Monday, August 02, 2010
Katherine Marshall
Georgetown/On Faith
The Washington Post
Phnom Penh was hot, noisy, and bustling last week. Cars, motorcycles, and the ubiquitous tuk tuks (motorcycle taxis) raced through the city with perpetual near collisions. Markets were full. Children were everywhere. There were clouds gathering, but the coming storms of the rainy season held off.
The talk of the town was the long-awaited verdict in the international trial of Kaing Guek Eav, alias Commandant Duch, announced on July 26 by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, a joint United Nations-Cambodian Government tribunal set up to try some of the leaders responsible for the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia. Thirty years have passed, so it's high time to bring the surviving perpetrators to account. The trial of Duch is the first to come to a conclusion.
Duch's conviction was not in question. He was in charge of the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, where somewhere between 12,000 and 20,000 plus people entered, to be registered, tortured, and sent to their death. Fewer than ten who entered are thought to have emerged alive. Duch was renowned for his meticulous attention to detail - incredible records survive - and his cruelty. He acknowledged what he had done; his lame defense was that he was following orders. A convert to Christianity, he held out his faith and the good he said he has done since the Khmer Rouge period as character evidence.
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