When the War Was Over (105 page)

From 1950 until 1953 I studied at a school in Koh Andet. In 1954 I went to study at the [pagoda] school of Wat Prey Melong. . . . I studied up to the level of Atikathan One. At that time I resided in the pagoda with the monks. From 1955 to 1956 I went to study at the level of Atikathan Two in the school at Pochentong, district of Phnom Penh. At that time I was under the care of my elder brother named Bu Tith who was a second lieutenant in the paratroopers in the barracks at Pochentong. From 1956 until 1959 I went to study at the Kampuchea Botr in Phnom Penh. . . . I would like to inform you that my revolutionary
development began in 1957, from the time I began Kampuchea Botr. I joined in propaganda activities to expand the influence of the newspaper
Pracheachon
among lycée-level students.

I was in and out of the newspaper offices frequently; it could be said that I became fond of being in contact with progressive newspaper circles. . . .

At the end of 1959 I ran away from the home of my brother named Bu Tith in the middle of the night to go live in the office of the newspaper
L'Observateur
working as a proofreader and a worker who distributed newspapers. . . . A short time after I'd gone to work at the newspaper . . . with brother Hem [revolutionary name of Khieu Samphan] I was arrested and imprisoned by the government of that period together with the compatriots of all four newspapers. On getting out of prison in the beginning of 1960 I went to stay for a short period of time at Wat [Pagoda] Svay Pope through the contacts and under the leadership of Brother Hêm. . . .

I went to work as a construction worker . . . but the Kenh [secret police] were too much on top of me . . . and I went into hiding in a monk's quarters and joined in the writing of . . . literary analyses . . . with [a friend]. We sold exclusive rights . . . for as much as 3,000 riels per volume [of literary analyses] and we then split the money and spent it.

[Investigations by the secret police force him to switch homes and jobs again.] I rented a hut made from leaves which was west of the ammunition depot. I hired myself out as a builder of wooden houses. . . . Then, in 1962, the
Pracheachon
newspaper reopened and I went back to work there with the same old status of proofreader. . . . At the time of the special congress [of the communist party] the newspaper's editor was imprisoned. . . . After we had put out only one issue the Organization instructed us to stop and had us go underground according to our assignments.

One day while I was in secret hiding . . . Chim came to ask me face to face about my biography, and then he asked me: “Well, comrade, would you like to join the party?” At that time I did not yet know that there was a party. . . . Ta [Grandfather] Chim explained the party to me and I asked to join. Subsequently I wrote down my biography longhand to be turned over to the higher-ups. On April 28, 1962, I joined the party at the party house behind the Monk's Hospital with the Contemptible Ya and Brother Vy my nominators and the Contemptible Keo Meas as the recognizer. [“Contemptible” is the title given those party members convicted of treason—by 1978 Ya and Keo Meas had both been purged and killed.]

In the middle of the same year, 1962, High Comrade Pang came to take me . . . for a short study course at the same house behind the Monk's Hospital which Brother Number One [Pol Pot] came down to teach. As far as I can remember there were only a few disciples [those who love study]. . . .

[Another move to a secret hideout.] The Contemptible Ya came by a lot to do consciousness work with me, so that I would not get fed up with secretly hiding out, saying that I would soon be going out into the maquis. . . . I was underground ten months and then at the end of 1962 I was sent out one night by the Organization. The Contemptible Ya instructed me to go wait for a vehicle, with a certain license number, north of Wat [Pagoda] Toul Tumpong at the appointed hour. . . . Suddenly out of nowhere the car appeared. I opened the door of the car to get in and it was Brother Number One [Pol Pot]. He drove me once around Phnom Penh while simultaneously asking me whether I was absolutely sure I wanted to go or not.

And then he drove me to the racetrack and turned into a place where there were piles of gravel where we met Brother Number Two [Ieng Sary or Nuon Chea]. Brother Number Two stiffened my spirit and bade me go with a Yuon [Vietnamese] courier. . . . In the morning I got in a car and went with an auntie to Svay Rieng town. Then I went out of Svay Rieng by horsecart . . . and crossed the border to South Vietnam. I went to the office of the propaganda service of the Contemptible Vietcong. . . .

