(Photo: One of the rare photos of Duch in his Khmer Rouge days. Provided by the Documentation Center of Cambodia.)

By Isabelle Roughol

Thirty years after Vietnamese forces ousting the Khmer Rouge from Phnom Penh discovered the horrors of the S-21 detention center, its director Kaing Guek Eav, better known by his revolutionary nom de guerre Duch, will now stand to face justice.

Almost a decade after he was arrested and following 18 months of investigation, Duch’s initial hearing in the Trial Chamber of the Khmer Rouge tribunal will mark the much-awaited start of the court’s first trial.

“It’s the beginning-maybe not quite the beginning, but it’s certainly the most public embodiment of the process to bring some justice to the Cambodian people,” said Robert Petit, the court’s international co-prosecutor. “We’re all very much mindful of the importance of it.”

ALMOST STARTING

It’s maybe not quite the beginning because the hearing on which media and public attention has been focused is purely procedural. It is likely to be far less dramatic a curtain-raiser than some might expect. Petit said he feared expectations ran too high, which is why the court felt the need to issue a statement to clarify the process.

“Neither the Accused Person, nor any witnesses, experts, or Civil Parties will speak at the Initial Hearing on any matters of substance,” the Jan 23 statement read.

Anne Heindel, legal adviser at the Documentation Center of Cambodia, agreed. “It’s going to start looking like a real trial a month later,” she said.

The Trial Chamber will first consider the list of potential witnesses and experts submitted by the prosecution and defense teams, as well as the applications of civil parties, according to the internal rules of the Extraordinary Chamber in the Courts of Cambodia. The judges will determine if all the proposed witnesses and civil parties are relevant to the case, and deal with technical matters such as how many days a week the court will convene.

The parties may also raise preliminary objections as to the jurisdiction of the courts or other reasons why Duch’s prosecution should be terminated, according to the rules.

“Duch may very well raise an objection to the jurisdiction of the court based on his eight years of detention,” Heindel said. Because his rights were violated by such a long pretrial detention, his defense team could argue that the whole court’s proceedings were “tainted” by it and should be dismissed, she explained, adding however that this was very unlikely.

Once the Substantive Hearing gets started, in late March or April, Duch will be the first to take the stand.

A PECULIAR DEFENDENT

Duch stands out as a defendant: he recognizes some responsibility for the crimes committed at S-21. The degree of responsibility he holds will be the crux of the matter.

“Our client has always said he was ready to explain himself before the Judges and the victims. That is what he will do,” Duch’s French lawyer, Franìois Roux, wrote in an e-mail.

Duch gave an interview in May 1999 to the Far Eastern Economic Review that revealed he was living in Samlot, near Battambang. People there knew him as Ta Pin, a Christian convert, teacher and aid worker, and described him at the time as kind and well mannered.

“He explained that he was led to speak out in 1999 because ‘it was impossible not [to] tell the truth about S-21′ after he heard that ‘Pol Pot denied the existence of S-21 and claimed that it was an invention of the Vietnamese,’” the 45-page indictment against Duch noted.

Duch went into hiding after the 1999 interview but was found and arrested May 9 of that year. He was initially charged by the Military Court of Phnom Penh, which kept him in detention by regularly filing new charges against him: first, crimes against domestic security in May 1999; then genocide in September 1999; then crimes against humanity in 2002; and finally war crimes and crimes against internationally protected persons in 2005.

On July 31, 2007, the newly created ECCC took custody of Duch. The mixed national and international court was starting its work, 10 years after the UN and Cambodian government began negotiating its creation.

THE CASE

Duch’s trial will be an opportunity to establish the facts of history in a way that scholars have not yet done, looking at physical crimes on the ground and confronting several versions of events, said DC-Cam Director Youk Chhang.

“I think victims and perpetrators tend to have selective memory. It will be interesting to have both sides speak in front of a court,” he said.

Duch’s indictment details the establishment of the S-21 detention center as well as the related Choeung Ek killing fields and Prey Sar, or S-24, reeducation camp, and the alleged crimes that were committed there.

