Nuon Chea, who faces charges of crimes against humanity, requested bail on the grounds he was not a flight risk.
The hearing had been delayed from Monday by a row over his legal team.
Nuon Chea was deputy to Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, under whose brutal four-year rule more than one million people are believed to have died.
Experts believe Nuon Chea was the ideological driving force behind the regime and responsible for its most radical policies.
The octogenarian is one of five top Khmer Rouge officials who have been charged by the UN-backed genocide tribunal. Trials are expected to begin later this year.
'Beloved country'
Nuon Chea told the court that he should be released on bail to await trial.
| | WHO WERE THE KHMER ROUGE? Maoist regime that ruled Cambodia from 1975-1979 Founded and led by Pol Pot (above), who died in 1998 Abolished religion, schools and currency in a bid to create agrarian utopia Brutal regime that did not tolerate dissent More than a million people thought to have died from starvation, overwork or execution |
"I have no desire to leave my beloved country," he said. "No-one is worried about my security."
A decision from the court is not expected for several days.
A similar appeal by the head of the Khmer Rouge's notorious Tuol Sleng prison, Duch, was turned down in December last year.
The BBC's Guy Delauney, in Phnom Penh, says that the tribunal is of great symbolic value, giving survivors of the Khmer Rouge era a chance to have their say.
Four survivors have been registered as civil parties to the case and have the right to address Nuon Chea in court.
It is also, our correspondent adds, a chance for the tribunal to show that it is working.
The process has been dogged by a series of problems. On Monday, Nuon Chea's hearing was adjourned because the Cambodian legal authorities had refused to register his Dutch lawyer.
There are also financial difficulties. The courts are running out of money and international donors need to be convinced that extra funds will be well spent.
Many Cambodians fear that the regime's ageing leaders may never face justice. Pol Pot died in 1998.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7231936.stm
Always happy to see mass human rights abusers brought to justice. Too many leaders, current and former, sleep soundly each night and enjoy comfortable lives after orchestrating or carrying out policies that caused the deaths or misery of thousands of people (or more). No one should be above the law, and no one should be able to use excuses such as "just carrying out orders" or "I only did what I thought was needed to protect the country." Policies that kill, maim, brutalize, or otherwise terrorize the population en masse all deserve to be brought to justice whether they are African warlords, Khmer Rouge, Serb Generals, or American policy makers. But for now it seems only a couple of those groups will ever end up in the dock. And even then it is no easy task is usually full of controversy.
7 comments:
"Human Rights Abusers"? To say the Khmer Rouge were human rights abusers is like saying Hitler was a bad man.
And I'm going to have to selectively ignore your comparing American policy makers to the Khmer Rouge, lest I roll my eyes so hard they pop out of my head... so please excuse me if I don't respond to that. :P
Anyway, back to reality and the article at hand: If ever there is to be a case made for the death penalty, even if it were to only be used in the most extreme of cases, this is one of them. The fact that this asshat still lives and breathes is just a travesty of justice. No dilapidated, rat infested, cholera ridden cell in any turkish prison would be enough of a punishment for this guy and his compatriots.
So, I say give him his parole. Let him walk the streets unguarded for a day...
Oh for fuck sake. I was not comparing American policy makers with the Khmer Rouge. Human rights abusers can be put on a scale. Say, for example, Hitler > Pol Pot > Hussein > Milosevic > Pinochet > Kissinger (notice the US policy maker is on the bottom here). I am trying to say that ALL people leaders should be subjected to punishment for human rights abuses no matter what state they govern.
Were Kissinger's bombings of villages in Laos and Cambodia and his explicit support for Pinochet's repression as bad as Hitler's attempted extermination of the Jews? Hell no! I would never even begin to make that argument. But should Kissinger face punishment for his actions? Hell yes.
