The Phnom Penh Post

Margo Picken, who served as director of the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Cambodia from 2001 to 2007, has a lengthy essay in the New York Review of Books on contemporary Cambodian politics and the ECCC. Picken clearly takes a dim view of Prime Minister Hun Sen, arguing that he is manipulating the court to further cement his kleptocratic rule:

Taking credit for ridding Cambodia of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, Hun Sen cooperates with the trials as long as they don’t diminish his power. He talks of sustainable development and reducing poverty while he and his party have exploited the country’s resources and pocketed the payoffs. He tolerates the UN human rights presence, provided it limits itself to overcoming the legacy of Cambodia’s tragic Khmer Rouge past. He uses Pol Pot’s record as the yardstick to measure progress, thereby making failure impossible. The trials reinforce this message. No outside governments care to ask too many questions. Their economic and security interests are more important, as Hun Sen knows, and human rights are treated as dispensable.

Picken's strident tone is particularly striking given the low profile her former colleagues at UNOHCHR have kept over the past few months. The office has made no public comment on the conviction of a UN staffer earlier this month on incitement charges, nor on Hun Sen's announcement to UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon that Case 002 will be the last trial at the ECCC. During Ban's visit, Hun Sen also announced plans to close the local OHCHR office, which government officials have accused of acting as a "spokesman" for opposition parties. This issue is still unresolved, and as long as it remains so, it is perhaps to be expected that OHCHR will largely refrain from public advocacy.

The Pre-Trial Chamber at the Khmer Rouge tribunal (ECCC).

My apologies for playing catch-up on this post. I am just returning from a trip to the provinces and was not around to cover two stories of note:

No. 1: On October 7, the tribunal made public six summons letters, dated September 25 and bearing the signature of International Co-Investigating Judge Marcel Lemonde, requesting that six government officials - Senate President Chea Sim, National Assembly President Heng Samrin, Foreign Minister Hor Namhong, Finance Minister Keat Chhon and two CPP senators – appear at the tribunal to provide testimony “in the framework of the investigation under way against Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan and other leaders”.

The following day Prime Minister Hun Sen weighed in, saying the officials' testimony could prejudice the tribunal's second case. Speaking at Chaktomuk Theatre, he said: “These [officials] made the Pol Pot regime collapse, and they adopted the law on the Khmer Rouge tribunal, so if they go as witnesses, it would make the accused persons guilty. How is justice to be done? My main problem is that turning the plaintiffs into witnesses would doom the accused.”

The Khmer Rouge tribunal’s acting director of administration said at a press conference Wednesday that he did not see any problem with Prime Minister Hun Sen criticising a recent Pre-Trial Chamber decision that paved the way for the investigations of additional suspects. 

In response to a question from a reporter, Tony Kranh said: “He [Hun Sen] has the right to make any comments or mention on all kinds of matter or fields, including the judicial matter. I cannot see any contradiction at all.”

Hun Sen’s remarks earlier this month — in which he said further indictments risked civil unrest that could claim hundreds of thousands of lives — were blasted by groups including Human Rights Watch, which said they were  evidence of "the Cambodian government's efforts to manipulate what is supposed to be an independent judicial process". 

There have been no hearings this week, but there has been plenty of tribunal-related news concerning the prospect of additional prosecutions.

Prime Minister Hun Sen got the ball rolling on Monday when he repeated his claim that any more investigations would lead to civil war, this time saying the casualty count could reach up to 300,000.

As it turned out, William Smith, the acting international co-prosecutor, was that very day submitting formal requests for the investigations of five more suspects. One of the introductory submissions listed crimes that Smith said constituted  genocide. This charge was pursued in the prosecution's first introductory submission -- filed in July 2007 -- but was not brought against any of the five leaders currently in custody.