Cambodia looks beyond war crimes tribunal

August 20, 2010
ABC Radio Australia

After handing down its first verdict in July, the international war crimes tribunal in Cambodia will next year hear the second - and possibly final - case against a former senior Khmer Rouge leader. But some people are looking beyond all of this - to a time when the tribunal has left Cambodia - and a need for learning centres and other legacy projects.

Presenter: Robert Carmichael in Battambang, western Cambodia
Speakers: Acha Thun Sovath, Wat Samroung Knong, Battambang; Daravuth Seng, former executive director, Centre for Justice and Reconciliation

CARMICHAEL: Late last month, the UN backed Khmer Rouge tribunal in Phnom Penh convicted its first defendant, Comrade Duch. He was the former head of the Khmer Rouge's most important torture and execution centre, known as S-21, where thousands of Cambodians died.

Next month, it looks certain to charge another four suspects for their alleged roles in the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians.

The movement's crimes encompassed the entire country. Take, for instance, this temple, or wat, on the outskirts of the town of Battambang in western Cambodia.

When the Khmer Rouge took over the country in 1975, Wat Samroung Knong, was home to a young monk called Thun Sovath.

The Khmer Rouge were fiercely anti-religion. Thun Sovath was forced to leave the monkhood and work in the fields with everyone else. Many other monks were murdered.

Today, Thun Sovath is the Acha, or leader, of the temple. He explains that when the Khmer Rouge took over many people were imprisoned and interrogated at the pagoda.

THUN SOVATH: And then they asked them questions - what did you do? What was your position? The interrogators would be told, I am a soldier, I am a teacher. They were scared into answering every question truthfully. When they finished questioning, they took them to a piece of land behind this pagoda where they killed them.

CARMICHAEL: More than 10,000 people were murdered at this temple alone, their bodies thrown into the ponds.

Adjacent to one pond is a small building with windows on one side. The skulls of some of those executed here stare out blankly. Concrete murals around the base describe what happened - enslavement, torture, execution, even, cannibalism.

But nearby is a newer structure - a small wooden building on stilts that extends over a huge pond where the dead were once dumped. This wooden building, a sign of hope, will soon open as a learning centre for the community.

It is unique - it was built by the community with assistance from the Centre for Justice and Reconciliation (CJR), a local NGO, and with some funding from the Australian embassy.

Cambodian-American lawyer, Daravuth Seng, the NGO's former director, was deeply involved in this project. He explains its purpose.

DARAVUTH SENG: Our hope is a physical space for them to come together and also explore and to have documentation available so that some of these accounts do correlate with what my parents, or aunts and uncles, or surviving relatives have actually mentioned.

CARMICHAEL: Seng would like to see this sort of project replicated across Cambodia - small learning centres built at low cost allowing people to learn what happened.

This learning centre fits the concept of what are called legacy projects. In other words, what is left behind once the international tribunal finally closes.

At the tribunal the sole legacy project officially underway is an online database. Known as the virtual tribunal, it will one day hold all of this court's documents for public access.

The tribunal has also established a committee to tackle the issue of legacy projects, but there is little information available about its achievements to date.

Michelle Staggs Kelsall heads the Khmer Rouge tribunal monitoring project at the East-West Centre, a research organisation.

She identifies two key legacy projects - the first is to ensure that best judicial practices are transferred to Cambodia's much criticised domestic court system.

The second is to provide an historical record for the nation of the crimes of the Khmer Rouge.

She says another benefit is that the tribunal has created an environment where civil society can generate interest in other legacy-type projects, much as the CJR did with the community learning centre.

Daravuth Seng says legacy efforts such as the learning centre in Battambang could prove essential in helping Cambodia deal with its past.

Acha Thun Sovath, for one, fully endorses the centre. He says it provides the young with a chance to learn what happened to his generation.

THUN SOVATH: We will never forget. We must always remember what happened at these buildings so we can tell the next generation and let them know about the people that died under the Khmer Rouge.

