Khmer Rouge Trials The saga of the Khmer Rouge trials continues--slowly, the way the government wants it--and there is a lot of interesting news to report. My previous format was inconvenient to update and read, however, so I am introducing a new format that will allow easier insertion of daily events. A backlog of items starting in May will be posted first to catch up to the present day. The previous items already posted on the other older page can still be viewed: Introductory KR section May to December, 2006 articles January to December, 2007 articles  (This page)

24 March 2009   The Documentation Center of Cambodia, which has collected and preserved evidence of the Pol Pot years for several decades, has criticized the Khmer Rouge tribunal for failing to communicate effectively to the people of Cambodia.  The center notes that the Public Affairs Section of the ECCC has brought students and scholars from various countries to Cambodia for visits.  This is good in itself, the center says, but not when there is no real outreach to the primary stakeholders in the trials, the people of Cambodia.  The center suggests that the publicity arm of the tribunal really has no outreach strategy so little will be done until the Public Affairs Section reconsiders its attitude.  [Photo of a child victim of the Khmer Rouge]

4 March 2009 UN Officer Cites Gov't Meddling in Tribunal: Panel A report by the German legislature's human rights committee says that the UN Coordinator of the Khmer Rouge tribunal told visiting committee members in November that the Cambodian government was interfering with the work of the KR courts by opposing prosecution of more former KR leaders than the five currently being held after indictment.  The coordinator is also said to have proposed that if Cambodia continues to oppose a thorough investigation of corruption allegations at the court, the UN should withdraw from the whole court process.  The report says: The cooperation of the international side with the national government of Cambodia is problematic since the latter attempts to interfere in the work of the tribunal.  The Cambodian government has already signaled that it will not allow for any further proceedings to happen.

18 February 2009 This past week it was announced that Van Rith, the former Commerce Minister of the Khmer Rouge regime, died at his provincial home in November. He was the brother-in-law of the Khmer Rouge Defense Minister. Sources familiar with the proceedings of the Khmer Rouge tribunal said Van Rith was one of the additional suspects the international prosecutor had identified to be charged and to stand trial for crimes against humanity in the Pol Pot era. He was one of six unidentified persons the Cambodian co-prosecutor has resisted prosecuting, carrying out the government's wishes, according to sources following the trials. Van Rith joins Pol Pot and his wife; the former military chief Ta Mok; and former KR zone secretary Ke Pauk in escaping prosecution by dying before charges could be laid against them.   [Photo of a child Khmer Rouge victim]

9 February 2009 For about a year now, the United Nations has been asking Cambodian authorities to investigate charges of corruption, specifically the allegation that Cambodian officials, including judges, were requiring kickbacks from the persons they appointed to official positions at the Khmer Rouge tribunal. A complaint lodged with the courts asked for investigation of Cabinet Minister Sok An (a Deputy Prime Minister and one of the most powerful people in Cambodia), the tribunal Director of Administration, and the former chief of tribunal personnel. A previous UN investigation reportedly called for a full investigation, but instead now the prosecutor has announced suddenly that the investigation is being dismissed after less than a month of work. No reason was given, and an official hung up the phone when contacted. The Cambodian government has all along resisted the call for investigation so it seems the investigation may have been leading in a direction that the government couldn't control.   [Photo of a Khmer Rouge victim]

31 January 2009 A survey taken this month of attitudes and understandings about the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia revealed a distressing lack of knowledge about the ECCC and the progress of the Khmer Rouge trials. 85% of those surveyed stated they had little or no knowledge of the activities of the tribunal. Most expressed a desire for some of justice: 83% said they still feel hatred for the Pol Pot regime; 72% want to see the perpetrators hurt or made miserable. And while four out of five Cambodians said they want to know more about the tribunal, less than ten percent knew that five former KR leaders are already in prison awaiting trial. But people were twice as likely to trust the ECCC as they were to believe the national courts. Spreading information about the KR tribunal is a huge challenge that is grossly underfunded. But without knowledge and understanding, little reconciliation will take place even with successful prosecutions. [Photo of a mother and child, victims of the KR]

10 November 2008 Australia recently became the third most generous donor to the Khmer Rouge tribunal, after Germany and Japan, when it pledged another $3.3 million to the international side of the court. Previously Australia had pledged $2.3 million to the tribunal's international side in 2005 and $500,000 to the Cambodian side earlier in 2008. In July the court announced that another $34 million was necessary to continue the court's work and shortly afterwards both Germany and the United States made donations to keep the tribunal's work going.

10 October 2008 In September Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, the man responsible for the Tuol Sleng torture center, was indicted for crimes against humanity. His defense lodged an appeal against the indictment and the court will rule on the appeal on December 5th. If the appeal is denied, then the prosecution and defense will begin submitting lists of witnesses to be called, and finally in mid-January the trial chamber will set a date for the first public hearing in the actual trial. A statement from the court said: Successfully conducting trials of this significance is a complex process, and the Court recognizes that it can be frustrating for the millions who have been waiting for decades to see just done. Nevertheless, each step of the legal process must be followed carefully and conducted in line with the highest standards of justice.

9 October The Khmer Rouge Tribunal has been thirty years in coming, but now that it has started, public awareness is mixed. 12,000 people in nine provinces were surveyed from April to July, and 71% were aware of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia and 85% of those people supported it. However, only 38 percent of those interviewed were aware that the tribunal has already taken five suspects into custody. The survey manager noted that the uneven results reflect the piecemeal way the tribunal has been presented to the general public.

9 October 2008 Almost since the ECCC was established, there have been concerns about corruption in the court's administration. Now as the tribunal seeks additional international funding to enable it to accomplish its mandate, the Open Society Justice Initiative, a watchdog group, has called for donors to use this as an opportunity to require answers to allegations of corruption and to set up good administrative practices. A particular concern of OSJI is protection for whistleblowers, those within the court system who reveal wrongdoings. The report notes: There is a long history of violent retaliation in Cambodia against those who threaten powerful political or economic interests. Donors must work with the UN to put in place measures ensuring that all persons with information about corruption may report it freely, confidentially, and without fear of retaliation.

1 September 2008 Partly because it is a hybrid court with both Cambodian and international bodies involved, partly because it is a war crimes court which are infrequent, and partly because the court is being established in Cambodia which has no properly functioning legal system, the progress of the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia has been full of slowdowns, lurches, even stoppages as various questions and problems are addressed. In March the court said that civil parties had a right to participate in pre-trial hearings which consider jurisdiction, bail, and other procedural issues, not guilt or innocence. Then in May the court ruled that only lawyers for civil parties could speak because the issues are often technical and legal. Then in September, the court said that poor clients, who cannot afford lawyers, can speak for themselves in the pre-trial sessions since otherwise it would be unfair because the court does not pay for victim representation. Some victim representatives feel that the court struck a good balance with this partial reversal of its earlier stance.

21 September 2008 For years the United States has refused to commit funds for the establishment of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal and its operations once it actually started its judicial process. It seemed the U.S. was taking a "wait and see" attitude despite a 1994 law stating that the Khmer Rouge trials were an express objective of U.S. foreign policy. In 2004 and 2005, Congress prohibited the use of any funds for the tribunal until it was shown that the special courts would meet international standards. Now Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte has announced a U.S. pledge of $1.8 million for the court which was facing the depletion of its funds in the coming months. Local officials in Cambodia hope that the U.S. action will encourage other hesitant donors to make similar pledges. With the U.S. contribution, the funding for the United Nations part of the tribunal still need about $30 million to complete operations through 2009. Negroponte said that the United States hopes to continue funding for the duration of the tribunal.

25 May 2008 Five high-level Khmer Rouge cadres are in the custody of the Extraordinary Chambers of the Cambodian Courts which is prosecuting them for their actions during the Pol Pot era. Two of those detained are husband and wife, Ieng Sary, the KR Foreign Minister, and his wife, Ieng Thirith, the Social Action Minister for the KR. All five detainees are allowed visitors and external communications by mail, but they are not allowed to communicate with each other to prevent them from colluding and coordinating stories during the investigation. However, because Ieng Sary and Thirith are married, the tribunal judges have ruled they may meet once a day in person.

29 January 2008 The Khmer Rouge tribunal is required to hold a plenary session every six months to review the court's directives and rules. The third session began yesterday and was without some of the tension and acrimony that marked previous sessions. This was attributed to the fact that the court's operating rules have been accepted and five suspects are now in custody. Some feel that the court is moving rapidly toward actual trials and perhaps more arrests. Although the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia operate on a relatively small budget (roughly $20 million as opposed to $138 million for the tribunal in Rwanda and $157 million for Yugoslavia) there is a continuing concern that the Cambodian court will run out of money.

30 November 2007 Nuon Chea, the most senior Khmer Rouge official still living, was arrested on 19 September and taken to the tribunal's detention center. Now his lawyers are contesting their elderly client's detention, arguing that the prosecution failed to produce evidence that there was a danger that Nuon would flee, intimidate witnesses, or that his liberty could be a threat to public order. His appeal reflected similar questions about the arrest of four other senior KR leaders who are now being held. The ECCC said they would announce a verdict about a similar release request for Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, on 3 December.

16 November 2007 The detention of Ieng Sary and his wife for more than eight years by the Military Police who never charged them with any crime has presented the Khmer Rouge tribunal with a challenge to its role and identity. Is the ECCC, a hybrid court, more an international court or more a Cambodian court? Some argue that Ieng's illegal detention was so blatant a violation of internationally recognized norms that--if the KR tribunal is part of the Cambodian court--the actions of the Cambodian courts before the establishment of the ECCC may now prevent Ieng from being tried by another branch of the Cambodian courts. On the other hand, others argue that the tribunal is more an international court, and what the Cambodian courts did before the tribunal even existed is of little legal consequence. They argue that his detention did violate international procedures but that now Ieng is being tried by another court under new charges.

16 November 2007 The judges of the Khmer Rouge tribunal have ordered Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith to be held in pre-trial detention for up to a year after they were transferred to the custody of the ECCC from the Military Police who had held them without charge for more than eight years. Ieng Sary was foreign minister for the KR and is charged with crimes against humanity. His wife was minister of social action and a member of the highest level clique of cadres. Both argue that because of their age and their help in breaking the power of the KR in 1996 they should be freed, even if under police guard. The judges disagreed, noting that the pair have money, passports, and a residence abroad. And perhaps more compelling, there is a fear of witness intimidation because of the powerful social status of the couple in an area where family members and former associates hold influential positions and even have armed guards. The latter is a concern because the names of witnesses and accusers would become available to the defendants as part of the court proceedings.

15 November 2007 The Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia today held a "directions hearing" whose purpose was to make sure that the court system is ready to proceed with the public hearings of the tribunal. The hearing was previously announced as being open to the public but then was closed to them. Here are some critical comments by Norman Henry Pentelovitch in The Cambodia Daily about that decision: The Pre-Trial Chamber has not stated a reason that the hearings should be held behind closed doors, except to suggest vaguely that this "preparatory hearing" is more suited to being held privately.... The judges of the Pre-Trial Chamber should have kept the "directions hearing" open to the public to promote transparency and understanding of the CCC by Cambodians. ...Particularly given recent criticisms of the court for withholding a UN Development Program report commenting on misallocations of funds and improper hiring practices, the ECCC should be taking every opportunity possible, consistent with fair and impartial processes of justice to make all aspects of the tribunal public. ...The decision to close the "directions hearing" to the public reflects a lack of such an effort, and potentially sets a dangerous precedent for future transparency.

