The New York Times

Editorial

July 30, 1997

Judgment Day for Pol Pot

The surreal trial of Pol Pot, held last week in a

shed deep in the jungle of northern Cambodia, was

the antithesis of justice. It was a show trial designed

to demonstrate that the Khmer Rouge has broken with its

old leader and is deserving of new legitimacy. Instead

it showed how little the Khmer Rouge has changed. The

rest of the world, however, has progressed in dispensing

justice to men like Pol Pot. There are ways to give him

the trial that he, and his million-plus Cambodian

victims, deserve.

The Khmer Rouge invited a journalist, Nate Thayer, to

tape the proceedings, which were broadcast in America by

ABC News. Pol Pot and three loyal generals were charged

by the Khmer Rouge's new leaders with recent offenses,

including the execution of the group's defense minister.

One after another, speakers harangued them as about 500

people, some in uniform, many missing limbs or eyes, sat

and watched, segregated by sex. Many appeared to be in

their 20's. The spectators periodically lifted their

fists in unison and shouted "Crush, crush, crush Pol Pot

and his clique." Pol Pot, feeble and unable to walk

unsupported, sat silently.

The eeriest thing about the trial was not its complete

lack of due process -- no one could have expected

anything else -- but its triviality.

Was this charade the final reckoning for a regime that

killed perhaps one-quarter of all Cambodians? Such a

court inspired little confidence that the verdict of

life under house arrest would be carried out.

Pol Pot was tried for internal political reasons, not

because he directed genocide or mass murder. Indeed, his

accusers barely mentioned his 1975-79 reign of terror.

Cambodians who watched excerpts of the trial on a

television set in Phnom Penh said, not surprisingly,

that they were unsatisfied. The nation's leaders have

acknowledged that their justice system cannot provide a

fair, unpoliticized trial of Pol Pot and have asked for

international help. The Khmer Rouge refuses to turn him

over to an international tribunal, but this is probably

not the last word. Cambodia's strongman, Hun Sen, may

try to placate international critics of his own

autocratic coup by capturing Pol Pot.

Under international law, Pol Pot's crimes can be tried

in any nation with the appropriate laws, but none have

volunteered. The best course is for the United Nations

to establish an international tribunal like those for

Rwanda and Bosnia.

This would require overcoming the objections of China.

It is a pity that a permanent international criminal

court does not yet exist. The United Nations may be on

its way to creating one, though it would come too late

to handle Pol Pot.

If the remaining differences are resolved, at this time

next year nations will begin to ratify an International

Criminal Court treaty. The court was first discussed

after the Nuremberg Tribunals, but is only now a real

possibility after 50 years of cold-war squabbling. It is

hard to think of any more eloquent argument for the

court than the Khmer Rouge's grotesque trial of Pol Pot.