The notorious Khmer Rouge in Cambodia is once more making news. The country's UN-backed Khmer Rouge War Crimes Tribunal has officially rendered its final decision in the case, maintaining the genocide judgement against the sole surviving leader of the regime. Earlier afternoon, former Khmer Rouge leader Q Sam Fan's appeal was denied by the Extraordinary Chambers, a war crimes tribunal. According to claims, Sam Fan was a previous chief of state in the Madras communist government that, in 1970, reportedly wiped out almost a quarter of the population of Cambodia. In 2018, he was also found guilty of genocide against the Vietnamese ethnic group. The United Nations-backed war crimes tribunal's years of work come to a conclusion with today's verdict, which represents the court's ultimate determination. Of the 2 million people that died as a result of the savagery of the Khmer Rouge, 1000 to 5000 Muslims and 200 people of estimated Vietnamese descent were slaughtered primarily by starvation, torture, forced labour, and mass executions. In 1997, the court was established with judges from Cambodia and other countries. Many of the main offenders—including Pol Pot, who died in 1998—died before they could be brought to court.

Two of the offenders passed away before being brought to justice. How crucial is it that Sampan is made to answer for his actions? He is primarily to blame for the massacre. But because this court has been run by the present government of Cambodia, which is made up of erstwhile allies, it has been tainted from the start and many more offenders have escaped punishment.

An UN-backed Cambodian court rejected the conviction appeal of Khieu Sampan, the last surviving Khmer Rouge leader.

The court invested about $330,000,000 in this lawsuit, although only five defendants were found guilty at trial. 

They should make sure the court is impartial toward the current administration. Because the judges' safety is in jeopardy inside Cambodia, the trial should have taken place elsewhere. intimidation by the current administration of all witnesses, not just the judges. No one is speaking because they would highlight the accountability of some of the current ruling elite.

They have been somewhat lacking. I wouldn't say complacent; I'd say tolerant. Any tribunal of that nature in the future ought to be more autonomous from the government of the nation where the corporations are still in charge. Under the Khmer Rouge, up to 2 million people were killed, and by the time the dictatorship was overthrown, nearly 25% of Cambodia's population was dead. The consequences of the regime's crimes and atrocities must still be felt in Cambodia today.

The people of Cambodia are still traumatised. This explains why the populace is not uprising against the current rulers, who are descendants of the previous administration. Imagine a post-Nazi Germany where it is true that Hitler is no longer alive. How about Joseph Goebbels, though? Assume he is still alive and in charge at this time. If certain Nazis are still in power, would a court that tried a Nazi be given credit?

Khieu Samphan, 91, will spend the rest of his life in prison after an UN-backed tribunal affirmed his conviction for crimes against humanity and the extermination of the Vietnamese minority. He was the head of state of the Khmer Rouge and its most prominent person. He is already serving a second life sentence for crimes against humanity committed during the 1975–1979 forcible evacuation of Phnom Penh. Up to 2 million individuals perished, many of them after being tortured or worked to death. The four years of the Khmer Rouge's harsh rule are still remembered for what they were. Despite the fact that the dictatorship was overthrown more than 40 years ago, hundreds of people, including Buddhist monks and Khmer Rouge veterans, showed there to hear the judgement.

Khieu Sampan has argued that he was just a symbolic leader with no real authority. But according to the prosecution, he was among the most accountable. This is the story that was intended for Cambodia, namely for the victims of the Kamal dictatorship, as well as for human rights and international criminal justice. The tribunal supported by the UN has only heard two cases, but this one is the final one to be heard in sixteen years. Some have questioned whether it has been worthwhile for the court to prosecute five Khmer Rouge officials after three of them were found guilty.

What is the Khmer Rouge? And who is Pol Pot?

The extreme communist guerrilla group of Pol Pot began in the 1960s in the vast jungles of Cambodia. Between 1975 and 1979, they ruled and exploited Cambodia for four years. converting hospitals and schools into detention and torture facilities. An entire country was subjugated to Pol Pot's ideologies. A million people, or about a quarter of Cambodia's population, died as a result of his methodical elimination of everyone who disagreed with him or didn't fit into his vision for Cambodia.

