Khmer Rouge genocide trial jurists sworn in

Cambodia made a symbolic start yesterday to the long-awaited trials of leaders of the Khmer Rouge, 27 years after the fall of the regime blamed for the deaths of up to 2 million people.

Seventeen Cambodian and 10 foreign jurists were sworn in at a ceremony in the Silver Pagoda of the royal palace in Phnom Penh, setting in motion a process that should see some suspects tried by the middle of next year.

"This is the milestone officially marking the beginning of a long process," said Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an independent group that has compiled evidence of Khmer Rouge atrocities.

Buddhist monks and Brahmin priests officiated over the ceremony, burning incense and sprinkling holy water as Cambodian judges in traditional yellow robes recited their oaths at the pagoda.

The UN-appointed prosecutor and judges then took their oaths by simply raising their right hands and vowing to perform their duties "honorably, faithfully, impartially and conscientiously."

The simple ceremony, presided over by Cambodia's minister of the royal palace Kong Sam Ol and UN envoy Nicolas Michel, will begin what is expected to be a three-year tribunal that many feared would never get off the ground.

Since Cambodia first asked the UN for help in 1997, Prime Minister Hun Sen, who was once a low-ranking Khmer Rouge member, has proven reluctant to commit resources to the trials.

Donors have ended up funding most of the US$56.3 million process. During the six years of stumbling negotiations, Cambodia's government was blamed for trying to derail the proceedings.

The swearing-in ceremony "erases the negative speculation people have had in the past that there won't be any trial" for surviving Khmer Rouge leaders, said Reach Sambath, a spokesman for the tribunal administration office.

One of those leaders, chief ideologue Nuon Chea, said he would go before the tribunal if called in order to clarify the past.

"I will be glad to go so that people in my country and other countries will know the truth of what happened. Whatever they ask, I will tell them," he said in an interview in the northwestern town of Pailin, where he lives with other former top Khmer Rouge leaders.

"I have responsibility for what happened, not for the killing but for not being able to protect my own people," he said.