PHNOM PENH, Cambodia ? The No. 2 leader in the Khmer Rouge regime accused of orchestrating Cambodia's "killing fields" in the 1970s insisted Tuesday that he carried out its policies for the sake of the country and to protect it from invaders.
Nuon Chea did not directly respond to the horrors described by prosecutors at a U.N.-backed tribunal, and instead gave a political history of the Khmer Rouge and Cambodia, insisting his role was patriotic and blaming neighboring Vietnam for much of the country's troubles.
"I had to leave my family behind to liberate my motherland from colonialism and aggression and oppression by the thieves who wish to steal our land and whip Cambodia off the face of the earth," Nuon Chea said in his first public comments at the trial, which began Monday.
"We wanted to free Cambodia from being a servant of other countries and we wanted to build Cambodia as a society that is clean and independent without any killing of people or genocide," he said.
The panel is seeking justice on behalf of the 1.7 million estimated to have died from executions, starvation, disease and overwork when the Khmer Rouge held power in 1975-79.
It has charged the three most senior surviving members of the regime ? Nuon Chea, 85; former head of state Khieu Samphan, 80; and former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary, 86 ? with crimes against humanity, genocide, religious persecution, homicide and torture. All claim innocence.
Nuon Chea, the communist movement's chief ideologist, was its second-highest leader after Pol Pot, who died in 1998 in a jungle while a prisoner of his own comrades. Prosecutors earlier Tuesday told the court that the defendants cannot blame Pol Pot alone for the atrocities that took place.
Prosecutor Andrew Cayley said that like Pol Pot, the defendants exercised life-and-death authority over Cambodia while in power.
"The accused cannot credibly claim they did not know and had no control over the crimes that occurred" when they ruled what they called Democratic Kampuchea, he said.
In their opening statements, prosecutors described a litany of horrors, saying the Khmer Rouge sought to crush not just all its enemies, but seemingly the human spirit.
Most people were forced to work on giant rural communes and deprived of any private life. Forced marriages took the place of love, and dissenters were dispatched to so-called "killing fields."
"Here in Cambodia, a unique opportunity has been given ... to set a powerful example, and to send a strong warning from the past to the future so that human beings everywhere can rightfully expect to live in peace under the law," Cayley said.
Nuon Chea, who spoke in time allotted for defense rebuttals of the prosecutors' statements, did little to directly address the allegations of atrocities.
He said concern about Vietnamese intentions contributed to the Khmer Rouge's decision to stage a forced mass evacuation of Phnom Penh immediately after they captured the capital in 1975.
The city's evacuation is expected to be a focus of the trial. The tribunal has split the charges into separate trials to speed the process, and the current proceedings are considering allegations involving the forced movement of people and crimes against humanity.
Michael Karnavas, one of the lawyers for Ieng Sary, asked Tuesday that his client be allowed to follow the proceedings from a special room outside the courtroom to ease the physical burden on him. Judge Nil Nonn denied the request, as he did with a previous appeal on Monday, saying it was important for all the defendants to be present for the prosecution's statement.
The defendants are old and infirm, and there are fears they won't live long enough for justice to be achieved.
A fourth defendant, former Minister for Social Affairs Ieng Thirith, 79, was ruled unfit to stand trial last week because she has Alzheimer's disease. Prosecutors have appealed against her unconditional release and she remains detained pending a court decision.
Even streamlined, the proceedings are likely to cover an enormous amount of ground, and there is no estimate of how long they will take. The defense has until Thursday to finish its response to the prosecution's statements, and actual testimony is to begin Dec. 5.
The tribunal, which was established in 2006, has tried just one case, convicting former prison chief Kaing Guek Eav for war crimes, crimes against humanity and other offenses. His sentence was reduced to 19 years due to time served and other technicalities.
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