The International Dimensions of the Cambodian Tragedy

By Benny Widyono

In February of last year, 2009, the leaders of the Khmer Rouge, which killed
1.7 million of its own people during 1975 to 1979, were finally brought to
justice in a UN assisted court in Cambodia. Why did it take so long, more
than thirty years, for justice to come to Cambodia? The answer can be found
within the international political dynamics during the Cold War and later in
protracted negotiations between the Cambodian government and the UN for
setting up the court. During the cold war, and due to its geopolitical
location, Cambodia became a defenseless pawn in the struggle for hegemony in
Southeast Asia between the big powres, China, the USSR and the USA. The
result was that for twenty years prior to the arrival of the United Nations
peacekeeping operation operation, Cambodia was plunged into chaos, turmoil,
civil war, genocide and deep despair. That period can be divided into three
phases in which international actors played a major role: in phase one,
from mid the late ninety sixties to 1975, In the first phase, two events
facilitated the meteoric rise of the Khmer Rouge, an erstwhile obscure
communist movement in the jungles of Cambodia into a power which devastated
Cambodia. Piqued King Sihanouk’s neutral position in the cold war, and
suspecting eastern Cambodia of harboring Vietnamese forces , President
Richard Nixon of the US and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger
bombed., Cambodia from 1969 to 1973, dropping more bombs on Cambodia's
populated heartland than were dropped on Japan during all of the Second
World War. Secondly, neutralist King Sihanouk was ousted by rightwing pro
American General Lon Nol. Enraged; Sihanouk fled to Beijing and embraced Pol
Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, and with the help of Beijing, Pol Pot
quickly overthrew Lon Nol and established a brutal reign of terror from
April 17 1975 to January 7 1979 almost unequalled in modern history. This
terror regime brought unprecedented misery as the regime emptied cities,
torturing and executing the educated, imposing extreme policies that led to
starvation, disease and the death of 1.7 million Cambodians or about a third
of its entire popution. katlro. ,. pushering phase two of the Cambodian
tragedy, khherisrfrom April 1unequalled into history. us i Pol Pot’s the
Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot o y and . An osbcure communist power, rose
pmunnisC grew enormously in power and took over Cambodia from the rightwing
Lon Nol, Thus, what Nixon and Kissinger began, with the help of Sihanouk,
Pol Pot completed On January, 1979, the Vietnamese army ousted the genocidal
Khmer Rouge and sent its leaders and followers to the border of Thailand. A
New Government, named the People’s Republic of Kampuchea, was established
gaining de factor power almost all of Cambodia, Unfortunately, the battle
now shifted to New York, where the General Assembly, spearheaded by the US
and China, adopted resolution after resolution for 11 years, 1979 to 1991,
recognizing the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, as the legitimate government of
Cambodia while rejecting , the People’s Republic of Cambodia. This is the
third phase of the Cambodian tragedy as the sanctions were imposed on the
country banning all aid whereas the Khmer Rouge in the jungle, now bolstered
by two anti communist factoons, were resuscitated by Chinese and western
aid, thereby prolongin the suffering of te Cambodian people for 11 years.

p, ecunyb, Gkhmer rhetrty country the de facto government established
after the Vietnamese actually put an end to the killing by ousting the Khmer
Rouge regime, a calculation that allowed more chaos to ensue. Even though
the new Cambodian regime agreed to put the surviving Khmer Rouge leaders on
trial, political wrangling over sovereignty and international justice and
funding difficulties delayed the process. On February 17, 2009, some 30
years after the end of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, and 12 years after
the idea of a special court was adopted, the UN-installed Extraordinary
Chambers in Courts of Cambodia began a trial of major perpetrators of the
Cambodian massacre.

rtwoese, tselate1960 to .es, In phase one rds., ioerUniteda j, mgee t
Author and former UN official Benny Widyono argues that the trial must
demonstrate forthright recognition that Cambodia was long denied justice by
major powers. It is to be hoped that the long-awaited trial will begin the
process of healing and national reconciliation that requires a full
accounting of what went on, both inside the country and outside.

In fact, the problem with the United Nations-backed trial of the remaining
Khmer Rouge leaders, which has just begun in Phom Penh, is that it is
dealing only with the Khmer Rouge killers and not with their collaborators.
There were three stages of Cambodia's holocaust. Pol Pot's genocide was but
one of them, yet only it has a place in the official memory. It is highly
unlikely Pot Pot would have come to power had Kissinger will not be in the
dock in Phom Penh. He is advising President Obama on geo-politics. Neither
will Margaret Thatcher, nor a number of her comfortably retired senior
ministers and officials who, in secretly supporting the Khmer Rouge after
the Vietnamese had expelled them, contributed directly to the third stage of
Cambodia's holocaust. In 1979, the US and British governments imposed a
devastating embargo on stricken Cambodia because its liberators, Vietnam,
had come from the wrong side of the cold war. Few Foreign Office campaigns
have been as cynical or as brutal. At the UN, the British demanded that the
now defunct Pol Pot regime retain the "right" to represent its victims at
the UN and voted with Pol Pot in the agencies of the UN, including the World
Health Organisation, thereby preventing it from working inside Cambodia.

