dkhmernews

June 30, 2009
AFP

A rare survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime's main jail says torturers ripped out his toenails and gave him electric shocks to try to make him confess to being a CIA agent.

Former mechanic Chum Mey told Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes tribunal how he pleaded for his life as he was tortured for 12 days and nights at the 1975-1979 communist movement's Tuol Sleng detention centre.

The 63-year-old is the second survivor to give evidence at the trial of prison chief Duch, who is accused of overseeing the torture and extermination of 15,000 people who passed through the facility.

Chum Mey said he had been working at a sewing machine factory in 1978 when he was brought to Tuol Sleng to be tortured on suspicion of espionage.

"While I was walking inside I said (to a guard), 'Brother, please look after my family.' Then the person kicked me on to the ground," Chum Mey said, adding the man swore at him and told him he would be "smashed".

Chum Mey told judges he was photographed, stripped, handcuffed and yanked by his earlobes to interrogators.

"They asked me to tell them the truth - how many of us joined the KGB and CIA," Chum Mey said, referring to the Soviet and US intelligence agencies.

"I told them I did not know any CIA or KGB. Truly, I did not know those terms."

He went on to describe how interrogators beat him as he pleaded for his life, and proceeded to torture him for 12 days and nights.

He trembled in pain after they removed his toenails and heard "some sort of sound" after they electrocuted him, he said.

"The method used was always hot. It was never cold, as Duch has said," Chum Mey said, describing degrees of torture.

Earlier in his trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, the 66-year-old Duch begged forgiveness from the victims after accepting responsibility for his role in governing the jail.

But he has consistently rejected claims by prosecutors that he had a central role in the Khmer Rouge's iron-fisted rule and says he never personally executed anyone.

Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998, and many believe the tribunal is the last chance to find justice for victims of the communist regime, which killed up to two million people.

By Luke Hunt
Voice of America
Phnom Penh
23 April 2009

In Cambodia, the trial of one of Pol Pot's surviving henchmen has been told how security camps designed by the Khmer Rouge and operating as early as 1971 were designed from the outset to torture and kill.

More than 200 villagers who lived around camp M13 attended the court to hear evidence from Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, on how their district was used as a prototype for death camps that would later be constructed by the Khmer Rouge.
MI3 was built in a communist-controlled area in 1971 while the Khmer Rouge were still fighting the U.S.-backed Lon Nol government. Four years later Pol Pot and his ultra-Maosists came to power and established 196 death camps across the country, including the dreaded S21.

Duch initially ran M13, and is on trial for crimes against humanity after overseeing the extermination of more than 16,000 people while at the helm of S21 between 1975 and 1979.

Seventy-year-old Khai Sorn lived near M13, but as a result life was tough and her days on the family farm were numbered.

She says during the Pol Pot regime life was very hard because the people were not allowed to stay at home and she was forced to live in the jungle.

Duch described the camps as a security office. He said each one, including S21 and M13 had a duty to detain, to torture, to interrogate, and finally to smash and kill.

Tribunal spokesperson Helen Jarvis said the villagers were trucked in as part of broader attempts to open the legal process to the public and the victims of Khmer Rouge regime. But she says they may have gotten more than they bargained for.

"... that has to be shocking for anybody," Jarvis said. "Indeed, I think the villagers probably did not expect they would hear something quite that straight forward when they arrived here today."

About two million people, or a third of Cambodia's population, died under the Khmer Rouge. But ongoing conflicts and international politics meant efforts to find some kind of justice were delayed until earlier this year.

Duch is the first senior Khmer Rouge figure to face trial. He is the only one of five in custody to acknowledge responsibility for his actions. The others are likely to be tried in the next year or two.

By Luke Hunt
Voice of America
Phnom Penh
23 April 2009

In Cambodia, the trial of one of Pol Pot's surviving henchmen has been told how security camps designed by the Khmer Rouge and operating as early as 1971 were designed from the outset to torture and kill.

More than 200 villagers who lived around camp M13 attended the court to hear evidence from Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, on how their district was used as a prototype for death camps that would later be constructed by the Khmer Rouge.
MI3 was built in a communist-controlled area in 1971 while the Khmer Rouge were still fighting the U.S.-backed Lon Nol government. Four years later Pol Pot and his ultra-Maosists came to power and established 196 death camps across the country, including the dreaded S21.

Duch initially ran M13, and is on trial for crimes against humanity after overseeing the extermination of more than 16,000 people while at the helm of S21 between 1975 and 1979.

Seventy-year-old Khai Sorn lived near M13, but as a result life was tough and her days on the family farm were numbered.

She says during the Pol Pot regime life was very hard because the people were not allowed to stay at home and she was forced to live in the jungle.

Duch described the camps as a security office. He said each one, including S21 and M13 had a duty to detain, to torture, to interrogate, and finally to smash and kill.

Tribunal spokesperson Helen Jarvis said the villagers were trucked in as part of broader attempts to open the legal process to the public and the victims of Khmer Rouge regime. But she says they may have gotten more than they bargained for.

"... that has to be shocking for anybody," Jarvis said. "Indeed, I think the villagers probably did not expect they would hear something quite that straight forward when they arrived here today."

About two million people, or a third of Cambodia's population, died under the Khmer Rouge. But ongoing conflicts and international politics meant efforts to find some kind of justice were delayed until earlier this year.

Duch is the first senior Khmer Rouge figure to face trial. He is the only one of five in custody to acknowledge responsibility for his actions. The others are likely to be tried in the next year or two.

Wed, 22 Apr 2009
DPA

Phnom Penh - The Khmer Rouge's former chief torturer told Cambodia's UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal Wednesday that Jesus Christ had ordained his discovery by a journalist a decade ago when he was a fugitive with an assumed identity living in a remote village. Kaing Guek Eav, known by his revolutionary name Duch, faces charges of crimes against humanity, premeditated murder, torture and breeches of the Geneva Conventions allegedly committed while he was the warden of the S-21 torture prison in Phnom Penh.

In the third week of the tribunal's first trial, Duch said Jesus led journalist Nic Dunlop to find him in a town near the Thai border in 1999.

"I spoke to Nic Dunlop and said, 'It was Christ who brought you to meet me,'" he said. "Nic Dunlop quoted those words, and those are the words that I told him."

The 66-year-old born-again Christian recounted an interview he gave to Dunlop and fellow journalist Nate Thayer shortly before he was arrested and detained in a military prison.

He said he told Dunlop that Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot's claim that S-21 was fabricated by Vietnam after it invaded Cambodia in 1979 was a lie.

"I was chief of S-21," he said. "All the crimes there were under my responsibility."

