Anger, disillusionment towards war crimes court erupts at forum

Friday, 21 November 2008
Written by Khoun Leakhana and Georgia Wilkins
The Phnom Penh Post

AWAITING JUSTICE
Five former Khmer Rouge leaders are currently in the custody of Cambodia's war crimes tribunal, but only one so far, former prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, is scheduled to stand trial. The prosecution is expected to open sometime next year, but no date is given.

Participants gathered to discuss efforts to try former Khmer Rouge leaders say Cambodia's UN-backed tribunal is not serious about delays

FEELINGS of hopelessness and a sense of mistrust came to the fore Thursday at a forum on justice and reconciliation at which participants said Cambodia's Khmer Rouge tribunal was failing to explain what it was taking so long to bring former regime leaders to justice.

The conference, run by the Center for Social Development and featuring a panel discussion by officials and monitors from the war crimes court, exposed increasing disillusionment with the tribunal, which remains plagued by budget woes and allegations of corruption.

"A significant number of participants expressed growing disillusionment with the ECCC because of delays and a lack of information about what the court personnel are doing," Heather Ryan, tribunal monitor for the Open Society Justice Initiative and a participant on the panel, said via email after the discussion.

Ryan said the forum had exposed a new level of disenchantment, not only within the audience but amongst forum participants.

"Many participants at the forum made moving comments about what happened to them during the Khmer Rouge period or what the court meant to them," she said.

Sorng Seng, a 50-year-old villager from Koh Kong, said he was angered that the court did not seem to take seriously delays that continued to go unexplained by officials.

Delays go unexplained

"I have noticed that the tribunal seems to be playful in the way it deals with the delays," Sorng Seng said at the event.

"A SIGNIFICANT NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS EXPRESSED GROWING DISILLUSIONMENT."

"I feel hopeless and surprised to hear and see the slow process of the trial and to hear that the trials have been delayed because of financial problems," he added.

"It makes me trust the court even less," he added.

Saroeun, a regime survivor from Ratanakkiri, also complained that the court was too slow.

"I want to see the court to speed up its work," he said.

Ryan said she believed that poor communication regarding the court's progress was responsible for people's renewed frustration.

"The court could better serve the needs and expectations of the people of Cambodia by being more transparent in its processes and
providing the public with regular factual updates about its work," she said.

"The extreme secrecy behind which the court works is harming its ability to provide a sense justice to Cambodians."

Tribunal Alerts Staff to Money Shortfall

By Mean Veasna, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
12 March 2008

Khmer Rouge tribunal administrators held a meeting with Cambodian staff members Tuesday to warn them of a money shortfall at the end of April, a spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday.

More than 200 staff and officials of the ECCC, or Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, were present at the meeting, said Helen Jarvis, chief spokeswoman for the courts.

"Administration director Sean Visoth held a meeting with all the Cambodian staff yesterday," Jarvis told VOA Khmer. "Now we are very clear that the budget will run out by the end of April. So then, all the staff must be informed."

Jarvis said she was confident the tribunal would find funding from outside countries, which are considering a proposal and are waiting for clarifications. "We are not in a panic situation," she said. "We don't think that the ECCC will be closed."

Rupert Skilbeck, head of the tribunal defense section, said the tribunal needed to move forward to the trial stage for five jailed Khmer Rouge leaders "as quickly as possible."

"The ECCC is not allowed to keep people in custody if there is no prospect of trying them within a reasonable time," he said. "And so the concern is that if the process is in any way delayed by the financial and management questions of this court, then the rights of the accused may not be looked after properly."

Tribunal prosecutor Robert Petit, too, said he thought the courts would find a budget.

"If the Cambodian staff cannot or are unwilling to work, it is clear that we will not be able to continue," he said.

The Cambodian government pledged more than $13 million of the $56 million originally expected for the tribunal, and the shortfall for the original budget is about $8.1 million.

About $4.9 million of that should come from the Cambodian side, officials have said.

