The Khmer Rouge Tribunal once again lacking funds

Cambodge Soir

04-09-2008

Umpteenth new development at the KRT: the court lacks the means to pay its United Nations staff from October onwards.

This was announced to the Cambodge Soir Hebdo by Reach Sambath, one of the tribunal’s spokespersons, and is a supplementary illustration of the budgetary problems of the court. Despite this problem, the ECCC have until now always found a solution and the donors always ended up freeing up more funds. Will history repeats itself once again?

The fact remains that the 4th plenary session of the magistrates started with a strange feeling, on Monday 1st of September in Phnom Penh. Until the 5th of September, about thirty participants will concentrate on several amendments to interior regulations. In his opening speech, the President of the Supreme Court, Kong Srim, didn’t hide his worries concerning the tribunal’s lack of funds. The new estimation established by David Tolbert, expert at the United Nations (Editor’s note: 104 million dollars in order to function until 2009) “points to reducing the number of staff, particularly within the administration”, did he explain. However, he did confirm that the ECCC have sufficient funds to pay the Cambodian staff until March 2009. David should have taken the floor during the first session but this wouldn’t have been appreciated by the Cambodian magistrates. The drastic budgetary cuts recommended by the expert seem a bitter pill to swallow for some. ,

And as if this wasn’t enough, the corruption problems came back to the surface, voiced by the New Zealand judge, Silvia Cartwright, in session in the Pre-trial Chambers. “We have to gather all our efforts in order for these allegations to disappear before the start of the trials. We all agree on the fact that they shouldn’t be tainted by corruption”. The magistrate also paid homage to the work of David Tolbert. ”Without his intervention, the Extraordinary Chambers would be very badly off”.