Will Khmer victims get justice at last?

June 5, 2007
By: Khalid A-H Ansari
Mid Day (Mumbai, India)

Verges will try to implicate above all the US and maybe Vietnam, China and France in that order ... Maybe also (retired King) Sihanouk - Philip Short

PHNOM PENH (Cambodia): Cambodian and foreign judges in the UN-backed genocide tribunal began a week-long meeting here yesterday to confirm rules for the trials of former Marxist Khmer Rouge leaders, who have been accused of the deaths of almost two million people in Cambodia between 1975-79.

The Khmer Rouge, under the leadership of Pol Pot, is being held responsible for the atrocities which accounted for the mass deaths through starvation, disease, overwork and execution in what is generally regarded as the worst genocide in human history after that perpetrated by Adolf Hitler.

Around 17,000 victims were buried in mass graves during the Pol Pot rule and more than 9,000 skulls of those murdered remain on public display at Choeung Ek outside the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, which I had the mortification of seeing last week.

Pol Pot, the founder and leader of the Khmer Rouge, died in a camp along the border with Thailand in 1998. Other key figures have also died, but a few, some of them infirm, survive.

Until now the United States has refused to join Australia and other donor countries in funding the long-drawn out prosecution, but senior US officials now say that decision may be reversed if the Bush administration can be convinced that tribunal judges will be impartial and independent

The rules, being discussed at the current meetings, are necessary before the trials for crimes against humanity and genocide can be convened, hopefully by early next year.

The tribunal was set up last year after contentious negotiations between the United Nations and Cambodia which lasted seven years. Trials had been expected to begin this year but Cambodian and foreign judges have been bickering over the rules.

Another stumbling block, the setting of expensive legal fees for foreign lawyers wanting to take part in the tribunal, however, was settled last year.

It is feared that unless agreement is reached quickly, the aging defendants could die before being brought to justice. Another failure to agree on the rules could put the future of the tribunal in jeopardy.

Human rights organisation Human Rights Watch has called on Cambodia to stop interfering in preparations for the trials, but Cambodia has dismissed the accusation as ‘politically motivated’.

Meanwhile, the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) is progressing towards prosecution of the accused, with the first case expected to commence by the end of the year.

However, one of the key accused, 75-year-old Khieu Samphan has said he will be represented by Jacques Verges, arguably the most controversial defence attorney in the history of international justice.

Verges has represented ex-Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and the Venezuelan terrorist Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, known as ‘Carlos the Jackal’. Nicknamed the ‘Devil’s Advocate’, Verges is expected to make the US the main target.

According to Philip Short, author of Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare, Verges will try to implicate above all the US and maybe Vietnam, China and France in that order.

Maybe also (retired King) Sihanouk. “Verges’s main target will be the US. This is a chance to put the US on trial and denounce the transparent unfairness of trying a few key people and letting all the lower guys go free. I’m sure he won’t miss a trick,” says Short.