The Guardian (UK)
July 24, 2006
Ta Mok, the Khmer Rouge commander whose troops butchered hundreds of thousands on the orders of Pol Pot, died on Friday in a Phnom Penh hospital. A great many Cambodians are angry and frustrated that one more senior leader of that genocidal regime has cheated justice, within a few weeks of judges being sworn in and prosecutors starting their work in the long-awaited Khmer Rouge Tribunal (KRT).
A military doctor said Ta Mok, aged 82, who had fought against the French colonial regime and lost a leg from a landmine in the early 1980s "died of natural causes, given his poor health and respiratory problems". Ta Mok would have been one of the first to be indicted for crimes against humanity.
"It's sad news - it's outrageous," said Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, an independent group researching the Khmer Rouge's crimes. "Some people may be happy with this, but not the victims who have been waiting for justice for a long time."
Pol Pot, the mastermind of the Killing Fields, died in 1997.Other senior leaders who will not face any trial are Son Sen - murdered by Pol Pot in 1997, and Ke Pauk who died of natural causes. The few that are left are all in the seventies or eighties. Increasingly Cambodians fear they too will die, before the agonisingly slow wheels of justice - people have been campaigning for this tribunal since the day Pol Pot was toppled 27 years ago - will finally deliver Asia's first genocide tribunal.
Mok quickly earned a reputation for brutality even before the Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975 as the commander of forces in the south west involved in the 1974 razing of the former royal capital at Oudong, the expulsion of its civilian population and the massacre of officials and government soldiers.
In 1997 Pol Pot had appointed him commander in chief. Prime minister Pol Pot detecting enemies of the revolution everywhere, happily ordered his top general Mok to crush even the smallest sign of dissent and deviation in province after province, bloody purge after bloody purge.
By the time that some dissidents backed by the Vietnamese army liberated Phnom Penh in 1979,nearly 2 million people had perished in the Killing Fields, over a fifth of the population.
In trying to get to grips with the chain of command behind the mass killing Ta Mok would have been a key witness as well as a star defendant given his dual role - attending leadership and policy meetings presided over by Pol Pot, and also tasked with the implementation of Angkar's orders (the top leadership).
Many human rights groups and Cambodian NGOs have voiced anguish and concern over the great loss to the tribunal given that Ta Mok was privy to many regime secrets as well as information about covert support provided for the Khmer Rouge and their allies by western governments.
During the 1980s, the man who struck so much fear and terror in the Cambodian countryside became the de facto ally of governments promoting an insurgent war against the new Cambodian government backed by Vietnamese army - Singapore, Thailand, the US and the UK were all deeply involved while in public professing their disgust for Khmer Rouge barbarism.
Instead of being hunted by Interpol on charges of war crimes and genocide Ta Mok was a welcome guest of the Thai government quietly living in the small town of Khukan about 25 kilometres from the border with Cambodia. During a period of seven years (1982-1990) in partnership with the Thai military, he plotted guerrilla offensives against the far more civilised Heng Samrin government that had replaced the Pol Pot regime in Phnom Penh.
His death may also have spare several western governments, including the UK, much embarrassment. His Cambodian lawyer Benson Samay had predicted the court would hear details of how, between 1985 and 1989, the Special Air Service (SAS) ran a series of training camps for Khmer Rouge allies in Thailand close to the Cambodian border and created a "sabotage battalion" of 250 experts in explosives and ambushes. Intelligence experts in Singapore also ran training courses. Ta Mok had promise to reveal far more about this British complicity, with his lawyer declaring that he would call Margaret Thatcher and Henry Kissinger as defence witnesses.
The Khmer Rouge insurgency continued well into the 1990s. In 1997 Ta Mok had Pol Pot arrested in their last remaining guerrilla base, Anglong Ven, on charges of betraying the movement. He briefly assumed leadership of a fast disintegrating movement. In 1999, under international pressure, he was forced out of his sanctuary in Thailand and arrested on the border by Cambodian government.
Of all the mass murders and crimes against humanity committed in the 20th century, the Cambodian genocide stands out as one of the worst with up to 2 million victims. Why has it taken so long - 27 years - to set up a special Cambodia tribunal?
When it came to Cambodian cries to arrest Pol Pot, Ta Mok and other Khmer Rouge leaders way back in the 1980s, western governments sided with China and opposed attempts to bring the monsters to justice. The Pol Pot guerilla faction - out of power and holding little territory inside the country - continued to enjoy diplomatic recognition and, with US support, held onto the Cambodia seat in the UN General Assembly for another 10 years.
No other genocide tribunal has faced so many enemies, obstacles and obstruction, which has delayed the course of justice for 27 years since the toppling of Pol Pot's regime.
If he had lived just what would Ta Mok have told the tribunal? According to his Cambodian lawyer, Benson Samay, he once claimed the court would hear about how humanitarian supplies for Cambodian refugees in Thailand were diverted to the Khmer Rouge with, he claims, the knowledge of the Americans and the British. The court would also hear, he said, how the diplomatic support offered by London and Washington to the coalition led by the Khmer Rouge was "a great help and morale booster" for Pol Pot's troops.
