Brother Number One

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2010-12-15T22:26:00.002+13:00

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Ode to Translators

2010-11-29T18:56:00.002+13:00

To Veasna, Lundi, and Kim and of course to Kulikar (Our Line Producer and Translator Extraordinaire!)

After arriving at Phnom Penh airport (which has a frightening display of uniforms and brass), I was picked up by a driver who was employed by our hotel. A good-natured bright young man, he immediately informed me that he wanted to practice his English on our journey. That was fine, given my Khmer is almost non-existent so we chatted as he weaved in and out of the flocks of scooters drifting up and down Phnom Penh's boulevards. His economic future, he told me, was in mastering English and becoming a translator.

Rob, Veasna and Cheam Souer

This belief is widespread: and there is some reality to it. Cambodians do spend many hard hours studying and learning English. For sure, in a city populated by Anglophone well-wishers, do-gooders and business folk, translators are in demand. Apart from the sheer effort it takes to learn another language (and given Cambodia was a French colony, English is not a "natural" part of the country's history), translation is an extraordinary art.

Veasna, Mr Bou Meng and Rob

In the ideal world of objective truth and pure facts, some claim that translators must be fully transparent, a neutral cipher, merely delivering up the question uttered. Translators according to this view must have no opinion and no impact on the scene before them – be it a business transaction or an interview.

The reality of course is so different. Translation is always "imperfect" – words are never identical from language to language, and bring along with them culture, history, beliefs and world-views. And the translators are of course people whose identities are constructed through their language and their history. Cambodia's traumatic past is never far away, framing, filtering and shaping their understanding.

Kulikar translates for Mr Chum Mey

I decided early on as a director to include my translators as characters, given the crucial role they play, their own dramatic and painful histories and my admiration (given my own limited skills) of the linguistic abilities they display. Filming the process of translation also reveals much about documentary filmmaking. Translation slows and staggers the flow of information, revealing the mechanics of communication, miscommunication, comprehension, misunderstanding and cultural difference.

A rhythm is established that we settle into. In Brother Number One, the triumvirate of the translator, Rob, and a subject (sometimes a victim, other times a perpetrator), are all on screen. We see the translator ask the question we, Rob or I, pose. The answer cannot be too long as the translator must absorb the answer, mentally interpret it and relay its content. At times, the translator will ask in Khmer for clarification and a mini-interview, inaccessible to all of us Westerners, will ensue. Throughout this process, Rob scans the faces, reads body language, without understanding the words, keen for information. The roles then switch, with the subject watching Rob's response to his or her answer - at times with apprehension. Time is slowed and waves of emotion, anger, and sorrow can hang suspended, breaking slowly.

Kulikar comforts Rob

Translators can become overwhelmed with empathy for Rob, or, as often their own sorrow or anger rises to the surface. They can become too emotional to continue, or they interject with their own questions, their buried pain rising to the surface. I see them too frequently soften content so that the blows fall off Rob more lightly – they feel compelled to relay answers but also know that they will hurt.

While I watch, it makes me reflect on the power, still, of the Anglophone speaker. Despite the world being in a "post-colonial" age, English, known as the "business language" appears to rule. In a country like Cambodia, deeply impoverished but with some real entrepreneurial spirit, the ambitious buckle down with English dictionaries painstakingly teaching themselves English word by word, so they can help those (yes, filmmakers, aid workers, businesspeople) that ironically are supposedly there to help them. I kept thinking, if that effort could be directed elsewhere: to their own professional development, to the acquisition of practical skills needed by their own people, perhaps, we the "helpers" would be less needed.

Diamond Island bridge disaster

2010-11-24T21:37:00.001+13:00

The BNO team offer our heartfelt condolences to those who have lost family and love ones in the incident. Our thoughts are with you.

More information:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11814894
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11824082

Rob Hamill interview on Good Morning

2010-10-31T18:54:00.000+13:00

Rob talks about his experience testifying in the trial of Comrade Duch in Cambodia.

tvnz.co.nz/good-morning/s2010-e211010-robhamil-video-3847596

Rob Hamill presenting at TEDxChCh

2010-10-15T11:05:00.000+13:00

Hi Rob here. Sorry I haven't written anything for nearly a year! To those who have written comments that have gone unresponded it is not because I'm ignoring them. It's simply that I haven't seen them. The settings on my personal account seem to stop me getting alerts. I am on the case to try and rectify this.

Any...way, just thought that anyone who happens to be in Christchurch on the afternoon of 22 October (that's next week) might be able get tickets (which I think are free) to TEDx.
I will be doing a presentation telling the story and discussing the issues around it.

Check out www.tedxchch.com

Day 2 in Cambodia

2010-07-25T21:23:00.000+12:00

As always we all adjusted to jetlag and the heat in record time -- off the plane into our first day's filming. Beautiful plane ride over Siem Reap, home of Angkor Wat, seeing the low-lying rice paddies. Rice has been so much of Cambodia's story -- from being the ricebowl of Asia to starvation during the Khmer Rouge years. Now there is the incipient creep of factory developments replacing the paddies. Yesterday was full on, filming an artist who was imprisoned in Tuol Sleng, the "model prison" where virtually everyone was executed; Bou Meng is one of five living survivors as is Norn Chanpal who was 8 when the Vietnamese forces overthrew the Khmer Rouge in 1979. He had a heartbreaking memory of his mother stroking his hair and telling him to look after his little brother -- she was then taken away. He and his brother hid under a pile of old clothes. We are also following the dictum "every Cambodian has a story" which is true -- so are doing brief vignettes of all the people we meet "naturally" in the film . .translators, court officials, drivers and so on. I think, hope, this is working. Peter as always is doing a great job and we are bristling with cameras...

Hamill returns to Cambodia for Duch verdict

2010-07-18T15:36:00.000+12:00

Kiwi rower Rob Hamill will return to Cambodia at the end of July to hear the verdict in the trial of Comrade Duch, the Khmer Rouge commander of Tuol Sleng prison where Rob’s brother, Kerry, was tortured and killed in late 1978.

Rob’s presence at the Extraordinary Chamber of the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) for the verdict on the 26^th July comes almost a year after he testified there as a ‘Civil Party’ representative. Speaking as one of many that suffered losses at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, Rob gave testimony exactly 31 years after Kerry and Englishman John Dewhirst were snatched from their storm-blown yacht. A third sailor Canadian Stuart Glass was killed on the spot. Kerry and John were tortured for up to two months at ‘Tuol Sleng’ (also known as ‘S21’) and forced to falsely confess they were CIA spies, before being executed on the orders of Pol Pot. 14,000 Cambodians met a similar fate at the prison. Rob’s statement, like that of the other Civil Parties, was intended to influence the sentencing of Duch.

Rob believes that the sentencing is crucial to Cambodia’s recovery as a nation: “There is a saying in Cambodia, ‘Transform the River of Blood into a River of Reconciliation’. Nearly two million Cambodians were killed during the Khmer Rouge regime between 1975 and 1979,” said Hamill. “I only hope that this verdict brings some sense of justice to those who have suffered so much and waited so long.”

Rob’s story is the subject of ‘Brother Number One’, a film produced by Annie Goldson, James Bellamy and Rob for BNO Productions/Pan Pacific Films. The documentary is intended for theatrical and broadcast release in New Zealand and worldwide, and is funded by NZ on Air, TV3, and the NZ Film Commission. Annie, an Associate Professor at the University of Auckland who has received multiple awards for her earlier films, is also directing, with Academy Award-winner Peter Gilbert and Kiwi Jake Bryant sharing the cinematographer credit. See www.brothernumberone.co.nz for further information.

The Extraordinary Chamber of the Courts of Cambodia is under joint Cambodian and UN jurisdiction. Former New Zealand Governor-General Dame Silvia Cartwright is one the two international judges who, along with three Cambodian judges, will decide Duch’s fate. See http://www.eccc.gov.kh/english/ for more info.

Rob Hamill is widely known for winning the first-ever Trans-Atlantic Rowing Race in 1997 with the late Phil Stubbs. He currently works as a motivational speaker, as an organiser of ‘The Great Race’ international rowing event on the Waikato River. He has also been elected to the WEL Energy Trust and campaigns for environmental causes.

Please direct all enquiries to the following contacts: they will liaise with Rob if you need additional information.

Contacts:

In New Zealand: Mark Servian - mservian@wave.co.nz, 021-888-469

In Cambodia from 18 July: Catherine Madigan - Catherine@nikaufilms.co.nz, 021-844-009

Returning to Cambodia

2010-07-18T15:00:00.000+12:00

We are finally going back to Cambodia to film the sentencing of Comrade Duch. Out of the five being tried, Duch is the only one who, at least for a while, acknowledged his guilt. He converted from Buddhism to Christianity after the fall of the regime and in fact was working for an American Christian aid organization on the border with Thailand. His new religion allows him to ask for forgiveness, so many Cambodians are understandably sceptical about his new faith, given that at least 14,000 were brutally tortured and murdered at Tuol Sleng under his rule. He has nonetheless provided some crucial information that presumably will be used during the next trial – that of three "Brothers" (and one wife) who were part of Pol Pot's powerful inner circle and who allegedly devised the policies that led to the deaths of up to 2 million Cambodians. They are assuming no responsibility.

In the meantime, Tim and I have been editing so that on our return to Cambodia, we can be more focused on the content we require. Our drives are already groaning with over 7 terrabytes filled.

Currently we are discussing the tension between pursuing Rob's emotional journey and the story of the Cambodians. There are a plethora of issues that arise – should one Westerner get such attention when so many millions of Cambodians suffered? Why should he not? He and his family suffered hugely and Rob thinks of the loss of his brother most days. But the Cambodian story is such a painful one, almost unimaginable. Does Rob's story help engage a Western audience and make them more likely to understand one of the worst genocides of the 20th century? It is commonplace to hear visitors to Cambodia end up saying "every Cambodian has a story" – which is very true, and one strategy we will try to follow is to explore the stories of the characters that Rob naturally meets.

The other tension is trying to get a balance between the personal story and the historical context. The roots of the genocide in Cambodia are complicated, involving of course the conflagration that was the Vietnam war – how much do audiences want to know? History seems important – otherwise, it is easy to see the Cambodian problem as something "over there", nothing to do with the West, but of course looking at the illegal bombing of Cambodia, the support of the brutal Lon Nol one can start to understand how a regime like the Khmer Rouge can arise. But can we tell the history accurately without becoming dry and too detailed? Always a challenge.

A year into production...

2010-05-23T22:00:00.004+12:00

One year on and two-thirds of the way through production on Brother Number One. 80 hours of material and counting! The film has taken us to the US, the UK, Australia, around New Zealand and of course to Cambodia – and our plan is to return there once Comrade Duch, the Rouge leader whose trial finished late last year, is sentenced.

Duch was the man – sometimes referred to as Pol Pot’s favourite torturer – that would have sealed Kiwi yachtie Kerry Hamill’s terrible fate. He and his sailing mate Englishman John Dewhirst were killed at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison under Duch’s command (we could put into two of three of the black and white images from TS with the Susan Sontag quote) and it is their story (and Rob Hamill’s journey) of course that forms the central thread of the film. The entire Khmer Rouge regime – almost four years of genocidal rule from 1975-79 by a small group of Khmer ultra-Maoists – would seem almost fanciful if the consequences of that period were not so devastating.

