The ‘second edition’ of An Introduction to the Khmer Rouge Trials, a pamphlet in both English and Khmer, recently landed on my desk in Cambodia.1 The foreign-financed booklet, promoted by the Cambodian Government and described as ‘educational’, says that the trials will set the historical record ‘straight’.
The trials are indeed seeking to rewrite history. But they are more likely to criminalize ideas and political ideologies than to outlaw the abuse of power. The countries funding the trials – including the US, Britain, Japan, Canada and India – have already determined what the history lesson is to be.
