Critical Discrepancies Plague Civil Party Testimony
Court convened some twenty minutes late due to the slowly moving parking lot that doubles as National Road Number 4. The day’s testimony on the impact of suffering on Civil Party witnesses also proceeded at a snail’s pace until confusion broke out at the ECCC as a third Civil Party witness who applied for status before the Chamber as a Kampuchea Krom turned out to be born in Cambodia.
The session began with Victor Koppe, Nuon Chea Defence Counsel, completing his examination of Iam Yen. The witness was able to detail for the Chamber that she had been buried up to her neck for two to three hours immediately after she had been arrested for running away by Rom, her unit chief. She did not know whether Rom was a member of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, or if he was punished for what he had done to her. The incident occurred between 4 p.m. to 5 p.m., near the children’s unit.
Nobody told Iam Yen that she could not go to school. There simply was “no opportunity” to do so. Mr. Koppe questioned this on the basis that the Tribunal has heard testimony of children attending school. Co-Prosecutor de Wilde objected saying that children were allowed to go to school was “an exaggerated interpretation” of what has been before the court. He defined that some lessons had been given but that there were not proper schools, and suggested that the inquiry be rephrased. But Mr. Koppe dug in advancing that as Ta San said there was schooling and there were school books,“it could be fairly stat(ed) there was primary and secondary education going on so can fairly ask this question of the Civil Party.” Judge Fenz warned that “making any conclusions as to whether there was a school system and to what extent (one existed) is premature,” and allowed the question. But, Ms. Iam maintained there were no schools. All she and the other children in her unit knew was work such as collecting cow dung. Finally, she clarified that when she had referred to working at night, she had meant that there were night shift units.
Kong Sam Onn, Khieu Samphan Defence Council, started his examination mildly enough, but ended up perhaps putting the status of some Civil Parties in jeopardy by what he unveiled. Quizzing into discrepancies in Iam Yen’s testimony over where she was born and her supposed repatriation to Cambodia from Vietnam, she finally admitted she had been born in Cambodia and left in doubt that she had ever lived in Vietnam. Mr. Kong was able to elicit that Chau Ny (who has already testified before the Tribunal) assisted her in filling out her Civil Party application form on which she claims to be Kampuchea Krom.
Marie Guiraud, Civil Party Lead Co-Lawyer did her best to head off the direction this was leading stating that it “was going beyond the scope of suffering and causing (the Co-Prosecutor) to go over the time limit. Such repetitive questioning becomes an issue.” Mr. Kong defended his method saying that Chau Ny’s name appears on almost every victim statement, and there were doubts about the information which he had helped to fill in. Mr. Koppe emphasized the extent of the problem pointing out that this was “the third time a Civil Party had claimed to be a Kampuchea Krom but was born in Cambodia,” which he said “seems odd.” He wanted to know “what’s going on here?” Ms. Guissé, Khieu Samphan International Defence Counsel, pointed out that “these are elements necessary to test the probative value of the testimony (of many of the witnesses) because of this name (Chau Ny)appearing repeatedly.” Ms. Guiraud explained that Chau Ny was a witness to the documents filed which supported the Civil Party’s application to be a Civil Party. She noted that the decision on Civil Party status had been made in 2010, and it could have been appealed then. Ms. Guissé refuted that argument because it has been “only during the hearing that the discrepancies are coming up.”
Judge Lavergne asked for clarification on what exactly had been Chau Ny’s role in regard to the Civil Parties. In particular, he wanted confirmed if Mr. Chau Ny was an active member of an organization defending the interests of Kampuchea Krom. Ms. Guiraud would update the Chamber in the afternoon. She added that most applications were made possible only with the assistance of the NGO’s because the court did not have enough funds for outreach to the Civil Parties. Ms. Guissé wanted it clear for the record that the Defence has never challenged Chau Ny’s position as a Civil Party.
Iam Yen testified that Chau Ny, and only Chau Ny, had provided her with some guidance on how to apply to be a Civil Party, “so (she had)proceeded with the application because (she) had suffered.” She did not respond when asked if Chau Ny had sought her out. Because she claimed that she was the one “to produce by (her)self the record of what happened,” Counsel grilled her on then why there were discrepancies between the form and her testimony now. She stuck with “nobody else had given (her) advice,” but offered only that she “can’t recall all the information (she) put on the form.”
At the conclusion of Iam Yen’s testimony, Judge Nil Nonn expressed the Tribunal’s gratefulness for her presence and her statement of harm, and excused her from the stand.
