DED donates 300,000 dollars toward Khmer Rouge trials

Jan 18, 2007, 4:30 GMT

Phnom Penh - The German Development Service has donated 300,000 dollars toward community programmes supporting the upcoming trial of former Khmer Rouge leaders, country director Wolfgang Mollers said Thursday.

The funds from the German government-controlled non-profit group, known by its German acronym DED, are to be disbursed over three years and are to be used for a range of programmes, including forums to be held across the country and organized through DED's local partner, the Centre for Social Development.

'DED will support the process of reconciliation through a whole set of other activities related to the Khmer Rouge Tribunal as well,' the service said in a press release.

They are to include awareness activities, care and protection of witnesses, journalist training and production of media programmes to inform the public about the work of the tribunal hearing cases against former Khmer Rouge leaders, the DED said.

The funds are not to be directly contributed to bridging the estimated 8-million-dollar budgetary shortfall for the UN-Cambodian trials, which are to cost 56 million dollars.

Reach Sambath, press officer for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, said the tribunal welcomed both direct and indirect funding as the nation prepares for the trials, three decades after the Khmer Rouge's 1975-1979 rule.

He said the DED programmes filled a strong community need.

The court was expected to try a handful of the ailing and ageing remaining leaders of the regime, which left up to 2 million Cambodians dead. Indictments have yet to be issued.