Former Khmer Rouge S-21 prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, sits in a courtroom during a pre-trial in Phnom Penh December 5, 2008.(Tang Chhinsothy/Pool/Reuters) PHNOM PENH (Reuters) – Japan gave another $21 million to Cambodia's Khmer Rouge tribunal Sunday and called on regional rival China to contribute as well despite Beijing's backing for Pol Pot's "Killing Fields" regime.
"The donor community as a whole should contribute to these kind of activities, including China," foreign ministry spokesman Takeshi Akamatsu told reporters in Phnom Penh after Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone met Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Tokyo's latest contribution doubles its overall funding to the court, which has indicted five of Pol Pot's top surviving henchmen on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
It also takes funding for the $143 million trial budget to above $100 million.
The Khmer Rouge are blamed for the deaths of 1.7 million people in their 1975-79 reign of terror. Many of their victims were tortured and executed. The rest died of disease, starvation or exhaustion.
Beijing, a major donor and investor in Cambodia, has pledged no money to the court, but has taken no active steps to block the trial.
(Reporting by Ek Madra; Editing by Ed Cropley and Dean Yates)
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