(Photo: Reuters)By Duong Sokha
Ka-set
Cambodian prime Minister Hun Sen publicly urged on Tuesday March 31st not to prosecute former Khmer Rouge leaders other than the five persons who are already indicted, among whom Duch, the former director of the S-21 detention and torture centre who on the morning of the second day of his trial, asked victims of the Pol Pot regime for forgiveness.
Civil war
“If twenty other people were indicted to stand trial, civil war would break out and kill thousands”, the head of the Cambodian government warned, presenting himself as the one who restored peace in the Kingdom. “I told foreign ambassadors that I was ready to accept that this tribunal [in charge of prosecuting former Khmer Rouge leaders] fails, but that I would not allow Cambodia to be torn by war again”, he said. Those words were pronounced as in the meantime Kar Savuth, the Cambodian co-Lawyer for Duch, was wondering during his client's trial about the absence of prosecution of other former Khmer Rouge cadres who were also in charge of supervising security centres.
March 30 not a national holiday
The prime Minister also worked on minimising the historic impact of the ongoing judicial process and said he rejected the request made by the director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia (DC-Cam) Youk Chhang about turning March 30th, the date of the opening of the first trial of a former Khmer Rouge leader, into an official national holiday for “memory and justice”.
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