Cambodia - The Country

Pol Pot's dead.

Khieu Sampahan and Nuon Chea have "retired" in Ieng Sary's get-rich-quick limbo for aging mass murderers-the former Khmer Rouge (KR) headquarters of Pailin in western Cambodia. And Kaing Khek Iev-known by his revolutionary name of "Duch" and the former proprietor of Phnom Penh's infamous Tuol Sleng Prison, where at least 14,000 Cambodians and 8 Westerners were tortured for months before being executed-surfaced as a born-again Christian and then snuck back off into the jungle after doing a kiss-and-tell for Western reporters in May 1999 about KR atrocities during Pol Pot's murderous 1975D1979 reign. He was "caught" by the army a few days later and whisked off to Phnom Penh.

Perhaps reluctantly-no, decidedly reluctantly-and assuredly without the zeal that would normally be exhibited by a "democracy" in rounding up the perps of a genocide that wiped out a quarter of Cambodia's population in the mid- and late-1970s, Phnom Penh has been shouldered with yet another burden: what to do with its expanding collection of former Maoist executioners, responsible for the deaths of at least 1.7 million Cambodians two decades ago, who seem to have arrived at the doorstep of justice by default and/or simple stupidity. And the government is in no hurry for Cambodians and the world alike to hear Ta Mok and Duch sit around a courtroom campfire and tell ghost stories.

Until Duch's apprehension, Phnom Penh's biggest prize was their little, one-legged trophy called Ta Mok-a very nasty KR general who goes by the handle "the Butcher"-who's rotting away in a Phnom Penh jail while the "international community" discerns whether Cambodia's judicial system can handle a purse-snatching case, much less a genocide trial. While Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen, Washington and Kofi Anan bicker over whether Ta Mok should be tried in Phnom Penh, The Hague or Disneyland-and prosecuted by part-time cyclo drivers or folks with an actual law degree, or a combination of the above-the former KR killer is withering away like a mushroom under a midday sun.

If convicted, a life sentence would last about a week (Ta Mok is 75). And how do you execute a one-legged man? A Cambodian firing squad would have an excuse why they missed. A guillotine would only lower Ta Mok's IQ a few points. He'd just get another prosthetic. Surely a bowling ball could be smuggled in from some place.

Initially Prime Minister Hun Sen said that it would be best to just bury the past, in the name of national reconciliation, and leave the geriatric former KR leaders alone to drop dead of heart attacks and colon polyps in Pailin while tending to their rose gardens. But pressure from the "international community" (read that as the donors of US$5 billion in aid to Cambodia) to bring these ex-guerrillas before an international war crimes tribunal has put Hun Sen, the marginal winner over Prince Norodom Ranariddh in 1998 elections amidst widespread allegations of voter fraud, between a rock and hard place-in other words, between Ta Mok's head and his peg leg.

With Ta Mok, Hun Sen had a scapegoat-a way to affix accountability, do it his own backyard (rather than before an international tribunal), appease the international community and allow the government to simultaneously bury the KR past and permit the Pol Pot regime's veridical architects to remain free in Pailin. It also helped that Ta Mok hired a lawyer and is pleading not guilty to charges ranging from war crimes and genocide to jaywalking. That, of course, puts the onus on the government to convict Ta Mok. Even a junior college biology major in a barrister's wig could prove beyond reasonable doubt enough to retire Ta Mok forever to his beloved jail cell and Khmer-language Voice of America broadcasts-and he could do it without dusting off too many skeletons in the closet.

Ah, but Mr. Duch-now 56, who laid low as an NGO worker for past few years-throws a wrench into Hun Sen's spokes. Duch is the Deep Throat of Cambodian politics. He's ready to tell all-his own role at Tuol Sleng and those who ordered him to do it. (According to Duch, KR second in command Nuon Chea ordered him to kill Americans James Clark and Michael Scott Deeds and six other Westerners and "burn their bodies with tires to leave no bones.") Nuon Chea might think twice about investing in any shuffleboard arcades in Pailin.

These are the kinds of admissions that strike fear into Hun Sen, because he'll be left with few options but to kindly invite Pailin leader (and former Brother #3), Ieng Sary, former KR ideological mouthpiece Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea to Phnom Penh (all free men) for a working lunch at the Cambodiana followed by traditional Cambodian dance performance and a nice little cultural show-a genocide trial.

When Ieng Sary "surrendered" to the government in August 1996, his punishment was leadership of the antonomous, personal fiefdom of Pailin-including the command of the 5,000 KR fighters who switched shoulder patches along with him. And there's no reason to believe Sary and his boys won't change uniforms again if he's asked to challenge in court anything more serious than a parking ticket. If international pressure becomes such that Hun Sen is forced to "arrest" Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, this shrewd prime minister will flip another ace from his sleeve (he's got enough of them to keep warm in Alaska) and tell the world: "You want 'em? Come and get 'em."

