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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Mok is not the first of the Khmer Rouge leadership to die before being brought to justice. Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge regime, died in 1998. Characteristic of the group’s continuous infighting and “purging”, Mok had captured Pot the year before, trying him before a “people’s tribunal” that imposed a sentence of life imprisonment. (Pot had killed Son Sen, the Khmer Rouge’s former Defense Minister, in 1997, along with his nine children and grandchildren, for intending to negotiate with the Cambodian government.) Ke Pauk, a senior military commander, died in 2002.

So Mok is merely one of several mass murderers who will never see his day in court – a moment that he apparently relished. His lawyer noted that Mok wanted to tell his side of the story in court, to tell the world that he never killed anyone but simply constructed dams, roads, bridges, gutters and reservoirs in order to feed and protect Cambodians. So who was responsible for all of those deaths? First, Mok admitted in an interview almost ten years ago that hundreds of thousands of people did die under the Khmer Rouge, but conveniently blamed Pol Pot for the killings. Second, he pointed the finger at Western governments who supported the Khmer Rouge regime.

Had Mok lived to face trial, he would have had to refute hundreds of pages of evidence establishing his role in the Khmer Rouge regime. Indeed, a report by two Cambodia experts published in 2001 found Mok to be a “clear candidate for prosecution” based on the evidence that had been gathered to that point. Mok could have also been a key witness against other former leaders of the Khmer Rouge. In the words of several Cambodians who were interviewed after his death, Mok’s trial would have helped to reveal the truth about the Khmer Rouge regime. In addition, it would have been harder for his family and those who revere him as a hero to claim that Mok was not responsible for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge.

Of the ten senior leaders most responsible for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge, six remain. Three – Khieu Sampan, the former head of state; Ieng Sary, the former foreign minister; and Nuon Chea, the chief ideologue – live in Pailin, where they amass mineral and timber wealth. Two others, Sou Met and Meas Muth, former Khmer Rouge military officials, were integrated into the Cambodian army. Given the influence of these men in Cambodia and the threat to stability that their trials pose, the political winds blow in favor of further delays. As the highest-ranking leader in government custody, Mok’s death strikes a blow to the prosecution, who may face greater political obstacles in bringing these more powerful Khmer Rouge leaders to justice. (Duch, the director of the notorious Tuol Sleng prison and torture center, remains in custody awaiting trial.)

While Mok’s family honors him, and other former Khmer Rouge leaders age in wealth and impunity, Cambodians await justice. With the tribunal fully funded and beginning its work, accountability is closer now than ever before. The UN and the international community have decided to pursue a tribunal, expending serious financial capital to do so, and must now ensure that the job is well done despite the impediments of time and politics. It is imperative that the ECCC move quickly to complete its mandate, while there are still defendants left to try. Moreover, the call for a truth commission or other body to investigate the evidentiary record on the Khmer Rouge regime becomes stronger as its senior leaders die off. Such an institution could create a thorough and comprehensive picture of who bears responsibility for the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge, so that the Cambodian people finally can attain accountability – better late than never.