Nearly 200 staffers strike at Khmer Rouge tribunal

AP

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: A court spokesman for Cambodia’s U.N.-supported Khmer Rouge tribunal says nearly 200 of its staffers have gone on strike to demand wages that are several months overdue.

Spokesman Neth Pheakra says the majority of the court’s Cambodian employees, including interpreters and translators essential to the court’s functions, did not come into work Monday because their wages have not been paid since June.

U.N. spokesman Lars Olsen says the international body is very concerned about the strike’s potential to disrupt proceedings at the tribunal, which has faced frequent budgetary shortfalls since it began in 2006.

The court is tasked with seeking justice for atrocities committed by the communist Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s, when an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians died due to forced labor, starvation, medical neglect and execution.