8A Saturday, November 17, 2018
The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com
WORLD
CAMBODIA
Last Khmer Rouge
leaders found
guilty of genocide
BY SOPHENG CHEANG
Associated Press
PHNOM PENH - The
last surviving leaders of
the Khmer Rouge regime
that ruled Cambodia in the
1970s, when their reign of
terror was responsible for
the deaths of an estimated
1.7 million people, were con
victed Friday by an interna
tional tribunal of genocide,
crimes against humanity
and war crimes.
Nuon Chea and Khieu
Samphan were top leaders
in a regime that forced resi
dents out of the cities into
the countryside, where they
labored under brutal condi
tions in giant agricultural
cooperatives and work proj
ects. The communist Khmer
Rouge, under the leadership
of the late Pol Pot, sought
to eliminate all traces of
what they saw as corrupt
bourgeois life, destroying
most religious, financial and
social institutions.
Nuon Chea and Khieu
Samphan were sentenced by
the U.N.-assisted court to life
in prison, the same punish
ment they are already serv
ing after being convicted in
a previous trial for crimes
against humanity connected
with forced transfers of
people and mass disappear
ances. Cambodia has no
death penalty.
Nuon Chea, 92, was con
sidered the Khmer Rouge’s
main ideologist and Pol Pot’s
right-hand man, while Khieu
Samphan, 87, was head of
state, presenting a moderate
veneer as the public face for
the highly secretive group.
Dissent under Khmer
Rouge rule was usually met
with death, and even the
group’s loyalists faced tor
ture and execution as the
radical experiment at revo
lution failed, with blame
cast about its ranks for
alleged sabotage.
But executions counted
for only a fraction of the
death toll. Starvation, over
work and medical neglect
took many more lives,
amounting to as much as
one-quarter to one-third of
the entire population.
Only when an invasion by
Vietnam finally drove the
Khmer Rouge from power
in 1979 did the magnitude
of Cambodia’s holocaust
become known.
Friday’s verdict, read
aloud by Judge Nil Nonn,
established that the Khmer
Rouge committed genocide
against the Vietnamese and
Cham minorities.
Scholars debated whether
suppression of the Chams,
a Muslim ethnic minority
whose members had put up
a small but futile resistance
against the Khmer Rouge,
amounted to genocide.
The crimes against
humanity convictions cov
ered activities at work camps
and cooperatives established
by the Khmer Rouge. They
included murder, extermi
nation, deportation, enslave
ment, imprisonment, torture,
persecution on political, reli
gious and racial grounds,
attacks on human dignity,
enforced disappearances,
forced transfers, forced mar
riages and rape.
The breaches of the
Geneva Convention govern
ing war crimes included
willful killing, torture or
inhumane treatment.
The tribunal, officially
called the Extraordinary
Chambers in the Courts of
Cambodia, or ECCC, also
ordered reparations for
some of those judged to be
victims.
It found Khieu Sam
phan not guilty of genocide
against the Cham for insuf
ficient evidence, though he
was convicted of genocide
against the Vietnamese
under the principle of joint
criminal enterprise, which
holds individuals responsi
ble for actions attributed to a
group to which they belong.
Social media eases worries for
migrants, families back home
Photos by MOISES CASTILLO I Associated Press
Deysi Orellana, from left, 3-year-old Brithani Lizeth, 5-year-old Janeisy Nicolle, and
Evangelina Murillo, gather outside their home during an interview Nov. 2 in San Pedro
Sula, Honduras.
Five-year-old Janeisy Nicolle Cardona embraces her uncle
Gonzalo outside their home in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.
BY MARIA VERZA
Associated Press
SAN PEDRO SULA,
Honduras — There was
cake at little Brithani
Lizeth’s third birthday
party, and also tears.
Though her grandmother
and aunt tried to make their
simple cinder block home
festive, the little girl could
not be consoled. She missed
her parents.
Orbelina Orellana and
Elmer Alberto Cardona
were hundreds of miles
and two countries away in
a small town in southern
Mexico, making their way
toward the United States
with thousands of others in a
desperate caravan, leaving
their loved ones behind.
Despite the distance,
Orellana was able to get a
picture and audio record
ing from her daughter’s
birthday party in Honduras
via WhatsApp and hear the
little girl sob: “I love you,
Mommy,” words that left
the mother crushed.
