AS I STOOD before Comrade Duch, I did my best to avoid singling him out from the others. It was hard to believe this small, disarming man in front of me had been the commandant of Tuol Sleng.
Introducing himself as Hang Pin, he told me that he had originally come from Phnom Penh and had been a maths teacher. Recently, he said, he had been working in a refugee camp on the Thai border.
Although the fighting had just ended, the Khmer Rouge still controlled the area and I had no idea if Duch wielded any influence. I had no intention of confronting him there and then. In the two hours I spent at the district offices, I managed surreptitiously to take a photograph of him before he disappeared. On the way out, I asked people if Hang Pin lived nearby. He did.
Back in my home in Bangkok, I printed up the photograph in my darkroom. It was back-lit, but clear enough. Emerging from the developer was Duch in his ARC T-shirt, a coy grin on his face. Behind him was a Khmer Rouge soldier who looked directly at the camera. I compared it to the creased picture that I had carried in my pocket for so long. There was no doubt in my mind. His hairline, although greying, remained the same and his stretched lips revealed identical teeth.
Not long after, I returned to Samlaut, this time to garner more information, establish where Duch lived and, if possible, film him.
Arriving back in the district with a friend, I stopped for a drink near the district offices where I had first seen Duch. A truck full of former Khmer Rouge soldiers pulled up next to us. Then I saw Duch in a pair of shorts, barking orders while straining to carry a large jerrycan in his hands. He turned and recognised me, and smiled. He seemed pleased to see me and shook me by the hand. I asked him if he would accompany me to interview some of the returning refugees up the road. He agreed.
We walked to a newly built house and sat underneath to talk with a man in his late thirties. He too was a teacher and had come from the same refugee camp as Duch. I began asking him about conditions in the district, the problem of mines and land availability. Duch interpreted. I had now switched on my small video camera.
After some time I began to direct the questions towards the Khmer Rouge and the current political situation and placed the small camera on my knee. Duch explained that the war in Samlaut was the longest. I asked the teacher about the much vaunted trial of the Khmer Rouge, now that Ta Mok was in prison. The teacher said he was just a teacher and didn’t know about such things. As he talked, I watched Duch. He seemed distracted and gazed off into the distance. I then asked Duch if he felt that Ta Mok should be tried. He turned to me, a little startled.
‘I’m not interested in him,’ he replied dismissively. ‘I’m interested in three things: schools for the children, my stomach and God.’ A large expectant grin spread across his face. ‘I want to tell everyone about the gospel, I want to have a church here.’ He looked intently at me, awaiting my reaction.
‘I learned to be a Christian when I was a student in school. I studied philosophy, Buddhism and I studied Islam and I compared them all. I had a difficult life and decided to give my life to Christ.’ We continued talking but Duch clammed up when I tried to get him to reveal more of his background. I switched off the camera.
As we shook hands, I told Duch I would return soon. As my truck pulled away, I turned to wave to Duch, but he had already vanished. Large storm clouds were beginning to gather and gusts of red dust swept across the road ahead of us. The truck pulled out and on to the road towards the forest ahead. I hoped that the rain would let us leave since the road was almost impassable in some parts. A single downpour could wash away the track in seconds, leaving us stranded.
As we turned the corner the driver jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. ‘Duch,’ he said. ‘A very bad man.’
Back in Bangkok I called the Far Eastern Economic Review with my story. I also called Nate Thayer, the last western journalist to have interviewed Pol Pot before his death. The editors at the Review wanted me to go back and give Duch the opportunity to defend himself. Nate asked me if he could come along. Reluctant to return to Samlaut alone, and fearful of the possible repercussions when confronting Duch, I agreed.
Ta Sanh, Samlaut, April 1999: Nate and I got out of the car and, as casually as possible, sat down at a stall next to Duch’s home. The shop was a half-built shack covered with the standard blue plastic sheeting given to refugees. At the next table, a group of soldiers in Khmer Rouge uniforms sat drinking whisky. They told us that they had served under Sam Bith, a Khmer Rouge commander who had executed three foreign backpackers a few years earlier. They looked as though they had been with the Khmer Rouge all their lives. When they had satisfied their curiosity they returned to talking among themselves.
