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After years of frustrating delay, the first of Pol Pot's henchmen
is charged
Death allowed Pol Pot and his military chief, Ta Mok, to cheat
earthly justice for the enormities of their Khmer Rouge regime. But
at last there seems, after years of delay, a real prospect of
bringing to trial ageing survivors from the ghastly regime's top
ranks. On July 31st judges at a United Nations-backed tribunal in
Phnom Penh brought the first charges, of crimes against humanity,
against Kang Kek Ieu, alias Duch, who ran Tuol Sleng, the regime's
interrogation and torture centre in Cambodia's capital.
True to the stereotype of the coldly meticulous death-camp
guard, Duch is said to have kept detailed notes of his work, which
may now be used as evidence. Just as predictably, the defendant,
now in his sixties and a born-again Christian, insists he was
simply obeying orders. Prosecutors hope charges will also soon be
brought against four other Khmer Rouge
Some Khmer Rouge figures have been living in tranquil liberty
since reaching an accord in the 1990s with Hun Sen, Cambodia's
long-serving prime minister. He was himself a lesser figure in the
Khmers Rouges. But there is not thought to be any evidence linking
him to the crimes of their 1975-78 reign of terror, when perhaps a
quarter of the country's people were either slaughtered or died of
starvation or exhaustion. The prime minister rejects accusations of
obstructing the tribunal, and insists he is keen for the trials to
go ahead.
Ten years have passed since Cambodia first asked the UN for help
in creating a special court. In 2003, after years of haggling over
how much control the UN would have over it, agreement was reached
to create an unusual hybrid. Unlike previous tribunals, such as
those for Sierra Leone and the former Yugoslavia, the
“Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia” has
a majority of local judges. The judges and prosecutors were sworn
in last year, but there ensued months of arguing over such things
as court procedures and the swingeing fees that Cambodia's Bar
Association wanted to charge foreign lawyers taking part in the
proceedings.
The prosecutors have compiled thousands of pages of evidence
including statements from hundreds of witnesses. They are expected
to argue that the Khmers Rouges' mass slaughter amounted to
genocide—and indeed the Cambodian government uses Tuol Sleng,
now a grisly tourist attraction, as a “genocide
museum”. But this will prove contentious, since the regime's
fanatical Maoists mostly killed members of their own race. If
nothing else goes wrong, trials could begin next year. But if they
drag on or prove unexpectedly complex, the tribunal's $56m budget
may prove insufficient, prompting further rows over money and
perhaps yet more delays in bringing justice to the few senior
members of the regime still alive.
Source: The
Economist
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