MCLC: China's Khmer Rouge role

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Han Meng <hanmeng at gmail.com>
Subject: China's Khmer Rouge role
***********************************************************

Source: The Diplomat (12/17/11):
http://the-diplomat.com/2011/12/17/what-was-china%E2%80%99s-khmer-rouge-rol
e/?all=true

What was China¹s Khmer Rouge Role?
By Luke Hunt

As the trial of former senior Khmer Rouge members continues, debate rages
over how much China¹s leadership knew about a key slave labor project.

On a 300 hectare expanse in a remote part of central Cambodia, a massive
airstrip capable of handling the heaviest of bombers lies abandoned. A
Cold War relic, the 1.4 kilometer runway has rarely been used. Still, it
goes to the heart of an enormous travesty.

Ey Sarih knows this full well and has stood guard at the airstrip¹s gates
for more than 20 years. At 46 years of age, he has three children and a
wife who runs a small roadside drinks shop. And he remembers very clearly
the Khmer Rouge and what they did here.

³Most of the work was done here over 1978,² he says. ³Then they killed a
lot of people. They deserve to be there in front of the tribunal.²

Back in the capital, the Khmer Rouge tribunal has wound up after a
controversial year, but with the three most senior surviving leaders in
the dock for crimes against humanity as part of Case 002. Other charges of
genocide, murder and torture are expected to be laid later.

Among the latest revelations were that members of the all-important
Standing Committee had routinely visited the site of the airstrip, where
Khieu Samphan, a former head of state, had pressed laborers to work ever
harder.

There are several estimates on how many were deployed to work here, but
tribunal sources put the number at 30,000 people. Those sent here were put
to work constructing the runway, access roads, blast walls and a control
tower that remains useable to this day. But conditions for laborers were
allegedly so appalling that many preferred suicide, throwing themselves
under passing trucks. Hanging, drowning and poisons were also used by
workers to take their own lives. Then, nearly all those who survived until
the end of 1978 were killed.

Ey Sarih says the dead were buried around the airstrip and at a nearby
mountain where secret tunnels were dug to house Chinese logistics and
computer equipment linked to the control tower.

The crimes were, of course, part of a much greater atrocity. Between 1.7
million and 2.2 million people died under Pol Pot, whose tyrannical rule
lasted from April 1975 to January 1979. These were the darkest days of
Cambodia¹s 30 year war that ended in 1998, when efforts to kick start a
war crimes tribunal finally gained some traction.

How much Beijing knew about the atrocities as they were being committed
has been the subject of much debate among academics and military analysts.
China has said nothing about the airstrip or its support of the Khmer
Rouge, except to say the tribunal and prosecution of surviving Khmer Rouge
leaders was an internal matter for Cambodians to resolve.

At the time, China also had its problems. Back in the 1970s, the Cultural
Revolution was at its peak, and the leadership in Beijing was in disarray
following the death of Mao Zedong in September 1976. The one man
considered powerful enough to intervene, Deng Xiaoping, had been exiled to
the countryside. Deng returned and took control of China in December 1978,
the same month Vietnam invaded and ousted Pol Pot from power. Beijing, in
support of the Khmer Rouge, retaliated by launching a cross border
incursion into northern Vietnam.

The airstrip would have allowed the Chinese to stage short-range bombing
raids over southern Vietnam and its near-completed status, some military
analysts have argued, was also likely in Hanoi¹s thinking and partially
responsible for its invasion of Cambodia.

Ey Sarih says the reason the airstrip was constructed is a matter for the
Extraordinary Chambers for the Courts in Cambodia (ECCC) to establish,
although he adds that ³Chinese people came here to build the airport for
fighting.²

Academics have argued that at least 5,000 Chinese people were classified
as technicians and working in the then-Democratic Kampuchea as advisors to
Pol Pot and his Standing Committee. China was the only country to have any
substantial presence here, and critics argue this is a national
embarrassment.

Others have also suggested that China¹s role inspired rival Japan to fund
much of the tribunal, which has cost almost $150 million since 2006, when
initial investigations were launched.

The ECCC¹s mandate is to try those most responsible, hence its focus on
surviving members of the Standing Committee ­ Khieu Samphan, chief
ideologue Nuon Chea and former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary ­ who wrote and
deployed government policy.

Ieng Sary¹s wife and former Minister for Social Affairs Ieng Thirith has
also been charged, but was ruled unfit to stand trial due to dementia. She
remains behind bars while doctors undertake further tests. Five other
former Khmer Rouge have also been touted for prosecution and
investigations are continuing.

In recent weeks, Ieng Sary and Khieu Samphan have been quiet while Nuon
Chea and a senior Khmer Rouge advisor, Long Norin, gave evidence. Nuon
Chea appeared to revel in being the center of attention and held to his
long standing defense that the Vietnamese were responsible for all the
deaths.

He also claimed his moniker Brother Number Two was inaccurate as it made
him ³look too big² and that none of the senior leaders were responsible
for the evacuation of Phnom Penh or provincial cities of people who would
fill the slave labor camps, like the airport construction site at Kampong
Chhnang.

However, Nuon Chea attempted to justify the policy saying the cities were
full of prostitutes, drunks, gamblers and hedonism comparable with Sodom
in a country that needed farmers. He horrified Buddhist monks in the
public gallery by denying the Khmer Rouge ever sought to abolish religion,
and claims that the Khmer Rouge conducted mass purges of the party,
turning on its own.

On the latter point, however, he added: ³Some people could be re-educated
while others could notŠThe revolution is to build the forces, not to smash
the forces except in circumstances where those people after reeducation
and rebuilding on several occasions could not be reeducated or
transformed.²

The ECCC has faced severe criticism over its handling of investigations
and the appointment of local and international staff. It has also been
described as the most difficult tribunal since Nuremberg. Still, by the
gates of the deserted airstrip in Kampong Chhnang, Ey Sarih says the
tribunal is worth the expense and he happily shows off his collection ECCC
booklets explaining the make-up and functions of the tribunal.

³Many, many people died, and they deserve to be before the court,² he says
of the defendants. ³Now my children are learning all about this in school
and this is good.²

To date, more than 100,000 Cambodians have flocked to the ECCC to witness
the trial process first hand. And there will be plenty of time for more to
watch the proceedings unfold ­ defense lawyers told The Diplomat they
expect the current trial to last another two years.