The most senior surviving Khmer Rouge leader, Nuon Chea (L), also known as "Brother Number Two," and who was deputy general secretary of the Communist Party and chief lieutenant to Pol Pot, during an exclusive interview at his house in Pailin town near Thai border, along with his wife, on 20 July. On his first day in the custody of Cambodia's UN-backed genocide tribunal, Nuon Chea watched television and exercised in the detention enclosure next to the court. (Photo: AFP)Friday September 21, 2007
PHNOM PENH (AFP) - On his first day in the custody of Cambodia's UN-backed genocide tribunal, former Khmer Rouge chief Nuon Chea watched television and exercised in the detention enclosure next to the court.
"He's in very strong spirits -- his health is fine," said tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath on Thursday of the 82-year-old.
Nuon Chea, the most senior surviving leader of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime, was arrested in his home in northwest Cambodia and brought to the capital Phnom Penh on Wednesday.
Despite the report that he was in strong spirits, there are concerns about Nuon Chea's health.
He has already suffered a stroke and is the oldest of the communist movement's former top cadres likely to stand trial for atrocities committed nearly 30 years ago.
The youngest, former Khmer Rouge prison chief Duch who was arrested by the court in July, is 65.
Other likely defendants are in their late 70s. All claim to be suffering from serious health ailments, causing concern among those racing to find justice for Cambodia's genocide victims before all of the alleged perpetrators are dead.
"The court is very well aware" that age is a factor, Reach Sambath told AFP. "It is not just that the Khmer Rouge leaders are quite old, but the witnesses are old as well."
Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998, a year after Cambodia's government asked for the UN's help in setting up a court to prosecute regime leaders.
Another key regime figure, military commander Ta Mok, died last year while in military prison.
"The age and health of victims, witnesses and accused is a major concern in these trials and it is certainly an issue we've got to consider in the conduct of our work," said co-prosecutor Robert Petit.
"The death of a high profile defendant is clear: it can be perceived as depriving the process of a chance to establish complete accountability," he added.
Once in the custody of the court, Reach Sambath said defendants would have access to the better healthcare than most Cambodians.
The eight-cell detention centre where Nuon Chea and Duch now spend their days is staffed buy four doctors and five nurses, as well as a full-time ambulance, he said.
With three meals a day -- Nuon Chea is partial to fish -- and cable television, "it is the first time that I have seen such a good facility provided by a court in Cambodia," Reach Sambath said.
"We are providing the best services we can for (Nuon Chea) and others to make sure they can live for a long time and defend themselves," he added.
But nearly 30 years after the Khmer Rouge was pushed from power, many Cambodians, while welcoming the country's genocide trials, feel they are at endgame.
"They always delay the Khmer Rouge trial," said one motorcycle taxi driver in the capital Phnom Penh.
"If all the leaders die one by one then we will never find out the cause of the Khmer Rouge. It is good that they have the trial but it is so late," he added.
This fact is not lost on those tasked with ending this darkest chapter in Cambodia's history.
"Everybody in this court is perfectly aware of the necessity of organising a public trial as soon as possible," said co-investigating judge Marcel Lemonde.
The judge, with his Cambodian counterpart You Bunleng, is determining which suspects should go to trial.
"The co-investing judges are particularly mindful that the Cambodian people have been waiting for justice for over 25 years," Lemonde added.
The 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime abolished religion, schools and currency, exiling millions to vast collective farms in a bid to create an agrarian utopia.
Up to two million people died of starvation, disease, overwork or execution.
"He's in very strong spirits -- his health is fine," said tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath on Thursday of the 82-year-old.
Nuon Chea, the most senior surviving leader of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime, was arrested in his home in northwest Cambodia and brought to the capital Phnom Penh on Wednesday.
Despite the report that he was in strong spirits, there are concerns about Nuon Chea's health.
He has already suffered a stroke and is the oldest of the communist movement's former top cadres likely to stand trial for atrocities committed nearly 30 years ago.
The youngest, former Khmer Rouge prison chief Duch who was arrested by the court in July, is 65.
Other likely defendants are in their late 70s. All claim to be suffering from serious health ailments, causing concern among those racing to find justice for Cambodia's genocide victims before all of the alleged perpetrators are dead.
"The court is very well aware" that age is a factor, Reach Sambath told AFP. "It is not just that the Khmer Rouge leaders are quite old, but the witnesses are old as well."
Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998, a year after Cambodia's government asked for the UN's help in setting up a court to prosecute regime leaders.
Another key regime figure, military commander Ta Mok, died last year while in military prison.
"The age and health of victims, witnesses and accused is a major concern in these trials and it is certainly an issue we've got to consider in the conduct of our work," said co-prosecutor Robert Petit.
"The death of a high profile defendant is clear: it can be perceived as depriving the process of a chance to establish complete accountability," he added.
Once in the custody of the court, Reach Sambath said defendants would have access to the better healthcare than most Cambodians.
The eight-cell detention centre where Nuon Chea and Duch now spend their days is staffed buy four doctors and five nurses, as well as a full-time ambulance, he said.
With three meals a day -- Nuon Chea is partial to fish -- and cable television, "it is the first time that I have seen such a good facility provided by a court in Cambodia," Reach Sambath said.
"We are providing the best services we can for (Nuon Chea) and others to make sure they can live for a long time and defend themselves," he added.
But nearly 30 years after the Khmer Rouge was pushed from power, many Cambodians, while welcoming the country's genocide trials, feel they are at endgame.
"They always delay the Khmer Rouge trial," said one motorcycle taxi driver in the capital Phnom Penh.
"If all the leaders die one by one then we will never find out the cause of the Khmer Rouge. It is good that they have the trial but it is so late," he added.
This fact is not lost on those tasked with ending this darkest chapter in Cambodia's history.
"Everybody in this court is perfectly aware of the necessity of organising a public trial as soon as possible," said co-investigating judge Marcel Lemonde.
The judge, with his Cambodian counterpart You Bunleng, is determining which suspects should go to trial.
"The co-investing judges are particularly mindful that the Cambodian people have been waiting for justice for over 25 years," Lemonde added.
The 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime abolished religion, schools and currency, exiling millions to vast collective farms in a bid to create an agrarian utopia.
Up to two million people died of starvation, disease, overwork or execution.
1 comment:
For the record
Nuon Chea told me a story when I asked him why he had embraced communism when we met a his home in Pailin near the Thai border for one afternoon, some time in late 1999 or early 2000. He said he had hated French colonialists who had ill-treated his fellow Cambodians. After the French departure, Cambodian officials also ill-treated their Cambodian fellows. One day, he saw a top official from Battambang city, accompanied by some policemen, evicted by force a poor young couple from its farm in a rural area. The couple had owned and cultivated that farm for some time. All of a sudden, it was ordered to leave it. That top official claimed it was his land. The wife was a young mother nursing a newly born, "red skin" (krohom ro-ngeal), baby, and that young family was forced to leave its property. Where could it go? How could it live? Nuon Chea wondered.
LAO Mong Hay, Hong Kong
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