Kim Jong-il and His Henchman Must Stand Trial for Genocide

June 29, 2011
Source: The Chosunilbo

Four former Khmer Rouge leaders went on trial in Cambodia on Monday on charges of genocide for their involvement in the deaths of almost a quarter of the country's 9 million population in the so-called Killing Fields between 1975 and 1979.

Nuon Chea, known as "Brother No. 2" and the chief ideologue of the Khmer Rouge, former head of state Khieu Samphan, as well as Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot's brother-in-law and foreign minister leng Sari and his wife leng Thirith, the ex-minister for social affairs were put before a UN-backed court, accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and murder.

Last year, the same court sentenced Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, the chief interrogator at the Tuol Sleng prison, to 35 years in jail for torturing and killing more than 16,000 people.

The trials are the result of continued UN efforts to find and punish perpetrators of crimes against humanity, regardless of statutes of limitations, 32 years after the ouster of the Khmer Rouge. The UN contributed US$100 million to set up the special tribunal and managed through persistent efforts to convince Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, himself a former Khmer Rouge official, to push ahead with the trials despite his concerns that it would create a dangerous rift in public sentiment.

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia has gathered accounts from former Khmer Rouge officials about the genocide and those who were responsible for the killings. Reports have called the trials the most important since the Nuremberg tribunal of Nazi war criminals.

There is a lesson in the tribunals for Koreans, because North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and his son Jong-un continue to oppress and starve the North’s 24 million people, sentencing them at will and sending them to political prison camps to be tortured and executed. The Kim dynasty, founded by Kim Il-sung, rivals the Khmer Rouge in terms of the scale of genocide.

After grabbing power in 1948, Kim Il-sung executed without trial or imprisoned hundreds of thousands of his political rivals, including foes within the communist party, pro-Soviet factions, party members who came from South Korea, Christians and middle-class people.

Accounts by North Korean defectors during a hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives last year revealed that such practices are still rampant in the North. Defectors recounted horrible abuses, such as forcing a pregnant inmate to abort their children by seesawing on their belly using a plank, and kicking a starving inmate in the stomach while he stood on his hands after he was caught eating corn seeds dug out of cow dung. There are 480 detention camps in the North.

The atrocities committed by Pol Pot and the Kims show that totalitarian dictators who seek to build a utopia always create Hell instead. But the tragedies in Cambodia and North Korea do not stem merely from distorted ideologies. Genocide results when this is combined with the depraved minds of ruthless dictators. North Korea's butchers will stand trial some day, just like the Khmer Rouge officials. It is the duty of all Koreans to make sure that happen soon and save the North's 24 million people.