Documentary filmmaking is such a process. No matter how prepared one is, how tightly scripted, reality always intercedes and life reveals itself in all its beauty and its horror. I always think one has to marshall the full armory (to use a military metaphor) of emotional and intellectual decision-making while directing documentary -- understanding, analysing, empathizing, recognizing where a story might be taking you. But producing is also such a complex and overlooked process: a business, an art, managing an ever changing technical landscape, managing people. A bit like being a conductor and keeping everyone moving pretty much at the same speed in the same direction...

Annie

Body Doubles needed, bronzed, fit, Aucklanders please

2010-03-11T11:22:00.001+13:00

I am looking for three actors/body doubles for a short sequence I am
filming that represents the seizure of the yacht Foxy Lady by the
Khmer Rouge (Pol Pot etc) in the late 1970s -- three "hippie trail"
sailors (a kiwi, a canadian, a brit) were all killed.

You need to be fit and bronzed! 20-something. A kind of surfie look.
With potential to have 70s hairdos and possibly facial hair.

It will involve filming at Westhaven, then taking a water taxi to
Rangitoto, working with a fabulous crew and famous rowers, diving off
the side of a boat . .otherwise hanging around a yacht. Filming over a
weekend in late March

There will be a small honorarium involved.
www.brothernumberone.co.nz

Posted via email from brothernumberone's posterous

News from Annie on returning from the U.S

2010-01-25T21:36:00.003+13:00

Have just recommenced shooting and editing having returned from a whirlwind tour to the US first to attend the American Historical Association conference where my last film An Island Calling was showing (sharing a panel with the lovely Vilsoni Hereniko and Tarcisius Tara Kabutaulaka), then onto LA where we went to visit the Shoah Foundation Institute, which was begun by Steven Spielberg as an archive of Holocaust testimonies. Shoah’s mission statement is to ‘To overcome prejudice, intolerance, and bigotry—and the suffering they cause—through the educational use of the Institute’s visual history testimonies’ and to date they have collected nearly 52,000 video testimonies of Holocaust survivors and other witnesses in 32 languages and from 56 countries.

I caught up with old friends and met new ones. Had one of those great mixed restaurant dinners which makes one feel a bit old -- Kiwis living in the US, Americans living in New Zealand, old friends from New York, Peter Gilbert who came over from Chicago and met new people, Abbie, Alan, Ben ...

Modelling ourselves on the Shoah example, we are now doing a series of life stories with “Khmer Kiwis” living here as part of the website that will accompany the film. Chakara and Anna have spent two days filming stories which we will excerpt, attaching them as an extensions to our website, in time making the entire stories available. We will house the master tapes with the Cambodian community here and hopefully this will start a move to accrue more stories for the future, and for the young. Meanwhile, I’m back at the editing bench extending our sample in the ever-ending search for more film funding.

No word yet on when Comrade Duch will be sentenced, which is the time we hope to return to film again.

The Long Road to Justice - A post from DC-Cam director Youk Chang

2010-01-19T13:32:00.000+13:00

The Long Road to Justice

13 Years of Working To Ensure That the Khmer Rouge Trials Belong to You

By Youk Chhang

During the Khmer Rouge period from April 17, 1975 to January 7, 1979, Cambodians walked constantly. They walked from the cities to the countryside, from their villages to distant provinces, and from the rice fields to the battlefields. After January 7, 1979 the survivors of our country's genocide walked again; this time back to their homes.

In 1997, Cambodians began another journey; the journey to seek justice for crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge. And today, 31 years after the Khmer Rouge regime fell we are taking a giant step along the road to justice.

On February 6, 2006 the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) - commonly referred to as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (KRT) - officially began setting up offices at the military barracks outside of Phnom Penh. The first trial, Case 001, began on March 30, 2009, two years behind schedule. The case opened with the defendant, former head of S-21 prison Duch (Kaing Geuk Eav), apologizing to victims and accepting responsibility, but ended shockingly however on November 27, 2009 with Duch rejecting responsibility on jurisdictional grounds because he was not a "senior Khmer Rouge leader or those most responsible" as stated in the Khmer Rouge Tribunal Law. The judgment of Duch will be delivered in March 2010.

In late 2010 or early 2011, the most important Khmer Rouge trial will begin. Case 002 will try the highest level Khmer Rouge leaders still alive today: Noun Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary, and Ieng Thirith. This trial will be a crucial moment in Cambodia's road to justice because the evidences and analyses brought forth will provide answers to many fundamental questions about the Khmer Rouge regime that survivors had wondered for over three decades.

Cambodia, the United Nations, and several other countries have worked for many years to help us see justice delivered. The United Nations and national governments raised much of the initial $56 million budget for the KRT and stepped in during budgetary shortfalls in late 2008. These governments have also generously funded many Cambodian human rights and international non-government organizations (NGO) that support and monitor the trial process by helping victims file complaints of Khmer Rouge atrocities to the Court, observing and reporting on the activities of the Cambodian government and United Nations, providing counseling to those who suffered during Democratic Kampuchea, and other activities.

Perhaps the most important way that NGOs can help is to work with the Extraordinary Chambers and each other to ensure that the public is informed about the trials and involved in them.

These trials are about seeking justice for victims of the Khmer Rouge regime. These are your trials, and without your participation in them, the Cambodian people will not be able to judge whether the trials are fair, of high standards, and accessible to all.

But how can the people of Cambodia participate in the trials? They are far away and it is expensive to travel to Phnom Penh. Many NGOs in Cambodia are working to make certain that people can read about the trials through magazines and other written materials that are delivered to sub-district and district offices across the country. Others will broadcast news on the radio, and the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) is working with TVK and other stations to produce programs that will help educate people about the Extraordinary Chambers.

In the past few years, DC-Cam has also implemented a project which brought 400-500 villagers every month from all across Cambodia to Phnom Penh to visit genocide memorial sites and meet with officials at the KRT courtroom. After this first phase of the Living Documents Project, phase two which began in early 2009 allowed victims to directly attend Duch's trial hearing, participate in KRT educational workshops, and view Khmer Rouge related videos. Afterward, villagers returned home to share with community members during village forums what they saw and learned so that Cambodians have the opportunity to learn about the trials from people like themselves, in addition to tribunal officials and NGO staff. All of these activities have helped villagers understand how the trials work and to become familiar with the tribunal process. For Case 002, DC-Cam will increase its activities and outreach efforts given the significance of this trial.

All of us want to see trials that are fair and just, and for the Cambodian people to participate in them without fear of intimidation or uncertainty. Learning about the tribunal from the written word, radio and television, and from your family, friends and neighbors will help you see that justice can work in Cambodia and that building a more just future for our children can become a reality.

-------------------------

Youk Chhang is the director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia. Last week was the 10th anniversary of the publishing of DC-Cam Genocide Magazine: "Searching for the Truth." With the ministries of Interior and Information, DC-Cam has distributed 1.5 million copies of the magazine to the villagers within Cambodia. This week also is the 13th anniversary of the establishment of DC-Cam.

Visit our website, join us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and find out what's new

2010-01-12T15:14:00.003+13:00

The Brother Number One website is now up and running. Our blog is now also embedded in the new site, which also has a Twitter feed so that you can keep up with recent news, our latest film sample, a gallery of production photos, links to media coverage and much more. If you are reading this post on the blog site please also visit us at www.brothernumberone.co.nz.

To get the latest news on Brother Number One and to show your support for our film project you can:

Subscribe to blog updates from Brother Number One via email.
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Link to our site www.brothernumberone.co.nz

We are now two-thirds of the way through filming and hope to start editing the in April. We last travelled to Cambodia in August when Rob went to Cambodia to testify at the trial of Comrade Duch in the ECCC war crimes tribunal. We are now awaiting the outcome of the trial and plan to return to Cambodia again in February or early March when the verdict is delivered.

In the meantime, we have continued with fundraising efforts, finding archive material, transcribing and logging hours of footage and developing our website and outreach, and we’ve been fortunate to have the assistance of three Summer Scholars from the University of Auckland to assist us with this work over the summer.

Annie is currently in the States where she has screened her documentary An Island Calling at the American Historical Association (AHA) Film Festival in San Diego and participated as a panelist at the festival. She will also meet up with Brother Number One Producer/DOP Peter Gilbert and together they will visit the Shoah Foundation, an organisation established by Steven Spielberg, which has a mission "to overcome prejudice, intolerance, and bigotry - and the suffering they cause - through the educational use of the Institute's visual history testimonies." We are also interested in developing a testimony project with the Cambodian community here in New Zealand, as a companion project to the film itself.

There will be a lot happening with the film over the next few months, especially as we await news of the outcome of the ECCC trial of Comrade Duch so watch this space and keep in touch.

Director’s diary - Annie Goldson

2009-08-30T18:27:00.000+12:00

Back from Cambodia nearly a week now. I think it was difficult for all of us to process what we saw and experienced. Working something like 11 x 12/13 hour days, we had to focus on what was in front of us, ensuring we stayed sensitive to our subjects, adhered to the schedule but remained open to unexpected storylines when they revealed themselves.

And then there is always the practical demands: changing and numbering tapes, charging batteries, making sure there was enough light, finding power sources and so on. The usual demands but in place that had felt like no other. Now the intense focus of production has elapsed I find Cambodia returns in my dreams, my psyche’s attempt to cope, after the fact, with the surreal horrors of Tuol Sleng and the Killing Fields.

Something most Cambodians have to deal with on a daily basis. That was what struck me – how many stories, untold stories, are out there waiting to be told and how many people we came across that told us of the nightmare that that had been their past. Memories made harder too, because of the lack of accountability for and acknowledgement of these crimes. The past hurts can only ever be very partially salved by the Court process, whatever its outcome.

Rob was amazing to work with, showing courage and dignity at every step. He has always had an ability to express strength of will, along with an extraordinary openness of emotion (often seen as contradictory). The Cambodians we spoke with were immensely grateful for his stand in Court: he was able to express things that perhaps they felt less able to.

There were optimistic moments while filming too, especially working with DC Cam and seeing the multi-dimensional work that they undertaking to try to address the past, from writing the first real history books, through conducting outreach programmes. to attempting to institute reconciliation between perpetrators and victims, plus much more.

There were fun times too, hanging out with Kulikar, our “translator/character” and Vothar, our great “slow and steady” driver who managed to negotiate us through extreme traffic with grace and care. And watching the spectacular display at the stadium in the early evening as forty competing aerobics teams, dancing to separate rhythms, strive for fitness. A soccer game goes on beneath them largely unnoticed while kites and balloons whirl overhead.

(Photo: Mark Servian)

Justice for a beloved brother - Waikato Times feature

2009-08-29T17:14:00.001+12:00

Waikato Times, Saturday 29 August, page E5

This month Waikato man Rob Hamill went to Cambodia to face his brother's killer in a Phnom Pehn courtroom, testifying against Khmer Rouge commander Comrade Duch. Hamilton writer Mark Servian was there as his media support, and reports on Hamill's harrowing journey.

