For recent updated news (2009) on the Khmer Rouge Trial and other news on Cambodia, please, click the link pasted below
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeof03b/id47.html
Digging deep into the killing fields of Cambodia
By Bun Ang Ung - posted Thursday, 6 December 2007
It is true that if there is a will, there is a way. The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) has so demonstrated with its recent arrests of former Khmer Rouge minister for foreign affairs Ieng Sary and his wife, ex-minister for social affairs Ieng Thirith.
There had been some doubt if Ieng Sary would be charged by the ECCC at all because of a royal pardon he had received in 1996 for his previous role in the Khmer Rouge regime. In 1979, he was sentenced to death along with Pol Pot by a “people's revolutionary tribunal” for genocide. In 1996, however, he led a breakaway faction that split the Khmers Rouge, hastening the end of its insurgency. He was rewarded with an amnesty which annulled the 1979 verdict. The pardon failed to last, however.
The ECCC did not charge Ieng Sary with genocidal crimes. To sidestep a potential controversy of trying the suspect twice for the same crime, it indicted him instead for crimes against humanity and war crimes. It is fascinating how legal terminology can be creatively exploited to suit a particular purpose.
An interesting question, nevertheless, is how deep the ECCC is prepared to dig into what else happened during the Khmer Rouge regime. Of course, the underlying agreement between the United Nations and the Cambodian government to create the ECCC refers only to crimes committed by “senior” leaders, which may appear to restrict the ECCC terms of reference. But the terminology seems to be loose enough for creative minds to explore further possibilities of enforcing liability for all involved, not just a select few.
The ECCC is charged with an interesting task of trying those who were alleged to be responsible for mass killings. This is the first necessary step towards addressing a culture of impunity that has, up to now, spread like bushfires in Cambodia. Its leaders in the past 50 years have been literally getting away with murder for too long. The ECCC trial ought to convey a message that their collective irresponsibility and impunity are no longer tolerated.
For now, the ECCC seems to deal only with soft targets - the losers who are also frail and in need of geriatric care. It is ironic that the arrests seem to do these accused a favour by bringing them to comfortable accommodations at the ECCC compound with nutritious food and round the clock top medical care. For any old and frail in any country, such a free treatment is a godsend.
It would be challenging, however, for the ECCC to extend their examination beyond the losers to include the winners who were thriving during the Khmer Rouge and are currently in government. Of course, incriminating evidence against winners is often unavailable, especially when they are still in power.
Influential academics and researchers, who had cosy relations with the Khmer Rouge, claimed they had found - when the Khmer Rouge was still in power - no evidence to support refugees’ early reports of killing fields in Cambodia. The reports were dismissed as a mere reflection of mental instability and as a justification for fleeing the country and their desire to be accepted for resettlement. Not until after the regime disintegrated have those same researchers produced evidence of the losers’ atrocities.
It would be an uphill, if not impossible, battle for the ECCC to dig deep to uncover what the winners were up to during the Khmer Rouge regime. It would have to take on some prominent ex-Khmer Rouge members who are now occupying high positions in the current government, such as the prime minister and minister for foreign affairs.
The prime minister was once a rising star in the Khmer Rouge cadre; he was a junior army officer who rose quickly to a commanding rank in the Khmer Rouge army in a relatively short period of time. It is indeed difficult to explain his meteoric rise without making an inference that he must have done something very right to impress, and thus secure quick promotions from the meritocratic regime that relied on mass killings to remain in power.
Another intricate case relates to the current finance minister, who served in 1976 as a minister in the Prime Minister’s Office of the Khmer Rouge regime when Pol Pot decided to appoint himself as prime minister, thus ending his obscure leadership role. It is incomprehensible that anyone could rise and stay close to the top without some essential personal attributes usually required by any tyrant. The minister was among the few in the leadership who survived Pol Pot’s suspicion and wrath; he would have had more than luck.
It is a tough call for the ECCC to come up with a full account of what all “senior” Khmer Rouge leaders and significant others did at the time. It would require much more than just the creative manipulation of the legal terminology.
But if there is will, there is way. Failing that, one has to wait until another regime change for evidence to come out.
The Politics of the Khmer Rouge Trial by the Vietnamese, in 1979
27 Years On, Another Khmer Rouge Tribunal
Luke Hunt | 30 Aug 2006
World Politics Watch Exclusive
(http://worldpoliticswatch.com/article.aspx?id=149)
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- Shortly after Vietnamese tanks rumbled across
Cambodia's border in late 1978 the Khmer Rouge elite fled the capital and a
new regime first attempted what the United Nations is poised to try again more
than a quarter of a century later -- account for the grisly deaths of up to two
million people.
Pol Pot and perhaps his closest friend from their university days in France, Ieng Sary, were long ago sentenced to death in absentia for genocide, in a trial widely regarded as a legal farce. It was so badly handled and wrapped-up in Cold War politics that it escaped the attention of the outside world and for only a handful of people it remains a distant and inconvenient memory.
In the wake of the Vietnam War, the West and Washington in particular preferred to recognize Pol Pot as head of state, and despite the atrocities committed by the hard line cadre that surrounded Brother Number One, Hanoi's occupation of Cambodia was deemed illegal and their Soviet-backed effort to deliver justice for the dead was damned as a rigged show trial.
Twenty-seven years later, however, that two-day tribunal is on the verge of
re-emerging onto the final stage of the Khmer Rouge era with legal ramifications that prosecutors would like the defense to forget, but with evidence so compelling and gut-wrenching that lawyers and the West can no longer ignore it.
The original trial began on Aug.15, 1979, with testimonies from 54 people.
Hundreds in the audience wept openly as Sim Phia told the court: "Hidden
from behind a coconut tree, I saw the soldiers take nine children from 10 to
13 years of age out of trucks.
"The children's arms were tied. The soldiers pulled them up to the bridge over
the pool. No matter how much they cried or shouted for help, they were thrown
in as prey for the crocodiles."
Vang Pheap, a guard at the notorious S-21 torture and execution camp delivered unfettered insights into how 16,000 people would meet their ultimate fate. Pits were dug ahead of time and the prisoners were struck with an iron bar: "After that, Pol Pot's men cut the victims' throats or ripped their bellies to pluck
the liver."
Denise Alfonso, a former secretary at the French embassy, witnessed
cannibalism.
"The condemned man was tied to a tree, his chest bare and a blindfold over
his eyes. Ta Sok the executioner, using a large knife, made a long cut in the
stomach of the poor man."
Ms Alfonoso then testified the man screamed like a wild beast: "His insides
were all laid bare, and Ta Sok cut out the liver and cooked it on a little stove. . .
. They divided the liver among them and ate it hungrily."
Mass killings were well documented and Bun Sath, a political officer, told the
court of the steady precision required to carry out the leadership's commands.
Evenings were preferred because the streets were deserted. The prisoners
were bound in pairs and bashed on the napes of their necks.
Up to 300 were killed in a session: "We began at 6pm and continued until 9pm
or 10pm," the court heard.
Evidence of genocide committed against ethnic Muslim Chams, Vietnamese,
Chinese and intellectuals was overwhelming, and on Aug. 19 Pol Pot and Ieng
Sary were sentenced to death in absentia while they were holed-up in the
jungles of the remote countryside.
While the testimony was honest, the tribunal was not.
Hope Stevens, an African American, landed the job of defending Pol Pot and
Ieng Sarry. Because of her own background, she described herself as an
expert on "genocide, murder, rape, torture, mutilation, lynching and deprivation
of human rights."
She then labeled her own clients as "criminally insane monsters."
Few would take the verdict seriously, including the Khmer Rouge, which would
continue to wage its wars for another two decades. But that changed in 1996
when serious efforts were finally made to end the conflict and Ieng Sary, along
with the troops he personally commanded, defected.
His defection was assured only after negotiating a pardon of the verdict from
then-king Norodom Sihanouk. Thus from a legal standpoint the 1979 tribunal
was legitimized, posing serious questions for the current trial, which is
expected to get underway in earnest by early next year, and whether or not
Ieng Sary can be tried for genocide.
In his own mind, Ieng Sary believed he had immunity from any future prosecution.
However, advisors to the trial will argue that while a royal pardon may exempt
Ieng Sary from being put in the dock again on charges of genocide, the ageing
former foreign minister and Khmer Rouge power broker could still be charged
with murder or crimes against humanity.
Pol Pot, like many others in his circle who may have faced justice, has since
died. Of those who remain, Ieng Sary's wife Ieng Tirith, Brother Number Two
Nuon Chea and former prime minister Khieu Samphan are chief candidates for
prosecution at the tribunal.
If justice is to be delivered, a fair trial of Ieng Sary is crucial, but this will only
become possible once the legalities of the long forgotten 1979 tribunal have
been dealt with.
And this time around it will be those same original detractors -- the United
States, Australia, France and Japan -- who as chief backers of the current
tribunal will be forced to pay attention.
Luke Hunt is a Hong Kong-based journalist who has covered Cambodia for
many years. He was the Phnom Penh bureau chief for Agence France-Presse
from 2001 to 2004.
© 2006, World Politcs Watch LLC. All rights reserved. Terms of Use : About
World Politics Watch
Talks to Save Khmer Rouge Trials
BBC
Cambodian and international judges have begun talks to prevent the possible
collapse of the Khmer Rouge trials.
The trials - which aim to put the surviving leaders of the brutal Maoist regime in
the dock - have ground to a halt over procedural differences. Foreign judges want full international legal standards, while the Cambodians say local law must take precedence.
About two million people died during the years that the Khmer Rouge ruled
Cambodia in the 1970s.
Aging defendants
Trial hearings are theoretically due to start later this year. But according to the
BBC correspondent in Phnom Penh, Guy De Launey, there is a real possibility
that the trials will collapse before they have even started.
The international judges have made it clear that they see this week's meeting as the final chance to make sure the trials meet international standards. "All the judges are mindful that the upcoming... meeting is of vital importance," tribunal officials said in a recent statement.
If an agreement cannot be achieved, the foreign contingent will ask the UN to
pull out. But local officials have been equally adamant that Cambodian law has
to have prime importance in the special courts, and according to our
correspondent, they feel they have been unfairly portrayed as being the sole
cause of the delays.
There are more than 100 items under discussion at this week's talks, but many
have already been resolved after lengthy informal negotiations.
Those involved admit that time is of the essence, if they are to bring elderly
Khmer Rouge members to court. "There is one point on which the international
judges are unanimous - these trials should take place quickly or not at all,
" French judge Marcel Lemonde of France told AFP news agency.
The death of military commander Ta Mok late last year heightened fears that
more key defendants and witnesses could die before facing justice.
