The Khmer Rouge Trials: Better Late than Never

Kang Kek Ieu, Khmer Rouge interrogator and torture expert, has been charged for crimes against humanity.

Years have gone by since the tribunal was first created – years of haggling as both sides debated the fine points of mass slaughter vs. genocide.

Justice may be late, but at least Ieu has not gotten anywhere far with his Nuremberg-esque plea that he was just obeying orders.

Death allowed Pol Pot and his military chief, Ta Mok, to cheat earthly justice for the enormities of their Khmer Rouge regime. But at last there seems, after years of delay, a real prospect of bringing to trial ageing survivors from the ghastly regime’s top ranks. On July 31st judges at a United Nations-backed tribunal in Phnom Penh brought the first charges, of crimes against humanity, against Kang Kek Ieu, alias Duch, who ran Tuol Sleng, the regime’s interrogation and torture centre in Cambodia’s capital.

True to the stereotype of the coldly meticulous death-camp guard, Duch is said to have kept detailed notes of his work, which may now be used as evidence. Just as predictably, the defendant, now in his sixties and a born-again Christian, insists he was simply obeying orders. Prosecutors hope charges will also soon be brought against four other Khmer Rouge leaders.

Posted by mercenary
I've been a media student, an English Literature undergrad, a radio host and a few other things to pass the time. I've been properly around the third world, as well as a bit of the first. At the end of all this, I've found that there's more to learn than...

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