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When my mother — who saved me and four siblings from starvation under the Khmer Rouge in 1976 — passed away in October 2009 at the age of 73, I realized that for her justice delayed had become justice denied. (I’m embarrassed to admit it, but the words “justice delayed is justice denied” had never really sunk in until my mother’s passing.)
As an observant Buddhist, however, my mother probably had the last word. She always said that no matter what happened to the Khmer Rouge leadership in their current lifetime, Karmic justice would prevail in the next: They would be reborn as cockroaches.
I am certain that this belief has helped millions of survivors cope with the reality that, after more than three decades since the fall of the Khmer Rouge, not a single leader has been held to account.
Indeed, Cambodians will largely be yawning when the Khmer Rouge tribunal, known formally as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia and jointly organized with the United Nations, issues its first verdict, on the guilt or innocence of Kaing Guek Eav, widely known as Comrade Duch.
The man who headed S-21, a torture center to which an estimated 16,000 people were sent and where less than a dozen survived, confessed his crimes seven years before the tribunal started, saying: “My confession is rather like Saint Paul’s. I’m the chief of sinners.”
Even during the tribunal itself, Duch declared: “To the survivors, I stand by my acknowledgment of all crimes inflicted on you at S-21. I acknowledge them in both the moral and legal context.”
After nine months of testimony and millions of dollars spent, what verdict but guilty can there be when the defendant has made such statements under oath? What purpose has going through the motions served?
Whether the issue is degree of guilt (no one claims Duch was in charge of policy and he has testified that “even though I knew these orders were criminal ... it was a life and death problem for me and my family”) or plain punishment (the maximum sentence is life in prison), each day that has passed is itself an injustice.
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If, after four years and $13 million in contributions to the Cambodian government from Japan, the Europe Commission and others, and $76 million in contributions to the United Nations by more than 21 donors, one guilty verdict is all the tribunal has to show, survivors of the Khmer Rouge may just as well consider justice denied.Plagued by corruption, the tribunal was essentially hijacked to advance domestic and international agendas. For domestic politicians, the goal was to control the process by placing it in a heavily secured military base some 20 kilometers from Phnom Penh and to reduce its scope by limiting the number of individuals it could indict (five) while currying international favor for addressing, superficially at least, crimes against humanity.
The Cambodian government has even sought to limit the witnesses the tribunal could call to testify under the oft-repeated claim of the threat of another civil war. “If the court wants to charge more former senior Khmer Rouge cadres, [it] must show the reasons to Prime Minister Hun Sen,” the prime minister said, referring to himself in the third person. In any case, the tribunal has no independent means of enforcing its subpoenas without government cooperation.
For many of the foreigners involved, Cambodia served as yet another venue for pushing hybrid models of transitional justice while creating jobs for international civil servants and a stage for foreign lawyers whose careers depend on adding another tribunal to their curriculum vitae. If nothing else, they can pat themselves on the back for showing the Cambodians how justice is done.
But what has happened is the reverse. The tribunal was plagued by corruption, lack of judicial independence and shattered integrity. The appointment of a devout Marxist-Leninist as head of the Victims Unit in May 2009, fully endorsed by the U.N. head of the tribunal, sealed the tribunal’s fate as an international and domestic farce.
Thus, the euphemistically “streamlined” participation of about 4,000 “Civil Parties” (tribunal-recognized victims, including me) who shall be represented in court by only two “civil party lead co-lawyers” (with as yet undefined internal procedures of accountability and selection) imposed by the tribunal on Feb. 9, 2010, came as no surprise.
When I filed my civil complaint in 2008, I was required to outline what compensation I wanted. When I said I didn’t want any compensation and that this isn’t about money, it’s about justice for the past and accountability for the future, you could have heard a pin drop. I should have said that I would like my father and brother back; no amount of compensation can do that.
Justice in that sense is meaningless, but my hope was that in the not-too-distant future the next Pol Pot might have to think twice about genocide.
A truth commission would have been a marked contrast to the combative style of the current tribunal, which has seen denials by anyone potentially indictable and even those ready to confess. Indeed, as South Africa’s experience has shown, truth commissions can work under the right circumstances.
But I doubt the circumstances were ever right in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge had a sense of irony when they created a Ministry of Truth. Ever since then, the first casualty of Cambodian politics has been truth.
Lost in all this are those very Cambodians for whom the tribunal was supposed to enact international standards of justice and be a cathartic experience. Instead, the tribunal has been corrosive. Jaded from a failed 1993 U.N. exercise in democracy that led inexorably toward authoritarianism, Cambodians have learned their lesson: Don’t believe in international promises; they are not kept.
