ICC Second Arrest Warrant for Genocide against Sudanese President Al Bashir

Note from Theary Seng: The permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) has jurisdiction over Cambodia as we have ratified the Rome Statute establishing this ICC and Cambodia is an ICC Member State. After the genocidal spree and mayhem ended, some of the Rwandan genocidiares were surprised that international law could pierced their nation's sovereignty and held them accountable before their own people and the international community. I believe that perpetrators of massive human rights abuse (here in Cambodia and elsewhere) -- many thinking themselves "good people" -- are so lost in their immediate frenzy to fully grasp the long piercing reach of international law. The ICC and other international legal instruments should make these abusers think twice... especially as certain international crimes do not have statute of limitations... hence, even 40 years from now, international law can still hunt them down. ABOVE NATIONS, HUMANITY is an excerpt from my law paper in advocating for this ICC. - www.thearyseng.com

http://www.thearyseng.com/images/VoiceOfJustice/vojabovenationshumanityoct07.jpg
http://ki-media.blogspot.com/2010/01/above-nations-humanity-universal.html

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Excerpt from the Coalition for ICC Press Release

Press Release: 12.07.2010

Pre-Trial Chamber I issues a second warrant of arrest against Omar Al Bashir for counts of genocide

ICC-CPI-20100712-PR557

Case: The Prosecutor v. Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir
Situation: Darfur, Sudan

Today the ICC announced that ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I issued a second arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir for three counts of genocide committed against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups. It is the first arrest warrant issued by the ICC for counts of genocide. This second arrest warrant is added to the previous one issued in March 2009 against Al Bashir for crimes against humanity and war crimes. Since the issuance of the arrest warrant, the Sudanese government has openly and consistently refused to cooperate with the Court.

Click the following link for the entire press release issued by the ICC:
http://www.icc-cpi.int/NR/exeres/E9BD8B9F-4076-4F7C-9CAC-E489F1C127D9.htm

Genocide Charge Could Delay Trial: Observers

By Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
30 December 2009

New charges of genocide for four jailed Khmer Rouge leaders could create a delay in bringing them to trial, court observers say.

Genocide was added to the war crimes and crimes against humanity charges brought against Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith earlier this month, as the UN-backed court prepares for their trial.

But the new charges create an opportunity for opposition by defense attorneys or disagreement among civil party victims, which could turn the case back to the Pre-Trial Chamber.

If those parties disagree with the new charges, they will file for explanation from the investigating judges or complaints to the Pre-Trial Chamber, said Long Panhavuth, a tribunal monitor for the Cambodia Justice Initiative.

“In this situation, whether it is slowed or not depends on whether the parties file complaints to the Pre-Trial Chamber or not,” he said.

Tribunal procedures require time for review of cases following the work of investigating judges, who in this case, No. 002, have said they wanted to complete by the end of the year.

Tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said the new charge would not delay the legal process.

“The work is normally moving as planned,” he said.

The investigating judges have already notified the other parties that their investigation is complete, “so there is nothing delayed.”

Even if the new charges slightly delay the court, the genocide charges are in the interest of seeking justice, said Latt Ky, a tribunal monitor for Adhoc.

“So I think endeavoring to search for any evidence to charge the suspects is based on practical truth and arguments based on reality,” he said. “It’s deeply meaningful for justice. So if it’s a little bit late, I agree with the action of the [tribunal].”

Tribunal a Symbol of Justice: Expert

By Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Washington
22 December 2009

Defense teams for senior Khmer Rouge leaders still have the right motion for a cancellation of genocide charges brought last week, a tribunal expert said Monday.

“They have the right to file a suite to the Pre-Trial Chamber to remove the new charge,” said Hisham Mousar, chief of the Project of French Cooperation, at the Royal University of Law and Economics.

The additional genocide charge was added to those of war crimes and crimes against humanity originally brought against Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith.

