Khmer Rouge Duch on Trial

In 1975 the Khmer Rouge converted the Tuol Svay Prey High School of the outskirts of Phnom Penh into the murderous Tuol Sleng or S-21 prison. An estimated 17,000 prisoners were subjected to the following code of behavior.

1. You must answer accordingly to my question. Don’t turn them away.
2. Don’t try to hide the facts by making pretexts this and that, you are strictly prohibited to contest me.
3. Don’t be a fool for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution.
4. You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
5. Don’t tell me either about your immoralities or the essence of the revolution.
6. While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.
7. Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protesting.
8. Don’t make pretext about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your secret or traitor.
9. If you don’t follow all the above rules, you shall get many many lashes of electric wire.
10. If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.

Only 12 survivors exited from the three-story building at the end of Angkor's 4-year reign of terror in 1979. The architects of this massacre remained at large throughout the civil wars of the 80s and 90s. Now almost 30 years later Duch of Kaing Guek Eav the warden of S-21 will stand trial in Phnom Penh and face several of the survivors in a specially constructed courthouse.

Whenever I've been in Phnom Penh I've asked the older people what they think of the Khmer Rouge and their reply comes as a surprise to most westerners raising on the litany of 'never again' for the Nazis.

"It's over. We want peace. Nothing more." A taxi driver said waiting for two dutch tourists visiting S-21.

"What about the trials?"

"We don't understand trials. All we know is that it's over." He was old enough to have lived under the Khmer Rouge as a teenager. He spoke a little French. That linguistic skill was a death sentence under the eyes of Duch.

"Au revoir." i doubted I would see him again, but we shared a beer later that night on Quay Sisowith. He laughed with all the joy 5 Angkor beers can give a man who has lived long enough to wake up from a nightmare with his humor intact.

Duch Choi Ch'kai Anh