Sophal Ear is an assistant professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He is writing a book on the unintended consequences of foreign aid in Cambodia.Robert Carmichael | Phnom Penh 23 February 2010
Individuals in these centers are not being treated or rehabilitated, they are being illegally detained and often tortured. These centers do not need to be revamped or modified; they need to be shut down.
People who use drugs in Cambodia are at risk of arbitrary detention in centers where they suffer torture, physical and sexual violence, and other forms of cruel punishment, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Detention centers, mandated to treat and ‘rehabilitate' drug users, instead subject them to electric shocks, beatings with electrical wire, forced labor, and harsh military drills.
In the 93-page report, "Skin on the Cable," Human Rights Watch documents detainees being beaten, raped, forced to donate blood, and subjected to painful physical punishments such as "rolling like a barrel" and being chained while standing in the sun. Human Rights Watch also reported that a large number of detainees told of receiving rotten or insect-ridden food and symptoms of diseases consistent with nutritional deficiencies.
"Individuals in these centers are not being treated or rehabilitated, they are being illegally detained and often tortured," said Joseph Amon, director of the Health and Human Rights division at Human Rights Watch. "These centers do not need to be revamped or modified; they need to be shut down." According to the report, people are frequently arbitrarily arrested without a warrant or without reasonable cause, often on the request of a relative or as part of periodic police round-ups of people considered "undesirable." They are often lied to - or simply not informed - about the reasons of their arrest. They have no access to a lawyer during their period in police custody or during the subsequent period of detention in the centers. Military drills, sweating while exercising, and laboring are the most common means used to "cure" drug dependence in these centers, which are operated by various government entities, including military police and civilian police forces. "Vocational training" activities which take place in some centers appear motivated by benefits to the center staff as opposed to detainees. The report highlighted the large number of children and individuals with mental illnesses also detained within the centers. Both groups, according to the report, were subject to similar physical abuses.Human Rights Watch called on the Royal Cambodian Government to permanently close its drug detention centers and conduct a thorough investigation of acts of torture, ill treatment, arbitrary detention, and other abuses occurring in them. Torture and inhuman treatment are prohibited by both the government's international human rights obligations and the Constitution of Cambodia.
"The government of Cambodia must stop the torture occurring in these centers" said Amon. "Drug dependency can be addressed through expanded voluntary, community-based, outpatient treatment that respects human rights and is consistent with international standards."
Selected accounts from individuals interviewed for "Skin on the Cable":
"I think this is not a rehab center but a torturing center." - Kakada, former detainee
"[A staff member] would use the cable to beat people...On each whip the person's skin would come off and stick on the cable..." - M'noh, age 16, describing whippings he witnessed in the Social Affairs "Youth Rehabilitation Center" in Choam Chao
"[After arrest] the police search my body, they take my money, they also keep my drugs...They say, ‘If you don't have money, why don't you go for a walk with me?...[The police] drove me to a guest house.... How can you refuse to give him sex? You must do it. There were two officers. [I had sex with] each one time. After that they let me go home." - Minea, a woman in her mid 20's who uses drugs, explaining how she was raped by two police officers
"[Shortly after arrival] I was knocked out. Other inmates beat me....They just covered me with a blanket and beat me...They beat me in the face, my chest, my side. I don't know how long it lasted...The staff had ordered the inmates to beat me. The staff said, ‘The new chicken has arrived, let's pluck its feathers and eat it!'" - Duongchem, former detainee
This press release also available in: Khmer
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The current conflict between Cambodia and Thailand, both members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), provides a test case for ASEAN to act as a key player in resolving disputes among its members. A failure by ASEAN to do so would reduce its credibility and impede the realization of an ASEAN community by 2015. Sokbunthoeun So discusses the Cambodian-Thai conflict and the implications for ASEAN.
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BANGKOK — China signed 14 deals with Cambodia on Monday worth approximately $1 billion, two days after Cambodia deported 20 ethnic Uighur asylum seekers under strong pressure from Beijing.
The deportation, in defiance of protests by the United States, the United Nations and human rights groups, came on the day before a visit to Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, by Vice President Xi Jinping of China.
The package of grants and loans was signed at the end of Mr. Xi’s visit. The Cambodian Foreign Ministry quoted Mr. Xi as saying: “It can be said that Sino-Cambodia relations are a model of friendly cooperation.”