S-21 became fully operational in October 1975 and Duch became its chairman in March 1976. The prison applied the Communist Party of Kampuchea’s policy of systematic “smashing,” or killing, of suspected enemies. S-21 had a political mission, first to eliminate opponents such as supporters of Lon Nol’s Khmer Republic, then to carry out internal purges.

Detainees were systematically interrogated and tortured to obtain confessions, according to the indictment. The confessions did not serve to prove guilt, which was assumed, but rather were extracted for political purposes and justification of the regime’s actions.

The indictment contends that there was no way out of Tuol Sleng, but DC-Cam documents that surfaced after the close of investigation showed that at least 177 detainees were released.

The prosecutors established that at least 12,380 men, women and children were executed at S-21, but as records may have been lost and some prisoners not registered, the numbers are likely higher. They also argue that Duch had to sign off on every execution. When one “enemy” was identified, their entire family, including children, was almost systematically marked for execution too.

Duch is charged with crimes against humanity-namely murder, extermination, enslavement, imprisonment, torture, rape, persecutions on political grounds, and other inhumane acts-as well as with grave breaches of the Geneva Convention of 1949, which regulates the treatment of prisoners of war. Charges of murder and torture under Cambodian national law were also added. He is prosecuted for directly committing, ordering, planning and instigating the crimes as well as for his responsibility for the crimes of his subordinates.

Duch is also a suspect in the ECCC╒s second investigation, along with four former Khmer Rouge senior leaders also in detention: Nuon Chea, Brother Number Two in the regime; Khieu Samphan, the formal DK head of state; and Ieng Sary and his wife, Ieng Thirith, both ministers in the regime. That case concerns all serious violations of international humanitarian law and Cambodian law under Democratic Kampuchea.

In his defense, Duch said he was “both an actor in criminal acts and also a hostage of the regime,” according to the indictment. He said he became paralyzed with fear as he progressively realized the criminal nature of the regime, to the point of spending day and night sleeping or just sitting in S-21’s sculpture room. He added he had tried but failed to escape his post and feared retribution against his family.

“The defense team will participate, where it is concerned, in this judiciary mission,” Roux, Duch’s lawyer, said. “While having the greatest respect for the victims, but also while defending with conviction the right of the accused to an equitable trial, which means a trial that takes into account all aspects of the context in which the facts occurred and that doesn’t make of the accused the scapegoat of the tragedy of Democratic Kampuchea.”

(DROP CAP)

Duch’s case is arguably easier than the second case under investigation, which is more spread out in time and place and which, as Petit said, requires ╥linking architects to their works.╙

“Things are so complicated in Cambodian history. The Duch case is less complicated. It’s one place; he did this and that. The other cases will be bigger picture,” Heindel said. “It’s a good story for the court to tell Cambodians. It’s so straight-forward.”

Although from a legal standpoint, the tribunal will be solely concerned with the guilt or innocence of one man, the stakes of this first trial reach further.

Because it is less complex and because it is the first, Duch’s case is likely to serve as a legal practice range for all parties at the ECCC. Points that the internal rules have left up to interpretation will be clarified. For instance, will judges do most of the questioning of witnesses, as is the practice in the French civil law system, or will they leave the prosecutors to battle it out with the defense in the common law style used in the US and Great Britain?

“We’re going to learn how it works, how this particular chamber will judge,” Petit said. “It is clear that in this aspect, it will be a seminal trial for us.”

The prosecution expects the trial to last a full 12 weeks from the beginning of the Substantive Hearing. It would take four out of the five judges to hand out a conviction, and the verdict must be issued within 90 days after the closing arguments. That means if all goes according to previsions, Duch’s judgment will be rendered before the end of the rainy season.

For victims and the rest of Cambodia, the trial can bring a welcome sense of justice, although it is too soon to determine what impact it will have on the country’s culture of impunity and on the Cambodian people’s expectations of a court of law, all interviewed agreed.

“It’s certainly important for Cambodian history that a process you can see, you can hear is finally happening,” Youk Chhang said.

