Mass wedding ceremony under the KR regime (click to zoom in) - Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at his new website http://khmerrouge-toons.blogspot.com)October 20, 2008
Ka-set
Unofficial translation from French by Luc Sâr Click here to read the article in French Click here to read the article in Khmer
Four victims of the KR regime, all from a village in Kampot province, lodged their forced marriage complaints to the ECCC Victims Unit on Tuesday 14 October. In 1978, the four victims – then aged between 19 and 22-year old – were married without their consent among a group of 23 other arranged-marriage couples by the then-powerful Angkar which provided a facade for the leaders of the Democratic Kampuchea (DK) regime.
The four victims said that their respective community chief told them that it was imperative for them to obey the Angkar’s laws by displaying their faithfulness through these forced unions, otherwise, the victims would be sent to a re-education camp, i.e. a certain death. Married to total strangers, the victims said that they were spied upon by men belonging to the Angkar who were posted under their huts to verify that the newly wed had consummated their freshly proclaimed union.
In a communiqué sent out on Sunday 19 October, the victims’ lawyer explained that they will make it known that “these mass marriages, ordered by the KR officials, were aimed at increasing the population and they constituted a tool of the demographic policy as more children were needed for the revolution.”
Lawyer Ny Chandy and Silke Studzinsky will call on the KRT “to see in these facts as an order given by high-ranking officials of the Democratic Kampuchea to rape women, as well as a sexual aggression perpetrated against men, and as such, they constitute crimes against humanity.” The rape, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy, etc… are crimes stipulated in Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court – an article which is referred to in Article 9 of the agreement concluded between the UN and Cambodia to establish the ECCC, the lawyers reminded.
The new complaints shed light on an aspect of the DK history which has not been investigated yet by the ECCC and, according the victims’ lawyers, they are subject to a more thorough examination.
The four victims said that their respective community chief told them that it was imperative for them to obey the Angkar’s laws by displaying their faithfulness through these forced unions, otherwise, the victims would be sent to a re-education camp, i.e. a certain death. Married to total strangers, the victims said that they were spied upon by men belonging to the Angkar who were posted under their huts to verify that the newly wed had consummated their freshly proclaimed union.
In a communiqué sent out on Sunday 19 October, the victims’ lawyer explained that they will make it known that “these mass marriages, ordered by the KR officials, were aimed at increasing the population and they constituted a tool of the demographic policy as more children were needed for the revolution.”
Lawyer Ny Chandy and Silke Studzinsky will call on the KRT “to see in these facts as an order given by high-ranking officials of the Democratic Kampuchea to rape women, as well as a sexual aggression perpetrated against men, and as such, they constitute crimes against humanity.” The rape, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy, etc… are crimes stipulated in Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court – an article which is referred to in Article 9 of the agreement concluded between the UN and Cambodia to establish the ECCC, the lawyers reminded.
The new complaints shed light on an aspect of the DK history which has not been investigated yet by the ECCC and, according the victims’ lawyers, they are subject to a more thorough examination.
1 comment:
Chomteav thom borany have just freshly got her PHD of Humanity and previously spied for Angkar Leu,
May be she has something to say to this case.
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