Khmer Rouge Haunts Cambodia 30 Years Later - Big Big Forums

Jolie Rouge · 04-03-2005, 12:40 AM

Sat Apr 2, 2005
By DAVID LONGSTREATH, Associated Press Writer

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Thirty years after the rise of the Khmer Rouge revolutionary peasant army, the horrors of their brutal, murderous rule still stain the fabric of this impoverished Southeast Asian kingdom.

On the outskirts of Phnom Penh, near the Choeung Ek Genocidal Museum, the evidence of mass murder is easily found. Just scraping the surface of communal graves turns up bone fragments, teeth and clothing worn by those put to death by the Khmer Rouge.

Seeking to create a utopian society, the Khmer Rouge abolished private property and money and emptied the cities by driving the urban population at gunpoint into the countryside to live in communal camps.

The genocidal experiment began on April 17, 1975, and wreaked havoc for nearly five years. An invasion by the Vietnamese army early in 1979 ended the group's reign, but not before an estimated 1.7 million or more Cambodians had died from violence, starvation or overwork.

The Khmer Rouge waged a guerrilla war for two more decades, but its abuses have largely gone unpunished since fighting stopped in 1998.

Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, fell from favor and leadership of the group's last active faction in 1997. A year later he was dead, and many speculated he had committed suicide. Ta Mok, an 80-year-old known as "the Butcher" who deposed Pol Pot, languishes in a Phnom Penh cell awaiting a U.N. war crimes tribunal that most Cambodians believe will never come to pass.

Prime Minister Hun Sen made deals with other leaders, such as Noun Chea, right-hand man to Pol Pot, and Khieu Samphan, prime minister of the Khmer Rouge government. They defected from the Khmer Rouge in 1998 and now live safe from prosecution in the autonomous zone of Pailin.

Noun Chea sits quietly in the bedroom of his simple wooden shack watching the sun rise as he listens to morning news broadcasts on a cheap Chinese-made portable radio. He, like Khieu Samphan, grants few interviews and refuses to speak about the past.

Pailin, a former Khmer Rouge stronghold in the west along the Thailand border, is a derelict town. The gemstones that paid for the arms and ammunition that kept the Khmer Rouge fighting for 20 years have mostly been mined. Teak trees, another source of funds, are gone as well.

Many in Pailin live a grinding existence, much like the rest of Cambodia, where half the people get by on $1 a day.

The once lush jungle of Pailin, the perfect hiding place for the guerrillas, has been turned into slashed and burned farmland that waits for a rainy season now two years overdue.

Staring at dust swirling at his border farm, former Khmer Rouge infantryman Kave Meik says: "Before we didn't have the freedom and independence but we had plenty of food. Now we have freedom but we don't have enough to eat."

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schsa · 04-03-2005, 07:19 PM

It is going to take more than 30 years for that country to recover. Too much death.

Jolie Rouge · 03-31-2009, 12:42 PM

Khmer Rouge torturer accepts blame for 14,000 deaths
Tue Mar 31, 8:39 am ET

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) – The chief Khmer Rouge torturer formally apologized Tuesday for the deaths of more than 14,000 people at S-21 prison, the first Pol Pot cadre to accept blame for crimes committed by the regime 30 years ago.

"I am responsible for the crimes committed at S-21, especially the torture and execution of the people there," Duch told a U.N.-Cambodian court where he is charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes.

"May I be permitted to apologies to the survivors of the regime and families of the victims who had loved ones who died brutally at S-21. I would like you to forgive me," Duch told the panel of five judges as survivors of the Khmer Rouge watched from a public gallery.

Duch, a born-again Christian whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, said he would "like to express regret and my heartfelt sorrow for all the crimes committed" during the 1975-79 reign of terror in which 1.7 million people died in Cambodia.

But the 66-year-old former maths teacher said he was only following orders issued by the top Khmer Rouge leadership, and had feared for the lives of his family if he had disobeyed.

"I am solely responsible for this crime, but I am just a scapegoat. A person who played a role in the killings," he told the court on the second day of his formal trial.

Duch is expected to be a key witness in the future trials of those also deemed "most responsible" by the tribunal for one of the darkest chapters in the 20th century.

The other four -- "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, the regime's ex-president, Khieu Samphan, and Ieng Sary, its foreign minister, and his wife -- have denied knowledge of any atrocities.

If convicted, the five face a minimum of five years and a maximum of life in prison.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090331/...RWq_hI1UoEtbAF

Quote:

The other four -- "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, the regime's ex-president, Khieu Samphan, and Ieng Sary, its foreign minister, and his wife -- have denied knowledge of any atrocities.

Because it is so hard to notice when 14,000 deaths are happening around you ....

Next time a Hollywood Limo Lib speaks out Pictures worth a thousand words: Harry Reid and Cameron Diaz