trbunals. justice or revenge?

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The intent of a monstrous genocidal leader’s psychological outlook on life must be analyzed prior to the justification of killing. Pol Pot traumatized the Cambodia people for decades to follow. Reminisce of the Khmer Rouge still strikes chills in native bones as they remember brutal times where 1 in 4 people died from starvation. Pol Pot stripped the essential rights to life, a civilized food source and took away any hope from a higher being by eliminating religion. Article II of the Genocide convention defines genocide as the intent to destroy either a national, ethical, racial or religious group in whole or in part. Pol Pot was able to exercise their pathological belief which they assembled during their youth due to the marginality of elites in their regime. He bared witness to the pressures of the crisis environment and were enticed to project a solution onto society which would change history forever. The adolescent experiences of Pol Pot induced a sense of paranoia, marginality and hatred which enabled him to use mass autocracies to carry out genocide on a targeted group. Those who commit crimes against humanity are often tried at a tribunal only to allow a small portion closer for the nation of those who have suffered.
Pol Pot created a lower class revolution in hopes of saving his people and revitalizing The Democratic Kampuchea. As Prime Minister Pol Pot’s agrarian ideology resulted in 1.5 to 3 million native Cambodians dead. He was the main architect of the brutal Khmer Rouge which carried out the genocide. In order to understand the root of the Cambodian Genocide one must identify Pol Pot’s influences as an adolescent and compare them to his actions as a leader. These events motivated him to implement a radical public policy to carry out terrorism against his own state; genocide.
Saloth Sar who later became known as Pol Pot, never forgot his family roots raised in a poor, rural village in Cambodia. He grew up with the social norm that, “Rich or poor everyone tilled the fields, fished the river, raised children and propitiated the local spirits.”(Kiernan 2002: 9). Pol Pot exercises this ideology as Prime minister for the foundation of the lower class agrarian revolution. “A people’s war is the most effective touchstone for distinguishing genuine from fake revolutionaries…The countryside and the countryside alone can provide the … bases from which the revolutionaries can go forward to final victory.”(Short 2005: 160). Starting at year zero and working from the bottom up will cleanse Cambodia for the better. A people’s revolution that would in turn devastate the group it intended to benefit.
Tribunals are often the way that political leaders accused of war crimes get tried. During these “truth ceremonies” it is extremely difficult times for the families of loved ones who have parished. The question then becomes are these tribunals working, and do they really serve justice? In the post-genocide period society is so distraught of the events which have taken place that there seems to be no outlet for justice. A life sentence, an execution, even a cry for apology acceptance does not bring back the valuable lives which were lost at a murders hands. In the case of Cambodia, one must ponder the question of when is justice served if it ever is? The crimes against humanity were so immense that the trauma is often difficult to overcome even centuries later.
Justice is much deeper of a problem. Genocides leave traces and impact society years after the even has already occurred that there seems to be no sense of solution to fix it. Pol Pot and the brutal Khmer Rouge were in power for around 3 year and have left a mark 10 times as great. Even when these tribunals take place and justice is served, as it has been throughout American history with a legislative system, it does not bring closer to the nation. Cambodia experienced the worst side of humanity the planet has ever seen and continues to suffer to this day. This brings up the question do tribunals really work and are they bringing justice and revenge to the people who need it the most? The answer to this is not whether or not tribunals work because it seems to be the only traditional solution, rather it would come with an alternative. There are no remedies that will reverse the acts that occurred more than 3 decades ago, not monetary, prison sentence or otherwise.
Often times genocides are heavily influenced by colonial powers. They enter the region, dominate and leave drawing political borders through cultural lines. The colonial French changed the infrastructure of Cambodia which opened the doors for foreign businessman. Roads, Railroads and were developed throughout the countries two largest cities of Phnom Penh and Battambang. Pol Pot stood witness to the indigenous rice economy being surpassed by the Chinese and Vietnamese economic boom in the cities creating a sense of marginality for Pol Pot and his Cambodians. As Saloth Sar was discouragement from speaking his native tongue coupled with the political changes taking place in the country, sparked his nationalism. In 1942 he laid witness to protests taking place in Phnom Penh to, “[To] the brutality of the French occupying forces and their presence in Cambodia.” (Koopmans 2005: 15) This was the first time Saloth saw the immense power of the Cambodian people resisting to be dominated culturally, physically and socially.
