FROM RADIO AUSTRALIA’S CONNECT ASIA SHOW

THIS VERSION IS LONGER THAN THE ONE THAT WAS AIRED. THANKS TO RITHY PANH FOR PERMISSION TO USE EXTRACTS FROM HIS DOCUMENTARY: S-21 - THE KHMER ROUGE KILLING MACHINE. IT WAS THIS SECTION (MARKED IN ASTERISKS BELOW ***) THAT WAS EDITED OUT OF THE AIRED PIECE FOR REASONS OF LENGTH.

INTRO: On Monday the Cambodian artist and writer Vann Nath died in hospital in Phnom Penh aged 65. Vann Nath was one of the very few people to survive the Khmer Rouge’s notorious prison known as S-21.

S-21 prison stands just a mile or so from Vann Nath’s home in Phnom Penh, where on Tuesday monks chanted prayers for his spirit amid the scent of burning incense.

On January 7th, 1979, Vann Nath and a small group of prisoners had been hustled at gunpoint through S-21’s gates.

Pol Pot’s government had collapsed in the face of invading Vietnamese troops and Khmer Rouge defectors. The leaders fled west to the Thai border. Those running S-21 – including the feared prison chief Comrade Duch – fled too, herding the prisoners.

Today S-21 is a genocide museum and a popular spot on the tourist trail where visitors can learn something of Cambodia’s recent, dark history.

Back then it was a place where at least 14,000 perceived enemies of the revolution – men, women and children – were tortured and executed during the Khmer Rouge’s rule between 1975 and 1979.

Vann Nath spent exactly one year at S-21, and is one of just 14 prisoners known to have survived.

Bou Meng is one of the few still left alive. The two men shared a terrifying existence: Like Vann Nath, Bou Meng was singled out to paint portraits of Pol Pot.

Vann Nath, he said, helped him to improve his drawing and carving skills. Almost certainly he also saved Bou Meng’s life on one occasion by standing up for him in front of Duch.

On Tuesday at S-21 Bou Meng recalled his friend.

BOU MENG:

“What kind of man was Vann Nath? He was very gentle, not at all cruel. He was generous. He and I were like brothers – I would eat rice or noodles at his restaurant and he would never allow me to pay. He regarded me as his blood brother.”

In 2009 Vann Nath became the first survivor of S-21 to testify at Duch’s war crimes trial in Phnom Penh. He told the tribunal he had been arrested in the western province of Battambang in late 1977 for no discernible reason.

Within days he was in S-21 where he spent the first month shackled in a room with dozens of prisoners in appalling conditions. Starved and abused, the inmates would eat insects that dropped from the ceiling.

Prisoners died one after another, and when food was brought the men would eat the meagre rations while shackled to the dead. They didn’t care, Vann Nath said; they had become like animals.

After being marked for execution, Vann Nath was summoned before Duch. Duch had heard Vann Nath was an artist, and told him to paint portraits of Pol Pot.

Vann Nath spent the next 11 months painting in terrified silence. Every day he heard the screaming of those being tortured. This place, he said, was where he lost his dignity.

After liberation Vann Nath returned to S-21 to help establish it as a genocide museum. He said the world should know what had happened to ensure such acts never occurred again.

Vann Nath’s paintings of the suffering experienced by the detainees still hang on S-21’s walls, and are as much a part of the visitor’s experience as the black and white photographs of thousands of inmates.

Last year the UN-backed tribunal jailed Duch for 35 years. Duch has appealed, arguing that he should be released. The court has yet to rule on the appeal.

Bou Meng says that delay adds to his sorrow at Vann Nath’s death.

BOU MENG:

“The Khmer Rouge tribunal did not rule on Duch’s case in time, and so today I feel great regret that we’ve lost the most important witness before that could happen.”

*** START: EDITED OUT OF AIRED VERSION ***

In 2003 renowned Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh released an award-winning documentary called S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine.

In the nearly two-hour-long film, Vann Nath returns to S-21 where he meets and talks to former guards. He asks them to explain what happened.

The guards tell him that if Angkar – the Organization – made an arrest, that person was an enemy because Angkar was infallible. It didn’t matter if those arrested were parents or siblings, spouses or children – they were now the enemy.

VANN NATH: You didn’t think at all?

GUARD REPLIES: The Party, S-21, never made arrests by mistake. They were the enemies.

VANN NATH: Your ability to think as a human being, you lost it. You didn’t know your father or mother. You didn’t even believe your parents! How did they indoctrinate you?

GUARD REPLIES: If they said: This was the enemy, I repeated: This is the enemy.

At that point Vann Nath looks away in puzzled disbelief, unable to fathom such blind adherence to an utterly inhumane system.

*** END - EDITED OUT OF AIRED VERSION ***

During his 2009 testimony, one of the judges asked Vann Nath what he wanted from Duch’s trial.

For himself, he replied, simply the opportunity to tell of the horrors he had seen the Khmer Rouge inflict. To relate that at Duch’s trial, he said, was his privilege and his honour.

Beyond that, Vann Nath told the court, he wanted something intangible: justice for the dead. I hope, he said, that by the end of its life the tribunal will have made justice visible to all. That, he said, is what I expect and that is what I want.

END