Duch is one of five former Khmer Rouge leaders facing trial for their roles in the deaths of up to 2 million people through overwork, starvation or execution during the Maoist group's 1975-79 reign.

At least 15,000 men, women and children are believed to have been imprisoned, tortured and interrogated at S-21 before being sent to be murdered at the Cheoung Ek "killing fields" outside the Cambodian capital.

Duch earlier in the trial apologized to his victims, their families and the country but maintained that he was simply following orders.

On Wednesday, he maintained that he was mostly acting on the orders of fellow detainee and former Khmer Rouge chief ideologue Nuon Chea.

Duch's trial was expected to run into mid-June, and he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Wed, 22 Apr 2009
DPA

Phnom Penh - The Khmer Rouge's former chief torturer told Cambodia's UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal Wednesday that Jesus Christ had ordained his discovery by a journalist a decade ago when he was a fugitive with an assumed identity living in a remote village. Kaing Guek Eav, known by his revolutionary name Duch, faces charges of crimes against humanity, premeditated murder, torture and breeches of the Geneva Conventions allegedly committed while he was the warden of the S-21 torture prison in Phnom Penh.

In the third week of the tribunal's first trial, Duch said Jesus led journalist Nic Dunlop to find him in a town near the Thai border in 1999.

"I spoke to Nic Dunlop and said, 'It was Christ who brought you to meet me,'" he said. "Nic Dunlop quoted those words, and those are the words that I told him."

The 66-year-old born-again Christian recounted an interview he gave to Dunlop and fellow journalist Nate Thayer shortly before he was arrested and detained in a military prison.

He said he told Dunlop that Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot's claim that S-21 was fabricated by Vietnam after it invaded Cambodia in 1979 was a lie.

"I was chief of S-21," he said. "All the crimes there were under my responsibility."

Duch is one of five former Khmer Rouge leaders facing trial for their roles in the deaths of up to 2 million people through overwork, starvation or execution during the Maoist group's 1975-79 reign.

At least 15,000 men, women and children are believed to have been imprisoned, tortured and interrogated at S-21 before being sent to be murdered at the Cheoung Ek "killing fields" outside the Cambodian capital.

Duch earlier in the trial apologized to his victims, their families and the country but maintained that he was simply following orders.

On Wednesday, he maintained that he was mostly acting on the orders of fellow detainee and former Khmer Rouge chief ideologue Nuon Chea.

Duch's trial was expected to run into mid-June, and he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

April 22, 2009
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
Pacific Daily News (Guam)

"Small countries have littlepower to alter the region, let alone the world," said Singapore Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew in his April 9 address on "The Fundamentals of Singapore's Foreign Policy: Then and Now."

He expressed, in an eloquent and easy to remember way, the nature of national interest in international relations: "Friendship ... is not a function of goodwill or personal affection. We must make ourselves relevant so that other countries have an interest in our continued survival and prosperity as a sovereign and independent nation."
In this space on June 18 of last year, I wrote, in "Lessons of Hartford, Laos, Cambodia," about a streetlight surveillance camera that captured the scene of 78-year-old Angel Torres "tossed like a rag doll by a hit-and-run driver" on a busy street in Hartford, Conn., "left unattended by dozens of passers-by," and I quoted Alexander Green of spiritualwealth.com -- "Without compassion, there really isn't much to separate us from the rest of the animal kingdom."

Tying the story in a domestic environment to politics on the world stage, where politics can get ugly as a country acts to promote its national interest, I quoted Mao Zedong's "Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed," and Nikita Krushchev's "Politicians are the same all over the world. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river." I wrote, too, about Americans' exit from Laos and Cambodia.

Thirty-four years ago, in April 1975, Cambodian Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak, one of the "seven traitors" earmarked for death by the victorious Khmer Rouge, responded to U.S. Ambassador John Gunther Dean's offer to evacuate him from Phnom Penh: "I thank you very sincerely for your letter and for your offer to transport me to freedom. I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion.

"You leave, and my wish is that you and your country will find happiness under this sky. But, mark it well," continued Matak, "if I shall die on the spot and in my country that I love, it is too bad, because we all are born and must die (one day). I have only committed this mistake of believing in you, the Americans."

Six days after Dean was evacuated by helicopter from the rooftop of the U.S. Embassy, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge entered the capital. According to Dean's "oral history" of events in Cambodia deposited at the Jimmy Carter Library, Matak "was executed publicly" near Phnom Penh's Grand Hotel.

Dean claimed that in "message after message" sent to Washington, he pleaded: "If the Khmer Rouge take control of the country, there was going to be a bloodbath."

As many in the world had enough of the United States' war and the destruction and suffering in the former French Indochina, American national interest dictated a U.S. withdrawal from the region. The chant around the globe then was, "Let Peace Have A Chance!"

From April 17, 1975, when Chinese-backed Pol Pot took control of Cambodia, to Jan. 7, 1979 -- when some 200,000 Vietnamese regular troops, supported by tanks, heavy artillery and aircraft, spearheaded a breakaway Khmer Rouge faction that knocked Pol Pot out of power -- an estimated two million Cambodians and some foreigners died under Khmer Rouge rule as a result of starvation, forced labor, torture and arbitrary killings.

It is believed that hardly a Cambodian family anywhere had not had at least one member fall victim to the Khmer Rouge's atrocities.

Among those who were part of that Khmer Rouge faction that allied itself with the Vietnamese invasion of 1979 were Heng Samrin, currently Cambodia's National Assembly Chairman, current Prime Minister Hun Sen, and current Senate President Chea Sim, among others in the current Cambodian leadership.

But the No. 1 Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, most wanted for Khmer Rouge's crimes against humanity, died in 1998, the year the United Nations pressured Cambodians to create a special court to try the Khmer Rouge leadership.

In 2001, a law to create a court of Cambodian judges (to be in the majority) and international judges under Cambodian jurisdiction was passed, and finally a joint tribunal was set up in 2006.

The Christian Science Monitor reported the United Nations at first opposed the arrangement "because of widespread concerns over the notoriously corrupt Cambodian judiciary, and its lack of independence." But on Feb. 17 this year, the tribunal known as the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia began its hearing of its first accused -- former math teacher Kaing Khek Eav, alias Duch, commandant of the gruesome S-21 Tuol Sleng torture center.

Four other defendants -- Nuon Chea, chief ideologue next to Pol Pot; Khieu Samphan, former president of Khmer Rouge Cambodia; Ieng Sary, foreign minister; Ieng Thirith, Sary's wife and minister of social affairs -- all in poor health, are to be next on the stand.

