Hun Sen plan may annoy U.N.

By P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE, JAN. 6. The Cambodian Government today took a step closer towards organising a trial of the surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge for genocide in the 1970s.

The Cabinet's approval of the Prime Minister, Mr. Hun Sen's blueprint for such a trial set the stage for the National Assembly, constituted after the internationally endorsed general election in July 1998, to consider the draft bill incorporating the Government's plan for the trial.

The issue needs to be vetted thereafter by the Senate, which was formed by Mr. Hun Sen following international demands for some checks and balances. The plan would then go to the national magistracy for its scrutiny and follow-up action.

Today's action could, however, put the Government on a collision course with the UN., which was studying a revised blueprint that Phnom Penh had presented to it only a few days ago. The revised plan was sent in the context of the U.N. Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan's earlier comments on the original draft prepared by the Hun Sen Government.

The differences mainly relate to the credibility. The U.N., which still nurses concerns about the Cambodian moves, is keen that the Khmer Rouge leaders be tried by an international tribunal or at least according to stiff international standards of jurisprudence. The Hun Sen Government, on the other hand, has now chosen to go ahead with plans to constitute judicial panels under Cambodia's sovereign jurisdiction. The standards of trial, including the assessment of evidence, would also be decided by the Cambodian judiciary.

Foreign judges as also prosecutors could still be associated with the trial process, but Mr. Hun Sen has made it clear that the verdicts would be passed by the presiding native judges subject only to the condition that at least one international judge should concur. The powers to either convict or acquit the Khmer Rouge leaders would be vested in the Cambodian judges who would constitute a clear majority on the bench.

While these finer points can still be resolved through suitable U.N. intervention, the world body may need to settle for the best possible means of assisting Phnom Penh instead of searching for the ideal of a trial by an international jury.

One area where the U.N. can still make a difference is that of tutoring the Cambodian judges in judicial norms. The Hun Sen Government still kept the U.N. guessing today about the exact number of Khmer Rouge leaders who might be brought to trial.

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Section  : International
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