Opinion: Justice Now for the Khmer Rouge

by Craig Etcheson

What does justice really mean in the context of the Cambodian genocide? Should the perpetrators be executed two million times? Or sentenced to two million years in prison? Such musings illuminate the hard fact that there can be no "perfect" justice for the crime of genocide. The question then becomes, "What sort of justice is good enough?" It might be enough just for the truth to finally be told.

Faced with the horror of their genocide, many Cambodians cannot accept the fact that Khmer killed Khmer on such a massive scale. Incredible though it may seem, some Cambodian university professors today still teach their students that it was really the Vietnamese or Chinese or Americans who were responsible for the atrocities during the Pol Pot regime, and that Pol Pot and his minions were simply puppets being manipulated by evil foreigners.

For Cambodians to accept the reality of what happened to them during the Khmer Rouge regime and begin healing their wounds, they need to hear the truth from the perpetrators themselves. And several of Pol Pot's chief henchmen now appear prepared to come forward in court and speak the truth, hoping for mercy in exchange for their confessions. But this cannot happen without the cooperation of the international community, and a continued leadership role by the United States.

Recently some voices have spoken up in opposition to continued support of the Khmer Rouge tribunal by the United States and the international community, chief among them, Cambodian opposition party leader Sam Rainsy. He opposes the mixed national-international tribunal proposed by the United Nations and the Cambodian government on the grounds that Prime Minister Hun Sen may exert an unacceptable degree of political influence over the deliberations of the court. This is a serious criticism, and it needs to be seriously considered.

Sam Rainsy argues that the genocide justice process as currently conceived is fatally flawed because Hun Sen and the Cambodian People's Party control all aspects of public life in the country. He charges that Cambodia is essentially a one-party state in which the CPP dominates policy from top to bottom: in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the government and in 100% of the country's communes. His claim that the CPP completely controls the nation's military forces, police and courts receive a sympathetic hearing from conservatives in Washington.

While Rainsy is notoriously prone to exaggeration, it is true that Hun Sen's party is deeply entrenched, and has been for twenty years. The CPP appears to be determined to maintain this commanding position. In this environment, opponents of the tribunal say, nothing which contradicts the will of the ruling party can happen in court. This, too, may well be true.

Opponents of the tribunal argue that holding trials under these conditions would constitute "second-class" justice, and that a better solution would be to wait for true democracy to come to Cambodia. Nation-wide commune elections are scheduled for next year, followed by national elections in 2003. Cambodia's small but vocal opposition party fervently believes a grassroots revolution is brewing, and that a massive ground swell of popular support is on the verge of sweeping the Cambodian People's Party from power.

This is where the arguments of those who oppose the genocide tribunal break down, and their underlying political motivations are revealed. Bringing the perpetrators of the Cambodian genocide to justice would be extremely popular with the Cambodian electorate, and thus it is very much in the interest of the ruling party to deliver this result prior to the coming elections. The party of Sam Rainsy does not want to see such a feather in the cap of the ruling party, as it would enhance their legitimate prospects at the upcoming polls.

More to the point, however, no objective observer believes that a collapse of the ruling party's power is imminent. Whether by legitimate means or not, the party that controls all branches of government is not about to concede defeat and relinquish the reins of power. The UN-controlled election of 1993 stands in mute testimony to this reality; despite the presence of the largest peacekeeping operation ever deployed, the People's Party lost the vote but still retained effective power. The elections in 2002 and 2003 are not likely to be any different, except that the CPP could in fact win outright at the polls.

Unfortunately, the reality is that the prospects for true multi-party liberal democracy in Cambodia lie in the future. It will take at least a generation, if not indeed quite a bit more, for the strength of the labor movement and the prosperity of the nascent middle class to grow sufficiently to challenge the entrenched control commanded by the post-communist ruling party. Starry-eyed idealists who believe this will happen next year are victims of hope over experience, and are bound for disappointment, just as were those among the international forces sent to Cambodia a decade ago who believed that an 18-month UN intervention could transform Cambodia into a little Switzerland overnight. It did not happen then, and it will not happen now. After more than a millennium of absolute monarchy and authoritarian governments, the inhospitable soil of Cambodia will not easily yield to the roots of democracy.

Meanwhile, what of Cambodia's genocidists? The surviving senior leadership of the Khmer Rouge ­ Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary , Khieu Samphan, Ta Mok, Ke Pauk, Khieu Thirith and the others ­ are old and in several cases in failing health. They will not live long enough to see full-flowered democracy finally come to Cambodia. Twenty years after their diabolical regime was driven from power in Phnom Penh, we are confronted with the last chance for a modicum of justice to be meted out to these evil people.

Those who hope for some kind of perfect justice for the Cambodian genocide are making the best the enemy of the good. If we do not seize this opportunity to achieve justice, flawed though it may turn out to be in the end, then Cambodians will forever lose the chance to hear the truth about the Cambodian genocide from those who know the most about it ­ the leaders who carried out the most vicious experiment in social engineering of the entire bloody twentieth century.

No one should delude themselves into believing that the proposed mixed genocide tribunal will be the end of the story, or the final word on genocide justice in Cambodia. Under the best of circumstances, only a handful of the top leaders stand at risk of prosecution by the tribunal. But the message that would be sent by such a proceeding will be unprecedented in Cambodian history. That message will be that the rulers of Cambodia do not enjoy permanent impunity, no matter how heinous their records. Such a message will constitute an object lesson to current and future leaders of the country. And such a message will also have a revolutionary effect on the people of Cambodia. They will learn that justice is possible in this world, not just in the next world.

Such a challenge to the impunity which has always been enjoyed by Cambodian leaders would do much to lay the groundwork for genuine democracy in Cambodia, and would be a fitting sequel to the feckless nature of the UN intervention of a decade ago. This result would not be second-class justice ­ it could be true justice for the Cambodian people. If the international community and the United States remain steadfast in the commitment to genocide justice in Cambodia that they have shown for the last four years, this goal can be realized. Cambodia, and the world, would be better off for it.

Craig Etcheson is an independent Cambodia scholar and the most persistent advocate in the US for trial of the leaders responsible for the Khmer Rouge genocide. He is the author of the forthcoming book Crimes of the Khmer Rouge: The Search for Peace and Justice in Cambodia and can be reached by e-mail at etcheson@ix.netcom.com.