Cambodia - S-21 RESTITUTION EXTORTION (9of10) [KH&EN] 

SUON SARATT:
I am searching for my husband named Kim Phoeuk Toeung, former military commander of artillery unit of Battalion 2 of the Lon Nol administration. In 1973, the then-government sent him to the United States for training as a Regiment commander of Artillery Unit 1. I had learned that he returned in Cambodia in 1976 in Pol Pots time. So far his fate is unknown.
VANARITH:
My name is Vanarith, a son of Touch Khamdoeun, former Cambodian ambassador. My father was born in 1935 in Kampong Thom Province. He was an ambassador to Cuba between 1970 and 1972 and to China between 1972 and 1975. My mothers name was Nou Vanna who was born in 1937 in Phnom Penh. My parents were educated in Paris, France. My family returned to Cambodia in 1975, only to be killed by the Khmer Rouge. I was the only one who survived the slaughter. My mother and my father were held and executed at Tuol Sleng prison. I am very anxious to know whether the Documentation Center of Cambodia holds any piece of information concerning my parents, such as date of arrest, room number, date of execution, especially their confessions. If the said items are available, may I have a copy of them, and if possible, may I visit your center. My main aim is for you to publish any article about my parents in your magazine "Searching for the truth", next edition. Thank you very much indeed.
Beyond torture, the principal function of the network of Khmer Rouge security centers seems to have been to physically eliminate perceived enemies of the regime. A fantastic number of people were killed. It is often asked, Why did the Khmer Rouge kill so many Cambodians? The mapping reports provide at least a partial answer to this question, though the answer is hardly a satisfying one. The list of reasons why people were killed is shocking in itself.

Simply having been a policeman, soldier or civil servant during a previous regime was adequate to earn the death sentence. Being related by blood or marriage to one of those class enemies was also enough to bring a chop from the executioners ax. As witness Ok Tuon notes of Khmer Rouge activity in Kampong Chhnangs Prey Damrei Srot prison, None of the relatives of the accused was spared. Also in Kampong Chhnang Province at Prey Ta Kuch, according to Uk Yun, the Khmer Rouge took families to be executed. This information conforms to a pattern we have seen in all five years of the mass grave mapping reports.
With the spread of internal purges inside the Communist Party of Kampuchea, having been a civil servant of a previous regime was no longer required to earn a death sentence; increasingly, civil servants or cadre from within Democratic Kampuchea itself were widely rounded up and terminated. And as leadership purges accelerated, so too did the murder of those who had served under the previous cadres in virtually any capacity. The testimony of Mr. Chann Tauch of Mondulkiri Province eloquently describes this process. In 1977, Mr. Tauch recounts, all the people related to the top two Khmer Rouge leaders - Ham and Kham Phoun - were arrested wholesale and sent to Phnom Kraol prison. Eventually, this form of repression became so extreme that merely being an ordinary citizen in a region formerly governed by someone now judged a traitor became enough to be added to the list, as was seen in the purges of the Eastern Zone.
She was required to complete her confession by including her closest friends, colleagues, and surviving family members in her CIA "network." this was a particularly gruesome part of the torture; victims were required to indict those closest to them and often died knowing their tortured "confessions" led to the arrests and deaths of their loved ones. Friendship was dangerous in the revolution. In these earlier years, three indictments by Tuol Sleng victims were sufficient to bring about the arrests of suspect. Once arrested, very few escaped Tuol Sleng.