Pol Pot, the founder and leader of the Khmer Rouge, has already died, in a
camp along the border with Thailand in 1998.
Story from BBC NEWS:
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/6425589.stm)
Published: 2007/03/07 06:21:19 GMT
Johns Kerry is responsible for the collapse of the Khmer Rouge Trial.
Note: Please, click the link pasted below, to read a detailed file on the Chronology of the Khmer Rouge Trial.
(http://www.cambodia.gov.kh/krt/english/chrono.htm)
(Comments: In this file, you can see that Senator John Kerry (D. Mass) was instrumental in allowing Hun Sen to hijack the Khmer Rouge Trial process, by supporting the ruthless Cambodian dictator's plan to turning the trial from an international responsibility into Hun Sen's. His irresponsible act is the more tragic that Kerry knew full well that there was no judicial system that would meet international standard of justice in Cambodia under Hun Sen's corrupt and oppressive regime. Hun Sen used the pretext of Cambodian sovereignty for his hijacking of the Khmer Rouge Trial. It is the highest point of irony or hypocrisy in this tragic event that Hun Sen, a person who was put there by a foreign power (Vietnam) to control Cambodia, is now using Cambodian sovereignty as an excuse for denying the international standard of justice being applied to the Khmer Rouge Trial.
The excerpt taken from the above link on 'the chronology of the Khmer Rouge Trial,' clearly shows how Senator John Kerry, in 1999, lent his prestige, as a senator of the United States of America, and provided Hun Sen a perfect excuse to hijack to whole Khmer Rouge Trial process by turning it away from the responsibility of United Nations into that of the Hun Sen, despite the fact that Cambodia's judicial system is totally subservient to Hun Sen's political maneuvers, and totally corrupt.
For this reason, John Kerry owes the Cambodian people a sincere apology for the harm and suffering he has done to them. And more importantly, he must assume full responsibility of taking the initiatives of returning to the Cambodian people justice and normalcy in their life that he took away from them, by working hard to reverse his tragic and irresponsible act in 1999, and by asking the US Congress to request the Bush Administration to stop treating Hun Sen's regime as a democratic nation-state, which it is not. More importantly, the US Congress and the Bush Administration should take the Khmer Rouge Trial away from Hun Sen's corrupt and deadly grip. Hun Sen is a vicious dictator, and does not respect the rule of law, democratic principles, or human rights, the very principles that the USA is promoting, so loudly, all over the world. The USA should do what it so loudly preaches, and not completely the opposite. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC March 12, 2007)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Excerpts from the above-link on the Khmer Rouge Trial
6 March; 1999
Khmer Rouge military leader Ta Mok was arrested and charged with violation of the 1994 Law to Outlaw the Democratic Kampuchea Group.
15 March
The Report of the Group of Experts recommending a completely international tribunal was presented to the General Assembly and Security Council.
April
Meeting between Senator John Kerry and Samdech Prime Minister, in which were laid own the principles of a national court with participation by foreign judges.
9 May
Duch, former director of S-21 Tuol Sleng prison was arrested and charged with the 1994 Law to Outlaw the Democratic Kampuchea Group.
Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Human Rights in Cambodia, His Excellency Thomas Hammarberg reached agreement with Prime Minister Hun Sen on a compromise of "national proceedings with international characteristics."
Cambodia requested a team of legal experts from France to help this issue, and France sent to Cambodia a team of high-level legal experts.
July
Prime Minister Hun Sen requested technical assistance from the UN in drafting the Law.
Australian government responds to Cambodian appeal for assistance by sending an expert to work with the Cambodian Government in preparing for the trials.
In New York the Office of Legal Affairs made its own proposal for the trials and presented it to members of the Security Council.
20 August
The Royal Government created its "Task Force for Cooperation with Foreign Legal Experts and Preparation of the Proceedings for the Trial of Senior Khmer Rouge Leaders", of which Sok An was appointed the chairman.
The Task Force commenced its work by drafting the law. This first draft law was produced in August 1999 and presented to a United Nations delegation led by H.E. Ralph Zacklin, deputy of Hans Corell who is in charge of legal affairs of the United Nations and holding the rank of Under Secretary-General.
The Cambodian Draft Law received legal and other technical contributions from experts from France, India, Russia and Australia, as well as the United States, in addition to the input from the United Nations.
The first UN delegation, sent in August 1999, studied the first draft law and presented its own draft. At that time there was no consensus. One major difference was that Zacklin wanted foreign judges to hold the majority, while Cambodia claimed that Cambodian judges must be in the majority.
20 September
During the United Nations General Assembly Samdech Prime Minister met H.E. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and he submitted a memorandum of three points, offering three options:
Firstly: the United Nations can contribute to providing judges and experts to help modify the draft law to achieve what is known as credibility, in conformity with procedures trusted by the international community, and can also provide judges to work with Cambodian judges in the court;
Secondly: the Secretary General may choose only to provide legal experts to help establish the draft law, and let Cambodian judges work alone at the trial stage;
Thirdly: the United Nations may withdraw from the process, and let Cambodia establish the draft law and organize the trial by itself.
At that time, the Secretary-General did not respond directly to the memorandum, but asked for the continuation of negotiations.
Must Justice be Seen to be Done?
Public Scrutiny and Participation in the ECCC
Everyone is waiting for the drama of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal ("KRT") to begin. But what many people do not realize is that, in many ways, it has begun.
As the judges wrangle over the internal rules and observers worry about the
integrity of the court, the prosecutors are already deep in the process of gathering the evidence to make their case, and getting ready to forward their files or dossiers to the investigating judges. Although the formal legal process will not actually begin until the internal rules governing the KRT are finalized, the pre-trial stage is already well under way. And because the pre-trial period is the heart of the civil law process on which Cambodian law is based, it is imperative that we understand that there be public scrutiny of this period.
The Heart of the Matter: the Pre-Trial Period
Everyone has been looking forward to seeing the most senior and most
responsible leaders of the Khmer Rouge ("KR") regime publicly tried for their past crimes. However, the public trial is bound to surprise some people when it eventually happens. Anyone expecting the Hollywood-like drama of a senior member of the KR being cross-examined by a quick-witted lawyer is likely to be disappointed. This is because the Cambodian justice system follows the French civil law model.
In this system, the pre-trial stage is the lengthiest period of the proceeding where information is gathered, witnesses are interrogated by the investigating judges, and credibility is determined. What happens at this stage dictates who will be charged, what crimes they will be charged with, and what recommendations the investigating judges will make to the trial judges. Eventually, the accused person(s) will stand before a panel of Khmer and foreign judges, and answer the well-documented charges against them. As we wait in the interim, some of the most important dramas and decisions of this historical trial are taking and will take place behind closed doors.
Civil Law vs. Common Law
It is not surprising that legal observers in Cambodia sometimes disagree about the kinds of laws that would best serve the KRT and the Cambodian people. This disagreement is really about a choice between the world's two major legal systems: civil law (or inquisitorial system, prevalent in Europe), and common law (adversarial system, used in the United Kingdom and its former colonies, e.g., the United States). Not all civil and common law systems are the same, but they tend to have general principles in common.
Civil law advocates believe that their system is the most efficient and fair, because it puts its trust in a neutral investigating judge whose job is not to find the guilt of the suspect, but to find the truth before the public trial begins. To find this elusive truth, the judge plays the role of interrogator, investigator, and decision-maker. The investigating judge evaluates the dossier submitted by the prosecutor, and directly questions parties and witnesses. Both the judges and the prosecutors represent the interests of the State, and work closely together, but it is the investigating judge who decides whether the prosecution has provided enough evidence against the accused for a case to go to trial. If s/he feels a prosecution would not be worthwhile under the circumstances, s/he has broad discretion to dismiss the case. Thus, the strength of this system lies in the power of the investigating judge, who is
ideally neutral and investigates evidence without any bias.
Common law advocates do not place so much trust in the benevolence of the State. Because the adversarial system questions all "truths" that emerge from behind closed doors, it takes the interrogating and investigating roles away from the judge, and gives them to the parties themselves, to debate in open court. There is an emphasis on openness and equality of arms; the public is able to observe the decision-making process as it happens. There is no investigating judge; the pre-trial period is short.
The public trial is the heart of the process. The parties are much more active,
challenging the sufficiency of the evidence and cross-examining witnesses to
test their credibility. By making the parties equal in status and by ensuring the evidence is legitimate and gathered in a legal way, the courts can help keep the police and the prosecution honest. The facts and law are debated in public, and the ultimate decision is usually made by a jury selected randomly from the community. The jury decides on the facts of the case, and the judge rules on the law. The judge merely acts as a referee, and has the power to impose the sentence.
Unfortunately, neither system is perfect. The civil law system is faulted for
neglecting a defendant's rights, while the common law system is criticized for putting a defendant's rights above the truth. The inquisitorial system is praised for its efficiency, while the adversarial system is criticized for its tendency to draw out the length of the trial by invoking procedural technicalities.
Both systems work best within a structure of true checks and balances, where the judiciary is independent from the influence of State leadership.
If judges are given unfettered discretion and are in collusion with the State with no external forces to counter-balance that power, the defendant faces extreme vulnerability and potential abuse of State power. While the civil law system may work well in a country like France with real consequences for biased judges, countries that lack such safeguards may do well to follow the adversarial system, which recognizes the imbalances inherent in a government prosecution and opens its evidence and legal process to scrutiny.
Pre-Trial Process: The Need for Public Scrutiny
The KRT was established for Cambodians for a variety of well-considered reasons. Not only was it established to bring the perpetrators to justice, but also so that justice could be seen to be done. It was established to set the historical record straight, to stimulate a national discussion, and to begin a long-overdue process of national reconciliation. It is difficult to achieve these goals if the important pre-trial process is conducted completely in private.
Some mechanisms are in place to inform the Cambodian public about the progress of the KRT, such as its public affairs office and a number of NGOs' outreach efforts, but it is likely that the bulk of the pre-trial process will take place in private.
All of these issues are more important than usual because this trial is more
important than usual. This is a trial about past atrocities, brought on behalf of the Cambodian people - so the people have both the need and the right to watch the trial process as it unfolds. Because a case in the civil law system unfolds almost completely before the public trial begins, it is imperative that the KRT institute some kind of formal public communication at the pre-trial stage. Whether this is through a special public hearing of witness testimony or a statement by the investigating judges summarizing the evidence, the pre-trial process in this momentous case must be transparent and open to public scrutiny.
