Global Policy Forum

By Ed Cropley

When United Nations and Cambodian negotiators meet on Thursday for the 11th round of talks to set up a special Khmer Rouge genocide court, both sides will be bearing a hefty burden. With the U.N. General Assembly giving its backing to a resumption in the stymied talks, the weight of the international community is bearing down on them to find a breakthrough after more than five years of false dawns.

More importantly, the relatives of the 1.7 million victims of the ultra-Maoist regime's reign of terror are still crying out for justice. "I think this is the last chance for the U.N. and the government to demonstrate they have the will to seek justice for the victims," said Youk Chhang, head of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, the body responsible for archiving the atrocities.

A guerrilla movement that grew out of the polarised politics of the Cold War, the Khmer Rouge tried to create a totally agrarian peasant utopia in the jungle-clad southeast Asian nation during their rule from 1975 to 1979. Instead, they created the "Killing Fields", in which nearly two million people died of starvation, torture, execution or exhaustion in one of the 20th century's most appalling crimes.

The last time the two negotiating teams met, in New York in January, they reported "progress" towards laying the groundwork for more talks to establish a special international genocide court within Cambodia's legal system.

Such statements, oozing diplomatic legalese, do little to convince observers that Thursday's talks in Phnom Penh are going to produce something concrete. "I honestly don't know what they'll talk about. Nobody knows what's going on right now, and that is half of the problem," said Youk Chhang, frustrated that, given the huge body of evidence, it should be so hard to put top Khmer Rouge officials in the dock.

OLD WOUNDS

The United Nations pulled out of talks a year ago, saying the court envisaged by Cambodia could not guarantee fair trials. However, they resumed negotiations after receiving a mandate from the 191-member U.N. General Assembly in December.

The Cambodian government, still sprinkled with former Khmer Rouge cadres, has said it fears too broad-ranging a trial could reopen old wounds and destroy the peace the country is now enjoying after three decades of war.

But few expect the court to indict anyone beyond the very top-ranking commanders: "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, widely believed to be the main ideologue behind the mass killings, along with Pol Pot, who died in 1998; former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary and ex-Khmer Rouge president Khieu Samphan.

Two others already in custody -- former military chief Ta Mok, nicknamed "The Butcher", and Kaing Kek Iev or "Duch", the commandant of Phnom Penh's notorious S-21 torture centre, would also be likely defendants.

There is also no shortage of witnesses. Of the three remaining survivors of the mass extermination of S-21, two have told Reuters recently they are ready and willing to take the witness stand against their tormentors.

Despite accusations by critics he is stalling, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, himself a former low-level Khmer Rouge commander who fled the movement in the late 1970s, has said the leaders must face a trial. "We cannot tolerate genocide. We must hold a trial of the Khmer Rouge. It is inevitable," Hun Sen said in January.

Yet the question remains -- when?

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