jewelry was not taken from them.” When prodded by Mr. de Wilde about the discrepancy between how the new people were treated compared to the existing residents, Mr. Phneou could only add that he did not know why because he was busy working in the rice fields. No new houses were built for the newcomers. They were put in Unit 3. They did not have to write their biographies “at the beginning.” He confirmed that later the cadres went looking for the Lon Nol officials and “military service” people.

 

In 1976, Mr. Phneou was given the task of teaching the children of the “base people”, and only of the “base people.” The curriculum he was assigned included the alphabet and spelling for which he was given a guidebook to assist him. He also taught the children such practical knowledge as how to tend cows and collect cow dung.

 

The members of the unit had no work quota but toiled from 6:00 A.M. to 11:30 A.M. when they went to the communal kitchen for a meal. Then they worked from 2:00 P.M. to 5:00 P.M. Contrasting with the Reverence Em, Phneou Yav did not work often at night although some others were assigned to evening labor. He repeated that “nobody dared to complain” about the work.

 

People were divided into three categories in early 1976 but Mr. Phneou did not know who made the decision to do so. Unit One was for “base people;” Unit Two was for “candidate people” who were base people whose relatives “had connections with the enemy;” and Unit Three was for “17^th April people.” The witness was in Unit One and in a children’s sub-unit.

 

Regardless of his prior testimony, when Phneou Yav was asked to explain who was meant by “the enemy” in the Unit Two classification criterion, he said that the units were based on strength and speed of doing work, “not based on affiliation to an enemy.” The Co-Prosecutor did not pursue it. The witness then defined Unit One as being for strong people who finished their work faster while Units Two and Three were for the “not so strong.” There was no difference in discipline between the units. The witness did not know if other communes had been divided into the three-category system.

 

Mr. Phneou had heard the terms “pure people” and “sullied people” but he could not explain what the distinction between these people and “base people” was other than Unit One was the “purest” and Unit Three: “the lowest category of people.” Further, when asked to distinguish between “full rights old people” and “candidate people,” he simply replied that “candidate people” were allowed to become “full rights people.” He knew of no cases of someone being promoted from Unit Three into either Unit One or Unit Two. And, there was no movement from Unit One to Unit Two. “Base people” were “selected from the beginning” and stayed in that category. The terms used in Khmer were K1, K2 and K3 were, respectively, “full rights people,” “candidate people” and depositee unit people.” Further, the units were subdivided into many other specialized units: the canal-building unit, the canal-digging unit; the seedling unit, the cart unit, the kitchen unit, the fishing unit, and the boy’s and girl’s units, for example.

 

Food was the next topic explored. Mr. Phneou recalled that surplus rice was sent to the “upper echelon.” The workers received a plateful of rice and a large bowl of fish and morning glory soup to be shared among eight people. Mr. de Wilde read in from Phneou Yav’s statement made to the court investigators that he did not get enough to eat. The Co-Prosecutor wanted to know why a “base person” would be left hungry. The witness said that the meals were similar for all units but Unit One would get more food because they worked faster than the other units. After being cautioned by Mr. de Wilde to only attest to things within his personal knowledge, Mr. Phneou admitted that, because freedom of movement was prohibited during the regime, he had not actually gone to the communal kitchens of the other units to observe their meals. In a slight variance to his hereinbefore testimony, the witness said the punishment meted out by the unit chief for complaining about meals was “re-education” but not to be killed.

 

Mr. Phneou did not know if Ta Vin was taken to Kraing Ta Chan for complaining about not enough to eat. He said they were not allowed to know what happened at Kraing Ta Chan, only that it was a detention center. Although he had heard of the threats, he personally was not aware of the killings. He was told that Ta Vin, a member of a cart unit, was sent there in late 1976. He remembered because it was after he started to teach the children. The witness only knew Ta Vin under that name and did not know if he was also known as But Vin.