15 November 2007 The executive director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia wrote an article that originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal and was reprinted in The Cambodia Daily. He commented on the arrest of Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith. Like perpetrators everywhere, both have denied any wrongdoing and are seemingly without remorse. In 1999, Ieng Thirith wrote to a Phnom Penh newspaper, praising those who left their comfortable villas and took up residence in Cambodia's jungles during the early 1970s to defend their motherland. She has never wavered from the ideals of a Maoist-inspired revolution in which peasants would rule. But the couple, who are now in their mid-70s, have not chosen to live according to their ideals. Instead of adopting the modest circumstances of the people they claim to revere, they have a lavish villa in downtown Phnom Penh and regularly fly to Bangkok for medical treatment. They are also active Buddhists and have built a stupa at their local pagoda. They seem to forget that the Communist Party of Kampuchea had eliminated Buddhism.... Cambodians are quick to grasp this irony... The arrests of Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith will at last give ordinary Cambodians a victory. This couple, who have changed little and still fail to understand the pain their victims endured, will finally be called to account for their crimes and perhaps soon see justice done in a court of law.

14 November 2007 Yesterday, when Ieng Sary and his wife were arrested by the Khmer Rouge tribunal at their home in a well-to-do section of Phnom Penh, a poor student who lives with the monks in a nearby wat (temple) observed: It's quite amazing--he was a leader during the Khmer Rouge, and now he lives a happy life, like other people. He must have a lot of money to buy that house. I don't know about inside the house, but outside--he must be rich. Today the Iengs told the court that they do not have enough money to pay for lawyers to defend them in the tribunal proceedings.  But many observers hold that the Ieng family is rich.  They live in a large three-story house in Phnom Penh, in a good neighborhood, and are reputed to own another house in Bangkok.  In addition their children own property and are involved in provincial government.

13 November 2007 The Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia today arrested Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister Ieng Sary and his wife, Ieng Thirith, who was Khmer Rouge Minister of Social Action. This brings to four the number of former high-level KR leaders who have been detained. Ieng Sary had been considered the most politically untouchable of the former KR leadership so some felt that his arrest sends a powerful message to the Cambodian people.

13 November 2007 The two largest ethnic minorities in Cambodia are the Vietnamese and the Chinese. Because they have money and influence the Chinese enjoy a relatively secure place in the social structure. Not so the Vietnamese. Vietnam along with Thailand has been a traditional enemy of Cambodia, and the Vietnamese now living within the kingdom are routinely persecuted and blamed by government officials for all sorts of things that go wrong within the country. They become a convenient scapegoat. Both the Chinese and Vietnamese were targeted by the Khmer Rouge, and now 45 ethnic Chinese and Vietnamese have filled out victim complaint forms to be submitted to the Khmer Rouge tribunal. Most of the complaints ask for compensation for their communities and not for themselves as individuals. The ECCC hopes that up to 50,000 such complaints will be filed within the next year.

12 November 2007 The Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia are known as a hybrid tribunal, the second generation of international criminal courts. A hybrid court is part national, part international. The first generation of international courts were the ad-hoc tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, a model that is now out of favor as too expensive and remote. Erika Kinetz offered some insights about the Cambodian model in an article in The Cambodia Daily. Some excerpts: People from around the world are watching to see what lessons the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia may hold for the future of international jurisprudence. The answer may be: fairly little. With the establishment of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which began work in 2002, many say that local, hybrid courts will be needed only in exceptional situations--chiefly when the crimes at hand do not fall within the ICC's jurisdiction. ...Stephen Rapp, chief prosecutor at the Special Court [in Sierra Leone], says he is a "strong believer in the hybridization of courts." While he says the Special Court's national staff--who comprise 60 percent of the payroll--are essential, he also believes international control is crucial. The main problem with national courts, he said, is independence: They don't have a good record of prosecuting members of a seated regime or its allies.

6 November 2007 The photographer who took the pictures of the 14,000 people tortured at Tuol Sleng torture center before they were executed is now planning to open a commercial museum in Anlong Veng, one of the last Khmer Rouge outposts. Nhem Ein, Tuol Sleng's main photographer, is now a deputy district governor. He wants to showcase his own photographs of the victims, other KR memorabilia, and the graves of KR leaders such as Pol Pot and Ta Mok who died earlier this year. Ta Mok's niece plans to write a book--to be available at the museum--"which she hopes will clarify the victories of the Khmer Rouge revolution," according to an article in the Cambodia Daily. (That will take a lot of clarification!)

5 November 2007 When an amnesty was offered to them in 1996, a large number of Khmer Rouge troops surrendered. They did not move far from their jungle bases near the Thai border, though. The municipality of Pailin was created for them in the province of Battambang, and even today, thirty years later, the presence of the Khmer Rouge is still a dynamic to be reckoned with. Many of the former top leaders have homes in the area and many of the official posts are filled by former Khmer Rouge cadres. For some fear keeps them from calling for the punishment of the leaders of the Pol Pot regime. Others have found an uneasy familiarity with the leaders as their neighbors. And some just worry that the status quo is still so fragile and sensitive that any attempt to bring this level of KR leadership to justice will cause real disruption and conflict.

31 October 2007 The Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia have announced that prosecutors from war crimes tribunals around the world will come to Phnom Penh for a two-day colloquium in November. One activity in this event--the fourth of its kind--is a roundtable discussion on the difficulties inherent in prosecuting violators of international law.

30 October 2007 The auction website eBay has been featuring a stretch limousine advertised as the one used by Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. The asking price is $70,000 and so far one bid has been received. Pol Pot's former driver, though, claims that the car could not have belonged to Pol Pot because, although he had two Mercedes, he never had one with three seats. The description on the website claims that there are no official papers for the car because such records were destroyed by the Khmer Rouge.

26 October 2007 Originally scheduled for October, a fund-raising campaign to solicit additional funds for the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia has been postponed, probably as a result of the controversy and bad publicity the tribunal realized from the scathing report on the management of its staff and finances. A tribunal spokesman said he thought the appeal would take place before the end of the year. The tribunal, charged with trying former leaders of the Pol Pot regime, was initially established for a three-year period, but funds will probably be sought to extend its mandate until 2010 or 2011, what some call a "more realistic" scenario. Official estimates put the additional money needed at $25 million but local diplomats say that $35 million is a more accurate figure.

26 October 2007 Earlier this month the Khmer Rouge tribunal published a form for victim complaints from those abused by the Pol Pot regime. The Cham Muslim people were especially targeted by the Khmer Rouge, and now more than three hundred of them have completed the forms requesting the tribunal prosecutors to investigate their complaints or stating that they want to be a party to court proceedings.  Many of the Chams found the forms difficult to fill out because, for example, the papers requested evidence and witnesses, hard to find after thirty years.  Many of those who filled out the forms, though, felt a sense of relief that their voice had finally been heard.

24 October 2007 A major concern related to the Khmer Rouge tribunal is the lack of witness protection. The ECCC has yet to put into place a general system of witness protection even though the interviewing of witnesses has already begun. They did bring in an international expert with experience in the international court for Yugoslavia and she made recommendations which were finalized last month. She emphasized the need for security but also the inherent risks that all those testifying must be aware of: The Pope got shot. I can't guarantee you're going to get home alive today. It's about minimizing risk. In war crimes, the crimes are so grave, witnesses take the risk. The drive to have justice is extremely strong. A problem in Cambodia, though, is that information is spread by the spoken word. Keeping a witness' name out of the newspaper won't be much help because the witnesses come from and must return to the village which the expert described as like being in a fishbowl. Many in Cambodia do not trust the government to keep them safe, especially since their testimony could implicate government officials and the nation's international allies. Others point out that security in place during the tenure of the trials might be adequate, but wonder what happens when the trials are over and the UN goes home.

23 October 2007 The Khmer Rouge were meticulous in documenting in writing and in photographs the 14,000 victims of the Tuol Sleng torture center in Phnom Penh during the Pol Pot regime. Nhem Ein photographed them all as they were hauled in to be tortured before their deaths. Now he has been summoned to appear before the court as a witness in the proceedings against his former boss, Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch.  Nhem lives 300 miles from Phnom Penh and grumbled that he is only paid $5 a day to compensate for lost wages while the judges, prosecutors, police, and staff are paid thousands of dollars.

22 October 2007 Much has been said and written about the allegations of incompetence and corruption in the Khmer Rouge tribunal. But in this excerpt from an opinion piece in The Cambodia Daily, John D. Ciorciari says that corruption is THE issue to be dealt with: Justice in Cambodia is again in jeopardy after the recent publication of a scathing audit of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.  The audit--prepared by the UN Development Program, which administers $6.4 million for the tribunal--accused Cambodian officials on the ECCC of improper recruitment, unwarranted salary increases, and general mismanagement of court operations.... On the whole, the ECCC has made solid progress toward the trials of key defendants.  As expected, it is enduring some growing pains.  While important, most of these do no challenge the fundamental integrity of the proceedings.... Corruption is different. Misallocation of funds, bribes, and cronyism are not the type of "imperfection" that the international community or Cambodian public should tolerate.... Corruption would seriously undermine the tribunal's ability to set a positive example for the rule of law in Cambodia.  It would also be a grave insult to the survivors of the Democratic Kampuchea regime, who have waited three decades for justice.  Corrupt behavior by ECCC officials who themselves survived the Khmer Rouge regime would be a particularly painful betrayal.  Helping to eliminate judicial corruption is one of the goals that the ECCC should seek to achieve....

22 October 2007 Nuon Chea, the most senior Khmer Rouge leader now arrested and detained for crimes against humanity, spent the night at Calmette Hospital for tests on his heart. He has a history of high blood pressure and heart problems, and the tests were part of a series to determine his medical condition before his trial.

18 October 2007 Two UN experts with experience in international tribunals in Sierra Leone and Yugoslavia reviewed the Khmer Rouge tribunal's structure and operations in June and a confidential report was produced. The report recommended restructuring of the court's two halves (a UN side and a Cambodian side); changing the administration of the court's detention facility; and reorganizing the administration of translation services.  Now the United Nations has asked the Cambodian government to implement some of the changes recommended. The government has responded but their answer has not been made public. A government spokesman said they "are ready to consider all improvements or reforms as long as they do not impede this strong forward momentum of the court." But, he added, "It is our view that it would not be constructive, at this stage of the life of the ECCC, to renegotiate a re-allocation of roles and responsibilities of the two sides, or a re-location of particular units.... [We] should focus on how best to work within the current structure."

17 October 2007 Nuon Chea, Brother No. 2 in the Pol Pot regime, has now selected an international lawyer to represent him. Veteran Dutch attorney Michiel Pestman will help his Cambodian lawyer represent Nuon before the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia. Pestman has experience at the international tribunal of Sierra Leone and has also represented Bosnia and Herzegovina at the International Court of Justice for genocide. Pestman now needs to register with the Cambodian Bar Association in order to practice in the kingdom.

13 October 2007 The former head of the Tuol Sleng torture center, Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, has been arrested and detained at the Khmer Rouge tribunal headquarters in Phnom Penh.  Nuon Chea, Brother No. 2 after Pol Pot in the Khmer Rouge leadership, is also detained there. Three others have been indicted but their identities have not been made known and there has been no attempt to apprehend them.  Khieu Samphan is the former head of state for the Democratic Kampuchea regime and he suspects he is one of the indicted and has now engaged two lawyers to defend him.  One is French Lawyer Jacques Verges. The other, just recently called upon is Say Bory, who was the first president of the Cambodian Bar Association. He was first approached by Khieu Samphan in 2000, and when contacted again recently agreed to represent him.

11 October 2007 [1] The pre-trial judges in the Khmer Rouge tribunal have announced that the hearings on the detention of Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, will be open to the public.  Duch has been detained without charges since 1999, and some officials worry that his defense team could use that as a legal basis for his avoiding prosecution by the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia because the detention violates norms of international law. [2] Nuon Chea, Brother No. 2 in the Khmer Rouge leadership, has been reading many books on Buddhism since he was detained and brought to the tribunal holding facility, but he will not be allowed the freedom to attend the Pchum Ben ceremonies when millions of Cambodians go to the temples bearing offerings for their deceased ancestors.  In his cell, Nuon Chea is not even allowed a statue of Buddha or candles or incense--all important parts of the rituals--because of a fear of his using them to commit suicide.  The question of going to the pagoda did not arise for Duch because he has converted to Christianity.

