AS THE WORLD WATCHED:

THE SHORTCOMINGS OF POST-WAR KHMER ROUGE PROSECUTION

John Goodridge
HIST-268-010: Vietnam Conflicts
December 4th, 2018
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Between 1975 and 1979, the Khmer Rouge, a Marxist-Leninist political regime,

implemented a genocide against the Cambodian people, which resulted in millions of casualties

before they were deposed in 1979 by forces of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). My

term paper will focus on how the subsequent trials of the Khmer Rouge were flawed, and how

for the most part, many perpetrators of the Cambodian genocide have escaped punishment

throughout the years. I will first give a history of the Khmer Rouge, which will illustrate how the

distrustful Khmer Rouge forces enacted a reign of terror which snuffed out the lives of

approximately one fourth of Cambodian citizens.​1​ In addition, I will detail the ideology behind

the genocide, as well as the scope of atrocities committed. This section would mostly be

overview on the Khmer Rouge organization themselves, and its structure was set around

collective leadership, ideological homogeneity, and a shared Khmer experience, which may

explain difficulties in prosecution in the future.​2​ My second section will deal with the efforts that

have been made to prosecute those accused of crimes against humanity, focusing on both the

1979 “show trial” of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary in absentia as well as the “Khmer Rouge Tribunal”.

Along with this, I will illustrate the difficulties of prosecuting lower-ranking members, and I

furthermore intend to detail the complicity of international bodies in recognizing the Khmer

Rouge as a legitimate organization. The international community went so far as to have their

government be the representative body of Cambodia for more than ten years following their 1979

expulsion.​3​ My final body paragraph will address what in my opinion were the shortcomings of

attempts to prosecute the Khmer Rouge. These include the international political climate

following the fall of the Khmer Rouge, the limits placed on the one official tribunal of Khmer

Rouge leadership, and the habit of Hun Sen’s government of the Kingdom of Cambodia in being
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lackadaisical in pursuing former Khmer Rouge members.​4​ In researching this topic, I hope to not

only gain a greater understanding of the Cambodian experience during past fifty years, but also

address issues that come with the international justice system as well.

Although the crimes of the Khmer Rouge occurred primarily between the years 1975 and

1979, the roots of the regime can be traced back years before this, to before the 1970s. Ben

Kiernan makes the claim that before the revolution of Lon Nol and his Khmer Republic, the

Kingdom of Cambodia had a great disparity between the rural, non-landowning rural dwellers,

the middle-class landowning peasant class, and the elite, educated city inhabitants, the latter of

which was viewed increasingly as merely tools for foreign influence.​5​ As in many other countries

with similar communist uprisings, this led to a deep resentment of those in power by the rural

classes, and pushback was to be expected. Prince Norodom Sihanouk was the French-installed

ruler of the Kingdom of Cambodia, but after Cambodia won its independence in 1954, he began

a harsh rule as an autocratic prime minister.​6​ In 1970, when Sihanouk was abroad, a

US-supported general named Lon Nol performed a coup d'etat, who quickly instituted an

anti-communist regime called the Khmer Republic and plunged the nation into a brutal civil

war.​7​ The main factions vying for control during the five year war were Lon Nol’s right-wing

US-backed forces, and a Vietnamese-supported communist faction called the Khmer Rouge, led

by a group of intellectuals and supported by Sihanouk. Lon Nol’s forces cracked down on those

sympathetic to the growing National Liberation Front (NLF) forces in neighboring Vietnam,

many of his supporters massacred ethnic Vietnamese citizens living in Cambodia, and his

generals became corrupt due to the large flow of US funds; these factors helped the Khmer

Rouge gain popularity among civilians, who felt as though the government had disenfranchised
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them.​8​ Founded in a similar manner to other communist factions, the Khmer Rouge were

originally foreign-educated communist ideologies, most part of the so-called Paris Group, who

wanted to overthrow the monarchy and later the foreign-ruled, imperialist, and capitalist Khmer

Republic.​9​ Eventually, Lon Nol’s forces were kicked out of the country by the Khmer Rouge in

1975, establishing Democratic Kampuchea (DK) a year later; they quickly reversed the

anti-communist policies of the former government, leading to an aggressive consolidation of

power which would cause millions of deaths.

