Reuters reported that a United Nations tribunal has tried and sentenced Kaing Guek Eav, the first Khmer Rouge commander to face charges of crimes against humanity for murder, rape, and similar horrific crimes.
When Kaing ran Toul Sleng prison during the years following the communist takeover of Cambodia, he oversaw the murder of 14,000. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison, but his sentenced was reduced by 19 years for time served, and he might be released earlier if he shows signs of rehabilitation. Kaing Guek Eav is 67 years old, so he has an excellent chance of dying in prison before his sentence ends.
There is absolutely no doubt that the Khmer Rouge committed those deeds that have come to be called “crimes against humanity.” Communism was responsible for the brutal extermination of 100 million people in the 20th century, making it the most murderous ideology in the history of the world. Surely no one will shed tears for Kaing, a sadist who has shown no remorse for the murder, mayhem, torture, and rape committed under his supervision. But the extra-legal process of trying and sentencing this thug cannot be condoned by decent men and women. Why?
First, international law is not really “law” at all. Who creates this legal system? Unelected bureaucrats in nongovernmental organizations do, for the most part. The normal process of passing laws is utterly ignored in the making of international law. If Cambodia had formed a government and chosen to try Kaing, that would be one thing. But that has not happened. Instead, an imaginary system of justice has been invented to supersede normal justice.
Second, the application of this international law is wildly uneven. The Nuremberg Trials, for example, took place before the Second World War had even ended. The trial of Kaing, by contrast, took place 35 years after the horrors of the Killing Fields began. The presumed prosecutor of “crimes against humanity” is us, “humanity.” But even in the nonsensical legal system of international law, the underlying principle of justice for the murder of millions means nothing if it is not uniformly applied. So, while the “judges” at Nuremberg were trying the devilish Nazi leaders, why were the Soviet judges themselves not also on trial? The Soviet government had been, in practice, an ally of the Nazis from August 1939 to June 1941. The Soviets gave Rudolph Hess a guided tour of the Gulag and helped teach the Nazis how to run a system of concentration camps. The Soviet government by 1939 had murdered as many innocent Soviet citizens as Nazis murdered in the Holocaust.
When the Soviet Union fell, why were there no Nuremberg Trials? Mao Tse Tung may well have murdered more people than anyone in history. If it is possible for the human imagination and conscience to grasp this ugly fact, Mao may have been even more inhuman and even more sociopathic in his murders than Hitler or Stalin. Has the Communist Party of China or that nation’s government ever proposed trials for the flacks of Mao who committee megacide? No, there has not even been a hint of justice for these victims.
Third, selective prosecution of savage and murderous regimes that lose wars or which are overthrown in revolution ensures that injustice, not justice, will prevail. When Roosevelt, for example, demanded “unconditional surrender,” the impact, as we now know, crippled those honorable and decent Germans who were appalled by the evil of Nazism and by its mass murder of millions of Jews, Poles, Russians, Gypsies and other innocent victims of Nazi malice.
What should be done to prevent the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust, the Gulag, and the Killing Fields? Individuals should speak out when the men, women, and children are being killed and records of the outrages should be made and disseminated (like Armin Wegener did with the Armenian genocide — Wegener, by the way, spoke out very early against Stalinism and then against Nazism, for which he paid a price.) Governments can express disapproval, deny diplomatic recognition, and so forth — America, to its great credit, acted alone and without pressure to help Jews in Europe and Asia even when America was a very young nation. The governments of nations in which genocide and other diabolical evil has occurred — such as those that occurred under Communism, Nazism, or any similar totalitarian system — should undertake, under their own laws, justice and remedial action. If the governments of nations that devour their own are not willing to do that — and the failure to prosecute communist murderers in Russia and in China are glaring examples — then how can anyone say that justice is being done?
Historically speaking, the only true protection against evil has been trust in God and following His will. This is not politically correct, but it is historical fact. The cure for the Killing Fields, the Holocaust, and the Gulag is the restoration of the morally serious faith of Christians and of Jews.
Photo of Kaing Guek Eav: AP Images
