The Trial of Nuon Chea (Khmer Rouge 2)

Last Monday, February 4, was the first public pre-trial hearing on the bail petition of Nuon Chea, the administrator of Tuol Sleng, where thousands were tortured and murdered systematically during the rule of the Khmer Rouge in 'Democratic Kampuchea' from April 1975 to January 1979.

Because one of the foreign lawyers (both Dutch) of Chea was not sworn in by the Cambodia Bar Association (and thus could not practice in the country), and the other allegedly could not book a flight from the Netherlands owing to 'short notice,' his local lawyer, and even Chea himself, pleaded with the pre-trial chamber of the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)---established especially for the leaders of the Khmer Rouge---for a continuance of the proceedings. Just so his rights would not be violated---the rules of the ECCC entitle the accused to at least one local and one foreign lawyer--- the pre-trial chamber granted the request, to the dismay and consternation of Cambodians and foreign observers who had flown in just to witness the start of the proceedings.

I myself was extremely disappointed, but if the move really was in respect of the rights of the accused, that was okay. I was the third person to arrive at the Central Rail Station in Phnom Penh, where, I had been told, a bus would ferry foreign and local observers to the ECCC buildings on National Road 4 about 30 kilometers away, between 7 and 7:30. The bus arrived past 8:30 a.m. but the trip was without incident.

To my knowledge, I was the only Filipino observer there. After getting my security pass, and having my electronic belongings and other banned items receipted (no cameras, phones, cigarets), and passing the metal detectors, I was stopped by the sentry who frisked me. He was looking at and pointed to my thighs. I wished that he had merely wanted to compliment me on my skinny legs, but no, he shouted “shorts!” and thereupon the foreign sentry who had already waved me in earlier suddenly said I should show some respect for the courts. I had asked members of foreign human rights organizations back at the rail station whether shorts were allowed and they replied sure, they knew of no dress code. After concluding that it was pointless to argue any further, I got my belongings back and hopped on a motodup to buy a pair of pants at the nearest public market. National Road 4 is notorious for its lawless driving and my situation was aggravated by a driver who neither spoke nor understood English. He was driving fast and furious merrily back toward Phnom Penh and I had to tap both his shoulders rather violently so he would stop. It was only after I had succeeded with sign language and other gesticulation that I wanted to buy a pair of pants at the local public market that I allowed him go forward again. It was just my luck that the market indeed had a dry goods section with men's pants (the pair I bought presumably fake for $8---I am retarded about such things---I put on shielded by a towel in front of the sales girl). Had I not found a suitable pants, it would not have been beyond me to buy a palda instead, and with hair down, insisted on being allowed in as a dignified cross-dresser, to skirt the issue altogether. So I made it back to the courts just a few minutes after the proceedings had started.

During the break when the judges had retreated to chambers to deliberate on Chea's plea, I had the chance to exchange some words with Helen Jarvis, with whom I had been acquainted way back in 2002 and now head of ECCC public affairs---on the comic affair. She was friendly but unsympathetic. “Are shorts allowed in Philippine courts?”, she asked. Well, I thought, I may not be an anarchist but I am not one for rituals and the visible signs of respect for institutions and individuals, and if they weren't, then they should be. Helen also joked about by pro-cannabis shirt and wondered why the guards allowed that to pass, In addition, I was wearing strapless leather slippers. Is it too much to ask for some respect for my irreverence? As far as I'm concerned, all respect for institutions and official positions need to be earned and should not be accorded automatically.

Pol Pot's ghost

t had been a tiring day in August sixteen years ago and I wanted to retire early. I could have but for a knock on the door before eleven.

It was the comrade from Bangkok next door. "I'm so Thai, damn." "I'm just so Thai," I heard again. So you are. You really really are, I should have said. The third time, I was awake enough to get the sense of his weariness from our day's journeys. So I had to open a few badly brewed bottles of Vietnamese beer.

It is difficult to recount all the details. But I remember that that day, we had been to Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, not so far from the border with Thailand. One of the world's wonders was being preserved and restored by Indian experts paid by Unesco even while it was under threat from mortar attacks from the Khmer Rouge. It was defended by youths, one of whom, not more than thirteen in my reckoning, had an RPG slung on his shoulder, had asked me for a cigaret. I even lit it up for him, perhaps because he was nursing an AK-47 with both hands besides.