Rob Hamill looked at the judge and said "Limeworks Loop Road, Te Pahu", and on the dusty outskirts of Phnom Pehn my vision stretched and the background seemed to retreat at the mention of that familiar hamlet in the far-away green foothills of Pirongia.

Poignant moment: Rob Hamill looks at skulls at the memorial at Choeung Ek Killing Field on the outskirts of Phnom Pehn. Rob's brother Kerry was killed just two months before the Vietnamese overthrew Pol Pot in January 1979. Photos: Mark Servian.

Such mundane opening questions – "what is your address?" – to establish his identity. No inquiry to his character, to what he has achieved. For winning a Trans-Atlantic rowing race and breaking world records, or polling highest for the energy trust and fundraising for the hospice, all count for naught in the eyes of this Cambodian court. Here he is just another victim giving testimony, made of the same fragile human flesh that the accused there in the dock rendered and tore asunder so many times.

Mark Servian: Accompanied Rob Hamill

But when asked to identify his family, Rob gives a clue to the man within – he names Kerry and John in the present tense. They ARE his brothers even now, though their deaths three decades ago is what has bought him here, face to face in this room with Comrade Duch (‘DOIK’), the Khmer Rouge monster responsible, a mathematician whose victims add up to the tens of thousands.

We had received word that Rob was to testify a day earlier than expected while visiting the scene of those terrible crimes. Rachel his wife, Ivan his two-year-old son and I were visiting Tuol Sleng or S21, the former high school down a Phnom Pehn back street that should be as infamous as Auschwitz.

In this place, about the size of Garden Place [or Wgtn’s Civic Square or half of Chch’s The Square], Kerry Hamill landed up in 1978 with fellow lost sailor John Dewhirst. Here they were tortured and abused for months before the final release of death, along with some 15,000 to 20,000 other men, women and children.

Today just inside the gate, Rachel starts crying, sobbing, for she has been living Kerry’s story for years and now she stands in the place that has loomed so large in her and Rob’s imagination.

The guide asks where we’re from and we say "New Zealand", he says "I took a New Zealander whose brother was here around the other day", Rachel says, "he’s my husband".

Rob visited Tuol Sleng a few days earlier and found it very hard to take. He says he arrived in Cambodia wanting to find some way in his heart to forgive Duch. But experiencing this torture factory first hand banished any chance of that. In Rob’s words, Duch "no longer belongs to the human species".

For this man, who as a young student won national mathematics prizes, designed the deliberate considered processes of this torture factory. Duch alone gave the order to "smash" each and every one of his victims.

Tuol Sleng victims: Khmer Rouge documentation of their victims are displayed at the Genocide Museum at the former torture centre in Phnom Pehn, the capital of Cambodia.

As we see and have these horrors described, Rachel’s sobbing stops. As she says later, and is as true for me, "you just feel numb after a while". We see tiny brick cells with bloodstains on the floor, balconies barb-wired to prevent escape by suicide, makeshift but efficient torture devices and tools, hundreds of photos of faces both before and after death. And actually worse of all, the paintings by Vann Nath, one of only seven survivors, that document what he witnessed.

Rob later asserts that the inmates were treated like animals, but really, if animals are ever treated like this, it is called what it is - cruelty.

Initially ‘Angkar’, or the ‘Khmer Rouge’ as we in the West know them, only targeted the ‘new people’- the city dwellers, wearers of glasses, the intellectuals, but also factory workers and mechanics, anyone involved in the modern economy (the ‘old people’ were the rural subsistence-living ‘peasants’). But as Pol Pot’s paranoia increased, Angkar turned on their own and started torturing and killing their own ranks.

The foreigners that Duch got his hands on served to prove that the enemies were at the gate, tortured into falsely confessing they were CIA or KGB agents. Kerry Hamill was killed just two or so months before the Vietnamese overthrew Pol Pot in January 1979. Before Rob’s arrival, Duch’s trial at the Extraordinary Court Chambers of Cambodia has already established that Kerry and other foreigners were burnt with tyres around their necks in order to destroy the evidence.

Torture Room: The bed in Tuol Sleng that victims were chained to still remains. The photo on the wall shows what the Vietnamese found in the room in January 1979.

The debate in court has been over whether or not they were alive when this was done. A few weeks back, an ex-guard had testified that they were, but Duch maintains that he ordered that they be killed first and that no one would have disobeyed him.

This is typical of how Duch has tried to run the courtroom from the dock, in a different manner but with the same intellectual arrogance that we saw from Clayton Weatherston back in New Zealand a few weeks ago.

Duch converted to Christianity in the mid-90s and, unlike the other senior Khmer Rouge yet to be tried, has pleaded guilty to all charges – the court case is to decide his sentence and to cross-examine him in the French inquisitorial style. But having been arrested in 1999, he has had ten years to prepare his defence.

So while he has often said sorry and asked forgiveness, his aloof behaviour in court does not match his words and he splits such horrible hairs – death by tyre or machete? – to qualify what he did. ‘I was only following orders, they would have done it to me’ is his defence. But Duch was a senior leader in the regime and, as Rob has often said, it was those in positions of power who could have stopped the madness.

Rob arrived in Cambodia the week before to prepare his testimony with Alain Werner, the Swiss lawyer representing some of the ‘civil parties’. They have redrafted it numerous times, and on this Monday Rob farewelled us to go and complete it for his scheduled appearance the next day.

But mid-morning I get the call that he is likely to be on that afternoon, interrupting my, Rachel and Ivan’s numbing tour of Tuol Sleng. By the time we arrive at the crowded courthouse, thunder rumbling in the tropical sky, Rob is already in the courtroom and we are told that Ivan, being under sixteen, is not allowed in.

So we take up position in the media room next door and watch proceedings via closed-circuit TV. Rob’s appearance starts with the mundane identity questions, and then he embarks on the sad tale of his brother and family.

As he begins, at Rachel’s request, I call Rob’s sister who is looking after Ivan’s older brothers back in Te Pahu, handing her the phone when she answers – "Rob is on now," she says, signalling this moment none of them ever thought they would see.

The first picture he puts up on the screen is of the Hamill brothers in a dinghy when they were kids. In this sticky warm corner of South-East Asia, the dated image of young Kiwis is jarring, prompting the Western reporters in the room to jump up and snap shots of it. As Rob then tells what happened to two of the boys on that boat, Rachel quietly cries, Ivan asleep on her lap.

After half-an-hour of this gruelling testimony, the court takes a break, and suddenly Alain rushes into the room, as if he has jumped out of the screen, his lawyerly robe flapping, a bundle of energy suddenly exploding in the quiet room. He’s been sent by Rob to find Rachel, concerned that she isn’t in the courtroom with him. We explain that Ivan isn’t allowed in – "sort it out" I snap, sending Alain flying back out the door, only to return moments later to report they won’t budge. Rachel reluctantly hands me Ivan, waking the two-year-old. As she disappears the toddler objects, throwing his legs around, but eventually calming down.

When Rob resumes he starts by acknowledging his wife to the court and thanks her for her support. When he then puts up a picture of Kerry on the screen, Ivan calls out ‘Daddy!’, mistaking the uncle he’ll never know for his father. Rob continues to tell how the actions of Duch and co affected his family. As Ivan occasionally calls for his mum, it strikes me that his upset at her absence is yet one more tiny ripple of Duch’s cruelty all those years ago.

Around us, the international and local media watch riveted, Rob clearly making the most intense appearance in the months-long trial. When he says to Duch "there have been times when, to use your word, I have wanted to smash you", the Cambodians in the room, some listening to translation on headphones, gasp and laugh to each other, shaking their heads in disbelief. This reaction continues as he describes how in the past he has imagined Duch suffering the tortures he has visited on so many others. It is stirring and disturbing stuff, delivered by a man who is renowned for his bravery, strength and endurance, but who today shows an emotional vulnerability that is painful to watch.

Towards the end of his appearance, Rob gets the chance to ask Duch where his brother’s ashes are. Duch stands stiffly, and calmly claims that he simply doesn’t remember Kerry, though he does recall his British companion John Dewhirst .

And then it is over, and Rachel reappears to reclaim Ivan and we are all shown into a side room to see Rob. There is happiness of a sort, interspersed with a sombre realisation that while the family has finally had a chance to speak their minds to Duch, many questions still remain. Ivan jumps around on the couch behind his parents, happy to have his dad back. Rob looks numb, speaking softly, smiling occasionally, a feeling of unreality pervading the room.

Alain the lawyer appears and expresses his huge thanks and, his arms swinging around in an almost comically typical Gallic fashion, declares that Rob has just made the most decisive testimony of the trial.

With the crowds of the day gone, Rob steps out into the cool shadow of the building to talk to the media. He is composed, the emotion of the testimony subsided, his usual confident soap-box self to the fore again, the same as when I saw him speak at the opening of the Farmers Market at Claudelands a fortnight earlier.

The media session over, Sambath Reach, the court official who has ushered us around, steps forward to speak to the small clutch of Westerners. He expresses his deep thanks to Rob "on behalf of all Cambodians" for saying things that have not previously been said in the court and for standing up to Duch in a way no one has yet dared. Like every local over forty we meet, he lost several family members to the Khmer Rouge. As he speaks, we know we are standing at a point in history.

Sambath then invites Rob over to the court’s Buddhist shrine nearby. In the warm angled tropical sun, the tall late afternoon storm clouds stacked in the distance, the Kiwi and the Khmer stand before the canopied golden warrior statue and make an offering for Kerry and all the other poor souls who fell into the hands of that dreadful beast. The pair quietly discuss the shrine’s story, the calm of the moment a blessed relief. Rob bows to the statue and thanks Sambath, squeezing his hand and meeting his eye one last time.

And then he puts an arm around Rachel, picks up Ivan, and together the family walk off. Perhaps, just perhaps, the lost soul of a sailor from Whakatane, a beloved brother, can now finally rest in peace.

Rob's search for justice for Kerry is the subject of Brother Number One, a documentary by Pan Pacific Films to be released next year.
Mark Servian is a Hamilton writer, artist and activist.

Rob's victim testimony to Extraordinary Court Chambers of Cambodia

2009-08-29T16:41:00.000+12:00

Video of Rob Hamill delivering the testimony below on Monday 17 August 2009
Part one
Part two
Part three

Introduction

Tena koutou katoa
Greetings to all

I am deeply honored and moved to be given the opportunity to speak today. I realise that this is a privilege made available to few, especially compared to the numbers of families that suffered under the Khmer Rouge regime.

I arrived in Cambodia last week. Last Thursday, 13 August was coincidentally 31 years to the day that my brother Kerry Hamill first set foot on Cambodia soil.

The difference now is that I am here of my own volition.

This is the story of an innocent man brought to his knees and killed in the prime of his life and the impact his death had on just one family. It is my hope that other families likewise affected by the losses of this barbaric time can somehow relate to my statement and recognize that they are not alone in their grief.

This Court process – the trial and this sentencing hearing finally gives Kerry (and all of the other people that died at the hand of Duch and others) the opportunity for justice, acknowledgement and vindication.

