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No TRC for Khmer Rouge
02/12/2002 10:58 - (SA)
Phnom Penh - Cambodia's surviving Khmer Rouge leaders should be put on trial rather than escape prosecution by testifying to a truth and reconciliation commission, activists said on Monday.
Chief supporters of a trial rejected calls for a truth commission by a leader of the former regime, arguing Pol Pot's supporters were not worthy of forgiveness.
"The Khmer Rouge leadership such as Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea and Ieng Thirith should not qualify for forgiveness by a truth commission," Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia (DC-Cam) said.
"A truth commission works only for the middle level and lower cadres, the thousands who cannot and should not all be prosecuted because it would be too disruptive for society," he said.
DC-Cam has spent the past seven years collating evidence against the Khmer Rouge for alleged crimes against humanity committed by the ultra-Maoists when they ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979.
In an interview with AFP, Khieu Samphan, a senior Khmer Rouge leader, said from his home in remote west Cambodia that he wanted a truth and reconciliation commission rather than a trial.
He said such a commission, modelled on South Africa's post-apartheid inquiry, would be a fair way to proceed and would be capable of detailing how two million people perished under the regime.
Nobody would face prosecution or the prospect of jail in return for an amnesty and giving evidence in an open enquiry.
"And there would be no retaliation," Khieu Samphan added, without elaborating.
Efforts to hold an international tribunal have received a fresh impetus with the UN General Assembly expected this month to pass a resolution that would give Secretary General Kofi Annan a mandate to re-negotiate a UN-sponsored Khmer Rouge tribunal with Phnom Penh.
Former foreign minister Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith, Khieu Samphan, a former prime minister, and former Brother Number Two to Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, have all been cited for trial. Pol Pot died in 1998.
Those surviving leaders live freely. - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA
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