The New York Times

Thursday, April 13, 2000

Talks on Stalled U.N. Khmer Rouge Trials

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

HAVANA, April 12 -- The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, and the Cambodian prime minister, Hun Sen, met today in Havana, where both were attending a Group of 77 summit meeting, to discuss issues blocking a United Nations-backed tribunal judging crimes against humanity in a Cambodian court. As a result, the United Nations announced today, Cambodian and United Nations diplomats will meet soon in an effort to end a deadlock over the prosecution of former Khmer Rouge leaders on genocide charges.

Cambodia and the United Nations have bickered for more than a year over which side should control trials of Khmer Rouge leaders accused of causing the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians during their brutal rule in the late 1970's.

While Cambodia has tentatively agreed to a jointly administered tribunal, it has rejected United Nations demands for a foreign prosecutor with powers to issue independent indictments.

Cambodia wants indictments to be handled by co-prosecutors -- one Cambodian, one foreign -- fearing that a foreign prosecutor may seek to try too many former Khmer Rouge members and upset the country's newfound peace.

The Khmer Rouge waged a civil war after being driven from power in a Vietnamese invasion in 1979, and the last Khmer Rouge holdouts surrendered two years ago. Many are believed to have secured promises from the current government that they would not be prosecuted.

The Cambodian foreign minister, Hor Namhong, said this week that although Cambodia and the United Nations accepted the idea of joint indictments, there had been no consensus on how to resolve disagreements between the two prosecutors.

Mr. Annan and Mr. Hun Sen "are seeking a compromise formula," the United Nations statement read. "The two working groups will have to meet one more time, and the expectation is that this will happen in the shortest amount of time."

United Nations officials said it had not been decided when, or whether the meeting would occur in New York or Phnom Penh.

Mr. Hun Sen told diplomats last week that one possible solution was to have the court's panel of judges settle any prosecutorial squabbles. But some legal experts have balked at involving judges in indictments.

The radical Communist Khmer Rouge have evaded justice for nearly 25 years since they seized power and forced Cambodia's entire population into crude farming collectives. Overwork, starvation, disease and mass executions claimed nearly one in four lives.