Witness Gives Testimony on Killing of Ethnic Vietnamese
Today, witness Y Vun gave his testimony in front of the ECCC. He testified on the killing of ethnic Vietnamese persons at Khsach Pagoda and confirmed that a young woman called Chantha was killed at this location in 1978.
Duties in the village
At the beginning of the session, Trial Chamber President Nil Nonn announced that 2-TCW-846 would be heard today. Next, Trial Chamber Greffier Em Hoy confirmed the presence of the parties, with Nuon Chea following the hearing from the holding cell. Judge Claudia Fenz was absent.
The 79 year-old Y Vun was born in Kraing Kcheay village, Samraong Commune, Sotr Nikum District, Siem Reap Province and currently lives in Yeang village, Chi Kreng District, Siem Reap Province. After informing the witness about his rights and duties, the floor was granted to Senior Assistant Prosecutor Vincent de Wilde.
Mr. Koppe asked from when onwards the witness lived in Yeang village. Mr. Vun replied that he moved there 50 years ago. Before April 1975, he did not hold an official position. Mr. de Wilde asked whether Yeang village was in fact not located in Seng Voy Commune before 1975 and not into Russsei Lork Commune. Mr. de Wilde asked whether they had not been merged beforehand. The witness replied that they were separated after the fall of the regime and that it had previously been known as Seng Voy commune. He worked in the rice fields.
Mr. de Wilde asked to clarify what he had meant in his interview when saying that he was a member of the village.[1] He replied that he was a member of the village committee. Later, he was appointed to be a traditional healer. He was a member of this committee for one year before being evacuated from the village. Mr. de Wilde asked whether he was the traditional village in Yeang Village, which he confirmed. He exercised this duty until 1979. He was also assigned to work on rice fields between 1976 and 1979.
He was around 300 meters away from Khsach pagoda. It was used to store rice. The temple was removed and one of the monk residencies was used to store rice. No one lived in the pagoda at the time. He saw a few militiamen stay in the pagoda, but sometimes he did not see any.
Mr. de Wilde then inquired whether Mr. Vun was close to the village or cooperative chief in his function as a village committee member or the traditional healer, which the witness denied. Mr. de Wilde asked whether he could remember the name. The witness replied that the village chief who exercised his function from 1976 to 1979 was called Soy. Since there were frequent replacements of commune chiefs, he could not remember all names. Neither could he remember the Chi Kreng chief. He could not remember which sector the village belonged to.
Chantha’s family and killings at Wat Khsach
Mr. de Wilde then asked whether Mr. Vun knew a young woman called Chantha, which the witness confirmed. She worked in a mobile unit. Her grandfather was called Ta Khut, and her grandmother was called Yeay Hay. Mr. de Wilde said that other people called her Yeay Ma and asked whether this refreshed his memory. The witness insisted that her name was Yeay Hay. Yeay Hay was ethnic Vietnamese, while Chantha was the adopted child of Yeay Hay. Her father was called Hoeuy, and Yeay Hay adopted her. He did not know about what happened to Chantha’s parents. “Those people were collected and taken away.” Her grandmother spoke Vietnamese. She also wore Vietnamese clothes. Everyone knew that they were a Vietnamese family.
Mr. de Wilde asked whether she knew a female villager called Korn Khun, which he denied. Mr. de Wilde said that her husband was called Chum and asked whether that rang a bell. He replied that he knew someone called Loy Khun and Seah Chum. They were married. Loy Khun was ethnic Khmer. “They had about eight or nine children.” Mr. de Wilde asked whether the Chum had brother called Hong and Kea. Mr. Vun confirmed this and Hong was female, while Kea was male and they were children of Chum. The mother was Vietnamese, while the father was ethnic Chinese. She had one child. He could not remember her husband’s name, it might have been Chhay.