10 October 2007 Nuon Chea, Brother No. 2 and the most senior Khmer Rouge leader still alive, is now imprisoned in the detention center at the tribunal site. His wife Ly Kimseng has now visited her husband for the first time and has pronounced herself satisfied with the arrangements. Earlier she had said he needed a thicker mattress and a western-style toilet and both of those were provided. She said her husband, 82, now is being well taken care of and that he exercises every day, sits in the sun, and reads books about Buddhism. Picture from ABCNews.com]

9 October 2007 The financial future of the Khmer Rouge tribunal is in no way assured at this point. After the allegations of kickbacks and mismanagement on the Cambodian side of the tribunal, there is fear that an imminent fund-raising campaign may be shunned by the donors. The court is a hybrid, one side Cambodian and one side United Nations. Donors are ready to contribute to the UN side but diplomats speak of a reluctance to contribute to the Cambodian-run sector. An audit by the UNDP which handles a good portion of the funds designated mostly for Cambodian staffers' salaries recommended dropping the issue of malfeasance since there was no conclusive evidence of kickbacks and anyway, the UNDP maintains they cannot investigate Cambodian staff. Some diplomats do not agree with that stance. The head of the New York-based Open Society Justice Initiative wrote: The ECCC needs to address two audiences: it must demonstrate to the Cambodian people that it is a credible judicial institution, and must show donors that it is worthy of their investment. The ECCC has taken several small steps to address the concerns about corrupt practices related to kickbacks of staff salaries. While helpful, much stronger and more direct steps to prevent this practice from occurring in the future should be taken.

9 October 2007 Thailand has had an extradition treaty with Cambodia since 2001, and officials there say it could be used if Khmer Rouge suspects would try to flee from Cambodia across the border to their neighbor to the west.  The Thai embassy has stated, however, that it does not expect that former Khmer Rouge leaders likely to be indicted will flee.  The former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary, one of those likely to be charged with crimes under the Khmer Rouge regime, was in Bangkok earlier this month for a heart check-up.  A political observer said the KR leaders seem to expect to be tried and that foreign governments would have little to gain from helping them.

8 October 2007 The Khmer Rouge tribunal has posted on its website a two-page form to be used by victims of the Khmer Rouge who wish to name possible defendants or who wish to participate in the trials or seek compensation. One human rights group described the form as a good first step but questioned who would help the illiterate people and those with little or no education to fill out the form. The director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia also noted that the form offers little in the way of reassurance to those filing their complaints that the information will be kept confidential. Another problem is that a Victims Unit of the court is planned and is supposed to be active within a short time, but it will provide only administrative assistance, not legal or financial aid. Rights advocates have noted that the perpetrators of the crimes are offered legal and financial assistance but not the victims of the crimes.

4 October 2007 The United Nations Development Fund has posted on its website a memo in which the UN auditor states that the allegations of kickbacks for obtaining and maintaining jobs at the Khmer Rouge tribunal pertain to Cambodian government personnel and so are outside the area of responsibility of the UNDP. This is in spite of the fact that the UNDP is the agency charged with administering the millions of dollars being used to pay the Cambodian government personnel. The memo also reports that the auditors found no conclusive proof that Cambodian staff had to kickback part of their salaries--reportedly about 30% of their pay--in exchange for their jobs. A spokesman for a human rights group said he regretted these conclusions and added: "What can we do if the political will is weak in the UNDP?"

3 October 2007 Although two critical assessments of practices at the Khmer Rouge tribunal recommended relatively major changes, court officials have said the present structures will stand although there will be new procedures implemented to prevent the sorts of abuses the reports alleged.  A 2003 agreement between the United Nations and the Cambodian government and a 2004 Cambodian law established the basic structure of the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia and are seen by some as preventing any major realignment of responsibilities and jobs within the tribunal. Such changes would require a high-level political renegotiation of the tribunal, according to some sources.

2 October 2007 On the same day as the Wall Street Journal published an editorial criticizing the UNDP for its lack of transparency and for failing to provide information about a controversial audit of hiring practices, the UN agency finally published on its website an edited copy of the audit report. There was a great deal of pressure on the agency to reveal the contents of the report because it is planning to begin a fund-raising campaign later in October. The report reported serious flaws in staffing decisions, noting that the highest-level ECCC Cambodian staff were receiving $2300 to $5000 a month, much higher than their counterparts in the private economy. Other ECCC staff were hired without having the proper qualifications or meeting the requirements for the jobs. The report said 18 of 29 employees did not meet their job qualifications. One staffer was hired for a position he did not apply for. The diplomatic community from the countries providing funding for the tribunal have not received an official copy of the audit report but a copy of the actual report has begun to circulate among top diplomats.

1 October 2007 Under a headline of "The UNDP Comes Clean--Sort of--on Tribunal," the Wall Street Journal again criticized the Khmer Rouge tribunal's response to an audit commissioned by the UNDP earlier this year. The report noted areas of serious concern about the administration of the KR tribunal, specifically inflated salaries and unjustified staff positions as well as alleged conflict of interest with the board overseeing the court operations. In its editorial, the WSJ noted the report of the audit has not been made public or even made available to the oversight board. Instead the UNDP offered a one-page press release. Click here for a second new article today.

28 September 2007 The lawyers who represent Kaing Guek Eav (also known as Duch), the commander of the Tuol Sleng torture center during the Pol Pot era, have said they are going to petition the court for the release of their client and also compensation for his detention. They claim that Duch was charged by the new tribunal and put into its custody simply to extend his detention beyond the three-year legal limit and not because any new information or new charges were laid against him. They further argue that for 20 years after the expulsion of the Khmer Rouge from Phnom Penh, Duch lived in Cambodia and never tried to flee so that he should not now be seen as one who would try to escape the country. They argue that at most, if he must be controlled, it should be with a bail order or with house arrest.

27 September 2007 • The lawyer who will defend one of the top officials in the Khmer Rouge regime is himself a victim of their crimes. Son Arun, representing Nuon Chea, lost his sister and a brother and 30 other members of his extended family to the KR. He himself fled Cambodia after the fall of Phnom Penh in 1975 and joined up with a resistance group in Thailand for a few months before going to the United States where he remained until 1989. • Five people have been indicted for crimes against humanity by the KR tribunal but only two have been named and arrested. There is speculation that one of the other three is Ieng Sary, the former Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister who now lives in Phnom Penh. He was convicted by a show trial in 1979 and then pardoned by the king in 1996, but the ECCC may disregard the pardon because the tribunal in 1976 which convicted him of genocide in absentia was itself illegal and not according to international standards of law. • The international deputy director of administration for the UN Khmer Rouge tribunal is retiring and the announcement for her replacement has been posted on the UN website. Michelle Lee, who has worked for the UN for more than 30 years, will reach mandatory retirement age in mid 2008. A recent confidential report on the administration of the tribunal found that there is a great deal of frustration with the administration leadership, enough that there is fear that crucial staff would resign.

26 September 2007 In February, the Open Society Justice Initiative, a US-based group raised questions about apparent improprieties in the hiring of Cambodian staff at the KR tribunal, alleging that some staff had to kickback money to get and hold their jobs. Under a great deal of international pressure, the ECCC and the UN Development Fund have announced steps they are taking to insure that tribunal staff are hired in an honest and transparent way. One of the biggest critics of the UN and the tribunal has been the Wall Street Journal which had two really strong editorials. Here is an excerpt from one editorial: The transgressions were so egregious that the auditors said this: If the Cambodian side does not agree to the essential measures that are...necessary to ensure the integrity and success of the project, then serious considerations should be give to withdrawing from participation in the project altogether." And: "All the recruitments of staff made by the ECCC to-date [sic] should be nullified and a new recruitment exercise launched." Translation: The ECCC's hiring practices, overseen by the UNDP, are so flawed that the UNDP should consider starting from scratch. That's a strong finding, given that it took a decade to put the war-crimes tribunal together in the first place--and that this same court is the one that's supposed to administer justice for the more than one million Cambodians slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s.

25 September 2007 In May, 2007, the United Nations asked two independent experts to determine the readiness of the court to begin proceedings against former Khmer Rouge leaders accused of crimes against humanity. The report was the result of concerns from international judges and the prosecutor and principal defender of the tribunal. The report of the two experts said that the court is not ready and that there are serious concerns that need to be addressed, concerns about court management and leadership and even the structure of the court which is divided into a UN side and a Cambodian side. The report said that the bifurcated nature of the tribunal "serves only to constantly hinder, frequently confuse and certainly frustrate the efforts of a number of staff on both sides of the operation." The examiners also found enough frustration among international staff that they feared these staff might decide to withdraw from the tribunal. A more concrete problem is the lack of actual physical space for the hearings which are supposed to be open to the public. The translation of enormous numbers of court documents is also a problem. And then there are the continuing concerns about the allegations that Cambodian staff often must make kickbacks to their superiors in order to get and maintain their tribunal jobs.

24 September 2007 The Khmer Rouge tribunal makes provisions for the health and medical treatment of those it has charged and will try for crimes against humanity. The tribunal has five doctors, four nurses, an infirmary, and an ambulance on site to treat those being held there, and Calmette Hospital in Phnom Penh is available for in-patient care.  A coalition of human rights groups, however, has called on the courts to insure both quality medical care and transparency about those services. Ta Mok, another KR official, died in detention in 2006. Supposedly his death was from natural causes but some former KR cadres and his family have raised suspicions about his death. It has been impossible to address those suspicions because there was no autopsy after his death.

24 September 2007 The Khmer Rouge tribunal, officially known as the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia, has a unique structure that is a hybrid of elements from other models of international courts. Basically the structure results from the Cambodian government's insistence on a predominant role and influence for Cambodian judicial personnel. Unfortunately the United Nations agreed to this. Here is an excerpt, first published in the Wall Street Journal, from an opinion piece by John Hall, an associate professor of law and the director of the Center for Global Trade and Development. The tribunal was structurally flawed from its inception. After nearly a decade of acrimonious negotiations, the UN and the Cambodian government agreed to a "hybrid" structure that combines international and Cambodian law, and employs a mix of Cambodian and international judges, lawyers and staff. In a sharp contrast to the Sierra Leone and East Timor trials, the UN agreed to let Cambodian judges play a decisive and indeed dominant role. Every case at the tribunal will be decided by judges, not juries--and the trial and appellate chambers all have a majority of Cambodian rather than internal judges. That was a big bet on a notoriously corrupt, inefficient and poorly administered judicial system. Cambodian judges must pay careful attention to the wishes of their political superiors. Few would willingly antagonize the ruling political party or the prime minister, and this climate of tacit control undermines the tribunal by limiting the independence of the Cambodian judges. Unsurprisingly, serious problems are now popping up.

22 September 2007 The ECCC, the Khmer Rouge tribunal, has made public the court order requiring that Nuon Chea, arrested earlier in the week, be placed in detention ahead of his trial. Nuon was known as "Brother Number 2" in the Khmer Rouge era and was a member of most senior bodies that set the policy for the KR regime. He is now the oldest living Khmer Rouge senior leader. According to the court order, Nuon Chea denies the charges lodged against him.

21 September 2007 Ung Bunthan wrote a Letter to the Editor of The Cambodia Daily reflecting on the different situations of those killed by the Khmer Rouge and of the Khmer Rouge leaders now awaiting prosecution for those crimes. He notes that these leaders will not experience the terror and suffering of their victims. He then speaks of the victims in this excerpt from his letter: From now on, I will burn more incense sticks and inform my father, brothers, cousins, nephews, nieces, and all the rest of the victims who died during Pol Pot's time not to be upset. This is because Cambodia is now a democracy where due process is followed under the standards of the existing Khmer Rouge tribunal laws that are backed by UN; and the country has been party to the International Convention Against Torture since 1992.... Moreover, I will invite their released spirits to visit Brother No 2 at the tribunal detention center when the gates of Hell open during the upcoming Pchum Ben festival." Click here for another new article today.

