The First of the Few? - The Khmer Rouge Face the Courts

The first of five projected trials of senior members of the Khmer Rouge before a Cambodian UN-backed Court ended on July 26th with a 35-year sentence for Kaing Guek Eav, otherwise known as Duch. This despicable human being was the commander of S-21, the torture and murder centre located in an abandoned school in the Tuol Sleng suburb of Phnom Penh. Among the hideous items on display there are photographs of his and his accomplices' victims - men, women, children, some bruised, some bloody, nearly all terrified. There is a vast collection of "confessions", sets of rules and prescribed punishments for breaking them, the implements of torture and murder - and photographs also of those responsible for this dreadful place. More information and photographs are available from the website of Yale University's Cambodian Genocide Program: http://www.yale.edu/cgp/.

Many thought that the day would never come: too much time had passed, too many interests of those in authority were possibly at stake: Prime Minister Hun Sen was once a KR cadre, as were a number of his colleagues (defecting to Viet Nam when it became clear that his own appointment with the Killing Fields was not far away). The relatives of some were in or just outside the Court with hundreds of others when sentence was pronounced (it was carried live on Cambodian broadcast media). A few were quoted as being satisfied that justice had been done. But most thought otherwise, and said so. They wanted him to remain behind bars for the rest of his days - the Court rejected a life sentence because the accused had shown remorse, and there was hope of his rehabilitation. But it isn't quite 35 years. Duch receives credit for the 11 years behind bars awaiting trail, and 5 were deducted because he had spent so long in pre-trial detention. Thus, he has another 19 to serve. And, if the authorities believe that he has been rehabilitated (and that arguably can be taken any way one wishes), he could be free in 11. He will be 78 years old by then.

More than $78 million US, of foreign-donated funds, has been spent on establishing the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (Duch was tried by the trial chamber), and the tribunal was established only after five years of negotiations between Phnom Penh and the United Nations. The support of the latter was considered indispensable to signify that proceedings would be fair both to the accused and the ends of justice. These were not to be "show trials" which would railroad defendants nor yet be unduly lenient to them, due to fears of what they might say to embarrass some in authority. The writer recalls Hans Correll, former UN Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs being most insistent on these points.

This sentence (the verdict cannot have been in doubt because the accused admitted his role, pleading superior orders: I had to kill or be killed) will fuel the debate between those who believe that such trials are necessary, even 30 years after the events, and others who consider first that the money could have been better spent, especially in Cambodia, and that more is served by the establishment of truth and reconciliation commissions than exercises of this sort. Furthermore, the promise of amnesty would promote openness on the part of those involved. These issues and others were discussed at a UBC workshop co-sponsored by the Centre for Southeast Asia Research of IAR and the Liu Institute ion 2006. My view and that of my co-presenter Robert Adamson was that the two approaches were not mutually exclusive, and that the granting of amnesty might be seen as a promise of immunity, allowing perpetrators to proceed with impunity. The post-amnesty history of Charles Taylor was to bear this out amply: once safely in exile, Taylor would continue to plot and plan. Furthermore, it was hardly conducive to the ends of justice for a people to see someone going to jail for, say, housebreaking, while a war criminal was merely escorted to the airport and put on a plane.

There was also the view that, in the case of Cambodia, so much time had passed: who would be interested? Writing from Bangkok, on the day after sentence for Duch was pronounced, it would appear from the local media that the answer is "many". Those who expressed satisfaction with the sentence expressed the hope that this would bring an end to their continued suffering - "closure", as it is often described. But those unhappy with the result suggest exactly the opposite, that justice has not been done, and that the enormity of his crimes meant that Duch had forfeited the right to live with his fellow human beings for the rest of his days. His plea of superior orders, his conversion to Christianity, his acknowledgement of his deeds, his plea for forgiveness: none of this mattered at all. Duch astonished and infuriated many at the end of his trial by demanding to be acquitted, as if acknowledgement of fault and atonement were enough.