Comrade Duch Must Not Be Made the Sole Scapegoat of the Khmer Rouge Crimes

17 August 2010
By Theary C. Seng

Late last month, the Extraordinary Chambers (informally, the Khmer Rouge Tribunal) convicted the former commandant of the notorious Tuol Sleng torture center, Comrade Duch, for crimes against humanity in the sadistic murders of at least 14,000 Cambodians (possibly including my father) and a handful of foreigners and sentenced him to 35 years of imprisonment. The conviction marked a milestone for Cambodians after having waited some 30 years for some form of credible justice.

However, many Cambodian survivors, including myself, viewed the sentence to be too lenient and incomprehensible in light of the enormity of his crimes. After the Extraordinary Chambers deducted 5 years to redress violations of his rights when he was held illegally in prior military detention and 11 years for the time he’s already served from the 35 years, the victims are left with Comrade Duch effectively receiving only 11 hours of imprisonment for each life he brutally murdered.

(It should be noted that the Trial Chamber correctly considered Duch’s impressive cooperation—confession and remorse which I believe are genuine—as mitigating factors into their sentence of 35 years.)

Moreover, we are appalled at the scant, laughable reparations offered to the victims of Tuol Sleng. We join the Association of Khmer Rouge Victims in Cambodia in demanding that learning centers be established in all the 24 provinces to be furnished with the assets and equipment of the Tribunal once it has closed operations.

Upon hearing the verdict, Hong Savath, a woman sitting next to me who had been raped and orphaned by the Khmer Rouge and lost a relative at Tuol Sleng, went into shock and almost collapsed in my arms, as captured by the images flashed around the world.

Yesterday, 16 August 2010, the Prosecutors filed an appeal against the lenient sentence. We welcome this appeal even if it has the potential of delaying the trial of the “senior” Khmer Rouge leaders in Case 002 because Comrade Duch’s defense lawyer Kar Savuth had already stated his intention of appealing the verdict anyway. Here, the Prosecutors beat him to it.

Up until this puzzling verdict, we Cambodian survivors have been viewing the Extraordinary Chambers as a very powerful catalyst in breaking the 30 years of “communicative silence” and transitioning us into a culture of dialogue and honorable memorializing.

For many years since Vietnam invaded and ended the Khmer Rouge regime in January 1979, these killer wandered the country with impunity thanks to Cold War politics. Despite their shared Communist ideology, the Soviet Union and Vietnam were sworn Cold War enemies of China: China continued its financial and military support of its satellite, the Khmer Rouge, now straddling the Thai jungle border to the west of the country; the Soviet Union supported the occupation of Vietnam in Cambodia. Still smarting from the Vietnam War and viewing China as an indispensible ally, the US backed a coalition government of Khmer Rouge and non-Communist Cambodian forces with Prince Norodom Sihanouk as its nominal head. This government dominated by the Khmer Rouge was given a seat at the United Nations with support from the US, Europe and pro-West ASEAN nations (e.g. Thailand, Singapore).

The collapse of the Soviet Union brought about the Paris Peace Agreement in 1991 which involved all the four Cambodian factions, including the Khmer Rouge. However, the Khmer Rouge boycotted the 1993 general elections envisioned by this Peace Agreement. The elections produced a 2-headed government of First Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh and Second Prime Minister Hun Sen and dwindled the power of the Khmer Rouge.

In June 1997, one month before Prince Ranariddh was to be overthrown in a violent coup d’etat by Hun Sen, the Co-Prime Ministers wrote the Secretary General of the United Nations requesting assistance in trying the crimes of the Khmer Rouge. It would take until June 2003 for the UN and the Hun Sen-government to conclude the Agreement to establish the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (its full official name) and until mid-2006 for this Extraordinary Chambers to come into operation.

Hence, the Extraordinary Chambers is the lowest common denominator resulting from a long entangled political compromise, a broken legal construct from the very beginning, but nonetheless the most serious, credible attempt to try the mass crimes of 1975-79.

Since the Tribunal’s operation, civil society has been engaging the Cambodian population to discuss long overdue topics of history, accountability, trauma, peace and reconciliation using the Extraordinary Chambers to jumpstart these conversations. This “court of law” as an object lesson has helped to multiply the benefits in the “court of public opinion”. However, this lenient verdict has taken the air out of us and broken the momentum in our stride toward a more comprehensive justice of both legal accountability and just peace. We will need to regain our composure and faith very quickly (to fight against the strong tide of cynicism from setting in) from this setback in order to concentrate on the larger picture, which is the demand for the quick start of the "senior Khmer Rouge leaders" in Case 002, the core of the Extraordinary Chambers.

Despite our deep disappointment at the light sentence for the grave crimes committed, Case 001 regarding Comrade Duch is significant in familiarizing us Cambodians with the legal process at the Extraordinary Chambers and raising the comfort level of our participation; in this regards, this simple case was a test-run for the heart of the matter—the more complicated trial of the senior Khmer Rouge leaders, Brother No. Two Nuon Chea, KR former Head of State Khieu Samphan, KR Minister of Foreign Affairs Ieng Sary and his wife, KR Minister of Social Affairs Ieng Thirith.

We must bear in mind that Comrade Duch was the commandant of only one Khmer Rouge detention center (Tuol Sleng) and only one “killing field” (Choeung Ek) among at least 200 detention centers and thousands of killing fields spread across the whole country. Phnom Penh was not the only crime scene, but almost every rice field, pagoda and school in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge rounded up their victims – mainly fellow Cambodians evacuated from the capital Phnom Penh and the major towns, believed to be tainted by western imperialism, thus “new” to hardship and suffering – at night for mass execution into graves dug by the victims the day before. They saved the bullets for the war against Vietnam; with their own people, the Khmer Rouge butchered and whacked them from behind at the stem of the neck by more crude farm instruments like hoes. Many died later from asphyxiation from the 20-30 bodies on top of them in the mass graves and the oppressive tropical heat.

Other detention centers resulted in more deaths than the 14,000 at Tuol Sleng. For example, in the Boeung Rai detention center in the heart of the “Eastern Zone” where I was detained as a 7 year old child, the Khmer Rouge killed 30,000 prisoners including my mother. In this prison, every night the Khmer Rouge guards chained the ankles of all the prisoners; they tried to chain my ankles but they were too bony and could slip in and out of these shackles; my job at night was to bring the toilet bucket to other immobile prisoner. One night, a crazy woman in our cabin screamed “I’m thirsty! I’m thirsty!” and drank from the toilet bucket; later the Khmer Rouge prison guards squeezed her head to death with a coconut cruncher for amusement to pass the languid day.

Comrade Duch is “most responsible”, according to the Tribunal, for these grave crimes against humanity of 14,000 lives at Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek, but he was not a "senior" Khmer Rouge leader and should not be made the sole scapegoat of this murderous, genocidal regime where 1.7 million lives were lost.

His conviction on 26 July 2010 is a very good start, even if disappointing in terms of the light sentencing; but it is only a start in the legal process as well as the journey of healing. The heart of the Extraordinary Chambers is the anticipated trial of the senior Khmer Rouge leaders in Case 002, which we must advocate for it to happen quickly before they die of old age, ill health and/or from more invidious political interests.

Should this Cambodian government make Comrade Duch who was not a “senior” Khmer Rouge leader the sole scapegoat of the regime by obstructing the start and completion of Case 002, the Khmer Rouge Tribunal will be considered a failure for the millions of dollars wasted and the irreversible cynicism it has embedded in a society already fractured by distrust and fear. If that is the case, let the record show, we have registered our deep disappointment.
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Theary C. SENG, a lawyer and first recognized Civil Party to testify at the Extraordinary Chambers, is the author of Daughter of the Killing Fields (first published with Fusion Press London, 2005; to be published in North America for the first time with Seven Stories Press, NYC, forthcoming).

KRouge jail survivors grow to accept Duch sentence

Thursday, August 12, 2010
AFP

PHNOM PENH — A group of rare survivors of the Khmer Rouge's main prison said Thursday they accepted the sentence handed to their former jailer Duch, having initially criticised it as too lenient.

Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, was sentenced to 30 years in jail by a UN-backed court last month for crimes against humanity over the mass murder of 15,000 men, women and children at Tuol Sleng prison.

Many survivors and relatives of victims were dismayed by the sentence, which also took into account the years Duch has served since his arrest in 1999, meaning that he could walk free in about 19 years.

But three prominent survivors, who had demanded Duch be sentenced to life in jail, changed their minds on Thursday after receiving copies of the court ruling during a ceremony at the former prison.