With the objective to put the accused before the victims or their families and the media for each to explain his or her actions, and the ultimate goal to "achieve justice, promote peacebuilding, encourage reconciliation, and begin healing," as Radio Free Asia Web site says, the U.N.-backed Khmer Rouge Tribunal ought to help put a much-needed end to Cambodia's dark history and unleash a "national reconciliation" process.

The trouble is, the trial of a mere five Khmer Rouge leaders for the death of about two million people in 1975-1979 is far from adequate to bring justice and national reconciliation to Cambodians, to begin healing and promote peacebuilding in the country.

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.

April 22, 2009
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
Pacific Daily News (Guam)

"Small countries have littlepower to alter the region, let alone the world," said Singapore Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew in his April 9 address on "The Fundamentals of Singapore's Foreign Policy: Then and Now."

He expressed, in an eloquent and easy to remember way, the nature of national interest in international relations: "Friendship ... is not a function of goodwill or personal affection. We must make ourselves relevant so that other countries have an interest in our continued survival and prosperity as a sovereign and independent nation."
In this space on June 18 of last year, I wrote, in "Lessons of Hartford, Laos, Cambodia," about a streetlight surveillance camera that captured the scene of 78-year-old Angel Torres "tossed like a rag doll by a hit-and-run driver" on a busy street in Hartford, Conn., "left unattended by dozens of passers-by," and I quoted Alexander Green of spiritualwealth.com -- "Without compassion, there really isn't much to separate us from the rest of the animal kingdom."

Tying the story in a domestic environment to politics on the world stage, where politics can get ugly as a country acts to promote its national interest, I quoted Mao Zedong's "Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed," and Nikita Krushchev's "Politicians are the same all over the world. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river." I wrote, too, about Americans' exit from Laos and Cambodia.

Thirty-four years ago, in April 1975, Cambodian Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak, one of the "seven traitors" earmarked for death by the victorious Khmer Rouge, responded to U.S. Ambassador John Gunther Dean's offer to evacuate him from Phnom Penh: "I thank you very sincerely for your letter and for your offer to transport me to freedom. I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion.

"You leave, and my wish is that you and your country will find happiness under this sky. But, mark it well," continued Matak, "if I shall die on the spot and in my country that I love, it is too bad, because we all are born and must die (one day). I have only committed this mistake of believing in you, the Americans."

Six days after Dean was evacuated by helicopter from the rooftop of the U.S. Embassy, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge entered the capital. According to Dean's "oral history" of events in Cambodia deposited at the Jimmy Carter Library, Matak "was executed publicly" near Phnom Penh's Grand Hotel.

Dean claimed that in "message after message" sent to Washington, he pleaded: "If the Khmer Rouge take control of the country, there was going to be a bloodbath."

As many in the world had enough of the United States' war and the destruction and suffering in the former French Indochina, American national interest dictated a U.S. withdrawal from the region. The chant around the globe then was, "Let Peace Have A Chance!"

From April 17, 1975, when Chinese-backed Pol Pot took control of Cambodia, to Jan. 7, 1979 -- when some 200,000 Vietnamese regular troops, supported by tanks, heavy artillery and aircraft, spearheaded a breakaway Khmer Rouge faction that knocked Pol Pot out of power -- an estimated two million Cambodians and some foreigners died under Khmer Rouge rule as a result of starvation, forced labor, torture and arbitrary killings.

It is believed that hardly a Cambodian family anywhere had not had at least one member fall victim to the Khmer Rouge's atrocities.

Among those who were part of that Khmer Rouge faction that allied itself with the Vietnamese invasion of 1979 were Heng Samrin, currently Cambodia's National Assembly Chairman, current Prime Minister Hun Sen, and current Senate President Chea Sim, among others in the current Cambodian leadership.

But the No. 1 Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, most wanted for Khmer Rouge's crimes against humanity, died in 1998, the year the United Nations pressured Cambodians to create a special court to try the Khmer Rouge leadership.

In 2001, a law to create a court of Cambodian judges (to be in the majority) and international judges under Cambodian jurisdiction was passed, and finally a joint tribunal was set up in 2006.

The Christian Science Monitor reported the United Nations at first opposed the arrangement "because of widespread concerns over the notoriously corrupt Cambodian judiciary, and its lack of independence." But on Feb. 17 this year, the tribunal known as the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia began its hearing of its first accused -- former math teacher Kaing Khek Eav, alias Duch, commandant of the gruesome S-21 Tuol Sleng torture center.

Four other defendants -- Nuon Chea, chief ideologue next to Pol Pot; Khieu Samphan, former president of Khmer Rouge Cambodia; Ieng Sary, foreign minister; Ieng Thirith, Sary's wife and minister of social affairs -- all in poor health, are to be next on the stand.

With the objective to put the accused before the victims or their families and the media for each to explain his or her actions, and the ultimate goal to "achieve justice, promote peacebuilding, encourage reconciliation, and begin healing," as Radio Free Asia Web site says, the U.N.-backed Khmer Rouge Tribunal ought to help put a much-needed end to Cambodia's dark history and unleash a "national reconciliation" process.

The trouble is, the trial of a mere five Khmer Rouge leaders for the death of about two million people in 1975-1979 is far from adequate to bring justice and national reconciliation to Cambodians, to begin healing and promote peacebuilding in the country.

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.

20 April 2009
AFP

PHNOM PENH - A witness at Cambodia’s UN-backed war crimes court wept Monday as he testified that the former prison chief for the Khmer Rouge regime executed his uncle at a secret jungle camp.
Chan Veoun, 56, said he saw the jailer, known as Duch, kill his uncle while he himself was collecting food at the prison camp, M-13, in the early 1970s.

“He was my uncle. He was shot by Duch. He killed him in front of my eyes,” Chan Veoun said, weeping. He did not give a reason for the slaying.

Duch—whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav—charged in response that the testimony was fabricated.

Last month Duch apologised at the start of his trial, accepting blame for overseeing the extermination of 15,000 people who passed through the regime’s main prison, Tuol Sleng.

He has maintained however that he never personally executed anyone and has only admitted to abusing two people.

Chan Veoun told the court Duch regularly beat prisoners and once stripped a woman to her waist to burn her breasts with a torch soaked in gasoline.

Once, he added, prisoners kept shackled in pits were once left to drown in rainy season floods.

Duch denied his accounts, saying he recognised Chan Veoun but the witness had never worked under him.

“This is a complete fabrication—probably of what he heard and (he) added something on top,” Duch told the court.

“About the crimes committed at (M-13) I cannot forget it. It is a serious matter that affects me psychologically.”

