Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

352 • KHMER ROUGEthe remaining Khmer leaders announced that Pol Pot had died on15 April 1998. By then the Khmer Rouge was in disarray, and manyleaders and ordinary soldiers defected. The Hun Sen regime in effectgranted amnesty to the Khmer defectors, including Nuon Chea andKhieu Samphan, who had been the official head of state under theKhmer Rouge, and most of the amnestied defectors were allowedto run their own community in their former stronghold of Pailin. TaMok and his remaining 2,000 troops remained at large in the mountainousnorthern region bordering Laos but represented no threat tothe Cambodian government. On 5 December 1998 Ta Mok and histroops surrendered, so ending the Khmer Rouge insurgency.While Cambodia established a Khmer Rouge Trial Task Force in1997, it has taken over a decade to procure the funding, judicial personnel,and other infrastructure needed to try those former Khmer Rougeaccused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Hun Sen regimeresisted UN and U.S. pressure to try Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary,and Nuon Chea, who had been partners with Pol Pot in the killing ofone to two million Cambodians, and settled on a domestic trial for TaMok. On 11 August 1999 the Cambodian parliament voted to allow adelay of up to three years for the trying of any former Khmer Rougeofficials, so staying the planned beginning of Ta Mok’s trial originallyscheduled for 9 September 1999. Ta Mok died on 21 July 2006 whilein custody still awaiting trial. The U.S. State Department no longerconsiders the Khmer Rouge to be an active terrorist group.The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for theProsecution of Crimes Committed During the Period of DemocraticKampuchea (ECCC), which is the international tribunal set up totry Khmer Rouge members involved in the Cambodian genocide,consists of seven judges, four from Cambodia and the others fromAustria, France, and Sri Lanka. On 2 August 2008 the trials of fivedefendants began, namely, Khieu Samphan, the Kampuchean head ofstate; Ieng Sary, the foreign minister; Sary’s wife, Ieng Thirith, ministerof social action; Nuon Chea, the second-in-command; and KangKek Ieu, also known as Duch, warden of the infamous S21 prisonin Phnom Penh. Cambodian authorities have resisted both settingup this tribunal and beginning these trials on the plea that these proceedingswill prolong internal antagonism among Cambodians, buthuman rights activists have claimed that the government is seeking toshelter from prosecution many of its own members who were previ-