The San Jose Mercury News said in an editorial Thursday:
DRAWN-out warfare, old age and shifting political alliances have worn down the guerrillas of Cambodia's jungles. Time finally has brought the brutal Khmer Rouge to its knees.
Now the international community must complete the work. Quickly, it must set up an international tribunal to bring to justice the surviving leaders of one of the world's most brutal regimes.
The Khmer Rouge must be held accountable for mass murder. During its draconian, ruinous regime from 1975 to 1979, perhaps one-third of Cambodia's 7 million people perished by execution, torture, starvation, brutality or overwork. Hardly a family was left intact in Cambodia.
Recently, Cambodian soldiers arrested the last Khmer Rouge leader at large. Ta Mok, once Pol Pot's most trusted lieutenant, commanded perhaps the revolutionaries' cruelest troops. They captured and hacked to death entire villages. They massacred ethnic Vietnamese living near Tonle Sap, Cambodia's great lake. And they are implicated in some of the 16,000 executions at the ghastly Tuol Sleng torture chamber-prison.
A team of United Nations jurists, in a new report, recommends that several dozen Khmer Rouge be tried internationally. It is essential that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who meets with Cambodia's foreign minister this week, to endorse those recommendations.
Cambodia prefers to stage its own trial of Ta Mok, a convenient scapegoat for Khmer Rouge "excesses." For his part, the imprisoned Ta Mok denies responsibility for the brutality. Meanwhile, two other Khmer Rouge leaders, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, live freely in a rural enclave -- even though they surrendered last year.
All this illustrates the need for an outside, independent trial. Cambodia's corrupt judiciary is incapable of holding an impartial and fair trial. And the government seeks to cover up the truth because government ranks are permeated from Prime Minister Hun Sen on down, with ex-Khmer Rouge cadre.
Without coming to terms with its past, Cambodia cannot reconcile and rebuild. The unpunished murder, mayhem and destruction undermine efforts to build a democratic and just society.
An important follow-up to any trial would be a truth commission. It is essential for the people, who suffered the loss of their families, homes and country, to be able to tell their stories.
When the Khmer Rouge reigned, the world did not listen to its victims. The West, which fomented the instability that gave rise to the Khmer Rouge, turned its back on Cambodia.
As Khmer Rouge leaders die off, it soon will be too late for a trial. The world owes it to Cambodia to bring to justice its tormentors.
Pub Date: 3/15/99