En folkemorders triste død
For et par uger siden døde en folkemorder. Tidligere udenrigsminister under De Røde Khmerers rædselsregime i Cambodja, Ieng Sary, var medansvarlig for op mod to millioner menneskers død, da Pol Pots ultrakommunister regerede landet fra 1975 til 1979.
Ieng Sary blev 87 år. Hvor er det brandærgerligt, at han ikke levede længere.
Hvorfor? Fordi døden er en alt for let udvej for en mand, der har så megen død og menneskelig ødelæggelse på samvittigheden. Han skulle have haft lov til at lide i et fængsel lige så længe som de hundredtusinder af traumatiserede cambodjanere, han for 30 år siden efterlod i sit kølvand.
De Røde Khmerers udenrigsminister, Ieng Sary, var medansvarlig for op mod 2 millioner menneskers død. Desværre nåede at kun at tilbringe fem år bag tremmer, før han døde af alderdom. Foto: DC Cam
Heldigvis nåede Ieng Sary i det mindste at tilbringe fem år bag tremmer. Og han måtte også lide den tort at blive stillet frem på anklagebænken ved det særlige krigsforbrydertribunal i Phnom Penh, som siden 2006 har retsforfulgt de ansvarlige for folkemordet.
Det er vigtigt. For retfærdighed handler også om, at ofrene oplever, at den sker fyldest. Og at se en diktator eller folkemorder – en Ieng Sary, en Slobodan Milosevic eller en Saddam Hussein – stå ret foran et dommerpanel og senere ført tilbage til en fængselscelle, er med til at give den oplevelse.
Desværre var tribunalet i Cambodja så længe undervejs og har mødt så store økonomiske og politiske forhindringer, at Ieng Sary døde af alderdom, inden retssagen mod ham var til ende. Den gamle udenrigsminister døde dermed i juridisk forstand som en uskyldig mand.
Han er ikke den eneste Røde Khmer-leder, som er sluppet af sted med folkemord. Pol Pot selv og fire andre af bevægelsens topledere døde alle, før tribunalet gik i gang, og dermed uden, at deres ofre oplevede nogen form for retfærdighed overhovedet.
Den slags sker selvfølgelig ikke kun i Cambodja. Tænk f.eks. på Stalin, Franco, Idi Amin, Kim Jong-il eller Gadaffi. Sidstnævnte slap godt nok ikke helt for sanktioner og blev myrdet i ørkenen. Men måske havde der været større retfærdighed i at stille ham op foran en dommer, hvor alle libyere kunne se ham, og derefter lade ham tilbringe resten af livet i fængsel.
Personligt håber jeg i hvert fald ikke, at Syriens Bashar al-Assad slipper så let som Idi Amin, Gadaffi eller Ieng Sary. For syrerene fortjener at opleve retfærdigheden i at se deres tidligere diktator både på anklagebænken og mange år i en fængselscelle.
Rough English translation:
The sad death of a mass murderer
Last week a mass murderer died. Ieng Sary, foreign minister during the Khmer Rouge regime, Ieng Sary, was co-responsible for the death of almost two million people during those four years from 1975 to 1979, when Pol Pot and his ultra-communists ruled Cambodia.
He died at the age of 87. How sad that he didn’t live longer.
Why? Because death is too easy a way out for a man responsible for so much death and human destruction. He should have been allowed to suffer in a prison for as long as those hundreds of thousands of traumatized Cambodians he left in his wake 30 years ago.
Fortunately Ieng Sary did spend five years behind bars. And he did suffer the humiliation of being put in the dock at the special war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh, that since 2006 has tried to prosecute those responsible for the genocide.
This is important. Because justice also requires that the victims feel and experience that it is being done. And watching a dictator or mass murderer – be it an Ieng Sary, a Slobodan Milosevic or a Saddam Hussein – standing at attention in front of a panel of judges and later be led back to a prison cell makes a difference in achieving that experience.
Unfortunately the tribunal in Cambodia was such a long time in the making and has met such big economic and political obstacles that Ieng Sary died of old age before the trial against him was at a conclusion. Thus in the legal sense the old foreign minister died an innocent man.
He is not the only Khmer Rouge leader who has gotten away with genocide. Pol Pot himself and four other senior officials of the regime all died before the tribunal began its work – and therefore without their victims experiencing any sort of justice being done at all.
Of course this does not only happen in Cambodia. Think for example of Stalin, Franco, Idi Amin, Kim Jong-il or Gaddafi. The latter wasn’t let off entirely without sanctions, since he murdered in the desert. But maybe there had been more justice in bringing him in front of a judge, where all Libyans could see him, and then letting him spend the rest of his life in prison.
I, for one, hope that Syria’s Bashar al-Assad doesn’t get away as easily as Idi Amin, Gaddafi or Ieng Sary did. Because the Syrians deserve to experience the justice in seeing their previous dictator both in the dock and then many years in a prison cell.
Marchers meninger 