Khmer Rouge on trial

last updated 8 January 2015

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

The U.N. this week finally received enough donations to set up a tribunal to try Khmer Rouge members for genocide. The followers of Pol Pot will be charged with creating Cambodia’s infamous “killing fields,” in which more than 1.5 million died of starvation, forced labor, disease, and executions in just four years. Piles of skulls are still being discovered. The regime was overthrown in 1979, when the Vietnamese invaded, but Cambodia has been reluctant to agree to internationally supervised trials—partly because the prime minister, Hun Sen, was himself a low-ranking Khmer Rouge member. Many Cambodians fear the tribunal comes too late. Pol Pot died in 1998, and other top Khmer Rouge leaders are ailing.