Khmer Rouge Twisted Prisoner's Ankles With Pliers

Source: CBS News

(AP) A woman tortured by the Khmer Rouge testified Wednesday that she has spent most of her life trying to forget the horrors she endured in the 1970s and never spoke of the past, even to her husband and children.

Chin Meth, now 51, told the U.N.-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal that her ankles and wrists still bear scars where she was bound for beatings _ attacks that sometimes lasted until she passed out. Her testimony is the first by a female survivor.

"They beat me with a wooden stick. They twisted my ankles with pliers," she said, speaking softly and staring straight ahead. "While they tortured me, they tied my hands behind my back and beat me very seriously. It was terrifying."

Her testimony came at the trial of Kaing Guek Eav _ better known as Duch _ who headed the regime's notorious S-21 prison in Phnom Penh. Up to 16,000 people were tortured under his command and later taken away to be killed during the Khmer Rouge's 1975-1979 rule. Only a handful survived.


Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/13/ap/asia/main5153994.shtml

---

Please read the entire article.

Thank you.

We are now no better than the Khmer Rouge now because we torture. Sheesh..have we no shame?

...and government "leaders" who shield torturers are guilty of crimes against humanity as well. We continue to live under a plutocratic government comprised of politicians with no sense of honor, duty, or conscience. They deserve nothing but our complete contempt. I hope I live to see the day when every last one of them is prosecuted and imprisoned.

But to compare the scale of horrors committed by the Khmer Rouge upon millions of people to the record of the US is to cheapen and neuter the memory of Khmer Rouge horrors.

In other words, to destroy the only thing of value that came from that nightmare: commitment to intercede against and thwart future perpetrators of genocide and mass terror.

Which may be your intent, after all.

Then there's Hitler and Stalin......Some role models.

Doesn't the UN have more important business to attend to, rather than wallowing in some long-ago past actions? We need to move forward, not spend all our time looking at the past. What's done is done. This isn't going to bring anyone back or heal any wounds or anything.

Where are the House Republicans to set things right? Why aren't they storming this tribunal and demanding it be stopped?