March 19, 1999
Phnom Penh - A U.N. human rights envoy said Friday he would meet Cambodia's prime minister next week to search for an agreement for a trial of Khmer Rouge leaders. Thomas Hammarberg, the U.N. secretary-general's human rights envoy in Cambodia, said he would propose a trial be held in Cambodia but be run by an international tribunal.
A panel of U.N. experts has recommended that 20 to 30 leaders of the brutal 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime face an international tribunal set up outside Cambodia, but Prime Minister Hun Sen wants a domestic trial, calling it an internal affair. "The most obvious way would be to discuss an international tribunal on Cambodian soil,'' Hammarberg said. "It wouldn't exclude the possibility that in an international team of judges there would be Cambodian nationals, but it would be international in character.''
Up to an estimated 1.7 million people were killed under Khmer Rouge rule. They were murdered or died of starvation, disease and exhaustion after being herded at gunpoint into farm collectives.
Hammarberg said the expert panel's plan for an international trial would be debated soon in the United Nations, and it was essential Cambodia's position be clearly spelt out. "The issue is now on the agenda of the Security Council and the General Assembly and, of course, before the discussions start in those two bodies, they would like to know where the government is (on the issue),'' Hammarberg told reporters. He was speaking to reporters after talks with a senior adviser to Hun Sen, Om Yentieng, in the Cambodian capital. "I repeated our position, which is supported by the secretary-general, that what is required is a tribunal of an international character,'' Hammarberg said.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan Wednesday backed the panel's recommendation, which called for a tribunal modeled on existing U.N. courts on the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. But Annan left the form vague, saying other options could be explored as long as the court was "international in character.''
The Cambodian government has rejected U.N. criticism that its courts are corrupt and unprofessional and says it will organize a domestic trial of captured Khmer Rouge military chief Ta Mok.
Hun Sen, once a Khmer Rouge member, has warned of renewed strife if attempts are made to bring all leaders to trial. Cambodia's leading researcher of the Khmer Rouge said Friday he hoped a compromise on a trial could be worked out. "Cambodia is upset because the world is not recognizing its independence and sovereignty...,'' Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, told Reuters in an interview. "So I think the only solution is for Cambodia to create its own international trial'' with outside assistance, he said.
