Asia Times: Rocky road ahead in efforts to try Khmer Rouge



	March 05, 1999	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

Rocky road ahead in efforts to try Khmer Rouge
By Farhan Haq

UNITED NATIONS - A United Nations panel that studiedatrocities committed in Cambodia has recommended that a UNtribunal be set up try Khmer Rouge officials on charges ofgenocide and crimes against humanity.

But officials acknowledged a tribunal would face many challengesand UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he will make a decisionon establishing such a body on Mar. 15, when he officiallyreleased the report of the three-member panel.

A copy of the findings, obtained by Inter Press Service Wednesday, indicatedthat the panel, chaired by Ninian Stephen, strongly favoredsetting up a court to try Khmer Rouge leaders for genocide andcrimes against humanity from 1975 to 1979.

During that period, when Khmer Rouge founder Pol Pot seizedpower in Phnom Penh, an estimated two million Cambodians werekilled or died from famine and preventable disease, according tohuman rights experts.

''The group believes that a UN tribunal must have jurisdictionover crimes against humanity and genocide,'' the report said.''These two crimes, especially crimes against humanity,constituted the bulk of the Khmer Rouge terror."

The panel also argued that any tribunal should be entrusted totry other crimes that marked the Pol Pot years, including forcedlabor and torture.

Pol Pot died last year but the report indicated the politicalperils the United Nations would face if it attempted to putremaining Khmer Rouge leaders on trial for their role in the''killing fields'' of the late 1970s.

The Stephen panel contended that Cambodia could not be trustedto organize a trial on its own, or even to host a foreign court,because any judicial process ''would be subject to manipulation bypolitical forces in Cambodia."

The group noted that the transition from authoritarian rule inCambodia had been incomplete, with continued factional fighting.Last year, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen seized control overthe leadership after the ouster of his co-leader, Prince NorodomRanariddh, and following disputed national elections.

Any UN tribunal should be placed in a city ''somewhere in theAsia-Pacific region'', although outside Cambodia itself, thereport said.

''A tribunal in such a city would preserve for Cambodians thesense that trials were taking place in their own part of the worldand not, for instance, in distant Europe, and would enableCambodians to follow them closely."

The panel opposed setting up any UN court in Cambodia itselfand was against seeking any Cambodian authorization that could''permit significant political factors to intrude upon and delaymatters."

While the panel favored including at least one Cambodianofficial in the judicial process, it warned that ''it might wellbe impossible to find a judge free of at least the appearance ofprejudice."

Instead, the panel urged the United Nations to set up atribunal structured along the same lines as war crimes tribunalsfor the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda.

As with those two tribunals, the lead prosecutor for theproposed Cambodia tribunal should be Canadian Justice LouiseArbour who, the panel added, should be assisted by a deputyprosecutor ''specifically charged with responsibility for thistrial."

In perhaps the most complex aspect of the proposed tribunalprocess, the panel insisted that to be effective, the body - likethe Yugoslavia and Rwanda tribunals - must be empowered underChapters Six or Seven of the UN Charter to do its work.

That step, in turn, would require the support of the 15-nation UNSecurity Council, one of whose permanent members - China - wasexpected to veto any Cambodia tribunal.

The Beijing government was the Khmer Rouge's main ally andsponsor during the 1975-79 period, although China and the UnitedStates both provided support for the movement and its allies afterPol Pot's ouster in 1979 by Vietnam-backed forces. China alreadyhas warned that it would not be willing to support a UN tribunalof Cambodian crimes that could disrupt the fragile stability inPhnom Penh.

Hun Sen's government, which has wavered in its support for atrial after requesting UN assistance for a tribunal last year,also is likely to oppose the Stephen panel's recommendations.

Hun Sen had insisted that any judicial body investigate thecrimes both immediately before Pol Pot's rule - when the UnitedStates engaged in a covert bombing campaign against Cambodia andsupported the rise of the Lon Nol regime - and after 1979, when aforeign-backed Khmer Rouge rebellion continued to fight.

Both periods could embarrass the United States, which, likeChina, holds the power of veto in the Security Council.

On Wednesday, Hun Sen said in Phnom Penh that his governmentwould favor a truth commission, similar to those set up in SouthAfrica, El Salvador and other former conflict zones, that mightprovide a general amnesty for those accused of atrocities.

UN spokesman Fred Eckhard declined to comment on the latestproposal, but the Stephen panel advised against any suchcommission. ''The group is frankly not sure whether the Cambodianpolity has yet achieved the level of national reconciliationneeded to permit the establishment of a commission,'' it said.

(Inter Press Service)

back to the top

©1999 Asia Times Online Co., Ltd.

Southeast Asia Sex News | Asian Sex Gazette