TIMECODE
CONTENT
01:00:00
New Zealand Film Commission logo.
01:00:10
Opening credits montage.
TITLE: The New Zealand Film Commission, NZ on Air, TV3 and the University of Auckland present
TITLE: a film by Annie Goldson
TITLE: a BNO and Pan Pacific Films production
01:00:51
TITLE: August 13th 1978, Gulf of Siam
01:01:06
VOICEOVER: On the afternoon of the thirteenth, we thought we could hear a boat engine at intervals throughout the afternoon, but we couldn't be sure. Suddenly a boat came in closer. I was about to go up on deck when the boat opened fire and sent some shots over our mast.
01:01:31
TITLE: 31 years later
01:01:35
TITLE: August 2009, ECCC War Crimes Court, Cambodia
ROB: I am deeply honoured and moved to be here today, given the opportunity to speak. I realise that this is a privilege made available to a few, especially compared to the numbers of families that suffered under the Khmer Rouge regime.
01:01:53
TITLE: Rob Hamill, Civil Party Representative
ROB: I arrived in Cambodia last week, last Thursday 13th of August was coincidentally 31 years to the day that my brother, Kerry Hamill first set foot on Cambodia soil.
01:02:14
ROB: 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.
01:02:31
TITLE: Brother Number One
01:02:57
TITLE: Rob Hamill's Family Story
01:03:01
ROB: I was fourteen when Kerry went missing, and sixteen when we found out the, the terrible news.
ROB: How can you say no? Hello Ivan!
01:03:18
ROB: My brother Kerry was sailing this beautiful little double-ended sloop with his mate, Stuart, uh, Stuart Glass. They had actually picked up a charter, a guy named John Dewhirst, an Englishman. Together they sailed up the coast of uh, Malaysia on their way to Bangkok and we believe they got blown off course by a storm. Ended up in Cambodian waters.
01:03:41
ROB: They were attacked by a Khmer Rouge naval gunboat. And at that time Stuart was shot and killed, and my brother and John Dewhirst were taken prisoner and were later executed, brutally.
01:03:59
Montage of old Hamill family photographs.
01:04:12
ROB: Kerry was the eldest of five children and I was the youngest. We grew up in the coastal town of Whakatane, New Zealand.
01:04:22
ROB: We were a very loving family and we spent loads of time together outdoors. And it was an idyllic childhood, really, spent time running around in the hills, on the beach, surfing or out at sea. And as the first born, I think Kerry was very, very special to my parents, arguably their favourite child.
01:04:52
ROB: After Kerry’s death, my saviour was my hyperactivity. You know, I was permanently physically active – and in sport my passion was rowing. I was very focused and ended up winning medals on the world stage. I competed at the Olympic Games, and went on to win the first ever rowing race across the Atlantic Ocean.
01:05:14
VOICEOVER: It was billed as the longest rowing race -- Rob Hamill, the organiser of the campaign and an Olympic rowing silver medallist -- They expected just a few days of headwinds but they continued for weeks.
01:05:25
ROB: When I was mid Atlantic, it actually brought out all sorts of emotions that I hadn’t really experienced since Kerry had first gone missing.
01:05:36
TITLE: Rob Hamill
ROB: I often thought of him out on the briny, you know, the old sea salt, and um, but that with the physical exhaustion, and combined with this intensely prison-like boat, and it was like a coffin really.
01:05:57
ROB: You know, all that time, grieving at sea became a catalyst really, a turning point.
TITLE: November 22nd 1997, Rob Hamill and Phil Stubbs set a world record of 41 days.
ROB: The beginning of a journey I suppose, to honour my brother's memory and to try and discover the truth. I then heard um, that there was going to be a trial.
01:06:15
VOICEOVER: Tuol Sleng, S-21, the most notorious prison of the Khmer Rouge regime. It's proving a valuable source of documents for the upcoming war crimes tribunal in Cambodia. They include so-called "confessions", extracted under torture, and the photographs of the estimated 15,000 victims.
01:06:36
VOICEOVER: Two million Cambodians died during the regime of starvation, overwork and execution. The boss of Tuol Sleng, Comrade Duch, will be the first to go on trial.
TITLE: Comrade Duch, Former Prison Chief, S-21.
01:06:47
VOICEOVER: He converted to Christianity in 1995 and was discovered near the Thai border working for World Vision.
01:06:54
DUCH: I have a different life now. I decided to become a Christian, I committed my life to Christ.
01:07:03
ROB: Comrade Duch is the man most responsible for Kerry's death. Um, he's going to be the first to go on trial and I’ve been invited to give what is called a victim’s statement at the War Crimes Tribunal. In fact, think I’m going to be the only Westerner to testify.
01:07:22
ROB: I decided to it the moment I heard I could do it. Absolutely. Straight into it. Got to be done. Having said that, it didn’t really dawn on me what I was prepared to do really, recalling all the pain that the family went through, and this sadness and grief and sense of loss, I can't help but extrapolate out from that the Cambodian people, you know? You just cannot get your head around it.
01:07:52
TITLE: Rachel Hamill, Rob's wife
RACHEL: You know its always been there, I think you've always wanted to do something like this haven't you? Certainly to visit Cambodia and retrace Kerry’s footsteps. Maybe this is on a bigger scale than Rob had originally planned to do.
ROB: You know I kind of, is it, is it actually...is it actually making a difference? I don't know. Is it really, is it--
01:08:15
RACHEL: --well, maybe its not going to make a big difference to the whole world but it's going to make a difference to your family - well, hopefully - certainly and like you say, not passing it on the trauma down the line, because you are talking it, because you do get emotional, because you can say it was wrong.
01:08:33
RACHEL: And, to be able to stand up in court and also say that. And uh, you know, nobody has been brought to justice, for 30 years it's just been like, oh that happened, let's forget about it, move on everybody. And how can they move on? They're all feeling like you do.
01:08:51
ROB: Yeah I think the point is though, is it going to make a difference.
RACHEL: Yeah, I think it is.
ROB: Yeah, well I get, look, on a personal basis, I could argue not, because all it's doing is dragging up all the old crap, all those bad memories, all that hurt and pain. And...go to the court, see this guy, say you're a -- this is what I think of you, and this is what I think of your bosses, and go home.
01:09:23
RACHEL: Well if you take it like that then it's not going to help.
ROB: And I don't know if that's going to be--
RACHEL: --yea but that's not--
ROB: --yeah I know, I'm just hypothesising here Rach, just let me...
01:09:33
RACHEL: I think it was very wrong what the Khmer Rouge did to all the other people that came to where they were in Cambodia. It was very wrong what they did, the end. P.S., I wish I had met my dad's brother Kerry, it is very sad that he got killed and I like your photograph on my dad's computer.
01:09:52
Rob leaves for Cambodia: we see him packing the car with his family.
01:10:14
ROB: The more I hear about some of the things that happened, the more understanding of what took place there, and I want to forgive, but the harder it will be to forgive. Yeah, sometimes I feel a real hatred towards him.
01:10:35
ROB: I have no idea how I'll feel when I get there. I really want to see what Cambodia is like, but I don't know who I'm going to meet. I guess people who might have suffered like Kerry? But perhaps also those who inflicted so much pain.
01:11:18
ROB: You know it's 31 years to the day that my brother landed here. To the day. And the first thing they did was take my photo.
01:11:32
ROB: That's the first thing they did to Kerry, you know? Took his photo. It's not a good sign.
01:11:47
Rob arrives in Phnom Penh: we see him travel through the city to the court.
01:12:14
DRIVER: Excuse me sir, is the court down this way?
01:12:19
ROB: Certainly I wasn't expecting to go to the courthouse in the first sort of uh, 20 minutes, but I was in email contact from Singapore with my lawyer, and he called a meeting to discuss my victim statement. Uh, he also wants me to feel comfortable with the atmosphere inside the courtroom itself.
