He looks directly ahead, his eyes betraying nothing. He may be smiling, but it’s hard to say. He sits behind a microphone addressing a meeting of Khmer Rouge cadre. I look at the picture and wonder what he’s talking about; whether he’s lecturing his staff on the purity of the revolution or perhaps instructing them how to extract confessions.
The photograph is of Comrade Duch, commandant of Tuol Sleng prison. During the Khmer Rouge regime, from 1975 to 1979, more than 2m people died from starvation, overwork, disease and execution. As head of the special branch, Duch was personally responsible for the extermination of 20,000 men, women and children. He was the principal link between Khmer Rouge strategy and the mechanics of mass murder. He was Pol Pot’s chief executioner.
Tuol Sleng, a former high school, sits in the heart of the capital, Phnom Penh. The prison is now a museum where the mugshots of Comrade Duch’s victims are displayed in the same rooms in which they were interrogated. The museum contains thousands of documents in which Duch orders executions and details gruesome methods of torture. One memo asks him what to do with nine children held at the prison. Duch has scrawled across it, “kill them all.”
If you are a subscriber, please log in »
This article is available to subscribers only
Subscribing to Prospect is the most reliable and convenient way to receive the magazine every month, and offers the best value.Subscription Types:
Online
An online subscription offers you complete and unlimited access to the entire website, including our searchable archive of every back issue of Prospect, and a PDF edition of each new issue: all this for just £20 per year. Purchase an online subscription »Renewal
Renew an existing subscription »Institutional access
If you are a library, business organisation or any other large institution that needs a multi-user licence, you can obtain institutional access.
Share
Subscribe to post comments
Print