21 September 2007 • Nuon Chea, the recently arrested second in command of the Khmer Rouge leadership, has asked Cambodian lawyer Sun Arun to defend him from charges of crimes against humanity deriving from his time as Brother Number 2 in the Pol Pot regime. At first Nuon had said no lawyer could understand the Khmer Rouge so he needed to defend himself, but court officials encouraged him to get outside counsel. Sun said that his client will also retain the services of one of the international lawyers. • One of Sun Arun's first official acts as lawyer for Nuon Chea was to ask for a western-style sit-down toilet to replace the squat toilet in his cell. Nuon's wife said her husband's legs are stiff with age, making it difficult for him to squat.

20 September 2007 Yesterday "Brother No 2," Nuon Chea, the most senior Khmer Rouge leader still surviving, was arrested at his home in northwestern Cambodia where he had been living freely. He was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. About 70 police surrounded his house early in the morning but there was no resistance or trouble. The police searched his house and took away some journals, books, cassette tapes, and photo albums before they drove Nuon Chea to a helicopter which flew him to Phnom Penh. This was the first new arrest made by the court since it began its work more than a year ago, and it came at a time when there is increasing pressure for the tribunal to be seen to be carrying out its mandate after facing repeated delays, cost overruns, and other problems.

18 September 2007 One of the many members of the Cambodian royal family, Prince Sisowath Thomico, has sent a letter to the Prime Minister, Hun Sen, asking that the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia--the Khmer Rouge tribunal--be stopped. The prince, formerly a secretary to the retired king, is now an advisor to the president of one of the political parties. His request is based on his belief "that this ECCC will really cause political chaos, inevitably making our country lose peace and stability in the future." This letter seems to have been triggered by the request of a somewhat obscure US-based group that the retired king be called to testify about his involvement with the Khmer Rouge. Prince Thomico apparently felt that he should add his opinion to that controversy and to the general question of the efficacy of the KR tribunal and its ability to bring healing and reconciliation to the people who were victims of the Khmer Rouge.

17 September 2007 Youk Chhang is the director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an institution that has been methodically collecting and cataloging information on the Pol Pot regime for years. His own family lost members to the Khmer Rouge. In an opinion piece in The Cambodia Daily he speaks of different groups in what he calls "the larger Cambodian family, both at home and abroad." He notes that they are divided in their support of and reaction to the KR tribunal. In the following excerpt, he speaks of "two camps of survivors in Cambodia": The first is survivors who support the tribunal. Most of them have never been out of the country and have decided that at least some of their future lies with the ruling CPP, who they see as liberating Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge and in the 1990s fighting to bring the guerrillas to heel when the international community was ignoring Cambodia.... This group distrusts the international community, and finds the UN at least partly at fault for the country's culture of impunity. The second camp contains many people who returned from the Thai border camps in the 1990s. They are generally opposed to the government, and believe that national problems like poverty and corruption are linked directly to the CPP. They feel the trials will only serve to polish the ruling party's image. They are calling for more international control of the proceedings.

17 September 2007 The imminent start of prosecution of former high-ranking Khmer Rouge leadership has created a great deal of international media interest and focused the attention of human rights advocates. But many Cambodians living overseas have trouble revisiting the experiences of the Pol Pot era. For some, the pain is too personal as they recall their parents, brothers and sisters, and other family members who were executed or starved to death. It is hard for them to reflect back on those days and talk about them. As one KR refugee, now settled in the United States, put it: "Cambodians don't get excited about it because they'll have to relive it. We're not celebrating to find out who is responsible for our displacement." Another factor in their lack of enthusiasm for the tribunal is the time that has elapsed. Unlike the South African and Rwandan reconciliation courts which took place soon after the atrocities the people suffered, for the Cambodians it has now been thirty years since the start of the Khmer Rouge regime. Another factor for 99% of the Cambodians in the United States is that they themselves faced death from starvation, and 90% saw friends and family die without any formal funerals. There were no ceremonies and there are no public memorials to help the victims as there are for the families of those killed on 9/11.

17 September 2007 One of the concerns about the Khmer Rouge tribunal is informing the general public of their right to participate and observe and also keeping them aware of the progress of the trials once they start. The Documentation Center of Cambodia and the School of Law at Northwestern University in the United States are working together to set up a website which will offer expert commentary, news of the tribunal, and historical information. It will also have webcasts of the tribunal courtroom activities.  The tribunal itself will also offer DVDs of trial proceedings to the press, NGOs, and the diplomatic community. The website URL is: http://www.cambodiatribunal.org .

11 September 2007 The Royal Palace, seeming to indicate real irritation on the part of retired King Sihanouk that the UN ECCC staff did not attend a discussion session the king had set up last weekend, further publicized the fact that the meeting did not happen.  The palace sent out two photos of the proposed conference table with empty chairs around it, and also a copy of the letter from the Deputy Director of Administration of the courts declining the king's offer. The king had made handwritten comments in the margin of the letter. The UN court spokesman again emphasized that the judges of the tribunal must follow established procedural rules when dealing with people who could be potential witnesses for the court and that the offer of the king did not follow the procedural requirements.

10 September 2007 His Majesty the King Father has opened these golden gates with sincerity and honorability for the ECCC UN to show up, but they have chosen to close the door. That is how the Cambodian royal palace spokesman described the non-attendance of UN Khmer Rouge tribunal staff at a discussion opportunity set up by the retired King Sihanouk.  The king had publicized that the discussions, about his relationship with the Khmer Rouge, would be broadcast in all the provinces of the country, and on Saturday, the proposed day of the discussion, and on Sunday, state TV broadcast pictures of the empty conference tables. Actually the UN had responded formally to the king to let him know that no one would attend the discussions, so everyone knew that there would be no UN presence at the event.  The UN letter of response had said that the UN public affairs officer, as a spokesman, could not perform "court functions" and was not authorized to participate in the meetings with the king. The letter also said that only the courts could determine who will be a witness and the role of the witnesses. In a response the Cambodia Daily described as "frosty," the king declared: "I have already said everything as a 'witness.' I have nothing to add. Consequently I shall have nothing more to say to these judges."

7 September 2007 On 30 August 2007, the retired King Sihanouk invited UN staff from the KR tribunal to meet with him on 8 September for three hours in a filmed discussion about his experiences during the Khmer Rouge period. He had said on his website that the meeting would take the place of any future testimony by himself. But then two days ago he released a statement about the children and grandchildren he had lost to the Khmer Rouge and said that he had nothing further to add to his previous public statements. Today the KR tribunal staff delivered a letter to the royal palace in response to the king's invitation. The contents of the letter were not revealed but the UN spokesman said that he was not aware of any UN staffers who would be attending the session with the king.

5 September 2007 On 29 August, Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, was formally arrested and charged with crimes against humanity after eight years of imprisonment without being charged. Khmer Rouge tribunal officials fear that this imprisonment, which violated international standards, could be used by his defense team who have already filed an appeal against his official detention and transfer to the tribunal prison. Officially he is now in pre-trial detention and to insure compliance with the law now, a hearing on his illegal detention is being arranged quickly. Although a hearing date has not yet been set, the public have been given thirty days to submit their opinions or to file a "friend of the court" application to be part of the trial. The tribunal has also decided to make the Duch hearings public although they were not required to do so.

31 August 2007 Because the failure to agree on procedural rules has threatened to delay or even to block the establishment of a functioning Khmer Rouge tribunal, that issue has received a great deal of attention. At the same time, the situation of the victims of the Khmer Rouge has been greatly neglected. One consideration is their participation in the trial process. They have been invited both to identify themselves as victims and name those who abused them and to participate as a civil party in the court proceedings. Both of those actions must precede the start of a trial, however, and there has been little publicity, encouragement, and support for people to come forward to participate in the judicial process. Another consideration is the type of reparations that might be available to the victims of the Pol Pot regime. The rules of the court specifically exclude any monetary payments to individuals, instead calling for "collective and moral reparations." Little discussion has centered on this issue. Collective and moral reparations could be symbolic or material. They could include rehabilitation in the form of medical, counseling, legal, and social services. They could also take the form of some memorial to all those who suffered. The Documentation Center of Cambodia has begun working with Cambodian people to see if they can develop some tangible form of collective reparations for the country.

31 August 2007 In a statement posted on his website, the retired King Norodom Sihanouk invited the UN staff of the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia to meet with him at the royal palace from 9:00 AM to noon on Saturday, 8 September.   The purpose of the meeting would be to discuss "The Khmer Rouge and Norodom Sihanouk Affair" with him and his wife.  The king has made almost contradictory declarations about his willingness to be part of the KR tribunal process. Earlier he had professed his wish to testify at the tribunal.  But now in this communique, he says: The ECCC's UN may accept or not accept this date. If the ECCC's UN does not accept this date and these hours (9 AM to noon), I do not accept and shall no longer accept to see nor speak to, nor correspond with the ECCC's UN.... After 'this,' there will no longer be for me any 'necessity' whatsoever to see or to appear before the ECCC's UN. The UN Public Affairs Officer said he was aware of the website statement but had not received any official letter so he had no comment.

30 August 2007 Millions of Cambodian people suffered under the Khmer Rouge but so far only ten of them have come forward to participate in the tribunal as victims or as a civil party to one of the trials. Prosecutors and victim advocates say that it is hard logistically and emotionally for ordinary people to make themselves heard. Officially the tribunal urges anyone who wishes to name someone for prosecution or to participate in the proceedings to approach the tribunal by writing, calling, or going directly to the ECCC headquarters. The slow and small response is attributed to many factors, especially, according to the Cambodia Daily, inadequate public awareness and outreach to victims; the court's remote location outside of Phnom Penh; the prolonged debate over procedural rules; lingering fear; and the numbing passage of time.

29 August 2007 In early August, Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, was formally charged with crimes against humanity for his role as head of the Tuol Sleng torture center in Phnom Penh. Now his lawyers have given notice that they will appeal his detention and custody by the court. Duch was arrested by the government in May, 1999 and has been held without charges since then. Now that he is in the custody of the court, it is feared that his defense team will be able to use his prolonged illegal detention as grounds for a legal challenge.  However, the investigating judges have so far maintained that any procedural abuse occurred before the tribunal even existed, and that the gravity of his crimes outweighs the issues of abuse of detention procedures.

27 August 2007 A US-based NGO called the Cambodian Action Committee for Justice and Equity has called for the King Father (King Sihanouk, who retired in November, 2005) to have his immunity lifted by the National Assembly so that his links with the Khmer Rouge can be fully investigated. For a short time, King Sihanouk was the symbolic head of state for the KR's Democratic Kampuchea before he was then placed under house arrest in his palace for the duration of their rule. Today the government issued a statement saying that the retired monarch will retain the "royal privileges and full immunity" he enjoyed when he was reigning. Almost everyone agrees with that decision, even groups generally at odds on most issues. Some cite the importance of maintaining the integrity of the constitution which says the king is non-political and say that he should distance himself from any proceedings of the ECCC.

24 August The UN became involved in the controversy over the appointment of a Co-Investigating Judge of the Khmer Rouge tribunal to be president of the Appeals Court, saying that the move is unconstitutional. The special representative from the UN for human rights in Cambodia and the special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers made a joint statement saying that the appointment is another sign of the compromised nature of Cambodia's judiciary and legal system. According to Cambodian law, the Supreme Council of the Magistracy, which is presided over by the king, must make all judicial appointments, transfers, and disciplinary actions. But before the appointment of the new president of the Appeals Court, the two representatives note that there was no meeting of the Supreme Council and that "the replacement of the Appeal Court President was done at the request of the executive branch of the government." One of the problems with the Cambodian legal system is the constant interference of the executive branch of government with judicial process.

