24 Feb 2009
By Leang Delux
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Luc Sâr
Click here to read the article in French
Hun Sen said that the UN, which recognized the Khmer Rouge “until 1991,” should be punished more severely than Pol Pot.
In a speech given at the diploma distribution ceremony held on 24 Feb in Phnom Penh, Hun Sen sharply criticized the UN’s action toward the KR during the 80s.
Hun Sen gave his thought after the publication of a joint communiqué between Sok An, the vice-PM, and Peter Taksoe-Jensen, the UN under-Secretary-General for legal affairs, which was made public on Monday 23 Feb. The two parties agreed to set a bipartite structure in charge of improving the ECCC’s administration in order to avoid new corruption scandal.
“A group of people knew about the killings perpetrated between 1975 and 1979, but they continued to support the KR up until the 90s,” Hun Sen accused while indicating that this group should be punished “more severely than Pol Pot.”
“If we have to judge on what happened in the past, we must first put the UN on trial, along with the countries that have recognized the KR up until 1991,” Hun Sen added.
“Now, the UN tells us to this and that … We organized a trial in 1979, they have decided not to recognize it. Now, they demand for a new trial which is complicated and costs millions of dollars! As for me, I don’t care about it. I’m doing my work,” Hun Sen added.
Between 15 and 19 August 1979, the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) regime put the “Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique” on trial, and the pair was sentenced to death in absentia. In 1996, Ieng Sary received a royal pardon as a reward for his surrender.
“Have you ever seen in the world a government that travels to, and that sent in its National Assembly president, its president and its prime minister to signal their surrender by traveling all the way to the home of the new prime minister?” Hun Sen asked. “It was unnoticed because Cambodia is a small country … But I still have the video recording of this meeting.”
“For me, all that I did, I did it for human rights,” Hun Sen went on. “And human rights, it’s first of all the rights to life. Me, I won over the KR regime, I prevented them from returning back, I put an end to their government, I negotiated for the creation of the [KR] tribunal, and I delivered 5 to the face justice. What amuses me nowadays is to see those who talk the most about the [KR] Tribunal are those who supported the KR!”
At the 1979 UN general assembly, 71 states voted for the recognition of the Khmer Rouge accreditation at the UN (35 voted were against this recognition and 34 abstention). Among those countries voting for the recognition of the KR, were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, West Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Luxemburg, New Zealand, Portugal, the UK and the US. Austria, France, Finland, Ireland and Sweden abstained, while the Soviet Union and its allies wished to see a recognition of the PRK.
In a speech given at the diploma distribution ceremony held on 24 Feb in Phnom Penh, Hun Sen sharply criticized the UN’s action toward the KR during the 80s.
Hun Sen gave his thought after the publication of a joint communiqué between Sok An, the vice-PM, and Peter Taksoe-Jensen, the UN under-Secretary-General for legal affairs, which was made public on Monday 23 Feb. The two parties agreed to set a bipartite structure in charge of improving the ECCC’s administration in order to avoid new corruption scandal.
“A group of people knew about the killings perpetrated between 1975 and 1979, but they continued to support the KR up until the 90s,” Hun Sen accused while indicating that this group should be punished “more severely than Pol Pot.”
“If we have to judge on what happened in the past, we must first put the UN on trial, along with the countries that have recognized the KR up until 1991,” Hun Sen added.
“Now, the UN tells us to this and that … We organized a trial in 1979, they have decided not to recognize it. Now, they demand for a new trial which is complicated and costs millions of dollars! As for me, I don’t care about it. I’m doing my work,” Hun Sen added.
Between 15 and 19 August 1979, the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) regime put the “Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique” on trial, and the pair was sentenced to death in absentia. In 1996, Ieng Sary received a royal pardon as a reward for his surrender.
“Have you ever seen in the world a government that travels to, and that sent in its National Assembly president, its president and its prime minister to signal their surrender by traveling all the way to the home of the new prime minister?” Hun Sen asked. “It was unnoticed because Cambodia is a small country … But I still have the video recording of this meeting.”
“For me, all that I did, I did it for human rights,” Hun Sen went on. “And human rights, it’s first of all the rights to life. Me, I won over the KR regime, I prevented them from returning back, I put an end to their government, I negotiated for the creation of the [KR] tribunal, and I delivered 5 to the face justice. What amuses me nowadays is to see those who talk the most about the [KR] Tribunal are those who supported the KR!”