After the morning break, the President ‘encouraged’ the lawyers to focus their questions on the statements of suffering of the victims. He made plain that the Chamber was not in a position to exclude Civil Parties already admitted by the Co-Investigating Judges.
Thann Thim was the next Civil Part witness called to make his statement of harm under the guidance of Civil Party Co-Lawyer Lor Chunthy. Born in 1945, Mr. Thann lives in Soam commune, Takeo province. A rice farmer, he and his wife have six children. On April 17, 1975, he was living in a refugee camp in Phnom Penh. After the victory of Pol Pot, he was evacuated to a village in Kiri Vong District where he worked farming and paddling a water wheel. In 1976, he was moved to a different commune to plough a hectare of land with the use of six cattle, “same as before.” In 1977, he was again on the road, this time to Trapeang Thum Khang Cheung commune, Tram Kok district, where he was assigned to work with an ox cart unit carrying timber.
One night, just before he was to go to sleep, Thann Thim was asked “to attend a meeting.” He was suspicious because this was not an invitation normally extended to ‘17th April people.’ Mr. Thann was arrested, tied up by the militia, called “contemptible,” and interrogated about where he had lived and what he had done in Phnom Penh. He had been a wood collector in the city, not a soldier, but he was beaten anyway with a bamboo stick about the length of his lower arm. Ta Say was the militia leader; Mr. Thann did not know the names of the other men who beat him, one after another, until he passed out. Later, Thann Thim was transported by horse cart to an office in Ang Roka market. He was kicked until he fell off the cart. He thought he was going to be killed when Ta Rou picked up an AK rifle and escorted him to the Ang Roka prison headed by Ta Meng. There he was pushed into a cell and shacked by both ankles. Thann Thim said that he could have accepted the “serious torture” he had suffered if he had been guilty of anything, but he maintained that he had done nothing wrong.
After three months, Thann Thim was let out to work digging a pond during the day. The beatings stopped once he was detained but the shackling took its toll. Once, when coupling up Mr. Thann, a guard slipped, driving an iron bar into the victim’s ankle. It was the worst pain Mr. Thann had ever experienced, so “indescribable (he) didn’t think (he) could survive,” both the physical and emotional pain. There were no medicines to treat the bloody wound, and he remains scarred. If he sits too long, the ankle swells.
Conditions were tough in the prison. The victims were shackled in rows of ten, women across a foot path from men. They were not even able to relieve themselves properly. He did not think he would survive especially after the man next to him expired from hunger, and his body was not removed for two nights and three days. The witness’s food rations consisted of a few grains of rice in gruel. Meng, No and Chuum worked at the prison.
Thann Thim’s family (who all survived the Khmer Rouge), thought he had died when he disappeared. The only contact he had was with a young woman, a canal worker, who would talk to him while he worked carrying earth to build a pond.
The witness had taken very little with him when he was forced to leave Phnom Penh. When he was imprisoned, he had only the pants and shirt he was wearing.
Thann Thim wanted the judges and officials of the court to “find (him) justice” for the physical injury which had left his health “not as strong as it should be.” And the Civil Party had two requests for the accused. Firstly, he wanted them to acknowledge that there was a security center at Ang Roka where he had been detained. Secondly, he needed Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea to explain why the crimes were committed and to accept responsibility for them. But, not today, and maybe not ever, as the President outlined that both accused where still exercising their right to silence.
Co-Prosecutor de Wilde foreshadowed that he would examine the Civil Party both on his detention and his transfer from Keri Vong District to Tram Kok District. Mr. Koppe broke in with a proposal. Since Thann Thim was such “a potentially interesting witness…,” that “all parties agree we are far beyond just civil impact and treat him as a witness.” But the President rejected this, reminding the parties that there is a limited time to hear the civil parties today and tomorrow, and that their questions should be asked accordingly.
Mr. Thann had been arrested after his daughter had been forced to confess that he was a former lieutenant after the child got in trouble for stealing sugar cane and running away with co-miscreant, Iam Yen.
The Civil Party witness gained his freedom when, during the fight between the Vietnamese and the Khmer Rouge, the ammunition depot caught fire and exploded. He had been detained from 1978 to this latter event.
Initially, Thann Thim had been given the job of watering vegetables in the prison garden. As he had no sandals, it was painful to carry the water barefoot in the heat. Even though, after three months, he was let out in the day to work, he was shackled at night.
