Khmer Rouge trial: Cambodia awaits answers
Thirty-three years. That is how long it has taken to bring the leaders of the Khmer Rouge to account for the atrocities committed when they governed Cambodia in the late 1970s.
The ultra-Maoist organisation led by Pol Pot evacuated towns and cities, forced their former inhabitants into slave labour in the rice fields, and summarily executed anyone considered an “enemy of the revolution”.
But so much time has passed that the majority of Cambodians have no memory of the horrors of the Khmer Rouge era.
Now, at last, the three most senior surviving leaders of the organisation are going on trial.
They are Nuon Chea, also known as Brother Number Two, the right-hand man of the late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot; Khieu Samphan, who served as head of state during the Khmer Rouge era; and Ieng Sary, the foreign minister and international face of the organisation.
The charges they face include genocide and crimes against humanity. But their day in court has come too late for many of those who lived through the nightmare the three men are accused of causing.