U.N. panel to hear rights cases in East Timor

By P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE, MARCH 22. The United Nations today said its transitional outfit in East Timor had set up a judicial panel to hear cases while an emissary sent to Phnom Penh had attained some progress but no agreement with Cambodia on a tribunal to try the surviving Khmer Rouge leaders for genocide in the '70s.

The U.N.'s Assistant Secretary-General, Mr. Heidi Annabi, told the Security Council in a briefing on East Timor that the law and order had improved and the chief of the U.N. peacekeeping force, Lt. Gen. Jaime de los Santos, had lowered the perceived security threat categorisation almost across the entire half-island.

According to Mr. Annabi, the U.N. Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET), overseeing the territory's movement towards full independence in two or three years', had just now set up a panel consisting of native persons and foreigners as judges.

On Cambodia, the U.N. official noted that the leader of a team sent by the world body to Phnom Penh had presently reported modest or a little progress on the question of the tribunal.

A U.N. official in New York said the effort was still focused on enabling Cambodia to set up a national tribunal that could, however, prosecute the old Khmer Rouge leaders in accordance with international standards of justice. Mr. Correll, too, spoke in Phnom Penh in a similar vein of helping Cambodia over the question of a national tribunal.

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Section  : International
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