Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights Bert B. Lockwood, Jr., Series Editor. A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.

Transcription

1

2 Genocide in Cambodia

3 Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights Bert B. Lockwood, Jr., Series Editor A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.

4 Genocide in Cambodia Documents from the Trial of Pol Pot and leng Sary Edited by HOWARD J. DE NIKE, JOHN QUIGLEY: and KENNETH J. ROBINSON with the assistance of HELEN JARVIS and NEREIDA CROSS PENN University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia

5 Copyright 2000 University ofpennsylvania Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States ofamerica on acid-free paper Published by University ofpennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Library ofcongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pol Pot. Genocide in Cambodia: documents from the trial ofpol Pot and Ieng Sary / edited by Howard]. De Nike,John Quigley, and Kenneth]. Robinson, with the assistance ofhelen Jarvis and Nereida Cross. p. cm. - (Pennsylvania studies in human rights) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN (alk. paper) 1. Pol Pot-Trials, litigation, etc. 2. Ieng Sary-Trials, litigation, etc. 3. Trials (Genocide) - Cambodia. I. Ieng Sary. II. De Nike, Howard]. III. Quigley,John B. IV Robinson, Kenneth]. (KennethJay). V. Cambodia. Tribunal populaire revolutionnaire. VI. Title. VII. Series. KNM41.P65 P '0251- dc

6 Contents Editors' Note: The Documents ofthe People's Revolutionary Tribunal A Personal View ofthe Documents ofthe People's Revolutionary Tribunal HelenJarvis Introduction John Quigley Reflections ofa Legal Anthropologist on the Trial of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary Howard] De Nike vii Xl Documents List ofdocuments Part I. Procedural documents Part II. Documents ofthe Investigation *Identification Documents ofthe Accused Witness Statements Religious Issues *Issues ofthe Workers oftuol Kauk Military Issues Issues ofordinary Citizens Statements offormer Agents ofpol Pot and Ieng Sary Reports offield Investigations Crocodile Pit Crematories in Siem Reap Province Common Graves in Siem Reap Province

7 vi Contents Common Graves in Sre Seam Village, Chiro 2 Subdistrict Common Graves at Chup Rubber Plantation Common Graves in Kompong Speu Province Investigation at Wat Champuh Kaek Reports on Various Aspects ofsocial Life Excerpts from Captured Documents Excerpts from Published Accounts Part III. Indictment andjudgment Indictment Closing Statements Judgment Sources for Additional Information Acknowledgments Index *Missing Documents

8 Editors' Note: The Documents of the Peoples Revolutionary Tribunal The documents in this volume are those of the People's Revolutionary Tribunal, which was constituted in Cambodia in 1979, in connection with the trial for genocide in August of that year of Pol Pot and leng Sary. The documents, which are of three types, are divided into three parts. Part I consists of documents relating to the establishment of the tribunal. These include governmental decrees setting the tribunal's jurisdiction and appointing the presidingjudge and thejury. They also include decrees of the presidingjudge and the prosecuting attorney involved in bringing the case to trial. Finally, they include lists of participants: witnesses, invited foreign lawyers, and invited foreign journalists. Part II, the bulk of the volume, consists of the documents produced during the investigation into the alleged offenses. These documents formed the basis for conducting a trial. They are the evidence gathered by investigators, which falls into five categories: Statements ofwitnesses, relating their knowledge ofacts that might show genocide by Pol Pot and leng Sary. The acts described are principally killings, and the creation of conditions that led to deaths, such as the forced evacuation of cities and forced residence in rural communes with minimal rations and health care. Reports by government investigators of field investigations they carried out at alleged mass grave sites. Reports commissioned by government investigators and written by experts in particular fields of endeavor, with regard to the impact of the actions of Pol Pot and leng Sary on various aspects of life in Cambodia. The point of these reports was to generalize from the evidence ofparticular acts to give an overall view of the killings, to show how many people perished overall in certain locations, and to show the adverse impact ofkhmer Rouge practices on social relations.