The charges were added for the alleged mass killings of Chams and Vietnamese under the Khmer Rouge. All four are in tribunal custody awaiting a joint trial, which is expected at the beginning of 2010.

The joint trial will ensure a “smooth legal procedure” for the UN-backed tribunal, which recently concluded a relatively simple trial for Kaing Kek Iev, or Duch, after more than six months, said Hisham Mousar, as a guest on “Hello VOA.”

The tribunal would not bring “100 percent” justice, he said, but it would act as a symbol of justice for future generations, with a message that atrocity crimes will be tried.

Tribunal charges Khmer Rouge "First Lady" with genocide

Ieng Thirith, former minister of social affairs of the communist Khmer Rouge regime, sits in the dock at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) in the outskirts of Phnom Penh May 21, 2008. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

Mon Dec 21, 2009
Jared Ferrie

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - A U.N.-backed Cambodian war crimes court on Monday charged a fourth top Khmer Rouge cadre with genocide, broadening the scope of a long-awaited trial of the ultra-communist "Killing Fields" regime's top ranks.

Ieng Thirith, 78, had already been accused of "murder, imprisonment and other inhumane acts" for her role as social affairs minister in a regime blamed for the deaths of 1.7 million people.

The new charges relate to the slaughter of Cambodia's ethnic Vietnamese and Cham Muslim minorities during the 1975-1979 Khmer Rouge era. The tribunal on Monday also charged her with torture and religious persecution.

Ieng Thirith, a former Shakespeare scholar known as the "Khmer Rouge First Lady", was arrested in November 2007 with her 85-year-old husband and ex-foreign minister Ieng Sary.

The French-educated Communist revolutionaries had lived under a government amnesty granted to Ieng Sary in 1996.

They were the closest associates of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge leader who died in 1998. Ieng Thirith's sister, Khieu Ponnary, was married to Pol Pot.

The Khmer Rouge-era president, Khieu Samphan, was dealt an additional charge of genocide on Friday. Similar charges of genocide were also issued for "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea and Ieng Sary last week.

They have also been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity, along with two other former leaders.

Experts on the Khmer Rouge have been critical of the additional charges, which they said would bog down a trial already criticized for taking too long.

Many of the defendants were in poor health and could die before they see a courtroom, while some cases were already so complex and politicized that they may not even go to trial, the experts said.

The first trial of a senior Khmer Rouge cadre, Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, came to an end three weeks ago. He was accused of overseeing the torture and murder of more than 14,000 people as head of the notorious Tuol Sleng prison.

A verdict in that case is expected by March.

(Writing by Jason Szep; Editing by Martin Petty)

Last Khmer Rouge defendant charged with genocide

Monday, December 21, 2009
AP

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — The last of the former Khmer Rouge leaders standing trial for alleged crimes committed three decades ago was charged Monday with genocide.

Ieng Thirith, the ultracommunist regime's social affairs minister and the wife of another defendant, Ieng Sary, had earlier been charged with crimes against humanity. In addition, she will also appear before the U.N.-backed tribunal on charges of war crimes, murder, torture and religious persecution, said court spokesman Reach Sambath.

The tribunal is seeking justice for an estimated 1.7 million people who were executed or died from overwork, disease and malnutrition as a result of the group's policies during its 1975-79 rule.

Last week, the tribunal charged three former leaders with genocide: ex-head of state Khieu Samphan; the group's top ideologist, Nuon Chea, and the former foreign minister, Ieng Sary.

All three faced charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as homicide and torture.

The tribunal tried its first defendant, prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, this year on charges of crimes against humanity, war crimes, murder and torture.

Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch (pronounced DOIK), commanded S-21 prison in Phnom Penh, where up to 16,000 people were tortured and taken away to be killed. A verdict is expected next year, and he faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment if found guilty. Cambodia has no death penalty.

Ex-Khmer Rouge woman accused of genocide

December 21, 2009
AFP

Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court has charged the Khmer Rouge former social affairs minister with genocide over the regime's slaughter of Vietnamese people and ethnic Cham Muslims.

