A Time for
Accounting; Cambodia's War Crimes Were Second only to
Hitler's
By JONATHAN
POWER
Jan. 20th, 1999
LONDON- "The arm of the moral universe is long it bends
towards justice". So said Martin Luther King. And indeed,
since Nuremberg and the first international court for war
crimes to try Nazi leaders, the development of international
human rights law has steadily improved. Justice, even if
it's often two steps forward, one step back, is by the
decade reaching further. The case of ex-dictator General
Augusto Pinochet is now back before the law lords in London
and the betting here is that they will confirm their earlier
ruling that he does not have sovereign immunity. But even if
the decision goes the other way it will have pushed the
British and other governments to clarify the standing of
international law--the treaties on genocide, torture,
hostage-taking and the supression of terrorism in
particular--in domestic law.
In any event the ruling ought to be overshadowed by the
debate now coming to a head in the United Nations about
whether or not to set up a war crimes tribunal--modeled on
the two existing ones for ex-Yugoslavia and for Rwanda--to
try the leaders of the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia, the greatest
mass murderers since the Nazis. The nightmare of Pinochet's
Chile pales before the satanic practices of the Khmer Rouge.
The U.S., Britain and a significant number of other
coumtries are for it. But Washington may yet turn a
somersault, as it did over the recent decision to establish
a permanent International Criminal Court, when it realizes
that some pretty dirty American behaviour could be exposed
in the process.
In the four years, 1975-79, the Khmer Rouge, led by the
late Pol Pot, cold-bloodedly killed one million people.
Those deemed to have no place in the revolutionary order
were eradicated. City dwellers were compelled to leave the
towns; thousands of them died during forced marches to the
countryside. Political enemies were mercilessly liquidated
as were many who had done nothing. So were Buddhist monks
and the Cham, an Islamic people.
Twenty thousand people were executed in the S-21
extermination center alone. I have before me records kept by
the Khmer Rouge of victims killed and tortured here. Like
the Nazis they were cruelly methodical. A memo from the
interrogator's manual orders those in charge of torturing to
get the right balance between propagandizing and torturing.
It tells interrogators to keep up the victims' hopes of
survival so as to make them as malleable as possible.
Eventually the Khmer Rouge were overthrown by the
Vietnamese, whose Cambodian front man, Hun Sen, still rules.
It was a stern, forbidding, kind of occupation. But it ended
the massacres. However, because Vietnam was the invading
power--and because Vietnam was then the mortal enemy of the
United States--its government was not accepted as the
legitimate possessor of Cambodia's seat at the UN. For years
the Khmer Rouge flag flew unmolested on New York's First
Avenue. Worse than that, western governments supplied them
with surplus grain through UN relief operations and the
World Food Program. This international assistance was
crucial in enabling the Khmer Rouge to keep fighting the
Vietnamese-backed government.
Brave efforts to take the Pol Pot regime to the World
Court on a charge of genocide were sidetracked. The prime
movers were a group of Cambodian survivors including Dith
Pran, the New York Times staff member, whose story was
portrayed in the unforgettable film, "The Killing Fields",
and the actor Haing Ngor, who played him in the film, but
whose real life experience was worse. He was crucified over
a slow-burning fire for three days. But only governments can
initiate action before the World Court and not one agreed
to.
The UN finally brokered a peace agreement in 1991.
Elections were held. Hun Sen later staged a coup. Elections
were held again last July. Hun Sen organised for himself a
convincing win. Meanwhile Hun Sen achieved his long-time
goal of defeating the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot died; and at the
end of last year his chief lieutenants Khieu Samphan and
Nuon Chea made their peace with Hun Sen. Although Mr Sen at
one time seemed to consider the possibility of handing them
over to an international tribunal now he seems content to
let them hide away in the jungle on the Thai border as long
as they are politically quiescent. But King Norodom
Sihanouk, the constitutional monarch, said three weeks ago
that he would not give them amnesty and that an
international tribunal should have the right to try them for
genocide.
It must be done, and quickly. Too much time has already
passed. The planned International Criminal Court will not be
able to deal with crimes committed before its creation. A
third ad hoc tribunal is the only way to balance the
humanitarian books of the post World War 2 era. As the
Nuremberg war crimes' tribunals concluded, "crimes against
international law are committed by men, not by abstract
entities, and only by punishing individuals who commit such
offenses can the provisions of international law be
enforced".
Mr Hun is desperate for both recognition and aid. This
must be the lever to persuade him to change his mind yet
again. He now has the power he has craved all his political
life. He must use it.
Copyright © 1999 By JONATHAN POWER
I can be reached by phone +44 385 351172 and e-mail:
JonatPower@aol.com
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