More Arguments

This should give everyone a good flavour of the tense atmosphere that must be in the room this week. From the Cambodia Daily;

Bar Threatens Lawyers Over ECCC Training

By Erika Kinetz and Prak Chan Thul
THE CAMBODIA DAILY

The president of the Cambodian Bar Association on Wednesday threatened to take legal action against anyone who participates in a five-day training course on international criminal law that is being offered by the Defense Office of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia and the International Bar Association. "We are being violated by the foreign lawyers," Cambodian Bar Association President Ky Tech said in an interview.

He said the legal training violated Cambodian law and he described Cambodian lawyers who have cooperated with foreigners in setting up the training as ''extremists." "We will have measures against lawyers who have conspired to violate the law," Ky Tech warned. His remarks mark an escalation of a growing turf war between the Cambodian Bar Association and the Defense Office of the ECCC.

Tough words- hardly a spirit of cooperation and friendship. And difficult to understand how training courses could be a violation of Cambodian Law. But comments like these make critics of the Court even more confident in their decisions not to back it. This from the US Ambassador;

The virulence of the debate has caught the attention of the US government which has not yet funded the tribunal but may do so. The US Congress has been reluctant to allow funding for the tribunal, on the grounds that it might not measure up to international standards of justice. "We have concerns about the virulence of some of the comments by the Cambodian Bar Association," US Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli said Wednesday. "We know the bar president has connections to the government," Mussomeli said. "It's worrying since he has spoken in such a strident manner. As we work to find ways to fund directly the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, these sort of comments are not helpful.

And this comment from the Public Affairs Officer has "we are in trouble but don't want to talk about it", written all over it;

Peter Foster, public affairs officer at the ECCC, said the exact relationship between the bar and the principle defender's office, including issues relevant to the now controversial training session, were being discussed at the plenary session of the ECCC. The session was convened Monday to ratify the court's internal rules. Those rules govern the roles of judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, suspects and witnesses appearing in the trials. The bar association, he added, has been invited back to the plenary session today for continued discussion. He declined to comment further on the controversy.

The true measure of the problems will probably be evident by what happens on Saturday. There is a joint press conference planned to announce the final rules. If that is cancelled or changed we will know how bad things really are.

Quite a change from the positive meetings held in July.