Vol
9. No. 6, July 2001
All
eyes are on Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, as the country’s
quest for justice—and answers about its past—continues.
by
Dominic Faulder
Sitting
in "The Tiger’s Den", his fortified residence
outside Phnom Penh near Takhmau, Second Prime Minister Hun
Sen was on a roll. It was September 1996, and he was about
to fatally split the remaining Khmer Rouge guerrilla forces
operating from the Thai border. A deal had been struck with
Ieng Sary, Pol Pot’s former brother-in-law and foreign minister.
In return for a pardon, Ieng Sary would defect to the government
side bringing with him Pailin and the western theatre. Gem
and timber rich, this was the Khmer Rouge’s economic heartland.
"We can reduce their forces by 80 percent," he
predicted, pretty much correctly as it turned out. This
was the eve of the endgame, and for Hun Sen a dream was
about to be realized.
Since
1977, when Hun Sen crossed into Vietnam along with other
renegade Khmer Rouge fleeing Pol Pot’s lethal purges, virtually
every waking moment had been devoted to smashing the military
and political structures of the people who dropped at
least 1.7 million Cambodians into early graves between 1975
and 1979. (Recent research puts the figure at over two million.)
But once he had finally defeated the Khmer Rouge, how did
Hun Sen plan to punish people responsible for almost unimaginable
crimes against humanity? Hun Sen would not be drawn on that.
At that time, peace was a far greater prize than justice.
"I think we should not talk about how many kilograms
of fish to cook, or whether to fry or to bake, at a time
when the fish are still in the water," he commented.
"If we do, it’s like throwing something into the water
that will frighten all the fish away."
The
last piece in the endgame jigsaw is the fate of Khmer
Rouge leaders who have not died or been murdered.
"Most profess ignorance of the holocaust they
stewarded in the 1970s."
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It
had taken over six months to get that interview, driving
my editors to distraction. About two-thirds of the way through,
it became clear that the second prime minister had been
waiting for the right time. He reached into his jacket and
extracted a piece of paper which he gently unfolded. For
a short while, he went uncharacteristically quiet, losing
himself in contemplation of the single sheet. It was an
astonishing moment. There was Ieng Sary’s pardon sitting
in his hand.
Hun
Sen explained that the following day he and First Prime
Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh would seek an audience
with King Norodom Sihanouk. He didn’t mention that signing
the pardon would be exceptionally painful for Sihanouk.
In the early 1970s, when the burgeoning Khmer Rouge were
the military muscle in the anti-Lon Nol front nominally
headed by Sihanouk, it was the arrogant bully Ieng Sary
who shadowed him constantly. Sihanouk, who was subsequently
imprisoned in his own palace by the Khmer Rouge, must nurture
a deep ambivalence towards this man he once loathed but
who also played a role in keeping him alive. The following
week, he furiously berated the co-prime ministers for making
his signature of the pardon public knowledge without first
securing its endorsement from the National Assembly.
Ieng
Sary’s pardon has turned out to be even more divisive than
it seemed then. The Khmer Rouge was indeed devastatingly
split by his defection, leaving hardliners Pol Pot, Nuon
Chea, Ta Mok, Khieu Samphan, Son Sen and his wife Yun Yat
to fester and murder madly to the north in and around Anlong
Veng, the hardline Khmer Rouge’s final redoubt. "In
my estimation, by late 1997 the situation will be very good,"
Hun Sen predicted. "If any Khmer Rouge remain, it will
only be some hardliners." True enough, but he did not
expect that by then they would have helped split his relations
with Ranariddh.
Nearly
five years on, much of Hun Sen’s dream is reality. Democratically
elected, he is sole premier. Cambodia is at peace and rebuilding
itself after some three decades of mayhem that included
carpet-bombing, genocide and civil war. The Khmer Rouge
has been defeated both militarily and politically. Rank-and-file
Khmer Rouge have been amnestied and absorbed back into mainstream
society. Pol Pot died—quite possibly he was murdered—along
the Thai border in 1998. In 1997, he had ordered the killing
of two of his most murderous accomplices, Son Sen and his
wife Yun Yat, and members of their family.
The
last piece in the endgame jigsaw is the fate of Khmer Rouge
leaders who have not died or been murdered. Most profess
ignorance of the holocaust they stewarded in the 1970s.
There are probably fewer than a dozen in question. So far,
only Ta Mok, Pol Pot’s bloodiest general, and Deuch, his
top jailer and interrogator, have been arrested.
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King
Nordom Sihanouk who nursed bitter memories of earlier
encounters with Pol Pot's foreign minister
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Sihanouk
has just signed a tribunal law that will provide for the
inclusion of foreign judges and prosecutors. It is by no
means clear that these will be provided by the United Nations,
which has been in torturous negotiations with the Royal
Cambodian Government and has a very checkered history on
Cambodia. While the UN attempts to dictate from some dubious
moral high ground, few in Cambodia can forget or forgive
the fact that the international community allowed the Khmer
Rouge to occupy Cambodia’s seat in the General Assembly
until the late 1980s. The expensive, faltering tribunal
the UN has convened in Tanzania in the wake of the Rwandan
genocide meanwhile raises disturbing issues of basic competence.
