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Long-Delayed Khmer Rouge Genocide Trial To Begin

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The Associated Press

Published: March 30, 2009

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Human rights groups welcomed the long-awaited start today of Cambodia's first genocide trial, but urged the U.N.-backed tribunal to bring more Khmer Rouge leaders to justice.

The tribunal is seeking to establish responsibility for the ultra-communist group's brutal 1975-79 rule, when an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians died of execution, starvation, slavelike working conditions and medical neglect.

Prosecutors today will launch their case against Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, who is accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes, as well as torture and homicide.

Four other senior Khmer Rouge leaders are to be tried during the next year. The group's top leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998.

Duch commanded the main Khmer Rouge prison, named S-21 or Tuol Sleng, where as many as 16,000 men, women and children are believed to have been sent to their deaths after undergoing torture.

"The Cambodian people will finally see one of the most notorious Khmer Rouge leaders face trial," the human rights group Amnesty International said in a statement. "But many more need to face the court to really deliver justice to the millions of victims of these horrific crimes."

Brad Adams, Asia director at New York-based Human Rights Watch, also questioned why so few people were being tried in the mass killings.

"The successful start of the Duch trial ... does nothing to address the fact that only five people may be held accountable for the crimes that led to the deaths of as many as 2 million people," Adams said. "It's a ridiculous proposition that only five people should be held accountable."

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