Monitor Khmer

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Krysta Cirilo

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Aug 3, 2024, 2:58:47 PM8/3/24

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The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia was established to prosecute senior Khmer Rouge leaders and those most responsible for the crimes committed by the regime between April 17, 1975 and January 6, 1979. Our monitoring of the tribunal ended in August 2020. The content on this page will be available for future reference, and past reports are also located on the Open Society Justice Initiative website.

The Khmer Rouge was the name given to the Communist Party of Cambodia, which controlled Cambodia from April 1975 until being driven from Phnom Penh by the Vietnamese in January 1979. Originally part of the Vietnamese-backed Indochinese Communist Party, the Khmer Rouge fought first against the neutral Cambodian government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, and then U.S. backed military government of General Lon Nol, in a conflict that escalated in parallel to the war in neighboring Vietnam.

The Vietnamese withdrew their troops in 1989 and in 1991, with the signing of the Paris Peace Agreement, the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) managed the country through elections in 1993 and oversaw the repatriation of more than 350,000 Cambodian refugees from camps near the Thai border. The vestiges of the revolutionary guerrilla movement did not finally collapse until 1998. Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge soldier who fled the regime in the late 1970s, has held nearly complete power in Cambodian since 1998.

The court has jurisdiction to prosecute senior Khmer Rouge leaders and those most responsible for the crimes committed by the regime between April 17, 1975 and January 6, 1979. Consistent with the Cambodian civil-law based system, initial investigations are made by the co-prosecutors, who then refer cases to the co-investigating judges for judicial investigation and a decision as to what charges are issued against which accused to submit for trial.

The first case to proceed to trial, Case 001, concerned charges against Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, which related to his role as the head of the notorious Toul Sleng prison where over 15,000 people were tortured and executed. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison in 2010 but given credit for time served (he had been in pre-trial detention since 1999) and for a violation of internationally protected fair trial rights because of unlawful pre-trial detention by a Cambodian Military Court. In February 2012, the Supreme Court Chamber affirmed the judgment of guilt but increased the sentence to life in prison and eliminated the credit for the human rights violation on the theory that it could not be attributed to the ECCC.

There were originally four accused in Case 002. One accused, Ieng Thirith, has been found mentally unfit to stand trial because of age-related dementia. Her husband, Ieng Sary, died mid-trial in March 2013. The charges against the remaining accused, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, was divided into separate trials, so as to increase the likelihood that a judgment could be rendered on at least some of the charges before the elderly accused, now in their 80s, die or become incapable of proceeding. The first trial (Case 002/01) involved accusations of forced evacuation of Cambodians from cities and killings at one execution site. The trial ended in October 2013. On August 7, 2014, the Trial Chamber convicted Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan of crimes against humanity, including executions of former regime loyalists after the fall of Phnom Penh in April 1975, and the forced evacuation of the civilian population of the capital, which led to the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. They were both sentenced to life imprisonment.

The second phase trial in Case 002 began on October 17, 2015. The charges in Case 002/02 include genocide of the Cham Muslims and Vietnamese; forced marriages, rape, torture, and executions at security centers; internal purges of the regime; and torture, murder, and abuses at forced worksites and cooperatives. The trial is currently ongoing before the Trial Chamber.

Kaing Guak Eav, alias Duch, is arrested and taken into custody by the Cambodian Military court. He is transferred to the jurisdiction of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) on July 31, 2007.

Opening statements begin in Case 002/01. The trial covers charges relating to atrocities committed during the evacuation of Cambodian cities and towns in 1975 and the executions of civil servants and military officers from the former regime.

Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan are found guilty of crimes against humanity, including executions of former regime loyalists after the fall of Phnom Penh in April 1975, and the forced evacuation of the civilian population of the capital, which led to the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. They are both sentenced to life imprisonment.

Opening statements begin in Case 002/02. The trial covers genocide charges against the Cham Muslims and Vietnamese; forced marriages, rape, torture, and executions at security centers; internal purges of the regime; and torture, murder, and abuses at forced worksites and cooperatives.