Duch’s case, he added, is also much less significant to most Cambodians than those to follow: the trial of the senior leaders who stand accused not of at least 12,380 deaths, but of the 1 to 2 million estimated deaths of Democratic Kampuchea. Why Duch alone is being prosecuted, and not the directors of the 197 other detention centers around the country, is another question that will need to be answered, he added.

Beyond the historical blanks to fill and the sense of justice to regain, Duch’s trial and others to come can address the hardest questions to face.

“I don’t think it’s going to change how we think of the Khmer Rouge regime, but it’s going to show it was done by human beings,” Youk Chhang said.

“It’s important for us to understand ourselves, the living, because these were human beings. Perhaps when he accepts responsibility, we’ll start to understand it’s a human responsibility and God cannot take it away.”

(Photo: S-21 in Phnom Penh, the high school turned detention center under the Khmer Rouge. 10 December 2008. By Isabelle Roughol)

By Isabelle Roughol

The contrite Kaing Guek Eav, who in the early days of trial seemed to disappear behind his lawyer, gave way Wednesday to a more pugnacious Duch as he responded to the questions of civil party lawyers regarding the establishment of the S-21 detention center.

At times playfully insolent, at others visibly annoyed, Duch took issue with several questions of the civil parties, which he said had already been asked and which he chose not to answer.

When civil party lawyer Silke Studzinsky was surprised by his answer that he did not personally control the work of his interrogators, Duch mocked her for not knowing how military commanders delegate their duties.

“I think Miss Studzinsky might have not been involved in the military or other similar tasks,” he said with a smile. “As the chairman of S21, I could not be involved in all matters, that’s not possible.”

The exchange with Ms Studzinsky, as well as with lawyer Philippe Canonne, prompted Presiding Judge Nil Non to ask Duch to be more respectful.

“The Chamber would like to remind the accused to exercise proper gesture and attitude in responding to the questions by the lawyer or exercise his right to remain silent, rather than laughing, which is not viewed as appropriate,” he said.

Pressed by lawyer Alain Werner on the place of S-21 within the network of Khmer Rouge security centers, Duch denied that S-21 was in any way above the other prisons.

“Don’t regard S-21 as unique for the reason that the cadres from the central committee were killed at S-21,” he said, adding the lives of politically important prisoners were worth the same as those of ordinary people.

Duch detailed four categories of people who he said had authority over all security centers and sole power to decide whom to send to S-21 and when to “smash”—or kill—them: the seven zone secretaries, the central committee, the standing committee, and Son Sen.

“Besides these four groups, no one had the power to decide who to smash. That’s why those people should be called those most responsible for the crimes against the law of Cambodia,” he said.

The words “most responsible,” on which Duch insisted several times, echo the mission of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, which is to prosecute senior leaders and those “most responsible” for the crimes of Democratic Kampuchea. The defense has argued that if Duch is to be tried, dozens more should, too.

Yet, Duch also made several references to his role of an influential “shepherd” over many subordinates. He taught them how to interrogate, but also how to torture, he said. Children were employed as guards as soon as they were old enough to perform the duties because they were malleable, “like a clean peace of paper that can easily be written on,” particularly peasants’ children, he said.

He also explained his reluctance to report on his subordinates’ misdeeds to superiors and that he was responsible for not having educated them well enough to avoid being arrested.

“In the communist party ranks, the subordinates had to respect their superior, and superiors had to protect their subordinates,” he said.

Since few under his care were affected by early purges, Duch recognized he may have received special protection from Son Sen or Brother No 2, Nuon Chea.

“I was regarded as a German shepherd,” he said. “That’s why they trusted me.”

(Photo: Individual cells at the former S-21 detention center in Phnom Penh. 10 December 2008. By Isabelle Roughol)

By Isabelle Roughol

The poor quality of simultaneous interpretation of debates at the ECCC is a pressing issue that could eventually affect the legality of the court’s decisions, parties to and observers of the tribunal said Thursday.

Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, pursued his testimony on the establishment of the S-21 detention center Thursday morning, mostly verifying facts already known to the public and historians in short and simple sentences, a request of the court so that interpreters would be able to follow.