The exact value of the agreements was not announced, but the chief government spokesman, Khieu Kanharith, said they were worth $1.2 billion. “China has thanked the government of Cambodia for assisting in sending back these people,” he said. “According to Chinese law, these people are criminals.”
Members of a Turkic-speaking ethnic minority living mostly in western China, the 20 Uighurs said they were fleeing persecution in a crackdown that followed riots in which the Chinese government said at least 197 people were killed.
Hundreds of Uighurs have been detained since then and several people have been executed for involvement in the rioting. At least 43 Uighur men have disappeared, according to Human Rights Watch.
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Twenty-two Uighurs entered Cambodia about a month ago, aided by a Christian group that has helped North Koreans fleeing their country. Two of the Uighurs have disappeared, the Cambodian government said.Before being deported, several of the asylum seekers told the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Cambodia that they feared long jail terms or even the death penalty, according to statements reported by The Associated Press. In the statements, which had been provided to the United Nations in support of asylum applications, the Uighurs described chaotic and bloody scenes during the rioting.
“If I am returned to China, I am sure that I will be sentenced to life imprisonment or the death penalty for my involvement in the Urumqi riots,” said a 29-year-old man.
Another man, a 27-year-old teacher, said: “I can tell the world what is happening to Uighur people, and the Chinese authorities do not want this. If returned, I am certain I would be sent to prison.”
China is Cambodia’s leading investor, committing hundreds of millions of dollars for projects including dams, roads and a headquarters for the government Council of Ministers in Phnom Penh. In October, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China met Cambodia’s prime minister, Hun Sen, in Sichuan, China, and concluded a deal worth $853 million.
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A UN-backed tribunal in Cambodia has charged Khieu Samphan, formerly the head of state for the Khmer Rouge, with genocide.
The move came after genocide charges were filed against two other Khmer Rouge leaders, Ieng Sary and Nuon Chea.
All the genocide charges relate to the men's treatment of Cambodia's Vietnamese and Muslim minorities.
All three men had already been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Those charged are already in pre-trial detention although the trial is not expected to begin before 2011.
Denial
Up to two million people are thought to have died under the Khmer Rouge's rule.
Khieu Samphan, 78, has never denied these deaths, but both he and his lawyers insist that, as head of state, he was never directly responsible.
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One member of his defence team is the infamous French lawyer Jacques Verges, whose previous clients have included Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and Venezuelan hijacker Carlos the Jackal.Mr Verges, 83, has known Khieu Samphan since they were both involved in left-wing student activities in France in the 1950s.
He says he has lived a life of poverty since the Khmer Rouge regime was toppled.
A court official confirmed that the allegations related to the treatment of two minority groups: Cham Muslims and ethnic Vietnamese people.
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Researchers believe that the Khmer Rouge killed hundreds of thousands of Chams because of their religious beliefs.The accusation of genocide carries enormous symbolic weight, says the BBC's Guy De Launey in Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh.
Final arguments were heard last month in the trial of Khmer Rouge prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, known as Comrade Duch, who has admitted being responsible for overseeing the deaths of 15,000 people.
Judges at the tribunal are expected to rule on his verdict early next year.
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BANGKOK — In one of his most provocative moves since being ousted in a coup three years ago, Thailand’s fugitive former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, is visiting neighboring Cambodia this week, stirring tensions between the nations and invigorating his political supporters at home.
Speaking in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, on Thursday, he accused the Thai government of “false patriotism” in long-running frictions that include an armed standoff at a disputed 11th-century temple on the nations’ common border.
But the provocation was not his words so much as his presence and his warm welcome in Cambodia, the closest he has come to his homeland as he has circled the world, from Hong Kong to London to Nicaragua to Montenegro and now to a refuge in Dubai. While he insists he wants to go home, Mr. Thaksin has been on the run as the Thai government seeks his extradition on a conviction for corruption while he was in office.
In Phnom Penh, he will be looking over the shoulders of regional heads of state, including those of Cambodia and Thailand, as they gather Friday in Singapore, just a short flight away, for a regional meeting.
“Thaksin is up to no good,” said Pavin Chachavalpongpun, an expert on Thailand at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. “I would say Thaksin is on a new offensive.
“I think both of them, their moves, have been perfectly calculated,” he added. He was referring to Mr. Thaksin and to his host, Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia, who appeared to be using the visit to tweak his counterparts across the border.
On Wednesday, Cambodia rejected Thailand’s demand for Mr. Thaksin’s extradition.
Mr. Pavin said that if Mr. Thaksin could show the public that the Thai government “is incapable and unable to solve this crisis, then this will be a slap in the face of the government and will raise questions about the legitimacy of the government.”
