By SOPHAL EAR
The New York Times
When my mother — who saved me and four siblings from starvation under the Khmer Rouge in 1976 — passed away in October 2009 at the age of 73, I realized that for her justice delayed had become justice denied. (I’m embarrassed to admit it, but the words “justice delayed is justice denied” had never really sunk in until my mother’s passing.)
As an observant Buddhist, however, my mother probably had the last word. She always said that no matter what happened to the Khmer Rouge leadership in their current lifetime, Karmic justice would prevail in the next: They would be reborn as cockroaches.
I am certain that this belief has helped millions of survivors cope with the reality that, after more than three decades since the fall of the Khmer Rouge, not a single leader has been held to account.
Indeed, Cambodians will largely be yawning when the Khmer Rouge tribunal, known formally as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia and jointly organized with the United Nations, issues its first verdict, on the guilt or innocence of Kaing Guek Eav, widely known as Comrade Duch.
The man who headed S-21, a torture center to which an estimated 16,000 people were sent and where less than a dozen survived, confessed his crimes seven years before the tribunal started, saying: “My confession is rather like Saint Paul’s. I’m the chief of sinners.”
Even during the tribunal itself, Duch declared: “To the survivors, I stand by my acknowledgment of all crimes inflicted on you at S-21. I acknowledge them in both the moral and legal context.”
After nine months of testimony and millions of dollars spent, what verdict but guilty can there be when the defendant has made such statements under oath? What purpose has going through the motions served?
Whether the issue is degree of guilt (no one claims Duch was in charge of policy and he has testified that “even though I knew these orders were criminal ... it was a life and death problem for me and my family”) or plain punishment (the maximum sentence is life in prison), each day that has passed is itself an injustice.
If, after four years and $13 million in contributions to the Cambodian government from Japan, the Europe Commission and others, and $76 million in contributions to the United Nations by more than 21 donors, one guilty verdict is all the tribunal has to show, survivors of the Khmer Rouge may just as well consider justice denied.
Plagued by corruption, the tribunal was essentially hijacked to advance domestic and international agendas. For domestic politicians, the goal was to control the process by placing it in a heavily secured military base some 20 kilometers from Phnom Penh and to reduce its scope by limiting the number of individuals it could indict (five) while currying international favor for addressing, superficially at least, crimes against humanity.
The Cambodian government has even sought to limit the witnesses the tribunal could call to testify under the oft-repeated claim of the threat of another civil war. “If the court wants to charge more former senior Khmer Rouge cadres, [it] must show the reasons to Prime Minister Hun Sen,” the prime minister said, referring to himself in the third person. In any case, the tribunal has no independent means of enforcing its subpoenas without government cooperation.
For many of the foreigners involved, Cambodia served as yet another venue for pushing hybrid models of transitional justice while creating jobs for international civil servants and a stage for foreign lawyers whose careers depend on adding another tribunal to their curriculum vitae. If nothing else, they can pat themselves on the back for showing the Cambodians how justice is done.
But what has happened is the reverse. The tribunal was plagued by corruption, lack of judicial independence and shattered integrity. The appointment of a devout Marxist-Leninist as head of the Victims Unit in May 2009, fully endorsed by the U.N. head of the tribunal, sealed the tribunal’s fate as an international and domestic farce.
Thus, the euphemistically “streamlined” participation of about 4,000 “Civil Parties” (tribunal-recognized victims, including me) who shall be represented in court by only two “civil party lead co-lawyers” (with as yet undefined internal procedures of accountability and selection) imposed by the tribunal on Feb. 9, 2010, came as no surprise.
When I filed my civil complaint in 2008, I was required to outline what compensation I wanted. When I said I didn’t want any compensation and that this isn’t about money, it’s about justice for the past and accountability for the future, you could have heard a pin drop. I should have said that I would like my father and brother back; no amount of compensation can do that.
Justice in that sense is meaningless, but my hope was that in the not-too-distant future the next Pol Pot might have to think twice about genocide.
A truth commission would have been a marked contrast to the combative style of the current tribunal, which has seen denials by anyone potentially indictable and even those ready to confess. Indeed, as South Africa’s experience has shown, truth commissions can work under the right circumstances.