Earlier, we had visited a farm where, our hosts claimed, the Khmer Rouge had tortured the more 'dangerous' threats to its rule. After extracting confessions, the so-called liberators of that Indochinese land would throw their captives into the pits filled with hungry crocodiles.

In Phnom Penh for two days, we visited the many torture chambers and mass graves. Pits filled with bones from which it was difficult to assemble even just a few skeletons.

I was a delegate to a 'solidarity' conference organized by a part of the international Left to lend or shore up legitimacy to the government of Heng Samrin, installed with the aid of the Vietnamese, in December 1979. At the time, the United States, with the active support of China, had succeeded in isolating the new government. But there were of course the independent-minded who thought that ideology and geo-politics should never get in the way of one's humanity.

There were various relief and project missions by the Swedish---I remember echoes of ABBA at the airport; Japanese delegations; Indian scientists. There was, too, Julie Andrews bringing goods for the children at an orphanage; we missed her by a few minutes. There was even a Boholana working for a religious mission---World Vision---who arranged for a meeting with me.

I cannot tell you now how I ever got there. Or how the Thai comrade managed to elude authorities in his country, who was not only harboring but also actively supporting the deadly triumvitate of Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan, and Pol Pot.

The story of the Khmer Rouge is not really unfamiliar in this century, full of mad men who wanted to do good to their fellows, even kind men who wanted some crude egalitarianism to reign forever. If not by transporting all of them to the countryside, by evening out opportunities for many six feet under.

At that time, the leftist sect that I belonged to, on the other side of the Sino-Soviet divide, had distanced itself from the nightmare of Pol Pot's dreams. But there are still people who have not even explained their support for that "revolutionary project" up to now.

As I write this, I am no longer even with the sect I was with. I was "expelled" after I had resigned more than seven years ago; and for that I have no regrets. I now know that the road to hell can look so idyllic, especially if one has ideological blinders on.

My Thai comrade, then in his fifties and writing for a Bangkok paper, could not sleep. He had been told by a room boy he was sleeping in the room Pol Pot used to occupy. The next morning, after confirming the allegation, I too, suddenly felt so Thai. Haunted by the man's ghost way before his death, we just couldn't sleep.

(The essay above was published in the Manila Times in May 1998 (when Malou Mangahas was chief editor, I'm back in Cambodia for the third time partly to update myself on efforts to take the remnants of the Khmer Rouge to account. I was here in 2002, 20 years after the first visit, when the land was still recovering from the ravages of Pol Pot.)

The rights of the Sumilao farmers (1)

Among the strange coincidences in my long life are that in some way I had been associated with the anti-heroes in the struggle of the Sumilao farmers for land:

1. After graduation (chemical engineering) in 1980, I was appointed executive assistant to the president of the Norkis Group of Companies, a certain Norberto Quisumbing Jr.
2. About a year later, a certain Ruben Torres interviewed me for a job in the Ministry of Energy.
3. In 1993, I was asked to comment on proposals in the Senate to make agrarian reformed lands fungible by a senator considered close to Fidel Ramos.

Last Friday I paid the farmers camped in front of the Department of Agrarian Reform a brief visit. I hope to be able to converse with them again today. They have my undying support.

Get well Rene Saguisag

The memory just can't be erased. Rene Saguisag was one of the finest symbols in the fight against dictatorship in the 80's. He saved many lives and suffered many indignities. Of one thing we can be sure: he remained true to the call to protect the down-trodden. Get well. Our condolences on the passing of Dulce.

By the way, we find this joke a bit too early in the telling to be funny.

Open those gates!

Had I run and won for captain in my barangay, one of the first things I would have done was to open the gates. In the neighborhood I live in (Teachers Village, UP Village, Sikatuna Village) many roads, maintained and lit by taxpayers, have been expropriated by homeowners, including my favorite senator, Miriam Defensor Santiago, who have carved for themselves private enclaves on public property.
All one has to do is have a petition on grounds of barangay and national security approved by the village council. Howard Calleja, whose English and logic leave much to be desired, was just interviewed by Ricky Carandang on the subject. If it's private property then there's not much controversy, but the state still can exercise right of way. But public property! (hey we don't need more legal analysis; what happened to Dean Bocobo's show?).
Because of these gates, one has to go through long detours at night, contributing to unnecessarily to climate change.
I wonder why the so-called 'progressive' and 'left-wing' and 'pro-poor' groups don't bitch about this. Maybe their leaders live in these villages?

