The Phnom Penh Post

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.

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.

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.

As you may have noticed, the tribunal (and I) have been on break for the Khmer New Year holiday. But after a one-week recess, the trial of "Comrade Duch" resumed Monday with testimony from former staffers at detention center M-13. Chan Voeun told the court Duch was "happy like a madman" while torturing prisoners and that he had seen the torture chief burn a female detainee's breasts with a lit torch. Questioning of Chan Khorn, who was only around 14 or 15 when he worked for Duch at M-13, took up all of Tuesday's session, although, as Ka-set pointed out in an interesting post, it's unclear how helpful either witness' testimony will be to the prosecution. Both seemed somewhat unsure of their answers and contradicted themselves at different points. (This may be partly due to audio translation issues, however, which I will address in an upcoming post.)

Meanwhile, outside of the courtroom the tribunal continues to be plagued by unresolved corruption allegations. Local NGOs released a statement April 17 (the anniversary of the Khmer Rouge takeover of Phnom Penh) demanding that all charges be thoroughly investigated, with results made available to the public.

The declaration from the Asian Human Rights Commission and Cambodian Center for Human Rights was prompted by a recent decision made by Co-Investigating Judges at the tribunal. On April 3, they rejected a request from defense lawyers to publicly release the findings of a UN corruption probe. Co-Investigating Judges claimed that investigating corruption was outside their jurisdiction.

The day before Francois Bizot was released from M-13 prison, "Comrade Duch" allowed him to organize a farewell party for his co-detainees. The French scholar was granted leave to accompany one of the prison guards to his home village, where they purchased dozens of chickens. Later, the fowl was made into chicken soup, which Bizot ate along with his fellow inmates, who were still in restraints.

"French comrade, don't forget us, please," they pleaded with him. It must have been a surreal experience.

"It is on behalf of all those people that I would like to give testimony today," Bizot told tribunal judges Wednesday, as he became the first witness to testify at Duch's trial. His story was fascinating, and stretched into Thursday morning's session.

As you may have read in today's Post, the UN and Cambodian government have failed to reach an agreement on anti-corruption mechanisms at the court. The latest round of talks was seen by many as a "last ditch effort" to resolved the nagging corruption issue, which would unfreeze funds that are being withheld from the ECCC's Cambodian side.

Now the UN has said there will be no more negotiations.

Peter Taksoe-Jensen, UN Assistant Secretary for Legal Affairs, said the UN has left a proposal with Deputy Prime Minister Sok An to consider. What will happen if this proposal is not accepted in unclear.

When Kaing Guek Eav was young, he admired a character in one of his schoolbooks. The fictional boy, named "Duch," always stood straight and spoke clearly, the former torture chief explained to judges at the Khmer Rouge tribunal Monday.

"I wanted to be a well-disciplined boy," he said, "who respected the teachers and did good deeds."

When Kaing Guek Eav joined the Khmer Rouge revolution and had to choose a nom de guerre, he was immediately drawn to the name that had inspired him as a child.