Which
is not to say the Cambodians, with their corrupt and inept
judiciary still in tatters from the Khmer Rouge years, would
do any better on their own. It is safe to say that there
will not be a perfect tribunal in Cambodia, and it would
be naive to expect such a thing anywhere. If there is to
be tribunal with any credibility, a balance must somehow
be struck between respect for Cambodia’s legitimate concerns
over its historically much violated sovereignty and the
incorporation of internationally acceptable judicial processes.
This is easier said than done, but not impossible. The UN
certainly ought to be the best source of foreign judges,
but it does not have the monopoly.
Amidst
all the wrangling, there is surprisingly little discussion
of what purpose a tribunal in Cambodia would serve. China
regards it as a hypocritical, Western-inspired exercise,
but should also be embarrassed by its aid to the Khmer Rouge,
which lasted until the early 1990s. Given what has occurred
in Tibet, East Timor, Burma and Sri Lanka, there is discomfort
in the region over the precedent a tribunal might set. So
is it about punishment? Hardly. Some of the most guilty
are already dead, Cambodia dropped the death penalty in
its 1993, and lifetime incarceration is not much beyond
the situation surviving Khmer Rouge leaders already find
themselves in as they bleat implausible denials. Is it about
revenge? Probably not. Most people in Cambodia want to avoid
anything that might jeopardize their new peace. Is it about
justice? If so, it is belated and of no use to the Khmer
Rouge’s countless victims.
The
real merits of a tribunal are twofold. Firstly, it could
help establish some higher judicial standards in a country
still cursed by violence, lawlessness and impunity. Respect
for the law, the police and the judiciary is so low that
petty thieves are regularly lynched in the streets by so-called
"people’s courts". In a country where there is
virtually no expectation of any form of justice, a decent
tribunal would be an invaluable social exercise.
The
second benefit is not so much closure as disclosure. Cambodians
are owed an explanation for what went on under the Democratic
Kampuchea regime when their country was supposedly at peace.
Who was responsible? What drove them to such madness? The
best people to shed fresh light here are surviving Khmer
Rouge leaders, and they deserve a hearing in a properly
constituted, impartial court. Some will continue to feign
ignorance, some will lie, and some will talk frankly. The
latter must be heard.
And
this is why the issue of Ieng Sary’s pardon and whether
he should be indicted is such a red herring. There was no
mention in his pardon of crimes against humanity or genocide
because he said he was not involved. By his own account,
there was nothing that needed pardoning. If there are now
those who charge otherwise, Ieng Sary should positively
welcome the opportunity to clear his name in court.
Ironically,
the real trial at the moment is of Hun Sen. He has calmed
the waters, landed the big fish and must now decide how
many to bake or fry. If Hun Sen gets it wrong on the tribunal,
the man who more than any other defeated the Khmer Rouge
will go down in history as the fisherman who let them back
into the water.
Dominic
Faulder is a veteran journalist based in Thailand. [Top]
Who
to Indict?
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NEVER
TOO LATE If Pol Pot found rough justice in the jungle
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After
Vietnam invaded Cambodia with renegade Khmer Rouge forces
under Heng Samrin on Christmas Day 1978, Pol Pot’s forces
were pushed out of Phnom Penh towards the Thai border in
less than a fortnight. During this time, some very rough
justice was administered to low-level cadres. An unknown
number were summarily butchered by the villagers they had
once terrorized. Some committed suicide. A few were arrested,
tried and jailed for relatively short periods. Pol Pot and
Ieng Sary, his foreign minister, were sentenced to death
in absentia in 1979 by a court that enjoyed little international
recognition. Other Khmer Rouge slipped back into Cambodia’s
devastated mainstream. Some of the guards at infamous Tuol
Sleng, the country’s top concentration camp and interrogation
center, live quietly within 30 km of Phnom Penh to this
day.
Beyond
the collation of evidence, little has happened on the legal
front since Vietnam’s effort over twenty years ago.
As the likelihood of a belated tribunal grows, there
is inevitably speculation about who should be indicted.
This is probably premature, and trespasses on the role prosecuting
judges will play once the abundance of documentation is
placed before them. Like the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge had
a nasty little bureaucratic streak that left heaps of damning
evidence, particularly at Tuol Sleng. Some believe that
the indictment process, if properly conducted, could itself
take a year.
Given
the age and health of the surviving Khmer Rouge leaders,
time is extremely short. This is one of the reasons why
prosecutors are likely to indict only the most senior members
of the regime, people who formed the core of Angkar, the
murderous, obsessively secretive administration that boasted
of "more eyes than a pineapple". These are the
people who conceived policies and ordered their implementation.
Pol Pot himself, always circumspect to a fault, left a weak
paper trail, but not so his deputy Nuon Chea and his minister
of defense, Son Sen (who Pol Pot had killed in 1997). All
in all, it would be very surprising if indictments exceeded
twenty. Indeed, they may very well amount to less than a
dozen.
