Confronting the Past, 1975–1996

Gidley, Rebecca

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-04783-2_3

Confronting the Past, 1975–1996

Rebecca Gidley⁵

Chapter
First Online: 20 February 2019

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Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the History of Genocide ((PSHG))

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the period between the end of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979 and the UN’s engagement in the project of accountability in Cambodia in 1997. During its first years in power, the new government in Phnom Penh, the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK), held a trial, created a museum at Tuol Sleng prison, instituted a historical research commission, and designated a national day of remembrance, all of which contributed to a narrative that attributed the crimes of the regime to only the top leaders and portrayed the PRK and its leaders as the saviours of the nation. In the final section of this chapter I consider Cambodia’s re-entry onto the international stage and the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia peacekeeping mission of the early 1990s.

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Notes

1.
“Witness Statement of Mr. Pech Tum Kravel,” in Genocide in Cambodia: Documents from the Trial of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, ed. Howard De Nike, John Quigley, and Kenneth Robinson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 102.
2.
William Shawcross, Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia (London: The Hogarth Press, 1986), 297.
3.
Quoted in Philip Short, Pol Pot: The History of a Nightmare (London: John Murray Publishers, 2004), 287.
4.
Ibid., 326; Ben Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia Under the Khmer Rouge, 1975–1979, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002).
5.
Alexander Hinton, Why Did They Kill? Cambodia in the Shadow of Genocide (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 207.
6.
Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime, 458.
7.
Ibid., 296, 460.
8.
Ibid., 107.
9.
Hinton, Why Did They Kill, 219; David Chandler, Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot’s Secret Prison (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2000), 72.
10.
Hinton, Why Did They Kill, 1.
11.
An English language translation of this document is available as Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, “Revolutionary Flag Special Issue,” Document Number E3/10, September–October 1976, 39.
12.
Trial Chamber, Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, “Transcript of Trial Proceedings, Trial Day 200,” Case File 002/19-09-2007-ECCC/TC, E1/213.1, 26 June 2013, 22.
13.
Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, “Civil Parties’ Co-Lawyers’ Request for Supplementary Preliminary Investigations,” Case File 001/18-07-2007/ECCC/TC, E11, 9 February 2009, 17.
14.
David Chandler, Brother Number One: A Political Biography of Pol Pot (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2000), 116–17.
15.
Quoted in David Chandler, Ben Kiernan, and Chanthou Boua, eds., Pol Pot Plans the Future: Confidential Leadership Documents from Democratic Kampuchea, 1976–1977 (New Haven: Yale Center for International and Area Studies, 1988), 26.
16.
Short, Pol Pot, 352.
17.
Ibid., 353.
18.
Trial Chamber, Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, “Transcript of Trial Proceedings, Trial Day 9,” Case File 002/19-09-2007-ECCC/TC, E1/21.1, 13 December 2011, 32.
19.
Hinton, Why Did They Kill, 291.
20.
Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime, 336.
21.
Chandler, Voices from S-21, 44.
22.
Short, Pol Pot, 358–63.
23.
Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime, 456–60. The Demographic Expert Report for the ECCC concluded that a figure of 1.747–2.2 million was most likely, with 50% of these deaths being violent deaths. Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, “Demographic Expert Report: Khmer Rouge Victims in Cambodia, April 1975–January 1979, A Critical Assessment of Major Estimates,” Document Number D140/1/1, 30 September 2009.
24.
Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime, 386.
