After Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia in January of 1979 it wasn’t till July of 1979 that Pol Pot and one of his right hand men were put on trial for their crimes. However it wouldn’t be till 2014 till other top members of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot himself would be really punished for their crimes and sentenced to prison. After six attempts to get these crimes punished for by a world court these crimes were finally punished after thirty nine years after the first invasion. The big question around the world is why did it take so long for these events to be punished as a genocide?
In 1985 an academic article was published by Nancy Blodgett where she reports on an American lawyer who wants to finally try the members of the Khmer Rouge and get justice for the victims. The lawyer is Gregory Stanton “A professor at Washington and Lee University School of Law in Lexington Virginia… Stanton is a graduate of Yale law school” (Blodgett 31). She quotes Stanton’s reasons for pursuing this case “‘Some people might say it’s passé to be concerned about genocide that occurred so long ago… But in a legal since, it isn’t anymore no more passé than investigating someone’s murder’” (Blodgett 31). This quote from Stanton himself shows us the world’s view of calling these events as a genocide during the time. After only ten years after the genocide people had the view that this happened so long ago that people thought it was useless to punish people for the crimes that were committed. It wasn’t till 1994 after the Rwandan Genocide that people really started to take a new look at these events and how they were really under punished.
In another academic article by Susan E. Cook called Cambodia’s Lessons for Rwanda she talks about how if the Rwanda government doesn’t seriously punish these crimes soon then they will end up like the people of Cambodia and how after almost twenty years later it still hasn’t been punished. She states “In 1994, nearly twenty years after Pol Pot took power in Cambodia the U.S. congress under strong pressure from vocal political lobbies… passed the Cambodian Genocide Justice Act Pledging to promote and support efforts to bring the leaders of Khmer Rouge regime to justice” (Cook 224). During this time people were shocked and concerned with how many people had died and how much it seemed like the holocaust due to the fact that this was one of the first time that this type of event was covered on the news in a global scale. This caused people to look back at Cambodia and wonder why these crimes had never been punished previously.
In 1989 Hurst Hannum in his published works International Law and Cambodian Genocide: The Sounds of Silence he explains what he has observed at the reason for these events to have not been punished as a genocide. He explains “No attempt has been made to condemn the Khmer Rouge’s violation of customary international law. Many reasons, purportedly based on consideration of realpolitik, have been put forward by states to excuse their failure to act” (Hannum 136). When he uses the word realpolitik which is German he is trying to compare these events to the holocaust. But unlike the holocaust these events were not punished and the holocaust had the worlds support to be called a genocide. Which is one of the reasons it was not called and took so long to acknowledge these events as a genocide. The fact that the holocaust was the first convicted genocide and the reason we have the term the world believes that labeling this event as a genocide makes it exactly like the holocaust.
In Trudy Jacobsen’s article she talks about how punishment for crimes in Cambodia has changed since the genocide. In particular, punishment for those who committed the genocide. “On 6 Jun 2004 the Cambodian government and the United Nations finally reached an agreement on the establishment of a tribunal to prosecute the leaders of the Khmer Rouge” (Jacobsen 253). She also discusses who the people of the country blame for these events not being punished sooner that they were. “The Cambodian People’s Party has been accused in reginal press of ‘foot dragging’ on the issue… resolution of the political statement in the country since July 2003 election” (Jacobsen 254). In this piece from the article we can see that after the old power that took over after the Khmer Rouge was taken out in the most recent election, the crimes for the genocide after six attempts is finally being punished and brought to trial.
In 2014 after thirty nine years since the genocide began the people who were in charge despite their denial of their parts in these event were eventually punished and sent to life in prison. Though their punishment came after years of waiting these men were finally punished, and victims received justice. Although the punishment on no scale compared to what these people went through they finally received justification of their suffering after years of people trying to find excuses for not punishing these crimes when they happened.
In 1985 an academic article was published by Nancy Blodgett where she reports on an American lawyer who wants to finally try the members of the Khmer Rouge and get justice for the victims. The lawyer is Gregory Stanton “A professor at Washington and Lee University School of Law in Lexington Virginia… Stanton is a graduate of Yale law school” (Blodgett 31). She quotes Stanton’s reasons for pursuing this case “‘Some people might say it’s passé to be concerned about genocide that occurred so long ago… But in a legal since, it isn’t anymore no more passé than investigating someone’s murder’” (Blodgett 31). This quote from Stanton himself shows us the world’s view of calling these events as a genocide during the time. After only ten years after the genocide people had the view that this happened so long ago that people thought it was useless to punish people for the crimes that were committed. It wasn’t till 1994 after the Rwandan Genocide that people really started to take a new look at these events and how they were really under punished.
In another academic article by Susan E. Cook called Cambodia’s Lessons for Rwanda she talks about how if the Rwanda government doesn’t seriously punish these crimes soon then they will end up like the people of Cambodia and how after almost twenty years later it still hasn’t been punished. She states “In 1994, nearly twenty years after Pol Pot took power in Cambodia the U.S. congress under strong pressure from vocal political lobbies… passed the Cambodian Genocide Justice Act Pledging to promote and support efforts to bring the leaders of Khmer Rouge regime to justice” (Cook 224). During this time people were shocked and concerned with how many people had died and how much it seemed like the holocaust due to the fact that this was one of the first time that this type of event was covered on the news in a global scale. This caused people to look back at Cambodia and wonder why these crimes had never been punished previously.
In 1989 Hurst Hannum in his published works International Law and Cambodian Genocide: The Sounds of Silence he explains what he has observed at the reason for these events to have not been punished as a genocide. He explains “No attempt has been made to condemn the Khmer Rouge’s violation of customary international law. Many reasons, purportedly based on consideration of realpolitik, have been put forward by states to excuse their failure to act” (Hannum 136). When he uses the word realpolitik which is German he is trying to compare these events to the holocaust. But unlike the holocaust these events were not punished and the holocaust had the worlds support to be called a genocide. Which is one of the reasons it was not called and took so long to acknowledge these events as a genocide. The fact that the holocaust was the first convicted genocide and the reason we have the term the world believes that labeling this event as a genocide makes it exactly like the holocaust.
In Trudy Jacobsen’s article she talks about how punishment for crimes in Cambodia has changed since the genocide. In particular, punishment for those who committed the genocide. “On 6 Jun 2004 the Cambodian government and the United Nations finally reached an agreement on the establishment of a tribunal to prosecute the leaders of the Khmer Rouge” (Jacobsen 253). She also discusses who the people of the country blame for these events not being punished sooner that they were. “The Cambodian People’s Party has been accused in reginal press of ‘foot dragging’ on the issue… resolution of the political statement in the country since July 2003 election” (Jacobsen 254). In this piece from the article we can see that after the old power that took over after the Khmer Rouge was taken out in the most recent election, the crimes for the genocide after six attempts is finally being punished and brought to trial.
In 2014 after thirty nine years since the genocide began the people who were in charge despite their denial of their parts in these event were eventually punished and sent to life in prison. Though their punishment came after years of waiting these men were finally punished, and victims received justice. Although the punishment on no scale compared to what these people went through they finally received justification of their suffering after years of people trying to find excuses for not punishing these crimes when they happened.