KHIN Vat
Pseudonym: 2-TCW-866
Cases: Case 002/02
Category: Witness
Background and role
Prior to 1975, Khin Vat was a soldier under Division 502 of the Southwest Zone.
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In 1975, she was assigned to clean up Pochentong airport for Chinese technicians to repair it.
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In July 1977, she was transferred to Kampong Chhnang Airfield worksite after her husband’s arrest for his alleged affiliation with Vietnamese.
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Khin Vat testified before the Case 002/02 Trial Chamber as a witness about forced marriage, her husband’s arrest and her experience while working at the Kampong Chhnang Airfield construction site.
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Forced marriage
The Khmer Rouge told Khin Vat to leave Pochentong for the Kampong Chhnang Airfield worksite in 1977 to marry a man named Laoth whom she had never met before.
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Khin Vat did not dare refuse to marry.
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Her parents did not attend her wedding ceremony during which she and her husband were instructed to make resolution to produce children and to follow the Party’s lines.
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After her wedding ceremony, Khin Vat and her husband were allowed to return to the shelter the Khmer Rouge arranged for them.
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Realizing that Khmer Rouge militias eavesdropped outside their sleeping quarter at night, her husband advised her to just say “nothing” if she did not love him and that she would risk her life if she told others that she did not love him.
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Khin Vat and her husband were separated only one week after their marriage as she was required to return to Pochentong airport.
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Arrest and disappearance of her husband
While Khin Vat was working at Pochentong in 1977, she was told by one of her colleagues that her husband, who was a driver for the Chinese technicians measuring land at the Kampong Chhnang Airfield, was arrested by Khmer Rouge upper echelons for his alleged link with Vietnamese and transported to Phnom Penh.
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The upper echelons did not provide her with the reasons for her husband’s arrest and disappearance, and she did not dare to ask about him for fear of her life.
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While the Trial Chamber could not conclude with certainty that all of the trucks directed to Phnom Penh took those arrested to Tuol Sleng prison known as S-21, it had established that at least some of the workers at the Kampong Chhnang Airfield were taken to S-21.
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Working and living conditions at Kampong Chhnang Airfield
Following her husband’s arrest, Khin Vat was removed from Pochentong airport and sent to work in paddy fields at the Kampong Chhnang Airfield women’s unit, where she experienced “being tempered and hard-working”.
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“[F]rom my own analysis and perspective, they could have lost their trust in me. For this reason, I was no longer entrusted to work with the Chinese. Instead, I was reassigned to do farming in order to support their units. They said it was the task of the low-ranking”.
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Khin Vat woke up at 5 a.m to line up and attend a meeting to receive work assignments.
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Workers were forced to work until 8 p.m or 9 p.m when they could not complete their assignments at 5 p.m.
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Cooked rice and sour soup mixed with morning glory or water lily with fish was given to workers in her unit for lunch.
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Workers drank unhygienic water.
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As a consequence of the lack of hygiene and the place not being regularly cleaned, workers developed symptoms such as fever and numbness in hands and legs.
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Five to 10 workers would become sick out of the 90 workers in her unit.
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The instructions related to the work plan were passed through the chain of command by Sou Met, Commander of Division 502, to Lvey, who was in charge of the Kampong Chhnang Airfield construction site.
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Lvey then relayed the instructions to the unit chiefs at the worksite who, in turn, instructed the workers in their respective units and led them in their assignments.
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Thuok, Chairman of Office of Division 502, was usually in charge of workers when Lvey had to go to Phnom Penh.
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Khin Vat was told by a friend who was at the Kampong Chhnang Airfield worksite that Khieu Samphan, Democratic Kampuchea’s head of state, came to inspect the worksite in late 1977 when the airport site was almost completed and that Khieu Samphan was accompanied by Lvey, Thuok and Ta Mok, Secretary of the Southwest Zone.
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Examining all evidence available before it and specifically taking into consideration that Khin Vat’s evidence was hearsay, the Trial Chamber found that the visit by Khieu Samphan to the Kampong Chhnang Airfield construction site could not be established beyond reasonable doubt.
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The Trial Chamber cited Khin Vat’s testimony, among other evidence, in finding that: (i) at the Kampong Chhnang Airfield worksite a distinction existed between the position and the status of Division 502 soldiers entrusted with roles of responsibility and that of soldiers who were sent to the worksite to be tempered and refashioned;
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(ii) workers suffered as a result of hard work, insufficient nutrition, lack of hygiene and extremely poor sanitary conditions;
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and (iii) while general instructions on work assignments, food and health were provided by the worksite leadership to the unit chiefs, the latter also enjoyed a margin of discretion on determining how to meet the working targets and regulate the workers’ working and living conditions.
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