Khmer Rouge "Brother No. 2" faces U.N. court

Khmer Rouge "Brother No. 2" faces U.N. court

today.reuters.co.uk

Khmer Rouge "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, Pol Pot's top surviving henchman, was arrested on Wednesday at his house on the Thai border and taken to Phnom Penh to face the U.N. "Killing Fields" tribunal for the first time.

A terse, two-sentence statement by the $56 million (28 million pound) court said the octogenarian communist guerrilla would "be informed of the charges which have been brought against him" -- in all likelihood genocide or crimes against humanity.

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Mod Edit: Removed copy/paste over the 500 character limit.

[edit on 19-9-2007 by UM_Gazz]

It looks like the long awaited trial finally will start against the few responsible left from 'the killing field'. Since 2003 an agreement have been present to prosecute remaining Khmer Rouge leaders. Now finally 4 years later they're getting the culprits together or the few of them who is not dead.

In 2003 it was announced the following were to stand trial.

findarticles.com...

In 2001, a research group at American University compiled and released a report co-authored by Cambodian scholar Steve Heder and international humanitarian law expert Brain Tittemore pointing out seven likely candidates for prosecution -- Nuon Chea, better known as Brother No. 2; Ieng Sary, foreign minister in the Khmer Rouge regime; Khieu Samphan, head of state; Ta Mok, military chief; Ke Pauk, a regional military chief who died last year; and Sou Met and Meas Mut, military chairmen who reportedly played direct roles in the arrest and transfer of Cambodians for interrogation and execution.

Ta Mok who died last year, and of the others I can't find reports on their arrest. Ieng Sary was pardoned by King Shianouk in 1996, but it's probably not valid anymore. He is said to be in health trouble and living in an "opulent Phnom Penh villa surrounded by security guards and barbed wire." Khieu Samphan, former President and Nuon Chea's next-door neighbor in the hilly terrain on the border to Thailand, surrendered officially to the Cambodian government in 1998, but is obviously so far living free.

The fate of Pol Pot is wellknown, he died in his jungle stronghold in 1998, the very same night that Khieu Samphan, the then leader, had negociated a surrender of Khmer Rouge and promised Pol Pot. Whether it was natural, suicide or murder will never be known.

Now we just can wait and see if 80 year-old Nuon Chea will live long enough to get a verdict. The trial is expected to last 3 years.


today.reuters.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

Maybe people today only remember the term 'the killing fields' as a movie.

Maybe they no longer remember Khmer Rouge. They still remember the Vietnam war, I'm sure. Or more correct, the Indochina wars.

The fate of Cambodia was much a result of those wars. Though US never officially fought any war in Cambodia -or Laos and Thailand for that matter- it was part of CIA's secret wars, trying to cut off the supply lines of Viet Cong that went through Laos and Cambodia.

Being in the buffer of two stronger countries, Vietnam and Thailand, it has never enjoyed any real peace since its independence from French colonial rule in 1954.

Early on it had a strong communist partisan movement, relying on Viet Cong. During a fair part of the Vietnam war, US flew in the country's essential rice supply in, to prevent it from falling to communist rule.

When the retreat from Saigon was a reality all US food support ceased overnight. Civil unrest and famine was the consequens with the result of Khmer Rouge's definitive take over.

A mixture of ideas of Buddhism and Marxism came together as one of the strangest bastards the world has ever seen. Despying the decadence of Capitalism and combining it with the serenety and modesty of Buddhism, they created one of the most fatal ideologies on earth.

That ideology eventually resulted in the Killing Fields.

They are a reference to a bizar social experiment, that possibly was concieved of the desperat situation the sudden stop of American food aid had caused. Khmer Rouge tried to solve by litterally emptying the cities and sending the population on hard field labour to build rice paddies for growing the stable to feed a starving population.

That they didn't have any succes has to do with a oligarchical hierarchy of leaders that had no working experience, let alone agricultural knowledge, as they ironically to their course came from a feudal middle- and upperclass.