01:12:47
COURT OFFICIAL: Please be seated.
COURT OFFICIAL: The chamber announces the proceedings will continue.
01:13:02
TITLE: Karim Khan, Q.C., Lead Counsel, Civil Party Group One
KARIM: In the Franco Germanic system, there is another element that is inserted into the trial process. That is the voice of the victim. Victims can appear in their own right. These groups are called civil parties, and the civil parties are not restricted to survivors. In other words it's not only those that have been kept in S-21, and survived, but those that have lost loved ones.
01:13:31
DUCH: The rule that applied at S-21 was that all prisoners that arrived, must be interrogated, tortured, and smashed. No exceptions.
01:13:49
DUCH: The meaning of the term "smash" was never explained to me. But if you take the whole situation into focus and analyse it, the term "smash" literally means to crush into imperceptible dust.
01:14:14
ROB: I was surprised that I actually was going into the court, and it was very quick, and next thing, I didn't realise it - I walked in and here he is, right before my eyes, the man who killed my brother. Duch.
01:14:24
TITLE: Comrade Duch, aka Kaing Guek Eav
01:14:28
ROB: The judges came in, and we all stood, and you know what? I looked across the room and he was looking at me. And I held his eye, I held his eye...for a long time. It must have been at least ten, maybe fifteen seconds. And we just stared at each other, and he finally looked away. He looked away. And uh...I dunno, is that some small victory? It's pathetic.
01:14:59
TITLE: Sophal Ear, Survivor/Scholar
EAR: Duch was a Chinese-Cambodian, ethnically. He was a great student. He ranked number two on the national math exam, and then studied at the Institute of Pedagogy under...
01:15:16
TITLE: Son Sen
EAR:...Son Sen who would become minister of defence for the Khmer Rouge, and it was at that time that he was radicalised and became a member of the Communist Party.
01:15:28
EAR: Duch ends up in charge of a prison which uh, is where he begins his training as an interrogator and a torturer, and then ends up heading Tuol Sleng, S-21, which is the mother of all torture centres in Cambodia.
01:15:44
TITLE: January 1979, Tuol Sleng Prison/S-21
01:15:48
EAR: As soon as you entered Tuol Sleng your fate was sealed. You'd be immediately photographed, put in a cell, tortured, and then told to write a series of ever-wilder confessions, proving that you were an enemy of the Pol Pot regime.
01:16:09
EAR: Duch's job was not to find guilt or innocence through a process of confession.
01:16:18
EAR: Confession was just another check mark that he needed completed as part of a process by which somebody would end up dead.
01:16:28
TITLE: Elizabeth Becker, Journalist/Author
BECKER: It's a very apt symbol of the regime because here is this complex of two good schools, you know where children were taught, and it was empty like all schools. Education was over, children no longer had childhood.
01:16:45
TITLE: Mid-to-late 1970s, Comrade Duch at Tuol Sleng Prison
BECKER: He was a teacher. And he was turned into a torturer. I mean that's, again, the apt symbol, that they would put a teacher in charge of a torture and execution centre.
01:17:00
TITLE: Present day, Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.
01:17:18
ROB: The most hurtful thing I think of all of this, apart from the loss, is the thought of what they did to my brother. It's terrible.
01:17:34
ROB: It's incredible. God.
01:17:55
ROB: You know this could be Kerry. This could very--he looks Western to me, that looks like a Western face.
01:18:05
GUIDE: The victims here were generally high-ranking victims of Pol Pot.
01:18:10
GUIDE: You can see also the blood stains here, and the two boxes used for the toilet of the victim.
01:18:16
TITLE: Lundi Keo, Guide
GUIDE: Because the Khmer Rouge would not allow victims to get out of the room.
01:18:29
ROB: There's mathematical precision here, from a maths teacher.
01:18:42
ROB: This is all meticulous planning. There's nothing random, there's nothing random about this place.
01:18:56
GUIDE: This picture is, this guy is still alive right now.
ROB: Is he?
GUIDE: Yes, this one too still alive right now.
01:19:03
ROB: So he worked, they worked at this prison?
GUIDE: Yes, security guards here. You see the soldiers, security guards, killers.
01:19:12
ROB: He would be 15, 16 years old?
GUIDE: Young, really young.
ROB: Really young.
01:19:17
ROB: I'm not, you know, I'm not connecting this with Kerry, you know. It's best not to. I dunno, I dunno. I'm hoping there was some special treatment given that they didn't need to do any of this.
01:19:45
ROB: Could be your best mate's kid, or, could be one of my kids, you know?
01:20:01
GUIDE: Slowly, slowly, you know, five minutes later, you know, the water is full, and then it drown the victim.
01:20:29
GUIDE: Every morning I always give flowers to the body here. I've worked here for a long time, since 1984. So the white flower like this is the colour of peace. I want them to get peace, you know, now.
01:20:49
Rob explores the streets of Phnom Penh: we see him at street stalls and wandering around.
01:21:30
TITLE: Documentation Center of Cambodia
01:21:41
ROB: Now here's a photo of Duch that I haven't seen before.
01:21:49
ROB: The Documentation Center of Cambodia, or DC-Cam as it's known, is the hub of research for the trials. It's unearthed more than six hundred thousand documents that are being used in Duch's trial alone.
01:22:05
TITLE: Youk Chang, Director, DC-Cam
ROB: All roads seem to lead to DC-Cam's director, Youk Chhang, who's been called the conscience of Cambodia.
01:22:15
ROB: Wow, look at this place! This is an indication of a busy man. Wow.
CHHANG: Have a seat.
ROB: Thank you. Thank you very much.
01:22:25
ROB: I don't want to impose, you know, you feel, and I understand the incredible privilege it is to be here, you know, I'm very fortunate, because there's so many millions who won't get that opportunity.
01:22:37
CHHANG: When you've lost a loved one, you suffer in the same way. For our family it is easier to count those who have survived, we are a small group. To count those who have died -- it is a long list.
01:22:50
CHHANG: My mother never counts them, but she is alone in this world. She lost all her brothers and sisters, her parents, her husband, some of her children.
01:22:02
CHHANG: It's a broken society, and you want to connect these broken pieces, but sometimes you cannot find these broken pieces. They've disappeared. Washed away by the rains.
01:23:17
ROB: He's pleading for forgiveness. That's the struggle, because on one hand, he was taking orders, just like the guards that he was giving the orders. On the other hand he was a brutal, clinical butcher.
01:23:35
CHHANG: Duch was born in the Year of the Horse. Physically, a lot of people made fun of him, people called him a "big head".
ROB: Oh yeah, yeah.
01:23:42
CHHANG: People called him all kinds of names and his mother believed that he was destined to go to jail in his lifetime.
ROB: Destined to go to jail?
CHHANG: Yes, destined to go to jail, because of that year, that time, the lunar calendar year.
ROB: Oh, ok.
01:24:56
CHHANG: So, he feels prejudice at home, in the communities because he was involved with the Left groups, distributing all of these Communist books.
ROB: Yes.
01:24:10
CHHANG: So, everyone was his enemy. So, in Khmer culture we say that uh...(untranslated Cambodian words). It means that he is quiet, silent, timid, but very dangerous, "and one day I'll kill all of you".
01:24:28
ROB: So if I were to ask one question, that you would like me to ask in court, what would that be?
CHHANG: That did you believe in Karma?
ROB: Yes.
CHHANG: To challenge his Christianity.
01:24:43
CHHANG: You know we have to fight for our justice, and that's how we see it, that's how we would fight in the courtroom and you have a perfect chance to fight for it on behalf of many, many victims in this country.
01:24:55
TERITH: Rob?
ROB: Yes.
TERITH: Hi, I'm Terith.
ROB: Oh Terith, hello! Nice to meet you.
TERTIH: Nice to meet you by now!
01:25:00
ROB: Look thank you, you know, I, from my memory it was you who informed me about the civil parties?