The court has been hearing evidence about M-13, which Duch ran during the 1971 to 1975 Khmer Rouge insurgency against then then US-backed government, to better understand Tuol Sleng’s organising structure.

The Khmer Rouge were in power in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, when Duch is accused of supervising Tuol Sleng prison and sending thousands of people to their deaths in the so-called “Killing Fields.”

The former mathematics teacher has denied assertions by prosecutors that he played a central role in the Khmer Rouge’s iron-fisted rule.

He faces life in jail at the court, which does not have the power to impose the death penalty.

Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998, and many believe the UN-sponsored tribunal is the last chance to find justice for victims of the regime, which killed up to two million people.

20 April 2009
AFP

PHNOM PENH - A witness at Cambodia’s UN-backed war crimes court wept Monday as he testified that the former prison chief for the Khmer Rouge regime executed his uncle at a secret jungle camp.
Chan Veoun, 56, said he saw the jailer, known as Duch, kill his uncle while he himself was collecting food at the prison camp, M-13, in the early 1970s.

“He was my uncle. He was shot by Duch. He killed him in front of my eyes,” Chan Veoun said, weeping. He did not give a reason for the slaying.

Duch—whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav—charged in response that the testimony was fabricated.

Last month Duch apologised at the start of his trial, accepting blame for overseeing the extermination of 15,000 people who passed through the regime’s main prison, Tuol Sleng.

He has maintained however that he never personally executed anyone and has only admitted to abusing two people.

Chan Veoun told the court Duch regularly beat prisoners and once stripped a woman to her waist to burn her breasts with a torch soaked in gasoline.

Once, he added, prisoners kept shackled in pits were once left to drown in rainy season floods.

Duch denied his accounts, saying he recognised Chan Veoun but the witness had never worked under him.

“This is a complete fabrication—probably of what he heard and (he) added something on top,” Duch told the court.

“About the crimes committed at (M-13) I cannot forget it. It is a serious matter that affects me psychologically.”

The court has been hearing evidence about M-13, which Duch ran during the 1971 to 1975 Khmer Rouge insurgency against then then US-backed government, to better understand Tuol Sleng’s organising structure.

The Khmer Rouge were in power in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, when Duch is accused of supervising Tuol Sleng prison and sending thousands of people to their deaths in the so-called “Killing Fields.”

The former mathematics teacher has denied assertions by prosecutors that he played a central role in the Khmer Rouge’s iron-fisted rule.

He faces life in jail at the court, which does not have the power to impose the death penalty.

Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998, and many believe the UN-sponsored tribunal is the last chance to find justice for victims of the regime, which killed up to two million people.

April 20, 2009
AFP

PHNOM PENH - A PHOTOGRAPHER for the Khmer Rouge said on Monday he is putting leader Pol Pot's sandals up for auction along with a pair of cameras used to picture life under his brutal regime.

Nhem En, who photographed inmates at the notorious S-21 torture centre and also snapped pictures at official ceremonies for the Cambodian regime, told AFP bidding for the items would open at US$500,000 (S$750,000)

'Now I offer for auction a pair of Pol Pot's sandals and my two cameras that I used to shoot Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge leaders, as well as those who died and were victimised at S-21,' Nhem En said.

The sandals belonging to Pol Pot, who died in 1998, were made of car tyre, while the two cameras were manufactured in Germany and Japan, he added.

Nhem En, now a deputy governor of northwest Anlong Veng district, said he hoped to use the money to construct a museum to showcase photographs and items from the Khmer Rouge period, including Pol Pot's old toilet.

'I call for an auction of the items because I need the money to build a big museum in Anlong Veng,' he said.

Up to two million people died of starvation, execution, overwork or torture as the Khmer Rouge, which ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, dismantled society in a bid to forge a communist utopia.

The former chief of S-21 prison, Kaing Guek Eav - better known as Duch - is currently on trial for crimes committed during the regime. Cambodia's UN-backed court also plans to try four other senior Khmer Rouge leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

April 20, 2009
AFP

PHNOM PENH - A PHOTOGRAPHER for the Khmer Rouge said on Monday he is putting leader Pol Pot's sandals up for auction along with a pair of cameras used to picture life under his brutal regime.

Nhem En, who photographed inmates at the notorious S-21 torture centre and also snapped pictures at official ceremonies for the Cambodian regime, told AFP bidding for the items would open at US$500,000 (S$750,000)

'Now I offer for auction a pair of Pol Pot's sandals and my two cameras that I used to shoot Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge leaders, as well as those who died and were victimised at S-21,' Nhem En said.

The sandals belonging to Pol Pot, who died in 1998, were made of car tyre, while the two cameras were manufactured in Germany and Japan, he added.

Nhem En, now a deputy governor of northwest Anlong Veng district, said he hoped to use the money to construct a museum to showcase photographs and items from the Khmer Rouge period, including Pol Pot's old toilet.

'I call for an auction of the items because I need the money to build a big museum in Anlong Veng,' he said.

Up to two million people died of starvation, execution, overwork or torture as the Khmer Rouge, which ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, dismantled society in a bid to forge a communist utopia.

The former chief of S-21 prison, Kaing Guek Eav - better known as Duch - is currently on trial for crimes committed during the regime. Cambodia's UN-backed court also plans to try four other senior Khmer Rouge leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Houng Poeuv, center, and Nin Poeuv, right, survivors of Khmer Rouge atrocities in Cambodia, join other activists in a call for President Obama's attention in saving victims of genocide in Darfur at a rally in Lafayette Park across from the White House in Washington, Sunday, April 19, 2009. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Houng Poeuv, center, and Nin Poeuv, right, survivors of Khmer Rouge atrocities in Cambodia, join other activists in a call for President Obama's attention in saving victims of genocide in Darfur at a rally in Lafayette Park across from the White House in Washington, Sunday, April 19, 2009. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Cambodia's tennis playing survivors of the Khmer Rouge are trying to pick up the pieces and rebuild a once proud tennis nation

19/04/2009
By Robert Davis
Bangkok Post

Former champion Yi Sarun reaches into his tennis bag, takes out an old wrinkled plastic bag filled with black and white photographs and sets the stack on the table. He carries them everywhere he goes, for they are reminders of when life was good to be a Cambodian tennis player.
In one photograph Yi is seen wearing a coat, tie and trousers and carrying an armload of wood tennis racquets while disembarking from a plane. Another one shows him on the court at the Cambodian Sports Club right after an epic five-set match against a Vietnamese opponent. Yi's arms are raised in victory and an exhausted smile spreads across the face of a young man in the prime of his life. One after another, Yi passes photos around, studying each one as if he were seeing it for the first time. Suddenly, the photographs stop. For it is 1975, the year the Maoist group of soldiers called the Khmer Rouge came to power. And then all hell broke loose.

