Dear Editor, I read with horror about Dr. Jarvis' appointment to head the Victims Unit. Youk Chhang, the head of DCCAM is by far the most experienced professional insofar as outreach to the Cambodian people and the outside world about the genocide and the Tribunal. I receive emails from him almost daily, and he was the Cambodian head of the Yale Cambodian Genocide Program, which, with Ben Kiernan, has produced almost all the scholarly work related to the genocide. The fact that Chhang was not offered the position, or even asked about the appointment, speaks volumes about the ineptitude and corruption which has marked the Tribunal from the outset. The fact that Dr. Jarvis is neither a Cambodian nor is she a victim of the regime is offensive, but not shocking. The appointment of overpaid foreigners in NGOs and UN agencies is nothing new in Cambodia. The glaring offence is not her ethnicity, however, but her political ties and alliances. In a letter from just three years ago she signed to the following:
"We too are Marxists and believe that 'the ends justify the means.' In time of
revolution and civil war, the most extreme measures will sometimes become
necessary and justified. Against the bourgeoisie and their state agencies we
don't respect their laws and their fake moral principles."
This kind of speech is something that the Khmer Rouge themselves subscribed to, and it is Marxist ideology that led to the deaths of roughly two million people in Cambodia, which created the necessity for a Khmer Rouge Tribunal and a Victims Unit in the first place. The philosphy that the "ends justify the means" in the persuit of creating a Communist nation is something that Pol Pot himself was a champion of. Having Dr. Jarvis head the Victims Unit of the KRT and ECCC is akin to having a Nazi Party member running victim relations for the Nuremburg Trial for Josef Mengele, the "Doctor" and head of torture at Aushwitz, the largest Nazi concentration camp.
Bethany Murphy
Washington, DC
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