But I doubt the circumstances were ever right in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge had a sense of irony when they created a Ministry of Truth. Ever since then, the first casualty of Cambodian politics has been truth.
Lost in all this are those very Cambodians for whom the tribunal was supposed to enact international standards of justice and be a cathartic experience. Instead, the tribunal has been corrosive. Jaded from a failed 1993 U.N. exercise in democracy that led inexorably toward authoritarianism, Cambodians have learned their lesson: Don’t believe in international promises; they are not kept.
Sophal Ear is an assistant professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He is writing a book on the unintended consequences of foreign aid in Cambodia.
As an observant Buddhist, however, my mother probably had the last word. She always said that no matter what happened to the Khmer Rouge leadership in their current lifetime, Karmic justice would prevail in the next: They would be reborn as cockroaches.
I am certain that this belief has helped millions of survivors cope with the reality that, after more than three decades since the fall of the Khmer Rouge, not a single leader has been held to account.
Indeed, Cambodians will largely be yawning when the Khmer Rouge tribunal, known formally as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia and jointly organized with the United Nations, issues its first verdict, on the guilt or innocence of Kaing Guek Eav, widely known as Comrade Duch.
The man who headed S-21, a torture center to which an estimated 16,000 people were sent and where less than a dozen survived, confessed his crimes seven years before the tribunal started, saying: “My confession is rather like Saint Paul’s. I’m the chief of sinners.”
Even during the tribunal itself, Duch declared: “To the survivors, I stand by my acknowledgment of all crimes inflicted on you at S-21. I acknowledge them in both the moral and legal context.”
After nine months of testimony and millions of dollars spent, what verdict but guilty can there be when the defendant has made such statements under oath? What purpose has going through the motions served?
Whether the issue is degree of guilt (no one claims Duch was in charge of policy and he has testified that “even though I knew these orders were criminal ... it was a life and death problem for me and my family”) or plain punishment (the maximum sentence is life in prison), each day that has passed is itself an injustice.
If, after four years and $13 million in contributions to the Cambodian government from Japan, the Europe Commission and others, and $76 million in contributions to the United Nations by more than 21 donors, one guilty verdict is all the tribunal has to show, survivors of the Khmer Rouge may just as well consider justice denied.
Plagued by corruption, the tribunal was essentially hijacked to advance domestic and international agendas. For domestic politicians, the goal was to control the process by placing it in a heavily secured military base some 20 kilometers from Phnom Penh and to reduce its scope by limiting the number of individuals it could indict (five) while currying international favor for addressing, superficially at least, crimes against humanity.
The Cambodian government has even sought to limit the witnesses the tribunal could call to testify under the oft-repeated claim of the threat of another civil war. “If the court wants to charge more former senior Khmer Rouge cadres, [it] must show the reasons to Prime Minister Hun Sen,” the prime minister said, referring to himself in the third person. In any case, the tribunal has no independent means of enforcing its subpoenas without government cooperation.
For many of the foreigners involved, Cambodia served as yet another venue for pushing hybrid models of transitional justice while creating jobs for international civil servants and a stage for foreign lawyers whose careers depend on adding another tribunal to their curriculum vitae. If nothing else, they can pat themselves on the back for showing the Cambodians how justice is done.
But what has happened is the reverse. The tribunal was plagued by corruption, lack of judicial independence and shattered integrity. The appointment of a devout Marxist-Leninist as head of the Victims Unit in May 2009, fully endorsed by the U.N. head of the tribunal, sealed the tribunal’s fate as an international and domestic farce.
Thus, the euphemistically “streamlined” participation of about 4,000 “Civil Parties” (tribunal-recognized victims, including me) who shall be represented in court by only two “civil party lead co-lawyers” (with as yet undefined internal procedures of accountability and selection) imposed by the tribunal on Feb. 9, 2010, came as no surprise.
When I filed my civil complaint in 2008, I was required to outline what compensation I wanted. When I said I didn’t want any compensation and that this isn’t about money, it’s about justice for the past and accountability for the future, you could have heard a pin drop. I should have said that I would like my father and brother back; no amount of compensation can do that.
Justice in that sense is meaningless, but my hope was that in the not-too-distant future the next Pol Pot might have to think twice about genocide.