Mr. de Wilde referred to Lorn Khun’s statement, in which she had said that her husband was called Chum. She had stated that Kea, Hong and her husband Chay and Hong’s three children were there, as well as her mother-in-law Nhav. According to this interview, they had all been executed. Hong had three children. [2] He could not remember whether Hong had one or three children. Sea Chum only spoke Chinese.
Mr. de Wilde inquired whether the members were allowed to speak Vietnamese and keep their traditions, or whether they had to “behave like Khmer people.” He replied that they worked like Khmer people and sold Khmer noodles. During the Khmer Rouge regime, “they secretly conducted the [traditional Vietnamese] rituals.” In Yeang Village, there were only two Vietnamese families.
Mr. de Wilde inquired whether she had ever heard about a deportation of Vietnamese people in Chi Kreng District, which he denied. Mr. de Wilde then asked whether lists of Vietnamese people were drawn by village chiefs, and in particular by the village chief of Yeang Village, which he also denied. However, he heard about such a list in 1975. Mr. de Wilde referred to the witness’s statement: He had answered that the nationality of those people who were killed were Vietnamese.[3] The Vietnamese chairman had a list.
A little bit later, he had said that there had been orders from the upper level.[4] He did not know who drew the lists.
Mr. de Wilde then inquired whether he had shown Wat Khsach to the OCIJ investigators, which the witness confirmed. This document also indicated that he had said that the village chief had received orders from the higher echelon to draw up lists of Vietnamese people, who were subsequently killed.[5]
Mr. Koppe objected to the way the question was phrased, since the question made it seem like there were two sources for this one statement, which was not the case.
Mr. de Wilde rephrased and asked whether the witness had told the investigators that lists were drawn, which Mr. Vun could not remember.
Mr. de Wilde asked whether he had attended meetings, which Mr. Vun denied. He then asked whether there were other important buildings at the pagoda. The witness replied that other things in the temple were also removed. Mr. de Wilde asked whether there was a separate building called the Library of Holy Books. Mr. Vun answered that the library hall was used to store rice, as was the study hall. The study hall was around ten meters long and six meters wide. It was the same building as the library hall.
Mr. de Wilde asked whether it was possible to see this building through the fence at the east side, which Mr. Vun confirmed. The fence was wooden. Now, however, it is made of concrete material.
Mr. de Wilde inquired whether the witness could tell the Court what happened at the pagoda in 1978 and whether executions took place. The witness replied that there were executions of ethnic Vietnamese in 1978, including Ta Khut. Ta Khut and Yeay Hay were executed at Tamban Andaung Nuon in Chork Village, but Chantha was executed at Khsach Pagoda.
The executions at Khsach pagoda took place around a month before the Vietnamese troops arrived. Ta Khut was killed later.
In his interview, Mr. Vun had stated that it occurred five months before the arrival of the Vietnamese.[6] The witness replied that he could not remember clearly. It happened when the harvesting season ended. Mr. de Wilde asked why Vietnamese people were assembled at the Khsach pagoda, which he did not know. Mr. de Wilde then asked whether he had never heard anyone say that the Vietnamese were the “enemies of the revolution.” Mr. Koppe objected, since saying that the Vietnamese as such were the enemy was without a source. Mr. de Wilde repeated the question. Mr. Vun replied that he did not hear this. Mr. de Wilde then asked about the families of Vietnamese origins that were assembled and brought to the pagoda and wanted to know what they were told as a reason. Mr. Vun said that only selected people were called. A group of village chiefs made a selection of people. They were told to attend a study session while in fact being taken to Khsach Pagoda. Mr. de Wilde asked who the people were who were selected and who were not. Mr. Vun replied that he did not know about the selection process. Mr. de Wilde inquired whether there were other families from Yeang Village that were led to the Khsach Pagoda for execution. He replied that there were only two families who were brought there: Chun’s family and Chantha’s family.