Background – the Hamill family life before this tragedy

Your Honours, I strongly believe that my personal suffering cannot be understood unless the Chamber is properly informed of the background of my family, Kerry was part of a family which was torn apart due to the accused actions; a previously close knit outgoing and active family which was, in effect, destroyed along with Kerry at S-21. With Your Leave Mr. President I would like to briefly describe my family life before this tragedy.

My brother Kerry was the oldest son of five children to Esther and Miles Hamill .

Kerry grew up in Whakatane New Zealand along with us - his siblings - John, Peter, Sue and me (Rob).

We were a very outdoors focused family. We spent our days outside, really enjoying nature.
Kerry was very special to Mum and Dad.

We all were, but having children is pretty extraordinary life changing stuff and we knew, as first born, Kerry really was a very special child to them.

My second eldest sibling, John Hamill, was born 15 months after Kerry. In their youth the two were virtually inseparable. Together they sought out many adventures.

Photo of Kerry and John in dingy….

After going to university Kerry went to Australia to work in Sydney and develop his sailing skills.

His goal was sailing around the world.

When cyclone Tracy devastated Darwin in 1974, Kerry went up there to work and earn enough money to buy his own yacht.

While in Darwin, Kerry befriended Canadian, Stuart Glass.

The two eventually decided to each buy a 50% share in a yacht. A 28 foot double ended sloop named Foxy Lady

Photo of Foxy Lady with Kerry and Gail

Mr President, could the AV Unit be instructed to show photo 2.

They spent a fair bit of time and money repairing the boat and getting it ready to sail off on their adventures.

While in Darwin, Kerry met Gail Colley. Gail is an important part of this story and I will return, with your Honours leave, to talk more about her later on.

Kerry and Stuart then sailed from Darwin and began a series of wonderful adventures sailing up through South East Asia..

To earn money they would do day charters out to nearby islands for fishing, snorkeling and sight seeing.

Kerry wrote home regularly telling terrific tails of his adventures.

At home in New Zealand we would excitedly sit around the kitchen table while Dad read out each letter accompanied by our exclamations of awe and amusement at the many different sights and colorful cultures he was experiencing.

Occasionally a parcel of clothing would turn up to the extreme delight of my sister Sue and myself.

In one letter Kerry detailed how two Englishmen Neil and Bob got on board as paying passengers from Phuket to Penang. .

I met with both Neil and Bob earlier this year and they described to me their wonderful adventures with Kerry and Gail.

They said Kerry and Gail were clearly very much in love.

They believed the two would invariably get married, settle down and have children.

From all these things, Your Honours, I’m sure you can see that at 26 years of age Kerry was having the time of his life.

He and Gail were planning a life, and future family, together and we were all enjoying their adventures in the stories they were sending back to us in their letters.

The last letter we got from Kerry was sent from Singapore in July 1978. Fortunately, Gail left the boat at around this time to visit her family. She and Kerry planned to meet up a couple of months later.

We believe the men made for Bangkok but were blown off course in bad weather and took shelter behind Koh Tang Island.

Mr. President, my lawyer has appraised me of the situation regarding the content of S-21 confessions, however, with your permission, I would like to recall six sentences contained in the confession of John Dewhirst.

From our family’s perspective it is what we read 30 years ago and it affected us greatly at the time.

Whether it be fact of fiction it is what we believed to have happened to them and affected us accordingly.

Mr President, I recognise your discretion in this area and am therefore completely in your hands on this matter.

John described in his confession how the boat was attacked. He said:

“Shortly after dark I went below to make some porridge and suddenly a boat began to close in on us very quickly.

I was about to go up on deck when the boat opened fire and sent some shots over the mast so I stayed where I was and turned on our navigation light.

The gunboat came in closer and lit us with its spotlight.

Stuart was shot and Kerry helped him out to sea in a lifebuoy.

Kerry and I went over the side for safety and waited until the gunboat came in to pick us up.
He told me later that Stuart had died and had been buried at sea.”

Thank you Mr President, even if we do not know the precise details of the capture of Kerry we do know he was brought to S-21.

There, as part of the system of degradation and torture put in place by the accused he unquestionably suffered beyond all imagination. Yet despite this environment, the pressure to surrender to the pain, and futility and despair, Kerry’s confessions were lucid.

He was clever with what he said.

It is evident from both Kerry’s and John Dewhirst’s confessions that they were obtained under torture.

The men wove the patently untrue statement that they had “CIA training” into real facts about their life.

Again, Mr President, I am aware that the content of the confessions is not to be discussed before the Chamber – at this point, with your leave, I only wish to talk about certain names in the confession which lead my family and myself to believe it is entirely fictional.

I do not seek to rely upon or place any credence upon the supposed ‘factual’ content of the confession.

In his confession, Kerry stated that Colonel Sanders (of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame, a popular chain of fast food restaurants) was one of his superiors.

He used our home telephone number as his CIA operative number and mentioned several family friends as supposed members of the CIA.

For instance, Colonel Perram was our father’s gliding instructor. Captain Dodds is an old mate of Kerry’s who still lives and Whakatane.

He also mentions a Captain Pepper which may well have been a reference to the Beetle’s album and he talks about a Major Rouse.

A ruse in English is a fraud or a confidence trick

Perhaps the most poignant comment in my brother’s confession was the mention of the public speaking instructor ‘ a Mr. S. Tarr’.

The instructor’s family name was spelt Tarr. Only the initial of the instructor’s first name S was given. S Tarr is in fact the name of my adoring mother Esther.

Esther Hamill. That’s my mother’s name

He was sending a message to our mother.

A message of love and hope. And it was as if, whatever the final outcome, he would have the last say.

Approximately three weeks after his capture, John Dewhirst had signed a confession and, I presume at that time, was executed.

Exactly two months after his capture my brother, Kerry Hamill, signed a confession and, I presume, at that time he too was executed.

I say presume because we still do not know exactly when or how either of the men were killed.

The Overall Impact Kerry’s death had on our family

Mr President, Kerry’s final letter arrived at our home on July 1978 . The silence after the arrival of that letter was deafening.

Your Honours, I need to explain the impact of this period, the impact which this period of crushing uncertainty had upon my family.

As you will be well aware your Honours, in any family, in every family, everyone is interconnected.

When a mother, a father, a sister or a brother suffers, all others suffer.

A family shares in happiness and warmth, a family shares in depression and misery.

My family’s suffering is my suffering, my family’s disintegration is my disintegration, my family’s pain is my pain.

As already described, Kerry used to write home about once a month.

Some weeks passed without any communication from Kerry.

The weeks turned to months still with no contact from Kerry.

As time went by we became more and more concerned that something was wrong.

Our family home was positioned at the mouth of the Whakatane River where it flows into the Pacific Ocean.

Towards the end of the year my mother, Esther, would gaze out to sea and say “It’s ok, he’ll turn up for Christmas to surprise us.”

We all half expected the yacht to appear over the horizon at any moment.

Mr President, you like myself, will perhaps remember the times before we lived in a world of instant communication – the days before mobile phones, the internet and 24/7 news.

It was in this time of letters and telegrams, which younger generations cannot appreciate, that my family waited, and waited for any news.

There was a desperate sense of hope in our household.

Christmas 1978 came and went, as did the New Year and there was still no news.

This was the first Christmas without the normal happiness – there was no excitement at New Years.

We were all thinking of the person missing from our lives; Kerry.

As time went by my parents became more and more anxious.

Still we hoped for a positive outcome but deep down we were all thinking the same thing; that something terrible had happened to my brother.

My father, Miles Hamill, wrote letters to the ports of Asia and the NZ Government requesting information about the Foxy Lady and any possible sightings.

He was trying to establish if any ship wrecks had been reported in the area.

Nothing of any consequence was reported back to my father.

When you are waiting to hear from a loved one, 16 months is a very very long time.

Your Honours one year 4 months of uncertainty passes like an eternity. In less than this period a new life can be conceived and born.

I was 14 when Kerry went missing and 16 when we found out the terrible news.

My two birthdays were a time of mute celebration.

The waiting without knowing and hoping while fearing the worst had been a terrible terrible time for our family.

As time went by the only thing we could cling to was hope.

I remember the day a neighbor rung us suggesting we go and get a copy of the local newspaper.

I went with my second eldest sibling John Hamill, to the local news agent and I recall the look of sympathy on the attendants face as he handed over the newspaper.

On this day, 16 months after Kerry’s capture, we got the news that Kerry had been captured, tortured and killed at the hands of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime.

My brother, had been captured, tortured and killed. Mr President, Nobody in the New Zealand Government had taken the time to contact my parents with this terrible news; all we had was the report staring out from the front of the newspaper.

We were devastated. All that hope was now extinguished.

I remember later that day standing in the kitchen hugging my father, both of us crying, for what seemed like a long time.

It was the closest I had ever felt to my father.

I find it difficult to describe the feeling of complete and utter love combined with sorrow I felt for my father at that moment.

In some ways it was a beautiful moment but was all consumed in the grief and shock of the tragedy that had occurred..

Never in our worst nightmares had we considered the reality of what had to Kerry.

Death, not by ship wreck, not by drowning or freak accident BUT Death by torture.

Death by torture not over a few seconds or minutes or hours or days or weeks even.

Death by torture over a period of months.

In the absence of Kerry’s body, a memorial service was held.

For the next 12 months my parents tried to ascertain the detail of what had happened and why the New Zealand Government still supported Pol Pot’s regime into the 80s.

At the same time they tried to sustain their business which was in decline and hold off bankruptcy.

Mr. President, Family life disintegrated. I would like to describe how my family struggled and perhaps failed to cope with Kerry’s death. With Your leave MR President, I’d like to begin by telling you about my brother John.

It is my conviction that what happened to John is directly linked to Kerry’s death at S-21, as such, his story is an important part of the damaged caused to my family

John Hamill (Kerry’s brother)

John was a year younger than Kerry. The two brothers had a very close bond.

John was a wonderful sensitive man that had the ability to make us all laugh to the point of tears. After Kerry went missing, that humor stopped.

During the 16 month time lag between Kerry’s capture and our discovery of what had happened, John displayed the affects of deep depression.

The arguments I had with him increased in number and intensity. These arguments sometimes turned violent.

The loss of his closest sibling had a massive impact on John.

Eight months after we found out what had happened to my eldest brother Kerry, my second eldest brother John took his own life.

He threw himself off a cliff near our family home.

My father Miles and my third brother Peter were the first to find John. They retraced his footsteps to the edge of the cliff and saw his body at the bottom on the rocks.

On the morning of John’s funeral I remember my mother administering pills to me and my other older siblings, Sue and Peter. I later found out that they were valium tablets.

It was an example of how my parents didn’t know how to deal with their grief.

There was so little in the way of effective support systems that they somehow thought it best to mask ones feelings in a cloak of prescription medicine.

I discovered later that morning that my father had been in such a bad way during the night that my mother had called for the doctor who administered strong sedatives.

It was enough to render my father unconscious for the next 24 hours.

He did not, could not, attend the funeral of John, his second son.

It was simply too much for him.