9 viii Editors' Note Excerpts from Khmer Rouge documents tending to show that the practices that resulted in deaths were centrally directed. Accounts from the foreign press, and several locally written, describing atrocities ofthe Khmer Rouge. Part III consists of documents relating to the trial stage. First is the prosecutor's indictment, which sums up the evidence contained in Part II. Next are the speeches at the conclusion of trial by the prosecutor and defense attorneys, as well as by the invited foreign lawyers. Then comes the court's written decision, finding Pol Pot and Ieng Sary guilty and sentencing them to death. The documents are presented in an order devised by the People's RevolutionaryTribunal, which assigned a number to each document. The numbering system groups documents of a particular category. The headings that appear for the categories are taken from a table ofcontents produced at the time ofthe trial, but not given a document number. Some obvious errors were made by tribunal staff in assigning numbers to documents. Some documents had no number. In a few instances the same number appeared on more than one document. In other instances, the document number was not consistent among the three languages in which the document was issued. Some documents bore numbers that would have assigned the document to what was obviously an incorrect category. In instances ofapparent error, the editors have used a number that they surmise was intended for the particular document. The documentation as reflected in this volume bespeaks a proceeding that differs from the style ofcriminal proceedings in common law countries. It is rather in the civil law tradition as found on the European continent, a fact that is not surprising since the legal system in Cambodia is based on that offrance, which ruled Cambodia as a colony until World War II. In the civil law system, the investigation is documented meticulously in writing. These documents provide a basis for a decision either to drop the case or to take it to trial. These documents are also presented to the court prior to the trial. The court hears evidence at the trial and bases its decision on that evidence. However, the pretrial documents provide the court an indication ofthe evidence and thereby serve as a base ofevidence that the trial court may either confirm or reject after hearing the evidence presented at trial. In the civil law system ofprocedure, the pretrial phase is more significant in the overall fact-finding in relation to the trial phase, as compared with the common law system. Another feature of the documents that reflects the civil law tradition is the detailed nature of the indictment and thejudgment (Document 3.01). Whereas in common law countries an indictment is typically sparse, an indictment in civil law countries typically recites the evidence gathered during the pretrial investigation. Whereas in common law countries a verdict is typically a statement of"guilty" or "not guilty" from thejudge orjury,

10 Editors' Note ix in civil law countries the judgment, which includes both a verdict, and, in case of guilt, a sentence, is a detailed document reciting the evidence that led the court to its conclusion. Still another feature that is typical of Civil Law proceedings is the inclusion of a claim by victims for compensation (Document 3.03d). In civil law jurisdictions, a crime victim may make a claim, typically for monetary compensation, that is heard as part ofthe criminal case, and the court, ifit finds the defendant guilty, also decides if the victim should be compensated by the defendant. The victims are called "civil plaintiffs," meaning that they are plaintiffs in a civil action against the accused. One other feature typical of civil law jurisdictions is a mixed decisionmaking panel, that is, one made up of both professionals and nonprofessionals. The panel that tried Pol Pot and Ieng Sary consisted ofone individual characterized as "judge," and ten others, characterized as "assessors" (Document 1.08). This reflects a way of bringing lay persons into judicial decision making in criminal cases different from that found in common law jurisdictions, where the lay persons, composed as a jury, serve as sole finders of fact, while a judge determines the penalty. In the civil law procedure, a mixed panel is used in some, typically more serious, cases, and the mixed panel both decides on guilt or innocence and sets the penalty. In preparing this volume for publication, the editors worked from materials provided tojohn Quigleyas a participantin the trial ofpol Potand Ieng Sary. This included photographs taken by SPK, the Cambodian government press agency, as well as typescript People's Revolutionary Tribunal documents. The editors gained access to additional tribunal documents from a set collected in Phnom Penh in the 1990s by Helen Jarvis, Head of the School of Information, Library and Archive Studies, University of New South Wales. Jarvis describes how she came upon these documents in "A PersonalView ofthe Documents ofthe People's RevolutionaryTribunal," in this volume. Both Jarvis and Nereida Cross, research assistant in Information, Library and Archive Studies, University of New South Wales, collaborated with the editors in locating documents that were not found in any of the existing collections. The editors referred as well to a selection of documents of the trial as published in 1988 in Phnom Penh by a group of Cambodian lawyers in English under the title People's Revolutionary Tribunal Held in Phnom Penh for the Trial of the Genocide Crime of the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary Clique (August 1979): Documents, and in French under the title Tribunal populaire revolutionnaire siegeant aphnom Penh pour le jugement du crime de genocide commis par la clique genocidaire de Pol Pot-Ieng Sary (Aout 1979): Documents. People's Revolutionary Tribunal Documents , , and are pretrial statements ofwitnesses that the editors were unable to locate. These three witnesses testified orally at the trial of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, and summaries oftheir oral statements were published by the Ministry

