RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

• UN Interviewing for Key Khmer Rouge Tribunal Positions

ABOUT THE KHMER ROUGE TRIBUNAL

Between 1975 and early 1979, Pol Pot and Ieng Sary led the Khmer Rouge – the Communist government of Cambodia. Their government turned Cambodia into “killing fields” by emptying all cities and towns, sending entire urban populations to the countryside to farm the land and be “re-educated.” Dissenters were brutally executed and hundreds of thousands starved or died of disease. During the four-year period, more than 2 million people died.

Nearly three decades later, those responsible have yet to held accountable, and Pol Pot died in hiding in 1998. Efforts to convene a
criminal tribunal languished for years. However, in March 2003, the UN and the Cambodian government signed an agreement to create a court to try senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge. On October 4, 2004 the Cambodian Legislature ratified the agreement to create a Khmer Rouge Tribunal (KRT).