Cambodian genocide survivor Youk Chhang at the Global Conference on the Prevention of Genocide at the Omni Hotel in Montreal.
Phil Carpenter, Montreal Gazette
Norma Greenaway , Canwest News Service
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Youk Chhang remembers being aflame with an all-consuming desire for revenge when he settled into Texas in the 1980s as a survivor of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime in his native Cambodia.
The young refugee hated the people responsible for the extermination of about 1.7 million Cambodians - 25 per cent of the population - from April 1975 through January 1979, among them a beloved sister and countless other relatives.
But mostly, Chhang says, he hated them for making his mother's life a living hell. Now 74, she spent decades as a single mom haunted by the feeling she had failed to protect her children.
At one point, for example, she walked away as Chhang was being beaten within an inch of his life by Khmer Rouge enforcers because he was caught picking mushrooms to take to his pregnant, starving sister.
His mother reasoned that if she went to his defence, both of them would be killed. But Chhang was puzzled and hurt by his mother's behaviour and they became estranged for many years.
Once in the United States, Chhang says his days on the Texas A&M campus in College Station were peppered with crazed, solo protests about the brutality of the Khmer Rouge that fell mostly on deaf ears.
"I was young, I was naive," Chhang said of his lonely attempts to awaken fellow university students to the crimes against humanity committed by Pol Pot's forces.
He said the genocide seemed worse because it was Cambodians murdering and torturing other Cambodians - not some foreign invader - in a claimed quest to create a communist utopia where money, schools and religion were abolished.
The Khmer Rouge emptied the cities, exiling millions to vast collective farms where many died of starvation and overwork.
"It's the deepest, most horrible feeling - living in a society where the nightmare is homemade," he said.
Almost three decades later, Chhang's anger has subsided and the wounded country is about to finally embark on a major turning point in its mending process - the UN-backed prosecution of five accused Khmer Rouge ringleaders for their involvement in what the world has come to know as "the killing fields" of Cambodia.
The tribunal includes both Cambodian and foreign justices and prosecutors, among them Canadian lawyer Robert Petit, a veteran of war crimes trials in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Kosovo and East Timor.
"This is the last chapter of the Cambodian genocide," the soft-spoken Chhang said over the phone from Phnom Penh, where he has lived since he returned to Cambodia in the early 1990s.
"It's not about revenge anymore. It's about the future. We don't want it to be repeated ever again."
Chhang, 47, has spent the last decade collecting more than 1.5 million pages of documentary evidence and witness accounts of the genocide, murder, torture and religious persecution Cambodians endured under the Khmer Rouge.
Some of the material collected by the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, a private research body Chhang helped found, will be used during the prosecution of the five aging members of the former regime now in custody.
First up is Kaing Guek Eav, 66. Also known as Duch, he was head of the infamous Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh and is accused of directing the deaths of thousands of men, women and children. His case is expected to open before the tribunal in June or July.
The prosecutions come a decade too late to get Pol Pot, the infamous leader of the Khmer Rouge forces. He died in a jungle hideout in 1998.
Cambodians at home and abroad are divided over the merits of bringing even a handful of players to trial for atrocities committed so long ago.
Some say there is no justice that would make up for what happened to their families. Others say the trials only will serve to polish - unjustifiably, according to them - the current government's image. Still others say prosecution of at least a few of the villains is needed to achieve understanding and true forgiveness.
Political infighting and resistance from within the current government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, who only broke with the Khmer Rouge when he was about to be killed, have delayed the process.
Despite the setbacks, there is still a thirst for justice in the country, said Petit, the tribunal's coprosecutor.
"It's 30 years after the fact. Presumably, most people have found a way, working or not, good or not, to deal with what happened," Petit said in an interview from Phnom Penh, where he has been preparing for the trials for the last 18 months.
"But as a nation, it is important. It will allow the nation as a whole to see some justice for what happened here."
The tribunal, known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), is being financed by donations of $56 million, including $2 million from Canada. The federal government has shipped more than $112 million in development assistance to impoverished Cambodia in the last decade.
Petit says he hopes the tribunal will help fill the knowledge gap in the country about the atrocities committed under the Khmer Rouge, especially for the more than 70 per cent of the population born after its 1979 ouster from power.
"We're going to try because we are probably the best hope for a comprehensive record of what happened," Petit said.
The former Montreal prosecutor acknowledged, however, Cambodians may not get the closure many seek.
"Criminals tend to go to their graves denying they had anything to do with (the crime)," said Petit, who is on loan from the war crimes division of the justice department in Ottawa.
"At home, you would expect someone who did something to you to say, `Sorry, and yes, I did it.'
"Even in our world that seldom happens. I was a prosecutor at home for eight, nine years. Yes, the guy pleads guilty. But genuine remorse and full disclosure and acceptance are very rare."
Still, Chhang said the trials would send a powerful message that genocide will not be tolerated in Cambodia or anywhere.
He brushes off those who say five prosecutions is not enough, saying: "You have to start somewhere."
The four others awaiting trial are Khieu Samphan, president of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge; Leng Sary, minister of foreign affairs; his wife Leng Thirith, the minister of social action; and Nuon Chea, the Khmer Rouge's chief ideologue and a Pol Pot confidant.
On a more personal note, Chhang makes clear that having made peace with his mother, he now is ready to leave Cambodia.
"I just want to feel a moment of peace in my life," he said of his plans to move to Texas with his wife, and two young children.
