Cambodian Khmer Rouge tribunal begins public radio campaign

Jun 18, 2007, 11:15 GMT

Phnom Penh - Public radio spots to educate and reassure the Cambodian public of the role of the tribunal to try former top Khmer Rouge leaders will be available for broadcast as of this week, the court's public affairs section said Monday.

A media officer for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), Reach Sambath, said in a press release that the four public service announcements will highlight the same themes as a poster series published earlier this year.

The spots are designed to address the most common public concerns and are entitled 'All decisions must have the support of both national and international judges,' 'Everyone can be a part of the process,' 'Only senior leaders and those most responsible will be tried,' and 'It's time to set the record straight.'

'It is hoped that Cambodian radio stations will broadcast these information spots to complement radio programs on the Khmer Rouge trials, as well as to help provide the people of Cambodia with information about the court,' Sambath said in the statement.

The Khmer-language radio spots have been provided for free to all the radio stations in the Phnom Penh area and will be made available for download from the ECCC website, and will be disseminated both within and outside of Cambodia to any interested parties, the statement said.

The long awaited 56-million-dollar joint UN-Cambodian hearings to try a handful of aging former leaders of the Khmer Rouge finally made a breakthrough last week with the adoption of the internal rules necessary to govern the court after months of wrangling between international and Cambodian judges.

Up to 2 million Cambodians are believed to have perished under the Khmer Rouge's brutal 1975 to 1979 Democratic Kampuchea regime when the ultra-Maoists attempted to turn the country into an agrarian utopia devoid of money, markets or social classes.