UN resumes Cambodia trial talks

UN resumes Cambodia trial talks

Mr Corell is leading a six-member UN delegation to Phnom Penh

A United Nations team has arrived in Cambodia for talks aimed at setting up an international genocide court to bring former leaders of the Khmer Rouge to trial.

Chief UN negotiator Hans Corell held preliminary discussions with Sok An, the Cambodian minister in charge of trial negotiations, on Thursday.

Further meetings are planned for Friday, involving the full UN delegation.

Negotiations on the proposed genocide court have already come up against several hurdles, with talks stalling for a time last year when the UN said Phnom Penh's plans would not guarantee a fair trial.

"The (UN) General Assembly has described this as the last chance for Cambodia to bring Khmer Rouge to trial," Mr Corell said on Thursday.

He added that he had been offered some "further information" by Cambodia which might give cause for optimism, but did not elaborate further.

The tribunal is about the future, about what happened and why it happened, and that is very important for the survival of Cambodia

Youk Chang, genocide researcher

Earlier on Thursday, the New York-based Human Rights Watch organisation accused the United States of failing to play a constructive role in the creation of a Cambodian genocide court.

Brad Adams, the group's Asian executive director, told the BBC that he believed the US was supporting attempts to weaken the powers of the tribunal.

He also said the Cambodian authorities appeared to be unwilling to bring some former Khmer Rouge members to trial.

But Helen Jarvis, an advisor to the Cambodian government on the trials told the BBC that she thought that the Cambodian side had been working very hard in the last year to get the process back on track.

"If the Cambodian government did not want to go ahead, why would they bother with this when they certainly have other issues on their plate?", she said.

Brutal regime

The ongoing UN-Cambodia talks are aimed at bringing to justice those responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7m people during the Khmer Rouge's four-year rule in the 1970s.

Many victims died of starvation and torture during the brutal regime.

An estimated 1.7m people died as a result of the Khmer Rouge regime

Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998, but many of the regime's other senior figures are still living as free men.

So far no member of the Khmer Rouge has faced trial for atrocities committed during the regime.

Youk Chang is head of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, which gathers evidence of atrocities carried out under Khmer Rouge rule.

"Even if Khmer Rouge leaders were hanged on the street... it would not bring my sister back," he told the BBC's East Asia Today programme.

But he still believes that the trials are crucial to Cambodia.

"No-one in the world can compensate enough for the loss endured in the Khmer Rouge period, so the tribunal is about the future, about what happened and why it happened and that is very important for the survival of Cambodia," he said.

The negotiations for a genocide court have had problems since the outset in 1999.

Talks broke down completely in February 2002, when a row broke out over whether the UN or Cambodia would control the proceedings.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said at the time that Cambodia could not guarantee the tribunal's independence, impartiality and objectivity.

But the UN came back to the negotiating table last December after the 191-member General Assembly voted for talks to resume.

In January the two sides held exploratory discussions in New York, which are said to have made some headway.