Noun Chea, second in command under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge searches for news broadcasts during an interview with The Associated Press Monday, July 3, 2006, at his home near Pailin, Cambodia, along the Thai-Cambodian border. Judges for the upcoming United Nations trials of former Khmer Rouge leaders are to be sworn in later in the day in Phnom Penh. He said that he welcomes the trials and hopes the judges would keep to their oath of office. (AP Photo/David Longstreath)03 July 2006
By Jérôme Boruszewski reporting from Cambodia
20minutes.fr (France)
Translated from French by KI-Media
Judges in charge of judging the former Khmer Rouge leaders were sworn in yesterday. However, this process which is supposed to allow the Cambodian nation to rebuild itself, does not find much interest.
“I’ve heard that they are opening a tribunal to condemn the former Khmer Rouge leaders. I’m not interested in it. They have dragged too long to judge these people.” Sok Sem, a former Khmer Rouge from Pailin, a small city along the western side of Cambodia, knows that he will not appear in front of the international justice. The court case will only judge the most important leaders of the Pol Pot regime. Sok Sem was just a low ranking soldier. He stepped on a landmine. He lost a leg. Today, in the noisy and dusty café of Pailin, an inhospitable city which served as the former stronghold for the Khmer Rouge, TV sometimes broadcast information on the tribunal. Sok Sem no longer listens to it.
27 years after the fall of the bloody Pol Pot regime, justice is not yet rendered. Historians estimated that Khmer Rouge crimes caused the death of almost 2 million people between 1975 and 1979, approximately a quarter of the then population. Shortly after the takeover of Phnom Penh [in 1975], inhabitants of the capital were deported to the four corners of the country to work. The intellectual elites were massacred. Schools were closed. Money and laws were abolished. Nevertheless, the majority of the former communist leaders never had to explain themselves in front of a tribunal. Some are leading a quiet life in Pailin.
The court case arrives late. It is expensive. With the $56.3 million of expense planned, the numerous former Khmer Rouge in Pailin – now becoming not too fortunate farmers like Sok Sem – would prefer seeing the building of schools and roads. May Sarat, a former communist combatant, would love to see this amount of money spent to fight the corruption which is rotting his region. Thong Thon, a former officer of the communist army in Pailin, find the cost too high just to recall a hurtful past and “to establish historical documents.”
Public polls have been conducted to learn if Cambodian people support this court case. The results are mixed. It does not show an exuberant enthusiasm. In the countryside, eating, working, having a roof, are more urgent concerns than judging political leaders from 30-year past.
The news media mirrors this lack of interest. “It only reports the evolution of the process leading the formation of the tribunal. Beyond these factual aspects, there is nothing much, no articles investigating this period of history,” Pierre Gillette, the editor-in-chief of the daily French newspaper Cambodge Soir, analyzed. “I could not say that the court case started because people wish for it,” he concluded. The tribunal should allow Cambodian to rebuild a better future. It will be difficult if it is not supported and encouraged by a large popular mass support.
“I’ve heard that they are opening a tribunal to condemn the former Khmer Rouge leaders. I’m not interested in it. They have dragged too long to judge these people.” Sok Sem, a former Khmer Rouge from Pailin, a small city along the western side of Cambodia, knows that he will not appear in front of the international justice. The court case will only judge the most important leaders of the Pol Pot regime. Sok Sem was just a low ranking soldier. He stepped on a landmine. He lost a leg. Today, in the noisy and dusty café of Pailin, an inhospitable city which served as the former stronghold for the Khmer Rouge, TV sometimes broadcast information on the tribunal. Sok Sem no longer listens to it.
27 years after the fall of the bloody Pol Pot regime, justice is not yet rendered. Historians estimated that Khmer Rouge crimes caused the death of almost 2 million people between 1975 and 1979, approximately a quarter of the then population. Shortly after the takeover of Phnom Penh [in 1975], inhabitants of the capital were deported to the four corners of the country to work. The intellectual elites were massacred. Schools were closed. Money and laws were abolished. Nevertheless, the majority of the former communist leaders never had to explain themselves in front of a tribunal. Some are leading a quiet life in Pailin.
The court case arrives late. It is expensive. With the $56.3 million of expense planned, the numerous former Khmer Rouge in Pailin – now becoming not too fortunate farmers like Sok Sem – would prefer seeing the building of schools and roads. May Sarat, a former communist combatant, would love to see this amount of money spent to fight the corruption which is rotting his region. Thong Thon, a former officer of the communist army in Pailin, find the cost too high just to recall a hurtful past and “to establish historical documents.”
Public polls have been conducted to learn if Cambodian people support this court case. The results are mixed. It does not show an exuberant enthusiasm. In the countryside, eating, working, having a roof, are more urgent concerns than judging political leaders from 30-year past.
The news media mirrors this lack of interest. “It only reports the evolution of the process leading the formation of the tribunal. Beyond these factual aspects, there is nothing much, no articles investigating this period of history,” Pierre Gillette, the editor-in-chief of the daily French newspaper Cambodge Soir, analyzed. “I could not say that the court case started because people wish for it,” he concluded. The tribunal should allow Cambodian to rebuild a better future. It will be difficult if it is not supported and encouraged by a large popular mass support.
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