They raised the verdict books into the air and told the souls of those killed there: "This is justice that we have been waiting for."

"I am very pleased after receiving copies of the verdict book from the court," said Bou Meng, one of a handful of inmates who survived Tuol Sleng.

"The verdict is not 100 percent perfect, but it is acceptable," he said.

Fellow survivor Chum Mey told reporters that he had changed his mind after taking into account the court's independence and its efforts to seek justice for the victims.

"This is a historic verdict for the young generation," said Chum Mey, who suffered 12 days of beatings at Tuol Sleng until he falsely confessed to spying on the regime.

The court has printed thousands of copies of the 450-page verdict to be distributed to the Cambodian people, according to a spokesman for the tribunal.

Duch, 67, was the first Khmer Rouge cadre to face an international tribunal.

He was initially handed 35 years but the court reduced the jail sentence on the grounds that he had been detained illegally for years before the UN-backed tribunal was established. His lawyer has said he plans to appeal.

Led by "Brother Number One" Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge was responsible for one of the worst horrors of the 20th century, wiping out nearly a quarter of Cambodia's population through starvation, overwork and execution.

praCh Ly's rap reaction to Duch's verdict

Click here to listen to praCh Ly's rap reaction to Duch's verdict

- u n t i t l e d -

written by : p r a C h
beats by : Kinesus Beats
produce by : p r a C h
m u j e s t i c r e c o r d s

Justice Denied for Cambodians

August 2, 2010
By KUONG LY
Letter to The International Herald Tribune

Last week, a U.N.-backed tribunal convicted Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, for war crimes in what was the first trial of a major Khmer Rouge figure. Many media reports portrayed the verdict in a positive light, but for survivors, victims and their families, there was nothing positive in this outcome.

An editorial in the International Herald Tribune (“Forgotten victims?” July 29) stated that while the sentence handed down by the tribunal may be disappointing, at least Duch was held to account for his war crimes. Unfortunately, “at least” isn’t good enough for me and for those who suffered from the murderous actions of the Khmer Rouge, especially after waiting 30 years for this verdict.

My mother and my late father both endured what are known as the “Killing Fields” of Cambodia. They lost their siblings, parents and home when Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge in April, 1975.

Somewhere between 1.7 and 2 million people — nearly a quarter of Cambodia’s population — were executed or died from disease, starvation and overwork. My family was forced to flee Cambodia and suffered in the poverty of refugee camps for almost a decade before making it to the United States, where we overcame tremendous obstacles in trying to rebuild our lives.

As I followed the trial of Duch and heard him take responsibility for directing the notorious prison, S-21, where more than 12,273 people were tortured and killed, I was confident the court would place him behind bars for life. But last week, he was given a 35-year sentence. Because Duch had served several years in prison while awaiting trial, and the Cambodian government infringed upon his rights while he was detained, his sentence was significantly reduced.

In the end, Duch was sentenced to no more than 19 years behind bars. That translates to one year for every 646 Cambodians he tortured and killed at S-21. This does not include the millions of Cambodians like my parents who suffered under the Khmer Rouge policies he helped implement. The feeling of injustice for me and many others stems from knowing that Duch may walk free at age 86.

Survivors, victims and their families have been asked to see the silver lining in Duch’s verdict. Impunity has finally been broken, many observers reason. A perpetrator of the Khmer Rouge regime was brought to justice by legal proceedings for the world to watch, they say. And in reducing Duch’s sentence by 16 years, some will argue, the tribunal was attempting demonstrate the rule of law and lead by example — in a country where thousands of citizens are illegally detained.

From the beginning, I harbored grave doubts about these legal proceedings. The U.N.-backed tribunal resulted from the lack of judicial independence in Cambodia. I was willing to look past the criticism and cynicism in hopes that a guilty verdict and a heavy punishment in Duch’s case would set a precedent for future international criminal cases. The international community, I reasoned, had an opportunity to deter other ruthless, oppressive regimes from committing genocide, war crimes and other crimes against humanity. But the tribunal failed to deliver a satisfactory verdict.

If the Duch verdict foreshadows the tribunal’s next case — the trial of the senior Khmer Rouge leaders Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith and Khieu Samphan — there will be a decline in support from the Cambodian people — and perhaps the world community.

I will never forget how my late father was used like an ox to plow and till the land. Nor will I forget that my maternal grandfather, aunts, uncles and cousins were either starved to death, beaten to death, or disappeared.

No verdict will heal the pain. But for survivors, victims and their families, this verdict was simply not good enough. We may have to accept that the international community denied us — and those we lost — a sense of closure.

More than 12,273 people entered Duch’s S-21 prison and were tortured and killed. While Duch will be in prison for 19 years, the possibility remains that he may one day walk free. Is that justice?

Kuong Ly is an L.L.M. candidate in International Human Rights Law at the University of Essex, where he is a British Marshall Scholar.

Closure for Cambodia [-Sorry, not for all Cambodians!]

Monday, August 02, 2010
Katherine Marshall
Georgetown/On Faith
The Washington Post (USA)

Phnom Penh was hot, noisy, and bustling last week. Cars, motorcycles, and the ubiquitous tuk tuks (motorcycle taxis) raced through the city with perpetual near collisions. Markets were full. Children were everywhere. There were clouds gathering, but the coming storms of the rainy season held off.

The talk of the town was the long-awaited verdict in the international trial of Kaing Guek Eav, alias Commandant Duch, announced on July 26 by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, a joint United Nations-Cambodian Government tribunal set up to try some of the leaders responsible for the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia. Thirty years have passed, so it's high time to bring the surviving perpetrators to account. The trial of Duch is the first to come to a conclusion.

Duch's conviction was not in question. He was in charge of the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, where somewhere between 12,000 and 20,000 plus people entered, to be registered, tortured, and sent to their death. Fewer than ten who entered are thought to have emerged alive. Duch was renowned for his meticulous attention to detail - incredible records survive - and his cruelty. He acknowledged what he had done; his lame defense was that he was following orders. A convert to Christianity, he held out his faith and the good he said he has done since the Khmer Rouge period as character evidence.

Duch was sentenced to 35 years in prison, but with two reductions, the first to compensate for a period when he was held illegally, and for time served. The bottom line is 19 more years to serve.

The first reaction was outrage at the lightness of the sentence. Duch is now 67 so he is likely to die in prison, but still the sentence seemed almost an insult. But there is also a complex sense of pride that the trial took place. While an initial reaction is to want Duch to suffer at least a fraction of the torment he inflicted on his victims, many in this country permeated with Buddhist thinking take satisfaction that he will suffer horribly in a future life. Vengeance does not seem high on the agenda and many who hold prominent positions have some shadows in their past that they would just as soon leave be.

There was outrage also that the tribunal essentially ducked all issues of reparations, arguing that it had no way to enforce such awards. Page after page of motions for memorials and other steps were dismissed on those grounds. That, surely, is unfinished business for Cambodia, as a government and a people.

The monumental effort to ensure justice that the long verdict report reflects gets some credit. So does the fact that the glacial process does represent a route to come to terms with the past. The proceedings have been televised, and the newspapers have reported on witness after witness over the long life of the trial. But so far only one man has been in the dock. Four more are slated for trials, but most former Khmer Rouge live normal lives. Cambodian children are taught little about what happened, much less why, so they grow up with an uneasy sense of storms left behind.

Closure in the Duch case is a milestone but only a first step toward the reconciliation that needs to occur among the survivors and the perpetrators. Many programs work to address this challenge, including the remarkable Documentation Center of Cambodia led from Yale University and village by village programs in Cambodia, like those of the International Center for Conciliation. But the efforts are barely scratching the surface.

Many Cambodians want to look to the future and relegate the past to some distant drawer. But the heavy clouds are there, and it often feels as if a new storm could break. Pained memories and buried anger are very much part of Cambodian reality today. The multiple efforts to face it, with justice, compassion and understanding, are not only desirable. They are essential.

Katherine Marshall is a senior fellow at Georgetown's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, a Visiting Professor, and Executive Director of the World Faiths Development Dialogue.

Killing Fields verdict fuels Christian's forgiveness

Jul 29, 2010
By Tess Rivers

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (Baptist Press)--Former Khmer Rouge operative Kaing Guev Eav's sentence is not severe enough, in the minds of many Cambodians; forgiveness is far from their thoughts.

Silas* is not one of them.

