Gold Confiscated from Villagers Used to Buy Cadres Watches

People were starving while others went shopping for jewelry. Testimony at the ECCC today proved that the greed will win out even when people are dying in massive numbers. The shocking admissions came from a mild-mannered Deputy Chief of the Tram Kok Hospital.

 

The sitting of the ECCC opened with Judge Nil Nonn announcing that the reserve Witness 2TCW822 had been hospitalized with high blood pressure this morning. Later in the day, he supplemented the news with an update that the witness’s hypertension had precipitated a serious health condition, and the doctor was recommending that he not testify today. The President stated that his testimony would be rescheduled in due course.

 

In another order of business, the President advised he would call for oral submissions on the Civil Party request to hear a new civil party witness, and on admission of new documentation in relation to this witness, at the end of today’s proceedings.

 

With that, Khieu Samphan Defence Counsel, Kong Sam Onn continued his examination of Riel San, by asking whether any conduct meetings had been held at the hospital while he was Deputy Chief. As “discipline was an imperative,” there had been weekly “Code of Conduct” meetings even if no misconduct had occurred. Staff would be reminded “to be humble and gentle to patients, and to avoid ‘rudeness’ (translation problem: roughness, possibly?) when giving injections.” The witness’s memory had improved since yesterday as he could now remember a disciplinary incident involving two lesbians. This “moral misconduct” was resolved by one of the women being transferred out of the hospital. Riel San said he neither knew of, nor had received any reports of, any malpractice by staff. There had been complaints of rudeness or bad attitudes. Sometimes he had had to reprimand young staff for “these small mistakes,” but it was “brief advice.” There was no sanction for the misconduct. All the personnel were from Takeo except for Neery Han who hailed from Kampong Chhnang province.

 

Kong Sam Onn asked for clarification on the number of times that the witness had seen Khieu Samphan. Riel San said there had been two: once when he was helping Yeay Khem deliver wedding cakes and a second occasion before the coup. He could not remember the date of the latter sighting. “It was a long time ago,” perhaps 1967 or 1968; he was young and he had not paid much attention to it at the time. From the villagers, he had learned that Khieu Samphan had come to see Ta Mok. They were interested in the visitor because of his dramatic flight into the jungle. Yeay Khem had pointed out Khieu Samphan to him on the day of the wedding. The leader was about 50 meters away and he could not see him, or the few guests present, very well. The office where the ceremony was held was “surrounded by a fence, surrounded by a bamboo grove,” obstructing his sight lines. This was after the coup and when Lon Nol was engaging in an aerial bombardment. Mr. Riel had seen a picture of Khieu Samphan in a magazine when both he and the subject were much younger.

 

Riel San had been at the pagoda when Ta Ech, the head religious, had been beaten by an elderly man for having the effrontery to call the villagers to protest against the defrocking of the monks. Mr. Riel had gone to the pagoda to take food to his old teacher from Lanka pagoda. He saw the black uniforms being delivered but was at home when the actual defrocking took place. The witness could not recollect the year but, as he had testified it was shortly after the coup, it could be deduced that it was in 1975.

 

The protocol was that Ta Mok could only be approached when he had summoned someone.

But one day, after having run out of medicine for some poison victims, Mr. Riel met Ta Mok on the road. Ta Mok gave him a letter to take to Ta Chhun in District 55. Ta Chhun gave him four pigs that he bartered with the Vietnamese to obtain the medicine. He never had anything to do with Ta Mok regarding security measures or arrests, and had never heard Ta Mok give orders for arrests or torture. Riel San was sure that such orders would have been issued secretly.

 

Khieu Samphan Defence Counsel, Arthur Vercken, reminded Riel San that he had told OCIJ of a third occasion when he had seen Khieu Samphan. Mr. Riel then detailed that, when he had been a student in Phnom Penh, he had gone to the market to pick up food. There was a crowd of hundreds of rickshaw drivers. He was told that Khieu Samphan “was being mistreated.” From a distance, he could see that Khieu Samphan had been stripped naked and some of the drivers were giving him scarves with which to cover himself.

 

Counsel inquired as to whether Mr. Riel had ever questioned what “justified…illiterate and inexperienced staff…being assigned duties for which they had no intellectual competence.” Indeed, the witness had done so, and was told to teach them how to read and write. He tried his best, teaching the children the alphabet and the staff how to do injections. Staff “capabilities” did improve somewhat “as time went on.”

 

Bartering with the Vietnamese went on until the relationship between Cambodia and Vietnam was broken by Vietnam. Initially, Riel San evading admitting to purchasing watches from the Vietnamese for cadres saying he does not wear a watch. Sometimes dollar notes and watches were found in the clothes collected at the economic offices and these watches he would pass on to cadres. Mr. Vercken quoted from the witness’s OCIJ interview that he had produced small quantities of Vitamin C in 1975 made with ingredients purchased with gold supplied by Ta Mok. The counsel continued reading in that some of this gold that the District Office collected from villagers and said was Ta Mok’s also went to buy watches which were not confiscated because the recipients were all cadres. His memory jogged, Mr. Riel could bring to mind the purchases but not the number of watches or amount of gold involved in the commerce. He was not quite sure at the time whether the regime authorized the watch transactions, but he told the District Office and the District people about the commerce. Still, he felt he was taking a risk, especially at the point of bargaining with the Vietnamese. Even if the transaction had been authorized on his side, it had not been by the Vietnamese authorities. In addition to ingredients for medicines and the watches, he also bartered for string with which to make army hammocks.

