From the DW:
“Khmer Rouge 'brother number 2'
Nuon Chea dies”
Nuon Chea, one of the Khmer
Rouge's last surviving members, had been serving a life sentence in Cambodia
for genocide and crimes against humanity. Khmer Rouge 'brother number two' Nuon Chea
died on Sunday, a spokesman for the Cambodian court where he was convicted
said. "We can confirm that defendant Nuon Chea ... passed away this
evening on 4 August, 2019 at Khmer Soviet Friendship hospital," Neth
Pheaktra said. No details were given on the cause of death, however, Pheaktra
added that Chea had been in hospital since early July. Chea, aged 93 at his
death, had been serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity that
centered on the forced evacuation of Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, and
sending people into rural labor camps and for murders at an execution site. A
separate trial last year found Chea guilty of genocide against minority Cham
Muslims.
'Killing Fields'
Chea was among a small clique —
led by 'Brother Number One', Pol Pot — of mostly French-educated communists who
rose to lead a bloody revolution against a US-backed government after their
country was engulfed by the Vietnam War. Nuon Chea studied law in Bangkok where
he became a member of the Thai Communist Party. He was appointed deputy
secretary of the Communist Party in Cambodia in 1960 where he took charge of
party and state security, and Phnom Penh’s notorious S-21 interrogation and
torture center. An estimated 1.7 million people — about a quarter of Cambodia's
population at the time — died of starvation, disease, overwork and execution
during the Khmer Rouge regime's three years, eight months and 20 days in power.
After taking over Phnom Penh in April
1975, the Khmer Rouge sought to install a Maoist-inspired agrarian society by
forcing millions into forced labor. To create its collectives and dissolve any
sense of ownership or family ties, the regime moved virtually the entire
population from their homes to elsewhere.
^ The Khmer Rouge’s reign of
terror in the Killing Fields is among the worst of the crimes committed by
Communists around the world. The death of each member of the Khmer Rouge should
be celebrated in the same way as when a Nazi dies since it is one less evil
person on Earth and one more in Hell. ^
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