Kaing Guev Eav, known as "Duch," was sentenced to 35 years in prison July 26 by a U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal -- the first of five surviving senior leaders of the notorious Khmer Rouge to be brought to trial. The communist regime's nearly four-year reign of terror in the 1970s resulted in the death of 1.7 million men, women and children in what has become known as Cambodia's Killing Fields.

Duch, who now professes to be a Christian, will appeal his sentence. At his trial he pleaded guilty but asked forgiveness for his role in the genocide. He claimed he was only following orders.

Duch was convicted of crimes against humanity, murder and torture for his role as head of the S-21 prison in Phnom Penh. At least 14,000 people died there under his command. Reduction in sentence for time served means Duch, 67, will spend the next 19 years in prison.

Silas was 8 years old in 1975 when communist leader Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge overturned the government of Cambodia. Silas was separated from his family and sent to a re-education camp where the Khmer Rouge trained him as a child soldier.

When the Vietnamese liberated Cambodia in 1979, Silas was reunited with his mother, brother and sister, but not his father. Silas believes the Khmer Rouge executed his father in 1976 in one of the infamous Killing Fields.

Silas understands his countrymen's frustration and he hopes other leaders of the Khmer Rouge will be brought to justice. But he also says forgiveness must be part of the process.

Silas knows from experience this is not easy. Years ago in a refugee camp in Thailand he became a Christian. He also learned the identity of the man who turned his father over to the Khmer Rouge.

"He was my father's best friend," Silas said, recounting that, as boys, he and his brother "decided when we found that man we were going to kill him."

For years, Silas nursed his hatred. He struggled with the anger and bitterness, and he began to pray that God would help him find the man, kill him and not get caught.

"I knew that I could do the killing but I needed God's help at not getting caught," he said.

But Silas' prayers brought no peace. He sensed God was questioning him.

Why do you want to kill him? God seemed to ask. What about his children? What about his family? Do you want his children to go through what you went through?

Silas couldn't answer those questions. He came to realize that only God could avenge his father's death.

After college, seminary and the decision to return to Cambodia as a Christian worker, Silas learned from his mother that the man he once wanted to kill also had become a follower of Christ.

"I said, 'God, you were supposed to kill him,'" Silas laughed. "Still, I knew that God had spared his life so he could become a child of God.... I could only worship Him for that."

A few years later Silas' mother traveled to California to meet the man.

"She sat down next to him in [a church] service and introduced herself," Silas said. "She told him she had forgiven him."

The man began to cry.

"For me that was confirmation that Cambodia is where I need to be," Silas said. "God saved me and sent people to me so I could hear [the Gospel]. I need to be faithful ... to share with others."

Today, Silas is pleased that Duch professes responsibility for his crimes and that Duch, in his darkest moments, seems to have run toward God and that God found him. Silas considers Duch a brother and urges his fellow Cambodians to let go of the past and learn to forgive.

"We [Cambodians] hate the past but we are continuing to live the same way," Silas said. "For the sake of our children, we need to let go of our grudges."

Silas understands the power people have to end life. He witnessed it when the Khmer Rouge trained him as a soldier and felt it when he learned of his father's death at their hands. But he sees forgiveness as being more significant.

By learning to forgive, "It is an even greater power to give life back," he said.
------
*Name changed.

Tess Rivers is a writer for the International Mission Board living in Southeast Asia.

Duch Sentence Brings Tears, Relief Among US-Cambodians

Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer
Washington, DC Thursday, 29 July 2010

“I think this is an injustice, to reduce his sentence to 19 years.”

Click here to listen to the audio program in Khmer (MP3)

Among US-Cambodians, this week's sentencing of Kaing Kek Iev, the Khmer Rouge torture chief better known as Duch, brought with it mixed emotions.

Tears, sobs and disappointment combined with endeavors toward calm among the immigrant community, after Duch was handed a commuted sentence of 19 years for the torture and execution of more than 12,000 people at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison.

“I think this is an injustice, to reduce his sentence to 19 years,” said Kuch Chanly, a Cambodian resident of Maryland.

Judges at the UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal issued a 35-year sentence that was reduced for time served on Monday in a landmark case for the court. But that sentence did little to allay Kuch Chanly's mistrust of the tribunal.

“From the beginning, I never trusted this court, which has been conducted in Cambodia, in a place controlled by the former Khmer Rouge themselves,” he said. “Millions of Cambodian victims like myself, who lost both parents, siblings, uncles, aunties, nieces and nephews, must consider taking legal action and peaceful action to demand a retrial from this court so that we can get a fair trial.”

The tribunal's mandate is to try the senior-most leaders of the regime, but there are in fact members of the government who were lower-ranking cadre. A 1998 amnesty for the Khmer Rouge, which brought peace to a protracted civil war, also brought many Khmer Rouge under the government.

“For millions of Cambodian victims like me who lost both my parents, siblings, uncles, aunts, nieces and nephews have to consider taking a legal and peaceful action to demand this court for a retrial so that we can get a fair trial,” Kuch Chanly said.

Duch, now 67, was the first to be tried under the new court, which formed in 2006 after years of wrangling between the government and the UN.

“When I heard the verdict, I found it hard to believe that he had this day,” said Him Chanrithy, the author of a Khmer Rouge memoir. She wept as she discussed the sentencing, issued Monday in a public declaration at the court outside Phnom Penh.

“I think the sentence handed down to him was too little,” she said. “But in another thought, I feel that my parents and other Khmers who were killed have begun to receive some justice now, after a long wait.”

Not everyone disapproved of the sentencing.

“We Cambodian-Americans living in the US are happy to see that the court has sentenced Duch for his crimes during the Khmer Rouge regime,” said Yap Kimtung, president of the group Cambodian-Americans for Human Rights and Democracy. “Either 35 or 19 years is acceptable,” he said. “The main point is that we have seen the culprit punished at last.”

“This verdict is right, but for those who suffered under the regime, it is not yet enough,” said Sok Nen, president of the Cambodian Association in Illinois. “However, we have to follow what is the judge's decision.”

The reach of Khmer Rouge trauma went well beyond Cambodia. Those who fled the regime and settled in the US experience trauma as acutely as the survivors who remained behind.

“Many of my patients and those known by my colleagues called us up and said this trial was just a joke,” said Kuoch Theanvy, executive director of the Cambodian Health Initiative, which is based in the US. “Some of my clients cried on the phone and told me the judgement had not delivered justice for them.”

Scarred, not healed

The first war-crimes conviction in Cambodia was long overdue

Jul 29th 2010 | Phnom Penh
The Economist

SLIGHT, well-kempt in grey trousers and a powder-blue shirt, the man in the dock cut the image of an ageing schoolteacher. In fact he had taught maths in the years before the Khmers Rouges seized power in Cambodia. Then he assumed a far more terrifying role: as commandant of the S-21 detention centre, overseeing the torture of some 14,000 adults and children, before they were carted off to the “killing fields”. On July 26th the ex-teacher, Kaing Guek Eav, became the first Khmer Rouge official to pay for his part in the genocide of 1975-79, when some 2m people died: a UN-backed tribunal convicted him of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and jailed him for 35 years.

Comrade Duch, as he is better known, will serve only another 19 years because of time he has already spent behind bars and as compensation for a spell of illegal detention before he got to the tribunal. One of the five judges called his offences “shocking and heinous”, but also noted how the defendant had followed orders in a coercive climate, and had since co-operated with the tribunal and shown remorse.

Most Cambodians at the trial thought the sentence unconscionably lenient. Speaking outside of the tribunal, Chum Mey, one of only a handful of survivors of S-21, which was also known as Tuol Sleng, said: “I cannot accept the court’s decision”. Nor could Duch, who will appeal. He had been contrite and compliant for much of the trial, but during closing arguments in November he changed tack, rejecting the court and demanding to be let go.

Jul 29th 2010For his victims, some of whom had watched his testimony from the public gallery, the 67-year-old had in any case failed to take responsibility for his actions. They had desperately hoped to hear why their families or their friends had been tortured and killed, but had to settle for a mix of limited remorse, claimed ignorance and, at times, condescension.

Human-rights groups say that Duch’s sentence represents a measure of hope: he is the first, but hopefully not the last, to be punished for the genocide. The ultra-Maoists, seeking an agrarian Utopia, forced almost all Cambodians onto collective farms and banned money, schools and religion. Their mass killings stopped only when Vietnamese-led invaders toppled the regime. “My father was also killed at that time and I was personally disappointed with the sentence,” says Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights. Still, he believes the court may help to tackle impunity and act as a “good influence” on the flawed national legal system.

