Justice at Last for Cambodia’s Killing Fields?

Photos of young Khmer Rouge fighters on display at the Tuol Sleng Museum, Phnom Penh

“On Thursday, September 22, the curtains at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Cambodia will open for the last time. Given the $350 million spent, long delays, two trials, and non-stop controversies, many people wonder: was the tribunal worth the expense and effort?

I am one of them. I served as an expert witness at the tribunal in 2016. And I have spent years conducting research on the Khmer Rouge, a group of Marxist revolutionaries who seized power in April 1975 amid the Vietnam War. By the time they were toppled from power in January 1979, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge had committed genocide.”

Writing for The Diplomat, NYSEAN member Alex Hinton considers the various attitudes and appraisals of the recent trials held to pass final legal judgement on the Cambodian genocide carried out under the Khmer Rouge. Discussing three schools of thought to evaluate the trials, Hinton ultimately concludes that while they have had their ups and downs, they ultimately were an effective, if complicated, process to address the genocide. In his words: “Justice is a salve. While it is messy, it can soothe and help heal. But if you expect it to cure, justice will break your heart.”