So
obviously grave atrocities were committed during the Khmer Rouge regime. Right
after the Khmer Rouge fell a trial of sorts was had and some people were
convicted. Pol Pot had to spend the rest of his life under house arrest, where
he died but basically not much was really done to those in charge. In an
interview Pol Pot did in the late nineties he apparently still would not admit
his guilt. He said (something like) to the reporter, “do I look like a
malicious person? I have a clear conscience.”
Eventually people started realizing how bad
the situation was in Cambodia and a lot of other countries wanted to give
donations, but wouldn’t fork over any money until something was done. Cambodia agreed to hold a trial but
they knew they couldn’t afford the whole thing on their own so they agreed to
let the UN come in and help them but they wanted it to still be Cambodia-run.
So they set up a really unique special court called the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of
Cambodia (ECCC). It’s a joint court that has representatives from the UN as
well as Cambodia. They are applying Cambodia law, which is also international
law since Cambodia’s laws also hold true to all international laws.
We went in and visited the court and got to
sit and listen to them questioning a witness. The whole ordeal is pretty crazy.
The court is set up at an army base about a 45-minute drive outside of Phnom
Penh. There is a house on the base where all the defendants have been held and
there is a huge building of UN offices. Outside the courtroom is an area with TV
screens and tables and plastic chairs for the days when the court is too
crowded for everyone to sit inside. The actual inside of the building is like a
normal courtroom but about 50x bigger. The front of the room (where the judges
and the lawyers and witnesses are) is like a little bubble because it’s
shielded from the gallery area (where everyone else sits) by a bunch of glass.
The court itself is conducted in 3 languages
simultaneously: English, French, and Khmer. There are translators for each of
the languages and all of the people in the audience are given headsets so they
can tune into the proper channel. So while we were watching the prosecutor was
questing the witness who was answering in Khmer and then you had judges
interrupting in English. It was wild. I’m really curious about the implications
of such a procedure. I feel like there are a lot of arguments that could be
made as to how it’s impossible to have a fair trial with such a system. Translators
are never 100% correct and the meaning of words varies when they are
interpreted. So people in different languages have to be getting slightly
different stories. I think the words we choose are incredibly important,
especially with such a serious topic. So many witnesses are telling horrific
stories of what happened to them and I think having it translated changes their
story. I get that its not feasible any other way, but I’m still curious as to
the fairness aspect of it all.
The
court separated the whole thing into 4 different trials.
The
first trial was against Duch, who was in charge of Tuol Sleng Prison, or S21.
S21 is an old school that the Khmer Rouge
turned into a prison. It held around 17,000 prisoners throughout the Khmer
Rouge. People were brought to S21
when they were suspected of being enemies of the Khmer Rouge. They were
tortured extensively and forced to give false confessions of their treason and
to blurt out names of other supposed criminals. When the Vietnamese liberate
Phnom Penh in 1979, they discovered the prison and there were still bodies left
inside.
We visited the prison and saw the graves of
the victims that were left there. You could still see blood stains on the
floors of the rooms. There were pictures of the positions that bodies had been
found in, beaten to death, electrocuted, bloody, and chained to metal beds.
Prisoners pictures were taken when they
arrived. You see pictures of young children and mothers holding infants. When
one person in a family was accused of being a traitor, the entire family was
targeted. The Khmer Rouge believed that it was better to kill off entire
families so that no one would be left to seek revenge against them.
What happened at S21 was horrific. It’s
strange to think that a school, a place where children went to gain an
education, to grow and to learn, turned into a place where they targeted
individuals who had an education. A place where growth was encouraged turned
into a place of death and torture. It’s also crazy that this prison and torture
facility was literally in the middle of the city. It wasn’t hidden off in the
distance somewhere so that people didn’t know about it. Apparently you could
hear screams of people being tortured from the streets of the city.
Many people who were tortured at S21 were not
actually killed there but were sent to the Killing Fields to die. Duch is
considered to be responsible for the deaths of at least 14,000 people either
through direct killing or his personal orders.
