By Carlyle Thayer
Radio Singapore International
I first went to Cambodia in August 1981. The country was at war and under Vietnamese occupation. I have one indelible memory of that trip - my visit to the Toul Sleng prison in Phnom Penh and to the mass graves on the outskirts of the city. Under the Khmer Rouge, which was in power from April 1975 to January 1979, an estimated 14,000 Cambodians were tortured to death in the prison and over 1.7 million Cambodians died of execution, hard labour or starvation.
The Khmer Rouge were driven from power by the Vietnamese military who promptly set up a client state. In August 1979, Cambodia conducted a perfunctory show trial that sentenced Khmer Rouge leaders Pol Pot and Ieng Sary to death in absentia.
In the ensuing twenty-eight years very little has been done to bring the Khmer Rouge to justice. After a Cambodian peace settlement was reached in 1991, the United Nations intervened and conducted Cambodia’s first truly democratic elections in 1993. I was a UN-accredited observer and witnessed Cambodia take its first faltering steps towards democracy.
The Khmer Rouge remained outside this process and continued to wage armed struggle against the Cambodian government. In an effort to break this insurgency Khmer Rouge leaders were enticed to defect. The first to do so was Ieng Sary who was granted a royal pardon by King Sihanouk in 1996. In 1998, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, two other top leaders, surrendered and were granted an amnesty by Prime Minister Hun Sen.
During the late 1990s, the Khmer Rouge disintegrated and turned on itself. Pol Pot was put on trial and sentenced to house arrest. He died in 1998. The following year two key figures, Ta Mok and Duch, were captured and imprisoned.
In 1997 the Cambodian government approached the United Nations for assistance in setting up a tribunal to bring the Khmer Rouge leaders to justice. It took nine years for the two parties to come to an agreement on what surely must be the world’s most unique war crimes tribunal.
Officially known as the Extraordinary Chamber of Courts of Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge tribunal is a hybrid body consisting of Cambodian and UN-appointed foreign judges and a mixed international staff. In order for the court to make a ruling, it must reach what is called a supermajority; that is, a majority vote of three must include at least one foreign judge.
The court will be based on Cambodian law and legal procedure. Final agreement on the rules of conduct was only reached last year. The Khmer Rouge tribunal has a three-year term of office.
In July this year, prosecutors attached to the Khmer Rouge tribunal identified five suspects who were allegedly involved in twenty-five documented cases of crimes against humanity, including genocide, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, homicide, torture and religious persecution. Their files were turned over to the tribunal's investigating judges for consideration and action. The names of the other three suspects have not been released.
As a result, arrest warrants were issued for Duch, the head of Tuol Sleng prison, and Ieng Sary, the head of the Khmer Rouge legislature but more importantly the person reportedly given personal oversight of Tuol Sleng. Both individuals are now in custody. They will be tried next year before the investigating judges and not by a jury. There is no death penalty and the maximum sentence is life imprisonment.
The Khmer Rouge tribunal has attracted political criticism within Cambodia. Some argue it is an example of 'too little too late' - former Khmer Rouge cadres now serving in the Hun Sen government will be left untouched and most prominent Khmer Rouge leaders have already passed from the scene or been granted a royal pardon or amnesty. Other critics charge that the Cambodian judges are under the control of the Cambodian People's Party and cannot act independently.
The implications of the Khmer Rouge tribunal process extend beyond the question of whether justice is served. If the legal proceedings are fair, impartial and meet international legal standards, they may well serve to undermine the culture of impunity that pervades Cambodia today.
Written by Carlyle Thayer, Professor of Politics at The University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra for Radio Singapore International.
The Khmer Rouge were driven from power by the Vietnamese military who promptly set up a client state. In August 1979, Cambodia conducted a perfunctory show trial that sentenced Khmer Rouge leaders Pol Pot and Ieng Sary to death in absentia.
In the ensuing twenty-eight years very little has been done to bring the Khmer Rouge to justice. After a Cambodian peace settlement was reached in 1991, the United Nations intervened and conducted Cambodia’s first truly democratic elections in 1993. I was a UN-accredited observer and witnessed Cambodia take its first faltering steps towards democracy.
The Khmer Rouge remained outside this process and continued to wage armed struggle against the Cambodian government. In an effort to break this insurgency Khmer Rouge leaders were enticed to defect. The first to do so was Ieng Sary who was granted a royal pardon by King Sihanouk in 1996. In 1998, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, two other top leaders, surrendered and were granted an amnesty by Prime Minister Hun Sen.
During the late 1990s, the Khmer Rouge disintegrated and turned on itself. Pol Pot was put on trial and sentenced to house arrest. He died in 1998. The following year two key figures, Ta Mok and Duch, were captured and imprisoned.
In 1997 the Cambodian government approached the United Nations for assistance in setting up a tribunal to bring the Khmer Rouge leaders to justice. It took nine years for the two parties to come to an agreement on what surely must be the world’s most unique war crimes tribunal.
Officially known as the Extraordinary Chamber of Courts of Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge tribunal is a hybrid body consisting of Cambodian and UN-appointed foreign judges and a mixed international staff. In order for the court to make a ruling, it must reach what is called a supermajority; that is, a majority vote of three must include at least one foreign judge.
The court will be based on Cambodian law and legal procedure. Final agreement on the rules of conduct was only reached last year. The Khmer Rouge tribunal has a three-year term of office.
In July this year, prosecutors attached to the Khmer Rouge tribunal identified five suspects who were allegedly involved in twenty-five documented cases of crimes against humanity, including genocide, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, homicide, torture and religious persecution. Their files were turned over to the tribunal's investigating judges for consideration and action. The names of the other three suspects have not been released.
As a result, arrest warrants were issued for Duch, the head of Tuol Sleng prison, and Ieng Sary, the head of the Khmer Rouge legislature but more importantly the person reportedly given personal oversight of Tuol Sleng. Both individuals are now in custody. They will be tried next year before the investigating judges and not by a jury. There is no death penalty and the maximum sentence is life imprisonment.
The Khmer Rouge tribunal has attracted political criticism within Cambodia. Some argue it is an example of 'too little too late' - former Khmer Rouge cadres now serving in the Hun Sen government will be left untouched and most prominent Khmer Rouge leaders have already passed from the scene or been granted a royal pardon or amnesty. Other critics charge that the Cambodian judges are under the control of the Cambodian People's Party and cannot act independently.
The implications of the Khmer Rouge tribunal process extend beyond the question of whether justice is served. If the legal proceedings are fair, impartial and meet international legal standards, they may well serve to undermine the culture of impunity that pervades Cambodia today.
Written by Carlyle Thayer, Professor of Politics at The University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra for Radio Singapore International.
3 comments:
There go another corrupted professor (Carlyle Thayer) who never seen himself in the mirror and got the gut to call us (Khmer) "Culture of Impunity". What is an idiot?
There goes this same Viet dog Troller that can't even write English properly to criticize anybody let alone having no mirror to look itself in...What an animal!
Hey, the UK is no authority on English language. The US has their own version of English, the South American has theirs, ..., and we got ours. Only idiots would thing the UK English is the only way to go.
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