US-Cambodians To Discuss Post-Khmer Rouge Healing

Khmer Rouge survivors in the US will meet on Saturday to discuss challenges they face and to seek ways for healing. (Photo: AP)

Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer
Washington, DC Friday, 13 August 2010

“But it will not completely heal the wounds of the trauma that survivors and their family have experienced..."

Khmer Rouge survivors in the US will meet on Saturday to discuss challenges they face and to seek ways for healing, as the UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal moves toward its second trial.

The meeting in Lowell, Mass., will be an opportunity for the Cambodian community to get an update on complaints they filed to the court through the US-based Applied Social Research Institute of Cambodia.

The US-Cambodians will also discuss on reparations for members of the Cambodian diaspora, according to a statement from the institute.

“Now the court is one mechanism that will help to ensure that the culture of impunity would be discouraged or stop in some way,” said Nou Leakhena, executive director of the institute. “But it will not completely heal the wounds of the trauma that survivors and their family have experienced. So we as the community need to move forward in a healthy and productive way that will ensure the legacy of the Khmer Rouge history beyond the killing fields for the next generation.”

Nou Leakhena, who will lead the discussion, said that it is important to have community meetings to understand more about what justice means for the victims and what they should do for healing.

The forum is also sponsored by Asian Pacific American Institute.

CAMBODIA: Key role for universities in healing society

Vicheth Sen*
20 June 2010
Issue: 129
University World News

Universities need to move beyond their traditional roles of teaching, learning and research towards another core function - linking campuses to communities. They can play a key role in organising programmes in which students have the opportunity to be engaged in civic activities. This is particularly important in countries like Cambodia, which have been damaged by severe societal breakdowns in the past.

The erosion of trust in Cambodia - both interpersonal and institutional - caused by the Khmer Rouge regime, has weakened people's ability to work together for a common goal. It has crippled Cambodia's ability to recover from the devastation caused by prolonged civil conflicts. The Khmer Rouge regime left a psychological legacy - in this case, trauma - which has yet to be treated or healed.

As someone born after the collapse of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979, I believe that many young Cambodians have been affected by their parents' bad experiences. This trauma has become inter-generational.

Although young Cambodians' experiences are not as bad as those of their parents, parents' traumatic experiences of the genocidal regime and the chronic civil wars have been passed on to their children through the ways they were brought up.

The bad experiences affected the ways people viewed the world around them and how they related to other people. The erosion of trust continues into present Cambodian society.

It is noticeable that the ability to work together among (young) Cambodians tends to be limited to within families and small intimate groups of close friends. People don't seem to have enough confidence to extend cooperation beyond close networks, which really affects their ability to work together as well as the productivity of their work.

Promoting civic engagement at universities allows students to interact with one another beyond their small groups, to communicate with one another, to work together to achieve a common purpose, and to learn about one another, which leads to a better understanding of each other.

This process is critical for confidence and trust building, which is the first step to encouraging people to work together productively.

However, because of limited budget and lack of understanding of the importance of civic engagement, most Cambodian universities focus only on their traditional roles of teaching, learning and research.

Although some students mention having been involved in community service or volunteerism, the primary reason they stated was egoistic rather than altruistic, self-centered rather than compassionate. For instance, the most cited reason for doing community service or volunteerism was to gain some experience so that it was easier to secure a job in future.

I believe being civically engaged means learning to give back to the community, to help one another, to share, to take responsibilities, to understand the working and systems of the government and the processes of choosing a leader, and learning to be a good leader, to be accountable and to understand the principles and practices of democracy, to mention a few.

In this sense, civic engagement at university makes young people build or connect the missing link between the academic world and the real world. Civic engagement makes the students understand the importance of being civically engaged because of the benefits they will gain by doing so.

It also helps them to learn to trust fellow Cambodians through working together and helping those in need of support. At the same time, they learn to be good citizens and good leaders.

What's also important is that civic education programmes help students to understand the importance of their role in a democratic country. This is vital not only in the present but also in the future. I believe that a healthy democratic country has a huge population with high levels of civic mindedness and engagement.

