Former Top KR Leader Helped End Regime, PM Says
Prime Minister Hun Sen on Sunday praised Ieng Sary for helping bring down the Khmer Rouge and leading the mass defection of rebels to the government in 1996.
Although Hun Sen stopped short of saying the former Khmer Rouge leader should not be tried in a war-crimes trial, he noted that Ieng Sary was tried in 1979, and that King Norodom Sihanouk granted him amnesty when he defected in 1996.
“Ieng Sary showed his good heart by bringing down the Khmer Rouge,” Hun Sen said in a speech broadcast on Apsara Radio during a visit to Kompong Chhnang province for flood relief. “The King signed the amnesty to let Ieng Sary lead 70 percent of the Khmer Rouge armed forces to defection.”
The remarks seem to contradict a statement by the prime minister last week, in which he said all surviving former Khmer Rouge leaders will have to stand trial.
On Sunday Hun Sen said it will be up to the courts and the National Assembly, which is considering a draft law on a Khmer Rouge tribunal, on what to do with Ieng Sary.
The UN and the government have yet to resolve the question of whether Ieng Sary should be tried for crimes against humanity, according to a memorandum of understanding between the two parties.
Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, said Ieng Sary should not be afraid of a trial if, as he has said, he didn’t commit any crimes. “Maybe why Ieng Sary is so defensive is that the amnesty provided to him by the King is not precise and clear,” he said.
Ieng Sary, former deputy premier and former minister of the Khmer Rouge regime, and Pol Pot were sentenced to death in absentia in a trial in 1979.
The King’s amnesty cleared Ieng Sary of the 1979 conviction and of the 1994 law outlawing the Khmer Rouge, but the monarch specified that the amnesty should not protect Ieng Sary from a future war-crimes trial. The amnesty was granted at the request of then co-Prime Ministers Prince Norodom Ranariddh and Hun Sen and approved by a majority of the National Assembly.
Prince Ranariddh on Saturday said he supports bringing all former Khmer Rouge leaders to trial, including Ieng Sary.
Hun Sen said the courts should decide “whether one who has already been found guilty can be tried twice.”
“If he is tried, will the King’s duty be canceled, and will the voices of two-thirds of National Assembly members be canceled?”