I feel he blamed himself for the death of his two eldest children. I think he felt he could have done more to protect them from harm.

Both Kerry George Hamill and John Dwyer Hamill died at the age of 27.

I find it difficult to separate the death of John from the death of Kerry.

I am certain that if Kerry’s life had been spared, John would not have taken his own life.

Duch, when you killed my brother Kerry, you also killed my brother John.

The effect these two devastating losses had on our family simply cannot be measured. They were massive and incomprehensible.

I often think how much better things might have been had Kerry’s life not been taken. It’s impossible to say.

Esther Hamill (Kerry’s Mother)

My mother Esther Hamill was possibly the most deeply affected by Kerry’s death. She was thinking about Kerry nonstop but not communicating that to us,

She was a very private woman in her own way but she was a very outgoing lady as well, very humorous, she had a great sense of humour.

That all changed after Kerry was captured. I never saw her cry, she was very strong, but as a result of that strength and holding her pain within, she became very sick.

Two years after we found out what happened to Kerry and about 18 months after John’s death, mum became bed ridden with painful arthritis. She was in bed for many months.

Her room was like a mausoleum.

I could barely bring myself to go into her room.

I avoided her, so much so that it feels to me like I abandoned her, right when she needed me most.

It must have felt to her like she had lost not one, not two but three sons, such was my lack of support.

I cannot forgive myself for that.

It took years for her to get her independence back but, though she rarely let on, her back was a continuous source of pain for her.

A few years later she was afflicted with shingles which is a disease of the nervous system. This illness took a long time for her to shake off.

During those years my mother was depressed but she didn’t express it in a way that I consciously understood. She was angry, she fought with Dad and she was very sad, very sad.

Mum stopped engaging with life, did less and saw less of her friends. She removed herself from all social interactions in the township.

For her remaining children however, she remained strong and supportive but I know that she longed to turn back time.

Her courage was illustrated when I was planning adventures of my own. Adventures that would put my life at great risk.

When I decided to enter the first ever rowing race across the Atlantic Ocean she said, “You go for it boy.”

My mother had witnessed the death of two beloved sons and here was a third son wanting to embark on crazy challenge that may well kill him; she continued to support me.

Every Christmas my mother would put on a brave face but at some point on Christmas Day she would disappear to visit John’s grave site and lay flowers as a memorial to her two boys.

My mother died 28 July 2003 after succumbing to leukemia - cancer of the blood. She died before seeing any measure of accountability for the tragic death of Kerry

Father – Miles Hamill.

My father Miles Hamill, took the death of Kerry and John very badly.

Over the years it was relatively common to be watching television and hear Dad in the kitchen doing mindless chores next door quietly weeping.

I knew at that point that he would have been crying for some considerable time before it progressed to being audible to where I sat in the room next door.

At these times Mum would stare at the television and try to block it out.

To a certain extent, I did the same. I didn’t offer Dad any sympathy or affection. For some reason I couldn’t.

The one moment of closeness that was shared between us the day we found out what happened to Kerry was all I could offer.

He was a business owner in partnership with his cousin. It was a business that his father and his uncle had set up and it was originally very successful.

After Kerry’s disappearance murder and John’s death, my father lost the ability to function effectively at work.

He couldn’t make the difficult decisions anymore and when hard financial times came along he didn’t respond the way he once might have.

He was forced to retire far too young.

Dad is aged 88 and is suffering from the affects of Alzheimer’s disease. He no longer recognises Kerry in photos.

I believe the pain of the last 30 years have taken a toll.

Miles and Esther as parents

I note on both my parent’s bravery through all this. There were many examples that illustrated how grief stricken they were.

They continued to do the best they could to be good parents to us, however, it is clear to me now, as a parent myself, that they were paralysed by the tragic loss of their son.

I remember clearly on one occasion how John openly beat me, punching me in the face, with my mother and father just a meter or two away.

Before the loss of Kerry this would be unimaginable in my house, my parents would never have allowed such behaviour.

But there they were, a meter away, allowing this to happen – they lost the ability to parent for a long time.

It was as if they were now paralyzed leaving them unable to continue their parenting duties.

At the time I didn’t know what to make of it but in reflection believe their reaction, or lack of it, was symptomatic of the psychology of their grief.

But they held on and perhaps we, their remaining children, were what kept them going. They hung in there, and were incredibly strong.

Peter Hamill (Kerry’s Brother)

Peter does not wish for me to talk about how Kerry Hamill’s torture and murder and subsequently John Hamill’s suicide affected him. I wish to acknowledge Peter at this time and send him my love

Sue Hamill (Kerry’s Sister)

My sister Sue Hamill was 16 years old when Kerry was snatched from his boat by the Khmer Rouge. She was 18 years old when she found out what had happened to him.

Sue has spoken to me about the subliminal fear she feels she has carried with her, consciously or otherwise, for the last 30 years. A fear that has influenced many of her decisions and life choices.

Mr President, with your leave I would like to read out just one or two lines of what Sue wrote to me, not only does it describe her feelings but it also encapsulates my suffering.

After shock, disbelief and anger there came the realisation that I could not do anything to bring back Kerry – he is gone forever. What then? I began to wonder how could one human do something unbelievably abhorrent to another human and to an innocent one?

Something had to fill the void where there was once hope and expectation of his return.

What filled that hole was my choice but I did not consciously choose fear.

Often it has only been in retrospect that I have understood why I deferred certain plans, sometimes indefinitely.

But slowly I have come to understand that deep hurts can cause a subtle kind of paralysis. Time is a very, very slow healer.

Rob Hamill (Me)

Mr President – as I already mentioned – the suffering and pain of my mother, father, brothers and sister was part of my own suffering.

The distressing aspect of Kerry’s death is the nature in which his life was taken. Ultimately, I do not know how Kerry finally met his fate

At best my brother was blind folded, taken out of the S21 compound to a pre-dug trench, made to kneel down beside it, hit over the head with a metal bar, his throat slit, then buried.

That was the best case scenario. Unfortunately, Kerry was regarded as a ‘special prisoner’, the type of prisoner the Duch Division was set up to look after.

It indicates that these prisoners received special attention, the thought of which makes my stomach turn.

It is also possible that Kerry, still alive, could have been made to sit in the middle of car tyres, covered in petrol and set alight.

When I think about what happened to my brother Kerry Hamill, I get the sense of the hopelessness, powerlessness and despair he must have felt while incarcerated and tortured in S21.

He must have been suffering terribly and yet:

He had no one to appeal to,

He had no one prepared to listen to his pain and anguish,

There was no way out and no vindication,

When I try to imagine how my brother Kerry would have responded in that environment, I feel sick to my core.

I know Kerry was physically and mentally strong.

He would not have succumbed easily. His will to live would have been evident.

Mr. president, I would like, with your leave to show one last photo, the photo that I imagine illustrates what Kerry suffered; if the AV unit could be directed to show photo 3.

[Photo from S21 of the aftermath of a man brutally beaten]

I know this individual may not have been Kerry, just another poor soul at S-21.

But the way he is shackled, the way he has been grotesquely beaten, the blood flowing from gaping wounds, yet the continuing struggle, the resilience.

This man’s struggle to hold onto life is evident.

He is moving, holding himself up ever so slightly off the floor .

For me, Mr President this is my gorgeous beautiful brother Kerry Hamill at S-21.

This is the sort of image that haunted me when I was 16 and still haunts me today; I have lost much sleep over this image.

The time frame Kerry was detained at S-21 also continues to trouble me.

From what I have been led to believe, the longer a prisoner remains in S21 the worse the torture got.

It has also my understanding that once prisoners signed confessions and put their thumb print to them that they were then executed.

Whereas John Dewhirst was detained for 3 weeks my brother endured a much longer stay in the compound.

His last dated confession was in 13 October 1978, two months to the day after his capture

When I think about the depravation, the degradation and the abuse that Kerry would have suffered, after 30 years my tears are still copious and I try not to think deeply about what he went through.

I can’t bear to think about it.

I think Kerry would have been very, very angry.

Angry to the point of outrage. Then I think there must have been stages when he felt that it was useless to resist.

That sense of powerlessness and hopelessness must have been incredibly difficult.

I have wondered how Kerry felt in those days in prison, deprived of food and water, dehumanized beyond belief and tortured.

Last year’s Republican nominee for the presidential elections in the United States of America John McCain, talked about his incarceration during a Vietnamese prison.

He described how he lost the will to live and attempted to commit suicide on more than one occasion.

I have wondered if Kerry tried to do the same.

As much as it hurts me to say it, I believe at some point in his incarceration my brother may have lost all hope and contemplated suicide as a welcome relief.

During the 16 month period Kerry was missing I, at 14 and then 15 years of age, took solace in alcohol, boozing it up in the pub or out somewhere with my friends.

I was 16 years old when the news of Kerry’s fate arrived. In the year that followed my nights out binging escalated in regularity and duration.

I was inebriated many nights of the school week. I developed a capacity to consume vast quantities of alcohol. I also worked diligently at speed drinking often winning drinking games against friends and strangers.

I would often end up violently ill, sometimes on the carpet of my bedroom after returning home in the late hours of the night.

I would often go to school with a hang over and my education accordingly suffered.

My parents were dealing with their grief in their own way and through no fault of their own either didn’t notice my antics or felt powerless to do anything about it.

In effect, for that period, I had lost not only my brother Kerry but my parents also.

When I was actually at home I was often having enormous arguments with my second eldest brother John.

As I mentioned before, on one extreme occasion these arguments turned violent.

Before losing Kerry and John we were an outgoing family but afterwards, mum and dad cut off many of their social contacts and that affected all our relationships.

As children we stopped meeting other children and families.

Our immediate family became a little bubble and we became very reluctant to interact at all.

Hilary and Gail.

Your Honours, I believe that a family is not necessarily limited to just blood relatives or family by marriage.

They are often family by circumstance.

There are two people who I consider to be family in this way and I ask your Leave Mr. President to allow me to very briefly refer to them.

The first is Hillary Holland, who is the sister of John Dewhirst. I contacted her three years ago and have since visited.

In the interim we have formed a strong bond in our shared grief. Such is Hillary’s grief that she, today, cannot say her brothers name out loud.

In our correspondence Hillary described her pain, and as I feel it also captures my own feelings, I would like to read you just 5 sentences of what she has written.

When I first heard of my brother's death and for a long time, I felt that if it was possible to die as a result of emotional pain then I would.

I could not see how my heart could continue to pump and my lungs to breathe.

The physical pain was so intense and that pain was continuous.

For me it is all to do with how they were killed.

Torture, I believe is dehumanizing. Both for the person who suffers that torture and the person perpetrating it.

Gail Colley

Mr President, I would now like to speak about Gail Colley, the love of Kerry’s life.

The two of them had plans to marry and have children.

Even now I cannot look at a beautiful picture I have of the two of them together without feeling deprived of such a wonderful sister in law and their planned children.

When Gail finally received the news of Kerry’s demise she too was devastated.

Gail never got married and she never had children.

Conclusion

Mr. President, to conclude, all the pain and suffering my family, Gail, Hilary and myself have had to endure was created to by one man, by the system of degradation, humiliation and torture he created; from the death camp he ran.

