A question of genocide in Cambodia

BANGKOK - For nearly 30 years, the Khmer Rouge regime that unleashed a reign of terror during its rule of Cambodia from 1975-79 has been accused of committing genocide. But employing a strict legal definition, was that the case?

That and other troubling questions are slated for scrutiny as Cambodia's highly anticipated war-crimes tribunal is now finally under way. Last week marked a milestone in the long-delayed United Nations-sponsored tribunal when prosecutors submitted.

the names of five former Khmer Rouge leaders to stand trial.

Although widely reported as genocide, some legal experts say it's not an open and closed case against the Khmer Rouge.

"Describing the acts committed in Cambodia as genocide has always been controversial," Rupert Skilbeck, head of the Defense Support Section of the tribunal, said in a telephone interview from Phnom Penh. "It is not easily accepted by the legal community. The court will have to consider this question."

The globally accepted definition of genocide is an act of violence aimed to "destroy an ethnic group because of their nationality, race, religion", said Skilbeck, who also served as the adviser for the defense during the special war-crimes tribunal for Sierra Leone. "Killing a people for their political views, as happened in Cambodia, is different," he contended.

There are other hard questions that the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), as this tribunal is officially called, is expected to answer. Foremost among them is how many people the Khmer Rouge actually killed between April 17, 1975, and January 6, 1979, the precise period of their rule and the period that the tribunal is examining.

"The number of people who died in Rwanda was not challenged, but the number of deaths in Cambodia has not been confirmed; it could be challenged," Skilbeck said this month when he met with journalists in Bangkok. In Rwanda, by comparison, an estimated 800,000 people from the ethnic Tutsi group were slaughtered by Hutu extremists during that country's civil war in 1994. Legal experts agree that was a definite act of genocide.

The Khmer Rouge has been accused of killing as many as 1.7 million Cambodians, or a quarter of the Southeast Asian nation's population at the time. The victims were either executed or died as a result of forced labor or starvation from famine, as the Maoist group depopulated the cities and attempted to turn the country into an agrarian utopia.

The tribunal's proceedings on these mass deaths could also prove embarrassing to major powers involved before and after Cambodia was dragged into the US war in Vietnam, which raged through the 1960s and early 1970s. Washington's secret bombing raids over Cambodia in the early 1970s are now well documented, as too is the major role Beijing played in propping up the Khmer Rouge as they systematically killed their perceived enemies.

"America's illegal bombing raids will come up in figuring out how many died in Cambodia," said Skilbeck. "There will be lots of issues that will come up during the trial that will be embarrassing to many countries."

The quest for justice began 10 years ago, when talks about establishing the tribunal commenced between the UN and Phnom Penh. Since then, the process has been strewn with hurdles, including several placed by Prime Minister Hun Sen's government, which independently brokered a compromise with several high-level Khmer Rouge leaders, including some who serve in his government.

Hun Sen has backtracked on his initial financial commitments to the tribunal and has also heaped scorn on human-rights groups that have challenged Phnom Penh's choice of local judges for the trial. The ECCC, unlike other tribunals, such as the one that investigated crimes against humanity committed in the former Yugoslavia, is not completely international in nature, but rather combines local and foreign jurists.

The ECCC is also expected to question the credentials of some of the appointed Cambodian lawyers and judges, based on concerns leveled by rights groups and others about the local jurists' grasp and application of international law, the basis of the tribunal's proceedings.

Cambodia's legal community, as with other educated professionals and intellectuals, were singled out as enemies of the state and systematically brutalized by the Khmer Rouge. By some estimates, only nine lawyers and judges survived the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror.

For the Cambodians who survived the brutality and are among the millions who lost relatives to the radical Maoist regime, there are several other questions they hope the ECCC will help to answer.

"Many people want to know why the Khmer Rouge killed their own people and how they were killed," said Im Sophea, a ranking member of the Center for Social Development, a Phnom Penh-based non-governmental body. "We expect the court to reveal answers for this. Public expectation is very high."

The war-crimes trial of course will not hear from Pol Pot, the notorious leader of the Khmer Rouge, who died in his jungle redoubt in 1998. Nor will Ta Mok, widely known in Cambodia as "The Butcher", for the alleged atrocities he oversaw during the brutal regime's rule, take the stand; he died in June last year.

The five names submitted last week to stand trial at the ECCC were major figures in the Maoist group. According to reports in the Cambodian press, those on the prosecution's list include Nuon Chea, Pol Pot's deputy; Khieu Samphan, former Khmer Rouge head of state; Ieng Sary, the regime's former foreign minister; and Kang Kech Eav, also known as Duch, who was the head of the infamous Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh.