Cambodia war crimes
June 24, 2011
Kun Nath, a 53-year-old soldier, talks about what happened at the Kampong Chhnang airfield in central Cambodia, around 100 kilometers northwest of Phnom Penh. Kun Nath was posted here in 1990, around a decade after an invading force of Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge defectors ousted Pol Pot’s government.
No written proof
He says many thousands of military personnel were forced to labor here between 1976 and early 1979 and they were taken away from the site and executed in the nearby forests. "There are no documents to say for sure how many people died or how those people died. But the Khmer Rouge were cruel, they brought military personnel here to work and then killed them. There was just working and killing. They would tie the victims together and then take them away in their trucks," says Kun Nath.
On Monday the trial of the four leaders, the youngest of whom is 79, will start. The four are party ideologue Nuon Chea, known as Brother Number Two, Head of State Khieu Samphan, Foreign Minister Ieng Sary and his wife, Social Affairs Minister, Ieng Thirith. Among the charges they face are genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. All four deny the charges.
The history of Kampong Chhnang
Kampong Chhnang airfield, with its 2,400-metre-long runways of poured concrete, is one of six worksites investigated by the UN-backed tribunal. The indictment reveals that three of the defendants were present at a 1975 meeting where the airfield’s construction was approved. The same three are said by witnesses to have visited the airfield on a number of occasions to inspect progress.
International prosecutor Andrew Cayley says the Khmer Rouge sent so-called "bad elements" from its own military to undergo punishment labor at Kampong Chhnang airfield. By 1977 an estimated 10,000 people were toiling at the 300-hectare site. Many were injured or killed during the construction process. Others died of exhaustion or starvation.
China's support for the Khmer Rouge
Youk Chhang is the director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, or DC-Cam, an organization based in Phnom Penh that has researched the crimes of the Khmer Rouge era. He says the airfield reveals the extent of China’s unyielding support for the Khmer Rouge. Based on documents, Youk Chhang says China was “everywhere - from the adviser level to training operations guards at S-21 to arresting suspects or ‘enemies of the revolution.’” He points out that the airport was one of the sites where the Chinese wanted to help build in order to provide military assistance to the Khmer Rouge.
Last year the court completed its first case when it sentenced former Security Chief Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, to 30 years for war crimes and crimes against humanity. As head of the Tuol Sleng Prison, Duch was an implementer of policy, but the elderly defendants in Case Two are accused of devising the policies that took such a terrible toll. Between 1.7 million and 2.2 million people are thought to have died in less than four years of Khmer Rouge rule.
DC-Cam’s Youk Chhang says Case Two represents a chance for ordinary people to hear their former leaders explain what happened in those dark years. This abandoned airfield in central Cambodia will play its part in revealing some of those truths.
Author: Robert Carmichael
Editor: Sarah Berning