Pol Pot's soldiers escape justice for genocide

[Character Assassin]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1012246,00.html

Pol Pot's soldiers escape justice for genocide

Only senior Khmer Rouge officers will stand trial for 1.7m deaths

John Aglionby in Phnom War
Tuesday August 5, 2003
The Guardian

"Sam Serey does not look like a stereotypical perpetrator of crimes against humanity. Shuffling around the potholed roads of the southern Cambodian district of Phnom War in a grubby shirt, ripped shorts and bare feet, this grey-haired, 55-year-old farmer appears more deserving of sympathy than hatred.

But he admits that for more than 20 years he was a member of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia's Maoist movement which was responsible for the genocide of more than 1.7 million people while it held power from 1975-79. "I was just a simple young man who joined to help the king after he was overthrown," he claims by way of explanation for why he volunteered in 1970. "I never knew what it really meant to be a member of the Khmer Rouge until many years later."

Sam Serey, who lives in a Khmer Rouge veterans' community, is willing to talk because after six years of international negotiations he now knows he will escape justice. The jurisdiction of the Khmer Rouge tribunal, agreed by the UN and Cambodia, is to be limited to "senior leaders ... and those most responsible for the crimes ". So, hundreds of footsoldiers, such as Sam Serey, now live without fear of a trial.

Youk Chheng, head of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, a group that has catalogued the horrors of the regime, thinks the line over who to prosecute has been drawn in the right place. He believes in "symbolic justice ... that we can justify as our own individual revenge. For the interests of the country, for stability, for resources, I think the top 10 are sufficient for all of us," he said."

Are you kidding me? Sam Serey, who lives in a Khmer Rouge veterans' community, is willing to talk because after six years of international negotiations he now knows he will escape justice

Perhaps a good place to start would be to start would be with the 'veterans' communities'. Like with mortars and napalm. Unbelievable.

[AnnabelLee]

1. This is *one* of many ongoing stories

of those who have committed atrocities escaping justice that I just have to put out of my mind...so much pain, misery, & injustice in this world, & so much of it allowed to fall by the wayside.:-(

[Devils Advocate NZ]

3. So should every American soldier be charged with war crimes...

for their part in the illegal invasion of Iraq, or just the Bush Admin and Senior Military Commanders?

[AnnabelLee]

5. I really don't know

it depends, IMO, on the degree of their involvement in any alleged atrocity. I am not a scholar of international law, so cannot give you an in depth answer.

[gratuitous]

2. Well, if this is satisfactory to the survivors

I'm not sure what authority we who are outside that culture have to say to those people, "No! It's not enough! You should require our notion of justice down to the last drop in the cup."

[bryant69]

4. Hey What kind of talk is that

We're Americans. We naturally have a right to boss people around.

Bryant
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