TERITH: Yes, together with Sarah Connors.
01:25:10
TITLE: Terith Chy, DC-Cam
ROB: That's right, and Sarah as well, Sarah and you.
TERITH: Yeah, yeah.
01:25:14
ROB: Mate, look, if it wasn't for you two, I would not be going through this process right now, cause I didn't know about it, and I think I had about 5 days to get the application in, didn't I?
TERITH: That's right, yeah.
ROB: It was really tight. So look, thank you very much for letting me know.
01:25:26
TERITH: You're welcome. And when are you going to testify?
ROB: Either tomorrow afternoon, or Tuesday morning.
TERITH: Tuesday morning.
ROB: Yeah. Probably Tuesday morning, possibly tomorrow afternoon. I've been writing lots of stuff to say.
TERITH: Uh huh.
ROB: We've got to nail it down now, big day tomorrow. Nice to see you.
TERITH: All right, good to see you.
01:25:45
TITLE: Rachel and Ivan arrive in Phnom Penh.
01:25:47
ROB: You've going to be amazed by the cars, and the traffic, and it's fantastic.
RACHEL: Oh I know I could see the traffic go past.
ROB: Yeah, it's amazing.
01:26:53
Rachel and Ivan in Phnom Penh with Rob: montage of them around the city
01:26:58
ROB: To be fair to Duch he is the only one of the five Khmer Rouge leaders charged who’s taken some responsibility. Well not responsibility as such, but he’s admitting he’s committed certain crimes. He’s expressing remorse and pleading guilty in a legal sense, at least.
01:27:16
DUCH: I am truly extremely remorseful, and I feel incomparable shock about destruction on such a mind-boggling scale.
01:27:24
DUCH: However, I ended up serving a criminal organisation which brutally destroyed its own people. I could not withdraw from it. I was just like a cog in a running machine.
01:27:46
ROB: The problem is, Duch’s still claiming to be a victim, that he was forced to follow the orders of Pol Pot. How can you forgive someone who doesn’t fully accept responsibility for what he did?
01:28:00
KARIM: He's tried of course continuously as a defence strategy to say well there's duress, I didn't want to do what I did but I didn't have a choice.
01:28:07
TITLE: Karim Khan, Q.C., Lead Counsel, Civil Party Group One
KARIM: But of course, over the course of four years or whatever, there was ample opportunity one would say, to make a good getaway. To try and flee. At least while you're doing something one finds repugnant. Like causing agony to fellow human beings.
01:28:22
KARIM: He didn't do that, he thrived in the regime that was the Khmer Rouge, in Democratic Kampuchea. He loved it. Uh, it gave him a sense of purpose and identity.
01:28:35
ROB: Karim Khan heads the legal team working with me and some of the other civil parties. I’m just going to visit his fellow lawyer Alain Werner who’s helping me write my victim’s statement.
01:28:47
ROB: Alain and Karim have been really supportive and have long histories fighting these kinds of legal battles, working in countries devastated by genocide and war.
01:28:56
TITLE: Hotel Le Royal, Phnom Penh
01:28:59
ALAIN: You in have to be charge not him. You need, you are the one that needs to be in charge in court, and you, now is the time for the civil parties to come and for their grief and suffering to take central stage.
TITLE: Alain Werner, Co-Counsel, Civil Party Group One
01:29:14
ALAIN: I think it is important for you to hear some things, and there're some very powerful questions here, um, what do you remember of my brother?
ROB: Yep
ALAIN: How long was Kerry in prison? And, when did you order his killing? How and where did Kerry die? Where was Kerry buried? Fundamental, core questions.
01:29:34
ROB: Sure, ok. Did you ever believe in Karma?
ALAIN: You could say I learnt that you became Christian because it's around this forgiveness theme which is important in this trial, so I would like to ask the accused of Duch if in spite of the fact that he became a Christian, does he believe in that, in karma.
01:29:53
ROB: Karma wouldn’t left him off, you know, he’s going to pay, is karma, it’s just the order of things in their beliefs. And whereas Christianity he's ok, he's, you're ok bud, no, we forgive you, away you go. It's just, it's too convenient.
01:30:09
ROB: Is that a bit pointed?
ALAIN: No, its your time, there’s lots of anger and trauma, and that's what it is, and don’t worry about it, just, you know, be polite, be respectful, but I mean it's not a, it's not a fairytale, I mean, by any means.
ROB: That's right, yeah, ok.
01:30:26
TITLE: August 17t h, 2009, Day of Rob's Civil Party Testimony
01:30:28
ROB: I'm flaming nervous, it's such a big deal and I know that talking to Youk, what he said in terms of what we’re representing as Civil Parties, we’re here to help the judges with their sentencing process, and if Duch gets one year less than he deserves then he’s won – it has to be nothing else other than for the rest of your living days.
01:30:58
JUDGE: Is your name correct, Robert Hamill?
ROB: Yes, that is correct.
01:31:03
ROB: Kia ora koutou. Greetings to all. Your honours, I strongly believe that my personal suffering cannot be understood unless the chamber is properly informed about the impact of Kerry's capture and death on our family, which was effectively destroyed.
01:31:26
ROB: Kerry had left New Zealand after going to University and headed towards Darwin, where he aimed to sail around Asia and eventually the world.
01:31:41
TITLE: Darwin, Australia.
01:31:58
ROB: It really broke me up because to me, I see this beautiful girl, who's in love with my brother, and he is just looking real chuffed with himself. He is, he is so chuffed, and he's exceedingly happy.
GAIL: Yeah.
01:32:15
TITLE: Gail Colley, Kerry's girlfriend at the time.
ROB: And to me--
GAIL: --well we were.
ROB: --that was just such a beautiful image.
01:32:21
GAIL: I can’t remember how long I knew Stu and Kerry before we actually took off, it was only a few months. I didn't actually work on the yacht, but them coming along and saying we've done this, we've done that, and we've sorted out this, and we're going to be ready to sail in a few days, and it's not a problem.
01:32:39
GAIL: And of course days would go on and uh, something else has come up! And, finally, they got it all ready and ship shape.
01:33:53
GAIL: Well we called it the hippy trail in those days. There was a well-worn path up through Asia, through the islands. Indonesia was a definite place that everybody wanted to go to, um, because it was so exotic, and still very new then. It wasn't developed at all.
01:33:13
GAIL: And just listening to different music and different sounds of the language and generally we were very naïve.
01:33:30
TITLE: April 30th, 1970, President Nixon
NIXON: Unless we indulge in wishful thinking, the lives of Americans remaining in Vietnam after our next withdrawal...
01:33:38
TITLE: Elizabeth Becker, Journalist/Author
BECKER: You can't exaggerate the sense that Vietnam was the centre of the cold war at that stage in Asia.
01:33:45
NIXON: Let us go to the map again. Here is South Vietnam...
01:33:49
EAR: The Viet Cong had done incursions into Cambodia and were using Cambodia as a safe haven.
01:33:57
TITLE: Sophal Ear, Survivor/Scholar
EAR: As a result the US felt obliged to go after them on Cambodia soil.
01:34:15
BECKER: I remember when the bombing started it was amazing, I had never seen American bombing. It was extraordinary.
01:34:22
EAR: On March 18th, 1970 there was coup d'état in Cambodia.
01:34:27
TITLE: March 1970, Prince Sihanouk
EAR: Prince Sihanouk, who was head of state, was deposed while on travel abroad.
01:34:32
BECKER: Sihanouk made the biggest mistake of his life. The Chinese convinced him to join his enemies, the Khmer Rouge. This was huge. It meant that everyone in the countryside, the Cambodians in the countryside who adored him, automatically had sympathy for the Khmer Rouge.
01:34:53
EAR: It was certainly a mixture of extreme Maoism, romanticising an agrarian life.
