By Ek Madra PHNOM PENH,
Reuters
International and Cambodian judges of the Khmer Rouge tribunal opened crucial talks on Wednesday likely to determine whether Pol Pot's top surviving allies are tried for the horrors of the "Killing Fields".
Unless they can resolve differences on the rules of the tribunal, the Khmer Rouge leaders still alive would not be tried for their roles in the often brutal deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people, tribunal officials said.
The talks between five Cambodian and four international judges, scheduled to last until March 16, opened on a note of optimism from both sides.
"We have considerable hope that this work will be finalized during this meeting," Michelle Lee, the U.N.-appointed deputy director of the court, said in opening remarks.
"Most of the crucial points have already been agreed," Cambodian tribunal official Reach Sambath told reporters.
But Lee stressed the crucial nature of talks to open the door finally to the trials of around 10 aging Khmer Rouge leaders, most of them living free.
"The eyes of the world are on us once again during these 10 days," she said.
The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia was set up last year by the United Nations and Cambodia to conduct trials expected to take three years and cost US$53 million.
Prosecutors would be ready to lodge cases against some suspects as soon as the green light came, said Helen Jarvis, an Australian expert working with the Cambodian side.
But that cannot happen until the two sets of judges, who will work under a complicated formula designed to ensure judgments have the support of both, agree on the nuts and bolts of how the trials will be conducted.
Disagreements range from the admissibility of evidence to witness protection, even to the heights of the judges' chairs.
Diplomats say the U.N. side of the court would walk away if it felt its local counterparts were dragging their feet or acting on the orders of Prime Minister Hun Sen, an ex-Khmer Rouge soldier who lost an eye in the capture of Phnom Penh in 1975.
In public at least, Hun Sen, who is not linked to any Khmer Rouge atrocities, has been making it clear he wants the trial to go ahead.
But his government is riddled with former cadres of the ultra-Maoist regime, many of whom will not want prosecutors raking through their pasts.
China, the main Khmer Rouge ally, has lobbied Hun Sen to stall the proceedings to prevent the full extent of Beijing's involvement coming to light, diplomats say.
The question has long been whether the surviving Khmer Rouge leaders, now in their 70s and 80s, would die before they could be tried and a fuller story of their rule would emerge.
Pol Pot, the "Brother Number One" architect of the Khmer Rouge's "Year Zero" peasant revolution in which people were tortured and executed or died of starvation, disease or overwork in a back-to-the-soil upheaval, died in 1998.
But among his aged colleagues expected to face trial are "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, former head of state Khieu Samphan and ex-foreign minister Ieng Sary, all living free.
One who is in detention is Duch, head of Phnom Penh's notorious Tuol Sleng interrogation center where at least 14,000 people are thought to have been tortured and executed.
Unless they can resolve differences on the rules of the tribunal, the Khmer Rouge leaders still alive would not be tried for their roles in the often brutal deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people, tribunal officials said.
The talks between five Cambodian and four international judges, scheduled to last until March 16, opened on a note of optimism from both sides.
"We have considerable hope that this work will be finalized during this meeting," Michelle Lee, the U.N.-appointed deputy director of the court, said in opening remarks.
"Most of the crucial points have already been agreed," Cambodian tribunal official Reach Sambath told reporters.
But Lee stressed the crucial nature of talks to open the door finally to the trials of around 10 aging Khmer Rouge leaders, most of them living free.
"The eyes of the world are on us once again during these 10 days," she said.
The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia was set up last year by the United Nations and Cambodia to conduct trials expected to take three years and cost US$53 million.
Prosecutors would be ready to lodge cases against some suspects as soon as the green light came, said Helen Jarvis, an Australian expert working with the Cambodian side.
But that cannot happen until the two sets of judges, who will work under a complicated formula designed to ensure judgments have the support of both, agree on the nuts and bolts of how the trials will be conducted.
Disagreements range from the admissibility of evidence to witness protection, even to the heights of the judges' chairs.
Diplomats say the U.N. side of the court would walk away if it felt its local counterparts were dragging their feet or acting on the orders of Prime Minister Hun Sen, an ex-Khmer Rouge soldier who lost an eye in the capture of Phnom Penh in 1975.
In public at least, Hun Sen, who is not linked to any Khmer Rouge atrocities, has been making it clear he wants the trial to go ahead.
But his government is riddled with former cadres of the ultra-Maoist regime, many of whom will not want prosecutors raking through their pasts.
China, the main Khmer Rouge ally, has lobbied Hun Sen to stall the proceedings to prevent the full extent of Beijing's involvement coming to light, diplomats say.
The question has long been whether the surviving Khmer Rouge leaders, now in their 70s and 80s, would die before they could be tried and a fuller story of their rule would emerge.
Pol Pot, the "Brother Number One" architect of the Khmer Rouge's "Year Zero" peasant revolution in which people were tortured and executed or died of starvation, disease or overwork in a back-to-the-soil upheaval, died in 1998.
But among his aged colleagues expected to face trial are "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, former head of state Khieu Samphan and ex-foreign minister Ieng Sary, all living free.
One who is in detention is Duch, head of Phnom Penh's notorious Tuol Sleng interrogation center where at least 14,000 people are thought to have been tortured and executed.
1 comment:
khmer rouge trial won't happen.
it will look so bad for CPP who have the leaders were mostly khmer rouge.
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