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."

US War Crimes Ambassador to Tour Tribunal

By Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
05 December 2007

The US ambassador at large for war crimes, Clint Williamson, arrived in Cambodia Wednesday for a three-day study of the Khmer Rouge tribunal.

Williamson's visit comes as the US is considering funding for the cash-strapped tribunal, officially known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, or ECCC.

"While the US wants to be in a position to be able to support the ECCC politically and financially, the State Department is still reviewing all the facts about the tribunal and its operations, including whether or not it is capable of meeting international standards of justice," the US Embassy in Phnom Penh said Wednesday in a statement.

Williamson will meet with tribunal, government and rights officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Sok An, the embassy said.

The US was instrumental in establishing the framework for the hybrid tribunal, which pairs UN-appointed international and national jurists across several offices and court chambers.

Tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said Wednesday the courts welcomed the visit.

"We have iterated from the beginning that the US is a country involved in this tribunal, and a country that pushed for the formation of the ECCC," Reach Sambath said.

The tribunal, which in recent months has arrested five top Khmer Rouge leaders, opened its doors February 2006, after years of wrangling. Observers now say it will overreach its time limit, and that necessary funds will be needed to keep it running.

But the process has been tarnished by accusations of corruption, kickbacks and a lack of transparency, and US officials have said in the past these need to be overcome before the US will help fund it.

"The US takes seriously allegations of mismanagement or impropriety in the ECCC's Office of Administration," the embassy said Wednesday. "There have been multiple assessments this year of the ECCC's administration, and these are important tools for identifying and correcting weaknesses in the ECCC's operations. The US looks forward to receiving updates on the steps taken by the ECCC's administration to address the concerns identified in these audits."

A rich nation crippled by poverty [-A view into Cambodia's future?]

Economic misrule by Myanmar's military government has made the resource-rich country one of the poorest in the world

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 06, 2007
By Dinah Gardner in Yangon
Al Jazeera

Min Lwin U was 5-years-old when he found out he was HIV positive. That was three years ago. His doctors now say he has three months to live unless he gets anti-retro viral therapy (ART) soon.

Every day Lwin U is at a Medicins Sans Frontieres-run clinic in one of the poorest suburbs of Yangon. He comes to eat the three free meals of rice and curry the humanitarian organisation dishes out a day to malnourished and HIV positive children.

Even so his tiny arms are like sticks. His growth has been so stunted by the virus that he looks no more than four.

His dirty T-shirt and shorts hang loosely on his tiny, bony body. He scoops up the rice with his fingers and stares listlessly at some infants sprawled on bamboo mats being fed their meals.

Mismanagement

According to the World Health Organisation, 32 per cent of all children under five in Myanmar are seriously malnourished.

Your Views
"Until the generals' military hardware is crumbled, they won't listen to anyone" -
Oomlwin, Yangon, Myanmar

Decades of economic misrule by Myanmar's military government have made this resource-rich country one of the poorest in the world.

The ruling generals earned more than $2bn from natural gas exports last year, but the country's impoverished millions do not have free access to even basic healthcare.

And with the average daily income around $1 a day, many families cannot afford to pay doctor's fees – around $1-2 – when they get sick, much less the $35 price tag on a month's worth of ART.

The poverty here is crippling. In many ways it was the trigger that ignited September's protests.

Ten of thousands of people followed marching monks in the country's main cities and towns until the army moved in to crush the rallies on September 27.

While Western media stressed a public desire for democracy, for most in Myanmar, the demonstrations were about having enough food to eat and the right to basic healthcare.

"Most people here don't care about politics," says Su Hlaing Htwe, a doctor at the MSF clinic in Yangon's slum suburb of Hlang Thayar.

She waves her hand at the wooden and corrugated iron homes clustered behind the centre; an emaciated dog leaps over a ditch - a swill of filthy water cluttered with rotting debris.

Survival

The average daily income in Myanmar is around $1 a day [GALLO/GETTY]

"The people just want a chance to earn enough money to survive. Many of them can barely write. Mostly their education is very basic – just primary level."

