In 1978, Vietnam amassed thousands of troops along the border with Cambodia. At the same time, a friendship treaty was signed between Vietnam and the Soviet Union, which was a direct result to Cambodia’s now close relationship with China. On Christmas Day, 1978, 100,000 Vietnamese troops poured across the border, and they quickly gained a strong foothold in the north-east of Cambodia. Within a matter of weeks the Vietnamese had managed to capture Phnom Penh and forced the Khmer Rouge to flee. Pol Pot, himself, escaped by helicopter as the Vietnamese took control of the city.
As order started to return to Phnom Penh, the Vietnamese formed a new government known as the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK), led by a young prime minister by the name of Hun Sen. Despite the inborn fear of Vietnamese domination, many defectors of the Khmer Rouge helped to form the core of the new government.
Relieved that the harsh rule of the despotic Khmer Rouge was over, hundreds of thousands of Cambodian families started the long march home in the hope of finding some of their relatives. In most cases, however, they returned to find that nothing was left of their former lives – no homes, no possessions and, most tragically, no family. In reality, the Khmer Rouge came close to their dream of eradicating all memories of the old Cambodia. The country had literally been turned upside down by the Khmer Rouge years, and the new government had the daunting task of trying to not only heal the mental and physical wounds, but also rebuild the country economically.
Owing to the fact that neither Pol Pot nor any of his followers were ever held accountable for the atrocities committed during his years in power, the weight of their crimes fell on the last of the Khmer Rouge leaders, General Ta Mok. Although Hun Sen permitted many of the high-ranking Khmer Rouge officials to return to Cambodian society without any form of recrimination, he decided that Ta Mok, nicknamed ‘The Butcher’, was to be the scapegoat. He was arrested on 6 March, 1999, in an effort to make him pay for the sins of the Marxist excesses. Ta Mok was regarded by many people as the most brutal of all the Khmer Rouge leaders, and he was known to have played a key role in a series of massacres and purges. He was the leader of the forces that destroyed the former royal capital of Oudong in 1974, killing many officials and government soldiers and forcing thousands of citizens to leave their homes.
Ta Mok died on 21 July, 2006, thereby evading any form of trial. His death left a Khmer Rouge prison boss, Kaing Khek Iev, more commonly known as Duch, as the organization’s only surviving member in prison. Pol Pot died in April 1998 from an apparent heart condition, while in his hiding place in the jungles of northern Cambodia. Although there was much relief at his death, many felt that this relief was tainted with frustration that the mastermind of the killing fields died before he could be brought before a tribunal. Like Adolf Hitler before him, Pol Pot did not survive to take the brunt of his actions, and consequently he was unable to bring anyone else down with him. Many Cambodians feel deprived that one of the most sordid episodes in their lives will never be truly revealed, as the deaths of the leaders of the Khmer Rouge have taken the secrets with them.
Atrocities in East Timor
East Timor is in Southeast Asia, just north-west of Australia in the Lesser Sundra Islands at the eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago. It is comprised of half of the island of Timor, the nearby islands of Pulau Atauro and Pulau Jaco and the Oecussi-Ambeno region on the north-west side of the island of Timor. It is a small country of just 14,609 sq km (5,376 sq miles) and is located approximately 640 km (400 miles) north- west of Darwin, Australia.
East Timor’s struggle for independence has been long, hard and traumatic, with the small nation suffering some of the worst atrocities of modern times. They eventually achieved their independence on 20 May, 2002, but it is estimated that as many as 100,000 Timorese died as a result of Indonesia’s 25-year occupation, which ended in 1999. A further 300,000 people were forced into West Timor as refugees, and the majority of the country’s infrastructure, including homes, irrigation systems, water supply, schools and the country’s national grid, were all destroyed. It wasn’t until the Australian-led peacekeeping troops of the International Force for East Timor took the matter into their hands, that the period of violence and terror was brought to an end.
For over 24 years the people of East Timor suffered at the hands of the Indonesian militia, through torture, starvation and arbitrary executions and massacres. It is impossible to know exactly how many civilians have been killed since the invasion by the Indonesian army and militia in 1975. This is mainly due to the fact that the Indonesian President Suharto banned journalists and human-rights activitists from entering the area from 1975 to 1989. Five Australian journalists who did manage to get through the blockades were killed by the army in Balibo. The information that has been gathered about the atrocities comes mainly from just a handful of journalists, activists and aid workers who actually made it into East Timor and out again in the past 25 years.
The Indonesian militia were formed in the 1970s, before the invasion of East Timor, and appeared to be funded mainly by the Indonesian military. One of the most brutal groups of militia is known as the Mahidi, who are known to have employed underhand tactics of intimidation and fear, which included abduction, torture, rape and murder.
The main objectives of the militia was to extract information about the location and planned strategies of the resistance movement in East Timor. They used whatever perverse method they thought would be most effective to achieve their goals. Photographic evidence has been released of militia hanging up the Timorese by chains, shoving steel poles down their throats, forcing them to eat dirt, applying electric shocks to their genitalia and finally burying their bodies in unmarked graves. Other favoured methods of torture by the militia were the pulling out of finger and toenails, crushing people’s fingers under the legs of chairs, ducking them under water, or partially suffocating them by placing bags over their heads. Known resistance leaders were forcibly beaten about the head, many being left with severe brain damage.
The militia seemed to take pride in their torture tactics, and it is through their own photographic records that the atrocities eventually came to light. Their killing methods were also extreme to the point of perversion. Not only did they kill with bullets, they dropped people from helicopters into the sea with rocks tied round their bodies to ensure they sank. There is also evidence of them running people over with bulldozers and swinging babies around by their feet and slamming their heads into rocks. Many of their victims were disembowelled with body parts left as grim reminders to warn others of a similar fate.
The atrocities committed by the Indonesia militia were not just confined to the men of East Timor. The women and children also felt the brunt of their aggression and human-rights violations. They were constantly raped in front of other family members, forced to marry Indonesia soldiers, subjected to torture by electric shocks, sexually abused and, in some cases, forcibly sterilized in an effort to reduce the East Timor population.