By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, May 16 2003 (IPS)

When human rights lobbies such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch speak out, victims of injustice are supposed to feel reassured. But whether that will be the case in Cambodia, where a long awaited tribunal to try Khmer Rouge leaders is coming under fire from these groups, remains to be seen.

That question will be answered as Cambodia’s war crimes tribunal, which many are counting on to give some kind of closure to the country’s trauma of genocide, moves closer to becoming reality.

On Tuesday, the U.N. General Assembly endorsed a plan to establish a special tribunal in the South-east Asian country, ending a five-year tussle between U.N. officials and the Cambodian government over what shape and form a war crimes trial should take.

However, the victims of Khmer Rouge brutality in the seventies will have to wait till this process clears two more hurdles. The U.N. backed plan has to be endorsed by Cambodia’s parliament after the national elections on Jun. 27, and funds need to flow for the tribunal to begin its work.

”The abuses of the (Khmer Rouge government) have hung like a dark shadow over the country’s development and over the lives of individual victims and their families,” says Youk Chhang, director of the Phnom Penh-based Documentation Centre of Cambodia, an independent body that collects evidence of Khmer Rouge atrocities.

Yet, as the cloud of uncertainty about the tribunal gives way to a road map of certainty, questions about the credibility of this special court continue to haunt this judicial process.

Loud objections are being raised by the London-based Amnesty and the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW). Both view the tribunal as one that will not be able to meet the international standards expected of such a special court.

”Those responsible for the most grave crimes under international law must be brought to justice in trials that adhere strictly to international standards,” Amnesty said in a report on the Cambodian war crimes tribunal issued late April. ”These standards are the same for everyone, be they Cambodian, Serbian, Rwandan or American.”

HRW sees the model envisaged to try leaders of the Khmer Rouge as having ”serious shortcomings from a human rights perspective”. Its activists point to the absence of an independent prosecutor and lack of sufficient protection for witnesses as some of the glaring flaws of the court.

Both rights lobbies have as their model the special tribunals created to prosecute the perpetrators of crimes against humanity in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia – where full international participation in the judicial process helped sustain high standards of justice.

They are opposing the ”mixed tribunal” that is set to become a reality in Cambodia due to the inherent weaknesses in the Cambodian judicial system, which was destroyed during the 1975-1979 rule of Khmer Rouge regime and is still struggling to get back on its feet.

Under this arrangement – a compromise struck between the United Nations and the Cambodian government of Prime Minister Hun Sen – the tribunal will have a majority of Cambodian judges joined by international judges.

A judgement will need at least one international judge to agree with the majority of the Cambodian judges.

Even some human rights activists in Cambodia have reservations about justice prevailing under this formula, given that the country lacks judges who have a background in international law to try cases of crimes against humanity.

Under the Khmer Rouge’s regime led by Pol Pot, close to 1.7 million people were killed due to executions, forced labour and famines in Cambodia

Although Pol Pot died in 1998, other leaders associated with the acts of genocide during the Khmer Rouge regime have survived. They include former foreign minister Ieng Sary, Pol Pot’s deputy Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ta Mok and Kaing Khek Lev.

Hun Sen himself was a former member of the Khmer Rouge till he joined ranks with the Vietnamese, which sent troops into Cambodia to ousted the Pol Pot dictatorship from power.

But the pressure by Amnesty and HRW to try the surviving Khmer Rouge leaders according to the highest standards of international justice has led to an unavoidable question – are the victims then expected to wait longer for judgement day?

Cambodians who have struggled to see the creation of a special tribunal reach the present juncture may be starting to think that a further wait may be futile.

”The same friends of justice who have helped the process reach its current point must stay involved in the search for justice and see it through to its conclusion,” says Youk Chhang. ”Financial, legal and technical support will be imperative, as will dissemination of the tribunal’s activities to a national and worldwide audience.”

”Together we can ensure that justice is done and that a Khmer Rouge tribunal serves to advance reconciliation and the rule of law in Cambodia and abroad,” he adds. ”While a Khmer Rouge tribunal is an extremely important step in the search for justice, memory and national reconciliation, it can never be sufficient.”

The weeks ahead will reveal if Cambodians will settle for trying to secure as much justice as they can under this ”mixed tribunal” formula, while the elderly survivors of Khmer Rouge atrocities are still alive, or say that judgement day is worth postponing until a perfect tribunal is created.

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