July 26, 2010

Verdict Due in the Trial of a Khmer Rouge Figure - NYTimes.com

Verdict Due in the Trial of a Khmer Rouge Figure - NYTimes.com:

This verdict is late, coming 35 years after the atrocities by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, but good news. But one wonders if justice is ever served or ever can be served adequately when vicious dictators and their henchmen wantonly kill millions for any reason.. .ideology, a quest for power, etc.

In my view, the world never did seem to be fully outraged over this terrible tragedy. But justice of a sort will be meted out.
"The defendant, Kaing Guek Eav, commonly known as Duch, had admitted in an eight-month trial to many of the accusations against him. He oversaw a system that came to symbolize a regime responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million people from 1975 to 1979..."
“...For 30 years, the victims of the Khmer Rouge waited while a civil war raged, international actors bickered and the leaders of the Khmer Rouge walked free,” said Alex Hinton, director of the Center for the Study of Genocide, Conflict Resolution and Human Rights at Rutgers University in New Jersey. “Now, for the first time, one of them has been held accountable. The importance of this moment can’t be underestimated...” 

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