[The following is in regards to the trial of Kaing Guek Eav, commonly known as Comrade Duch, who was the head of the Khmer Rouge’s internal security branch, in which he oversaw the Tuol Sleng (S-21) prison camp where thousands were held for interrogation and torture. While the trial itself takes place in the early 2000s, I still felt it appropriate, as the trial only covered events taking place between the years 1975-1979. Every testimony is from that time period, and everything depicted by the author, who was present at the trial, are essentially reactions to this gruesome period of history by contemporaries who were present or had participated. In that sense, I feel this fits well for our purposes, and I do not believe it breaks the 20 Year Rule.]
Him Huy is typical of the indoctrinated youth who worked at S-21 – the young peasants recruited as henchmen by the teachers who ran the complex. He was an illiterate seventeen-year-old when the Party enlisted him. He soon found himself under the command of one of Duch’s two deputies, the number three of this little archipelago of death, who ran the “reeducation” center S-24.
Conscripting children into war or revolution is nothing new. Duch recruited teenagers because they were
like blank pages on which you can easily write or paint… We took in many young people and trained them to be cruel. We used Communist jargon to normalize extreme situations – that played a big part in turning innocent people into brutes. Their characters changed. Their kindness gave way to cruelty. They became motivated by class rage.
Source:
Cruvellier, T., and Alex Gilly. “Chapter 5.” The Master of Confessions: The Making of a Khmer Rouge Torturer. Ecco, 2014. 38. Print.
Further Reading:
សារមន្ទីរឧក្រិដ្ឋកម្មប្រល័យពូជសាសន៍ទួលស្លែង (Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum) / Security Prison 21 (S-21)
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