Published daily by the Lowy Institute

Khmer Rouge Tribunal: Worthwhile, despite its faults

Khmer Rouge Tribunal: Worthwhile, despite its faults
Published 2 Sep 2014 


Cambodians with copies of a Khmer Rouge Tribunal verdict. (Flickr/ECCC.)

Interpreter readers will be aware that I have frequent criticised the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia, ECCC) for problems of corruption, lack of cooperation from the government, the sometimes dubious results stemming from the tribunal's character as a body with both Cambodian and international participation, and the glacial slowness of its procedures.

So it was salutary to sit down with Youk Chhang, the head of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, in Phnom Penh last week to hear his views on the tribunal.

Youk Chhang and his family suffered under the Khmer Rouge and he has made it his task to assemble the widest possible archive of evidence for the events that occurred under Pol Pot's regime. The Documentation Center has also worked to ensure that knowledge of the Khmer Rouge period is taught in Cambodian schools and that the general population has the opportunity to understand what the tribunal has been trying to achieve.

Youk Chhang has no illusions about the problems of the tribunal, making many of the same points that have formed the basis of my criticisms. But overall he argues that the tribunal has been a worthwhile exercise. He offered an analogy. Think, he said, of the tribunal as being like a house. It is buffeted by storms, rained on, even struck by lightning, but if it is still standing after all those problems it has justified its existence.

Because of the tribunal, many hundreds, even thousands of Cambodians have been able to share their experiences in testimony before the tribunal or by attending the tribunal's sessions to see the court processes in action and the defendants having to appear for judgment. In outreach programs undertaken by the Documentation Center, Youk Chhang and his co-workers have found that their compatriots are concerned about 'justice' and do believe that despite its slowness, the ECCC has been able to deliver justice, even if defining the term is difficult for many with whom they talked.



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