“Trying to Live Was Better Than Dying”
The words of Riel San’s wife resonated in the Trial Chamber. In their simplicity was a fundamental reality. They called to mind so strikingly the living victims of the ECCC and why the ECCC must persevere in order to obtain justice for them. But, I’m ahead of the story.
Having qualified the new witness yesterday, Judge Nil Nonn wasted no time in turning the floor over to the prosecutors. Seng Leang, National Deputy Co-Prosecutor, introduced his examination by foreshadowing that he had four areas of interest: the witness’s background, cooperatives, treatment of Buddhists and the appointed chiefs of the Tram Kok District Hospital.
Mr. Seng quoted from Riel San’s OCIJ interview that, after the fall of Lon Nol, he had joined Ta Mok’s movement to assemble forces out of confidence in the communist ideology. But Mr. Riel became disenamored when 30 million people were killed during the Cultural Revolution in China. Perspicaciously, he concluded that he would die in such a revolution because all the educated and those opposing Angkar would be “smashed.” But, his relationship with the revolution had started out mildly enough.
The witness’s house was about one kilometer from Ta Mok’s, and Riel San had met his neighbor walking along the road to market in 1975. After this, Mr. Riel got to know well Yeay Khem, Ta Mok’s wife, whom he had met first while collecting firewood in the forest. “Everyone knew” that Khieu Samphan had come to visit Ta Mok in 1967 or 1968, although Mr. Riel did not why the visitor had come or the positions either man had held at that time. The only time Riel San had seen the leader was when Mr. Riel had used his bicycle to help Yeay Khem drop off some rice cakes to a man she identified as Khieu Samphan.
Riel San could not remember the date the cooperatives “were implemented.” He guessed it was towards the end of 1975. But he remembered well that, once they were established, “all cooking utilities and rice production were put to common use.” His cooperative was the first formed in District 105 and headed by Ta Cham (spelling?), younger brother of Ta Mok. The Co-Prosecutor asked him why he had told the OCIJ that, after the cooperatives were formed, people died. Mr. Riel replied that people like his uncle who complained about the cooperatives, kept disappearing at night and never returned. Initially, the population was happy with the common meals. It meant that those who had lacked food now received more but, “generally,” there was still not enough to eat. For example, the village only planted three plots of rice which produced insufficient food for the inhabitants. So, the people came to believe the cooperatives were not good. They expressed their dissatisfaction but did not do so publicly. His uncle had disappeared because he was openly critical that the cooperatives were indicative that there would be “real communism,” in the future, and he would “not be a part of it.” Even his aunt and her children do not know who took him away as it was at night. No one has seen him since. The family has celebrated rituals on several occasions for the uncle, “a simple villager” and rice farmer who also worked on plantations.
After the cooperatives were formed, families were divided and not allowed to live together. Mon, the unit chief (now dead) announced in meetings that those who visited secretly would disappear. No one has ever explained to Riel San the theory behind splitting up families. Mr. Riel’s wife lived in Ta Soan (spelling cooperative) in the same village. She was assigned to do cooking. As rice and vegetables were very limited, people were distraught about the small bowl of rice gruel doled out per meal, but recognized that there was little they could do about it. His wife told him that “conditions were very difficult but trying to live was better than dying.”
Ang Roka pagoda is two kilometers from Riel San’s home. Once when he was taking food and alms to about 100 monks who had been gathered there, he saw a chief’s car arrive laden with black uniforms. Mr. Riel did not witness the actually defrocking, but later that day he observed that the former monks from the village were all wearing the black uniforms. He also saw ten to twenty people demolishing sculptures and removing shrines and throwing them into the water or burying them. On the same day, the witness heard from others that the head monk suffered two or three strikes with a club for beating on a drum to call the people to the pagoda to protest the defrocking. He had known the Ta Ech, the religious, for a long time as he would go to the pagoda often for ceremonies.
Riel San was appointed Deputy Chief of Tram Kok (a.k.a. District 105) Hospital located at Wat Trapeang Kol in late 1976, “almost the beginning of 1977,” by Ta Chhim and Ta Khith. The siblings were both on the District Committee. Mr. Riel thinks he was given the assignment because he knew how to do injections and could prescribe medicines. He wanted the job so he would be able to provide treatments for his family. Before his appointment, he had no training. But afterwards, he received about two weeks of actual days of training, “on and off,” over a period of three months. He studied anatomy, the human skeleton and the organs. In late 1977, he had attended a second training session for six months at the sector hospital in Trapeang Ronep.