01:35:00
TITLE: 1973, Sihanouk and Khmer Rouge visit Angkor Wat
01:35:02
EAR: Mixing into that, I think some of the Khmai mythology, which is if Angkor Wat can be built by the Khmai in the 12th century, then anything's possible, if only the right leaders could come into power.
01:35:18
TITLE: 1974, Elizabeth Becker reports from Cambodia.
BECKER: It was awful enough to watch this spiral of destruction in the country, it was so quick. In months, you would see a city going from this gorgeous city to nothing.
01:35:34
BECKER: the Khmer Rouge were cutting off all the routes, there was no food, the corruption got worse and worse, the rich flew away. And, you know, it was emotionally awful.
01:35:47
BECKER: And I had no faith in the Khmer Rouge, and I was way too young. I did not want to stay for it. So I left.
01:36:01
The Khmer Rouge drive into Phnom Penh: archive footage.
TITLE: April 17th, 1975, Khmer Rouge enter Phnom Penh
01:36:19
GAIL: A lot of the times we would deliberately go to beautiful uninhabited islands, especially if we had a charter on.
01:36:30
GAIL: The coral and the fish in that part of the world is just staggeringly beautiful, and very um, at that stage wild and untamed.
01:36:45
GAIL: What drew me to Kerry in the first place of course was that he was drop dead gorgeous.
01:36:51
GAIL: He was a very practical man and I really loved that he would take the time to show me everything that was on boat, that I wanted these endless probably naïve silly questions to him, and he would explain it all, and again if I didn't get it. And that he would just, yeah, be generous with his time, and he was to other people as well.
01:37:20
GAIL: We didn’t have enough language to get into the politics of the places so um, yes we didn't have any idea about what was happening with Kampuchea at all. We were in this, maybe white man's bubble?
01:37:40
ROB: I'm sure you can see that at 26 years of age, Kerry was having the time of his life. 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. John Dewhirst an Englishman joined Kerry and Stuart on Foxy Lady shortly before he was to return to England.
01:38:05
TITLE: Lake District, England
01:38:17
TITLE: Fells Foot Homestead
01:38:22
ROB: I love those photos, they’re sort of family heirlooms now.
01:38:28
HILARY: So when, when was that? What was the date of that?
ROB: Um...uh...um...
HILARY: Doesn't matter.
ROB: June, July, '78.
HILARY: Oh was it?
ROB: A couple of months before.
HILARY: Ah, gosh.
01:38:47
HILARY: Yeah I've got a nice picture of my brother.
01:38:51
TITLE: Hilary Holland
HILARY:It's in a frame, but I keep moving it around the house, it's never been on the wall, I move it round the house, cause I sort of want to know it's there but I don’t want to see it. So it's hidden behind pieces of furniture.
01:39:08
HILARY: We had the most wonderful, wonderful upbringing. We were just good friends, we had a lot in common. Just an average brother and sister.
01:39:24
HILARY: Don’t know what he's doing with no clothes on.
ROB: He's an artist.
HILARY: Yes.
01:39:31
HILARY: You know he was a very sensitive, artistic sort of bloke, and you know the whole confession thing, CIA spy. And you see the sort of person he was and um, not the sort of person to be a spy.
ROB: A CIA agent.
HILARY: Yeah.
01:40:05
HILARY: He did write and tell me that he'd met up with some people who had a boat and he was going to go on this boat and he was really excited about it. He told me it was called Foxy Lady.
01:40:38
VOICEOVER: On the afternoon of the 13th, we thought we could hear a boat engine at intervals throughout the afternoon, but we couldn't be sure.
01:40:51
TITLE: August 13th 1978, Extract from the "confession" of John Dewhirst
01:40:58
VOICEOVER: Shortly after dark I went below to make some porridge, and suddenly a boat began to close in on us very quickly. The boat came in closer.
01:41:12
VOICEOVER: I was about to go up on deck when the boat opened fire and sent some shots over our mast.
01:41:21
VOICEOVER: The gunboat came in closer, and lit us with its spotlight. Stuart was shot, and Kerry helped him out to sea in a lifebuoy.
01:41:32
VOICEOVER: He told me later that Stuart had died, and had been buried at sea.
01:41:50
ROB: Koh Tang Island is where Kerry and his mates on Foxy Lady were sheltering when they were seized. Koh Tang was, and still is, some kind of military base.
01:42:03
ROB: It’s so long ago now, however I’m hoping someone actually remembers Kerry. I’m travelling with Kulikar Sotho, who runs a production company here in Cambodia and she’ll help me ask some of the locals a few questions.
01:42:24
KULIAR: He's never seen it since he moved here, in 2000.
ROB: OK.
01:42:41
KULIAR: This house where we are standing now, you see this concrete? Built by the Khmer Rouge, used to be the headquarter of the Khmer Rouge. Yeah, Khmer Rouge navy base and your brother could well be bringing to here.
01:42:54
TITLE: Kulikar Sotho, Hanuman Films
KULIKAR: First they should go to the headquarters, isn't it?
ROB: You would think so, you'd think so. Some sort of processing centre and this would be the first one. It's so peaceful.
01:43:14
ROB: I’m very keen to meet Meas Muth, the former chief and commander of the Khmer Rouge navy. I heard he was based at the port where Kerry was captured and ultimately I believe he is responsible for my brother's fate. I'm sure he would have had the power to release Kerry.
01:43:33
ROB: This area is pretty much still a Khmer Rouge stronghold. Thousands of former cadre melted back into the general population, into these villages, after the fall of the regime. Many of the leaders, those most culpable, have done very well for themselves.
01:43:50
ROB: Meas Muth is typical. As well as having been commander of the navy, he has also been an adviser to the current government and maintains a position of power, wealth and influence today.
01:44:03
ROB: Could you ask him if he's ever seen...
KULIKAR: Did you ever see this boat?
MUTH: No, never.
01:44:10
KULIKAR: He said never, he never seen it.
01:44:13
ROB: This is my brother.
KULIKAR: This is his brother.
01:44:18
ROB: Could he tell me the procedure that you took if a Western boat or any boat was captured, what was the procedure from there?
MUTH: Most of the captives were sent to Phnom Penh.
01:44:26
TITLE: Meas Muth, Former Navy Commander
01:44:29
MUTH: In general they were taken to Phnom Penh.
01:44:32
ROB: Could you ask him about a report that we received suggesting that he personally went out to Koh Tang Island to escort back some Westerners.
01:44:44
MUTH: I don't think you know anything. My job was to educate the people about policy and philosophy. So, normally I didn't go to capture foreigners.
01:45:00
ROB: Ok, philosophers, right.
KULIKAR: You know, like brainwash them, easy word to say is brain wash them.
ROB: Oh, ok. Yeah, ok. And you believe that's his role, do you believe that?
01:45:10
KULIKAR: Um...you know, it's um, it's hard to say because he has very nice face, very gentle face. Um, reading his document doesn't match what he look, and what he says now. It's normal that not everybody will tell us the truth.
ROB: No, that's right.
KULIKAR: It's quite normal.
ROB: Yeah.
01:45:30
ROB: How would they be treated in their time there?
MUTH: No one had the right to beat them. We just fed them and provided them with basic necessities.
01:45:43
MUTH: Now, just let me say, in any country in the world, it's universal that political opponents are not forgiven. They are never forgiven. That's true, isn't it?
01:45:59
KULIKAR: He said that um, he thinks it is universal, we will not forgive them. We will have to--
ROB: --Exterminate--
KULIKAR: --let them go.
ROB: Exterminate them.
01:46:09
KULIKAR: Do you mean you would have to exterminate them?
MUTH: No, no. Having to kill them or not, that's another story, but no country allows their opponents to continue their opposition.
01:46:22
ROB: If, if Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge had remained in power, to today, um, how much, how much better do you think it would have been?
MUTH: We would not just be where we are now, but 20 times more developed.
