Khang Khek Leu

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Khang Khek Leu (Comrade Duch) at the age of about 17
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Khang Khek Leu (Comrade Duch) at the age of about 17

Khang Khek Leu (aka Comrade D[e]uch - pronounced Doik[1]) (b. Nov 17, 1942[1]) was a leader in the Khmer Rouge during its rule of Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. He is best known for heading the Khmer Rouge special branch and running the infamous Tuol Sleng (S-21) prison camp in Phnom Penh.

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[edit] Early years

Khang was born in Choyaot village, Kampong Chen subdistrict, Kampong Thom Province[2]. A star pupil in his school, he passed his Brevet d'Etudes Secondaire de Première in 1961 at the age of fifteen. He finished the first half of his Baccalaureat in 1962 at the Lycée Suravarman II in the town of Siem Reap. The same year he was offered a place in the prestigious Sisowath lycée in Phnom Penh where he completed his Baccalaureat in mathematics, coming second in the entire country.[1]

[edit] Induction into the Khmer Rouge

In 1964 Khang began studying for his teaching certificate in Mathematics, a subject he loved, at the Institute de Pédagogie[3]. The Institute was a cradle of activism under the directorship of Son Sen who was later to emerge as the Defence Minister of the Khmer Rouge and Duch's immediate superior. On Aug 28 1966 Khang got his teaching certificate and was posted to a lycée in Skoun, a small town in Kompong Cham province. He was a good teacher remembered as earnest and committed by his pupils[1]. He joined the Communist Party of Kampuchea in 1967. Following the arrest of three of his students he fled to the Khmer Rouge base in Chamkar Loeu where he was accepted as a full member of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. A few months later he was arrested and tortured at the Prey Sar prison[1] by Norodom Sihanouk's police for engaging in communist activities[3]. He was held without trial for the next two years. In 1970 when he was released following the amnesty granted to political prisoners by Lon Nol, he joined the Khmer Rouge rebels in the Cardamom hills bordering Thailand.

[edit] In the Maquis

In the zone under the control of the Khmer Rouge Khang took on his nom de guerre Comrade Duch and became a prison commandant. He was appointed the head of Special Security by his immediate superior Vorn Vet. In the forests of Amleang Duch set up his first prison, code-named 'M-13'. Two years later he also established a second prison 'M-99' in nearby Oral district.

Assisted by his two deputies, Comrade Chan and Comrade Pon, Duch began perfecting his interrogation techniques and the purging of perceived enemies from the Khmer Rouge ranks. Prisoners at these camps, mostly from the ranks of the Khmer Rouge, were routinely starved and tortured to extract real and made up confessions. Few prisoners left the camps alive.

While in the maquis Duch married Chhim Sophal aka Rom, a dressmaker from a nearby village.

[edit] Leading the Santebal and Tuol Sleng

After the Khmer Rouge victory in April 1975, according to Duch, his request for a transfer to the Industrial Sector of government was denied [3]. Duch and his men set up prisons throughout the capital including the infamous Tuol Sleng prison. The Tuol Sleng prison camp was initially headed by In Lon aka Comrade Nath with Duch acting as deputy[1]. By May 1976 all the prisons in Phnom Penh were consolidated and relocated to Tuol Sleng. Prisons like Tuol Sleng were created to cleanse the ranks of the Khmer Rouge of suspected enemies of the revolution. Duch impressed his superiors with his work and was appointed the head of Democratic Kampuchea's dreaded "special branch" - the Santebal.

As the party purges increased towards the end of the Democratic Kampuchea period, more and more people were brought to Duch, including many former colleagues including his predecessor at Tuol Sleng, In Lon. Throughout this period Duch built up a large archive of prison records, mug shots and extracted "confessions".

On January 7, 1979 Duch was the last Khmer Rouge cadre to flee Phnom Penh after it fell to the Vietnamese army. Though he was unable to destroy much of the prison's extensive documents, he saw to the execution of several surviving prisoners before he fled the city.

[edit] After the fall[1]

Duch reached the border with Thailand in May 1979. Details of his whereabouts at this time were sketchy. It is believed that he went to the forests of Samlaut where he was reunited with his family. Here Duch was demoted by Brother Number Two, Nuon Chea, for having failed to destroy the documents at Tuol Sleng. At the border, he learnt to speak Thai and taught himself English. He later taught English and Mathematics at a refugee camp in Borai just inside Thailand.

In June 1986 Duch was sent to China to teach as a Khmer language expert at Beijing's Foreign Language Institute. He returned to the Thai-Cambodia border a year later and changed his name to Hang Pin. He worked as a senior bureaucrat just inside the Cambodian border at Pol Pot's secretariat at Camp 505. Shortly after the Paris agreement in October 1991 he moved with his family to a small isolated village called Phkoam close to the Thai border where he bought some land and began teaching in the local school. He was known as a good teacher, but one with a fiery temper.

In 1995, following an attack on his home in which his wife was killed, Duch sold all his possessions and secured a transfer to Svey Check college where he moved with his children. Shortly after his wife's murder, Duch began attending the prayer meetings of the Golden West Cambodian Christian Church held in Battambang by Christopher Lapel, an evangelical Khmer-American. Duch was baptized by Lapel and eventually became a lay pastor.

[edit] Discovery and current status

Close to his identity being discovered, Duch accepted a transfer to Samlaut as Director of Education. When fighting broke out in 1996 following the split of the Khmer Rouge and the coup to oust Prince Ranarridh, he fled with his family to the Ban Ma Muang camp just inside Thailand. At the camp, he worked as the Community Health Supervisor. In late 1998 he returned to Cambodia when fighting subsided. He settled in the village of Andao Hep in Rattanak Mondul and worked closely with World Vision, the Christian relief agency.

The photojournalist Nic Dunlop tracked down Duch to Samlaut. In 1999 Nate Thayer who had previously interviewed Pol Pot and Ta Mok, and Dunlop interviewed Duch for the Far Eastern Economic Review. Duch surrendered to the authorities in Phnom Penh following the publication of the interview with him. He is currently awaiting trial.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Nic Dunlop (2005)). The Lost Executioner - A Journey into the Heart of the Killing Fields. Walker & Company, New York. ISBN 0-8027-1472-2.
  2. ^ CBIO Record of Comrade Duch. Yale Cambodian Genocide Program. Retrieved on 2005-12-18.
  3. ^ a b c Bizot, François; translated from French by Euan Cameron (2003). The Gate. Alfred A. Knoph. ISBN 0-375-41293-X.

[edit] External links

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