Story here. Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch.
He’ll serve only 19 years more though, as he’s already served 11 and had five more lopped off the sentence. But I’ll tell ya, 19 years in a Cambodian prison is probably equal to 100 in the West. Still getting off easy; this guy should be left there to rot. A Cambodian prison is exactly where I would want to stick every enemy I’ve ever had.
Just a note: There’s a good analysis that came out on Sunday, the day before the verdict was handed down. See it here.
The wife and I have visited Duch’s old S21 prison in Phnom Penh. A museum now. Most people don’t know beforehand that prior to being a prison, it was a high school, and it still looks like one. The typical neighborhood setting it’s in the middle of makes it all the more eery.
I don’t quiet get the sentence. If you are responsible for 16,000 deaths then the only answer that makes sense is either the death penalty* or life in prison.
Slee
*I understand the reluctance some have regarding the death penalty. I think that it should only be used in cases where there is no doubt about guilt and the crimes have to be pretty awful for me to support it. But if anyone ever deserved it, it is this guy.
Well, a Cambodian prison today is probably Club Med compared to the prisons that guy used to run. That’s what makes me feel ill about the whole thing.
Which is, of course, nothing compared to how sick it makes me to look at the date on today’s calendar and do some math. Seriously, 2010?
I agree he should get life. I’m normally okay with the death penalty, but he should be allowed to sample every hospitality of prison life in Cambodia. True, it’s not quite on a scale now as under his former bosses, but their jails are still probably among the harshest in the world. Hopefully, the prosecutors are preparing to appeal for a harsher sentence.
Was there a good few years ago. Blood was still on some of the wall. The pictures and recreations of the torture tools, waterboarding, racks etc. Followed by a trip out to the Killing fields and the ossuary which has multiple levels based on the age of the victims. Very sobering day.
Fucker is getting off easy.
Just hope he remembers his own rules:
[ol]
[li]You must answer accordingly to my questions. Don’t turn them away.[/li][li]Don’t try to hide the facts by making pretexts this and that. You are strictly PROHIBITED to contest me.[/li][li]Don’t be a fool for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution.[/li][li]You must answer my questions immediately without wasting time to reflect.[/li][li]Don’t tell me either about your immoralities or the essence of the revolution.[/li][li]While gettings lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.[/li][li]When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protesting.[/li][li]Don’t make pretext about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your secret or traitor.[/li][li]If you don’t follow all the above rules, you shall get many lashes of electric wire.[/li][li]If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall either get ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.[/li][/ol]
…especially #6.
I think rule #10 reveals him as a humanitarian, because the offender could have received both lashes AND shocks.
I’ve been to Auschwitz and somehow what I saw at S21 when we visited there seemed somehow worse. In that I could kind of understand how the Nazis justified it to themselves (and how much they managed to insulate themselves from the actual killing). I just can’t fathom how what went on at S21 and the mass killings throughout Cambodia happened, how people could do that to each other. Really chilling. Sad that he’s only getting a ‘light’ sentence, but at least he’s been tried. From what I’ve read many of those high up at the time are still in positions of authority today.
Well, it’s been reduced to 19 years. Torture is apparently still a crime with the UN, but not so serious as to require 35 years for torturing and executing 14,000 people.
No, 35 years is miles better. That’ll give him the hope that he might one day be out again, and killing him would be too merciful.
Better still, 19 years! Now he really thinks he’s got a chance of freedom one day, with good behaviour.
I went to Cambodia in 2005 coming from Thailand and going to Vietnam.
I and my driver did the tour backwards. I went to the “Killing Fields” first and then the S-21 Prison.
The Killing Field is just a plot of farmland outside of Phnom Penh. So many people were murdered here that there are bits of bones laying on the ground like twigs. Literally. The government built a 100 foot stupa in the middle of the park filled with human skulls. You can (and I did) opened the glass case and picked a skull up and looked at it.
The high school turned into a prison was a nightmare too. The Khmer Rouge hired brainwashed kids to do the torturing in the camp, and that the camp processed and murdered most anybody, including innocent women and children. There are mugshots of kids kindergarten age and younger. It was so sad.
The people that they targeted was anyone with any connection to a foreign country. if you were a foreigner, you were dead. (there was a picture of an Australian who was killed in the Killing Field, there were also some other foreigners who were caught by their navy and executed also.) People with an education were targeted. People with glasses were killed because they thought they were intellectual. I think it just devolved into someone being taken in that prison because somebody’s friend of a friend of a friend was a member of the old government.
Personally, I think the idea was just to cause a genocide of all the people except for a select group of adolescents who they could brainwash into their thinking. The government also let it be known that your life isn’t worth anything to them and that it can be easily taken from them.
There are landmines all over Cambodia, and it is easy to find someone without a limb begging on the street because they are useless for farm or other work. These landmines, and thus the Khmer Rouge are still killing people in the 21st Century.
Cambodia reminds me of an adult who was horribly beaten and mistreated as a child, and that there is a trauma that cannot be escaped. I once saw a news story recently of perverts going to Cambodia to have sex with children, as in 6 year old kids. They had an undercover camera and when all those babies ran out to greet, it made me so, so sad.
I am happy I went to Cambodia, but I was ready to get out. Phnom Penh was a creepy place and I did not 100% feel safe there. When I got to Vietnam, it was like returning to civilization.
As a side note, Duch is Chinese/Cambodian. He’s not ethnic Khmer.
I believe his Chinese name was Hang Pin.
There’s a virtual tour of the prison here. (Click the arrow on the left to continue.)
Very similar to the rules at my Catholic grade school.
The “people with glasses” meme sounds so obviously avoidable once the rumour started spreading, that it sounds like an Urban Legend.
It’s true, though. And it’s not like you can just take them off. At least, that would not work for me, as I’m completely blind without mine and would be caught very soon.
So, they weren’t just looking for people wearing glasses, they were checking for people who didn’t have 20-20 vision?
If I took off my glasses, I’m sure that within a week no one I know would remember I ever wore them :rolleyes:
The sentence, on paper, is grossly insufficient, no question. He should have gotten life, or multiple life sentences if not death. I note that he is 67 years old, however, which means he will be 86 when the sentence expires. I think that makes it extremely likely he will die in prison anyway. I can’t imagine the conditions in a Cambodian prison are very good for octogenerians.
There are also millions of people in Cambodia who hate him, and thousands who have reason to hate him for very personal reasons. He could very well end up getting shanked in prison.
Even if he outlives his sentence and gets out, I think his life expectancy on the streets would not be very long.
I’m not sure you understand the nature of the regime. No checking was required. The slightest suspicion on the part of any low-level functionary and you were killed. Period. That includes friends and relatives ratting you out in a bid (usually unsuccessful) to save their own skin. And that’s no Urban Legend.
If you’ve seen The Killing Fields or are otherwise familiar with the story of Dith Pran, then you’ll know some people did manage to hide their backgrounds. Most did not. That is one reason Cambodia remains such a mess today, its educated, professional class was largely wiped out. Fortunately, progress is being made, albeit slowly.
