Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

[This is the last of four posts by Dr. Leakhena Nou on the legacy of the Khmer Rouge genocide.]

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) provides a unique opportunity for victims to participate in the trials of their accused Khmer Rouge perpetrators.

Survivors’ participation is vital to the judicial process and essential for bringing about participatory democracy and social justice for the Cambodian people.

For this reason, I established the Applied Social Research Institute of Cambodia (ASRIC), and implemented the 2009 Cambodian Diaspora Victims’ Participation Project (CDVPP) to address this critical and urgent opportunity.

In order to participate in the trials, individuals needed to qualify as victims, which the Practice Direction on Victim Participation defines (in brief) as any person or legal entity that has suffered harm as a result of the crimes heard by the ECCC.

To date, ASRIC has submitted the largest collection of victim testimonies in the U.S. Remarkably, the ECCC has accepted 100% of the them.

The work of the CDVPP is ongoing, and various video links of the CDVPP and ASRIC’s other activities–such as the Art as Witness Initiative–can be found on our website.

ASRIC is driven by the desire to promote the voices of the survivors. As Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano wrote,

“When it is genuine, when it is born of the need to speak, no one can stop the human voice. When denied a mouth, it speaks with the hands or the eyes, or the pores, or anything at all. Because every one of us has something to say to the others, something that deserves to be celebrated or forgiven by others.”

If you would like to help survivors’ voices be heard in the ECCC, please consider signing ASRIC’s petition urging the Courts to proceed with the trials of Case 003 and Case 004, and then encourage your friends to do the same.

Thank you for joining in ASRIC’s collective call for justice.

Leakhena Nou, Associate Professor of sociology at California State University at Long Beach and director of the Applied Social Research Institute of Cambodia

[This is the third of four posts by Dr. Leakhena Nou on the legacy of the Khmer Rouge genocide.]

In the 21st century, efforts have been made to promote restorative justice and end the culture of impunity in Cambodia. For example, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, a hybrid court drawing on U.N. and Cambodian legal teams, began prosecuting senior Khmer Rouge perpetrators in February 2009.

Killing Fields bones of children in Cambodia. Photo by Oliver Spalt used under CC Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.

In Case 001, Kaing Guek Eav (alias Duch, former S-21 Chief Commandant), was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity (murder, enslavement, torture, and other inhumane acts). When Duch appealed the verdict, the ECCC responded by handing down a sentence of life imprisonment without parole or further appeals.

Duch’s formal apology was disseminated to the public:

“May I be permitted to apologize to the survivors of the [Khmer Rouge] regime and also the loved ones of those who died brutally during the regime […] I know that the crimes I committed against the lives of those people, including women and children, are intolerably and unforgivably serious crimes. My plea is that you leave the door open for me to seek forgiveness.”

In your view, how should Cambodians and others respond to such an apology after a genocide?

Case 002 brings to trial four other senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge including Ieng Sary (former Minister of Foreign Affairs), and his wife Ieng Thirith (former Minister of Social Affairs).

Despite current legal initiatives to end the culture of impunity and deter violence, Cambodia remains plagued by chronic, multifaceted, and evolving social problems. These include

Human and sex trafficking and other related human rights abuses
High rates of unemployment, poverty, diseases, and domestic violence
Widening inequalities among social groups, and
Lack of access to adequate education, health, and social services.

These shortcomings highlight and reinforce many of the social, economic, political, and structural problems and conditions that ignited the Khmer Rouge violence nearly forty years ago.

Leakhena Nou, Associate Professor of sociology at California State University at Long Beach and executive director of the Applied Social Research Institute of Cambodia