Customer Reviews

The Lost Executioner: A Story of the Khmer Rouge

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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.

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.

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'.

There are few more chilling places in the world than the apparently innocuous buildings of Tuol Sleng, the school on the outskirts of Phnomn Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Low buildings surround a central courtyard or playing field on three sides; the design is a common one throughout southeast Asia. But while today's visitors to Tuol Sleng arrive in daylight and are able to walk out when the horror within the walls of the former classrooms becomes unbearable, the thousands who entered in the middle of the night during the nightmarish rule of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, only seven adults would live to tell the truth about the horrors they endured.

Photojournalist Nic Dunlop has done something even more valuable than preserve the story of this horrific institution and the regime and individuals who administered it, however. His imagination captured by images he has not created -- the endless array of head-and-shoulders photos of the doomed prisoners staring defiantly or despairingly into the camera on the day of their arrival -- he finds himself haunted by Tuol Sleng and the evils committed there, returning time after time when he is in Cambodia. Ultimately, he focuses on the story of one man, the cadre who became Pol Pot's chief executioner and the head of Tuol Sleng, Comrade Duch.

The story that Dunlop relates could almost be a work of great detective fiction, as he follows a chain of clues that ultimately lead him to the village where Duch -- a former schoolteacher who has returned to his profession while also working with international relief agency World Vision -- is living an ordinary life. Dunlop, already horrified by the way in which former Khmer Rouge leaders such as Khieu Samphan had been able to return publicly to Cambodia with only perfunctory apologies, instead recounts how he was able to extract a confession from Duch, which he and journalist Nate Thayer published and which led directly to Duch's arrest.

However outraged Dunlop is by what occurred at Tuol Sleng some two or three decades earlier, he never loses sight of the moral ambiguities that linger in today's Cambodia, a fact that transforms his narrative from a straightforward tale to something on altogether a higher plane. Land mines continue to kill Cambodians today, including those born long after the conflict ended. Ordinary men and women who survived the "Pol Pot time" have had to find a way to live side by side with their former torturers and oppressors, simply because there was no provision for delivering justice to the latter: rocking the boat was foolish and impractical. The paradoxes even extended to the activities of the global relief organizations like World Vision; any help delivered to the communities around the borders of Thailand or elsewhere inevitably assisted the former Khmer Rouge who controlled many of those regions. Even when Dunlop discovers Duch in the community of Samlaut, he finds some in the area who openly refer to the executioner by his nom-de-guerre rather than by his alias, Hang Pin.

Dunlop seamlessly and authoritatively weaves together an array of narrative strands in this important book, beginning with Duch's background growing up in a tiny village dominatned by the Buddhist wat or temple, to his growing politicization and radicalization as he moved to the city to pursue his studies. Simultaneously, Cambodia was being swept up in an endless series of wars in Indochina, culminating in the American bombings of Cambodian territory. Dunlop is keenly aware and knowledgeable of even the most esoteric aspects of his story, from the distinctions between Khmer of Chinese extraction and those of 'pure' blood to the role of Buddhism within Khmer society and the details of the Khmer Rouge's ostensible effort to create a purer and more perfect society. He has perused Tuol Sleng's horrifying archives and interviewed survivors, as well as followed in Duch's footsteps as the later re-immersed himself in village life after Cambodia returned to relative stability in the 1990s. Dunlop is a presence throughout the book, but never makes the most fundamental mistake of such narratives of making himself the story.

The result is one of the most solid and valuable works of political reportage I have ever read.

Nic Dunlop's first-rate detective story on the trail of Pol Pot's chief executioner, the notorious Comrade Duch, is a fascinating journey into Cambodia's recent bloody history. Through a series of testimonies by Duch's family members and people who knew him, Dunlop builds up a compelling picture of this former teacher turned mass murderer, whilst also giving us a running commentary on the development of the Khmer Rouge organisation through the eyes of former cadre such as Sokheang, now a human rights investigator though formerly a Khmer Rouge sympathiser.

The Lost Executioner is Dunlop's first book; he's primarily a photographer who became obsessed with S-21, known to many as Tuol Sleng, and its commandant, Comrade Duch. He even kept a photo of Duch in his pocket. By an astonishing stroke of luck, Dunlop met the man responsible for the deaths of more than 20,000 people, in Samlaut, a small town in northwest Cambodia in 1999 and exposed him with the help of Nate Thayer and the Far Eastern Economic Review, leading to his arrest and detention, awaiting trial. Dunlop's subsequent investigations and interviews now provide us with a great wealth of detail about Duch's life before, during and after the Khmer Rouge reign of terror though ultimately the reason for Duch's transformation into a brutal killer remains an unexplained puzzle. In a perverse twist, Duch converted to Christianity, had worked for an American charity, was living under a new identity and had returned to teaching before his unmasking. The book is written in an easy to follow though powerful narrative and I recommend The Lost Executioner to anyone seeking to delve into the morass that is Cambodia's recent past. It's a remarkable and revealing story.

This is one of those books that you won't want to put down until the last word has been read. He is a great writer and has given me quite an education. I highly recommend it!