01:46:37
KULIKAR: This is a question from me. You say that "Pol Pot is good". And you believe in Angkar. Then why did so many people die?
01:46:51
MUTH: Was it Pol Pot who did the killing? Or was it an infiltrator trying to overthrow Pol Pot and undermine his good policies? No one has discovered the truth.
01:47:09
KULIKAR: How then did the Khmer Rouge permit such killing? You said no one knows whether it was Pol Pot or an infiltrator that did the killing, but how could an entire government possibly allow an outsider to kill 3 million people?
01:47:28
MUTH: Who said it was 3 million killed?
KULIKAR: I believe it was almost 3 million, so I said 3 million. Okay, how many people do you think were killed?
MUTH: No, no -- I can't pinpoint this number or that number exactly, but it was under one million
01:47:46
KULIKAR: Under one million? Oh my goodness.
MUTH: Yes.
KULIKAR: He believe it is under one million.
01:48:10
KULIKAR: It's like one day we are in heaven. The French called us the 'Pearl of Asia'. And then from being the pearl of Asia to be the 'Hell of Asia' if you like.
01:48:23
KULIKAR: And now we are still suffering, look, look, look, look, look. If you are out of the city you see the poverty still exists.
01:48:50
KULIKAR: I mean every single Cambodian, whether you are Cambodian local, Cambodian overseas, Cambodian American, Cambodian French, we all got affect, you know, all our families got affected.
01:49:02
TITLE: April 17th 1975, Khmer Rouge evacuate over two million people from Phnom Penh.
01:49:13
KULIKAR: Well I was very small. I was born 1973, so by the time evacuation take place, when the Khmer Rouge march in, I was just about two years old.
01:49:23
KULIKAR: My dad held me in his arms, you know, carried me out of the country. So, my mum, my father, and myself, just marching out of the country with other people.
01:49:35
KULIKAR: All they told us is just to get out of Phnom Penh. Everybody else brings like food, rice, but my father carried Beatle records, cause he loves music.
01:50:02
KULIKAR: My father was a pilot, he was a pilot.
ROB: A pilot?
KULIKAR: Yeah, a pilot. And when they got into the village they registered honestly of who they were. So my father was a pilot, and that’s what he wrote down. They told my mother that they take my father for political study. But when they say political -- political study is just a term to used to be taken to kill.
01:50:30
TITLE: Ochheutel Beach
01:50:37
ROB: Koh Tang is down through there. Uh...yes, down through there. So they would have arrived coming through the gap of those islands there and came straight into this beach, to the naval beach, where the navy base is.
01:51:58
ROB: It would be so nice for Dad to have shared this, you know, this time, you know? Go out to the island, would have been very difficult for him, but, you know to be able to say goodbye, because mum and dad didn't get that chance to say goodbye.
01:51:14
KULIKAR: I always wanted to go back to the village where my father...was...executed. Just to see where the prisoners were situated, and how he is being held in there. Just to see the atmosphere around the area.
01:51:31
KULIKAR: And yeah, exactly the same thing. Just so that I feel that I have touched base with him...and, just to let him know that he should be proud of how I become today.
01:52:03
KULIKAR: My mother was becoming a rice farmer. She has always trained to be an intellectual, so to go back to being a rice farmer, it was very struggle to begin with.
01:52:16
KULIKAR: In the Khmer Rouge time, everything belonged to Angkar, including the children. I am not my mum's daughter, I am the daughter of Angkar.
01:52:25
KULIKAR: So, all the children had to be sent to the Angkar children's community, where they wash your brain, where they teach you to identify the mistakes of your parents.
01:52:39
TITLE: Elizabeth Becker: Journalist/Author
BECKER: There's no relationship - there's no commercial relationship, there's no schools, there's no churches, there's no religion, anything. It was turning the country into a prison camp.
01:52:55
EAR: Being city dwellers my family was not capable of livening under the conditions that the Khmer Rouge were demanding. And my father succumbed to malnutrition and uh, disease.
01:53:09
TITLE: Sophal Ear, Survivor/Scholar
EAR: It was a daily struggle for survival, trying to find enough food, trying not to get so sick that you were going to get weaker and weaker and go on a death spiral, as well as trying to make sure you didn't stick out, and cause attention upon yourself.
01:53:30
KULIKAR: I think the killing they aim for high ranking politicians, but also killing because of the jealousy, because of the personal revenge also.
01:53:41
KULIKAR: And um, also killing because you have fairer skin, you have white skin and therefore you represent a good life once. You represent - you know nothing to do the rice farming.
01:53:52
KULIKAR: For my father's case, he's a pilot, he's handsome, and he has white skin. So he's a perfectly target.
01:54:02
KULIKAR: The amazing man whom I have never met.
01:54:13
ROB: So Meas Muth has confirmed that Kerry and John would have been transported from Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh.
01:54:27
ROB: And the first person they would have seen when they arrived at Toul Sleng prison was the photographer Nhem En. Their blindfolds would have been removed, and he would have been there before them.
01:54:39
TITLE: Nhem En, Tuol Sleng Photographer
01:54:45
EN: A landscape like this photographs beautifully at this time of day.
01:54:54
EN: Soon I will make this land into resorts. Pol Pot's resort, Nuon Chea's resort, Kieu Samphan's resort, in short, resorts for all the Khmer Rouge leaders.
01:55:03
EN: With investment, I could open good restaurants, build 100 storey hotels, make a city for the world to study.
01:55:16
EN: This was written by Pol Pot himself.
TRANSLATOR: This was written by Pol Pot himself.
01:55:21
EN: "The bright red blood was spilled over the towns"
MUSIC: The bright red blood was spilled over the towns
01:55:29
MUSIC: And the plains of Kampuchea our motherland
EN: It means, it means, the army, the people, so many die, to liberate the country from American imperialism
01:55:40
MUSIC: The blood of our splendid workers and peasants, the blood of our revolutionary youth
01:55:51
EN: I became a revolutionary when I was 11.
01:55:55
ROB: Did he see much of Duch?
EN: Yes, I saw Duch every day. At that time we would joke that we had to be loyal to the "mother" that feeds us.
01:56:10
EN: In January 1976 I started at Tuol Sleng. I then went to China to learn photography.
01:56:37
ROB: When he looks at those photos now, does he see them as art?
EN: Yes, yes, yes. I must have taken about a million photographs altogether.
01:56:48
ROB: Do you recall taking the photo of a New Zealander?
EN: I don't remember, it's a long time ago. I wasn't sure what nationality each Westerner was, but I knew there was a New Zealander. But thinking about it, it's a long time ago, 36-37 years.
01:57:13
TRANSLATOR: This is the brother of the New Zealander killed at that time.
EN: Oh! He looked like you, but he was a bit shorter and thinner. I remember that I took his photo.
01:57:38
EN: The Englishman was a bit bigger than your brother.
TITLE: John Dewhirst, At Tuol Sleng Prison
01:57:45
TITLE: Kerry's photo has never been found.
01:57:51
EN: A lot of them asked, "What have I done to be sent here?" There were so many of them. I replied, "I'm just the photographer, I dont' know anything".
01:58:04
ROB: Duch, what do you remember of my brother?
01:58:10
DUCH: So far as I remember during the time that I was Chairman of S-21, there were only four Westerners. One was British, and as it was said in the Hamill civil party statement, a New Zealander did fall victim and die at S-21.
01:59:58
ROB: As you will be well aware, your honours, in every family everyone is interconnected. A family shares in happiness and warmth, a family shares in depression and misery. My family's disintegration is my disintegration.
01:59:18
ROB: Kerry used to write home about once every month. Some weeks passed without any communication from Kerry.
01:59:24
TITLE: Whakatane, New Zealand
ROB: The weeks turned to months. Our family home was positioned at the mouth of the Whakatane river. Towards the end of the year, my mother, Esther, would gaze out to sea and say, "Its ok, he'll turn up at Christmas and surprise us".
