Mr. Sour Serey RathaNo: 3 Fountain Ave. Cranston RI, 02920 Web: www.cacje.com, Email: cacje@cacje.com
“CACJE’s mission is working & advocating for Social Justice & Human Equity”
No: 0036/CACJE
Date: 18th September 2008,
TO:
SAMDACH NORODOM SIHANOUK,
Ex-King of Cambodia and former Chief of State
Subject: Request your Majesty to make statement before the Extraordinary
Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC).
Reference: (1) Your letter to me (When I was President of NGOs Alliance for
Freedom and Advocacy) dated on July, 2006.
(2) Your interview with the BBC dated on January 4, 1999.
In reference to the above subject, I request Your Majesty to have the courage to come to
the ECCC on your own free will without the convocation of the co-Investigating judges
and co-prosecutors of ECCC.
In spite of your role as a victim, or witness or defendant, I request and insist your
Majesty to enlighten the ECCC about the prime cause/reason of the creation of the
Khmer Rouge regime in order to clarify about the responsibility of foreign governments
behind the scene.
I request you especially to name the names of people and organizations who were your
collaborators for the creation of your Marquis, your Royal Government of National
Union of Cambodia (GRUNK) and the National United front of Cambodia (FUNK)
which became later the Khmer Rouge regime leadership which committed genocide
against its own people.
In my last letter to the co-Investigating judges and co-prosecutors of ECCC of
September 16, 2008, I point out the weakness of the ECCC on the fact that the Courts
investigation and the verdict would base mainly its decision on the bulk of documents of
Tuol Sleng, S-21 Prison and the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-CAM).
Indeed, these evidences were fabricated and doctored by Hanoi government officers and
DC-CAM produced research not very accurate.
I believe that the ECCC aim is to reveal the truth but not bury the truth.
For this reason, I insist your Majesty to come to the ECCC with courage as you have
shown in your quoted letters, as dignified by your high royal title voted by the National
Assembly as the great king who renders justice to millions of victims and their loves
ones who were slaughtered during the Khmer Rouge regime, to enlighten the courts on
your own free will without the court subpoena of the co-Investigating judges and co-
prosecutors of ECCC.
I believe that your Majesty likes much more to have justice done than your title and your
immunity rights.
Not only that your Majesty would like to have justice done, and also you would like to
have the punishment fit accordingly to the importance to their committed crime as
former leaders of Khmer Rouge Regime who ordered or as leaders who executed the
order to commit genocide against its own people.
Very respectfully,
Sourn Serey Ratha
Attached:
Chief Mission
Your original letter on July, 2006
BBC News Online Network January 04, 1999
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
UNOFFICIAL TRANSLATION OF KING NORODOM SIHANOUK
TO
Mr. SOURN RATHA
President of NGOs Alliance for Freedom and Advocacy (NAFA)
Former Executive Committee Member of South East Asia for Advocacy (SEACA)
Former speaker to United Nation General Assembly Hearing for Civil Society and private
Sector
SIR:
I have received your email dated on July 12, 2006.
I would like to inform you that I did not use force as your group had accused me.
I had just expressed my opinion only.
I did not lack the courage to answer to in front of the courts.
My family and my wife’s family and innumerable Norodom Sihanouk Cambodian people
supporters were killed and punished severely by Pol Pot.
Your group is not the only one who loves Cambodian people and our motherland.
I appreciated you and your group for not hiding the name and for having the courage to smear
me publicly.
[Signed]
Norodom Sihanouk
Phnom Penh, July 15, 2006.
------------------------------------------------
BBC News Online Network, Monday, January 4, 1999
World: Asia-Pacific Cambodia's king ready to face genocide tribunal
Cambodia's King Norodom Sihanouk has said he is ready to stand trial before any tribunal which
hears charges against leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime.
In a statement faxed from Beijing, where he is receiving medical treatment, the
King said he was willing to give up his royal and constitutional immunity and
accept a prison term.
His statement followed growing criticism from human rights groups over the government's
failure to arrest two former Khmer Rouge leaders, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, who
surrendered late last month. It came in response to comments, both in Cambodia and elsewhere,
that few Cambodian leaders can claim not to have been tainted by associations with the guerrilla
group and might wish to prevent any trials of its members taking place.
Head of state
King Sihanouk was himself briefly head of state during the Khmer Rouge's
period in power in which around 1.7 million people are thought to have died.
Fourteen members of his own family were killed.
"Even if the judges of this tribunal do not summon me, I will present myself
before this tribunal" the King said, adding he would act as his own lawyer. He
said he would accept any decision of the court even he was sent to prison. Later
this month legal experts from the UN are due to decided whether there is
sufficient evidence to prosecute Khmer Rouge leaders.
Khmer Rouge guests
Meanwhile Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chena have been allowed to return to the former Khmer
Rouge stronghold of Pailin, after touring the country as guests of the government. The area is
nominally under government control but is run by ex-Khmer Rouge guerrillas. The VIP
treatment given to the two men has provoked mounting public anger. The Cambodian
Information Minister, Khieu Kannarith told the BBC that they allowed the two men to go to
Pailin because government lawyers were still discussing procedures for setting up a court. Prime
Minister Hun Sen, one of many government members who are former Khmer Rouge members,
says that he had not offered any guarantees of immunity from prosecution to the two men. He
had been widely criticised for earlier comments that any trial would be divisive and that
Cambodia should "bury its past".
2 comments:
personal opinion, this is highly and unlikely going to happend.
totally agreed. sihanouk, as a former monarch, has royal prerogative, has immunity from prosecution and is inviolable, therefore no one can summon him to the court if he chooses to use his prerogatives.
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