The captain of my barangay

Mukha Mukasey; implications for the Philippines

The Democrats, because of attorney-general-nominee Mukasey's amiable face, are inclined to confirm him, except for this one fly in the ointment: Mukasey refuses to say whether waterboarding constitutes torture.
In a previous post, I pointed out that a senate Democrat mentioned the case of a US soldier who was prosecuted for using waterboarding on a Filipino insurgent. The effect of the method is to make the captive feel he is drowning. Now, if that is not torture, I don't know what is.
In his speech at the Heritage Foundation yesterday, George W. explained his tortured logic why Congress should just confirm the nominee immediately:

1. If the menu of methods in interrogation were to be published, suspected terrorists could adopt mitigation measures. How? By bringing scuba gear or snorkels all the time, during suicide missions, especially, I suppose. And Osama might send his trainees to explore the rich marine life in the Philippines in aid of proper certification as a torture-proof and dead terrorist. That makes sense and would be good for Philippine tourism. (How about this Ace Durano and GMA? Why don't you testify bravely against your idol?)
   
2. Mukasey has not been briefed on the method and could not possibly make a judgment. So brief him immediately then.
3. The whimpy Democrats, ever soft on national security, are just making political hay.
4. Finally leading to his pitch on the "war on terror", soi-disant, the US should employ all means to accomplish the ends of his foreign and phallic fallacy.
   

The New York Times explains Mukasey's refusal better: the administration does not want to open the door to prosecution of those who used the method before it came to public attention.
Does this debate have any implications for the Philippines? Are our definitions of torture rigorous? What are these?

Ruben Carranza Jr., formerly defense assistant secretary under Erap, recently reminded me that since EDSA 1, no one has been prosecuted successfully for torture. What a shame.

update on the travails of Philippine UNDP staff

Here's an update on the 'inaction' of the UNDP on complaints lodged against UNDP country director Noble. It seems all the New York office could do is acknowledge the problem. In the meantime, the Philippine staff are in limbo.

Human Rights? Really?

I earlier misattributed this to my friend Robert Francis Garcia, who says the article is by Susan 'Toots' Ople

Our Times
How to pick up a pen from the floor

HOW does one pick up a pen that he or she accidentally drops to the floor? If it’s a woman, more often the man nearest to the pen picks it up and hands it over to its owner with a smile. If it’s a man, he just bends a bit or stoops (depending on his height) to pick it up. No big deal, right?
Apparently, not in the United Nations Resident Coordinator’s Office, if letters and complaints from aggrieved staff are to be believed. It seems the head of this office, a woman named Nileema Noble dropped her pen. A male staff who happened to be in the room when this happened was about to pick the pen from the floor. The lady boss motioned him to stop and proceeded to call out her secretary’s name. The secretary, who was seated in her desk outside the boss’ office, went in. She meekly picked up the pen from the floor and handed it to her boss. And this, my friends, is one particular example of how a UN official based in the Philippines prefers to pick up her pen.

I write this piece with malice towards none, but with a firm belief that all people – regardless of nationality – must treat people with respect. This is the foundation of decent work. Aware that the official being complained about has her rights, too, I promise her an equal right to rebut the information volunteered by her staff, through this column.

But first, here are the points raised by a group of Filipino staff members who recently sought the help of the Blas Ople Policy Center so that they could ventilate their grievances:

1. The head of the UNRC, without minimum courtesies as expected in any other organization, unceremoniously terminated two UN Staff, one, an assistant resident representative for operations, and the other, a UN coordination specialist. They were given only a few hours to leave the UN premises after they were sacked. Adding insult to injury, they were told that if they keep silent and don’t contest her decision to pre-terminate their contracts, they can have other opportunities to work within the UN system. However, if they talk, she will make sure they never get to work for the UN again.

2. The unpopularity of the UNRC head is reflected in the UNDP’s Global Staff Survey where she came out last among the UNDP resident representatives in terms of approval rating. She scored 43%, a much lower score than the global average of 60%. Majority of UN resident representatives in Manila received 90%+ in approval ratings.

3. UNRC personnel continue to be traumatized in her presence. For example, she would throw documents on the floor when she was angry and then order her secretary to pick them up for her. She would also go into a flying rage whenever someone argues or tries to correct her. On another occasion, she literally shook another staff that dared proffer an explanation during one of Mrs. Noble’s foul moods.