01:59:55
ROB: Mr President, you like myself will perhaps remember the days before mobile phones, the internet and 24/7 news. It was in this time of letters and telegrams my father Miles Hamill wrote letters to the ports of Asia and the New Zealand government requesting information about the Foxy Lady and any possible sightings.
02:00:26
GAIL: I did expect to hear, I wrote off a couple of letters to him.
02:00:34
TITLE: Gail Colley, Kerry's girlfriend at the time
GAIL: But then, I couldn't work out why he hadn't written to me, and I was just very, very upset, and thinking oh well, I guess it's over then if he hasn't written to me that means he doesn't love me any more and I'm just going to have to go on with my own life.
02:00:56
TITLE: Hillary Holland, John Dewhirst's sister
HILARY: All the time that my brother was away, we kept in touch, writing letters really regularly, and then his letters stopped.
02:01:05
HILARY: And I think it would be quite a few months, I started to, to worry that I hadn't heard from him. And I desperately wrote letters. And um...and just nothing, nothing ever came back.
02:01:25
ROB: I was fourteen when Kerry went missing, and sixteen when we found out the terrible news.
02:01:33
HILARY: How did you find out?
ROB: Our neighbours rang us, and said 'you'd better get the paper'.
HILARY: Oh, no.
HILARY: And so I went down with my second eldest brother John, to the shop, and uh, the local dairy guy Mike was there, and I remember his expression, cause on the front when he handed over the paper--
HILARY: --It was on the front page?
ROB: Mm, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
02:01:58
HILARY: When I first found out, um...I was sure I was going to die of this feeling, that I've still got. I didn't think you could carry on being alive, feeling like that.
02:02:19
GAIL: I just shut myself up in the room for a couple of days and wailed my heart out, because I just had never conceived that something like that would happen.
02:02:35
ROB: I remember standing in the kitchen, hugging my father, both of us crying, for what seemed like a very long time. It was the closest I had ever felt to my father.
02:02:47
ROB: Never in our worst nightmares had we considered the reality of what had happened to Kerry. Death not by shipwreck, not by drowning or freak accident, but death by torture.
02:03:02
ROB: 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.
02:03:31
EN: You would place your head like this against the brace. "Don't turn, stand still", so the photo looked correct. You're not allowed to turn, so a metal brace was used to prevent you turning.
02:03:51
EN: It's just a little metal brace and you can't turn.
02:03:58
TITLE: Bou Meng, Artist/Survivor
02:04:04
MENG: They made by wife, Ma Youen, and I put our hands behind our backs,and then put handcuffs on our wrists and we were blindfolded.
02:04:13
MENG: When I heard my wife crying I felt fear and pity for her, my heart sank, and fell through the floor, but I couldn't help her.
02:04:23
TRANSLATOR: He was seated on the chair with the number tag on, and he was photographed.
02:04:29
MENG: After being photographed I was separated from my wife. I never saw her again.
02:04:35
TITLE: 1979, Bou Meng was one of the few who survived Tuol Sleng.
02:04:45
TITLE: Present day, Restaurant and art gallery of S-21 survivor Vann Nath
02:04:51
ROB: Like Bou Meng, Vann Nath survived Tuol Sleng because he was a good artist. He began these paintings after the fall of the regime, to try to capture memories that no one, including many of the survivors wanted to deal with.
02:05:09
ROB: I went to S-21 and...I saw your paintings.
KULIKAR: That was the first painting he did for S-21...
02:05:18
TITLE:Vann Nath, Artist/Survivor
KULIKAR: because back then when he was held as a prisoner, he was hoping that if he still alive, he will draw one image that represent the prisoners in there.
02:05:31
NATH: In the communal cell, we could hardly move. For one month, four days we had to defecate there, eat there, urinate there, sleep there.
02:05:42
KULIKAR: All you are thinking of is...something to eat. He's hungry all the time, is hunger, hunger, hunger, hunger.
02:05:52
MENG: When I entered the communal cell I saw many prisoners with their eyes deeply sunken. Everyone was very thin with long hair, they looked like zombies or vampires.
02:06:05
MENG: They were very thin, their bones sticking out like demons in the underworld.
02:06:15
MENG: He looks very similar to the Westerner I saw in the cell but he was not as healthy, he was very thin.
02:06:27
TITLE: Chum Mey, Survivor/Civil Party
02:06:32
MEY: We entered the room, and they made the three of us sit there and wait. We didn't realise there were others in the room. Suddenly they came out, grabbed my hands and handcuffed me.
02:06:44
MEY: They were wearing scarves which they used to blindfold us. When they released the blindfold I looked down at the floor and saw fresh blood but I didn't know whose blood.
02:07:03
KULIKAR: They question him that, "Tell me now," you know, "when did you join CIA?"
02:07:08
MEY: I replied, "I don't know anything about the CIA or KGB! I have no idea what they do." And he just continued, "Who do you work for CIA OR KGB? CIA or KGB?"
02:07:22
MEY: At that time I had no rights at all, I could not speak, I could not hear, I could not see anything. The worst suffering I experienced in the whole 3 years, 8 months, 20 days of the regime was during those four months in Tuol Sleng. I had no rights, no freedom, and no one that I could express my suffering to.
02:07:50
DUCH: We were taught Pol Pot's philosophy daily, that the sharp sword is the one that is used, not the sword that is kept in its case.
02:08:06
DUCH: So you have to use a sword to cut, then sharpen it, cut, sharpen, then cut again. Therefore, I forced my comrades at S-21 to carry out the duty of the Party.
02:08:19
DUCH: In that way, I sharpened my sword and used it again and again.
02:08:25
TITLE: Prak Khan, Tuol Sleng Interrogator
02:08:27
PRAK: At the time I was very young, I didn't know much about politics.
02:08:35
ROB: Can you describe to me what were the different types of torture that were given to...
TRANSLATOR: To the prisoners.
ROB: To the prisoners.
02:08:46
PRAK: At that time there were a few different methods of torturing the prisoner. We studied the theory and practice of torture and the theory said to torture by lashing the prisoner, or using a plastic bag.
02:09:02
TRANSLATOR: How did you do that?
PRAK: We would put it over their heads, making it hard to breathe.
02:09:11
TRANSLATOR: To feed prisoner with their excrement, or urinate.
02:09:21
TRANSLATOR: He said that from that time until now, is like a long period, and he saw the man just about ten minutes, so he is not sure, but he looks familiar.
02:09:32
KULIKAR: And so, on day nine, because he still says, "I don't know about CIA, I do not know about KGB, then they use the pliers to pull his toenail, and the nail doesn't come out quickly enough, so they, you know, swirl the nails like this.
02:10:03
KULIKAR: He knows that there were foreigners in there because there were time to time he heard foreigners screaming, he heard a voice screaming which is not the Cambodian voice.
02:10:20
ROB: Did you ever see any Westerners being at S-21?
NATH: I saw prisoners every day being taken in and out for interrogation. That's when I saw the two foreigners.
02:10:33
KULIKAR: Do you know approximately when this was?
NATH: It was in 1978.
02:10:38
ROB: Does he recall the height?
NATH: Tall, one was taller than me, the other was shorter.
02:10:50
KULIKAR: One is shorter, and the other one taller, almost taller than him.
ROB: That's my brother.
NATH: The shorter one was Rob's brother.
ROB: That was my brother. Yep.
02:11:03
KULIKAR: He sees him clearly.
02:11:08
TRANSLATOR: After the two weeks of torturing, Duch said to him to draw our big brother portrait, the brother number one, because it is very, very important for us.
02:11:19
TRANSLATOR: And what if you couldn't paint it?
MENG: Oh, then I would certainly be killed
TRANSLATOR: Ohh, he must be killed, he cannot--
MENG: --I would not be alive today.
TRANSLATOR: He cannot be alive until now.
02:11:30
MENG: If I didn't paint Pol Pot's portrait perfectly, I would be killed.
