MEU Peou
Pseudonym: 2-TCCP-1013
Cases: Case 002/02
Category: Civil Party
Background and role
Meu Peou, a Cham,
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testified before the Trial Chamber as a Civil Party in Case 002/02 about his experience working in cooperatives during the Democratic Kampuchea period and having been forced to eat pork.
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After 17 April 1975, the Khmer Rouge sent him to work at Tram Seh cooperative in Bakan district’s Khmar commune, Pursat province before being transferred in late 1975 to the district’s Me Tuek cooperative, where he was assigned to dig canals and build dams.
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Working and living conditions at cooperatives
Meu Peou was separated from his parents when he was just 13 years old and sent to work in a different cooperative without sufficient nutrition and proper accommodation.
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After being separated from his parents, he was at the mercy of Angkar:
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I had to work day and night according to the order of Angkar. I lived under the tree and suffered from rain and mosquitos. I became so skinny and bony because of hard labour. If I could not complete the work quota, then I would be deprived of very little gruel that I was given. We were also tortured psychologically. Life was so miserable[.]
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Meu Peou also described an occasion when he was arrested in 1977 and detained at Bakan district’s Trach Kraol detention facility after being accused of stealing rice.
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Khmer Rouge soldiers pointed their guns at him, tied his hands behind his back, pulled him by a horse, and beat him up when he could not catch up with the horse.
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While being imprisoned at the Krach Kraol detention office, Meu Peou was forced to watch the brutal killing of a woman accused of committing a moral offence.
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He saw the Khmer Rouge order the woman to take off her clothes before cutting her body open, taking her liver out, and cooking it for a meal.
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In 1975, the Khmer Rouge made an announcement in Bakan district’s Antak Kouy village instructing the Cham to stop living in groups, abandon their religion and language, and for women, to stop wearing a headscarf and to cut their hair short.
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The announcement was made to force the Cham to follow whatever the Khmer Rouge did and had a significant impact on the Cham community.
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“We lost our own identities and our own religion. We had nothing to hang on during the regime.”
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Angkar forced the Cham (including Meu Peou) to eat pork.
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Those who refused to comply would be starved to death as they were not served any other food.
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Meu Peou lost 17 family members during the Democratic Kampuchea period including his father, who was tortured to death for refusing to eat pork.
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The Trial Chamber relied on the testimonies by several Cham Civil Parties, including Meu Peou, among other evidence, in finding that Khmer Rouge forcibly imposed restrictions on Cham religious and cultural practices, including prohibitions on daily prayers and forcing the Cham to eat pork.
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Statement of Suffering
“I lost my family members, including my father, grandparents, uncles, aunts and relatives totalling 17 altogether. I never saw them again. I also lost my lovely nieces and nephews during the period. And that gave me much pain, and the pain and suffering stayed with me at the present time”.
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