The Master of Confessions (14 page)

Just as they have a cyclical rather than linear notion of time, thinking progresses circuitously rather than in straight lines.

“They speak in circles while you speak in pyramids,” filmmaker Rithy Panh told me.

Circular contrasts with linear, reiteration with accumulation, detail with summary, and the present moment with the past's calibrated and inexorable pull toward the future.

When a Cambodian judge makes a point, the reply he receives is accepted unconditionally, with no follow-up question. The journey from a specific question to an appropriate answer is often a long and winding one. The mind follows its own path, of course, but the Cambodian brain follows twists and turns that sometimes leave the Western brain, accustomed as it is to moving quickly toward goals, deeply distressed.

I was surprised to find that sometimes all the repetition eventually begat a totally new answer. It brought to mind Native Americans, who take the time to pass a ceremonial pipe around the entire group before anyone says something of importance. When I ask the psychologist who had examined Duch about it, she replies matter-of-factly that circular thinking was the way they worked in therapy, and that it is this attention to detail that allows the therapist and patient to understand the bigger picture. Therefore, she says, she's not bothered at all by the meandering way things are discussed in Cambodia.

The problem is that in a Western-style trial, repetition is not considered a way of reasoning but a professional failing, and throughout the trial, almost everyone involved complains about the exhausting redundancy of the arguments—the responsibility for which, by the way, does not lie solely with the Khmer lawyers. The president of the trial chamber, Nil Nonn, asks—repeatedly—that people cease repeating themselves. But though it is his job to keep order in his courtroom, there's little chance that the judge will solve the problem so long as he himself sees narrative repetition as perfectly normal. The moment when, on the forty-ninth day of the trial, one of the judges again asks a witness about some details that have been established a hundred times over—How were the prisoners chained? How did they wash? How did they relieve themselves? What did they eat?—is the point at which, for many of us, the culture clash reaches its nadir.

By early June, other things only add to the fatigue. At the start of the trial, hearing the defendant in his own words was one of its most interesting aspects; now it has grown tedious. The conduct of the proceedings has fallen apart. The presiding judge is so apathetic it's as though no one's in charge. The lawyers strive to outdo one another in the irrelevancy and repetition of their arguments. Duch is in control of the hearing and of his own case. He is his own prosecutor and his own defense and sometimes even his own judge. In fact, he so dominates the courtroom that it actually works against both him and his brilliant lawyer, François Roux. The sheer deftness of the master of confessions, combined with Roux's artfulness, leads to an odd paradox: instead of being outraged by the prosecution's ineptitude or the presiding judge's incapacity, people resent Duch and Roux for being well-prepared and efficient.

Then, on the day the prosecutor faints, the presiding judge at last measures up to his position. In fact, on June 22, Nil Nonn goes through a complete metamorphosis. From a weak, nonexistent, nervous, and mute president of the tribunal petrified by his own responsibility, he is suddenly transformed into an effective judge, one who even tends to be a little rash, perhaps, but who, most of the time, is reasonable and never excessive. It's as though the long and patient effort of repetition has finally borne its fruit of wisdom. Yesterday, the judge balked at settling even a basic point of procedure; today, first he gives a clear and pertinent answer to a dissenting lawyer, then pulls the civil parties into line, then brushes aside a prosecutor, who retreats behind his desk, and finally frees himself from the defense's domination—and all this without consulting his peers. Like anyone enjoying unrestrained power, Nil Nonn sometimes comes across as arrogant. But he is now firmly at the helm of a ship that had been in dire need of a captain.

When Cambodians of the old generation say “Khmer Rouge,” they don't pronounce the final consonant, the
je
sound. Thus, they call Pol Pot's men “Khmer roo,” which in French can be written “Khmer Roux.” But when Nil Nonn addresses François Roux, he regularly calls him “François Rouge.” One day in the middle of July, a tired, stressed, and irritated Mr. Roux makes a number of uncharacteristic mistakes. The presiding judge doesn't bother with either the cordial “Monsieur Roux” or the more comical “Monsieur Rouge.” With a big smile spread across his square face, framed by thick-rimmed glasses, the judge upbraids the lawyer for the first time in the course of the trial. In a cold and firm voice, he says, “Counsel for the defense, do you have anything more to say? I do not wish to be interrupted.”

N
OT COUNTING THE VIETNAMESE,
seventy-eight foreigners died at S-21, including one “Arab,” five Indians, twenty-nine Thais, a Javanese, a Laotian, three Americans, three Frenchmen, two Australians, a Briton, and a New Zealander. But no list is complete.

The law recognizes the overwhelming extent of the Khmer Rouge's crime in the name it reserves for such atrocities: a crime against
humanity
. But it's the non-Khmer victims who help embody the universality of it. The court pays particular attention to the Western victims. Only a handful of parents of foreign victims—all of them European or American—applied to be included as civil parties in the trial. The Arab and the Javanese remain utter mysteries. And in the end, the only foreigner whose story is told in any detail is the New Zealander Kerry Hamill. Like doubtless many others, it's a harrowing and unbearable tale of bad luck.

