Taliban and Khmer Rouge: Are they comparable?
Myint Zan, School of Social and Economic Development, University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji Islands
With the formation of the new interim administration of Afghanistan the five-year (mis)rule of the Taliban can be said to have truly come to an end. The downfall of the Taliban brings forth a recollection of the overthrow of an even more brutal regime.
It was on Christmas Day 1978 that Vietnam invaded "Democratic Kampuchea" which led to the overthrow of the despicable Khmer Rouge regime on Jan. 7, 1979 when Phnom Penh fell to the invading -- at lest a few would say "liberating"-- Vietnamese forces.
Much has been recently written of the brutalities of the Taliban but the Khmer Rouge were much worse. It is now accepted that during their 44-month rule of "Democratic Kampuchea" up to about 1.6 million Cambodians (roughly one in six Cambodians) died as a result of the Khmer Rouge's policies and practices.
It has been alleged that foreign powers such as the United States had an indirect role in the Khmer Rouge's rise to power; and that the secret bombing of Cambodia by the Nixon-Kissinger administration from 1969 to 1973 solidified support for the rag- tag Maoist guerrillas in the Cambodian countryside. China had also supplied logistical and moral support to the Khmer Rouge.
Just as the Vietnamese invasion toppled the Khmer Rouge from power in early 1979, the U.S. bombing of Taliban positions had enormously helped in propelling the "Northern Alliance" and its partners to reassert control of Afghanistan, which ultimately led to the newly formed interim administration in Kabul.
Second only to Osama bin Laden, the Taliban's "one-eyed" leader Mullah Omar is on the U.S.' most wanted list. Mullah Omar's alleged crimes are no doubt grave but they almost pale in comparison with those masterminded by the Khmer Rouge's top leaders such as Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Nuon Chea. All three still live in relative comfort in the Cambodian province of Pai Lin. And there are no rewards in the millions of dollars for their capture, arrest or trial.
For the past few years the United Nations and the Cambodian government have been negotiating to establish a UN-sponsored tribunal. The tribunal would be composed of Cambodian and international judges. The UN and the Cambodian government apparently want to put on trial the top and middle-ranking former Khmer Rouge officials for the crimes against humanity they had committed on their own people.
But the wheels of Cambodian and international justice spin very slowly indeed. Even if such a tribunal is established it is by no means certain that these septuagenarians mass-murderers would ever appear before it.
Still, some solace can be taken from the Taliban and especially from the Khmer Rouge phenomenon of old.
The Taliban may have been defeated but it is believed there are thousands of supporters throughout the world, if not of the Taliban, then at least of its "guest" Osama bin Laden.
The particular brand of Communism or Maoism practiced by the Khmer Rouge has been destroyed. Its doctrines and practices has been discredited not the least by its erstwhile protagonists, though they did so for obvious reasons to protect themselves from prosecution.
The particular "brand" or interpretation of Islam as espoused and practiced by the Taliban, Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden has been disavowed by many Muslim governments and scholars. Yet even optimists are likely to conceded that this particular interpretation of Islam still has its followers throughout the world.
Secondly, if the current trend of ratification continues, the Permanent International Criminal Court can perhaps be established some time in 2002. We should hold no illusions that the establishment of the Permanent International Criminal Court would somehow significantly reduce the genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes that are committed throughout the world -- crimes for which the Court, with limitations and qualifications, would be able to exercise its jurisdiction.
But now there is a distinct possibility that a few of the "future international criminals" who would commit these crimes after the Court came into existence might have to answer for their misdeeds before it.