Mr. de Wilde ended with some questions about meetings but Mr. Phneou had seldom attended them as he was

occupied with looking after the children. He did add, though, that meetings were held frequently and were presided over by Ta Khen. Meetings held in Unit One were exclusively for Unit One. He did not recall any discussion of the enemies on the border or Yuon enemies, but he said “some of us had heard about these matters.” In his meetings, they had focused on work and how to work faster. All that the witness had heard about Nhor, the head of the cooperative, was that he was “strict.” He said that there were no cooperative leaders from the “17^th April people” because these positions were only for “base people.”

 

Mr. Phneou said that when the children were caught stealing food, they were reprimanded and threatened with being taken away for their mistake. He had witnessed a unit chief threaten a young thief with execution.

 

Phneou Yav knew Ta Khen, who was the commune chief until the Vietnamese came and the man “ran away to the mountain.” When Ta Khen returned, he was killed by villagers in revenge. Ta Khen had sent reports to the district office in the form of a letter and via messenger. He also knew Ta Chunn, the district chief of Tram Kok. Accompanied by messengers, Ta Chunn would come to supervise work sites and meet with the commune chief. Ta Mok did not visit. Mr. Phneou did not know him but had heard his name.

 

Mr. de Wilde read in from the witness’s prior statement to the investigating officers that he had seen 20 couples get married; that some of the participants did not know each other; that militiamen eavesdropped to know “if the couples got on well;” that if they did not, they would be reported and “advised” to do so on threat of being sent to Kraing Ta Chan; that the ceremony was not a marriage but a “resolution” ceremony in which they committed to loving their spouse for the rest of their lives; and, if people liked each other, they could propose making a resolution themselves by applying to the “upper echelon” through the chairman of the cooperative and the unit chiefs.

 

Mr. Phneou confirmed these facts to the Co-Prosecutor and added that he had attended only two commitment ceremonies (for 20 couples and another for 10 couples). He played no role in either of them. He also contributed that Unit One people could marry Unit Two people but not Unit Three people. Ta Khen always presided with the assistance of the village chiefs. Ta Khen would make brief remarks emphasizing that once a resolution was made, the couple could not be later separated. Other than “to live and love together,” he gave no other instructions. The witness said that a bride would be appointed for a groom. If one of them did not like each other but liked someone else, then they did not have to get married to the appointed spouse. Mr. Phneou explained that the person voicing the protest could wait and marry their preferred partner at the next ceremony. Afterwards, the unit chief sent two militia to eavesdrop on the newlyweds to see if they “were getting along” (that is, if they consummated the marriage). He described the militia as “peasants,” 15 to 20 years old; some married, some single. If reported for non-consummation, the newlyweds would be summoned for a reprimand and re-education.

 

Mr. de Wilde tried hard to get to the bottom of the apparent contradiction that couples were in fear of death if they refused to marry but, indeed, were able to express such dissent and nothing happened. Kong Sam Onn, Khieu Samphan Defence Counsel, objected to his continued questions on the basis that the inquiry had been answered although it might not be the answer the co-prosecutor wanted. The President directed the counsel to rephrase his question “rather than making a conclusion from the response.” Counsel did so but he still did not get clarity on why people were scared of being killed if they refused to consummate a marriage.

 

The Co-Prosecutor moved on to the issue of treatment of Buddhists during 1975-1979. Mr. Phneou said that before this period, there were only two pagodas in his district. The Khmer Rouge made the monks disrobe and turned the pagodas into storage space for fertilizer and into meeting places. The Buddha statues at one pagoda were thrown into a pond. Mr. Koppe objected to the next question about how “the base people” felt about the eradication of all Buddhist practices as the witness could only testify as to his personal experience and the inquiry was rephrased and personalized. Phneou Yav “felt sorry for Buddhism and the Buddha statutes but what could I do? We all kept silent and just did according to the instructions of the unit chief.”

 

Mr. Phneou did not see any Khampuchea Krom. There “was no mixture of people in the commune.” He was certain that Unit Three only held people from Phnom Penh and Takeo.

