Top row: Duch (L) and Nuon Chea (r)Bottom row, left to right: Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith
Anne Barrowclough in Phnom Penh
The Times (UK)
In a bland courtroom on the outskirts of Phnom Penh next week the justice that most Cambodians believed had passed them by will finally begin to creak into motion.
Three decades after the fall of Pol Pot, the first trial of the leaders of his genocidal Khmer Rouge regime is to begin before a UN-backed tribunal - the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC).
On Tuesday a thin, elderly former schoolmaster will stand in the dock accused of crimes against humanity committed 30 years ago.
Kang Kek Ieu, known as Comrade Duch, was the director of the infamous Tuol Sleng prison, the torture and interrogation centre in Phnom Penh where thousands of innocent people were sent to die.
His trial will be followed by those of Pol Pot's inner circle: Nuom Chea, or “Brother Number Two”, who was in charge of security; Ieng Sary, the former foreign minister and his wife Ieng Thirith, and Khieu Samphan, the former head of state.
The trials will be a watershed for Cambodians, most of whom had lost hope that the men and women who destroyed their lives would ever be brought to justice. “I never thought this day would come,” Vann Nath, one of only three remaining survivors of Tuol Sleng, told The Times. “There has been no hope for so many years.”
Robert Petit, the Extraordinary Chambers co-prosecutor, said: “There is a great need for justice in this country. Many Cambodians still don't understand why they were persecuted”.
The party leaders presided with Pol Pot over an ultra-Maoist regime whose four years in power turned a peaceful, sleepy Asian nation into a slave state. More than 1.7 million Cambodians, nearly a quarter of the population, died of starvation and disease or were executed for counter-revolutionary “crimes”.
Duch, who converted to Christianity in the 1990s, was arrested in 1999 after a journalist tracked him down in Thailand. Although Pol Pot died peacefully in 1998 after being sentenced to life imprisonment by a “people's tribunal” of his former colleagues, other senior cadres continued to live in comfort, many in Phnom Penh and on the Thai border.
Hope that they would be brought to justice was first raised in 1997 when the Cambodian Government and the UN began discussions on the creation of an international criminal court. But even after the creation of the ECCC - a hybrid Cambodian and international tribunal - in 2007, negotiations continued to be mired in political wrangling.
Time is of the essence. The leaders and their victims are elderly - Ieng Sary, the oldest, is 84 and Duch, the youngest, is 66. Many have health problems and there is no certainty that they will all survive until the final verdict, which may still be years away
IN THE DOCK
Three decades after the fall of Pol Pot, the first trial of the leaders of his genocidal Khmer Rouge regime is to begin before a UN-backed tribunal - the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC).
On Tuesday a thin, elderly former schoolmaster will stand in the dock accused of crimes against humanity committed 30 years ago.
Kang Kek Ieu, known as Comrade Duch, was the director of the infamous Tuol Sleng prison, the torture and interrogation centre in Phnom Penh where thousands of innocent people were sent to die.
His trial will be followed by those of Pol Pot's inner circle: Nuom Chea, or “Brother Number Two”, who was in charge of security; Ieng Sary, the former foreign minister and his wife Ieng Thirith, and Khieu Samphan, the former head of state.
The trials will be a watershed for Cambodians, most of whom had lost hope that the men and women who destroyed their lives would ever be brought to justice. “I never thought this day would come,” Vann Nath, one of only three remaining survivors of Tuol Sleng, told The Times. “There has been no hope for so many years.”
Robert Petit, the Extraordinary Chambers co-prosecutor, said: “There is a great need for justice in this country. Many Cambodians still don't understand why they were persecuted”.
The party leaders presided with Pol Pot over an ultra-Maoist regime whose four years in power turned a peaceful, sleepy Asian nation into a slave state. More than 1.7 million Cambodians, nearly a quarter of the population, died of starvation and disease or were executed for counter-revolutionary “crimes”.
