AFP
25 December
More than 600 Buddhist monks and nuns, as well as Muslim leaders, marched to Cambodia's UN-backed genocide tribunal Tuesday to demand speedier trials of Khmer Rouge cadre.
The group marched silently to the courthouse, with the clergy in white robes, carrying banners that read "reconciliation" and "the tribunal is a remedy for the cycle of vengeance."
"We are marching because we want peace and justice to be rendered in the Khmer Rouge cases," Buddhist nun Chou Salean told AFP.
"We want the court to speed up the prosecutions because we have been waiting for nearly 30 years," said the 60-year-old woman, who said she lost seven relatives under the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s.
Many of the nuns said they had hoped to see the five suspects who have been arrested by the tribunal.
"The marchers support the court. The court will try its best to respond to the demands of the victims under the regime," said tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath, who greeted the march.
Up to two million people died of starvation and overwork, or were executed under the Khmer Rouge.
The Khmer Rouge emptied Cambodia's cities, exiling millions to vast collective farms in a bid to forge an agrarian utopia during its rule.
Established in July 2006 after nearly a decade of negotiations between Cambodia and the United Nations, the joint Cambodian-UN tribunal seeks to prosecute crimes committed by senior Khmer Rouge leaders.
Five top Khmer Rouge leaders have been detained to face charges for crimes committed by the regime's brutal 19975-79 rule. Trials are expected to begin in mid-2008.
All the defendants claim to be suffering from serious health ailments, causing concern among those hoping to find justice for Cambodia's genocide victims before the alleged perpetrators die.
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