Khmer Rouge
June 30, 2011
Thursday marked the close of a week of preliminary hearings at the Khmer Rouge UN-backed tribunal in the Cambodian capital.
The day was characterized, as could be expected, by sharp exchanges between the prosecution and the defense. There was also abundant use of the word "truth."
The four defendants are on trial for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. They also face charges under Cambodian law – they all deny the charges.
They are Nuon Chea, who was deputy to the late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot; Khieu Samphan, who was head of state; Ieng Sary, the foreign minister; and his wife, Ieng Thirith, who was the social affairs minister.
Telling the truth?
It was Nuon Chea's lawyer, Victor Koppe who initially brandished the word "truth," saying that his 84-year-old client was an old man coming to the end of his life who just wanted the procedure to be "concluded quickly."
"He wants this trial to ascertain the truth," Koppe said. "Not tell a story you can read in American or Vietnamese history books, but a truth – an historic truth – that also includes his view of the events that took place before and during the DK years, and the truth which also encompasses the role of Vietnam, the consequences of the US bombings, and other important contextual issues."
Nuon Chea has long blamed Vietnam for the mass deaths and killings that occurred when the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia.
However, Koppe's point was that the tribunal, which is mandated to prosecute crimes committed between the day the Khmer Rouge took power in April 1975 and the day it was forced out in January 1979, had to consider events in the years preceding April 1975 in order to put matters in the proper context. Failing to do so, he said, would be an injustice.
'I will do my best'
Another of the defendants continued on the theme of truth - at 79, Khieu Samphan, the former head of state, is the second youngest of the defendants and arguably in the best health.
This week's hearings were broadcast live, so when he addressed the bench on Thursday he was well aware he was in effect speaking to the nation.
Khieu Samphan's address was in Khmer – his words were then spoken in English by the court’s translator. "I personally am not fully knowledgeable of everything but I will do my best to make sure I can ascertain the truth if I can."
The former head of state has long downplayed any influence he had in a movement that is blamed for the deaths of as many as 2.2 million people - around one quarter of the population.
However, he did acknowledge that the Cambodian people needed answers for what his government had done in pursuit of its Maoist revolution. "I think it is a very important moment for me and for my fellow Cambodian citizens who are hungry for understanding what happened between 1975 and 1979."
The trial proper is expected to start in September but it could take three years before it concludes. Only then will it be clear whether Khieu Samphan has made good on his pledge to tell the truth to the Cambodian people, and whether his three co-defendants follow his lead.
Author: Robert Carmichael
Editor: Anne Thomas