The Cambodian government has approved a draft law and stiff penalties to counter those who would deny the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge which ruled this country between 1975 and 1979, when up to a third of the population perished.
Under the law, Khmer Rouge deniers can be charged and jailed for terms of one-five years and subjected to fines of US$2,500 to $125,000. The law is expected to pass the National Assembly given the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) holds 120 of its 125 seats.
Details of the law were released by the cabinet as the 50th anniversary of the fall of Phnom Penh to Pol Pot and his ultra-Maoists approaches and as the Khmer Rouge tribunal is finalizing legal work from a marathon war crimes trial that secured convictions for genocide and crimes against humanity.
Despite the tribunal’s rulings, innuendo has surfaced on rare occasions defending allegations of mass atrocities, which largely stems from efforts by senior Khmer Rouge leaders to blame the mass killings on the Vietnamese, who invaded in late 1978.
Pol Pot and his ultra-Maoists fled to the remote northwest and the war against the Vietnamese continued until 1989 with a civil war persisting until 1998.
The tribunal, also known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia found that between 1.7 million and 2.3 million people went missing, many believed exterminated, during Pol Pot’s reign of three years, eight months and 20 days.
According to government-friendly media, the law was initially mooted by former prime minister Hun Sen in May last year when he claimed that some politicians refused to recognize the genocide committed by Pol Pot and that current laws were insufficient.
It was endorsed by his son and current prime minister Hun Manet two months later. The seven-article draft named the Law against Non-Recognition of Crimes Committed during the Democratic Kampuchea Period will replace existing legislation.
That legislation bans statements denying crimes by the Khmer Rouge who ruled Cambodia as Democratic Kampuchea after seizing power on April 17, 1975. The draft law defines those crimes as identified by the tribunal under the 1949 Geneva Convention.
Similar laws have been enacted elsewhere, in particular against Holocaust deniers who assert the genocide of the Jews under Hitler’s Germany was fabricated or exaggerated, but Cambodia’s many critics fear this new law could be used as an additional means of silencing dissent.
“Opposition politicians have often criticized Hun Sen and the ruling CPP of being too close to Vietnam, which did install the party after the invasion in 1978. It’s the type of politicking that does work with Khmers who have a long-held distrust of the Vietnamese.
“Blaming the Vietnamese is not uncommon. How they apply this law — if and when — could prove interesting from a legal standpoint,” said one Cambodian academic who declined to be named.
https://www.ucanews.com/news/cambodia-drafts-new-law-banning-khmer-rouge-denials/107691
