Survivor paints nightmare image of Pol Pot's reign (8/10/1997)

[Sitha Hem]

> rr Artist Vann Nath, a survivor of Pol Pot's rule,
> stayed alive because of his talent: Prison officials
> spared him from execution and forced him to paint
> Pol Pot's portrait, over and over. ``I know Pol Pot
> better than anyone,'' he said.
>
> Survivor paints nightmare image of Pol Pot's reign
>
> BY MAGGIE FARLEY
> Los Angeles Times
>
> PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- As much as he would like to,
> artist Vann Nath can't forget the face of Pol Pot,
> the Cambodian leader under whose capricious rule he
> was tortured and almost killed.
>
> That's because Pol Pot's face saved his life.
>
> Vann Nath was due to be sent to Cambodia's ``killing
> fields'' along with nearly 20,000 others who were
> held at Tuol Sleng Prison during the Khmer Rouge
> leader's reign of terror two decades ago. But then,
> unexpectedly, he was spared to paint Pol Pot's
> portrait.
>
> When the despot's rule ended in 1979, Vann Nath was
> one of only seven prisoners still alive.
>
> Two weeks ago, for the first time in the 18 years
> since the elusive Khmer Rouge leader disappeared
> into Cambodia's jungles, Pol Pot was spotted by
> outsiders in his jungle camp -- deposed, ailing and
> sentenced to life imprisonment by his former
> comrades.
>
> Although Pol Pot left behind voluminous files
> documenting the policies that left more than 1
> million Cambodians dead from starvation, illness or
> execution, few witnesses remain to testify against
> him, should the chance arise.
>
> Vann Nath is one.
>
> ``I know Pol Pot better than anyone,'' said Vann
> Nath, 52, now lean and white-haired, sitting in his
> Phnom Penh home. ``I know this man through his
> face.''
>
> In 1978, Vann Nath was caught in a wave of arrests
> of people considered to be enemies of Pol Pot's
> radical movement to turn Cambodia into an
> agricultural utopia.
>
> Vann Nath says he doesn't know what crime he is
> supposed to have committed. ``They arrested nearly
> everyone in my village,'' he said, shrugging.
>
> He was brought to a Phnom Penh school compound
> converted into a prison, where he was shackled to
> the floor of a cell, in a row with dozens of others,
> and fed a few spoons of rice each day. Each prisoner
> was forced to write a ``confession,'' admitting
> treason and naming others, who in turn were
> arrested. Nearly every prisoner was executed, under
> direct orders from Pol Pot.
>
> One day, he said, guards asked for ``the painter.''
> They showed him a picture of Pol Pot and asked if he
> could paint the leader's portrait.
>
> ``I was not really sure what I should say,'' Vann
> Nath recalled. ``I said, `Right now, I can't even
> stand.' ''
>
> From then on, he received enough sustenance to
> paint. Every day, from sunrise until midnight, he
> would work on head-and-shoulders oil paintings of
> Pol Pot -- ``the same portrait, over and over
> again,'' he said, until December 1978, when
> Vietnamese soldiers invaded, driving Pol Pot into
> the jungle. Vann Nath and six others escaped.
>
> The prison where he lived has become the Genocide
> Museum. Its walls are covered with black-and-white
> photos -- thousands of men, women and children about
> to die. In Pol Pot's meticulous bureaucracy, each
> was photographed with a number, the tag sometimes
> safety-pinned into their skin. More than 4,000
> written ``confessions'' record everyday acts
> considered capital crimes in those paranoid times:
> hoarding rice, criticizing neighbors, going out for
> a drink.
>
> In the museum, too, hang Vann Nath's testimony,
> paintings he has made of acts he saw or heard
> described in prison: electric shock treatment, water
> torture, a naked man trussed on a pole like an
> animal carried to slaughter.
>
> And there is a haunting self-portrait of Vann Nath,
> bearded, emaciated and despairing in his tiny cell.
> ``I was just a body then,'' he said. ``My spirit had
> gone out.''