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Resistance to Transitional Justice in Post-Genocide Cambodia

Thu, March 16, 7:30 to 9:30pm, Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel, Floor: 2nd Floor, Provincial Ballroom South

Abstract

Why has the Hun Sen government actively interfered to shape the outcome of genocide justice, and undercut the international side’s attempt to prosecute more cases beyond Case 001 and 002? I make a two-fold argument in this paper. First, local resistance to a Western model of transitional justice originated from the then-Second Prime Minister Hun Sen’s 1998 national reconciliation policy dubbed “Win-Win policy”—essentially a political strategy for domination in the politics of power sharing in the post-civil war Cambodia. To Khmer Rouge defectors and their family, he pledged local power, land, and amnesty from prosecution. Second, in line with the political discourse of Hun Sen’s “Win-Win” policy, former Khmer Rouge revolutionaries have produced and perpetuated a narrative of “we are victims too!” to distance themselves from the evil of the Khmer Rouge regime. This study reveals Hun Sen' s personal preference of peace and unity and empathy towards former Khmer Rouge community. In retrospect, genocide justice is secondary to the preservation of his historical legacy—i.e. the one and only statesman in Cambodia whose political genius brought about the termination of the bloody civil war and national unity in 1998.

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