BRUSSELS — Cambodia is currently witnessing the commencement of what is likely to become a grotesque farce. In July, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia will try four Khmer Rouge leaders, as well as the commandant of the infamous S21 Tuol Sleng prison, for crimes committed more than 30 years ago. The trials are expected to cost more than 150 million euro, a sixth of the country's annual GDP.
The ECCC has already started taking testimony from witnesses. The former leaders on trial will be Pol Pot's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ieng Sary, his wife Ieng Thirith (social affairs minister), Deputy Secretary Nuon Chea and President Khieu Samphan. The other man in the dock is Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Comrade Duch from the notorious S21.
We've been here before. Eight months after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979, the new government tried Pol Pot and Ieng Sary in absentia, sentencing both to death. The trial's pointed references to a Chinese master plan of genocide, however, injected an unpalatable political flavor that Washington found unacceptable, given the Cold War configurations at the time. Retribution was left in limbo until today.