Phnom Penh was once considered one of the most beautiful cities in Southeast Asia. Now with the Khmer Rouge in power it would become a town of terror. It was the upper class who would pay the heaviest price; doctors, teachers, lawyers, and even tennis players. Throats were slit, skulls crushed with a whack of a shovel and babies tossed from windows. Those who were not killed or tortured to death were force-marched to the countryside to develop an agrarian utopia immortalised by the film The Killing Fields.

Life as Cambodians knew it stopped. A new era began and Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot called it "Year Zero". In Year Zero, marriages were dissolved and families were banned. Parents were separated from their children. Even children's toys were thrown away, because there would be no time to play.

Two popular slogans of the new regime were "To spare you is no profit. To destroy you is no loss". And, "Better to kill an innocent person, than to leave an enemy alive". With that mantra, the Khmer Rouge went on a blood-thirsty hunt for anyone associated, even remotely, with the bourgeois. Some was just plain ridiculous, like anyone wearing eye-glasses were considered intelligent and must be executed. And if you happened to play tennis, you must be an elitist and were marked for death. From 1975 to 1979, the Khmer Rouge would go on to commit one of the worst genocides of the twentieth century, killing an estimated 1.7-2 million people.

Rewind a few years earlier, on a sunny spring day in Phnom Penh where a young Prince Sihanouk is sitting by the tennis courts at Le Cercle Sportif, an exclusive country club. He is watching the national champion of Cambodia and Davis Cup player Tep Kunnah train. Children are gathered around too, all watching the man called affectionately "Mr Tennis". It was not unusual for the Prince to regularly attended Tep Kunnah's matches.

"In the '60s and early '70s, tennis was considered as an elitist sport worldwide and Cambodia was no exception," explains Rithi Tep, the Secretary-General of the Cambodia Tennis Association and a son of Tep Kunnah. "Cambodian tennis at the time was at its prime, dominating all regional countries like Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Burma and Laos."

Little could anyone imagine then that those neatly manicured lawns and private tennis courts of the Le Cercle Sportif would be the setting for political executions carried out by the Khmer Rouge. Most notably that of Lon Nol and other government figures. In 1968, Yi Sarin - a team-mate of Yi Sarun - was the number one junior ranked player in Cambodia. Like Yi Sarun, he was ordered to Takeo province to labour in the fields.

"I was so scared that they [the Khmer Rouge] would find out I was a tennis player," Yi Sarin admits. "So many tennis players were killed because they were considered upper-class. I refused to even think about tennis."

Both Yi Sarun and Yi Sarin survived the Khmer Rouge, but at least 37 other tennis players did not. Cham Prasidh, the present Minister of Commerce and President of the Tennis Federation of Cambodia, is a survivor of the killing fields. He remembers when they were forced to eat anything that crawled.

"We were allocated only one kilo of rice per 50 people," Cham Prasidh recalls. "I remember counting the number of rice grains in my bowl. Obviously, with the impossible hours and workload each day we could not survive with only that. So we ate whatever we could. Even earthworms were dug up and pounded into a paste to mix with mother's milk to try and keep the babies alive. We thought the protein would help them survive."

After Vietnamese forces removed the Khmer Rouge from power in 1979, slowly life began to resume some sort of normalcy. It would take a few years for tennis to return to Cambodia, as all the equipment had been destroyed. But thanks to expats and diplomats, racquets, balls and nets were donated to the former players and clubs. Then goodwill sporting tours inspired by the Soviet Union sent athletes all over the world to play games.

Tennis was back again. Yi Sarin must have thought his life something of a wild roller-coaster ride. Now he is on a flight rumbling over the Aral Sea en route to Moscow. There he will board a train and back track for 17 hours in the freezing snow where he will eventually arrive in Lithuania to play tennis.

He and Yi Sarun would travel to other parts of the Soviet Union like Estonia and Kiev to play tennis matches. Today, Yi Sarin is the national coach of Cambodia.

But the driving force in the effort to return Cambodian tennis to glory is Rithi Tep.

"It is a legacy that I feel I have to perpetuate on behalf of my family," he says. "Because of not only what tennis meant to my father and uncle, but also what they did for tennis too. My family believes that such a legacy has to be carried on by my children to continuously remind of the greatness of a Cambodian athlete and their grandfather and uncle."

With only eight public courts and a handful of private ones in the entire country, tennis has a long way to go in Cambodia before it regains its former status. But at the 2007 Southeast Asia Games in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand, Cambodia showed it is ready to challenge again.

When Nyssan Tan captured the bronze medal in the men's individual singles category his team-mates and coaches erupted in celebration as if he had just won the gold, not the bronze. For a country that has seen so much death and destruction, and suffered so many hardships, any medal is something to be cheered. A visibly shaken, but jubilant Rithi Tep, is crying tears of joy.

"We have waited over 30 years for this," he says while hugging the kids and coaches. "Finally!"

Suresh Menom, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) Development Officer for Asia, feels Cambodia only needs a little help to get going again. Already the ITF has sent equipment and is considering an Olympic Solidarity Fund financial grant to Cambodia for coaching expertise.

"Despite their lack of facilities and tennis infrastructure development," Mr Menom says, "Cambodia has managed to achieve some remarkable success in the Southeast Asian tennis arena in recent years. The SEA Games bronze medal and 14 and under juniors that were selected on the ITF teams is a demonstration of the tenacity and determination of the Cambodian players in achieving success despite facing insurmountable hardships.

"If the Tennis Federation of Cambodia can have a centre of its own to develop players, the future is going to be much brighter for Cambodian tennis."

At 63, former champion Yi Sarun still gets paid to play tennis. People working for NGOs and expatriates slip him a couple of dollars per hour to play a set or two at Phnom Penh's VIP Club. Yi Sarun's skin is sunburned a dark walnut colour and his face is gaunt with high cheekbones.

A hearing aide dangles from his ear and a shy smile reveals that only a few teeth remain. While his strokes have become as stiff as his stride, he can still beat most of his younger clients, although he lets them win just enough to keep them coming back. From a nearby court, Yi Sarin is watching him play.

"Still, after all these years he never learned to volley," he says with a laugh, just as Yi Sarun dumps a backhand into the net.

Yi Sarun might not have learned to volley, but just like other tennis playing survivors and their descendants of the Khmer Rouge, he has not given up trying to improve either.