At the 1979 UN general assembly, 71 states voted for the recognition of the Khmer Rouge accreditation at the UN (35 voted were against this recognition and 34 abstention). Among those countries voting for the recognition of the KR, were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, West Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Luxemburg, New Zealand, Portugal, the UK and the US. Austria, France, Finland, Ireland and Sweden abstained, while the Soviet Union and its allies wished to see a recognition of the PRK.
15 comments:
how about China was for or against PRK at that time?
No, we shouldn't blame China for anything. China have been a trade partner with Cambodia for over thousands of years, and nothing like that ever happened.
If you want to blame anyone blame whoever invited the French into the region. All these revolutionaries was born to fight the French. Had the French not being here, they would not have existed and there would never had any mass grave or destruction anywhere. Isn't that so?
That's right ! Pol Pot, Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan, Alain... all of them have studied in France !
Our Prime Minister is trying in vain to legitimize the regime of the People's Republic of Kampuchea and its successor, the State of Kampuchea, by blaming the UN for not recognising these two successive regimes.
Active behind this UN non-recognition, and hence the illegimacy of the regimes, were mainly China, the 6 original members of ASEAN (Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore.
Western countries sided with China to weaken and destroy the Societ Union and communism, the same way as Britain and America collaborated with the Soviet Union to destroy Hitler and Germany.
A curious parallel: The Khmer Vietminh were not recognised by the Geneva Conference on Indochina of 1954, and the PRK and SOC were not regognised by the UN.
It is easy to understand the wrath of our Prime Minister against the UN.
LAO Mong Hay, Hong Kong
If you voted for CPP (Cambodian People's Party):
Also known as:
Communist People's Party
Khmer Rouge People's Party
Khmer Krorhorm People's Party
You're support the killing of 1.7 million innocent Khmer peoples.
You're support the killing of innocent men, women and children in Cambodia on March 30, 1997.
You're support murder of Piseth Pilika.
You're support assassination of journalists in Cambodia.
You're support political assassination and killing.
You're support attemted assassination and murder of leader of the free trade union in Cambodia.
You're support corruption in Cambodia.
You're support Hun Sen Regime burn poor people's house down to the ground and leave them homeless.
These are the Trade Mark of Hun Sen Regime.
Hun Sen, Chea Sim and Heng Samrin are Khmer Rouge commanders.
When is the ECCC going to bring these three criminals to U.N. Khmer Rouge Trail?
Khmer Rouge Regime is a genocide organization.
Hun Sen Regime is a terrorist organization.
Hun Sen Bodyguards is a terrorist organization.
Hun Sen Death Squad is a terrorist organization.
Cambodian People's Party is a terrorist organization.
I have declare the current Cambodian government which is lead by the Cambodian People's Party as a terrorist organization.
Whoever associate with the current Cambodian government are associate with a terrorist organization.
sure France is guilty, but everyone knows that s Khmer people are so impressionable.
Don't be stupid to other countries before thinking so hard on your country which is cambodia genocides. Bring all those genocides to the trial and then go on to the other involved third parties. This cpp government is the thieves, murderers, destroyers, eliminators Cambodia country from the world map under the control of vietnam and other colonised countries.
Hey, if you people can give Cambodia to the French, why can we give Cambodia to whoever we like? After all, you are the one you set a role model here. Isn't that right?
The conspired countries are:
US
Vietnam
China
If these three countries didn't put their hands in there is no way that KR exist.
Youn! On the other hand wanted a piece of Cambodia which POL POT knew its trick and fought the LON NOL to overcome them without letting YOUN stay inside Cambodia any longer.
YOUN and China and US they all guilty.
Khmer PP,
Wrong, if the French didn't came to Cambodia first, KR, Vietminh, Vietcong would not have existed.
From my understanding of history, there were no ‘Khmer -Vietminh’ as such, certainly in the sense of this being an independently formed and developed political movement. Indeed, the hybrid character of the term ‘Khmer-Vietminh’ points to the influence and domination of the entire Indochinese Communist Party by the Vietnamese communists at the time. There were sporadic rebellions and small scale resistance throughout the colonial period directed against the French in Cambodia and Khmer activists who led this nationalist protest against the French would often end up imprisoned on one of the islands off the Cambodian coast side by side their Vietnamese ‘comrades’. For strategic-political convenience, the need to fight under the banner of an international united front against a common colonial-imperialist power made better sense than each Indochinese people waging separate resistance in their own backyard. The creation of the Indo-Chinese Communist Party was also in line with the Soviet and Chinese communist models of opening out the party’s arms - and thereby drawing maximum strength from doing so – to all manageable forces while gaining international sympathy in the process.