The Khmer Rouge’s motto stated “To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss… taunting the civilians by claiming only to need a few million in order to create an agrarian utopia and to completely revitalize Cambodia. (Fletcher 2008: 157). Fear which Pol Pot learned from Mao made his policies extremely effective and allowed genocide to onset the nation. Pol Pot witnessed the impact of communism’s prevalence during his studies in Paris. The Soviet Revolution was urban based while the Chinese Communist party leaves the idea of Marxists city revolution and pushes the masses to the countryside during “The Great March.” China was a huge source of weapons and monetary wealth at the hands of Pol Pots destiny. He would later use the Moaist concept of communism as a means to “save” the Cambodian people.
Pol Pot’s mentality of self reliance which he learned from his youth only worsened the situation by refusing humanitarian aid. Not until the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia had the world population realized what had taken place inside the state. Pol Pot fled with the remainder of his regime towards the Thailand border for shelter until Vietnam withdrew six years later. Pol Pot assassinated the successor to the Khmer Rouge regime for attempting to make peace with the new government along with eleven members of his family. He was later arrested by the Khmer Rouge and sentenced to house arrest where he died.
Leadership can be seen as the root to the pre-determinants of genocide. In the cases Pol Pot his early life experiences added to the list of historical antecedents resulting in genocide. examining each case closely a connection can be made which sparked the paranoia of each to label a certain group a political enemy. Pol Pot had a pathological obsession to execute psychological revenge on ethnic groups within the state as a backlash for the regime downfall
Once a leader psychologically has an auto genocide mindset it can become extremely dangerous. In the case of the Cambodian Genocide, Pol Pot Identified a portion of the states own people and classified them as political enemies. Not only did he identify the upper-middle class as political enemies but his misperception also led to the deaths of 1.5 to 3.0 million people. “Pol Pot never stepped from the path he chose to follow in the 1950’s and never spoke in detail about the price the Cambodian people paid to be subordinate to his vision. (Chandler 1992: 187). It is tragic that one mans hopes to save a nation turned and carried out the exact opposite by destroying a quarter of its population in the form of mass genocide. This case study is exactly what pathological leadership does to a country, society and ultimately to genocide.
One man’s vision cannot being to explain how much the nation of Cambodia suffered and continues to suffer to this day. Is there such a way to take revenge against a man of this caliber. Can humanity ever accept him as millions of innocent people were at the hands of a limitless pathological leader.
One may never understand what truly causes an individual to implement destruction of a group as its public policy. By analyzing genocidal leaders from a psychological standpoint brings insight as to what triggered that leader to carry out genocide. War crime tribunals are the common way to convict a murderer and bring justice to society however it does not always work. In relation revenge can never be taken against those who commit the worst crime against humanity, genocide, because a single life does not substitute for all those who were lost. History portrays through the cases of Pol Pot that fear, paranoia and marginality during adolescent stages of life create monstrous murders when given capacity to totally wipe out opposition in violent interactions. The world must look to Raphael Lemkin’s Law and reinforce the meaning of “Never Again” as humanity cannot forget the past and lay witness to another genocide.
Works Cited
Bellaigue, Christopher D. "The Terminated." The New York Times 4 Feb. 2007.
Chandler, David P. Brother Number One : A Political Biography of Pol Pot. First ed. Vol. 1. New York: Perseus Books Group, 1992.
Margolis, Eli J. "Trauma and the Trials of Reconciliation in Cambodia." Georgetown Journal of International Affairs (2007): 153.
Fletcher, Martin. Breaking News : A Stunning and Memorable Account of Reporting from Some of the Most Dangerous Places in the World. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2008.
Kiernan, Ben. The Pol Pot Regime : Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79. New York: Yale UP, 2002.
Koopmans, Andy. Pol Pot ( Heroes and Villains). First ed. Vol. 1. New York: Lucent Books, 2005.
Maguire, Peter H., and Columbia University Press. Facing Death in Cambodia. New York, NY: Edinburgh UP, 2005.
Picq, Laurence. Beyond the Horizon ( Five Years With the Khmer Rouge. Trans. Patricia Norland. First ed. France: Thomas Dunne Book, 1989.
Short, Philip. Pol Pot : Anatomy of a Nightmare. Boston: Henry Holt & Company, 2005.