Public Participation: the Involvement of Civil Parties
One significant way the public can be involved in the KRT from beginning to end is as a partie civile or "civil party" to the case. This idea, provided for in Cambodian law and squarely rooted in French civil law, allows a victim to participate in criminal proceedings as a civil complainant and to claim damages from an accused. A victim enters the process by filing a complaint with the prosecutor, and if it is relevant to the charges, a victim may potentially have similar rights to that of the defendant, such as access to the dossier and opportunities to be involved in the investigative process.
Although it is generally agreed that it would be impracticable for the KRT to be
used as a forum for reparation claims, the provisions permitting a civil party to be closely involved with the process are currently being considered. This is potentially a major breakthrough for victim involvement in the international criminal trials.
Reconciling the Laws in Cambodia
Cambodian law is a patchwork quilt of different traditions, including aspects of the adversarial and inquisitorial systems. Current laws have been influenced by the various international legal scholars who rotate through Phnom Penh and NGOs, offering funding and advice. Although the French relationship with Cambodia has the deepest roots, the foundations of Cambodia's relatively recent democracy and much of the content of its legal rights derive from common law norms found in the Cambodian Constitution and international instruments adopted by Cambodia, ie, the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights.
Cambodia's inquisitorial legal system provides clear benefits to the administration of justice, such as efficiency, truth-seeking, and the potential for KR victims to be involved with the KRT process as civil parties. However, it should also consider making its secret pre-trial process more adversarial and more open to public scrutiny. In recognition of the important values the KRT seeks to uphold, it would do well to incorporate the best aspects of both legal traditions.
Holly Telerant
CSD pro bono Attorney
Pen Rany
Court Watch Project Manager
The Center for Social Development (CSD) bears full responsibility for the
opinions expressed in the Voice of Justice.
Realpolitik with Pen Sovann
[Former Cambodian Prime Minister Pen Sovann sits before a photo taken of him shortly...]
Born in Takeo in 1936, Pen Sovann dropped out of school at 15 and joined a local anti-French movement led by Ek Choeun, later infamous as Ta Mok. After the Indochina War in 1954, he was one of some 1,000 Cambodians "regrouped" to Vietnam for military training. He joined the Khmer Rouge in 1970, and was in
charge of information until 1974. Claiming that "Pol Pot and Ieng Sary wanted to kill me," he fled back to Vietnam and was instrumental in forming the United
Front for the National Salvation of Cambodia in 1978. After the Vietnamese-
backed overthrow of the Khmer Rouge in 1979, he became the Front's secretary-general, and Prime Minister in 1981. Later that year, just days after criticizing the Vietnamese presence in Cambodia, his home was surrounded by "900 troops and 12 tanks," and he was handcuffed, covered with a black mask,
and rushed to Hanoi were he would spend the next 10 years in prison and home arrest.
Today, he sits in a wooden gazebo over a fish pond behind his home in Takeo
town. Tacked to the wooden walls are sepia-tinted photographs of Sovann alongside CPP stalwarts Hun Sen, Chea Sim, Say Phou Thong. In one he's standing in the back of a Soviet jeep reviewing troops in front of the Royal Palace in 1980. In another he's sharing a light moment with retired King Norodom Sihanouk. It's a comfortable home, but modest for a former head of state who has visited the White House, the Pentagon and the Kremlin. Besides the occasional foreign reporter or diplomat (former US Ambassador Charles Ray once lunched here), his days are undisturbed. He's the president of the National Sustaining Party of Cambodia, but the party sign in front of his home is adorned with rust and peeling paint. The government has been labeling him mentally ill for years.
Sovann once told the Post: "Cambodian politics has the head of a chicken and
the ass of a duck. They speak about democracy and multiple political parties, but they practice communist ways."
He spoke to Charles McDermid on February 17 about Ta Mok, Hun Sen and
the CPP's lingering links to communism.
Why do so many people have the opinion that you're crazy?
This comes from Hun Sen. In 1993 he made a statement to the people saying
I had mental problems. The people asked: "Where is Pen Sovann now?" And
Hun Sen said he's still alive, but he's stupid now and when he talks he foams
at the mouth. This isn't true. A person should be judged by how they act.
What was it like to work with "The Butcher" Ta Mok?
I met Ta Mok in August, 1949. Later, I became his bodyguard and adviser. At
the time he was teaching people about resistance tactics. He was a good help
to many people. At that time he was a good person with a good character. He
started to change around 1968.
How did you react when you learned Ta Mok died last year?
I had two feelings. First I felt very sorry to lose the person who taught me about
fighting injustice from 1949 to 1954. I also thought it was fair enough for him to die.
Ten of my relatives, including my siblings, died because of Ta Mok. I started
hating him in 1972: at that time he changed from a rabbit to a bear.
What was your relationship with Pol Pot?
I met him many times: the first was on March 12, 1950 and the last time was
March 18, 1970. At first we talked about the movement against the French. He had a good background and he had a good character at the time. Like Ta Mok he started to change around 1968 when he became influenced too much by China and became a Maoist.
Why did you leave the Khmer Rouge in 1974?
It was caused by different views on policy. They had started to trample on the
people and were following Mao. There was no justice. I went to Vietnam as a refugee. At the time Vietnam didn't want me to stay. They thought I was a spy for the Khmer Rouge. I tried to explain that the Khmer Rouge were killing
Cambodian people and that one day Pol Pot will try to invade Vietnam. At the time they didn't believe me. It wasn't until 1977 that Vietnam believed me.
They asked me to select people in border areas who were unhappy with the
Khmer Rouge to come to be trained in Hanoi. Among these people were Chea Sim, Hun Sen and Say Phou Thang and others who are now running the present government.
What was your first impression of Hun Sen?
First, he is a very proud man. He has always had one characteristic: he knows that Vietnam believes in him. I appointed him to be a member of the Front. I knew that the leaders in Vietnam thought Hun Sen was young and clever, but he had no experience and spoke no other languages. In October 1978, when I saw that they wanted to promote Hun Sen I went to them and asked them not to promote him. I asked that they not let Hun Sen be so proud. He was only in his 20s at the time.
Do you regret asking Vietnam to come into Cambodia to fight the Khmer Rouge?
I have no regret. I was the one who asked them to help, and they helped a lot of
people. But I asked for assistance, not an invasion.
To what extent does Vietnam continue to have an influence in Cambodia
government?
You must understand, Vietnam does not want to make Cambodia better. They
want Cambodia's economy to collapse. There is Vietnamese influence from top
officials to basic officials and the police. The people don't like this, they have
never liked the Vietnamese style.
Are you a communist?
I am not a member of any Communist Party. Communism itself is not bad, but its implementation has been bad. Communism states clearly to respect human rights, the poor and the benefit of the nation. I stopped believing in ommunism in March 1981 because communist regimes have slow economicgrowth, and under the powerful people in the party, citizens don't have freedom.
Why were you removed as prime minister?
The party leaders in Hanoi were trying to control everything in Cambodia: the
military, immigration and the economy. First, they accused me of building a
free-market economy that was against communist practice. Second, they
accused me of being a "narrow-minded nationalist" for speaking out against
Vietnamese immigration. Third, that I was disobedient for not respecting orders
from Hanoi. There were other things, too. I was against the K5 program [a
strategic military belt along the Thai border] and I had started an airport tax.
The charges weren't real. They were designed to arrest me, and the leaders
of the Front agreed.
After you, the next Prime Minister was Chan Si. In Margaret Slocumb's book
The People's Republic of Kampuchea 1979-1989 [pp 143-144], she wrote that
you believed Chan Si was killed by Hun Sen at a banquet in Phnom Penh in
1987. How did Chan Si die?
I could not give any comments about how the former Prime Minister Chan Si
died because I could get in trouble if I speak. This [story] has a lot of secrets.
In October 1991, the People's Revolutionary Party of Kampuchea (PRPK) officially abandoned Marxism-Leninism and changed its name to the CPP. Since that time, has the CPP acted in a democratic fashion or a communistic fashion?
Until now the ruling party was communist. Now they speak of democracy, but
it's just talk. It's communist inside. I have seen that the CPP's hierarchy and
policies are formed in the communist fashion. They talk about democracy just
because it sounds good. In reality what they implement is not the same as what they say. Cambodian people have never had real democracy. The country is controlled by powerful people, and the poor people are their slaves.
In your career in politics, what are you most proud of?
That no one could ever buy me.
Are you a patriot?
I don't want to be judged by words from my lips, but rather from my actions in the past.
Phnom Penh Post, Issue 16 / 04, February 23 - March 8, 2007
© Michael Hayes, 2007. All rights revert to authors and artists on publication.
For permission to publish any part of this publication, contact Michael Hayes,
Editor-in-Chiefhttp://www.PhnomPenhPost.com - Any comments on the website
to Webmaster
CBA's road to standoff with ECCC
The Cambodian Bar Asssociation (CBA): Its roots, membership, political affiliation (CPP), structure, and policy:
1995: The Law on the Bar is passed. Cambodian Bar Association (CBA) is
established with Say Bory as president.
October 1998: Ang Eng Thong is elected CBA president.
2003: Cambodia's pending membership of the World Trade Organization requires the CBA to consider lifting restrictions on the rights of foreign lawyers to practice in the country. Restrictions are not lifted.
January 2004: Four senior members of the CPP - Hun Sen, Sar Kheng, Sok An, and Prum Sokha - apply to join the Bar Association.
February 2004: The Cambodian government-funded renovation of the CBA's Phnom Penh headquarters begins.
September 15, 2004: Hun Sen, Sar Kheng, Sok An, and Prum Sokha are sworn in as members of the CBA, despite evidence that none possess the requisite qualifications, such as a law degree.
September 16, 2004: Hun Sen presides over the opening of the CBA's new office building on Street 180.
October 16, 2004: Presidential elections for the CBA are held. In the second-
round runoff, incumbent president Ky Tech loses the election with 108 votes
to Soun Visal's 127.
October 26, 2004: Tech alleges that Visal breached the CBA's campaigning
rules and refuses to relinquish power.
November 19, 2004: The Court of Appeals holds a closed-door session in which the results of the October 16 election are nullified. Tech is awarded an interim three months presidency.
November 30, 2004: A majority of the council members of the CBA issue a statement backing Visal and saying they will refuse to recognize any actions taken by Tech.
June 2, 2005: The Supreme Court annuls the November 19 Court of Appeals
decision and sends the case back to them. Buoyed by this decision, Visal has a new CBA official stamp and bar letterhead made.
June 27, 2005: Tech filed a complaint with the Phnom Penh Municipal court accusing Visal and his colleagues of forgery over the use of the CBA's
official stamp and bar letterhead.
