The ''Santebal'' (, ; meaning "keeper of peace") was the secret police of the

Khmer Rouge The Khmer Rouge is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), and by extension to Democratic Kampuchea, which ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. The name was coined in the 1960s by Norodom Sihano ...

Democratic Kampuchea Democratic Kampuchea was the official name of the Cambodian state from 1976 to 1979, under the government of Pol Pot and the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), commonly known as the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge's capture of the capital Phno ...

(DK) regime in

Cambodia Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline ...

. The Santebal was in charge of counterintelligence, internal security, and running prison camps like Tuol Sleng (S-21) where thousands of people were imprisoned, interrogated, tortured and executed. It was part of the Khmer Rouge organizational structure well before the Fall of Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975. Its name is an amalgam of two words: ''sântĕsŏkh'' ( ) meaning "security" and ''nôkôrôbal'' ( ) meaning "police".

History

As early as 1971, the

or the

Communist Party of Kampuchea The Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), also known as the Khmer Communist Party,
Country Data. . was a

established the Special Zone outside of

Phnom Penh Phnom Penh is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Cambodia, most populous city of Cambodia. It has been the national capital since 1865 and has grown to become the nation's primate city and its political, economic, industr ...

under the direction of

Vorn Vet Vorn Vet (; 1929–1978), born Sok Thuok (), was a Cambodian politician who served as deputy prime minister for the economy of Democratic Kampuchea. He was responsible for appointing Kang Kek Iew to his position as head of Special Security. ...

and Son Sen. Sen, later the Deputy Minister for Defense of

, was also in charge of the Santebal, and in that capacity he appointed Comrade Duch to run its security apparatus. Most of the Santebal's deputies, such as Comrade Chan and Comrade Pon (Chan's deputy), hailed from Kampong Thom, Duch's home province. When the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975, Duch moved his headquarters to Phnom Penh and reported directly to Sen. At that time, a small chapel in the capital was used to incarcerate the regime's prisoners, who totaled fewer than two hundred. In May 1976, Duch moved his headquarters to its final location, a former high school known as Tuol Sleng, which could hold up to 1,500 prisoners. It was at Tuol Sleng that the major purges of the Khmer Rouge cadres took place and thousands of prisoners were tortured and killed. Between 1976 and 1978, 20,000 Cambodians were imprisoned at Tuol Sleng. Of this number only seven adults are known to have survived. However, Tuol Sleng was only one of at least 150 execution centres in the country.Locard, Henri
State Violence in Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979) and Retribution (1979-2004)
, ''European Review of History'', Vol. 12, No. 1, March 2005, pp.121–143.

References

* * {{Authority control Khmer Rouge Law enforcement in communist states Defunct intelligence agencies Secret police Law enforcement in Cambodia 1979 disestablishments in Cambodia Democratic Kampuchea