The Lost Executioner: A Story of the Khmer Rouge [Hardcover]

Nic Dunlop (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 7, 2006

In Cambodia, between 1975 and 1979, nearly two million people died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. As head of the Khmer Rouge secret police, Comrade Duch was responsible for the murder of more than 20,000 people considered enemies of the revolution. Twenty years later, not one member of the Khmer Rouge had been held accountable for what happened. Like so many others, Comrade Duch had disappeared. Over a decade of working in Cambodia, photographer Nic Dunlop became obsessed with the idea of finding Duch. As the commandant of "S-21" prison, Duch could shed light on a secret and brutal world that had been sealed off to outsiders. Then, by chance, he came face to face with him. The Lost Executioner describes a personal journey to the heart of the Khmer Rouge. It is an attempt to find out what actually happened in Pol Pot's Cambodia and why; to understand how a seemingly peaceful nation could give birth to one of the most bloodthirsty revolutions in modern history.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Long preoccupied by the Cambodian genocide in the late 1970s at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, Irish-born and Thailand-based photojournalist Dunlop homed in on Comrade Duch, head of the Khmer Rouge secret police and Pol Pot's chief executioner, who had vanished. How had a well-educated schoolteacher (born Kaing Guek Eav) become commandant of a torture center and complicit in the deaths of an estimated 20,000 political prisoners? asks Dunlop in this measured but horrifying book, a chronicle of his dogged efforts to understand the carnage and bring about justice. With Duch at the book's core, the author (who worked in Cambodia throughout the '90s) weaves a contemporary account of a war-ravaged nation into the history of its ancient past and rumination on terror in the name of ideology. Dunlop also deepens his story with thoughtful—and very personal—commentary on photography and violence. In 1999, Dunlop found and confronted Duch, who voluntarily confessed to his role in the Khmer Rouge. Though Duch was then charged and imprisoned, he has not yet been brought to trial. Cambodia's labyrinthine politics can occasionally be difficult to digest, but Dunlop's personal quest for international justice holds the narrative together. (Feb.)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* Irish photographer Dunlop steps out from behind the camera to render this visceral account of the Khmer Rouge, the Cambodian Communist regime responsible for more than two million deaths between 1975 and 1979. Armed with a black-and-white photograph of Comrade Duch--Pol Pot's chief executioner--Dunlop traveled to the war-ravaged country to probe the dark depths of a once-studious young boy and dedicated teacher who became one of the twentieth--century's most notorious mass murderers. (More then 20,000 men, women, and children were reportedly executed during Duch's tenure as chief of Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh.) In April 1999, Dunlop's encounter with Duch--who had changed his name, slipped quietly back into village life, and become a lay pastor--led to a confession that shot ice through the photographer's veins. (Dunlop's role in exposing Duch earned him Johns Hopkins' award for Excellence in International Journalism.) Dunlop's interviews with former Khmer Rouge members are both wrenching and revelatory. Among the most memorable subjects is Prak Khan, who was like an "empty shell," with rigid posture and eyelids that "blinked slowly, as though he had difficulty keeping them open." To date, only two prominent Khmer Rouge perpetrators are in prison: Comrade Duch and Ta Mok, aka "the Butcher." For Dunlop, it is but a small step in a long journey toward justice. Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Walker & Company; 1st US edition (February 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802714722
• ISBN-13: 978-0802714725
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #939,852 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most important human rights book of the year?, December 9, 2005

By 

Daniel Dennis (Brisbane, Queensland Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lost Executioner (Hardcover)

It takes a special writer to bring light to an issue of seemingly impenetrable horror. A young Irish photographer has done it in this superb debut. Pol Pot's frenzied demolition of Cambodia in 1975-79 has been documented from within(The Stones Cry Out, Stay Alive My Son) and by outsiders (Year Zero, S 21). What more could be said?

"The Lost Executioner" takes the form of a terrifying detective narrative. The young author with a picture in his pocket has an obsession - to find Cambodia's Himmler in the chaos of the country he helped to terrorize. In striking prose that reveals the photographer behind the pen (his descriptive powers are at their best rendering faces and images of rural life) the writer takes us deep into the heart and mind of Cambodia, its paralyzing paradoxes, and the west's policy swings between breathtaking cynicism and incompetent pity. Like Shelley's mariner, Nic Dunlop fixes us with an amazing tale and sets our sights clearly on what should be done. To read his book is to be challenged anew of our obligations to the family of man.