“Because the translation is in a delay process, first from Khmer into English, and then from English into French, then there might be some losses,” Presiding Judge Nil Nonn told the court. “In some cases 50 percent might be lost, in other circumstances more percentage might be lost and it might interfere with the rendering of fair justice.”

The court adjourned at mid-day so the judges would be free to deliberate on several requests of the parties, interpretation chief among them. The judges were also scheduled to deliberate this morning so a decision on interpretation could be rendered before the start of the next phase of testimony, Nil Nonn said.

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia employ 40 people in the Interpreter and Translation Pool, instead of the 64 it is supposed to have, said ECCC spokeswoman Helen Jarvis.

“It’s been a problem, we know, for a long time of finding qualified people. We’ve had many advertisements, and it’s a reasonably well-paid position, but I am afraid the level is very high to do simultaneous translation in a court setting,” she said. The French relay translation was set up because the administration could not find competent Khmer-French interpreters, she added.

According to job postings on the ECCC’s website, interpreters at the court must have an advanced university level and a minimum of three years’ experience.

Roth Hok, deputy director of the Foreign Language Institute at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, dismissed the argument of lack of competent interpreters in Cambodia, and said the court was simply not attracting the right candidates.

“I think there are a host of reasons why interpreters do not want to work for the tribunal, one of which is allegations of corruption maybe, maybe because they feel they don’t know enough about the Khmer Rouge, maybe because of safety concerns. My guess,” he said, also suggesting the court might not provide enough time for training in legal and Khmer Rouge-specific issues.

Ms Jarvis said “considerable” time was spent on training, “whenever possible given the tremendous ongoing demands for interpretation and translation,” imposed on a department only two-thirds staffed.

Complaints about interpretation have surfaced in every international tribunal, all bilingual if not more, but issues at the ECCC seemed the most acute, legal observers said.

“The problems at the ECCC seemed to me evidently more grave than what’s happened in front of other tribunals because we have real problems of comprehension on the substance,” said Thierry Cruvellier, a journalist who has observed many international courts of justice. In Rwanda and Sierra Leone, interpretation was at time difficult but it never affected the overall understanding of testimonies and has not resulted in legal decisions being overturned.

Things could be different in Cambodia as international participants have had difficulties following Duch’s testimony and at least one key answer was understood differently by international and Cambodian parties.

On Thursday morning, defense lawyer François Roux insisted that Duch be allowed to repeat his Wednesday statement about vertical and horizontal communication lines within Democratic Kampuchea’s prison apparatus. Duch explained he only had contacts with his superiors, never with other security offices. Through the English translation, parties had heard the opposite the day before.

Ms Jarvis noted that because all comments are recorded in their original language and transcripts are revised and compared each day, errors are promptly caught.

If a discrepancy exists, the original language would prevail on paper, said Michelle Staggs, deputy director of the Asian International Justice Initiative. But in the judges’ minds when they make their decision, it will be whichever version they heard during debates, she added.

“It’s clearly hinging on the accused’s rights to a fair trial. At the moment, it’s not the nuances [being confusing]; it’s quite basic facts.” she said. “This could raise all sorts of issues on appeal if the defense finds that the translation was such an issue that it completely compromised the case.”

(Photo: A classroom turned torture chamber at the former S-21 Khmer Rouge detention center. 10 December 2008. By Isabelle Roughol)

By Isabelle Roughol and Prak Chanthul

The 500 seats of the tribunal’s public room were filled Monday morning as the first trial for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge regime opened in Phnom Penh. Ambassadors and other dignitaries sat in the front, with NGO workers and other foreign visitors sprinkled throughout. But the majority in the room were Cambodians of all ages, some civil parties and victims, others students visibly too young to have known Democratic Kampuchea.

They spoke in low voices while waiting for the judges to enter. Duch, the former chairman of the S-21 detention center, whom they came to see, sat between two guards.

“He’s there, in the white shirt,” said one man, pointing.

“He must really feel like an animal in a cage,” his neighbor said of the glass wall separating the court from the public, reminiscent of those that isolate dangerous predators in metropolitan zoos.

