Sky
22nd January 2008, 21:06
I'm not necessarily a supporter of the Khmer Rouge, as I found their chauvinistic feudalism and revanchism to be reprehensible. However, I feel the need to defend them from the predatory bourgeoisie seeking to discredit the national liberation movement.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h60PxzoZDbuPoSCmC5i8wAAEW_KQD8U773981
Officials from Cambodia's genocide tribunal held a town hall-style meeting Wednesday in the Khmer Rouge's former heartland to persuade neighbors of the regime's ex-rulers to help with the trials.
Judges and officials from the U.N.-backed tribunal held the meeting at a Buddhist temple on a hillside near Pailin, a derelict town near the northwestern border with Thailand where ex-Khmer Rouge leaders set up homes and lived for decades as ordinary citizens until last year.
Five senior figures of the Khmer Rouge, whose radical policies led to the deaths of some 1.7 million people in the 1970s, were arrested last year and are awaiting long-delayed genocide trials to begin in the capital, Phnom Penh. The trials are scheduled to start this year.
More than 100 residents attended the question-and-answer session, the first activity of its kind conducted in one of the former Khmer Rouge strongholds.
"How long is this tribunal going to drag on for? I demand that the judges find justice for us," one resident asked, directing his question at two of the tribunal's judges who led the discussion and replied there was no specific timeframe for the trials.
The three-hour meeting started with a documentary film about the tribunal, explaining the roles of a judge, prosecutor and lawyer.
Cambodia's judicial system has faced persistent allegations of corruption and bias. U.N. human rights investigator Yash Ghai recently visited the country and called the judiciary "a perversity."
Tribunal officials hope the meeting will dispel fears that low-ranking former Khmer Rouge will become targets of the court. Officials hope to gain the valuable input of Pailin villagers as investigations continue into the alleged crimes of Khmer Rouge leaders.
"For truth to be found, your participation is needed," You Bunleng, a Cambodian judge told the crowd, which sat cross-legged on the temple's tile floor.
Before the meeting got under way, officials distributed brochures titled, "An Introduction to the Trial of Khmer Rouge Leaders," which showed a picture of villagers in the 1980s discovering a pile of skulls.
"I can't read," said a 50-year-old woman, Chin Peap. "But this picture shows the killing during the Khmer Rouge era."
The Buddhist temple where the meeting took place is the site of a 1996 ceremony that integrated ex-Khmer Rouge soldiers into the national army. The ceremony, presided over by Prime Minister Hun Sen, was billed by the government as a gesture to end more than two decades of civil war.
The regime's notorious leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998.
Pol Pot's surviving deputies — Kaing Guek Eav, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith and Khieu Samphan — are being held in the tribunal's custom-built jail in Phnom Penh on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
It is alleged that the faction of the Communist Party of Kampuchea led by Ieng Sary and Khieu Samphan killed two million people in a genocide against Kampuchea. However, this estimate is difficult to reconcile with basic demographic indicators. In 1970, with the seizure of power by the CIA, the population of Kampuchea was 7.1 million. When the Khmer Rouge liberated Phnom Penh in 1975, the population of Kampuchea was 7.3 million. Following the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge by the Vietnamese aggressors and their Khmer quislings, the population of Kampuchea was about 7.4 million in 1980, including 650,000 refugees and emigrants in Thailand, Vietnam, North America, and France. This data proves that there was not a significant difference between the demographic consequences between “Khmer Republic” during 1970-75 from Democratic Kampuchea during 1975-79. Estimates on those executed range from 30,000 to 80,000 people following the liberation of Phnom Penh. However, such repression was inevitable given the widespread treason committed by those soldiers and officials that collaborated with the CIA puppet regime. Historical precedent has always allowed for the repression of those that collaborate with a foreign invader.