 

Civil Party Legal Aid Lawyer Lor Chunthy picked up the story by having Mr. Phneou confirm that he knew from a unit chief that Ta Non and Ta Chea had returned from Hanoi. Counsel then posed questions about supplies. The witness explained that supplies were distributed to the villages from local sources. They were not supplemented by goods from elsewhere. In referring to the common property, he said the unit chief “guarded belongings and cooking utilities.”

 

Mr. Phneou was designated to teach the children by the unit chief. He did not instruct the children to call Angkar their parent as they already had mothers and fathers. He taught the alphabet based on the textbooks he was given.

 

The categorization of people was decided at the commune level. Mr. Phneou “only knew” that he was told to be in Unit One and that there were some exchanges between Unit One and Unit Two.

He described a “main force” or “special unit” as one that finished more work faster than the other units.

 

Food distribution varied slightly. When he was at Tuk Chun (spelling?), ten people received three cans of rice gruel to share. At Angk Ponnareay, each person was given one-half a can of cooked rice.

 

Mr. Phneou had been informed that there was a “chain of command from district to commune” by his unit chief with whom he had a close relationship.

 

Angk Ponnareay pagoda had 30 monks before 1975 while Tuk Chun pagoda had more than 100.

If someone died in hospital, they were buried at the hospital without benefit of Buddhist funeral rites.

 

Post-lunch, Mr. Koppe, Nuon Chea Defence Counsel, returned to the issue raised yesterday of the failure to produce documents prior to witnesses’ testimony due to problems inherent in the process of clearing them for release. Mr. Koppe had just received “a large binder” with two statements from Case 004 witnesses. One of the papers was 120 pages long. At a glance, the counsel had determined that it was “a very important statement” for the defence in regards to thenext witness. Mr. Koppe submitted that “the only proper way to proceed is to postpone” until the parties can all look at all of the material. Mr. Koppe felt he could not continue with the witness and “officially” asked for a postponement.

 

Mr. de Wilde responded that the two statements were part of the 89 he had mentioned yesterday and are concerned with this segment of the trial on Kraing Ta Chan and Tram Kok. The papers made ten disclosures since yesterday, only some of which “describe one witness to come. There is no other mention of a witness to come soon.” The Co-Prosecutor maintained that the documents would not “impede the examination of Mr. Phneou today or the witness tomorrow.”

Further, he said that his colleagues would provide more details on the records in the next few minutes.

 

Anta Guissé, Khieu Samphan Defence Counsel, started with a conciliatory declaration that the defence “was not saying that the OCP was laying traps” but that there were problems of disclosure. She disagree with the Prosecutor’s claim that the documents would have not impact the next witnesses’ testimony but that “the bias” was against her as she had not read the statements. She pointed out that “the elements and facts described are not useless without the names of the witnesses.” She concluded by asking the Chamber “for a chance to stand on an equal footing.”

 

Civil Party Lead Co-Lawyer Marie Guiraud called the disclosure “problematic and unusual.” She admitted it was a problem for them and reiterated her comment of yesterday that they were “in exactly the same situation as the defence.”

 

Mr. de Wilde disagreed with the implication that they were not all “on equal footing.” As long as he does not have clearance from the OCJ to release the documents, he cannot use them in the courtroom either.

 

Ms. Guissé destroyed that argument saying that, as counsel has read the documents, he does not have to refer to them in order to use them in the public courtroom

 

Judge Fenz addressed the matter on behalf of the court. She reaffirmed that this was not about assigning blame but rather “about managing a difficult situation,” something to which, she said, the judges had given a great deal of thought. She announced that the court would be sending out an email today to all parties on how the bench “envisages the near future.” They “will give the parties time to familiarize themselves with the documents but feel that it is in order to go ahead today and tomorrow. If witnesses later need to be recalled, then a request can be made and the Chamber will decide on it then.”

 

The examination proceeded with Nuon Chea Defence Counsel, Suon Visal, fleshing out miscellaneous details with Mr. Phneou beginning with the work done by the various units. The witness elaborated that the work load differed between the units because Unit Three was not as “progressive” as, particularly, Unit One. “That is why the units were divided.” When sick, workers were allowed to be hospitalized but relatives were not able to take care of them there “because they were not medics.”

