Wrestling With The Khmer Rouge Legacy

Saturday, 21 August 2010
By Tom Fawthrop
FPIF

Courtesy of Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of CambodiaThe Khmer Rouge Tribunal delivered its first verdict in July against Kaing Guek Euv, alias “Duch,” the director of the notorious S-21 prison, a torture and extermination center under the rule of Cambodian dictator Pol Pot. After a 77-day trial, the five judges — two international and three Cambodian — unanimously convicted Duch of committing crimes against humanity. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

This landmark decision came only days after the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh celebrated the 60th anniversary of the restoration of U.S.-Cambodian relations. U.S. officials made no mention of their critical role in helping Pol Pot’s forces come to power. Nor did the trio of former U.S. ambassadors — Charles Ray, Kent Wiedemann, and Joseph Mussomeli — issue any apologies during the two-day celebration for the Nixon administration’s secret B-52 bombings that inflicted massive destruction on the Cambodian countryside or for U.S. diplomatic support for the Khmer Rouge from 1979 to 1990.

During his trial, Duch testified that the Khmer Rouge would have likely died out if the United States had not promoted a military coup d'état in 1970 against the non-aligned government led by Prince Norodom Sihanouk. "I think the Khmer Rouge would already have been demolished," he said of their status by 1970, "But Mr. Kissinger [then U.S. secretary of state] and Richard Nixon were quick [to back coup leader] Gen. Lon Nol, and then the Khmer Rouge noted the golden opportunity."
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