However, the Supreme Court Chamber reverses the convictions entered by the Trial Chamber for the crime against humanity of extermination in relation to the evacuation of Phnom Penh and the second phase of population transfers. Also in relation to the second phase of population transfers, the Supreme Court Chamber reverses the convictions for the crime against humanity of persecution on political grounds.

The international and national co-prosecutors file their final submissions in Case 003 concerning the investigation of Meas Muth. The international co-prosecutor recommends indictment based on evidence submitted, but the national co-prosecutor recommends that the case is dismissed because Meas Muth was not a senior leader of the Khmer Rouge and therefore not subject to jurisdiction of the ECCC.

EVEN after signing a peace accord this week, Cambodia's warring politicians and other concerned countries know there can be no easy peace, with or without the Khmer Rouge.Amid widespread anxiety over the future role of the fanatic Marxist guerrillas, Cambodia's four bickering factions and 18 interested countries signed a pact in Paris Wednesday, ending two decades of civil war. In a separate and expected move the United States said it would begin talks to restore ties with Vietnam within a month, but cautioned that the pace of negotiations would be dictated by Hanoi's cooperation on Americans missing in the Vietnam war. The ambiguous Cambodian peace blueprint, which thrusts the United Nations into an unprecedented administrative and peacekeeping role has spurred hope along with deep worries about a looming confrontation with the secretive Khmer Rouge. During the last two weeks before the signing, Cambodia's turbulent border with Thailand, where 350,000 refugees are sheltered, has been jolted by fresh fighting between the resistence and the Phnom Penh government. Further shocks came when the Khmer Rouge reportedly began to forceably resettle refugees as a power-base inside the country. Despite the guerrillas' pledge to participate in a rejuvenated political process, the Khmer Rouge's return to Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital next month as part of the interim Supreme National Council (SNC) has raised concerns of their dreaded past. The Khmer Rouge are blamed for the deaths of more than 1 million people during a brutal agrarian reconstruction of Cambodia in the 1970s. The guerrillas were ousted by Vietnam in an invasion of the country in late 1978, but became the strongest of the three resistence factions opposing a Vietnamese-installed regime in Phnom Penh. Chinese assistance and Western aid to the rebel coalition further strengthened the Khmer Rouge. Under the peace plan, the newly formed UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) will mobilize a peacekeeping force to monitor Cambodia's cease-fire and disarmament and will administer the country in the runup to a national election expected in late 1992 or early 1993. Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodia's former monarch, heads the interim SNC, which will assist the UN as the country's sovereign body. The resistence members of the SNC, including the Khmer Rouge, return to Phnom Penh in mid-November. To the dismay of some Cambodians and Western officials, the new settlement is a compromise: It does not cite the Khmer Rouge for its excesses during the 1970s. However, Prince Sihanouk and diplomats from Asian and some Western countries insisted that the guerrillas had to be part of the political process to counter any military threat. "An accord without them would have meant a rapid resumption of fighting," French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas said this week. France was one of the sponsors of the Paris International Conference on Cambodia. Shelling still rumbles around the UN-sponsored refugee camps just inside Thailand's border, however, and Western aid workers say many Cambodians remain jittery about returning home to areas devastated by fighting and carpeted with land mines. "There is no safety net in this agreement to protect Cambodians against violations," says Raoul Jennar, a spokesman for several international aid organizations. Mr. Jennar has repeatedly warned against a return to power of the Khmer Rouge. In unusually vocal warnings in recent weeks, UN officials, who plan to begin voluntary repatriations early next year, cautioned the Khmer Rouge against forced movements of refugees. That followed the removal of 16 civilian administrators at one Khmer Rouge-controlled camp after the guerrilla officials had backed the UN plan for voluntary resettlement. The accord also raises questions about how a UN peacekeeping force will disarm 70 percent of all forces, including Khmer Rouge soldiers entrenched in the mountains in southwestern Cambodia. "I don't know whether UNTAC will have enough ability or officials to supervise the forest regions and mountains," hard-line Chea Sim told reporters in Phnom Penh this week.