“I didn’t even want to get
up,” she said of the bitter
sweet moment.
Like thousands of others,
Orellana and her husband
have relied on social media,
text messages and brief
cellphone calls to connect
with worried loved ones
back home as they traverse
a country that can often be
deadly for migrants.
The birthday recording
gave her comfort and cour
age to continue the difficult
journey of nearly 3,000
miles by foot, bus and hitch
hiking as they head toward
Tijuana.
At the frontier with San
Diego, many in the caravan
hope to ask for asylum in
the United States, though it
could take weeks or months
as they take their places
at the end of a line of thou
sands of others in the slow-
moving application process.
Years ago the migra
tion trail north could be
something of a black box.
People might set out and not
be heard from again until
months later after reaching
the U.S. and phoning from a
relative’s house, or suddenly
showing up back home after
being caught at the border
and deported.
Technology has changed
that.
Not everyone in the cara
van has a smartphone, and
for those who do, coverage
can be spotty in the Mexi
can countryside. At times
it’s hard to find a hotspot or
a charge. But for those who
do, they’re precious cargo.
Many share them with fel
low migrants who eagerly
log in to Facebook and other
apps to send or receive a
quick message.
Some NGOs also facili
tated free calls home for
migrants, with the Red Cross
organizing more than 4,000
of them.
Orellana, 26, and Car
dona, 27, have tried to call
Brithani and her two sib
lings each evening when the
caravan stops for the night,
usually to sleep outdoors in
public squares.
“I tell her I will always
love her .. and she tells me
not to miss her, that she is
going to send for me,” said
Janeisy Nicolle, the couple’s
5-year-old middle daughter.
Often, in these brief con
versations, neither side tells
the whole truth for fear of
causing worry.
Orellana and Cardona,
for example, didn’t get into
the fact that he had been
stranded for a while on a
desert highway in a danger
ous part of Mexico, where
migrants often fall prey to
robbery, extortion, kidnap
ping and murder. Their
loved ones didn’t mention
that some days they were
low on rice and beans
because the family’s small
pineapple farm wasn’t pro
ducing anything to sell.
“Life is hard here,” said
Orellana’s 29-year-old sis
ter Deysi, now responsible
for raising Brithani, Janeisy
and their 9-year-old brother,
Kenner Alberto. “But it’s
hard up there too.”
Many in the caravan are
traveling in family units;
among them are at least
300 children below age 5,
according to a count con
ducted when they paused
for several days to rest in
Mexico City. Many more
children have been left with
relatives so as not to expose
them to the dangers of the
trip.
Orellana and Cardona are
convinced they made the
right choice in leaving their
children behind and hope to
reunite with their little ones
if they make it to the United
States and find work.
May supported amid Brexit woes
Associated Press
LONDON — British Prime Minister The
resa May won support for her beleaguered
Brexit deal Friday from key politicians and
business groups, but she remained besieged
by internal party opponents determined to
oust her.
In a tumultuous week, May finally
clinched a divorce deal with the
European Union — only for it to be
savaged by the political opposition,
her parliamentary allies and large
chunks of her own Conservative
Party. Two Cabinet ministers and a
handful of junior government mem
bers resigned, and grumbles about
her leadership erupted into a roar.
Friday brought some respite, as
supportive Cabinet ministers rallied around
her. International Trade Secretary Liam
Fox, a prominent pro-Brexit voice in Cabi
net, threw May a lifeline by urging rebels
to “take a rational and reasonable view of
this.”
“Ultimately I hope that across Parliament
we’ll recognize that a deal is better than no
deal,” he said.
Britain’s Conservatives have been divided
for decades over Britain’s membership in
the EU, and the draft withdrawal agreement
has infuriated the most strongly pro-Brexit
members, who want the country to make a
clean break with the bloc. They say the draft
agreement, which calls for close
trade ties between the U.K. and the
EU, would leave Britain a vassal
state, bound to rules it has no say in
making.
The deal drove a group of disaf
fected Brexiteers to try to topple
May by submitting letters saying
they have lost confidence in her
leadership. They are aiming for the
magic number of 48 — the 15 per
cent of Conservative lawmakers
needed to trigger a challenge to her leader
ship under party rules.
After a day of conflicting rumors about
whether 48 letters had been sent, leading
Brexiteer Steve Baker said, “I think we’re
very close.”
He suggested the threshold might be
reached “sometime next week.”
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