Cambodia's 1970s Khmer Rouge 'killing fields' leaders should finally face
trial for genocide and crimes against humanity, the country's national assembly decided unanimously today.
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Cambodians plant flowers and incense in front of a memorial to Khmer Rouge killing fields victims. |
More than 25 years after Pol Pot's ultra-Maoist regime tried to turn the country back to "Year Zero," the regime's surviving leaders will be tried by local and foreign prosecutors and judges with UN participation, according to a draft law adopted 92 votes to zero by Cambodian MPs.
Senior minister Mr Sok An, head of the government task force on the long-awaited tribunal, called approval of the draft law ``historic."
"I would like to express my profound thanks to the national assembly for your clear understanding of the Khmer Rouge trial law to set up the tribunal," he declared to the deputies present for the vote.
"We will try to set up the Khmer Rouge tribunal as soon as possible. I hope this will not take long," he said.
The draft law creates a three-layered super-court to hear charges of genocide and crimes against humanity levelled at senior leaders of the former regime. It will also hear charges of homicide, torture, religious persecution, and destruction of cultural properties.
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From April 17, 1975 until January 6, 1979 the Khmer Rouge emptied cities, banned money and brutally crushed all dissent in an attempt to create an agrarian utopia.
Of the country's seven million people, up to 1.7 million were killed or died from starvation, disease or in torture camps.
"Today is a victorious day for all Cambodian people and the country to have a law to try the genocidal Khmer Rouge leaders," said Heng Samrin, first chairman of the national assembly, who presided over the vote.
"Once we have this law Cambodia will have peace and stability," he said.
Only the leaders who oversaw the genocide, not their rank and file followers, will be brought to trial.
