According to the article, thirty years after a Cambodian torturer whose name is Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, stood in the court to "achieve justice for survivors of a rigime that killed perhaps 2 milion people. Duch ran Tuol Sleng or S-21, a notorious Phnom Penh prison(now museum), where more than 14,000 men, women and children were tortoured and killed. Duch is being tried seperately from four other detainees, all, unlike him, central-committee memebers. His systematic interrogations in S-21 left a damning trail of evidence, and he is vital to the effort to understand the rigme. 'He along has admitted his deeds and will almost certainly point the finger to implicate others,' says Alex Hinton, of Rutgers University's Centre for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights. Duch's lawyer said that Duch intends to apologise to victims and answer thier long-held questions about the torture prison."
I would like to introduce this article after I watched a movie, The Reader(2008). I'm not sure whether you watch the movie or not, but I would like to tell this story simply. The background is related to history of the Nazis in German. One woman stood in the court like Duch in the article, after her working which was a guard in Judean refugee about 20 years ago. The guard selected 60 persons and sended to Auschwitz Concentration camp, and in the place all people selected were killed. The woman admit that she work on the job, while others deny to do that. And finally, she is sentenced imprisonment for life, murduring 300 peoples. Though I admit their violence of both the toturer in the article and guard in the movie, I wonder that they can be represented of the whole totures and guards. In German, at that time, there were thousands of camp everywhere, and everyone know about the camp and truth. I don't know much about the Cambodian case of the article, but I think, like German, if we inquire into the hidden circumstances that led up to the case, I think it is not only tortur's sin. Though the Economists express that "Justice moves slowly in Cambodia", I don't know how we can achieve justice in those cases.
Anyone can join this topic. ^_^ Thank you and have a nice weekend!
__________
References
Penh.P(2009,February 23). "Evil and the law" Economist. Retrieved March 14. 2009, from http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13171439
Saturday 14 March 2009
3 comments:
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I've never heard of Cambodian torturer, genocide, and S-21. I just looked into some websites, and was shocked. An estimated two million Cambodian were killed under Pol Pot's government... It's just my opinion, but I always think that education always comes first. How could he get rid of it? I mean he was tought that he had to do it because it was right thing, or he was forced to do it. I immediately remembered Japan when it was under the war. People had no doubt to kill people because they were tought to do so. I've never studied about psychology, so I don't understand how they were controlled at that time. Then I don't know who should be accused. Thank you for interesting topic Soojin!! :)
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if interesting is the right word for this topic, horrifying is probably more apt.
ReplyDeleteTwo things that I really like about Soojin's post here is the way she has related it to the events in Germany under Hitler, and the deep issues she raises in her comments in the second paragraph.
For a completely unrelated reason, it is also perfect: it serves us better than anything I could have prepared as preparation for the AEP lecture on Tuesday morning. I've just posted my own post on this at http://peteraep.blogspot.com/2009/03/aep-lecture-preparation-1.html, so please leave your responses to the questions I asked there, as well as continuing to share your responses to Soojin's post here.
I read your post many times last few days and I tried to post my comment but I couldn't. It is quite difficult for me to have the ideas about this issues. However, it is very interesting to start to start thinking about it. I think the legal system in Cambodia is just about the beginning stage compared to other developed countries. However, I also impressed that Cambodia have already started to justice about the issue of geocide. I compared to Thailand where the legal system has long been established but seems to be the beginning stage as well. I hope this justice about genocide in Cambodia will be give the rightness to all victims and bring the better value of life for all Cambodians.
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