 

The workers had little free time when they were not on duty or sleeping. Their shifts ended at 5:00 P.M. They ate, took a bath and went to bed. They had no weekends but every ten days they could visit family. That was when the children saw their parents.

 

Mr. Phneou taught numeracy as well as the alphabet. The children received the same food rations as the adults of cooked rice and fish. When they tended the cows, there was an opportunity for the children to catch fish for their meals. If the children made trouble, his unit chief would blame Phneou Yav.

 

The witness repeated there were only Khmer in his community, not Cham and not Chinese.

 

Mr. Koppe asked about the circumstances of Mr. Phneou’s wife being in hospital. Five days after she had given birth, she was ordered back to her work of carrying earth. She did as required but developed post-natal depression. The authorities would not allow her to take traditional medicine in wine.

 

Mr. Phneou did not remember anytime from 1975-1979, when there were no more distinctions between the three groups of people. He does remember that a “candidate person” was about to be upgraded to a “full rights person” when the Vietnamese arrived. He confirmed that such upgrading was not applicable to Unit Three.

 

Counsel wanted to know if Mr. Phneou knew, of his own personal knowledge, of anyone who had been sent to Kraing Ta Chan because they had complained about inadequate food. The witness did. Phneou Yav had shared a cart job with Ta Vin. Someone had overheard Ta Vin make the remark and reported him. The witness was present when Ta Vin was arrested and told he was being “taken for re-education.” After the fact, Mr. Phneou had heard people whispering about the reasons for the arrest. Mr. Koppe followed up with asking if he could give one example of someone being killed for making a mistake. Mr. Phneou could not do so but maintained that, although it did not happen to “base people,” it had happened to people in the other groups. He had heard this from others when, during meals, they had discussed disappearances. The witness refuted that this was “speculation” on his part as he knew it at the time. Counsel raised that the fact that he knew one man in a cart unit had been taken away was quite different from knowing the reasons for somebody’s arrest, but Mr. Phneou said he had asked contemporaneously and learned that Ta Vin had been disappeared.

 

No children were arrested for stealing. They were young, age 12, so were not punished. They were threatened but “it was just a threat to get the children to stop stealing.”

 

Neither did the witness have any “concrete examples” of any couples sent to Kraing Ta Chan for failure to consummate. But he was steadfast that, if a couple’s lack of marital congress was found out through eavesdropping, they were strongly “advised to consummate the marriage.”

 

Mr. Koppe summed up his enquires as “there had been a general fear of possible measures but no one actually sent to Kraing Ta Chan.” Mr. Phneou confirmed that that was “correct.” It was most valuable evidence for the defence.

 

The Buddhist statues were thrown into a pond in front of a pagoda by villagers. Mr. Phneou said they were incited to do so by the village chief. They were not punished for their actions as it was done on instructions from the “upper echelon,” probably the commune chief. He knew this “for a certainty” having learned it from his cousin who had attended the incident but “had not dared break the statues.” It happened at the time of the monks being defrocked and the cooperatives established. He knew nothing more about the destruction of the statues.

 

Ms. Guissé had a need to know more about how the units were divided. Mr. Phneou delineated that membership in the large units was on the basis of strength and age with Unit One being the top grade. The large units were broken into subgroups, for example, a women’s rice growing unit, a ploughing unit, a men moving earth unit, a children’s unit, a men’s growing vegetables unit, a fishing unit. Each of these smaller units existed to supply their own larger unit with its needs but not other large units.

 

Khieu Samphan Defence Counsel Kong Sam Onn was next up with a shotgun range of questions.

