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Santebal
The ''Santebal'' ( km, សន្តិបាល, ; meaning "keeper of peace") was the secret police of the Khmer Rouge's Democratic Kampuchea (DK) regime in Cambodia. The Santebal was in charge of internal security and running prison camps like Tuol Sleng (S-21) where thousands of people were imprisoned, interrogated, tortured and executed. It was part of the Khmer Rouge organizational structure well before the Fall of Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975. Its name is an amalgam of two words: ''sântĕsŏkh'' ( ) meaning "security" and ''nôkôrbal'' ( ) meaning "police". History As early as 1971, the Khmer Rouge or the Communist Party of Kampuchea established the Special Zone outside of Phnom Penh under the direction of Vorn Vet and Son Sen. Sen, later the Deputy Minister for Defense of Democratic Kampuchea, was also in charge of the Santebal, and in that capacity he appointed Comrade Duch to run its security apparatus. Most of the Santebal's deputies, such as Comrade Chan and Comrade ...
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Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge (; ; km, ខ្មែរក្រហម, ; ) is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and by extension to the regime through which the CPK ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. The name was coined in the 1960s by then Chief of State Norodom Sihanouk to describe his country's heterogeneous, communist-led dissidents, with whom he allied after his 1970 overthrow. The Khmer Rouge army was slowly built up in the jungles of eastern Cambodia during the late 1960s, supported by the North Vietnamese army, the Viet Cong, the Pathet Lao, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Although it originally fought against Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge changed its position and supported Sihanouk on the advice of the CCP after he was overthrown in a 1970 coup by Lon Nol who established the pro-American Khmer Republic. Despite a massive American bombing campaign (Operation Freedom Deal) against them, the Khmer Rouge won the Cambodian C ...
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Kang Kek Iew
Kang Kek Iew, also spelled Kaing Guek Eav ( km, កាំង ហ្គេកអ៊ាវ, ; 17 November 1942 – 2 September 2020), ''nom de guerre'' Comrade Duch ( km, មិត្តឌុច, ) or Hang Pin, was a Cambodian convicted war criminal and leader in the Khmer Rouge movement, which ruled Democratic Kampuchea from 1975 to 1979. As the head of the government's internal security branch (Santebal), he oversaw the Tuol Sleng (S-21) prison camp where thousands were held for interrogation and torture, after which the vast majority of these prisoners were eventually executed. He was the first Khmer Rouge leader to be tried by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge regime, and was convicted of crimes against humanity, murder, and torture for his role during the Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia and sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment. On Candlemas Day, 2 February 2012, his sentence was extended to life imprisonment by the Extraor ...
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Comrade Duch
Kang Kek Iew, also spelled Kaing Guek Eav ( km, កាំង ហ្គេកអ៊ាវ, ; 17 November 1942 – 2 September 2020), ''nom de guerre'' Comrade Duch ( km, មិត្តឌុច, ) or Hang Pin, was a Cambodian convicted war criminal and leader in the Khmer Rouge movement, which ruled Democratic Kampuchea from 1975 to 1979. As the head of the government's internal security branch (Santebal), he oversaw the Tuol Sleng (S-21) prison camp where thousands were held for interrogation and torture, after which the vast majority of these prisoners were eventually executed. He was the first Khmer Rouge leader to be tried by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge regime, and was convicted of crimes against humanity, murder, and torture for his role during the Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia and sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment. On Candlemas Day, 2 February 2012, his sentence was extended to life imprisonment by the Extraor ...
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Son Sen
Son Sen ( km, សុន សេន ; 12 June 1930 – 15 June 1997), alias Comrade Khieu () or "Brother Number 89", was a Cambodian Communist politician and soldier. A member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea/Party of Democratic Kampuchea, the ''Khmer Rouge'', from 1974 to 1992, Sen oversaw the Party's security apparatus, including the ''Santebal'' secret police and the notorious security prison S-21 at Tuol Sleng. Son Sen was responsible for ordering the massacre of more than 100,000 people in the Eastern Zone of Cambodia during the last six months of 1978. Sen was married to Yun Yat, who became the Party's minister of education and information. Along with the rest of his family, he was killed on the orders of Pol Pot during a 1997 factional split in the Khmer Rouge. Early life Son Sen was born in the village of Huong Hoa, Trà Vinh Province in southern Vietnam to a minor landowning family.Kiernan, B. (2004), p.29 Although the Khmer Institute de ...
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Democratic Kampuchea
Kampuchea ( km, កម្ពុជា ), officially known as Democratic Kampuchea (DK; km, កម្ពុជាប្រជាធិបតេយ្យ ) from 5 January 1976, was a one-party totalitarian state which encompassed modern-day Cambodia and existed from 1975 to 1979. It was controlled by the Khmer Rouge (KR), the name popularly given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), and was founded when KR forces defeated the Khmer Republic of Lon Nol in 1975. Between 1975 and 1979, the state and its ruling Khmer Rouge regime were responsible for the deaths of millions of Cambodians through forced labour and genocide. The KR lost control of most Cambodian territory to the Vietnamese occupation. From 1979 to 1982, Democratic Kampuchea survived as a rump state. In June 1982, the Khmer Rouge formed the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK) with two non-communist guerrilla factions, which retained international recognition. The state was rename ...