22 August 2007 Nic Dunlop is a photographer and author from the UK who searched for and found Duch, the Khmer Rouge leader in charge of the Tuol Sleng torture center. Duch was subsequently arrested and has been held in detention for the past eight years. Here is an excerpt from a commentary Dunlop submitted to the Cambodia Daily newspaper: "...Yet Cambodia remains a society plagued by violence. A trial could help establish an understanding of the importance of due process of law to replace the current cycle of impunity and revenge. It is also important for people to see that leaders are not immune from prosecution. Many believe that this lack of accountability is one of the most enduring legacies of Khmer Rouge rule. To counter the violence, the details of the process must be made accessible to a wide audience. With the tribunal, a completely alien and complex system of justice is being introduced to a largely uneducated population. What will people think when only a few old men whom some may never have heard of go on trial in Phnom Penh, but the man who killed their relatives, living in the same village, literally gets away with murder? As the head of Duch's defense team told me, 'There will be many people who will be disappointed.' "

15 August 2007 The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia are set up with unusual provisions that give unprecedented access to the court proceedings to the victims of the crimes being tried.  But victim participation by filing claims against the Khmer Rouge and by registering as civil parties to the court has been almost non-existent because of the location of the court (on the outskirts of Phnom Penh), the high-security at the court buildings, and the lack of awareness of the tribunal and lack of information about how to put forth claims. The original agreement between the UN and the government of Cambodia didn't even mention a Victims' Unit.  As an after thought, it was later written into the internal rules of the court but there is no funding for the unit.  On the other hand, $4.8 million has been allocated for lawyers for indigent defendants.  One of the foreign court lawyers commented: "How can the ECCC administration explain to victims that they will be treated on less favorable terms than former Khmer Rouge?"

14 August 2007 François Bizot is the only foreigner imprisoned by the Khmer Rouge to survive. A Frenchman, he was in Cambodia to research Buddhism and was captured by the Khmer Rouge in 1971 and detained in a prison on charges of being a CIA agent. He developed a strange relationship with Duch, the KR cadre who later became head of the Tuol Sleng torture center, and eventually it was Duch who convince the KR leadership that he was innocent. Bizot was released and was later expelled from the country with the other foreigners in 1975. The Cambodia Daily published an article about him and his recollections of his captivity and his captor Duch. Some excerpts: "I think he is not an uncommon man," Bizot, 67, said of Duch, the former head of the notorious S21 prison in Phnom Penh who was charged in July crimes against humanity. "We are all capable of becoming uncommon men, if to become an uncommon man one must kill many people." Bizot, the French ethnographer who recorded his 1971 detention by Duch in a 2000 memoir entitled 'The Gate,' said his captor's pending trial was the occasion to confront both Duch's monstrosity and his banality. "The shock of my detention was to have crossed paths with a killer and met a man.... It's a shock from which I have certainly not recovered. I would have preferred to remain in the sort of assurance that killers, bastards, are people very different from you and me.... I would have preferred that." Photo from the Pen America Center

14 August 2007 Concern about the replacement of the president of the Cambodian appeals court intensified today. Ly Vuochleng is accused of accepting bribes to free two men charged in a human trafficking case involving 85 women and girls. The concern is over the man appointed to replace her, You Bunleng, one of the co-investigating judges of the KR tribunal.  To prevent delays in the tribunal's work, its staff was supposed to be protected from unplanned changes.  As the Cambodia Daily put it: The agreements that set up the ECCC contained explicit provisions to ensure the tenure of judges. The 2003 agreement between the UN and the Cambodian government states that "co-investigating judges shall be appointed for the duration of the proceedings."  The 2004 law on the establishment of the ECCC similarly specifies: "Each Investigating Judge shall be appointed for the period of the investigation."

13 August 2007 Just because the Khmer Rouge tribunal has finally charged the first person with crimes from the Pol Pot era doesn't mean everything is looking up. Rather recent events just further illustrate how decrepit (corrupt?) is the Cambodian legal system. Last week the co-investigating judge of the tribunal, You Bunleng, was appointed as president of the Appeals Court under a royal decree.  He is to replace Ly Vuochleng who was dismissed because she was implicated in a bribery and corruption scandal involving a human trafficking case. (This is the president of the Appeals Court, don't forget.) You Bunleng has not decided if he will step down from his tribunal position, but indicated he would because "These are two big jobs. I cannot do two jobs at the same time."  Rights groups and supporters of the tribunal fear You's departure would cause a further slowdown in the work of the special KR courts. Ly Vuochleng is named by a government investigation which implicated that she accepted bribes to release men involved with a human trafficking case in which 83 women and girls, seized in a raid on a hotel, were then abducted from a safe house by men in government uniform.  And there's more.  The man set to replace You Bunleng, Thong Ol has been criticized by rights groups because first he acquitted the military officer who led an attack on a train in 1994 killing 13 Cambodian passengers and 3 Western backpackers; and then, in another notorious case, he put into pre-trial detention an independent radio journalist for allegedly defaming the prime minister.  And these are the people at the TOP of the judicial system, not low-level underlings.

10 August 2007 Kaing Guek Eav, known more popularly as Duch, the head of the Tuol Sleng torture center, was formally charged last week for atrocities of the Khmer Rouge era.  Now observers are calling for many more former Khmer Rouge leaders to be indicted and prosecuted.  Some comments from a Cambodia Daily article (10 August 2007): [The] director of the Center for Social Development, argued that the court must prosecute more people to justify its $56 million price tag.  "The more people in the dock, the greater the likelihood that a clear accounting of history will be had.... There is no legal limit on the number of individuals the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia may prosecute, but the court is legally restricted to trying th senior leaders and those most responsible for certain grievous crimes committed between April 17, 1975 and January 6, 1979.

9 August 2007 The admittance of French attorney François Roux as the first foreign member of the Cambodian Bar Association may indicate a change in the till-now tumultuous relationship between the international jurists connected with the Khmer Rouge tribunal and their Cambodian counterparts. The bar had up to a month to consider Roux' application but actually processed it only one day after receiving it. This appears to be quite a reversal in tactics for the bar which has seemed to regularly impede and obstruct the preparatory work of the tribunal. There are some who would take his words with a grain of salt, but the bar Secretary-General commented: "This means the Bar Association of the Kingdom of Cambodia tries its best to participate in the ECCC process. We have never had any interest in delaying the process." The Deputy Defender of the tribunal says of the combination of Roux and his Cambodian counterpart: "I think it's going to be a great team. We've got one of the most experienced Cambodian lawyers, Kar Savuth, working alongside one of the most experienced international lawyers, François Roux. It's good for the ECCC in general, and...for the defense in particular." Let's hope so.

8 August 2007 The first foreign lawyer to be admitted to the Cambodian Bar Association in order to serve as a defense lawyer in the Khmer Rouge trials was sworn in this morning. He is Frenchman François Roux who now has full rights to appear before the Extraordinary Chambers of the Cambodian Courts, the unwieldy name given to the Khmer Rouge tribunals. His application was approved in just three days although the bar association had said it would take a month. Someone put on the pressure. Foreign attorneys can be paid up to $11,500 a month for their services and can claim up to an additional 40% to cover professional costs such as setting up an office here. The Cambodian staff members of the tribunal typically earn about one half of their foreign counterparts.

3 August 2007 Kaing Khek Iev, or Duch, charged with crimes against humanity for overseeing the gruesome executions of 14,000 people in the Tuol Sleng torture center, has requested the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia to pay for his defense attorneys. He has chosen a Cambodian lawyer and a French lawyer, François Roux. Roux is a high-profile attorney who participated in the defenses of those charged in the Rwanda genocides and of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person convicted of September 11th involvement. After his selection, he filed an application with the Cambodian Bar Association to be certified to work in Cambodia.

2 August 2007 In the provisional detention order allowing the transfer of Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, to custody of the Khmer Rouge tribunal, Duch admitted that he was the head of the notorious Tuol Sleng genocide center where 14,000 people were tortured before their execution. He also said that he is ready to reveal the crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge. However, some legal experts worry that Duch's prosecution may be in jeopardy. In that same document, his lawyer argues that his pre-trial detention of eight years violates both Cambodian law and international standards. The co-investigating judges who studied the detention order wrote: "The issue may be phrased in these terms. Does the more than eight-year detention of the charged person in separate proceedings before another jurisdiction taint the present proceedings? Or rather, is such detention so excessive and prejudicial to the rights of the defense as to affect the very ability to bring this case with the jurisdiction of the Extraordinary Chambers?" A legal adviser said that the judges were unlikely to authorize the release of Duch. "If the charges seem credible, the court may be persuaded that it is better to go forward and see if Duch is guilty and assign any remedies, rather than risk the greater harm of letting a person accused of the most serious crimes go free. If Duch is let off on a technicality, it will seriously undermine the public credibility of the court, which is a fact that the judges will be well aware of."

1 August 2007 It has been a long time in coming, but Kaing Khek Iev (better known by his nom de guerre of Duch) was charged with crimes against humanity and detained at the new prison unit at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. He had been held, without charges, at Phnom Penh's Military Prison since 1999 after his chance disclosure by a journalist. Now he is formally charged, the first of five suspects identified by the tribunal's prosecutors and the first to be incarcerated at the new prison building on the grounds of the genocide tribunal. Duch is the former chief of the Tuol Sleng torture prison who oversaw the detention, torture, and execution of the 14,000 people who were its victims.

5 June 2007 The Cambodian and international judges of the Khmer Rouge tribunal began their second attempt to set the procedural rules for the tribunal which would allow the trials to actually begin after more than a year of delay. Earlier attempts to approve the rules failed when the Cambodian Bar Association decided to levy what were called "exorbitant" fees for foreign defense lawyers. Almost everyone involved agrees that this is probably the last chance for the tribunal. If the rules are not approved by the end of this eight-day session, the international judges will probably remove themselves from the process and the whole tribunal will collapse. Several of those involved expressed optimism that this time would be successful although others maintained a cautious stance. The head of a major rights group said: "I think the rules will be adopted on 13 June. If the rules are not adopted, and that is a big 'if,' it will be because of a lack of political will."

14 May 2007 Last week the villagers of Chhuk District in Kampot province began to repair the physical, emotional, and spiritual chaos created by hundreds of villagers who dug up several acres of farmland to recover gold and valuables after some of them found a pair of gold earrings when Vietnamese officials were excavating to recover the remains of their soldiers lost in Cambodia. The area was a mass gravesite for Khmer Rouge victims killed by overwork or trucked in to be massacred. In addition to filling in the massive holes dug, the owner of the land and his wife gathered up the bones of the doubly unfortunate victims and awaited a Buddhist ceremony to restore peace to their spirits. Approximately 1000 victims are believed to be buried at the site.

10 May 2007 Auditors from Candide Consulting, an accounting firm based in Kuala Lumpur, have finished their audit of suspect hiring practices at the Khmer Rouge tribunal and have delivered a preliminary report to officials from the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Court administrators are now studying the report and will have an opportunity to comment on the findings. The audit was requested by the UNDP which is overseeing the use of $6 million in funds contributed to the Cambodian side of the court.

8 May 2007 Abused Even in Death Teams of Vietnamese officials conduct frequent searches in Cambodia for the bodies of Vietnamese soldiers killed and left here during the years of fighting with the Americans and with the Khmer Rouge. Recently they unearthed three bodies in a field in Kampot province. They were not Vietnamese remains, however, and were covered up again with dirt, but not before a bystander noticed gold earrings on one body. When the Vietnamese searchers left, he dug up the remains and removed the earrings and sold them for rice. When the word of his find spread, hundreds of villagers began digging in the field, unearthing a mass grave of people killed by the Khmer Rouge while building a dam in the area. The masses of diggers could not be controlled and the search continued for four days, with only a ring being found. After being killed by the Khmer Rouge, the poor people in the ground found themselves abused again.

