By John Roberts
World Socialist Web Site
The trial of four senior former Khmer Rouge officials opened with an initial session at the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia in Phnom Penh on June 27.
Nuon Chea, regarded as the Khmer Rouge’s chief ideologue; Khieu Samphan, the former head of state; Ieng Sary, the ex-foreign minister; and Sary’s wife and former social action minister, Ieng Thirith, are charged with various offences, including genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and murder, committed between 1975 and 1979.
The trial is expected to last months or even years. It is already clear from the investigative phase of the cases which began in 2007 that the main aim of the process is to not to bring justice for the survivors. Rather it is a show trial designed to close the book on the Khmer Rouge genocide while covering up the responsibility of others, inside Cambodia and internationally.
The Khmer Rouge, which was based on a form of Maoism, was profoundly hostile to urban workers and intellectuals and was undoubtedly guilty of mass murder during its reign of terror. However, those implicated in these crimes also include members of the present Cambodian government and the major powers, such as China and the US, that in one way or another supported the Khmer Rouge.
The present Cambodian premier Hun Sen was himself a district deputy leader for the Khmer Rouge government until he fled to Vietnam to avoid being purged. He returned in January 1979 to lead the new regime set up after Vietnamese troops invaded the country.
US President Richard Nixon was directly responsible for destabilising Cambodia as part of the neo-colonial war in Vietnam, leading to the rise of the Khmer Rouge. Washington organised the coup that ousted Prince Norodom Sihanouk in 1970 and installed General Lon Nol, triggering a civil war. A massive bombing campaign, illegal even under US law, from 1969 to 1973 killed an estimated 700,000 Cambodians and wrecked the economy.
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