However, tribunal officials estimate they will need an additional $114 million to extend the trials through 2011.

Cambodia, UN to review K.Rouge tribunal budget, timescale: official

Feb 15, 2008
AP

PHNOM PENH - CAMBODIA and the United Nations have agreed to set up a team of experts to review the budget and timescale for the kingdom's Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal, an official said on Friday.

'Independent experts will examine how long (the tribunal will last) and how much money we really need,' official Phay Siphan told a news conference.

The government and the United Nations will hammer out further details on the team, he said.

The agreement came on the heels of the tribunal's request earlier this month for another 114 million dollars from donors in a bid to keep the cash-strapped court running until 2011.

So far, five former top Khmer Rouge cadres have been arrested as Cambodia struggles to come to terms with its bloody past.

The suspects include 81-year-old Nuon Chea, Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot's most trusted deputy.

Up to two million people died of starvation and overwork, or were executed by the Khmer Rouge, which dismantled modern Cambodian society in its effort to forge a radical agrarian utopia.

Cities were emptied, their populations exiled to vast collective farms, while schools were closed, religion banned and the educated classes targeted for extermination.

Pol Pot died in his remote jungle camp in 1998.

Cambodia Tribunal: Up to 8 Defendants

By KER MUNTHIT

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodia's genocide tribunal expects to try up to eight suspects over the Khmer Rouge's brutal rule, while seeking to nearly double its staffing levels to 530, according to a tribunal planning document.

The cap on the number of prosecutions was noted in a document that outlines the tribunal's proposal to increase its budget to $170 million — a sharp increase from the original $56.3 million.

The document with the revised budget estimate — presented to donor nations in New York last month — was obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.

The tribunal, which opened its offices in early 2006 after years of wrangling between the Cambodian government and the U.N., took five suspects into custody last year and hopes to begin their trials later this year.

Starvation, overwork, lack of medical care and execution led to the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people during the 1975-79 communist Khmer Rouge regime.

The budget document says more money is needed to expand services and personnel to allow the tribunal to operate through March 2011, instead of December 2009 as had been anticipated earlier.

"This extension is based on a more realistic expectation of the work of the court, with a maximum number of eight detainees," it said. The document did not explain how the number had been arrived at, or who the additional suspects might be.

The five senior Khmer Rouge leaders under detention — including the group's former head of state, Khieu Samphan, and its foreign minister, Ieng Sary — are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

There are fears that the aging and infirm defendants could die before facing justice. The group's leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998.

Officials authorized to speak for the tribunal could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

The tribunal has been dogged by allegations of corruption and delays. Donors have pressed it for reforms and more transparency in its conduct.

"The tribunal will have to explain clearly what kind of reforms they are undertaking with regards to administration and why they have chosen a budget like this," said Tom Barthel Hansen, a Danish Embassy official, whose country contributed about $500,000 to the original budget.

He said it was not yet clear how his government would respond to the new request.

Money woes threaten Cambodia's Khmer Rouge tribunal

Fits and starts: Judges and court officers with the UN-backed tribunal in Phnom Penh seen on Thursday. The court says it needs $170 million to continue. (Photo: Heng Sinith/AP)

The tribunal trying Cambodia's former leaders says it needs to triple its $56.3 million budget to try up to eight defendants.

February 08, 2008
By Erika Kinetz
Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

Phnom Penh, Cambodia - The top surviving Khmer Rouge leader appeared in court this week for the first time, three decades after the virulent communist regime allegedly oversaw the deaths of some 1.7 million people in Cambodia.

Nuon Chea, thought by many to be the movement's chief ideologue, is facing charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity at a United Nations-backed tribunal that began work in 2006.

His presence in the docket should be a sign of success for the court, which many hope will undercut decades of impunity that have plagued this tiny nation. But the fitful progress of Cambodia's hybrid tribunal has once again bogged down under budget woes, a lingering management scandal, and real worries that the tribunal's five aging defendants could die before judgments come in.