Pol Pot was the architect of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia

The S 21 prison in Phnom Penh was the most notorious of Pol Pot's torture facilities. As many as 13 to 300 men, women, and children were imprisoned at S 21, which served as a secondary school before the Khmer Rouge turned it into a prison and place of questioning during their four years in power. Once someone was brought to S 21, they were essentially doomed to a painful death, just as prisoners in the Gulag in Stalinist Russia and the concentration camps in Nazi Germany. Only seven of the thousands of S 21 inmates are thought to have survived the torture, and not because they were good people or because someone showed them kindness, but rather because they possessed a valuable aptitude or skill, such as mechanical repair or portrait painting. Prisoners who were considered to be of any importance were shackled on their backs in separate cells with their feet chained in a primitive mechanism, but for others, it was worse as hundreds of them were chained together by their feet in deplorable conditions of clothes. They had to stay in this position all day, every day, seven days a week squeezed together in neat rows. Prisoners were not allowed to talk and were occasionally given a few spoons of gruel. Upon request and as required, a gulp of water was given, and excrement was made into a bucket or coconut shell. Furthermore, this was just the tip of the iceberg.

S 21 prison, formerly a school, was a notorious prison

In the end, many convicts turned to eating live rats and other rodents and insects. Not only were inmates housed in S 21 and other prisons, but also the guards. Teenagers between the ages of 16 and 19 made up the majority of the jail personnel, who all worked in continual terror for their lives. They risk being jailed if they make just one mistake, changing their position from guard to prisoner. Because of Pol Patt's fear and paranoia, his supporters were constantly on edge. These guards would frequently see prominent regime officials showing up at S 21 as inmates for a variety of offences, such as disobedience, failing to reach unrealistic quotas, and suspicious activities. The life expectancy of these young guards at S 21 and other institutions was likewise short. As hundreds of inmates never made it out of S 21 Prison alive, Pol Pot would regularly have them cleanse them on suspicions of knowing too much or disobeying orders. As a result, the prison officials needed a site to execute and bury the detainees when the prison was full.

Exterminations were decided upon by the jail administration. around 10 kilometres outside the city in Choeung Ek. Prisoners would be brought to Choeung Ek by the truckload and called one by one to a pit by name. To conserve ammunition, victims would risk being killed by crude things at the edge of the pit. At Choeung Ek, at least 100 persons were removed. The killing field now serves as a national monument and is home to a Buddhist shrine where some victims' remains are interred.

Choeung Ek pictured here, has been transformed into a peace memorial

The Cambodian city of Phnom Penh was invaded by the Communist Party of Campachia's army in 1975. The people of Phnom Penh and all of Cambodia knew change was coming, whether they liked it or not, after winning a bloody five-year civil war. But they weren't prepared for what came next. in their wildest aspirations. Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, the Communist Party of Cambodia's armed wing, was a huge admirer of other Communist autocrats like Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. His goals for Cambodia, which was later renamed Camuchia, were on par with those of his idol's horrifying accomplishments in their respective nations. He actually sought to surpass them by establishing his egalitarian agrarian Communist Marxist utopia. That sounds like a great idea in theory, but in practice it was merely Pol Pot's fraud.

Pol Pot cut off his people from the outside world in order to take control of every single Cambodian's life. In addition to the abolition of money, private property, religion, education, contemporary attire, and even the Khmer culture as a whole, these measures also included the abolition of all other forms of government. The Khmer Rouge launched an ambitious campaign to change Cambodia right away. Pol Pot claimed that, in this contemporary 1984 of George Orwell, Cambodia is starting over from scratch. Contact with foreign governments came to an end. Schools, hospitals, and banks were shut down, and entertainment was reduced to a propaganda tool where only works of art in support of Pol Pot's revolution were permitted. People who no longer owned their homes were dragged from them.