All this heart break, sorrow and human suffering has stemmed from the destruction of the life of my beautiful brother Kerry.

There are between 13,000 and 20,000 stories like ours – all stemming from the systems and practices and actions that Duch administered at S21.

At a personal level, this whole process has been demanding.

I have had to drag up all the memories and try to put them in perspective.

I have had to sit down and write about what you did to good people and the pain that you caused.

When the need and desire arises I can be incredibly focused. I’m tough. I’m determined.

And yet I sit before this court feeling frail and emotional.

I should feel shame for behaving so weakly. But I do not.

The only person in this court who should feel shame is that man standing before me.

Duch, at times I have wanted to “smash” you (to use your words) in the same way that you “smashed” so many others!

At times I have imagined you shackled, starved, whipped and clubbed viciously. I have imagined your scrotum electrified, being forced to eat your own feces, being nearly drowned and having your throat cut.

I have wanted that to be your experience, your reality. I have wanted you to suffer the way that you made Kerry and so many others.

However, while part of me has a desire to feel that way, I am trying to let go and this process is part of that.

Today, in this court room, I am giving to you all the crushing weight of this emotion – the anger, the grief and the sorrow, - I am placing this emotional burden on your head; for it is you who created this burden which no one deserves, it is you, who should bear the burden alone.

It is you who should suffer – not the families of the people you killed.

From this day forward, I feel nothing towards you; to me what you did removed you from the ranks of being human.

If anything, anything at all, is to come from this trial and from my statement on behalf of those I love,
i) let it be that the world takes notice of the evil that can happen when people do nothing,

ii) let it be that world decides that doing nothing is not an option.

Mr President, Your Honours, thank you for the opportunity to appear before this Chamber and express the pain and suffering that I, and my family, have endured due to the actions of the accused.

Thank you. Agon.

Statement and Questions

With your leave Mr. President, I would briefly like to address the accused on his acceptance of responsibility of the many crimes committed at S-21 and then go onto ask the accused, through the Bench, some brief questions.

Duch, I acknowledge you for pleading guilty.

I am angry beyond words with you for what you did but I acknowledge and respect your guilty plea.

Your acknowledgement is a small but significant contribution to addressing the harm that you have caused.

Those that have not pleaded guilty and do not accept the harm they have caused are doubly worthy of our hate and ridicule.

I request answers to the following 6 Questions.

You have proven to this court that you have a very good memory. Over a three year period there were less than 10 westerners at S21.

And it appears that there were never more than two westerners held there at any one time.
I ask you to please please answer these questions truthfully, even if the answers cause me pain. I will ask them now and await your reply.

QUESTION 1
What do you remember of my brother?

QUESTION 2
How long was Kerry in prison and when did you order his killing?

QUESTION 3
Was there a special branch dealing with the foreigners?
If so what were the procedures applied to them?

QUESTION 4
We have heard that Westerners were put in tyres and burnt alive. You have said in this trial that this didn’t happen but we believe that it did.

You said it did not happen because it would have been against your orders, however, we know of at least one instance of rape at S-21 which you have acknowledged – which according to yourself was against your orders.

So my question is, how can you be certain that one or several Westerners were not burned alive?

QUESTION 5
Where were the ashes of the Westerners disposed of?

QUESTION 6
Could you think of anything else concretely as to what you can do to help the victims including my family?

Media coverage of Rob Hamill's testimony at the Extraordinary Court Chambers of Cambodia

2009-08-29T15:53:00.000+12:00

Below are links to online coverage of Rob Hamill's testimony at the Extraordinary Court Chambers of Cambodia on 17 August 2009.

Testimony video

Part one
Part two
Part three

RADIO NEW ZEALAND - NATIONAL

Hamill takes stand in Khmer Rouge trial - Morning Report, Tuesday, 18 August 2009

Audio MP3

Index incl other formats

TV3 video

Rob Hamill speaks about testifying against Khmer Rouge - Campbell Live, Tuesday 18 August 09

Kiwi gives testimony at Khmer Rouge trial - 3News, Tuesday 18 August 09

Kiwi rower confronts his brother's killer in Phnom Penh - 3News afternoon, Tuesday 18 August 09

Rob Hamill heading to Cambodia to testify against Khmer Rouge - 3News morning Monday 10 August 09

Full interview with Rob Hamill - 3News, Sunday 9 August 09

Kiwi rower Hamill to testify over brother's murder - 3News, Sunday 9 August 09

Rower Rob Hamill turns attention to Cambodian genocide trial - Campbell Live, Wednesday 8 April 09

TVNZ video

Hamill tells his story to children of Cambodia - OneNews, Saturday 22 August 09

Hamill confronts Khmer Rouge commander - OneNews, Tuesday 18 August 09

Hamill confronts Khmer Rouge commander (shorter version) - OneNews afternoon Tuesday, 18 August 09

Kiwi rower heads to Cambodia to find justice - OneNews, Sunday 9 August 09

FROGBLOG (Green Party) - post by Rob's media liaison Mark Servian
Rob Hamill testifies in Cambodia

WAIKATO TIMES

Editorial: Rob Hamill's act of courage
Last updated 13:00 21/08/2009

It's a holiday snapshot that has become almost unbearably poignant. The photograph shows Kerry Hamill and his girlfriend Gail on his sloop Foxy Lady, moored off Phuket.

She is blonde and tanned, wearing a red bikini and standing near the bow. He is seated beside her, smiling broadly, bearded and wearing only shorts.

But in a trip on that same boat from Singapore to Bangkok in 1978, Kerry was to be blown off course and into Cambodian waters.

He was captured by the Khmer Rouge and taken to Tuol Sleng prison where he was tortured and killed. He was 27.

Thirty-one years later there is another image to add to the story that of Kerry's younger brother Rob in a Cambodian court giving testimony against the man accused of Kerry's execution.

And the accused, the man once known as Comrade Duch, seated in the same courtroom, this time the quarry.

He was in charge of Tuol Sleng where up to 17,000 people died at the hands of the bloody Khmer Rouge regime under Pol Pot.

Earlier this year Rob Hamill spoke to the Sunday Star Times of his need to forgive Duch, and his doubts that he could.

This week in his anguished testimony, he spoke of the way in which Duch had made himself less than human by what he had done.

Afterwards, Hamill said he wanted Duch imprisoned for life.

It may take him some time to forgive, and he may never be able to. Nor should anyone expect that of him.

But Hamill also said he didn't want Duch to die. He said "to want to kill another human being in retribution is to lower yourself to the level of the perpetrators of such heinous crimes".

This is, in a nutshell, the perfect answer to those who ever, anywhere, clamour for the death penalty, and it came from a person who has been deeply affected.

He appears to have been prompted by international coverage which he felt suggested he had indeed wanted the death penalty. Nothing in his testimony, however, says that is what he seeks.

This has been, to state the obvious, an extraordinarily difficult path for Hamill.

Three decades without resolution is a long time to wait. His determination to have his say, to confront his brother's torturer, has been characteristic of the man who has been an Olympian and has rowed across the Atlantic.

And he must have arrived at court not knowing what it would do to him emotionally.

A frequent difficulty for war crimes tribunals is establishing guilt, often in cases where the person on trial has avoided getting his own hands dirty. W

hat is unfolding in Cambodia appears a much more clearcut case. Assuming nothing unexpected happens Duch will, indeed, be imprisoned for life.

As he should be. But Cambodia does not have the death penalty so he will not be executed. And that is also as it should be.

As painful as it may be, the world's monsters should be locked away, not killed. Rob Hamill is absolutely right.

No wish to kill Duch: Hamill

Last updated 10:14 19/08/2009

New Zealander Rob Hamill is rejecting international headlines claiming he wishes to kill Kaing Guek Eav, the Khmer Rouge commander of the camp where his brother Kerry was murdered in 1978.

In his testimony to the UN-backed trial in Cambodia on Monday night, Mr Hamill said he had at times in the past 31 years imagined Eav, also known as Duch, suffering the same torture inflicted on so many people, but he has never wanted to action those thoughts.

Mr Hamill made it clear yesterday that he was never going to give in to those feelings, that the testimony itself was part of the healing process and he was pushing the emotional burden of the crimes back on to Duch.

"To want to kill another human being in retribution is to lower yourself to the level of the perpetrators of such heinous crimes."

Rob Hamill faces bother's killer

By JEFF NEEMS - Waikato Times

Last updated 09:57 18/08/2009

Hamilton man Rob Hamill faced his brother's alleged killer in a Cambodian court yesterday, but the former torture camp commandant claims he can not remember him.

Speaking to the Times from Phnom Penh shortly after testifying at the UN-backed trial of Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch and the head of the notorious S21 prison camp under Pol Pot's Khymer Rouge regime, Mr Hamill was not surprised by Duch's claim he did not recall Mr Hamill's older brother Kerry.

Kerry Hamill is believed to have been one of a handful of Westerners killed in the camp between 1975 and 1979. Kerry Hamill's yacht strayed into Cambodian waters in 1978, and while exact details of his death remain unknown, he is believed to have been tortured and executed while in S21.

Duch has testified he carried out orders from the regime's late leader Pol Pot, and Mr Hamill said Duch continued with that defence when he gave the equivalent of a victim impact statement in Phnom Penh's Extraordinary Chambers of Courts of Cambodia.

"His out is that he was just taking orders. It was either that, or be killed himself."

An emotionally drained Mr Hamill said there was sense of relief at having made his statement, aimed at court judges and detailing the huge impact of his brother's death on the Hamill family. He was able to make extensive eye contact with Duch, who sat just metres from him.

"It was very difficult, but he was certainly very attentive," Mr Hamill said. "I didn't look at him that much when I was making my statement - I was really looking up at the judges."

Reading his statement from notes, Mr Hamill said he was able to look directly at Duch when he made "a couple of pointed comments", while Mr Hamill's wife Rachel noticed Duch nervously fidgeting during particularly emotional parts of her husband's testimony.

"I had some emotional moments in there," Mr Hamill said of his appearance, which lasted just under an hour. "I was wiping away a few tears as I was telling the story."

"Whenever I said things that were emotionally charged about him (Duch), he was shuffling, pretty nervy..."

Mr Hamill believed Duch to be a "very sharp cookie, playing the court really well". Mr Hamill was able to directly question Duch, and asked him how long his brother was interned for.

"But the answer I got was that he (Duch) didn't know...which was a bit disappointing. He just didn't remember."

"The longer Kerry was in there, the worse it would've been," Mr Hamill said. "I know he was in there for at least two months."

Mr Hamill said Duch recalled Kerry Hamill's British crewmate John Dewhurst, "and he just said they both were killed at the same time".

"He said specifically he remembered the British man, but not my brother. It is disappointing, and I find it hard to believe...they were brought in at the same time, two Westerners."

Mr Hamill said although somewhat surreal, events at the trial had transpired much as he had expected. While he had not neccessarily gained any more information about his brother's death, Mr Hamill said he felt it was significant to represent the estimated 17,000 people killed in the camp, and their families.

