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Ieng Sary hospitalized at Calmette Hospital
29 April 2009
By Ung Chamroeun
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Tola Ek
Click here to read the article in French
Ieng Sary was hospitalized at Calmette Hospital on Wednesday 29 April at 10AM, Reach Sambath, the ECCC public affair officer, announced on the sideline of Duch’s trial.
According to Reach Sambath, the former KR diplomatic chief must undergo a “routine medical exam.” He indicated that Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan would also be examined in the upcoming days, after authorization from the judge.
“Regarding Ieng Thirith [Ieng Sary’s wife who is also incarcerated at the ECCC], nothing has been decided yet, but there shouldn’t be any problem,” Reach Sambath added.
The health condition of Ieng Sary – who suffers from high blood pressure and whose blood was found in his urine on several occasions – is one of the main defense strategies used by his lawyers. The latter complained that they could not have access to their client when he is under medical care.
Last 26 February, Ieng Sary was not able to be present during his hearing, following 2 days of hospitalization at the Calmette Hospital.
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Translation spoils KRT debates
28 April 2009
By F.C.
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Tola Ek
Click here to read the article in French
After the lunch break, at the return to the hearing, problems in the translation to French annoyed François Roux. Duch’s defense lawyer told Nil Nonn, the chamber president: “Do you realize about the dramatic consequences on the statements made by the accused or the witnesses when the translations are completely inverted?” In fact, [during these translations], it was first heard that the tribunal would suspend its hearing between 01 and 15 June, then it was changed to 01 to 05 June, finally a correction was made and that there would be no suspension in the hearing.
Later in the afternoon, the written translations were in turn the main subject of the debates. Alex Bates, the international co-prosecutor, presented documents translated by his office, which under closed reading, were visibly different from the direct translations. Duch’s lawyer underscored the fact that the co-prosecutors version contained both in French and in English the term: “reduce the enemies to piece,” whereas the Khmer version indicated more soberly: “tracking them endlessly.”
François Roux was concerned about the possibility that these translations were made by DC-Cam, to which the international co-prosecutor denied. One of the lawyers of the civil parties, Swiss lawyer Alain Werner, also entered into the polemic by stating the fact that DC-Cam and the Tribunal have concluded an agreement, and as such, these translations should be considered as internal translations.
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Cambodia confronts its bloodthirsty past
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
By Dan Rivers
CNN Bangkok-based correspondent
As I put together “Killing Fields: The Long Road to Justice” for CNN, I kept tripping across breathtaking statistics that seemed too incredible to believe. Like, for example, a Yale University history professor's analysis of declassified military data that showed during America's bombing campaign over Cambodia from 1965-1973, the United States dropped more tons of ordnance on this tiny nation than the Allies dropped during the whole of the Second World War. A total of 2,756,000 tons of explosives was dropped on Cambodia, compared with 2 million tons dropped during World War II, worldwide.
It goes some way to explain how and why the vicious, bloodthirsty and unstoppable phenomenon that was the Khmer Rouge came to power. Simply put, faced with utter destruction by the United States or the promised utopia offered by Pol Pot and his ultra-communist henchmen, many Cambodian peasants chose the latter.
But that was before the killing started. Another head-spinning fact: After the Khmer Rouge swept to power in 1975 they killed a greater proportion of their own compatriots than any other regime in the 20th century.
It's facile and pointless to make some sort of genocidal league table, but what happened in Cambodia in just three years, eight months and 20 days was certainly as awful and unfathomable as events in Nazi Germany, Stalin's Russia, Rwanda, Yugoslavia and Darfur.
I decided to revisit this terrible period, because it's now 30 years since the Khmer Rouge regime fell and finally a handful of its leaders are being put on trial at a special U.N.-backed war crimes trial. It's garnered few headlines internationally. Perhaps Cambodia is just too remote, too forgotten, and too insignificant in many peoples' minds to warrant attention. But that is exactly why I felt it was vital to shine a spotlight on what happened.
Another remarkable fact: Pol Pot's men remained a potent force in Cambodia's power struggle that verged on civil war for almost 20 years after they were forced out of power by the invading Vietnamese — a sinister culture of impunity that has strangled Cambodia while countries around it grew and prospered.
Even more incredible, the Khmer Rouge was backed by the United States, Britain, and other Western powers during the 1980s, despite the nightmarish mass-murder perpetrated by so many of the Khmer Rouge's Cadres. The United States viewed the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge as a useful counterweight to Soviet/Vietnamese influence in Indochina. The U.S. doctrine seemed to follow the maxim “My enemy's enemy is my friend.”
The impunity enjoyed by the top Khmer Rouge leaders is something the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia is trying to address. But it's taking a very long time. And as I found out in making our program, the trial process itself is mired in corruption allegations which some think may mean the entire process may collapse.
The United Nations is in a terrible bind over the issue. It's been forced into accepting a hybrid court system with the Cambodian government, which means the U.N. is not free to alone root out corruption quickly and surgically. Instead, as one defense lawyer told me, the corruption has been allowed to fester like a “cancer” eating away at the credibility of the trial. The prosecution, clearly worried about the courts credibility, also is pushing for the corruption to be addressed.
Already the costs for the proceedings are spiraling out of control: The budget will have swollen to more than $100 million by the end of this year, about US$20,000,000 per defendant. Or to look at it another way: the trial is costing a mere US$59 per victim.
What's also worrying is that the Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, himself a junior figure in the Khmer Rouge, has said that the trial should be limited to the current five defendants - and no more. He's said that expanding the circle of prosecution risks the stability of the country. But that means in practice that many of those involved in the slaughter during the Khmer Rouge period would remain unpunished.
The most notorious camp in Phnom Penh, called S21 or Tuol Sleng, was set up in a former school. The camp was designed to extract confessions from internal enemies of the regime, using whatever means deemed necessary. The result, according to meticulous Khmer Rouge records and survivor accounts, was the most brutal and sadistic torture camp imaginable: More than 14,000 prisoners were killed after enduring horrendous torture.
The chief interrogator at S21 was a man called Ta Chan, who led a team of interrogators. He has never officially been charged with any crime.
After quite some effort, we found out where Ta Chan lives. When we arrived at his modest wooden house in the far west of Cambodia, I got a glimpse of him. But he was apparently too scared to face our cameras, leaving his son to do the talking. His son said Ta Chan was old and his health was bad and that none of the family wanted to talk about the past.
By a stroke of luck we obtained and salvaged an old, barely functioning tape, shot by a Thai cameraman 10 years ago, that had never been broadcast. It contained the grinning image of Ta Chan showing off another prison he ran for the Khmer Rouge after they'd been forced to abandon S21. Here he was — one of the most notorious figures of one of the most bloody regimes in the world — and after twenty years, he was still in the prison business.
Now, finally Ta Chan's face will be known to the world. The question is, will he ever face trial for the heinous crimes survivors say he committed?
Dan Rivers is CNN's Bangkok-based correspondent reporting for 'WORLD UNTOLD STORIES: KILLING FIELDS: LONG ROAD TO JUSTICE' airing on CNN International May 1 at 1100, May 2 at 1630, May 3 at 0100, 0630 & 2230 and May 4 at 1030 Taipei Time. For more info visit www.cnn.com/worldsuntoldstories.
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