UN: Khmer Rouge tribunal must be free from politics (Roundup)

Oct 27, 2010, 15:42 GMT

Phnom Penh - The United Nations said Wednesday that Cambodia's Khmer Rouge tribunal must be free from political interference and insisted all parties respect the judicial process.

That was in reaction to comments by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who told UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Wednesday that the international war crimes court would only be allowed to prosecute four Khmer Rouge leaders currently in custody.

UN spokesman Yves Sorokobi said Ban, who is in Cambodia on an official visit, had told Hun Sen at their meeting that deciding who to prosecute remained the responsibility of the court.

'We have to give [court officials] the space that they need to make the proper decision,' Sorokobi said. 'There should be no political interference with their work.'

Earlier on Wednesday Hun Sen told Ban he wanted the UN's human rights office to close, something Sorokobi said the secretary-general would take into consideration, since the presence of a human rights office was a matter of mutual agreement.

But when it came to Hun Sen's demand that the UN fire the country head of its Cambodian human rights office, Sorokobi said that was an entirely different matter.

'Pulling staff out of a particular country or not is a matter of internal personnel issues,' he said. 'In the meantime we fully stand by the work of the human rights commissioner and by her representatives around the world including here.'

Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith said earlier that Hun Sen had a number of reasons - including a perceived threat to political stability - for opposing the prosecutions of five more former Khmer Rouge cadres.

The Khmer Rouge is considered responsible for the deaths of up to 2.2 million people in the 1970s. The tribunal was established to try senior surviving leaders and those considered most responsible for crimes of that period.

Also on Wednesday police dispersed dozens of people facing eviction who had gathered on the roads on which Ban's motorcade was travelling. Earlier this week they petitioned the UN for a meeting with the secretary-general.

Land-grabbing and evictions are an issue in Cambodia, with tens of thousands of people thrown off their land in recent years. On Monday the activist organization Human Rights Watch called on Ban to address the issue.

Ban arrived in Phnom Penh late Tuesday and visited the tribunal on Wednesday. Earlier this year, the court convicted former Khmer Rouge security chief Comrade Duch of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The UN chief is scheduled to depart on Thursday for Vietnam, where he will attend a summit between the United Nations and the regional Association of South-East Asian Nations bloc. He will conclude his current Asian tour in China.

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