Ieng Thirith - widely regarded as the most powerful woman in the brutal regime that murdered up to two million Cambodians in the late 1970s - has already been charged with crimes against humanity.

"Today Ieng Thirith has been brought before the court and co-investigating judges informed her that the charges against her have been extended to include genocide, war crimes and national crimes," said court spokesman Reach Sambath on Monday.

The national crimes include murder, torture and religious persecution.

The tribunal issued genocide charges for the first time earlier this month against two leaders of the brutal regime - former Khmer Rouge number two Nuon Chea and foreign minister Ieng Sary, who is Ieng Thirith's husband.

The regime's former head of state Khieu Samphan was subsequently charged on the same count last week.

Last month the court announced it was investigating incursions into Vietnam as well as executions of Cambodia's Cham Muslim minority, mainly in central provinces, committed by the 1975-1979 regime.

Estimates for the number of Chams who died under the Khmer Rouge range from 100,000 to 400,000 but it is not known how many Vietnamese were killed, according to Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia.

Led by Pol Pot, who died in 1998, the Khmer Rouge emptied Cambodia's cities in a bid to forge a communist utopia, killing through starvation, overwork, torture and execution.

But as the perpetrators of that mass killing were also Cambodian, it cannot be classed as genocide.

Genocide is defined by the United Nations as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group".

Final arguments were heard last month in the trial of prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, known by the alias Duch, who was charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and premeditated murder in the court's first trial.

Ieng Thirith, 77, is in detention at the court awaiting trial along with Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea and Ieng Sary.

Khmer Rouge Tribunal - Feature : For Two Groups, a Chance for Reconciliation

By Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
18 December 2009

Members of Cambodia’s Cham and Vietnamese groups in Phnom Penh welcomed word from the Khmer Rouge tribunal this week that regime leaders in custody will be charged with genocide, as well as other atrocity crimes.

In interviews with VOA Khmer Thursday, Chams and Vietnamese alike said they expected the charges of genocide to help bring reconciliation to their communities.

The tribunal announced on Wednesday it would add genocide charges to the dockets of Nuon Chea and Ieng Sary, for the mass killings of Chams and Vietnamese.

(On Friday, judges announced they would also add the charge for Khieu Samphan, the former head of state. Ieng Thirith, a fourth leader in custody, has not yet had a hearing, but she is expected to face the same charge.)

Genocide is an intentional attempt to eradicate, in part or in whole, a minority ethnic or religious group. The tribunal is preparing a case against all four leaders of the regime, having finished the trial of Kaing Kek Iev, or Duch, the former administrator of Tuol Sleng prison.

Both Chams and Vietnamese were singled out by the Khmer Rouge. Between 100,000 and 400,000 Chams were killed as the regime rose to power, according to the Documentation Center of Cambodia.

An unknown number of Vietnamese were killed, especially in border skirmishes after the guerrillas rose to power, in April 1975. Hundreds of Vietnamese died at Tuol Sleng.

Tror Yeth, a 40-year-old teacher of Cham literature in the capital’s Russei Keo district, who lost six family members to the Khmer Rouge, said he was “very happy” with the added charge

“It means justice will be found, and especially for Muslim victims,” he said as he stood at the door of his classroom, where a dozen students were learning to read.

Shutting down a table saw and tucking a pen behind his right ear, Van Cai, a carpenter in Chamkar Mon district, considered the news. An uncountable number of Cambodians and Vietnamese had died under the Khmer Rouge, he said.

“My aunts and my uncles, a total of four or five people, were killed in Tuol Sleng,” he said, his Khmer pitched with a Vietnamese accent. “[The Khmer Rouge] killed people. It is right to try them. We are waiting for the day when they will be tried.”

Cambodia Tribunal Charges Former Khmer Rouge Head of State With Genocide

Cambodia's U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal has charged the Khmer Rouge's former head of state with genocide, the third such charge this week against a former leader of the brutal regime.

