Khmer Rouge’s Brother No. 2 Says He Will Face Tribunal
The former second-in-command of the Khmer Rouge, admitting he made “mistakes,” said Saturday he is willing to face an international genocide tribunal but denied that millions died during the group’s reign of terror in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979.
“I admit that there was a mistake. But I had my ideology. I wanted to free my country. I wanted people to have well-being,” Nuon Chea, the top surviving Khmer Rouge leader, said in an interview in Pailin, the movement’s former stronghold.
Known as Brother No. 2 under Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, Nuon Chea said that his key error was to not check up carefully on the work of the regime, which is implicated in the deaths of some 1.7 million Cambodians from disease, overwork, starvation and execution.
The 77-year-old Nuon Chea said he was willing to face a court to set the record straight.
The number of deaths was not in the millions, Nuon Chea said, speaking in Thai.
“People died, but there were many causes of their deaths,” he said.
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