District Secretary Chim Claims He “Experienced This Horrible Regime Like Everyone”
The ECCC sitting in Case 002/02 began the day with the continuation of former District Secretary Pech Chim’s testimony. Unfortunately, proceedings were continuously interrupted by interpretation difficulties stemming from two interpreters absent due to illness.
Co-Prosecutor Dale Lysak led off with an inquiry as to where the district meetings were held. Pech Chim responded firstly by clarifying that the term “District Secretary corresponded to District Chief.” He further explained that he “was only” the fifth-ranked member of the District Committee, and that he was not able to attend all meetings. The district meeting were held “under the trees” at the District Office at Peng Kak (spelling?). Education sessions were convened at the Sector level party school in Samroang commune, Tram Kak District. The witness confirmed that some meetings were held at the Ang Roka pagoda.
Pech Chim digressed to explain that he now has memory problems so was “afraid of giving contradictory statements” to his prior testimony. Mr. Lysak graciously put his mind to rest on this matter, and told him just to do the best he could in the circumstances.
Ta Mok never attended the district meetings, only the education sessions held at the Sector level. The District Office was used as a school and a gathering place. Mr. Chim could remember there was one month-long training session and an additional three-day training session that Ta Mok had attended. Due to being assigned to repair a broken dike, the witness was not at the latter session. Topics covered during training included development strategies, war strategies and defence, class struggle, and a component on self-criticism. The cadres were in constant “risk of losing their lives” if they were not honest in assessment of their performances.
Although Ta Mok would come to Tram Kok for a day or two, he constantly travelled and did not live in one specific place.
Before Ta Kiev left Tram Kak District, Angkar asked him to work with Ta Chun, a leader at Office 160, (a re-education school for soldiers). Pech Chim only saw Ta Kiev once after that, when he came to visit and they had a friendly lunch together. The witness was not aware of Ta Kiev being purged, but does not know what happened to Ta Kiev after he left Ta Chun and was sent to Sector 35.
Ta Som (alias “Ton”) had been Sector Secretary in 1975. (“Peng” was his Deputy Secretary; Meas Mut the Sector member). Ta Som was replaced by “Krak.” In May or June of 1976, after Yeay Khom and Ta Kiev, Pech Chim became District Secretary for about six months. On February 12, 1977, Mr. Pech was succeeded by his brother, Kiet, when the witness was sent to Kampong Chan by Ta Mok. Later, Kiet replaced Ta Krak as Chief of Sector 13, but Kiet was still District Secretary of Tram Kok in 1977 when Pech Chim went back for a visit. Ultimately, Kiet became Secretary of Sector 25 in Kandal province. Pech Chim explained that “it was a war situation. There were no official appointments.” Leaders were just replaced, and the new ones had to serve as acting officials for three or four months. The cadre would be asked if they understood orders they had been given. Those who were not intelligent could not do so. Those who could were then given authority.
The party first tried to implement cooperatives in 1973, but there were problems. There were “disagreements” because the people did not want to put all their property (pots and pans, et cetera) “in common.” Lack of food led to health problems and arguments. People could not agree on anything when they were hunger. And it “was very difficult” for the people to accept communal eating. “Because of divergent views and food shortages, establishment of the cooperatives was delayed.” Once there was enough food for the communal pots and the people no longer had to scavenge for food in the forest, then they would eat together.
Pech Chim knew that the monks had been disrobed under the auspices of Ta Khom but not why. Neither did he know the origin of the defrocking instructions as Ta Khom could have received her orders from either the Sector or Ta Mok, (but not the District Committee). Mr. Pech had thought that the idea was not to disrobe the existing monks but to prevent others from taking on the monks’ robes. He, personally, nailed the doors and windows shut on the wat in Koop village to protect the Buddha statute there.
The witness testified that after the fall of Phnom Penh, on the request of Cambodia, the Vietnamese were repatriated to Vietnam. Mixed couples (Vietnamese who had married Cambodians) and their children were allowed to continue living in Cambodia “without discrimination.” Pech Chim was not aware of any Khmer Krom returning from Vietnam, but the details of any such exchange would have been worked out by Khom in collaboration with Chorn. Chorn was a Sector level “mobile worker” who had assembled statistics on the war prisoners in all the districts, “run errands,” and “assessed the needs of the people in order to meet their expectations.” (Pech Chim claimed that there were “six million refugees from Phnom Penh in their region,” but this does not fit with other estimates of Phnom Penh’s population of around two million at the time of the ‘liberation’). Mr. Pech said that he had not yet been promoted to being a member of the District Committee, that the District Chief was in charge of logistics for the evacuees, and that Khom was in charge of Popel commune. In his recollection, “welcoming committees” met the refugees and took them to various communes where they were housed, clothed and fed.
