A Circle of Torture

In preparation for my time in Cambodia this summer, I am taking not only this independent study course, but also a 0-credit Human Rights seminar in which we just finished the book Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction by Andrew Clapham. I also just finished The Lost Executioner by Nic Dunlop for my independent study course, and found both books to touch on the aspect of torture, its legitimacy, and fights to accept or reject it. Although my project this summer does not focus on torture or the Khmer Rouge trials, it is vital to learn about in order to better understand the country.

Photos and confessions at Choeung Ek's visitor center (a
killing field about 15km from Phnom Penh). Taken by
your truly in December 2009 (as are all of the photos in
this post).

Clapham's book was a good very short introduction to human rights. He spends one chapter discussing torture. The U.N. has a complete prohibition on torture, stating that in "no exceptional circumstances" is it okay (Clapham 81). Regardless of this, is it okay, at least, in some cases? How do we define "how far can you go?" (87). Clapham gives the scenario of a ticking bomb, and the only way to stop it is to torture somebody for information, questioning "might some incidents of torture or ill-treatment be justified to avert a terrorist attack?" (87). He also mentions, however, that the information given under torture cannot always be trusted as it is often unreliable (87). This is especially true in the "confessions" of those sought out and killed by the Khmer Rouge. Many of them admitted they were part of the CIA to hopefully avert being tortured, although in the end were tortured and killed anyhow (Dunlop 275). Dunlop cites the "confession" of a British man who was caught by the Rouge while sailing off of the coast of Cambodia, accidently drifting from Thailand (275). He writes that he was a member of the CIA, and so was his father (275). This is completely untrue, proving that torture does not actually lead to factual confessions.

Clapham gives an example of a kidnapping case in Germany where the son of a senior bank executive was kidnapped from his family apartment (88). I will be honest: if my kid was missing and this one man knew where he was, I would want him to be tortured to release information. But this is just the problem. Perhaps to Pol Pot: "if this person is against the best ideology of returning Cambodia to Year Zero, I want him to be tortured because he is against it and he can release information about others who might be against the ideology also." Obviously, we can all see the difference, but allowing torture in some cases while prohibiting it in others creates an incredibly, to put it colloquially, "sticky situation." 

Ten rules for the prisoners at Tuol Sleng Museum.

Dunlop is attempting to find Comrade Duch, the head of S-21 Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge. S-21 was a former high-school-turned-prison-torture-house during the Khmer Rouge where only 7 victims survived. Dunlop points out in the first chapter that contrary to popular belief, Tuol Sleng was often not for civilians, but rather was "created for rooting out enemies from within the party" (23). This meant that Duch crossed paths with many of his former teachers, mentors, and supervisors.

Tourists at Tuol Sleng Museum.

Like the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge kept immensely detailed records of all of the prisoners including photographs and written accounts of confessions, for example being part of the CIA (the latter on which Duch took notes or commented on the interrogation process). Dunlop throughout his book, which reads in some areas more like a personal narrative, contemplates his role as a professional photographer and when / why / where it is okay to take photos and what they do in the public. The photographs of Tuol Sleng, he says, haunt him because by viewing them and taking photos of the photos, we are exploiting the victim's memories even more without letting them speak (316). 

Dunlop describes his quest for Duch and the people he meets en route to helping authorities capture Duch--the first Khmer Rouge officer to be put on trial and found guilty for torture and murder during the Khmer Rouge. Dunlop describes Duch's time as a prisoner at Prey Sar Prison (S-24) for his communist activities. In this prison, Dunlop concludes, Duch was likely tortured, and used techniques he learned (or rather, were inflicted on him) there and applied them to S-21, suggesting that he certainly had knowledge of the inner workings of Cambodian prisons (76). Duch was able to use the horrors from his own time in prison and apply them to the victims of S-21 (126). He knew that "the threat or anticipation of violence, reinforced by the screams of other prisoners, was often harder to bear than the violence itself" (126). Because Duch was tortured, he knew how to torture and felt okay doing so. This proves Clapham's claim that the use of torture inevitably spreads and becomes a "'slippery slope' where mistreatment is seen as normal, even expected" (87). Duch is also an example how how violence can be internalized and normalized.

Torture creates a domino effect, a positive feedback loop with negative implications. As Clapham says, "No judges today are ready to find arguments to justify torture" (89). Torture can easily expand, and it seems there is not stopping point. Torture can in turn generate further violence in a society--making it not okay under any circumstances. Although many were and still are wary of the trials (and there are problems with the trial, one of many being that they are only concentrating on the Rouge from 1975-1979), it important to recognize the past.

Works Cited
Clapham, Andrew. Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction. New York, New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 2007. Print.

Dunlop, Nic. The Lost Executioner. New York, New York: Walker & Company, 2005. Print.