Mr. Thaksin’s visit has escalated a confrontation between the nations that began with a dispute in 2008 over sovereignty at the Preah Vihear temple, where the two armies have fought several bloody skirmishes and remain on alert.
The two nations recalled their ambassadors last week after Mr. Hun Sen announced the appointment of Mr. Thaksin as an “economic adviser,” and Thailand said it would scrap an agreement governing negotiations over disputed offshore oil and gas deposits.
In its diplomatic note rejecting the demand for Mr. Thaksin’s extradition on Wednesday, the Cambodian government noted, in capital letters, that he had been forced from office although he had been “OVERWHELMINGLY and DEMOCRATICALLY elected by the Thai people.”
On Thursday both nations expelled an additional diplomat in a tit-for tat escalation of the diplomatic row.
Mr. Hun Sen may be looking to his own long-term interests and placing a bet on Mr. Thaksin as the future leader of Thailand, Mr. Pavin said.
In Thailand, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his Democrat Party remain politically weak, and many analysts believe that supporters of Mr. Thaksin would be likely to win any new election.
Mr. Hun Sen, who greeted Mr. Thaksin on Monday with an embrace and a vow of “eternal friendship,” seemed to taunt Mr. Abhisit, who took office in a parliamentary vote last December, with the backing of the military and without a popular vote. He was an indirect beneficiary of the coup that ousted Mr. Thaksin.
“If Abhisit is so capable, why not dissolve the Parliament and call for a new election?” Mr. Hun Sen asked Wednesday. “What is he afraid of? I am the prime minister of Cambodia who received two-thirds of the vote, and how many votes did Abhisit receive? Or did he steal his seat from other people?”
Mr. Hun Sen, 58, and Mr. Abhisit, 45, come from different worlds, the first of them raised as a barefoot temple boy who took up arms for the Khmer Rouge, the other an Eton and Oxford man, fluent in English and in Western ways.
If Mr. Thaksin’s intention was to discomfit the Thai government and keep himself on the front pages of newspapers at home, he seems to have succeeded.
“Rejected!” read a banner headline, in red type, in The Nation, a daily newspaper, on Thursday, referring to Cambodia’s refusal to extradite Mr. Thaksin.
Filling most of the front page under the headline was a facsimile of Cambodia’s diplomatic note, with its capitalized reference to the “ABSOLUTE REALITIES” of Thai politics and an implication of Mr. Thaksin’s legitimacy as prime minister.
The newspaper also printed Mr. Thaksin’s schedule in Cambodia for the next few days: a visit to the ancient temples at Angkor, a round of golf with Mr. Hun Sen and a possible meeting with supporters bused in from Thailand.
After that, it said, renewing the mystery that Mr. Thaksin has cultivated, the schedule simply noted, “Depart Cambodia for an unknown destination.”
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Thailand has recalled its ambassador from Cambodia over its appointment of ousted Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra as a government economic adviser.
Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said the step was "the first diplomatic retaliation measure" to express the concern of the Thai people.
Mr Thaksin was ousted by the military in 2006. A court convicted him in absentia of corruption last year.
Recent border skirmishes have also strained Thai-Cambodian relations.
Divisive figure
Phnom Penh announced on Wednesday that Mr Thaksin would serve as a special adviser both to the government and to Prime Minister Hun Sen.
State television said Cambodia would refuse to extradite the tycoon because it considered him a victim of political persecution.
A government spokesman told the BBC that Cambodia valued Mr Thaksin's leadership qualities and business experience and that he would be an asset to the country.
Mr Abhisit accused Cambodia of interfering in Thailand's internal affairs, and a foreign ministry official said bilateral co-operation agreements would be reviewed.
"Last night's announcement by the Cambodian government harmed the Thai justice system and really affected Thai public sentiment," Mr Abhisit said.
Mr Thaksin - who has lived mostly overseas since he was ousted - remains a divisive figure in Thailand.
Since the coup, both supporters and opponents of the former telecommunications mogul have repeatedly taken to the streets of Bangkok in large protests, some of which have turned violent.
Thailand's relationship with Cambodia has also become more volatile in recent months.
Troops have clashed sporadically around the border temple of Preah Vihear, which both claim as their territory.
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PARLIAMENTARIANS voted unanimously Wednesday to approve articles of the Kingdom’s draft Penal Code that would criminalise negligence and abuse of children, breaking from several days of heated partisan debate over other aspects of the proposed legislation.