Yet the hybrid tribunal itself has not been perfect. Since its inception in 2006, it has suffered from delays, weary donors and claims of grave corruption and political meddling. The underlying difficulty is holding together the coalition of local and foreign judges, lawyers and administrators who staff the court.

Foreign staff want to expand the docket from five to ten suspects and to order testimony from six high-ranking members of the current government. Local staff have resisted, warning that a more assertive tribunal risks sowing unrest among the many former cadres in the country. They echo the prime minister, Hun Sen, who last year said he “would prefer to see this tribunal fail instead of seeing war return to my country.” In any case, officials say, they lack the authority to call on prominent politicians to testify. Outsiders say that the government is trying to limit the tribunal, which it sees as an imposition.

That row is a far cry from an oft-stated hope that the tribunal would help Cambodians to discuss their history, and so promote reconciliation. Ordinary people are only slowly becoming aware of the court, helped by broadcasts of synopses of proceedings, which often draw some 2m viewers, of a population of 14m.

Interest may grow. Four of the Khmers Rouges’ highest-ranking leaders await trial (see article), but they are old and infirm. Their proceedings are scheduled for next year and will be more complicated. Duch, a relatively lowly official, left a meticulous paper trial at S-21 and acknowledged many of his crimes. By contrast, the leaders have mostly refused to co-operate. Pol Pot, the overall leader, went on to command a rebel army that inflicted civil war on the country until the mid 1990s. He died, perhaps by suicide, perhaps murdered, in 1998, after hearing that he might be handed over for trial. Other leaders have made no admissions or apologies and may also not survive to face trial. “The strange thing,” says Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, which has unearthed much evidence, “is that we have to hope they stay alive.”

Khmer rouge victim's shock turns to bitterness after "light" Duch sentence

Duch during one of the ECCC's hearings. Photo courtesy of the Extraordinary Chamber in the Courts of Cambodia.

29/07/2010
France24

Theary Seng was among the hundreds of people who came to Phnom Penh from all over Cambodia to see the trial of former Khmer Rouge prison chief Duch. She was numb with shock when she heard the sentence: 30 years in jail, possibly as little as 19. The thought that a man who personally tortured and murdered thousands of people could walk free at the age of 89 is too much for Seng, who lost both her parents to the Khmer Rouge.

Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Commrade Duch, was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity on by the Extraordinary Chamber in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) on Monday, for his personal oversight of the mass murder of 15,000 men, women and children at the S-21 prison he ran under the Khmer Rouge regime.

Initially sentenced to 35-years in jail, his sentence was reduced to 30 years on the grounds that he had been illegally detained before the tribunal was established, and could be cut another 11 years for Duch's collaboration with investigators and good behaviour.

Although government officials and the UN Special Rapporteur for human rights praised the decision, Cambodia's Foreign Minister Hor Namhong broke away from the official line and called the sentence "too light" and "unsuitable" on Thursday. Duch's lawyers have indicated he will appeal the verdict.

Four other senior Khmer Rouge officials are awaiting trial, but critics of the ECCC have expressed doubts as to whether the court will be able to withhold the challenges of future cases. Originally expected to cost $20 million dollars over a 3-year period, the court has already spent $70 million dollars since 2006, and convicted only one suspect.

"We have to turn our anger into energy to push for other Khmer Rouge leaders to be brought to justice" - Theary Seng

Theary Seng is director of the Cambodian Center for Social Development. She escaped Cambodia and fled to the US in 1979 after both her parents were killed by the Khmer Rouge. Today she lives in Phnom Penh.

I was personally deeply, very deeply disappointed at the verdict of Duch's trial. It is utterly incomprehensible. This lenient sentence means that he will only serve 11 hours of prison for every murder he is responsible for.

Yes, Duch fully cooperated with the court, and yes, I believe his remorse was genuine. Yes, he was also illegally detained for years before his trial. But those factors should have granted him a 5-year reprieve from a 100-year sentence, at most, not a 16-year reprieve from a 35-year sentence. I'm not just saying this as a former victim and the daughter of victims; I'm saying this as a US-trained lawyer. The prosecution should have asked for a much stronger sentence [it requested 40 years]. The judges should have granted the maximum sentence. Legal theorists may ho and hum and try to justify the decision, but we are not in a theoretical world. This was a real genocide, the victims and survivors alive today are very real. And they are bitterly, bitterly disappointed and angry.

"Those really pulling the strings have to be brought to justice"

I fear that Cambodians, who are already very cynical about the trial process, will be so disgusted by this first verdict that will they not see the point of trying the four other Khmer Rouge leaders who are currently detained. My theory is that government, which has never supported the work of the special Khmer Rouge court, deliberately pushed for a weak verdict to feed into that cynicism and weaken victim's resolve to seek justice.

Also, by letting Duch get off easily, they are completely undermining his credibility as a key witness for future trials. People are thinking: so much time, energy and money were put into case 001, and if it didn't bring justice then what will?

We can't let that happen. We have to turn the energy from our anger into energy to push for case 002, and the ones after. It's important to remember that Duch was in charge of just one detention centre - there were 200 others, and over 1.7 million people died under the Khmer Rouge regime. Duch was not a big fish, and those really pulling the strings have to be brought to justice.

The ECCCs decisions are obviously based on political compromise between the the United Nations and the Cambodian government [the court is Cambodian-run but backed by UN and international donor funds]. We, the victims of the Khmer Rouge regime and citizens of Cambodia, are looking towards the international community to be extremely vigilant of any trace of irregularities or political interference in this difficult judicial process."

Former KR cadres react to verdict

Thursday, 29 July 2010
Thet Sambath
The Phnom Penh Post

Why do they want him to spend his whole life in prison? There is no need for this kind of vengeance.

FORMER Khmer Rouge cadres in the regime’s onetime stronghold of Northwestern Cambodia said yesterday that they were uninterested in Monday’s verdict against Tuol Sleng prison chief Kaing Guek Eav at the Kingdom’s war crimes tribunal, and untroubled by the prospect of further prosecutions.

Royal Cambodian Armed Forces Brigade 8 commander Yim Phim, a former Khmer Rouge military commander whose RCAF troops are now stationed at Preah Vihear temple, said he was aware of Monday’s proceedings but had not followed them closely.

“I am not interested in this verdict, and neither are my soldiers,” Yim Phim said. “I don’t see it as necessary.”

Although the court had begun preliminary investigations in its third and fourth cases, and prosecutors had submitted a list of five unnamed potential suspects in September, Yim Phim said he and other former cadres were unconcerned.

“If Samdech Hun Sen is in power, I believe it will be no problem and there will be no more arrests,” Yim Phim said. The prime minister has publicly expressed his opposition to prosecutions beyond the court’s second case.

In the most widely discussed aspect of Monday’s ruling, judges sentenced Kaing Guek Eav – alias Duch – to 30 years in prison. This penalty was reduced from 35 years because of Duch’s illegal detention from 1999 to 2007, and with credit for time already served, he will spend just 19 more years in prison.

Many victims expressed anger at this relatively light sentence, though Kong Doung, a former Khmer Rouge radio officer who is now director of Pailin province’s information department, said he was puzzled by this sentiment.

“Why do they want him to spend his whole life in prison? There is no need for this kind of vengeance,” Kong Doung said. Most people near the border, he said, were more concerned with the ongoing standoff with Thailand than with the Khmer Rouge tribunal.

“We are worried about Preah Vihear temple – we want to know whether the Thai troops will withdraw or not,” Kong Doung said.

Keut Sothea, a former Khmer Rouge military officer and now a member of the Pailin provincial council, said he had not tuned in for the announcement of Monday’s verdict.

More basic concerns, he said, occupied the minds of his constituents.

“People are too busy working and farming to feed their families and children,” he said.

Khan Nang, a former Khmer Rouge soldier now living in Banteay Meanchey province’s Malai disrict, said he did not take the tribunal seriously because it was not investigating all of those responsible for committing atrocities under Democratic Kampuchea.

“I do not see it as justice because the trials are just for a few leaders,” Khan Nang said. “They should try all the cadres who were involved in these crimes, even those who are leaders in the government today.”

Duch’s detention

One question on the minds of some observers in the aftermath of Monday’s verdict was whether Duch, already the beneficiary of a reduced sentenced, could see his prison term further reduced by earning parole.

Upon the conclusion of their cases, the Cambodian government assumes responsibility for suspects convicted at the Khmer Rouge tribunal.

Suspects convicted in the Cambodian criminal system are eligible for parole after having served two thirds of their sentences.