Mr. de Wilde asked whether the witness saw the people pass by on their way to the pagoda. He replied that he did not witness them being walked to the pagoda. He did not know what would happen to the people at the pagoda. There were also other people who were brought in from Kuol Kraum and other areas. Amongst them who were brought in, “one was alive.” When being asked about her origin, she had said that she was Chinese.
At this point, the President adjourned the hearing for a break.
Ethnic minorities
After the break, Mr. de Wilde asked for clarification regarding Chantha’s grandmother. He asked whether Yeay Hay was her name or whether it corresponded to the way people address elderly people in Vietnam. He replied that this was how she was addressed, including by her husband.
Mr. de Wilde referred to the surviving person Mr. Vun had mentioned in his Written Record of Interview and had mentioned her name: Yeay Lang.[7] Mr. Vun replied that he remembered now and that this was indeed her name. He confirmed that only two people survived: Khun and Lang. He did not talk to them afterwards. After the regime, she went to live in Battambang before passing away. He met only her child. Mr. de Wilde asked whether Lang was fair-skinned and whether she spoke Khmer with an accent. He replied that she spoke Khmer without any accent. She had white skin similar to ethnic Chinese.
Mr. Koppe objected and said that making the distinction between fair-skinned as not being Khmer and dark-skinned as Khmer was not appropriate. Mr. de Wilde said that in the 1970s, no products were available to make the skin whiter.
Turning to the gathering of the people, Mr. de Wilde asked whether the witness saw it. Mr. Vun replied that he witnessed it from a distance. “Once in a while, there was one brought in. After a while, there were many in the pagoda, but I could not tell how many.” When Mr. de Wilde asked how many people were in the pagoda, Mr. Koppe objected and said that this was asking for pure speculation. The objection was overruled. He estimated that there were around ten or twenty people there.
Mr. de Wilde asked whether the witness was home at the night of the execution and what he heard. He replied that he heard voices from the pagoda. He did not stay in his house. He stayed next to a coconut tree and “tried to listen to the sound.” He further recounted that “they shouted very clearly.” Mr. de Wilde asked whether he heard the victims being hit, which the witness denied.
Mr. de Wilde referred to the witness’s interview, during which he had said that he “heard the sounds of the striking of people.”[8] Mr. de Wilde wanted to know whether she only heard the cries or also the strike-sounds. Mr. Vun replied that he only heard the cries.
Mr.de Wilde inquired whether the witness “understood right away” what was happening when he heard the cries, which the witness confirmed. The cries were so loud that he thought they were executed. He did not hear “any request for life.” He listened to the cries until the end. “I could not sleep well.” The executions lasted about two hours.
Mr. de Wilde then wanted to know whether Mr. Vun learned if Hong’s children were also killed. Mr. Vun replied that “all of them were killed at Wat Khsach.”
Mr. de Wilde then asked whether there were people of Vietnamese people left in the village and his area, aside from Ta Khut and Yeay Nay. Mr. Koppe objected and said that the witness had not seen the executions or them being led to the pagoda. He considered this was a leading question. Mr. de Wilde responded that he had based his question on the testimony of the witness. The objection was overruled. The witness replied that he did not know about the people in other villages.
Mr. de Wilde asked whether he learned how children were executed at the pagoda, to which the witness replied that they were all killed. He did not know why the infants were also killed. “I did not know what the reason was behind their executions.” He did not dare to go to the place of the execution the next day. He went there three days later. He saw clothes spread in the area. “The people in the pagoda disappeared.” The executioners were not in the pagoda anymore either. Mr. de Wilde asked whether it was correct that Mr. Vun never saw the executioners, which Mr. Vun confirmed. He saw a bamboo club that was around a meter long and that had blood stains on it. The pit was around four square meters. There was a well in it and it was covered with soil. Asked for clarification, he said it could be around five meters by ten meters. There was also a well in the pit that was around three meters deep. The well was located in the middle of the pit. It was located to the east – a little bit to the south – of the pagoda.