A truth commission would have been a marked contrast to the combative style of the current tribunal, which has seen denials by anyone potentially indictable and even those ready to confess. Indeed, as South Africa’s experience has shown, truth commissions can work under the right circumstances.
But I doubt the circumstances were ever right in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge had a sense of irony when they created a Ministry of Truth. Ever since then, the first casualty of Cambodian politics has been truth.
Lost in all this are those very Cambodians for whom the tribunal was supposed to enact international standards of justice and be a cathartic experience. Instead, the tribunal has been corrosive. Jaded from a failed 1993 U.N. exercise in democracy that led inexorably toward authoritarianism, Cambodians have learned their lesson: Don’t believe in international promises; they are not kept.
Sophal Ear is an assistant professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He is writing a book on the unintended consequences of foreign aid in Cambodia.
11 comments:
Us, victims, we don't want to punish any leader but criminal leaders who killed or ordered to kill after war, from 1975 to 1979, not just Vietminhs killers but all Khmers killers.
Unprecedented trial for unprecedented crime and suffering
---------------------------------
As we watch the trial of former Khmer Rouge prison chief Duch coming to a conclusion, and impatiently wait for the verdict, several crucial questions still remain virtually unanswered. Was Duch forcefully a subservient follower in order to ensure his own survival as he claimed, or was he a merciless killer who would not hesitate to kill again if he could turn back the clock? Given his leadership role and authority within the Khmer Rouge structure, could he have done differently? Is he genuine or truthful about his sense of guilt?
At the beginning of the trial, Duch surprised the audience with his unreserved admission of guilt and willingness to assume full responsibility of his actions as well as those of his subordinates. It was unexpected to hear such a confession from a high ranking Khmer Rouge cadre, especially when none of his accused comrades had done so. For that reason, the audience and the media appeared to not only had certain sympathy with him but also believed to some extent in his sincerity and remorse. However as the trial progressed, Duch gradually shifted the responsibility to his superiors and made repeated attempts to absolve himself with the claim that he had no choice but to follow orders – to kill or be killed.
Having lived though the Khmer Rouge regime during my childhood, I fully understand Duch’s argument. The regime had an absolute control on everything throughout the country. It was constantly a life and death situation, and people were tortured and summarily executed for either fabricated or no apparent reasons. That being the case, however, does not exonerate Duch from what he did or chose not to do.
The Khmer Rouge regime operated behind an absolute veil of secrecy and deception – a culture full of terrors which Duch himself helped to mastermind, and personally oversaw and put into practice since his early days as a prison chief at M-13. Given his role, authority and involvement long before the Khmer Rouge came to power, it is beyond reasonable doubt that Duch, an authoritative and motivated figure at the core of the Khmer Rouge killing machine, was not just someone who had to follow orders for his own survival, but someone who willingly did his utmost to ascertain that the killing machine under his command operated at full capacity. The details of his work records clearly showed that he was a merciless and motivated executioner.
The Khmer Rouge was able to abort several pending coups d'état and made many unopposed arrests because their victims were either tricked or most importantly unaware of other related arrests before their own arrests. Had the victims known that their close associates and comrades, or direct superiors had already been arrested prior to their own arrests, they would unquestionably have rebelled openly and massively to overthrow the regime. As a prison chief at Toul Sleng, Duch had a complete and ultimate knowledge on the arrests of ministers, zone secretaries, as well as senior and powerful military commanders. Had he leaked those secret arrests or sent some kind of warning signals to the arrestees’ subordinates or associates, the entire Khmer Rouge power structure would have been compromised and possibly collapsed. Yet he chose to do just the opposite, and carried out the unspeakable atrocity without hesitation or the least regard for the lives of his victims – young or old. (cont'd...)
As for his sense of guilt, Duch showed to have none. His initial admission of guilt was nothing more than a ploy or a deception to gain public sympathy for forgiveness or lighter sentence. This was evident by his subsequent shift of responsibility during the trial and his shocking request to be released made at his closing statement. After all, public deception was one of his trademarks.
We have witnessed an unprecedented trial for an unprecedented crime and suffering in our nation contemporary history, and we are grateful to see justice has been partly served. Nevertheless, the wound was too deep and painful for many of us to forgive, let alone forget.
