Thu, Aug 07, 2003 page5

• Khmer Rouge troops escape trials

  SYMBOLIC JUSTICE Although few civilians escaped the horrors perpetrated by the Maoist movement, the consensus is for only the leaders to face prosecution

  • THE GUARDIAN
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  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 to 1979.

  "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 Center 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.

  "For the interests of the country, for stability, for resources, I think the top 10 are sufficient for all of us," he says.

  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 neighbor.

  "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 caused by 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 ordinary 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.
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