Editorials
Tuesday, December 29, 1998

Khmer Rouge
chiefs should
stand trial

THE Cambodian government has waffled on the question of a trial before an international tribunal for two Khmer Rouge leaders who surrendered last week. Prime Minister Hun Sen initially said Nuan Chea and Khieu Samphan, colleagues of the notorious Pol Pot, who died earlier this year, should stand trial for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people during the genocidal rule of the Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979. Yesterday, however, the Cambodian leader reversed himself, ruling out either an international or a national prosecution.

Certainly the cause of justice would be served by such a trial. The Khmer Rouge were responsible for some of the worst atrocities of the century. A State Department spokesman commented, "Justice in Cambodia has been long delayed, but must not now be denied. "

Legal experts hired by the United Nations have been looking at the possibility of bringing Nuan Chea and Khieu Samphan to trial before a tribunal along the lines of those set up for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

The two are said to be under the protection of their ex-comrades -- former guerrillas who run Pailin, the area in which they surrendered. The most powerful figure in Pailin is another former top Khmer Rouge leader, Ieng Sary, who defected to the government two years ago and received a royal amnesty.

The current regime seems unlikely to pursue the matter, primarily because several former Khmer Rouge officials are now members of the government, including the prime minister, the interior minister and the finance minister. Hun Sen was a field commander in Pol Pot's army until he switched to the Vietnamese, who had turned against the Khmer Rouge, in 1979.

Hun Sen and other top defectors reportedly broke with the Khmer Rouge because they were about to be purged. In addition to the leaders, thousands of former Khmer Rouge soldiers are now serving in the government army.

If the Phnom Penh regime continues to oppose an international trial for the defectors, it may be because Hun Sen and the other former Khmer Rouge leaders now in the government fear the proceedings might implicate them in the Khmer Rouge crimes. Evidently their hands are not clean.

There is still a chance that their position could change under pressure. The United States should use what leverage it has to prod the regime to turn the defectors over for trial.

Containing Iraq

THE recent U.S.-British raids punishing Iraq for its defiance of United Nations orders don't seem to have had the desired effect. The firing of missiles at U.S. aircraft patroling the skies over northern Iraq -- which drew return fire from the warplanes -- suggests that Saddam Hussein isn't about to back down. Indeed, the fact that his forces fired at the patrol planes demonstrated that the allied raids fell short of eliminating all Iraqi military capability.

The latest incident reflects the continuing frustration of efforts to contain the Iraqi dictator since the 1991 Operation Desert Storm liberated Kuwait but stopped short of overthrowing him. Since then he has repeatedly blocked the efforts of the U.N. weapons inspection team to ensure compliance with the Security Council directives to eliminate his arsenal of nuclear and chemical weapons.

President Clinton's domestic problems may have emboldened Saddam Hussein to force another confrontation. Iraqi newspapers called the recent U.S.-British aerial offensive "Operation Monica," a reference to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Clinton ordered the attack on the eve of the House's votes to impeach him on the basis of the Lewinsky charges.

Although Washington maintained that the attack significantly weakened the Iraqi military, Saddam Hussein seems determined to continue mounting provocations with the aim of widening the divisions on the U.N. Security Council. In the latest incident, France, China and Russia all opposed military action.

Saddam Hussein's ultimate goal is to win removal of the U.N. economic sanctions without complying with the Security Council's conditions. Every time Washington responds to Baghdad's provocations with military force, support on the council seems to dwindle further.

State Capitol pools

WHY does the state have to pay $74,100 a year to clean the two reflecting pools that ring the state Capitol while the city pays only $7,200 a year to clean the pools at the Blaisdell Center? That issue was explored by the Star-Bulletin's Craig Gima, who noted that state paid less than half as much for cleaning when algae-eating tilapia inhabited the pools before the Capitol renovation in 1993.

Removing the tilapia was supposed to save money, but it didn't. Meanwhile the city, which formerly had tilapia in the Blaisdell Center pools, now uses a combination of algae-eating fish and predator fish that seems to work better.

The pools at the Capitol, as we recall, were supposed to represent the Pacific Ocean surrounding the islands of Hawaii. The concept was striking but the pools have posed a maintenance problem from the start.

Maybe the state should reconsider stocking the pools with some sort of fish. Maybe it should adopt Sen. Rod Tam's "imaginary water" proposal -- drain the water, put in some dirt and plant an ethnic garden. But if that happens, what about the original concept of the structure?

Governor Cayetano, who has vowed to make the state government more efficient, has a challenge staring him in the face every day he comes to work.

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Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited Partnership

Rupert E. Phillips, CEO

John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher

David Shapiro, Managing Editor

Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor

Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors

A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor