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The Khmer Rouge Tribunal


Voices for Reconciliation: Assessing Media Outreach and Survivor Engagement for Case 002 at the Khmer Rouge Trials
Christoph Sperfeldt, Melanie Hyde, and Mychelle Balthazard

Using outreach-friendly television broadcasting of the Khmer Rouge (KR) trials in Cambodia in conjunction with community-based dialogue meetings, the Voices for Reconciliation: Promoting Nationwide Dialogue on the Khmer Rouge Past through the Mass Media and Community-Level Survivor Networks project aimed to 1) increase community awareness and understanding of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) trials, 2) empower conflict-affected groups to create spaces for dialogue at the community level, and 3) build the necessary capacities among those groups and civil society intermediaries to create environments favorable for longer-term reconciliatory processes beyond the ECCC. The project engaged with the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association’s Civil Party Representative Scheme, which supports a network of Civil Parties (CPs) and Civil Party Representatives (CPRs) who are party to the ECCC proceedings. To achieve the objectives, the project had a three-prong strategy: 1) the production and broadcasting of television programs and media outreach to the general population, 2) the organization of community-based dialogue meetings using outreach films to inform Cambodians in rural areas about the ECCC and its developments, and 3) capacity building to civil society groups and 46 CPRs who were directly involved with the project. This report was produced as part of an evaluation of the project in Cambodia, and involved an assessment of the project outcomes in relation to the participation of the CPs and CPRs in the project and lessons learned from the project implementation.

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When Clouds Fell from the Sky: A Disappearance, A Daughter’s Search and Cambodia’s First War Criminal
Robert Carmichael

A man returns home to Cambodia whose people, unseen by the outside world and unknown to him, are dying in vast numbers in one of history’s bloodiest revolutions. He is never seen again.  Back in France his disappearance in 1977 – during the near four-year period of catastrophe that survivors call “the time when the clouds fell from the sky” – marked the start of an unceasing search for answers by his wife Martine and their daughter Neary.  It seemed an impossible task: 30-year-old diplomat Ouk Ket had vanished into the wasteland of Pol Pot’s Cambodia, a country whose population was enslaved and whose borders were closed. Decades later, though, Martine’s and Neary’s quest for justice saw them testify at the war crimes trial of Comrade Duch, the chief of Pol Pot’s notorious S-21 prison where thousands of “enemies of the revolution” were tortured prior to their execution.

In this book, spanning five decades and five lives, journalist Robert Carmichael takes the reader on a compelling journey into the causes and consequences of the Khmer Rouge’s savage rule during which two million people died, one in every four Cambodians.
In describing one family’s experience, this book illuminates the tragedy of a nation.
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The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia: Assessing Their Contribution to International Criminal Law
Simon M. Meisenberg (Editor) and Ignaz Stegmiller (Editor)

This book is the first comprehensive study on the work and functioning of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). The ECCC were established in 2006 to bring to trial senior leaders and those most responsible for serious crimes committed under the notorious Khmer Rouge regime. Established by domestic law following an agreement in 2003 between the Kingdom of Cambodia and the UN, the ECCC’s hybrid features provide a unique approach of accountability for mass atrocities. The book entails an analysis of the work and jurisprudence of the ECCC, providing a detailed assessment of their legacies and contribution to international criminal law. The collection, containing 20 chapters from leading scholars and practitioners with inside knowledge of the ECCC, discuss the most pressing topics and its implications for international criminal law. These include the establishment of the ECCC, subject matter crimes, joint criminal enterprise and procedural aspects, including questions regarding the trying of frail accused persons and the admission of torture statements into evidence.

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The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79
Ben Kiernan

The Khmer Rouge revolution turned Cambodia into grisly killing fields, as the Pol Pot regime murdered or starved to death a million and a half of Cambodia’s eight million inhabitants. This book – the first comprehensive study of the Pol Pot regime – describes the violent origins, social context, and course of the revolution, providing a new answer to the question of why a group of Cambodian intellectuals imposed genocide on their own country.

“This is not the first account of Pol Pot’s terror. . . . But Mr. Kiernan’s is perhaps the most complete and the closest to Cambodian sources.”—The Economist

(The Economist)

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