By Youk Chhang
Pol Pot's jungle trial in Anlong Veng was not only unfair, but also fake. Nate Thayer, a correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review, who was presumably invited by Khmer Rouge hard-liners Khieu Samphan, Ta Mok and Pol Pot himself, to witness the trial, has stated that Pol Pot was close to tears and might die during the process. His statement on BBC radio harmed the process of jailing Pol Pot and hurt the feelings of survivors of the Pol Pot regime.
Emotionally, he hurt my family and me. But I presume he spoke out of innocence because he does not have a legal background and knows nothing about the mentality of the Cambodian people.
The videotape of the jungle trial, recorded by a cameraman who was with Thayer and later sold to the American Broadcasting Corporation, does not provide the public with the whole process of the trial, but a fabricated image of Pol Pot.
The trial proves that the Khmer Rouge has no other way to return to power in Cambodia but to convict its own leader. Pol Pot has tried many ways to come back to power through political and military means. He has now tried a drama.
Pol Pot will do and try anything to come back to power. In the next story from Anlong Veng, I dare say, we shall hear that "Pol Pot hung himself in his bedroom". Or we shall hear that "Pol Pot has gone crazy and cannot remember a thing".
These things are not new to Cambodians who lived under the Pol Pot regime. It was a very small crowd at the central market and Wat Phnom where ABC showed to the public a videotape of Pol Pot at the jungle trial.
The reaction from Cambodians was not a surprise. Cambodians know that the trial is faked by Pol Pot. Mom Eng, 55, a cyclo driver whose six kids died from starvation during the Pol Pot regime, said, "I will believe that Pol Pot is arrested or in jail when I see him with the UN's police".
Traditionally, the Khmer Rouge sentences its own cadres or the enemies of Angkar to execution, not house arrest. If the Khmer Rouge People's Court found that you were guilty or betrayed the Angkar, they quickly hit you with a hoe or an axe or a bamboo stick with crowds cheering. You then would be buried whether you were alive of dead.
If the jungle trial was real, as Thayer claims, Pol Pot should have been hit and buried on the spot the way his men did to almost 2 million Cambodians during his rule from 1975 to 1979.
An international court now has more of a chance than ever to put Pol Pot in jail. We know where he is now. He must and can be arrested. Cambodia has already sent a letter to the UN requesting an international trial. A fair trial should be provided to Pol Pot and the victims of his regime. That will be the only way to close the case of the Pol Pot regime legally and peacefully.
[Youk Chhang is the director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia in Phnom Penh. This article first appeared in the Cambodia Daily.]