25.
Evan Gottesman, Cambodia After the Khmer Rouge: Inside the Politics of Nation Building (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 69–70.
26.
Alexander Hinton, “Truth, Representation and the Politics of Memory after Genocide,” in People of Virtue: Reconfiguring Religion, Power and Morality in Cambodia Today, ed. Alexandra Kent and David Chandler (Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2008), 68.
27.
Gottesman, Cambodia After the Khmer Rouge, 60–61.
28.
Phnom Penh Domestic Service, Kandal Official, SRV Representative Comment on Aid, FBIS-APA-79-175, 1 September 1979; Phnom Penh Domestic Service, Pen Sovan Addresses Political Course in Phnom Penh 5 March, FBIS-APA-79-049, 6 March 1979.
29.
Nayan Chanda, Brother Enemy: The War After the War (New York: Collier Books, 1986), 320–22.
30.
United Nations Security Council, “Official Record of 2108th Meeting,” S/PV.2108, 11 January 1979, 2, 18.
31.
Ibid., 4.
32.
Ibid., 13.
33.
Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime, 128–31, 376–84.
34.
United Nations Security Council, “Letter Dated 7 January 1979 from the Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations Addressed to the President of the Security Council,” S/13007, 7 January 1979, 2.
35.
United Nations Security Council, “Official Record of 2108th Meeting,” 11 January 1979, 10.
36.
Gottesman, Cambodia After the Khmer Rouge, 44.
37.
Lisa Mason and Roger Brown, Rice, Rivalry, and Politics: Managing Cambodian Relief (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), 136.
38.
Quoted in Elizabeth Becker, When the War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution (New York: Public Affairs, 1998), 435.
39.
Kelly Whitley, “History of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal: Origins, Negotiations, and Establishment,” in The Khmer Rouge Tribunal, ed. John D. Ciorciari (Phnom Penh: Documentation Center of Cambodia, 2006), 33.
40.
Gottesman, Cambodia After the Khmer Rouge, 61.
41.
Chandler, Voices from S-21, 2–3.
42.
There is a period of months in 1978 for which the records are incomplete, so the exact number of victims of S-21 is higher but uncertain. Ibid., 6.
43.
Tom Fawthrop and Helen Jarvis, Getting Away With Genocide? Elusive Justice and the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2005), 9.
44.
Chandler, Voices from S-21, 5.
45.
“Working Schedule for the People’s Revolutionary Tribunal During Its Present Session,” in Genocide in Cambodia: Documents from the Trial of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, ed. Howard De Nike, John Quigley, and Kenneth Robinson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 69.
46.
Quoted in Judy Ledgerwood, “The Cambodian Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocidal Crimes: National Narrative,” Museum Anthropology 21, no. 1 (1997): 88.
47.
Ibid., 87.
48.
Ibid., 89.
49.
Ibid., 91.
50.
“Decree Law No. 1: Establishment of People’s Revolutionary Tribunal at Phnom Penh to Try the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary Clique for the Crime of Genocide,” in Genocide in Cambodia: Documents from the Trial of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, ed. Howard De Nike, John Quigley, and Kenneth Robinson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 45.
51.
“Press Conference of Keo Chanda, Minister of Information, Press, and Culture, Chair of Legal Affairs Committee, July 28, 1979,” in Genocide in Cambodia: Documents from the Trial of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, ed. Howard De Nike, John Quigley, and Kenneth Robinson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 49.
52.
Steve Heder, “Hun Sen and Genocide Trials in Cambodia: International Impacts, Impunity, and Justice,” in Cambodia Emerges from the Past: Eight Essays, ed. Judy Ledgerwood (DeKalb, Illinois: Southeast Asia Publications, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Northern Illinois University, 2002), 187.
53.
David Chandler, “Will There Be a Trial for the Khmer Rouge?,” Ethics and International Affairs 14, no. 1 (2000): 73.
54.
“Decree Law No. 1,” 45.
55.
