Chum Mey, a Khmer Rouge victim prays in front a stupa during a visit to the Tuol Sleng genocide museum in Phnom Penh. Mey turns cold when he thinks of testifying against his one-time torturers at Cambodia's upcoming Khmer Rouge tribunal. As one of only seven survivors of the notorious Tuol Sleng torture camp, he knows he is likely to be called as a witness to speak out against the leaders of the 1975-1979 regime that killed up to two million Cambodians.(AFP/Tang Chhin) Weekend • July 2, 2006
Twenty-seven years after the fall of the genocidal Khmer Rouge, judges will be sworn in Monday to a joint UN-Cambodian tribunal in a symbolic start to the prosecution of the regime's surviving leaders.
The swearing-in is a "significant and important event... to show that the legal process of the trial to try former Khmer Rouge leaders is taking place," the tribunal's spokesman Reach Sambath said.
"Soon those who were responsible for the deaths of millions of Cambodians ... will be found."
For years such confidence was unthinkable. Many doubted that Khmer Rouge leaders would ever face trial for orchestrating the deaths of up to two million Cambodians in their four-year reign of terror.
Cambodia first asked the United Nations for help in forming a tribunal in 1997, but the talks stumbled for years over the financing and jurisdiction of the court.
Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998, and many fear that other ageing former cadres could die before facing charges.
"Right now, I think we are racing against time" to prosecute the remaining leaders, many of whom are in their 80s, said Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia which has compiled evidence of Khmer Rouge atrocities.
An agreement on the trials finally came in 2003, with Cambodia and the UN settling on a joint tribunal that will place 17 Cambodian and 13 foreign judges on the bench.
Most of the judges will be sworn in Monday, but some of the foreign jurists are being held in reserve and will not attend the ceremony.
After taking their oaths, the judges and court officials will spend a week planning for what is expected to be a three-year tribunal.
A two-person team of Cambodian and international prosecutors is expected to begin its work on July 10.
They will decide which former Khmer Rouge leaders will face trial, and then hand the cases to a joint team of investigating judges. The entire investigation phase is expected to last three to six months, with trials beginning in mid-2007.
The court has a trial chamber and an appeals chamber, as well as a pre-trial chamber tasked with resolving any differences between the two.
The trial chamber will begin its work as soon as the investigating judges file their first case. Anyone convicted at trial can appeal to the Supreme Court Chamber, which will act as the court of final instance.
Under the complex system, Cambodian judges will have a majority in each chamber but cannot make a ruling without the consent of at least one foreign judge.
This safeguard is intended to prevent political interference, as legal experts have already questioned the selection of some of the Cambodian jurists for their inexperience or political ties.
The trials will take place in a military compound in the town of Kambol, 15 kilometers (10 miles) outside Phnom Penh, with donors funding most of the 56.3-million-dollar process.
The tribunal faces the daunting task of deciding who should bear responsibility for the deaths of so many from starvation, overwork or execution under the Khmer Rouge's brutal rule which began in 1975.
The country is full of former regime members, many of them simple fighters or low-level cadres, but Reach Sambath said the trial law calls only for the prosecution of senior Khmer Rouge leaders.
"It is not going to be so many. But we leave this for prosecutors and judges to decide," he said.
Only two of about 10 surviving former cadre leaders are now in prison.
Military commander Ta Mok and Duch -- who headed the Tuol Sleng prison where some 17,000 men, women and children were tortured before being bludgeoned to death at mass graves outside Phnom Penh -- were both arrested in 1999.
Several other key leaders, including Ieng Sary, Pol Pot's number two Nuon Chea and former Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan, still live freely in Cambodia.
Sok Sam Oeun, executive director of Cambodian Defenders Project which is a legal non-governmental organisation, said the tribunal would serve as a model for prosecuting genocide around the world.
"It is warning to leaders around the world, including future Cambodian leaders, that they cannot escape from responsibility," he said. — AFP
The swearing-in is a "significant and important event... to show that the legal process of the trial to try former Khmer Rouge leaders is taking place," the tribunal's spokesman Reach Sambath said.
"Soon those who were responsible for the deaths of millions of Cambodians ... will be found."
For years such confidence was unthinkable. Many doubted that Khmer Rouge leaders would ever face trial for orchestrating the deaths of up to two million Cambodians in their four-year reign of terror.
Cambodia first asked the United Nations for help in forming a tribunal in 1997, but the talks stumbled for years over the financing and jurisdiction of the court.
Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998, and many fear that other ageing former cadres could die before facing charges.
"Right now, I think we are racing against time" to prosecute the remaining leaders, many of whom are in their 80s, said Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia which has compiled evidence of Khmer Rouge atrocities.
An agreement on the trials finally came in 2003, with Cambodia and the UN settling on a joint tribunal that will place 17 Cambodian and 13 foreign judges on the bench.
Most of the judges will be sworn in Monday, but some of the foreign jurists are being held in reserve and will not attend the ceremony.
After taking their oaths, the judges and court officials will spend a week planning for what is expected to be a three-year tribunal.
A two-person team of Cambodian and international prosecutors is expected to begin its work on July 10.
They will decide which former Khmer Rouge leaders will face trial, and then hand the cases to a joint team of investigating judges. The entire investigation phase is expected to last three to six months, with trials beginning in mid-2007.
The court has a trial chamber and an appeals chamber, as well as a pre-trial chamber tasked with resolving any differences between the two.
The trial chamber will begin its work as soon as the investigating judges file their first case. Anyone convicted at trial can appeal to the Supreme Court Chamber, which will act as the court of final instance.
Under the complex system, Cambodian judges will have a majority in each chamber but cannot make a ruling without the consent of at least one foreign judge.
This safeguard is intended to prevent political interference, as legal experts have already questioned the selection of some of the Cambodian jurists for their inexperience or political ties.
The trials will take place in a military compound in the town of Kambol, 15 kilometers (10 miles) outside Phnom Penh, with donors funding most of the 56.3-million-dollar process.
The tribunal faces the daunting task of deciding who should bear responsibility for the deaths of so many from starvation, overwork or execution under the Khmer Rouge's brutal rule which began in 1975.
The country is full of former regime members, many of them simple fighters or low-level cadres, but Reach Sambath said the trial law calls only for the prosecution of senior Khmer Rouge leaders.
"It is not going to be so many. But we leave this for prosecutors and judges to decide," he said.
Only two of about 10 surviving former cadre leaders are now in prison.
Military commander Ta Mok and Duch -- who headed the Tuol Sleng prison where some 17,000 men, women and children were tortured before being bludgeoned to death at mass graves outside Phnom Penh -- were both arrested in 1999.
Several other key leaders, including Ieng Sary, Pol Pot's number two Nuon Chea and former Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan, still live freely in Cambodia.
Sok Sam Oeun, executive director of Cambodian Defenders Project which is a legal non-governmental organisation, said the tribunal would serve as a model for prosecuting genocide around the world.
"It is warning to leaders around the world, including future Cambodian leaders, that they cannot escape from responsibility," he said. — AFP
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