[KR] Tribunal needs support

December 29, 2007
The Register-Guard (Oregon, USA)

More than three decades have passed since 1.7 million people died in the killing fields of Cambodia. Yet the U.N.-Cambodian tribunal has yet to bring those former leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime who are most responsible for the genocide to trial.

The long-delayed tribunal faces numerous obstacles. Not least among them is the passage of time.

Many Khmer Rouge leaders are either old or dead. Saloth Sar, better known as Pol Pot, died in 1998, a free man. Khieu Samphan, the Khmer Rouges’ former president, is 73 and recently suffered a stroke. Leng Sary, the Khmer’s former foreign minister is a frail 82, and Ta Mok, the regime’s former military chief, was hospitalized earlier this month. Among the youngest of those indicted to date is a 67-year-old known as Duch, who ran the notorious Tuol Sleng torture center in Phnom Pehn.

Time is truly of the essence for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, which seeks to provide some measure of accountability and justice for one of the most heinous of 20th century atrocities.

But the tribunal’s future depends on the willingness of foreign donors to provide the assistance necessary to bring the five high-ranking former leaders of the Khmer Rouge now in detention on trial for crimes against humanity.

A U.N. spokesman estimates that the tribunal, which has a budget of $56.3 million, will run out of funds in six months due to unanticipated costs.

Recent U.N. reports have raised troubling questions about the tribunal’s administration, but many of the expenditures appear reasonable. For example, U.N. officials say the court needs to increase the number of translators to 40 from the current 14, and to create victim support and court transcription services.

Tribunal officials will soon approach foreign donors — including the United States, which did not contribute to the original budget — with an urgent request for additional funding. Providing that the tribunal can produce evidence of progress and actions taken to fix problems identified in the U.N. reports, the United States should lead the way in providing the assistance needed to make certain justice is done in Cambodia.

The international tribunals set up to deal with atrocities in Rwanda, the Balkans and Sierra Leone have proven to be expensive and imperfect instruments of justice. But they have served the profoundly necessary purpose of sending a message that justice, however delayed, awaits those who commit crimes against humanity.

The U.N.-Cambodian tribunal deserves the full and timely support of the United States and the rest of the world.

Despite progress, Cambodian genocide tribunal needs more money to forge ahead [-Helen Jarvis on alleged corruption at the ECCC: "more of a rumor"]

2007-12-26

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - With five former leaders of the Khmer Rouge finally in custody awaiting trial - three decades after their murderous regime tumbled from power - Cambodia's U.N.-backed genocide tribunal can credibly say it is on the road to justice.

But its ability to move ahead hinges on the generosity of foreign aid donors who, responding to reports of alleged corruption and mismanagement by tribunal officials, are demanding greater accountability before agreeing to tribunal requests for additional funding.

The process took a big step forward last month when Kaing Guek Eav, the head of a notorious torture center, became the first major Khmer Rouge figure to appear as a defendant in a public courtroom, making an unsuccessful appeal for release on bail.

He and four other suspects - Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith and Khieu Samphan - are being held in the tribunal's custom-built jail, awaiting trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

But the tribunal says more work needs to be done to get to full-fledged trials to establish responsibility for the deaths of some 1.7 million Cambodians under the communist Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s.

The tribunal is appealing for more money on top of its budgeted US$56.3 million (euros 38 million), saying a heavy workload means that its operation, originally supposed to end in 2009, has to be extended through 2010.

Peter Foster, a U.N.-appointed spokesman for the tribunal, said the present funds may run out by the middle of next year due to costs of services not originally planned for.

«We're not talking about buying fleets of Mercedes and helicopters; we're talking about essential elements of an international court,» he said.

The tribunal has not specified how much extra money it needs. But Helen Jarvis, an Australian appointed by the Cambodian government as the tribunal's public affairs chief, gave an example of some of the increased workload, saying the number of translators and interpreters has to be increased to 40 from the current 14, and victim support and court transcription service units need to be created.

Donors raised concerns about how the funds have been spent so far after two U.N. reports this year painted a troubling picture of the tribunal's administration.

One of them, sidestepping allegations of corruption, slammed the Cambodian side for serious mismanagement.

The other found problems in the system under which duties and responsibilities are shared between Cambodian and foreign personnel, operating under Cambodian law.

More funding could be forthcoming if the tribunal can demonstrate its ability to function «efficiently and devoid of corruption,» David Scheffer, a former U.S. war crimes ambassador and a professor at the Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, said in an e-mail.