July, 4 2005: 12 CBA Council members appeal to Hun Sen for intervention to resolve the dispute over the presidency. No intervention is forthcoming.
July 6, 2005: 12 CBA Council members appeal to the Ministry of Justice for
intervention to resolve the dispute over the presidency. No intervention is
forthcoming.
September 15, 2005: 12 CBA council members request that the election of the council members - scheduled for October 16 - be combined with a vote for president. They also urge Tech to drop charges of forgery against Visal.
Both requests are denied and the CBA council members election is cancelled.
September 2005: The International Bar Association (IBA) warns the CBA it faces expulsion unless it can hold free, fair, and open elections.
December 5, 2005: Tech, Visal, and 17 of the 19 CBA council members convene at the bar office and, after discussion mediated by Mark Ellis, executive director of the IBA, agree to annul the results of the October 2004 presidential election and organize a new presidency and council election for March 16, 2006. It is agreed that all lawsuits will be withdrawn from the courts.
December 26, 2005: The agreement is sent to the general prosecutor at the Appeal Court, Hanrot Raken, who forwards it to the court for consideration.
The Appeal Court fails to respond. The March 16 election is unable to proceed.
July 17, 2006: The Appeal Court instructs Tech to organize presidency and council elections.
July 28, 2006: Tech invites council members to discuss the process of election preparation and the qualifications of the presidential and council candidates.
August 9, 2006: The CBA council decides, by a slim majority, to hold elections on October 16, 2006.
October 16, 2006: The CBA holds bar presidency and council member elections. In the second-round runoff Tech receives 157 votes, clearly beating Visal's 143, and giving him the presidency until October 2008.
"Even though it is unjust, I want to end the dispute; I am very bored with it,
" Visal said after the election.
November 20, 2006: Tech addresses the plenary session of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). His comments, and questions he raised about the roles of the CBA and the ECCC's defense unit, are controversial, ECCC observers say.
November 22, 2006: Tech threatens to take legal action against anyone who participates in a five-day training course on international criminal law offered by the Defense Office of the ECCC and the IBA.
November 23, 2006: The CBA issues a letter ordering members not to attend the IBA training session.
November 24, 2006: The IBA cancels the training course and issues a statement in which it says the CBA's prohibition on the training course is part of a wider scheme of opposition designed to obstruct the operation of the ECCC.
November 25, 2006: Officials from the ECCC fail to agree on crucial procedural rules. The most contentious issue is the role of the Defense Office of the ECCC and the process of certifying foreign lawyers to practice in Cambodia.
December 5, 2006: Human Rights Watch says the CBA's attacks on the ECCC's defense office are "politically charged."
December 5, 2006: Sok An writes to the United Nations asking to reopen dialogue to resolve the dispute over the role of the defense office at the ECCC.
December 19, 2006: Extracts of the UN's response to Sok An are released by the ECCC. The response quotes previous UN/Cambodian government agreements over the establishment of a defense office at the ECCC.
January 16, 2007: ECCC judges convene for a two-week meeting aiming to find a consensus on internal rules.
January 26, 2007: ECCC judges fail to reach agreement. The most important
unresolved issue is the right of foreign counsel to appear before the tribunal.
March 7, 2007: The ECCC rules committee meets in a final attempt to reach
agreement over the court's draft internal rules.
March 16, 2007: The international judges on the ECCC rules committee say the fees the CBA demands from foreign lawyers wanting to practice at the ECCC are too high. They say the CBA's fees are the only remaining obstacle to adopting the court's internal rules.
-Compiled by Cat Barton
Phnom Penh Post, Issue 16 / 06, March 23 - April 5, 2007
© Michael Hayes, 2007. All rights revert to authors and artists on publication.
For permission to publish any part of this publication, contact Michael Hayes, Editor-in-Chiefhttp://www.PhnomPenhPost.com - Any comments on the website
to Webmaster
Khmer Rouge Regime public debate in Phnom Penh
(Comments: Thun Saray and Steven Morris seem to be echoing exactly what I had said in my interviews on the KRT with RFA)
Source: Development Weekly; February 26-March 4, 2007
Both Khmer Rouge victims and Cambodian youths discussed Khmer Rouge regime. Curiosity about the barbarous regime was revealed through numerous questions posed by guest speakers.
The questions included: “who is responsible for the Khmer Rouge regime and
why didn’t the United Nations intervene to prevent Pol Pot from killing the people?”
Responding to the questions, Philip Short, an author on the DK regime, said
that the UN did not want to encroach on the sovereignty and territory which
of a state which was its member.
Regarding foreign involvement in the regime, Steven Morris, author of a book
called ‘Why Vietnam invaded Cambodia.’ and other guest-speakers mentioned
the important role of Vietnam and China concerning the matter. “Without the
support of these two nations, the Khmer Rouge regime would not have existed
in Cambodia, “ he said.
The gathering of Vietnamese troops to liberate successfully on January 7, 1979, was not a humanitarian act, but “an invasion for its own interests,”
claimed Steven Morris.
The Vietnamese government was angry with the DK, which had taken a stance against the Vietnamese government, he explained, adding that Vietnam had decided to help “Kampuchea liberation troops’ by launching a massive attack on the Khmer Rouge regime and put in place a regime friendly to its government.
Balance of peace and justice
The forum’s participants condemned the Khmer Rouge regime and urged its leaders to be tried as soon as possible because ex-Khmer Rouge leaders who will likely face the tribunal are now getting old can chronically ill.
Thun Saray said that finding the truth of the history will offer a new identity to the Cambodian society.
“The justice demanded by Cambodian people and supported by the international community, with the formation of the Extraordinary Chamber in the Courts of Cambodia, capable of trying senior Khmer Rouge leaders and people with the highest responsibilities for the most serious crime form 1975 to 1979, can contribute only to one part of the goal of seeking truth and justice from the Khmer Rouge regime, since it is needed to keep balance between peace and justice,” he added.
Like other guest speakers, Thun Saray warned that the ECCC will further hurt Cambodians, if it fails to try former Khmer Rouge leaders, because the treatment of the deep wound of the people depends on the special tribunal’s process.
Statement from the Review Committee of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia
On 16 March 2007, the Review Committee concluded a ten-day session in Phnom Penh on the draft Internal Rules. During the session, the Review Committee discussed in exhaustive detail many points and resolved all remaining disagreements, although some fine tuning remains to be done.
However, one issue not mentioned in the draft Internal Rules, but still outstanding, is the impact of the Bar Association of the Kingdom of Cambodia (BAKC) registration fees on the participation of foreign lawyers in the ECCC.
The latest decision of the BAKC imposes a fee that is unacceptable to the international judges, who consider that it severely limits the rights of accused and victims to select counsel of their choice. The international judges believe that the failure to fix an appropriate fee places an obstacle to adopting the Rules while the national judges consider that the registration fee, being an issue outside the scope of the draft Internal Rules, should not be an obstacle to their adoption. The judges are ready to hold a plenary at the end of April. For the international judges, this will be possible only if a satisfactory resolution of this issue is reached.
In order to find a solution that is acceptable to all parties so that the Plenary can proceed on 30 April 2007, the BAKC is invited to reconsider its position as soon as possible. The ECCC Defence Support Section is requested to work closely with the Bar on this process.
All members of the Committee remain dedicated to completing this complex effort of successfully harmonising international and national law so that the ECCC can discharge its historic responsibility to find justice for the Cambodian people The Rules Committee is composed of three national judges and two international udges, namely You Bunleng, Mong Monichariya, Prak Kim San, Agnieszka Klonowiecka-Milart and Marcel Lemonde. For the purposes of this review process four additional members were added - national judges Kong Srim and Sin Rith, and international judges Silvia Cartwright and Claudia Fenz -- making a total of nine judges.
For further information please contact the ECCC Public Affairs office: Mr. Reach Sambath
(012 488156), Mr. Peter Foster (012 488421), Dr Helen Jarvis (012 488 134)
Bar fee dispute delays Khmer Rouge hearings
Ian MacKinnon, Southeast Asia correspondent
Monday March 19, 2007
The Guardian International
A proposed £2,500 charge for international lawyers to take part in Cambodia's long-delayed Khmer Rouge genocide trial is threatening to derail the process.
Most lawyers are refusing to pay the fee set by the Cambodian bar association.
Concern is mounting that defendants could be denied a fair trial if international
lawyers pull out. The senior international defence lawyer in the trial, the British war crimes barrister Rupert Skilbeck, is to request talks with the Cambodian bar association to settle the dispute.
All other outstanding issues were resolved when a committee of Cambodian and international judges concluded 10 days of talks last week to thrash out ground rules for the trial. The agreement paves the way for the trial of Khmer Rouge leaders over the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians in the "killing fields" between 1975 and 1979.
The row over fees must be settled before a meeting set for the end of April of the Cambodian and international judges to approve the trial rules.
The role of overseas barristers in the UN-sponsored tribunal was one of the biggest hurdles in failed discussions in November and January. "If this can't be resolved the tribunal does not go forward," said Mr Skilbeck. "But I'm fairly confident we can find a way to sort this out."
Mr Skilbeck said the fees proposed would put off most international lawyers, leaving the defendants, thought to number as few as 10, with limited choice.
Establishing the tribunal has taken more than a decade since Cambodia's
government asked for UN assistance. The latest wrangling has eaten into the
three-year mandate of the court set up last July.
High Time for Justice: The US and the Khmer Rouge Tribunal
University of Pittsburgh School of Law Jurist Legal News & Research
January 31, 2006
FORUM
Op-eds on legal news by law professors and JURIST special guests.
JURIST Special Guest Columnist Craig Etcheson, author of After the killing Fields: Lessons from the Cambodian Genocide (2005) and a Visiting Scholar at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, says the time has come for the United States to throw its full diplomatic weight behind the new Cambodia-UN Khmer Rouge Tribunal finally being set up in Phnom Penh... (Craig Etcheson is a Visiting Scholar at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. His most recent book is After the Killing Fields: Lessons from the Cambodian Genocide (Praeger 2005).
In the late 1970s, Cambodia's Khmer Rouge murdered more than two million
people, and enslaved the survivors in a brutal rural gulag. The authors of these
crimes still ive freely, enjoying absolute impunity. It has been more than 27 years since the Khmer Rouge were driven from power, and nearly nine years since negotiations on an accountability process began between the Cambodian government and the United Nations. Despite this shameful record of delay and dithering, in the next few days, Cambodians finally expect to see the first glimmerings of justice.
UN officials are to join Cambodian jurists in establishing a unique "mixed"
national-international criminal tribunal to judge Khmer Rouge leaders responsible
for those crimes.