By not hearing Ta Mok 's tale, the tribunal's ability to comprehend the darkest chapter in Cambodian history has been seriously undermined.
A military doctor said Ta Mok, aged 82, who had fought against the French colonial regime and lost a leg from a landmine in the early 1980s "died of natural causes, given his poor health and respiratory problems". Ta Mok would have been one of the first to be indicted for crimes against humanity.
"It's sad news - it's outrageous," said Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, an independent group researching the Khmer Rouge's crimes. "Some people may be happy with this, but not the victims who have been waiting for justice for a long time."
Pol Pot, the mastermind of the Killing Fields, died in 1997.Other senior leaders who will not face any trial are Son Sen - murdered by Pol Pot in 1997, and Ke Pauk who died of natural causes. The few that are left are all in the seventies or eighties. Increasingly Cambodians fear they too will die, before the agonisingly slow wheels of justice - people have been campaigning for this tribunal since the day Pol Pot was toppled 27 years ago - will finally deliver Asia's first genocide tribunal.
Mok quickly earned a reputation for brutality even before the Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975 as the commander of forces in the south west involved in the 1974 razing of the former royal capital at Oudong, the expulsion of its civilian population and the massacre of officials and government soldiers.
In 1997 Pol Pot had appointed him commander in chief. Prime minister Pol Pot detecting enemies of the revolution everywhere, happily ordered his top general Mok to crush even the smallest sign of dissent and deviation in province after province, bloody purge after bloody purge.
By the time that some dissidents backed by the Vietnamese army liberated Phnom Penh in 1979,nearly 2 million people had perished in the Killing Fields, over a fifth of the population.
In trying to get to grips with the chain of command behind the mass killing Ta Mok would have been a key witness as well as a star defendant given his dual role - attending leadership and policy meetings presided over by Pol Pot, and also tasked with the implementation of Angkar's orders (the top leadership).
Many human rights groups and Cambodian NGOs have voiced anguish and concern over the great loss to the tribunal given that Ta Mok was privy to many regime secrets as well as information about covert support provided for the Khmer Rouge and their allies by western governments.
During the 1980s, the man who struck so much fear and terror in the Cambodian countryside became the de facto ally of governments promoting an insurgent war against the new Cambodian government backed by Vietnamese army - Singapore, Thailand, the US and the UK were all deeply involved while in public professing their disgust for Khmer Rouge barbarism.
Instead of being hunted by Interpol on charges of war crimes and genocide Ta Mok was a welcome guest of the Thai government quietly living in the small town of Khukan about 25 kilometres from the border with Cambodia. During a period of seven years (1982-1990) in partnership with the Thai military, he plotted guerrilla offensives against the far more civilised Heng Samrin government that had replaced the Pol Pot regime in Phnom Penh.
His death may also have spare several western governments, including the UK, much embarrassment. His Cambodian lawyer Benson Samay had predicted the court would hear details of how, between 1985 and 1989, the Special Air Service (SAS) ran a series of training camps for Khmer Rouge allies in Thailand close to the Cambodian border and created a "sabotage battalion" of 250 experts in explosives and ambushes. Intelligence experts in Singapore also ran training courses. Ta Mok had promise to reveal far more about this British complicity, with his lawyer declaring that he would call Margaret Thatcher and Henry Kissinger as defence witnesses.
The Khmer Rouge insurgency continued well into the 1990s. In 1997 Ta Mok had Pol Pot arrested in their last remaining guerrilla base, Anglong Ven, on charges of betraying the movement. He briefly assumed leadership of a fast disintegrating movement. In 1999, under international pressure, he was forced out of his sanctuary in Thailand and arrested on the border by Cambodian government.
Of all the mass murders and crimes against humanity committed in the 20th century, the Cambodian genocide stands out as one of the worst with up to 2 million victims. Why has it taken so long - 27 years - to set up a special Cambodia tribunal?
When it came to Cambodian cries to arrest Pol Pot, Ta Mok and other Khmer Rouge leaders way back in the 1980s, western governments sided with China and opposed attempts to bring the monsters to justice. The Pol Pot guerilla faction - out of power and holding little territory inside the country - continued to enjoy diplomatic recognition and, with US support, held onto the Cambodia seat in the UN General Assembly for another 10 years.
No other genocide tribunal has faced so many enemies, obstacles and obstruction, which has delayed the course of justice for 27 years since the toppling of Pol Pot's regime.
If he had lived just what would Ta Mok have told the tribunal? According to his Cambodian lawyer, Benson Samay, he once claimed the court would hear about how humanitarian supplies for Cambodian refugees in Thailand were diverted to the Khmer Rouge with, he claims, the knowledge of the Americans and the British. The court would also hear, he said, how the diplomatic support offered by London and Washington to the coalition led by the Khmer Rouge was "a great help and morale booster" for Pol Pot's troops.
By not hearing Ta Mok 's tale, the tribunal's ability to comprehend the darkest chapter in Cambodian history has been seriously undermined.
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