Choeung Ek is a chilling reminder of the inhuman acts committed by the regime

To establish rural collectives, the urban population of Cambodia was compelled to move to the countryside. Now, those who resisted moving watched as their homes were set on fire. We shall destroy the old grass and the new will flourish, Pol Pot declared as justification for this novel method of government. Families were also split apart through deportations, executions, and the collectivization of living and working conditions. Not included are those who misplaced their family while relocating. Relationships with others were minimal, and showing emotion or affection was seen as a sign of weakness that should be punished. Food was in short supply, there was no access to healthcare, and housing conditions were anything but comfortable. These folks did not receive any instruction and were not farmers. Pol Pot's Cambodia experienced a collapse in agriculture and a widespread famine rather than an increase in food production. As expected, a large number of Cambodians pass away from famine.

The skulls of some of the victims have been kept at the memorial

The growing middle class had no place in Polpot's paradise. Professionals like journalists, physicians, engineers, architects, and essentially everyone who might be categorised as educated, wealthy, or used to live exclusively in cities were viewed as parasites on the system and useless. When new workers joined the collective, they were instructed to put their families aside and focus solely on the revolution. The number one brother was Pol Pot. Brother Number Two, Brother Number Three, and so on were the titles he gave to his subordinates. Be it a government policy, an individual being tortured or killed, or any other official act carried out even at the lowest levels of authority. After being tortured into confessing to crimes they did not commit and frequently for being CBI or KGB operatives, anyone suspected of being in opposition to the system was targeted and executed at execution fields. There were 20 such execution grounds scattered around Cambodia, including the one in Qing ECH. Nobody was exempt—men, women, or young children. The cruel Khmer Rouge adhered to the principle that it is preferable to kill an innocent person than to leave an enemy alive.

Anyone who disobeyed Khmer Rouge orders was labelled as an enemy of the state. The group will decide whether or not the offender was better suited for annihilation or reeducation. Doctors, teachers, clergymen, journalists, lawyers, and government employees were all considered with the utmost suspicion and frequently singled out for execution right away. People who could be identified with urbanisation were so deeply despised that those who wore spectacles, owned a watch, knew a foreign language, or spoke it were doomed. Those characteristics are generally connected to academia, intellectualism, and education. Anybody who would further such notions would be eliminated, according to the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot. Many of these experts, along with their whole extended families, were killed. Radios and music were outlawed as the regime's hold over society grew tighter.

The situation was worse for communities of colour and people of faith. The most popular religion in Cambodia was Buddhism, and after Pol Pot lost control of the country, hardline Communists turned their attention to it. More than 250 Buddhist monks were defrocked and killed at the hands of Pol Pot. The remaining almost 400 were likewise imprisoned in labour camps by him. Along with being forced to ingest wine and other substances against their religious beliefs, monks were also publically humiliated. Additionally, he demolished roughly 20 Buddhist temples and monasteries, using the remainder to build jails and other facilities the Khmer Rouge could employ for their evil activities. Although formal persecution of Buddhism ended with the fall of the Khmer Rouge, it took until 1989 for it to be reinstated as the state religion of Cambodia.

By the morning of January 7, 1979, Vietnamese troops had taken control of Phnom Penh, detained Pol Pot, and exiled him and his zealot supporters into the safety of the forests. Despite the controversy, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge continue to influence Cambodian politics far into the 1990s. After being overthrown by Vietnamese forces, Pol Pot continued to remain politically active for many years without ever being brought to justice for his crimes. Despite the dissolution of the Communist Party of Kampuchea at the conclusion of 1981. For many years, the Khmer Rouge was active in Cambodia. However, the Khmer Rouge commander was placed under house arrest after Pol Pot killed his longtime ally Son Sen in 1997 because he believed he had betrayed him. According to American writer Nate Thyer, Pol Pot died of heart failure in his sleep in April 1998. However, Pol Pot had killed himself because he thought the new Khmer Rouge commander, Ma Talked, was going to hand Pol Pot up to American authorities.

Who are the Khmer Rouge? Convictions and crimes against humanity; Cambodia's horror tale

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