The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, as the Khmer Rouge
Tribunal is formally known, is an experimental form of internationalized justice
that attempts to reconcile the principle of complementarity with international concerns for due process and judicial independence. The two-chamber special court will have a majority of Cambodian judges at each level, working alongside a minority of international jurists nominated by the UN. Decisions in chambers will be taken by a "super-majority principle", which requires international jurists to concur in any judgment. Cambodian and international co-prosecutors and co-
investigating magistrates are to cooperate in trying a small group of surviving
Khmer Rouge leaders, with the personal jurisdiction of the court defined as
"senior leaders" and "those most responsible for the most serious violations"
. Temporal jurisdiction will be April 17, 1975 to January 6, 1979, the period
when the Khmer Rouge occupied Cambodia's capital. Subject matter
jurisdiction encompasses war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, crimes against internationally protected persons, and violations of Cambodia's 1956 Code Penal.
Negotiating the jurisdictional contours of the court was challenging in part because the Cambodia's ruling party is led by former low- and mid-level Khmer Rouge officers, and a few of them have what is euphemistically known as "interesting resumes". Moreover, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is in the habit of using Cambodia's courts to harass his domestic political opponents. Recent arrests of Cambodian politicians, labor leaders, journalists, and human rights activists on flimsy charges have only underscored this tendency. Historically, Cambodia's court system has never exhibited a strong sense of judicial independence.
This goes a long way toward explaining why some international human rights
organizations remain wary of the proposed process. Human Rights Watch recently suggested it is "increasingly doubtful that a tribunal established within the Cambodian court system would ensure fair and impartial trials." Cambodian human rights campaigners, however, take a more realistic view, aware that transitional justice processes are inherently political, and that politics is the art of the possible. The Documentation Center of Cambodia's Youk Chhang, for example, argues that "some people want a perfect trial, but this is what we have. Let's make the best of it."
It is time to do just that, for the tribunal is fast approaching. On January 18th, the tribunal's recently appointed chief administrator took possession of the court's premises from Cambodia's Royal Armed Forces at Kambol outside Phnom Penh. The UN and Cambodia have largely completed the process of selecting judges and prosecutors, and will soon be announcing those appointments. They are now recruiting lower-level staff such as deputy legal officials, investigators, computer specialists and translators. Some of the finalists for the key international slots bring impressive credentials to the bench. The court's nascent administration has also begun taking initial steps to organize the already-mammoth amount of potential evidentiary material for the projected three years of proceedings. Much of that material was collected with funding from the United States government.
From 1994 to 2000, the United States played a pivotal role in shepherding the
Khmer Rouge Tribunal into being. In 1994, the US adopted the Cambodian
Genocide Justice Act, which made it "the policy of the United States to support efforts to bring to justice members of the Khmer Rouge for their crimes against humanity." In mid-1990s, the US funded the establishment of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which has become the premier repository of evidence on Khmer Rouge crimes. In the late 1990s, US diplomats played a hands-on role in helping the Cambodian government devise the Extraordinary Chambers, creating the institutional structure for the coming proceedings. The US also was a key player in crafting the compromise between Cambodia and the UN Secretariat that persuaded the world body to participate in the trials.
With the election of George W. Bush in 2000, however, the US government dropped the ball, and has been largely silent on the issue ever since. But with
Condoleezza Rice's elevation to the post of Secretary of State, and the recent
departure of Ambassador Pierre Prosper from State's Office of War Crimes Issues, officials in Foggy Bottom have begun to reassess the policy of benign neglect that has governed Cambodian genocide justice policy in Washington for the last five years. This reassessment should result in a US re-engagement with the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.
The State Department has hinted in recent months that the US might contribute financially to the Khmer Rouge Tribunal if it shows itself to be "independent" and up to "international standards". Rather than standing by and clucking as the proceeding unfolds, however, the US can do more to assure that the tribunal is as good as it can be by becoming actively engaged in the process. The UN's expenses for the tribunal have already been largely subscribed by other international donors, but the US might consider contributing to the UNDP fund that is being established to defray Cambodia's tribunal costs. This is newly possible because this year Congress dropped legislative restrictions on US assistance to the tribunal.
Alternatively, the US could fund training programs for Cambodian and international officials of the tribunal, and direct resources to some of the any civil society organizations that are working to prepare for the trials.
These NGOs will need on-going support during the three-year duration of the trials as they engage in monitoring, outreach and other activities in conjunction with the tribunal.
Most of all, however, the State Department could make a difference on the Khmer Rouge Tribunal simply by throwing its weight behind the process. The tribunal should once again become a priority not only at the US Embassy in Phnom Penh, but also at the Office of War Crimes Issues, the Office of Legal Affairs, the Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization, the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, and the US mission at the United Nations.
Secretary Rice needs to get her people singing off the same sheet of music.
When US ambassadorial-rank diplomats join with those at the deputy and
assistant secretary levels to consistently and coherently press their concerns, UN and Cambodian bureaucrats sit up and take notice. The United States has exercised no leadership on the Khmer Rouge Tribunal for the last five years, and it is high time that it did.[End]
Legal Issues Dominate Discussion
Cambodia - March 2007
The New Year has seen legal issues come to the fore in Cambodia, so much so that Prime Minister Hun Sen's remarkable promise to go on leading the country until he is ninety years old - he turns 55 in August 2007 - evoked remarkably little comment. This is almost certainly a reflection of the general acceptance that, for the moment at least, Hun Sen is beyond challenge politically. Moreover, his latest statement on his planned political longevity builds on the promise he made nearly five years ago, when he spoke of staying in his position for another ten years.
For many, both Cambodians and foreign observers, the ostimportant contemporary political issue is the future status of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal - or to use its official name, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). When the ECCC met on 25 January in an effort to establish Internal Rules as how it would function there was a lack of agreement among the judges about procedures. Although there have been no public statements concerning the nature of these disagreements, it is widely believed that some of the international judges have objected to the proposed rules supported by their Cambodian colleagues. At the
same time, the issue of what role may be played by foreign lawyers, should the ECCC begin its hearings, remains unresolved. In regard to this latter point, some foreign NGOs, notably Human Rights Watch, have raised the possibility that objections to the role of foreign lawyers playing a part in proceedings from the Cambodian Bar Association are the result of government interference.
These developments, or the lack of them, are occurring at a time when prospective defendants before the ECCC grow older and more infirm. Currently, there is only one prospective defendant in custody, Duch, the former director of S-21, the Tuol Sleng extermination centre. Other possible candidates for prosecution are in their eighties or seventies, and in the case of Ieng Sary reportedly in very poor health.
In a city prone to rumour and conspiracy theories, there is no shortage in Phnom Penh of explanations for the slow pace of developments associated with the ECCC. Principally these relate to the fact that the present government has no wish to have a trial process take place which would reveal the extent to which there are many former Khmer Rouge figures holding positions of importance in the administration. There is an interesting contrary point of view to this theory, enunciated by the distinguished biographer of Pol Pot, Philip Short. While doubting the efficacy of the
proposed trial process, Short suggests that if the prosecutions take place they could serve to 'delineate' the current government as a separate entity from its criminal predecessor.
At the same time, there is a widespread belief in Phnom Penh circles critical of the Hun Sen regime that the Chinese government would prefer that the trials do not take place, since if they did the extent of Chinese support for the Pol Pot regime would once again be brought into public gaze.
Meanwhile, critical voices are also being heard in relation to Cambodia's judicial system as a whole. Nearly two years ago Hun Sen spoke very critically of Cambodia's court and the administration of justice, vowing to deal with the corrupt system with an 'iron fist'. Since then little, if anything, has happened to reform the system. As Human Rights Watch observed in its annual report on Cambodia, 'The courts . . . continue to be used to advance political agendas, silence critics and strip people of their land.'
Away from the legal arena, observers are waiting to see whether the government is going to act on the conscription law that it introduced last October. Variously condemned by its opponents as a means for controlling disaffected youths and as a law likely to be administered in a highly selective fashion, it is clear that a program of conscription will do little to counter the very high unemployment rate of young Cambodians.
WATCHPOINT: Will the Khmer Rouge Tribunal actually come into being, and if so on a basis that will make it legally and politically convincing as an institution.
Milton Osborne
Adjunct Professor
Faculty of Asian Studies
Australian National University
International Judges of ECCC say April plenary is not possible
UNAKRT Press Statement
03 April 2007
(Comments: One step closer to collapse of the KRT as the international judges decided that the Plenary session to adopt the internal rules of the court in April could not be held. It is understandable that the international judges and prosecutors could not just walk away form the trial, for fear of public criticism for being too impatient. However, there is a limit as to how long can these international jurists afford to allow Hun Sen to use them as a means to delay ad infinitum the KRT. There is a time when these international prominent judges have to stand up and say, 'enough is enough.' Hun Sen should not be allowed to continue to abuse the international community with impunity, as everything the Cambodian dictator has been doing in Cambodia, since he came to power. Judging from Hun Sen's past practice, the general public should be reminded that even if this fee issue raised by the Hun Sen-controlled CBA can be resolved with a great deal of delay, another obstacle will be created by Hun Sen in order to delay the KRT until all the remaining Khmer Rouge leaders are all dead.)
The international judges of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia today presented the President of the Supreme Court Chamber of the ECCC with a letter informing the Cambodian judges of their decision not to hold a judicial plenary session to adopt the internal rules of the court in April 2007.
The letter, signed by all the international judges of the ECCC, notes that two weeks have passed since the ECCC’s Review Committee issued a statement asking for the Cambodian Bar to reconsider its position over fees imposed on foreign lawyers. The letter states that the international judges were, “saddened that at the time of writing, the Cambodian Bar had not reconsidered its position.” With the fee issue still unresolved and not enough time remaining to fix their schedules or accommodate previous commitments, a 30 April plenary it is no longer possible for the international judges.
The international judges believe the Cambodian Bar's proposed first year fee of USD $4900.00 would create a prohibitive entry cost and was not in line with accepted practice at the international level. The proposed fee would severely limit the number of foreign lawyers able to appear before the ECCC and would allow the accused to argue that they have not been afforded the right to have counsel of their choice, in breach of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights. Further, such a fee would exclude many lawyers that are volunteering to represent victims for free, as they would be left significantly out of pocket for offering their services pro-bono.
The international judges are aware of ongoing discussions between the Cambodian Bar and the ECCC’s Defence Support Section and express hope that these discussions will lead to an acceptable solution. As a result, they are willing to, allow for a short period to establish whether they may then be in a position to call a plenary session at a later date.
However, the international judges wish to emphasize that the window of opportunity is closing quickly and they simply cannot allow for endless delays.
