# Cambodia's Khmer Rouge Trials



## waltky (Oct 17, 2014)

Justice catches up with Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge...

*Cambodia opens first genocide case*
_ 17 October 2014 ~ A UN-backed Cambodian tribunal began hearing the first genocide case against the country's brutal 1970s Khmer Rouge regime._


> It was another step toward justice for an estimated 1.7 million people who died from starvation, disease and execution.  Khieu Samphan, the regime's head of state, and Nuon Chea, right-hand man to the communist group's late leader, Pol Pot, received life sentences in August after being found guilty of charges including crimes against humanity, related mostly to the group's forced movement of millions to the countryside when it took power in 1975.  They have appealed against their convictions.
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> The UN-backed tribunal split the cases into two trials for fear that Khieu Samphan, 83, and Nuon Chea, 88, could die before any proceedings against them could be completed.  The second trial will also include additional charges of crimes against humanity, addressing for the first time accusations of rape and forced marriages.  The prosecutors made short opening statements today. The first witness is expected to testify on Monday.  According to the genocide charges, Pol Pot and other senior leaders intended to wipe out members of the country's Muslim Cham and Vietnamese ethnic minorities.
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## Tom Sweetnam (Oct 17, 2014)

I heard on a NASA Channel Q&A one time that the Killing Fields burial mounds of Cambodia are one of the few man-made objects on earth visible from the Space Station during daylight hours.

These trials are a sham of course. There were more nazis executed in 1946 for their crimes against humanity, than all the communists who've ever been executed for the 150 million people they murdered over the past 100 years. Don't count on any of those murdering bastards still alive in Russia ever being brought to justice under Putin...or any other communist ever being brought to justice by people like our president.


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## waltky (Mar 24, 2016)

Khmer Rouge trials at an impasse...

*Khmer Rouge Tribunal Cases Stuck as Deadline Looms*
_ March 23, 2016 — Almost a year after charging former mid-ranking regime official Ao An with crimes against humanity, the Phnom Penh-based Khmer Rouge Tribunal last week expanded its case against the 83-year-old suspect, bringing new charges of genocide, torture and other serious crimes._


> The decision by International Co-Investigating Judge Michael Bohlander appeared to indicate that the case against Ao An — former deputy secretary of the Central Zone of Democratic Kampuchea, who is better known by his regime alias, Ta An — is making progress. But observers question whether case 004, one of two currently on the hybrid United Nations-Cambodian court docket, will actually make it to trial.
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## waltky (May 2, 2016)

Facing the killing fields legacy...

*Confronting darkness in Khmer Rouge stronghold*
_Tue, May 03, 2016 - Standing next to cages that once housed political prisoners, former Khmer Rouge foot soldier Tho Lon gets a surprisingly sympathetic hearing from a clutch of students, despite his work for a regime that wiped out one-quarter of Cambodia’s population._


> “All my life, I’ve been cheated by politicians,” he told them in Anlong Veng, a dirt poor town where Pol Pot and his henchmen are still venerated.  “My heart is pained, but I pretend not to be hurt,” he added.  That his complaints get an airing might jar with many Cambodians in a country still piecing together the horrors of the past.  However, his testimony is part of a pioneering reconciliation scheme introducing students to former fighters.  Until now, historians, officials and civil society groups helping Cambodia have struggled to decide on how to approach Anlong Veng, which lies on Cambodia’s remote northern border with Thailand.  It was there and among the surrounding Dangrek Mountains that Pol Pot and senior Khmer Rouge leaders lived on long after their murderous regime was toppled by Vietnam in 1979.
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> Hidden deep in the jungle, they launched two decades of guerilla attacks that only ended with the region’s final defeat in 1998.  As the students listened intently, Tho Lon explained why he kept on fighting.  “We were living in the mountains,” he said. “We had lost all contact with others, so we believed what we were told, that the Vietnamese would behead us [if we stopped].”  Tho Lon, 57, paid for his loyalty. He lost his sight in one eye and his right arm below the elbow in a mine blast fighting for a Marxist agrarian utopia that never materialized.
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## waltky (Jun 10, 2016)

The more things change, the more they remain the same...




*Khmer Rouge Prison Chief: I Was Ordered to Exterminate Everybody*
_ June 09, 2016 — The head of an infamous Khmer Rouge security center and execution site says he was ordered to destroy the prison and kill all remaining internees on the eve of the Vietnamese military's arrival in Phnom Penh in January 1979._


> Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, said Wednesday in his second day of testimony at the Khmer Rouge tribunal that he also was ordered by Pol Pot's second-in-command, Nuon Chea, to kill families of those held by the internal security department.  The nine-day testimonial process is focused on Duch's role as head of the S-21 security center in Phnom Penh, as part of case 002/02 of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia — the full name of the Khmer Rouge tribunal.
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> “Uncle Nuon ordered [me] to destroy everything before the arrival of Vietnamese forces, but at the time, I begged to keep four people [alive],” Duch, clad in white, his head shaved, told international prosecutors. Duch, 74, who oversaw the deaths of more than 12,000 people at S-21, claims he was following party orders to exterminate “the whole family of the enemy” as part of a "cleansing" that coincided with the regime's approaching collapse.  “At the end, when Uncle Nuon ordered me to destroy all human beings from S-21, I was very shocked and could not do anything," he said, adding that each time he departed for S-21, his wife feared he would not return. "I was sick the day that the Vietnamese arrived. I was very scared.”
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See also:

*Global Protests to Target Jailing of Rights Workers in Cambodia*
_ June 09, 2016 - Cambodian expatriates in several countries are preparing for Friday and Saturday protests to demand the release of several human rights workers and opposition supporters._


