Recently approved legislation to try former Khmer Rouge leaders came under fire during a panel discussion Friday where many of the more than 100 participants said the law was too vague on who should face prosecution.
The law, which passed easily through both the National Assembly and the Senate, offers no clear definition of the “most senior leaders” of the Khmer Rouge regime who could go to trial.
“I would not feel [satisfied] if the law were applied [as is]. It would not be fair,” said Yeap Samnang, one of the members of the public who spoke at the discussion, which was organized by the Center for Social Development and included panelists from local NGOs and Parliament.
“I think all should be tried. The killers should be tried and questioned about who ordered them,” Yeap Samnang said.
Only two former Khmer Rouge cadres, Ta Mok and Duch, are in custody awaiting trial. It remains unclear if any of the former Khmer Rouge leaders living freely in Cambodia will be called to court.
Critics of the government’s handling of the law have demanded that at least Ieng Sary, known during the Khmer Rouge regime as Brother No 3, should be prosecuted.
“If Ieng Sary is not tried the tribunal is nonsense,” said Lao Mong Hay, executive director of the Khmer Institute of Democracy.
The government, with the support of some in the international community, intentionally limited the scope of the trial to include only those at the top of the ultra-leftist regime that left more than 1 million Cambodians dead in the late 1970s.
The US, which helped broker a trial deal between the UN and Cambodia, maintains that expanding the trial to include lower-level Khmer Rouge members would become financially and logistically impossible.
“But justice is expensive,” Lao Mong Hay said.
While he acknowledged that Friday’s discussion comes too late to influence legislators, Lao Mong Hay said it “reflects the opinion of the people. There is much other work to come.”
