Remembering Vann Nath

Vann Nath passed away yesterday. He was one of the very few to survive the infamous Khmer Rouge prison that was set up at Tuol Sleng, a former high school in Phnom Penh. He was imprisoned there for exactly a year, starting in January 1978.

As he recounts in his book, A Cambodian Prison Portrait: One Year in the Khmer Rouge's S-21, he escaped death because his jailers needed him to paint pictures of Pol Pot. Later, after the Khmer Rouge were driven from power, he depicted the barbarity that was the daily routine at S-21. He wrote his memoir, and he helped to set up the museum at Tuol Sleng.

The history of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia must be one of the sorriest episodes of the Cold War, and whatever eventually comes of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, there will be many – not only inside but also outside Cambodia – who will never face any kind of formal justice.

Vann Nath testified at the tribunal, but his book was written long before, in 1998. It closes:

"Pot Pot died unpunished, without ever having to answer for his deeds. And perhaps the surviving Khmer Rouge leaders will never be punished either. But one way or another, I believe there will be justice. A person harvests what he has sown. According to the Buddhist religion, good actions produce good results, bad actions produce bad results. The peasant harvests the rice, the fisherman catches the fish. Pol Pot and his henchmen will harvest the actions they committed. They will reap what they have sown."

Those who suffered from the long and complex ramifications of the Khmer Rouge interlude may still have to rely on this kind of comfort for quite some time.