02:11:36
TITLE: 1979, Bou Meng with his Pol Pot portrait
TRANSLATOR: His pictures did not save only his life, he saved Duch's life, and Duch's position. Duch took it to see the big brother, brother number one Pol Pot, and brother number one was appreciate with that painting. That's why they still keep Duch to work in the prison as the head of the prison.
02:11:56
MENG: Your honour, I would like to ask him where he smashed and buried my wife? Was it at Tuol Sleng or at the Cheong Ek killing fields?
02:12:14
DUCH: Mr Meng, I have been especially moved by you. I would like to answer your question but I'm unable to because my subordinates carried out these tasks.
02:12:35
DUCH: But I would assume that your wife was taken to the killing fields at Cheong Ek. Please accept my sincere respects for the soul of your wife.
02:13:13
NATH: It was strange to me that they didn't blindfold me. All the other prisoners coming and going were blindfolded, so, when I was taken without one I assumed I would be killed.
02:13:39
NATH: I recall at that moment my friend held my hand steady. We had been chained back to back since we entered the gate.
02:13:59
ROB: Since Vann Nath spoke to me, he's done two paintings of Kerry, one of which is as he remembers him arriving at Tuol Sleng with a young guard. Quite painful, but very moving.
02:14:13
ROB: He then took photographs of many dead people who had received torture to the point that they died. And he would have known that a lot of those people were innocent.
02:14:25
EN: We followed Buddha. We had deep regrets for that was happening. But even if we felt pity, and thought about goodness and sin, we had to watch our own backs. We couldn't say anything.
02:14:49
PRAK: Please allow me to add that even though Duch is being prosecuted, I don't feel happy. I feel personally, honestly, much regret that I got involved with what Duch did.
02:15:06
TRANSLATOR: And he see people, and everyone knows that he has been involved with that, so he feels very, very shy with what happened, so he feel, like, sorry for that.
ROB: Ok.
02:15:19
ROB: You know for people watching this, that is all you can do, that is all you can say. And that's all we want to hear.
TRANSLATOR: That is all you can say.
02:15:41
ROB: I know Kerry was physically and mentally strong. He would not have succumb easy.
02:15:49
ROB: I know this individual may not be my brother Kerry, just another poor soul at S-21. But the way he is shackled, the way he has been grotesquely beaten, this man's struggle to hold on to life, for me, Mr President, this is my gorgeous, this is my gorgeous, beautiful brother, Kerry Hamill at S-21.
02:16:21
ROB: This is the sort of image that has haunted me, when I was sixteen and still haunts me today.
02:16:39
TITLE: Tuol Sleng archive
02:16:41
ROB: There was a general culture at the prison that whenever somebody walked into it, they became the walking dead. When that becomes a reality as once you have signed your confession, it just has to be extracted, and what did they do to my brother to get that confession?
02:17:04
KULIKAR: So there's a confession that's typed in English also.
ROB: Yeah, so they type it in English and then type it in Khmer. Obviously that's to go to the bosses.
02:17:12
ROB: This is it. This is Kerry's um, confession. Taken under duress. And I guess this is the Khmer version.
02:17:23
KULIKAR: I'm from New Zealand, and I am the CIA, I hereby do testify, have used the modern equipment of Meremere.
ROB: Ah, Meremere. Meremere, yeah ok. Meremere is a, um, I think it was a gas fired power station, or maybe coal fired power station.
02:17:42
ROB: He's just, you know there's a lot of humour here. And can you believe he's trying, he's just trying to have some fun.
02:17:52
ROB: "I enrolled in the Psychology for Intelligence officer's course. This was taught by an American CIA intelligence officer, 'Major Ruse'." And a ruse of course being a con.
02:18:07
ROB: "A course on covers for intelligence officers was given by a 'Colonel Sanders'." Um, which is obviously under duress Kerry was retaining some sort of sense of humour.
02:18:18
ROB: "In New Zealand where they have CIA offices in Whangarei, Auckland, Hamilton, Rotorua," and that's our home town, "Whakatane, Gisbourne, Taupo, Wanganui, Wellington, Blenheim, Christchurch, Dunedin and Westport."
02:18:28
ROB: And Westport's like a village the size of, well back then it was particularly small.
02:18:39
ROB: It was almost as if he was trying to give some sort of sanity to this insane situation that he was in. And almost sending a message back home.
02:18:49
ROB: Viktor Frankl who was a survivor from the holocaust wrote that, you know, forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess, um, except for one thing, the freedom to choose how you will respond to that situation.
02:19:04
ROB: And for me, Kerry responded with the most incredible courage and strength.
02:19:10
ROB: "We were taught interrogation techniques, such as confusion of prisoners' time and space and orientation. The effects of changes in attitude towards the prisoner, lack of sleep, pain, etc."
02:19:24
ROB: And you could interpret that that's what he was experiencing at that time.
02:19:30
ROB: "The public speaking course was compulsory for all the second year students. This was taught by Mr. S. Tarr, of the Carnegie institute. Tarr was the head of the CIA office in Hamilton, he held the rank of captain."
02:19:43
ROB: And S. Tarr, of course, is my mum. Esther. Yeah, and as I said she was a lovely speaker, she had this lovely Irish lilt that um, yeah, you know it was a message to my mum. It was a message to my mum.
02:20:03
ROB: It's a 12 page document that he signed at the end with his thumb print, basically signing his death warrant.
02:20:12
ROB: Was there a special branch dealing with the foreigners, and if so, what were the procedures applied to them?
02:20:23
DUCH: S-21 was where they were to be interrogated, after that they had to be smashed, that is, they had to be beaten to death and their bodies had to be burned to ashes.
02:20:39
TITLE: December 1978: 2 months after Kerry signed his "confession", Vietnam enters Democratic Kampuchea.
The Vietnamese enter Cambodia: Archive footage of the army and of Tuol Sleng
02:21:31
EAR: So the Khmer Rouge retreated to the North West part of Cambodia, and into Thailand where they found refuge from the Vietnamese. And they set up their operation there to try to win back Cambodia, and um, they continued to operate from the border region for the next 20 years.
02:21:57
EAR: Duch runs off with the Khmer Rouge, and he ends up becoming a born-again Christian on the way, and works for World Vision, changes his name, leads a new life.
02:22:10
EAR: But there are hints that he has done some terrible things. And until he is discovered by journalists, he had been living a pretty normal life.
02:22:31
ROB: I would like to describe how my family struggled and perhaps failed to cope with my brother's death. With your leave Mr President, I would like to begin by telling you about my brother John.
02:22:43
ROB: The loss of his closest sibling had a massive impact on John. Eight months after he found out what had happened to my eldest brother, Kerry, he threw himself off a cliff near our family home.
02:23:00
ROB: My father Miles, and my third brother Peter, retraced his footsteps to the edge of the cliff, and saw his body at the bottom of the rocks.
02:23:13
TITLE: John Hamill
TITLE: Kerry Hamill
SUE: He and Kerry were so close, there was only 18 months between them.
02:23:19
TITLE: Sue Hamill, Rob's sister
SUE: Kerry would have been called a sensitive, new-age guy, whereas John was Rolling Stones, you know, Neil Young. But that difference also was a good thing too, I mean I can't help but think of them together actually.
02:23:34
SUE: Kerry dying, John six months after we had the memorial for Kerry.
02:23:41
ROB: Duch. When you killed my brother Kerry, you killed my brother John as well.
02:23:49
ROB: Hey leave the flowers alone, ok?
RACHEL: Can you read it?
02:23:55
SUE: Every Christmas day mum would disappear, and come up here on her own.
RACHEL: Did she?
SUE: Mm. Every Christmas day. She'd say something like, "I just have to go out for a while."
ROB: Go to the shops.
SUE: "Go to the shops," and we knew where she was coming, she was coming here. She did that every Christmas day.
