Regarding Sophal Ear's op-ed "Cambodian 'Justice'" (Sept. 1): I agree with
the author's concerns that recent changes in personnel at the Khmer Rouge
War-Crimes Tribunal have placed unqualified persons in charge of the
critical tasks of the Victims Unit, which oversees the participation of
civil parties in the tribunal. Despite seemingly good intentions, the
court's attempt to include victims as civil parties in an international
criminal trial has failed.
With an estimated five million survivors of the Khmer Rouge genocide still
living, any serious attempt to include victims in the process would have
resulted in overwhelming submissions to the Victims Unit. The Victims Unit
was nevertheless established late, without sufficient staffing and financial
resources, and was never able to catch up with processing the
proportionately small number of applications it received.
The Judges now stand ready to substantially reduce or eliminate the role of
civil parties in advance of the second trial due to concerns about the time
involved in adjudicating the large number of expected defense challenges.
Whatever the Court's ultimate decision about the scope of victim
participation in the second trial, it has the obligation to explain the
changes directly to affected victims and to respectfully hear their views. I
would encourage the Court to write civil party applicants individually to
acknowledge their applications, notify them of any anticipated change in
procedure, and assure them that their participatory role will remain
historically significant. Additionally, the Court should invite each
applicant to Phnom Penh to hear about proposed changes from judicial
officials and be given an opportunity to voice their opinions. Finally, if
representative victims are called to testify during the second trial, a
number of these persons should be voted for by the current civil party
applicants from among a group pre-selected by a Victim's representative.
Youk Chhang
Director, Documentation Center of Cambodia
Phnom Penh
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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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