Chorn was the husband of Yeay Boeun, the party head of Cheang Tomg commune. Chorn was also chief of the commune “for a very short time.”
Pech Chim “saw nothing” regarding officers of the Lon Nol army, but he “had suspected” that eradication measures had been taken against what were termed “bad elements.” Mr. Lysak quoted from the witness’s 2013 testimony that he had learned at Sector level meetings that the ‘upper echelon’ had ordered the purging of enemy officers. Mr. Pech supplemented this, remarking that it was Som who had given the “party line” instructions “to distinguish good elements from bad elements.” There had been “no orders to purge” as such. As the rule of the day was “everyone for himself,” he said he did not pay attention to what was going on around him but rather focused on his own work. It rang hollow when this former District Chief averred he “experienced this terrible regime like everyone.”
Mr. Pech admitted that he had “sometimes answered erroneously to the questions,” in his prior testimony. He apologized that, due to tiredness and being “bombarded with questions,” he just had said “yes, yes, yes.” He wanted to correct his answers now. He made it clear that it was Khom who passed on measures aimed at eliminating officers and that it was the communes who executed the order that could only have been made at the Sector or higher level.
Ta Mok spent time at Wat Champa and at Ang Tasome, but Mr. Pech did not know for how long Ta Mok was in the district. “He never stayed put in a given place because it was war time.”
Pech Chim was able to elaborate on the 20-day training session run by Nuon Chea that he had attended in Phnom Penh where he was taught how to identify enemies from friends. The party line was that “those who served the interests of the enemy were considered enemies.” So, Lon Nol personnel were enemies although he hesitated to label all of them that way. He thought it would be difficult to consider everyone as an enemy, and that the party would have lost influence and supporters if they had done so. The Phnom Penh evacuees that helped to grow rice, he considered “with them.” But, the Khmer Rouge was afraid of Lon Nol’s men, and they “had to be vigilant.”
As the first order of business in the afternoon, Co-Prosecutor Lysak made an application for an additional examination session to be shared between the prosecution and the Civil Parties. He stated the extra time was necessitated by translation problems and “other difficulties” with this witness, and by the prosecutor’s need to examine Pech Chim on the Central Zone purges. Mr. Koppe, Nuon Chea Defence Counsel, objected on the basis that he was “completely unprepared on issues related to the Central Zone.” He questioned why this request was being made now and asked for “more clarity” on the nature of the questions in this matter. Mr. Lysak defended that he had brought up the issues of purges in the Central Zone before and that, particularly when witnesses were elderly, the prosecutors did not want to have to recall them. Mr. Koppe stood his ground that he simply was not prepared because the new statements just released by the prosecutors had left him with “very little grasp of this issue (on the Central Zone) at this time.” The Co-Prosecutor informed the court that he was following the procedure established in the first trial to examine all witnesses on the full scope of the trial, that the prosecutors “had never wanted to put (themselves) in a position of having to recall witnesses.”
President Nil Nonn summed up that the Prosecution application had been objected to by the Nuon Chea Defence Team. The Chamber required time to consider the various points on the matter and would rule after the break.
Dale Lysak then picked up the thread of his morning’s examination asking the witness who Chan Ransy (spelling?) was? But Pech Chim only had heard his name as a child during the colonial period and knew no more. Mr. Chim said a law on marriages based on “obedience, coordination and facilitation” was promulgated in 1970. It required that the partners were consenting and that they had the authorization of their parents as well as their chiefs. Because they were needed for the army, sometimes people were stopped from getting married on instructions from “the upper levels.” But, if the parties persisted, they would eventually be granted the right to marry. Mr. Chim again emphasized that the administrators “could not afford to give more weight to violence. They had to be diplomatic.” When there were no longer problems at the front, there were so many who wanted to get married that they started group marriages.
Pech Chim outlined that reports on prisoners’ confessions were sent from Kraing Ta Chan to Sector via the District and returned, one or two days later, by the reverse route with the Sector’s decision. Names crossed out in red meant that these people were to be killed.
After a small squabble initiated by Mr. Koppe’s objection to the Co-Prosecutor reading in only a partial OCIJ statement, Mr. Koppe himself completed the quote for the record to include that only the District had the right to implement execution decisions which were made only at the Sector level and above.
Mr. Chim recognized Chairman An’s signature and handwriting on three reports from July, 1977, authorizing the “smashing” of certain prisoners. The witness pointed out that he had nothing to do with these orders as he was in Sector 13 by that time. Krak had replaced a sick Som and was with An at Sector then. Pech Chim confirmed that “smash” meant two things:
(1.) ‘to eliminate’ as in to eradicate a sense of class in society and (2.) “to kill or execute”.
