CHUM Sokha - ECCC

Background

Chum Sokha was a Lon Nol soldier in the air force from 1972 until the fall of Phnom Penh in 1975.

The fall of Phnom Penh

Chum Sokha testified that Khmer Rouge soldiers entered Phnom Penh from all directions with grenade launchers and military vehicles. Lon Nol soldiers did not fight, surrendering instead. Chum Sokha stated that he, along with other soldiers, waved white flags to welcome the Khmer Rouge soldiers. He did not witness casualties where he lived. The Khmer Rouge made announcements that only seven traitors would be killed and that there would be no circulation of money .

The Trial Chamber in Case 002/01 relied on Chum Sokha’s testimony to find that Khmer Rouge forces had attacked Phnom Penh from all directions, unopposed, to a congratulatory population as well as other details of the invasion.

Evacuation of Phnom Penh

According to Chum Sokha, an immediate evacuation was ordered to cleanse “enemies” from the city and avoid the threat of American bombardments. While he and his family did not believe the threat, they did believe that when the Khmer Rouge “said something, they meant it”. He recalled that Lon Nol soldiers shed their uniforms to avoid identification and that he dressed in civilian clothes. He also witnessed patients in a hospital left to die and his wounded uncle and wife abandoned during the evacuation. Others were killed by the Khmer Rouge for trying to steal rice. The Trial Chamber in Case 002/01 relied on Chum Sokha’s testimony to make findings about the details of the evacuation. Despite a challenge by the Defence, the Supreme Court Chamber found his evidence reliable in the Trial Chamber’s finding of instances of Khmer Rouge soldiers killing civilians during the evacuation.

The journey

Chum Sokha testified that leaving Phnom Penh was done at one’s own ability. He and his family evacuated Phnom Penh without direction. The Khmer Rouge confiscated their jeep in Phnom Penh and provided transport only to Samraong District. First, they were asked to leave for three days, then seven. Eventually, they were allowed to return to their native village, where they were not warmly welcomed since they were “17 April People” as opposed to “Base People” . The journey took about one month and they struggled to find clean water. To rest, they stopped along the road, under trees, or at pagodas as no instructions were given. His mother exchanged jewelry and clothes so that his sister could be driven due to her swollen legs. He saw dead and burned bodies along the road, but no guards. The Trial Chamber in Case 002/01 relied on Chum Sokha’s testimony in making findings about these details of the evacuation of Phnom Penh. It specifically relied on Chum Sokha’s testimony in finding that Civil Parties “witnessed harrowing events”, and that the Khmer Rouge soldiers did not provide any food, water, medicine, or transport. The Supreme Court Chamber found that the Trial Chamber reasonably concluded that “under all circumstances, evacuees were forced to keep moving”, citing to Chum Sokha’s testimony. The Supreme Court Chamber rejected the Defence’s argument that had the conditions been as difficult as found by the Trial Chamber, “hundreds of thousands of people would have died”, finding instead that the Trial Chamber relied on mutually corroborative evidence, including Chum Sokha’s.

Pattern of identification

Chum Sokha testified that he had to register at checkpoints, where his father witnessed Lon Nol soldiers tied up. He also saw them walking in two lines in the opposite direction. While his father and uncle, former Lon Nol soldiers, managed to escape registration, they were later arrested and forced to work, and eventually disappeared. The Trial Chamber in Case 002/01 relied on Chum Sokha’s testimony to find a national pattern of identification leading to execution or disappearance. The Supreme Court Chamber found Chum Sokha’s account indicative of arrests, detentions, and disappearances, but inconclusive as to his relatives’ deaths. It further found that a policy to execute at Toul Po Chrey was called into question by Chum Sokha and others. The Trial Chamber in Case 002/02 relied on Chum Sokha’s evidence to find that Khmer Republic officials and their families were systematically screened to determine their backgrounds. ***

