It’s a discreet, almost shameful end. On September 22, in Phnom Penh, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) rendered their last verdict in general indifference. The judges of this unique court, set up with the support of the United Nations in 2007 to try those responsible for the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979, rejected the appeal of Khieu Samphan, sentenced to prison for life. Aged 91, the former president of Democratic Kampuchea, a genocidal regime of Maoist inspiration, is the last of the defendants still alive. The special court, with its hundreds of Cambodian and foreign employees, its procession of lawyers, clerks, translators, will pack up when it has completed its mission of archiving its work.
For what balance? The ECCC have, in fifteen years, spent an amount estimated at 337 million dollars (339 million euros) to try five people and convict three. Besides Khieu Samphan, the special court sentenced Nuon Chea, the former ideologue of the Khmer Rouge regime, to life in prison – he died in 2019 behind bars. Kaing Guek Eav, alias “Douch”, the former head of the sinister S21 prison, where thousands of people were tortured and executed, was also sentenced to life in 2012, before dying eight years later. Ieng Sary, the former head of diplomacy of the genocidal regime, died during his trial in 2013; his wife, Ieng Thirith, ex-minister of social affairs, suffering from senile dementia, was declared unfit to stand trial and was released in 2012.
The hopes born of the creation of these Chambers, however, were immense, like the crimes committed during the bloody reign of the Khmer Rouge. This dark period, during which 1.7 million Cambodians lost their lives, was not even addressed in school curricula. Pol Pot, the “number one brother” at the head of the Khmer Rouge regime, died in the jungle in 1998. His subordinates rallied one after another to Prime Minister Hun Sen and flowed a peaceful retreat. Abroad, jurists and historians debated the semantics of tragedy. Was it a genocide, when the executioners like most of the victims were Cambodians? Should we speak of “autogenocide”, at the risk of amalgamating criminals and victims?
The end of impunity
In this respect, the assessment of the ECCC is certainly positive. The trial of Douch, the former boss of the S21 prison, was the occasion of a real catharsis. The accused’s attitude confused the victims: after having repeatedly apologized, Douch, on the last day of his trial at first instance, asked, against all odds, to be acquitted. His years of collaboration with international justice have, however, made it possible to acquire a detailed knowledge of the functioning of the terrible detention center he ran.
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