Officials overseeing the tribunal examining the atrocities committed by Cambodia's notorious Khmer Rouge regime led its seminal prison leader, Kaing Guek Eav, known simply as “Duch,” through the prison system he once ran. Tribunal officials lead Duch through a “re-enactment” of the systematic torture conducted at the converted high-school called the S-21 prison. Duch, a 65-year-old former math teacher, led the S-21 detention facility where more than 14,000 people were tortured under his strict authority. Only 14 people survived their detention there.
"Under his authority, countless abuses were committed, including mass murder, arbitrary detention and torture," the presiding judge said at the opening of his tribunal in November. A former guard at the facility said Duch never directly participated in an execution, but was known to visit the Choeung Ek killing field to observe the executions.
Three survivors of the prison accompanied Duch on the tour of the facility, which now serves as a genocide museum. Witnesses to the atrocities and the survivors told Duch of their recollection of the events as they toured the facility. A spokesman for the tribunal, Reach Sambath, said Duch wept openly as he explained what happened under his tenure at the prison. Witnesses to the “re-enactment” said Duch broke down near a tree on the prison grounds where executioners killed child captives by repeatedly bashing their heads against the trunk.
I’ve written here before that the mixed tribunal system employed in the Khmer Rouge tribunal is admirable. It was on the verge of collapse last fall because participants sympathetic to the Khmer Rouge regime sought to impose certain restrictions on the proceedings that would have significantly hampered the case, but it seems to be moving along as several high-ranking members of the Khmer Rouge now face prosecution. In January, the tribunal held a sort of town hall meeting introducing the proceedings of the tribunal to locals in a village ravaged by the Khmer Rouge. The audience watched a 25-minute film explaining how the tribunal process works and received a general panel discussion as well.
But parading a 65-year-old man through a genocide museum 30 years after the atrocities? This almost smacks of victor's justice. It's certainly within the realm of remote possibility that the images running through Duch's mind are enough torment, but then again, the Khmer Rouge are responsible for millions of deaths during their torturous rule. It's said the Duch converted to Christianity in the early 1990's and considers himself a peaceful man, and it seems the tribunal is proceeding with the interest of the Cambodians in mind, but this tactic is questionable. It's easy to cry “bastard!” and shove their noses in it, so to speak but does reconciliation, which it seems this sort of prosecution aims for, include revisiting or reliving the atrocity? In Iraq, the horrors of the al-Anfal campaign come up again and again, regarding Srebrenica, the graphic video of several young men being led to their execution serves as a reminder of the horrors of mankind, but a “re-enactment” tour of a genocide museum seems to be inflicting emotional trauma on the accused which hardly seems an act of pragmatic justice.
