The Phnom Penh Post

The trial of Comrade Duch is in recess the first two weeks of May, but judges recently posted a revised schedule for the trial's next segment. Proceedings will begin again May 18. In the following weeks, the chamber will hear testimony from scholar Craig Etcheson and journalist Nayan Chanda.

A new CNN documentary includes footage of anonymous Khmer Rouge tribunal staffers explaining the "kickback" system at the court. KI Media has the report uploaded on its website.

Staffers claim that tribunal administration head Sean Visoth, who has been on sick leave since November, collected up to $40,000 a month in kickbacks.

It will be interesting to see what kind of affect this high-profile international media exposure will have on the court. Today's Cambodia Daily reports that the Cambodian government still denies any evidence of wrongdoing at the ECCC. The fact that CNN only used anonymous sources (with faces and voices disguised) will certainly lessen whatever impact the report has.

With the court's Cambodian staffers facing the prospect of no April paychecks, Japan has decided to circumvent the UNDP, donating $4.17-million directly to the ECCC's Cambodian side. This should be enough to fund operations of the court's Cambodian side through 2009.

The donation has extremely significant repercussions. In essence, it takes immediate pressure off of the Cambodian government to come to an agreement with the UN about corruption at the court. UNDP, which administers funds for the court's Cambodian side, has refused to release any money until such an agreement is reached. The funding freeze prompted Japan to donate an urgent $200,000 to the court last month so the Cambodian side could make payroll.

But since the Cambodian government appears to be stonewalling the UN on the corruption issue -- Prime Minister Hun Sen has even announced that he wouldn't mind if the tribunal fails -- many of us watching the court have wondered how it can continue to fund operations.

Once again the month is coming to an end, and the court is not sure how it will pay its Cambodian staffers their salaries.

"We are optimistic we will get the money, but we don't know when," tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said today. "It's not news. It has happened before."

Indeed it has. In March, Japan came to the tribunal's rescue at the last minute with an urgent donation of $200,000 for Cambodian staffers' salaries. UNDP, which administers international donations, has frozen funds to the Cambodian side of the court pending the resolution of corruption allegations.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys squared off this afternoon about another translation issue at the court, when the same passage of evidence was translated as both to "crush to pieces" and to "pursue without end."

Defense attorney Francois Roux highlighted the discrepancy while objecting to the prosecution's use of a translation created by its own staff. Roux said that any translations of documents undertaken outside of the court's official "translation services" unit should not be considered neutral. DC-Cam, in particular, he said, is not an objective body.

Prosecutor Alex Bates explained that the court's official translators were often "busy or overloaded." Using other translation resources can help expedite proceedings, he said, agreeing to publicly identify documents that were not translated by the court itself.

Questioning of Duch continued Monday in relation to the establishment of S-21. The defendant spent a good part of the day taking the judges through annotated confessions he had worked on while head of the detention center. Throughout the testimony, he sought to minimize his responsibility, highlighting how he had passed the confessions on to Son Sen, who gave them to Pol Pot. (Apparently, as Duch showed the court, a red check mark indicated that Pol Pot had read the document.) At the end of the day, Duch told judges that he was faithful and obedient to Khmer Rouge leaders, "like their dog."

A few other highlights from the testimony, which was relatively scattered in terms of subject matter:

* Judges questioned Duch about internal purges at S-21 and which groups had been most affected. Staffers at the detention center were recruited from three main sources: Phnom Penh city, Security Division 703 and M-13, Duch's former detention center. Duch said staffers in the first two groups were purged, but not in the third. In my opinion, this seems to contradict Duch's claim that he had little influence or input regarding who was "smashed" at S-21. Is it really just coincidence that staffers who came from the detention center Duch previously ran were also most likely to be spared?

