Prof. Ramji-Nogales on Ta Mok’s Death and the Future of Cambodia’s War Crimes Prosecutions

Prof. Ramji-Nogales on Ta Mok’s Death and the Future of Cambodia’s War Crimes Prosecutions

Former Khmer Rouge Military leader Ta Mok died this past Friday, July 21, in a Cambodian military hospital. Although I spent one of my most memorable evenings ever having drinks with Dith Pran, I’m no expert on Cambodia or recent efforts at bringing the Khmer Rouge to justice. But, one of my new colleagues, Jaya Ramji-Nogales, is an expert on both fronts (check out her recent book on the subject here). Since 1997, she has been a legal advisor to the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an organization that gathers, organizes, and preserves documents and testimony concerning the crimes of the Khmer Rouge. I asked Jaya to provide Opinio Juris with her views on Ta Mok and the implications of his death for the future of war crimes prosecutions in Cambodia. Here’s what she had to say:

Ta Mok, a.k.a. “The Butcher”, will be laid to rest today in Anlong Veng, a former Khmer Rouge stronghold. After seven years in prison, awaiting trial before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), Mok died less than three weeks after the judges and prosecutors of the tribunal were finally sworn in, and more than twenty-seven years after the Khmer Rouge regime fell. The ECCC, a hybrid court composed of both Cambodian and international judges, will try only senior leaders and those most responsible for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge regime. While Mok’s death is a serious loss for the tribunal, it by no means signals the death of this institution. Instead, it should remind the ECCC to move full speed ahead to try the remaining senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge, and should push the UN and the international community to fund a truth commission or other investigation into the full evidentiary record of the regime’s atrocities.

By all accounts, Mok was one of the Khmer Rouge’s most feared and longest serving leaders. He was the secretary-general of the Southwest Zone, an area notorious even by Khmer Rouge standards for brutal executions and purges. It was a family affair, with several sons and daughters implementing his bloody policies. Mok’s region contained an interrogation center for torturing and murdering enemies of the regime; some report that he was responsible for the death of more than 100,000 Cambodians. Despite the Khmer Rouge’s Maoist ideology, Mok came around to the capitalist lifestyle, beginning in the 1980s. Along with other former Khmer Rouge leaders Khieu Sampan, Nuon Chea and Ieng Sary, Mok grew wealthy from mining operations in the Pailin region, as well as logging interests along the Thai border.

While many other high-ranking Khmer Rouge officials eventually defected, Mok retained his role as military commander when the Khmer Rouge lost power in 1979, and became the group’s leader in its last years. Mok remained defiant for twenty years, until his capture in 1999. A Cambodian military court charged him with security crimes under the domestic criminal law that year, and, under the ECCC law, crimes against humanity in 2002 and war crimes in 2005. While Cambodians awaited the creation of the ECCC, Mok remained in government custody for seven years, until his death last Friday.

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