Phnom Penh - The president of the ruling Cambodian People's
Party (CPP), Chea Sim, used the party's anniversary celebrations
Thursday to warn that the upcoming trials of former Khmer Rouge
leaders were no place to play politics.
Speaking at party headquarters during the CPP's 56th anniversary
celebrations, Chea Sim said his party was solidly behind the
Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) and the
hearings were a place to find justice for all Cambodians above all
else.
'The CPP reiterates it continues to support the ECCC. We sincerely
hope the tribunal is conducted smoothly and successfully to bring
peace, stability and justice to the Cambodian people,' he told
thousands of CPP faithful.
'The conduct of this tribunal should not be exploited by any
political entity which would violate the true principals of the
tribunal and deeply disrespect the souls of the victims.'
Critics have accused the CPP of stalling the hearings, which are
expected to try a handful of surviving former Khmer Rouge leaders on
charges of genocide and human rights abuses.
The CPP has vehemently denied the allegations, saying those
critics have anti-government agendas and lack a deeper understanding
of a complicated civil war.
The CPP marks June 28, 1951 as its birth date, when it carried the
word 'revolutionary' in its name, and some members subsequently
joined the struggle for independence from French colonial rule.
Some prominent current CPP cadre later joined the Khmer Rouge, but
many of them came from provinces close to Vietnam which formed the
movement's more moderate Bophea faction, and defected after the
paranoid and rabidly anti-Vietnamese Khmer Rouge leadership turned
upon its own and began bloody purges of their members.
Many, including Prime Minister Hun Sen, fled to Vietnam and formed
the nucleus of the forces which returned with Vietnamese backing to
overthrow the Democratic Kampuchea (DK) regime in 1979.
The CPP has shrugged off the Khmer Rouge past of some of its
members, pointing out that Hun Sen requested the United Nations help
set up the 56-million-dollar joint UN-Cambodia tribunal which it
eventually agreed to in 2003.
Up to 2 million Cambodians are believed to have died during the
1975 to 1979 DK regime. Former Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died
without ever facing justice in 1998.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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