After writing my blog post about translation at the tribunal last week, I received a copy of this piece written by Kok-Thay Eng from the Documentation Center of Cambodia. He raises some good points that, given my lack of translation experience, I would not have considered. I've pasted his thoughts below:

I have had some experience translating the Khmer Rouge historical and legal documents at DC-Cam. With so much pressure, the interpretation/translation team at the ECCC has been hard at work doing their jobs.

Translation/interpretation can only be as good as the original statement. My experience in translating interview transcripts suggests that speech in Khmer tend to be incomplete or missing information, especially speech by villagers and traumatized victims. Only people who are familiar with their stories can follow. When a translator tries to replicate this in the target language, listeners might feel it is a translation mistake when in fact that was how it is stated in the original. In addition, as much as Cambodia is going through political and social transitions, Khmer language is also being transformed through trade, the media, civil society interactions and international politics. New ideas and concepts are everywhere in Cambodia , which are not settling down. Both translators and readers are trying to catch up. In Khmer language there is no consensus on legal terminology. I believe that in English, there is such consensus since modern laws have been widely practiced and concepts are written, discussed and used in many formats over and over. Therefore interpreting legal speech from Khmer to English can be daunting because original language might not be clear enough. Interpretation from English to Khmer can also be difficult because the listeners in Khmer might not understand interpreted legal concepts. Of course there are law dictionaries but in special cases confusions can happen.

However, having said that there are a few ways that interpretation at the ECCC might be improved. The interpreters at the ECCC should study speech patterns of people who speak often at the ECCC. They should also study those people's views, positions and their frequently used terminologies. For example, they should study Duch's case file, his biography, the way he speaks, the prison system and related legal terminologies for his particular case. Different interpreters should specialize in different people. Interpreters should also try to anticipate court discussions. In addition, one should also recognize that beyond a certain period of simultaneous/consecutive interpretation, the interpreter can get confused. At this point shift should be made. As much as the interpreters are trying their best to help the communication within the courtroom, legal personnel in the court should also simplify their speech and be as precise as possible.

The translation issues at the ECCC highlight the vital role of the translation/interpretation works for the functioning of the court. It should be treated as a very important element in the court process. Translator/interpreter also needs trainings as much as other personnel at the court do. There are always mistakes in the interpretation/translation if we try to find them.

Given the amount of public interest in the Co-Prosecutors' disagreement over whether the ECCC should pursue additional suspects, international prosecutor Robert Petit issued a statement last week.

After outlining the history of the disagreement, Petit wrote that he and Cambodian prosecutor Chea Leang had been given additional questions by the Pre-Trial Chamber April 24. They must each respond by the end of May. If the Chamber decides an oral hearing is required, it will be held June 5. Should this happen, Petit wrote, he will request that at least part of the hearing be held in public.

A great article appeared recently in the LA Times about the capture and trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who I have mentioned several times in relation to "Comrade Duch." Read it here.

A commenter suggested a few days ago that Duch might also have some traits in common with Franz Stangl, commandant of the Treblinka extermination camp. I do not know much about him, but will definitely read Gitta Sereny's Into that Darkness, in which she probes Stangl's influences and motivations, as soon as I can get my hands on a copy.

As testimony for the week wrapped up Thursday, defense attorney Francois Roux raised an issue that has noticeably impeded proceedings the last few days: translation. As the chamber finished its questioning about M-13 detention camp and moved on to interrogating Duch about S-21, a good deal of what was said was lost in the semi-simultaneous Khmer-English-French translation.

I hate to spend too much time dwelling on this issue, because, in many ways translation is a thankless job and it seems the translators at the court are probably stretched to their limits. However, there were numerous times this week when the entire meaning of an exchange would be lost to French and English speakers -- and, when actors in the courtroom itself had trouble understanding each other.

For example, late Wednesday afternoon Duch kept trying to explain the modes of horizontal and vertical communication available when he was chief of S-21. But "horizontal" and "vertical" kept getting bungled in the translation, relaying the exact opposite meaning of what Duch was saying to English/French speakers.