Annan is taking a lot of heat for abandoning a destitute nation. Without question, Cambodians need an accounting for their past–desperately. But don’t blame Annan, who had to protect his own institution. A courtroom farce with U.N. assistance would serve only to increase Cambodia’s frustration while damaging the United Nations. Instead, put the blame where it belongs: on Cambodia’s astutely manipulative leader, Prime Minister Hun Sen. Hun Sen has never wanted a fair tribunal–though he would accept a sham trial to increase international aid. The wily prime minister, who was himself a Khmer Rouge commander, fears it would destabilize his country and embarrass him. He has subtly sabotaged negotiations with transparent delaying tactics, shifting demands and public vitriol. All the while, he has used the prospect of a deal to suck more aid money from donors and to mute criticism of his strong-arm domestic political tactics. Rarely has a political leader so skillfully preyed upon the guilty conscience, ambition and ego of the foreigners who are trying to help him.
In practical terms, Hun Sen’s machinations have not done his country a bit of good. Today one barely has to scratch the surface to reopen the scabs, as I learned working as a journalist there in the late 1990s. “They killed my children,” a gnarled beggar woman told me on my first trip out to the countryside. As tears streaked her wrinkled face 25 years after the fact, she added bitterly, “That is why I am like this.”
There is a feeling that the bad guys have won and the trauma has been left unresolved. Most of the top leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime live in villas, drink fine wine and travel around in Land Cruisers (only Ta Mok, the last Khmer Rouge holdout, and Duch, a notorious Khmer Rouge torturer who surfaced as a repentant born-again Christian in 1999, have been arrested). In a land without justice, many other Cambodians still live in fear–and with a rage that expresses itself daily. It’s not uncommon for a woman to purchase nitric acid in the local market and dump it over the head of her husband’s mistress. At least once a month a thief is caught stealing a motorbike and is then beaten to death by angry mobs. During my time in Phnom Penh, two thieves were even beaten to death in its largest temple with Buddhist monks joining in.
Three years ago Cambodia’s most beloved dancer was gunned down in broad daylight as she shopped for a bicycle with her 7-year-old niece. Her family has released a diary written by her and love poems that professional handwriting analysts say were written by Hun Sen. The diary says Hun Sen’s wife, the First Lady, put a hit on the celebrity to end an affair. The government has angrily denied the charges and threatened lawsuits, but none came, and no one has been arrested. This is standard Cambodian justice. When Pol Pot’s henchmen remain free a quarter century after overseeing a regime that beat people to death with garden hoes and threw babies into wells, even the most gruesome lawbreaking becomes a lesser crime.
So is it possible to put together a legitimate tribunal? Individual countries could provide judges and other assistance on their own. Those pushing for real justice from countries like Australia, France and the United States should step up (before countries with an interest in obscuring justice, like China, do so). When U.N. diplomats were negotiating, the United States in particular undercut them by pushing watered-down compromises that only encouraged Hun Sen to use an old communist trick: divide the enemy. In an interview last week, the U.S. ambassador at large for war-crimes issues, Pierre-Richard Prosper, told me that the United States will continue to press the United Nations to reopen negotiations. If that fails, however, Washington has not ruled out going it alone. “We support [the Cambodians’] initiative to seek justice,” Prosper said. That could give the United States some leverage. Cambodia’s political leaders rely almost entirely on foreign aid to run their government and line their own pockets. The United States should pressure other donor nations to condition aid on Hun Sen’s willingness to accept a credible tribunal. Cambodians have suffered too long under the weight of impunity. And as long as the Khmer Rouge goes unpunished, its atrocities damage us all.