Mr. de Wilde asked leave to show a photograph, which was granted.[9] One showed a pit from which several bones had been uncovered, while photo number 10 showed a person. He asked whether the witness recognized the location and himself on the photo, which the witness confirmed.
Mr. de Wilde further asked how he knew that there were bodies in the well. He replied that the pit was not covered well. He could see elbow bones. Some bones were also discovered by dogs.
Turning to his last line of questioning, Mr. de Wilde asked whether he heard if Vietnamese people were executed at other execution sites. He replied that he did not know about any other execution sites.
Mr. de Wilde then inquired how he knew about the execution of Ta Khut and Yeay Hay at Chork village. He replied that the villagers had told him that they were killed. Ta Khut’s execution happened in the same year of the arrival of the Vietnamese troops. He confirmed that he meant 1979.
With this, Mr. de Wilde finished his line of questioning.
Civil Party Lead Co-Lawyer Marie Guiraud took the floor. She asked him to explain what list he had heard of in 1975 in reference to persons of Vietnamese origin. He replied that he did not know what the list was. It was prepared by the commune committee. They did not only register the Vietnamese people, but also the Khmer people. He confirmed that it was a list of all villagers. Statistics were collected, including about social classes of the people. The list was drawn up by the commune committee and moved down to the level of the village. He did not hear them asking about the ethnicity. He heard about langtay, which was a family record card. He himself did not have a langtay. This document was for people of Vietnamese origin. It was used already before the Khmer Rouge regime. It had a black cover and was required to be taken with them all the time. When the Vietnamese enter the country, they were required to obtain a langtay before they were allowed to live there. He did not hear that cadres in his area searching for Vietnamese.
Ms. Guiraud turned to her last line of questioning and inquired whether a military unit was based in his village, which he denied. Ms. Guiraud said that a witness had testified that a military unit was stationed at Khsach pagoda. He replied that he “knew nothing” about this information. With this, Marie Guiraud concluded her questioning.
A longstanding fear of the Vietnamese?
After the lunch break, the floor was given to the Defense Counsel for Nuon Chea. International counsel Victor Koppe asked whether it was correct that he became a traditional doctor in 1975, which the witness confirmed. Mr. Koppe asked why this was the case. He replied that the villagers trusted him, since he knew many tree roots that could be made into medicine. He had not gone to school. He had studied maternity and how to treat some illnesses. “Some of the illnesses can be healed, while others cannot.” Mr. Koppe asked how old the witness was in 1970 when Lon Nol took power. Mr. Vun could not remember. He confirmed that he must have been around forty years old. He remembered the coup d’état very well.
Asked about the treatment of the Vietnamese at the time, Mr. Vun replied that Khmer people chased the Vietnamese people out of the country. He had not heard about the mass executions of Vietnamese people by Lon Nol officials – normal people killed. He confirmed Mr. Koppe’s follow-up question whether Vietnamese people were killed by ordinary people. It also happened in his area.
Mr. Koppe confronted the witness with a few excerpts of two academics and one journalist. First, he read out an excerpt of a book by David Chandler.[10] Chandler had talked about thousands of Vietnamese people being killed and wounded in the few weeks after the coup d’état of Lon Nol. Mr. Vun had not heard about this. Second, Mr. Koppe referred to Elizabeth Becker, who had talked about a massacre of 800 Vietnamese laborers and mass detention and mistreatment not only of the Vietnamese, but also of the Chinese.[11] Mr. Koppe asked whether he had ever heard about a comparison between the Chinese fate during Lon Nol and the Chinese in Indonesia, which Mr. Vun had not. Third, he referred to the scholar William Schawcross (Sideshow), who had mentioned the “Khmer traditional fear of the Vietnamese”. [12] When Mr. Koppe asked whether this sounded familiar, Mr. de Wilde interjected and stated that he could not see the document on the interface. Moreover, he argued, this lay beyond the grasp of the witness’s knowledge. The witness replied that there was a fear that the Vietnamese people would take “our land.” If the Vietnamese people came to live in Cambodia during Lon Nol regime, they had to pay for their langtay. If they did not do so, they would be arrested.
