PHNOM PENH, Mar 11: Under Cambodia’s murderous Khmer Rouge, Meas Mut and Sou Met, now two-star generals in their 80s, are said to have hauled prisoners to S-21, a torture centre that symbolised the horrors of a regime that wiped out nearly a quarter of the population.
Another soldier, Im Chaem, now a Buddhist nun in her 60s, is suspected of running a forced labour camp where fellow Khmer Rouge cadres Ta An and Ta Tith oversaw massacres in the “Killing Fields” revolution of 1975-79.
Those allegations, contained in cases known as 003 and 004 at a UN-backed tribunal, are plunging Cambodia into soul searching over how far to pursue war-crimes accusations against former commanders, some of whom now occupy senior roles in government.
They are also fuelling criticism of the United Nations over whether its cash-strapped joint Cambodian tribunal will ever deliver justice for victims of the ultra-Maoist regime that tore Cambodia apart and was responsible for up to 2.2 million deaths.
The European Union, the second-biggest donor after Japan, has called on Cambodia to come up with more funding for the tribunal, where some workers went on strike last week after going for more than two months without pay. Cambodia says it has given more than its fair share and has appealed for bigger donations.
The tribunal’s new American judge, Mark Harmon, said last month he wanted to reopen case 003 involving former Khmer Rouge navy chief Meas Mut and former air force chief Sou Met.
That puts him on a collision course with authoritarian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has been accused of interfering to limit probes that could implicate powerful politicians. Meas Mut and Sou Met are now advisers to the Defence Ministry.
Internationally backed inquiries into years-old atrocities are almost bound to clash with present-day politics, such as the International Criminal Court’s pre-election indictment of Kenya’s new president for crimes against humanity.
Compounding difficulties in Cambodia is the fact that the court is a hybrid, as the Cambodians did not want to give up control, a formula unlikely to be followed elsewhere.
Hun Sen, a close ally of China which was a key supporter of the Khmer Rouge during the “Killing Fields” years, has vowed to prevent new indictments and has said he would be happy if the United Nations left Cambodia. He was himself a Khmer Rouge fighter before defecting to Vietnam, which invaded Cambodia and toppled Pol Pot’s regime in 1979.
Almost every Cambodian alive lost a family member under the Khmer Rouge. Many fear the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia (ECCC), which began work in 2006 after an agreement between the Cambodian government and the United Nations to try those “most responsible” for the killings, will fail to bring justice.
The court, dogged from the outset by allegations of corruption, political interference and profligacy, had spent $175.3 million by the end of last year and handed down just one conviction – that of S-21’s former prison chief, Kaing Guek Eav, alias “Duch”, who was jailed for life for the deaths of more than 14,000 people. He has repeatedly said he was “just following orders”.
Now on trial in the court’s second case, known as 002, are the only remaining members of the inner circle of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, who died in 1998: chief ideologue Nuon Chea, 86, former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary, 87, and head of state Khieu Samphan, 81. They may not live to hear the verdicts. Ieng Sary and Nuon Chea have been in and out of hospital for years.
Most of the suspects live in isolation away from the capital and have not talked about the accusations in public.
While Hun Sen’s government has done little to stop case 002, it has reason to be concerned with 003 and 004: some government officials occupied Khmer Rouge positions similar to those held by the suspects.
(AGENCIES)
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