The international judges will re-examine the situation, and any proposals from the Cambodian Bar, during the last week of April 2007. If at that time no progress has been made they will propose organizing the whole process of participation of foreign lawyers from registration to discipline without the assistance of the Cambodian Bar Association, in line with established practice in other international and hybrid tribunals.
The international judges end the letter with their commitment to, “the fair, transparent and expeditious trials for which the Cambodian people have been waiting for 25 years.”
Legal fees delay Khmer Rouge trial
POSTED: 6:01 a.m. EDT, April 4, 2007
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (Reuters) -- A fee of less than $5,000 the Cambodian Bar ssociation wants to levy on foreign lawyers is threatening to torpedo the long-delayed trial of Pol Pot's top surviving henchmen for the atrocities of the "Killing Fields".
Bringing the former guerrilla leaders to justice was never going to be easy.
But after nearly a decade of tortuous negotiations and false dawns, Cambodia and the United Nations had agreed the outline of the joint court, donors had coughed up $53 million to pay for it and prosecutors had started combing through the evidence.
Only the most cynical saw any further delays in the attempt to find justice for the Khmer Rouge's 1.7 million victims.
Now, however, the U.N. is balking at the $4,900 in fees the national bar association
wants to charge each foreign defense lawyer, and the row is threatening to sink the whole enterprise.
Although paltry in the overall scheme of the trial, the U.N. said the charge was "not in line with accepted practice at the international level" as it would deter lawyers who might want to offer their services free of charge to defendants.
Digging in their heels after two weeks of talks, the international judges and lawyers said this week they were pulling out of a full session of the court planned for the end of April.
If the two sides could not reach agreement on the fees by then, the international side would decide the rules for foreign defense lawyers on its own, it said in a statement.
Window of opportunity "The international judges wish to emphasize that the window of opportunity is closing quickly and they simply cannot allow for endless delays," it said.
The Cambodian Bar Association (CBA) responded by saying the international lawyers would be flouting domestic law, which prohibits foreigners from representing clients in local courts unless they are Bar Association members.
As the court is officially called the "Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia", this rule must apply, the CBA said.
CBA secretary-general Ly Tayseng said his organization was charging foreigners $500 registration, $2,000 when they were chosen to represent a client and $200 a month in additional fees.
"We are still talking about the fees," Ly Tayseng told Reuters. "We, the Bar, and all Cambodians want the trial to happen to bring justice for the victims." Even though Phnom Penh and the U.N. agreed to the trials in 2003 and the judges were sworn in last year, wrangling over the nuts and bolts of the court have delayed any charges being filed.
Besides the clock ticking on the trial's budgeted three-year duration, time is also of the essence as many of the Khmer Rouge top command are dead or dying. Brother Number One" Pol Pot, presumed architect of the ultra-Maoist regime, died in 1998. His one-legged military chief Ta Mok -- dubbed "The Butcher" for his alleged role in mass internal purges -- died last year.
The main defendants are likely to be "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, former foreign minister Ieng Sary, former president Khieu Samphan, and Duch, head of the capital's Tuol Sleng interrogation and torture center.
Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights
ECCC: Statement from the International Judges of the
Extraordinary Chambers
in the Courts of Cambodia
30 April 2007
The international judges of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia were pleased to learn of the recent decision of the Cambodian Bar Council to institute a flat registration fee of 500 USD for all international lawyers appearing before the court. The international judges are confident that this fee will not hinder international lawyers, particularly those working in a pro bono capacity, from registering with the Cambodian
Bar and taking part in the historic work of the Extraordinary Chambers.
With this decision, the international judges believe that a successful plenary can now be called to adopt the internal rules of the Extraordinary Chambers. It is expected that this plenary will be held in the last week of May 2007.
The international judges express their hope that Extraordinary Chambers can move forward without further delay, so as to discharge its historic responsibility to find justice for the Cambodian people.
Key Khmer Rouge trial talks held
By Guy De Launey
BBC News, Phnom Penh
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6717767.stm)
Last Updated: Monday, 4 June 2007, 06:27 GMT 07:27 UK
(Comments: As some of us have been saying that the fact that Hun Sen has delayed and then allowed the KRT to go ahead is nothing new. His delay tactic has been well-documented and his objectives is still not to allow the KRT to go ahead as long as the current remainig Khmer Rouge leaders who know too much are still alive. This coming meeting between the International jusdges and the Cambodian counterparts will be crucial. Chances are that it will be again very protracted negociation and it will again delay the KRT. But, as some international judges have put, this is it. Either it will move ahead and quickly, or the international judges and prosecutors ahve the right and the duty to quit. Enough is enough! Nobody should blame the internaitonal judges for wuitting. Naranhkiri Tith, Ph.D. Washington DC. June 4, 2007)
The judges have struggled to resolve their differences
Judges for the long-awaited Khmer Rouge trials have begun an important meeting in Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh. Local and international legal officials are hoping to agree on the ground rules for the special courts. The process has been delayed for more than six months because of disagreements among the judges.
As many as two million people are thought to have died during the four years of Khmer Rouge government in the late 1970s. A packed hotel conference room was the venue for the opening ceremony of the judge's plenary session. The process of drafting and discussing the internal rules of procedure has taken too long
Dame Silvia Cartwright; International judge
Academics, human rights workers and veteran observers of the trials all squeezed in for the occasion. They were keenly aware that the next week of discussion could make or break the special courts.
Quit threats
The problem is simple to explain but rather more difficult to solve. The courts are under Cambodian jurisdiction, but the UN-appointed legal officials have insisted that international standards of justice should apply.
The legacy of the Khmer Rouge years hangs over Cambodia Allying those concerns while respecting local laws has been at the heart of the disagreements. There have been months of behind-the-scenes negotiations since the previous plenary session ended in disarray last November. Now the international judges, led by Dame Silvia Cartwright, say it is vital to move forward.
"The process of drafting and discussing the internal rules of procedure has taken too long," she said.
"We are hopeful that after the next week of work the final details of the rules will be put in place, and that the first stages of the trial process can begin."
If an agreement is reached, then the prosecutors will pass on their files to the investigating judges. But some of the international officials have indicated they will
quit if negotiations break down, and that could mean the end of the process
Observers say potential impediments await Cambodia's genocide tribunal
Thursday, June 14, 2007
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP)
Efforts to prosecute Khmer Rouge leaders over the deaths of 1.7
million Cambodians during the 1970s could face further obstacles despite
judges approving rules for the U.N.-backed genocide trials, observers said
Thursday.
"The hardest part has yet to come, and that is who and how many
(suspects) should be or should not be" indicted, said Youk Chhang, director
of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an independent group collecting
evidence of the Khmer Rouge atrocities, said.
After repeated failures over the past six months, Cambodian and
foreign judges announced the rules Wednesday that pave the way for the
tribunal to begin investigating Khmer Rouge leaders for the mass killings
during their 1975-79 communist rule.
The rules were one of the judges' last major tasks before they
could begin working on the cases, but it was unlikely the trials would start
anytime soon. That is a growing concern as there is a chance the aging
defendants could all die before they are brought to justice.
The top Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998. Ta Mok, the
Khmer Rouge army chief, died last July while in detention pending trial by
the special tribunal. He was believed to be 80.
The only defendant now in custody is Kaing Khek Iev, also known
as Duch, who headed the notorious S-21 torture center in the capital, Phnom
Penh.
Their senior-level colleagues, Nuon Chea, the movement's chief
ideologue; Ieng Sary, the former foreign minister; and Khieu Samphan, the
former head of state, live freely in Cambodia but are in declining health.
Cambodia and the United Nations created the genocide tribunal
last year under an agreement they reached in 2003. The 17 Cambodian and 12
foreign judges and prosecutors have spent the last six months in sometimes
rancorous disagreement on guidelines for the trials.
The tribunal is an unprecedented hybrid. It will operate under
the Cambodian judicial system often criticized as weak, corrupt and
susceptible to political manipulation. Decisions require support from a
majority of the Cambodian judges, backed by at least one U.N.-appointed
judge.
On Wednesday, neither the Cambodian nor the foreign judicial
officials would give details about their cases or reveal names and the
number of potential suspects.
Legal scholars have suggested less than a dozen former Khmer
Rouge, mostly in leadership positions, are the most likely targets for
prosecution, given time and financial constraints.
But even though it will not be able to prosecute hundreds of
defendants, the tribunal will not necessarily limit its targets to only the
most senior Khmer Rouge leaders, Marcel Lemonde, a co-investigating judge
from France, said recently. Those who have committed large-scale atrocities
will have to answer for their crimes regardless of rank.
Kek Galabru, president of the non-governmental human rights
group Licadho, warned the Cambodian and foreign co-prosecutors could fail to
reach a consensus on which suspects should be indicted.
If the prosecutors fail to reach a consensus, they will have to
refer their disagreement to the tribunal's pretrial chamber, she said. The
chamber, made up of three Cambodian and two foreign judges, would need to
obtain a majority vote plus one to decide whether to allow an indictment to
go ahead.
Copyright © 1999~2007 The China Post.
All rights reserved.
Tribunal finally ready to probe 'killing fields'
'These are the worst crimes, so we're dealing with the worst perpetrators
...,' says Canadian co-prosecutor
GEOFFREY YORK
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
June 14, 2007 at 4:45 AM EDT
http://www.theglobeandmail.com
/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070614.wcambodia14/EmailBNStory/International/home
(Comments: This article posted below seems too optimistic. I have heard that kind of optimism too many times, before. But, the main obstacle is still Hun Sen's unwillingness to allow the KRT to be completed anytime soon. Because, as I saind many times before,that he would stand to loose too much than to gain. So are other peoples such as Sihanouk. Naranhkiri Tith, Ph.D. Washington DC June 16, 2007)
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BEIJING - Canadian prosecutor Robert Petit has spent more than a decade on
genocide and war-crimes trials for Rwanda, Sierra Leone and East Timor. But
never has he experienced a tribunal as precarious as the one he has served
for the past year in Cambodia.
Mr. Petit, a lawyer from Montreal, is the co-prosecutor on the long-delayed
trial to bring justice to the victims of the Khmer Rouge genocide of the
1970s. And until yesterday, there were serious doubts that the trial would
ever happen.
But after a year of internal squabbling, the tribunal in Cambodia is now on
the verge of moving ahead with its first arrests and indictments.
Yesterday, the tribunal finally agreed on its internal rules. It was a
crucial decision, clearing the way for the formal process of taking action
against the elderly Khmer Rouge leaders who presided over the slaughter of
up to two million Cambodians from 1975 to 1979.