Kerry Hamill was the oldest of five siblings, four of whom were boys. In an old black-and-white photo, Kerry is on the bow of a sailing dinghy, its single square sail raised, with two other boys around his age. Sailing is their passion. In another photo, taken several years later, Kerry stands shirtless, sporting a sailor's beard, his hair wet with seawater. The handsome, smiling youth in the photo (he was twenty-six) looks strong and healthy. It is 1978; Kerry and some friends have bought a yacht and are sailing around the world. He regularly writes to his family. For his youngest brother, Kerry's letters are extraordinary tales of adventure. In July of 1978, Kerry sends a letter from Singapore. His girlfriend, Gail, disembarked there to spend a couple of months with her family back home. In August, Kerry and his two friends cross the Gulf of Thailand. Caught in bad weather, they seek shelter near an island. Then, out of nowhere, a boat starts shooting at them. Stuart, a Canadian, is killed. Kerry and John, an Englishman, are hauled away. The boat was a Khmer Rouge patrol.

Kerry and John were locked up in S-21 and accused of being CIA spies. There's little doubt that they were tortured into making their confessions and young Kerry gave up to his torturers the names of all the traitors in his network. Most remarkably, he managed to make a mockery of their macabre parody without their knowing. His handling officers, colonels, captains, and majors were all named after his friends in New Zealand. Names Kerry snitched to the Khmer Rouge included Colonel Sanders, Sergeant Pepper, and Major Ruse. His CIA instructor was called “S. Starr,” a nod to his mother, Esther. Despite being deep inside the dark and terrifying jail of the black-clad Khmer Rouge, despite the torture, the handsome sailor kept his sense of the absurd intact. After two months of incarceration, Kerry signed his “confession.” He was wiped out, along with John, shortly thereafter. His family's pain was just beginning.

Christmas of 1978 came and went with no news of Kerry since Singapore. Sixteen more months passed before his youngest brother, then sixteen, learned that Kerry had been captured, tortured, and murdered by Pol Pot's regime, which by that time had been overthrown. Family arguments at home multiplied and got increasingly heated. Kerry's second sibling, with whom he'd been very close, sank into a deep depression. Eight months after he learned of Kerry's death, Kerry's brother threw himself off a cliff. He was the same age that Kerry had been when he died.

The youngest Hamill is forty-five years old when he takes the stand at Duch's trial.

“Duch, when you killed Kerry you killed my brother John as well,” he says, looking directly at the defendant.

Duch gives a little nod. He is sitting straight, his forearms on the table, his eyes fixed on the witness. It's his usual posture of respect and attentiveness.

After losing her second son in a little over two years, Kerry's mother rarely left her bed. Her room was like a mausoleum, says Kerry's youngest brother. Depressed and suffering from shingles, she lost all interest in life. Kerry's father, meanwhile, retreated into himself. He stopped going to work and soon retired. They couldn't go on as parents.

“Our immediate family became a little bubble, and we became very reluctant to interact with others,” says Kerry's brother.

For a while, the youngest brother lost himself to drinking. His schoolwork deteriorated. He couldn't stop the images from eating away at him. He imagined Kerry seated among piles of tires, being burned alive. That's how the Khmer Rouge erased every trace of the foreigners they killed—by burning them on street corners, though they probably killed them first. Then there's the haunting photo from the archives of S-21: a man on the ground with his feet shackled, lying in his own blood yet propping himself up on one arm, bravely trying to raise himself as the photographer releases the shutter. The photo isn't clear enough to give us the man's identity. But for Kerry's little brother, in tears, there's little doubt: “For me, this is my gorgeous, beautiful brother Kerry Hamill at S-21,” he says. “This is the sort of image that haunted me when I was sixteen and still haunts me today. I have lost so much sleep over this image.”

He stares at the former director of S-21. Duch sits up straight, looks at him and listens carefully.

“Duch, at times I've wanted to smash you, to use your own words, in the same way that you smashed so many others. At times, I've imagined you shackled, starved, whipped, and beaten viciously . . .
viciously
,” repeats the little brother with venomous rage.

The little brother has a few more questions to ask the defendant.

“Duch!”

Duch immediately gets to his feet.

“I acknowledge that you plead guilty . . .”

Presiding Judge Nil Nonn steps in. He tells the defendant to sit down. The judge warns Kerry's brother that he doesn't want to hear any abusive language. He doesn't want to hear any vengeful talk. He tells the youngest Hamill that he must put his questions to the judge, not directly to the defendant. Nil Nonn knows that some of his colleagues, unused to seeing victims of a crime participate in the perpetrator's trial in this way, are horrified that Kerry's little brother is allowed to say the things he does in court. “I am angry beyond words with you and what you did,” continues the younger brother after Nil Nonn's warning, “but I acknowledge and respect your guilty plea. Your acknowledgment is a small but significant contribution to addressing the harm that you caused. You have proven to this court that you have a very good memory. Please answer this question: what do you remember of my brother?”

“There were four Westerners,” says Duch in a slow, gentle voice,

Duch told investigators that he had entrusted the interrogation of Kerry and John to Pon, his favorite interrogator, who had a “good command of violence.” One night, Pon came to tell Duch how nice and polite the Englishman was. The next morning, Duch went to see for himself. Pon wanted Duch to initiate the interrogation session, but the boss wanted to watch his subordinate in action. He was also concerned about the skill of the interpreter.

“What's your name?” Duch asked the person who had been recruited to interpret.

“Sarun Chon.”

“How do you say
kaun mi sampheung
in English?”

“Son of a bitch.”

“I knew then that he had all the skills,” Duch told investigators.

It's better to avoid imagining how the rest of the interrogation went. No doubt it was more direct than circular.

Kerry Hamill's youngest brother says he isn't seeking any sort of financial restitution, which is just as well, since the court has no authority nor will to make any. But he asks Duch how he thinks he might atone for the harm he did the Hamill family.

“The best I can do,” says Duch,