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) now plans to spend $170 million to try up to eight defendants, a process it anticipates could take until March 2011, according to a Jan. 30 budget estimate.

That's a big increase from the court's initial three-year budget of $56.3 million – an amount unfathomable to many ordinary people in Cambodia who live on less than $1 a day.

Helen Jarvis, a tribunal spokeswoman, emphasizes that Cambodia's court looks like a bargain compared with tribunals in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, which have cost about $150 million a year. The Cambodian side of the court will start to run out of money in a matter of weeks, but donors have yet to publicly commit any funds.

"We recognize that a certain increase of the budget is justified," said one Phnom Penh diplomat on condition of anonymity. "We, however, are waiting for official clarification of these new figures and for detailed explanation of the considerable increase," he added.

Donor skepticism surged last year after reports revealed severe problems in hiring and management on the Cambodian side of the court. Allegations that Cambodian staff had to give money in exchange for their jobs have yet to be put to rest.

Now donors are looking for reassurance that their money will be well spent. The European Commission, which funds the Cambodian side of the court, has initiated an independent review to determine whether the court has made adequate reforms. Results may come in this month.

The United States, which has funded every major multinational criminal tribunal except the International Criminal Court (ICC), has yet to provide direct funding to the ECCC, despite signs late last year that the State Department was warming to the idea. President Bush's fiscal year 2009 budget request, released this week, doesn't include money for the tribunal, and the US Embassy in Phnom Penh says the issue is still being reviewed.

Some Cambodia watchers in Congress, which barred direct funding pending assurances that the court can meet international standards, remain skeptical.

"Congress remains sober about Cambodia, generally, and the KRT [Khmer Rouge tribunal], specifically," a senior congressional aide said by e-mail. "Those donors who have put funding on the table are griping how dollars were used and abused, and the administrative shortfall/concerns are well known. We will watch closely those international jurists who wrestle with the challenges every day; the greater stink they raise over corruption or political interference, the less chance Congress or other donors will want to pony up."

Meanwhile, the slow drama of justice plays out in a courtroom on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. Nuon Chea on Thursday asked to be released from the tribunal's detention center, where he has been held since his Sept. 19 arrest. He rose to address the court with the help of two guards. "I have no intention to flee my beloved country."

Chuon Choeun, a farmer brought to view the hearing by a nonprofit group, was one of about 100 Cambodians in attendance. He had never seen Nuon Chea before and even though he couldn't understand much of the legal rules under discussion, he found his first glimpse of the man he once believed was all powerful both bracing and strange.

He expected Nuon Chea to look more brutish, somehow. "His face looks fine. He's not nasty. His face is finer than mine."

Tribunal Seeks Triple Budget as Worry Rises

Sam Bith prior to his arrest

By Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
07 February 2008

Tribunal officials sought to triple the budget of the special courts Thursday, asking donors in New York for an additional $114 million on a day that saw one former Khmer Rouge leader in the dock and two in the hospital.

Former Khmer Rouge military commander Sam Bith joined former foreign minister Ieng Sary in Phnom Penh’s Calmette Hospital, as jailed ideologue Nuon Chea appeared for a bail hearing Thursday morning.

Sam Bith was in critical condition, hospital officials said Thursday, declining to elaborate.

Sam Bith, who was given a government advisory position after his defection from the Khmer Rouge, has not been charged by the tribunal.

He is serving a life sentence for his role in the murder of three Western backpackers in 1994.

Sam Bith’s hospitalization added to worries that the aging former leaders of the Khmer Rouge will die without seeing atrocity crimes trials.

Tribunal administrators, meanwhile, sought to allay worries that the tribunal will run out of time and money before trials can be conducted, by asking donors to triple the courts’ budget.

The tribunal’s initial $56 million budget was too low, and up to $170 million will be needed before the courts can finish their mandate, to charge senior leaders of the regime with atrocity crimes.