Anywhere that a hundred of Interpol's most wanted fugitives can safely call home is somewhere you wouldn't want to live. Perhaps no country on earth has so brutally suffered from as many forms of conflict over the past 35 years as has Cambodia-civil wars, border wars, massive bombardment via a superpower's B-52s, a deforestation rate considered unparalleled anywhere in the world, an autogenicide unprecedented in its savagery.

With the help of the United Nations, Cambodia began crawling back into the world on its knees in 1993, literally, as so many of the country's citizens are missing limbs after accidental encounters with one of the perhaps 6D10 million land mines still buried beneath the countryside's topsoil. (Though the number's been cut in half over the last two years through demining efforts and education, more than 150 Cambodians a month step on land mines. One in every 256 Cambodians is a land mine victim.) And those not missing arms or legs are most assuredly missing relatives, victims of Pol Pot's murderous regime. Many of Pol Pot's victims who survived the genocide today roam Phnom Penh's trash-laden boulevards like zombies out of a George Romero film. Some are hideously disfigured; nearly all are penniless and they follow Western tourists like gulls behind a trawler, begging for handouts.

In many areas across the neon-green Khmer countryside, bones spring from the earth like desert cacti, still shrouded with the tattered garments their owners were clothed in on the day they were slaughtered-a testament to the KR's demonic wrath. Red signs depicting skulls and crossbones are tacked to trees, sharing the bark with bullet holes, warning of land mines.

Since 1993, peace in Cambodia has been fragile at best, nonexistent most of the time. The shit hit the fan over the weekend of July 5, 1997, when Hun Sen bitch-slapped First Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh and seized sole power of the shredded government in a bloody coup d'etat that killed at least 60 people and caused $76 million in damage to the frail economy. The Phnom Penh airport was once again riddled with bullet holes and mortar blasts. (In the nine months that followed the coup, nearly 100 of Hun Sen's political opponents were tortured, killed, or simply disappeared.)

The move cost Cambodia admission into the powerful Asian trade bloc ASEAN and the world a helluva lot more: the $3 billion UN effort in 1993 to bring peace to Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge became a sideshow, for the first time in Cambodian politics, as thousands of Phnom Penhoise, including soldiers, took to the streets in a covetous frenzy of looting, murdering and pillaging. Tanks could be seen rattling down Norodom Boulevard packed to turret with stolen refrigerators, stereos and motorbikes. Car dealerships were gutted as military officers hot-wired spanking new Mercedes and Land Cruisers and sped off to the rice fields. Corpses were strewn in the streets of Phnom Penh. Terrorized tourists and expats hightailed it for the Hotel Cambodiana and, finally, Bangkok and Singapore. Aboard C-130s, they were forced to land at an airport without radar equipment-it had been swiped by Hun Sen's best. Bullets and rockets ricocheted off the ancient temples at Angkor as soldiers of both sides sought solace behind the fabled bulkheads of 900 years of history.

Greed became the new face of danger in Cambodia-hidden behind the fancy and bombastic acronyms of its political parties and the sound bites of democracy spewed by corruption's elected guardians. When the middle-aged little boys in Windsor knots don't get their way, they pull out their guns, in which Cambodia is awash. Just a few weeks prior to the coup, Cambodia's most prominent businessman, Teng Boonma, got pissed off with the service aboard a Royal Air Cambodge flight from Hong Kong to Phnom Penh. Did he complain at the ticket counter upon arrival? No. Instead, he shot out a tire of the Boeing 737 with his bodyguard's AK while the Pratt & Whitneys were still spinning. He was not detained. So Hun Sen took the cue, flipped the world the bird and blew out the tires of democracy.

But Hun Sen is a survivor, if nothing else. New elections in 1998 solidified his grasp on power, sole power. For now, the Khmer Rouge is dead, and Cambodia is enjoying relative peace for the first time in some 35 years. The country entered ASEAN in April 1999, the final Southeast Asia nation to do so.

DP just got back from circumnavigating the country by motorcycle (at the end of 1998) and can report thatÉwellÉthat it's possible-an unimaginable journey even a year ago.

Though Cambodia has ridded itself of the KR and been given a kick-start of legitimacy by its neighbors, it remains a culture of violence (two out of every three Phnom Penh households possesses at least one firearm). Though crime is down slightly in the capital since the aftermath of the 1997 coup, Phnom Penh remains one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

Don't be fooled. With the demise of the Khmer Rouge, there is emerging the perception of Cambodia being more peaceful. In reality, with the demise of the Khmer Rouge, the violence simply doesn't make as many headlines.

Rebel Etiquette

In 1992, UNTAC issued a pamphlet to its soldiers and workers listing helpful Khmer phrases for use in the event of being detained or robbed by the KR. Translated, a couple read:

-That's a very nice gun, sir. I'd be honored to give you the gift of my truck.

-My watch is very expensive; that's why it makes me very happy to present it to you as a gift.