PHNOM WAR: Sam Serey does not look like a stereotypical perpetrator of crimes against humanity. Shuffling around the potholed roads of the southern Cambodian district of Phnom War in a grubby shirt, ripped shorts and bare feet, this grey-haired, 55-year-old farmer appears more deserving of sympathy than hatred.

But he admits that for more than 20 years he was a member of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia’s Maoist movement which was responsible for the genocide of more than 1.7 million people while it held power from 1975-79. Sam Serey, who lives in a Khmer Rouge veterans’ community, is willing to talk because after six years of international negotiations he now knows he will escape justice. The jurisdiction of the Khmer Rouge tribunal, agreed by the UN and Cambodia, is to be limited to “senior leaders ... and those most responsible for the crimes [the regime committed]”. So, hundreds of footsoldiers, such as Sam Serey, now live without fear of a trial.

Youk Chheng, head of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, a group that has catalogued the horrors of the regime, thinks the line over who to prosecute has been drawn in the right place. He believes in symbolic justice. “For the interests of the country, for stability, for resources, I think the top 10 are sufficient for all of us.”

Few Cambodians were left untouched by the Khmer Rouge “killing fields”.

Questions remain, however, about the government’s commitment to seeing justice done. Much of the delay has been caused by the prime minister, Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge commander who changed sides, insisting on Cambodia retaining control of the process. Human rights activists and diplomats, including the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, oppose this as they fear a Cambodian-led tribunal could be easily manipulated.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.