NEWS & LETTERS, April - May 2009
World in View
Khmer Rouge trials after 30 years
by Gerry Emmett
Thirty years after the fall of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, joint UN/Cambodian trials of a few Khmer Rouge leaders have finally begun in Phnom Penh. The scope is limited, with chief torturer Duch (Kaing Guek Eav) currently facing charges. He was in charge of S-21 prison, where more than 14,000 alleged "enemies of the revolution" were murdered. Others facing trial are the regime's ex-president Khieu Samphan; Ieng Sary, its foreign minister, and his wife; and "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea.
"Brother Number One" Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge leader, died in captivity in 1998 after factional fighting within the group. They had become isolated after the U.S. and China withdrew support for their guerrilla war, and the royalists they had allied with deserted them to make a deal with the current government.
Cambodia's premier, Hun Sen, has warned that any wider trials could reignite civil war in the country. Hun Sen himself was a Khmer Rouge commander who defected to Vietnam in 1977, two years before Vietnamese forces overthrew Pol Pot's regime. They then installed a new government made up largely of mid-level Khmer Rouge cadres. Hun Sen became premier in 1985.
Anlong Veng in northern Cambodia was the last area the Khmer Rouge retained control of in 1998, and they are still in charge of the government there today. Some run profitable businesses and own large properties. Historian David Chandler described the deal they made with the government: "They have to behave to a certain extent but Hun Sen is not going to mess with them too much. I don't think these are dedicated left-wing thinkers or performers. I think they abandoned that and got into the money and the patronage situation and are perfectly happy."
Hun Sen stated recently, "If as many as 20 Khmer Rouge are indicted to stand trial and war returns to Cambodia, who will be responsible for that?" Many Cambodian human rights activists disagree, holding that the estimated 1.7 million victims of Khmer Rouge brutality are deserving of justice. Until recently, the Cambodian government has not even treated them as deserving of memory—the history of the Khmer Rouge genocide is not taught in the state schools.
The population of Cambodia today includes a majority of young people who did not experience the Khmer Rouge brutalities, but have grown up hearing about them at home, like a dark folklore. Hun Sen may not want to take any responsibility for the deaths of 1.7 million victims, but neither should he be able to bury them a second time for his own "good cause."
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