Hun Sen lashes out at U.N.

By Amit Baruah

SINGAPORE, JUNE 29. The Cambodian Prime Minister, Mr. Hun Sen, has lashed out at the United Nations after a U.N. official made critical remarks about a draft law relating to a Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal.

Charging the U.N. with ``forcing Cambodia to follow its will,'' Mr. Hun Sen was quoted as saying in Phnom Penh today: ``I'd like to tell the U.N. to be quiet... and leave Cambodia to work on this. If the legislative body only wants to get advice from the (U.N.), there's no need to have a country,'' the Prime Minister said after a Cabinet meeting.

The Prime Minister, who has been under considerable international pressure to go ahead with plans to set up the U.N. tribunal, said the U.N.'s ``ignorance'' was violating Cambodia's sovereignty.

Just yesterday, Mr. Peter Leuprecht, envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR), had expressed reservations about the Cambodian draft law setting up the tribunal. ``I am an international lawyer, and if I were to have designed an international tribunal, I would not have designed this one,'' Mr. Leuprecht said in Phnom Penh on Thursday.

``But we now have to make the best of it... I believe it will be much more difficult to find competent and independent Cambodian judges for the tribunal,'' the envoy stated. The draft law, which was passed by the lower House of Parliament, could not be enacted into law following objections from the Constitution Council.

However, just last week, Mr. Hun Sen stated that the trial of surviving Khmer Rouge leaders could begin by the end of the year. The first hearings, the Prime Minister said, would be that of Ta Mok, better known as ``the Butcher'' and Kang Kek Ieu, or ``Duch'', the head of the notorious Tuol Sleng torture and execution centre.

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