To disguise this outrage, Britain, the US and China, Pol Pot's principal
backer, invented a "non communist" coalition in exile that was, in fact,
dominated by the Khmer Rouge. In Thailand, the CIA and Defence Intelligence
Agency formed direct links with the Khmer Rouge. In 1983, the Thatcher
government sent the SAS to train the "coalition" in landmine technology - in
a country more seeded with mines than anywhere on earth except Afghanistan.
"I confirm," Thatcher wrote to opposition leader Neil Kinnock, "that there
is no British government involvement of any kind in training, equipping or
co-operating with Khmer Rouge forces or those allied to them." The lie was
breathtaking. On June 25, 1991, the Major government was forced to admit to
parliament that the SAS had been secretly training the "coalition". Unless
international justice is a farce, those who sided with Pol Pot's mass
murderers ought to be summoned to the court in Phnom Penh: at the very least
their names read into infamy's register.

In Cambodia, Cold War diplomatic maneuvers swept Khmer Rouge atrocities
under the carpet. On 7 January, 1979, Vietnamese Army and Cambodian
defectors from the Khmer Rouge ended the Khmer Rouge rule. The People’s
Republic of Kampuchea, which soon gained control over 90 percent of the
country, was established.

In a great irony, as the battle shifted to New York, the United Nations in a
resolution spearheaded by the US and China, awarded Cambodia’s seat in the
General Assembly to the exiled Khmer Rouge terror regime; the actual
government in Phnom Penh that ended the killing was turned into an
international pariah. This travesty continued for 11 more years thereby
prolonging the suffering of the Cambodian people. Throughout the 1980s,
bringing the Khmer Rouge criminals to court was far from the minds of the
powers that be. The PRK did try Khmer Rouge leaders Pol Pot and Ieng Sary,
but few in the outside world paid attention.

Finally, the international aspects of the Cambodian problem were settled
with the elections sponsored by the United Nations in May 1993 and the
establishment of a new government, a new Royal government of Cambodia headed
by two prime ministers Prince Ranariddh and Hun Sen. In June 1997, following
a strong suggestion by UN special representative on Human Rights in Cambodia
Thomas Hammarberg, the co-premiers requested UN assistance to bring the
Khmer Rouge to trial. A UN expert group recommended establishment of a
hybrid tribunal such as that for Sierra Leone. However, the Cambodian
government, which after violent clashes in July 1997, was headed by one
prime minister, Hun Sen, who quickly rejected the idea and insisted on a
Cambodian tribunal with international assistance.

One can only surmise that the government feared that some UN personalities,
donor and human-right organizations would broaden the scope of the tribunal
to favor adding more defendants, including senior ex-Khmer Rouge officials
now serving in the government, while the Cambodian side insists that the
trials should be limited to the five surviving top leaders. The Cambodian
concern is on principle, not just numbers, as they fear that spreading the
net would result in more instability. This proved to be true when most
recently, in 2008, the UN Representative on Human Rights Yash Ghai went so
far as stating in his March 2008 report to the UN Human Rights Council that
“The real test will be if a suspect in or close to the Government is
investigated and brought before the ECCC [Extraordinary Chambers in Courts
of Cambodia].”

Control of the tribunal was the main issue over which the Cambodian
government and the United Nations argued at every twist and turn. It was no
surprise that the negotiations were protracted and acrimonious, even
suspended in February 2002, as the UN walked out. The government's
foot-dragging may have also contributed to improved relations between Hun
Sen and China which, as erstwhile supporter of the Khmer Rouge, could be
embarrassed by an international tribunal. In June 2003, the UN and the
Cambodian government signed an agreement that established the Extraordinary
Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. It started functioning in 2006.

Since then, achievements of the tribunal include the arrest of top surviving
leaders and the participation of highly regarded international judges and
prosecutors. The addition of a unit in which victims can participate in the
process is widely acclaimed. By July 2008 it was announced that the first
trial would commence in September. In the end, it took four more months.
Proponents argue that the tribunal can be a tool to improve the judicial
system in a transitional state ravaged by war and political upheaval, as
well as political interference and control.

On the negative side, the lack of an independent and trained Cambodian
judiciary, continuing yet unspecific accusations of corruption, and
budgetary woes serve to mar the progress, and in practice protracted
negotiations continued during implementation of the agreement. As of
February 2009, the international prosecutor continued to argue that five
more defendants should be tried, while the Cambodians insisted five is
enough,

As the tribunal is financed from voluntary contributions, individual donors
influence the process. Donors were concerned when accusations of corruption
surfaced. It's reported that the US, which has not contributed to the
tribunal, and perhaps others as well, favor a court with a top international
personality overseeing the Cambodian director of administration and the UN
deputy.

To placate the donors, new UN appointments were made in June, including
David Tolbert, an ex-Yugoslavia tribunal prosecutor was named special expert
to the UN secretary-general, with particular mandate over the budget. Knut
Rosandhaug, veteran from the UN Kosovo mission took over from Michelle Lee
as coordinator of UN assistance and deputy director of the tribunal
administration; UN sources reportedly considered Lee, a Chinese national, as
too lenient on the Cambodians. It remains to be seen how the new balance of
power will play out in the court's day-to-day operations. At the end of
2008, the UN conducted an investigation of corruption in the tribunal, but
the findings have not been published.

The trial, though late, still heralds a long-awaited process of healing and
national reconciliation that require full accounting of what went on. A
successful conclusion of the trials would include recognition of denial of
justice imposed on Cambodia during the 1980s, a leftover obligation to be
borne by donor countries. Such a successful conclusion for the tribunal
would put an end to a dark chapter of history and exorcise the curse of the
Khmer Rouge hanging over Cambodia.

Benny Widyono is author of “Dancing in Shadows: Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge
and the United Nations in Cambodia,” published by Rowman Littlefield in
2008.