Statement of suffering

“The reason for my submission of my application to the Khmer Rouge Tribunal is that my family members and myself suffered great loss and harm under the Khmer Rouge regime. We suffered physically from the beginning, nearly from the time that we left Phnom Penh. We used to live in a house, but then we were asked to leave and to leave to stay in the open. That was difficult. I was 20 years old at the time. I was rather mature. But I had my younger siblings and my grandparents; they suffered a great deal. It took us one month to walk on foot from Phnom Penh to the destination so we suffered from the trip, suffered from -- as we were deprived of proper sleeping place, food, as we had to find stones in order to make a stove for cooking, to find water to cook our food and there was no proper food. We had to find crab in the rice field. And that was during the dry season and it was very difficult to find crab and if we reach a lake or a pond, we try to find shell or some kind of food there. My younger sibling had her feet swollen and we did not bring along any medicine and there was no medic to treat -- to treat her, so we had to try to find leaves -- herbal leaves to treat her swollen legs and feet. As for myself, I was forced to work day and night. I was forced to work for 14 -- for -- from 12 to 14 hours per day. I was asked to make human fertilizer, to gather faeces from a -- from a makeshift lemon tree. It was fresh faeces and it was very stinking and we were also asked to gather faeces from all toilets from all houses and we had to carry that. We also had to carry urine as well. And I was asked to work on that for almost half a year. So every day I had to smell the stinking faeces and urine and my fingers and fingernails were stained with the faeces and the urine. At that time, there was no soap to properly clean the hands. We had to use the ashes, but the smell remained. We were also mistreated during working on that fertilizer. We were scolded that we were not loyal to Angkar, that we could not stand the smell, and that we were not cleanse from the influence of the imperialists. Even when we used the scarf to cover our nose, we were criticized. They were so hard on us in this regard. And when I was sick, as I was contracted by malaria, usually I should be allowed to stay at home and rest, but no, I was asked to work in the rice field. So I was also asked to transport wood from Krabau and I had to transport back three or four logs while I was still having malaria. It was so pitiful. The cart capsized a few times so I had to put the logs back on the cart. These are just some of the points of my suffering under the regime. And I also was forced to engage in rice farming, all kinds of rice farming. And when I was sick, there was no medical treatment. And when I went to the herbal curer, I was only given a rabbit pellet to swallow. They used dispensed gun shell as a mould as they put this kind of rabbit pellet in it and I was given that kind of tablet. However, later on I recovered, but I did not know what actually cured me; whether it's from that rabbit pellet or from the herbal medicine that I took. Even at present, I had problem with my liver and with my stomach. It could be the effect from that time. We were asked to build -- to make dyke or to build dam, as well, and we had to complete the daily quota of 2 to 3 cubic metres. And if we could achieve the 2 to 3 cubic metres per day, next day it would increase to 7 – to cubic metres and next day it would be 7. The dam was high and wide so we tried very hard from dusk to dawn, and we were so fatigued. And when we finished, in the late afternoon, we did not have rice to eat; we only had thick gruel with morning -- with morning glory soup. We could only have one or two pieces of chicken or a few small fishes in a large pot of soup. I can recall that in 1976, Angkar only gave us one corn per day as a food ration and sometime the food is so small, it is very difficult to fill our stomach from this small corn. So for – for each meal we only could eat half of the corn, and we worked very hard with this insufficient food. The situation was really horrible. My knees were larger than my head. Sometime, when I was ploughing the rice field, I could hardly keep up with the cow's pace. And in the evening, during the meeting, we were asked to try to work hard to achieve the plan by Angkar in a Great Leap Forward fashion that we should achieve the 3 tonnes per hectare plan and that we should progress better than the Angkar period. And we were not allowed to find any other food besides the food ration given to us by Angkar, but sometimes we had to force ourself to find other thing to eat to survive. Sometime, we had to -- to eat tree leaves. We used the tree leaves to mix with the saltwater and we ate that. Actually, when we went to the kitchen, we asked them for some grains of salt and we said the soup was not salty enough, but in fact we used it to mix with the tree leaves and ate the tree leaves. I was so skinny. And later my wife said, "How could I stay with you? You look like a very old, skinny -- skinny, old man". I was skinny and very old because of the lack of food. I was also asked to dig a canal at Damrei Puon. It was a 10-metre dip toward the head of the canal and the canal was about 2 to 3 kilometres long. The people from the entire district was gathered up to dig the canal and we were given two meals per day and we started working from early morning up to 11. We had a rest and we started again from 1 to 5 and later on we had to work at night until 10 or 11. We were given rice, at the time, but the soup was very watery. During the time that we dug the canal, the Angkar made an announcement that we would be given three meals per day -- that is, the gruel in the morning, the rice for lunch, the rice for dinner, and every week we would have a dessert, but no, in fact, we only were offered two meals per day. And during the rainy season or transplanted season, we only had watery gruel to eat. They did not care about our health, that we did