By SOPHENG CHEANG,
Associated Press Writer
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - The bones of victims from the Khmer Rouge's notorious "killing fields" should be preserved because they could serve as critical evidence in upcoming genocide trials, Cambodia's prime minister said Monday.
Human remains, particularly skulls, serve as the centerpieces of several memorials to the victims of the Khmer Rouge, who were responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians from starvation, overwork, medical neglect and execution when the communist group held power from 1975-79.
No Khmer Rouge leader has ever been tried for the atrocities. Last year, Cambodia and the United Nations jointly created a tribunal expected to try them for genocide and crimes against humanity, but it is not clear yet when the trials will be convened.
The top Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998, and Ta Mok, the Khmer Rouge army chief, died last July while in detention pending trial by a joint Cambodia-United Nations special tribunal.
Only one top member of the defunct communist movement is in jail awaiting trial: Kaing Khek Iev, also known as Duch, who headed the notorious S-21 torture center in the capital, Phnom Penh.
Likely targets for prosecution, all old and suffering poor health, include the regime's figurehead president, Khieu Samphan; its foreign minister, Ieng Sary, and its chief ideologue, Nuon Chea. All live freely in Cambodia.
"The remains are the evidence of the crime of genocide. If they disappear, it would be difficult to try former Khmer Rouge leaders," said Prime Minister Hun Sen.
He also renewed his objection to suggestions by the country's former king, who lost many family members to the Khmer Rouge killings, that the remains be cremated according to the country's Buddhist traditions.
Hun Sen spoke Monday at a ceremony marking the start of repairs to the road linking the capital Phnom Penh to Choeung Ek, a former Khmer Rouge mass grave site about seven miles to the south.
Choeung Ek, now a grim tourist attraction, was where most of the prisoners tortured at the Khmer Rouge's S-21 prison were taken to be killed. The prison is now the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.
Nuon Chea last month alleged that photographs showing the skulls of people killed by the group were fakes, doctored using modern, high-tech retouching techniques.
The comments, made in an interview with the biweekly English-language Phnom Penh Post newspaper, were the latest in a long series of denials by former Khmer Rouge leaders that they were involved in any atrocities.
Hun Sen challenged the comments. "How could those skulls be artificial when they (Khmer Rouge) killed so many people?" he asked. "Those skulls at Choeung Ek and other places across Cambodia are not artificial."
Human remains, particularly skulls, serve as the centerpieces of several memorials to the victims of the Khmer Rouge, who were responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians from starvation, overwork, medical neglect and execution when the communist group held power from 1975-79.
No Khmer Rouge leader has ever been tried for the atrocities. Last year, Cambodia and the United Nations jointly created a tribunal expected to try them for genocide and crimes against humanity, but it is not clear yet when the trials will be convened.
The top Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998, and Ta Mok, the Khmer Rouge army chief, died last July while in detention pending trial by a joint Cambodia-United Nations special tribunal.
Only one top member of the defunct communist movement is in jail awaiting trial: Kaing Khek Iev, also known as Duch, who headed the notorious S-21 torture center in the capital, Phnom Penh.
Likely targets for prosecution, all old and suffering poor health, include the regime's figurehead president, Khieu Samphan; its foreign minister, Ieng Sary, and its chief ideologue, Nuon Chea. All live freely in Cambodia.
"The remains are the evidence of the crime of genocide. If they disappear, it would be difficult to try former Khmer Rouge leaders," said Prime Minister Hun Sen.
He also renewed his objection to suggestions by the country's former king, who lost many family members to the Khmer Rouge killings, that the remains be cremated according to the country's Buddhist traditions.
Hun Sen spoke Monday at a ceremony marking the start of repairs to the road linking the capital Phnom Penh to Choeung Ek, a former Khmer Rouge mass grave site about seven miles to the south.
Choeung Ek, now a grim tourist attraction, was where most of the prisoners tortured at the Khmer Rouge's S-21 prison were taken to be killed. The prison is now the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.
Nuon Chea last month alleged that photographs showing the skulls of people killed by the group were fakes, doctored using modern, high-tech retouching techniques.
The comments, made in an interview with the biweekly English-language Phnom Penh Post newspaper, were the latest in a long series of denials by former Khmer Rouge leaders that they were involved in any atrocities.
Hun Sen challenged the comments. "How could those skulls be artificial when they (Khmer Rouge) killed so many people?" he asked. "Those skulls at Choeung Ek and other places across Cambodia are not artificial."
1 comment:
Your skull should be hanged there too sometime in the future. You know that you khmer rouge hun sen?
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