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Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum
The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum ( km, សារមន្ទីរឧក្រិដ្ឋកម្មប្រល័យពូជសាសន៍ទួលស្លែង) or simply Tuol Sleng ( km, ទួលស្លែង, link=no, ; lit. "Hill of the Poisonous Trees" or "Strychnine Hill") is a museum chronicling the Cambodian genocide. Located in Phnom Penh, the site is a former secondary school which was used as Security Prison 21 (S-21; km, មន្ទីរស-២១, link=no) by the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 until its fall in 1979. From 1976 to 1979, an estimated 20,000 people were imprisoned at Tuol Sleng and it was one of between 150 and 196 torture and execution centers established by the Khmer Rouge. On 26 July 2010, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia convicted the prison's chief, Kang Kek Iew, for crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. He died on 2 September 2020 while serving a life sentence. History To acco ...
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Mam Nai
Mam Nai or Mam Nay ( km, ម៉មណៃ, born 1934), ''nom de guerre'' Comrade Chan (), is a Cambodian war criminal and former lieutenant of Santebal, the internal security branch of the Khmer Rouge communist movement, which ruled Democratic Kampuchea from 1975 to 1979. He was the leader of the interrogation unit at Tuol Sleng (S-21), assisting Kang Kek Iew (Comrade Duch), the head of the camp where thousands were held for interrogation, torture and subsequent killing. Mam Nay gave testimony at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia on 14 July 2009. He denied being a leader of the interrogation and torture system of the Khmer Rouge. Tall, pock-marked and having a pink complexion, Mam Nai impressed both Nate Thayer and François Bizot as the most frightening Khmer Rouge individual they ever beheld. Bizot further described Mam Nai as a 'true crime fiction character' with a terrifying 'gallows face'. He met him twice at the French Embassy compound in Phnom Penh ...
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Nic Dunlop
Nic Dunlop (born 1969) is a photographer and author. Early life and education Dunlop was born in Ireland, lives in Bangkok, Thailand. He was educated in Ireland and later England (Bedales School). He studied at the Central School of Art and Design in London. Career Film director Dunlop co-directed the HBO film ''Burma Soldier'' (with Anne Sundberg and Ricki Stern, produced by Julie le Brocquy). The film was awarded the "Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary" at the 2011 United Nations Association Film Festival, and Dunlop received a 2011 News & Documentary Emmy Award nomination for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Writing" for his writing. Author and photographer Dunlop co-authored ''War of the Mines'' (1994) with Paul Davies, about the devastation caused by landmines. His book ''The Lost Executioner: A Story of the Khmer Rouge'' (Bloomsbury, UK 2005; Walkerbooks, US 2006) was the result of a research supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. Dunlop ex ...
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Law Enforcement In Communist States
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the art of justice. State-enforced laws can be made by a group legislature or by a single legislator, resulting in statutes; by the executive through decrees and regulations; or established by judges through precedent, usually in common law jurisdictions. Private individuals may create legally binding contracts, including arbitration agreements that adopt alternative ways of resolving disputes to standard court litigation. The creation of laws themselves may be influenced by a constitution, written or tacit, and the rights encoded therein. The law shapes politics, economics, history and society in various ways and serves as a mediator of relations between people. Legal systems vary between jurisdictions ...
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François Bizot
François Bizot (born 8 February 1940) is a French anthropologist, the only Westerner to have survived imprisonment by the Khmer Rouge. Arrival in Cambodia Bizot arrived in Cambodia in 1965 to study Buddhism practised in the countryside. He travelled extensively around Cambodia, researching the history and customs of its dominant religion. He speaks fluent Khmer, French and English and was married to a Cambodian with whom he had a daughter, Hélène, in 1968. When the Vietnam War spilled into Cambodia, Bizot was employed at the Angkor Conservation Office, restoring ceramics and bronzes. Bizot, at first, welcomed the American intervention in Cambodia, hoping that they might counter the rising influence of the Communists. "But their irresponsibility, the inexcusable naivete, even their cynicism, frequently aroused more fury and outrage in me than did the lies of the Communists. Throughout those years of war, as I frantically scoured the hinterland for the old manuscripts that ...
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Ben Kiernan
Benedict F. "Ben" Kiernan (born 1953) is an Australian-born American academic and historian who is the Whitney Griswold Professor Emeritus of History, Professor of International and Area Studies and Director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University. Biography Kiernan visited Cambodia in his early twenties, but left before the Khmer Rouge expelled all foreigners in 1975. Though he initially doubted the reported scale of genocide then being perpetrated in Democratic Kampuchea, he changed his mind in 1978 after beginning a series of interviews with several hundred refugees from Cambodia. He learned the Khmer language, carried out research in Cambodia and among refugees abroad, and has since written many books on the topic. From 1980 onwards, Kiernan worked with Gregory Stanton to bring the Khmer Rouge to international justice. He obtained his PhD from Monash University in Australia in 1983, under the supervision of David P. Chandler. He joined the History Department at Y ...
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