The Khmer Rouge Trial and the Ghost of Nuremberg

By Tracy Dove, Ph.D
Editor, The Russia News Service

November 20, 2007

After much backpedaling and horrific delay, the butchers of Cambodia will finally stand trial for some of the worst crimes committed against humanity in the last quarter of the 20th century. The process is underwritten by the slow wheels of justice within the United Nations and has the oblivious support of world leaders who probably couldn't find Cambodia on a map of Indochina if they tried. At an international level this announcement is a current affairs anticlimax, because once the story has its run of the headlines the musings of the court will certainly disappear from the common vernacular, only to be recorded in obscure websites maintained by the victims of the Khmer Rouge's torture wheel. This trial- as well as the 3-year yawn of a process against Slobodan Milosevic preceding it- is an unfortunate letdown for anyone who would expect a rapid conclusion in the spirit of Nuremberg, when Nazi war criminals were tried and executed with high international approval ratings and military expedience.

Unfortunately for victims of genocide- past present and future- we will never see a rally of justice like we did in Germany after World War II. The reason is simple: the Nuremberg Process was not conducted by the sleepy United Nations but by four allied powers that set up a military court of justice quickly and promised timely judgements against the Nazi defendants. Within the span of 1 year convictions were handed down against 24 of the major Nazi war criminals, and those who weren't able to commit suicide before hand had their death sentences carried out quickly. Since then only Saddam Hussein's process was conducted as quickly, although the German criminals never would have dreamt of cursing and intimidating their judges the way Saddam did.

While the Nuremberg Process appears to have been a stark deliverance of justice, the fate of those officers could have been worse had the cults of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin not been curtailed by realities as they were at the end of the war. The greatest indignation at the Nazi war crimes was first felt by the British in 1940, when Winston Churchill advocated the use of a firing squad without the interference of a trial. Roosevelt later convinced him that this was a bad idea, and Churchill eventually backed down. The American President didn't need to remind the British Prime Minister that conviction without due process of law was one of the main reasons why colonial America fought their war of independence against Britain, and this might not be the best allied policy- especially for American domestic consumption.

But Roosevelt was no angel either; his ear was temporarily bent by the sinister plans of the US Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr., who suggested that the denazification of Germany be followed by the complete destruction of the industrial economy and the introduction of a mild form of slave labor there. Until 1944, Churchill was happily riding on this vindictive bandwagon, until, surprisingly, it was Stalin who sobered things up when he suggested that there be an international judicial process against the Nazi forces.

While this might sound strangely humane, emanating as it did from behind the General Secretary's moustache, the process that he envisioned would have resulted in the mass indictment of 50,000 individuals- including officers and simple soldiers. Churchill had trouble with this, arguing that many of those men simply fought in the name of their country and should not be subject to such harsh judgement. After all, they were simply following orders- which, as we have heard in lesser courtrooms- is the standard defense of the scoundrels who commit such crimes in the first place, and the Cambodian defendants will certainly try and blame their conduct on their deceased leader, Pol Pot.

Nuremberg was effective because it was a military tribunal. These tend to be ugly, brutish and short- but very effective. The example set in Germany in 1946 was the example by which the United Nations would pen some important documents that have since then gotten excellent lip service but little action.
One of these would have been the creation of an International Criminal Court, but this is unpopular in certain geographies. Not less than 3 members of the Security Council are against it, since such an institution could have unpleasant consequences for their leaders. Despite hesitation to take this step, the world has at least created an International Convention on Genocide (1948), the Declaration of Human Rights (also 1948), the Geneva Convention (1949 and 1977 supplements) and the Abolition on the Statue of Limitations for War Crimes (1968).

The criminal proceedings in Cambodia have a ghost of Nuremberg in them, although this is no military tribunal but a United Nations effort at bringing the perpetrators of genocide to justice. As to whether anyone will be prosecuted or even serve a sentence is left to be seen. Unlike Nazi Germany, the Khmer Rouge had its friends in Cold War politics, and in this case, the world is not interested in anymore ghost stories.

Tracy Dove, editor of The Russia News Service, is a Professor of History and Dean of Summer Programs for the Lessing Institute. He also teaches history at the Anglo-American College in Prague.

See all previous articles by Tracy Dove here.