What resulted from the gathering at Geneva in 1954 is neither a betrayal nor an anomaly in any concrete fashion, but a logical outcome of settlement between two major parties i.e. the French and the Vietnamese each making pledges and vows to befit the protocols and requirements of the moment; a point in their nations’ colliding historical path. Khmer activists like Saloth Sar and Tou Samouth who later broke away from the Vietnamese to form their own independent movement would have been aware of the peril of their country’s dispensable and subordinate status in the political context of the Indo-Chinese slogan and setup.
Now from his point of view, Hun Sen is entitled to feel aggrieved that from 1979 to the early 1990s no one was calling for the KR leaders to be prosecuted and that even worse the people who are criticising him for delaying the KRT were the same people who fed and sustained the KR forces against whom he fought with Vietnamese support almost single-handedly when they (the KR) should have been dead and buried along the Khmer – Thai border since 1979. However, once again the decision to revive the KR and keep their seat at the UN was in response partly to Cambodia’s internal predicament and partly to geo-political concerns at the time. In the face of Vietnamese military presence in Cambodia (remember ‘domino’ doctrine?) the Old Anti-Communist Crusader has retired to its shell and washed its hands off its bloody role in Indo-China; The Thais were alarmed by the presence of the Vietnamese along their border with Cambodia and Laos and asked for support from their Western allies and China to curb Vietnamese expansion, former King Sihanouk pleaded for anti-Vietnamese resistance dominated by the KR to be granted political diplomatic recognition – the former monarch explained that this does not imply his support for the KR since he himself has lost 19 of his children and grandchildren under their rule - so in the end it was down to the usual powers playing their usual patient game with Cambodia: the permanent members of the UN Security Council withholding Cambodia’s seat at the UN from the Vietnamese installed regime of Heng Samrin; Thailand accommodating the anti-Vietnamese resistance including erecting a number of logistically placed refugee camps – human shields - along her border with Cambodia; China supplied the arms; the UN supplied the food . . .
There is an interesting parallel between the PRK’s non-recognition at the UN in the 1980s and the PRC’s (People’s Republic of China) being denied the same in the long period since the coming to power of the Chinese Communist Party in China in 1949 in favour of Formosa (Taiwan, an island much smaller in geography and population than the entire mainland China).
Cambodians of whatever persuasion should not be surprised to learn that in all of these manoeuvrings by the actors noted their country has been and is till very much at the mercy of all these powers not so much as helpless pawn as many writers are keen to suggest for this does not tell the whole story and worse encourages Cambodian rulers past and present to abdicate all due responsibility for their actions which as we have witnessed have tended to oscillate between extremes. For all the part external powers have in the shaping and making of the Cambodian history and tragedy, the failure of Khmer leaders to neutralise and minimise their own people’s losses in terms of territory and human lives has been a decisive factor in allowing their country to be manipulated and exploited by all these powers. For example, as a Cambodian I find it difficult to understand the on-going ill-treatment of Khmer Krom activists and people by Cambodian authority whose only desire is to live in peace and in full dignity as human beings. I can understand the need to maintain good relations with neighbouring countries like Vietnam, but not to the point of helping a foreign regime to oppress your own kind.
In relations to the KRT, it suffices for now that we prosecute the few remaining culprits that the ECCC is empowered to prosecute. By all means call for other war crimes to be brought to account for no one has the right to commit atrocities with impunity. In my view, men like Kissinger and Nixon committed greater crimes against humanity than the current Cambodian regime has ever done, and these individuals are unlikely to be prosecuted for their offence. Of course, if we listen to all the accounts by all the actors involved, none of them would be prepared to acknowledge their part in the crime committed against not only the Khmer people, but the American soldiers who lost their lives in the war, the Vietnamese people who also suffered immensely in that conflict as well as the people of Laos who were also affected by the same drama. Each of these actors will shift the blame onto someone else, perhaps, will continue to do so from beyond the grave.
MP
Hello 9:44pm, I know that your writing is good, but too long to read.
Shorter comment is better (may be two lines)and everyone can read your.
Please do not copy & past the whole doc.
Thank.
kkk.
And yes, for anytime in the future, Khmer people may never ever be able to know the truth about anything...That's an excellent view, MP. Thanks for sharing.
Awk (អក)
11"02 wat??????
Ah HUN XEN need to be hang by his d----.
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