Raoul JENNAR
Pseudonym: D12
Cases: Case 001
Category: Expert
Background and expertise
Raoul Marc Jennar is a consultant in international relations who acted as an expert in the Case 001 proceedings.
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He holds a doctorate in political science and is a doctor of Khmer science and Khmer studies.
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He has written various books concerning Cambodian society post Democratic Kampuchea including "Cambodia Chronicles", "The Keys to Cambodia" and "Cambodia, a Media Under Pressure".
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He was called by the defence to testify on issues relating to the ideological inspiration for Democratic Kampuchea, the specific features of Cambodian communism, the practice of Angkar, secrecy and terror, chain of command, security apparatus, the role of the People’s Republic of China and the international legitimacy of Democratic Kampuchea and Son Sen.
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Ideological origins of the Communist Party of Kampuchea
Mr Jennar testified that the “prime source of Cambodian communism à la Pol Pot was the Bolshevik Revolution”.
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He emphasised, however, that Vietnamese communists also played a role in the ideological and military training of the Cambodian communists, while the Chinese communist model influenced the agrarian policy of Kampuchea.
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Mr Jennar stated that the small group, which later formed the leaders of Democratic Kampuchea, mostly met in Paris in the early 1950s as Khmer students of the Marxist circles.
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That group included Pol Pot, Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith, Hou Yuon, Khieu Samphan, Mey Mann, Thiounn Mumm and, as the Trial Chamber explicitly accepted,
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Son Sen.
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While in France, they were members of the French Communist Party (PCF), and received political education whose principal characteristics were largely based on the Soviet model and the practices of Stalinism.
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According to Mr Jennar, the future leaders of Democratic Kampuchea wanted to reach an ideal communist society in a single leap without any transition and were determined to go further than the Soviet Union, and Mao’s China.
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Method of government
Mr Jennar described the implementation by the Communist Party of Kampuchea of three sources of terror.
The first was a culture of violence, which he explained was “part and parcel of the Cambodian Society’s fabric”.
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Mr Jennar stated that since the beginning of the 1950s, first the Democratic Party and then the Communist Party were successively the subject of systematic suppression.
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Such violence only became more widespread following the beginning of the Vietnam War,
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and increased in the 1970s when the country was plunged into war following the pro-American coup d’état.
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Mr Jennar stated that the second source of terror was the political violence applied under the leadership of the Party, drawn from the teachings of the PCF in Paris.
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Such teachings were reflected in the structure of the Party, according to which the Standing Committee held total responsibility for its organisation, the economy, defence and security
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while remaining completely anonymous,
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and in the Party’s practice of eliminating or “smashing” its internal enemies, a term which entailed the secret arrest, questioning using torture and execution of a person.
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The Trial Chamber cited Mr Jennar’s testimony concerning the origins of the practice of “smashing” as follows:
Expert Raoul JENNAR contended that these methods were based on Stalinist policies and that those identified as “enemies” were to be executed or “smashed”, a word used in Lenin’s writings.
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Between April 1975 and December 1976, the Party went about executing many of its most prestigious militants,
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and Mr Jennar testified that over 80% of the victims of S-21 in fact exercised some function within Democratic Kampuchea.
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According to Mr Jennar, the third source of terror employed by the Party was the specificity of the communism of Democratic Kampuchea, which he coined “Pol Pot-ism”.
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He described Pol Pot-ism as “oligarchic”, “autarchic” and as containing a racist dimension, which manifested in the physical elimination of various human groups categorised as “Sino-Khmer”, “Viet-Khmer”, and “Cham-Khmer” amongst others.
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It was underpinned by the idea of total dispossession; people were no longer free to use their own identity or time, or have choice in relations, marriage or intimacy.
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Duch’s ideology
To assist in the preparation of his expert report, Mr Jennar conducted a series of interviews with the Accused over six months.
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He testified that during such discussions, he discovered the source behind Duch’s ideology and his technique of extracting confessions.
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He stated that Duch was heavily influenced by Son Sen,
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who trained him and protected him before 1975 and after 1979, and who was his immediate superior during the years Duch worked as the chief of S-21.
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Mr Jennar described Son Sen as Duch’s “mentor”,
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a description which the Trial Chamber adopted in its judgment.
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Concerning Duch’s role, he agreed that Duch was both a “helper” and a “prisoner of the system.”
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He agreed that Duch was so close to the Standing Committee that he had absolutely no margin of manoeuvre,
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and therefore no autonomy in decision-making, which rested solely with the Standing Committee.
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He emphasised that no one, besides those making the decisions at the highest level of which Duch was not apart, was safe in Democratic Kampuchea.
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Operation of S-21
Mr Jennar testified about the methods of torture employed at S-21, particularly the means used to extract confessions.
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He stated that the primary purpose of the confessions was “to compel the person in detention to say what the power in place wanted the person to say in order to be able to continue to pursue a policy of repression”.
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Another purpose was to retrieve more names from an accused to arrest more people.
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He also stated that Duch had told him that an operational “torture manual” was drafted at S-21 and was taught to staff of centres other than S-21 during training sessions organised by the Santebal.
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Mr Jennar expressed the view that those working at S-21 did not conduct investigations to unearth networks of traitors; rather, the people who were taken to S-21 had already been suspected or investigated.
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He disagreed that the other security centres were less efficient than S-21,
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and that there existed a hierarchical link between it and the 196 security centres in operation.
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He instead claimed that the major difference between S-21 and the other security centres was the fact that S-21 had jurisdiction over the entire country.
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According to Mr Jennar, there were nine security centres where there were more victims than at S-21.
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He expressed a belief that the Court had jurisdiction to prosecute the chairmen of all 10 security centres,
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and concluded by expressing hope that the example set by Duch would be followed by those people.
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