18 December 2009
VOA News

A court spokesman says Khieu Samphan was brought before investigating judges of the U.N.-assisted tribunal Friday and charged.

On Wednesday, the tribunal charged two other defendants with genocide for the first time: Nuon Chea, the group's top ideologist and former foreign minister Ieng Sary.

All three have been charged with involvement in the deaths of members of the country's ethnic Cham and Vietnamese communities.

Some Chams, who are mostly Muslims, were among the few Cambodians to actively resist Khmer Rouge rule. The Khmer Rouge brutally suppressed the rebellions in several villages.

All three are also facing charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as homicide and torture for their involvement in the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979.

Although many Cambodians feel their people suffered a genocide, it is difficult for prosecutors to apply the charge to the mass killing.

The United Nations defines genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."

So far, three of five former senior Khmer Rouge members facing prosecution for their involvement in the brutal ultra-communist regime have been formally charged in court.

Prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, was the first defendant to be tried. He faces life imprisonment if found guilty of crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and murder. A verdict is expected some time early next year.

Duch commanded the S-21 prison in Phnom Penh, where about 16,000 people were tortured and taken away to be killed.

The Khmer Rouge aimed to wipe out Cambodia's social classes and create a self-sustaining, agrarian society.

They emptied Cambodia's cities, killed anyone who appeared educated or elite, and forced the rest of the population to work in rural labor camps. Vietnamese forces pushed the group from power in 1979.

Tribunal charges 3rd ex-Khmer Rouge with genocide

Friday, December 18, 2009
AP

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – A tribunal charged the Khmer Rouge's 78-year-old former head of state with genocide Friday, adding new momentum to long-delayed trials against the brutal regime that ruled Cambodia 30 years ago.

Khieu Samphan was brought before investigating judges of the U.N.-assisted tribunal, who issued the charges, making him the third former Khmer Rouge leader this week to be charged with genocide, tribunal spokesman Lars Olsen said.

On Wednesday, the tribunal charged two other defendants with genocide for the first time: the group's top ideologist, Nuon Chea, and the former foreign minister, Ieng Sary.

All three faced charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as homicide and torture. They are being held in the tribunal's jail with two other defendants and are expected to be tried next year.

The tribunal is seeking justice for an estimated 1.7 million people who died from execution, overwork, disease and malnutrition as a result of the communist group's policies during its 1975-79 rule.

Olsen said they were charged with involvement in the deaths of members of the country's ethnic Cham and Vietnamese communities.

Some Chams, who are mostly Muslims, were among the few Cambodians to actively resist Khmer Rouge rule. The Khmer Rouge brutally suppressed the rebellions in several villages.

The tribunal tried its first defendant, prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, this year on charges of crimes against humanity, war crimes, murder and torture. A verdict is expected early next year.

Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, commanded S-21 prison in Phnom Penh, where up to 16,000 people were tortured and taken away to be killed. A verdict is expected next year, and he faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment if found guilty. Cambodia has no death penalty.

Olsen said it would be determined later whether one of the other Khmer Rouge leaders in custody — former Social Affairs Minister Ieng Thirith, the wife of Ieng Sary — would also be charged with genocide.

Genocide charge for Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan

Khieu Samphan, detained in November,denies repsonsibility (Photo: Reuters)

Friday, 18 December 2009
BBC News

A UN-backed tribunal in Cambodia has charged Khieu Samphan, formerly the head of state for the Khmer Rouge, with genocide.

The move came after genocide charges were filed against two other Khmer Rouge leaders, Ieng Sary and Nuon Chea.

All the genocide charges relate to the men's treatment of Cambodia's Vietnamese and Muslim minorities.

All three men had already been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Those charged are already in pre-trial detention although the trial is not expected to begin before 2011.

Denial

Up to two million people are thought to have died under the Khmer Rouge's rule.