The trial is expected to begin early next year, but the first indictments
are likely to be issued within the next few months.
Pol Pot, the fanatical Maoist leader who emptied the cities and executed
thousands of teachers and intellectuals in an attempt to create an agrarian
utopia, died in 1998. But several other Khmer Rouge leaders are still living
freely in Cambodia and could be indicted. Only one is in custody so far.
Until yesterday, a series of wrangles over legal fees and administrative
procedures had stoked tensions and provoked threats of a walkout by some of
the international judges on the tribunal.
The tribunal is a unique blend of Cambodian and international justice, and
the hybrid was plagued with disputes.
"This is my fourth tribunal and I've got to say that this is probably the
most precarious," Mr. Petit said in a telephone interview from Phnom Penh
yesterday.
"All of us, the internationals, came here to help our Cambodian colleagues
to deliver a measure of justice for their country and their people. With
these new rules, hopefully we're going to be able to do that. We're all very
much relieved. Now there's the pressure of getting on with it and doing it
the right way."
The vast majority of Cambodians, he said, are still searching for answers
about the "killing fields" of the Khmer Rouge era. Unlike most other wars or
genocides, this was not about a territorial dispute, a religious conflict, a
foreign invasion or an imperial struggle. This was Cambodians killing their
fellow Cambodians on a massive scale - and the country wants the tribunal to
explain it.
"A huge percentage of people here are under the age of 30, because of what
happened in the 1970s, and the vast majority just want to know why it
happened," Mr. Petit said.
"They want to know what happened - hopefully from the mouths of some of the
perpetrators themselves. Why did they kill and why did they keep on killing?
There's been a lack of formal education by the government about that period.
Courts are not the best way of providing that knowledge, but we are seen as
the best option at this point. So we're going to have to make a big effort
to answer that need."
With the help of the United Nations, the tribunal has a budget for three
years of work. Canada is providing $1.7-million to help pay for the
$56-million cost of the trial. But because of the administrative disputes, a
year has already been expended - and another year could pass before the
trial finally begins.
Some analysts believe that the Cambodian government - and its allies in
China -- have been trying to sabotage or limit the tribunal's independence,
perhaps because of fears that the trial will provide embarrassing
revelations about the links between the Khmer Rouge and members of the
current government of Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Mr. Petit will not comment on these allegations, except to say that the
Cambodian government has not interfered with his own work.
He says there is a simple motivation for his battle to seek justice for the
victims of the Khmer Rouge. "If it's worth prosecuting a person who killed
his neighbour, it's certainly worth prosecuting those who masterminded the
killing of thousands or tens of thousands of their compatriots.
"These are the worst crimes, so we're dealing with the worst perpetrators
and the most victimized people. This is a chance for me to have significant
input into how these crimes are accounted for, and how the victims get some
justice. To me, this is the best job I could do. It's a privilege."
COMING TO POWER
The Communist Khmer Rouge began an insurgency against government forces in 1970, gaining control of most of the country. In 1975, the movement, led by
Pol Pot, overthrew the government, establishing Democratic Kampuchea and
carrying out a radical agrarian revolution, in which as many as 1.5 million
died.
In 1979, Vietnamese troops invaded, aiding a rival Communist faction to
depose the Khmer Rouge government. All Cambodian factions signed a treaty in
1991, calling for United Nations-supervised elections and disarming 70 per
cent of all forces. But the Khmer Rouge rejected the results of the
election.
Factional fighting within the Khmer Rouge in 1997 led to Pol Pot's ouster,
and the group continued to disintegrate.
Source: The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia
TOP SUSPECTS
Ieng Sary, 76: The foreign minister of the Khmer Rouge regime. There is
evidence that he publicly encouraged arrests and executions, and allowed
foreign ministry officials to be sent to the S-21 torture centre. Today he
lives in a lavish 12-room mansion in Phnom Penh, under police protection,
with his wealth acquired from smuggling gems and logs. He travels in a
chauffeured Toyota Land Cruiser. In spite of that, he is one of the Khmer
leaders thought most likely to face the court.
Khieu Samphan, 74: The president of Kampuchea under the Khmer Rouge regime.
He is believed to have known about the atrocities, although he has denied
it, and to have contributed to the genocide by supporting the regime. Today
he lives freely in the town of Pailin, in the former Khmer Rouge stronghold
of northwestern Cambodia. He could be indicted.
Nuon Chea, 79: Known as Brother No. 2, behind only Pol Pot, who was Brother
No. 1, he was the leading ideologue of the Khmer Rouge and is believed to
have played a key role in devising and implementing its execution policies.
Today, he lives freely in northwestern Cambodia, where he is a neighbour of
Khieu Samphan. He once told a reporter that he does not shed any tears or
lose any sleep over the activities of the Khmer Rouge. He is also a
candidate for indictment.
Kaing Khek Ieu, 63: Known as Duch, he was commandant of the infamous S-21
torture and interrogation prison in Phnom Penh. His signature is on many of
the prison's documents, and he is known to have played a direct role in
supervising the prison's activities. Later he became a born-again
evangelical Christian. He has been in military custody since 1999.
Sources: Reuters, The Globe and Mail
© Copyright 2007 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved
Khmer Rouge Trial (With Images)
by Richard S. Ehrlich
Top Scoops: Richard S. Ehrlich: Khmer Rouge Trial (w. Images)
Saturday, 14 July 2007, 7:51 pm; Column: Richard S. Ehrlich
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0707/S00152.htm
(Comments:don't hold your breath yet. The Khmer Rouge Saga continues. From the principal defender, Lawyer rupert Kilbeck, the Khmer Rouge leaders who would be tried by ECCC Extraodinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia) special tribunal had just cautioned the world that there is no 'smoking gun' and that there is no clear ground to accuse the Khmer
Rouge leaders of genocide. So here we are at the starting point again, and still debating as to whether the massacre of more than 3 million innocent Cambodians and other nationalities, is or is not a genocide. So,the loss of more than three millions lives of innocent people are considered worthless.
However, don't blame any foreigners on this failure. The Cambodians are fully responsible for this human faisco, especially their 'leaders,' namely; Hun Sen, and Sihanouk. How can Cambodia expect to survive in this very competitive world where only the fittest and the smartest can survive. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC July 14, 2007)
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BANGKOK, Thailand -- Defending Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge leaders at an international tribunal may include arguing about genocide and the lack of a "smoking gun," despite the deaths of up to three million Cambodians, according to U.N. Principal Defender Rupert Skilbeck.
"One of the big questions will be whether, what happened in Cambodia, was genocide or not," Mr. Skilbeck said in an interview.
"There is a very strong legal argument to say that genocide is when you kill people because of their ethnicity, whereas the vast majority of the [Khmer Rouge] purges were not for ethnic reasons, but were for political reasons. So genocide may not be possible" as a successful prosecution charge.
Mr. Skilbeck heads the Defense Support Section of the tribunal, which is officially called the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC).
A London-based criminal lawyer, Mr. Skilbeck was previously Defense Advisor for the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and head of the Criminal Defense Section for the War Crimes Chamber
in Sarajevo.
The ECCC is gearing up in Cambodia to put on trial a handful of elderly Khmer Rouge leaders, almost 30 years after their 1975-79 "killing fields" regime was toppled.
Khmer Rouge communist leader Pol Pot died in 1998.
Nuon Chea, who was Pol Pot's second-in-command, distanced himself from charges of mass murder when he told Cambodia's Phnom Penh Post newspaper in January: "Why should we have killed our own people? I do not see a reason.
"We wanted a clean, illuminating and peaceful regime," Nuon Chea, 80, said.
The number of Cambodians who died from executions, torture, starvation, disease and slavery under the Khmer Rouge is usually pegged as 1.7 million people, but the ECCC's Web site said "more than three million people perished" during to the regime's fanatic, back-to-the-jungle administration.
The surviving Khmer Rouge leaders, who reside in Cambodia, could defend themselves in various ways, Mr. Skilbeck said.
"There has to be a discussion about whether there was an international armed conflict or not," he said, because the Geneva Conventions are rules for armed conflict, which can differ for acts during peace or domestic unrest.
Pol Pot seized power after Cambodia's U.S.-backed leader Lon Nol flew to California, and Washington lost its regional Vietnam War which included massive U.S. bombardment of the impoverished Southeast Asian nation.
America is not financially supporting the tribunal which is mostly funded by Japan and Europe, with help from India, New Zealand, Australia and others.
U.S. officials "made it very clear they will fund it, but only when they are sure it is going to be a fair process," Mr. Skilbeck said.
On November 26, 1975, seven months after Pol Pot's victory, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said to Thai officials: "You should also tell the Cambodians that we will be friends with them. They are murderous thugs, but we won't let that stand in our way.
"We are prepared to improve relations with them. Tell them the latter part, but don't tell them what I said before," Mr. Kissinger said, according to a previously "secret" transcript recently published by the U.S. National Security Archive.
"Seven to 10 defendants," all elderly Cambodians, may stand trial at the ECCC, Mr. Skilbeck said.
Only one, Mr. Duch (pronounced: "doyk") -- who ran Phnom Penh's Tuol Sleng torture chambers -- is in jail.
No arrest warrants have yet been issued to apprehend any others.
"The vast majority are living openly in houses, whether they are in Phnom Penh or in different places around the provinces.
"Some have been clearly identified as likely accused, so there is no secret about some of them. Some people perhaps won't be expecting a knock on the door. We will have to see what happens when they start to arrest people," Mr. Skilbeck said.
Cambodia abolished the death penalty.
"Anyone convicted of large-scale atrocity crimes is likely to get a sentence for the rest of their life," the U.N. Principal Defender said.
"The first trial starts sometime during next year. We will probably get a verdict before the end of next year...maybe the beginning of 2009. If there are any subsequent trials to that, it will probably take about six months each, so they'll come in six-month intervals after that."
Mr. Skilbeck said there is "no smoking gun," or single piece of evidence to convict the Khmer Rouge.
"There is no instance [on record] where the decision was made to make killings. There are no documents directly ordering large-scale atrocities to occur.
"So the prosecution, as often happens, will have to...piece together their case from lots of different people's evidence," the head of the ECCC Defense Support Section said.
Mr. Skilbeck is tasked to support the Khmer Rouge's defense lawyers -- foreign and Cambodian.
He does not personally defend the accused, or wield veto power over the lawyers.
"My job is really to organize the defense, and to get it ready, and to make it happen.
"I will get all the individual defense lawyers to do the cases. Once we've got them up, and they are able to do the cases, we will give them back-up legal support to help them do the job," he said.