The scope of Khmer Rouge crimes is massive, with citizens supposedly being killed for

merely associating with those who were determined to be guilty; many were sent to the famous

‘Killing Fields’, prodigious graves where mass executions were carried out by government

forces. “In an effort to create the classless, agrarian (almost pre-feudal) society”, the Khmer

Rouge allegedly implemented genocidal practices against their enemies.​10​ Those targeted by the

Khmer Rouge were numerous, ranging from religious and ethnic minorities, to intellectuals,

political dissidents, and members of the former governments. In addition to targeted killings, a

number of other factors led to a high mortality rate for citizens in Cambodia during this time

period, including disease, malnutrition, starvation, overwork, inadequate sanitary conditions, and

lack of access to healthcare, caused by mass relocation, destruction of sanitary infrastructure, and

drastic redistribution of food and wealth.​11​ According to a 1985 study conducted by the UN

Subcommittee on Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities, at the very least

two million people are believed to have been killed during the reign of the Khmer Rouge from

1975-1979.​12​ While the ‘Killing Fields’ are perhaps the only remnants of the period known to
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much of the world, for many Cambodians, the tragedy is still fresh in their minds, which is why

there have been multiple attempts to try Khmer Rouge members for their alleged crimes.

After their reign of terror ended in 1979, one would assume that the Khmer Rouge would

be easily prosecuted, seeing as many of the leaders of the regime were widely known, and low

ranking members had yet to leave the country officially. Unfortunately, most attempts at

bringing the Khmer Rouge to justice have failed, but I will detail what happened to high-ranking

Khmer Rouge members and low-ranking members after 1979, as well as how the organization

itself was viewed by the international community post-rule. After being deposed and fleeing the

country in early 1979 by Vietnamese forces, Pol Pot and his third in command, Ieng Sary, were

tried by the People’s Revolutionary Tribunal, a tribunal made up mostly of former Khmer Rouge

members, as well as significant backing from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.​13​ One may

argue that the tribunal was biased and was decidedly non-objective due to the court members’

previous association with the defendants, however the future trial of further leadership would be

seen as far more thorough in the eyes of the international community. The tribunal found Pol Pot

and Ieng Sary guilty of genocide, and sentenced to death in absentia, with all possessions being

confiscated by the government; as mentioned previously, the international community decried

the lack of thorough investigation into the crimes of the accused by the tribunal, labeling it

merely a ‘show trial’.​14​ While this trial did not carry any real authority whatsoever, as both of the

accused were out of their jurisdiction, a tribunal started in 1997 was more serious and legitimate,

if only slightly so.

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), often known as the

Khmer Rouge Tribunal, was a joint venture between the Cambodian government and the United
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Nations which lasted more than 15 years, but was mired by claims that the UN had ceded far too

much power to the Cambodian government.​15​ In this trial, Ieng Sary would officially be

prosecuted some thirty years after his show trial with Pol Pot, as would his wife Ieng Thirith, and

fellow leaders Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea, and Kang Kek Iew, also known as ‘Brother Duch’.

