Global Policy Forum

By Irwin Arieff

A UN committee approved by consensus on Friday a long-delayed plan to create special courts to try former leaders of Cambodia's brutal Khmer Rouge regime but to fund the trials through voluntary contributions rather than via the regular U.N. budget.

Diplomats hailed the plan's approval by the U.N. General Assembly's Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee without a formal vote, but warned that justice could yet be denied if governments failed to contribute generously to the courts' operation.

The plan must now be adopted by the full General Assembly, but routine approval is expected as all 191 assembly members are also members of the committee.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in a March 31 report to the assembly, had warned that ''the opportunity of bringing those responsible to justice might be lost'' if the courts were funded by voluntary contributions rather than through regular U.N. dues payments.

Following the committee action, British U.N. envoy Alice Burnett noted Annan's concerns but expressed confidence global goodwill would see the court's work through to completion.

''We trust that the international community will, before the extraordinary chambers are set up, come forward with sufficient pledges of financial support for the full anticipated duration of the chambers' existence, to allay any concerns on the funding question,'' Burnett said.

FOUR-YEAR REIGN OF TERROR

An estimated 1.7 million people died under the ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge's four-year reign of terror in the 1970s. Most Khmer Rouge victims were executed or died of starvation, overwork or disease as the Khmer Rouge vision of a peasant utopia in the southeast Asian nation turned into the nightmare of the ''killing fields,'' rural areas where people were slain and buried in shallow graves.

U.N. and Cambodian officials reached an agreement on establishment of the courts in March, after more than five years of negotiations and many compromises. But that agreement did not touch on funding.

The U.N. plan calls for special courts to be created within the Cambodian justice system that would function in some ways like national courts and in other ways like the international tribunals set up to prosecute grave crimes against humanity in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

Some human rights groups have criticized the plan as failing to meet international justice standards. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, among others, argue the Cambodian government, which is still littered with former Khmer Rouge officials and soldiers, including Prime Minister Hun Sen, would be able to exert strong influence over the proceedings.

But many diplomats say blocking the deal would deprive ordinary Cambodians of the last chance to bring to justice those responsible for one of the 20th century's worst atrocities.

The goal of the special courts is to try ''senior leaders'' of the Khmer Rouge and ''those who were most responsible'' for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

Annan has estimated the special courts' budget at more than $19 million and projected it could wrap up its work within three years. However, several countries have questioned whether the process might take much longer and the courts' true price-tag end up much higher.

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