The Nouveau Khmer Rouge, by Michael Benge

The demise of Pol Pot, the architect of Cambodia's 'killing fields,' should not deter the Clinton Administration and the international community from bringing the rest of Pol Pot's killing machine to justice. After all, Nuremberg succeeded without Adolph Hitler, and the Jewish people's search for justice didn't end with his death. However, an international tribunal shouldn't myopically focus only on the few Pol Pot holdouts, such as Ta Mok and Khieu Samphan, but should also include the so- called "former Khmer Rouge." And one shouldn't be fooled into thinking that since Pol Pot is dead that the Khmer Rouge is finished.

What has taken place in Cambodia is similar to what happens when a Mafia Don dies--nothing more than a re-alignment of alliances--a new Don emerges and the Mafia lives on. The new Don is Cambodia's dictator--Hun Sen.

With the exception of a few holdouts, the entire killing machine of Pol Pot is now allied with Hun Sen and the CPP. Hun Sen's troops now number about 100,000 men, bolstered by a string of new Khmer Rouge alliances. The first was with Ieng Sary and 15,000 members of the radical Maoist group of killers. Ieng Sary was Pol Pot's brother-in-law and "Brother Number 2," co-founder and co-leader of Pol Pot's killing machine. He and his men were granted amnesty by Hun Sen, allowed to keep their weapons, and were given a fiefdom along the Thai border rich in gems and timber. Hun Sen also cut a deal with Duch, the former head and chief executioner of the notorious Toul Sleng torture and killing center where thousands were murdered. Duch has retired to western Cambodia where he lives with impunity.

Prior to the July coup, Hun Sen integrated the forces of General Keo Pong into his command. Keo Pong, a former commander under Pol Pot's command, gained notoriety for kidnapping, extortion and murder of westerners in southwest Cambodia. Under Hun Sen's command, Keo Pong led the July putsch against the democratically elected opposition, financed by Theng Bun Ma, identified as a new S.E. Asian drug kingpin. And now, Ted Sioeng--the Indonesian-born ethnic Chinese who is a central figure in the "donorgate" scandal over China's alleged attempt to influence the 1996 U.S. elections--has joined the inner circle of Hun Sen, Theng Bun Ma, and Ieng Sary. Together, they have pooled their ill-gotten gains--money funneled by the Chinese to the Khmer Rouge, and that from drugs, jewel mining, and illegal logging--and opened a bank to launder money and finance their illicit operations. According to DEA, 1,300 pounds of heroin transits from Cambodia to the United States and Europe each week by Hun Sen's "government planes, helicopters, military trucks, navy boats and soldiers." Theng Bun Ma's operation is so lucrative that he has opened a second bank that issues VISA cards.

In February this year, five other close aides to Pol Pot, Pean Sambat; Ros Soy; Chea Kao Vay Pin, and Cheat Chhum, and the thousands of men under their command joined Hun Sen. Just before Pol Pot's death, Ke Pauk, along with several other of Pol Pot's hard-core inner circle and 3,000 Khmer Rouge troops switched alliances from Ta Mok and Khieu Samphan and joined Hun Sen. Ke Pauk rose to No. 13 in Pol Pot's political hierarchy, and according to Cambodian genocide researchers, is responsible for up to 100,000 deaths in the 1970s. As a reward, Hun Sen granted him amnesty and gave him and his army the fiefdom of Anlong Veng, Pol Pot's old headquarters, which is also rich in gems and timber.

In his book Hitler's Willing Executioners, Daniel J. Goldhagen states that the Khmer Rouge are responsible for killing a higher percentage of their people than either Hitler or Stalin, and "in order to liquidate that many people you have to have a pretty extensive killing machine." As there are no former participants in the Jewish Holocaust, there can be no former or ex-Khmer Rouge.