The first individual to be indicted by the ECCC in 2007, Brother Duch ruled over the infamous

Tuol Sleng prison camp, where at least 14,000 people were confirmed to have died.​16​ As the

overseer of a prison camp, Duch had the distinction of being the defendant with the least amount

of responsibility for Khmer Rouge policy, as he was not a high ranking member. However it was

much easier to show his responsibility in carrying out the killings themselves, owing to the glut

of physical evidence left behind at Tuol Sleng. Although he confessed to his crimes, Duch’s

lawyers later unsuccessfully argued that he was being scapegoated, as no other mid-ranking

officials had been tried; he was ultimately granted a 19 year prison sentence after a reduction for

time served, and he continues to serve his sentence today.​17

The remaining living leadership, Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith, Khieu Samphan and Nuon

Chea, were all indicted several years later, but the trial ran into several hardships. Ieng Thirith

was soon diagnosed with dementia in 2011, shortly after the four leaders were indicted in 2010,

and she was determined to be unfit to stand trial; her husband Ieng Sary passed away in 2014.​18

This left the remaining number of Khmer Rouge leaders to be tried by the tribunal down to two,

those being Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea. Khieu and Nuon, who were known as the head of

state for the DK and the chief ideologue for the Khmer Rouge, respectively, were finally

sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity in 2014 according to the ECCC,

more than forty years after they had committed them.​19​ While some of the upper leadership of
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the Khmer Rouge did face prosecution for their alleged crimes, most of the middle and lower

level leadership as well as the organization of the Khmer Rouge itself have escaped punishment.

Lower ranking individuals in the party were mostly unaccounted for, and although

thousands of soldiers and party members participated in the genocide, due to reluctance of the

Hun Sen government to find and prosecute Khmer Rouge members in general, they have largely

escaped justice. Exact numbers of how many people participated in the regime are unknown, but

a large number of low-profile Khmer Rouge members have escaped justice, and “in many cases,

they still live next door to victims or families of victims” of the regime.​20​ In addition to this, the

length of time between when the crimes happened and when international prosecutors had

enough time to try anyone was very large, which meant that many Khmer Rouge had died, fled

the country, or simply had been pardoned for their crimes by the People’s Republic of

Kampuchea (PRK). According to Henri Locard, the PRK, who took over rule of Cambodia when

the Khmer Rouge fell in 1979, warmly welcomed former Khmer Rouge members and forgave

their crimes; this was owing to the fact that many of the PRK officials in power had fought

alongside Khmer Rouge members in decades past, as fellow Cambodians against French

imperial forces during their war for independence in the 1950s.​21​ This focus on amnesty and

leniency for lower-ranking members by the successor government explains the lack of

prosecution for non-higher leadership, and why many Khmer Rouge soldiers seem to go

unpunished for their crimes.

In addition to this, the Khmer Rouge and the DK were actually recognized at an

international level as the legitimate government of Cambodia, even after they were deposed.

After 1979, the Khmer Rouge formed the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea
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(CGDK), a government in-exile which they claimed represented Cambodia.​22​ Even into the late

1980s, Craig Etcheson claims that the “United Nations as an institution, a majority of its

members, and numerous inter-governmental organisations still regard (the CG)DK as the

legitimate government of Kampuchea”, as opposed to the government set up by the Vietnamese

after the Khmer Rouge was kicked out.​23​ Knowing full well the crimes that the Khmer Rouge

had committed, the international community would continue to turn a blind eye to the crimes of

the Khmer Rouge. Because of this recognition of sovereignty, UN-affiliated aid organizations

which could rebuild school systems, tackle chronic public health crises, rebuild agriculture

systems, and generally develop the country were not allowed to enter without the approval of the

CGDK, which would not allow any UN organization entry with the exception of UNICEF.​25

Although we won’t know for sure how much this set back what would become the modern-day

Kingdom of Cambodia, it is clear that the international response against the Khmer Rouge and its

leadership was not drastic enough, given the severity of their crimes. It is my belief that attempts

to prosecute leadership have failed for a variety of reasons.