4 May 2007 The United Nations Development Program is responsible for overseeing the use of $6 million donated to the Cambodian side of the court, and they have regularly scheduled audits to keep track of the money. But an audit of the current situation was postponed at the end of April because a previous audit of hiring practices by the court has not been finished. A Malaysian-based company has already visited Cambodia twice earlier this year to look into allegations of shady hiring practices. It is not known when their work will be finished, but in the meanwhile the UNDP audit must wait.

1 May 2007 The international judges of the Khmer Rouge tribunal, after meeting over the weekend, have indicated they welcome the Cambodian Bar Association's reducing of fees for foreign defense lawyers from $4,900 to $500. The speculated that the process for approving crucial court procedural rules could now continue and be concluded at the end of May. It seems a factor in the bar association's back down--strenuously denied by the bar spokesman--was intense diplomatic pressure on the Cambodian lawyers from Canada, Australia, Germany and especially Japan.

28 April 2007 From the BBC news (radio) came an announcement today that the "Cambodian government" had "backed down" in its row with the international judges about fees to be charged foreign defense lawyers. Here is part of what was said on the BBC website: Trials for the former leaders of the Khmer Rouge have moved a step closer. Cambodia's Bar Association has dropped a demand that foreign lawyers taking part in the process should pay thousands of dollars in fees. It was the main sticking point which had prevented local and UN-appointed legal officials agreeing on the ground rules for the trials. After almost a year of wrangling, the way is nearly clear for the special courts to start work in earnest. It's interesting that the BBC reported that the "government" backed down. Ostensibly the dispute was between the international jurists and the Cambodian Bar Association. The BBC report may be closer to the truth, though, since many people are of the opinion that the Cambodian government is in no hurry to see the beginning of the Khmer Rouge tribunal.

25 April 2007 Most Cambodian school children know very little about the Khmer Rouge era because it has not been taught in schools. There have been few texts except for the histories written mostly by foreigners. But now the Documentation Center of Cambodia has produced an 11-chapter textbook that has received high praise from outside historians and Western scholars. The government has not approved it for use as a history textbook in Cambodian schools, however. Philip Short, an historian who wrote one of the most acclaimed biographies of Pol Pot, described the book as "by far the best attempt I've seen by any Cambodian researcher to give a balanced picture of the Khmer Rouge years. It's very hard to fault it on any substantive historical issue." That is exactly what government officials have tried to do, though, fault it for all sorts of alleged mistakes and seek to politicize it in favor of the ruling CPP party. Philip Short noted that the failure to fully approve the textbook must be a matter of politics. "This is now Cambodia's problem. As long as former Khmer Rouge remain at the apex of leadership, it is hard to see why the government should allow the country's history to be taught objectively. The corollary is also true: Were Hun Sen and his colleagues to permit an honest appraisal of the past, it would be the best proof that they have finally broken with that past and moved out from under the shadow of the Khmer Rouge origins," he wrote. But the present government is not yet ready for that honest and objectivity.

24 April 2007 The Open Society Institute is a New York-based foundation founded by international financier George Soros. It is the parent group of the Open Society Justice Initiative, an NGO that has been criticized and blacklisted by the Cambodian government because, in its watchdog role, it alleged corruption in hiring practices at the Khmer Rouge tribunal in February. Now OSI is planning to give $60,000 to sponsor a conference for prosecutors from international criminal tribunals. This would be the fourth of such conferences, following others in Tanzania, The Hague, and Sierra Leone. The goal of the conference is for prosecutors in the Khmer Rouge tribunal to learn from the practices and experiences of their counterparts in other tribunals.

23 April 2007 The impasse continues over high fees the Cambodian Bar Association wants to charge international lawyers to serve as defense counsel at the ECCC, the Khmer Rouge tribunals. The foreign lawyers claim that the biggest issue is not the amount itself--although it is more than ten times higher than fees charged international lawyers in other international tribunals. They say it is the fact that higher fees limiting the number of foreign judges participating would also limit defendants' rights to choose their counsel and could be grounds for appeal. The Canadian and Australian embassies have confirmed meeting with the bar association without much progress, and now the Japanese embassy has become involved. The director of the Center for Social Development noted that such involvement might create future problems. She noted "If an external actor decides to step in, it resolves the fees issue but it doesn't resolve the larger question of the integrity of this process. It is rewarding less-than-stellar behavior" on the part of the bar association.

18 April 2007 April 17th is a perplexing day in Cambodia. On this day every year, the Sam Rainsy Party commemorates the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge and the beginning of the long and deadly darkness that followed. The Cambodian People's Party, on the other hand, until recently celebrated April 17th as "liberation day," the day Cambodian troops (the Khmer Rouge) defeated the US-backed Lon Nol government. Many of the CPP leaders were part of the ultra-nationalist Khmer Rouge who had been fighting to get rid of first the French and then the Americans who were in Cambodia as part of the Vietnam War (called the "American War" here in Cambodia). Because of the link between the CPP and Khmer Rouge, there has been a reluctance on the part of the present CPP government to pursue the rapid implementation of the KR trials, and this was Sam Rainsy's theme this year, excoriating the government for the lack of progress in getting the tribunal established. On this day the Sam Rainsy Party mourns those killed during the Khmer Rouge regime. Previously the CPP celebrated this day as a day of victory over imperialism, but because they were part of the Khmer Rouge they are in an ambiguous position because of the genocide that followed. Now they say that on April 17th Cambodia was liberated, but then on May 20th Pol Pot and his clique took over and changed the movement.

9 April 2007 At the end of a four-day visit to Cambodia in which he met with Prime Minister Hun Sen, a senior US diplomat, Eric John, the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, said that the continuing dispute over fees being demanded of foreign defense lawyers at the Khmer Rouge trials should not stand in the way of justice. He urged officials to work through the disagreement, noting: "The Khmer Rouge tribunal really offers an opportunity for Cambodia to show to the international community how far it's advanced, and it would be a shame not to be able to show how far it's advanced by letting this get hung up on what is a relatively down-in-the-weeds monetary issue."

10 April 2007 The Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia sometimes seem to have little to do with justice and the investigation and prosecution of those charged with heinous crimes committed during the Pol Pot era. The Cambodian Bar Association has been demanding exorbitant fees for foreign lawyers to serve as defense counsel for those to be tried by the tribunal. (How will charging large fees help the legal process? Who is going to benefit from the large fees?) Now the bar association is demanding that Cambodian lawyers receive the same pay as the foreign lawyers even though a memorandum of understanding was signed between the Cambodian government and the international jurists which set the local attorneys' salary rate at 50% of the rate of their foreign counterparts. And even though the local lawyers have no comparable standard of training or experience. What are the Cambodian lawyers after: justice? the best defense for those accused? money?

6 April 2007 Adhoc is a Cambodia rights group, and they have announced a series of initiatives. The first is setting up a network throughout the country to provide information, legal and psychological counseling, and victim and witness protection for people connected to the Khmer Rouge tribunal. Their second activity is training for Adhoc and government officials to help them recognize crimes as they have been defined and are prosecuted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Their third project involves lobbying the Cambodian government to reject a treat signed with the United States in 2003 which promised that Cambodia would not extradite U.S. citizens to the International Criminal Court. Adhoc opposes the treaty because it puts U.S. citizens beyond the jurisdiction of the ECCC.

6 April 2007 In the latest round of the quarrel between the international judges and the Cambodian judges of the ECCC about what the international set call "exorbitant fees" levied against them, the Cambodian judges have said that they will not participate in the tribunal if the Cambodian Bar Association is excluded from the court's administration. According to an article in The Cambodia Daily: "If [the international judges] make the rules excluding the Bar Association, all Cambodian judges will not participate with them," ECCC Supreme Court Chamber President Kong Srim said.... Excluding the bar could be unlawful, he said. "I don't dare do anything illegal," he added. The Canadian ambassador met with Bar president Ky Tech to seek a reduction of the proposed fees, telling him that donors to the ECCC tended to side with the international judges. According to reports, senior defense lawyers at the tribunal could be paid at the UN's "Professional Grade 5" with starting salaries between $73,000 and $79,000.

5 April 2007 In the on-going struggle between the international judges for the KR tribunal and the Cambodian Bar Association over the "exorbitant" fees the Bar wants to charge, the international jurists had said that if the impasse were not resolved by 3 April, it was certain that there could be no meeting at the end of April to approve the procedural rules for the tribunal and it is possible that the tribunal would not be able to continue at all. April 3rd came and went and the bar association has refused to budge, the bar president saying that his position is final. The Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee holds the bar fully responsible for the impending breakdown in the court process. The CHRAC also said that any tribunal collapse will have to be the responsibility of the Cambodian government.

30 March 2007 Reaction to the government's threat to expel a human rights group monitoring the Khmer Rouge tribunal has been swift and strong. The government spokesman said three days ago that Cambodian officials had considered forcing the Open Society Justice Initiative monitoring group out of the country because they had asked for an investigation of allegations that tribunal staff were required to kickback part of their salary in order to maintain their positions--and then hinted darkly that the decision about expulsion may not have been made yet. A coalition of human rights groups blasted the threat: "By making this threat, the government risks giving the impression to an international audience that it will not allow the activities of [the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia] to be properly scrutinized and monitored." And according to The Cambodia Daily, "The threat continues 'a disturbing trend' of government opposition to scrutiny in the forestry and labor sectors, according to the statement signed by the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee, a coalition of 23 rights organizations, as well as the Center for Social Development, the Alliance for Freedom of Expression in Cambodia and three other groups."

29 March 2007 Saying "They felt there was enough information to warrant a more extended audit," the spokesman for the UN's public affairs office at the Khmer Rouge tribunal announced that an auditing firm had returned to do further investigation. The firm first came to Cambodia at the end of January to check on reports in 2006 that raised questions about the transparency of hiring practices within the ECCC (Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia). The United Nations oversees more than $6 million donated for the creation and operation of the tribunal.

28 March 2007 Shoot the Messenger! The official government spokesman has revealed that the government has considered expelling the Open Society Justice Initiative from the country because they reported--and asked the government to investigate--allegations that Khmer Rouge tribunal staff have been required to kick back part of their salaries to the government. The government was particularly incensed by a comment by the OSJI executive director which referred to Prime Minister Hun Sen as a "former Khmer Rouge cadre whose commitment to genuine prosecution and due process has long been in doubt." And the spokesman hinted that the decision to allow OSJI to stay may not have been finalized yet. The reaction of the international community, reported in The Cambodia Daily, was not the same as the government's: Heather Ryan, OSJI's Phnom Penh-based tribunal monitor, stood by her group's actions.  "Threats against an NGO for requesting an investigation into actions related to the court do not speak well about the state of freedom of expression in Cambodia," she said. Several foreign diplomats also said they would oppose OSJI being banned from the country. "You can't throw out monitors each time you don't like what they say," US Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli said last week. "It won't hurt OSJI's reputation," he added. "It will hurt Cambodia's reputation. That's why this embassy is so concerned about it." German Ambassador Pius Fischer said Tuesday that it would be regrettable if the group were banned.... Canadian Ambassador Donica Pottie said that the expulsion of OSJI could undermine the court's credibility.

27 March 2007 One of the international judges at the ECCC (Khmer Rouge tribunal), a Frenchman, Marcel Lemonde, has said that if there is not a resolution before April 3rd to the impasse over the high fees the Cambodian Bar Association wants to charge foreign defense lawyers, it will be impossible to adopt the court's procedural rules in April. Lemonde wrote: "For purely practical reasons, if nothing happens before next Tuesday, it will be impossible to convene the plenary." The international judges have said that if the fees are not lowered they would boycott an April 30 plenary session at which the procedural rules are scheduled to be adopted. Without the rules, the tribunal cannot proceed.

