Cambodia grills first 'Killing Fields' suspect

[rpannier]

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (Reuters) -- Chief Khmer Rouge inquisitor Duch appeared before Cambodia's "Killing Fields" tribunal on Tuesday, the first of Pol Pot's henchmen to be questioned over the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people.

Duch, also know as Kang Kek Ieu, has confessed to committing multiple atrocities during this time as head of Phnom Penh's notorious Tuol Sleng, or S-21, interrogation center.

snip

The long-awaited $56.3 million tribunal into atrocities committed during the Khmer Rouge's 1975-79 reign of terror has its own detention center on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.

snip

At least 14,000 people deemed to be opponents of Pol Pot's "Year Zero" revolution passed through Tuol Sleng's barbed-wire gates. Fewer than 10 are thought to have lived to tell the tale.
Most victims were tortured and forced to confess to a variety of crimes -- mainly being CIA spies -- before being bludgeoned to death in a field on the outskirts of the city. Women, children and even babies were among those butchered

link:
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/07/31/cambodia.khmer.reut/index.html

on note:
They need to get this thing going before all these old Khmer officials die off. Pol Pot already robbed his victims of justice when he died in 1998. His death, like that od Pinochet, Mao and Marcos should remain an unmourned death.
I've been to Cambodia and seen the ferensic sites and the high school where they kept the prisoners. The pictures of the victims on the walls are haunting.
The Khmer were real shutterbugs and took pictures of their victims right before they took them from the prison to execute them. There are pictures of the very old, middle aged, teens, children on the walls.
Everyone who can afford to should visit Cambodia and see the evil that the Khmer committed.

[Annces]

1. I heard about this

There are very few people left to be in the trial, like you say.

[karynnj]

2. As you say, we need this trial before the few remaining Khmer officials die off

just as there was a need to record what happened in the Holocaust, these atrocities need to be documented. Here is a link to a well researched DU thread about how this tribunal was finally established.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=905152

[NYC Liberal]

3. Having family over there, I visited Cambodia a few years ago,

Walking through Tuol Sleng is absolutely horrific. They used to have the "Skull Map" with the bones of those who were murdered there.

About time.

[ProSense]

4. History Repeating Itself: Kerry-Brokered Cambodia Tribunal Set To Begin

History Repeating Itself: Kerry-Brokered Cambodia Tribunal Set To Begin

[DemoTex]

5. "Pol Pot": None other than little Saloth Sar.

Read Amitav Ghosh's "Dancing in Cambodia" in Granta 44 (Summer 1993 issue). Link to extract of this excellent essay below:

http://www.granta.com/extracts/935

[ProSense]

6. Kick! n/t