 

Although he was Deputy Chief of the hospital, Riel San’s food rations were the same as the other staffs’ and the patients’. For each meal, he would help himself to three plates of gruel along with a bowl of water lily soup and top up with drinking water. Sometimes he would eat communally with staff; sometimes at patients’ bedsides.

 

Riel San was only aware of Neery Han having one name. He did not know what her surname was. When Mr. Riel had seen her cooking at Kraing Ta Chan, he was afraid to speak to her because she was a prisoner. He denied ever having eaten at the security center, that there had been a second visit at which time he was purported to have given injections or that he had ever known a guard at the prison.

 

Mr. Riel reiterated that he had never received instructions aimed specifically at the Kampuchea Krom nor had he ever witnessed any ill treatment of the Kampuchea Krom during the DK years.

The conference Riel San attended concerned purging of “new people,” and all the attendees had been cadres. There was no specific reason why, since he was not a village or a commune chief and the instructions to do a purge were not directed at the hospital representative, he had been called to a meeting in which “smashing the enemy” was discussed. Mr. Riel had been told “to be cautious at the hospital,” but counsel was unsuccessful in having the basis for the comment explained. The witness digressed into an unrelated matter of frequent thefts of rice from the hospital leaving them so short of food that they would then have to borrow rice.

 

Riel San’s testimony at a close, the President thanked the witness and his duty counsel for their help in “ascertaining of the truth,” and excused them from the court.

 

Judge Nil Nonn then called on the Civil Party Lead Co-Lawyer to give her oral submission on her March 7, 2015, request to summon Civil Party Witness D2-2500.

 

Marie Guiraud prefaced her comments with she was relying on her comprehensive written submission. However she did want to add that the information the civil party could provide was relevant and meets the requisites found in Rule 87.3 and responds to those in Rule 87.4. Overall, she argued that this person’s testimony would contribute “to ascertaining the truth” as the civil party has information on the acts of the accused that counsel did not have access to before. Ms. Guiraud asked for leave to respond to any objections.

 

Mr. Lysak supported the request stating that “the relevance of the testimony is self-evident.”

And, according to the rules, information on the acts of an accused is only admissible if the witness appears in court.

 

But Mr. Koppe did not see the relevance. He replied that if Nuon Chea had visited Leay Baur with Pol Pot, the defence would admit to the event. He questioned how a visit to a worksite would establish his client’s guilt for what had happened there. The counsel ended with the comment that defence “really didn’t care” if the witness was called.

 

Arthur Vercken was a little bit more precise: “It’s a tardy request and a waste of time.” He pointed out that the witness wrote on her particulars form that “she is suffering mental disorders and has a faulty memory.” He brought to the court’s attention that the latter “contradicts that she could remember such important moments.”

 

Ms. Guiraud rebutted the defence arguments advancing that the possible presence of Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan does relate to the act and conduct of the accused. She espoused that, in effect, the application is not tardy with the reasoning behind her position to be found in her written submission. She beseeched the Chamber, in light of the request meeting the criteria under the rules and the jurisprudence, to summon this person.

 

Mr. Vercken’s criticism that the issue of the Civil Party’s mental disorder had not been addressed, Ms. Guiraud met with her personal assurance that the person was capable of testifying. She then corrected her choice of words, restating that, of course, she “agree(d) that civil parties don’t ‘testify’ but are merely ‘heard’.”

 

The President said the Chamber would consider the issue and rule on it in due course. He moved on to deal with the Nuon Chea Defence request for an adjournment necessitated by the flow of disclosures from Cases 003 and 004.

 

The court said it had taken into account the written motion, the Co-Prosecutor’s response and all oral submissions (particularly those of March 4^th and March 5^th, 2015). Judge Nil Nonn emphasized that “additional time has been accorded when merited,” referencing February 25, 2015, in this context. The 226 documents released since that date comprise 2,500 pages in English (2,300 in Khmer). Further considerations the Bench had taken into account were the number of the recent disclosures; that the International Co-Investigating Judges will now permit multiple access and word searches; and that the hearings on the Trapaeng Dam will be delayed. Summarily, the President pronounced that there will be an adjournment from April 6 to April 9, 2015, with court reconvening on April 21, 2015. There will be another witness called for Monday.

 

Mr. Lysak offered some advice on matters already scheduled. Regarding Witness 2TCW809, he informed the parties that the new statements do not contain information relevant to Tram Kok.

But, the witness was transferred to the Central Zone in 1977 and some interviews relate to purges there. Of the 227 (sic), 20-25 relate to purges in the Central Zone. Five to ten cadres were transferred to Kampong Cham at the same time. In a display of professional responsibility and courtesy, he pledged to “continue to give guidance that will affect upcoming witness testimony.”

 

Mr. Koppe was not impressed saying the Co-Prosecutor’s comment was “irrelevant” and there is no way to read 3,000 pages by Monday, “no way to read it, analyze it let alone discuss it with (his) client.”

 

Mr. Lysak retorted that he was “just pointing out what’s pertinent in the scheduling of the witnesses.”

 

Mr. Vercken wanted to know to which 20-25 interviews in the mass of 226 the Co-Prosecutor had referred as he did not have an index.

 

Mr. Lysak offered to identify the cadres via email.

 

Court ended with Judge Nil Nonn stating that there will be an internal meeting this afternoon to determine the rescheduling taking into account not only the disclosures but also the effect on the elderly witnesses. The Chamber will notify all parties either later today or tomorrow which witness has been rescheduled for Monday.