“We are proposing a little bit more time and quite a bit more money, but this is to fill the gap that currently exists,” UN tribunal spokesman Peter Foster said. “What we are asking for is support for the Victim Unit, for translation and interpretation and audio visual and other services that are essential for us to complete our mandate.”

The request would take the tribunal through March 2011, Foster said. As many as 12 former senior leaders of the regime could face tribunal charges, he said.

The budget was proposed at a Jan. 5 meeting with donors, but it remains unclear which countries may be willing to contribute.

US officials say they will not fund a tribunal that does not reach international standards.

The tribunal, meanwhile, continued with trial proceedings of already jailed leaders.

Former ideologue Nuon Chea appeared before tribunal judges Thursday, arguing he should be released ahead of his atrocity crimes trial.

“I have no intention of fleeing my dear mother land,” he told judges. “I have no intention of putting pressure on witnesses and influencing them.”

The full-day hearing—the second to be held by the tribunal so far—was adjourned and will continue Friday, when a decision is expected from Pre-Trial Chamber judges.

(Mean Veasna and Heng Reaksmey in Phnom Penh contributed to this report.)

Cambodia's Genocide Tribunal Seeking To Triple Budget

PHNOM PENH (AP)--Cambodia's U.N.-assisted genocide tribunal is seeking to triple its budget to US$170 million in order to keep operating through March 2011, a tribunal spokesman said Thursday.

The request for an increase from the originally budgeted US$56.3 million was made to donor nations Jan. 30 in New York, spokesman Peter Foster said.

The Khmer Rouge are believed to have been responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians when in power from 1975-1979.

The tribunal, which opened its offices in early 2006 after years of wrangling between the Cambodian government and the U.N., took five former top leaders of the Khmer Rouge into custody last year and hopes to begin their trials later this year.

Khmer Rouge trial taps donors for another $114 mln [-Japan wants to use the KR trial to point fingers on China's past links with the murderous KR?]

Thursday, February 07, 2008
By Ek Madra

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodia's U.N.-backed "Killing Fields" court has trebled its initial budget, seeking an extra $114 million from international donors to continue its pursuit of Pol Pot's top surviving henchmen, a spokesman said on Thursday.

Under the new proposal, the long-awaited tribunal's three-year lifespan would grow by two years, dragging out proceedings until 2011 even though most of the Khmer Rouge's leading cadres are old and in poor health.

Given the problems with finding the court's initial $56 million, the request for such a large sum is unlikely to go down well with donors who already pump $600 million a year into Cambodia's war-scarred but now booming economy.

"We have no choice but to expand," court spokesman Peter Foster told Reuters shortly after the start of a bail hearing for "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, charged last year with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

"I would not call it a delay, but I would call it a more realistic plan," he said.

An estimated 1.7 million people were executed or died of torture, disease or starvation under Pol Pot's 1975-79 reign of terror as his dream of creating an agrarian peasant utopia descended into the nightmare of the "Killing Fields."

After nearly a decade of delays and tortuous talks with the United Nations, the court kicked off in earnest last year with charges against Nuon Chea and four other senior cadres.

SURPRISE

However, it has long been clear the court was short of cash.

One Phnom Penh-based diplomat said the request for more money had been in the pipeline for some time, but the size of the increase was a surprise.

"The original budget was too low and a lot of key elements had not been costed properly, but this is certainly a pretty hefty rise," the diplomat said.

Foster said he hoped countries such as Japan, which has bankrolled much of the proceedings so far, would dig deep to ensure the court achieved the aim of prosecuting "those most responsible" for the atrocities without compromising standards.

"I am optimistic because the extra funding that has been requested is for units and staffing that are absolutely essential for the court to maintain international standards," he said.

Tokyo hopes the trials will expose the full extent of the links between Pol Pot's murderous regime and China, analysts say.

The expanded budget would be mainly for more court staff, translation and transcription facilities and victim and witness support units, and suggested prosecutors would widen their net well beyond the five already in custody, Foster said.