Feedback from lawyers participating in the trial was that Mr Hamill's statement and questioning had made a strong impact on the judges.

"It was pretty powerful, being in there, and being part of that. I really felt I got the message across that I wanted to."

The trip to Cambodia for the trial will be an integral part of a documentary on Mr Hamill's search for justice for his brother, entitled Brother No 1.

NEW ZEALAND PRESS ASSOCIATION

Rob Hamill confronts his brother's killer

Last updated 11:17 18/08/2009

Former NZ Olympic rower Rob Hamill, whose brother Kerry was tortured and slain by the Communist regime in Cambodia in 1978, wept as he confronted his brother's killer in court yesterday.

Hamill testified before the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Phnom Penh about the "massive and unquantifiable impact" the horrific death of his brother, 27, had on his family.

His family learned Kerry was dead 16 months after he disappeared. Their parents read in a newspaper that he was executed after two months in prison.

His parents were hugely affected by the appalling death.

"It changed them. They were never the same after it all happened," Rob Hamill told the court.

He was 14 when the awful news arrived.

"Death not by shipwreck, not by drowning or freak accident, but death by torture. Death by torture not over a few seconds or minutes or hours or days or weeks even," he said.

"They were terribly affected, as any parents would have been.

"The death of their first-born was the worst possible news for our family. He had not just been killed, he had been tortured."

Hamill, former Olympic and long-distance rower, said he had waited a long time to confront his brother's killer and relate the impact it had on his parents and siblings.

Hamill's mother is now dead and his father in a nursing home.

Hamill's wife Rachel and their two-year-old son were in the packed public gallery as he spoke for a full hour.

Kaing Guek Eav, or Duch as he is known, the man responsible for Kerry Hamill's death, listened impassively to the testimony as it was translated.

Duch, 66, has admitted murder but the five judges – New Zealander Dame Silvia Cartwright, a French national and three Cambodians – will decide his innocence or guilt after hearing all the evidence.

Dame Silvia was in court today to hear Hamill, who was accepted as a civil party.

Kerry Hamill was captured by the Khmer Rouge when the yacht on which he and friends were sailing strayed into Cambodian waters in August 1978.

Crewman Stuart Glass, a Canadian, was shot dead.

Hamill and Briton John Dewhirst were interrogated and tortured for two months before being killed in Phnom Penh's notorious Tuol Sleng Prison, run by Duch.

Thousands of Cambodians were killed at the prison.

Duch has pleaded the same defence as some of the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials after World War 2, maintaining he was simply carrying out orders and would have been shot had he not done so.

"Duch, at times I have wanted to smash you, to use your words. The same way that you smashed so many others," Hamill said, sitting in a suit and tie, his hands folded before him.

"Smash" was the euphemism the Khmer Rouge used when ordering executions.

"At times, I have imagined you shackled, starved, whipped and clubbed, viciously.

"I have imagined your scrotum electrified, being forced to eat your own faeces, being nearly drowned and having your throat cut."

Duch sat behind him, expressionless.

"I have wanted that to be your experience, your reality. I have wanted you to suffer the way you made Kerry and so many others (suffer)," Hamill said.

About a dozen Westerners were among the estimated 16,000 people held at the prison before being killed.

The communist regime's radical policies while in power from 1975-79 caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people nationwide by execution, overwork, disease and malnutrition.

Asked by judges for his response, Duch (pronounced DOIK) repeated his earlier testimony that he received orders to kill the Westerners and burn their bodies.

He asked for forgiveness from the victims' families, acknowledging that they had suffered miserably.

He said he was not offended by being blamed.

"Even if the people threw stones at me and caused my death, I would not say anything," he told the court.

Duch is charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and murder, and could face a maximum penalty of life in prison. Cambodia has no death penalty.

His trial is expected to wrap up by the end of the year.

Led by Pol Pot, who died in 1998, the Khmer Rouge emptied Cambodia's cities in a bid to forge an agrarian utopia. This resulted in the deaths of up to two million people from starvation, overwork and torture.

ABC (Australia)

Audio

Brother can't forgive Killing Fields torturer

By New Zealand correspondent Kerri Ritchie

Posted Wed Apr 1, 2009 2:07pm AEDT
Updated Wed Apr 1, 2009 5:46pm AEDT

A New Zealand Olympian whose brother was murdered by the Khmer Rouge hopes justice will come from the Cambodian trial of Kaing Guek Eav, aka Comrade Duch, the boss of a torture prison where at least 12,000 people were killed.

Rob Hamill represented New Zealand in rowing at the 1996 Olympics.

Two decades earlier his brother Kerry had been captured and killed by the Khmer Rouge when his yacht blew off course and into Cambodian waters.

Kerry, who was 28 at the time, was tortured and killed at Duch's Tuol Sleng prison.

On Tuesday Duch took the witness stand in his UN-backed trial to say sorry for his actions.

But Mr Hamill says he cannot ever be forgiven.

"It rings a little hollow. I mean I think Duch... must have been an ambitious man," he said.

"He didn't get to be commandant of that prison by accident and from what I heard, my understanding in the research that I have conducted, suggests that he was ruthless and clinical and cruel.

"I am going through a process where our family hasn't grieved properly. Personally I want to be able to forgive but I can't do that."

Wondering, hoping, waiting

Mr Hamill said that for a long time, he did not know what happened to his brother.

"My brother was sailing his yacht, taking a charter from Singapore up to Bangkok and got blown off course and ended up in Cambodian waters [and] got captured by a Khmer Rouge gunboat," he said.

"One of the guys on the boat - there were three of them - one was killed at that time and my brother and other charter, a guy from England, were taken back to Tuol Sleng.

"He was a regular letter writer to us when he was in his travels and his adventures and enjoying life and living it to its fullest, and they just stopped.

"We didn't know what happened for a long time. It was a good year wondering, hoping, before we found out what happened."

Mr Hamill says his family found out about Kerry's disappearance through the media.

"[I was] reading an article in a paper and it was on a radio station that particular day, that information had been sourced through Interpol," he said.

"All the prisoners - there were about a dozen or so Westerners that were captured during that three-year period - all were made to sign confessions that they were CIA agents and Interpol had some documents that were confirmed as my brother's handwriting."

Facing a killer

Although Mr Hamill feels he should be in Cambodia to witness the trial, he says circumstances will not not allow it to happen.

But he says he will travel to Cambodia to give a statement in coming months.

"I don't know when. It depends on the court process but certainly I hope to face Duch and make a statement on behalf of our family and the effect he had on our family in the hope that it aids in some way the sentencing process," he said.

"I am just going to tell the story and will describe the pain, the anxiety, the hope, the desperate hope.

"I think that was really, really hard on my parents in particular and they paid for it too with their health."

Mr Hamill is unsure what punishment Comrade Duch should receive.

"I don't know what to expect from this. If I could bring myself to believing Duch's words, that he can somehow see the error in his ways, there may spring a strange comfort," he said.

"I don't know ultimately, but it needs to be done."

Olympian wanted to kill Khmer Rouge torture boss

By New Zealand correspondent Kerri Ritchie

Posted Tue Aug 18, 2009 11:00am AEST

A New Zealand man whose brother was murdered by the Khmer Rouge has told a war crimes court in Cambodia that he felt like killing the boss of the torture prison where his brother died.

Olympic rowing great Rob Hamill's brother Kerry was one of three foreigners killed by the Khmer Rouge after their yacht was blown off course into Cambodian waters in 1978.

Mr Hamill slowly read out his victim impact statement as the prison's chief Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, stood trial in Phnom Penh.

He told Duch, who is accused of overseeing the torture and execution of 15,000 people, that he had ruined his family.

"At times I've imagined you shackled, starved, whipped and clubbed, viciously" he said.

Duch has admitted running the jail but insists he was not a big boss in the Khmer Rouge.

NEW ZEALAND HERALD (Associated Press (AP) story that ran internationally)

Brother of NZ victim rages at Khmer Rouge trial

7:09AM Tuesday Aug 18, 2009
By Sopheng Cheang

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - The brother of a New Zealander tortured and killed by the Khmer Rouge three decades ago has told the man who ordered the execution that he wished him a similarly gruesome fate.

Kerry Hamill was 28 when his yacht was blown off course into Cambodian waters in 1978, and he was captured by the radical communist regime. He and a shipmate, Briton John Dewhirst, were taken to Phnom Penh's S-21 prison and later killed.

Kerry's brother, Rob, wept as he testified at the trial of S-21's commander, Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch - the first of five senior Khmer Rouge defendants to be tried by a U.N.-assisted tribunal and the only one to acknowledge responsibility for his actions.

"Duch, at times I have wanted to smash you, to use your words. The same way that you smashed so many others," Rob Hamill said, sitting in a suit and tie, his hands folded before him. "Smash" was the euphemism the Khmer Rouge used when ordering executions.

"At times, I have imagined you shackled, starved, whipped and clubbed, viciously. I have imagined your scrotum electrified, being forced to eat your own faeces, being nearly drowned and having your throat cut," said Hamill, referring to some of the horrors faced by prisoners.

Duch sat behind him, expressionless.

"I have wanted that to be your experience, your reality. I have wanted you to suffer the way you made Kerry and so many others (suffer)," Hamill said.

About a dozen Westerners were among the estimated 16,000 people held at the prison before being killed. The communist regime's radical policies while in power from 1975-79 caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people nationwide by execution, overwork, disease and malnutrition.

Rob Hamill, 45, a rower who represented New Zealand at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, said his family learned of his brother's death 16 months after he disappeared. Their parents read in a newspaper that he was executed after two months at S-21.

"Death not by shipwreck, not by drowning or freak accident, but death by torture. Death by torture not over a few seconds or minutes or hours or days or weeks even," said Hamill.

Asked by judges for his response, Duch (pronounced 'Doik') repeated his earlier testimony that he received orders to kill the Westerners and burn their bodies.

He asked for forgiveness from the victims' families, acknowledging that they had suffered miserably.

He said he was not offended by being blamed.

"Even if the people threw stones at me and caused my death, I would not say anything," he told the court.

Duch is charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and murder, and could face a maximum penalty of life in prison. Cambodia has no death penalty.

His trial is expected to wrap up by the end of the year.
- AP

Blessing day shoot NZ

2009-06-08T18:59:00.000+12:00

JAMES, ANNIE AND ROB AT THE BLESSING WITH CHAKARA LIM

Our first day’s filming in New Zealand went smoothly, beginning with our being blessed by Buddhist monks at the temple in Takanini. We headed off early to the outskirts of Auckland, where the suburbs blend into farmland. Behind what looked like a farmhouse was a large shed filled with colour, posters, ribbons, cloth — the beautiful burnt oranges and browns of Buddhism. We filmed the preparation, the monks (who came from Laos, Tibet, Thailand as well as Cambodia), mounting flags along a concrete wall at the road frontage, then captured some shots of the Cambodian community drifting in, older women making food, children running around, friends chatting in the early morning light. It felt much like Cambodia although I tried to frame some of the Kiwi elements in shots, too — the landscape, our particular washing lines, Non Smoking signs and so on. One of the monks then oversaw the flag-raising -- the New Zealand and Cambodian flags mounted together. There was some haunting singing by the flag pole, during which it began raining which felt atmospheric. The actual blessing was amazing too, about 10 monks all lined up chanting and tossing water on us with slender sticks. The chanting is very mesmeric. Rob, James and I each spoke briefly, with our associate producer Chakara Lim translating skilfully. The community is very interested and incredibly supportive – some had travelled from Wellington for the event.

