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Brutal Khmer Rouge leader dead at 80

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published July 21, 2006

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Ta Mok, known as "The Butcher" for his brutality as military chief of the communist Khmer Rouge, died today, his lawyer said. He was believed to be 80.

Ta Mok had been in and out of consciousness since last week at the military hospital in the capital, Phnom Penh, where he was being treated for high blood pressure, tuberculosis and respiratory complications, attorney Benson Samay said. Ta Mok had been in government custody since 1999.

Ta Mok, who briefly led the Khmer Rouge during its final days, was in detention awaiting trial on charges of crimes against humanity committed during a 1975-1979 reign of terror, when an estimated 1.7-million Cambodians died of starvation, overwork, diseases and execution.

"Some people may be happy with this but not the victims who have been waiting for justice for a long time," said Youk Chhang, director of the Cambodian Documentation Center, an independent group researching the Khmer Rouge's crimes.

A veteran revolutionary who operated much of the time as a regional warlord, his ruthlessness earned him the nickname "The Butcher" in the Western press.

Unlike other surviving Khmer Rouge leaders, Ta Mok struck no deal to surrender or defect to the government. He was captured along the Thai-Cambodian border in March 1999 while on the run with followers.

Presiding over the disintegration of the Khmer Rouge, he even showed no hesitation in taking prisoner the group's equally notorious leader, Pol Pot, and denigrating him after his death in 1998.

Born into a peasant family, Ta Mok left Buddhist monkhood at 16 and joined the 1940s resistance against French colonialists.

He was an early follower of the Communist Party built up by Pol Pot, and took the name Ta Mok, meaning Grandfather Mok. He used several pseudonyms, but his real name was Ung Choeun.

He was reportedly involved in several massacres during the bitter five-year civil war that led to the Khmer Rouge coming to power in 1975.

[Last modified July 21, 2006, 00:37:11]