The two senior-most surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia get their just desserts
The term Year Zero, applied to the takeover of Cambodia in April 1975 by the Khmer Rouge as the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea were known, is an analogy to Year One of the French Revolutionary Calendar. During the French Revolution, after the abolition of the monarchy, the National Convention instituted a new calendar and declared the beginning of the Year 1. The Khmer Rouge takeover of Phnom Penh was rapidly followed by a series of loony ‘revolutionary de-industrialisation’ policies resulting in a death toll in the millions. On Friday, in ‘Year 43’, going by their demented, psychotic calendar, the two most senior surviving leaders of Cambodia’s brutal Khmer Rouge regime were found guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in a historic ruling by an international tribunal officially called the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC).
Nuon Chea, former Brother Number 2 (to Pol Pot’s Brother Number 1) and Khieu Samphan, the former head of state, have been sentenced to life in prison. They become the first Khmer Rouge leaders to be held to account by an international court for a campaign of genocide against the Vietnamese and Cham minorities in Cambodia in the 1970s. The Khmer Rouge takeover was achieved by promising an agrarian utopia which was sought to be brought to fruition by forcibly emptying the cities to establish vast rural communes; this so-called radicalism which had its admirers in India too resulted in what has been termed as “auto-genocide.” Starvation, overwork and execution all contributed to this crime against humanity. The ECCC convictions covered the atrocities at Khmer Rouge established work camps where murder, deportation, enslavement, torture persecution on political, religious and racial grounds, enforced disappearances, forced marriages and rapes were common.
There has been some commentary that in practical terms a life sentence for Nuon Chea, 92, and Khieu Samphan, 87, and both in very poor health, doesn’t mean much. But the symbolism of the verdicts cannot be underestimated. For crimes of the nature and magnitude perpetuated by the Khmer Rouge need to be called out if humanity itself is to be protected. The sense of closure the verdicts have brought to the Cambodian people, especially those from the Cham minority, many of whom were in the makeshift court inside the prison complex where the two were being held, is real. Equally, the message being sent out is loud and clear — whatever the ideological motivations, evil is evil. There are lessons to be learnt for all those who believe power still flows from the barrel of a gun.