Khmer Rouge Trials Begin
Kang Kek Ieu First in the Dock for Crimes against Humanity
After two decades, the trials of Khmer Rouge leaders for crimes against humanity are finally to begin. The first to be charged is Kang Kek Ieu, head of infamous S21 Jail.
After years of false starts, accusations of lack of political will and definite lack of resources, the first trial for crimes against humanity against a member of the Khmer Rouge is finally about to start. Kang Kek Ieu is accused of heading the notorious S21 prison in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. More than 17,000 people are believed to have passed through the jail under the leadership of Kang, who used the nom de guerre Duch. Thousands of people, women and children prominent among them, are believed to have been brutally tortured and murdered on Duch’s orders.
The Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975 after the defeat of American forces in Vietnam led to Communist regimes being established in that country as well as Laos and Cambodia, both of which had been illegally attacked by American forces during the war. Khmer Rouge leaders referred to their party simply as Angka, the organisation. They pursued an ultra-Maoist policy of trusting only the rural poor and considering every urban resident and professional a potential or actual traitor suitable only for re-education, forced labour or outright execution. It is estimated that around one million Cambodians were killed by the Khmer Rouge through murder, overwork or starvation. The party’s rule was only ended by the 1979 invasion by Vietnamese forces, after Vietnamese leaders had become increasingly alarmed by the disorder and refugees on their western borders.
In the years since the withdrawal of the Vietnamese, there have been sporadic attempts at assembling the forces necessary to try the leaders of the Khmer Rouge for their various crimes against humanity. One problem has been the lack of competent lawyers, judges and other professionals since so many were killed by the Khmer Rouge or had fled overseas and were understandably reluctant to return. Another has been that many Cambodians wish only to draw a veil over the events of the past and to be left alone to live quiet lives. Nevertheless the country, which is now the only functioning democracy in mainland Southeast Asia, has gradually negotiated with international interests with a view to mounting trials which would be transparent and as fair as can be managed. Already the two principal leaders of the Angka, Pol Pot and Ta Mok, have escaped justice by dying and a number of others remain free. Nevertheless, with the trial of Kang Kek Ieu, it may at last be possible for many hundreds of thousands of grieving Cambodians to start to find justice.
