The Aisan Correspondent
Mar 18, 2013
The death of former Khmer Rouge leader
Ieng Sary last week closes definitively a window for justice in
Cambodia. The verdict is delivered then by history. It does, however,
represent the loss of a witness that could give valuable information on
what was behind the thoughts and actions of the Kampuchea Democratic
system. The death of Sary can be compared with the death in impunity of
Saloth Sar (alias Pol Pot) on April 15, 1998. The only attempt at
justice in Pol Pot’s case was a doubtful tribunal in the jungle led by
Khmer Rouge guerrillas looking to gain favour in the new Cambodia.
The huge figure of Pol Pot seems to
overshadow his powerful team. Pot Pot is compared to Hitler as the
leader of a massive crusade against the people he considered an
inconvenient to a nationalist ideal, the building of the Democratic
Kampuchea with new people, new history, new hopes. But there are also
comparisons to Stalin with his deep revolution, or a Mao Zedong with the
jump to a total cultural revolution. Pot Pot seems to carry on his
shoulders the whole responsibility of the Cambodian revolution that
brought the disappearance of more than 1.7 million Cambodians between
1975 and 1979.
However, placing sole responsibility for
the atrocities on Pol Pot is a mistake. The Khmer Rouge leadership was
very much a team. It was comprised of a rigid pyramidal structure with a
strong group of magnetic personalities at the top. These personalities
included Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan, Hu Nim, Hou Yuon, Son Sen, Khieu
Thirith, Khieu Ponnary and, of course, Saloth Sar. As Craig Etcheson
says:
They were dominant among the people who created and controlled the myriad organizational entities over the stretch of the five stages in the rise and fall of Democratic Kampuchea.
The leading team was bound at the same
time by blood linkage, a curiosity if we compare it with the high
control over family relations in Cambodia during the reign of the Khmer
Rouge. This included forced marriages for procreation alone, and
dividing the families as a strategy to control the feelings of
Cambodians.
Ieng Sary married Ieng Thirith, whose
original name was Khieu Thirith. She is the sister of Khieuu Ponnary,
who is the first wife of Pol Pot. As she went insane, Pol Pot abandoned
her and she died at the house of her sister Ieng Thirith in 2003.
Thirith took the surname of her husband, Ieng Sary, against the
Cambodian naming traditions. The former minister of social action is
included also in the list of the most senior Kampuchea Democratic
leaders to be prosecuted by the ECCC for crimes against humanity, war
crimes and genocide, but the tribunal dismissed her due to mental
problems.
More From Albeiro Rodas:
- The Khmer Rouge trial under the gaze of history
- The Khmer Rouge Trial in September 2012
- Khmer Rouge senior leaders and/or those who were most responsible
- Cambodia crime sites’ names released to public
- The Khmer Rouge Trial in November 2012
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