Although not exactly the most interesting of subjects to everyone, I'm really questioning the imprisonment of Kaing Guek Eav who has been in detainment for 11 years prior to this and has become quite old. Although one should atone for their crimes, is it ethical to imprison someone based on the past after such a long time? Especially if that person has served a sentence prior(or at least having been detained.)
I'm speaking of this in a more general scope. For example the Nuremberg trials continuing even till today...i
I am personally of the opinion that if you commit a crime, you do not get a free pass due to time passing, especially in the case of people who went on the run due to their crimes. If you commit a crime, you had better be prepared to pay the price for it.
Considering that almost none of the world's war criminals have paid for their crimes, the punishment of the few that we can get, even in their old age, serves as a symbolic reminder that what they have done will never be excused on the grounds of time passed. Comrade Duch ran an interrogation centre where, of an estimated 17,000 inmates, twelve survived. The remainder - men, women, children - under the watchful eye of Duch, were electrocuted, mutilated, beaten, drowned, deprived of food and sleep and otherwise tortured until they died, or until they were helped along by a bullet in the back of the skull before being buried in mass graves. That doesn't sound like the sort of stain that washes out, even after a few years. Comrade Duch is the only member of the Khmer Rouge to have been trialled thus far - you can count on the fingers of one hand the people who have been and will be tried for the deaths of 1.5 million people, 20% of Cambodia's entire population. Secondly, the Nuremberg trials do not "continue to this day." They ended on the 13th of April, 1949. Trials of former Nazis for war crimes continue with Samuel Kunz and John Demjanjuk, the former as a volunteer guard at the Belzec gas-chamber and crematoria complex (434,500 Jews gassed and burned, 2 survivors) and the latter as kapo "Ivan the Terrible" at Sobibór (250,000 killed), Majdanek (79,000 killed) , and Flossenbürg (30,000 killed). Demjanjuk was so evil that he managed to garner infamy in three concentration camps - reflect on that for a moment. It seems to me unethical to allow the communities that survive such genocides as the Holocaust, Khmer Rouge government and Balkan or Rwandan ethnic cleansing - amongst many, many others - to be denied the knowledge that at least a symbolic few are trialled as a global recognition of all the crimes rather than just those attributed to the defendants. Thirdly, as mentioned above, these trials are about much, much more than the defendant's crimes. They remind people that within a human lifetime crimes almost beyond imagination were perpetrated by one human against others, and that the national and international community did nothing to help. They provide a tiny increment of solace to the survivors of these crimes, affirming to them that their suffering is recognised and that it is important that at least those actively involved are punished, even if those who merely let it happen are not. In addition, it serves as a warning to others that such behaviour will not simply pass unheeded. Allow me to sum up; age was not a defence when the Gestapo, the Angkar, the Serbian militia or the Hutu came calling. The elderly were murdered along with everyone else. So why should age be a defence to those who perpetrated the crimes?
aye yeah the kymer.. you barely hear about that genocide and it's one of the biggest.. but you'll never hear the end of the holocaust totally different cultures =E
I admit to have not been following the case, but has he been tried and sentenced, or is he being detained pre-trial. If it's the latter, then while it perhaps should not be dismissed, it's still wrong. The two relevant concepts, at least under American lay (YMMV), are the presumption of innocence and the tight to a speedy trial. No matter how obviously guilty someone is, they have a right to argue their case in open court. Likewise, someone should not be held forever before going to trial. Both of these concepts exist to protect society from it's own worst impulses and when they are circumvented, we all lose.
Again +1 for Silver. I took the opportunity of visiting Stutthof concentration camp near Gdansk in Poland whilst I was over there. Over 85,000 people were killed in the camp and to see what had been left behind was truely chilling. A small bit of information regarding the place; Between 1939 and 1945, 127,000 prisoners were officially registered in the camp, but those who were immediately singled out for execution were not registered at all, so there is no way of knowing the exact number of people brought to Stutthof. It is offically reported that 85,000 were killed at the camp but the true number may never be known. The camp was managed by an SS officer named Max Pauli, who would later be sentenced to death for the crimes committed here. While there was a gas chamber there, as well as a number of wagons which were converted into gas chambers, the most shocking and disturbing facility was invented and operated by a man named Rudolf Spanner. He had discovered a way to use the fat of murdered prisoners in the production of soap, and hundreds of victims of the Stutthof camp were used to make ‘Reines Judische Fett’ or ‘pure Jewish fat.’ After the war, Spanner escaped arrest, despite the severity of his crimes. Any one believing that there should be a time limit set on bringing those responsible to court should visit such a place. I'm sure that you would change your mind after the experience.
This. Yeah, but apart from that.... was he really that bad? Quite. I think you should consider the age when it comes to the punishment. Hard Labour might well send him to the grave... but there is no reason to for any other leniency. I find it quite comforting to think that for serious crimes there will be no statute of limitations - no matter how long it takes, somebody will catch up with you and you will pay.
The genocide of Christian Armenians. What ever happened to that? did they get that classified as a genocide or was it written off as a minor "border dispute"? are there any museums one can visit? + rep Silver.