The Bucolic Life of a Cambodian Grandmother Accused of Mass Killings (2017) | Hacker News Reader

The Bucolic Life of a Cambodian Grandmother Accused of Mass Killings (2017)

nytimes.com

29 pointspastamachine22 comments

This UN tribunal has been active since 2006, spent $300M, and has convicted just 3 people in that time.

Given Cambodia is uninterested in pursuing these charges for the sake of their political stability, I wonder if continuing is ultimately worthwhile.

300 million is a lot of money, I wonder if it would have been better spent elsewhere

> 300 million is a lot of money, I wonder if it would have been better spent elsewhere

Aren't you just repeating part of dahdum's comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18470584)?

> Ms. Im Chaem said she had never planned to go to court anyway.

> “I do not like what they accuse me of,” she said in a recent interview at her home in Anlong Veng, a former Khmer Rouge stronghold. “I don’t want to think about that. There’s no reason for it. I don’t want to have any trouble. I just want to live in peace.”

I find the fact that she can safely say something like that to journalists somewhat strange. Less odious fascists were taken to the woods and shot in postwar Italy despite the amnesty.

It really is a tragedy that they will never be held to account for their crimes. The victims deserve more.

A tad OT, but I'd note that the issue is also contingent on one's world view.

Christianity (the religion with which I'm most familiar) holds that each individual is ultimately held accountable by/to God for his/her behaviour.

EDIT FOR CLARIFICATION: I'm not claiming that Christian doctrine is against governments being in instrument of justice. I'm simply pointing out that in Christian doctrine, every individual will also face God's justice after he/she is dead. Which is quite different from saying they will "never" face justice.

I have no desire to start a HN flamewar regarding whether or not that Christian doctrine is accurate.

Why, then, did I post this comment at all? Because (as I mentioned in another comment), the parent made a claim with a suppressed premise that certain Christianity (and perhaps Judaism, Islam, etc.) doctrines are factually inaccurate. I considered that noteworthy.

I think many people would take your wording as implying that you and/or Christians prefer there to be no system of justice, or perhaps only justice for reparable crimes. Are you perhaps actually trying to say, "it's unfortunate that there was no justice, but for people who believe that God will judge the accused, that can provide some consolation"?

>I think many people would take your wording as implying that you and/or Christians prefer there to be no system of justice, or perhaps only justice for reparable crimes

Based on the other comments at this time that's exactly how they took it.

Thanks for the observation. I've tried to edit the original command for clarity.

> Are you perhaps actually trying to say, "it's unfortunate that there was no justice, but for people who believe that God will judge the accused, that can provide some consolation"?

I agree with your point that holding such a belief would likely be of some psychological comfort to people who want to see justice done.

However, my original post's goal really was to point out that the parent comment implicitly assumed the falsehood of religious beliefs held by much of the worlds' population, and probably some HN readers as well.

Perhaps it's a mistake for me to point these things out explicitly, and instead just use downvoting instead.

I think you're getting downvoted because most comments on HN implicitly assume the falsehood of religious beliefs

I'm not a Christian. I posted my comment simply to point out that its parent post was making ideological / world-view assumptions that are far from universally held.

I assumed that when someone starts a thread involving metaphysics / ethics, it's reasonable to discuss the post's implicit premises.

delusions aside, we should still be able to hold our fellow humans accountable.

So your alright with Genocide?

This reminds me of the excellent documentary The Act of Killing, and it's followup documentary...

Aren't the real perpetrators/instigators the developed nations (both capitalist and communist) of the period forcing random peoples to pick sides?

I am pleasantly surprised that communist atrocities are actually published in the New York Times. It is so important not to forget and whitewash history.

What a bizarre attack on the NYT.

"In the news columns of The New York Times, the celebrated Sydney Schanberg wrote of Cambodians that ``it is difficult to imagine how their lives could be anything but better with the Americans gone.'' He dismissed predictions of mass executions in the wake of a Khmer Rouge victory: ``It would be tendentious to forecast such abnormal behavior as national policy under a Communist government once the war is over.'' On April 13, 1975, Schanberg's dispatch from Phnom Penh was headlined, ``Indochina without Americans: for most, a better life.''"

"As the death marches out of Phnom Penh proceeded, Lewis [NYT Columnist] went on making excuses for the Khmer Rouge. He mused that it was ``the only way to start on their vision of a new society.'' Americans who objected were guilty of ``cultural arrogance, an imperial assumption, that . . . our way of life'' would be better."

http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/...

It's almost as if people had never heard of Walter Duranty.

You almost sound like you think the New York Times is a communist front organisation.

I am pleased that you sound like you feel that would be a bad thing. Communism is being sold as a cool thing by Bernie Sander, Ocasio-Cortez, Antifa, and others. If that view becomes mainstream, it won't end well for any of us.

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