Some justice for Cambodia’s brutal past

Last week, Kaing Guek Eav, known as Comrade Duch, was convicted and sentenced at the Cambodia Tribunal for the role he played in the brutal five-year reign of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s.

He was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity for overseeing the murder of 14,000 people.

His sentence of 35 years (reduced to 19 due to time already served) has been mocked, given he’ll now only serve half a day for each victim. Others criticise the tribunal itself for being slow, costly and possibly unwarranted.

Nevertheless, the nature and scale of the atrocities only 30 years ago serves as a reminder of what humans are capable of doing to each other.

The build up to war

After Cambodia gained independence from France in 1953, Prince Norodom Sihanouk ruled the country during the 1950s and 1960s.

As the war between communist North Vietnam and capitalist South Vietnam intensified next door, Sihanouk chose to maintain Cambodia’s neutrality and not get involved.

However, under immense pressure from both the US (supporting the South) and China (supporting the North), Sihanouk eventually cracked and allowed China to base their troops in Cambodia and send supplies through to the North Vietnamese.

This choice of sides was based on Sihanouk’s belief that China, not the US, would soon rule the region.

Upset about this decision, the US secretly replaced Sihanouk as Cambodian leader while he was visiting France in March 1970.

The Cambodian Civil War

The new leader, General Lon Nol, was considerably more ruthless with the country’s poor. He cut their crucial rice earnings and murdered those who dared to protest.

Slowly the rural poor began supporting the Khmer Rouge, a communist movement that started fighting back.

The battle for the country lasted 5 years, during which time the Khmer Rouge army swelled to 40,000 and gradually took over most of Cambodia.

By January 1975, they had the capital city Phnom Penh surrounded, and captured it on April 17 – declaring it “Year Zero.”

The brutal Khmer Rouge era

In the first two days the Khmer Rouge evacuated all 2.5 million people from Phnom Penh, saying American soldiers were planning to bomb it.

Similar evacuations occurred in other cities, as a way of getting rid of the upper and middle class dominance.

Out in the countryside, many members of the former elite were killed, including politicians, teachers, lawyers, doctors, engineers, artists and business owners. Ethnic Vietnamese and Chinese were also targeted.

Out of a population of 7 million, approximately 1 million people were executed by guns and pickaxes and buried in mass graves in the infamous ‘Killing Fields’. Another million died of disease and starvation.

The poor were given better jobs and larger food rations, while the remainder were forced to work hard labour.

Despite some examples of mutual respect, it was largely a case of revenge against the former enemy, rather than creating a purely equal society.

Eventually their former ally North Vietnam – who disagreed with the Khmer Rouge’s severe version of communism, as well as their new desire to take over Vietnam – began supporting an anti-government uprising in Cambodia, and invaded in 1978.

They quickly took Phnom Penh in January 1979 and forced the Khmer Rouge to the Thai border where it eventually fizzled out after several failed resurgences.

The Vietnamese ran the country for the next decade until a new Cambodian government was able to take over in 1989.

Looking for justice: the tribunal

After new elections were held in 1993, the Cambodian Tribunal was set up in 2004 to try remaining leaders of the Khmer Rouge (Pol Pot died mysteriously in hiding in 1998).

The tribunal includes both Cambodian and international judges, and has spent US$78 million so far.

67-year old Comrade Duch was the first case and conviction after he admitted running the regime’s notorious S-21 torture prison where all but a dozen of the 14,000 men, women and children inmates were murdered.

But Duch was relatively low level in terms of leadership. The other four suspects awaiting trial are more senior (and elderly) members of the Khmer Rouge, including Pol Pot’s right-hand man.

Their trials, which begin next year, will be a lot more complicated due to a more complex paper trail, and some fear they may not even live to see the verdict.

The court’s purpose has been a topic of serious debate. On one side critics say it’s too costly, serves little in the way of justice, and merely stokes up the past.

On the other side supporters say it provides at least some justice for the victims and sends the message that these crimes will not be tolerated.

In any case, it is justice for a continent that has rarely chosen to look back on its horrors or do more than just forgive and forget.

Comrade Duch’s conviction may be a small stepping stone in avoiding these terrible acts of the past.

By The Casual Truth