PHNOM PENH: Cambodian premier Hun Sen on Monday renewed strong
warnings his country could be plunged back into civil war if the UN-backed
Khmer Rouge court tried more suspects from the late 1970s movement.
Hun Sen, himself a former low level commander in the communist
regime, made his speech less than a week after the court said it could open
investigations against more members of the government which killed up to two
million people.
"If you tried (more suspects) without taking national
unification and peace into consideration and if war re-occurred, killing
between 200,000 and 300,000 people more, who would be responsible for it?"
the premier asked in a ceremony.
"I have achieved this work (peace), I will not allow anybody to
destroy it.... The value of peace here is very big," Hun Sen said, lamenting
that Cambodia had already been drenched "by blood and tears".
"So anybody, please don't cause more trouble," he added.
The prime minister in a speech in March made similar assertions
that further prosecutions at the Khmer Rouge court could destabilise
Cambodia, saying that he would prefer the court failed than indict more
suspects.
But critics have said there is no risk of renewed fighting since
the country's civil war ended in 1998, and have accused the administration
of trying to protect former regime members now in government.
The tribunal was created in 2006 to try leading members of the
1975-1979 regime and five former leaders are currently being held on charges
of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The court's long-awaited first trial of Kaing Guek Eav, better
known by the alias Duch, is under way and he has accepted responsibility for
overseeing the execution of more than 15,000 people at the regime's main
prison.
After Duch's trial, the court plans to prosecute former Khmer
Rouge ideologue Nuon Chea, Head of State Khieu Samphan, Foreign Minister
Ieng Sary and his wife, Minister of Social Affairs Ieng Thirith.
Led by Pol Pot, who died in 1998, the Khmer Rouge emptied
Cambodia's cities in a bid to forge an agrarian utopia, resulting in the
deaths of up to two million people from starvation, overwork and torture.
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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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