“Witness Statement of Mr. Ung Pech,” in Genocide in Cambodia: Documents from the Trial of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, ed. Howard De Nike, John Quigley, and Kenneth Robinson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 79, 83; “Witness Statement of Mr. Tik How,” in Genocide in Cambodia: Documents from the Trial of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, ed. Howard De Nike, John Quigley, and Kenneth Robinson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 91; “Witness Statement of Mr. Em Darakun,” in Genocide in Cambodia: Documents from the Trial of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, ed. Howard De Nike, John Quigley, and Kenneth Robinson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 130; “Report by Kampuchean Clergy on the Situation in Kampuchea After April 17, 1975 (Reviewed by the Committee of Phnom Penh Monks),” in Genocide in Cambodia: Documents from the Trial of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, ed. Howard De Nike, John Quigley, and Kenneth Robinson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 145; “Witness Statement of Mr. Yeng Mara,” in Genocide in Cambodia: Documents from the Trial of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, ed. Howard De Nike, John Quigley, and Kenneth Robinson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 182.
56.
“Closing Argument of Mat Ly, Prosecutor of the Tribunal,” in Genocide in Cambodia: Documents from the Trial of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, ed. Howard De Nike, John Quigley, and Kenneth Robinson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 490.
57.
Ibid., 503.
58.
“Press Conference of Keo Chanda,” 49.
59.
“Closing Argument of Hope R. Stevens,” in Genocide in Cambodia: Documents from the Trial of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, ed. Howard De Nike, John Quigley, and Kenneth Robinson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 504, 07.
60.
Ibid., 507; “Closing Argument of Attorney Yous Por for Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, Accused of Crimes of Genocide,” in Genocide in Cambodia: Documents from the Trial of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, ed. Howard De Nike, John Quigley, and Kenneth Robinson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 509.
61.
United Nations General Assembly, “Letter Dated 17 September 1979 from the Permanent Representative of Viet Nam to the United Nations Addressed to the Secretary-General” A/34/491, 20 September 1979.
62.
“Closing Argument of Hope R. Stevens,” 506.
63.
“Statement of Susumi Ozaki, Lawyer,” in Genocide in Cambodia: Documents from the Trial of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, ed. Howard De Nike, John Quigley, and Kenneth Robinson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 520.
64.
“Closing Argument of Mat Ly,” 490.
65.
“Statement of John Quigley (Professor of Law, Ohio State University, USA),” in Genocide in Cambodia: Documents from the Trial of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, ed. Howard De Nike, John Quigley, and Kenneth Robinson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 519; “Closing Argument of Hope R. Stevens,” 506.
66.
“Statement of John Quigley,” 519; “Statement of Susumi Ozaki, Lawyer,” 521.
67.
Gottesman, Cambodia After the Khmer Rouge, 61.
68.
Chea Vannath, interview by author, 29 January 2014, Phnom Penh; Wendy Lambourne, “Justice and Reconciliation: Post-Conflict Peacebuilding in Cambodia and Rwanda” (PhD Thesis, University of Sydney, 2002), 302.
69.
United Nations General Assembly, “Credentials of Representatives to the Thirty-Fourth Session of the General Assembly,” A/34/500, 20 September 1979, 35.
70.
Milton Osborne, Sihanouk: Prince of Light, Prince of Darkness (St. Leonords, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin, 1994), 251.
71.
Becker, When the War was Over, 457.
72.
Thiounn Prasith continued to live in the US after his role representing Cambodia at the UN was over. Adam Fifield, “The Apologist in Suburbia,” Village Voice, 5 May 1998; Barbara Crossette, “Ex-Official’s Life in U.S. Evokes Fear,” New York Times, 14 August 1995.
73.
Margaret Slocomb, The People’s Republic of Kampuchea, 1979–1989: The Revolution After Pol Pot (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2003), 187.
74.