Duch scanned the audience with a peaceful gaze that didn’t betray he stands accused of crimes against humanity and at least 12,380 deaths. It was the only chance for many to get a look at the fabled man; once at the bar, he had his back to the public for the remainder of the day.

“The trial has been delayed for many years already,” said Dy Ratha, 62, of Phnom Penh. “I want Duch to say everything. I will be satisfied if he speaks the truth. His confession will mean that the court will have found some sort of justice for me.”

Duch spoke, politely answering Presiding Judge Nil Nonn’s questions about his identity, and later reading along and taking notes as his indictment was recited. His apparent lack of reaction—only a momentarily heaving chest possibly betraying emotion—irritated some.

“He didn’t feel any shock, but we looked at him with shock,” said Yim Ing, 45, who lost three relatives to the Khmer Rouge and traveled from Prey Veng province for the trial.

The 3-hour reading of Duch’s 45-page indictment bored some to the point of dozing off, but not those for whom the exposé of torture and executions was a reminder of experiences lived. In an otherwise silent courtroom, a woman cried out and held her head in her hands, refusing a neighbor’s offering to help her outside for a break. Tears welled up in the eyes of other women by her side. Dy Ratha said she chose to pray during the reading.

The court’s decision to adjourn at 3 pm, pushing opening statements to today, sparked a murmur of disappointment in the audience. One man cried out at the court.

“I’m shocked that the whole day isn’t being used,” said Amnesty International’s Cambodia researcher Brittis Edman, who explained she was concerned that victims who have made the expense of traveling here for the hearing would be frustrated. But, she added, the day remained positive.

“It’s more of a historical day than a disappointing day,” she said.

The day was not only significant for the survivors of S-21 or the relatives of those who didn’t leave the prison camp alive.

“To me, [Duch] represents all the Khmer Rouge,” said Oum Nuphea, who was 10 years old when the communist soldiers entered Phnom Penh. His father, a pilot and colonel in the republican army, was sent for reeducation and never returned.

“He didn’t go to S-21, but in camp S-X, somewhere,” said Oum Nuphea, now 44 and a pilot too. His mother also died, as well as three siblings. After 3 years and 10 months of forced labor. He said he expected explanations from Duch, maybe an apology, but that what matters to him is a guilty verdict.

“I’m coming back here. I am happy to turn the page,” he said. “A never-ending story is not good for people.”

(Photo: S-21, the high school turned detention center during the Khmer Rouge regime, and now a genocide museum. 10 December 2008. By Isabelle Roughol)

By Isabelle Roughol

The report of the German parliament’s human rights commission that visited the ECCC last year was pulled off the assembly’s Web site Thursday.

Two paragraphs in the report spoke of corruption and political interference at the ECCC, claiming to paraphrase the German parliamentarians’ conversation with the court’s UN deputy head of administration Knut Rosandhaug. It also made serious allegations against the head of administration, Sean Visoth.

The report was pulled down because it was only a draft that the Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Help of the Bundestag had not yet reviewed, said Guido Heinen, the Bundestag’s spokesman. The committee will review the report next week and publish its final version, he added.

“The next meeting of the committee will be in the next few days. And now is the time to exchange the draft with the final version. It’s the process for us,” he said Thursday by telephone from Berlin.

He added that no one in Cambodia had contacted the committee or asked for the report, which has been available online since November, to be pulled.

“The parliament decides how to publish and when to publish. It’s a decision of the parliament,” he said.

Back in Cambodia, court officials remained tightlipped about the allegations made in the German report.

Published on the Internet in November, it claimed that, according to Rosandhaug, “the United Nations has conducted an investigation of the head of the administration of the ECCC, Sean Visoth.” The report also contained a stronger allegation against him.

The court’s spokeswoman, Helen Jarvis, contested the statement, saying the UN only had authority over the international side of the court and the Cambodian government over the national side.

“I don’t believe that the UN has turned out an investigation. I don’t believe that the UN has the power of investigation,” she said.

“As far as I know, that’s been acknowledged before,” she added.

In September, the government had dismissed the findings of a review of kickback allegations by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services, arguing it had neither jurisdiction nor evidence.

