M-99 exposed

Nic Dunlop ponders another question at tonight's session

Nic Dunlop's Q&A session at Meta House tonight began with a recent filmed report he completed for Al Jazeera News when he delved into the history of one of the prisons that preceded S-21, hoping to find a connection to Comrade Duch, currently on trial here in Phnom Penh. It was Dunlop who unmasked Duch in the remote town of Samlot in 1999 and who, alongwith Nate Thayer, brought it to worldwide attention that the former chief of S-21 was alive and well and had converted to christianity. This led onto Duch's arrest by the government and his trial a decade later, and also to Dunlop's fine book, The Lost Executioner. This time Dunlop's investigations took him to the site of a prison known as M-99, located in the wilderness of Kompong Speu province and long forgotten by anyone, except those who had lost loved ones at the prison. His interviews revealed never-before heard testimony from survivors and emphasized the sad fact that few in the countryside knew that the Khmer Rouge Tribunals were even taking place. After the film, Dunlop took questions from the floor of tonight's packed-out session, that included Al Rockoff and Henri Locard, that ranged from who decides who will be tried by the Tribunal to did anything in Duch's past foretell his role as a mass murderer? It was clear from the audience's interest that more nights like this at Meta House would go down well. To find out more from Nic Dunlop, click here.

Looking forward

In just over an hour I'll be at Meta House listening to Nic Dunlop, the journalist who tracked down the S-21 commandant Comrade Duch to a small town in Cambodia's northwestern boondocks, and who is now the man at the center of the country's first Khmer Rouge Tribunal, which has been continuing this week. Dunlop exposed the full story of Duch in his excellent book The Lost Executioner and tonight's short film and Q&A will give Phnom Penhites the opportunity to find out more from the man himself. Tomorrow night, Francois Ponchaud is continuing his lectures in English at the Catholic Communications office on St 242 on the history of Cambodia, with his focus this week on the Lon Nol Regime and the years 1970-75 (start 6.30pm). The third event of interest for me this week will be a performance by the Sovanna Phum team on Friday and Saturday of Roussey Dek, a mixed creation of Shadow puppetry, dance, circus and live traditional Khmer orchestra, that first premiered in London of all places in 2003. It's pure Khmer and sounds like a winner to me. Performances begin at 7.30pm at the Sovanna Phum Theatre on St 360.

Dunlop on Duch

The freelance journalist who tracked down and exposed Comrade Duch, then wrote about his investigations in the excellent book, The Lost Executioner, and who I first heard about for his work on the 1994 book War of the Mines, Nic Dunlop (pictured), will be holding court at Meta House on Tuesday 19th May at 7pm. Dubbed a 'grown-up Harry Potter' by one fellow journo, Dunlop's expose on the man who oversaw thousands of interrogations and executions at Tuol Sleng is a fine book, well worth reading and will no doubt be covered as part of the Q&A that will take place at Meta House after a short documentary screening on the night. Bangkok-based, his current work is a photo-led project on Burma's dictatorship, though with the Duch trial taking place in Phnom Penh right now, you can appreciate he is more interested than most.
Link: website.

To refresh memories, here's my review of The Lost Executioner: A Story of the Khmer Rouge:
Nic Dunlop's first-rate detective story on the trail of Pol Pot's chief executioner, the notorious Comrade Duch, is a fascinating journey into Cambodia's recent bloody history. Through a series of testimonies by Duch's family members and people who knew him, Dunlop builds up a compelling picture of this former teacher turned mass murderer, whilst also giving us a running commentary on the development of the Khmer Rouge organisation through the eyes of former cadre such as Sokheang, now a human rights investigator though formerly a Khmer Rouge sympathiser. The Lost Executioner is Dunlop's first book; he's primarily a photographer who became obsessed with S-21, known to many as Tuol Sleng, and its commandant, Comrade Duch. He even kept a photo of Duch in his pocket. By an astonishing stroke of luck, Dunlop met the man responsible for the deaths of more than 20,000 people, in Samlaut, a small town in northwest Cambodia in 1999 and exposed him with the help of Nate Thayer and the Far Eastern Economic Review, leading to his arrest and detention, awaiting trial. Dunlop's subsequent investigations and interviews now provide us with a great wealth of detail about Duch's life before, during and after the Khmer Rouge reign of terror though ultimately the reason for Duch's transformation into a brutal killer remains an unexplained puzzle. In a perverse twist, Duch converted to Christianity, had worked for an American charity, was living under a new identity and had returned to teaching before his unmasking. The book is written in an easy to follow though powerful narrative and I recommend The Lost Executioner to anyone seeking to delve into the morass that is Cambodia's recent past. It's a remarkable and revealing story. [pic Chor Sokunthea]