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2 Khmer Rouge tribunal in jeopardy
(again) By Julio A Jeldres
The viability of the Extraordinary
Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), the
official name for the mixed Cambodian-United
Nations tribunal established last year to try
senior Khmer Rouge leaders, is once again in
doubt, with senior government officials
threatening to boot the legal body from the
country. Crucially, this time the conflict is not
about money or international representation, but
rather the integrity of the Cambodian
monarchy.
The latest
controversy surrounds whether retired king Norodom
Sihanouk, 85, should or should not be called to
testify at the tribunal. The UN has been
noncommittal about whether it would call on the
retired monarch to the stand. Information Minister
Khieu Kanarith recently threatened to kick the
tribunal out of Cambodia if it decided to call
Sihanouk as a witness.
He added that the
ECCC operates under Cambodian law, that the same
law guarantees Sihanouk's immunity, and that any
attempt to lift that immunity "would be illegal
and thus justify the termination of the tribunal's
proceedings".
Since the UN began talks
with Phnom Penh in 1997 about establishing the
ECCC, the tribunal has been plagued by
controversy, lack of funds and glacial progress.
Last month one of the tribunal's senior Cambodian
co-investigating judges, You Bunleng, was
transferred to the presidency of the troubled
Cambodian Court of Appeals. UN officials felt it
amounted to interference in the tribunal's work
and asked the government to reconsider the
appointment.
The special representative of
the UN secretary general for human rights in
Cambodia, Yash Ghai, described the judge's
transfer decree as "unconstitutional and
unlawful", and opposition parties and human-rights
workers in Phnom Penh also challenged the action.
It appeared to have been made at the personal
request of Prime Minister Hun Sen, casting foreign
doubts on the constitutionally guaranteed
principle of judicial independence.
While
this controversy unfolded, the ECCC was at the
same time moving to charge its first suspect, the
infamous Kaing Kek Iev, alias Duch, who was in
charge of the notorious Khmer Rouge prison S-21,
where thousands were tortured and murdered. The
timing prompted some observers to ask whether
someone was trying to derail the process against
Duch.
Then a little-known organization
calling itself the Cambodian Action Committee for
Justice and Equity, based in the small town of
Revere, Massachusetts, wrote to the Speaker of the
Cambodian National Assembly, Heng Samrin, asking
him to convoke a plenary session "to remove the
immunity of the former monarch Norodom Sihanouk
and revoke Article 7 of the Cambodian
constitution, which states that the person of the
king is inviolable".
After Sihanouk
retired as monarch in October 2004, the Cambodian
National Assembly and Senate bestowed upon him the
title of "Great Valorous King" and granted him the
same privileges and immunities as those
constitutionally given to the reigning monarch
under Article 7 of the constitution. Legislation
to that effect was passed by Parliament in that
October and promulgated by King Norodom Sihamoni
that same month.
Obscure outpost What followed the request by this little-known
US-based group can only be described as a
crescendo of furious declarations and,
unfortunately, also threats to the real existence
of the tribunal. The ruling Cambodian People's
Party issued a statement on August 24 that
strongly rejected the request to remove Sihanouk's
immunity and suggested that it was "aimed at
destroying the stability, the unity and the
progress of the nation".
The ruling
party's statement was followed by similar
statements by Funcinpec, the minor coalition
partner in the government, and other smaller
parties without representation in the Cambodian
National Assembly. Significantly, the represented
opposition party, named after its president, Sam
Rainsy, did not issue any statement on the issue.
Sihanouk, who since his retirement in 2004
has been in poor health but has lost none of his
political acumen or intellectual capacity, limited
himself to writing letters thanking the parties
that had expressed support for him. Hun Sen went
on national radio and described the request as "a
tactic to destroy Cambodia" and added that
Sihanouk and his family had suffered greatly under
the Khmer Rouge regime.
Hun Sen, who has a
reputation for threatening his opponents,
ministers and public servants on national radio
and television, said there would be "consequences"
for anyone who tried to lift Sihanouk's immunity.
He then proceeded to read from the minutes
of a meeting of the Standing Committee of
Democratic Kampuchea, the official name of the
Khmer Rouge regime, held after Sihanouk resigned
as head of state in March 1976. At the time, Khmer
Rouge leader Pol Pot
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