Cambodia tunes in for Duch trial

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As news anchors come, Ung Chan Sophea and Neth Pheaktra are among the dourest on television anywhere. They go on air every Monday for 25 minutes and speak to millions of Cambodians with one unbreakable rule between them: Never smile, no matter what.

The material they have to work with certainly helps them keep that pledge. Ms. Ung and Mr. Neth are famous faces in this country for narrating the torture, starvation and genocide of Cambodia's recent past.

The program they co-host, Duch on Trial, provides a weekly synopsis of the legal proceedings against former Khmer Rouge prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Comrade Duch. By boiling hundreds of hours of often gruesome testimony down to a short highlight reel of the week's events - with in-studio analysts helping cut through the legal jargon - Ms. Ung and Mr. Neth have helped make the often dense and slow-moving proceedings of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia accessible to the nearly three million viewers, roughly a fifth of the country's population, who tune in each week.

As the trial nears an end, the ECCC - which began in February with 85 per cent of Cambodians saying they had no idea it was taking place, according to one poll - has become the subject of chatter and debate at restaurants and barber shops here in the city where Comrade Duch ran the infamous S-21 detention centre, also known as Tuol Sleng. Final arguments, including a closing statement from Comrade Duch himself, are scheduled for this week.

Some 14,000 Cambodians passed through the converted high school under Comrade Duch's watch, only seven of whom survived. Over 72 days of hearings, the tribunal, which is made up of three Cambodian and two international judges, has heard evidence of electrocution, bloodletting and medical experimentation at S-21. For overseeing it all, Comrade Duch has been charged by the ECCC with crimes against humanity, homicide and torture.

Though many have criticized the tribunal for moving too slowly, the process seems to be galvanizing Cambodians as Comrade Duch's trial nears an end. Tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said seven million Cambodians - or more than half the country - tuned in Monday to hear the final presentations from civil parties who took part in the trial.

Interest is expected to be even higher Tuesday when the prosecution gives its final arguments and the fascination will peak Wednesday when Comrade Duch will speak in his own defence and try one last time to explain to the country why he did what he did 30 years ago. Mr. Reach said Mr. Duch has told his lawyers that he would like to address the tribunal for an hour or two before they give their own final statements.

Some viewers are tuning in to relive, and perhaps understand, a dark part of their country's history. Others are hearing about the horrors of that era for the first time.

"In the beginning, it was a lot of elderly people who were watching. But now more and more young people are, too. I've had young people come up to me in the street and ask me if I'm the person who presents the Duch program," said Ms. Ung, a 26-year-old journalist who had never worked in television before she was hired to host Duch on Trial, which is funded by the British embassy and George Soros's Open Society Institute.

Ms. Ung said hosting the show spurred her to ask her own parents about their experiences during the Khmer Rouge era, when they were forced to flee to Vietnam.

Mr. Reach said millions of Cambodians will watch on television Tuesday and Wednesday because they are fascinated by the character of Comrade Duch, a mathematics teacher before joining the Khmer Rouge who has since converted to Christianity. Early in the proceedings, Comrade Duch expressed remorse for his actions - while denying he personally tortured or killed anyone - and asked Cambodians to forgive him.

"People heard him apologize once [at the beginning of the trial]when he said he wanted the door to be open for him to get a pardon, now people want to hear his final words," Mr. Reach said.

An estimated 1.7 million Cambodians died from overwork, famine or execution during the Khmer Rouge's period in power from 1975 to 1979. Despite the scale of the trauma, the Khmer Rouge period has been left out of school history textbooks until this year, when it was added to the Grade 12 curriculum.

While Pol Pot died peacefully in 1998, four other senior members of his regime are slated to be tried by the ECCC within the next two years. Prosecutors recently submitted a list of five others who allegedly took part in the genocide, but efforts to expand the tribunal have been resisted by the current government, which includes several former Khmer Rouge cadres, including Prime Minister Hun Sen.