By Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
10 September 2009
With further indictments at the UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal moving
forward for five leaders of the regime, a likely suspect, Im Chaem, told VOA
Khmer she will not go to the court if summoned.
Im Chaem, now 65, is well known to villagers as a Khmer Rouge district chief
in Banteay Meanchey province. She is now a deputy commune chief in Anglong
Veng district, the last of the 1990s Khmer Rouge strongholds.
“I absolutely will not go, because the charge is unacceptable, and even if I’m
called to court, I will not go,” she told VOA Khmer by phone. Asked why she
would refuse to cooperate with the court, she said she had “no faults”
reason enough to go.
She said she was “relieved” to hear Prime Minister Hun Sen object to further
indictments, following promises of amnesty to cadre in the waning days of
the regime, which ultimately fought a losing battle with government forces
led by today’s premier.
If new investigations are opened ‘just to prosecute without reason,’ it will
unsettle former Khmer Rouge cadre, she said.
‘’If you challenge more, it makes everybody feel no peace,’’ Im Chaem told
VOA Khmer.
In on-site interviews with VOA Khmer several months ago, villagers in
Proneth Preah district said Im Chaem was feared in the region and had been
in charge when a number of crimes were committed under the Khmer Rouge.
Im Chaem has denied any wrongdoing, saying people who were killed or went
missing there did so before her arrival as chief in 1978.
However, Khmer Rouge scholars say she could be among a tier of the regime’s
leaders to face indictments. The Pre-Trial Chamber have now allowed five
indictment submissions from the prosecutors office to move to the
investigating judges, despite warnings from Hun Sen and other Cambodian
officials more arrests could lead to instability.
Knut Rosandhaug, a UN coordinator for the tribunal, told VOA Khmer in an
e-mail “it is a clearly established international standard that courts do
not seek approval or advice on their work from the executive branch.”
“I expect that the ECCC will comply with this internationally recognized
standard and make its decisions independently,” he said, referring to the
tribunal by its official initials, for the Extraordinary Chambers in the
Courts of Cambodia.
The tribunal is currently trying its first Khmer Rouge suspect, the former
prison chief known as Duch, and is holding four more: Nuon Chea, Khieu
Samphan, Ieng Sary, and Ieng Thirith.
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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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