OPINION:
Finally, some salutary news. One of the world’s most prolific mass murderers has finally shuffled off this mortal coil — though, unfairly to his hundreds of thousands of victims who were cut down prematurely — at the ripe old age of 93. Nuon Chea, Pol Pot’s consigliere during the Khmer Rouge regime that terrorized Cambodia, died in a hospital bed over the weekend. He was serving a life sentence at the time.
Nuon Chea was known as “Brother Number Two” during the ideologically charged, bloody madness that was the Khmer Rouge’s grotesque reign, which lasted from 1975 to 1979. Pol Pot, leader of the regime, was, of course, “Brother Number One.” Nuon Chea was, in the words of National Public Radio, “Pol Pot’s chief lieutenant during Cambodia’s murderous Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s.” Some 300,000 Cambodians were summarily executed by the regime during that four-year period.
Nuon Chea was no mere bystander to the madness and cruelty. “During his years in power, Chea earned a reputation for dogmatism and ruthlessness,” the U.K. Guardian newspaper wrote in an obituary. “He put into practice the reckless, utopian policies of the party, which included emptying the cities, closing schools and monasteries, abolishing private property and empowering the poorest of the poor. These policies, set in motion at breakneck speed, were enormously costly in human terms: in addition to those executed by the state, almost one and a half million Cambodians are estimated to have died during those years, of starvation, overwork and misdiagnosed diseases.” Fully one-fourth of Cambodia population died during the Khmer Rouge’s reign.
Nuon Chea was, like many leftist leaders of the 20th century, a scion of privilege, born to an elite family. He was nonetheless drawn to Communist circles in the 1950s, and forged an alliance with Pol Pot, eventually his brother-in-law. By the time Pol Pot seized control of Cambodia in 1975, Nuon Chea was installed as second-in-command and the regime’s chief ideologist.
After the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Brother Number Two, like many senior figures in the regime, fled to Thailand, where he lived comfortably. It wasn’t until decades later that he faced some semblance of justice for his crimes. In 2007, by then an old man, he was finally arrested and brought to trial before a United Nations-backed tribunal. The wheels of justice continued to turn slowly: It wasn’t until 2014 that he was convicted of crimes against humanity — and in 2018, of genocide. He received what turned out to be a rather abbreviated life sentence. The tribunal, unlike the regime it prosecuted, was not in the business of imposing capital punishment.
Nuon Chea never expressed serious regret over the fact that he had killed and immiserated millions. In an interview before his trial, Brother Number Two said, “I wasn’t a war criminal. I admit that there was a mistake. But I had my ideology. I wanted to free my country. I wanted people to have well-being.” Later, during his trial, he said, “I don’t want the next generation to misunderstand history. I don’t want them to believe the Khmer Rouge are bad people, are criminals. Nothing is true about that.” He went on to blame Vietnamese forces for the mass killings that wracked Cambodia.
Nuon Chea was an example of what ideological zealotry, a misplaced sense of Messianic righteousness and a sociopathic disregard for the suffering of others can do to a man — and to a people. He won’t be missed by many.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.