Khieu Samphan, 78, has never denied these deaths, but both he and his lawyers insist that, as head of state, he was never directly responsible.

One member of his defence team is the infamous French lawyer Jacques Verges, whose previous clients have included Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and Venezuelan hijacker Carlos the Jackal.

Mr Verges, 83, has known Khieu Samphan since they were both involved in left-wing student activities in France in the 1950s.

He says he has lived a life of poverty after the Khmer Rouge regime was toppled.

A court official confirmed that the allegations were the related to the treatment of two minority groups: Cham Muslims and ethnic Vietnamese people.

The accusation of genocide carries enormous symbolic weight, says the BBC's Guy De Launey in Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh.

Researchers believe that the Khmer Rouge killed hundreds of thousands of Chams because of their religious beliefs.

Final arguments were heard last month in the trial of Khmer Rouge prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, known as Comrade Duch, who has admitted being responsible for overseeing the deaths of 15,000 people.

Judges at the tribunal are expected to make a ruling on his verdict early next year.

‘Brother No 2’, Khmer Rouge ideologue

Brother No. 2 Nuon Chea (Photo: Reuters)

Thursday, December 17, 2009
The News (Pakistan)

PHNOM PENH: Former Khmer Rouge ideologue Nuon Chea and foreign minister Ieng Sary were both charged with genocide this week for their roles in the communist regime’s killing of ethnic Vietnamese and Cham Muslims.

Both are also charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity as key members of the 1975 to 1979 movement’s central committee, which oversaw the deaths of up to two million people through starvation, overwork and execution.

Now aged 83 and a secretive cadre even by the standards of one of the world’s most paranoid political movements, Nuon Chea was Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot’s most trusted deputy.

According to researchers, he was also a key architect of the regime’s death machine.

It is unknown how many of the Khmer Rouge’s victims were killed outright, but it is clear to researchers that the regime most likely systematically eliminated its “enemies” on Nuon Chea’s orders.

“There is substantial and compelling evidence that Nuon Chea, commonly known as ‘Brother Number Two,’ played a leading role in devising the... execution policies,” wrote genocide scholars Stephen Heder and Brian Tittemore in their book “Seven Candidates for Prosecution.”

“There is also substantial evidence that he played a central role in implementing those policies.”

Since surrendering to the government in 1998 under a deal that doomed the Khmer Rouge, Nuon Chea has acknowledged the deaths that took place under the regime but denies that he was in a position to stop the disaster that unfolded.

“I don’t know who was responsible” for the deaths, he told AFP before his 2007 arrest, describing himself as a nationalist who tried to guide Cambodia through the Cold War struggle for Indochina.

Ieng Sary, 84, was a young French university radical before he emerged as one of the few public faces of the Khmer Rouge during its brutal rule.

He has repeatedly denied knowledge of the mass executions that define the Khmer Rouge regime, yet researchers say he came as close as any senior official to publicly describing it policy of killing perceived traitors.

“Ieng Sary appears to have contributed to the perpetuation of atrocities in (Cambodia) by encouraging the Party’s execution policies,” said researchers Stephen Heder and Brian Tittemore in their book “Seven Candidates for Prosecution.”

In addition to being its foreign minister, Ieng Sary was also a member of the Khmer Rouge standing committee. In that position he was copied messages directed to Nuon Chea requesting what to do with Vietnamese prisoners of war.

Those messages, researchers say, mention torching civilian targets in Vietnam and “smashing” Vietnamese civilians on Vietnamese territory.

As foreign minister, he also oversaw the 1975 return of Cambodian diplomats under the guise of rebuilding their battered country. This policy would, however, deteriorate into the wholesale purging and slaughter of intellectuals, many of them taken from Ieng Sary’s foreign ministry with his knowledge. In 1979 Ieng Sary fled to Thailand after Vietnamese troops and Khmer Rouge defectors swept through Cambodia.

He was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity, and sentenced in absentia to death by a Vietnamese-backed war crimes tribunal hastily convened that year.