The 2004 Law on the Establishment of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia states that the government “shall not request an amnesty or pardon” for anyone convicted at the tribunal, and ECCC deputy prosecutor William Smith said Tuesday that this provision thus excluded the possibility of parole.

Asked about the legal status of Duch’s detention, Ministry of Interior spokesman Khieu Sopheak said it was “a good question” and referred questions to ECCC officials. Phnom Penh Municipal Court president Chiv Keng said such detention procedure was “under the ECCC’s duty”.

UN court spokesman Lars Olsen said Tuesday that there were “established procedures in Cambodian law for applying for parole, and it is not within the ECCC’s mandate to enforce those rules”.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY MAY TITTHARA

«Douch» s'en tire avec 19 ans de prison

Des parents des victimes, comme Hong Sa Vath, ci-dessus, ont dénoncé une sentence trop clémente. (Photo : Agence Reuters Chor Sokunthea)

Procès de l'ex-tortionnaire khmer rouge de la prison S-21

27 juillet 2010
Agence Reuters

«Je suis choqué comme tout le monde, a déclaré Theary Seng, un avocat des droits de l'Homme qui a perdu ses deux parents. C'est inacceptable qu'un homme qui a tué des milliers de personnes ne soit emprisonné que 19 ans.» «Je ne peux pas l'accepter, a commenté Saodi Ouch, 46 ans, en sanglots. Ma famille est morte [...] ma soeur aînée, mon grand frère. Je suis la seule toujours vivante.»

Phnom Penh — «Douch» échappe à la perpétuité. Le tribunal spécial de Phnom Penh chargé de juger les anciens dirigeants khmers rouges a condamné hier à 35 ans de détention l'ex-tortionnaire de la prison S-21. Kaing Guek Eav, alias «Douch», 67 ans, ne devrait toutefois passer que 19 ans derrière les barreaux, le tribunal ayant notamment pris en compte le fait qu'il est détenu depuis onze ans.

Kaing Guek Eav est le premier responsable traduit devant ce tribunal international soutenu par les Nations unies. Quarante ans de réclusion avaient été requis contre lui pour crimes de guerre et crimes contre l'humanité.

L'accusé, qui a reconnu son rôle dans l'organisation de la prison de Tuol Sleng (S-21) et demandé pardon aux familles des victimes, est resté impassible, le regard lointain en écoutant la sentence, qui signifie qu'il pourrait un jour sortir de prison.

«Je suis choqué comme tout le monde, a déclaré Theary Seng, un avocat des droits de l'Homme qui a perdu ses deux parents. C'est inacceptable qu'un homme qui a tué des milliers de personnes ne soit emprisonné que 19 ans.» «Je ne peux pas l'accepter, a commenté Saodi Ouch, 46 ans, en sanglots. Ma famille est morte [...] ma soeur aînée, mon grand frère. Je suis la seule toujours vivante.»

Tuol Sleng était une école élémentaire transformée en prison par les Khmers rouges pour ceux qu'ils considéraient comme les pires ennemis d'État, espions, traîtres et saboteurs.

Nombre des 16 000 personnes qui y sont passées ont été torturées. Les bourreaux les ont électrocutées, leur ont arraché les ongles des orteils ou les ont quasiment noyées afin de leur soutirer des aveux. Aujourd'hui, S-21 est devenue un musée. Ses murs de béton sont recouverts des images d'hommes, de femmes et d'enfants, photographiés juste avant leur exécution.

Sous le régime khmer rouge de 1975 à 1979, plus de 1,7 million de Cambodgiens, soit environ un quart de la population, sont morts exécutés ou épuisés par le travail forcé, ou encore victimes de la famine ou du manque de soins médicaux.

Ancien professeur de mathématiques, Douch avait rejoint le mouvement de Pol Pot, le chef des Khmers rouges, en 1967, trois ans avant que les États-Unis ne commencent à pilonner le Cambodge pour essayer d'anéantir les troupes nord-vietnamiennes et Viet Cong qui s'y trouvaient. A partir de 1976, Duch était devenu le chef de S-21.

Disparu pendant 20 ans

Après l'intervention vietnamienne qui a contraint les Khmers rouges à quitter le pouvoir en 1979, Douch a disparu pendant près de 20 ans, vivant sous de fausses identités dans le nord-ouest du Cambodge, où il s'était converti au christianisme. Identifié par un journaliste britannique, il avait été arrêté il y a onze ans.

Douch est pour l'instant le seul Khmer rouge à avoir été jugé. Pol Pot est mort en 1998 et quatre autres hauts dirigeants khmers rouges sont en attente d'un jugement.

Le tribunal dit avoir pris en considération le contexte historique des atrocités commises à l'époque, celui de la Guerre froide. Il a aussi reconnu que Douch n'était pas membre du premier cercle des dirigeants du régime et qu'il avait coopéré avec le tribunal, reconnaissant sa responsabilité et exprimant des remords «limités».

Au cours des 77 jours du procès, Douch a reconnu avoir supervisé la mort de quelque 16 000 personnes qui sont passées dans cette prison.

Une des juges du tribunal international, Silvia Cartwright, a dit comprendre que les personnes qui subissaient le règne de terreur des Khmers rouges puissent être bouleversées par le verdict.

«C'est une des raisons pour lesquelles nous avons un tribunal objectif [...] prononçant une condamnation aussi équilibrée que possible, a-t-elle déclaré. Si on laissait aux victimes décider de la manière de punir une personne, alors ce serait peut-être le règne de la foule furieuse.»

«Il faut avoir à l'esprit que les victimes sont profondément blessées et traumatisées, a-t-elle ajouté. «On ne pourra jamais leur donner ce qu'elles ont perdu [...] donc, d'une certaine manière, une condamnation ne peut être que symbolique».

L'accusation et la défense disposent d'un mois pour faire appel du verdict.

Public figures weigh in on prison term

Wednesday, 28 July 2010
Cheang Sokha and Jame O'Tools
The Phnom Penh Post

AS coverage of Monday’s verdict at the Khmer Rouge tribunal was beamed across the world, some of the Kingdom’s most prominent political figures weighed in on the landmark ruling.

Speaking at Phnom Penh International Airport upon his return from Singapore with a delegation led by Prime Minister Hun Sen, Minister of Foreign Affairs Hor Namhong called the judgment “inappropriate”.

“Thousands and thousands of Cambodian people were tortured at Tuol Sleng and brought to be killed at Choeung Ek,” Hor Namhong said. “This sentence seems light and unsuitable compared with the number of people who have been killed.”

He added that he was only expressing his personal view, as the government’s official stance was to respect the independent judgment of the court.

The opposition Sam Rainsy Party agreed that the sentence was lighter than expected, but praised the court’s achievement nonetheless.

“Although falling short of what many survivors and families had hoped for, the verdict today is a first step toward accountability and healing,” the SRP said in a statement. It also said that it supported further prosecutions of Khmer Rouge leaders. Hun Sen has publicly expressed his opposition to prosecutions beyond the court’s second case, warning that they could plunge the country back into “civil war”.

Prince Sisowath Thomico, assistant to King Father Norodom Sihanouk, called the proceedings at the court “politically biased” and “a masquerade”.

“I … would like to warmly praise all the participants, most of all the foreign participants in that media show,” he said in an email. “I just can’t wait to watch the next episode of that prime-time political series.”

Hun Sen himself has not yet commented publicly on the verdict, but Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan called it “a historical point”. He did not comment on the substance of the judgment, but said that the tribunal is “an independent body [that] we have to respect”.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY NETH PHEAKTRA

Cambodia's Troubled Tribunal

July 28, 2010
I.H.T. Op-Ed Contributor
By PETER MAGUIRE
International Herald Tribune (Paris, France)

Cambodia’s war crimes court, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, or ECCC, deserves credit for convicting Kaing Guek Eav, better known as “Duch,” for war crimes and sentencing him to 35 years in prison. But Duch was the legal equivalent of a “tomato can” in boxing — an unskilled opponent used to pad a win-loss record. His conviction was an easy knockout.

Now that that legal mismatch is over, the long delayed main event — the trial of the aging Khmer Rouge political leaders — Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea and Ieng Thirith — can begin.

Unlike Duch, a functionary who admitted he was “responsible for the crimes committed” and expressed “deep regret and heartfelt sorrow,” the regime’s top leaders will mount aggressive defenses and maintain their innocence until the end.