Duch, who converted to Christianity in the 1990s, was arrested in 1999 after a journalist tracked him down in Thailand. Although Pol Pot died peacefully in 1998 after being sentenced to life imprisonment by a “people's tribunal” of his former colleagues, other senior cadres continued to live in comfort, many in Phnom Penh and on the Thai border.
Hope that they would be brought to justice was first raised in 1997 when the Cambodian Government and the UN began discussions on the creation of an international criminal court. But even after the creation of the ECCC - a hybrid Cambodian and international tribunal - in 2007, negotiations continued to be mired in political wrangling.
Time is of the essence. The leaders and their victims are elderly - Ieng Sary, the oldest, is 84 and Duch, the youngest, is 66. Many have health problems and there is no certainty that they will all survive until the final verdict, which may still be years away
IN THE DOCK
- Nuon Chea, 82 “Brother No 2”. The most senior surviving member of the Khmer Rouge regime. Pol Pot's deputy for 30 years, he presided over the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in Tuol Sleng and other security centres
- Ieng Sary, 84 “Brother No 3”. Studied with Pol Pot in Paris. After the Khmer Rouge victory in 1975 he appealed to wealthy expatriates to return home, where they were executed or imprisoned
- Ieng Thirith, 78 Ieng Sary's wife and Pol Pot's sister-in-law. As minister of social affairs she ordered widespread purges, including those of her own ministry staff
- Khieu Samphan, 77 Head of state of the Democratic Republic for Kampuchea. Was a faithful follower of Pol Pot's agrarian ideal but claims he was never directly involved in the party's atrocities. He took over from Pol Pot as leader of the Khmer Rouge in 1985
- Kang Kek Ieu (Duch), 66 Ruled over Tuol Sleng with brutal devotion; under his rule all but 14 of the 17,000 inmates died. Fled Phnom Penh when the Vietnamese invaded, but was arrested in 1999.
8 comments:
Just seeing the face of these Criminals, I eagerly want to step and urinate on their head.
What is typical for the war Crminals is that they deny their crime. You will see what they say at the KRT.
During the Khmer Rouge regime, the Khmer Rouge criminals have killed the Khmer people without trial and without reason. Why the international community spends a huge sum of money to try these criminals and murderers who have killed over 2 million Khmer? Personally, I immediately put these criminals and murderers in prison until the end of their life.
GANG OF CRIMINALS OF KHMER PEUPLE !
Khmer Neak Srè.
These evils are the most cold blood killers in this 21 century. They were bornt from Derachharn parents who give them birth to destroy others and their own country. They have shamed their children and their friends, their schools and their teachers. I am sure that if their parents have done some good deeds, they wouldn't be that way. They are worst than wild animals. Areak Prey
មានអស់លោកណាដឹងប្រវត្តិពិត របស់លោកយាយ
អ៊ឹងធីរិត្ឋឫទេ?
these people could have been the heroes of khmer people, however, they were blinded by perhaps extreme view or radical view that turned cambodia into the infamous killing fields. they were wrong that they were backward in their thinking, to harsh and brutal to their own people, perhaps too stupid for abolishing the economy, education, and what a moron when they killed and starved their own people and so on. i mean, they didn't believe in justice, laws, etc... what were they thinking when they tolerated and implemented their brutal policy on cambodia and its people? they must be dreaming or something for the world is so big, and they failed to think outside of the box and see the world as a competitive and bigger place than cambodia itself. what were they thinking. shame on them for damaging cambodia and committed injustice on khmer people! i hope god will punish them for what they've done to cambodia. shame on you all, the bad, bad leaders that did nothing good for cambodia except causing pain and suffering unimaginable to cambodia and khmer people! you bad leaders should not have anything to say right now, except to ask for mercy and repent for your stupid, backward thinking. look what you'd done to cambodia! cambodia had to start all over again because of your crazy vision! i hope god will make you all die in remorse forever!(my comment is for the stupid KR leaders).
Est ce que qu'elqu'un savait:
Mme Ieng Thirith , faisait quoi comme travail dans les année 60?
They are all murderous dumbfucks, Blind Maxist-Lenin commnunism followers. They should be burnt alive for all the sins they made.
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