I stayed with the Contemptible Vietcong for approximately half a year and helped them with work for the Khmer language radio. . . . Then maybe in the middle of 1963 . . . I suddenly met Brother Number One and Brother Number One took me back from the Yuon [Vietnamese] and I went to live with our Organization which at that time consisted of Brother Number One, Brother Vann [Ieng Sary], and Brother Khieu [Son Sen]. In 1964 I married my wife, who was the daughter of Comrade Sakky, with Brother Phim [Eastern Zone leader So Phim] as the man who officiated. . . . In 1966 the party transferred itself from the plains and moved to Ratanakiri. Brother Vann, among others, went ahead first. . . . My spouse had had a child by this time and she was told to stay with her father at the old place near the border. . . .

In July or August of 1967 I traveled with Brother Number One and a number of our other comrades from the lowlands up to Ratanakiri. . . . I was deputy chairman of the office charged with secret writing and the printing press. . . . Around February 1968, Brother Number One convened the very first military cell training. Brother Number One had just presented the program of study when the soldiers of the Contemptible Nol [Lon Nol, head of Sihanouk's army then] came out on one of their rampages. . . .

[Sihanouk is protected in these Tuol Sleng confessions and biographies. His rule is referred to euphemistically; Lon Nol is always credited with fighting against the revolutionaries—not Sihanouk.]

Subsequently Brother Number One sent me to go along with Brother Khieu [Son Sen, later head of Khmer Rouge military] to go to Venue Sai to fight the enemy. From 1969 until the coup I was in Venue Sai district [in western Ratanakiri province]. . . . After the coup [in 1970] the party assigned me to the military side of things as the political commissar of a company fighting the enemy at Pon Lung [Ratanakiri]. About August 1970 the party appointed me a sector committee member of Sector 103 [in the north]. . . . On April 21, 1974, Brother Man met his death and the party put me in charge of his sector [Sector 103] up through almost the end of 1974 when the party sent up a new sector committee chief with me as secretary. . . .

[The death of Brother Man will be blamed on Phat—the rest of this first confession now switches from strict biography to an inquiry about Phat's possible faults, mistakes, even crimes.]

Just last night Comrade Duch [chief of security and of Tuol Sleng] of the special branch said that young and old alike and persons from every region alike had implicated me a lot [in their confessions].

Most respected and most beloved party. Before I was taken into custody I had no worry that the party would arrest me in connection with the betrayal of the treasonous groups whether the Yuon network, the CIA network, or the KGB network, no matter whoever might implicate me. Because I swear on my honor I never had even the slightest tremor of a feeling to betray the Communist Party of Kampuchea. All of the traitors that I have known and have had contact with never said anything at all about treason to me. . . .

At first when our friends were sent to arrest me it didn't occur to me that I was being arrested. I thought they were only fraternal compatriots, people whom I had known, and that they were grabbing me to embrace me, but then, when the embrace tightened and I began to squirm, our friends said to hold still and brought out handcuffs and put them on me and blindfolded me with a scarf. I feared that I was dead already. . . .

Since I was taken into custody I have seen only one way ahead of me. I must die because I have seen the party's reaction to me, that is, its use of ultimate measures. I thought to myself that I must make sure that I don't allow anything to negatively affect my health along the way. So that I would be able to find out what problem it was that had led to my arrest by the security service. Most Respected and Beloved Party, Most Respected and Beloved Elder
Brother leaders of the Party, I request to the most respected and beloved party and brothers to show mercy on me. . . .

. . . I request that the party show some mercy to my children and spare the lives of my children because I am the very genuine flesh and blood of the party.

Done in the Incarceration Center of the security service on the morning of January 5, 1978

Signed,
Hang

Files as listed by the Tuol Sleng Museum in Phnom Penh.

#2 Keo Meas, arrested September 20, 1976. His confession: “The Responses of X: The First Time Talking in Overt Form About the Contradiction in Hanoi over Whether to Fix the Party's Foundation Date as 1951 or 1960.”

#4. Chey Suon, known as Non Suon, arrested November 1, 1976. His confessions: “Responses of XII Confession Stage One” and “XII Talks About a Number of Elder Brothers in the Leading Organization.”

#16. Penh Thouk, known as Vorn Veth, arrested November 2, 1978. Entire file.

#45. Bou Phath, or Bu Phat, arrested January 4, 1978. Entire file; see special notes on Tuol Sleng sources.

#54. Touch Chem, also known as Soth, arrested June 5, 1978. “Record of the History of the Traitorous Activities of Soth Himself.”

