That statement was made without considering that we have a lawyer in our group. Of course, we would have to attend The Trial.
You may be wondering what trial I am talking about, or maybe you know and are thinking you might like to have the experience, too.
The United Nations has a special tribunal that is trying some of the Khmer Rouge honchos. They built a special court building in which to have these trials. It is called Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia, or ECCC. The person who is currently on trial is "Duch" the former head of the infamous prison, S-21 or Tuol Sleng. We visited Tuol Sleng last week and got to see the place where prisoners were held in incredibly tiny cells and tortured until they confessed and confessed and confessed to all manner of things before they were taken to the Killing Fields.
The things that went on in the
prison of which he was in charge were horrible, gruesome, inhuman, monstrous. After the fall of the Khmer Rouge the leaders who were still alive (many of those tortured and killed were from their own ranks) went into hiding. A journalist who was appalled at what went on at Tuol Sleng went on a relentless search for Duch, whom he found out in the provinces, teaching math in a high school. Interestingly, in the interim he had come to faith in Christ and his life was transformed. God has promised to forgive the worst of sinners who repent and put their faith in Christ. But he owed a debt to society for the horrendous wrongs that he helped to perpetrate.
In the years of his incarceration he has has asked forgiveness of all those whose lives he has helped to ruin. When taken to the local killing fields as part of the pretrial preparation, he again asked forgiveness for all those he had sent to their death.
So the UN has gathered an international tribunal of seven judges: four Cambodian and three from other countries: New Zealand, Austria and France. There are ranks of lawyers for the prosecution, also an international team with a preponderance of Cambodians, and two for the defence: one Cambodian and one French.
The courtroom is built to accomodate this array of players. The back wall is curved and made of glass. Behind this wall is the gallery of very cushiony theatre style seats for the observers. Each person is given a set of wireless headphones as the trial is translated into English, French and Cambodian. It is an amazing set up.
We got to see the Swiss lawyer, who also studied at Columbia U. and spoke in heavily accented English, interview the expert witness, an American, who had studied the transcripts and documents from the Tuol Sleng prison. Evidently this was the second day of this interview. It was not really a cross examination. My lawyer teammate said that in America there would have been so many objections. Here the rules are different. The British lawyer asked for clarification, but no one objected to anything.
It was a painfully slow process. I fought hard not to fall asleep. And this trial will go on for the rest of the year. The UN is spending something like $30 million dollars on it. And when one thinks of what good they could do in Cambodia with $30 milliion dollars... There is no death penalty here, only life imprisonment, and he was already in prison for life.
Oh, yes, the defendant. He sat there with his headphones on, listening to the proceedings. Journalists (who were also there in force, in the gallery with the rest of us) have described him as "serene" during the proceedings. Yes, he is. Could this be the peace of God?
As we sat there I couldn't help thinking of the final judgment, what Eric Alexander calls, ":Gods Assizes". Every one of us will have to appear as the defendant. No escaping it. I expect that it won't go on for years though. The Scripture tells us that "Every mouth will be stopped before him." No objections. "Guilty, your honor". And our Advocate will say, "I paid the penalty for this sinner's sins. She is forgiven."
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