Then I heard Duch’s voice. Walking behind the shack, I found him perched on the side of his new house, chatting with a Khmer Rouge soldier. Giving me a toothy grin of recognition, Duch stood up, shook my hand and asked after my health. Behind, his pregnant niece lay on a mat in the shade, a drip attached to her arm. I waved Nate over, and introduced him to Duch. We then settled down and began asking him general questions about life in the district.
Duch seemed happy to talk. He told us of his conversion to Christianity and showed us the two laminated certificates that he had received after attending the seminars held by Pastor Lapel. The certificates applauded his ‘personal leadership development, teambuilding and deepening commitment to Jesus Christ’. ‘I am a son of God,’ he told Nate with a grin.
He went on to tell us of his life in Phkoam and the attack in which his wife had been killed. Matter-of-factly he told us what had happened, lifting his shirt to show us the scars. Beads of sweat trickled down my back and my camera became slippery in my hands. I looked around to see if anyone was watching. As far as I could see, we were alone. He told us about the accident with the AK-47 that had blown his finger off. After the attack he returned here to Samlaut where, he said, ‘I am safe.’ As head of education in the district he was now working to re-establish Samlaut’s education system. He was planning to build several schools and, one day, on the plot of land next to where we were sitting, a church. He appeared eager to tell us what he thought we would like to hear. ‘I want the ARC to come and help with disease, to coordinate healthcare here,’ he said.
Then Nate said, ‘I believe that you also worked with the security services during the Khmer Rouge period?’ Duch appeared startled and avoided our eyes. He replied that he worked with the Ministry of Education, translating children’s textbooks. Again Nate put the question to him. He shifted. He said he had been a simple teacher before 1979. He looked unsettled and his eyes darted about. He was aware we were watching him. My heart was pounding in my chest. I began to think that he wouldn’t be drawn.
I suggested to Duch that, if he wanted, he could write a letter to Dr Emmanuel of ARC, whom Duch had known in Ban Ma Muang refugee camp, and I would deliver it. Duch and the doctor had been close. That way, I would have a sample of his handwriting if he refused to talk and I could verify it with the notations from the confessions. He agreed, happy to change the subject. I pulled out a page from a notebook and, putting on his glasses, he went over to a bench to write. When he had finished the short letter he then glanced at Nate’s business card. A concentrated expression appeared on his face; and he turned slowly to me, looking directly into my eyes. ‘I believe, Nic, that your friend has interviewed Monsieur Ta Mok and Monsieur Pol Pot?’
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘That’s right.’
There was a long pause. He sat back down, the letter in his hand, and exhaled deeply. ‘It is God’s will that you are here,’ he said. ‘Now my future is in God’s hands.’
For the first time, Kaing Guek Eav, alias Comrade Duch, began to speak about his role in one of the bloodiest revolutions of the twentieth century.
‘I have done very bad things before in my life,’ he began, his voice almost inaudible. ‘Now it is time for les représailles of my actions.’ Les représailles: the consequences. At first haltingly, but with what seemed like a growing resignation at the real purpose of our visit, the former commandant of S-21 began his own confession.
‘The first half of my life I’ll remember for ever,’ he said. ‘Then I thought God was very bad, that only bad men prayed to God. My unique fault is that I didn’t serve God, I served men, I served communism.’ Assured of his audience, his eyes never met ours and we listened in silence. Later, when I looked at the photographs that I had taken of him, I realised he had never once looked into the lens. ‘I feel very sorry about the killings and the past – I wanted to be a good communist; I did not take any pleasure in my work, All the confessions of the prisoners – I worried, is that true or not?’
We presented him with copies of confessions from the prison with annotations scrawled across them. He placed his glasses back on and leafed through, studying them intently. He ran his finger over a handwritten sentence that read, ‘Use the hot method. Even if it kills him, it is OK.’
