Khmer Rouge torture commander accepts responsibility

Duch appears in court.

by Chris in Paris on 6/08/2009

It's not going to bring anyone back but at least former S-21 torture prison commander is recognizing his role in one of the most horrible crimes in modern history. When we visited Cambodia a few years ago, it was still a highly dysfunctional country that still included former Khmer Rouge fighters at all levels of government. It's a country that could not move forward, always stuck with reminders of those horrible times. Our first taxi driver recounted a story about his father being severely beaten and tortured and the stories on the ground never end. And then there are the victims of landmines, injured decades after the war. It's such a beautiful place but awful at the same time.

For us, during our visit, we were following the news from America as Bush & Co. built their plans for war in Iraq. It was infuriating to listen to those people talk about chemical weapons and torture as though what the US did and supported in Southeast Asia never happened. How would they have known though since the most bloodthirsty of the lot weren't there?

It's long overdue and the crimes are unimaginable but at least it's being done.

Duch, 66, is being tried by a U.N.-assisted genocide tribunal for crimes against humanity, war crimes, murder and torture. An estimated 1.7 million Cambodians died under the 1975-79 communist Khmer Rouge regime from forced labor, starvation, medical neglect and executions.

"I am criminally responsible for killing babies, young children and teenagers," Duch told the tribunal, never mentioning if he had personally carried out such killings. He referred to photographs he was shown by the tribunal of a technique executioners used to kill child victims by bashing their heads against tree trunks.

"The horrendous images of the babies being smashed against the trees, I didn't recognize it at first. But after seeing the photographs I recalled that it had happened," Duch said. "It was done by my subordinates. I do not blame them because this was under my responsibility."

Obviously the US torture was not as extensive as Cambodia, but still, when will the US decide to face up to it's recent history of torture? We can and should do better.