Since the fall of the Third Reich the world has known some very nasty regimes, but probably the nastiest of them all was the Khmer Rouge, in Kampuchea (now Cambodia). Under the leadership of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge, with their particular brand of communism, killed one or two million people, either directly through execution or indirectly through disease and malnourishment.
Kang Kek Iew, aka Comrade Duch, who has just been sentenced to thirty-fives imprisonment by the Cambodia Tribunal, was in charge of the Khmer Rouge’s prisons, and one of the prisons he ran was Tuol Sleng, which in Cambodian means ‘hill of the poisonous tree’. About seventeen thousand inmates passed through its system of torture and execution, and as few as twelve survived. That’s twelve, 12.
Under these circumstances, one would imagine that Kang Kek Iew was a criminal psychopath, end of story. However it’s more complicated than that. At school he was a star pupil, and he was particularly good at mathematics. On graduating from college he became a maths teacher, and apparently he was a great teacher. Yet he was also a communist, and in the late 1960s he himself was imprisoned and tortured. So what happened?
One way of understanding Kang Kek Iew is to look at his horoscope. He was born on November 17 1942, which makes him a Scorpio. Although Scorpio has a scary reputation, in practice I don’t particularly associate this sign with mass murder. I know Charles Manson is a Scorpio, but in terms of politicians and government officials with murderous reputations, it doesn’t figure very highly. At the Nuremberg Trials, after the fall of Nazi Germany, only two Scorpios stood trial. One was acquitted (Franz von Papen) and one was hanged (Fritz Sauckel).
One thing that’s often said about Scorpio is that it’s a very passionate sign. There are things it really believes in, and at the same time Scorpios can be extremely loyal. One of the reasons that Kang Kek Iew got heavily involved with the Khmer Rouge was that some of his students got arrested. I can understand that if you’re a devoted teacher, and your pupils are victims of injustice, you might get upset, especially if you’re a Scorpio.
Looking more closely at Kang Kek Iew’s horoscope, and we notice that he has four planets in Scorpio – the Sun, Mercury, Venus and Mars. This concentration makes him very focused, and is perhaps also linked with his prowess at mathematics. With his piercing Scorpio intellect, he can get to the bottom of the most difficult problems.
However all these planets in Scorpio can create a certain narrow-mindedness. Focusing on one thing to the exclusion of all else, and at the same time holding on to the past. I would guess that his time in prison must have had a profound impact on him, and in some respects it might have scarred him psychologically. He came out of prison with a single goal, that cancelled out ordinary considerations of human decency.
It’s additionally worth noting that Kang Kek Iew has the Moon in Pisces. Pisces can go with the flow, without thinking too much about what it’s doing. So when the Khmer Rouge came to power, it was easy for him to get caught up with what the regime was doing.
Having said all this, the strongest planet in his horoscope is probably Jupiter – it’s in Cancer, the sign of its exaltation, in mutual reception by sign to the Moon, and it’s making a favourable aspect to his Scorpio Sun. People with strong Jupiters can be very ideological. They decide that a belief-system is right, and they go with it, regardless of the consequences.
Jupiter can also be very religious, and in the 1990s Kang Kek Iew converted to Christianity.
According to Christopher LaPel, the man who baptised him, as quoted in Time Asia:
He changed totally after receiving Christ–180 degrees… He turned from hatred to love. He said he had never felt love in his childhood or when he grew up. So when he turned to Christ, love filled his heart.
It’s easy to be cynical in the face of his crimes, but one has to remember that Kang Kek Iew has four planets in Scorpio. In astrology Scorpio is about life, death and transformation – and also about redemption.
I should also say that he was not doomed by his horoscope to be a mass murderer. He had a choice, though it would have helped if he had been born in a different place. And perhaps someone should make a film about Comrade Duch, to explore these issues? For example Martin Scorcese, who shares his exact birth date, November 17 1942.
Copyright © 2010 Archie Dunlop
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