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.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion