30 years on, Cambodia marks genocide by selling off memorial

Letter from Phnom: Thirty years ago, as the fleet of 30 US marine helicopters gradually gained altitude above the Cambodian …

Letter from Phnom: Thirty years ago, as the fleet of 30 US marine helicopters gradually gained altitude above the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, residents of the besieged city knew the end had come.

Pol Pot's forces had strangled the city and the US ambassador's unceremonious and hasty departure by air signalled the US admission of defeat and the total victory five days later, on April 17th, 1975, of the Khmer Rouge peasant army.

Pol Pot promised that his newly named Democratic Kampuchea would be "hard and pure", and true to his word, more than 1.7 million Cambodians perished in the "killing fields" before the ultra-communist regime was toppled in 1979.

The anniversary of the Khmer Rouge rise to power should be a time for Cambodians to reflect on past horrors. But on the 30th commemoration, survivors of Pol Pot's genocide still wonder if any Khmer Rouge leaders will ever stand trial for committing some of the 20th century's worst crimes against humanity.

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Rubbing salt in the nation's open wounds, Cambodian government officials caused outrage recently by awarding a private Japanese firm a 30-year lease to operate the country's foremost genocide memorial and mass grave. A Tokyo-based investor now plans to revamp and develop the site as a revenue-generating tourist attraction.

The privatisation of the Choeung Ek "killing field" was assailed by Cambodia's top genocide researcher, Youk Chhang, who has accused the government of crass insensitivity and engineering a deal that seeks profits from the ashes and bones of Pol Pot's dead.

"Genocide should not be commercialised. It is already bad enough [ to] have lived through genocide," Youk Chhang said.

Chum Mey (74), one of only seven prisoners to survive the notorious Khmer Rouge torture centre known as Tuol Sleng, believes the bones of the 9,000 people exhumed from Choeung Ek's 129 mass graves are crucial evidence for a future tribunal.

By giving control of this historical landmark to a Japanese firm, Chum Mey said, the government indicated it has little interest in protecting evidence, establishing a Khmer Rouge tribunal or in putting those responsible on trial.

"I don't believe they will find justice or those responsible. They delay and delay [ the tribunal]. It is trickery. I have no hope," said Chum Mey, a small, elderly man with a splash of white hair.

About 14,000 men, women and children were photographed, interrogated and tortured - many to death - at Tuol Sleng, and then sent for execution to Choeung Ek, where they were bludgeoned to death at the mouths of open pits.

Chum Mey's toenails were ripped out with a pliers by Khmer Rouge interrogators and his finger smashed. He was only kept alive because of his ability to repair the typewriters his guards needed to meticulously type the confessions they had viciously extracted in torture teams with code-names such as "Hot" and "Rabid".

By leasing the killing fields, Chum Mey said, "They are doing business with the bones of the dead to attract tourists."

Defending the government's decision to privatise, Phnom Penh's deputy governor, Mam Bun Neang, said the government was too poor to renovate the genocide memorial alone. The Tuol Sleng prison, which has been preserved as a museum of horrors, may also be privatised, he said.

No harm will come to the bones or the graves, but the government has to improve tourism facilities at the site, the government said in a statement.

The notion that the wealthy elite of prime minister Hun Sen's government couldn't foot the bill for Choeung Ek's renovations is treated with scepticism by most Cambodians.

But in Cambodia today, the most corporeal remnants of Pol Pot's regime are located not at memorials or museums but in plush villas in Phnom Penh or sleepy, secluded farmhouses near the border with Thailand.

Though "Brother No1" Pol Pot died in 1998 at his jungle stronghold on the Thai border, his chief lieutenants - Brother No 2 Nuon Chea, former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary and former head of state Khieu Samphan - live out their twilight years among friends and relatives. Free men, they are protected by order of the Cambodian government in return for giving up their armed struggle in the late 1990s.

Hun Sen's perceived foot-dragging on the establishment of a Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal is blamed by critics on the fact that some of his senior government officials were ranking Khmer Rouge members.

A Khmer Rouge deputy regiment commander in his youth, Hun Sen defected to Vietnam in 1977 and later returned with a Vietnamese army to oust Pol Pot in 1979. His ruling Cambodian People's Party has since maintained power - through national elections when favourable, and military force when necessary.

Hun Sen's supporters blame the UN for the glacial pace of negotiations to establish the tribunal that one day may see a handful of Khmer Rouge leaders tried before a mixed court of local and foreign judges.

The UN and Cambodia haggled for years over the tribunal's structure and, more crucially, whether Cambodian or UN-appointed judges would control the investigations and prosecutions.

A compromise acceptable to both sides was reached last year and an appeal for funding was launched by UN secretary general Kofi Annan on March 28th. Thirteen countries pledged a total of $38.5 million, some $4.5 million short of the $43 million needed to fund the tribunal's expected three-year proceedings.

The shortfall now appears to be the only hurdle between Chum Mey and millions of other Cambodians finding justice. Now in their 70s, time is of the essence if Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan and others are to be tried.

Interviewed last year at his home in the former Khmer Rouge military stronghold of Pailin, Nuon Chea told how he, too, looked forward to his day at a UN-backed court and his chance to tell the world about Pol Pot's "glorious revolution".

"Revolution is like childbirth. At the beginning there is much blood, but then a beautiful baby is born," he said.

He explained for hours how eggs have to be cracked to make an omelette.

Marking the 30th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge rise to power, the Documentation Centre of Cambodia - the largest repository of evidentiary material on the genocide - issued a global appeal for governments to release any information they may have on Pol Pot's Cambodia.

Ireland was named among the countries asked to help Cambodians find justice by providing any material - diplomatic, military and government intelligence - that could be used as evidence in the Khmer Rouge tribunal.

"Time is of the essence," wrote Youk Chhang, director of the centre, in a letter addressed to the Irish embassy in Malaysia. "Those holding valuable materials can do their part to ensure that the Khmer Rouge tribunal is a fair and thorough legal process."