Myanmar does not publish its budget but most experts agree that it probably spends less than a paltry dollar a person on health each year.

That's among the lowest level in the world.

It's left to a few UN agencies, MSF and a handful of other NGOs to do what they can, but their efforts are just a drop in the ocean.

Myanmar's poor suffer not just because their military government ignores them but also because the international community – citing discomfort over working with the generals – has been giving the country the cold shoulder for years.

And even among the few agencies that entered the country, some have pulled out.

Global Fund and MSF-France quit in the past two years citing excessive government interference in their humanitarian programmes.

According to 2005 World Bank figures, overseas development aid (ODA) per capita in Myanmar was about $2.90.

In nearby Cambodia, ODA per person in 2005 was about $38.50.

Double blow

"Now you have a people with a government that doesn't do anything for them, and an international community that also doesn't do anything for them" - NGO worker

"So now you have a people with a government that doesn't do anything for them, and an international community that also doesn't do anything for them," one long-term expatriate NGO worker in Yangon says.

"What little ODA you do have goes mostly on UN salaries anyway. So the people get nothing."

The four doctors at MSF-Holland's Hlang Thayar clinic see around 200 patients a day – mainly malnourished children and sufferers of HIV and TB.

Despite the surrounding slums and the plainness of the centre – basically a large wooden shed on stilts – the staff have made the place a comfortable escape from despair.

Doctors joke with their patients, local pop songs are piped over the speakers and there is a television in the waiting room.

But there is real suffering beneath the smiles.

Many of the women are widows – husbands already dead from Aids, their only legacy the virus in their wives' bodies.

Too sick to work, many of the women with HIV sport cropped hair, transforming them into teenage boys, because they can earn about $1.50 from selling their locks.

But their shaven heads act as a badge, alerting their neighbours to their likely HIV status.

Many are wholly reliant on the MSF's daily handout of rice and beans to its patients on ART.

Aids challenge

The WHO says 32 per cent of all children under five in Myanmar are malnourished

Min Min comes into the consulting room with a brilliant smile but within minutes her eyes begin to mist up and she crumples into her chair.

The 24-year-old mother is recovering from stage 4 HIV – the point at which a patient's immune system is so battered she is on the brink of being diagnosed with full-blown Aids.

Her soldier husband – dead now for four months – gave her the disease.

She is pleading with her doctor to let her have a month's worth of ART so she can leave Yangon for the southern city of Mawlamyine where her parents-in-law live with her five-year-old son.

But her doctor wants her to stay in Yangon. She is too sick and needs to stay close to the MSF clinic.

UNAIDS estimates there are around 360,000 people living with HIV/Aids in Myanmar and only a fraction of those can ever hope to get treated.

The bulk of the care is carried out by MSF. The group has committed to treating 16,000 sufferers but has reached the limit of its resources and announced a cap on new patients in July.

But that still means "tens of thousands of people die from Aids every year and nobody does anything about it", says Frank Smithuis, MSF-Holland's country director.

In some ways Lwin U is one of the lucky ones. He is already on MSF's list.

The organisation put him on ART when he was first diagnosed with HIV. But two years later, his mother, who is also HIV positive, took him out of the city, cutting him off from the drug that was keeping him alive.

Now he's back and very sick. But the clinic cannot restart his treatment until it is sure his family will stay put in Yangon and properly administer the therapy to him.

Stopping and starting ART can render it ineffective as the virus may become resistant to the cocktail of drugs.

"This situation is very common," says Hlaing Htwe. "Many patients here are poorly educated; they don't understand how important the drug is, and how important it is to take it properly."

The international community may be focusing on UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari's visit and meeting with the generals to persuade them to start a dialogue with the opposition, but Hlaing Htwe is concentrating on getting Lwin U's family to oversee his treatment.

"We are trying to persuade Lwin U's parents to commit to giving him the drug. But it is very difficult."

She smiles as she watches him take his bowl into the kitchen to be washed.

"But we are trying our best."