Chhorn Sok,49, holds incense as he offer prayers in front of the skulls displyed at the Choeung Ek killing fields memorial, southwest of Phnom Penh. Cambodia needs at least double the money currently budgeted to try former Khmer Rouge leaders, a prominent legal organisation has said, warning that the "unrealistically thin" funding was already hurting the tribunal's work.(AFP/File/Tank Chhin Sothy)Monday October 9, 2006
Funding woes hindering KR tribunal: group
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AFP) - Cambodia needs at least double the money currently budgeted to try former Khmer Rouge leaders, a prominent legal organisation has said, warning that the "unrealistically thin" funding was already hurting the tribunal's work.
So far 56.3-million-dollars has been requested for the long-awaited tribunal, but Cambodia and the United Nations have yet to secure even that amount, with the tribunal facing a shortfall of several million dollars.
However, the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI), a legal reform group which monitors the tribunal, said that even if fully funded, tribunal staff will be forced "to make decisions based solely, or predominantly, on financial considerations".
"If short-sighted (while fiscally prudent) budgetary policy decisions continue to be made based on current funding levels, the negative impact will be both deep and far-reaching," it said in a memo to interested member states.
By comparison, the group said the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the judicial institution most resembling the Khmer Rouge tribunal, was expected to cost 107 million by the end of 2006 after five years in operation.
It said UN analysts had originally estimated Cambodia's three-year tribunal to cost nearly 115 million dollars, but that "member states' concerns cut that figure in half" amid tortured negotiations five years ago.
Tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath acknowledged the budget shortfall, but said there was enough money for two years and that he was confident Cambodia's donors would give more.
"We are moving ahead, but we try to save as much (money) as we can with this limited budget," he told AFP, adding that prosecutors are expected to present their cases against potential defendants to the investigating judges by the end of the year.
"We are still optimistic that many more countries will be involved and participate ... when the actual trial takes place before mid-2007."
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.
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.
Co-prosecutors began work in July, with investigating judges opening their offices in September in what the OSJI called "a tribute to the significant progress" the tribunal has made since administrative work began at the start of the year.
The communist Khmer Rouge turned Cambodia into a vast collective farm between 1975 and 1979 in its drive for an agrarian utopia, forcing millions into the countryside.
Up to two million people died of starvation, overwork and from execution during the four-year rule of the Khmer Rouge, which abolished religion, property rights, currency and schools.
Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998, and other survivors are in their 70s and 80s, prompting fears that they too could die before facing justice for one of the 20th century's worst genocides.
So far 56.3-million-dollars has been requested for the long-awaited tribunal, but Cambodia and the United Nations have yet to secure even that amount, with the tribunal facing a shortfall of several million dollars.
However, the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI), a legal reform group which monitors the tribunal, said that even if fully funded, tribunal staff will be forced "to make decisions based solely, or predominantly, on financial considerations".
"If short-sighted (while fiscally prudent) budgetary policy decisions continue to be made based on current funding levels, the negative impact will be both deep and far-reaching," it said in a memo to interested member states.
By comparison, the group said the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the judicial institution most resembling the Khmer Rouge tribunal, was expected to cost 107 million by the end of 2006 after five years in operation.
It said UN analysts had originally estimated Cambodia's three-year tribunal to cost nearly 115 million dollars, but that "member states' concerns cut that figure in half" amid tortured negotiations five years ago.
Tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath acknowledged the budget shortfall, but said there was enough money for two years and that he was confident Cambodia's donors would give more.
"We are moving ahead, but we try to save as much (money) as we can with this limited budget," he told AFP, adding that prosecutors are expected to present their cases against potential defendants to the investigating judges by the end of the year.
"We are still optimistic that many more countries will be involved and participate ... when the actual trial takes place before mid-2007."
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.
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.
Co-prosecutors began work in July, with investigating judges opening their offices in September in what the OSJI called "a tribute to the significant progress" the tribunal has made since administrative work began at the start of the year.
The communist Khmer Rouge turned Cambodia into a vast collective farm between 1975 and 1979 in its drive for an agrarian utopia, forcing millions into the countryside.
Up to two million people died of starvation, overwork and from execution during the four-year rule of the Khmer Rouge, which abolished religion, property rights, currency and schools.
Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998, and other survivors are in their 70s and 80s, prompting fears that they too could die before facing justice for one of the 20th century's worst genocides.
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