Friday, November 18, 2011

UN Tribunal Business- Khmer Rouge

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/19/world/asia/un-court-appeals-release-of-khmer-rouge-defendant.html?ref=world&gwh=B203308281610D28AA36CDB681FEEAAA

So completely random, but on my Facebook I keep a link in my profile to this amazing video that I will randomly watch from time to time. It's a short video the NY Times did with Dith Pran shortly before he lost his life to cancer. His story of being a prisoner with the Khmer Rouge, was the basis for the movie The Killing Fields. I don't know why, but I watched it yesterday. It's from 2008, yet it still moves me every time:

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2Fpackages%2Fhtml%2Fmultimedia%2F20080320_DITH_PRAN_LAST_WORD_FEATURE%2Findex.html&h=BAQG3Tll1

(If the link doesn't work...it's on my Facebook profile)

And then today I see this story. It has been very difficult and taken a very long time to put many of the higher ups in the Khmer Rouge on trial for genocide/crimes against humanity/etc. Pol Pot died before he could be put on trial- and a lot of people were pissed about that, so they really put some effort into getting the others. They sentenced Duch (who ran Tuol Sleng prison, notorious killing facility) already and this woman in the article and her husband were leaders in the Khmer Rouge government. Recently her dementia has progressed far enough that doctors have determined her unfit for trial, which prosecutors are now appealing.

So questions that came to my mind are this:
-Should they just try her anyway, as it will be a symbol for the Cambodian people more than anything?
-If they do try her, what does that say for all the other cases of people who are mentally incapable being tried or sentenced or executed?
- Can they put her under house arrest if they do in fact release her, as a sort of compromise?

It's a sticky situation- on the one hand you want to try this woman because she did do some atrocious things to people. On the other, as a justice system, no matter how difficult or controversial, they need to uphold the code of law. She is probably mentally unstable to stand trial. I don't know what the UN should do...which is why I'm not a judge.

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