The result was not only further famine, but an oppression of nature so cruel and evil that 1.2 million are estimated to have been killed or otherwise perished. It went on for 4 years without the outside world paying much attention. They did call the country 'Democratic Kampuchea' during that period, and in the days much of left-wing Western elite hailed it as a social experiment in the right direction.

The full extent of that experiment wasn't revealed before the Vietnamese invaded in 1979 and put an end to it.

Where's the trial of Kissinger and Brewzinski? They brag about how it would have been impossible for Paul Pot to commit this massacre without their help, and they would do it again if they could... please someone with sanity go arrest them for providing support to kill 3 millions people.

I'm glad you bring in the two gentlemen, Vitchilo.

Kissinger was the architect of the Indochina wars, especially the more secret parts run by the CIA. You don't get blame for that, you get Nobel Prizes.

The irony I never really did get, is it was for peace he got it. For carpet bombing and letting atrocities like the Cambodian experiment go on unhindered.

If peace ever comes to Iraq, maybe Cheney or Condaliza will become Nobel Peace laurates as well.

Sure is a strange world.

What the research for this OP has taught me -once more- American administrations are as much to blame for the killing fields, as are Pol Pot/Khmer Rouge.

reply to post by khunmoon


We remember all too well the evil of the Pot regime in our household. My wife and her family survived it barely when she was 6 and after a long ordeal managed to escape the country.

In our household the memories are all to real and I cannot even begin to understand what she went through and all those that survived.

No punishment is fit for a butcher of this magnitude.

Originally posted by FredT

No punishment is fit for a butcher of this magnitude.

Can anyone explain, how these people can have lived within Cambodia, free and wealthy all these years???

I've often thought about why they never was arrested, and presumed the reason to be they were secure somewhere outside Cambodia.

Only yesterday, by the research to this OP, I learned otherwise.

Somebody must be holding the hands over them... or they may have gathered riches enough to pay off anything. I don't know.

I know the Thais control close to 100 percent of the Cambodian economy, so they might be pulling strings. But they can't pull those of UN.

That it has been in preparation for 10 years and never getting off before now, to me do show some behind-the-scene manipulations.

But what about Ieng Sary and Khieu Samphan, are they in custody? I don't think so, haven't found anything that confirms they should be.

Only that they live in Cambodia.

BBC has collected comments from ordinary Cambodians about the arrest of the 82-year-old Nuon Chea.

Cambodians await Khmer Rouge trials




[edit on 20-9-2007 by khunmoon]

Some info on Ieng Sary from BBCKey figures in the Khmer Rouge

Known as "Brother Number Three", Ieng Sary is Pol Pot's brother-in-law and served as minister of foreign affairs during the Khmer Rouge regime.

He became the first senior leader to defect in 1996 - and as a result was granted a royal pardon.

The United Nations says such a pardon cannot protect someone from prosecution, but Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has previously warned that going after Ieng Sary could re-ignite civil unrest in Cambodia.

Ieng Sary now lives in a luxury villa in Phnom Penh, as well as maintaining a home in Pailin.

He is said to be ill with a heart condition, and travels to Bangkok regularly for treatment.

Found biographies of the key players in Cambodia during the period. Very good site.

www.seasite.niu.edu...

There's a link to the mainpage on the buttom of the page. Loads of info on Cambodia, politics and history.

Nuon Chea was born in 1925. He was deputy secretary of the Central Committee and a member of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. He was also believed to be Pol Pot’s right hand man. In this capacity, Nuon Chea played a critical role in initiation and implementation of policies of the government of Democratic Kampuchea. Recent archival research revealed that Nun Chea played a critical role in the purges during the DK period through the authorization of detention or execution of Khmer Rouge "enemies." He is now living freely in Pailin, a former Khmer Rouge stronghold in Northwestern Cambodia along the Thai-Cambodian border that is an autonomous region.