At his bail hearing, the octogenarian Nuon Chea argued he was not a flight risk and would not try to influence potential witnesses. Fears for his safety were also overblown, he said.

"I have no desire to leave my beloved country," he told a courtroom packed with reporters.

The court is not expected to announce its decision for several days, but he is extremely unlikely to be released.

Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998 in the final Khmer Rouge redoubt of Anlong Veng on the Thai border.

Besides Nuon Chea, members of his inner circle now in custody are former president Khieu Samphan, former foreign minister Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith, and Duch, head of Phnom Penh's Tuol Sleng, or "S-21" interrogation and torture centre.

(Reporting by Ek Madra; Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by Michael Battye and Sanjeev Miglani)

$20 million: The cost to bring to justice for each of the 5 KR leaders?

Tribunal Could Cost $100 Million, Expert Says

By Mean Veasna, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
19 December 2007

The cost of the Khmer Rouge tribunal could nearly double, up to $100 million from $56 million, a source close to the courts said Wednesday. Tribunal officials have begun speaking with donor country representatives about the increased budget, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Government officials have said in recent months the tribunal could last into 2010, creating a budget shortfall in an already threadbare process. The courts have so far been unable to establish a Victim's Unit, making it more difficult for complainants to participate in the process.

The tribunal was supposed to last three years. Judges were sworn in in July 2006, but the courts underwent a yearlong delay as Cambodian jurists and their international counterparts disagreed over rules governing the tribunal.

Observers say the tribunal will face budget shortfalls by April 2008.

Tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath declined to comment Wednesday on the projected budget increase, but he said the UN, which is shouldering much of the cost of the tribunal, and the government are studying the budget now.

The tribunal already lacks about $8 million, he said.

Hisham Moussar, a legal expert for the rights group Adhoc who monitors the tribunal, said $100 million was not unreasonable for a tribunal, but the money should be spent transparently.

Dwindling Funds Loom as Impending Tribunal Obstacle [-Is this the next obstable looming to abort this tribunal?]

Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
03 August 2007

The Open Society Justice Initiative warned Friday that dwindling funds in the Khmer Rouge tribunal coffers could lead to a catastrophe as the courts move toward trials of top leaders of the disastrous regime.

In a monthly report obtained by VOA Khmer, the independent courts monitor said additional funds must be raised from the Cambodian and international sides of the joint tribunal before the middle of next year for the special courts to function.

"Given the delays in beginning legal proceedings and their complexity, it is unlikely the court will finish its work within three years," the report warns. "Additional funds will thus be needed to cover the extended time frame."

Critics have long warned that too many delays have threatened the functioning of the tribunal, which only this month mustered five confidential names of suspects to be investigated for trial.

Of those, only one has been questioned and detained: Kaing Khek Iev, or Duch, head of the Tuol Sleng torture center.

OSJI outlined in its report critical functions that are not even listed in the current budget: judicial plenary sessions, meetings of judicial committees, audio and visual equipment, transcription services of proceedings and support for judicial leadership and the Victims Unit.

Other costs, such as translation, investigation, outreach and witness protection and support were underestimated in the original budget, OSJI reported.

"Considerable planning and explanation will be needed to raise sufficient additional funds to meet the court's needs," OSJI said.

A new round of budgeting could be an opportunity for the tribunal "to assess its needs and articulate those needs persuasively," the group said. "For instance, the court can show its commitment to outreach by developing a comprehensive plan and seek funding that ensures there is meaningful outreach to Cambodians throughout the country. "Likewise, this is an opportunity for the court to realistically assess likely threats to witnesses and defense lawyers and plan to meet those threats in a way that gives reasonable assurances to people who cooperate with the court."

Tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath acknowledged the budget shortage, but added that fundraising in October would be initiated.

"We are not worried [the tribunal] will be stuck in one place in the future," he said. "The waiting victims will be responded to shortly."