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Khmer Rouge leaders face 'Nuremberg judgment' on genocide charges Khmer Rouge leaders found guilty of genocide in Cambodia’s ‘Nuremberg’ moment
(about 4 hours later)
Two senior leaders of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime will hear on Friday whether they are guilty of genocide charges, in a ruling experts say will bring down the curtain on the troubled UN-backed tribunal’s quest for justice. The two most senior Khmer Rouge leaders still alive today have been found guilty of genocide, almost 40 years since Pol Pot’s brutal communist regime fell in a verdict that nonetheless holds meaning for millions of Cambodians.
The Khmer Rouge’s former head of state Khieu Samphan, 87, and “Brother Number 2” Nuon Chea, 92, are the two most senior living members of the ultra-Maoist group that seized control of Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. Nuon Chea, 92, who was second-in-command to Pol Pot, and Khieu Samphan, 87, who served as head of state, will both be sentenced for genocide carried out between 1977 and 1979, in what is a landmark moment for the Khmer Rouge tribunals.
The reign of terror led by “Brother Number 1” Pol Pot left about two million Cambodians dead from overwork, starvation and mass executions. The pair are already serving life sentences for crimes against humanity.
The two defendants were previously handed life sentences in 2014 over the violent and forced evacuation of Phnom Penh in April 1975. David Scheffer, who was UN secretary general’s special expert on assistance to the Khmer Rouge trials and the former US ambassador at large for war crimes issues, described the genocide verdict as “very significant”. “This is comparable, in Cambodia, to the Nuremberg judgment after world war two,” Scheffer told the Guardian. “That is worth the money and effort.”
But Friday’s judgment at the extraordinary chambers in the courts of Cambodia (ECCC) will decide whether the pair are guilty of overseeing genocide against ethnic Vietnamese and the Cham Muslim minority, as well as a host of other crimes. On Friday morning the courtroom in the capital of Phnom Penh was packed with families of some of the 1.7 million Cambodians who died between 1975 and 1979, through a combinations of mass executions, starvation and brutal labour camps, in one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century.
David Scheffer, who served as the UN secretary general’s special expert on the Khmer Rouge trials from 2012 until last month, said: “The verdict is essentially the Nuremberg judgment for the ECCC and thus carries very significant weight for Cambodia, international criminal justice, and the annals of history.” “It was such an evil regime and it was the worst example of what a government can do,” said prosecutor Nicholas Koumjian. “I think this verdict is a very timely and very necessary. The fact that these crimes happened 40 years ago in no way diminishes the impact of this verdict for those who were affected by the crimes, people whose parents were tortured and killed.”
The revolutionaries who tried to recreate Buddhist-majority Cambodia in line with their vision of an agrarian society attempted to abolish class and religious distinctions by force. While neither Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan disputed their roles as pivotal figures in the Khmer Rouge communist regime – whose repressive policies of agricultural collectivisation and social engineering led to famine and saw hundreds of thousands put into labour camps – they both denied genocide. By the time the regime was ousted by Cambodian dissidents and Vietnamese troops in 1979, about 25% of Cambodia’s population had died.
Forced marriages, rape, the treatment of Buddhists, and atrocities that were carried out in prisons and work sites throughout the country fall under the additional list of charges against the two men. Victor Koppe, the lawyer for Nuon Chea, told the Guardian the case at the extraordinary chambers in the courts of Cambodia (ECCC) had been conducted “very unfairly” and had served simply to prop up a version of history which suited the current government. Many of today’s government figures, including Prime Minister Hun Sen, served in the Khmer Rouge regime before defecting.
Youk Chhang, the head of the Documentation Center of Cambodia – a research organisation that has provided the court with evidence, said he hoped the verdict would “affirm the collective humanity of the victims and give recognition to the horrible suffering”. “In 10 or 20 years from now, when the dust has settled, people will look back on this as a complete waste of time and energy and resources,” he said.
It could also “provide a sense of closure to a horrible chapter in Cambodian history”. He was echoed by Anta Guisse, the lawyer for for Khieu Samphan, who said that due to the symbolic importance of securing convictions, neither of the defendants had been given a fair trial.
About 800 people, including 200 Cham Muslims, are expected to attend the hearing on Friday, said ECCC spokesman Neth Pheaktra. The Khmer Rouge trials have been plagued by criticism since the ECCC was formed in 1997 through a conjoined effort by the UN and the Cambodian courts to try the “most senior” Khmer Rouge members. It took nine years to get the first case to trial and, 12 years and $320m later, it has convicted only three men. Most of those responsible for the killings, including Pol Pot, died before they could be tried.
The hybrid court, which uses a mix of Cambodian and international law, was created with the backing of the UN in 2006 to try senior Khmer Rouge leaders. Only three people have been convicted by the court, which has cost more than $300m. The first life sentence was handed to Kaing Guek Eav, known as Comrade Duch, who ran S-21 concentration camp in Phnom Penh where at least 14,000 people were tortured and killed. In 2014, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan were then found guilty of crimes against humanity.
Former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary and his wife died without facing justice, while “Brother Number 1” Pol Pot died in 1998. Their second trial, for genocide and mass rape, drew to a close in June last year but the verdict has taken 18 months to reach by the panel of three Cambodian and two international judges.
The number of allegations against Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan was so vast the court split the trials into a series of smaller hearings in 2011. Many have criticised the tribunals for moving at a glacial, and very expensive pace, and being susceptible to political interference from Hun Sen’s government. Prosecutor Koumjian said he “wished things had gone faster and that more people had been prosecuted”.
Many believe the decision will be the last for the tribunal, which has been marred by allegations of political interference. But Alexander Hinton, director of the Centre for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights, and UNESCO chair on genocide prevention at Rutgers University, said: “Justice is not perfect. But it’s better than no justice. And what’s the alternative? Impunity for mass murder.”
Prime Minister Hun Sen – himself a former Khmer Rouge official – has repeatedly warned he would not allow more investigations to proceed, citing vague threats to stability. There are three Khmer Rouge commanders who are still awaiting trial but the future of the ECCC remains uncertain, mainly due to resistance from Hun Sen who has long opposed the trials and said that any more cases risked pushing Cambodia into civil war.
The court has launched investigations into four more Khmer Rouge figures, though one was dismissed in February 2017, highlighting the difficulties of bringing lower-level members of the brutal regime to justice. Hinton admitted that the political interference from Hun Sen’s regime had “tarnished” the legacy of the ECCC. “These tribunals are political through and through and this one is more than most” he said. “It has been plagued by accusations of corruption, political interference, and at times less than robust law.
Scheffer said that “challenges of efficiency, funding, and access to evidence” were issues that plague all international criminal courts, but argued the successes of the Cambodian tribunal should not be diminished. “But in the end the court delivered,” he added. “There may just have been three judgments, but the process proceeded with the rule of law. I expect most Cambodians will take this court, warts and all.”
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