CAMBODIA - KILLING FIELD


DATE=3/19/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CAMBODIA - KILLING FIELD (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-260339
BYLINE=KAY JOHNSON
DATELINE=PHNOM PENH
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: A high-ranking United Nations official 
delivered a ringing endorsement of the trend toward 
international justice Sunday in a visit to a 20-year-
old "killing field" in Cambodia. Hans Corell, the 
undersecretary-general for legal affairs, promised to 
try to find justice
for victims of the vicious Khmer Rouge regime and 
vowed that the world body would never again stand by 
as it did during the 1970s. Kay Johnson reports from 
Phnom Penh.
TEXT: The Choeung Ek killing field outside the 
Cambodian capital stands as one of the most enduring 
symbols of the mass atrocities of the Khmer Rouge's 
bloody four-year rule. Hans Corell, the U-N's top 
legal official, was visibly moved as he laid a wreath 
Sunday at a shrine containing  a pile of hundreds of 
skulls dug up from nearby mass graves.
Later, he walked around the field, pockmarked by dug-
up graves and still littered with bones jutting out of 
the ground.
Mr. Corell expressed regret that during the Khmer 
Rouge's nightmare rule of 1975 to 1979, the United 
Nations did little to intervene while more than one 
million Cambodians died in mass labor camps.
// ACT CORELL //
The hope is that the United Nations today is different 
from what it was in
those days. We have now seen that the United Nations 
take actions in
situations where people are threatened. Admittedly, we 
do not always succeed. But it important to note that 
when atrocities are committed against the population 
of a country, it is no longer considered the internal 
affairs
of that country.
// END CORELL ACT //
Mr. Corell is in Cambodia in hopes that the U-N can 
finally help address crimes of the Khmer Rouge regime. 
He leads a high-level legal team hoping to cut a deal 
to set up a special mixed tribunal to try the 
surviving Khmer Rouge leaders.
But the United Nations and Cambodia still differ on 
several issues. The world body fears that Prime 
Minister Hun Sen wants to control the
proceedings so he can protect several top Khmer Rouge 
leaders who have defected to his government. The U-N 
is trying to convince Mr. Hun Sen's government to give 
up enough control to form a truly international court.
Such a court, says Mr. Corell, is the trend of the 
future and a key factor to preventing future killing 
fields. (Signed)
NEB/KJ/PLM
Kay Johnson
5E Street 178
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Mobile phone: 855-16-818-427
Fax: 855-23-427-846

TEXT:
NEB/WTW/ 
19-Mar-2000 07:49 AM EDT (19-Mar-2000 1249 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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