Tram Kok Hospital was a different institution from Hospital 22, the zone army hospital, the sector-level Tropeang Ranep Hospital and the Angk Tasoam zone hospital. The district hospital had a total staff of 90 including the cooks and “transportation of materials” workers. There were three chiefs of the hospital during Riel San’s tenure: Mate, Ya and Mime (spelling for all?). He surmised the women had procured their jobs because they were all party members. They had no medical skills and Mate was illiterate. Khoeun, Ta Mok’s younger sister, worked at the zone hospital. He knew her from referring his serious patients to her hospital. Khoeun “was not skilled in the medical field but others dealt with technical issues in that hospital.”
The witness had told OCIJ that many patients were sick from overwork and lack of food, but he did not have enough food for them either, and was lacking the medicine he needed to treat them. The “very limited” medicine supply was in no way sufficient for the hospital’s purposes. The most common health problems of those who were hospitalized were diarrhoea, malaria and “swollen bodies” from malnutrition. About ten men and a hundred women would be admitted each day. There was a disproportionate number of female patients because women are weaker than men, and they were overworked through hard labor. Because of the seriousness of their condition and that they were sometimes delayed in being referred from the communes, some were “too late to rescue,” and died.
Victor Koppe, Nuon Chea Defense Counsel, interrupted to note that his translation said “30” men not “10” were admitted daily.
International Co-Prosecutor, Dale Lysak, continued the examination delving into the particulars of the reports Mr. Riel had made to the District Committee. At the end of each month, Riel San would make oral presentations just to the District Chief (either Ta Chhay or Ta Chhim) at the District Office in Ang Rokar. He chose to report orally because of the inherent difficulty in mentioning the negatives of lack of food and medications for the patients to Khmer Rouge officials. Ta Chhay had accused him of attacking the cooperatives when Riel San had tried to discuss nutrition problems with him. He dared not repeat a request for food supplements out of fear of offending, and the knowledge that his plea would be to no avail in any event as he would receive nothing in return. The hospital ration of 50 cans of rice a day for 250 patients remained the same until the last few months of the Khmer Rouge period when severe food shortages led to five deaths a day. Both “base people” and “17th Avenue people” died. Mr. Riel went alone to report on the patients. The hospital chief would report separately on work and party issues.
Riel San listed the succession order of District chiefs as: Ta Chhay, Ta Khith, Ta Chhim, Yeay Khom, and Ta San. The Co-Prosecutor suggested that the order was Yeay Khom, Ta Chhim, Ta Khith and Ta San.
Khom, Ta Mok’s daughter, had been District 105 Secretary until she went insane. Riel San did not know what ultimately happened to her as he had left the area by that time. Mr. Riel knew Ta Khith “really well.” Ta Keav was Secretary of Tram Kok District at the beginning for a few months. The witness heard Ta Keav tell Ta Khith he was going away for a while, and then Ta Keav disappeared. Riel San described Phy (who had threatened him), as “a cruel person.” Ta Chhay, had called Mr. Riel “an intellectual and petit bourgeoisie.”The main responsibility of the District Office chiefs was to receive material from Sector and then make arrangements for it to be distributed to the districts (translation error: to the communes, perhaps?)
Riel San went to only one meeting (at a kitchen hall in Ang Roka market,) at which the District Committee gave instructions on categories of victims to be purged: former government workers from the First Assistant to Chief of Commune and above; Lon Nol soldiers from adjutant and above; any people speaking against the Khmer Rouge along with feudalists, Chinese, KGB agents and Kampuchia Krom whom they accused of being “Yuon spies.” Commune chiefs were in attendance along Phnom Penh and Takeo evacuees. Ta Chhim had chaired the meeting; Ta Chhay and the commune chiefs disseminated the instructions at the meeting. Yeay Boeun was not present.
Mr. Lysak reviewed with Riel San a series of four documents. The first was a list of those to be purged which Mr. Riel corrected to have been drawn up by a “Boeun” (not “Mun”). Mr. Riel had not known of a cadre on Trapeang Tham Khang Cheung commune by the name of Khith (who had ostensibly signed the second document). Nor did he know “Yorn” who had ordered two lieutenants to be “taken out” or a “Chorn” (spelling?) from Popel commune, who had signed the third and fourth documents respectively. As Popel commune was a long way away from Mr. Riel, he had not known who was in charge there.
