Monks attend the trial of Khmer Rouge leaders in 2011 Photo: NHET SOKHENG
BST 07 Jun 2013
On April 17 1975, the Khmer Rouge – unsmiling 15 year-olds with AK-47s and
orders not to touch anyone – entered Phnom Penh. With their rifle barrels,
they prodded the urban population out into the countryside, more often than
not to perish in the rice fields. Over the next four years, the Khmer Rouge
executed 1.7 million of their own people, a third of all Cambodians.
Who was responsible for this slaughter? The UN-backed
trial currently taking place in Phnom Penh has charged five Khmer
Rouge leaders with war crimes and crimes against humanity; but one
by one they die of senility, or are released due to Alzheimer’s,
unable to recall what they did. The tribunal’s Cambodian president is
forgiving. “These events took place more than 30 years ago and it’s very
difficult to remember them.” The tribunal has sentenced just one person: a
former teacher called “Duch”,
who, as head of security in Democratic Kampuchea (as Cambodia became known
in those hellish years), was in charge of Phnom Penh’s main prison, S-21 –
in which 12,380 people were methodically tortured. Afterwards, they were put
to death in the “killing field” of Choeung Ek, 10 miles southeast of the
city. Read the full article at The UK Telegraph.
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