First, he had Mr. Phneou detail his jobs from 1975-1976. Mr. Phneou had started as a member of Unit Two working in the rice fields. In 1976, he was promoted to Unit One and put into the cart unit transporting rocks. After eight months, because he was literate, he was assigned to look after the male children. In 1978, a young teacher came to assist him. He held the title of “teacher” during this period. The children’s units were divided on the basis of age and sex. His children’s unit was known as “the concentration unit” which referred to the younger children. The older students were at the pagoda and part of a mobile unit. Mr. Phneou had no formal training in teaching but did his best for 2 l/2 to 3 hours a day in the school room and then around 1:30 P.M., the children went off to tend the cows, one cow per child. He rarely gave examinations. His students learned the alphabet but were not good in numeracy. They knew the numbers but not how to add or multiply well. His unit chief came around to observe the class every day or so but he had no other inspectors. Neither did any parents come as they, too, were working. The children could visit their parents in the evening or on the 10^th day visiting days.

 

Teachers and students slept together in a large building. There was no indoor bathroom and they relieved themselves in the fields or forest. If the children got sick, he would keep them in from tending cows, and notify the parents to fetch them and take them to the hospital. “Sometimes the mothers only did candling and the children got better and didn’t go to hospital.” Once more he answered that the children received the same food rations as adults. They could get their food at the communal kitchen and bring it back to the school to eat. The children got cooked rice, fish almost daily, and a piece of pork or beef every ten days while Unit Two only got gruel. He felt there was “no lack of food for the children.” Again, Mr. Pheou related that the unit chief would only reprimand the children when they stole. Sometimes they still stole. The Women’s Unit would inform the unit chief if a child stole. He had also scolded miscreants when they fought or argued with one another.

 

Mr. Kong then embarked on a tortuous and mainly nonsensical (on the part of both examiner and examinee) sequence of questions and answers perhaps designed to determine the distinction between a cooperative and a unit but which failed in its entirety. Other than Mr. Phneou defining that the terms “dining hall and cooperative are exchangeable,” this dialogue led nowhere. Even Mr. Kong gave up exclaiming: “I am lost.” And so was the audience. Counsel was more effective in eliciting the information that there was a chief for the sub-units which also had a deputy chief and a member who were all engaged in the same work. For the main unit, the chief only monitored and ensured that the work quota was fulfilled.

 

This marathon brought the testimony of Phneou Yav to an end. Judge Nil Nonn thanked him for his participation in the pursuit of justice and excused him from the stand.

 

The President then called the reserve witness, Sao Hean.

 

Sao Hean is a rice farmer from Tram Kok. He is married with 8 children. He was efficiently identified and qualified by Judge Nil Nonn who then turned the proceedings over to Co-Prosecutor Travis Farr who began with the narrative that in 1970, “the Khmer Rouge came of the forest to organize the village and sub-districts under militias.” He wanted to know how they did it.

 

Sao Hean spelled out that they first created the villages and then the communes. By “created” he meant that the Khmer Rouge selected the chiefs, the deputy chiefs and members of the committees. Then the village chairmen organized the solidarity groups following plans that originated with Angkar. Nobody ever explained to Mr. Sao what Angkar was.

 

Simplistically, Mr. Sao’s answer to how the schools and hospitals disappeared was to state that they disappeared when “the teachers and doctors were all gone.” Similarly, the wealthy, those who owned lots of paddy land and those who owned large houses also disappeared, “sent away to study.” In this way, he said, ownership was eliminated.

 

After the fall of Phnom Penh, Mr. Sao could not remember how many evacuees he personally saw arrive from Takeo province. When they divided the population, his unit chief explained to him about the categories and he was put in with “the candidate people” as he had relatives who had worked for Lon Nol. The “full rights people” were treated better than the other groups. Although they all received the same food rations, the “full rights people” were the chiefs of the units and supervised the other people.

 

When the new people had come, the group chiefs researched to discover who were the soldiers and teachers “who were taken away and never reappeared.” Sao Hean knew this from his personal experience of having the group chiefs, Ta Ech and Cha Neal (spelling?) come and search his house to find out who his elder brother was. Then militia men came and took his brother away. The militia involved were the group chiefs Pang, Ech and Ta Lon.

 

At this juncture, it was 4:00 P.M., a convenient time the President said to stop for the day, and he adjourned court until 9:00 A.M. on Wednesday, February 18, 2015.