Khmer Rouge

‘The Legacy of Murderous Regimes’

It is difficult to define the legacy of murderous regimes. While it is easy (and just) to unleash a torrent of the bitterest denunciations of the Khmer Rouge, stepping back, language always fails to rise to the occasion. The most appropriate way to describe the legacy of the Khmer Rouge was the utter nothingness that was left in the wake of the regime.

November 17, 2012

Cambodia Responds

Mr. Editor-in-Chief: I wish to respond to an article written by Stéphanie Giry, published on your blog under the title: “Necessary Scapegoats? The Making of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal,” as follows: First, by saying that “[Cambodian Foreign Minster Hor Nam Hong] was the Ambassador to Cuba for the regime of General Lon Nol,” the writer is really insane and ignorant. Secondly, His Excellency Hor Nam Hong has never been a schoolmate with Ieng Sary for a simple reason that they are from different generations. Third, regarding a 2002 US Embassy cable released by WikiLeaks, His Excellency Hor Nam Hong has already sent a letter of protest to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on 18 July, 2011.

November 14, 2012

The Khmer Rouge on Trial

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has long been keen to go down in history as the man who brought the Pol Pot regime to justice. But Hun Sen, a one-time Khmer Rouge battalion commander, knows only too well that investigations down the Khmer Rouge chain of command could expose the shady pasts of important members of the current government. Now, the joint Cambodian-international tribunal set up to prosecute Khmer Rouge crimes finds itself in a quandry: even as the Cambodian government has supported a case against the surviving senior leaders of the regime it has blocked two other cases against five mid-level officials, each one thought to be responsible for 40,000 to 100,000 deaths.

July 23, 2012

Cambodia’s Perfect War Criminal

The July conviction of Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch—the gaunt-faced, fever-eyed 68-year-old head of the Khmer Rouge’s leading torture center—by a special UN–Cambodian criminal court has been seen as a breakthrough in international justice. Years in the making, the trial was the first international criminal case brought against an official of the Pol Pot regime since a Vietnamese show trial in 1979. And despite mixed legal procedures, the conflicting approaches of Cambodian and international lawyers, hearings in three languages, budget shortages, corruption scandals, and political pressure, it was widely considered fair. Yet it is unclear how much the Duch case will have advanced the long-delayed efforts for justice against the Khmer Rouge, not least because Duch himself seems to have come out of the experience less repentant than he was when it began.

October 25, 2010