As dedicated Khmer patriots, the Khmer Rouge had no reason exterminate the Khmer people. On the contrary, they sought to restore the glory of the Khmer nation by liberating territory from Vietnam that once belonged to the ancient Khmer kingdom. Nor can it be said that the Khmer Rouge sought to exterminate the Chinese, Vietnamese, and other minorities. Following the liberation of Phnom Penh, the vast majority of Vietnamese were permitted to emigrate to Vietnam. The Muslim minority was not set for extermination, but was only to be assimilated in the broader Khmer society in a policy similar to the theory of the melting pot. There was not an attempt to harm the Chinese minority, as the Khmer Rouge regime sought to cultivate friendly relations with China. The catastrophe that developed in Kampuchea was not the result of the policies of the Khmer Rouge clique, but was the inevitable outcome of the terroristic United States airstrikes and the misrule of its puppet regime Penh. More than 600,000 people were murdered by the United States bombing campaign during the “Khmer Republic”. The bombing caused more than 1.5 million peasants to become refugees in Phnom Penh. Due to the bombing, rice production in 1974 fell to only 25 percent of the 1970 level. By 1979, rice production still had not recovered from the devestation caused by the U.S. bombing and the Vietnamese aggression. About forty percent of the roads were unfit for use and one-third of the bridges were blown up. In this context it was the Khmer Rouge, which had been a small, isolated group of a few thousand members during Sihanouk’s kingdom that rapidly grew into a force of 100,000 fighters during the Lon Nol puppet regime. When the freedom fighters liberated Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975, they won control of a country in a state of chaos. Refugees increased the size of the Phnom Penh population many times over. With the end of American deliveries of rice, famine threatened. Epidemics spread through the slums of the city and hospitals were unable to threat the wounded. The roads had been destroyed by bombings and industries no longer existed. Any government in a similar situation would have been forced to take such steps of the Khmer Rouge to stave off famine and to get reconstruction under way. Rather than completely emptying out the cities in pursuit of some ideological agenda, the vast majority of the Phnom Penh population, which consisted of peasant refugees, were simply repatriated to their homes. There was no intent to physically harm the city dwellers transferred to the countryside, but only to concentrate them in other sectors of the economy. To blame the Khmer Rouge for malnutrition and disease in the countryside would be tantamount to attributing superhuman powers to Pol Pot and Ieng Sary. In all primitive rural regions in Asia, Africa, and Latin America there has existed excess mortality resulting from malnutrition and disease. If Khieu Samphan and Ieng Sary are to be tried, then it would be a demonstration of sheer hypocrisy to turn a blind towards the far worse war crimes conspired by American politicians ranging from Henry Kissinger to Paul Wolfowitz. History has sanctified Khieu Samphan as a true patriot who fought to liberate his people from all sorts of vicious invaders, whether American or Vietnamese. This so-called tribunal that has abducted Khieu Samphan and Ieng Sary is a wholly illegal body without any binding force.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h60PxzoZDbuPoSCmC5i8wAAEW_KQD8U773981
Officials from Cambodia's genocide tribunal held a town hall-style meeting Wednesday in the Khmer Rouge's former heartland to persuade neighbors of the regime's ex-rulers to help with the trials.
Judges and officials from the U.N.-backed tribunal held the meeting at a Buddhist temple on a hillside near Pailin, a derelict town near the northwestern border with Thailand where ex-Khmer Rouge leaders set up homes and lived for decades as ordinary citizens until last year.
Five senior figures of the Khmer Rouge, whose radical policies led to the deaths of some 1.7 million people in the 1970s, were arrested last year and are awaiting long-delayed genocide trials to begin in the capital, Phnom Penh. The trials are scheduled to start this year.
More than 100 residents attended the question-and-answer session, the first activity of its kind conducted in one of the former Khmer Rouge strongholds.
"How long is this tribunal going to drag on for? I demand that the judges find justice for us," one resident asked, directing his question at two of the tribunal's judges who led the discussion and replied there was no specific timeframe for the trials.
The three-hour meeting started with a documentary film about the tribunal, explaining the roles of a judge, prosecutor and lawyer.
Cambodia's judicial system has faced persistent allegations of corruption and bias. U.N. human rights investigator Yash Ghai recently visited the country and called the judiciary "a perversity."
Tribunal officials hope the meeting will dispel fears that low-ranking former Khmer Rouge will become targets of the court. Officials hope to gain the valuable input of Pailin villagers as investigations continue into the alleged crimes of Khmer Rouge leaders.
"For truth to be found, your participation is needed," You Bunleng, a Cambodian judge told the crowd, which sat cross-legged on the temple's tile floor.
Before the meeting got under way, officials distributed brochures titled, "An Introduction to the Trial of Khmer Rouge Leaders," which showed a picture of villagers in the 1980s discovering a pile of skulls.
"I can't read," said a 50-year-old woman, Chin Peap. "But this picture shows the killing during the Khmer Rouge era."