For this reason, in this critical stage of democratising Cambodia, it is important to promote civic engagement among young Cambodians. This will provide a good opportunity for them not only to be well prepared for future careers but also to contribute to a healthy democracy in this newly democratised country.

* Vicheth Sen, a lecturer at the Royal Phnom Penh University, is the author of Higher Education and Civic Engagement In Cambodia: A Case Study at the Royal University of Phnom Penh.

Tribunal Bringing About Healing: Activist

By Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
10 March 2010

The Khmer Rouge tribunal should be considered beyond its legal proceedings and in the context of the healing process for Cambodians, a rights activist and civil party complainant said Friday.

“If we see this court as just a group of 15 or 20 people with prosecutors discussing among themselves, it is very weak, fragile, and wasting so much money,” Seng Theary, a Cambodian-American lawyer, told an audience at the National Press Club in Washington. “But we have seen that this court has provided lots of benefits to the public.”

“These include inspiring people to talk about their past, encouraging them to participate as civil party representatives or investigation or watch the court from a distance,” she said. “These are the advantages that should be expanded.”Seng Theary, who lost family members to the regime and is participating in trials of its leaders, said that many people who had never spoken about their suffering under the Khmer Rouge had begun to discuss it now. Some were even documenting their past for a younger generation to study.

Five Khmer Rouge leaders, including Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, are awaiting trial at the UN-backed tribunal, in the court’s second case. The verdict from the first case, against prison chief Kaing Kek Iev, or Duch, is expected this month.

The court has cost between $40 million and $50 million per year, and donors have approved a budget of $85 million for the next two years.

Along the way, Seng Theary said, civil society organizations have conducted public forums to explain the importance of the court and seek ways to heal their wounds.

“Public forums organized by the center that I moderated and by other civil society organizations are working as a bridge for the court to provide important updates from the court to public,” she said. “It is not just about four or five people in custody, but about the benefit of the whole nation.

”Brandon Howard, who participated in Friday’s discussion, said the pursuit of justice could cause problems, “but seeking healing you’ll be able to move forwards.”

US Genocide Film Seeks to Help Healing

By Nuch Sarita, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
11 June 2008

An American professor is making a documentary titled "The Genocide Forgotten," and hopes to finish the film next year. He is focusing on ongoing efforts to educate and inform Cambodians, especially young Cambodians, about what happened in the country in the 1970s, and how awareness of history can lead to a national healing.

"I hope that the film will educate worldwide audiences about genocide and about the prevention of genocide," said University of Florida Journalism School professor Tim Sorel, the filmmaker.

Sorel started working on the documentary three years ago and hopes to complete a 50-minute film by next year.

He says he expects to make one more trip to Cambodia for it. Sorel became interested in Cambodia when he traveled there for the first time in 2004, working for an NGO called Sustainable Cambodia, which brings clean water, a literacy project, health care and a food bank to the people of Pursat province.

"When I got there and when I came back to the United States I realized that a lot of US citizens really didn't know all that much about the Pol Pot regime and a whole period of the history," said Sorel. "Then on my second and third trips to Cambodia I also found that there were a lot of young people in Cambodia who didn't understand Cambodia's history as well, and that's how the documentary was born."

Not many Americans understand what took place in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, following the US withdrawal from Vietnam.

"This documentary was not only to educate the US audiences about Cambodia and the plight of the people, now 30 years after the Khmer Rouge, but also to talk a little bit of what is being done to educate people in Cambodia, young people especially about that time period of the history," Sorel said.

While Sorel was making the documentary, the Cambodian people have gone through such extraordinary changes. More so than he thinks any US audience could ever understand.

Sorel also interviewed Khamboly Dy, who recently wrote "A History of Democratic Kampuchea," which will be taught, in some form, in Cambodian high schools as early as 2009.

"It has been a wonderful experience to come here to interview Khamboly in a way of a tremendous young man," Sorel said. "I think he is taking all the correct steps that he needs to take to make sure that young people and all people educate themselves about this time period to help the country heal, and to help the country move forward."