Jarvis declined to comment further about the content of the report, saying she was aware of the meeting between Rosandhaug and the lawmakers but had not attended.

Rosandhaug also declined to comment, when contacted via e-mail Thursday. He pointed to a statement made Wednesday, which said he had been “neither involved nor consulted on [the report’s] content and publication” and could not comment on documents issued outside the UN and ECCC.

Sean Visoth has been absent from the court for three months, officially for health reasons. Asked about the allegations against him Thursday, he declined to comment.

“I have been sick, and I don’t work,” he said. “Please don’t call me again,” he added before hanging up on a reporter.

The ECCC’s national co-prosecutor Chea Leang, who has read the report in its original German, said it was outdated.

“The statement was an old statement; it doesn’t reflect the current situation,” she said, pointing to a joint statement made Monday, announcing new, bilateral processes for handling future allegations of misconduct at the court.

When asked about allegations against the head of administration, she added: “Sean Visoth was appointed by royal decree; so far, there is no decree to terminate him.”

(Additional reporting by Yun Samean)

(Photo: cover of the survey and report “So We Never Forget.” Copyright: UC-Berkeley Human Rights Center.)

By Isabelle Roughol

A survey of public opinion released Wednesday found that while most Cambodians are interested in finding justice for victims of the Khmer Rouge, 85 percent say they have little or no knowledge of what the Khmer Rouge tribunal is actually doing.

Confidence in the tribunal runs high, however, with Cambodians roughly twice as likely to trust the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia as they do the national courts, according to the survey conducted by the Human Rights Center at the University of California-Berkeley.

But fewer than 1 in 10 of those surveyed knew that five Khmer Rouge regime suspects are awaiting trial at the ECCC, and only 3.3 percent of respondents could name the detainees.

More than a third of the respondents said they didn’t know what to expect from the court. More than half, however, knew the tribunal is a mixed national and international court.

“People are saying they want to know more about the court, they want to wish it well, but they don’t know much about the court,” said Eric Stover, one of the researchers.

“The problem is outreach always seems to be the poor orphan that’s left out of the funding pocket,” Stover said, adding the ECCC should do more to communicate and not leave it up to NGOs.

The survey, which was presented at a workshop Wednesday in Phnom Penh, was conducted in September and October on a sample of 1,000 people in 125 communes. It covered knowledge and expectations of the ECCC, as well as attitudes and feelings about the Khmer Rouge era. ECCC staff will be briefed separately about the findings today.

The question is, “Shouldn’t people be more aware at this stage when trials are about to start?” said Patrick Vinck, also a researcher.

“It’s very important. These trials won’t have any meaning if people don’t understand what’s happening, don’t know what’s happening, don’t take ownership of it,” he added.

The main reproach made to the ECCC was its slow pace-almost one in three respondents recommended that it speed up trials-a concern that may now be alleviated by the recent announcement that the trial of S-21 detention center chairman Duch will start Feb 17.

About two-thirds of respondents thought judges would be fair and the court neutral. Corruption was a concern for only about 3 percent of respondents, but allegations should be immediately addressed so perception of the court remains positive, researchers said.

ECCC Public Affairs Chief Helen Jarvis, who is responsible for the court’s outreach, maintained the results of the survey were positive. She also challenged the validity of some of the survey’s results, saying that people may have shown “modesty” when answering.

“I am quite encouraged by the level of expectations and confidence in the court. If we compare with confidence in other institutions such as the court system and the media, it’s very positive,” she said.

Based on the survey results, the type of outreach efforts by the ECCC would not change, but their frequency would probably increase, she said, citing efforts such as public service announcements and a TV spot in the making.

The survey also found a lingering bitterness about Democratic Kampuchea and a strong desire to see those responsible for violence punished: 82.9 percent still feel hatred toward the regime, 37 percent want revenge, 71.5 percent want to see them hurt or miserable. And half of those born after 1979 still feel victimized by the regime.

“Very few people said ‘forgive them.’ Very few people said ‘forget it, we want to move on,’” Vinck said.

