KR Trial

now browsing by category

 
Posted by: | Posted on: May 31, 2011

Closing Order of Case 002 (continue…)

CLOSING ORDER
of Co-Investigating Judges You Bunleng and Marcel Lemonde, 15 September 2010
B. MEANS OF COMMUNICATION  

  • 90.               Based on reports from lower-ranking officials to their superiors, directives from superiors to subordinates, and requests for assistance of information that were discovered, among other evidence,254 it appears that the main inter-personal or inter-office communication was by letter, telegram and messenger. Official communication also took place in meetings and at gatherings at each administrative level as well as at larger rallies in Phnom Penh.255 Invitations to such official meetings were generally distributed by messenger or telegram. Furthermore, the CPK disseminated a number of directives and political education material throughout the country. Such material was sent from the centre to lower administrative ranks.
Lower ranks would, in turn, disseminate the material among the population in the zones and sectors.256
Letters
  • 91.               Letters were sent from senior CPK leaders such as POL Pot, Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan and Ieng Sary.257 Letters were reportedly delivered through messengers to zone and sector secretaries.258 One of the telegrams sent from the Central Zone (fomer North Zone) indicates that letters were sometimes carried in person by higher officials such as Zone Secretary Ke Pork himself.259
Messengers
  • 92.               Messengers were primarily used to deliver reports and telegrams from the radio telegraphic unit to ministries260 or for communicating information about arrests.261 Within the different zones, “Messengers carried correspondence by hand on bicycles and motorcycles. Messengers were very busy and spent only a short time in each location before returning to their home base. Messengers were not tied to one single link but worked all the different links serviced by their station”.262 One witness states that messengers from the Centre would use a speed boat to get to Kratie in Autonomous Sector 505.263
Telegram Communication
  • 93.               After the fall of Phnom Penh in 1975, the central telegram unit that had operated in the “liberated areas” was moved to Phnom Penh.264 About 40 children were recruited from the provinces and were taught the basic working techniques of telegram communication (coding, typing, etc.) as well as sometimes French and English.265 On 9 October 1975 the Standing Committee decided on the functioning of the telegram unit.266
Posted by: | Posted on: May 31, 2011

Long Beach Cambodians-Americans lobby for tribunal

Cal State Long Beach professor leading campaign to continue Khmer Rouge trials.

05/28/2011
By Greg Mellen, Staff Writer
Long Beach Press Telegram (California, USA)

Those who want to petition the ECCC to continue investigate can do so online at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/cambodiansurvivorsseekjustice/

LONG BEACH — The four older Cambodian women walked along Anaheim Street and greeted passersby and talked with a sense of purpose to shop owners.
Refugee women survivors of the Khmer Rouge genocide, are not typically known for such forthright and outward displays, but here they were united and strong.
The four women, accompanied by local activist and Cal State Long Beach professor
Leakhena Nou, were out to rally support among the immigrant community and pass out petitions to urge a tribunal court in their home country to press forward with prosecutions of alleged perpetrators of atrocities.

The effort by the women, whose names are being withheld for their protection, comes in the wake of growing indications that the United Nations-backed court will close down after its upcoming trial slated to begin in late June.
While two cases are pending with five unnamed defendants, progress has
stalled in the face of Cambodian government opposition.
But that hasn’t stopped the U.S. women from insisting on being heard.
“These women embodied the quest for justice,” Nou said. “They know the court may reject them but they wanted to to fight the fight, not only for a symbolic purpose but for future generations.”
Read More …
Posted by: | Posted on: May 31, 2011

CLOSING ORDER of Co-Investigating Judges You Bunleng and Marcel Lemonde, 15 September 2010

CLOSING ORDER
of Co-Investigating Judges You Bunleng and Marcel Lemonde, 15 September 2010
V. MILITARY STRUCTURE
A. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE REVOLUTIONARY ARMY OF KAMPUCHEA
  • 113.           The Revolutionary Army of Kampuchea (“RAK”) was a core institution within the CPK governed Democratic Kampuchea.337 CPK policy relied heavily on the implementation of is goals by forceful means, making the military an important part of its government apparatus. From the outset, the CPK considered that “for self-defense and self-liberation it is imperative to use violence, whether political violence or armed violence. It is imperative that the people be armed, that is, there must be an army … in order to defend the people, to defend the revolution, and to go on the offensive to counter-attack the enemy”.338
  • 114.           The CPK asserted that its armed forces originated in “a Secret Defence Unit.339 By 1968 these forces had been upgraded into “armed guerrilla units”.340 17 January 1968 marks the official launch of an armed struggle and the birth of the CPK “revolutionary army”.341 According to the official line of the Party, by 1969 “the preconditions for an army were already there …In some locations, in the major Zones, there were already companies, many units, platoons, squads, teams. Other locations had just platoons, squads, and teams. However, those forces were the ranks of a Revolutionary Army!”.342 In March 1970, the latter was officially designated as the “Cambodian People’s National Liberation Armed Forces” (CPNLAF).
Posted by: | Posted on: May 27, 2011

Closing order of case 002 (continue…)

CLOSING ORDER
of Co-Investigating Judges You Bunleng and Marcel Lemonde, 15 September 2010

IV. COMMUNICATION STRUCTURE

  • 72.               The CPK Standing Committee was at the top of the Party’s nation-wide communications. It was at the centre of a system of constant information between each part of the administrative hierarchy. It issued the instructions: “Send general reports through various spearheads. Propose short reports by telegram, (all this so) the Standing Committee knows the situation in order to provide timely instructions”.206

A. CHANNELS OF COMMUNICATION

  • 73.               The channels of communication were meticulously organized at the level of the Centre (among ministries and offices around the Centre, within the Centre armed forces and within the Centre’s S-21 security apparatus); between the Centre and the zones (with no inter-zone communication allowed); and between zones and sectors. Communication between sectors and districts depended on available means, but was less formalized.
Communication Within the Centre
  • 74.               The distribution of messages that arrived at the Centre from outside entities was coordinated by Office K-1, where it was decided which of the leaders were to receive copies of messages which were subsequently delivered to them.207 This decision was taken by Pol Pot and his staff, who for this purpose received ingoing messages several times per day.208 According to one witness, Nuon Chea always received a copy of the messages Pol Pot had read.209
  • 75.               There was also frequent written communication between individual CPK leaders, most notably between Pol Pot and Nuon Chea, who used to exchange letters every one or two days.210

Zone to Centre Communication

  • 76.               Zones and autonomous sectors reported to the Standing Committee primarily on the agricultural situation, such as the rice harvest and on irrigation systems, the livelihood of the people and the enemy and military situation.211Secretary of Autonomous Sector 105) mentions that he sent telegrams to the Centre and that Pol Pot would send comments back to him about the arrests of cadres and about confessions.212

Read More …