Comrade Duch: Teacher-turned-torture chief

Khmer Rouge torturer-in-chief Duch once taught maths to school children but put his cold, calculating mind to far more devastating use as head of a jail from which few inmates ever came out alive.

The 67-year-old – whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav – oversaw the extermination of some 15,000 men, women and children at the Tuol Sleng prison in Cambodia’s capital during the communist regime’s brutal 1975-1979 rule.

Those who worked under him at the prison testified that Duch was universally feared by the staff.

Most who worked there were uneducated teenage boys, whom Duch said could be easily indoctrinated because they were “like a blank piece of paper”.

“Comrade” Duch begged for forgiveness at Cambodia’s UN-backed war crimes court for crimes committed under his command at the jail, where prisoners were tortured into denouncing themselves and others as foreign spies.

But victims questioned whether his remorse was genuine after Duch asked to be acquitted in his closing remarks in November, and he was sentenced to 30 years in prison Monday for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

As a staunch communist, then a born-again Christian and finally remorseful defendant, Duch seemed to always strive to please those above him, making his request to be released all the more surprising.

“He is meticulous, conscientious, control-oriented, attentive to detail and seeks recognition from his superiors,” according to a psychological examination released by the UN-backed court.

Born in 1942 in central Cambodia, Duch is remembered as a sincere teacher devoted to helping the poor, before he became a Khmer Rouge cadre in 1970.

The decision to join the communist guerrilla movement was influenced by one of his high school instructors, who also enlisted but would later be executed at Tuol Sleng as a suspected traitor.

“I joined the revolution in order to transform society, to oppose the government, to oppose torture,” Duch said during his trial.

“I sacrificed everything for the revolution, sincerely and absolutely.”

Inside the rebel-controlled zones, he chose Duch as his revolutionary name because it was used by a model student in a schoolbook from his youth.

He then oversaw a series of jungle prisons before being made head of Tuol Sleng after the regime seized the capital in 1975.

What began as only a few dozen prisoners turned into a daily torrent of condemned coming through Tuol Sleng, or S-21, as the regime purged itself of its “enemies”.

Ever meticulous, Duch built up a huge archive of photos, confessions and other documents with which prosecutors traced the final horrible months of thousands of inmates’ lives.

Following the Khmer Rouge’s fall from power, he maintained posts within the communist movement as it battled Vietnam-backed troops.

He also reportedly worked in the 1980s for Radio China and later taught English and maths in at least one refugee camp.

After his wife was murdered in 1995, Duch turned to Christianity.

He was arrested after Irish photojournalist Nic Dunlop uncovered him working for a Christian aid agency in western Cambodia under a false name.

Before that, many had long assumed he was dead following his disappearance after Vietnamese troops ousted the Khmer Rouge in 1979.

“I told Nic Dunlop, ‘Christ brought you to meet me’,” Duch told his trial. “I said, ‘Before I used to serve human beings, but now I serve God’.

Factbox

Cambodia’s UN-backed war crimes court yesterday delivered the verdict in the trial of Khmer Rouge prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, better known by his nom de guerre Duch.

It was the first international trial of a leader from the 1970s regime.

Here are some key facts about Cambodia’s long road from horror to justice:

The regime:
• The communist Khmer Rouge seized control of Cambodia in April 1975 and immediately began dismantling modern society in their drive to transform the country into an agrarian utopia. The regime abolished religion, schools and currency, and exiled millions of people onto vast collective farms. Up to two million people died of starvation and overwork or were executed from 1975 to 1979. The horrors of life under the Khmer Rouge were portrayed in the Hollywood film The Killing Fields.

What happened next:
• The Khmer Rouge were driven from power in 1979 by Vietnamese troops and former regime members who defected, including Hun Sen, now Cambodia’s Prime Minister. He was a mid-level military commander until fleeing to Vietnam in 1977. Under him, the Cambodian government fought the Khmer Rouge until the movement collapsed in the mid-1990s.

The Tribunal:
• Cambodia and the United Nations signed an agreement in 2003 which essentially brought the tribunal into being and set out its mandate. Known as the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), it is a complex hybrid court combining elements of international law with Cambodia’s judiciary. Its mandate is to prosecute “those most responsible” for crimes committed between 1975 and 1979.

The tribunal has faced controversy over allegations that Cambodian staff were forced by their superiors to pay kickbacks for their jobs.

It can impose a sentence of up to life in prison. There is no death penalty and no financial compensation for victims. It is funded by foreign nations, the biggest donors being Japan and Germany.

Who faced the trial:
• After Duch, the court is expected to try Khmer Rouge “Brother Number Two” Nuon Chea, former head of state Khieu Samphan, ex-foreign minister Ieng Sary, and his wife, former Social Affairs Minister Ieng Thirith, all on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The court has also ruled to investigate whether to pursue charges against other former cadres despite opposition from Hun Sen on the grounds further prosecutions would destabilise the country.

Several senior Cambodian officials have also apparently ignored summonses to meet investigators and provide evidence. Many observers say the decision on whether to prosecute more Khmer Rouge suspects represents a test of the court’s independence from the current Cambodian government.

And those who escaped:
• Because of the tribunal’s limited scope, thousands of lower-level Khmer Rouge members and fighters who carried out the regime’s brutal acts will never face court. Also escaping justice are “Brother Number One” Pol Pot, who died in 1998, and military commander Ta Mok, one of the regime’s most vicious figures, who was in jail when he died in 2006.