"I have fulfilled my obligations as a victim and as a person. I've done my obligation for my mother and my sister."
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Youk Chhang remembers being aflame with an all-consuming desire for revenge when he settled into Texas in the 1980s as a survivor of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime in his native Cambodia.
The young refugee hated the people responsible for the extermination of about 1.7 million Cambodians - 25 per cent of the population - from April 1975 through January 1979, among them a beloved sister and countless other relatives.
But mostly, Chhang says, he hated them for making his mother's life a living hell. Now 74, she spent decades as a single mom haunted by the feeling she had failed to protect her children.
At one point, for example, she walked away as Chhang was being beaten within an inch of his life by Khmer Rouge enforcers because he was caught picking mushrooms to take to his pregnant, starving sister.
His mother reasoned that if she went to his defence, both of them would be killed. But Chhang was puzzled and hurt by his mother's behaviour and they became estranged for many years.
Once in the United States, Chhang says his days on the Texas A&M campus in College Station were peppered with crazed, solo protests about the brutality of the Khmer Rouge that fell mostly on deaf ears.
"I was young, I was naive," Chhang said of his lonely attempts to awaken fellow university students to the crimes against humanity committed by Pol Pot's forces.
He said the genocide seemed worse because it was Cambodians murdering and torturing other Cambodians - not some foreign invader - in a claimed quest to create a communist utopia where money, schools and religion were abolished.
The Khmer Rouge emptied the cities, exiling millions to vast collective farms where many died of starvation and overwork.
"It's the deepest, most horrible feeling - living in a society where the nightmare is homemade," he said.
Almost three decades later, Chhang's anger has subsided and the wounded country is about to finally embark on a major turning point in its mending process - the UN-backed prosecution of five accused Khmer Rouge ringleaders for their involvement in what the world has come to know as "the killing fields" of Cambodia.
The tribunal includes both Cambodian and foreign justices and prosecutors, among them Canadian lawyer Robert Petit, a veteran of war crimes trials in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Kosovo and East Timor.
"This is the last chapter of the Cambodian genocide," the soft-spoken Chhang said over the phone from Phnom Penh, where he has lived since he returned to Cambodia in the early 1990s.
"It's not about revenge anymore. It's about the future. We don't want it to be repeated ever again."
Chhang, 47, has spent the last decade collecting more than 1.5 million pages of documentary evidence and witness accounts of the genocide, murder, torture and religious persecution Cambodians endured under the Khmer Rouge.
Some of the material collected by the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, a private research body Chhang helped found, will be used during the prosecution of the five aging members of the former regime now in custody.
First up is Kaing Guek Eav, 66. Also known as Duch, he was head of the infamous Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh and is accused of directing the deaths of thousands of men, women and children. His case is expected to open before the tribunal in June or July.
The prosecutions come a decade too late to get Pol Pot, the infamous leader of the Khmer Rouge forces. He died in a jungle hideout in 1998.
Cambodians at home and abroad are divided over the merits of bringing even a handful of players to trial for atrocities committed so long ago.
Some say there is no justice that would make up for what happened to their families. Others say the trials only will serve to polish - unjustifiably, according to them - the current government's image. Still others say prosecution of at least a few of the villains is needed to achieve understanding and true forgiveness.
Political infighting and resistance from within the current government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, who only broke with the Khmer Rouge when he was about to be killed, have delayed the process.
Despite the setbacks, there is still a thirst for justice in the country, said Petit, the tribunal's coprosecutor.
"It's 30 years after the fact. Presumably, most people have found a way, working or not, good or not, to deal with what happened," Petit said in an interview from Phnom Penh, where he has been preparing for the trials for the last 18 months.
"But as a nation, it is important. It will allow the nation as a whole to see some justice for what happened here."
The tribunal, known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), is being financed by donations of $56 million, including $2 million from Canada. The federal government has shipped more than $112 million in development assistance to impoverished Cambodia in the last decade.
Petit says he hopes the tribunal will help fill the knowledge gap in the country about the atrocities committed under the Khmer Rouge, especially for the more than 70 per cent of the population born after its 1979 ouster from power.
"We're going to try because we are probably the best hope for a comprehensive record of what happened," Petit said.
The former Montreal prosecutor acknowledged, however, Cambodians may not get the closure many seek.
"Criminals tend to go to their graves denying they had anything to do with (the crime)," said Petit, who is on loan from the war crimes division of the justice department in Ottawa.
"At home, you would expect someone who did something to you to say, `Sorry, and yes, I did it.'
"Even in our world that seldom happens. I was a prosecutor at home for eight, nine years. Yes, the guy pleads guilty. But genuine remorse and full disclosure and acceptance are very rare."
Still, Chhang said the trials would send a powerful message that genocide will not be tolerated in Cambodia or anywhere.
He brushes off those who say five prosecutions is not enough, saying: "You have to start somewhere."
The four others awaiting trial are Khieu Samphan, president of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge; Leng Sary, minister of foreign affairs; his wife Leng Thirith, the minister of social action; and Nuon Chea, the Khmer Rouge's chief ideologue and a Pol Pot confidant.
On a more personal note, Chhang makes clear that having made peace with his mother, he now is ready to leave Cambodia.
"I just want to feel a moment of peace in my life," he said of his plans to move to Texas with his wife, and two young children.
"I have fulfilled my obligations as a victim and as a person. I've done my obligation for my mother and my sister."
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