11 x Editors' Note ofinformation and Culture in 1981 in a Khmer-language collection ofmaterials about the tribunal titled Documents ofthe Court Trialfor Genocide ofpolpot and Ieng Sary (August 1979). The editors used these summaries in place of the pretrial statements of the three witnesses as Documents , , and The editors were unable to locate Documents and but used the published accounts on which they were based and translated from Serbo-Croatian and French, respectively. With three other documents containing published sources, Documents , , and , the editors used the tribunal document but consulted the published accounts in Russian, French, and German, respectively, to clarify ambiguities. The editors have been unable to locate a small number ofdocuments that they have reason to believe were printed by the tribunal. Several witness statements and several procedural documents that are mentioned in other tribunal documents are not to be found in any of the extant collections of tribunal documents. In these instances, the editors have included the document in the List of Documents but have marked it with an asterisk to indicate that it is not contained in this volume. The editors' purpose in including these documents in the List ofdocuments is to give as complete a list as possible oftribunal documents. With a few documents, certain pages are missing from the texts available to the editors. In these instances, the editors have included as much of the document as was available, with a notation at the point ofthe missing pages. The People's Revolutionary Tribunal issued its documents in three languages: Khmer, French, and English. The editors have endeavored to provide a readable text in English using the documents that were available to them. Since in many instances, the English-language text issued by the tribunal fell short ofbeing in proper English, the editors frequently translated from the Khmer or French-language texts. At the top of the first page of each tribunal document appeared the following heading: People's RepublicofKampuchea Independence - Peace - Happiness Revolutionary People's Tribunal at Phnom Penh to try the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary Clique for the Crime ofgenocide The editors have omitted this heading for space considerations. The editors have composed titles for most of the documents. The witness statements in the original are variously titled "Witness statement" or "Witness declaration." The editors considered these titles inappropriate for use since many documents would have identical titles. The editors omitted these titles and instead used the name ofthe witness as the title. Since the Khmer language does not use the Latin alphabet, the editors

12 Editors' Note xi have transliterated proper names and place-names. There is no universally recognized system for transliterating the Khmer script, and the matter is one ofsome complexity, because the earliest attempt to transliterate Khmer was done in French, and the effort was to make them sound correct to French speakers. Thus, in French-language sources, one finds spellings of Khmer names that differ from those found in English-language sources. The editors have attempted to transliterate in a way that presents proper names and place-names in the way in which they are customarily rendered in English-language sources. Because there is no standard system of transliteration, however, a particular Khmer proper name or place-name may appear in other English-language sources with a spelling different from what the editors have used. The editors have, in general, followed a system of spelling Cambodian place-names developed at Yale University and the University ofnew South Wales for the Cambodian Genocide Program. Many of the documents, in particular the witness statements, are signed by the declarant and other parties involved in composing the document. On many of the documents, the word" (signed)," in parentheses, appears with the name. The editors have omitted this word when it appears, since when a name appears at the end of a document, it is to be understood that the named individuals were signing. In the documents, the editors have spelled the name of the country as Kampuchea, rather than the more familiar Cambodia. Cambodia is an Anglicization of "Cambodge," the name of the country as pronounced by the French during the colonial period. "Cambodia" was thus regarded as having a colonial tinge, whereas "Kampuchea" was regarded as closer to the pronunciation in Khmer, hence more authentic. "Kampuchea" was the spelling used by the government at the time of the trial when rendering the name ofthe country in English.

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14 A Personal View of the Documents of the Peoples Revolutionary Tribunal Helen Jarvis One night in December 1990, I was on my second visit to post-pol Pot Cambodia working to assist the reestablishment of the National Library of Cambodia. As dinner time approached I walked as usual from my rundown hotel out into the darkened streets, using a small flashlight to illuminate the potholes and open monsoon drains along the road to the grandly named Medical Faculty Restaurant, in truth nothing but a bare earth area with a battered roof and open sides, but cheerfully lit and serving a limited range ofquite delicious fare. As usual, before long a young barefoot boy approached my table with a motley collection of half a dozen books and a few maps. As usual, I spent a few minutes chatting with him and looking through his wares, saying I had already bought this and thus, for the titles were generally the same each night. But this night he proudly proffered something new, a larger format book with a bright green-and-white cover. It was the English edition of selected documents submitted to the 1979 People's Revolutionary Tribunal, with a set of intriguing bibliographic indicators. The statement of responsibility is ascribed to "A group ofcambodianjurists"; the imprint and "Editor's note" give the date 1988; but the foreword is datedjune 1990 and states that the work was being published by the Commission for Propaganda and Education of the Foreign Languages Publishing House from documents given to it by the Press Department ofthe Ministry for Foreign Affairs. I bought a copy and immediately started to read it, astonished that I had heard so little of the depth and range of testimony that had been made ten years previously at a court proceeding that had been dismissed by most foreigners as a "show trial." I am no lawyer, and elsewhere in this volume Howard J. De Nike discusses what the phrase "show trial" entails and signifies, and the extent to which the 1979 People's Revolutionary Tribunal