21 March 2007 Rights groups have called upon the Cambodian Bar Association to lower the "exorbitant" fees it has decided to charge foreign lawyers appearing as defense counsel in the ECCC (Khmer Rouge tribunal). The call was made in a statement issued by the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee which is comprised of 23 local Cambodian NGOs and the Bangkok-based rights group called Forum Asia. There has been universal criticism of the very high fees the bar association wants to charge international lawyers participating in the defense of indicted Khmer Rouge leaders. From The Cambodia Daily: ...But some rights workers said the fee debate is the latest in a long line of stalling tactics. "Making concessions on some issues while sticking to untenable positions on other key points is a strategy we've seen in the past," said Sara Colm, senior researcher at New York-based Human Rights Watch. "It's a way to give the illusion of progress when in fact there's no clear political will to make this tribunal happen in a way that will bring real justice to the victims."

19 March 2007 The Bar Strikes Back After the KR tribunal judges announced that the fees charged foreign lawyers to act as defense attorneys for KR defendants are too high, the president of the Cambodian Bar Association accused the international lawyers of using the fee issue as an excuse to stall the tribunal. He said that they had raised the issue "groundlessly" and that they were "feeble" for allowing this matter to interfere with the resolution of the conflict over the procedural rules for the tribunal. The Cambodian Bar Association wants international lawyers to pay $200 to apply to the Cambodian Bar, then $2000 if they are accepted as a defense attorney, and then $200 a month to practice in the ECCC. By contrast, the only other tribunal that uses international lawyers and charges them a fee, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, has a membership fee of $159, a monthly fee of $40 during the pre-trial and appeals phases, and $79 during the actual trial proceedings.

17 March 2007 In a statement that was surprising to me, because of its source, the ECCC tribunal judges said that the fees demanded by the Cambodian Bar Association from international judges to serve as defense lawyers for Khmer Rouge defendants are too high for the judges to accept and create an obstacle further delaying the onset of the trials. After a week of negotiations that ended yesterday, the international judges said that all the major issues about procedural rules for the trials had been worked out in principle except for the fees. The Cambodian judges said that the fees should not be an issue and requested the bar association to reconsider its position. The bar association is asking all international defense lawyers to pay a $500 membership application fee, then $2000 if a client requests their services, and then $200 a month in dues. These fees are significantly higher than was has been charged expatriate lawyers in other international tribunals.

16 March 2007 One of the main reasons why those promoting the tribunal for former Khmer Rouge leaders have pressed for a majority representation of international lawyers and jurists is that the concepts of genocide and crimes against humanity are not included in Cambodian law. Lawyers trained here would have no training in any of those concepts which are the basis for the charges against the KR leaders. To introduced the Cambodian legal profession to those ideas, a five-day training session was held to prepare young lawyers to work with ECCC. 60 participants were selected by lottery from the 98 applicants for the crash course in international law, genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The ECCC budget paid for the training but it was only for the prosecution; there was no training for those who will be leading the defense of those to be indicted.

15 March 2007 Cambodia has one province called Kampong Cham which is a mainly Muslim province. So many of the Cham ethnic group there are Muslim that in the Khmer language, "Cham" has almost come to be equated with "Muslim." 100 Cham Muslims and about 300 law students recently visited the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia as part of a two-day awareness tour. Many people in Cambodia really do not understand the structure and process proposed for the courts so efforts have been made to educate the public in various ways. This tour also included visits to the Tuol Sleng torture center and one of the killing fields.

13 March 2007 Today the Cambodian Bar Association announced some agreement on an issue that has been contentious so far, the participation of foreign lawyers in the Khmer Rouge tribunal process. From an article by Erika Kinetz in The Cambodia Daily: The governing body of the Cambodian Bar Association...approved a fee structure that would permit foreign lawyers to register with the bar and participate in the Khmer Rouge tribunal,...the bar's secretary-general said. The participation of foreign lawyers at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia is one of the outstanding points of contention in the debate over crucial procedural rules that has stalled most of the court's progress since November.... Ly Tayseng said the Bar Council agreed...that foreign lawyers interested in appearing before the ECCC would have to pay a $500 application fee to become members of the Cambodian bar. If selected to represent a client, the lawyer would pay an additional $2,000, plus $200 a month in membership dues. All fees would go to the Bar Association, he said. ...Another point of contention has been whether foreign lawyers will have full rights to defend clients in court. Ly Tayseng said that the Bar Association's position is that foreign lawyers will have to ask permission from their Cambodian co-council before addressing the judge....

10 March 2007 The same day the newspapers carried the government's call for a retraction of the allegations that tribunal jobs were being allocated only after payment of kickbacks, they wrote also about a report by United Nations human rights envoy Mr. Yash Ghai. Placed side by side in The Cambodia Daily, they make an interesting contrast. Here is an excerpt from the Cambodia Daily article, by William Shaw and Prak Chan Thul, on Yash Ghai's report: The Cambodian judiciary's lack of independence and integrity pose a fundamental threat to human rights, and the legal system acts as an agency of oppression, outspoken UN rights envoy Yash Ghai said in a report released Friday. Ghai expressed hope, however, that the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia will help break a decades-long pattern of impunity. While senior government officials enjoy wide immunities, innocent people are victimized by the legal system at the government's instigation, he alleged. "Thus, far from protecting human rights, the legal system becomes a principal agency of oppression," he said....

10 March 2007 The presiding judge of Cambodia's Supreme Court Chamber has called for the Open Society Justice Initiative to withdraw its allegations that staff of the Khmer Rouge tribunal got their positions by virtue of kicking back a percentage of their pay to government officials. The judge said that all the officials "affirm" that decisions made about their employment were without "pressure or promise." As a judge he should know that when there are allegations of wrongdoing, the questions that arise are solved not by someone saying "I didn't do it," but rather by investigation and seeking evidence.

8 March 2007 In what was described as a "now or never" session, the local Cambodian judges and international judges of the KR tribunal began ten days of meetings to approve the rules of procedure for the ECCC proceedings. The absence of an agreement so far has effectively stalled the work of the court. The international judges had first convened in Bangkok and the local judges in Phnom Penh to clarify their own internal positions before meeting as a joint group to establish the tribunal procedures.

7 March 2007 The controversy over the allegations of kickbacks to the government to obtain tribunal jobs continues. In this excerpt from an opinion piece in The Cambodia Daily, James Goldston, the executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative--the group that reported the allegations--commented on them: ...As a human rights monitoring organization, it is our duty to bring these issues to light--but we are not in a position to investigate them in the depth and detail they require. This is the responsibility of the court, and the parties to the ECCC agreement. We will continue to monitor the work of the court. The allegations of corruption are just that--allegations. But they cannot be ignored. First, they come from a wide range of sources both inside and outside the court. Second, they are remarkably consistent in describing a pattern of kickbacks--a fixed percentage of salaries--paid by Cambodian court staff to those in government who appointed them. Third, they directly undermine the court's most precious resource, public trust. For these reasons, they merit investigation.

6 March 2007 [1] The former director of the Tuol Sleng torture center, Kaing Kek Iev, better known as Duch the Butcher, has just had his detention in a military prison extended for the second time, until November, 2008. He was detained in 1999 and has been held without trial ever since. Under Cambodian law, a person may be held without trial for six months at most, but there is an exclusion for those charged with war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity which allows a person to be held for three years during which time the detention must be renewed annually. Duch has been successively charged with each of the above crimes and so must be tried or released by November, 2008. Under the UN's International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, every person charged must be tried "without undue delay," but the military judge has said that Duch's imprisonment is not an international matter--although the courts being set up to try him are deliberately comprised of Cambodian and international judges. [2] The Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee--a coalition of 23 NGOs working with human rights--has called on the Extraordinary Chambers in the Cambodian Courts (ECCC) to finish work and finalize by April the procedural rules which will allow the KR tribunal to begin. Guarantees must be enacted to insure the independence of the judicial process and to protect the rights of the victims and accused. [3] 60 Cambodian lawyers are to receive training to prepare them to participate in the ECCC. A previous attempt to offer such training was scuttled by the Cambodian Bar Association which felt that it had been bypassed. Now the training is to be provided by the Khmer Rouge tribunal's Defense Support Section, the International Bar Association--and the Cambodian Bar Association, a dodgy group which limits the number of lawyers available to the country and feuds about who is and isn't its president.

5 March 2007 The history of the Khmer Rouge era is taught in a very superficial fashion in Cambodian schools. That is partly because there has been a reluctance--a self-censorship--to write serious studies of Pol Pot and his regime because of fear such texts might offend high-placed people. There has been little encouragement for Cambodian authors to write their own history so those few students who have tried to understand that era more deeply have had to rely on international materials such as the movie The Killing Fields and books like When the War Was Over. One student commented that Cambodians do not lack the capacity to write history but rather the will. "We don't keep documents. We just know stories. We don't write them down." And when they are written, she said, "Our own history is not clear. It is so politicized." Now fourteen journalism students from the Royal University of Phnom Penh are producing a series of 25-minute radio documentaries with support from the World Bank and the German Development Service. Based on primary sources such as interviews with former Khmer Rouge members, these documentaries will be broadcast this month.

5 March 2007 On Wednesday of this week (7 March), the Cambodian and international jurists appointed to the EOCCC (Khmer Rouge tribunal) will resume a meeting which may be the make-or-break point of the trials. At issue are the procedural guidelines which the court will follow. Speaking about the impasse, the Bangkok Post newspaper said: Diplomats say the UN side of the court will walk away if they feel their local counterparts are dragging their feet or acting on the orders of Prime Minister Hun Sen, an ex-Khmer Rouge soldier. Even though there is no evidence linking Hun Sen to any atrocities, his government is riddled with former cadres from the ultra-Maoist regime, many of whom will not want their pasts dragged up. The Khmer Rouge's main ally, China, has also been lobbying Hun Sen hard to stall the proceedings to prevent the full extent of Beijing's involvement coming to light, diplomats say.

2 March 2007 The ECCC, the KR tribunals administration, is now building a permanent detention center for anticipated defendants who will be arrested and brought to trial for crimes in the Pol Pot regime. Up to now a smaller group of three cabins, paid for by the Japanese government, has been available but never used. The $79,000 for the new facility which has eight cells, each with a toilet, a communal eating area, an infirmary, and a visiting area has been provided by the Indian government. The new building is projected to be completed in May.

27 February 2007 In July, the former King Sihanouk said the remains of Khmer Rouge victims--skulls and bones now stored in stupas and memorials--should be cremated to preserve the dignity of those who died. But Prime Minister Hun Sen has rejected that proposal saying that there have been requests to cremate the remains so their souls can be reborn, but to do so would destroy important evidence needed for the KR trials.

22 February 2007 Some foreign diplomats seemed to play down the significance of possible payment of kickbacks for staff and judicial positions on the Extraordinary Chambers of the Cambodian Courts. One diplomat said the kickbacks, if substantiated, would be morally wrong but might be overlooked because they don't "go directly to the issue of whether this court will be objective and capable of meeting international standards." Another diplomat said that allegations of kickbacks for government jobs are nothing new. "We are living in an environment where this is the bread and butter of daily life. We have a clientele system. Everything is based on this; most probably it goes right into the judicial system."

21 February 2007 The conflict over allegations that court officials, including judges, need to kick back part of their salaries to government officials isn't the only issue troubling the ECCC. The United Nations Development Fund has also conducted an internal audit of the ECCC after questions arose about the transparency of hiring practices within the tribunal. That report has not yet been released.

19 February 2007 In a move typical of small-minded governments, the ECCC administrative department decided earlier this week not to allow the Open Justice Society Initiative to have access to their offices because the legal rights group has asked the court to investigate charges of corruption against it. Instead of acknowledging the allegations and saying they'd look into it, they ban OSJI because the administrative director "does not wish to cooperate with them anymore due to the bad faith and bias on their part." That's a rather judgmental statement given that OSJI was acting on multiple allegations coming from sources both within and outside the ECCC system.

