Director of the Document Centre of Cambodia Youk Chhang

Phnom Penh, May 26: A long overdue trial of Cambodia’s murderous Khmer Rouge leaders is finally expected to commence this year, but critics say interference from China is whittling away the tribunal’s power and credibility.

Even though the trial focuses on people and not nations “it is certain to raise questions and reveal controversial things that will generate a lot of debate for China,” said Youk Chhang, director of the Document Centre of Cambodia (DCCAM) in Phnom Penh where much of the evidence relating to the Khmer Rouge’s atrocities is housed.

Beijing had been the chief patron of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge when it seized power in Cambodia between 1975-78 and exterminated more than 1.7 million people, a quarter of the country’s population, in its quest to create an agrarian Maoist utopia.

The US, Britain and Singapore also aided the Khmer Rouge in later years, and have come clean about their support for the world’s worst regime of the post-war period.

But China, along with Thailand, has refused to do the same and continues to cloak the role it played in Cambodia’s nightmare.

“Without China, the Khmer Rouge might never have become what it did,” said Dr Sophie Richardson, who recently completed a dissertation at the University of Virginia, on Chinese-Cambodian relations.

To remove the trial’s credibility the impending trial, Beijing used its influence at the UN, which was originally to spearhead the effort, to reduce the role of international judges and give control of the tribunal to local Cambodian authorities.

Few countries, including India which had been one of the most vocal critics of Chinese and western involvement in Cambodia during the 1970s and 1980s, opposed Beijing.

It was left to international human rights organisations, such as Amnesty International to decry Beijing’s moves. Just 12 years after an ambitious $2.8 billion UN peacekeeping operation meant to help Cambodia get back on its feet ended in November 1993, the country’s legal and political system is not up to the task of leading the tribunal, they warned.

It is also widely believed that Cambodia’s current strongman Hun Sen has already “cut a deal with Beijing” to sanitise its Khmer Rouge record, Richardson said.

Hun Sen is out of favour with Washington because of his increasing authoritarianism, and experts say he is reliant on Beijing’s for political support.

Significantly, China has also become Cambodia’s largest investor, investing $217 million in several Cambodian industries.