02:24:17
SUE: Oh, Rachel.
RACHEL: I know.
SUE: So Christmas days were pretty tough.
ROB: No, Christmas was a terrible time for mum.
02:24:31
TITLE: Miles Hamill
02:24:39
ROB: It's too late for dad. And obviously my mother, you know. Wherever she is.
02:24:46
TITLE: Esther Hamill died in 2003 of leukaemia.
02:24:48
MILES: That looks like...Esther.
ROB: Yep. Very young there.
MILES: A beauty.
02:24:55
MILES: Good day for a sail.
ROB: That's right, that's that photo of the boys after the storm, the Wahine storm. And Kerry's adapted a little mast on the dinghy and the sail, and he's helming, and John's yelling, "Get out of the way!"
02:25:11
ROB: I mean he never got any solace, he never got any closure, of any shape or form. You know, wind this clock back now for what's going on with the court case now, wind that back 20 years. But now it's too late, it's too late for dad.
02:25:29
ROB: Duch, at times I've wanted to smash you, to use your words, in the same way that you smashed so many others. At times I've imagined you shackled, starved, whipped, and clubbed viciously, viciously.
02:24:58
ROB: I have wanted you to suffer the way 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.
02:26:24
RACHEL: Well done.
ROB: Thank you.
02:26:26
KARIM: Sometimes it does give a different perspective to have somebody from a different culture give an account. It's the same shrill cry from Cambodian, or New Zealander, black or white. It's the cry of humanity.
02:26:45
TITLE: Reach Sambath, Head of Public Affairs ECCC
SAMBATH: It was a sad memory. You know, I lost family members, I lost parents, like you. But I had no chance to speak everything like you did, I think you did a wonderful job.
02:26:59
KARIM: Sometimes one can't get the point across with one argument, it's that second attempt to portray the same scenario differently that hits home and see ah, now I understand.
02:27:15
TITLE: November 27 2009, Closing Arguments
PROSECUTING LAWYER: Let's recall that unlike his prisoners at S-21 to whom this accused denied even the slightest shred of humanity, he is being met with open and even handed justice in this court.
02:27:31
DUCH: I believed I was serving the nation and its people, but I ended up serving a criminal organisation which brutally destroyed its own people.
02:27:45
DUCH: I wanted to withdraw from it, but couldn't. I was just like a cog in a running machine.
02:27:53
TITLE: Youk Chhang
CHHANG: If you allow this performance of Duch to reduce his sentence, victims are losing, even just one year, even just one month, we are losing.
02:28:04
KARIM: There were twelve thousand, three hundred and eighty moments when the accused could have done the right thing.
02:28:12
DEFENCE LAWYER: There are many key leaders out there, why not accuse them? Release Duch, and allow him to go home.
02:28:20
KULIKAR: What is fairness? Fairness, for me, would be he should be killed the way he killed the prisoners, he should be tortured the way he tortured the prisoner, that would be fair.
02:28:30
TITLE: Kulikar Sotho
KULIKAR: So we are not talking about fair any more, we are talking about acceptable. And acceptable for me, is life sentence.
02:28:36
PROSECUTING LAWYER: We implore you, that you do not come back for a sentence for less than 40 years.
02:28:47
TITLE: 1 year later
02:28:51
TITLE; July 15 2010, Tuol Sleng, day before verdict
02:28:56
SPEAKER: We call on the souls of our beloved brothers and sisters who have died in Tuol Sleng and Cheong Ek after enduring unspeakable atrocities, in the hope that you will finally receive justice.
02:29:21
ROB: I actually feel Kerry's kind of presence actually, I know that sounds a bit odd, but...you know I'd like to think he's here watching us, looking down, saying it's about bloody time. It's about bloody time.
02:29:40
KARIM: Tomorrow will be a test. That old adage, the judges try hard cases, but hard cases also try judges. They have to assess the submissions of the defence and of the prosecution and of the civil parties, and put forward a story that actually will do justice to the people that have suffered, to the people that have lost, and to the people of Cambodia that have waited far too long for anything approaching justice.
02:30:09
TITLE: July 16th 2010, Verdict Day
02:30:26
TITLE: Duch arrives at Court
02:30:44
COURT OFFICIAL The president today declares the judgement of the accused, Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, male, ages 68 years.
02:31:00
COURT OFFICIAL: You are instructed to bring the accused to the dock.
02:31:06
COURT OFFICIAL: The Chamber has found the accused criminally responsible for the following offences: crimes against humanity, murder, extermination, enslavement, imprisonment, torture, including rape, and other inhumane acts perpetrated against at least 12,273 people over a prolonged period.
02:31:41
COURT OFFICIAL: Will the accused Kaing Guek Eav, please rise?
02:31:52
COURT OFFICIAL: The majority of the Chamber sentences Kaing Guek Eav to a single sentence of 35 years of imprisonment.
02:32:06
TITLE: Duch's sentence was reduced to 19 years, due to mitigating circumstances and time served
02:32:42
MEY: I definitely can't accept the verdict. If after 18 or 19 years Duch is released, will we be happy? Will that make us happy? He killed huge numbers of people, can we ever be happy? No, we are not happy.
02:33:07
ALAIN: Yeah, yeah of course yeah. He did eleven years, and then they've taken five years, you have a 35 year sentence, that's down to 19 years. I think that's uh, you know, that's not nothing.
02:33:20
ROB: He could live to be a free man. He's what, 66?
REPORTER: 67.
ROB: 67, so 19 years, 86, that's definitely possible. My father's older than that.
02:33:31
REPORTER: Yeah aside from the tariff and the sentence, symbolically, what does this represent to you after such a long time waiting for it.
02:33:39
ROB: It's a completion of a journey for my brother. Um...it um...you know our family suffered a great deal, and the people of Cambodia suffered enormously, and I only hope this is the first shackle to be broken of the chains that have been holding down this country, this beautiful country, the beautiful people. And um...and it's the process of letting my brother go.
02:34:15
TITLE: Koh Tang Island
02:34:24
ROB: 31 years ago my brother was captured by a Khmer Rouge gunboat. Stuart Glass his Canadian friend was killed at that time, and um, he's out here in these waters somewhere, his remains.
02:34:39
ROB: And uh, Kerry has never returned to us in any form. And um, I want to be able to say goodbye to him, I want to let him go, I want to say farewell. And I think now's the time.
02:33:52
ROB: I was given a special taonga, or treasure, from a friend back in New Zealand. He said you may not want to do anything with it, but then again, you might find the time and the place, where you may want to just do something with it.
02:35:10
ROB: This is a greenstone, it's beautiful stone.
02:35:19
ROB: This is where the horror began.
02:35:25
ROB: To a gorgeous, beautiful brother.
02:35:36
TITLE: Despite Duch saying he is willing to meet with victims' families, he has repeatedly refused Rob's requests. Rob continues his search for Kerry's remains.
02:36:00
ROB: May he rest in peace.
02:36:05
TITLE 1: On February 3, 2012, eleven appeal judges extended Duch’s prison sentence to life.
TITLE 2: Rob has filed as a Civil Party in the second trial against former Khmer Rouge leaders
02:36:13
VOICEOVER: A guilty verdict has been reached in the Duch case. The focus of the ECCC will shift now to Case 002. Four members of Pol Pot's inner circle, Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary, and Ieng Thirith have been indited and face a range of charges including genocide and crimes against humanity.
02:36:35
VOICEOVER: Some of the evidence that came to light in the Duch trial will be instrumental in the prosecution of the former leaders, who, unlike Duch, have so far denied responsibility for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge period.
02:36:52
TITLE: Dedicated to:
John Dewhirst, Stuart Glass, Kerry Hamill and John Hamill,
Miles Hamill (1922-2011), Vann Nath (1946-2011) and Reach Sambath (1964-2011),
and to all the victims of the Khmer Rouge regime who have waited far too long for justice.