Disputes Concerning Legitimacy of Civil Party Process Continue

Unfortunately, the exceptional hearing of impact statements by Civil Party witnesses was no more successful on Day Two than yesterday. As hard as President Nil Nonn tried, to a great extent the counsel stymied his efforts to have them focus on victim harm and suffering rather than eliciting facts.

 

Srea Rattanak, National Deputy Co-Prosecutor succeeded in learning from Yem Khonny that her family had voluntarily been lured back to Cambodia on the expectation of an abundance of food. Instead, they had even their clothes confiscated to be replaced with black uniforms that quickly became lice infested, and were given gruel to eat. But when the Deputy Co-Prosecutor contributed that the witness spoke with a Kampuchea Krom accent, he effectively derailed the session.

 

Victor Koppe, Nuon Chea Defence Counsel, objected to the classification of the accent as Khmer Krom on the basis of his consultation with Khmer member of his team. He had been told it was not.

 

Kong Sam Onn, Khieu Samphan Defence Counsel, had his own beef. He complained that the questions posed are on facts. He argued that, as he had been prohibited from examining on the facts yesterday, he wanted the same opportunity that the court was granting to the Deputy Co-Prosecutor to do so today.

 

Marie Guiraud, Civil Party Lead Co-Lawyer, pointed out that none of the Civil Party witnesses have claimed suffering caused by discrimination because they were Khmer Krom. She felt that the questions should relate to the Civil Parties’ experiences.

 

Mr. Srea replied that he had based his conclusion about the witness’s accent on where he was born, on the accent that he had heard from the witness, and on the information he had received about her. The lawyer protested that his questions did relate to Yem Khonny’s suffering while she lived in the Tram Kok cooperative.

 

The President was succinct. The matter of the accent “is not appropriate,” and “shall not be raised again.” He then overruled Kong Sam Onn stating that mistreatment of Chinese “is outside the scope of facts in Case 002/02.” The judge said he would allow other information as long as it was within the fact picture, and again directed counsel to “focus fundamentally on the statement of harm to the parties.”

 

Co-Prosecutor Srea asked Yem Khonny why she was forced to call the food delicious if it was not. She explained that if she had not agreed with the cadres, she would have been “mistreated and taken to be refashioned,” even though she was a child. The witness defined being “re-educated” as meaning undergoing criticism and punishment with extra work even when the workers were already collapsing from exhaustion and “lack of nutrition.”

 

Victor Koppe began his examination by clearing up another discrepancy between a Supplementary Information Form and oral evidence. Ms. Yem denied that she had ever stated for the form that she had lived in Phnom Penh, a city she had only visited recently and not during the Khmer Rouge years. She was adamant that she had come to Takeo from Kampuchea Krom,

not Phnom Penh, and that her parents were not former Lon Nol soldiers. Under extensive questioning, Yem Khonny finally conceded that the photocopy of an identification card counsel showed her was a copy of hers. But, not before Marie Guiraud expressed her deepening concern that the “impact hearing is becoming a hearing on the probative value of the Civil Party information.” She recognized that there are obvious and repetitive errors in the Civil Party forms and that it would be necessary to hold the debate about this. But she would like to have it happen at a different time as “it is contaminating the Civil Party witness testimony…and polluting the purpose of this hearing.”

Anta Guissé, Khieu Samphan International Defence Counsel, pointed out that the problem is how to deal with it later as the contradictory elements are coming up now when the Civil Parties are before us. She did not see how the debate could be held outside of the courtroom.

 

Judge Nil Nonn allowed the Defence to show the ID document to the witness but cautioned not “to focus too much on the inconsistencies as it has been established that there are problems.” After admitting the copy was of her identification card, Ms. Yem reiterated that her father was not a soldier but a farmer “who tilled the soil to feed his children.”

 

The President graciously thanked Yem Khonny for her testimony and Boen Saroeun was called.

 

Born in 1963, Boen Saroeun is a rice farmer. He and his wife have six children.

 

The Civil Party lawyer read in for several minutes from the information form until it evolved that the passage was about the witness’s brother and not the witness himself, at which point the President ruled it was out of the scope of the Tram Kok incidents. Anta Guissé

also challenged the technique of reading in the context of this hearing. Judge Nil Nonn reprimanded the counsel for wasting time, and directed her to “focus on the essence of the proceedings…about sufferings and harm.”

 

The lawyer had Boen Saroeun narrate the court the background of his years during the DK era. He was age 11 when the Khmer Rouge took power. He had been living at a pagoda with a brother, a monk. After the April 17, 1975, liberation, he went back to his mother’s home. A few months later, the family was moved to Trapaeng Chaing cooperative. When they were transferred, they were told to only take what they could carry, that they would be provided for at their destination. Instead, they lost all of their livestock, most of their other possessions and reduced to eating watery gruel. Once removed, they were not allowed to return but had to work “for Angkar.” The witness was put in a children’s unit by day but could return to his parents at night. He was variously assigned to carry water and fertilizer to the rice paddies, to carry termite earth on a shoulder pole and to carry potatoes. If he did not work hard, his insufficient rations would be diminished even further. Even as a young child, Mr. Boen had to work from early morning to 5:00 p.m. rather than attend school. His “ignorance pains (him) deeply even today.” And he is obviously still upset at the destruction of the pagodas, and the end to any sort of religious practice, Mr. Boen said that, as a Buddhist, he was “flabbergasted to see a sacred place become a desert.” He was bereft, without any place to celebrate ceremonies, “completely deprived of any psychological base.” Boen Saroeun had trouble describing the suffering he felt when his uncles, brothers and father were taken away. Then his aunt lost her arms when a shell exploded. When she was treated in hospital, the staff accused her of moral misconduct because they thought her extended abdomen was a sign of pregnancy. Untreated liver disease killed her 14 months later. “Feeling powerless…completely broken, all (he and his mother) could do was weep.”

 

Boen Saroeun listed for Co-Prosecutor Vincent de Wilde the tragic loss of his family members: his father, two brothers, three uncles, his aunt and an in-law.

 

The witness had been deprived of half his rations when he was blamed for the cows he was tending having diahroea. Mr. Boen was also questioned and warned. He never went to school but had learned to read “a bit” from his studies at the pagoda.

 

Boen Saroeun clarified for Mr. Koppe that his father and uncle had been taken away in 1973, after the area had been come under the control of the Khmer Rouge. Uncle Ron had taken him to see his father at Kraing Ta Chan sometime after 1975. Ron had told him it was a prison. He explained to the counsel that, even before the DK period, he had attended the pagoda rather than school, and admitted that he had “studied little” there. Mr. Boen blames the Khmer Rouge for his lack of education because of the wars that had left him too afraid to attend school because of the ongoing shelling.

 

Kong Sam Onn declined the opportunity to examine Boen Saroeun.

 

Judge Nil Nonn expressed the courts appreciation to Mr. Saroeun for his presence at the Tribunal and for answering questions regarding his harm and suffering, and dismissed the witness.

Court adjourned.

 

The ECCC hearing are scheduled to recommence on April 21, 2015, after the Khmer New Year