None of the four defendants were hands-on killers like Duch — they simply issued orders from on high. Thus their cases will require the tribunal to take a much broader view of their legal mandate. Unlike Duch, these defendants were careful to distance themselves from the atrocities.

Their cases will rely heavily on the court’s reading of the conspiracy charge because while the accused were architects of Khmer Rouge policy and issued the orders, they did not carry them out.

Their cases were further complicated in December when charges of genocide were added to the indictments. Many scholars have argued that adding genocide, a narrowly defined legal concept, will only increase the burden on the prosecution. Why, they ask, should this war crimes court be turned into a venue for an unresolved debate over academic definitions?

As if the legal difficulties facing the court were not enough, Hun Sen, Cambodia’s all-powerful ruler, soured on the ECCC when it tried to open additional investigations and indict more suspects last September. The prime minister said such a move could rekindle civil war.

Ever since Hun Sen forced his way to power after the country’s U.N.-sponsored elections in 1993, he has outfoxed generations of U.N. bureaucrats and Western diplomats. He is quick to remind the U.N.’s legal specialists that he calls the shots. “If the court wants to charge more former senior Khmer Rouge cadres, [it] must show the reasons to Prime Minister Hun Sen,” he said. “Hun Sen only protects the peace of the nation.”

He has stated openly that he hopes the ECCC fails and that his government can try the Khmer Rouge leaders on its own. As long as the ECCC was willing to play by Hun Sen’s rules, the court was tolerated. Once it began to act with greater autonomy, the court started to break down along national/international lines. The Cambodian prosecutor, Chea Leang, refused to investigate new cases, and Judge You Bunleng “unsigned” his letter authorizing new investigations. When the court’s international co-investigating judge, Marcel Lemonde of France, tried to summon six high-ranking Cambodian government officials to give testimony, they all refused. The Cambodian government took the position that no one was compelled to testify before the ECCC.

Earlier this month, foreign defense lawyers for Nuon Chea accused the Cambodian government of implementing a “concerted policy” to undermine new investigations and called for a U.N. inquiry. They asserted that “recent developments have confirmed longstanding suspicions that certain members of the Royal Government of Cambodia are interfering with the administration of justice at the ECCC.”

The U.N. secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has appointed a special expert to examine the allegations of political interference, but, given its past record, the organization is unlikely to press its case.

Although the court has clearly lost the support of the Cambodian government, the trials are scheduled to drag on until 2015. Despite allegations of corruption, massive budget overruns and a conspicuously slow pace, the court’s donors, including the United States, continue to fund it. Originally expected to cost $20 million a year and to take three years, the court has already spent at least $70 million and convicted only one suspect.

The biggest problem facing the ECCC is living up to it’s own hype. Claims that such trials lead to healing, closure, truth and reconciliation are speculative at best. How does one measure “healing, closure and reconciliation”?

While most Cambodians would like to see the Khmer Rouge leaders punished, they’ve grown used to seeing common thieves and their government’s political opponents suffer far worse punishment than that meted out to Duch. Bou Meng, a survivor of the Tuol Sleng prison, described Duch’s sentence to reporters as “a slap in the face.”

The U.N. legal experts and their cheerleaders in the human rights industry have lost sight of a basic fact: No matter how procedurally perfect the ECCC is, if it outlives the people it was supposed to try, it cannot be judged a success.

Peter Maguire is the author of “Facing Death in Cambodia” and “Law and War: International Law and American History.” He has taught the law and theory of war at Bard College and Columbia University.

Khmer Rouge Leader's Sentence Gets Mixed Reaction

Robert Carmichael, VOA
Phnom Penh 28 July 2010

On Monday, a United Nations-backed tribunal convicted Kaing Guek Eav, known as Comrade Duch, of war crimes and crimes against humanity - the first major Khmer Rouge figure to be tried since the regime was overthrown. He has already spent 16 years in prison, and the tribunal sentenced him to another 19 years.

Eight months after his trial concluded, Comrade Duch was sentenced to 35 years by the UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal in Phnom Penh.

The court deducted 11 years for time already spent in pre-trial detention for Duch, who headed the movement's main torture and execution center known as S-21. And it granted a further five-year credit because Duch was held illegally for some of that time.

The end result is that Duch will likely serve just 19 more years.

His sentence surprised and angered many people, including Bou Meng and Chum Mey, two of the survivors of S-21 prison. They felt it was unduly lenient for a man who had overseen the torture and execution of more than 12,000 people.

Speaking outside the court Theary Seng, a Cambodian-American lawyer who lost members of her family to the Khmer Rouge, said 19 years was insufficient for the horrific acts the 67-year-old defendant had overseen while head of S-21.

"That is not acceptable," Seng said. "What is unacceptable is to envision him as a free man even for one minute in the public sphere."

But the reaction was mixed. While some welcomed the verdict, including a third S-21 survivor, the artist Vann Nath, others felt Duch should have been executed.

The reaction from Cambodians living overseas was also mixed.

Professor Leakhena Nou, a Cambodian-American sociologist, was in court on Monday along with three Cambodian-Americans who have applied to be civil parties in the court's second case, which should start next year.

"As you heard from one of our civil parties in today's meeting, she was not very happy with the verdict, having lost one of her parents and her siblings. But from our older survivor, who is in his late 70s, he felt that one positive thing that came out of the trial was the transparent process on how the rule of law was implemented," Nou said. "Although he was not happy with the number of years, he felt the court did make a concerted effort to find justice."

Speaking on Wednesday, Theary Seng said civil society must now focus on the second case involving four senior Khmer Rouge leaders who will be tried for their alleged roles in the deaths of around 1.7 million Cambodians.

"That responsibility rests with the senior Khmer Rouge leaders, and that's case 002," Seng said. "So we need to shift our anger now and our energy from anger toward energy in lobbying and advocating and demanding that case 002 involving the senior Khmer Rouge leaders take place, and take place soon before these old men die of ill health and of old age.”

Beyond case two, the court's international investigating judge said he wants to look at another five suspects.

The court has faced complaints of political interference as well as a series of cash crunches over the years.

Anne Heindel is a legal adviser at the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an archive of papers on the Khmer Rouge period. She says there is a risk that donors simply won't pay for any further prosecutions.

"In many ways, I think funding might be the greater issue actually," Heindel stated. "It could very well be that when it comes to it, it will be the donors that aren't willing to pay for cases 3 and 4 rather than the government saying we aren't willing to let these cases move forward. And that's actually my greatest concern right now, because Japan is not putting forward as much support as it has in the past and thus far there's been no other state willing to take its place."

Sociologist Leakhena Nou notes that a successful tribunal process would have huge benefits for Cambodian society and for Cambodians living overseas.

Not only would it help survivors get recognition of their suffering and provide a sense of closure, she says, it would also leave a beneficial legacy for current and future generations.

Two days after his verdict was handed down, many are looking to a brighter future in which the catastrophe that Duch and others wrought on Cambodia is - in some small way - repaired.

No Real Justice for the Killing Fields

Wednesday, 28 July 2010
Written by Bruce Walker
New American

Reuters reported that a United Nations tribunal has tried and sentenced Kaing Guek Eav, the first Khmer Rouge commander to face charges of crimes against humanity for murder, rape, and similar horrific crimes.

When Kaing ran Toul Sleng prison during the years following the communist takeover of Cambodia, he oversaw the murder of 14,000. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison, but his sentenced was reduced by 19 years for time served, and he might be released earlier if he shows signs of rehabilitation. Kaing Guek Eav is 67 years old, so he has an excellent chance of dying in prison before his sentence ends.

There is absolutely no doubt that the Khmer Rouge committed those deeds that have come to be called “crimes against humanity.” Communism was responsible for the brutal extermination of 100 million people in the 20th century, making it the most murderous ideology in the history of the world. Surely no one will shed tears for Kaing, a sadist who has shown no remorse for the murder, mayhem, torture, and rape committed under his supervision. But the extra-legal process of trying and sentencing this thug cannot be condoned by decent men and women. Why?

First, international law is not really “law” at all. Who creates this legal system? Unelected bureaucrats in nongovernmental organizations do, for the most part. The normal process of passing laws is utterly ignored in the making of international law. If Cambodia had formed a government and chosen to try Kaing, that would be one thing. But that has not happened. Instead, an imaginary system of justice has been invented to supersede normal justice.