Ta Say had brought him to the prison and handed him over to Rou. Rou was a militia chief, but the witness did not know whether he was at the district level or not. He would see him carrying a rifle.
Post lunch, the President warned that there was a shortage of interpreters for the afternoon. It soon showed.
Further to the morning discussion, Ms. Guiraud reported to the Chamber that there were 14 NGO’s assisting the Civil Parties with their applications. The Khmer-Khampuchea Krom Association helped 191 victims become Civil Parties. Chau Ny worked for them from 2007-2008 to 2010. His position was as an outreach-complaints person. The organization dealt with 23 Civil Party applications from Takeo province. Chau Ny worked on 22 of these. The lawyer emphasized to the court that it was “fundamental that the eight Civil Parties be heard,” today and tomorrow, that this was not a normal hearing, “it’s an exceptional hearing.” The President showed his agreement by announcing that, in order to keep to the schedule, the Civil Party lawyers would have to reduce their time to 30 minutes.
At which point, Co-Prosecutor de Wilde picked up the story. Mr. Thann was able to confirm that the number of prisoners varied over time, eventually decreasing. He had been interrogated by Meng in the guards’ building near the prison. The witness only spoke with one of his former teachers until he was taken out. He did not know what the 70-year-old man’s offence had been nor did the names “Po Khan” or “Num” ring a bell.
Victor Koppe persevered with his idea. He wanted to know if the witness would be prepared to return to the Tribunal as “a proper witness.” Then the current proceedings could focus just on impact.
The President reiterated to Mr. de Wilde not to ask questions on facts unless connected to harm, that there was not much time left for six more witnesses. If he wanted to ask questions on facts, the witness should be re-categorized as a witness for facts. The Co-Prosecutor outlined that his questions were relevant, that he was trying to establish the credibility of the witness by, for example, asking whether he knew certain parties at the prison. The President pondered Mr. Koppe’s suggestion, and asked if the Defence counsel had any other reasons to summon the witness again. Mr. Koppe quoted the judge that this was “a very relevant witness,” that he wanted to examine him on facts. Mr. de Wilde chimed in that the man had been on the witness list since June, 2014. Notwithstanding that Thann Thim had been at Ang Roka and survived, the Co-Prosecutor would finish in the next ten minutes, and did not require him to be recalled as a witness. Neither did Ms. Guiraud support the application for a fact hearing. She only wanted all eight of the Civil Parties to testify as to suffering. Pragmatically, Judge Fenz recognized that the court would not be able to finish all of the Civil Party harm statements while safeguarding the right to hear and examine this witness. When she asked if there were any objections to recalling the witness for arguable factual information at a later stage, Ms. Guiraud came around to not objecting if the court deemed it necessary.
President Nil Nonn adjourned hearing Thann Thim’s statement of harm, ruling that he would be summoned again in due course as a factual witness when he could also make his statement of harm and suffering. Thann Thim was excused for the day.
Beng Boeun was born in 1939. A retired teacher, he has three children with his first wife who is deceased, and three by his “new” wife. Mr. Beng told Civil Party Lawyer, Lor Chunthy, that he was in Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975, at the Military Records Office. He heard the Khmer Rouge announcements that they had “come by force and were not there to negotiate.” He evacuated to his uncle’s place in the Takeo. But, after three days, he was told he should leave as his brother-in-law was a Khmer Rouge leader. Finally, he ended up in Tram Kok village where his ‘base people’ in-laws warned him not to say anything about his personal history. The chief of the village separated the family. Mr. Beng was sent to a mobile unit to harvest rice during the dry season. Then his brother-in-law, Vut, disappeared because he had declared that he knew how to drive a car and fly a plane. Neighbors told him that “anyone who knew how to do anything would not be saved by the Khmer Rouge.” So the witness kept quiet, tended cows and chopped wood. One day someone saw another brother-in-law throw down to him a coconut, and turned him in. Soon, this brother-in-law, Wu, was also taken away. When his son went to plead for the man’s release, he had been told, “Don’t cry. I’m simply arresting the enemy.”
The witness had a close call of his own. His unit chief accused Mr. Beng of a moral offence, and took him to the forest whilst carrying an axe. He threatened to kill him if the offence happened again. Beng Boeun was in tears when he got to the point in his narrative of his father-in-law dying of illness.
In his statement of suffering, Beng Boeun asked why his brother-in-law was taken away without the family even being informed of his offence of bragging when the authorities had not even defined this as an offence. And he wanted to know why the family was not allowed to visit someone who was dying.
