Cambodians have a chance for truth and reconciliation after last week's agreement between their government and the United Nations for a tribunal to try Khmer Rouge leaders accused of genocide. When the trials begin later this year, survivors of one of the most brutal regimes in modern history can begin laying ghosts to rest. Among them is Ranachith Yimsut, left for dead by Khmer Rouge killers after a massacre near the northern city of Siem Reap in 1977 which claimed his family and 70 other people. Just 16, he overcame the agony of his wounds and escaped. In the month before he crossed the border into Thailand - before heading for a new life in the United States - he killed three Khmer Rouge fighters single-handedly and participated in the killing of a fourth. 'I had to kill them or they would have killed me,' Mr Yimsut said. Married with a family, a good job and the adopted Christian name Ronnie, his horrific past may seem far behind, yet it is forever present. 'I'm still struggling, on a daily basis, with nightmares,' Mr Yimsut said. 'It's something you cannot wake up from. I'm haunted by day and by night. It still seems like yesterday.' Few were untouched by the Khmer Rouge's purge of the educated during a four-year reign of terror which ended in 1979. The group's anti-western, pro-agrarian policies claimed the lives of 1.7 million people - a quarter of the population. Despite the Khmer Rouge's downfall and Cambodia's invasion and occupation by Vietnam through the 1980s, the group lived on as a guerilla force. Its demise came with the death of leader Pol Pot from a suspected heart attack in April 1998. Some senior figures, such as chief-of-staff, Ta Mok, known as 'the butcher', will face the tribunal. Others, like Pol Pot's second-in-command, Nuon Chea, or 'Brother Two', have not been arrested and live freely in Cambodia. The tribunal was agreed on after six years of wrangling. The UN wanted trials conducted under international law and its authority outside Cambodia. Mr Hun Sen insisted the so-called 'killing fields' era was an internal matter. Last Friday, the compromise was signed - trials in Cambodia with a majority of Cambodian judges and international observers. Critics say the fairness of the trials is in doubt, given the conditions agreed to and Mr Hun Sen's apparent closeness to the Khmer Rouge regime when it held power. Few Cambodians in the country will openly discuss the Khmer Rouge years, let alone whether they believe the tribunal can deliver impartial verdicts. From his home in Bend, Oregon, Mr Yimsut is more willing to talk - although he leans further towards leniency than would be expected, given his experiences. Now an American citizen and a landscape architect for the US forestry service, he has been married for 17 years and has a 13-year-old daughter and a seven-year-old son. Despite the torment of his past, he is committed to Cambodia's development. Many relatives still live in Cambodia, including a brother and sister, who are both married, and a first cousin who was a former Khmer Rouge fighter and is now a two-star general in the army. He co-founded the 'Big Brother, Big Sister' programme, which has supported hundreds of orphans, and is an environmental consultant to the World Monuments Fund on conservation projects at the Angkor World Heritage Site. He has also worked for the USAid-funded Cambodian-American National Development Organisation as a volunteer. Mr Yimsut believed many Cambodians lived similar experiences at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. They, like him, were still going through a healing process that may never end. 'We were innocent and thrust into this situation and had no choice but to let human instincts take over,' he said. 'We were too young to deal with the issues and too old to forget. When you're older you can better deal with the issues.' The tribunal would go a long way towards that and whether it was fair was irrelevant. A show trial that was not of international standard was better than none at all. 'I just want to see them answer for what they've done,' Mr Yimsut said. ' If they lie, it's their business. I want them to walk free and live freely. I don't want them killed or jailed. They're old men - they're nothing. It's too easy if they die. I want them to be shown they're not God and are human like the rest of us. I want them to live to be 100.' Like the survivors of Nazi Germany's Holocaust, Cambodians should hunt down each and every one of their tormentors so that they could answer their crimes before the court, he said. 'They should sleep uneasy at night, Someday, someone's going to knock on their door and haul them out to answer for their deeds. That, to me, is perfect justice.' Peter Kammerer is the Post's Foreign Editor peter.kammerer@scmp.com
