FRANCE PLEDGES EXTRA MILLION DOLLARS TO CAMBODIAN GENOCIDE COURT
Received Friday, 25 April 2008 10:15:00 GMT
PHNOM PENH, April 25, 2008 (AFP) - France will donate another million
dollars to Cambodia's cash-strapped genocide tribunal, helping ease
fears that money troubles could further delay proceedings, French
Human Rights Minister Rama Yade said Friday.
Yade visited the UN-backed tribunal and met with officials on
Thursday to be updated on its progress and reaffirm French sup****t for
the court set up to try former Khmer Rouge leaders for atrocities
committed during their 1975-1979 rule.
"One of the priorities for French diplomatic action abroad is
international justice" and the "fight against impunity," Yade told a
press briefing at the French embassy here at the end of her three-day
visit to Cambodia.
"Human rights should not just be words," she said.
After Japan, France is the second largest donor to the court which
has charged five former Khmer Rouge leaders with crimes against
humanity and war crimes. It contributed five million dollars to the
first appeal for funding.
The court said Thursday it hoped the trial of former Khmer Rouge
jailer Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, "could commence at the
beginning of the last quarter of 2008."
Originally budgeted at 56.3 million dollars over three years, the
tribunal, which opened in 2006 after nearly a decade of wrangling
between the UN and Cambodia, has significantly raised its cost
estimates to 170 million dollars.
Up to two million people died of starvation and overwork, or were
executed as the communist Khmer Rouge dismantled modern Cambodian
society in a bid to forge an agrarian utopia during its 1975-1979
rule.
Five former regime leaders have been detained by the tribunal for
their alleged role in one of the 20th century's worst atrocities, the
trials expected to begin later this year.
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