This
is a good thing if the tribunal is to get under way before
any more key personalities die. In the interests of national
reconciliation, it is also important that rank-and-file
Khmer Rouge are left alone, however heinous their individual
crimes may have been. Whenever the tribunal issue is raised,
the old bogey of the Khmer Rouge returning to arms is trotted
out. If indictments are properly managed and contained,
this is unlikely to happen. Most former Khmer Rouge are
struggling in their new lives. One of the things they must
come to terms with in their own way is that their lives
were destroyed by people who misled them in every sense.
It is the
top
Khmer Rouge leaders alone who belong in the dock, not their
victims on both sides.
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A
more dignified fate awaits Khieu Samphan in court
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At
present, the greatest controversy surrounds Democratic Kampuchea’s
foreign minister, Ieng Sary, who is also probably the sickest
of people facing possible indictment. In 1996, he was pardoned
for being a Khmer Rouge (as were all other defectors under
the terms of a 1994 law), his property rights were restored
and his 1979 death sentence was lifted. He was not pardoned
for any crimes he may have committed. Even if Ieng Sary
succeeds in escaping actual indictment, he would be wanted
as a witness—if he survives. Doubts about his professed
innocence must include his failure to alert the outside
world as to what was really going on insidecloseted Democratic
Kampuchea when he traveled abroad.
His
claims also have to be balanced against the thousand or
so diplomats, students and expatriate Khmers he and the
foreign ministry summoned back from abroad. Of these, an
estimated 800 were executed. Did he really know nothing
of this?
If
Ieng Sary is summoned as a witness, he may have some illustrious
company. King Norodom Sihanouk once offered to abdicate
for a day in order to testify as a private citizen. Although
he and his family were to suffer terribly at the hands of
the Khmer Rouge, the King is still faulted by some for his
disastrous alliance with the Khmer Rouge after his ousting
in 1970 by the US-backed General Lon Nol. Other possible
witnesses for the prosecution include Finance Minister Keat
Chhon, who was an aide to Pol Pot, and a former president,
Heng Samrin, who had a fairly brutal reputation before fleeing
to Vietnam. Senate President Chea Sim and Interior Minister
Sar Kheng were both provincial Khmer Rouge functionaries
who defected to Vietnam relatively late.
Foreign
Minister Hor Namhong, who was not a Khmer Rouge, has meanwhile
been forced to defend himself over his role as an internee
at Beoung Trabek, another school turned concentration camp
in Phnom Penh. This facility held for observation more senior
figures than Tuol Sleng, including close relatives of Queen
Monineath. The commandant of Tuol Sleng, Deuch, was once
rebuked by Nuon Chea for not destroying the records before
he fled.
Somebody
ensured the same mistake was not made at Boeung Trabek,
and many would like to know who that person was. One other
interesting witness might be Pol Ponnary, Pol Pot’s first
wife. She was thought to have gone mad and ended up in a
Beijing asylum, but recently turned up in Phnom Penh. She
would have some interesting insights into the personalities
involved.
Working
in this huge can of worms, prosecutors will have their work
cut out sifting the main instigators from those who were,
as they say, simply following orders. They will not waste
their time on Prime Minister Hun Sen who has not been linked
to any atrocities at that time. Nor will they bother with
president of the National Assembly Prince Norodom Ranariddh.
He realized the barbarity of the Khmer Rouge earlier than
most, declined to join his father in Beijing and went off
to study law in France. Ranariddh unfortunately seriously
blotted his copy in 1997 by entering into secret negotiations
with remaining hardline Khmer Rouge. That imprudent initiative
was one of the reasons he had to flee the country in July
1997 shortly before fighting erupted in the capital.
So
who might be expecting a knock on their door? With Pol Pot’s
death and his killing in 1997 of Son Sen and his wife Yun
Yat, the original "dirty dozen" has been reduced
to nine who are in varying states of health. Of these, Nuon
Chea, 76, as Pol Pot’s Brother No. 2 and deputy, is probably
the most seriously implicated and also the most defiant.
A question mark hangs over Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith,
who is Pol Ponnary’s sister. As Democratic Kampuchea’s Minister
of Social Affairs, her responsibilities included the elimination
of Buddhism.
Two
others are already under arrest. Chhit Chouen, better known
as Ta Mok, was Pol Pot’s bloodiest executioner. He may have
more blood directly on his hands than any other person alive.
Kang Khek Iev, better known as Deuch, ran Tuol Sleng and
as such was the regime’s top jailer and interrogator. Three
others involved in bloodletting similar to Ta Mok but still
at large are Ke Pauk, Sou Meth and Meas Muth. Last, but
not least, there is Khieu Samphan, Pol Pot’s head of state
and the so-called "acceptable face of the Khmer Rouge".
In an uncertain world, it’s a fair bet that they will all
be blaming Pol Pot, who is in no position to defend himself.
How convenient.
Dominic
Faulder
[Top]
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