(AFP/Getty Images)By Joshua Kurlantzick
The Boston Globe
THIS PAST WINTER, in a makeshift courthouse on the dusty outskirts of Phnom Penh, the nation of Cambodia began a long-awaited step toward reckoning with its horrifying past. With the help of the United Nations, the country is putting on trial senior leaders from the Khmer Rouge regime, whose reign of terror killed as much as one-quarter of the country’s population between 1975 and 1979.
The process evokes the Nuremberg trials after World War II and other high-profile tribunals held since then: a way to bring past leaders to account for their crimes, to force the country to examine its terrible past, and - in theory - to bring some degree of justice and allow for healing.
The stakes for Cambodia are high. The Khmer Rouge era left a legacy of trauma and violence, and the country’s culture and society remain in tatters. The tribunal will cost up to as much as $200 million from international donors - a steep price when weighed against the needs of a desperately poor nation.
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