4. This dynamic has spilled over to implementation of various government-UN projects with the disbandment of project management staff offices to help bridge these projects. Several government implementing agencies were surprised to learn about the UNRC’s unilateral decision to change implementing partners without due process, disband project management offices even at the risk of affecting results and imposing new program realities despite earlier agreements reached with stakeholders.
These are just some of the complaints raised by a group of staffmembers who came to see me a few days before my column deadline. One of them, former coordination specialist, Robert Francis Garcia, said he has written the Department of Foreign Affairs, the UN Ombudsman and the rest of the UN Country Team members and the UNDP Headquarters in New York. He also gave me a copy of his letter.

In it, he wrote: "The Coordination Specialist position was designed to assist the UN Resident Coordinator (UNRC or simply RC, officially the highest-ranking UN position in a country) in harmonizing work among various UN agencies. The post as vacated successively by two other people (the first one, temporarily). I won’t hazard a reason for their premature departure, though it is particularly telling that people under Nileema’s watch are leaving in droves. More than 20 people have left the UNDP since she came, and counting. I also cannot speak in their behalf, but I can speak from my own experience."
"Tolerance and understanding are basic human values. They are essential for international civil servants, who must respect all persons equally, without any distinction whatsoever. This respect fosters a climate and a working environment sensitive to the needs of all. To achieve this in a multicultural setting calls for a positive affirmation going well beyond passive acceptance." [Article 6 of the Standards of Conduct for the International Civil Service, The United Nations Ombudsman’s Office.]"

"There was never an instance when she did not raise her voice. The surreal "meeting" (when he learned he was being sacked) on May 4 was not unusual – it was a daily occurrence with Nileema."
I am convinced that the staff members who came to see me are telling the truth. I hope that the United Nations look into their complaints. The Department of Foreign Affairs could also help by calling the attention of the UNRC on how our nationals should be treated. We talk about protection for Overseas Filipino Workers. Here at home, we must be just as passionate in protecting the rights of our own workers.

Sometimes a simple gesture speaks volumes about the humanity of a person. So tell me, how do you pick up your pen from the floor?

'extra-judicial killings'

You have to give it to the intrepid Ricky Carandang of ANC. He always manages to interview the most unlikely guests, and last night’s were truly exceptional: Chief Justice Reynato Puno and Associate Justice Adolf Azcuna. Listening to the justices reassured me that the judicial branch has at last and at least have been seized by the problem of extra-judicial killings, actually an inappropriate phrase since we no longer have the death penalty, and for good reason, and thus we cannot have judicial killings. The two justices were only being diplomatic in refraining from publicly castigating the two other branches---especially the executive---for their inaction and perhaps, even complicity in the murders and disappearance of political activists. Our alleged president would not have shown any concern had not human rights organizations mobilized international opinion on the spate of killings and disappearances. One can only wish that the supreme court had the power to fire justice secretaries, because the one we have does not know the meaning of shame.

Azcuna enlightened mewith a discussion of the Minnesota protocol, where, if the victims are last seen with military or state agents, it is the burden of the latter to explain and extricate themselves. After all, it is the state which is supposed to have a monopoly of the gun. This protocol becomes more relevant in the case of a government which has taken Donald Rumsfeld’s logic: the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Thus, the state can arrest you, torture you, and bomb other countries to kingdom come on mere suspicion of terrorist inclinations.

I don’t know if the justices volunteered to be interviewed, but if they did, they chose the interviewer well. Carandang is competent, prepares well in advance, and has exemplary interviewing skills. More likely it was he who approached them and the justices could not refuse. In any case, the interview was to bring attention to this Monday’s summit on extra-judicial killings and one can only hope it succeeds.

Also yesterday, Conrad de Quiros discussed his frustrated search for the movie ‘Missing’ which affected me too. It was played not too long ago in one of the cable movie channels. I think it is available from the many movie websites abroad.

And before I forget, I really appreciated The Big Picture’s interview with the officials of the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) and former economic planning secretary Felipe Medalla on problems with the estimates of GDP growth. Unfortunately, this was not carried intelligently by the national papers. Among the respectable columnists, only Ciel Habito mentioned the problem and the discussion but he did not have the space for a satisfying follow-up. ( I asked my niece Charo Logarta whether she found the latest estimates credible and her response was to the effect that these were not estimates but ‘actual’ figures as she understood them from a press conference. I had to remind her that figures based on a survey or sample should be treated as estimates.)

I will say my piece on these issues some other time.