Mr. Koppe objected to the Co-Prosecutor’s “textbook leading question” technique of feeding the witness information and then asking him to confirm it. Mr. Lysak defended that he was simply trying to refresh the witness’s memory. The President overruled, and Mr. Riel answered that the purging-instructions meeting was held before 1977.
After lunch, Mr. Lysak presented Riel San with lists of Kampuchea Krom that were living on six communes. Mon (who the witness identified was the commune chief), had signed the record of 76 Kampuchea Krom families from the witness’s Trapeang Thom Khang Cheung commune. But Mr. Riel had “forgotten all about” the people named, and could not remember if they were Kampuchea Krom or not.
Mr. Koppe rose on the recurring difficulty of yet another discrepancy in translations between the English and the French stating that “it is a real problem.” That each name represented a family was an “essential ingredient …lost in the English translation.” Mr. Lysak was quick to dismiss his colleague’s concerns on the basis that there are thousands of documents on file, and, when discrepancies show up, they can be submitted to CMS for any necessary correction. Mr. Koppe averred that he did not think “it’s a marginal problem…it is a fundamental problem. English is a working language at the Tribunal. There should be no difference between the English and the French translations. To compare it with thousands of other documents (he) didn’t think is fair.” Counsel had a good point. A bench consultation later, the President adjudicated that the Khmer document is the original on which to rely. Judge Nil Nonn instructed all parties, and particularly the Co-Prosecutors, to notify ITU when they discover a discrepancy, and that there be co-ordination with CMS and ITU on the recurring problem. Mr. Lysak agreed to bring significant discrepancies to ITU’s attention.
Riel San knew nothing about people being traded with Vietnam, but confirmed that the Kampuchea Krom were the targets of purging. Instructions to prepare the lists and then send the records “upwards,” had been given by the District Committee at the meeting on the issue. He was aware that Vietnamese people had been called out at night (or from the worksites during the day), and taken away. The Co-Prosecutor read from the OCIJ transcript Mr. Riel’s experience of meeting a group of 20 persons (identified as Kampuchea Krom by their escorts) who had stopped at his hospital for medicine. They were from District 109 in Kiri Vong District, and were being taken to Prison 204 in Ou Saray commune. The witness did not know whether this was a sector or zone-level prison. Mr. Riel visited Prison 204 when he went to farm near there. The buildings were in bad condition with leaf roofs. He saw skeletal remains and skulls thrown away by other farmers who had found them in the rice paddies.
Mr. Riel did not know anyone by the name of Comrade Meng but was aware there was a widows unit in his commune. It was comprised of widows whose husbands had died or were no longer living with them. The women were mainly from Phnom Penh. He did not know why they were put in a separate unit.
The District Secretary had issued a “general instruction” meant for all that ordered the hospital employees to identify “enemies,” including from among the patients. There a dispute between Mr. Koppe and Mr. Lysak over whether there was any point in asking the witness to look at a Revolutionary Flag when he had already testified he had never seen one. The President directed the witness to answer and Mr. Riel told the court that he was not aware of the commune receiving the award that was the subject of an article in the magazine.
Riel San had never seen any of the other leaders other than Khieu Samphan. Kong Sam Onn, Khieu Samphan Defence Counsel, observed that the Co-Prosecutor was trying to link Khieu Samphan’s visit to Ta Mok to the witness, which Mr. Lysak vehemently denied. The Co-Prosecutor accused the counsel of “completely mistak(ing) his testimony,” that he was just trying to determine when Mr. Riel had seen Ta Mok. Only three or four times during the whole regime, apparently. One time he saw him in his vehicle on the road near the hospital but Ta Mok did not get out, and Mr. Riel ran away because he was scared of Ta Mok. Mr. Riel said “many” people were scared of Ta Mok.
Cham (spelling?), Ta Mok’s younger brother was a cooperative chief. Another brother, Chuk, (spelling?) was Deputy Secretary of District 55. Ta Mok’s sister, Khoeun, was married to Ta San, and worked at Chumbok Hospital. Mr. Riel only knew one child of Ta Mok (Khom), as the others were not home when he lived in the village. Consequently, he did not know what their positions may have been.
There had only been one occasion when a crew from the hospital had gone out to spray mosquitoes at Kraing Ta Chan. Riel San assumed that they had been called in because people were getting malaria. He could not recollect the year. The five men were only at the security center one-half an hour, just long enough to spray five buckets of insecticide. Mr. Riel had looked in a building and seen about 100 prisoners lying, moaning, on the floor in four rows. He met a man there who said he had returned after three years in Hanoi, and had worked with various commune chiefs. He asked Mr. Riel to look after “Han.”