Second, the application of this international law is wildly uneven. The Nuremberg Trials, for example, took place before the Second World War had even ended. The trial of Kaing, by contrast, took place 35 years after the horrors of the Killing Fields began. The presumed prosecutor of “crimes against humanity” is us, “humanity.” But even in the nonsensical legal system of international law, the underlying principle of justice for the murder of millions means nothing if it is not uniformly applied. So, while the “judges” at Nuremberg were trying the devilish Nazi leaders, why were the Soviet judges themselves not also on trial? The Soviet government had been, in practice, an ally of the Nazis from August 1939 to June 1941. The Soviets gave Rudolph Hess a guided tour of the Gulag and helped teach the Nazis how to run a system of concentration camps. The Soviet government by 1939 had murdered as many innocent Soviet citizens as Nazis murdered in the Holocaust.

When the Soviet Union fell, why were there no Nuremberg Trials? Mao Tse Tung may well have murdered more people than anyone in history. If it is possible for the human imagination and conscience to grasp this ugly fact, Mao may have been even more inhuman and even more sociopathic in his murders than Hitler or Stalin. Has the Communist Party of China or that nation’s government ever proposed trials for the flacks of Mao who committee megacide? No, there has not even been a hint of justice for these victims.

Third, selective prosecution of savage and murderous regimes that lose wars or which are overthrown in revolution ensures that injustice, not justice, will prevail. When Roosevelt, for example, demanded “unconditional surrender,” the impact, as we now know, crippled those honorable and decent Germans who were appalled by the evil of Nazism and by its mass murder of millions of Jews, Poles, Russians, Gypsies and other innocent victims of Nazi malice.

What should be done to prevent the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust, the Gulag, and the Killing Fields? Individuals should speak out when the men, women, and children are being killed and records of the outrages should be made and disseminated (like Armin Wegener did with the Armenian genocide — Wegener, by the way, spoke out very early against Stalinism and then against Nazism, for which he paid a price.) Governments can express disapproval, deny diplomatic recognition, and so forth — America, to its great credit, acted alone and without pressure to help Jews in Europe and Asia even when America was a very young nation. The governments of nations in which genocide and other diabolical evil has occurred — such as those that occurred under Communism, Nazism, or any similar totalitarian system — should undertake, under their own laws, justice and remedial action. If the governments of nations that devour their own are not willing to do that — and the failure to prosecute communist murderers in Russia and in China are glaring examples — then how can anyone say that justice is being done?

Historically speaking, the only true protection against evil has been trust in God and following His will. This is not politically correct, but it is historical fact. The cure for the Killing Fields, the Holocaust, and the Gulag is the restoration of the morally serious faith of Christians and of Jews.

Theary Seng's Comment on Duch's Verdict Posted on the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights

U.N. BACKED COURT CONVICTS KHMER ROUGE PRISON COMMANDANT

7/27/2010
Originally Posted at: http://www.rfkcenter.org/node/530

The RFK Center for Justice & Human Rights recognizes the significance of the guilty verdict by the UN-backed court in Cambodia against Duch, the commandant of Toul Sleng prison. We consider it as one step closer to recovery and reconciliation of a society traumatized by the horrors of war. Duch was convicted of crimes against humanity for overseeing the killing and torture of more than 14,000 people at the notorious Khmer Rouge prison.

However, the sentence of 35 years and its subsequent reduction to 19 years for such unspeakable crimes may not adequately hold accountable someone who was most responsible for what has come to be known as "the killing fields." RFK Center's partner in Cambodia, Theary Seng, reacted to the decision with mixed emotions. Here is what she said:

On 26 July 2010, the Extraordinary Chambers (informally, the Khmer Rouge Tribunal) convicted the former director of the notorious Tuol Sleng torture center, Comrade Duch, for crimes against humanity in the sadistic murders of at least 14,000 Cambodians including a handful of foreigners and sentenced him to 35 years of imprisonment. The conviction marked a milestone for Cambodians after having waited some 30 years for some form of credible justice.

However, many Cambodian survivors, including myself, viewed the sentencing to be too lenient and incompehensible in light of the enormity of his crimes. After the Extraordinary Chambers deducted 5 years for his cooperation and 11 years for the illegal pre-Extraordinary Chambers detention in a military prison from the 35 years, the victims are left with Comrade Duch effectively receiving 11 hours of imprisonment for each live he brutally murdered.

Up until this puzzling verdict, we Cambodians have been viewing the Extraordinary Chambers as a very powerful catalyst in breaking the silence of our past 30 years and transitioning us into a culture of dialogue and memorializing. However, this lenient verdict has taken the air out of us and broken the momentum in our stride toward a more fuller justice of both legal accountability and just peace. We will need to regain our composure and faith very quickly from this setback in order to concentrate on the larger picture, which is the demand for the quick start of the "senior Khmer Rouge leaders" in Case 002. Case 001 regarding Comrade Duch is significant in familiarizing us Cambodians with the Extraordinary Chambers and in this regards, it was a test-run for the heart of the matter - the trial of the Senior Khmer Rouge leaders. Duch was only one director of one Khmer Rouge detention center. During the Khmer Rouge regime, there existed at least 200 other detention centers and thousands of "killiing fields"; he was not a "senior" Khmer Rouge leader and should not be the sole scapegoat of this murderous, genocidal regime.

His conviction on 26 July 2010 is a very good start, even if disappointing in terms of the light sentencing; but it is only a start in the legal process as well as the journey of healing. The heart of the Extraordinary Chambers is the anticipated trial of the Senior Khmer Rouge leaders in Case 002, which we must advocate for it to happen quickly before they die of old age, ill health and/or from more invidious political interests.

Verdict Marks End of Impunity for Khmer Rouge Torturer

Newspapers with pictures of former Khmer Rouge prison chief Kaing Guek Eav are displayed at a newspaper stand in Phnom Penh on July 27. (photo: Reuters)

Wednesday, July 28, 2010
By MARWAAN MACAN-MARKAR
IPS WRITER

BANGKOK — For a country plagued by a weak judiciary and where government officials have profited from a culture of impunity, Monday’s verdict in the first case to try a surviving commandant of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime broke new legal ground in Cambodia.

The ruling by a UN-backed special war crimes tribunal against Comrade Duch, whose real name is Kaing Khek Eav, brought to an end the fears by the estimated five million survivors of that dark period in the South-east Asian nation’s history that the Khmer Rouge hierarchy would in the end get away with their brutality.

After all, the verdict came 31 years after the Khmer Rouge was toppled by advancing Vietnamese forces, followed by years of civil war and feuding between Cambodian political factions, where talk of an international war crimes tribunal or hauling Khmer Rouge commanders to face justice were remote in the countryside.

The 77-day trial of Duch, which began in March 2009, marked a turning point for those who survived to tell the tale of the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror from April 1975 to January 1979. Some 1.7 million people, nearly a fourth of Cambodia’s population at the time, died of starvation or forced labour, or were killed during those years.

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) found the 67-year-old Duch guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes and initially slapped him with a 35- year prison sentence. But the jail term was reduced to 19 years after the court accounted for the five years he had been illegally detained by a military tribunal since his arrest in 1999 and the further 11 years he had been behind bars till his trial began.

Duch’s trial and the verdict dispensed by this hybrid court, which had a mix of international and national jurists, offered a stark contrast to the period of Khmer Rouge terror, during which Duch was the torturer-in-chief of Tuol Sleng, a former high school in Phnom Penh where prisoners were interrogated, tortured and killed for being enemies of the regime.

The ECCC verdict has also taken a small step further the prospect of political figures and leaders being held accountable for their actions while in power.

"The mixed court deserves credit for its effort to ensure a fair trial and a verdict," said Chea Vannath, former president of the Centre for Social Development, a Phnom Penh-based think tank. "The verdict may not satisfy everybody 100 percent but for me, something is better than nothing."

"The court also sends a strong message to officials in power today and in the future," added Chea, who lost relatives during the Khmer Rouge genocide. "They need to be careful about their actions because the people now know that justice is possible for those who abuse their authority."

The trial also offered the first public accounting of the horror Duch and his jailers unleashed with mathematical precision in Tuol Sleng, where 14,000 people, including babies, were killed. Only 11 people came out alive from S- 21, as that torture chamber was known at the time.

The process by which this trial was carried out—it reportedly cost US$ 100 million—has made it a benchmark. Duch’s trial was largely free of political interference from the increasingly authoritarian regime of Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge functionary before he defected to the pro-Vietnamese camp.

The composition of the court in this experiment in international justice is also being seen in better light following the Duch trial, in contrast to the bitter debates that preceded the ECCC’s first case.