During the Khmer Rouge reign of terror, there were two factions. One faction--led by Pol Pot, Ieng Sary and senior military commander Ta Mok, and supported by the Chinese-- controlled that portion of Cambodia west of the Mekong River. The other faction--led by Heng Samrin and senior military commander Hun Sen, and supported by the Vietnamese--controlled the eastern portion. Every echelon of both factions carried out the Khmer Rouge's kill or be killed genocidal policy.

However, the roles of Hun Sen and the other leaders of the Cambodian Communist Party (CPP)--now in control of the government--have been left out of the revised Cambodian history by Khmer Rouge apologists hired by the U.S. to document the genocide. The head of the U.S. Cambodian Genocide Program is quoted as saying, "the Khmer Rouge movement is not the monster that the press have recently made it out to be." Tell that to the 1-2 million murdered Cambodians. As the renowned Jewish author and Nobel Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel said, when governments seek to destroy a people, they must kill twice, first the people, then the memory.

According to one eastern zone witness, "Hun Sen...and the troops under his command killed indiscriminately anyone in their way." In Kompong Cham Province, they "cut the throats of critically wounded at the city hospital. During the battle to relieve the provincial capital...my special forces unit discovered hundreds of bodies of men, women and children, young and old, including Buddhist monks who had been first tortured and then killed--some executed by a gunshot to the back of the head, others chopped to death with hoes, still others strangled to death or suffocated by plastic bags tied over their heads."

Regardless of his Khmer Rouge past, by applying the same war criminal standards to Cambodia as used in Bosnia, Hun Sen should be indicted for ordering the extrajudicial murder of over 100 opposition party members before and after the coup.

Cambodia has become the political basket-case of Asia. State terrorism, the worst aspect of Pol Pot's style of government, remains vibrant under Hun Sen's dictatorship. In part, past U.S. support for Hun Sen was based on the illusion that he and the CPP were the only ones strong enough to protect against a resurgence of the Khmer Rouge. No longer can Hun Sen use the Khmer Rouge as the bogeyman to frighten the electorate and the western world, for he has become the bogeyman himself!

Yet the so-called "Friends of Cambodia," led by Japan and the U.S., are funding a new election under Hun Sen on July 26 in which it will be impossible for any opposition to win. Hun Sen and the CCP has total control over the entire government apparatus as well as the mass media. U.N. and other human rights workers report that in order to register to vote, Cambodians are required to be accompanied by a CPP party cadre, forced to pledge allegiance to the CPP, fingerprinted and told that their security cannot be assured unless they vote for the CPP. Nevertheless, Hun Sen has threatened that he and his Khmer Rouge cohorts will rule regardless of the outcome of the elections, and has stated his intentions of appointing the drug king pin Theng Bun Ma as President.

For a change, the U.S. should take the lead and the moral high ground by boycotting the results of this sham election, and by encouraging other governments to do the same. Unfortunately, it is generally believed that the "so called" Friends of Cambodia, including the U.S., will roll over on the election results and give their blessings to Hun Sen and the Nouveau Khmer Rouge if he wins. There is a culture of violence and impunity in Cambodia in which Hun Sen and his cohorts in power can perpetrate any crime to preserve and abuse their power. The specter of political killings still stalks Cambodia. Hun responsible for the extrajudicial murder of over 100 of the political opposition, and the killing goes on with impunity. Most recently, one of Ranariddh's men was found with his eyes gouged out, his fingers cut off, and the skin peeled from his legs and feet before death--"an apparent suicide," said Hun Sen's Chief of Police. Until truth and justice become a reality in Cambodia, the country will be trapped in a cycle of violence.

A truly free election cannot be held until all the "former" leaders of Pol Pot's killing machine is tried before an international tribunal to prove once and for all that such inhumanity will not be tolerated by the international community. As President Clinton said, this is the only way to "help the Cambodian people achieve a lasting peace based on respect for human rights and democratic principals." The scars of the 'killing fields' will remain unhealed until all those responsible for atrocities in Cambodia are brought to justice.