A CARLOW graduate has this week set off to participate in a six-month internship with the United Nations (UN) on the Khmer Rouge tribunal in Cambodia.
Pat de Brún (24) a past pupil of Gaelcholáiste Cheatharlach and a former UCD Students’ Union president will be interning with the UN assistance to the Khmer Rouge trials in Phnom Penh. Pat’s experience will centre round the prosecution of top Khmer Rouge officials for war crimes and genocide. He will assist the office of the co-investigating judges, including taking part in victim interviews, processing victim statements and reviewing evidence.
Where the evidence meets the threshold for prosecution, it will be handed over to the office of the prosecutor, who will bring cases against individuals.
“I can’t wait; I’m so excited about it,” said Pat. “It will be emotionally tough work but I’m really looking forward to it nonetheless,” he added.
The law and politics graduate has a huge interest in the area of human rights and in advance of his internship has been studying the political history of Cambodia and meeting those who are working in this area. Pat’s interest in human rights is rooted in his exposure to this field of law while completing his Erasmus through German at Humboldt University, Berlin. But it wasn’t until his last year in UCD, when he specialised in human rights law, that he realised his true passion for this particular area. Pat also recently sat and passed the New York bar exams.
Son of Paddy Browne and Kay Donnelly, Pat’s internship begins this week and continues until August.
“I’d met a few people who had done at internship with the UN and I decided to apply for it, even though I knew there were people with master’s degrees who were better qualified then me, so I was absolutely delighted to get it. I was very lucky,” he added.
During the four years that the Khmer Rouge reigned over Cambodia, it was responsible for several of the biggest instances of mass killings in the 20th century.
The actions of the Khmer Rouge claimed the lives of 25% of the Cambodian population, either directly through murder or indirectly through famine and drought. But the government was only ousted in 1979, and many survivors are still alive today. The Cambodian government, with UN assistance, set up this special court to try the surviving leaders of this murderous regime.