While one may think that it may be simple for a country to prosecute individuals who

haven’t even left the country, the cultural attitudes regarding justice and the prosecuting of

accused Khmer Rouge members is less straightforward, which has led to only a small number of

convictions. For one, there was a large length of time in between when the atrocities of the

Khmer Rouge happened and when the official Khmer Rouge tribunal took place. Western

powers were hesitant to trust a government set up by Vietnam, who was supported by the Soviet

Union during the height of the Cold War, and this allowed the Khmer Rouge to gain the trust of

the international community and avoid prosecution.​26​ It was only after the end of the Cold War,
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and after these geopolitical issues were solved, that a case against the Khmer Rouge could be

built. Although the hesitation of the international community certainly helps to explain why

Khmer Rouge members have escaped prosecution for so long, an additional reason for the lack

of convictions may very well be the government of the Kingdom of Cambodia itself. Prime

Minister of Cambodia Hun Sen tolerated UN involvement in the ECCC, but he took offense to

their insistence to have an international tribunal, which he took as both a hasty move which may

start violence in Cambodia, as well as an attack on Cambodian sovereignty.​27​ Hun Sen believed

that the ECCC should be controlled by Cambodians more than international organizations, so he

dragged out proceedings and kept making demands until he felt the desires of his people were

met. Some of these demands also kept the number of Khmer Rouge prosecutions in the ECCC

low, as they significantly narrowed the scope of accused criminals who could be prosecuted by

the tribunal. According to Jörg Menzel, only the most senior members were sought for the

tribunal, and in addition, only those accused of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against

humanity would be prosecuted, based on their internationally-agreed upon definitions.​28​ With all

of these deficiencies, it is no wonder that only three people have truly been convicted for the

genocide of the Khmer Rouge.

In investigating the failings to indict more than a couple Khmer Rouge members, I have

detailed the storied history of Cambodia in the latter half of the twentieth century, historical

attempts to prosecute Khmer Rouge members, and reasons why this process has been lethargic.

As previously illustrated, the Khmer Rouge rose to power on the heels of several violent

regimes, but despite this, they instrumented a rule which saw nearly half of Democratic

Kampuchea’s population die in a matter of four years.​29​ Despite having seen this happening
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throughout the late 1970s, many international powers refused to intervene until it was far too

late. Although a show trial for two Khmer Rouge leaders was held by the new

Vietnamese-backed government in 1979 after their ousting, the main trial, called the

Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia, was dragged out for multiple years due to

meddling by Hun Sen’s government.​30​ Similarly to the sluggish attitude of the current

Cambodian government to prosecute these offenders, one can also look to the international

community for blame. Not only was the Cold War at its most volatile, which made supporting a

Soviet-allied state seem like a bad move, but the narrow scope of the tribunal meant that only a

handful of surviving senior leadership could be prosecuted, leading to questions about their

health and mental acuity which threatened to derail the prosecution efforts.​31​ The question of

justice for the victims of the Khmer Rouge seems to be a complex and ever-evolving concept,

embroiled in an international political landscape as tumultuous as Cambodia’s recent history.

Through researching the pitfalls of convicting Khmer Rouge members of their alleged crimes,

the balance between a nation’s judicial autonomy and a nation’s accountability for the crimes of

its people seems to prevent a good deal of progress from being made in prosecuting certain war

criminals, certainly so in Cambodia’s case. One can hope that in the future, nations and

international bodies will be better able to hold other governments accountable for the crimes of

their countrymen, and relatives of future victims of violence will have the peace which their

current counterparts cannot experience.

Endnotes

1. William S Turley. ​The Second Indochina War: A Concise Political and Military History.​
(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), 257.

2. Karl D. Jackson, ed. ​Cambodia 1975-1978: Rendezvous with Death​. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2014), 241-242.

3. Craig Etcheson. "Civil War and the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea." ​Third
World Quarterly​ 9, no. 1 (1987): 187.

4. Tom Fawthrop and Helen Jarvis. ​Getting Away With Genocide: Cambodia's Long Struggle
Against the Khmer Rouge.​ (London, UK: Pluto Press, 2004), 233.

