This is a guest post by Steve W
Siegfried Blunk is headed for the twilight – not the first foreigner to be foxed by Cambodia and surely not the last. His resignation was the only productive option left after the fiasco of his non-investigation of the crimes he was charged with probing.
Now the ECCC must replace him and a confrontation between the hybrid Court’s international and Cambodian elements, between the UN and the Hun Sen government, should ensue – although what form it will take and how much will spill into the public realm we’ll have to wait to find out. Only then can the Court hope to get on with the hard work ahead.
In the late ‘90s Hun Sen and his CPP won over numerous Khmer Rouge heavies with the promise of immunity (or impunity). Pol Pot’s final murderous purge then saw him ‘tried’ and convicted by his own remaining supporters before his inglorious death and cremation on a heap of burning tyres. Some of those who defected in the 90’s are basically threatening violence if the Court proceeds with action against them. Hun Sen has gone along with this and raised the prospect of renewed civil war. The UN now has to face down these threats in order to rescue the ailing Tribunal.
