Khmer Rouge Trials Mired in Corruption

by jordan | April 28, 2007 at 02:27 pm | 564 views | add comment | 0 recommendations

Hospitality, Khmer Rouge Style (photo by jordan)

This one sent my corruption-meter into the red. I thought the point of the Khmer Rouge trials was to, well, put the Khmer Rouge leaders o n trial, not raise funds for the Cambodian Bar Association. In the shadow of the Vietnam War, Pol Pot and his henchmen killed over a million people in a bid to restore Cambodia to the "glory days of Angkor"In a sense, the Khmer Rouge were successful, as Cambodia, a lush and fertile nation, was sent back into the 19th century through the deaths and imprisonment of doctors, lawyers, artists, intellectuals, well, basically anybody who was not Khmer Rouge.

Trials for the former leaders of the Khmer Rouge have moved a step closer.

Cambodia's Bar Association has dropped a demand that foreign lawyers taking part in the process should pay thousands of dollars in fees.

It was the main sticking point which had prevented local and UN-appointed legal officials agreeing on the ground rules for the trials.

After almost a year of wrangling, the way is nearly clear for the special courts to start work in earnest.

Divisions exposed

More than a million people died under Khmer Rouge rule in Cambodia in the 1970s.

The bar association will now ask for a US$500 (£250) payment from each foreign lawyer hoping to represent clients and the ground rules for the trials may finally be approved.

The international judges had refused to move forward unless the bar association backed down.

They said the fees might deprive defendants or witnesses of the counsel of their choice - and leave the whole process vulnerable to legal challenges.

The international side may have achieved their goal - but the argument exposed the extent of the divisions between local and UN-appointed staff at the courts.

My own travels in Cambodia showed me a beautiful country scarred by land mines and unexploded bombs, with the bones of its history literally coming up through the moist earth.

And these guys still haven't been put on trial.