The Buddhist temple where the meeting took place is the site of a 1996 ceremony that integrated ex-Khmer Rouge soldiers into the national army. The ceremony, presided over by Prime Minister Hun Sen, was billed by the government as a gesture to end more than two decades of civil war.
The regime's notorious leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998.
Pol Pot's surviving deputies — Kaing Guek Eav, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith and Khieu Samphan — are being held in the tribunal's custom-built jail in Phnom Penh on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
It is alleged that the faction of the Communist Party of Kampuchea led by Ieng Sary and Khieu Samphan killed two million people in a genocide against Kampuchea. However, this estimate is difficult to reconcile with basic demographic indicators. In 1970, with the seizure of power by the CIA, the population of Kampuchea was 7.1 million. When the Khmer Rouge liberated Phnom Penh in 1975, the population of Kampuchea was 7.3 million. Following the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge by the Vietnamese aggressors and their Khmer quislings, the population of Kampuchea was about 7.4 million in 1980, including 650,000 refugees and emigrants in Thailand, Vietnam, North America, and France. This data proves that there was not a significant difference between the demographic consequences between “Khmer Republic” during 1970-75 from Democratic Kampuchea during 1975-79. Estimates on those executed range from 30,000 to 80,000 people following the liberation of Phnom Penh. However, such repression was inevitable given the widespread treason committed by those soldiers and officials that collaborated with the CIA puppet regime. Historical precedent has always allowed for the repression of those that collaborate with a foreign invader.
As dedicated Khmer patriots, the Khmer Rouge had no reason exterminate the Khmer people. On the contrary, they sought to restore the glory of the Khmer nation by liberating territory from Vietnam that once belonged to the ancient Khmer kingdom. Nor can it be said that the Khmer Rouge sought to exterminate the Chinese, Vietnamese, and other minorities. Following the liberation of Phnom Penh, the vast majority of Vietnamese were permitted to emigrate to Vietnam. The Muslim minority was not set for extermination, but was only to be assimilated in the broader Khmer society in a policy similar to the theory of the melting pot. There was not an attempt to harm the Chinese minority, as the Khmer Rouge regime sought to cultivate friendly relations with China. The catastrophe that developed in Kampuchea was not the result of the policies of the Khmer Rouge clique, but was the inevitable outcome of the terroristic United States airstrikes and the misrule of its puppet regime Penh. More than 600,000 people were murdered by the United States bombing campaign during the “Khmer Republic”. The bombing caused more than 1.5 million peasants to become refugees in Phnom Penh. Due to the bombing, rice production in 1974 fell to only 25 percent of the 1970 level. By 1979, rice production still had not recovered from the devestation caused by the U.S. bombing and the Vietnamese aggression. About forty percent of the roads were unfit for use and one-third of the bridges were blown up. In this context it was the Khmer Rouge, which had been a small, isolated group of a few thousand members during Sihanouk’s kingdom that rapidly grew into a force of 100,000 fighters during the Lon Nol puppet regime. When the freedom fighters liberated Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975, they won control of a country in a state of chaos. Refugees increased the size of the Phnom Penh population many times over. With the end of American deliveries of rice, famine threatened. Epidemics spread through the slums of the city and hospitals were unable to threat the wounded. The roads had been destroyed by bombings and industries no longer existed. Any government in a similar situation would have been forced to take such steps of the Khmer Rouge to stave off famine and to get reconstruction under way. Rather than completely emptying out the cities in pursuit of some ideological agenda, the vast majority of the Phnom Penh population, which consisted of peasant refugees, were simply repatriated to their homes. There was no intent to physically harm the city dwellers transferred to the countryside, but only to concentrate them in other sectors of the economy. To blame the Khmer Rouge for malnutrition and disease in the countryside would be tantamount to attributing superhuman powers to Pol Pot and Ieng Sary. In all primitive rural regions in Asia, Africa, and Latin America there has existed excess mortality resulting from malnutrition and disease. If Khieu Samphan and Ieng Sary are to be tried, then it would be a demonstration of sheer hypocrisy to turn a blind towards the far worse war crimes conspired by American politicians ranging from Henry Kissinger to Paul Wolfowitz. History has sanctified Khieu Samphan as a true patriot who fought to liberate his people from all sorts of vicious invaders, whether American or Vietnamese. This so-called tribunal that has abducted Khieu Samphan and Ieng Sary is a wholly illegal body without any binding force.