Stéphanie Giry
The Khmer Rouge on Trial
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has long been keen to go down in history as the man who brought the Pol Pot regime to justice. But Hun Sen, a one-time Khmer Rouge battalion commander, knows only too well that investigations down the Khmer Rouge chain of command could expose the shady pasts of important members of the current government. Now, the joint Cambodian-international tribunal set up to prosecute Khmer Rouge crimes finds itself in a quandry: even as the Cambodian government has supported a case against the surviving senior leaders of the regime it has blocked two other cases against five mid-level officials, each one thought to be responsible for 40,000 to 100,000 deaths.
July 23, 2012