You criticize me constantly as some leftist extremist, but when I apply some objective criteria to human rights abuse and suggest that all individuals who are either directly responsible for or complicit in mass human rights violations face justice of some sort you jump to the defense of the US and act like I was saying Bush is the same as Stalin. What kind of knee jerk rightist nationalist bullshit is that? Is it because the Khmer Rouge were all Satan worshiping Communists hell bent on killing as many people as possible while US anti-Communist policies were all about giving puppies to children and planting roses? I would never defend anything the Khmer Rouge did. They were despicable people that violently tried to implement their vision of the world onto millions of peasants. I would also never defend the Reagan administration for backing a group of anti-communist thugs that committed way more gross abuses of human rights than were ever committed the socialist government they challenged, even if it was part of a campaign on anti-communism(or anti- any other type of government).
The point I am making isn't about whether one leader's policies are better or worse than another's as far as number of deaths or abuses. I am arguing policy makers should be held accountable. Their penalty should reflect the magnitude of their violations. So, I would argue that Kissinger and Khmer leaders both need to be tried for their abuses. But certainly the Khmer leaders deserve a much, much greater punishement.
Whow there, little bear! Settle down!
"knee jerk rightist nationalist bullshit"? Really? Please Reed. If it wasn't your intention to lump U.S. Policy makers into the same lot as the Khmer Rouge, then you should have more selectively crafted your statement. It would be very difficult for anyone to read your front page addendum without gleaning that very unsubtle association.
You can rationalize the verbiage after the fact all you want, but the leap in logic is exactly what you intended, so I'm not exactly sure what you're being so defensive about.
That said, as a gesture of good will, I'm going to offer you your goat back. In fact, I'm even willing to say that I would not be entirely opposed to investigations into Cheney and Bush's decision making process, and whether or not they should possibly face trial for the events leading up to Iraq war, providing they are carried out in a way that does not neuter the office of the Presidency as Commander in Chief in future times of crisis.
Now, with our obligatory Right vs. Left chiding aside, you said "So, I would argue that Kissinger and Khmer leaders both need to be tried for their abuses. But certainly the Khmer leaders deserve a much, much greater punishment."
Which I don't necessarily disagree with. However, as I understand it, you are absolutely against the death penalty, correct? Assuming that Kissinger and Nuon Chea are tried in similar courts, I could only assume that they would both receive life sentences, and that basic human rights dictates that the nature of the confinement probably be similar: confinement in sanitary conditions, 3 square meals a day, etc.
So how does one necessarily make Chea' punishment worse than Kissenger's? 1.5 million life sentences is effectively the same as 100, or even 1.
And just to be clear: I'm not trying to poke fun or razz you or anything like that. I'm genuinely interested in how we would achieve a fair, just, and proportionate punishment in this particular case in your view. Is the death penalty appropriate for extreme cases of genocide or mass murder?
And considering that, do we also charge the pilots who dropped those bombs in Laos and Cambodia?
Should Eisenhour and the B-17 crews who firebombed Dresden have been charged with crimes against humanity? Or the crew of the Enola Gay?
These are honest questions that I think deserve some discussion given the topic at hand.
Of course I meant to call attention to the abuses committed by US leaders. But this was based on an illustration of my central point that ALL leaders should be punished and that major powers or leaders of "our own" countries should not be immune to prosecution. I am fine trying Bush, Cheney, Maggie Thatcher, Pinochet, Mao, Sharon, whoever. I don't give a crap what their professed ideologies were how much they thought the ends justified the means. The problem as I see it is that many people immediately think everything Communists regimes did was evil, even though those leaders would argue that what they were doing was for the good of the people. On the other side, lots of people think (like me) that what rightist regimes like in El Salvador or Guatemala (or even the US) were evil even though they said (and likely believed) that they were fighting the good fight by opposing Communism. I am calling for objective criteria that ignores ideologies. You kill 3000 or 300,000 or 3 million people you need to pay, regardless of why (you think or say)you did it.
