Enemies of the People

He looks like a decent man: a kind, soft face, deep brown eyes, avuncular wrinkles. In fact to me he looks like a maths teacher – which is what he was.

Not the sort of guy, then, who would direct horrific torture and mass murder at Phnom Penh’s notorious ‘S21’ Tuol Sleng prison / death camp.

But that’s exactly what happened. The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia have finally, 11 years after they were established, convicted the first member of the Khmer Rouge for crimes against humanity.

Comrade Duch’s story is remarkable for many reasons – the horrors committed by a seemingly ordinary man, his mysterious disappearance after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, and his bizarre chance discovery twenty years later by a British journalist.

Even his trial was extraordinary, undertaken by a hybrid of a local court supported by international officials and money, with both local and international judges. Duch initially admitted his crimes and expressed remorse, but then dramatically sacked his defense team and called for an acquittal.

The trial was also profoundly significant in that it finally allowed victims of the regime in Cambodia to face up to one of the killers.

Pol Pot, however, will never face justice – he remained at large in the north of Cambodia, near where I live and work, long after his regime had fallen. Ironically, the western countries who are so instrumental in backing the international court were the ones who helped ‘Brother number 1’ evade justice, covertly arming him as a buffer against communist Vietnamese troops who overthrew his regime in 1979.

But his deputy, ‘Brother number 2’ Nuon Chea, is still alive and is due to face trial along with three others next year.

At the Cambodian premiere of a new film about him, Enemies of the People, Cambodian investigatory journalist Thet Sambath tracks down Nuon Chea and gains his trust to the extent that he admits his actions for the first time.

The film includes fascinating insights such as Nuon Chea interpreting footage of Saddam Hussain as showing a misunderstood patriot, his strange moral code in wanting to avoid ''embarrassment'' by reenacting how he slit the throats of victims, and all the killers' constant references to following the hierarchy of command as a reason for obeying orders to murder.

But ultimately the film – and the trial - left me more confused than ever: how on earth can a country kill up to two million of its own people?

More illuminating was the post-screening debate, with co-director Rob Lemkin pushed to turn over his footage to the courts. Lemkin argued that Sambath was only able to get unique admissions of guilt on film by promising that these were for historical not judicial purposes, and that the future of truth and reconciliation depends on honouring such agreements.

Perhaps both approaches have their place – Cambodians, prompted by the top-down work of the courts and the more grassroots discussion of the film, may finally be starting to come to terms with their terrible recent history.