How America is helping to whitewash Cambodia's crimes against humanity.

Yesterday, in Cambodia, a perpetrator of one of the twentieth century’s great crimes was sentenced. Kang Kek Lew, also known as Comrade Deuch, was the head of the infamous Tuol Sleng prison during the reign of the Khmer Rouge, and was at least partly responsible for the murder of more than 12,000 people. Now he will serve 19 years in jail.

But, after the West spent nearly a hundred million dollars to create a tribunal in Cambodia, this is all we have to show for it, at least so far: a solitary conviction of a man who was involved in less than one percent of the 1.5 to 2 million murders that took place in the country from 1975 to 1978. No one knows for sure if the next phase of the tribunal—the trial of the four highest ranking Khmer Rouge leaders still alive—will occur in 2011, 2012, or even at all. Some of the accused are elderly and frail, and may die before their trial begins, as another arrested leader, Ta Mok, did in 2006.

Even if the other trials do go forward, it will be difficult to argue that justice has been served. Authority at the tribunal is divided between international and Cambodian officials, and the two sides cannot agree on how many people to prosecute. International prosecutors want to charge at least five more individuals for their role in the mass killings. But Cambodia’s current leader, Hun Sen, has said that he does not want any more trials, and the Cambodian team has argued against further indictments. Moreover, even if those additional trials were to take place, it would still leave the vast majority of the guilty unpunished. It took more than ten people to murder up to 2 million Cambodians. It is now certain that none of the thousands of lower-level murderers will ever stand trial.

How did the matter of justice in Cambodia go so badly awry? The answer begins with the fact that the current Cambodian regime is riddled with former members of the Khmer Rouge. But part of the fault also lies with the United States.

In December 1978, Vietnam, reacting to unprovoked attacks on its own territory and civilians, invaded Cambodia and deposed the Khmer Rouge regime headed by Pol Pot. The invaders installed a puppet regime that was staffed at the highest levels by former mid-level Khmer Rouge political and military cadres. The cadres had fled Cambodia to Vietnam not out of revulsion at the holocaust, but out of fear of Pol Pot’s executioners who were conducting purges. The new regime was led first by Heng Samrin and later by Hun Sen.