‘That is my handwriting, and this handwriting is Nuon Chea’s and this one Son Sen’s,’ he said pointing to more annotations in the margins.
He spoke directly, casually even, as though this confession were a continuation of our preliminary chat. It occurred to me that Duch had been expecting this, that the occasion had been rehearsed. I glanced around to see who might be watching and listening. The soldiers were still at their table, unaware.
Until appointed to head the Santebal, Duch was later to tell the authorities, he had never killed anybody. He was reluctant to take the position as commandant. He believed that his close friend Chhay Kim Hour was better qualified and more deserving. However, once you were given an order by the Organisation, he said, you couldn’t refuse. Then the party began its course of obsessively rooting out spies and the killing began.
There was no directive about interrogations. He knew from experience that if they were only tortured they wouldn’t say anything, he said later. He told prisoners that they would be released if they talked. It was a lie, but it worked. He said this with a smile, as if pleased by his own cunning. Duch received people from all over the country, except Ta Mok’s zone. Ta Mok didn’t bother interrogating his prisoners, Duch said contemptuously. He just killed them.
Despite Son Sen’s request that he go regularly to Choeung Ek to ensure that the killing was being carried out properly he claimed he only went once – he had no stomach for it. This wasn’t true. Several guards at the execution site recalled Duch making regular visits to watch the killing. He leaned back, confessions in hand, and stared into the distance. A mother with her toddler wandered past on the road in front of us. ‘We had instructions from the party on how to kill them, but we didn’t use bullets,’ Duch told Nate. ‘Usually we slit their throats. We killed them like chickens.’
He then told us something that had never been formally established before: the Khmer Rouge had planned the mass murder. ‘Whoever was arrested must die. It was the rule of our party,’ he said – a calculated part of realising Pol Pot’s vision and not the product of some wild savagery. The order had been issued as early as 1971 as a verbal instruction from the Higher Organisation. ‘S-21 had no right to arrest anybody. We had the responsibility to interrogate and give the confessions to the central committee of the party,’ Duch continued. All the prisoners sent to him had to be executed, without exception, Duch later told officials. ‘Even children. This was the policy, the orders. Noone could leave S-21 alive.’
He now began to name names. He established the chain of command and responsibility for the killings. ‘The first was Pol Pot, the second was Nuon Chea, the third Ta Mok.’ Pol Pot had never directly ordered the killings, Duch said, bringing his glasses down on his knee for emphasis. Nuon Chea was principally responsible, but it was the Higher Organisation that had made the decisions and issued orders. ‘I tried to understand the punishment and orders to kill,’ he said. ‘I have great difficulty in my life thinking that the people who died did nothing wrong.’ He looked at the ground for a moment, an almost wistful look in his eyes. ‘I am so sorry. The people who died were good people. There were many men who were innocent.’ His attitude contrasted sharply with the arrogance and grudging apologies offered by other former Khmer Rouge leaders. Possibly it contained genuine remorse.
It had been Duch’s idea to have the prisoners photographed on arrival. He did it to protect himself in case they escaped, making it easier to track the prisoner down. However, no-one did escape. On an earlier visit, Duch had picked up my Leica and began playing with it. ‘Very good,’ he said, ‘very expensive.’
‘My friend Bizot will be happy to know that I have changed my ideas, my ideology,’ he grinned. François Bizot was a French ethnologist who was arrested in 1971 with two Khmer assistants. He remains the only Westerner to have survived an encounter with Comrade Duch. Duch had overseen the executions of several other foreigners, including Canadians, Americans, Australians and one Briton. ‘Nuon Chea ordered that the foreigners be killed and their bodies burned, so no bones were left,’ he said. ‘Only the Europeans were burned. I remember well the Englishman. He was very polite.’
