A Nuremberg Trial for Communism

The four surviving leaders of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime, including the former head of state, Khieu Samphan, have been imprisoned in Phnom Penh since 2007 and will be brought to justice in their own country. On September 16, a United Nations-backed Cambodian tribunal indicted them for genocide, crimes against humanity, and other crimes. The tribunal has already established its credibility with its first trial: this past July 26, it sentenced Kaing Guek Eav (better known as Duch), a cog in the Khmer Rouge’s extermination machine, to 35 years in prison. Duch ran a torture center from 1975 to 1979 that produced 15,000 victims. Unlike the Nuremberg tribunal that judged Nazi leaders in 1945, the Phnom Penh tribunal is not run by the victorious powers; it functions within the Cambodian justice system, sustained by Cambodian public opinion, though the U.N. provides financing. The tribunal’s legitimacy and objectivity are beyond reproach. Still, the Cambodian public did not see Duch’s sentence as sufficient in view of his crimes. The defendant apparently persuaded the court that he was obeying his superior’s orders—the same excuse Nazi leaders made at Nuremberg.