The Phnom Penh Post

A feature story on the Genocide Education Project, an effort to train teachers in the use of the first government-sanctioned textbook  covering the Khmer Rouge years: 

Find it online here.

On a recent Thursday, a classroom full of high school teachers in Takeo province sat in groups of five sharing survivors’ recollections of 20th-century mass atrocities.

On his first visit to Cambodia, new international co-prosecutor Andrew Cayley described in an interview his past international tribunal experience, his prospects for getting along with the government and the legal theories underpinning the charges against regime leaders awaiting trial. 

Also recently:

December 17: A Khmer Rouge Rouge tribunal staffer  provided estimated death tolls for security centres and execution sites related to the ongoing investigation of five regime leaders, going far beyond what had previously been made public in a presentation (at a civil party forum) that the court later described as unauthorised.

The tribunal announced this week that genocide charges had for the first time been brought against three regime leaders: Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary and Khieu Samphan.

The charges stem from the regime's treatment of Vietnamese and the Cham Muslim minority group.

Brother No 2 Nuon Chea and Ieng Sary, the regime's foreign minister, were informed of the charges during a meeting with investigating judges on Wednesday. Former head of state Khieu Samphan was informed Friday. A meeting with Ieng Thirith, former minister of social action, is scheduled for early next week.

Several events of note so far this month:

1. The tribunal on December 2 announced the appointment of veteran war crimes lawyer Andrew Cayley as international co-prosecutor, filling a position that was left vacant by the departure of Robert Petit in September.

2. Judges ruled on December 8 that joint criminal enterprise, a controversial form of liability under which suspects can be found responsible for crimes committed as part of a common plan, could apply at the tribunal, setting the stage for further debate on the issue between prosecutors and lawyers for the four regime leaders awaiting trial.

A recent commentary in the New York Times describes the general lack of attention the Khmer Rouge tribunal has received in the United States. I have to say that, sadly, since I returned to the U.S. in August, I have found this largely to be the case.

It is particularly inexcusable considering the role America played in decimating the country and creating circumstances that allowed the Khmer Rouge to come to power in the first place.

As Richard Bernstein writes, the lack of attention is "strange, given that tens of millions of Americans are old enough to remember when Cambodia was a preoccupying and deeply emotional issue for the United States, a tragic sideshow, as the writer William Shawcross put it, to the larger war in Indochina."

Recapping a week of closing arguments:

Monday:  Judges should not be fooled by the partial confessions and feigned contrition Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, has employed in a bid to downplay the savage crimes he committed as Tuol Sleng prison commandant, civil party lawyers argued Monday during the first round of closing statements in the Khmer Rouge tribunal’s first case.

Tuesday: A lengthy prison sentence for Tuol Sleng prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, would serve as a resounding repudiation of the facility he ran and the sadistic policies he so zealously promoted, prosecutors told the Khmer Rouge tribunal in their closing statements Tuesday.

The Duch trial has entered closing arguments, which are expected to run through the week.

According to the court's schedule, civil parties are scheduled to present their arguments Monday, with the prosecution following on Tuesday. The defense team and Duch himself will speak on Wednesday and Thursday, after which civil parties and the prosecution will be allowed to make rebuttal statements. The defense team and Duch will then be given one hour to make final statements.

This advancer structured around an interview with Nic Dunlop, the photographer who discovered Duch in Battambang province in 1999, ran in the Post on Monday, and an accompanying slide-show is shown at the bottom of the article.  

A feature that ran in Tuesday's Post.

By Robbie Corey-Boulet and May Titthara

At the age of 14, Out Moeun left her family home in Anlong Veng district, Oddar Meanchey province, to work for Khmer Rouge Central Committee member Chhit Choeun, alias Ta Mok.

My second piece for Granta.com about the tribunal was recently posted online. You can read it here. It discusses the scope of culpability for Khmer Rouge atrocities and includes an interview I conducted with former S-21 guard Him Huy (pictured at left) before I left Cambodia.

The recent lecture at Rutgers was a great experience and the students had a number of interesting questions. Hopefully some of them will be posting comments to the blog before long. The Newark campus' Division of Global Affairs seems to be a hub of much probing discussion related to human rights, genocide and the Cambodian case in particular. 

Tribunal spokesmen Lars Olsen and Reach Sambath held a press conference Thursday at which they discussed the scope of the tribunal's second case.

Though they referred only generally to crimes, they presented a map of 20 execution sites, security centres, cooperatives and work sites spread across 16 provinces that have been implicated in the investigation.

Olsen said the tribunal had decided to release the information for the benefit of prospective civil party applicants, who must, in accordance with a revision to the Internal Rules adopted in September, submit applications no later than 15 days after the co-investigating judges announce that the investigation has been completed. The judges have said they would try to complete the investigation by the end of the year. “Since the end of the investigation is approaching, the need to keep all information about what’s being investigated confidential is not as strong as it was in the beginning,” Olsen said.