«The worst case scenario is that the international staff and administration would have to pull out and the trials would proceed in a strictly Cambodian-staffed court. But it would be folly to operate today as if the sky were to fall tomorrow,» he said.

Joseph Mussomeli, the U.S. ambassador to Cambodia, said the United States, which did not contribute to the original budget, is considering whether to help sustain the tribunal. Washington harbors widely shared doubts about the competence and impartiality of Cambodia's courts.

«Even hypothetically, if we were to decide that the judicial process meets international standards now, it would simply be irresponsible to suggest using American taxpayer money until we're sure that the administrative process is also fixed,» he said.

The corruption issue arose early this year when a New York-based legal group, Open Society Justice Initiative, alleged that Cambodian personnel had to pay kickbacks to government officials to obtain tribunal jobs.

In a country where corruption is a way of life and most civil servants earn only about US$25 (euros 17) a month, the tribunal jobs are highly lucrative. Even at half of the gross salaries earned by their U.N.-appointed counterparts, Cambodian staffers with professional duties get from US$2,300 (euros 1,550) to US$5,280 (euros 3,550) a month - paid out of the donors' contributions.

Jarvis rejected the corruption allegations as «more of a rumor.» And a June audit by the U.N. Development Program, which oversees the budget for the tribunal's Cambodian side, did not produce evidence of kickbacks, though it said many Cambodian staffers had been hired without meeting even minimum job qualifications.

Another U.N. report, also from June, charged that the dual administrative structure of Cambodian and U.N. officials «serves only to constantly hinder, frequently confuse and certainly frustrate efforts» to render justice.

It said the relationship between officials on both sides has «somewhat evolved into a 'we versus they camp.

Under the 2003 agreement between Cambodia and the U.N. establishing the tribunal _ which gives primacy to nationals as jurists while relying on foreign aid to pay the bills _ the work of the Cambodian and international staffs is coordinated.

But because they maintain separate budgets, the work also is duplicated, requiring separate reporting _ double the paperwork and bureaucracy _ up and down the line.

«It's all these little things that add up to a lot of frustration for people,» Foster said. «Because when you're working on something as important as this, you don't want to be spending your time worrying who's supposed to sign your phone bill .... You want to be focused on the judicial process.

The tribunal will approach donors with a «pretty complete package» of progress and actions taken to fix the problems, he said. With five suspects now behind bars awaiting trial, he said he can't imagine that donors would let the tribunal fold for lack of funds.

«It's too late at this point, no matter what happens, to stop,» he said.

Soccer: Cambodia lose coach O'Donell after cash runs dry [-Cambodia may be cash poor, but Hun Sen's gov't officials and cronies are not]

Soccer-Cambodia lose coach O'Donell after cash runs dry

Wed Dec 19, 2007
By Ek Madra

PHNOM PENH, Dec 19 (Reuters) - Cambodia's cash-strapped national team has parted company with Australian coach Scott O'Donell because it could not find the money to pay him, the country's soccer president said on Wednesday.

O'Donell opted not to renew the contract, due to expire at the end of this year, after a sponsor paying his salary pulled the plug on the deal.

"Scott's payment is too high, we cannot afford it," Sao Sokha, president of Cambodia's soccer federation, told Reuters.

"Our country's economy is recovering from the past difficult times," he said, referring to Cambodia's three-decades of civil war, which included the brutal Khmer Rouge "killing fields" genocide between 1975 and 1979.

"For sure, Scott is a good coach but training players to achieve the level of our satisfaction we cannot do overnight," he said.

O'Donell, a well-known television soccer pundit in Asia, said he wished he could have done more with the team.

"At the end of the day it came down to money, which Cambodia doesn't really have," he said.

"There's no hard feelings, the team just didn't get the support it needed.

"I know I gave it everything I could, I've not been able to do what I wanted. They just couldn't afford to keep me on."

The Australian had endured a tumultuous two-and-a-half years in charge of the struggling side and surprised many when he refused to quit following a bizarre intervention by Cambodian Prince Norodom Ranariddh, who replaced the team with his own just days before the Southeast Asian Games in 2005.

Cambodia's team of part-timers is one of the world's least successful national sides and is currently 183rd out of the 201 countries in the FIFA rankings.

They were eliminated in the first round of qualifying for the 2010 World Cup and were hammered 3-1, 6-2 and 8-0 to finish bottom of their group in this month's Southeast Asian Games.

(Writing and additional reporting by Martin Petty; Editing by John O'Brien)