17 February 2007 From The Cambodia Daily: The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia will no longer cooperate with the New York-based legal group Open Society Justice Initiative, Deputy Prime Minister Sok An said... The announcement follows an OSJI statement...calling for an investigation into allegations of corruption and government kickbacks at the ECCC. "I don't know what [OSJI] is talking about," Sok An said. "They just say this and that." Everyone else knows what OSJI is talking about. Corruption is so much a part of the government and society in Cambodia that few would be surprised at allegations of improprieties within the ECCC. An answer like Sok An's gives reason to suspect a denial of the truth rather than serve as a reassurance that there is no corruption.

16 February 2007 The Open Society Justice Initiative, a US-based legal group working with the KR tribunal, has cited allegations of corruption and kickbacks to the government in regard to individuals receiving appointments or jobs in the tribunal administration, and has called for a quick and thorough investigation. A statement from the group said: Serious allegations that Cambodian court personnel, including judges, must kick back a significant percentage of their wages to Cambodian government officials in exchange for their positions on the court, are undermining the credibility of the ECCC. The director of a rights organization said that if the allegations were true, it would not be surprising: "The ECCC is just an extension of the national system. It is just an extension of the society and the society is corrupt."

14 February 2007 The Documentation Center of Cambodia has received almost half a ton of documents about the Khmer Rouge era from a former sympathizer who now lives in Sweden. Israel Young, previously a name in the folk music world and the producer of Bob Dylan's first concert, collected the photos, speeches, books, and newspaper clippings in various languages and gave the originals to University of Lund in Sweden. Now, with the aid of the Swedish government, these documents have been photocopied and shipped to Cambodia to be preserved here as an historical record and perhaps as a resource for the KR tribunal.

8 February 2007 [1] Even though progress on the implementation of the Khmer Rouge tribunals has stalled due to a prolonged and unresolved debate on crucial procedural rules, the ECCC is now accepting applications for interns to work with the international staff of the tribunal. The unpaid positions will focus on disseminating information about the tribunal throughout the provinces. [2] The Swiss and New Zealand governments are offering special training to the Cambodian judicial police. The training, based on international law, will help the police with matters like investigating mass murders where they must take statements from many witnesses. Because the charges to be proved are different from the crimes they normally work with at the national level, they will be taught new techniques for gathering evidence.

7 February 2007 A huge challenge facing the Extraordinary Chambers of the Cambodian Courts is to inform the populace of the existence and meaning and process of the tribunal to try the leaders of the Khmer Rouge era. One attempt to do this was the printing of ten thousand posters about the tribunal which will now be distributed across the country. There are several clearly defined points made in the posters: only senior KR leaders will be tried; any citizen can travel to the court to observe the process or can follow it by radio and television; and both Cambodian and international judges must agree on a conviction. The format of the posters has created some confusion, however. One problem is the use of western-style punctuation. Cambodian written language uses no punctuation and even educated people who viewed the initial presentation of the posters did not know what the "!" and "?" symbols meant. Another source of confusion is the life-like depictions of people used in the graphics. Many people have been trying to identify specific individuals in the images which were meant to be generic and not representative of anyone in particular.

5 February 2007 An article from The Washington Post by Anthony Faiola has described the increasing fear of many in Cambodia that the proposed Khmer Rouge tribunals could never take place because of drawn-out debate over legal standards that has delayed indictments and a real start to the process: Critics say that by rebuffing across-the-board international standards, the Cambodian government is trying to exert political control over the trials in a bid to limit the scope of information that will be publicly aired.... Observers say the probes launched by UN-appointed investigators may be moving far faster than the Cambodian government had counted on, particularly given that several high-ranking members of the ruling party are former Khmer Rouge members. Although the court is likely to indict only a handful of former Khmer Rouge most responsible for crimes against humanity, the testimony that could emerge could prove embarrassing for the government. Some have suggested that the Chinese have pressured the Cambodians to delay the trials to avoid revealing the extent of Beijing's long support of the Khmer Rouge.... Rights organizations have argued that even if a high legal bar is adopted, the tribunal has already been compromised. One Cambodian judge on the panel led an Appeals Court that overturned felony charges against Prime Minister Hun Sen's nephew. Another judge has been singled out by rights groups for presiding over the questionable 2005 conviction of a key SRP lawmaker, Cheam Channy, for anti-government activities. "Some of those who have been appointed are notorious for presiding over show trials and have track records of acting based on political instructions instead of evidence," said Sara Colm, senior researcher for Human Rights Watch.

5 February 2007 In 1994 the Khmer Rouge ambushed a Cambodian train and killed thirteen Cambodian people and took three Western backpackers hostage. The three Westerners--from Britain, France, and Australia--were later executed, and three KR military commanders were jailed for life for the murders. This week about 100 people gathered in Kampot Province for a ceremony remembering those who died in the train incident. Among the people attending was a 58-year old woman who remembered cooking for the three Western youth during the three months they were held captive.

31 January 2007 After a two-week meeting on the rules to guide the Khmer Rouge tribunals, the Cambodian and international judges have reached a tentative agreement about appearances in court of those accused. The committee has recommended that a defendant has to appear in court at least once in order for a trial to proceed. The leader of a local rights group questioned why the defendants shouldn't be in court for the whole trial, but some international legal experts have said the one-time appearance can meet international norms. The two weeks of meetings also produced a decision that individual victims can file civil claims as parties to the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) as the KR tribunals are officially known. These decisions are not final, however, and more meetings will be held in March.

31 January 2007 The execution of Saddam Hussein has brought a great deal of unease to many former Khmer Rouge cadre members still living in the KR stronghold of Pailin in northwestern Cambodia. They feel that real justice was not enacted in the Hussein trial which they perceive as being stage-managed by the United States and that makes them wonder about the quality of justice in the proposed KR trials here. Many of the KR cadres still retain the idea of a lost revolution, led by men who loved their people but made mistakes. And they hold that the Democratic Kampuchea regime was successful as a strike against US imperialism although today people think only about the killing that took place.

29 January 2007 The government's public relations officer for the Khmer Rouge tribunals downplayed the failure of the second attempt to resolve legal issues blocking implementation of the trials. Helen Jarvis described the talks as "a big step forward." But a source close to the tribunal said there is growing cynicism among the international staff about the ability of the tribunal to operate at international standards and a Human Rights Watch observer accused the government of deliberately slowing things down. Sara Colm, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, commented: "The Cambodian government has an opportunity to show the world that it is serious about finding justice for the victims of the Khmer Rouge. Instead, it is erecting roadblocks based on technicalities."

28 January 2007 A two-week session of Cambodian and international judges adjourned without reaching conclusions on the outstanding issues which are holding up the implementation of the Khmer Rouge trials. A third session is scheduled for March. A major issue being discussed is a provision to allow international lawyers to participate in the defense of the KR defendants. International jurists warn that the trials can be seen as a sham unless there is a strong legal defense afforded those accused. Cambodian lawyers resist such a move, though, saying foreign lawyers should not be allowed unless other countries reciprocate and allow Cambodian lawyers to practice law in their jurisdictions. The director of the Center for Social Development commented: "[The failure to reach agreement] only confirms our suspicion that this is a strategy of delay, that the government does not take this tribunal seriously. Already by March, nearly one third of the time of the tribunal will have been wasted, and what will we have to show for it? A discussion of rules."

26 January 2007 One of the anomalies of the Cambodian genocide is how the Khmer Rouge documented their atrocities with individual photographs of almost all their victims at the Tuol Sleng torture center (also known as S-21). Nhem En, the chief photographer at Tuol Sleng spoke at a conference in Phnom Penh focusing on forgiveness and reconciliation and offered an apology. "I would like to say sorry," he said at the conference held at the U.S. Embassy. Speaking of the photographs, U.S. Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli said: "I hope these photographs will always unsettle us and make us uncomfortable. We have all heard the old cliche that a picture is worth a thousand words. Each of these pictures is worth a thousand tears."

26 January 2007 The Center for Social Development and the rights organization Adhoc sponsored a two-day public forum in Phnom Penh to bring together scholars and survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime.  The goal was to make the Pol Pot era understandable to people of Cambodia.  Various survivors, including the author of First They Killed My Father, recounted their terrible experiences. Journalist Philip Short gave a presentation on the origins and causes of the Khmer Rouge, pointing out that while there were regional and Western influences in the communist party's creation, it was a distinctly Cambodian phenomenon.

25 January 2007 In mid January, according to the Cambodia Daily, judges for the ECCC trials gathered for another, two-week meeting to establish the procedural rules for the tribunal. The trials cannot proceed without agreement on these rules which include many contentious issues such as trials in absentia; the role of the defense, a very political question; and who controls the registration of ECCC lawyers. A previous abortive meeting saw Cambodian government officials set against UN and international experts. In another development, a noted Khmer Rouge historian questioned how much good the tribunals will do.  Philip Short, who wrote Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare, in a presentation and an interview asked how many KR figures are to be tried.  The law establishing the ECCC limits its reach to senior leaders and those "most responsible," but Short says the genocide resulted from historic, social, and geographic forces that affected most of the population and not just those at the top.  He commented:  "I'm not prepared to say it's a complete waste of time but I suspect that's what the final result will be."

12 January 2007 In an article titled The Amnesia of Brother No 2, the Phnom Penh Post newspaper published excerpts from an interview with Nuon Chea who is the most senior surviving leader of the Khmer Rouge, linked, experts say, by "substantial and compelling evidence" to the purges and executions of the Pol Pot regime. The interviewer's questions are in bold type. Under the Khmer Rouge an estimated 1.7 million lives were lost. Do you accept responsibility for the mass executions and deportations, forced labor, and famine? I do not have exact figures regarding lives and deaths available. But I ask you: How many people died during the Lon Nol regime backed by the United States of America? How many died when Vietnam invaded Cambodia? Did you consider these deaths when talking about the 1.7 million cases? We would not have succeeded in our five-year-long fight against the Americans if we had killed our own people. Did I get this right: There were no mass murders or executions under the Khmer Rouge regime? It may have happened in particular cases, but it was not us who killed our people. Our enemies killed them. After the Khmer Rouge's reign, thousands of mass graves were discovered. Having been Brother No 2, how could you not know about this? Those photographs with skulls now being presented do not mean a thing. Modern technology can do this. Skulls of Vietnamese and US soldiers are being lined up and photographed. This does not mean that I do not want to take responsibility. But it was Cambodian people who started my party. Why should we have killed our own people? I do not see a reason. So, let's talk about Tuol Sleng then, the secret torture prison known as S 21. Back then I did not know a prison operating under this name. I learned about it only after the Vietnamese invasion.

11 January 2007 By agreement between the United Nations and the government of Cambodia, the $56 million cost of the Khmer Rouge tribunal is to be split between the two groups although not in equal amounts. There is still a shortfall of about $8 million, most of it the responsibility of the Cambodian side. A $100,000 donation for the tribunal to the Cambodian government by Microsoft Singapore was announced by U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia Joseph Mussomeli who help arrange the gift. He commented: "The US government strongly encourages the American private sector to assist in the development of other countries. The Khmer Rouge Tribunal, if properly conducted, could significantly assist Cambodia's development through greater accountability and adherence to the rule of law." The US government itself has declined to contribute and direct funding for the tribunal because of congressional restrictions.

2 January 2007 Historian Stephen Hedet wrote a book in 2001 titled:  Seven Candidates for Prosecution: Accountability for the Crimes of the Khmer Rouge.  He identitified seven individuals, former leaders in the Pol Pot regime, and outlined some of the evidence against them.  One of the seven is Meas Muth, the son-in-law of Ta Mok.  Both were in the notoriously brutal Southwest Zone established by the Khmer Rouge, where tens of thousands of people died. But for now, Meas Muth is not worried.  He recently invited more than 600 people to a housewarming for his elegant wooden house complete with a large orchard (20+ acres) of mangoes and coconuts.  The large majority of his guests were former Khmer Rouge cadres, still loyal to their former commander, and in that setting Meas acknowledged that he is accused of war crimes and genocide, but added, according to a report in The Cambodia Daily :  "What evidence do they have for accusing me?... I am 68 years old and nothing worries me."

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