Mr. Beng described how there was not enough food although they had worked hard on the harvest. The Khmer Rouge cadres would circle them as they were eating, asking if they had enough. If they said, ‘No,’ they would be taken away and killed. They went to work when a bell rang; they ate when a bell rang, and they were constantly watched, even when sleeping. In 1978, he attended a meeting in which the workers were told of forthcoming prosperity in the later part of the regime. Three or four days later, he alleged ‘the base people’ people put poison in their noodles.
When Beng Boeun listed the victims in his family, he added the name of his sister-in-law, Non, to that of his two brother’s-in-law.
Kong Sam Onn was interested in categorization of people. Initially, every one mixed naturally in their family units. Then, Beng Boeun was separated from his parents-in-law (‘base people’), and put in a Khmer Chinese group. ‘Base people’ led all the groups no matter what the ethnic composition was. Living and working conditions were brutal and did not improve as time went on. He did “extremely intensive work” rice farming and building a six-meter high dam. Mr. Beng had lived near a Vietnamese family for awhile. He was told they returned to Vietnam, but he has no way to verify whether they actually were repatriated.
Mr. Koppe’s examination followed. ‘Base people’ had “whispered” to Beng Boeun that his brother-in-law was arrested and killed because he picked the coconut. They told him what happened to his relative because “they knew that (he) would keep a secret.” The witness argued with counsel that his conclusion that Wu had been killed was “well founded as he didn’t come back and neither did all the others who were disappeared.” Mr. Beng was told that anyone who had more education than the Khmer Rouge had to be re-educated. The President stepped in to encourage Counsel to move on. He did, to clarify how the authorities would know someone’s ethnicity in order to classify them by it. The witness said they picked out the Chinese because they had lighter skin, spoke with accents and had indicative family names. His family was “mixed bloods” but, because of his wife spoke Khmer with an accent and ‘base people’ spoke without one, they were put in the Sino-Khmer group. The President also halted any further investigation by Mr. Koppe along these lines, and directed him to put questions in relation to the harm suffered, that his questions were not relevant. But, Mr. Koppe had no more inquiries.
Kong Sam Onn elicited that there was an error in the birthplace given on the Civil Party application form. Beng Beoun had been born in Kampong Speu province and not Takeo. Then the lawyer had him identify “Non” as a military chief in his village who would order people to dig pits to plant coconut trees. After it was clarified that Mr. Beng’s second marriage took place in 1984, and that the Vietnamese and the Chinese were both separated from the ‘base people,’ the President said he did not see the connection between Mr. Kong’s questions and the harm suffered. Counsel was directed to concentrate on the latter. When Mr. Koppe rose, Judge Nil Nonn cut him off short, too, telling him he did not have the floor and to sit down.
But before he did so, Mr. Koppe made “an observation” that this Civil Party had been a material witness before and had been cited four times in the judgment. Again, the judge interposed asking if Mr. Koppe was “criticizing the Chamber.” Mr. Koppe admitted that that was “exactly what (he) was doing.” It still did not work, the President averring that the lawyer “cannot just take the floor whenever (he) wished to do so.”
The Court called the next witness, Yem Khonny. Ms. Yem excused herself for not remembering her birthday on the basis that she is illiterate. She claimed to be 38 even when Judge Nil Nonn questioned this, but she obviously is not as she was 14 during the Khmer Rouge regime. The witness is a widow with six children.
Prior to April 17, 1975, Yem Khonny had been transferred to Cambodia from Khampuchea Krom. Her first assignments under the Khmer Rouge were to carry cow dung, and to cut and grind up tree leaves to then transport to the rice fields. Ms. Yem’s insufficient rations were rice gruel mixed with water lily, cassava or other vegetables. She lived with her grandmother, mother and siblings until the family was split apart and placed in separate units. Ms. Yem was young and wept at being removed from her family whom she was not allowed to visit often. She ended up losing these six family members. They had returned to their native village. One day, her grandmother, mother and siblings were simply loaded onto a truck and disappeared. After the fall of the Khmer Rouge, she went to live with an aunt. She collected firewood to sell for food money.
Yem Khonny is still traumatized by her great losses and the suffering she experienced. She was left with not one immediate family member on whom she could depend. She related how she becomes “so saddened when (she) looked at others who had parents and siblings.” Ms. Yem says she is “all by herself and work(s) hard to survive. “
Ms. Yem’s statement of harm will continue tomorrow. Court Adjourned.