PHNOM PENH, Cambodia, Nov. 21 (UPI) -- Former Khmer Rouge leaders went on trial Monday with prosecutors accusing them of turning Cambodia into a brutal "massive slave camp."
Nuon Chea, 85, the chief ideologist of the Khmer Rouge movement; Khieu Samphan, 80, the head of state; and Ieng Sary, 86, the foreign minister, are accused of genocide and crimes against humanity,
The New York Times reported prosecutor Chea Leang, in an opening statement, accused the men of turning the country into "a massive slave camp producing an entire nation of prisoners living under a system of brutality that defies belief."
The fourth surviving member of top leadership, Ieng Thirith, 79, the minister of social affairs, was excused from the case when tribunal judges ruled she had dementia and was unfit to stand trial. Prosecutors challenged the ruling, delaying her possible release.
The Khmer Rouge was responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million people from 1975 to 1979 through execution, torture, forced labor, disease and starvation.
Nearly 9,000 people were bludgeoned to death at the killing field, where bits of bone and teeth still work their way to the surface during the monsoon season, the Times reported.
"The victims, especially myself, we suffer for too long," said Marie Chea, 60. "Why wait too long, until now? Why don't they do anything? What is the truth? We want to know the truth."
The Ashburn, Va., resident is one of three Cambodian-Americans who traveled to watch the trial.
They were brought to Cambodia as part of a program by the Applied Social Research Institute of Cambodia, a non-profit group based in New York that registered 41 Cambodian-Americans as civil parties to the trial, with the right to demand symbolic reparations.
"This is another historic day for the people of Cambodia, many of whom have waited a long time to see the start of this trial, and who can at last begin to hear evidence of the atrocities committed all across the country over 30 years ago," the U.N.'s High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in a release. "The survivors' testimony will undoubtedly help a new generation of Cambodians to understand their history and add impetus to the international community's efforts to prevent future mass crimes."
