Sourn's struggle for human rights

Sourn Serey Ratha

June 10, 2009
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
Pacific Daily News (Guam)

Nelson Mandela was accused of treason as an anti-apartheid activist and served 27 years in prison. Nevertheless, he supported national reconciliation and negotiation upon his release in 1990. He brought multi-racial democracy to South Africa, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 and was elected president of South Africa in 1994.

"There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires," Mandela said.

The same struggle took the life of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who urged: "Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent."

President Grover Cleveland described a world founded on four essential human freedoms: Freedom of expression, and freedom to worship God in one's own way, everywhere; freedom from hunger, and freedom from fear anywhere.

Today, many men and women still fight on for such a world. French romantic poet Victor Hugo said we live by the ideal and exist by the real.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world -- indeed it is the only thing that ever does," said the late cultural anthropologist Margaret Meade. Philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Whatever you do, you need courage. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them."

Change comes with continuous actions. Knowledge and personal and national experiences help map out a course of action; values (meritocracy, hard work, perseverance) and beliefs (in freedom, equality, dignity), help propel a person to action.

Those who want change usually seek out like-minded people or join a group, a movement or a political party; others engage in meaningful individual political actions that draw others. With values and beliefs, courage follows.

The above applies to a 38-year-old Cambodian man, born to a poor farm family in 1970 when the country underwent a regime chang. His father and two uncles joined the Kansaeng Sar (White Scarf) fighting unit of the new republican regime to face the Communist Vietnamese forces that occupied 3,500 square kilometers of Khmer soil. Both uncles died fighting in 1973 and 1974. His father lived under Khmer Rouge rule from 1975-1979, and was a forced laborer for the Vietnamese K-5 plan at the border.

Growing up, the boy lived in a pagoda, walked the streets with Buddhist monks who received food from the faithful. As a young man, he pursued university studies in Phnom Penh, again living in a pagoda.

In the capital, he saw things were not right -- the rich-poor gap, the poverty, the resources mismanaged, the power abused, the rights violated. His political socialization involved him in community development and in building community networks. By 1997 he had become a social activist and gained deeper insights into Cambodia's national politics.

After strongman Hun Sen's 1997 coup d'etat, he became president of the Khmer Students' Movement of Nationalism, an organization which he and his friends reformed to found the Student Movement for Democracy in 1998.

Along the way he earned a bachelor's degree in psychology at the Royal University of Phnom Penh and a bachelor's of law at the Institute of Law and Economics. He even enrolled in Malaysia's MARA University of Technology in 2004-2006 and was awarded a master's degree of International Policy.

Abroad, he was invited to speak on the rule of law, human rights and democracy in Cambodia at the U.N. General Assembly Hearing in New York in 2005, and was elected executive member of the Southeast Asia Committee for Advocacy at a meeting in Indonesia.

Serey Ratha Sourn became too big a thorn to the government. Threats to his personal freedom and physical being became intense. Invited to speak in the United States in February 2006, Sourn's trip was one of no return: a warrant was issued for his arrest in Cambodia and he was able to remain in the United States.

In November 2006, Sourn found and became chief of mission of the U.S.-based Cambodian Action Committee for Justice and Equity, gathering support from Cambodians in the country and expatriates in the U.S., European Union, Australia, New Zealand and Thailand, and pushed for change.

The CACJE has brought attention to the thousands of those involved in the deaths of two million people under Pol Pot who are still walking free today, and has challenged the world community to advocate for the institution of a witness protection program for those who would testify before the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.

Suorn's story brings to mind President Theodore Roosevelt words, spoken in Paris early in the last century, in which he gave credit to "the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, ... who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the Universityof Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.