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Hundreds turn up to see where tribunal will sit

Tiny Bou Meng, missing most of his lower teeth, raced to the top of the queue to enter Cambodia's new courthouse yesterday, where the horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime will be relived.

Many Cambodians would prefer to forget the genocide undertaken by the Khmer Rouge nearly three decades ago when up to 2 million people were killed and millions more tortured, but not Bou Meng.

Along with 400 other like-minded Cambodians, he made the journey to be among the first people in the country yesterday to see the court where the long-awaited trials of several Khmer Rouge leaders will take place.

Bou Meng, 64, will be a witness when they start next year.

'I'm motivated to be here because I want justice for my wife and the other 2 million Cambodians who died,' Bou Meng said. 'If this tribunal fails and they don't put the Khmer Rouge leaders in jail, then the hope of the Cambodian people will dissolve. They have been waiting for this for a long time.'

Soam Peou, 60, said she was also pleased to see the court where officials from the UN-Cambodian tribunal were explaining how the judicial process would work.

'This is important for the souls of the people who died so that they know it was not in vain,' Ms Soam said.

Almost every family lost relatives during the Khmer Rouge rule from 1975-79. The regime was led by communist Pol Pot, who died in 1998.

He came to power cleansing Cambodia of foreign influence and his revolution soon descended into a paranoid rule that perceived enemies everywhere, causing the deaths of many Cambodians.

None of the top leaders have been prosecuted but two senior cadres - Tak Mok, nicknamed 'The Butcher', and Duch, who ran Phnom Penh's Tuol Sleng interrogation and torture centre - were charged last year with war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.

About 10 surviving senior cadres are expected to appear before the tribunal. But there are fears some of them might die before their trials begin or that others would use powerful connections to avoid  arrest.

The chief Cambodian administrator for the trials, Sean Visoth, promised justice would be delivered. He said the court would not tolerate claims by senior cadres that they were only following orders. 'It is not an excuse the court will find acceptable,' he said.

Not all Cambodians are happy about the trials. Prominent psychiatrist Ka Sunbaunat said the US$56 million exercise may 're-traumatise' many of the victims.

Ka Sunbaunat, who lost most of his family to the Khmer Rouge, has for the past decade treated many torture victims for depression and more serious psychotic illnesses.

He doubts the question of why Cambodians killed Cambodians will ever be answered.

'What I worry about is talking again about the past can re-traumatise those who are suffering from many kinds of mental health problems related to the genocide. Only a few of my patients say they want to prove who has committed these mistakes,' he said.



Cambodians torn by reliving horrors at genocide trial