New pre-trial hearing at Khmer Rouge Tribunal
Updated
Cambodia, where it's an important day for prosecutors at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, with the pre-trial hearing due to get under way of 'Brother No. 3' Ieng Sary. However, the tribunal expects to open its first public trial in September, with Tuol Sleng prison chief Kaing Khek Ieu, commonly known as "Duch" in the dock.
Presenter: Sen Lam/Rob Sharp
Speaker: Raoul-Marc Jennar, legal consultant on Duch's defence team
LAM: Well, the pre-trial appeal this morning which takes place in about three hours from now is actually by leng Sary. Now he was 'Brother No. 3' in the Khmer Rouge regime. He was also foreign minister during the Killing Fields. Now he's basically appealing against his detention by the tribunal while awaiting trial, as you mentioned the first proper trial is not going to take place until sometime in September.
You may remember also that the Khmer Rouge tribunal is taking place some 10 years after the death of Pol Pot in April, 1998, but as you mentioned, five former senior Khmer Rouge officials will go on trial. There's leng Sary, of course, whose pre-trial appeal is today. Noun Chea was second in charge after Pol Pot. He will also have to take to the stand. The former head of state, Khieu Samphan, will also be tried, as well as leng Sary's wife, Ieng Thirith. She held the social affairs portfolio and of course she was also sister in law to Pol Pot and last but not least, the man who ran the infamous interrogation centre in Phnom Penh, Kang Khek Ieu, otherwise known as "Duch". Now Duch will also have to answer these allegations against him.
SHARP: Sen, do we know who will be the first defendant tried at the public trials that are being held in September?
LAM: Yes Rob, it will be Duch. Duch is the first one to be scheduled to take to the stand in September. Kang Khek Ieu, that's he's formal name, was the man who ran the Tuol Sleng prison. Now Tuol Sleng was actually an ordinary Cambodian high school that was transformed into an interrogation prison and it was also at Tuol Sleng that 17,000 Cambodians were tortured, including women and children, and later killed.
Duch has from all reports has been very cooperative with the tribunal and among the four others facing trial, Duch is the one whose shown by all reports shown the most contrition.
When the tribunal was first set up some two years back now, after years of wrangling, largely because of funding, but also because of the makeup of the tribunal. Many local Cambodians wondered why it was necessary to have a trial, when it's well documented that the Khmer Rouge did kill an estimated two million of their fellow Cambodians.
Now one of the tribunals roles of course is to ensure due legal process has taken place, that's also one reason why international judges as well as local judges hearing the whole process. It's a very emotional situation as you can imagine, but from all reports, this tribunal is quite popular among Cambodians. They do see it as playing a very, very important role in helping the nation move forward 30 years after the Killing Fields. But some people are asking how can you defend human rights atrocities?
Well Raoul-Marc Jennar is a Cambodia scholar and historical consultant on Duch's defence team. I caught up with him in the lobby of the Cambodiana Hotel and I asked him about the role of the defence team.
JENNAR: It's extremely important to have a free and fair process, especially in Cambodia to show that even someone who has this horrible background like him has the right to be defended, but within the framework of a free and fair trial.
LAM: So you think it's imperative then that the basic legal tenet of presumption of innocence, that that is preserved?
JENNAR: Yes, it's critical. There's no justice without that. To bring justice is first of all to explain and after that one has to punish no doubt about that, to explain first how it's possible for an ordinary man to become a monster.
Do you know when I met Duch for the first time, I felt very uncomfortable and I thought about Hannah Arendt when she went to Jerusalem, witnessing the Adolf Eichmann trial. Adolf Eichmann was also an ordinary man. Hannah Arendt, she wrote about the 'banality of evil'.
LAM: The banality of evil, yes?
JENNAR: Yes, because a simple man is able to become a mass murderer. So it's extremely important, not only for the lawyers, the judges, but for the Cambodian people to understand how it's possible for an ordinary citizen to become a mass murderer.
After the fall of the Pol Pot regime, still the Khmer Rouge were fighting in the countryside and it took 20 years to bring a real genuine peace in this country. And during all the 20 years, on Khmer Rouge radio, they said 'we did not kill the people. It was the Vietnamese who did that.'
Today, in Cambodia, in a 2008, 60 per cent of the people were born after the Khmer Rouge regime and it's extremely difficult for young people, still teenagers to accept the idea that Cambodians killed Cambodians. It's not the aim of the defence to deny the facts. The defence will play its role and that means once again it's more to explain.
LAM: So Duch in a way was merely an executor of the system at the time, and given that all the senior Khmer Rouge leaders are dead. How....
JENNAR: Not all, no. Nuon Chea, was the 'No2' and Nuon Chea is there.
LAM: But how meaningful is it if we do not bring to book and if we do not make accountable these far more senior people?
JENNAR: It's the result of the fear of the international community to organise trial in the 80's, but the time for geopolitical reason, the Western countries, China. They refuse to have an international tribunal on Democratic Kampuchea, since now we are not far from 30 years later, three decades. Sure six or seven among the most important leaders disappeared, they are dead. But still we have the head of state, Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea, number two, and the real idealogue of more and more as far as we know now with all the material we get.
LAM: So you think it's still worthwhile to drag them to the witness stand to bring some closure?
JENNAR: Yes, yes, no doubt about that. leng Sary was the deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs. We know the role he played calling back all the diplomats, all the students, moving them in the camp in Phnom Penh. So this trial, no doubt about that. It's still useful even if we lack six important leaders or mass murderers, it's still very important to have this trial.