"Foreign or Cambodian, they will be independent, only subject to the court's ability to discipline them if they get out of line during the courtroom hearings."
Source: DCCAM; Ten Years of Independently Searching for the Truth: 1997-2007
Youk CHHANG, Director
Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam)
STATEMENT OF THE CO-PROSECUTORS
(Comment: this may sound too good to be true. I would not believe it until this tribunal is off and running. These maneuvers are too well known in the past as diversion tactics, not as real progress. Narnahkiri Tih, Ph.D. Washington DC July 18, 2007)
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Today, the Co-Prosecutors filed the first Introductory Submission of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) in the Office of the Co-Investigating Judges. An Introductory Submission contains facts that may constitute crimes, identifies persons suspected to be responsible for those crimes and requests the Co-Investigating Judges to investigate those crimes and suspects.
An Introductory Submission, by law, is a confidential document. Recognizing, however, the extraordinary nature of this court and the need to ensure that the public is duly informed of the ongoing proceedings, the Internal Rules of the ECCC allow the Co-Prosecutors to publish a summary of the Introductory Submission while protecting the integrity of the investigation, identity of victims and witnesses and the presumption of innocence of the suspects. Therefore, in consideration of the rightful expectations of the Cambodian people and the international community, the Co-Prosecutors have decided to issue this statement.
This first Introductory Submission represents the results of preliminary investigations conducted by the Office of the Co-Prosecutors with the assistance of the Cambodian national police during the past few months. Based on those investigations, the Co-Prosecutors believe that serious and extensive violations of international humanitarian law and Cambodian law occurred in this country during the period of Democratic Kampuchea from 17 April 1975 to 6 January 1979. These violations amount to crimes within the jurisdiction of the ECCC.
These crimes were committed as part of a common criminal plan constituting a systematic and unlawful denial of basic rights of the Cambodian population and the targeted persecution of specific groups. The purported motive of this common criminal plan was to effect a radical change of Cambodian society along ideological lines. Those responsible for these crimes and policies included senior leaders of the Democratic Kampuchea regime.
Pursuant to their preliminary investigations, the Co-Prosecutors have identified and submitted for investigation twenty-five distinct factual situations of murder, torture, forcible transfer, unlawful detention, forced labor and religious, political and ethnic persecution as evidence of the crimes committed in the execution of this common criminal plan.
The factual allegations in this Introductory Submission constitute crimes against humanity, genocide, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, homicide, torture and religious persecution. The Co-Prosecutors, therefore, have requested the Co-Investigating Judges to charge those responsible for these crimes.
The preliminary investigation has resulted in the identification of five suspects who committed, aided, abetted and/or bore superior responsibility for those crimes. The Co-Prosecutors are satisfied that these suspects were senior leaders of Democratic Kampuchea and/or those most responsible for the crimes committed within the jurisdiction of the ECCC. The Co-Prosecutors have provided their identities to the Co-Investigating Judges and have requested that they act in accordance to the law.
In support of their factual submissions, the Co-Prosecutors have transmitted more than 1,000 documents constituting over 14,000 pages, including third party statements and/or written record of over 350 witnesses, a list of 40 other potential witnesses, thousands of pages of Democratic Kampuchea-era documentation and the locations of over 40 undisturbed mass graves. These documents have all been digitalized and indexed in a database. Both electronic and hard copies of these documents have been provided to the Office of the Co-Investigating Judges. A significant part of the evidence was gathered with the assistance of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia.
The Co-Prosecutors shall now continue to carry out their investigative mandate while also participating in the Co-Investigating Judges’ judicial investigation of the criminal acts identified in this Introductory Submission.
-- end -- Ten Years of Independently Searching for the Truth: 1997-2007
Youk CHHANG, Director
CAMBODIA: Time for Answers Arrives at 'Killing Fields' Trial
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38653;
Wednesday, July 25, 2007 06:56 GMT
(Comments: I wish it would be true that the KRT is really going to start early next year. In view of the remarks in this article, I still have enormous doubt whether Hun Sen will allow the KRT to start as expected in this article, early next year, after a very long delay due to Hun Sen's manipulations. Hun Sen and Sihanouk stand to loose more than to gain, if this trial is allowed to start, while the remaining senior Khmer Rouge are still alive. These KR senior officials might reveal a lot of negative information on both Hun Sen and Sihanouk role when they were with the Khmer Rouge, before and during the Vietnamese invasion. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. July 25, 2007)
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BANGKOK, Jul 25 (IPS) - For nearly 30 years, the Khmer Rouge regime that unleashed a reign of terror during it rule of Cambodia in the 1970s has been accused of committing genocide. But was this so? An answer to that troubling question is slated for scrutiny as the war-crimes tribunal gets under way. Jul. 18 marked a milestone in this long-delayed trial, when prosecutors in the United Nations-sponsored special court submitted the names of five Khmer Rouge leaders to stand trial.
''Describing the acts committed in Cambodia as genocide has always been controversial. It is not easily accepted by the legal community,'' Rupert Skilbeck, head of the Defence Support Section of the tribunal, said in a telephone interview from Phnom Penh. ''The court will have to consider this question.''
The accepted definition of genocide is an act of violence aimed to ''destroy an ethnic group because of their nationality, race, religion,'' added the lawyer from Britain, who has also served as the advisor for the defence during the special war-crimes tribunal for Sierra Leone. ''Killing a people for their political views as happened
in Cambodia is different.''
There are other questions, too, that the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), as this tribunal is officially called, is expected to answer. Foremost among them is how many people the Khmer Rouge killed between Apr. 17, 1975, and Jan. 6, 1979, the period of this brutal regime's rule and the period that the ECCC is examining.
''The number of people who died in Rwanda was not challenged, but the number of deaths in Cambodia has not been confirmed; it could be challenged,'' Skilbeck said earlier this month when he met journalists in Bangkok. In the African nation, there were an estimated 800,000 people from the ethnic Tutsi community who were slaughtered by Hutu extremists during the Rwandan civil war. That act of
genocide occurred in 1994.
The Khmer Rouge has been accused of killing close to 1.7 million Cambodians, which was a quarter of the South-east Asian nation's population at the time. The victims were either executed or they died as a result of forced labour or starvation from famine as this Maoist group tried to turn the country into an agrarian utopia.
The tribunal's attempt to shed light on these mass deaths may also prove embarrassing to major powers that were involved during the years when Cambodia was dragged into the U.S. war in Vietnam, which raged through the 1960s and early 1970s, and after. The Washington-approved bombing raids over Cambodia have been documented, so has the role Beijing played to prop up the Khmer Rouge as it pursued its policy of slaughter.
''America's illegal bombing raids will come up in figuring out how many died in Cambodia,'' says Skilbeck. ''There will be lots of issues that will come up during the trial that will be embarrassing to many countries.''
The quest for justice to try those responsible for this country's ''Killing Fields'' got under way 10 years ago, when talks began between the UN and Phnom Penh to set up the ECCC. But this journey since 1997 faced many hurdles, including those placed by the Cambodian government, which has been under the firm grip of Prime Minister Hun Sen for decades.
Hun Sen has not only backtracked on financial commitments to the tribunal but has also heaped scorn on human rights groups who have challenged Phnom Penh's choice of judges for the war-crimes trial. The ECCC, unlike other tribunals, such as the one that investigated crimes against humanity committed in former Yugoslavia, is not completely international in nature. It combines local and foreign jurists.
In fact, the ECCC is also expected to bring to the fore a question related to these very Cambodian lawyers and judges. It stems from concerns by human rights groups about the Cambodian jurists' grasp and application of international law, which will be the basis of the tribunal's proceedings.
After all, the country's legal community was equally brutalised by the Khmer Rouge as other professional groups. The educated men and women became key targets of the extreme Maoists, who deemed intellectuals as enemies of the state after declaring its first phase of power as the ''Year Zero.'' Only nine lawyers and judges survived the years of terror, according to some estimates.
For the Cambodians who survived the brutality of the late 1970s or who are among the millions who lost relatives to the Khmer Rouge, there are equally relevant questions they hope the ECCC will help answer. ''Many people want to know why the Khmer Rouge killed their own people and how they were killed,'' says Im Sophea, a ranking member of the Centre for Social Development, a Phnom Penh-based
non-governmental body. ''We expect the court to reveal answers for this.
Public expectation is very high.''
The events over the past week have triggered new interest in the trial among people in the city and in rural areas, Im said in a telephone interview from the Cambodian capital. ''They feel the
wait for answers is finally over.''
Of course the trial will not hear from Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, who died in 1998. Nor will Ta Mok, widely known in Cambodia as "The Butcher" for the atrocities he committed during the brutal regime's rule, take the stand; he died in June last year.
The five names submitted last week to stand trial at the ECCC were major figures in the Maoist group. According to reports in the Cambodian press, they include Nuon Chea, Pol Pot's deputy; Khieu Samphan, former head of state during the Khmer Rouge years; Ieng Sary, the former foreign minister; and Kang Kech Eav, also known as Duch, who was the head of he infamous Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh. (END/2007)
Copyright © 2007 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights reserved.
Ten Years of Independently Searching for the Truth: 1997-2007; Youk CHHANG, Director; Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam)
First Khmer Rouge suspect quizzed
By BBC News Service, July 31, 2007
Duch has been in prison since 1999. Judges at the UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal in Cambodia have begun to question the first of the suspects they say could stand trial. Kang Kek Ieu, also known as Duch, was in charge of a notorious prison in the country's capital, Phnom Penh.
He ran a facility known as S21, where thousands were tortured and executed.
He is one of five suspects prosecutors have asked judges to investigate over deaths under the Khmer Rouge government in the late 1970s, a spokesman said.
As many as two million people are thought to have died during the four years of Khmer Rouge rule.
Killing fields
Duch was not among the top level of Khmer Rouge leaders but he has become one of its most notorious members, says the BBC's Guy Delauney in Phnom Penh.
Key figures in the Khmer Rouge
There are only seven known survivors of the S21 prison. A museum at the site illustrates in graphic detail what happened to the rest of the inmates.
Many of them were executed at the so-called Killing Fields outside the city.
Judges will question Duch, who has been held in a military prison since 1999, about his role in the events at S21.
"They (the judges) need to do an initial interview with him, but he has not been formally charged yet," said tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath.
The UN-backed tribunal has taken years to get off the ground.
But by questioning Duch, the judges are sending out a clear message that the special courts are now operational and moving more quickly than many people expected, our correspondent says.
Bringing in the other four suspects could, however, be more difficult.
None of them have been named officially but all of the surviving former leaders of the Khmer Rouge have been living freely in Cambodia, our correspondent adds.