Mr. Koppe turned to his last question by turning back to the question asked by the Co-Prosecution of whether Khmer people had a different complexion than Khmer people.
Mr. Koppe referred to another excerpt of Elizabeth Becker’s book, in which she had submitted, according to Mr. Koppe, that it was impossible to determine the origin of a person by the complexion of the skin.[13] Mr. Koppe asked whether the witness would agree with that. Ms. Guiraud interjected and said that the author had not mentioned the skin color. The witness replied that the Chinese and Vietnamese practiced their traditional rituals and that they were identified through this.
Mr. Koppe then asked about his statement that “they forbid people” to walk nearby the pagoda. Mr. Koppe asked who “they” were. Mr. de Wilde interjected and stated that open questions should be asked. Mr. Koppe rephrased the question. Mr. Sun replied that the commune chief and the people who worked for him forbid people to go to the pagoda. Mr. Koppe asked whether the commune chief had people patrolling around the pagoda to ensure that no one came too close to the pagoda, which the witness confirmed. His house was close to the pagoda, so he sometimes met them. They patrolled every day. Mr. Koppe asked how it was possible that he was close to the pagoda three days after the events and whether he was not stopped by the guards. He replied that at this time there were no guards. The village chief was Soy. The commune chief made the orders. He did not see commune chiefs communicating with district chiefs.
This prompted Mr. Koppe to ask about what he meant that “he received the orders from the upper echelon.” He replied that he heard that the order was received by the upper echelon. He heard this from other villagers.
Mr. Koppe inquired about Soy. Mr. Vun replied that he was from Yeang village. He answered Mr. Koppe’s question whether he had heard someone saying that Soy disliked the Vietnamese in the negative.
Mr. Koppe then turned to Chantha. Mr. Vun recounted that he sometimes saw her at work. He saw her when she was called for a study-session. Yeay Thin called her to the study session. In Chi Keng district, one of the female cadres – Kao Krang – was killed in relation with an uprising. He did not know why this happened. “I did not know what this was, this uprising.” He did not hear anything about her relationship with the village chief.
Judge Lavergne asked whether Mr. Koppe had any documents relating to the uprisings he had mentioned. Mr. Koppe replied that there was a rogatory report by the OCIJ.
The Khieu Samphan Defense Counsel did not have any questions for the witness.
The President thanked the witness and dismissed him. Mr. Koppe stood up, gave the references that Judge Lavergne had requested[14] and said that he had requested to make oral submissions regarding a document. These will be heard tomorrow. The President adjourned the hearing at around 2 pm. It will continue with the testimony of 2-TCW-1000 tomorrow, December 16, at 9 am.
[1] E3/7685, on page 2 in all languages. [2] E3/7686, on page 3 in all languages. [3] E3/7685, on page 2 in all languages. [4] Page 3 in French, page 4 in English and Khmer. [5] E3/8049, on page 6 in French, page 5 in English and Khmer. [6] E3/7685, on page 3 in all languages. [7] E3/7685, on page 3 in French, 3 in English, 3-4 in Khmer. [8] E3/7865, at page 3 . Free translation by the interpreter. [9] E3/8049, on pages 10 and 11 in all three languages. [10] E3/1686, at 00422834 (EN), 00679167 (KH), French not available. [11] E3/20, at 00237830 (EN), 00638397 (FR) 00232166 (KH). [12] E3/88. [13] E3/20, at 00232167 (KH), 00638398 (FR), 00237831 (EN). [14] E3/8327, at 00233308 (EN), 00242029 (FR) 00224683 (KH).
Featured Image: Witness Y Vun (ECCC: Flickr).