PAILIN, Cambodia (AP) - Cambodia's genocide tribunal embarked on an unusual mission Tuesday to win the hearts and minds - or at least the grudging cooperation - of old Khmer Rouge loyalists as the panel forges ahead with prosecuting the group's leaders.
Tribunal officials hope to dispel fears that low-ranking former Khmer Rouge will become targets of the court and thus gain their valuable help in investigating the alleged crimes of their leaders.
The effort, launched Tuesday and to be carried out over several days this week in the former Khmer Rouge stronghold of Pailin, is the first activity of its kind conducted by the tribunal in the former guerrilla heartland.
It follows last year's arrests of five senior figures of the Khmer Rouge, whose radical policies led to the deaths of some 1.7 million of their countrymen in the late 1970s.
Kaing Guek Eav, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith and Khieu Samphan are being held in the tribunal's custom-built jail on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Their trials are expected to start later this year.
The tribunal now needs «very strong cooperation» from the public at large, including those who were part of the Khmer Rouge movement in the past, to help its investigation of the five's cases, said Reach Sambath, a tribunal spokesman.
«The mandate of this court is to try only the most senior and most responsible Khmer Rouge leaders, so the ordinary former Khmer Rouge should not be worried,» the spokesman said.
But some in Pailin were reluctant and indifferent when they were earlier approached by Cambodian and U.N.-appointed investigating judges, he said, so it is necessary to explain to them how the tribunal works. The judges are not targeting specific individuals in Pailin.
The arrests of the five figures - a former head of the Khmer Rouge's S-21 torture center, its chief ideologist, foreign minister, social affairs minister and head of state - were the strongest sign yet that justice might be done for atrocities carried out when the Khmer Rouge held power three decades ago.
Tribunal officials hope to dispel fears that low-ranking former Khmer Rouge will become targets of the court and thus gain their valuable help in investigating the alleged crimes of their leaders.
The effort, launched Tuesday and to be carried out over several days this week in the former Khmer Rouge stronghold of Pailin, is the first activity of its kind conducted by the tribunal in the former guerrilla heartland.
It follows last year's arrests of five senior figures of the Khmer Rouge, whose radical policies led to the deaths of some 1.7 million of their countrymen in the late 1970s.
Kaing Guek Eav, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith and Khieu Samphan are being held in the tribunal's custom-built jail on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Their trials are expected to start later this year.
The tribunal now needs «very strong cooperation» from the public at large, including those who were part of the Khmer Rouge movement in the past, to help its investigation of the five's cases, said Reach Sambath, a tribunal spokesman.
«The mandate of this court is to try only the most senior and most responsible Khmer Rouge leaders, so the ordinary former Khmer Rouge should not be worried,» the spokesman said.
But some in Pailin were reluctant and indifferent when they were earlier approached by Cambodian and U.N.-appointed investigating judges, he said, so it is necessary to explain to them how the tribunal works. The judges are not targeting specific individuals in Pailin.
The arrests of the five figures - a former head of the Khmer Rouge's S-21 torture center, its chief ideologist, foreign minister, social affairs minister and head of state - were the strongest sign yet that justice might be done for atrocities carried out when the Khmer Rouge held power three decades ago.
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