Cambodia's tennis playing survivors of the Khmer Rouge are trying to pick up the pieces and rebuild a once proud tennis nation

19/04/2009
By Robert Davis
Bangkok Post

Former champion Yi Sarun reaches into his tennis bag, takes out an old wrinkled plastic bag filled with black and white photographs and sets the stack on the table. He carries them everywhere he goes, for they are reminders of when life was good to be a Cambodian tennis player.
In one photograph Yi is seen wearing a coat, tie and trousers and carrying an armload of wood tennis racquets while disembarking from a plane. Another one shows him on the court at the Cambodian Sports Club right after an epic five-set match against a Vietnamese opponent. Yi's arms are raised in victory and an exhausted smile spreads across the face of a young man in the prime of his life. One after another, Yi passes photos around, studying each one as if he were seeing it for the first time. Suddenly, the photographs stop. For it is 1975, the year the Maoist group of soldiers called the Khmer Rouge came to power. And then all hell broke loose.

Phnom Penh was once considered one of the most beautiful cities in Southeast Asia. Now with the Khmer Rouge in power it would become a town of terror. It was the upper class who would pay the heaviest price; doctors, teachers, lawyers, and even tennis players. Throats were slit, skulls crushed with a whack of a shovel and babies tossed from windows. Those who were not killed or tortured to death were force-marched to the countryside to develop an agrarian utopia immortalised by the film The Killing Fields.

Life as Cambodians knew it stopped. A new era began and Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot called it "Year Zero". In Year Zero, marriages were dissolved and families were banned. Parents were separated from their children. Even children's toys were thrown away, because there would be no time to play.

Two popular slogans of the new regime were "To spare you is no profit. To destroy you is no loss". And, "Better to kill an innocent person, than to leave an enemy alive". With that mantra, the Khmer Rouge went on a blood-thirsty hunt for anyone associated, even remotely, with the bourgeois. Some was just plain ridiculous, like anyone wearing eye-glasses were considered intelligent and must be executed. And if you happened to play tennis, you must be an elitist and were marked for death. From 1975 to 1979, the Khmer Rouge would go on to commit one of the worst genocides of the twentieth century, killing an estimated 1.7-2 million people.

Rewind a few years earlier, on a sunny spring day in Phnom Penh where a young Prince Sihanouk is sitting by the tennis courts at Le Cercle Sportif, an exclusive country club. He is watching the national champion of Cambodia and Davis Cup player Tep Kunnah train. Children are gathered around too, all watching the man called affectionately "Mr Tennis". It was not unusual for the Prince to regularly attended Tep Kunnah's matches.

"In the '60s and early '70s, tennis was considered as an elitist sport worldwide and Cambodia was no exception," explains Rithi Tep, the Secretary-General of the Cambodia Tennis Association and a son of Tep Kunnah. "Cambodian tennis at the time was at its prime, dominating all regional countries like Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Burma and Laos."

Little could anyone imagine then that those neatly manicured lawns and private tennis courts of the Le Cercle Sportif would be the setting for political executions carried out by the Khmer Rouge. Most notably that of Lon Nol and other government figures. In 1968, Yi Sarin - a team-mate of Yi Sarun - was the number one junior ranked player in Cambodia. Like Yi Sarun, he was ordered to Takeo province to labour in the fields.

"I was so scared that they [the Khmer Rouge] would find out I was a tennis player," Yi Sarin admits. "So many tennis players were killed because they were considered upper-class. I refused to even think about tennis."

Both Yi Sarun and Yi Sarin survived the Khmer Rouge, but at least 37 other tennis players did not. Cham Prasidh, the present Minister of Commerce and President of the Tennis Federation of Cambodia, is a survivor of the killing fields. He remembers when they were forced to eat anything that crawled.

"We were allocated only one kilo of rice per 50 people," Cham Prasidh recalls. "I remember counting the number of rice grains in my bowl. Obviously, with the impossible hours and workload each day we could not survive with only that. So we ate whatever we could. Even earthworms were dug up and pounded into a paste to mix with mother's milk to try and keep the babies alive. We thought the protein would help them survive."

After Vietnamese forces removed the Khmer Rouge from power in 1979, slowly life began to resume some sort of normalcy. It would take a few years for tennis to return to Cambodia, as all the equipment had been destroyed. But thanks to expats and diplomats, racquets, balls and nets were donated to the former players and clubs. Then goodwill sporting tours inspired by the Soviet Union sent athletes all over the world to play games.

Tennis was back again. Yi Sarin must have thought his life something of a wild roller-coaster ride. Now he is on a flight rumbling over the Aral Sea en route to Moscow. There he will board a train and back track for 17 hours in the freezing snow where he will eventually arrive in Lithuania to play tennis.

He and Yi Sarun would travel to other parts of the Soviet Union like Estonia and Kiev to play tennis matches. Today, Yi Sarin is the national coach of Cambodia.

But the driving force in the effort to return Cambodian tennis to glory is Rithi Tep.

"It is a legacy that I feel I have to perpetuate on behalf of my family," he says. "Because of not only what tennis meant to my father and uncle, but also what they did for tennis too. My family believes that such a legacy has to be carried on by my children to continuously remind of the greatness of a Cambodian athlete and their grandfather and uncle."

With only eight public courts and a handful of private ones in the entire country, tennis has a long way to go in Cambodia before it regains its former status. But at the 2007 Southeast Asia Games in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand, Cambodia showed it is ready to challenge again.

When Nyssan Tan captured the bronze medal in the men's individual singles category his team-mates and coaches erupted in celebration as if he had just won the gold, not the bronze. For a country that has seen so much death and destruction, and suffered so many hardships, any medal is something to be cheered. A visibly shaken, but jubilant Rithi Tep, is crying tears of joy.

"We have waited over 30 years for this," he says while hugging the kids and coaches. "Finally!"

Suresh Menom, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) Development Officer for Asia, feels Cambodia only needs a little help to get going again. Already the ITF has sent equipment and is considering an Olympic Solidarity Fund financial grant to Cambodia for coaching expertise.

"Despite their lack of facilities and tennis infrastructure development," Mr Menom says, "Cambodia has managed to achieve some remarkable success in the Southeast Asian tennis arena in recent years. The SEA Games bronze medal and 14 and under juniors that were selected on the ITF teams is a demonstration of the tenacity and determination of the Cambodian players in achieving success despite facing insurmountable hardships.

"If the Tennis Federation of Cambodia can have a centre of its own to develop players, the future is going to be much brighter for Cambodian tennis."

At 63, former champion Yi Sarun still gets paid to play tennis. People working for NGOs and expatriates slip him a couple of dollars per hour to play a set or two at Phnom Penh's VIP Club. Yi Sarun's skin is sunburned a dark walnut colour and his face is gaunt with high cheekbones.