Ibid., 186–87; Craig Etcheson, After the Killing Fields: Lessons from the Cambodian Genocide (Westport: Praeger, 2005), 109. The methodology employed made overestimation likely, not accounting for multiple reports of one person’s death, and the figure is higher than any other estimate.
75.
William Schulte, “The History of the Renakse Petitions and Their Value for ECCC Proceedings,” Searching for the Truth, Fourth Quarter 2007, 18.
76.
John D. Ciorciari and Sok-Kheang Ly, “The ECCC’s Role in Reconciliation,” in On Trial: The Khmer Rouge Accountability Process, ed. John D. Ciorciari and Anne Heindel (Phnom Penh: Documentation Center of Cambodia, 2009), 309.
77.
“”, “Petition of Representative of Agriculture Office of Kandal Province,” DC-Cam ID R00612, 21 September 1983.
78.
Ibid.
79.
Youk Chhang, interview by author, 6 February 2014, Phnom Penh; Terith Chy, interview by author, 27 February 2014, Phnom Penh.
80.
Etcheson, After the Killing Fields, 109.
81.
Youk Chhang, interview by author, 6 February 2014, Phnom Penh.
82.
Terith Chy, interview by author, 27 February 2014, Phnom Penh.
83.
Phnom Penh Domestic Service, Chea Sim Closing Speech, FBIS-APA-83-163, 18 August 1983; Fawthrop and Jarvis, Getting Away with Genocide, 74.
84.
Chea Sim Closing Speech.
85.
Rachel Hughes, “Memory and Sovereignty in Post-1979 Cambodia: Choeung Ek and Local Genocide Memorials,” in Genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda: New Perspectives, ed. Susan E. Cook (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2006).
86.
“ ”, “Plan for the Introduction of the Day of Anger against the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary-Khieu Samphan Genocidal Clique,” DC-Cam ID D00332, 18 May 1989, 4.
87.
Hughes, “Memory and Sovereignty in Post-1979 Cambodia,” 269.
88.
Cheam Sim died on 8 June 2015 and billboards have been replaced with ones featuring only Heng Samrin and Hun Sen.
89.
“”, “Learn to Read Book Level 3,” DC-Cam ID D24329, 1984, 1–2.
90.
Ibid., 22.
91.
Ibid., 9.
92.
Ibid., 21–22.
93.
Helen Ester, Vietnam, Thailand, Kampuchea: A First Hand Account (Canberra: Australian Council for Overseas Aid, 1980), 41.
94.
Gottesman, Cambodia After the Khmer Rouge, 9, 61–62.
95.
Etcheson, After the Killing Fields, 18–19.
96.
Quoted in Gottesman, Cambodia After the Khmer Rouge, 239.
97.
Ibid., 225–26.
98.
Slocomb, The People’s Republic of Kampuchea, 243.
99.
Ibid.
100.
Gottesman, Cambodia After the Khmer Rouge, 61–62.
101.
Dolores Donovan, “Cambodia: Building a Legal System from Scratch,” The International Lawyer 27, no. 2 (1993): 445.
102.
Gottesman, Cambodia After the Khmer Rouge, 243; Kheang Un and Sokbunthoeun So, “Cambodia’s Judiciary: Heading for Political Judicialization?,” in The Judicialization of Politics in Asia, ed. Björn Dressel (London: Routledge, 2012), 186.
103.
Gottesman, Cambodia After the Khmer Rouge, 78.
104.
Ibid., 244.
105.
Amnesty International, “Kampuchea: Political Imprisonment and Torture,” Index Number: ASA/23/05/87, June 1987, 65.
106.
Ibid.
107.
Heder, “Hun Sen and Genocide Trials,” 192.
108.
Gottesman, Cambodia After the Khmer Rouge, 143, 223, 316; Patrick Raszelenberg and Peter Schier, The Cambodia Conflict: Search for a Settlement, 1979–1991 (Hamburg: Institut für Asienkunde, 1995), 260; Judith Banister and Paige Johnson, “After the Nightmare: The Population of Cambodia,” in Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge, the United Nations and the International Community, ed. Ben Kiernan (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 1993), 114.
109.
United Nations General Assembly, “Letter Dated 30 October 1991 from the Permanent Representatives of France and Indonesia to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General, Annex, Agreement on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict,” A/46/608, 30 October 1991.
110.
“Communications Circulated to the Participants at the Request of the Indonesian Delegation—Statement by the Chairman of the Jakarta Informal Meeting, 28 July 1988,” in Cambodia—The 1989 Paris Peace Conference: Background Analysis and Documents, ed. Amitav Acharya, Pierre Lizée, and Sorpong Peou (New York: Kraus International Publications, 1989), 425; United Nations General Assembly, “Agreement on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia Conflict,” 30 October 1991, 4.
