ubmitted by Albert J.Repicci
and Kelly Repicci
Phnom Penh, Cambodia, March 30, 2009.
Dith Pran is dead. The Cambodian photojournalist who coined the phrase “The Killing Fields,” and introduced the world into the prism of terror wrought by the barbaric Khmer Rouge in the movie baring the same name, died on March 30, 2008. How ironic that on this the one year anniversary of Pran’s death, the seemingly impossible has happened. The trial of one of the Khmer Rouge’s most heinous henchman, Kaing Guek Eav, known by his revolutionary name, Comrade Duch, should have begun.
Many Cambodians have tried to distance themselves from the horrors of that period and remain detached from the trial proceeding as they struggle with the day to day reality of scratching out a meager living. It is estimated that 85% of the population has a disconnect with the trial proceedings, in large part due to the thirty year delay in assigning culpability to the Khmer leadership and a suspicion of corruption in the judicial process.
That disconnect, however, was nowhere to be seen this morning as the first day of Duch’s trial began and the courthouse was overrun with would be spectators nudging for a seat in the trial chamber or to at least gain entrance to the viewing room designed to accommodate the overflow crowd.
It was revealing to watch the assemblage gather for the long awaited moment of addressing justice denied and the hope that this national catharsis will lead to national reconciliation. Those granted entry fell into one of several categories either as officials and ministers, NGOs, victim of the genocide, media and the general public. The auditorium style spectator seating was separated by a glass shield from the seven member judicial chamber, the participants in the trial, and the accused.
To include the broadest possibly viewership the trial is being broadcast in English, Khmer and French. As the assemblage began to swell the foreign guests and ministers engaged each other much as they might have at a church service, extended cordialities and quiet smiles. In stark contrast, however, many of the Cambodians, old enough to have lived through the decimation of 1.7 million members of their families, friends, and communities a much more somber countenance was apparent even as they entered the courtroom forced, yet again, to relive the unimaginable horrors of the Khmer Rouge reign of terror. Their pensive faces betrayed an outward calm as the accused was ushered into the dock. Duch, no longer the young brash prison commandant characterized by the broad toothy grin who methodically sentenced every one of the 14,000 men women and children in his prison to be systematically tortured and brutally murdered.
After the president of the judicial cambers gave opening comments, a court official was instructed to read the text and summary of the accusations against Duch. The summation took four hours to complete with coded references made to those protected witnesses whose charges lead to Duch’s indictment for crimes against humanity and breaches of the Geneva Convention. The graphic nature of the witness description of the nature of the torture by senseless beatings electrocution followed by prescribed killing techniques of bludgeoning and bloodletting made the whole assemblage wince. Tears welled up in the eyes of the 45 year old Cambodian seated next to me whose father was victim of the Khmer carnage. The defense counsel then requested that sections of the charges be stricken from the record, a request that was denied by the panel of judges.
At the end of the days proceeding, members of the media were scrambling outside the courtroom to interview victims of the atrocities, a task made much easier by the very fact that every Cambodian present was, in some fashion, a victim.