This handout photo taken and released by the Extraordinary Chamber in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) in March 2012 shows former Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea "Brother Number Two" sitting in the courtroom at the ECCC in Phnom Penh. Nuon Chea was "extremely active" in the brutal 1970s regime, a renowned historian told a UN-backed court, undermining attempts by the accused to downplay his role.
Phnom Penh (AFP) - The deputy leader of the Khmer Rouge
was "extremely active" in the brutal 1970s regime, a renowned historian
told a UN-backed court Wednesday, undermining attempts by the accused
to downplay his role.
"Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea,
86, has repeatedly told judges at his atrocities trial that he was
mainly in charge of educating fellow cadres and was less powerful than
members of a military committee chaired by Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot.
But giving evidence at his trial Cambodia expert David Chandler, a retired history professor from Australia's Monash University, painted a strikingly different picture of Nuon Chea's role in the 1975-1979 regime.
The scholar said the relationship between "Brother Number One" and "Brother Number Two" was the capitalist equivalent of "calling Pol Pot the president and Nuon Chea the CEO of Cambodia".
"It's certainly in his interest
to diminish the range of his activities... but I think the evidence is
overwhelming that he was extremely active in many, many spheres of the
regime... including military affairs," Chandler said.
Led by Pol Pot, who died in 1998,
the hardline communist Khmer Rouge emptied cities, abolished money and
religion and wiped out up to two million people through starvation,
overwork or execution in a bid to create an agrarian utopia.
Nuon Chea and his co-defendants
-- ex-foreign minister Ieng Sary and former head of state Khieu Samphan
-- deny charges of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
Chandler, the author of several books on Cambodia including a biography of Pol Pot, will continue giving evidence on Thursday.
1 comment:
everyday, I still don't really understand why the KR and the Pol Pot regime wanted for Camdodia as a country, as a nation ? surely they did have Khmer' best interest at heart or did they served other nations' interests or they were simply dumb and barbarian individuals ? there are so many unanswer questions...
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