For 'killing fields' survivors, a sliver of hope for justice

He was a teenager in the 1980s when his family was sponsored by an American charity to resettle in the US.

The community here rarely speaks out for justice in Cambodia, Nuon says, because "they know it's not going to happen. And if it does happen, it's not going to be up to international standards for fairness."

Besides, he says, shrugging, "It's not going to be any closure for a lot of Cambodians, because they know that there are a number of [former Khmer Rouge leaders] still around and still in power."

Cambodian-Americans are largely a fractured group with little political clout or political will, he says. Many are impoverished, and some struggle with posttraumatic stress and other illnesses.

Many also retain old political alliances, making it difficult to amass a unified voice to lobby the US to press the Cambodian government to move forward with the tribunal.

Ratha Paul Yem publishes Lowell's "Cambodia Today" newspaper. The front page of the February issue shows former Khmer Rouge leader Noun Chea wearing sunglasses and surrounded by villagers after confessing to reporters that the Khmer Rouge "made mistakes."

"These people still walk around and still have their freedom," Mr. Yem says.

The delay in bringing Khmer Rouge leaders to justice rests "squarely on the shoulders of the Cambodian government," says Steven Ratner, a University of Texas law professor who was among a team of experts who traveled to Cambodia in 1998 and subsequently prepared a recommendation for how the UN should proceed with the genocide tribunals.

The team suggested an ad hoc international tribunal that would take place outside Cambodia and be made up of mostly non-Cambodian judges.

Their recommendation was not followed. In the end, Cambodia and the UN agreed to a tribunal presided over by a majority of Cambodian judges.

Mr. Ratner says Hun Sen could readily "torpedo" the trials by wielding influence over judges or prosecutors.

Rampant judicial corruption in Cambodia "is indeed a concern," says Karsten Herrel, head of the UN team establishing the Khmer Rouge tribunal. In laying out the time frame for the court, the team is setting aside time to train Cambodian judges in international standards of law.

"There needs to be a specific training process in the concept of genocide and what constitutes crimes against humanity," Mr. Herrel says.

Two conditions must be fulfilled before the Khmer Rouge tribunals can be established: Cambodia's National Assembly must ratify the UN's draft agreement, and enough money must be raised to fund the trial through its first year. Neither has yet been accomplished.

The Cambodian government remains deadlocked after elections last July in which Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party received a majority of votes but failed to persuade the other two major parties to form a coalition and convene the national assembly. "We are at the mercy of internal Cambodian politics," Herrel says.

Raising money for the tribunal 25 years after the atrocities occurred, with Iraq and Afghanistan on the world's front burner, may also be a tough sell to international donors, according to Ratner. "The US is not really interested in this anymore," he says. "I don't really know where the international pressure is."

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