By MICHAEL ZITZ
The Free Lance Star (Fredericksburg, Virginia, USA)
"I think it's about time the most murderous ideology in history was put on trial ... Many people think Naziism was the worst. Not even close. Communism has been far more deadly." - Prof. Gregory H. Stanton, University of Mary Washington
The late Pol Pot escaped University of Mary Washington professor's three-decade-long effort to establish the Cambodian Khmer Rouge Tribunal. But now it could finally bring closure after decades after 1970s genocide.
Twenty-seven years ago, upon hearing horrifying tales of genocide in Cambodia, Gregory H. Stanton made it his mission in life to bring the infamous Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge leaders to justice.
Now, the University of Mary Washington professor has seen his years of effort rewarded with the recent establishment of a tribunal that is expected to put about 10 former leaders of the Communist regime on trial early next year.
The Khmer Rouge is believed to have killed about 2 million of Cambodia's 7 million citizens from 1975-79 before being driven out of power by a Vietnamese invasion.
Although the protracted effort to establish the tribunal allowed infamous leader Pol Pot to die in 1998 without being brought to justice, Stanton said he's not frustrated.
"There are so many Khmer Rouge leaders still alive--a number still in their 70s and quite capable of being put on trial," said Stanton, who spent two weeks in Cambodia earlier this month helping the tribunal navigate the difficult process of setting up rules.
In addition to being the James Farmer Professor in Human Rights at UMW, Stanton is also the president and founder of the Washington-based group Genocide Watch. He is also director of the Cambodian Genocide Project and founder and chairman of the International Campaign to End Genocide.
The 60-year-old McLean resident has family connections to suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her husband, slavery abolitionist Henry Brewster Stanton. His personal efforts on behalf of human rights began in the 1960s as a voting-rights worker in Mississippi.
Stanton served as Church World Service/CARE field director in Cambodia in 1980, where he heard the details of atrocities and saw mass graves firsthand.
The former law professor at Washington and Lee and American universities and the University of Swaziland was so determined to see the Khmer Rouge brought to justice he joined the U.S. State Department to push for a tribunal.
Early efforts to bring Khmer Rouge to justice bogged down in "Cold War" tensions between the United States and Soviet Union, he said. Until the Soviet Union dissolved, Stanton said, the U.S. State Department viewed going after the Khmer Rouge as indirect support of the communist government in Vietnam.
Vietnamese leaders supported Cambodian politicians opposed to the Khmer Rouge. U.S. officials, he said, saw Vietnam as a proxy for the Soviets.
In order to effect change in American foreign policy, he joined the State Department from 1992-1999, becoming part of a group of diplomatic officers pressing for justice in Cambodia and working to fund a tribunal.
"We overcame a lot of resistance within," he said proudly.
Stanton said the group--which called itself "The Pol Pot Posse"--gained supporters in David J. Scheffer, ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, and Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. He also found an ally in noted Cambodian genocide scholar Ben Kiernan.
Stanton wrote the State Department options paper that outlined measures to bring the Khmer Rouge to trial.
In recent years, he has been legal adviser to the task force that created the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. He drafted its rules of procedure and evidence, which he expects to clear the final hurdle to formal adoption by May.
He said there are three reasons the tribunal's work will be important.
For one, it will result in adding the first-ever reference to the genocide in Cambodian secondary-school history books through "an organized presentation of the facts and who's responsible."
"The final stage of every genocide is denial," Stanton said.
Second, it will bring closure to the survivors of those killed.
"It's important for relatives of the victims to know why this happened," Stanton said. "They want to understand it."
Finally, he said, for the first time, "communist leaders who have always gotten away with mass murder," killing over 100 million people around the world, are facing a day of reckoning.
"I think it's about time the most murderous ideology in history was put on trial," he said. "Many people think Naziism was the worst. Not even close. Communism has been far more deadly."
Michael Zitz: 540/374-5408
Email: mikez@freelancestar.com
Twenty-seven years ago, upon hearing horrifying tales of genocide in Cambodia, Gregory H. Stanton made it his mission in life to bring the infamous Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge leaders to justice.
Now, the University of Mary Washington professor has seen his years of effort rewarded with the recent establishment of a tribunal that is expected to put about 10 former leaders of the Communist regime on trial early next year.
The Khmer Rouge is believed to have killed about 2 million of Cambodia's 7 million citizens from 1975-79 before being driven out of power by a Vietnamese invasion.
Although the protracted effort to establish the tribunal allowed infamous leader Pol Pot to die in 1998 without being brought to justice, Stanton said he's not frustrated.
"There are so many Khmer Rouge leaders still alive--a number still in their 70s and quite capable of being put on trial," said Stanton, who spent two weeks in Cambodia earlier this month helping the tribunal navigate the difficult process of setting up rules.
In addition to being the James Farmer Professor in Human Rights at UMW, Stanton is also the president and founder of the Washington-based group Genocide Watch. He is also director of the Cambodian Genocide Project and founder and chairman of the International Campaign to End Genocide.
The 60-year-old McLean resident has family connections to suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her husband, slavery abolitionist Henry Brewster Stanton. His personal efforts on behalf of human rights began in the 1960s as a voting-rights worker in Mississippi.
Stanton served as Church World Service/CARE field director in Cambodia in 1980, where he heard the details of atrocities and saw mass graves firsthand.
The former law professor at Washington and Lee and American universities and the University of Swaziland was so determined to see the Khmer Rouge brought to justice he joined the U.S. State Department to push for a tribunal.
