News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: Mass Grave in Cambodia Found - American Remains Suspected

Date: June 02, 2000

It was called Tuol Sleng or Security Office 21(S21) of the Central Committee Security Office, but it may just as well have been called the Auschwitz of the East. A filthy, rundown colonial style building in Phnom Penh that was the main torture and execution center for the 'important prisoners' of th bloodthirsty Khmers Rouge and the maniacal Pol Pot.

More than 20,000 people were slaughtered there in ways that are reminiscent of Unit 731 and the Angel of Death's twisted concept of how to destroy a human being. The world was largely unaware of the existence of Tuol Sleng until Vietnamese troops stormed the recently abandoned building in 1979 and found a treasure trove of meticulously kept records of the atrocities committed there. The cadre at Tuol Sleng had maintained a horrific record of their atrocities... names, numbers of victims, identification numbers, photographs before, during and after execution, and summaries of the day's activities. If one looks at the photos of those who suffered through Tuol Sleng, one will find pages of photos of young girls... so much for 'important or high-ranking prisoners.' Only seven survivors are known to have survived the horrors of Tuol Sleng, all of them sculptors who were forced to produce busts of Pol Pot. Lower classed prisoners were taken to The Killing Fields and simply butchered where they stood or worked and starved to death.

Twenty-five years after the carnage ended, a 72-year old Cambodian man,Ai Siphal, has stumbled upon what appears to be a small common grave for some of the victims of Tuol Sleng. In an attempt to repair his house, he dug up a tree and when the roots came up found a cache of skulls and bones. Members of the Documentation Center of Cambodia state roughly a dozen or so victims may be buried in the grave... along with the larger bones of a Westerner, belived to be American Michael Scott Deeds, who was sailing off the coast of Cambodia in 1978, captured, taken to Tuol Sleng 26 NOV 78, tortured and murdered. The believed to be Western remains will be flown to CIL-HI for testing and possible identification. One of a handful of Tuol Sleng survivors recounted how Deeds, from Long Beach, California, was buried on the grounds of the prison just days before the Vietnamese invaded the region and found the despicable place. That makes captured in 1978 and murdered in 1979, and interminable period of time to be held by the Khmers Rouge. Deeds' brother traveled to Tuol Sleng in 1989 and also found remains on the grounds of the killing center, but was unable to make an identification. It is not the first time that Ai Siphal has found remains either. After being driven from his home to the countryside in 1975, he returned in 1980 and found remains, which were blessed by Buddhist Monks. Although there are no plans to excavate the immediate area of land, Siphal has stated he would welcome any excavations.

Of the dozen or so western nationalst ortured and murdered in Tuol Sleng, all were accused of being Spies. The documentation database for Tuol Sleng reports the following for Michael Scott Deeds -

CTS, CBIO and CBIB Database
B14015: Michael Scott Deeds

Name (a01) [020] Michael Scott Deeds (source: CU-TS)
Record ID [010] B14015
Gender [060] Male (source: CU-TS)
Birth Date [080] age: 29 (source: CU-TS)
Organisational Unit 1975-1979 [300] Spy (source: CU-TS)
Rank or Position 1975-1979 [325] Spy of American ( Haway ) (source: CU-TS)
Prison History [450] S-21, Phnom Penh, Entered: 26.11.78 (source: CU-TS)
Sources [500] Tuol Sleng Catalogue of Confessions (Cornell University) (CU-TS), doc. no.: M (no. sec.: 2, no. pgs.: 21, condition: C, filmed: 9.3.93 , film ref: 185.56)

AND

D00038: Report on excavation of American corpse graves
Title (a01) [200] Report on excavation of American corpse graves
Summary/Allegations [330] Michael Scott Deeds was killed in Tuol Sleng prison.
Record ID [001] D00038
Language [101] Item is in original language: in Cambodian
Country [102] Cambodia
Time period [122] d1975, d1979
Physical Description [215] 2 p.
Note (Edition and Bibliographic History) [305] Phnom Penh, Department of Ancient Temples, Conservation, Museums and Tourism
Note (Intellectual Responsibility) [314] Signed by Chey Sopheara
Note (Copy being catalogued) [316] typescript - photocopy
Note (Source/Provenance) [317] Tuol Sleng
Geographic Area [660] a-cb-pp
Intellectual Responsibility - Personal Name (Alternative) [701] Chey Sopheara
Intellectual Responsibility - Corporate Name [710] Cambodia, Department of Ancient Temples, Museums and Tourism
Cataloguing Agency [801] Cambodia, Documentation Centre Cambodia, PP, 1995
Cataloguing Agency [801] Cambodia, Documentation Centre Cambodia, PP, 1996
Current Place Codes/Names [940] Gazetteer Number: 12, Province: Phnom Penh
DK Zone Codes/Names [942] Zone Name or Compass Point: Center
Holdings [990] Cambodia, Documentation Centre Cambodia, PP, Document No. 38
Holdings [990] Cambodia, TS

The February 1980 DOD list of American citizens and military personnel detained, captured, missing, lost and imprisoned lists 155 Americans confined or killed in Vietnam, Cambodia or Thailand between May 1973 and May 1979. The list includes the Mayaguez incident.

To read further on Tuol Sleng and the Documentation Center of Cambodia, please go to - Warning - Graphic and Distrubing Images

The Documentation Centre of Cambodia - http://www.yale.edu/cgp/

Cambodian Tuol Sleng Prison Museum - http://www.cambodia-web.net/camtourist/toulsleng/

Tuol Sleng Prison - 1975 to 1979 - http://www.rainbowimages.com/killing_fields_cambodia_1.html

The Artists of Tuol Sleng Prisone - http://www.en.com/khmer/tuolsl.htm

Tuol Sleng Confessions and Photographs Archive - http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/eguides/manuscripts/4883.html

The Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project - http://www.dithpran.org/

The Cambodian Genocide Programme - http://www.yale.edu/cgp/

The Killing Fields - http://www.thekillingfields.cjb.net/