This trial is much more than just a trial of the past wrongdoings. It explicitly serves as a reminder or warning to all present and future high ranking officials that they are not above the law, and that justice will always take its due course. Those who commit human rights violations or obstruction of justice will be personally held accountable for their misconducts. The classical argument of “I only follow or have to follow orders” will carry little or no weight in the court of law.
(...cont'd)
Last but not least, the true motives of the crime, which all defendants obstinately refuse to acknowledge, will continue to preoccupy the nation long after the judges hand out sentences and leave the courtroom.
Khmer Academy
November 30, 2009
There is this certain group of race in the Middle East that many attempts had been taken against them to get rid of them from the face of this earth. First all out massacre attempt was when they were in exile from their own land by a man name Haman. He was the right hand man of the Persian King. He paid millions of dollars to the king to have the right to kill this certain race of people. It was by deception and the king was not aware of the scope of Haman's scheme and once his scheme came to light, Haman and his ten sons were hung and this race continues to exist because their God foiled the plan of their enemies.
A second attempt was made to rid of this race from the face of the earth by a German man plus many recruits from the Islamic Jihadest
to assist him in his schemes. They were able to pull it off, but only around six millions of them perished.
A third attempt to rid of them from this face of the earth is in the making as I'm telling you these things. Will their enemies succeed in wiping them off the face of the earth? Time will tell- but my answer is, NO. The answer is known before the attempt is being made. Mind you-there were skirmishes of rattling of the swords against them, but an all-out attempt will likely to take place soon. Starting with Damascus being nuke to rid of 3-4 million people living in that city.
lok Khmer Academy, to say that this trial serves as a lesson for assassins or for humanity is really idiocy or even crimial while majority of who committing these crimes are free and continue to commit more crimes against Khmer in all impunity,
if it was a leasson, it was a lesson to follow by criminals and not to learn
Sad,
It is easy for people to tell or talk about their life, their tragedy, what they lived or they can see with their eyes, even little kid of 3 years old can do but it is hard to tell or understand the causes which brought him to that tragedy and fight against it to end his tragedy which make him a human of integrity and of intelligence and not a talkative machine or thing.
Power and money is dod and justice can be baught!
A historical figure name, Jesus, the Nazerean; He was put to death without being convicted of any crime, yet as he near death he cried out saying: "Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing." Forgiveness is the only virtue that will heal the wounded heart. In the case of Jesus, he rose back to life 3 days latter, yet he never sought revenge against those who had put him to death 3 days before. Matter of fact - he was sorry for them that they had done it to their own hurt and not him because they never repent of their sin that put Jesus on the execution stake in the first place.
I'm the generation of the KR era. I escaped without a scratch on my arm, the rest of my family survived the death camps. It paid to be "dumb' at this case that was how they all could survived.
My opinion of this tribunal court is just a circus parade. I don't give much credence to UN ability to bring closure to the Cambodian people with this trial. Only money is what matters, not justice.
Duch was a low level person in the KR leadership hierachy; so why is he the only person to be put on trial? four other KR leaders are being questioned at the tribunal but they claim they did not know aobut the killing field. Now, the question is will the UN call on other KR leaders to testify?
Il n'y a que les idiots qui croient encore aux Nations Unies financées essentiellement par les Grandes puissances. Les impunités (?), parlons-en ! Les Etats-Unis depuis la Deuxième Guerre ont commis les pires crimes contre l'Humanité partout dans le monde (bombardements aveugles, guerre chimique etc ...au Vietnam, Cambodge, Laos et ailleurs). Je suis contre toute dictature, mais l'invasion de l'Irak par l'administration Bush, après avoir utiliser la tribune de l'ONU pour fabriquer les mensonges (Powell) c'est déjà un crime et depuis des centaines de milliers d'Irakiens sont morts ! D'ailleurs les Américains ne reconnaissent aucun tribunal international. Je crois en JUSTICE que si TOUS les criminels sont jugés y compris les criminels Américains !!! Il n'a pas de BONS criminels d'un côté et et les MAUVAIS criminels de l'autre.
Geneva convention would mean a grain of rice, if The UN cann't find justice to what happened in Cambodia and the disappearance of 2 millions Cambodian people.
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