Cambodia: Burying the past

It has been 12 years since Hun Sen feted two Khmer Rouge leaders who had given themselves up

Saturday 25 June 2011

Editorial

The Guardian (UK)

The UN is hanging the international staff of its own tribunal out to dry. There is one honorable role being played in this sad tale of impunity. That is by the international co-prosecutor Andrew Cayley, who made the first public recognition of glaring deficiencies in the investigation of the dropped cases. He is prepared to fight for the relatives of the 1.7 million victims of the Khmer Rouge. But his stand is a lonely one.

It has been 12 years since Hun Sen, Cambodia's prime minister, feted at his residence two Khmer Rouge leaders who had given themselves up and said famously that it was time to bury the past. One conviction of a relatively junior figure and $150m later, Hun Sen remains largely true to his word. He is allowing the trial to go ahead on Monday of the two ageing leaders he attempted to amnesty in 1998, "Brother Number Two", Nuon Chea, and Khieu Samphan, along with Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith, but has ruled out the prosecution of five others, among whom are believed to be the air force commander Sou Met and navy commander Meas Muth.

These are the decisions of Hun Sen himself, because there is now no doubt that the Cambodian prosecutors and judges of the extraordinary chambers in the courts of Cambodia, a war crimes tribunal that combines international and local staff, follow his instructions. Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge cadre, has made no secret of his disdain for the court, telling Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, in what was reported to be a shouting match, that further indictments would "not be allowed". As the Open Society Justice Initiative makes clear, the five other cases were shut down without any examination of the evidence.

Suspects were not formally notified that they were under investigation, witnesses were not interviewed, crime sites were not examined. Some of the evidence gathered in the case that opens on Monday was not transferred to the files of these other five cases. The ruling has always been that these people are not senior enough to warrant prosecution, even though Comrade Duch, the chief of Phnom Penh's S-21 torture centre, who received a reduced sentence last year, was junior to most of them.

Hun Sen has a motive for shutting down the court – to stop it digging up evidence that could implicate serving members of the ruling elite. But the UN and the US state department have no such motive, and yet they too have pulled the plug on the work of the court. In an appalling statement, the UN defended the decisions of the judges who closed down the cases, although it refused to comment on the investigation because it remains the subject of judicial consideration.

The UN is hanging the international staff of its own tribunal out to dry. There is one honorable role being played in this sad tale of impunity. That is by the international co-prosecutor Andrew Cayley, who made the first public recognition of glaring deficiencies in the investigation of the dropped cases. He is prepared to fight for the relatives of the 1.7 million victims of the Khmer Rouge. But his stand is a lonely one.