Han had been a medic at Riel San’s hospital. Before that engagement, she had worked with Hun Kong, Chief of the zone Hospital 22. Ouch Han had been implicated in responses that Kong had made when he was sent to S-21. She was dismissed, arrested and sent directly to Kraing Ta Chan. Mr. Riel had seen her there cooking small pots of rice during the spraying. She survived the prison and was released but the witness did not know when. He did not know a second medic, Ron (a.k.a.Vorn) Saroun (spelling?) from Hospital 22, also implicated by Kong and also arrested on the same day (October 2, 1976) as Han. The witness only had heard of Kong, had never met him or an Archar Kong (spelling?). Neither was he familiar with this latter Kong’s associates, Ching and Boeun. The villagers around Hospital 22 had told Mr. Riel that Pol Pot had had Kong arrested.
Victor Koppe had another translation problem. He could not find “Ron” in the documents. Mr. Lysak clarified that she is repeatedly referred to as “Vorn.” He noted that it is very common for differences in spelling of names in translation, but he would follow the court’s directive to report major discrepancies to CMS. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Koppe was back asking for a clarification of which list the Co-Prosecutor was referring to as he had none with the given designations which denoted a document that had been marked as illegible. Mr. Lysak insisted the document was on Zilet; the President added it is also on the case file.
Civil Party Lawyer Lor Chunthy had Riel San outline his anatomy studies. They were only theoretical. There had been no “live subjects” in the classroom although the counsel may have been more interested in the dead ones. The witness had two district medic classmates and “Sey”, the Chief of the sector hospital was their trainer. Mr. Riel’s staff included two male medics and himself, five female medics and five to six midwives. They would deliver two to three babies a month. Mr. Riel also claimed some expertise in this area. They treated mainly outpatients who came for medicine. Five to ten children would attend in a day asking for mostly headache and diarrhoea remedies. The staff tried to locate herbal medicines but also would cook their own medicines. The efficacy of the traditional medications varied. For example, sometimes those for diarrhoea worked. If they did not, they gave modern medicines which were more effective. They also dispensed vitamins such as B1 and B12. If in-patients did not respond to cooked rice and medications in five to ten days, he would transfer them on to the sector hospital. Some died. In the last one to two months of the regime, many patients died because there was insufficient food. They “dug 10-20 pits a day” to bury the bodies.
The ‘purge instruction’ meeting had been called by the District Committee. Only some of the commune chiefs were invited. The leadership, the group chiefs and the unit chiefs were responsible for implementing the instructions. Riel San’s uncle and his brother-in-law were taken away. He also had a patient, a former major and “a good man,” who he fears did not fare well. Mr. Riel had received a letter from the District Secretary ordering him to send the major “to base.” The witness wrote back that he had sent the man back three days prior. Then he put his patient on a horse cart bound for his village. As he did not know his name, he could not follow up. (Begs the question: What name did the District Secretary use in his letter?) As he has had no news from the man since, he assumed that he is dead.
There were three committee members on Riel San’s commune. The deputy chief performed the role of policeman and made arrests.
Ta An was in charge of Kraing Ta Chan which was six to seven kilometers from his house. The District Secretary had sent the hospital crew to spray the bushes in the area of the prison. Mr. Riel saw three large buildings and two small ones, but learned nothing about torture while there. But they were prohibited from going to the south part of the compound where he could see from a distance a small building which he estimated was approximately five by six meters. He would not have been conscious of any foul smell as anything like that “would have been overwhelmed by the smell of the insecticide.”
Mr. Koppe again addressed the court to argue that the D157.13 document in contention “says it’s illegible so there is no translation,” and he could not find a correction since the Zilet creation date of May 6, 2010.” He complained that this document had recently been translated without notification, and that “something strange is going on here.” He wanted to know “why the translators are now able to translate documents that they could not before.” He demanded an explanation of “what happened with this document.” Mr. Lysak was short: “Ask CMS.” The French translation had been on file for awhile and he pulled the English version from Zilet weeks ago to prepare for today’s examination. The President directed Mr. Koppe to make a request to ITU for clarification “once and for all.”
It was 4:00 P.M., and enough squabbling for one day. Court adjourned.