My trip to Phnom Penh back in December was actually quite emotional. I visited the Killing Fields and the S-21 Museum, both of which were chilling. It did not help that I was reading First They Killed My Father, which is about a young girl’s experience living in Cambodia during the Pol Pot’s reign of terror.
Anyway, I will write more about that in my next Cambodia travel post. For now, I just wanted to note that the Khmer Rouge trials are set to begin this week. Here is the official announcement from the Hague Justice Portal:
The trial of former Khmer Rouge commander Kaing Guek Eav (alias Duch) is set to being on 17 February 2009 in Cambodia. The long-awaited trial will the first to take place in the UN-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), established to try those accused of genocide and other crimes committed in Cambodia during the 1970s.
Duch, 66, is one of five former Khmer Rouge leaders currently in detention in Phnom Penh facing charges associated with the regime. Duch was indicted in August 2008 and is accused of directing the infamous Security Prison S-21 in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. Under Duch’s authority, countless abuses were allegedly committed against the civilian population, including murder, enslavement, rape and torture.
There have been some critics of the Cambodian Government’s actions. Some feel that the government is trying to limit the scope of the trials for political reasons. Here is an excerpt from the New York Times report on this issue:
Four other defendants, all of whom were members of the Khmer Rouge Central Committee, are also in custody, waiting their turns to face charges on crimes that occurred while they were at the top of the chain of command from 1975 to 1979. As much as one-fourth of the population in Cambodia died from disease, hunger or overwork, or were executed under the Khmer Rouge’s brutal Communist rule.
Those five defendants are enough, Cambodian officials say.
But foreign legal experts counter that within reasonable limits, the judicial process should not be arbitrarily limited.
After a decade of difficult and not always friendly negotiations between the United Nations and the Cambodians, a hybrid tribunal is in place, with Cambodian and foreign co-prosecutors and co-judges in an awkward political and legal balancing act.
Now, even before Duch’s trial gets under way, that balance is being tested.
Last month the foreign co-prosecutor, a Canadian named Robert Petit, submitted six more names to the court for investigation, saying that he had gathered enough evidence to support possible charges. Mr. Petit’s Cambodian counterpart, Chea Leang, objected — not on legal grounds, but for reasons that appear to reflect the government’s position on the trials.