Duch was sentenced to 35 years in prison for
his crimes, 16 of which have been served already since the start of the
tribunal. Therefore Duch was to serve only another 19 years in jail. There was
a public outcry after the trial, and some felt it to be a grave insult. His
crimes were horrendous and the penalty seemed so minor, he would eventually be
let free. The case was appealed and Duch was later sentenced to life in jail.
While many people considered the appeal a
victory, the initial decision was actually a huge success for Due Process rights
in Cambodia. It was one of the first times that sentencing was issued according
to due process laws in Cambodia.
Duch is also the only of the accused to ever
actually admit guilt. During the trial Duch was taken to the Killing fields.
The killing fields are an area outside of Phnom Penh where people were taken to
be slaughtered. People discovered the area while looking for food after it was
abandoned by the Khmer Rouge, instead of food they found mass graves with
thousands of bodies. One man was looking around a tree for fruit or bugs and he
noticed blood and brains embedded in the bark. Next to the tree he found a mass
grave of women and babies. Khmer Rouge soldiers would grab babies by their feet
and swing them against the trees, breaking their skulls. They would then throw
them into the pit and kill their mothers and do the same. When Duch was taken
to the killing fields during the trial and brought to this tree he fell to his
knees and started weeping. He said he knew that he was responsible for their
deaths and begged for forgiveness.
There are mixed feelings as to whether Duch
is actually sorry. While it has to be nice for someone to finally admit guilt
(since no one else has), there are mixed reactions. At the end of the trial
Duch requested that he be acquitted and found not guilty claiming he was just
an agent of a bigger regime. People were upset with this and believe that his
earlier confessions of guilt were just an attempt to get a lesser sentence.
Case
2 is a bigger, more complicated, and possibly doomed event that is currently
taking place. 2 of the students in my group are working on the defense team for
one of the accused.
Case
2 is against 4 of the senior leaders considered to be most responsible. One of
them has already been declared unfit to stand trial because she suffers from
dementia. The other are all considerably old. It’s interesting to see video of
the trial so far and their pictures. You just see these tiny old people and you
wonder how they were capable of doing the things they did. When we went to the
court we saw an introductory video with each of them speaking at the end of the
trial. One of the men refused to talk at all. Another said that he had been
waiting years for this moment, that he was proud of what he did because he was
doing it for his country and he couldn’t wait to tell his story.
Apparently
it’s going to be a miracle if Case 2 even finishes. As with all Cambodian
courts there are huge problems with governmental interference and corruption. A
couple judges have already resigned because they weren’t able to do their jobs
properly. It has to be so frustrating. Apparently a week or so ago they were
questioning a witness and the witness started talking about Hun Sen’s
involvement and seeing him at really high up meetings and the judge just cut
him off and ended court for the day. There are so many high ranking current
government officials that played a huge role in the Khmer Rouge and arguably
should also be on trial but will never get there.
This
trial and the situation in Cambodia raises the interesting question of how you
go about picking up the pieces of such a mess. Who do you blame when so many
people were responsible? if you tried to lock up everyone that played a part or
did something wrong it would be a considerable percentage of the population.
They were at war, people were dying left and right, everyone went in to
survival mode. How do you draw the line between what was permissible and what
wasn’t? It’s incredibly difficult. The court itself has specifically been set
up with a very very limited jurisdiction for that exact purpose. It is only
allowed to prosecute “the senior leaders and those most responsible” for the
atrocities during a certain time period. Some say this is to protect foreign
governments such as the U.S. and Vietnam who would have never supported the
court if it didn’t have such a focus. Others believe it’s to protect Hun Sen and
Cambodia. Hun Sen has publicly admonished the trial and done everything to
stall it’s success. He has refused to let the court investigate further cases
and told them that if they wanted to make any more indictments they may as well
just pack up and leave because it wasn’t going to happen. Supposedly for Case 3
they were looking into some high ranking government officials and now it
appears that it will be a miracle if they even finish case 2.
No comments:
Post a Comment