Rasmei Kampuchea: Will the Tribunal Compensate the Victims?

What Does The Khmer Rouge Tribunal Have To Compensate Victims?
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Posted date: 04-07-2007Source: Rasmei Kampuchea
By: Okar

There is no clear answer for the question, “What are the reparations that the Khmer Rouge victims and their families will get from the Khmer Rouge Tribunal?”
Thiery Cruvellier, law counselor in the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, said in a journalist training course about the Khmer Rouge Tribunal that the reparations for the victims had not been determined yet, but he said that there could be compensation to console the victims. He points out that Rwandan International Criminal Court has already prosecuted their former heads of government, former commanders, former politicians, criminals both in middle-ranking and lower level as well as journalists. “They were accused of killing from 500,000 to 1 million Rwandan people in 1994. There are only 90 accused. Initially, the term for this court was 4 years, but the trials have been prolonged to around 16 years (1994-2010) with the expense of US$ 135 million for each year. Up to present, the Rwandan court has spent US$ 1 billion and it’s projected that it will spend up to US$ 1,400 million to complete the process.”
Thiery continued to say that there was compensation in Rwandan court. “The government of [Rwanda] has built schools and hospitals for victims and their children with free service. Moreover, the government apologizes to the victims publicly. The government of Rwanda made the apology in the name of the criminals,” he said. “However, it’s not possible to compensate the victims in Cambodia with money since there are nearly 3 million victims who died. Victims and their families are million more than that, so there is no money to pay for the compensation for them.”
Through various interviews, victims always say that, “No matter what compensation it is, it can’t console us since the size of suffering was more than what can be described.” “When one lost his or her family members including parents, siblings, or spouse, he or she would face a great suffering and continue to live with suffered mind forever. What can compensate this?
Similarly, Croatian people of the Former Yugoslavia put their words across that, “Justice has been given, but the suffering cannot be forgotten.”
However, Cambodia is different from Rwanda. The government of Cambodia has already built many schools with free of charge registration around the country already while hospitals and health care centers are available at the countryside for victims and ordinary people for free also. So, what does the Khmer Rouge Tribunal have to compensate the victims?
(Informal Translation)-Extracted from: Rasmei Kampuchea, vol.15, #4327, Wednesday, July 04, 2007.