not have enough food to eat. And on one day, there was this Party commemoration that was held during the Pchum Ben period, and Angkar would cook dry rice and then there would be pork and beef, and then there was a big meeting for us to attend. And after the conclusion of the meeting, we were allowed to go into the kitchen and we tried to fill our stomach with the rice that we hardly ate and with the proper food and we fill our stomach. But because we had – never had a chance to eat that much, half of the villagers had diarrhoea at night and then we were accused that we were -- that we pretended to be lazy, to be sick rather than trying to treat us. We were accused of being lazy, that we had proper food to eat, and then that we had this diarrhoea and that we deserved to eat watery gruel. The hard work, in combination with the insufficient food, led many of us to deteriorate in our health. And we did not have enough time to sleep because at night, we stopped working at 10 p.m. and by the time we returned to our house, wash ourselves, it was 11 and we had to wake up at 4 a.m. as the bell would be rang by that time. Some of us had to go to the field or to prepare the cows for the ploughing so we did not have enough time to sleep. Despite working that hard, we were still forced by Angkar to work harder -- to work harder and to love Angkar absolutely. But on the contrary, Angkar did not love us absolutely. On top of this, I had suffered dearly when I was arrested and detained at a security centre in Ba Phnum district. In captivity, I was shackled and my hands were bound behind my back and I was interrogated. I had been left or abandoned for three days when the shackles were still on, the ties were still on after such interrogation, and no one could tell me anything why I had to remain like that. I talked -- I asked a security guard about this, but I did not get response other than being beaten up. And during the interrogation, I would be beaten every now and then. After each question, I would be beaten so I had been beaten all over my body except my back, and I did not commit any wrongdoing at all. I was just implicated in the event when So Phim had a problem and I was just in the wrong time -- at the wrong place at the wrong time, and I was detained along with my friend for one month. I was shackled for the entire period, and I finally couldn't stand no more and I asked a security guard to allow me to work with other people instead of being shackled and kept in the detention facility for longer. So I can say that I have been mentally or psychologically and physically suffering from the harms and I can't describe them all in my words how painful this ordeal was. And I, at the same time, been very saddened by the loss of my relatives. My father and my parents, every time I think about them, I can't stop crying. If my father were to live until this day, none of my family member would have had so much difficulties in their life like this. My mother had been fragile by -- emotionally by the loss of her husband. And I also have had a lot of problems mentally having seen how my brothers and sisters living their poor life because the -- we were not properly cared like what we were when our parents are still alive. To that effect, we were not properly educated. Even these days, I still see Khmer Rouge soldiers fighting with me, chasing me in my dreams, and I would wake up to the nightmare almost every night. I have been traumatized by the events. Every time I heard about the fighting, I would recollect the Khmer Rouge, the fighting during the Khmer Rouge time. I think I don't have -- I don't know how I can put all this suffering into words. When it comes to material harms, at the Kampong Kdei location, when I was there, people treated us badly because they regarded us as those who brought trouble, those who came to steal their food. And finally, they decided to send me for execution, but my grandfather could beg them to spare me and luckily I was spared. Indeed, they say that we were there to destroy them, to bring hardship to them. And I left Phnom Penh with very little belongings. But the Khmer Rouge destroyed everything. I rose through different ranks in my capacity as a soldier, but the Khmer Rouge stole everything from me. And when I went to that location, as I indicated, they did not welcome us. After leaving our home, the only thing we knew was that we would never be back and we have lost the property. And at a later date, when people returned to the city, those who came to occupy our property would claim the ownership of the property and we had no choice but to let it go. As to the living condition during that time, we had nothing but the very few wooden poles that we put together to form a bed where we could sleep at night. And after exposure to the sunlight and rains, these makeshift or improvised bed couldn't hold us no more. And later on, we could manage to bring some trees to build a small hut, but the hut is -- or was not properly built and we had to barely -- we had a lot of difficulties. And to conclude, I can say that because of the Khmer Rouge, I have lost almost everything. So finally, I would like to humbly request as follows: I would like the Chamber to prosecute the former senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge who have inflicted tortures and mistreatment on to my families and that they shall be punished to commensurate with their wrongdoings and crimes they have committed. And at the same time, I would like the Chamber to investigate to see whether the accused person has any belongings or property and that if so, we would like our counsels to manage them so that they could also be returned to the victims. And finally, I would like to appeal to the Chamber to make sure the trial proceedings are concluded completely and successfully. Thank you very much.”

Videos

Testimony
Date	Written record of proceedings	Transcript number
22/10/2012	E1/136	E1/136.1

Relevant documents
Document title Khmer	Document title English	Document title French	Document D number	Document E3 number