5. Ben Kiernan. "The Cambodian Genocide, 1975-1979.", in ​Century of Genocide: Critical

6. Tom Fawthrop and Helen Jarvis. ​Getting Away With Genocide: Cambodia's Long Struggle
Against the Khmer Rouge.​ (London, UK: Pluto Press, 2004), 25.

7. William S Turley. ​The Second Indochina War: A Concise Political and Military History.​
(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), 180.

8. David P. Chandler. ​The Tragedy of Cambodian History: Politics, War, and Revolution since
1945​, 192-235. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991) 203-208.

9. Craig Etcheson. "Civil War and the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea." ​Third
World Quarterly​ 9, no. 1 (1987): 194.

10. Kenneth Christie and Denny Roy. "Cambodia." in ​The Politics of Human Rights in East Asia,​
199-216. (London, UK: Pluto Press, 2001), 203.

11. Kenneth M. Quinn. “Pattern and Scope of Violence”, in ​Cambodia 1975-1978: Rendezvous
with Death,​ Karl D. Jackson, ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014), 208.

12. Hurst Hannum. "International Law and Cambodian Genocide: The Sounds of Silence."
Human Rights Quarterly​ 11, no. 1 (1989): 94.

13. John Quigley. “Introduction”, in ​Genocide in Cambodia Documents from the Trial of Pol Pot
and Ieng Sary​, Howard J. De Nike et al. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012),
1.

14. Tom Fawthrop and Helen Jarvis. ​Getting Away With Genocide: Cambodia's Long Struggle
Against the Khmer Rouge.​ (London, UK: Pluto Press, 2004), 47.
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15. Donald Beachler. "The Quest for Justice in Cambodia: Power, Politics, and the Khmer Rouge
Tribunal." ​Genocide Studies and Prevention​ 8, no. 2 (2014): 69.

16. Ibid, 70.

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid, 71.

19. Case 002/01, Judgement (Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, August 7,
2014), 581-596

20. Jörg Menzel. "Justice Delayed or Too Late for Justice? The Khmer Rouge Tribunal and the
Cambodian “genocide” 1975–79." Journal of Genocide Research 9, no. 2 (2007): 224.

21. Henri Locard. "State Violence in Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979) and Retribution
(1979-2004)." ​European Review of History: Revue Européenne D’histoire​ 12, no. 1 (2005): 134.

22. Craig Etcheson. "Civil War and the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea."
Third World Quarterly​ 9, no. 1 (1987): 199.

23. Ibid.

24. Ibid, 187.

25. Tom Fawthrop and Helen Jarvis. ​Getting Away With Genocide: Cambodia's Long Struggle
Against the Khmer Rouge.​ (London, UK: Pluto Press, 2004), 37-38.

26. Donald Beachler. "The Quest for Justice in Cambodia: Power, Politics, and the Khmer Rouge
Tribunal." ​Genocide Studies and Prevention​ 8, no. 2 (2014): 71.

27. Tom Fawthrop and Helen Jarvis. ​Getting Away With Genocide: Cambodia's Long Struggle
Against the Khmer Rouge.​ (London, UK: Pluto Press, 2004), 130-131.

28. Jörg Menzel. "Justice Delayed or Too Late for Justice? The Khmer Rouge Tribunal and the
Cambodian “genocide” 1975–79." Journal of Genocide Research 9, no. 2 (2007): 217-218.

29. Howard J. De Nike et al. ​Genocide in Cambodia Documents from the Trial of Pol Pot and
Ieng Sary​. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), 491.

30. Donald Beachler. "The Quest for Justice in Cambodia: Power, Politics, and the Khmer Rouge
Tribunal." ​Genocide Studies and Prevention​ 8, no. 2 (2014): 69.
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31. Jörg Menzel. "Justice Delayed or Too Late for Justice? The Khmer Rouge Tribunal and the
Cambodian “genocide” 1975–79." Journal of Genocide Research 9, no. 2 (2007): 218.