Early efforts to bring Khmer Rouge to justice bogged down in "Cold War" tensions between the United States and Soviet Union, he said. Until the Soviet Union dissolved, Stanton said, the U.S. State Department viewed going after the Khmer Rouge as indirect support of the communist government in Vietnam.
Vietnamese leaders supported Cambodian politicians opposed to the Khmer Rouge. U.S. officials, he said, saw Vietnam as a proxy for the Soviets.
In order to effect change in American foreign policy, he joined the State Department from 1992-1999, becoming part of a group of diplomatic officers pressing for justice in Cambodia and working to fund a tribunal.
"We overcame a lot of resistance within," he said proudly.
Stanton said the group--which called itself "The Pol Pot Posse"--gained supporters in David J. Scheffer, ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, and Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. He also found an ally in noted Cambodian genocide scholar Ben Kiernan.
Stanton wrote the State Department options paper that outlined measures to bring the Khmer Rouge to trial.
In recent years, he has been legal adviser to the task force that created the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. He drafted its rules of procedure and evidence, which he expects to clear the final hurdle to formal adoption by May.
He said there are three reasons the tribunal's work will be important.
For one, it will result in adding the first-ever reference to the genocide in Cambodian secondary-school history books through "an organized presentation of the facts and who's responsible."
"The final stage of every genocide is denial," Stanton said.
Second, it will bring closure to the survivors of those killed.
"It's important for relatives of the victims to know why this happened," Stanton said. "They want to understand it."
Finally, he said, for the first time, "communist leaders who have always gotten away with mass murder," killing over 100 million people around the world, are facing a day of reckoning.
"I think it's about time the most murderous ideology in history was put on trial," he said. "Many people think Naziism was the worst. Not even close. Communism has been far more deadly."
Michael Zitz: 540/374-5408
Email: mikez@freelancestar.com
9 comments:
Let us nominate Mr Stanton for the Nobel peace price, he truly deserves it . I always cry when I look back and still miss my presumed dead brothers. No one Cambodian family has not suffered.
Hi,
Thank you for using the phrase . . . Vietnamese invasion.
I also hope the world would gradually come to see it as an INVASION as well.
2L/PaperChase
Well. I was in the concentration camp during the beginning of 1976. I was 7 1/2 y.o. I survived. Lost a brother and a sister.
But, i am thankful there are some goodness in the World meddling in the Khmers' Affair. I wanted to what turned out from the KRT. Waiting...
Well. I was in the concentration camp during the beginning of 1976. I was 7 1/2 y.o. I survived. Lost a brother and a sister.
But, i am thankful there are some goodness in the World meddling in the Khmers' Affair. I wanted to what turned out from the KRT. Waiting...
To: 7:51PM
What? What are you talking about meddling in Khmers' affair?
The fucken whole world meddling with Khmers' affair whether you like it or not!!!!Why don't you traced back in time? The fucken Thaicong, the fucken Vietcong,the French, the Jap, the Chinese, the Russian, the American...What else?
This is the very reason why Cambodian people can never live in peace! The day Cambodia knows how to build Atomic bomb is the day Cambodia will live in peace!!!!
10:02PM,
Fair enough that you're upset with my comment. It is understood from the context of the clause. I DO NOT list the involved countries because people like us would understood from tracking the time line. One does not need to elucidate one thoughts completely to understand the content.
I DO agree with you on strengthening ours country, but creating a Nuclear Bomb--migth not a solution for us. My rationale are 1) we don't have environmental waste management as of today. The rivers,lakes, ponds/creeks, and even the water in the the Water Table are polluted, 2)the governments of CPP don't have a clear understanding of the Ecosystem!, 3) the social systems in the Society is chaotic, 4)i wish they would have = education for everyone in Cambodia, 5) extremocrucial point--you DON'T WANT CPP TO HANDLE NUCLEAR MATERIALS (U235 OR Pu, THEN KHMER DIET WILL CONSIST OF RADIATION PART OF THE FOOD SOURCES, 6)ETC.
Finally, the country needed one Resource in order to restore the Glory day of the Jayavarman Lineage that is to have more Skills laborers and more Educating people. AND PEOPLE WHO CAN PROBLEMS SOLVED WITH HIS/HER God GIVING MIND.
Some people said that we need more education to make a better place to live in this cruelty world.But look at the JAP & the Nazis of Hitlers during second world war two,what had they done to human being ? to archieve itsevil dream to rule the world ?
Because of its Greed & Power ,they had created a lot suffering to human kind and the world.
In Cambodia Khmer Rouge's crimes against humanity would bring to justice by International tribunal?
Can we say it is a fair Trial for Khmer Rouge ? or it just a trial to hiding the big crime of Big Power behind the scene.
We pose the question,why Khmer Rouge were became the Monsters ?
3 big facts :
1) Mao's Culture revolution & China was the biggest arms supplies to KR.
2) Vietnam had associated and alsothe Biggest Goru who had trained Khmer Rouge ,who to kill its own enemies ?
3) B52 bomb of US were dropped more than a million tons to make Khmer rouge who were became insanity Evils on earth.
Why will they judge only the weakedevil lamb Khmer Rouge ?
Why not extanding with the 3 Big Bad Wolfs ?
It's fair share Game to Khmer whom were killed during the holocaust in Cambodia.
A famous Fountaine fable said :
" The Strongest argue the best,always win "
Cheers,
Bun Heang Ung
An observer since 1970
To 8:44AM
I agree!
Last but not least, let us not forget that certain Khmer Rouge cadre were on American and British payroll and were in a very powerful position to take the advantage of the situation to kill Khmers, the more culling of the Khmer race and Nation suit world domination for these world emperial expansion. Let us stand to unite to demolish these unknown power.
Proleung Khmer
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