111.
Grant Curtis, Cambodia Reborn? The Transition to Democracy and Development (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1998), 151.
112.
Khatharya Um, “Cambodia in 1993: Year Zero Plus One,” Asian Survey 34, no. 1 (1993): 77; Sandra Whitworth, “When the UN ‘Succeeds’: The Case of Cambodia,” in Gender and Global Politics in the Asia-Pacific, ed. Bina D’Costa and Katrina Lee-Koo (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 84–85; Peter S. Hill and Heng Thay Ly, “Women Are Silver, Women Are Diamonds: Conflicting Images of Women in the Cambodian Print Media,” Reproductive Health Matters 12, no. 24 (2004): 111.
113.
“Khmer Rouge Forces Attack Villages: Peace Accord Violation Leaves 13 Dead,” Financial Times, 21 January 1992.
114.
Steve Heder, “The Resumption of Armed Struggle by the Party of Democratic Kampuchea: Evidence from National Army of Democratic Kampuchea ‘Self Demobilizers’,” in Propaganda, Politics, and Violence in Cambodia, ed. Steve Heder and Judy Ledgerwood (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1996), 74.
115.
Kate Frieson, “The Politics of Getting the Vote in Cambodia,” in Propaganda, Politics, and Violence in Cambodia, ed. Steve Heder and Judy Ledgerwood (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1996), 190.
116.
David Roberts, Political Transitions in Cambodia 1991–99 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001), 106, 47.
117.
Jeni Whalan, “Evaluating Peace Operations: The Case of Cambodia,” Journal of International Peacekeeping 16, no. 3–4 (2012): 231.
118.
United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia, “Human Rights Component Final Report,” (September 1993), 28.
119.
Philip Shenon, “U.N. Aide Calls Cambodia Vote ‘Free and Fair’,” New York Times, 26 May 1993; United Nations Security Council, “Report of the Secretary-General on the Conduct and Results of the Elections in Cambodia,” S/25913, 2 June 1993.
120.
Etcheson, After the Killing Fields, 45.
121.
“Hun Sen Criticizes U.N. Over 1993 Polls,” Kyodo News, 26 July 1998.
122.
“Hun Sen Draws His Line in the Shifting Sands,” Phnom Penh Post, 8 January 1999.
123.
Ros Sokhet, “KR Defections almost 7,000,” Phnom Penh Post, 13 January 1995.
124.
“Cambodian Defence Ministry to Request Amnesty Extension,” Agence France-Presse, 18 January 1995; Jason Barber and Ker Munthit, “King Offers Olive Branch to KR,” Phnom Penh Post, 27 January 1995.
125.
National Assembly of the Kingdom of Cambodia, “Cambodia: Law on the Outlawing of the ‘Democratic Kampuchea’ Group (July 7, 1994),” in Transitional Justice: Laws, Rulings, and Reports, ed. Neil Kritz (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1995), 305; Phnom Penh National Radio of Cambodia Network, KR Censured for Choice to Continue War, FBIS-EAS-95-027, 9 February 1995; Ker Munthit, “Genocide Seminar Calls for ‘Commission of Truth’,” Phnom Penh Post, 25 August 1995.
126.
Cambodian Genocide Justice Act, Pub. L. 103–236, 108 Stat. 382 (30 April 1994), secs. 571–573.
127.
“Royal Decree,” NS/RKT/0996/72, 14 September 1996, available at http://www.eccc.gov.kh/sites/default/files/legal-documents/pardon_for_ieng_sary.pdf
128.
Huw Watkin, “Diplomats Watchful, Silent on KR Prospects,” Phnom Penh Post, 23 August 1996.
129.
Huw Watkin, “King: PMs Jumped the Gun on Sary Amnesty,” Phnom Penh Post, 20 September 1996.
130.
Watkin, “Diplomats Watchful, Silent on KR Prospects,” 23 August 1996.
131.
“Hun Sen: Cambodia United ‘At Any Price’,” Phnom Penh Post, 4 October 1996.
132.
Ibid.
133.
Watkin, “King: PMs Jumped the Gun on Sary Amnesty,” 20 September 1996.

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Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia
Rebecca Gidley

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Gidley, R. (2019). Confronting the Past, 1975–1996. In: Illiberal Transitional Justice and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Palgrave Studies in the History of Genocide. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04783-2_3

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04783-2_3
Published: 20 February 2019
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