Cambodia and the Pitfalls of Political Justice

June 20, 2011
By PETER MAGUIRE
International Herald Tribune Op-Ed Contributor
The New York Times

If Cambodia’s E.C.C.C. cannot try the surviving Khmer Rouge leaders before they die, the “mixed tribunal” should be considered an expensive farce never to be tried again.

WILMINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA — The trial of surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge will begin in Phnom Penh on Monday. The fact that the case has even made it this far is a minor miracle to those of us who were in Cambodia during the 1990s, when the defendants’ amnesties seemed secure.

The court — the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (E.C.C.C.), better known as the “mixed tribunal” — has charged, with various counts of war crimes, the former head of state, Khieu Samphan; Nuon Chea, described as the movement’s ideologue; Ieng Sary, the foreign minister; and his wife, Ieng Thirith, who was minister of social affairs.

Even a longtime critic like myself must give credit to the court and the devoted investigators who worked for decades to bring the Khmer Rouge leaders to justice. But a conflict between an E.C.C.C. prosecutor and the investigative judges over another possible trial is undermining the case.

This is the court’s second case — and the most significant it will ever try. After Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia announced that this trial would be the E.C.C.C.’s last, U.N. investigative judges seemed to lose interest in a third case against other high-ranking Khmer Rouge members. Internal strife ensued and some foreign members of the legal staff resigned. Next week’s trial, known as Case Two, will now take place amid accusations of political interference and of U.N. incompetence.

In the wake of Hun Sen’s declaration it was the British prosecutor Andrew Cayley who challenged the U.N.’s investigative judges to be more aggressive in pursing a third trial, and the fallout led to the resignation of the staff members. Although the U.N. denies that politics played any role in their decision, no amount of procedural correctness can spare the Cambodian court from the inevitable pitfalls of political justice.

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