FLAG-RAISING CEREMONY

AT THE BLESSING CEREMONY

Amy Wang from Asia Down Under was filming too, a spot on the “making of” for the show – so people should look out for that. She interviewed us, but also Sarath Lim, the president of the Cambodian (Khmer) Community of New Zealand, a gracious and dignified man who underwent the trauma of living in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.

We then took off for Piha Beach, where we filmed the “briny” which was doing its usual West Coast thing, wild waves, cascading skies etc. I want these shots as an “opener” to a sample I’m editing to help us with further fundraising. Although we have gotten good funding from NZOA and TV3 and in fact, many donations from the Cambodian community and others, this is an ambitious film as we will be travelling with a crew around Cambodia and in addition, we would like to use archives which can be expensive. I want to follow up our Hotdocs contacts with an example of what we have filmed thus far so will send them a sample as soon as I can. The sea plays a bit part in our film – the Hamills, as children, swam, surfed and sailed around Whakatane and the Heads; Kerry was seized off his beloved boat, Foxy Lady; and Rob, of course, achieved the almost unachievable, rowing the Atlantic in 41 days. After getting some picturesque shots off the rocks, he headed for the warmth of Dave the soundperson’s house, where we did another “diary interview” with Rob, following up one we had done in the UK, and then we relocated to the couch, where he read through some of the so-called “confessions” extracted from his brother and John Dewhirst, the Englishman who suffered the same fate as Kerry. Understandably, Rob got pretty emotional and it can be difficult to keep filming at those times – one always feels so intrusive. The final scene of the day was my “replicating” one of the typed confessions – James had tracked down an old Remington and we finished up the day with me punching out “highlights”. Those Remingtons certainly have a different finger action to my MacBook Pro. So all in all, it was a pretty full day and I look forward to seeing Jake’s footage. Here are some stills from the day, filmed by a real “pro” Marcel.

THE PULL OF THE SEA?

CREW AT PIHA

ROB HAMILL

THE CONFESSION

Annie's updates about the trip to US and UK

2009-05-22T12:53:00.000+12:00

After sending my Hotdocs party clothes back to New Zealand, Peter Gilbert (one of our two DOPs) and I set off to begin shooting. We started with three historians/participants in the US. All have had a real commitment to Cambodia — for example one of the three Elizabeth Becker lived in Cambodia up until 1975 when she was thrown out by Pol Pot. She was then asked back by him for a propaganda tour and one in her party of three was murdered during that last trip. The three historians all managed to make Cambodia’s history, a complicated Cold War affair, lucid and accessible so that was an encouraging start.

We then set off for the UK which went really well although emotionally difficult at times. We started in Loughborough in the midlands and interviewed two Englishmen who had been on Foxy Lady just prior to the fatal voyage and had not known of the murders until a few years ago. We filmed them in a very picturesque pub — despite the three decades intervening, they remained very emotional. And then we headed north to interview Hilary, John Dewhirst’s sister (he was the Englishman tortured and killed along with Kerry Hamill). Although I have known about Pol Pot of course, the reality of the pain he has caused really hit me through Hilary. She lives in this exquisite Lake District area full of old stone walls and cute villages, not far from where she and John were brought up. She has been unwilling to be interviewed before about her brother and in this instance, is prepared to because of Rob Hamill ‘s(the brother of the murdered Kiwi) key role in the film. He of course will be confronting the man, Comrade Duch, responsible for the treatment of their two brothers. I know Rob will be speaking for Hilary as well as for himself.

Rob is really strong on camera — a real Kiwi sportsperson who unusually enough, is prepared to express grief and emotion. Both he and Hilary can barely comprehend what the Cambodians must have been through — and mentioned the trauma of the country constantly.

And Peter Gilbert as DOP was brilliant not just on camera but also as a “directorial advisor”. Even though I have taught myself for so long, I am self-taught, so it was great to feel a bit “mentored”. Plus he is funny and communicative and really helped during the tough moments. So all good.

Before taking off to London - Rob Hamill

2009-05-13T09:02:00.001+12:00

Well, I’m in the ‘as you’d expect’ chaos mode at the moment. Nearly ready to get in the car and head north to the big smoke (Auckland, of course) and board my plane destined for London, England to hook up with Annie Goldson and Peter Gilbert.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have played a significant role already in helping us get this far. The Cambodian community based in New Zealand have been incredibly helpful and generous but a particular mention at this point must go to Chakara Lim. He has been a pivotal person in helping us make contact with community leaders and has shown us the active and colourful culture thriving here in New Zealand.

I can’t emphasis enough how important this project is in reminding the world, lest we forget, of the atrocities in Cambodia. I was reminded today of this very issue whilst having a hair cut. I had to ask for a specific cut (#4 on sides etc) so that it’s consistent each time we film. I was asking how best to achieve this and in their inquisitiveness the two hairdressers in ear shot naturally asked why. When I got to mentioning Pol Pot by name they said, “Who?” They didn’t know anything about the Khmer Rouge either. Yet they knew plenty about Adolf Hitler. If I had said Pol Pot was the Adolf Hitler of Cambodia they would have immediately understood. As it is many people around the world have a similar lack of understanding of the recent history of this country.

This needs to be told in the hope that it doesn’t happen again.

Rob Hamill

Hotdocs - Annie's thoughts before the trip...

2009-05-11T13:14:00.000+12:00

Am packed and ready to attend Hotdocs to pitch Brother Number One before a powerful and discerning group of funders. It all takes place in a kind of cloister at the University of Toronto – thousands of other documentary producers attend, either sitting in the bleachers or hanging from rafters it seems.

Hotdocs for me is one of the finest documentary events in the world and this is a great, albeit a bit scary opportunity. We have gotten generous support from TV3 and New Zealand on Air and some fabulous private investors, but the project is ambitious. The reality is that the war crimes tribunal currently underway in Phnom Penh sends prices sky-rocketing so we need to eke out our dollars to make sure they last the distance. James Bellamy and Rob Hamill, the originating producers have been toiling away on research and fundraising tirelessly for two years now—and thanks to their efforts, it seems now the film is on a roll.

Somehow Hotdocs—as both a festival and a marketplace—manages to be big and professional but still very personal. It was where I premiered Punitive Damage in 2000, which was to be a significant film for me, my first cinema release and a film that received a lot of critical and some commercial success. Punitive Damage followed New Zealander Helen Todd who sued an Indonesian general after her son Kamal was shot and killed in the Dili massacre in 1991.

By chance, the film was released as huge changes unfolded in Asia and East Timor – the run up to the referendum on independence (thousands of Timorese were intimidated and subjected to violence, interrogation and disappeared, the trashing of Timor by departing Indonesian military), and the nation’s final independence. I was back the following year to Hotdocs to pitch Georgie Girl, my next film, which showed in the festival two years later – then last year, An Island Calling screened and this year, I will be back again with Brother Number One. So Hotdocs and I, I have to say, have a history - and it will be great to catch up with a documentary community whose spirit and determination I treasure.

In many ways, this new film replicates some of the horrendous background elements of Punitive Damage – Cambodia, like Timor, was caught in the crossfire of Cold War politics, with Kissinger playing a bit part behind the scenes. Cambodia and Timor lost almost a third of their population through execution and starvation, Timor to the Indonesian occupiers, who were funded by the US and Britain, Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge, funded by China but s

ome would argue, given impetus after the US bombed Cambodia and sent thousands of angry peasants into the arms of the ideologues.

Both films too deal with attempts at finding justice. New Zealanders who unwittingly found themselves drawn into the tragedies—whose determination speaks of an attempt to ameliorate some of their own grief and pain, but also a willingness to speak for local populations whose suffering was almost unimaginable.

After Hotdocs, I will commence filming – first in the US with three historians, Elizabeth Becker, Ben Kiernan and Peter Maguire, and then in the UK – with friends and family of John Dewhirst, the young Englishman tortured and murdered alongside Kerry Hamill. Rob is coming too, and will meet John’s sister Hilary for the first time. I know it will be very emotional for all of us. . ..

Brother Number One selected to be pitched at The Documentary Forum at Hotdocs in Toronto

2009-04-29T16:54:00.000+12:00

Brother Number One, a working documentary on the torture and murder of New Zealand yachtie Kerry Hamill by the Khmer Rouge in 1978 has been selected to be pitched at the prestigious TDF forum at Hotdocs, the International Documentary Festival in Toronto. Only 25 projects were selected from over 350 submissions. Most of the major broadcasters, theatrical funders, and distributors worldwide attend the TDF looking for new projects to invest in.

In the mid-70s, Kerry bought a yacht, Foxy Lady, and was running a charter business out of Darwin around South East Asia with a Canadian friend, Stuart Glass. Along with an Englishman, John Dewhirst, they were sailing towards Bangkok when they hit a storm. Mistakenly entering Cambodian waters, Foxy Lady was seized, Stuart Glass shot and killed, while the other two men were taken to the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, overseen by Pol Pot’s main executioner, now turned Christian, Comrade Duch. Over 14,000 Cambodians were killed at the torture centre, which is now a genocide museum.

Kerry’s younger brother Rob Hamill, an Olympic and Trans-Atlantic champion rower, will travel to Cambodia to retrace the steps taken by his brother and John Dewhirst, speaking to eyewitnesses, perpetrators and survivors. Rob’s journey will culminate in his giving a Victim’s Statement before the Extraordinary Chambers of the Court of Cambodia. Comrade Duch, the man that oversaw his brother’s torture and murder is currently on trial at the ECCC. New Zealander Dame Sylvia Cartwright is a senior judge on the tribunal.

The film will also explore the history of Cambodia in an attempt to comprehend the enormity of the genocide that occurred in Khmer Rouge years 1975-1979. A former French colony, Cambodia was sucked into the vortex created by the Cold War and was illegally bombed by the Nixon administration which some see as creating the conditions for the rise of the fanatical Pol Pot.

Brother Number One is being produced by James Bellamy, Annie Goldson and Rob Hamill. Annie is directing, and after Hotdocs will film in both the US and UK with historians and with Dewhirst family members and friends. American DOP Peter Gilbert (Hoop Dreams, At the Death House Door) an Academy-nominated cameraperson, will shoot with Annie in the US and UK. Jake Bryant (The Artstar and the Sudanese Twins) will film in Cambodia, New Zealand and Australia later this year.

The film has received generous funding from TV3 and New Zealand on Air and is currently seeking further presales. The crew is working closely with the Cambodian community in Auckland who will conduct a blessing prior to the commencement of production.

For further information contact:

Producer/Director: Annie Goldson a.goldson@auckland.ac.nz

Producer: James Bellamy james@panpacificfilms.co.nz

Producer: Rob Hamill rob@wave.co.nz

Production Manager: Melissa Kent mkent88@gmail.com