Cambodia's legal system on trial
By Alan Boyd


http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/EE20Ae01.html

Cambodia has said it is too busy to put the fading Khmer Rouge leadership in the dock for orchestrating a four-year genocide that may have taken as many as two million lives. But human rights monitors say it probably makes no difference whether the few remaining cadres have their day in court, for it is the tainted Cambodian system of justice that is now being put on trial.

The government in Phnom Penh said at the weekend that it would be unable to ratify a United Nations trial framework "for several months" because it was preoccupied with planning the July 27 general election. As there is no National Assembly session scheduled until late in the year, it is likely to be well into 2004 before a specially appointed tribunal can be assembled - even if the new administration doesn't find fault with the agreement.

By the time sentencing takes place, probably three years later, the jailing of less than a dozen sick and feeble septuagenarians for crimes that occurred almost three decades before may well seem anti-climactic. "In a sense it no longer matters whether the individuals concerned end up in jail, as most are so frail that they will probably cheat justice in any case. But it is important a trial is held so that we can rebuild the Cambodian people's trust in justice and the system of law," said a Phnom Penh-based diplomat.

There is little enthusiasm within the Cambodian government for a show trial that might reignite painful conflicts in society and focus attention on the former Khmer Rouge links of some top government figures. Most of the inner circle of leadership joined the Marxist guerrilla organization in the early 1970s, when it was predominantly a nationalist movement opposed to the feudalistic monarchy of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. Prime Minister Hun Sen was a cadre on the eastern border with Vietnam, but left before the Khmer Rouge overran Phnom Penh in 1975. Sihanouk himself linked up with the guerrillas after being overthrown by a coup in 1970, though he eventually became their most famous captive.

International pressure for the Khmer Rouge leadership to be brought to trial began after Phnom Penh was liberated by Vietnamese forces in 1979, and the full extent of its atrocities became evident. A puppet government installed by Vietnam under Hun Sen sentenced paramount leader Pol Pot to death in absentia in 1979, along with former foreign minister Ieng Sary and several other close aides.

Hun Sen subsequently pursued a guerrilla war against the Khmer Rouge and two allied factions for four years. But global politics had intervened by the time a peace accord was signed in Paris in 1991.

Phnom Penh refused to have provisions for a genocide tribunal included in the agreement, as did China, the chief political and military supporter of the Khmer Rouge. Fearing a resumption of the war, the US and other negotiators backed down.

Human rights activists were infuriated when Hun Sen declared an official amnesty for Khmer Rouge members in 1996 on the grounds that a trial would merely open old wounds. "I would suggest that Hun Sen and the Cambodian government need not fence themselves behind the notion of 'national reconciliation' to defend this gang of murderers who currently enjoy a rather comfortable life while their victims have to live side by side with their [abusers]," said former diplomat Julio Jeldres, who is a prime advocate of a genocide trial. "Any politician that does so cannot be trusted to guide their nation toward a peaceful or democratic future. When such a government abdicates its responsibilities to punish violations of human rights, as the Cambodian government appears to be doing, the international community should step in."

The United Nations did attempt to intervene, but for years was thwarted by the uncompromising stance of Phnom Penh.

End.