Now, your question about punishment raises an interesting issue. I had argued that different crimes deserve different punishments but I see how that becomes problematic, especially given that leaders are usually older and so 10 years might well be a life sentence. I am opposed to the death penalty, so that would be out I guess. In addition to the moral arguments against it I think that seeing these leaders wither away in jail and be forgotten would be more painful for them than death anyway. it would also deny them martyr status. But still, I am not sure how to address it fairly. I guess I would have to say that there would be an upper bound, which sadly might relegate lots of leaders to the same punishment. I mean, in states without the death penalty someone who killed 19 people gets the same punishment as someone who killed 4. It's not fair, but like you suggested, you can't really serve 19 life sentences. The other option--letting comparatively lesser abusers off--would essentially be like letting the killer of only 4 people killed off the hook because it would be unfair to punish him as much as the guy who killed 19 people. That way seems so much worse that punishing them practically the same way.
On a related issue, regardless of jail time, much of the punishment here is symbolic, both because it shows those that suffered that something is being done and because it reduces once powerful people to prisoners, even if only for a small time. That kind of forced humility I think is more damaging to leaders like Hussein or Milosevic than the time actually spent in jail.
Ont he last note, previous military trials have treated the grunts a little better than the leaders. We all know that grunts have only limited say. I hate to say just let them go because I want to be all existential and say everyone chooses how they conduct themselves, even in combat (don't you harp on individual responsibility all the time?), but I am aware of the limitations of the argument. Besides, generals and policy makers are plenty enough that their trials would keep the docks filled for some time. And yes, I would probably say Eisenhower would need his day in court, as would British and other American generals, especially given the more than ample evidence that the purpose of the Dresden bombings was not to destroy industrial capabilities (as the US claimed publicly) but specifically to kill civilians so as to weaken the public resolve and expedite the surrender of Germany. And that is not just lefty theorizing, it is well documented in academic literature and public records.
Right, but there were also material reasons to bomb Dresden... Part of the genius behind Germany's aircraft production, particularly of fighter aircraft like the Fw190, was the decentralization of production. Little mom and pop furniture stores were churning out the wooden components like ailerons, elevators, and parts for tail assemblies, all while also making tables, chairs, and butter churns. Despite the hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs dropped on German factories, German aircraft production increased. It went so high, as a matter of fact, that the number of German aircraft available at any given point in 1944 or 45 actually exceeded the number of trained pilots in service.
Dreseden was famous for its furniture and woodworking industry, and they churned out thousands of aircraft components on a monthly basis. So is it right to target civilian furniture stores if they are an integral part of German fighter production?
And how exactly does one target every single mom n pop furniture store in Dresden without leveling the whole damned city? And if it dissuaded civilians in other German towns from contributing to the war effort, would it be worth it in terms of lives if it helped end the war sooner?
I'm not sure I have cut and dry answers to any of these questions... especially since I'm sure that a lot of these little furniture stores didn't exactly have a choice over whether or not to fill orders for the RLM.
Should Eisenhour have had his day in court? I dunno. Maybe. But hindsight is always 20/20, and the fog of war means that sometimes decent people are going to make bad decisions that result in the loss of lives. Sometimes, a LOT of lives.
Now, regarding punishment for war criminals and mass murderers: To be honest, even the death penalty can't exactly bring parity to the field... You can't execute a man 1.4 million times any more than he can serve 1.4 million life sentences.
I guess in the end, we can only resign ourselves to the fact that justice can never really be served in cases like these... We can only come as close as a single human lifetime can bring us. This is where an afterlife and a vengeful god would come in handy... :P
Or a scientific breakthrough that would extend the human lifetime indefinitely! "Your sentence is gene therepy that will allow you to live 1.4 million years... in solitary confinement! Enjoy Jerkface! Court adjurned"
Quoth Beck:
Or a scientific breakthrough that would extend the human lifetime indefinitely! "Your sentence is gene therepy that will allow you to live 1.4 million years... in solitary confinement! Enjoy Jerkface! Court adjurned"
Now, that's something I could get behind! We become the vengeful god! Mwahahahaahahaaa!
I'm sorry - but I don't think sacrificing any life - whether it be 1 or 100 or 1000 or 1 billion to save even 1 or 100 or 1000 or 1 billion lives is the absolute right decision to make. It puts you right in that person's shoes, turns you into what you hate. You become the guy who bombs the abortion clinics and kills people to show how pro-life they are - and that nauseates me.
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