Dith Pran of "The Killing Fields" dies

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Dith Pran, 65, dies...

`Killing Fields' Survivor Dith Pran Dies
Mar 30, 2008 - Cambodian `Killing Fields' Survivor Dith Pran, Former New York Times Photographer, Dies

Dith Pran, the Cambodian-born journalist whose harrowing tale of enslavement and eventual escape from that country's murderous Khmer Rouge revolutionaries in 1979 became the subject of the award-winning film "The Killing Fields," died Sunday. He was 65. Dith died at a New Jersey hospital Sunday morning of pancreatic cancer, according to Sydney Schanberg, his former colleague at The New York Times. Dith had been diagnosed almost three months ago.

Dith was working as an interpreter and assistant for Schanberg in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, when the Vietnam War reached its chaotic end in April 1975 and both countries were taken over by Communist forces. Schanberg helped Dith's family get out but was forced to leave his friend behind after the capital fell; they were not reunited until Dith escaped four and a half years later. Eventually, Dith resettled in the United States and went to work as a photographer for the Times. It was Dith himself who coined the term "killing fields" for the horrifying clusters of corpses and skeletal remains of victims he encountered on his desperate journey to freedom.

The regime of Pol Pot, bent on turning Cambodia back into a strictly agrarian society, and his Communist zealots were blamed for the deaths of nearly 2 million of Cambodia's 7 million people. "That was the phrase he used from the very first day, during our wondrous reunion in the refugee camp," Schanberg said later. With thousands being executed simply for manifesting signs of intellect or Western influence — even wearing glasses or wristwatches — Dith survived by masquerading as an uneducated peasant, toiling in the fields and subsisting on as little as a mouthful of rice a day, and whatever small animals he could catch.

More ABC News: `Killing Fields' Survivor Dith Pran Dies

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Still guilty after appeal...

Ex-Khmer Rouge minister loses appeal
8 July `08 - Ieng Thirith served as the social affairs minister during Khmer Rouge rule; Ieng Thirith is wife of Khmer Rouge FM Ieng Sary and Pol Pot's sister-in-law; The "detention remains a necessary measure" for Ieng Thirith, panel chairman says; Some 1.7 million people died from starvation, execution under Khmer Rouge

A former female minister of the Khmer Rouge regime lost her appeal Wednesday for release from pre-trial detention by Cambodia's genocide tribunal where she is being held on charges of crimes against humanity. In their ruling, judges of the U.N.-assisted tribunal's pretrial chamber upheld the current detention of 76-year-old Ieng Thirith, who served as the social affairs minister during the rule of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s.

The "detention remains a necessary measure" for Ieng Thirith, said Prak Kimsan, the chairman of the five-judge panel, adding that her appeal was dismissed. He said investigating judges properly exercised their discretion in ordering Ieng Thirith detained in November. The tribunal is seeking justice for atrocities committed by the ultra-communist Khmer Rouge when it ruled Cambodia from 1975-79, with some 1.7 million people dying from starvation, disease, overwork and execution.

Ieng Thirith is the wife of Ieng Sary, the Khmer Rouge foreign minister who is also being detained on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes. They are among the five suspects facing trial for their alleged involvement in atrocities during the Khmer Rouge rule. Ieng Thirith, who took her husband's surname after marriage, has rejected all allegations against her as "100 percent false" and claimed she worked at all times for the benefit of the people.

She is also the sister-in-law of Khmer Rouge supreme leader Pol Pot, who died in 1998. Pol Pot married Ieng Thirith's sister, Khieu Ponnary, who died in 2003. During a hearing in May, Ieng Thirith's defense lawyers argued for her release, saying she suffers from chronic mental and physical illnesses. But the prosecution has insisted that she be kept in detention to prevent her from trying to influence potential witnesses.

Ex-Khmer Rouge minister loses appeal - CNN.com

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US comes through with funding...

US to fund Khmer Rouge trial
August 25, 2008 - THE United States will give its first donation to Cambodia's cash-strapped Khmer Rouge genocide trial as soon as the UN-backed court resolves corruption allegations, the US ambassador said today.

The tribunal faces a funding shortfall of more than $US40 million ($46.1 million). Officials travelled to New York in June to petition UN members for more funds. "The United States government is right now on the threshold of making its decision to directly fund the tribunal,'' outgoing Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli told reporters at his farewell press conference at the US embassy. "I think in Washington now everyone is very much looking forward to finding funding to help directly assist the tribunal if we can just work this last thing out,'' he said.

The Khmer Rouge tribunal this month launched a new ethics monitor to grapple with ongoing claims of corruption within the court after the UN Development Program made fresh allegations of kickbacks on the Cambodian side of the court, forcing international donors to withhold funding for July. International backers have appeared hesitant to pledge more money to the process after earlier allegations of political interference and mismanagement, including that Cambodian staff paid money in exchange for their jobs. But tribunal officials have said the allegations last year were "unspecific, unsourced and unsubstantiated.''

The court is preparing for its first trial against Kaing Guek Eav, who ran a notorious torture centre in Phnom Penh. He is expected in the dock in October, once the court has dealt with the prosecution's appeal of his indictment, which it said failed to present a "full and truthful account'' of his crimes. In all, five top Khmer Rouge leaders are now facing charges before the tribunal for crimes committed by the regime. Up to two million people died of starvation, overwork and execution as the communist Khmer Rouge dismantled modern Cambodian society in a bid to forge an agrarian utopia during its 1975-1979 rule.

US to fund Khmer Rouge trial | NEWS.com.au