The World Today
Reporter: Karen Percy
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
ELEANOR HALL: It has been more than two-and-a-half decades since the murderous Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, was forced out of Cambodia.
But still there has been no tribunal set up to deal with those responsible for the genocide.
3 million people were murdered on the notorious killing fields.
But while Pol Pot has now died, legal organisers say they do now expect the genocide trial of the remaining members of the Pol Pot leadership group to begin next year.
This report from South East Asia Correspondent Karen Percy.
KAREN PERCY: Prosecutors and investigators in Cambodia are moving a step closer to being able try members of the Khmer Rouge for genocide and other possible violations of international law.
Fewer than ten senior members of the Khmer Rouge are likely to go before the courts, when trials get underway in the middle of next year.
The Extraordinary Chambers of the courts of Cambodia convened in July of this year. It brings together a complex system of laws and codes, and people, as the organisation's Helen Jarvis explains.
HELEN JARVIS: So, we've got international law and national law, international procedure and national procedure, and then of course we've got the participants on every side.
KAREN PERCY: While international law forms an important basis for the trials, Cambodian law must also be taken into account.
Cambodian law borrows from the French system which has an investigating judge and two stages of the pre-trial process, a prosecution phase and the investigation phase.
It's only after those stages are completed that the trial begins.
Helen Jarvis again.
HELEN JARVIS: We're under pressure because we want to move quickly, and we want to establish the court as soon as we can. Things do have to be talked through and agreed.
KAREN PERCY: The Khmer Rouge took power in April 1975, and until Vietnamese forces ousted them in January 1979, 3 million people died in Cambodia.
After their rule ended civil war broke out dividing the nation, and allowing the Khmer Rouge leadership to escape prosecution.
It was almost two decades later when discussions first began on bringing those responsible to justice.
It took until March 2003 for the Government of Cambodia and the United Nations to agree to putting the former Khmer Rouge leaders on trial.
(To Helen Jarvis) The timing of this is very long after many of these events. How difficult is that making getting this process underway?
HELEN JARVIS: It's making it difficult from the point of view that there's an understandable anxiety that the process can't be left much longer.
KAREN PERCY: That anxiety comes in part from the fact that some of the key figures, particularly Pol Pot, are now dead.
Helen Jarvis from the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia.
HELEN JARVIS: Witnesses, and indeed victims and people who want to see justice, have passed away before they've had that chance. So there's a great deal of consciousness and pressure that we have to move forward or other people will inevitably die or become frail and infirm and unable to participate in the trial.
KAREN PERCY: Helen Jarvis also says the passing of time has meant evidence has been lost. But she says there's been an upside to the delay.
HELEN JARVIS: There has been a great deal of effort made to collect documentation, to write recollections, to analyse what happened, so we're not walking into an immediate situation, saying, "hey, what went wrong?"
KAREN PERCY: Time has also managed to mend some of the wounds, and as a result it seems the people of Cambodia are more likely to want justice than revenge.
This is Karen Percy in Bangkok reporting for The World Today.
But still there has been no tribunal set up to deal with those responsible for the genocide.
3 million people were murdered on the notorious killing fields.
But while Pol Pot has now died, legal organisers say they do now expect the genocide trial of the remaining members of the Pol Pot leadership group to begin next year.
This report from South East Asia Correspondent Karen Percy.
KAREN PERCY: Prosecutors and investigators in Cambodia are moving a step closer to being able try members of the Khmer Rouge for genocide and other possible violations of international law.
Fewer than ten senior members of the Khmer Rouge are likely to go before the courts, when trials get underway in the middle of next year.
The Extraordinary Chambers of the courts of Cambodia convened in July of this year. It brings together a complex system of laws and codes, and people, as the organisation's Helen Jarvis explains.
HELEN JARVIS: So, we've got international law and national law, international procedure and national procedure, and then of course we've got the participants on every side.
KAREN PERCY: While international law forms an important basis for the trials, Cambodian law must also be taken into account.
Cambodian law borrows from the French system which has an investigating judge and two stages of the pre-trial process, a prosecution phase and the investigation phase.
It's only after those stages are completed that the trial begins.
Helen Jarvis again.
HELEN JARVIS: We're under pressure because we want to move quickly, and we want to establish the court as soon as we can. Things do have to be talked through and agreed.
KAREN PERCY: The Khmer Rouge took power in April 1975, and until Vietnamese forces ousted them in January 1979, 3 million people died in Cambodia.
After their rule ended civil war broke out dividing the nation, and allowing the Khmer Rouge leadership to escape prosecution.
It was almost two decades later when discussions first began on bringing those responsible to justice.
It took until March 2003 for the Government of Cambodia and the United Nations to agree to putting the former Khmer Rouge leaders on trial.
(To Helen Jarvis) The timing of this is very long after many of these events. How difficult is that making getting this process underway?
HELEN JARVIS: It's making it difficult from the point of view that there's an understandable anxiety that the process can't be left much longer.
KAREN PERCY: That anxiety comes in part from the fact that some of the key figures, particularly Pol Pot, are now dead.
Helen Jarvis from the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia.
HELEN JARVIS: Witnesses, and indeed victims and people who want to see justice, have passed away before they've had that chance. So there's a great deal of consciousness and pressure that we have to move forward or other people will inevitably die or become frail and infirm and unable to participate in the trial.
KAREN PERCY: Helen Jarvis also says the passing of time has meant evidence has been lost. But she says there's been an upside to the delay.
HELEN JARVIS: There has been a great deal of effort made to collect documentation, to write recollections, to analyse what happened, so we're not walking into an immediate situation, saying, "hey, what went wrong?"
KAREN PERCY: Time has also managed to mend some of the wounds, and as a result it seems the people of Cambodia are more likely to want justice than revenge.
This is Karen Percy in Bangkok reporting for The World Today.
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