The acrimonious lead-up to the ECCC’s creation at times pitted the United Nations, international funders, international human rights groups against the Hun Sen regime. Concerns about the quality and integrity of some Cambodian jurists even prompted a call for the tribunal to be held in a neutral foreign country, following the path of the war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

"A mixed tribunal of having national participants in the justice process is necessary and proper," Roger Normand, Asia-Pacific director at the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists, said after the Duch verdict.

"Having a process that is externally driven and seen as stemming from pressure from outside is not sustainable."

"Whatever the criticism of the tribunal, this is a positive model given the background of interference and lack of fairness in the domestic legal process," he told IPS. "The trial process also served as a public education about a dark period of Cambodia’s past."

Still, the ECCC itself will continue to be on trial as it takes up the cases against other Khmer Rouge leaders who were more dominant players in that extremist Maoist movement than Duch.

The global rights lobby Human Rights Watch (HRW) is urging the ECCC to go beyond the four Khmer Rouge leaders due to go on the dock—Nuon Chea, who was deputy to Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, Khieu Samphan, the country's president then, Ieng Sary, the foreign minister at the time, and his wife, the former social affairs minister Ieng Thirith.

"Only holding five people responsible for the Khmer Rouge genocide falls far short of what the ECCC could accomplish," Phil Robertson, deputy director of the Asia division at the New York-based HRW, told IPS. "Others should also be prosecuted for their roles in the Khmer Rouge genocide."

"This should be an evidence-based process, not politically determined by one side or one group of people," he added.

Punishment for torturer ‘too short,’ say Catholics

July 26, 2010
By Khan Sophirom, Phnom Penh
UCANews.com

Thirty-five years in jail for a former Khmer Rouge prison chief found guilty of murder, torture and crimes against humanity is simply too short, say Catholic Cambodians.

“Duch should be in jail for his whole life,” said Eung Try, 60, whose six brothers and sisters died during the regime’s brutal 1975-1979 rule in Cambodia.

Duong Savong agreed. “Compared to other criminals, Duch’s verdict seems too short,” said the catechist.

Sixty-seven-year-old Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, and the former chief of the infamous Tuol Sleng or S-21 prison, was sentenced by a joint UN-Cambodian court today.

He was found guilty of war crimes and causing the deaths of more than 14,000 people.

“I think justice has been meted out to him and the victims,” said Salay Sangkhem, 58, whose family members died during the regime’s rule.

“It is an international court with Khmer and international prosecutors, so I think the verdict can be accepted.”

Duch was arrested by Cambodian authorities in 1999. At that time, he reportedly claimed to be a “born-again” Christian. He was formally charged and detained on July 31, 2007.

His trial was the first international tribunal on atrocities committed under the regime.

About 1.7 million people died from starvation, torture and in labor camps during its rule.

Other Khmer Rouge leaders awaiting trial are Nuon Chea, former president of the National Assembly; Khieu Samphan, former head of state; Ieng Sary, former foreign minister; and Ieng Thirith, who was in charge of social welfare under the Khmer Rouge.

Examiner Bio Duch and the failure of justice

July 27, 2010
Chad Drummond
DC International Affairs Examiner (San Francisco, California, USA)

Thirty-one years after the fall of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, a senior figure in the regime, was sentenced to 35 years in prison for his involvement in killing thousands of men, women and children.

Duch, tried for crimes against humanity by a U.N.-backed Cambodian court, was the first major figure of the Khmer Rouge to face trial for his actions. The Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, killing millions of people in its failed attempt to establish a utopian agrarian society. Other major regime figures, including leader Pol Pot, died before they could be brought to trial.

Duch admitted to overseeing the torture and deaths of as many as 15,000 people, while head of the secret Tuol Sleng prison. Though the prosecution in the case asked for a 40-year sentence, the court gave Duch 35 for his crimes. To put this into perspective, his sentence for crimes against humanity is comparable to that for certain cocaine offenses in the United States. His future jail time was reduced to accommodate for time he spent being held illegally, in addition to the number of years he had already spent in prison. Duch, now 67 years of age, will therefore only be incarcerated for an additional 19 years.

Relatives of the Khmer Rouge’s victims were understandably disappointed about the sentencing. However, the ramifications of the court’s decisions extend beyond Cambodia. Duch serving less than a day for each life he took is not just a slap in the face to the families of all his victims, but is an affront to the very concept of justice.

Derisory sentence for Khmer Rouge killer highlights the impotence of liberalism

Noam Chomsky

July 27th, 2010
By Gerald Warner
The Telegraph (UK)

The derisory sentence imposed upon a monster testifies to the institutionalised impotence of liberal-controlled societies confronted by evil. Former Cambodian prison governor Comrade Duch (real name Kaing Guek Eav), who under the Pol Pot regime murdered around 17,000 innocent people, besides employing electric shock torture and tearing out victims’ toenails, has been sentenced by a UN-sponsored court to a nominal 30 years in prison, of which he will actually serve 19. There are people in British prisons serving longer sentences for a fraction of the number of murders he committed.

The only penalty that could remotely have matched his crimes was death. In so-called “democratic” countries however, under the aegis of the EU and UN bien-pensant doctrines of clemency, capital punishment is deemed “barbaric”. That is why Western pseudo-civilisation is doomed to extinction at the hands of more ruthless elements. Sparing the life of a creature like Duch is not civilised, it is effete. It does not testify to our regard for the sanctity of human life, but to our rulers’ contempt for it.

A society that hangs a man for stealing a loaf of bread, as ours used to do, has disregard for the sanctity of human life; but a system that does not punish murder with death displays even more indifference to the rights of innocent life, giving sententious liberal cant precedence over the duty to testify to the value of life by insisting that murderers forfeit their own continued existence. Nor, as the inane liberal mantra intones, would it reduce us to the same level as murderers: that is claptrap.

Liberal democracy has consistently sent out a signal to its enemies that they may destroy it with impunity. The derisory number of executions in post-war Germany, after the mass murder of millions, signalled that genocide would be condemned verbally, rather than effectively punished. The crimes of the Soviet Union have never been punished: the last generation of lords of the Gulag is ruling Russia today, sometimes in public office, sometimes in crime syndicates. Between 1917 and 1990 Communism worldwide slaughtered more than 100 million people: how many of the perpetrators have been punished?

Then there is the fashion for international courts, valued as a step towards world government but wholly ineffectual in exacting retribution from mass murderers. The trial of the tiny number of Khmer Rouge leaders in captivity was delayed by years of wrangling over international jurisdictions. Similarly, Serbia should have been forced to try its own criminals, to prove to the world whether or not it had renounced its past and was genuinely fit to join the international community.

At present, a grand total of four senior Khmer Rouge tyrants are awaiting trial – for the murders of 1.7 million people. It is said that to arrest any more might provoke civil war: the population, apparently, would rise up en masse to demand a return to Communist rule. Or it might have something to do with the fact that Prime Minister Hun Sen is himself a former Khmer Rouge cadre. The Western media will now hail the pathetic sentence imposed on Comrade Duch in headlines such as “Justice catches up with Cambodian killer…” What justice? We have forgotten the meaning of the word.

By chance, I was in a British student union on the day in 1975 when the television news showed the red-scarfed Khmer Rouge marching into Phnom Penh, a spectacle greeted by undergraduates with cheers and much punching of the air. Those useful idiots now occupy key positions across our country. They were not the most senior apologists for the genocidal regime: the academic jacquerie led by such peddlers of delusion as Malcolm Caldwell at SOAS, Edward Herman, Laura Summers, Gareth Porter, George C Hildebrand and, above all, Noam Chomsky made a massive and largely effective effort to disguise the fate of Cambodia from the West.

Adulation of “Democratic Kampuchea” was de rigueur in academic circles: had not the regime’s leaders been educated at the Sorbonne? Porter and Hildebrand described Western criticism of the Khmer Rouge’s enforced evacuation of the cities of Cambodia as “an inexcusable distortion of reality”. Chomsky, writing in collaboration with Edward Herman as late as 1979, claimed that “the evacuation of Phnom Penh, widely denounced at the time and since for its undoubted brutality, may actually have saved many lives”.

Saving lives, as we know, was what the Khmer Rouge was all about. Chomsky, the progressive establishment’s leading comic singer and millionaire socialist, and his co-author claimed: “allegations of genocide are being used to whitewash Western imperialism…” George Orwell would have relished them. Meanwhile, the word continues to go out to the world’s totalitarian torturers and killers that they may pursue their crimes without fear of any future retribution. It will be different, of course, when we are under Sharia law.