A hearing aide dangles from his ear and a shy smile reveals that only a few teeth remain. While his strokes have become as stiff as his stride, he can still beat most of his younger clients, although he lets them win just enough to keep them coming back. From a nearby court, Yi Sarin is watching him play.

"Still, after all these years he never learned to volley," he says with a laugh, just as Yi Sarun dumps a backhand into the net.

Yi Sarun might not have learned to volley, but just like other tennis playing survivors and their descendants of the Khmer Rouge, he has not given up trying to improve either.

April 17 Memorial for the victims of the KR regime in Choeung Ek

April 17 Memorial for the victims of the KR regime in Choeung Ek

Khmer Rouge trials will not bring justice

April 15, 2009
By Chak Sopheap
Guest Commentary
UPI Asia Online

Niigata, Japan — It is not surprising that many foreigners know the details of the Khmer Rouge regime, which ruled Cambodia from 1975-1979, while the young generation of Cambodians may not even know that this inhuman regime ever existed. Cambodian schoolchildren are taught almost nothing about this dark period of their country’s history. Even 30 years after the Khmer Rouge committed its atrocities against the Cambodian people the subject is still sensitive among political groups.

Fortunately, “A History of Democratic Kampuchea,” written by Cambodian author Khamboly Dy and published in 2007, helps to fill in the gap and educate the nation about the murderous regime. The Education Ministry has approved the book as a "core reference" for history classes, but not as part of the core curriculum.

Still, the scope of the textbook is limited and it is controversial in its naming of only certain individuals involved in the regime, its characterization of the massive movement against the Khmer Rouge, and its unclear interpretation of a long-standing political debate in Cambodia over whether Vietnam “liberated” or “invaded” the country when it ousted the Khmer Rouge. Therefore, the young generation is still skeptical about the truth concerning the Khmer Rouge.

When the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, popularly known as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, was established, many Cambodians hoped it would bring justice, truth and reconciliation for the victims and survivors of the regime. This new hybrid, national-international tribunal was expected to accomplish three things:

* First, it should bring justice to those who died and help those who survived to release their suffering.
* Second, it should strengthen the rule of law by judging and punishing the criminals in fair and open trials. It should be a model marking the end of impunity and the beginning of law enforcement in Cambodia, and serve as a deterrent to all who contemplate such inhuman behavior in Cambodia or in the world.
* Third, it should educate the people of Cambodia and raise awareness about this darkest chapter in the country's history, especially among the young generation. Ultimately, this would lead to the reconstruction of the society as a whole.


However, it is questionable whether these expectations will be met. The claim that the Khmer Rouge Tribunal will benefit Cambodians could turn out to be merely a myth – such a tribunal may not be the best option for national reconciliation.

For one thing, the scope of the tribunal is limited to senior regime leaders who planned its actions or gave orders, as well as those most responsible for committing serious crimes. The foreign countries that supported the Khmer Rouge, or acted as the main catalyst for the emergence of this cruel regime, will not be brought to court. The tribunal’s regulations indicate clearly that only individuals who committed crimes will be tried. This court is not mandated to sentence countries or organizations.

Therefore, only local leaders and a few high-level leaders that were directly involved in the genocide will be sentenced, while many others will go unpunished. It is doubtful if justice and the rule of law will prevail.

Those who support the tribunal may say it is better than nothing, that it is better to accept justice in a narrow sense than to have none at all. But real justice would only be achieved if all who are accused are treated fairly by the court. If the trial procedures do not reveal the root cause of the problem, it is unacceptable.

It is also unclear to what extent these trials can serve as a model for an independent court system in Cambodia, as corruption and nepotism are so widespread, even within this court. Moreover, it is unlikely that the whole truth about the Khmer Rouge regime will emerge through the proceedings of the tribunal. If this tribunal is to be the final page in the Khmer Rouge history, it will be unjust and misleading for future generations.

There are better alternatives to this court setup if justice and national reconciliation are the goals. The funds allocated for the court, which have already exceeded the original budget, should have been used for restorative justice – a healing process – rather than this imperfect retributive justice.

For Cambodian society, real reconciliation will be found only when trust returns between individuals; when they can smile at and trust each other again. Thus, a national dialogue or truth commission should be set up so that people, especially the victims, can fully participate to address their suffering and their needs.
--
(Chak Sopheap is a graduate student of peace studies at the International University of Japan. She runs a blog, www.sopheapfocus.com, in which she shares her impressions of both Japan and her homeland, Cambodia. She was previously advocacy officer of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights.)

Khmer Rouge trials will not bring justice

April 15, 2009
By Chak Sopheap
Guest Commentary
UPI Asia Online

Niigata, Japan — It is not surprising that many foreigners know the details of the Khmer Rouge regime, which ruled Cambodia from 1975-1979, while the young generation of Cambodians may not even know that this inhuman regime ever existed. Cambodian schoolchildren are taught almost nothing about this dark period of their country’s history. Even 30 years after the Khmer Rouge committed its atrocities against the Cambodian people the subject is still sensitive among political groups.

Fortunately, “A History of Democratic Kampuchea,” written by Cambodian author Khamboly Dy and published in 2007, helps to fill in the gap and educate the nation about the murderous regime. The Education Ministry has approved the book as a "core reference" for history classes, but not as part of the core curriculum.

Still, the scope of the textbook is limited and it is controversial in its naming of only certain individuals involved in the regime, its characterization of the massive movement against the Khmer Rouge, and its unclear interpretation of a long-standing political debate in Cambodia over whether Vietnam “liberated” or “invaded” the country when it ousted the Khmer Rouge. Therefore, the young generation is still skeptical about the truth concerning the Khmer Rouge.

When the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, popularly known as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, was established, many Cambodians hoped it would bring justice, truth and reconciliation for the victims and survivors of the regime. This new hybrid, national-international tribunal was expected to accomplish three things:

* First, it should bring justice to those who died and help those who survived to release their suffering.
* Second, it should strengthen the rule of law by judging and punishing the criminals in fair and open trials. It should be a model marking the end of impunity and the beginning of law enforcement in Cambodia, and serve as a deterrent to all who contemplate such inhuman behavior in Cambodia or in the world.
* Third, it should educate the people of Cambodia and raise awareness about this darkest chapter in the country's history, especially among the young generation. Ultimately, this would lead to the reconstruction of the society as a whole.


However, it is questionable whether these expectations will be met. The claim that the Khmer Rouge Tribunal will benefit Cambodians could turn out to be merely a myth – such a tribunal may not be the best option for national reconciliation.