Khom would review all reports and then refer them to An. Som would just mark the confession reports with a red cross. Mr. Pech “did not dare do anything without letting Khom know,” as prisoners were under the exclusive control of Sector. But Pech Chim did have the authority to help people get released from the Security Center. If their infractions did not relate to serious political matters, he could make a request to Sector. He did not know why some prisoners were let go and others not. He did not dare to ask. If he interfered too much, he might, himself, be in trouble. He was concerned about making too many requests but said that, if the prisoners had not harmed others, “were gentle, obedient and hard working, (he) would help them happily.” When the District asked the Sector for guidance, the Sector decision was an instruction. It was “beyond his knowledge,” as to whether Sector was consulted on every matter. Sometimes oral instructions would be all they would get: “If Sector said ‘an issue was resolved’, that was it.”
The Sector 13 Office was in Tram Kak District. A second office was built in the north after the war. Ta Mok gave action plans to the Sector chiefs who would disseminate what Ta Mok had told them.
Pech Chim aided sixty people who had been arrested after being accused in West Zone confessions of being involved in “a secret struggle.”
Judge Fenz paused the examination to ask for background information the Bench required in order to deliberate on the Prosecutor’s request for an additional time. She was pleased when told that the Prosecutors did not want to ask questions outside the scope of Case 002/02 as defined by the severance order. Marie Guiraud, Civil Party Lead Co-Lawyer took the opportunity to emphasize that the Civil Party lawyers would require about an hour and twenty minutes (independent of the time allocated for questions on the Central Zone) for examination on forced marriages. The bottom line was that the prosecution and Civil Party lawyers would require the first session tomorrow.
Judge Lavergne notified all parties that the Annex to the severance decisions had envisaged only dealing with purges “in a general manner.” Further, that it was mentioned in a footnote therein that to extend to the North and East Zones would require an application.
Mr. Lysak clarified that Central is part of the old North Zone, and that the victims (including purged cadres) from there went to S-21. His affirmed that his present request had nothing to do with expanding the scope of the trial.
After the break, the President delivered a ruling granting an extra session to the Prosecutors and the Civil Party Co-Lead Lawyers. He qualified that the questions must fall within the scope of Case 002/02. Any objections would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
The Co-Prosecutor was not as successful in getting his witness to divulge the names and locations of some of the living members of the group of sixty that Mr. Chim had helped to save because he did not believe that they were “bad elements.” The incident had occurred sometime after Si’s arrest in March, 1978. Pech Chim could remember that the prisoners lived in the Cheang Tomg commune. Chea, who resided next to Acha pagoda may have died. The others lived in Kabal Oh (spelling?) village. Neither did Mr. Pech know Achar Kong, the head of a hospital and a Southwest Zone member.
En route to his new posting in Kampong Cham, Pech Chim had attended a meeting in Phnom Penh chaired by Pol Pot. Ta Mok and Ke Pauk (who was in charge of relaying information to the districts and communes), were also there. Mr. Pech described it as a meeting to give orders to restructure the sectors, districts, and communes because Pol Pot, the only speaker, said there had been “betrayal in the zones.” Pol Pot wrote several bullet point instructions on a blackboard: to control the situation, to delegate the task to accomplish the goal and to not be too arrogant to work together. Summarily, the ‘betrayers,’ had escaped into the forest and they were to find them. Pol Pot did not use the word “purge.” It was a brief meeting held only to give this direction. Pech Chim did not know that one of the accused, Koy Thuon (former North Zone Secretary) had undergone torture at S-21 at the time of the meeting. Several deputies and cadres from the rubber plantation to which Pech Chim was transferred also ended up at S-21.
Mr. Koppe rose to note that, “although technically such questions were within the scope of the trial,” he was “uncomfortable” with the line of questioning as he did “not know where the Prosecutor is leading to due to being unprepared to understand what is going on.” Judge Fenz said she would “take it as an observation.” Mr. Koppe countered that then he would object to the line of questioning as being “outside of the agreement on dealing with what, when.” Mr. Lysak opined that “if (counsel) is unprepared, it his fault and his problem.” As Mr. Koppe realized, it was his client’s problem as well, so he “strongly objected to what is going on here right now.” The President had the last word. The objection was not sustained as the questions were within the scope of Case 002/02.
But it did not matter. Pech Chim had not known personally the people who had been arrested, had not known their names at the time, and could not guess at them now. All was not lost at the end of the day, however, as the witness was able to identify Chhom (who had all too often for Chim’s liking removed his deputies on the excuse that they were “betrayers”), as Ke Pauk’s “right-hand man.” He also confirmed that this was the same Chhom who had supervised the construction of the January 1st Dam.
Testimony of Pech Chim continues tomorrow at 9:00 AM. Court adjourned.