The study also shows that four out of five Cambodians want to know more about the Khmer Rouge, with all their current information coming from personal experience or friends and family, and little from schools or the media.

Expectations therefore run high for the ECCC to both administer severe punishments and unveil the truth about the regime, particularly how Cambodians could kill so many fellow Cambodians, researchers explained.

“One of my greatest fears is what I call ‘great expectations,’” Stover said, adding that many people might expect from the tribunal what is in fact the work of a truth commission.

“When people go to testify in a court, they don’t go just for eyewitness reports, they want to know why. Courts want only the facts.”

(Photo: A torture chamber at the former S-21 Khmer Rouge detention center in Phnom Penh. 10 December 2008. By Isabelle Roughol)

By Isabelle Roughol

Officials from non-governmental organizations, the government, the Khmer Rouge tribunal and survivors of Pol Pot’s Democratic Kampuchea gathered Wednesday for the start of a two-day forum on reparations for the victims of the regime.

Alternatively crying and shouting, survivors unleashed a litany of personal tragedies and demands on NGO and tribunal representatives, highlighting both the potential and the limitations of the Khmer Rouge tribunal’s mandate on reparations for crimes committed by the regime.

“It is a thin red line to walk, on the one hand to manage the expectations, and on the other hand to use this opportunity,” said Christoph Sperfeldt, a junior adviser at the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee, one of the conference’s organizers.

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia’s internal rules allow the court to order moral and collective reparations for victims of the Khmer Rouge regime if and when it convicts defendants, a mandate that Sperfeldt said is a first for an international court.

“At least the provision is an unprecedented potential. It remains to be seen what the court will do with it,” Sperfeldt said.

Defendants who are found guilty should pay reparations by tracking and seizing their assets, but if that doesn’t suffice, funding should come from the government and international donors, which makes it a controversial political issue, he added.

Under current ECCC rules, reparations would not go to individual victims, but that did not stop survivors present at the conference on Wednesday from asking for such.

“My wife was killed by the criminals at Tuol Sleng. I want compensation, $50,000 for the life of my wife,” said a man in the audience who was greeted with applause by other participants.

“This money is not the same as the life of my wife, but I am emotionally sick; I am emotionally suffering, I cannot forget it,” he said.

Beyond financial necessity, individual demands for compensation seemed for many on Wednesday to be an acknowledgement of their individual loss and continued suffering.

“I’d be delighted if just $1 comes from the defendants at the ECCC; it would reflect that the culprits were found,” said Chum Mey, another survivor who said he was tortured in S-21 prison, and whose wife and four children were killed during the regime.

Silke Studzinsky, co-lawyer for civil parties at the Khmer Rouge tribunal, also took the side of those calling for individual reparations, saying even though ECCC internal rules did not permit them, the Cambodian procedural code does.

“I was very happy…that [the victims] expressed their interest in individual financial reparations and that now for the first time, the court is confronted with this position,” Studzinsky said, adding that reparations should differ from normal spending duties of the government.

Experiences in Germany, and in Iraq and Kuwait after the first Gulf War showed individual reparations were possible, she added.

But reparations ordered by the ECCC would most likely take the form of development projects, such as schools and hospitals, or symbolic projects such as Khmer Rouge victim memorials, conference speakers said.

“It’s clear from our outreach activities that Cambodians have a poor understanding of the kind of reparations that can be awarded by the court,” said Sarah Thomas, a legal fellow at DC-Cam, adding that most people her organization met had asked at first for financial compensation.

Court officials were quick to discourage individual claims, though Kong Srim, president of the ECCC Supreme Court Chamber, said he would bring the issue up at the tribunal’s next plenary meeting in January, and that the court’s victims’ unit would consider them also.

“If you think of one million people who filed complaints for $5 each, then it amounts to $5 million. And what happens if they ask for more?” Ministry of Justice Undersecretary of State Bun Honn said.

It would be impossible to investigate the individual cases of the estimated 1.7 million victims of Democratic Kampuchea, then put a dollar value on their suffering and then find the funds to pay individual reparations, he added.

(Additional reporting by Rann Reuy)