This was John Dewhurst, a 25-year-old teacher who was captured by the Khmer Rouge in 1978 in the Gulf of Thailand while on holiday. His handwritten confession survived and reads, ‘My name is John Dawson Dewhurst, a British citizen. I am a CIA agent who officially works as a teacher in Japan. I was born in Newcastle-on-Tyne on October 2nd 1952. My father was a CIA agent whose cover was headmaster of Benton Road secondary school.’ It goes on to say that he was recruited, at the age of twelve, by a friend of his father’s, who was a ‘Captain in the CIA Newcastle district’. The foreigners were held for a month, during which they were tortured with electric shocks administered by the chief interrogator, Comrade Chan. Pol Pot decided to release Bizot, explained Duch, but the two assistants were executed.
It wasn’t until his former friends and comrades began to arrive at the gates of S-21 that Duch began to suspect the method of arrest was arbitrary. First it had been Ke Kim Huot, his old teacher; then Vorn Vet, who had given him the job as commandant at M-13; then came Chhay Kim Hour, who had recommended Duch to the party in 1967. After Kim Hour’s arrival, he began to harbour real doubts. He became depressed, he said, and spent more and more time with the artists and painters. These were prisoners who had been put to work producing pictures and busts of Pol Pot.
The internal purges reached such a peak that by late 1978, the prison was full, he recalled. By then, Nuon Chea had replaced Son Sen. It was Nuon Chea who communicated with the other prisons and it was to him that Duch reported. As Nate would report, 300 Khmer Rouge soldiers were arrested and brought to S-21. When Duch asked Nuon Chea what to do with them, he was told not to bother interrogating them, just to kill them. And he did.
In 1979, when the Vietnamese took Phnom Penh, Duch had been the last Khmer Rouge to leave the city. He was later reprimanded by Nuon Chea for not destroying all the documents. He called Duch a fool. Nuon Chea had already rebuked Duch on several occasions. He believed it was a matter of time before the purges came round to him. Nuon Chea was conceited and self-important, unlike his former boss, Son Sen, with whom Duch would spend hours on the phone. Son Sen never visited S-21, said Duch, but he was impressed with Duch’s work. This too was a lie. According to Nhem Ein and other former staff Son Sen had visited regularly. Duch was protecting the memory of his former boss. It is almost certain that Son Sen had saved him from Nuon Chea’s wrath.
‘After my experience in life I decided that I must give my spirit to God,’ said Duch. He compared his life to St Paul’s. Paul, who ‘was above his brethren in intellect and influence’, had been granted permission from the high priests to hunt down and persecute Christians. Paul later repented and was baptised, becoming one of Christ’s most ardent disciples, but continued to refer to himself as ‘the chief of sinners’.
‘I think my biography is something like Paul’s,’ said Duch with a faint smile. ‘I am here. Whatever happens to me now that you have come it is God’s will.’
Suddenly, Duch lowered his voice and the atmosphere changed. ‘Does anyone know of this? That you are here? That you know who I am?’ His voice turned to a husky whisper. We replied that only we knew. ‘They will be angry if they know,’ he said. ‘You must leave now.’ Was this was a friendly caution or a threat? The situation was impossible to gauge. Even if he had, as he said, changed his ways, we were still deep in a Khmer Rouge zone more than two hours from the nearest town. Duch’s protector was in control of the area and, as far as we knew, Duch could still order people to silence us if he felt threatened.
Just at that moment, a UN LandCruiser pulled up opposite us. We decided to travel out in convoy with it. We said an abrupt goodbye and shook hands. As the car pulled away I turned to see him remove his ARC T-shirt and step into his shack.
When the story of his discovery and confession appeared in the Far Eastern Economic Review and on television, Duch disappeared. For several days there was speculation by journalists and human-rights workers about his whereabouts. Rumours spread that he had been assassinated on the orders of the leaders in ‘retirement’. Amnesty International issued a statement calling on the Cambodian government to protect him. Concerns arose about the security of UN and other workers in the area. Once again, renewed conflict seemed a distinct threat. Then I learned that Duch had given himself up to the authorities. He was flown by helicopter to Phnom Penh and to a high-security prison in the capital to be formally charged.