The defection of a one-time high-ranking Khmer Rouge commander last month has raised the ire of researchers who say there is overwhelming evidence he committed crimes against humanity.
Analysts are considering whether Ke Pauk—who appeared on national television March 27 denouncing rebel chief of staff Ta Mok—will go to trial or be awarded a government post. Ke Pauk is a former member of the Democratic Kampuchea standing committee and commanded hard-line troops for more than two decades.
Ke Pauk—whose name has also been spelled Keo Pourk by journalists—said last week in an interview that he was a standing committee member from 1972 to 1990.
According to Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, all 50 members of the standing committee—which included rebel stalwarts Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary and Khieu Samphan—are culpable for the death of up to 2 million Cambodians during the regime’s three and a half years in power.
“The information we have at the center is good enough to give a very good background [on Ke Pauk] to lawyers to make their judgment,” he said.
The Documentation Center is researching the Pol Pot regime to provide information for possible prosecution of those responsible for atrocities. Asked if he thought Ke Pauk would be found guilty of crimes against humanity if his case went before a judge, Youk Chhang said, “I think he would.”
researching the Pol Pot regime to provide information for possible prosecution of those responsible for atrocities. Asked if he thought Ke Pauk would be found guilty of crimes against humanity if his case went before a judge, Youk Chhang said, “I think he would.”
In an e-mail to Youk Chhang, Craig Etcheson, an independent genocide researcher for the California-based International Monitors Institute, commented that Ke Pauk is more culpable for crimes against humanity than some of the most famous Khmer Rouge defectors.
“I am very unhappy about the new hero of Cambodian national reconciliation, Mr Ke Pauk,” Etcheson wrote. “He is much worse than [former rebel foreign minister] Ieng Sary. He killed more than 100,000 innocent Cambodian civilians, for Christ’s sake! You know all those killing fields in Kompong Cham? That’s Pauk’s work!”
Ke Pauk, interviewed last week in Siem Reap town, pinned the blame for the nearly 2 million deaths on Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, former rebel defense minister Son Sen, and rebel commander Ta Mok.
“It was no one else,” he told journalists at the hotel where he was staying.
Asked if he would stand as a witness in a court trial against the men he named, he answered enigmatically.
“How can I be a witness? I’ve told you everything I know,” he said.
According to background compiled by historians, Ke Pauk was born Ke Vin in the Baray district of Kompong Thom province. Historians place his birthdate at 1934, although Ke Pauk told journalists last week he is 68.
At the age of 15, Ke Vin joined the communist United Issarak Front when colonial French forces attempted to round him up in his home village, according to historians.
After three years’ imprisonment from 1954 to 1957, Ke Vin fled into the jungle in 1964 from anti-communist repression.
There, he rose rapidly to military commander of the northern zone of the Khmer Rouge’s forerunner, the Communist Party of Kampuchea, historians say.
Soon after, he changed his name to Pauk, in memory of a forest retreat where he sought refuge from anti-communist police.
“Ke Vin, under the pseudonym Pauk, became commander of the northern zone and quickly established a reputation as the most brutal of all the figures of Pol Pot’s regime,” according to the 1985 book, “How Pol Pot Came to Power,” written by Benedict Kiernan, a professor of history at Yale University in the US.
Historians allege that in 1974, Ke Pauk and Ta Mok directed the Khmer Rouge’s bloody seizure of Odong, 40 km northwest of Phnom Penh.
“The Khmer Rouge, after conquering Odong, led the populace of 20,000 persons into the nearby jungle, killed all schoolteachers and government officials and deliberately razed the town,” Kiernan wrote, quoting a separate report.
Ke Pauk was the 13th-highest-ranking Democratic Kampuchea official and the fourth-highest military official under Pol Pot, Son Sen and Ta Mok, Kiernan wrote. Ta Mok is said to be leading about 200 rebel soldiers on the northern border with Thailand.
Historians report that Ke Pauk-led soldiers committed the 1970s slaughter of thousands of ethnic Chams and villagers in Kompong Cham suspected of having directed US air strikes in Cambodia.
Youk Chhang said a court should be the final judge on Ke Pauk’s culpability.
“He can point to anybody. Of course, you know, the killer always claims that he’s innocent,” Youk Chhang said. “He can say that [he is innocent]. I’m sure that one day a court will establish that he can’t say that again.”
Preap Tann, director of propaganda for the RCAF general staff and a key player in securing last months’ defections, said last week it would be up to senior government officials whether to grant Ke Pauk a government post or bring him to trial.
One analyst familiar with the post-1990 Khmer Rouge concluded that there is no political will in the government to bring the Khmer Rouge members to trial for crimes against humanity.
He pointed out that cadre and standing committee members would finger cadre who split with Democratic Kampuchea in 1977 and returned as government officials after the Vietnamese army invaded two years later.
“There are only damages that will come from a trial, no benefits,” said the analyst, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Asked if Ke Pauk would get a government post or a Pailin-like autonomous zone, the analyst said probably, but it would not happen immediately.
