This was after all the first time that one of the officials of the Khmer Rouge dictatorship, one of the most monstrous regimes of the 20th century, has been held to account - albeit 31 years after the event and with a relatively lenient sentence. Similar decisions are to be found hardly anywhere in the world since it is not regarded as fashionable to punish the operatives of "communist" systems. In Cambodia, Duch's sentence was the first and it can by no means be ruled out that his will also be the last.

During the rule of the Khmer Rouge, between 1975 and 1979, 1.7 million people were sent to their deaths, equivalent to a quarter of the country's population. Duch was the commander of an emblematic institution of the system, the Tuol Sleng, code named S21, which was a centre for the implementation of torture and execution. The gruesome efficiency that can be attributed to the entire system and to Duch himself, a former maths teacher and speaker of five languages - deemed to be completely sane by the court's experts - is demonstrated by the fact that of the 14 thousand people taken to Tuol Sleng only seven remained alive. And S-21 was only one of many such death camps.   

In 1979 an invasion by communist Vietnam put an end to Pol Pot's rule of terror, yet justice was not done. Indeed the western powers started to support the Khmer Rouge -who had withdrawn to guerrilla bases on the fringes of the border - with money and weapons, since their enemy, Vietnam, was an ally of the Soviets. According to the logic of the Cold War, the Cambodian mass murderers had crossed over to the side of the United States - and in the meantime the traditional admiration of left-wing intellectuals in the West for the Khmer Rouge did not abate at all.

At the end of the 1980s Vietnam withdrew from Cambodia but left behind a puppet government in Phnom Penh, which controlled the armed forces, and although another party won the elections in 1993 that were held with the assistance of the UN, power remained in the hands of Prime Minister Hun Sen. He had earlier blackmailed his way into government and in 1997 wiped out his opponents in a bloody coup, after which he governed alone and continues to do so. Justice was still not done.

Like many of today's Cambodian elite Prime Minister Hun Sen was himself once a member of the Khmer Rouge. He insinuated himself with the Vietnamese in time and they brought him back to Cambodia to install him as their governor. Although he professes to represent the interests of Cambodia rather than its neighbouring power, and that he is attempting to build up democracy and a market economy rather than communism, the abuse of power and corruption are still part and parcel of his approach.

Duch was just a medium-level executive of terror and a real breakthrough would be made by bringing the decision-makers to justice. However, Hun Sen has categorically declared that legal procedures may only continue against the four individuals already in custody - which includes Nuon Chea, the former deputy of Pol Pot, who died in 1998 - and no new suspects will be placed in the dock. This is because additional trials could easily lead to some awkward information being brought to light about Hun Sen's past and that of his clique. 

Thus, as things stand, a total of five people will be brought to book for the deaths of 1.7 million - and even this is not guaranteed since the accused are all elderly and if the legal process is protracted, they could very easily take their secrets with them to the grave. The Cambodian government need have no fear of international pressure in the affair: although Hun Sen is an autocratic and corrupt leader he excels in finding the right tone with foreign investors in matters relating to privatization. For the international players who wield real power obtaining an oil concession here and a timber concession there are far more important than truly facing up to the past.