#87. Sam Huoy, known as Meas Tal, arrested May 24, 1978. “Responses . . . Concerning His Own Personal Betrayal.”

a. Poeun, imprisoned by January 5, 1979. “On the History of the Betrayal by the Contemptible Poeun from the End of 1977.”

b. Chhaan, imprisoned by January 1979. “Responses of the Contemptible Chhaan.”

#12. Yor Hun, arrested January 18, 1976. Entire file, especially “Activities While Living with the Japanese in Phnom Penh.”

#59. Hout Bophana, arrested October 12, 1976. Entire file, including her declaration on the day of capture, her biography, fifteen separate denunciations of people in her alleged network, a confession about the letters she wrote to her husband, a biography of her husband, her letters to her husband, his letter to her, three photographs of her (included in the photograph section of the book), and lengthy instructions to her interrogator by Duch.

#8. Hing Sokhom, arrested September 23, 1976, entire file.

Notebook of a cadre at Tuol Sleng. No name. Dated July and August 1976. Notebook provided by David Hawk, translation by Stephen Heder.

This book is based to a large degree on information gathered by the author during her residence and travel to Southeast Asia including: Cambodia (Khmer Republic), 1973–1974; Cambodia (Democratic Kampuchea), December 1978; Laos, April 1979; refugee camps in Thailand and Malaysia, July 1979; Vietnam, August 1979; Thailand, December 1980; Vietnam and Cambodia (People's Republic of Kampuchea), January 1983. The new final chapters and epilogue in the updated version reflect further travels to Cambodia (1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, and 1995), Thailand (1990), Vietnam (1989) and four-year residence in Paris (1986–1990).

The major interviews cited in the notes were done by the author in Asia, France and in the United States. The interviews include: Mey Komphot (1973, 1974, 1982, 1983); Pol Pot (December 1978); Ieng Sary (October 1977, October 1978, December 1978, October 1980, July 1981); Ieng Thirith (October 1980); Thiounn Mumm (December 1978); Thiounn Prasith (December 1978, October 1980); Sisopha and Bopha May (1982, 1983, 1984); Someth and Orphear May (1984); Hoang Nguyen (January 1979), Chinese diplomat July 1981); Try Meng Huot July 1979); Han Tao (July 1979); Rodolfo Juárez (November 1982); Von (December 1978); Chhoi Vanna (July 1979); Nguyen Co Thach (August 1979, October 1980, January 1983); Phan Hien (January 1983); Norodom Sihanouk and Princess Monique (January 1979); Ha Van Lau (January 1979, January 1983); Cora Weiss (July 1983); Joan Baez (October 1982); Leonard Woodcock (December 1981); Richard Holbrooke (April 1981, November 1983); Zbigniew Brzezinski (July 1981); Cyrus Vance (November 1981); Stephen Solarz (August 1982); Michael Oksenberg (November 1981); Robert Oakley (December 1981).

For the new chapters and epilogue in the updated version, the major interviews include: Norodom Sihanouk (July 1988); Hun Sen (January 1983, November 1988, March 1989, July and August 1989, May 1992); Hor Nam Hong (March 1989, August 1989, October 1991, May 1992); Chatichai Choonhaven (December 1989); Pansak Vinyaratn (October 1989, December 1990, February 1992); Claude Martin (November 1989, July and November 1990, May and December 1991, July 1992); Helie de Noailles (May 1991); Igor Rogachev (September and October 1991); Iouri N. Miakotnykh (October 1991, May 1992); Richard Soloman (May and November 1991, February 1992); Robert M. Kimmit (December 1990); General John W Vessey, Jr. (June 1991); Stephen Solarz (July 1991); Chester Atkins (December 1990); Ann Mills-Griffith (May 1991); and John Bolton (September 1990, December 1991).

As noted in the Foreword, this book is based in part on hundreds of uncited interviews conducted by the author over more than a decade. Many of the interviews led to articles published in the
Washington Post.
Of particular interest are: Cambodia series, December 26—31, 1978; Vietnam series, September 26—31, 1979; profile of Vietnamese Foreign Minister
Nguyen Co Thach, November 8, 1980; profile of missing journalist Ishiyama Koki, January 9, 1983; and Vietnam-Cambodia series, February 27—March 1, 1983.