Like the best books, Nic Dunlp's "The Lost Executioner" relates much of what is known but makes us see it in a new light
This splendid and courageous book just might help re-awaken international opinion to re-consider our obligations to Cambodia.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Committed Author, April 10, 2006

By 

William A. Sowka Jr. (Woodstock , CT. USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Lost Executioner: A Story of the Khmer Rouge (Hardcover)

Needless to say, the tragedies depicted in this book were very disturbing. Having read much on the genocide in Rwanda, I couldn't help making comparisons. Sadly, I saw too many similarities and my response goes from shock to curiosity. To his credit, Dunlop did not exploit the gruesomeness of the torture and killings. He was very respectful toward people, families, and to Cambodia as a whole. The story's focus was primarily on one member of the Khmer Rouge known as Comrade Duch who headed a prison with a nortorious reputation for committing brutal crimes against humanity. This focus gave Dunlop a unique twist to his book, however, the story was often made confusing. Not only did Dunlop fail to provide adequate historical background to the story, but even paragraph to paragraph the story was not easy to follow. The writing did not flow as easliy as I would have liked. I found myself back tracking a bit to get the story straight. Another interesting twist Dunlop makes was to question how such atrocities as this occur. He gives some thought to the dangers of Buddhism and socialism but I would have loved him to expound on these thoughts a little more. Nevertheless we see that the problem is multidimensional and not just political. He also exposes the failures of the U.N.(suprise,suprise) and of the U.S., but again, his argument is not made clearly or in detail. Despite some of my criticism of Nic Dunlop's writing, I was extremely impressed by his diligence, his committment, his honesty, and his persistence. He gets 5 stars for character and is to be applauded for this work.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ordinary people can commit demonic acts (R.K. Lifton), May 31, 2008

By 

Luc REYNAERT (Beernem, Belgium) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Lost Executioner: A Story of the Khmer Rouge (Hardcover)

Nic Dunlop poses the all important questions of how a vision of a better world can turn into bottomless evil, and how seemingly ordinary men can become mass murderers.
The ideological fundamentalists at the very top of the Red Khmer movement had a vision and a plan for the creation of heaven on earth (`the envy of the world'), but only for the 'good' soldiers. All the 'bad' ones, even (pregnant) women, children and babies, had to be simply murdered. Their utopia was a world of self-sacrifice, with no traces of individuality, no individual thought, no love (segregation of men and women), no foreign things, no towns, no money, no schools, no holidays.
The mass murdering was considered as an act of purification. It turned into a terrible real nightmare for the good and the bad. Everybody came to live in constant fear for their lives, acted in panic, told only what people wanted to hear and did what they were told to do. It was a system of paranoia, terror, constant surveillance and lies.
The Tuol Sleng prison became the heart of the movement, the centre of security, a symbol for a whole society as a slaughterhouse. Under torture people named names of innocent `spies', who in their turn named names, until ... `If the Organization arrests everybody, who will be left to make a revolution?'
After 4 years, the suspicions of conspiracies had killed more than three-quarters of the original Central Committee.

The answer to Nic Dunlop's question is Duch, the Commander of the S-21 prison, a fundamentalist, a cold executioner of the orders of his superiors, a good father for his children, but living in constant fear for his own life, obsessed by the 'enemies' within, behaving irrationally, but enjoying his role as `butcher' for the creation of utopia.
As D. Chandler quotes at the end of his moving book `Voices from S-21', `ordinary people can commit demonic acts'. This potential is in all of us.

External facts
We should not forget the sometimes disturbing factors behind the rise to power, the violence and the stability of the Red Khmer regime.
Its Kampuchean enemies of the Lon Nol dictatorship were themselves extremely violent: 'Villages were burned and thousands were killed. Heads were mounted on stakes.'
Red Khmer guerillas were trained by British secret services.
The US secretly bombed Kampuchea during the Vietnam War driving the peasants into the arms of the Red Khmers.
And ultimately, nearly all governments of the world, the US, China, the Soviet Union, Great-Britain, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, made of Kampuchea the front line of the Cold War.

Nic Dunlop wrote a frightening book, which shows what human beings are capable of doing with other members of their species.

I also highly recommend the works of D. Chandler and the documentary by Rithy Panh `S-21'.