Cambodian royal shirks Khmer Rouge
trials By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - Cambodia's colorful former king
Norodom Sihanouk has emerged as the central figure
in the latest controversy to plague the special
tribunal established to prosecute the surviving
members of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime.
The 85-year-old royal, who has carved a
name for himself as a man who relishes the
spotlight, has waded into the dispute in his own
inimitable way. He chose to reveal his thoughts on the
question
that has gripped Phnom Penh: whether Sihanouk
should or should not be called to appear before
the United Nations-backed war-crimes trial.
On August 30 he made his first thrust by
issuing an unusual invitation to the UN officials
associated with the tribunal, including its
international spokesman, Peter Foster, to visit
the palace for a conversation on "the affairs of
the Khmer Rouge and Sihanouk". The method of
communicating the invitation was typical Sihanouk:
it was posted on the personal website that he
maintains. The rendezvous in the royal court was
set for September 8 and scheduled to last for
three hours.
Sihanouk - who stepped down
as monarch in October 2004 in favor of his son,
Norodom Sihamoni - took the liberty on the Web
posting to reveal how he views the Extraordinary
Chambers in the Court of Cambodia (ECCC), as the
tribunal is officially called.
"After this
[meeting] it will no longer be necessary for me to
present myself before the UN's ECCC," Sihanouk
stated in his invitation. And if the UN officials
failed to show up, he noted, he "will not accept
to see, speak or correspond with the UN's ECCC".
As was expected, the UN officials did not
participate in this royal conversation on the
tribunal.
"I was not authorized to
participate in this meeting, nor were other UN
officials," Foster said during an interview from
Phnom Penh. "We responded by saying that only the
judges involved in the trial will be able to
determine who will be a witness. The judges will
do so based on procedural rules."
But like
a character from a Shakespearean drama, Sihanouk
continued to protest. In standing up for his
cause, the former monarch ''complained that the
ECCC wanted him to 'take an oath to tell the truth
[and] nothing but the truth on the subject of
arch-criminals'", the English-language Phnom Penh
Post newspaper reported last Friday. "'I do not
have to swear an oath after [the one I swore] with
Buddha, to debase myself to take an oath in front
of the ECCC.'"
Those familiar with
Sihanouk's penchant for grand gestures and a life
peppered with drama are hardly surprised by this
latest offering. After being crowned monarch in
1941 at the tender age of 18 years, he abdicated
twice, served as king twice, held the post of
prime minister twice and served as president once.
His record in the world of the arts and
entertainment has been as varied, dabbling as a
filmmaker, songwriter, painter, saxophonist and
crooner of ballads.
What is equally well
known is the link Sihanouk maintained with the
Khmer Rouge, which was responsible for an orgy of
death from 1975, when it took control of Cambodia
after a prolonged battle with a pro-American
puppet regime in Phnom Penh, to 1979. The extreme
Maoist group killed close to 1.7 million
Cambodians, nearly a quarter of the country's
population at the time. The victims were executed
or died from forced labor or starvation as the
Khmer Rouge tried to turn the country into an
agrarian utopia.
Sihanouk himself lost
family members to the Khmer Rouge and was kept
under house arrest by the genocidal regime between
1976 and 1979. Yet against those details are the
roles he played in the four years up to the Khmer
Rouge triumph in 1975 - urging the Cambodian
people to join the group, in addition to serving
as the head of state for the regime in the first
year it held power. And when the Khmer Rouge was
driven from power by invading Vietnamese troops,
Sihanouk fled to the forests with the ousted
rulers and took on a new role as the global
defender of the regime-in-exile.
It is
this phase of Sihanouk's life that has been
brought into focus and raised the possibility of
him going before the ECCC, which officially began
work this July after long delays and hurdles
placed in its way, including regular challenges
posed by Prime Minister Hun Sen.
The push
to get Sihanouk to appear before the ECCC was
triggered by a relatively unknown non-governmental
organization based in the United States, the
Cambodian Action Committee for Justice and Equity.
Late last month, it made a request to authorities
in Phnom Penh to strip Sihanouk of his immunity as
a former monarch so he could be called before the
tribunal.
The Hun Sen administration rose
to Sihanouk's defense by delivering a harsh
rebuke. The prime minister called the request to
strip Sihanouk "very barbaric" and one that "could
have the result of jeopardizing the peace and
unity" of the country. But rights groups
questioned the government's motives, arguing that
war-ravaged Cambodia's quest to create a society
governed by the rules of law and justice will be
undermined if the former monarch is placed above
the law and insulated from the ECCC.
"This
could set a bad precedent, since the ECCC is
expected to set new and high standards of justice
for Cambodia," said Lao Mong Hay, senior
researcher on Cambodia at the Asian Human Rights
Commission, a regional rights lobby. "The request
does not mean he has to face trial as a defendant
or as an accused, but it is to remove an
unconstitutional clause in the constitution and
make the former king available if the judges need
him to appear.
"This is very important for
the trial, since many Cambodians who lost family
want to know about the past - how and why the
Khmer Rouge pursued their murderous policies," Lao
Mong Hay said. "It is a chance for the former king
to clear his name if he did nothing wrong. And he
has been on the record in the past saying that he
would be willing to face the trial like the former
Khmer Rouge leaders."
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