By Ek Madra PHNOM PENH,
Reuters
Cambodian and international judges sitting on the Khmer Rouge tribunal hold crunch talks this week to salvage the trial of Pol Pot's top surviving henchmen for the atrocities of the "Killing Fields".
At the heart of the problem is a disagreement between local and U.N.-backed officials over legalities of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, as the joint tribunal into the deaths of Khmer Rouge's estimated 1.7 million victims is called.
A week-long meeting in November to hammer out rules covering everything from the admissibility of evidence to the protection of witnesses to the height of the judges' chairs came to nothing.
Since then a separate sub-committee has discussing many of the issues but with the clock ticking on the US$53 million three-year trial, which officially started in July, there can be no more delays.
The meeting, which will run from March 7 to 16, "must resolve all fundamental differences," a court statement said. "The judges are also acutely aware that time is of the essence," it added.
Diplomats say the U.N. side of the court will walk away if they feel their local counterparts are dragging their feet or acting on the orders of Prime Minister Hun Sen, an ex-Khmer Rouge soldier who lost an eye in the battle for Phnom Penh in 1975.
Even though there is no evidence linking Hun Sen to any atrocities, his government is riddled with former cadres from the ultra-Maoist regime, many of whom will not want prosecutors raking through their pasts.
The Khmer Rouge's main ally, China, has also been lobbying Hun Sen hard to stall the proceedings to prevent the full extent of Beijing's involvement coming to light, diplomats say.
In public at least, Hun Sen has been making it clear he wants the trial to go ahead, announcing at a recent road-opening ceremony near a mass execution site on the outskirts of the capital that victims' remains must be preserved.
"This is the evidence of genocide," Hun Sen said in a speech broadcast on national radio. "There have been demands to burn the remains so their spirits will be reborn, but if we lose this, the trial of the Khmer Rouge cannot be conducted."
On Saturday Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party said it "supports the process of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia to try the crimes which were carried out during the period of the democratic Kampuchea regime."
Helen Jarvis, an Australian expert working with the Cambodian side, said despite the procedural disagreements, prosecutors had been hard at work compiling evidence, and would be ready to lodge cases against some suspects as soon as the green light came.
"We remain optimistic that the outstanding issues will be resolved," she said. "We hope it will open later this year. We are not sure, but we're hoping."
Pol Pot, the architect of the Khmer Rouge's "Year Zero" peasant revolution, died in 1998.
At the heart of the problem is a disagreement between local and U.N.-backed officials over legalities of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, as the joint tribunal into the deaths of Khmer Rouge's estimated 1.7 million victims is called.
A week-long meeting in November to hammer out rules covering everything from the admissibility of evidence to the protection of witnesses to the height of the judges' chairs came to nothing.
Since then a separate sub-committee has discussing many of the issues but with the clock ticking on the US$53 million three-year trial, which officially started in July, there can be no more delays.
The meeting, which will run from March 7 to 16, "must resolve all fundamental differences," a court statement said. "The judges are also acutely aware that time is of the essence," it added.
Diplomats say the U.N. side of the court will walk away if they feel their local counterparts are dragging their feet or acting on the orders of Prime Minister Hun Sen, an ex-Khmer Rouge soldier who lost an eye in the battle for Phnom Penh in 1975.
Even though there is no evidence linking Hun Sen to any atrocities, his government is riddled with former cadres from the ultra-Maoist regime, many of whom will not want prosecutors raking through their pasts.
The Khmer Rouge's main ally, China, has also been lobbying Hun Sen hard to stall the proceedings to prevent the full extent of Beijing's involvement coming to light, diplomats say.
In public at least, Hun Sen has been making it clear he wants the trial to go ahead, announcing at a recent road-opening ceremony near a mass execution site on the outskirts of the capital that victims' remains must be preserved.
"This is the evidence of genocide," Hun Sen said in a speech broadcast on national radio. "There have been demands to burn the remains so their spirits will be reborn, but if we lose this, the trial of the Khmer Rouge cannot be conducted."
On Saturday Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party said it "supports the process of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia to try the crimes which were carried out during the period of the democratic Kampuchea regime."
Helen Jarvis, an Australian expert working with the Cambodian side, said despite the procedural disagreements, prosecutors had been hard at work compiling evidence, and would be ready to lodge cases against some suspects as soon as the green light came.
"We remain optimistic that the outstanding issues will be resolved," she said. "We hope it will open later this year. We are not sure, but we're hoping."
Pol Pot, the architect of the Khmer Rouge's "Year Zero" peasant revolution, died in 1998.
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