Amid moves against his ally Pol Pot and accusations from his former comrades that he had plundered millions of dollars of timber and gems, Ieng Sary defected to the new government in 1996 with thousands of Khmer Rouge fighters.

His lawyers have argued that the royal pardon he received in exchange for his surrender should exclude him from prosecution.

However he has been detained at Cambodia’s UN-backed court since 2007 along with his wife, former Khmer Rouge social affairs minister Ieng Thirith.

Two Khmer Rouge To Face Genocide Charges

Nuon Chea (L) and Ieng Sary (R)

By Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
16 December 2009

At least two senior leaders detained at the Khmer Rouge tribunal will be charged with genocide, an escalation of atrocity crimes charges against them, officials said Wednesday.

Nuon Chea, who was Pol Pot’s lieutenant and an influential ideologue for the communists, and Ieng Sary, the former foreign minister, will be charged with the crime in an upcoming case against them. Both already face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Investigating judges read their decision to prosecutors, defense lawyers, and the accused in hearings Monday and Wednesday, tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said Wednesday.

“This is the first additional charge following a more than two-year investigation by investigating judges,” Reach Sambath said.

Two more leaders in tribunal detention, Khieu Samphan and Ieng Thirith, will have similar hearings in coming weeks. Defense lawyers said Wednesday the two are also expected to be charged with genocide.

The new charges are based on mass killings of Vietnamese and Cham Muslims under the regime.

Cham Muslims were singled out and killed in the central, eastern and northwestern zones, Reach Sambath said. “And especially in the village of Trea II, in Krouch Chhmar district, and in the O’Takuon pagoda, in Kang Meas district,” in Kampong Cham province, he said.

Son Arun, a defense lawyer for Nuon Chea, said Wednesday he will appeal to strike the genocide charge. “This is a very serious charge, because my client was ignorant of some areas,” he said.

However, Youk Chhang, executive director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, called the genocide charge a good step.

“Genocide is the right word to describe the difficulties of the people and the atrocities in Democratic Kampuchea’s regime,” he said. “This charge is not only important legally but it is important historically.”

The Documentation Center, which has spent decades researching Khmer Rouge crimes, estimates between 100,000 and 400,000 Cambodian Muslims were killed under the regime.

The total number of Vietnamese killed is not known, though at least 200,000 Vietnamese were expelled from Cambodiain the 1970s, and at least 345 Vietnamese soldiers and civilians were killed in the Khmer Rouge’s Tuol Sleng prison. Many Vietnamese were seized by the Khmer Rouge in Prey Veng and Svay Rieng provinces during armed conflict in the 1970s.

Two more Khmer Rouge leaders to face genocide charges

Wed, 16 Dec 2009
DPA

Phnom Penh - At least two more senior leaders detained at the Khmer Rouge tribunal will be charged with genocide, officials said Wednesday. Nuon Chea, who was former Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot's lieutenant and an influential ideologue, and former foreign minister Ieng Sary are to be charged with the crime in their upcoming trials.

Both already face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Two other former officials of the radical regime, Khieu Samphan and Ieng Thirith, will have similar hearings in coming weeks, court officials said. Defense lawyers said Wednesday the two are also expected to be charged with genocide.

The Khmer Rouge tribunal, known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, earlier this month completed hearing the case against Kaing Guek Eav, aka Duch, the former head of the Khmer Rouge torturecentre in Phnom Penh known as S-21.

Acting international co-prosecutor William Smith was widely seen as having done a good job, particularly in the trial's final week when the defence imploded and fielded two opposing arguments before the court.

The trial took 77 days of hearings. Duch was tried for crimes against humanity and war crimes, as well as crimes under Cambodian law, and will be sentenced early next year. At least 15,000 people were tortured and executed at S-21.

The Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia between 1975-79. Up to 2 million people are thought to have died during that time from execution, starvation and overwork. Pol Pot died in 1998.