As a freelance journalist myself I have spend time in Cambodia, also during the UNTAC mission. The country and it's recent history intrigue me. I have read dozens of books on the Pol Pot era, visited the Tuol Sleng museum on numerous occasions and talked to survivors. Nic Dunlop's book is one of the best books I have ever read about Cambodia's recent past. Dunlop's book is very easy to read, yet it explains the political troubles and the whole background of Tuol Sleng in first-rate fashion. I'm sure this book will still be consulted 100 years from now, and for that I salute mr. Dunlop. There is maybe only 1 slight ommision. When I toured Tuol Sleng like everybody else I was gripped by the photos on the walls. When I saw that there were even a few westerners among them, I was even more shocked (sorry, but that's the way it is). I can't understand why Dunlop didn't write anything at all about these few westerners, who were tortured and killed like their Cambodian counter-parts. It would even be of intersst in a judicial manner: since Duch was responsible for torturing and killing Americans, he could even be tried in the USA for it. It is sad that the few western victims of Tuol Sleng are probably the most hushed-up victims of the Pol Pot regime. And as far as Duch is concerned: may he rot in hell. I have no sympathy whatsoever for this nazi-style kamp commandant.

This a fascinating story of how Nic Dunlop tracked down and came face to face with 'Duch' (Head of the main prison of Khmer Rouge - S21). The book brings you on a journey through the towns/cities/landscapes of Cambodia, educating the reader of Cambodia's tragic history as the search progresses. Highly recommended reading and especially for anyone thinking of traveling to Cambodia for this reason. I read this while backpacking through Cambodia, and would suggest you do before visiting the prison.

This is a fine example of how ordinary people are capable of doing extraordanary things, in this case not only did Nick Dunlop write an incredible book but along with Nate Thayer was responsible for bringing enough attention to this bloody tyrant forcing the Govt. to finally incarcerate him. whether Duch ever goes on trial is anyboby's guess but without this book Duch would probably still be playing the role of missionary worker.

The lost executioner, Comrade Duch, was the number two mathematician in Cambodia in the National exams. Duch worked at the Pedagogical institute in Phnom Penh. Dunlop described him as "charming" when he found him in 1999. He was teaching Physics and working for a charity in 1999. The leaders of the Cambodian Socialist regime had PHD's in economics, they were lawyers, one had a degree in English literature specializing in Shakespeare, another the director of the pedagogical institute, they were professors and taught history, geography, and one even ran an English language school. They were amongst the most educated of all Cambodians and regarded as "brilliant academics." Many of them studied in France where they became members of the French Socialist party and they made a student study group called Cercle Marxist. The head of state of the Socialist regime was Khieu Samphan who had a PHD in economics from the Sorbonne in Paris. His academic advisor who helped him with his PHD thesis was Samir Amin who was a maoist and so busy working in Maoist groups that he "barely had time to prepare his exams". Amin is still alive today and wrote the book Revolutionary objectives in the 21st Century: the world we wish to see."

Comrade Duch was turned to Maoism by Chinese exchange students who were studying Cambodian language at the Pedagogical institute where he taught. Several copies of Chairman Mao's little red book were found at the S-21 prison.

Mao's little red book states: "A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it is not kind, gentle, or magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence in which one class overthrows another."

Anyone who supported the Vietnamese in their war for Socialism also aided the Khmer Rouge as well. Ieng Sary, head of the workers party and part of the senior Khmer Rouge organization stated in 1975, "We want to thank the peace and justice loving American people and high ranking American personalities who have aided us in our struggle." The Vietnamese were in charge of the Khmer Rouge until they broke away in 1973. The Vietnamese would often take orphans whose parents died in the U.S. bombing or poor kids and teach them to torture dogs in order to breed their hate for their capitalist enemies. Many Cambodians remember these kids as the most vicious killers.

Many of the killers at S-21 said they joined the revolution because they were "sick of capitalism, Imperialism, privilege, and the way the rich looked down on the poor." The victims at S-21 were accused of being Capitalist enemies of the poor. The people from the city, people with money, people with education were said to be Bourgeoisie exploiters of the people. Prisoners from S-21 were taken to Choeng Ek killing fields just one out of the almost 400 sites scattered all over the country.

The United States fought for ten years to keep the Cambodian Communist from coming to power to no avail. It is commonly said by John Pilger (you can find him speaking at marxistconference dot org) that the American bombing drove the peasants into the hands of the Socialists, but in fact it was their King, the former enemy of the Communists who called them to join arms with the Khmer Rouge when his pro-American senate voted to oust him from power in a coup. It was also the Vietnamese who aided the Cambodian Communist, and supported them until they broke apart in 1973. The Vietnamese stated, "we would like to congratulate our Cambodian brothers on their successful revolution." It was the same King who used to behead the communists and said in 1972 that if the Communists take power "there will be no happiness, we will all wear black clothes, we'll have no good food and there will be misery and tragedy for all." It is that "god" King who called back the peasants to join the Socialists and they did so in masse.