Cambodia is still determined to bring Khmer Rouge leaders to justice following a surprise announcement by the UN that it won't assist the government in establishing a court, top government officials said yesterday.
The UN on Friday abandoned four and a half years of negotiations with the Cambodian government on a role of the world body in a court to try Khmer Rouge leaders for genocide, saying there was no guarantee the tribunal would be independent and impartial.
Cambodian Cabinet minister Sok An said yesterday that the decision was "no problem at all," underlining the government's long-standing position to carry out the trial even without UN backing.
"The Cambodian position is that we will put the Khmer Rouge on trial," co-Minister of Interior and Deputy Prime Minister Sar Kheng said, without saying when this would happen.
"The United Nations pullout is their problem."
Cambodian legal and social activists, however, said a tribunal without UN participation would just be a "show trial" and would not be trusted by Cambodians.
The communist Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 and are blamed for the deaths of 1.7 million people due to starvation, disease, overwork and execution. Their leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998 but many of his top lieutenants continue to live freely in Cambodia.
Only two high-profile Khmer Rouge figures are in detention -- Kaing Kek Ieu, better know as "Duch," who ran the group's main torture centre and the one-legged military commander Ta Mok.
But a judge warned yesterday they would have to be released soon unless the law was changed to extend their three-year detention.
Lao Mong Hay, director of the independent think tank the Khmer Institute for Democracy, said it was clear the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen had no intention of relinquishing control over a future trial.
"As a brother of two victims of Khmer Rouge rule, I prefer not to have any show trial," Lao Mong Hay said. "The present legislation cannot guarantee an international standard of trial."
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan decided to end talks on UN participation in the court after the Cambodian government made clear that its law setting up the tribunal would take precedence over any agreement with the UN on the conduct of the trials.
Analysts said one of the main sticking points was how an amnesty given to one of the Khmer Rouge regime's top officials, Ieng Sary, would be interpreted by the court.
The UN said during negotiations that it wanted the tribunal to be free to indict any suspect, while Hun Sen said Ieng Sary deserves credit for helping bring peace to Cambodia by crippling the Khmer Rouge when he defected in 1996 with 10,000 soldiers and civilians.
Ieng Sary was in Phnom Penh yesterday and a guard at his house said he had a heart complaint and was resting. "He's too old, he doesn't want to see anyone," the guard said.
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