Sam Rainsy’s Open Letter to Hor Nam Hong

Unofficial Translation from French

Sam Rainsy’s Open Letter to Hor Nam Hong

Sam Rainsy
11 Rue Tiphaine
75015 Paris

Paris, 18 March 2010

Mr. Hor Nam Hong
Deputy Prime Minister
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Member of the CPP Permanent Committee (former Politburo)
Phnom Penh

Mr. Minister,

In the interest of transparency, I am writing to ask you to please clarify to the public your attitude toward the international Tribunal that is currently trying former Khmer Rouge leaders in Phnom Penh for crimes against humanity.

On 07 October 2009, along with five other senior leaders of your government and your party (the formerly communist CPP which initially consisted of former Khmer Rouge members), you were summoned by Judge Marcel Lemonde, the French investigating judge, to testify before the Tribunal.

Is it true, as the news media reported (Cambodge Soir, 15 October 2009, “Bad time warning between the Tribunal and the Government”; The Cambodia Daily, 17 March 2010, “Testimony of Top Officials Sought at the KRT, Again”), that you absolutely refuse to answer to the judge’s summon?

You know full well that you are required by the law to show up when summoned by the Judge. But why do you refuse to testify? What are you afraid of? Do you feel you are above the law because of your position in the government and your omnipotent party? Do you have the slightest consideration for Judge Marcel Lemonde who was appointed by the UN to represent the international justice?

Your party and its MPs lifted my parliamentary immunity to put me on a trial that is reminiscent to the Prague Trials (1). But when it comes to you, you take refuge behind your iron-clad immunity to pull yourself out of the hands of the international justice – the only one that is worthy of its name in our country which is placed under the tutelage of your CPP.

The Cambodia Daily reported that the international Tribunal judges have stressed the fact that, under the Khmer Rouge regime, you were “part of the secret operation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs directed by Ieng Sary in Phnom Penh,” as well as that you were very well informed about the “treatment of intellectuals at the Boeng Trabek jail camp.”

Former prisoners in Boeng Trabek have testified about the “good relationships” that Ieng Sary maintained with you, as well as your administrative and organizational closeness to this No. 3 leader of the Pol Pot regime who is currently being charged for crimes against humanity.

What have you done to deserve the honor of being “rehabilitated” by the Khmer Rouge in 1978 when the massacres were in full swing? (Survey by Justin Corfield and Laura Summers, Historical Dictionary of Cambodia, The Scarecrow Press, 2003).

Was it your “extraordinary zeal” to serve the killers, or was it your “evil” and your “sadism” against the prisoners – as the latter claim – that allowed you to obtain the Khmer Rouge’s promotion?

Why not help the international justice – the only one that is independent and credible in Cambodia – to lift somewhat the cryptic assessment made by Father Francis Ponchaud on you: “The role of Hor Nam Hong at the Boeng Trabek is not clear”? (http://www.eurasie.net/webzine/spip.php?article824)

Why not give the Tribunal convincing evidence to answer to the question that Francis Deron openly asked about your role at the Boeng Trabel jail when he talked about the need to “sort out between the kapos (2) and the real prisoners, between the cowards and the victims”

Why not discuss calmly with the judge the accusations made against you by your former co-prisoner Keo Bunthouk who said that, through your denunciations to the Khmer Rouge, you "sent victims to their death at the sinister S-21 extermination center"? (The Cambodia Daily, 12 January 2001, "Senate Continues Spirited Debate on KR Bill").

One cannot fail to be surprised by the inconsistency of your attitude:

- On one hand you are suing me, for a relatively minor defamation case, at a French tribunal which is located tens of thousands kilometers away from Cambodia.

- But on the other hand, on the same topic as that of the alleged defamation, i.e. your role under the Khmer Rouge regime between 1975 and 1979, you pulled yourself out of the Justice set up at the very same location where the drama took place in the presence of all players who are still alive. You abuse your local power to ignore and to boycott this international tribunal which is called to try the crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge and their acolytes. Now, only this Tribunal can shed light on your past and, eventually, remove the serious suspicions against you. It is not through avoiding the Judge’s summon that you could definitively sweep away these suspicions. Almost two million people were killed by the Khmer Rouge whom you have collaborated with. Here, we are talking about crimes against humanity which cannot be resolved by a 1-euro damage compensation for a defamation lawsuit case in Paris.

Could it be that you were hoping to get a good deal in Paris while avoiding a real trial against you that should be held one day in Phnom Penh?

Your attitude shows a serious contempt toward Justice.

Please accept, Your Excellency, the assurance of my highest consideration.

[Signature]
Sam Rainsy
Kampong Cham Member of Parliament
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KI-Media Translation Notes:

(1) The Prague Trials were a series of Stalinist and largely anti-Semitic show trials in Czechoslovakia. On November 20, 1952 Rudolf Slánský, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and 13 other Communist leaders (11 of them Jews) were accused of participating in a Trotskyite- Titoite- Zionist conspiracy, convicted and executed.
(2) Kapo: prisoner who worked inside German Nazi concentration camps during World War II in certain lower administrative positions. Kapos received more privileges than normal prisoners, towards whom they were often brutal. They were often convicts who were offered this work in exchange for a reduced sentence or parole.