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They are, in the chronological order of their arrests, Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, 65, director of Security Prison S-21, known as the Tuol Sleng Torture Center, arrested in 1999; Nuon Chea, 81, chairman of the Democratic Kampuchea's People's Assembly, known as "Brother No. 2," arrested in September 2007; Ieng Sary, 82, foreign minister, and his wife, Ieng Thirith, 75, minister for social action, arrested on Nov. 12; and Khieu Samphan, 76, head of state, arrested on Nov. 19.
Duch has admitted he committed these crimes; the others have not and have maintained their innocence. In court, Nuon Chea denied the charges and disputed them. He claimed he had had no direct contact with the bases where people were killed. As expected, Khieu Samphan also disagreed with the court and appealed against his detention.
The most vocal former leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime in protesting their innocence, however, have been Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith. Ieng Sary disputed the crimes and declared, "There are certain accusations that I cannot accept." He further demanded that proof of his guilt be provided. Meanwhile, Ieng Thirith said in court that "The claims of the co-prosecutors are 100 percent false."
In 1996, Ieng Sary led a breakaway group from the remnant Khmer Rouge movement that had boycotted the U.N.-organized election in 1993 and continued its armed struggle against the government that had been formed from the results of that election. His breakaway and subsequent support for the government, however, were rewarded with a royal pardon.
In his public statements at that time, Ieng Sary laid the blame on the Khmer Rouge's leader Pol Pot, who is now dead, and Nuon Chea for the killings that took place under the regime. Ieng Sary expressed no remorse, saying, "I have no regrets because this was not my responsibility." He regretted though the death of intellectuals living abroad that he had urged to return to help rebuild the country, all of whom were later killed.
What is unknown, overlooked or even forgotten is that Ieng Sary was the staunchest defender of the Khmer Rouge regime against criticism of its human rights record and used the most undiplomatic words and phrases to attack critics.
Immediately after their victory in April 1975 the Khmer Rouge closed the country to the outside world, but news of their atrocities leaked out, and the British government began to take action to halt the abuses. In early March 1978, it tabled at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva a draft resolution (E/CN.4/L.1402) "to request the chairman to appoint a special rapporteur to carry out a thorough study of the human rights situation in Democratic Kampuchea," as Cambodia was then called.
Debates on this resolution and human rights conditions in Cambodia ensued. The resolution was not passed, but the commission sent the documents and summary reports of that particular session to the Khmer Rouge government for comments.
Ieng Sary, then Khmer Rouge foreign minister, vehemently reacted to the British initiative. In a note to the U.N. secretary-general dated April 1978 and later distributed in June, he made the excuse that all Khmer Rouge officials were so "engaged in the work of national construction" in the aftermath of a devastating war that his government was not yet in a position to send a delegation to fight the charges of human rights abuses.
Nevertheless, he called the British initiative "odious interference in the internal affairs" of Cambodia, an "affront to the honor and dignity" of the Cambodian people and to their "sovereignty." To him, the charges of human rights abuses were "slander and denigration" of his country and an "infamous calumny" against the Cambodian people.
Ieng Sary then fiercely accused the British government of helping the Americans wage a war of destruction against Cambodia. He charged that the British government was a "colonialist and imperialist regime" which was "the most infamous and abject in the history of mankind." The British had been, and continued to be, "extremely barbaric and cruel" and had no right to speak of human rights. Moreover, they should be "in the dock" instead, he said. He called on the United Nations not to allow such interference in the internal affairs of other countries.
Ieng Sary's fierce attacks did not deter Britain or other countries, such as Canada, Norway and the United States, nor leading human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists, from having concern for human rights abuses in Cambodia. All these countries and organizations successively made their respective submissions on human rights, altogether some 1,000 pages, to the Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights for analysis and action.
Ieng Sary again mounted a fierce attack on that subcommission's decision to proceed with an analysis of the materials submitted. In a short telegram dated Sept. 16, 1978, he charged that its decision was "impudent interference in the internal affairs of Democratic Kampuchea." He claimed that those countries and organizations set out to "defame" his country and "whitewash their crimes." To counter their action, he said that the "people and government of Democratic Kampuchea will make mincemeat of any criminal maneuvers of the imperialists and their partisans."
Almost 30 years after Ieng Sary's inability to attend those U.N. human rights bodies to explain himself about human rights abuses in his country the United Nations has gone to his country instead to assist in his own and his associates' trials under the law of his country. In short, history has caught up with Ieng Sary and his co-murderers.
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(Lao Mong Hay is currently a senior researcher at the Asian Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong. He was previously director of the Khmer Institute of Democracy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and a visiting professor at the University of Toronto in 2003. In 1997, he received an award from Human Rights Watch and the Nansen Medal in 2000 from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.)