> The demonstrations are being staged simultaneously in Canada and several U.S. states that are home to large Cambodian expatriate communities, including California and Massachusetts.  Touch Vibol, president of the Cambodian American Alliance, said he would lead a demonstration to the U.S. Capitol to call on the government to impose sanctions against long-ruling Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government, over what he called a stifling of dissent that has seen numerous opposition members and supporters and even rights workers jailed on spurious charges.  “Our purpose is to push for economic and diplomatic sanctions on the current government,” he said. “This is because the human rights situation in Cambodia is worsening. Therefore, to avoid a civil war and plunging the country deeper into crisis, [we must] apply a sanction so that the government can come back on the right track.”
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> Four Phnom Penh human rights defenders from the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association, along with an election official, are currently in jail on charges of bribing a witness in a sex scandal involving opposition party deputy leader Kem Sokha. At least 10 opposition activists and politicians, including two U.S. citizens, have been sentenced in connection with a violent protest following the 2013 election.  “People are suffering from what is happening in Cambodia nowadays,” said Navan Cheth, a protest organizer in Long Beach, California. “They cannot accept this injustice, so they will come out to support this protest.”
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## waltky (Jul 1, 2016)

Granny says fry him...




*Ex-security Officer Testifies to Immolating 4 Westerners at Khmer Rouge Jail*
_ June 30, 2016 — The head of an infamous Khmer Rouge security center and execution site confessed earlier this month to overseeing the fatal burning of four Western inmates in the 1970s._


> During his second day of testimony at the Khmer Rouge tribunal on June 9, Kaing Kek Eav, the S-21 security center chief better known as Duch, said four Western prisoners of a group of nine were burned alive on order of his superiors. The former prison chief, now 74, is currently serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity handed down in a separate phase of the ongoing case.  “I can say that they were interrogated and later on they were smashed, per the instructions — and the smashing here means they were burned with tires, car tires,” Duch said.
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## waltky (Aug 11, 2016)

Pokemon Go not welcome in Cambodian memorial sites...




*‘Pokemon Go’ players anger survivors of notorious Khmer Rouge-era prison*
_Thu, Aug 11, 2016 - Survivors of the Khmer Rouge yesterday hit out at Pokemon Go players after they flocked to one of the regime’s notorious prisons — now a museum to Cambodia’s brutal genocide — to catch digital monsters._


> The mobile app on Saturday became available in Cambodia alongside a host of other Southeast Asian nations, with fans flocking to well known landmarks in recent days.  However, the game — which encourages users to hit the streets in search of virtual creatures — has sparked anger after players appeared at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, where up to 15,000 people were sent to their deaths during the Khmer Rouge’s 1975 to 1979 rule.  “It is an insulting act to the souls of the victims who died there,” 76-year-old Bou Meng, one of a handful of survivors from Tuol Sleng, told reporters.  “It is a place of suffering. It is not appropriate to play the game there,” he said, calling for the museum to be excluded from the game’s maps.
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## waltky (Nov 23, 2016)

Cambodian court rules 2 Khmer Rouge leaders must serve out life terms...




*Cambodian court upholds life terms for 2 Khmer Rouge leaders*
_November 22, 2016 — A top Cambodian court on Wednesday upheld the life sentences for the two most senior surviving members of the Khmer Rouge regime, which is responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million people, saying that the massive scale of the crimes showed the two men's complete lack of consideration for the lives of the Cambodians._


> The Supreme Court Chamber said the 2014 verdict by a U.N.-assisted Khmer Rouge tribunal was "appropriate" given the gravity of the crimes and roles of the two defendants — Khieu Samphan, the 85-year-old Khmer Rouge head of state, and Nuon Chea, the 90-year-old right-hand man to the communist group's late leader Pol Pot.  The two men, who were sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity, sat impassively as the lengthy verdict was read out. They were detained in 2007 and started serving their sentences in 2014.
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## esthermoon (Nov 24, 2016)

Life imprisonment is nothing for two 85 years old men.
In this case punishment is not effective


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## waltky (Nov 24, 2016)

esthermoon wrote: _Life imprisonment is nothing for two 85 years old men.
In this case punishment is not effective_

It is if they die in prison.


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## esthermoon (Nov 24, 2016)

They're gonna die in prison but they will spend a few years behind bars.
Maybe 5/10 years
That's why I said punishment isn't effective in this case


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## waltky (Feb 22, 2017)

Is Cambodia tiring of the Khmer Rouge trials?...




*Khmer Rouge Cadre's War Crimes Charges Dismissed in Cambodia*
_February 22, 2017 — A U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal in Cambodia dismissed charges against a former cadre of the 1970s Khmer Rouge regime on Wednesday, saying the Buddhist nun had not played a senior enough role during a period when some 1.8 million people died._


> The decision in the case of Im Chaem, who was suspected of running a forced labor camp, was a boon for veteran Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge soldier who opposes further trials. Critics said the decision undermined the credibility of the court, which has found just three people guilty after a decade of work at a cost of over $260 million. The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia said in a statement that Chaem, in her 60s, did not fall under their jurisdiction because she was not a senior leader of the Khmer Rouge or one of the most responsible officials.
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> Most of the victims of the Khmer Rouge died of starvation, torture, exhaustion or disease in labor camps or were bludgeoned to death during mass executions. Pol Pot, "Brother Number One," died in 1998. Chaem, a former Khmer Rouge district commander, was charged with murder and crimes against humanity.
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