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Arrest signifies small step on road to justice

The arrest of the Khmer Rouge regime's top surviving leader will lend much-needed credibility to Cambodia's beleaguered UN-backed genocide court, analysts said, but is only a small step on the road to justice.

They warn that the complicated process of bringing former regime leaders to justice could yet become tangled in the bickering and allegations of political interference that have marred the proceedings so far.

Nuon Chea, who became the communist movement's chief ideologue and is said to have engineered its sweeping execution policies, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity by the court.

Aged 82, he is the first of several former leaders still living freely in Cambodia to be seized for atrocities committed under the Khmer Rouge's 1975 to 1979 rule, during which up to 2 million people were executed or died of disease, starvation or overwork.

Although not immune from arrest, Nuon Chea did enjoy some protection after striking a 1998 surrender deal with the government that effectively doomed the Khmer Rouge and ended Cambodia's long civil war.

"In the minds of many Cambodians he represents the highest political figure of the era," tribunal co-prosecutor Robert Petit said.

It follows the arrest of Khmer Rouge jailor Duch in July, while three other leaders who have not been publicly named remain under investigation.

But the tribunal does not expect to hold public trials until next year and badly needs to shed its image as a lethargic, bureaucratically hobbled court.

"It's a sense of relief and a sense that something has been done," said Youk Chhang, a top genocide researcher whose Documentation Center of Cambodia has been instrumental in gathering evidence.

Others said the arrest was a test of political will to push ahead with the prosecutions.

It "is definitely a positive reflection on the government in allowing the legal process to go forward," said Cambodian-American lawyer Theary Seng, head of the civil society organisation Center for Social Development (CSD).

However, "this arrest is only one step -- a very significant but not sufficient step -- in the long, entangled legal proceeding," she cautioned.

The Cambodian government is widely believed to exert powerful influence over the country's weak judiciary, and local jurists are thought by some observers to be picked more for loyalty to the ruling party than legal competence.

Others have warned that the government is keen to see the proceedings watered down to avoid uncomfortable scrutiny of some of its own members who are themselves former Khmer Rouge.

Authorities made an aborted attempt recently to transfer one of Cambodia's most skilled jurists, co-investigating judge You Bunleng, from his job when he was determining which suspects would be brought to court.

Also, calls by a little-known US-based group to call Cambodia's former king Norodom Sihanouk to the court have escalated into a row between the government and the UN.

Some lawmakers and senior politicians have urged the tribunal to be closed, saying forcing the ex-monarch to testify would violate the constitution.

The result is that many survivors are still sceptical that the tribunal is any closer to finding justice for them.

"I believe in the trial, but it goes backwards and forwards like a tug of war," said one former Khmer Rouge soldier who now works as a motorcycle taxi driver.

The CSD's Theary Seng said that the battling is not likely to be over as the court reaches the half-way point of its expected three-year lifespan with still no guarantee of justice.

"The atrocities and crimes occurred 30 years ago, which affect[s] the loss of evidence, the loss of witnesses, which will all factor into [whether] there will be a conviction," she said.

"For those who have the power and influence and bad faith to obstruct [the court], there are many more opportunities to do so," Seng said.
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