Friday, 27 March 2009

Khmer Rouge Tribunal Impacts On Kiwi Lives

guide2.co.nz
Friday, 27 March 2009

Thirty years since the end of Pol Pot's bloody rule in Cambodia one of his henchmen is to finally go on public trial on Monday. MAGGIE TAIT of NZPA talks to New Zealanders whose lives were impacted by the regime and what they think of the trials.

Wellington, March 27 NZPA - Rower Rob Hamill's brother Kerry was killed at the torture centre and prison run by Kaing Guek Eav or Duch who goes on trial on Monday.

If he had a chance to send a message to the 66-year-old former teacher, Rob Hamill said it would be to acknowledge "the terrible pain that he and the other leaders of the regime caused, the complete loss and grief that was felt and the impact it had on our family.

"I often think about how things could have been better, not that things are terrible, but you know having Kerry in our lives would have (been better)."

Kerry Hamill was 27, sailing from Singapore to Bangkok in August 1978 with Canadian Stuart Glass and Briton John Dewhirst when their yacht strayed into Cambodian waters and they were arrested.

Records at the prison show Mr Hamill was forced to write a 4000-word "confession" that claimed his father was a colonel in the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who had recruited him into the agency.

Under torture, he described in considerable detail CIA plans to subvert the Khmer Rouge regime, then he and Mr Dewhirst were killed. Mr Glass was shot earlier.

Mr Hamill's treatment was also meted out to the 14,000 mainly Cambodians who entered the doors of S21 or Tuol Sleng.

Most victims at the prison were tortured and forced to confess to a variety of crimes -- mainly of being CIA spies -- before being bludgeoned to death in a field on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.

Women and children and babies were also killed. Few inmates survived.

Rob Hamill would like to be at the public hearing and has provided the court with a statement but the expense and timing made it impossible to attend.

"I am feeling a compelling sort of need to be out there now."

However, he doubts a guilty verdict would provide the family closure.

"It's more accountability and to see that some sort of justice has been done. It's been over 30 years now and it's about time."

The deaths at the prison were a small fraction of the 1.5 million Cambodians who were starved and worked to death. At least another 200,000 were executed.

Trials of four other senior Khmer Rouge leaders are to follow. Pol Pot died in 1998.

Lim Meecham survived the regime, she almost died several times and gave up her two children to other families.

Now living in Wellington, she and husband Roger did manage to reunite the family but the pain is still there.

Mrs Meecham cried silently, recalling the deaths she had seen. The trials produce mixed feelings.

"I want to forget about it. I don't want to remember everything. But people who (are to blame) have to pay for it," she said.

"My life has gone on, I don't want to go back. I hurt enough."

Another of the 4661 Cambodian refugees whom New Zealand accepted between the end of the regime in 1979 and 1992 was Sambath Mey.

He almost starved under the regime and thinks the trials are positive but only a few are being charged.

"It's good that they do (hold trials) but it seemed to take so long and whether they are going to achieve anything I am not too sure. I just want to move on in a way.

"At some time we have to move on, forget the past."

Sovann Dowall struggles to see the point of the trials, especially considering the current Prime Minister Hun Sen's past involvement in the Khmer Rouge.

As a Christian she thinks it is time to forgive but will never forget.

"It cannot bring my dad back, it cannot bring my family back. I feel that it is time to forgive them, they know they are bad, they are scared enough, they are guilty enough.

"I know I can forgive them."

Stanley Harper, originally from Palmerston North, now lives in Phnom Penh with his Cambodian wife. Only a couple of yeas ago he completed a film that took 18 years to make. The message of the film is reconciliation and that is something he does not think the trials will achieve.

"Why didn't it happen before now?"

Harper says the trials seem like a gravy train with lawyers getting incredibly high salaries in a Cambodian context.

"Who are they taking to trial, five old men. Why not seven why not 100 why not everybody over the age of 35? Inasmuch as it was an internal Khmer conflict so maybe everyone in some way was guilty."

Duch has said he ordered people killed to avoid death himself.

"... what would anybody in their right mind do when they see that everyone thing was happening was turning into a genocidal maniac regime.

"You either have to keep supporting it because you're afraid if you don't you're going to be killed. Or if you have the means or possibility you escape, you get out."

Harper does not believe the trials have any deterrent effect and their cost -- $170m for five years -- could have been used in far more practical ways in Cambodia.

"Are these trials worth it? Will they bring anything to Cambodia? I genuinely think the answer is no.

"It's certainly not going to bring around a healing reconciliation process."

Former governor-general and High Court judge Dame Silvia Cartwright is a trial judge for the Duch hearing.

"I think that it will go some way to answering the questions that ordinary people have about how did this happen and what actually happened and who is responsible for the terrible suffering.

"Even a trial just over one institution like Tuol Sleng will help answer a lot of the questions. Whether the accused is convicted or acquitted there will still be a huge amount of information that will come forward during the course of the trial."

A survey of 1110 people by the Victims Participation Project Documentary Centre of Cambodia published this month found 56.8 percent wanted more than the five, including Duch, to be charged.

The centre noted concerns over the slow progress of trials and age and health of those yet to face the tribunal.

Another New Zealander, who prefers not to be named, says the political leadership was part of the problem.

Prime Minister Hun Sen is a former Khmer Rouge guerrilla installed as prime minister by Hanoi in the mid-1980s who was later part of a shaky 1993 elected coalition and has remained in the top job.

Dragging out negotiations for trials was a way of keeping Cambodia in aid donors' minds.

Domestically it was a cautious game with politicians not wanting to be drawn into trials themselves and there were also arguments about how far to reach given the extent of the Khmer Rouge's hold on people.

* Maggie Tait is travelling to Cambodia with the assistance of the Asia New Zealand Foundation.

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