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Cambodian justice moves forward
Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, was the first Khmer Rouge leader to appear publicly before the UN-backed war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh Tuesday.
By Erika Kinetz | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the November 21, 2007 edition
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Phnom Penh, Cambodia - Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, the director of the Khmer Rouge's notorious S21 prison, had his first day in court Tuesday, three decades after he allegedly oversaw the torture of over 14,000 people.
It was a day many thought would never come.
After a decade of delay, many observers have dismissed as hopelessly political the beleaguered UN-backed tribunal set up last year to try aging leaders of the Khmer Rouge, a radical communist regime that killed and starved to death about 1.7 million Cambodians in the late 1970s.
On Monday, former Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan, 76, was arrested on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes. Nuon Chea, the most senior member of the Khmer Rouge who is still alive, Khmer Rouge minister of foreign affairs Ieng Sary; and his wife, Ieng Thirith, have all been arrested on similar charges in recent weeks.
The recent rush of progress at the tribunal, which is on the eve of a major fundraising campaign, has started to bring Cambodia's millions of victims a measure of comfort and assuage some fears that the main perpetrators would die before they saw justice. But it's far from clear how clean this new Cambodian justice will be.
In recent weeks, top Cambodian officials have reiterated their support for the UN-backed court, called the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). But critics argue that the government is willing to let these trials progress only to the extent that they can control them.
"We have always said that the test is not arrests – the Cambodian government knows how to arrest people it doesn't like – but whether fair trials can be carried out so that Cambodians can see that justice is possible in their country," Brad Adams, the Asia director for Human Rights Watch, said by e-mail. "Thus far, the Cambodian government has given no sign that it intends to allow the Cambodian judges and prosecutors assigned to the tribunal to act independently."
Fast-paced Khmer Rouge arrests
Despite the skepticism, the arrests, like that of Ieng Sary, who had long been deemed politically untouchable, did help answer critics of the court.
Documentation Center of Cambodia director Youk Chhang says that he hoped recent judicial progress was a sign the tribunal is finally shaking off years of political machinations from both inside Cambodia and out.
"Everyone wants to control this process because of past associations. There's no doubt about it," he says. "The ECCC is gradually becoming independent from the government and hopefully from the politics of the international community also. That is where this tribunal should stand."
On Tuesday, the tribunal's five pretrial chamber judges considered the question of whether Duch's detention, without trial, in a military prison since 1999 should have any bearing on his prosecution before the ECCC.
But the bigger issues now are how much further prosecutions will reach and how independent Cambodian judges will prove to be once actual trials get under way, perhaps sometime early next year.
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