UN-Backed Court Charges 2 Ex-Khmer Rouge Leaders With Genocide

DECEMBER 16, 2009

PHNOM PENH (AFP)--Cambodia's U.N.-backed warcrimes court has for the first time issued genocide charges against two leaders of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, a tribunal spokesman said Wednesday.

Former Khmer Rouge number two Nuon Chea and foreign minister Ieng Sary were both charged over the hardline communist regime's slaughter of Vietnamese people and ethnic Cham Muslims during the 1970s, spokesman Lars Olsen said.

"This week both Nuon Chea and Ieng Sary have been brought before the investigating judges and informed they are being charged with genocide against the Cham Muslims and the Vietnamese," Olsen said.

"This is the first time that anyone has been charged with genocide" at the U.N.-backed tribunal, he added.

KRT could seek genocide charges

Wednesday, 13 August 2008
Craig Guthrie
The Mekong Times

All five defendants charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (KRT) may yet face an additional charge of genocide, a narrowly defined legally, more contentious charge which has divided Khmer Rouge (KR) scholars and tribunal watchers for decades.

Chea Leang, the court’s chief Cambodian co-prosecutor, said in an interview yesterday that when her prosecution team has finished investigating the current charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes, it will begin investigating charges of genocide, noting that this was mentioned in the prosecution’s introductory submission.

“The factual allegations in this introductory submission constitute … genocide,” said the KRT document, released in July 2007.

“[I]t is true that the prosecution has charged the five people with genocide,” said Chea Leang, adding, however, that prosecutors will only ask judges to prepare genocide charges if sufficient evidence is found. “If the co-investigating judges think there are genocide cases, charges must be imposed.”

Describing the acts committed by the KR during its brutal three-and-a-half-year rule as “genocide” has a history of controversy, with many historians and politicians arguing over the notion that there was “clear intent” to destroy ethnic groups based on their race, religion or nationality.

The author Milton Osborne told Asian Analysis in December that while genocide might be applied to those people killed by the regime who were not Cambodian, “it seems correct to suggest that in killing their fellow Cambodians, members of the DK [Democratic Kampuchea] regime were acting against those whom they saw as enemies of the state.”

But top Cambodian researcher and historian Gregory Stanton has argued quite the opposite, suggesting in his article Blue Scarves and Yellow Stars that historical reports confirm Cham Muslims, and ethnic Chinese and Vietnamese were targeted for extinction by the KR.

“The Cham nation no longer exists on Kampuchean soil belonging to the Khmer,” he quoted a document recovered from the KR government as saying. “[T]he Cham nationality, language, customs and religious beliefs must be immediately abolished.”

He added that the regime forced Cham Muslims to eat pork and massacred their leaders, while Cambodians from the Eastern province bordering Vietnam were made to wear blue and white checked krama (scarves), a “killing sign” which the author likens to the yellow stars Jews were made to wear under Nazi rule.

But David Chandler, the author of Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot’s Secret Prison, told The Mekong Times that he finds the notion of possible genocide charges for the five KR defendants “strange stuff.”

“The timing seems odd to me and I can’t see how [former S-21 chief Kaing Guek Eav] Duch or [former KR Foreign Minister] Ieng Sary can be convicted of genocide under the phrasing of the UN convention [against genocide].”

A “paper trail” to the other three KR leaders currently detained by the court has always been hard to find, he said. “Perhaps the defendants will be judged innocent of genocide – which in my opinion they are – in the absence of evidence proving genocidal intent,” he said by email.

Youk Chhang, the director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, said he hopes that the tribunal will investigate the genocide link, as he says there is clear evidence that Chams, Vietnamese and Buddhist monks were targeted for oppression and killings.

“But I think the charges are unlikely to arrive, as it is very difficult to prove legally there was intent, and there is no ‘smoking gun’,” he said, adding that it would be particularly difficult to prove in the case of Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, the chief of the S-21 torture center.