India Pledges $50,000 to ECCC

KHMER TIMES
SAFIYA CHARLES

A delegation from the Indian embassy at the Khmer Rouge tribunal. Courtesy ECCC

The government of India announced yesterday that it will give $50,000 to the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia (ECCC), the tribunal tasked with the prosecution of the country’s former Khmer Rouge commanders.

“On behalf of the ECCC we would like to express our gratitude for the support offered by the government of India,” said acting director of administration Tony Kranh and deputy director of administration Knut Rosandhaug in a joint statement.

The $50,000 sum brings India’s total contribution to $1,050,000 since the court’s inception in 2006, when the South Asian nation was the first to support Cambodia’s share of the ECCC budget.

Bilateral relations between the two countries have been characteristically warm over the years. After the collapse of the Khmer Rouge, India was one of the few countries to recognize Cambodia’s new government and opened its embassy in Phnom Penh in 1981 when few nations were willing.

The government of India also committed both military and non-military personnel to help conduct the 1993 UNTAC-sponsored elections and was one of the original contributors to demining operations in Cambodia.

Now the Cambodian government has met 62 percent of its approved 2016 funding budget for the ECCC, contributing $4.15 million to the tribunal.

A total of $1.65 million of those funds went to covering the ECCC’s general cost of service and $2.5 million went toward covering the salaries of national staff for a period of six months.

A recent contribution of approximately $1.57 million from the EU also went towards the ECCC’s national budget, but a deficit still remains.

“The national component is still lacking about $700,000 in order to cover salary costs of national staff until the end of this year. [For] the rest we appeal for contributions from the international community,” said Neth Pheaktra, press officer for the ECCC.

“Stakeholders are working together for mobilizing necessary funds to fulfill the gap in 2016 and continue operations of the ECCC in the future.”