Yum Keun remembers when Duch, chief warden of the Khmer Rouge’s infamous S-21 interrogation centre, drove through her commune. “He was so powerful that we were afraid to look at his face,” says Keun, a 69-year-old woman who lives in the area where Duch grew up. “We were afraid that if he saw us looking at him we would be killed.”

By Chris Tenove, Stoeng District, Kompong Thom Province, Cambodia (*)

The tables have turned. On Monday evening last week, Keun prepared to travel to Phnom Penh to get a close look at Duch, who is now on trial before a tribunal jointly created by the Cambodian government and the United Nations. The Duch trial is discussed on radio programs and plays live on television sets. But many Cambodians have decided that they want to see the courtroom – and the infamous defendant – in person.

Since the trial began in February more than 20 000 people have visited the tribunal, formally know as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). The impression made on these visitors, and the observations they bring back to their communities, will play a critical role in determining the ECCC’s legacy.

On the eve of her visit, Keun has mixed feelings about the trial. Like many elderly women in rural areas, she has shaved her head and now devotes her time to the local pagoda. The spiritual path of Buddhism is one of equanimity and letting go of the world, rather than a desire for revenge and retribution. But worldly justice also has its appeal for Keun. Many of her friends died under the Khmer Rouge regime between 1975 and 1979. Thirty years later she still trembles when she sees a police officer or a local authority, remembering how officials regularly took people away to be killed.

“I’m not sure whether to trust the justice of the tribunal,” she says as she absently twists a ring on her finger. “But I want to go to the trial to see what an evil person looks like. I want to see his real face.”
At three a.m. the next morning, eight buses from the ECCC arrive to pick up 350 residents from Stoeng District. Keun and others arrive on motorcycles and wooden carts pulled by tawny cows. They carry plastic bags of food for the long journey: four hours to Phnom Penh, a full day at the tribunal, then home again.
Prak Mali, a 46-year-old farmer, sits on his haunches beside an idling bus. He wears a black cap and a white-collared shirt, and he has a good-humored expression despite the early hour. “I’m excited to go to Phnom Penh,” he admits with an impish smile.

Mali believes that one of his uncles was arrested in Phnom Penh by the Khmer Rouge and taken to S-21. If so, his uncle would have been one of the over 12,000 people estimated to have been executed at S-21 while Duch was in command. Like Keun, Mali is surprised at the turn of events that will allow him to see Duch in person.

“I never expected there would be a court to try the Khmer Rouge,” he says before climbing onto a waiting bus.
 

Justice or Re-Traumatization?

Surveys in Cambodia have found a strong desire for trials of Khmer Rouge leaders, but there are also mixed feelings towards the ECCC’s. In its three years of operation, the tribunal has been dogged by allegations of corruption among Cambodian staff and of undue influence exerted by Prime Minister Hun Sen and his ruling party.

Many Cambodians are also frustrated at how long it has taken for justice to come. Several notorious Khmer Rouge leaders have died of old age, including the supreme leader Pol Pot. The ECCC has detained four of the remaining senior leaders, including second-in-command Nuon Chea. But their trials won’t begin until late 2010 at the earliest, and any of the elderly detainees could die of natural causes before a verdict is reached.

A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association raised another concern. In a survey of over 1000 Cambodians conducted in 2006 and 2007, the team led by Jeffrey Sonis of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, found high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as mental and physical disability. They also found that among older people who knew about the tribunal, over 90% thought that trials would bring up painful memories. The authors conclude: “The crucial question is whether the [Khmer Rouge] trials will reduce symptoms of PTSD by increasing feelings of justice, or increase PTSD symptoms by reviving traumatic memories of survivors without providing an opportunity to process and reframe those memories.”

The emotional and psychological scars left by the Khmer Rouge regime were at the heart of the Duch trial on the day that Yum Keun attended. Dr. Chhim Sotheara, director of Cambodia’s Transcultural Psycho-social Organisation, was on the stand as an expert witness. He described the nightmares, depression, alcohol abuse, and social dislocation suffered by people who lived through that era. The trial could trigger traumatic memories in victims of the Khmer Rouge, Dr Sotheara cautioned, but it could also cause people to acknowledge and work on their mental problems. “The tribunal can help them face their trauma and focus on its treatment,” he said.

Conflicted Feelings

Duch sat silent throughout this testimony. In the viewing gallery, separated from the courtroom by a wall of glass, the Keun and the other villagers from Stoeng watched him. The former mathematics teacher, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, had neatly cut, salt-and-pepper hair, and he wore a white, short-sleeve shirt. He studiously took notes throughout the testimony. After Dr. Sotheara was finished, Duch rose to thank him for his “scientific” and “unbiased” research.

“The consequences of crimes against humanity are extensive and long-lasting,” he intoned, sounding very much the schoolteacher. “I personally am responsible for crimes committed at S-21…I accept it legally and psychologically.”

Before the trial adjourned for lunch, Duch acknowledged the presence of residents of his native district in the viewing gallery.

Outside the courthouse, Keun sat at a plastic table with friends from her village. They ate the rice, fried vegetables and fish sauce they had brought from home, and they discussed the trial. Keun admitted that she, too, endured the nightmares, anxiety, and other symptoms that Dr. Sothera had described.

“I suffer every day!” exclaimed her friend Piya Ly Kim, 76, who lost three sons and a daughter-in-law during the Khmer Rouge regime. “One son spent many years studying so that he could be a teacher. Because he was an educated person, the Khmer Rouge killed him. I can never stop thinking about this. He was killed for no reason!”

Keun confessed that she had conflicted feelings about Duch’s own guilt. “Duch always feels like he did a terrible thing and he explains what he did was not what he wanted to do,” she said.

“Bigger people were standing on him,” Ly Kim agreed. “So yes, I feel pity for him.”

Then she reversed herself. “I don’t care about his apologies, that does not return my sons to me. I want him to answer to the law.”

The two friends packed up their lunch and, arm-in-arm, returned to the courtroom to watch the trial continue.

(*) Chris Tenove is a doctoral student at the University of British Columbia and a Scholar with the Trudeau
Foundation.