For one thing, the scope of the tribunal is limited to senior regime leaders who planned its actions or gave orders, as well as those most responsible for committing serious crimes. The foreign countries that supported the Khmer Rouge, or acted as the main catalyst for the emergence of this cruel regime, will not be brought to court. The tribunal’s regulations indicate clearly that only individuals who committed crimes will be tried. This court is not mandated to sentence countries or organizations.

Therefore, only local leaders and a few high-level leaders that were directly involved in the genocide will be sentenced, while many others will go unpunished. It is doubtful if justice and the rule of law will prevail.

Those who support the tribunal may say it is better than nothing, that it is better to accept justice in a narrow sense than to have none at all. But real justice would only be achieved if all who are accused are treated fairly by the court. If the trial procedures do not reveal the root cause of the problem, it is unacceptable.

It is also unclear to what extent these trials can serve as a model for an independent court system in Cambodia, as corruption and nepotism are so widespread, even within this court. Moreover, it is unlikely that the whole truth about the Khmer Rouge regime will emerge through the proceedings of the tribunal. If this tribunal is to be the final page in the Khmer Rouge history, it will be unjust and misleading for future generations.

There are better alternatives to this court setup if justice and national reconciliation are the goals. The funds allocated for the court, which have already exceeded the original budget, should have been used for restorative justice – a healing process – rather than this imperfect retributive justice.

For Cambodian society, real reconciliation will be found only when trust returns between individuals; when they can smile at and trust each other again. Thus, a national dialogue or truth commission should be set up so that people, especially the victims, can fully participate to address their suffering and their needs.
--
(Chak Sopheap is a graduate student of peace studies at the International University of Japan. She runs a blog, www.sopheapfocus.com, in which she shares her impressions of both Japan and her homeland, Cambodia. She was previously advocacy officer of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights.)

Cambodians seek closure from trial

Wednesday, April 15, 2009
By Tom Fawthrop in Phnom Penh
Al Jazeera

"The tribunal is important step to ending the culture of impunity" - Mouen Chean Nariddh, Cambodian writer

Three decades after the fall of the Khmer Rouge from power, a joint United Nations-Cambodian tribunal has finally begun the first trial of former regime officials.
Based in the outskirts of capital Phnom Penh, the court was established in 2006 to indict senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge and bring some accountability for the 1.7 million Cambodians who died under the regime.

Many pundits had forecast that the tribunal would never happen, following years of delays and wrangling.

In the years following the Vietnamese invasion in 1979 that forced the Khmer Rouge from power, Western governments blocked attempts to organise an international effort to prosecute the perpetrators.

Many, including the US and Britain, even supported a Khmer Rouge-led coalition and backed the group's guerrilla war against Vietnamese troops defending the new Phnom Penh government.

The first to go before the joint panel of Cambodian and international judges was Kaing Guek Eav - also known as Duch - the former director of the S21 interrogation centre where more than 14,000 prisoners were detained, tortured and executed.

Four other former senior regime officials are expected to go before the court in 2010.

When Duch's trial began in late March, live coverage of the proceedings was followed closely by hundreds of thousands of Cambodians on television and radio.

"We have been waiting for a long time. Now our hopes have become a reality," Thun Saray, chairman of Cambodian human rights group ADHOC and a veteran activist, told Al Jazeera.

The failure to punish or account for the biggest crimes in the country's history means that many Cambodians today have little respect for the law, he says.

Like many Cambodians over the age of 40, painter Hen Sophal vividly remembers the horrors of forced labour, pitiful rations and the constant fear of death under the Khmer Rouge regime.

He had all but given up hope of ever seeing any justice.

"I didn't expect that it would happen. But even after 30 years it is not too late," he says.
Culture of violence

The three decades without any closure on the national trauma has left Cambodia's deep scars open and unhealed, undermining the ethical foundations of normal society and spawning a culture of violence, lawlessness and impunity.

"The Khmer Rouge shadow looms over Cambodia to this day," says Hen Sophal. "There is still a Khmer Rouge influence in Cambodian society, still lots of violence and lack of human respect."

He is also worried about the slow pace of progress.

"I am concerned about many delays because the Khmer Rouge leaders are getting older and could die before their trial starts."

The start of the trial, he hopes, "can lessen the suffering of the victims and provide lessons for the young generation".

Sin Putheary is a recent graduate from Phnom Penh University who now works for Youth for Peace, an NGO attempting to bring information about the tribunal to people in the countryside.

Even today, she says, many accused murderers brought before Cambodian courts see no reason why they should be punished.

Citing police reports, she quotes one suspect telling investigators recently: "I only killed one person, but Khmer Rouge leaders killed so many and they were never punished."

Mouen Chean Nariddh, a local writer and journalist, has been making the same link for years.

"The tribunal is an important step to ending the culture of impunity," he told Al Jazeera, adding that he hopes the trials will act as a model and help establish the foundations of a proper justice system for Cambodia.

Local courts are known to be mired in corruption but, with the eyes of so many Cambodians and the international media on the Khmer Rouge tribunal, he notes that the Cambodian lawyers "show much more integrity working in the tribunal".

"Cambodian judges and lawyers will use the tribunal model, and transfer from the KRT the example to a fair trial and rights of the accused to the local courts."

Collective grief

Another common theme is that by bringing a sense of closure to the darkest chapter of Cambodian history, the tribunal will help to address the collective grief of a nation.

On the opening day of Duch's trial, all 500 seats in the public gallery were taken and 80 per cent were Cambodians.

But far from everyone is gripped by the most important trial of all time for Cambodians.

More than two thirds of the population is under the age of 30 and have no recollection of life under the Khmer Rouge.

With little or no teaching of recent history in Cambodia's schools, most Cambodian youth have little knowledge of Pol Pot's regime or its alleged crimes.

The single nationwide survey about the tribunal, published by the University of California, showed that more than a third of respondents had no knowledge of the trials.

That is not the case with Nong Visoth, who works as a travel consultant in Phnom Penh. He lost 15 relatives on his mother's side of the family to the Khmer Rouge.

Closely following the tribunal every day, he says the tribunal is important to his family "because it can reduce our pain and suffering".

But for him and many other survivors of the Khmer Rouge, the most pressing concern is that real justice may still be thwarted - not by political meddling, but by the simple passage of time.

Pol Pot, the former supreme leader of the regime, died more than 10 years ago.

His deputy, Nuon Chea, and the regime's foreign minister, Ieng Sary, are now both in their 80s and in poor health.

"I worry they will die before the verdict, before they are sentenced," says Nong Visoth.

"If the leaders die before justice, before their trial is completed, Cambodian people will still suffer for the rest of their lives."