By Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
22 September 2009
The Documentation Center of Cambodia is set to launch a new book
recapping the last three years of the Khmer Rouge tribunal, detailing the
politics behind the UN-backed court, challenges to administration and
providing a wrap-up of the trial of Duch.
The Documentation Center has the largest collection of Khmer
Rouge documents in the country, amassed over years of research. The book,
“On Trial: The Khmer Rouge Accountability Process” details each stage before
and after the Duch trial, as well as the arrests of the five suspects.
Duch, whose real name is Kaing Kek Iev, has undergone the first
trial, for atrocity crimes committed as head of Tuol Sleng prison and other
sites, and his trial is expected to end next month.
“Over the past three years, we’ve had a unique trial for Duch,”
said Youk Chhang, executive director of the Documentation Center. “We wanted
to close this page and review what we have done regarding the trial,
investigation, reconciliation, and so on…and after that review, [to ask
whether] the three-year plan is enough or not, and what we have to continue
to do.”
The English-language text runs to 352 pages, with authors
examining the influence of politics in the UN-backed court and the
challenges it now faces, including the controversy over further indictments.
It will be available Oct. 3.
The front cover of the book shows now-detained former foreign
minister Ieng Sary at the airport, receiving well-dressed Cambodian
visitors, without the black uniforms that would come to typify the
revolutionaries. The back cover depicts each of the five detained leaders,
including Ieng Sary, his wife, Ieng Thirith, head of state Khieu Samphan,
ideologue Nuon Chea, and Duch.
Inside the book, authors conclude that the court’s decisions
have thus far been soundly based in international law and that overall the
decisions of the court’s organs have surpassed the expectations of many.
The hybrid court has a complex structure and took years of
wrangling between the UN and Cambodia to come to fruition. Cambodian judges,
meanwhile, have shouldered concerns that they might act politically. But
Youk Chhang said the court has served some purpose so far.
“Those who died have their value,” he said. “We honor them even
though they died. We are still insisting on justice for all of them. And the
survivors must hear, understand and see steps forward for reconciliation.
The book is dedicated to all the victims who died or survived.”
Tribunal trial chamber judge Silvia Cartwright wrote that the
book provides a “useful historical and intellectual context” for the trials,
and Khmer Rouge researcher David Chandler hailed the work as “a wealth of
information” about the court.
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About Me
- Duong Dara
- Dara Duong was born in 1971 in Battambang province, Cambodia. His life changed forever at age four, when the Khmer Rouge took over the country in 1975. During the regime that controlled Cambodia from 1975-1979, Dara’s father, grandparents, uncle and aunt were executed, along with almost 3 million other Cambodians. Dara’s mother managed to keep him and his brothers and sisters together and survive the years of the Khmer Rouge regime. However, when the Vietnamese liberated Cambodia, she did not want to live under Communist rule. She fled with her family to a refugee camp on the Cambodian-Thai border, where they lived for more than ten years. Since arriving in the United States, Dara’s goal has been to educate people about the rich Cambodian culture that the Khmer Rouge tried to destroy and about the genocide, so that the world will not stand by and allow such atrocities to occur again. Toward that end, he has created the Cambodian Cultural Museum and Killing Fields Memorial, which began in his garage and is now in White Center, Washington. Dara’s story is one of survival against enormous odds, one of perseverance, one of courage and hope.
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