Day of Anger' in Cambodia

Cambodian students (left) take part in a performance to mark the annual 'Day of Anger' at the Choeung Ek killing fields memorial near Phnom Penh. Thousands of people gathered to commemorate the millions of people who died from starvation, overwork or execution during the 1975-79 rule of the Khmer Rouge. -- PHOTO: AFP

May 20, 2009
AFP

CHOEUNG EK (Cambodia) - CAMBODIANS marked the annual 'Day of Anger' Wednesday to remember victims of the Khmer Rouge terror as the regime's top torturer was tried by a UN-backed genocide tribunal.
About 2,000 Cambodians, including hundreds of Buddhist monks, gathered at Choeung Ek, a former Khmer Rouge 'killing field' dotted with mass graves about nine miles (15 kilometres) south of Phnom Penh.
Some 40 students re-enacted the torture and executions inflicted by the ultra-communists under whose mid-1970s rule about 1.7 million people perished.
Performers wore black uniforms, the standard attire of the Maoist-inspired movement. Some acted as executioners, swinging bamboo sticks at the heads of victims whose arms were bound behind their backs.
The performance was staged just yards (meters) away from a memorial filled with victims' skulls and mass graves where thousands of the executed were buried.
Relatives of the victims expressed hope that some of the surviving Khmer Rouge leaders would finally be punished by the ongoing tribunal.
Now being tried is Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, who commanded the notorious S-21 prison in Phnom Penh from where as many as 16,000 men, women and children are believed to have been tortured before being sent to Choeung Ek for execution.
Duch (pronounced Doik) is the first senior Khmer Rouge figure to face trial, and the only one to acknowledge responsibility for his actions. Senior leaders Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary and Ieng Sary's wife, who are all detained, are likely to be tried in the next year or two.
'Why is the court taking so long to prosecute these leaders?' asked Tat Seang Lay, 47, whose two brothers were killed by the Khmer Rouge. 'I want to see justice. I wish the court could end up its trial process within the next few months.' A 50-year-old man, Chhiv Neth, who lost three brothers and his father during Khmer Rouge rule, said the leaders must be heavily punished.
'They are more cruel than tigers. They killed their own people like butchers kill animals,' he said, looking at the mass graves he believes holds one of his brothers executed at Choeung Ek.