Global Policy Forum

By John Aglionby

Sam Serey does not look like a stereotypical perpetrator of crimes against humanity. Shuffling around the potholed roads of the southern Cambodian district of Phnom War in a grubby shirt, ripped shorts and bare feet, this grey-haired, 55-year-old farmer appears more deserving of sympathy than hatred.

But he admits that for more than 20 years he was a member of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia's Maoist movement which was responsible for the genocide of more than 1.7 million people while it held power from 1975-79. "I was just a simple young man who joined to help the king after he was overthrown," he claims by way of explanation for why he volunteered in 1970. "I never knew what it really meant to be a member of the Khmer Rouge until many years later."

Sam Serey, who lives in a Khmer Rouge veterans' community, is willing to talk because after six years of international negotiations he now knows he will escape justice. The jurisdiction of the Khmer Rouge tribunal, agreed by the UN and Cambodia, is to be limited to "senior leaders ... and those most responsible for the crimes [the regime committed]". So, hundreds of footsoldiers, such as Sam Serey, now live without fear of a trial.

Youk Chheng, head of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, a group that has catalogued the horrors of the regime, thinks the line over who to prosecute has been drawn in the right place. He believes in "symbolic justice ... that we can justify as our own individual revenge. For the interests of the country, for stability, for resources, I think the top 10 are sufficient for all of us," he said.

Few Cambodians were left untouched by the Khmer Rouge "killing fields" - as the horrors were dubbed by the 1984 Hollywood film of that name. "They were just crazy," said Ly Sareon, a neighbour. "People close to starvation would be killed on the spot for stealing a potato. We don't know why they behaved like that, so of course we need to have the truth revealed."

Questions remain, however, about the government's commitment to seeing justice done. Much of the delay has been attributed to the prime minister, Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge commander who changed sides, insisting on Cambodia retaining control of the process. Human rights activists and diplomats, including the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, oppose this as they fear a Cambodian-led tribunal could be easily manipulated.

Most Cambodians would also prefer an international tribunal. Kek Galabru, of the Cambodian human rights group Likadho, said 18 human rights groups who solicited ideas across the country had not found one person wanting a local tribunal.

Hun Sen shut down the survey after 84,000 people were polled. And divisions within the international community have ensured that Hun Sen, who could be implicated at the tribunal, has triumphed. But diplomats say that some sort of process needed to get going before all the potential defendants died - the Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998. The compromise, panned by human rights groups, is that international judges and prosecutors will play a subsidiary role.

The treaty still needs to be endorsed by Cambodia's national assembly. However, after 24 years, there is now hope that justice will be served.

"All Cambodians want to see someone held responsible for what happened," said Vann Nath, one of only eight of 17,000 inmates to survive the regime's Toul Sleng jail in the capital, Phnom Penh. "If the government doesn't take care of the Khmer Rouge, [we] victims will always feel sad and incomplete."

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