After visiting Siam Reap, Jeremy and I went to Phnom Pehn. Many people do not know about the genocide that took place in Cambodia. It's the genocide that the world forgot. Though the genocide itself lasted 3 years (75-78), their tormentors--the
Khmer Rouge--prevented their voices from being heard long after they were kicked out of government. They represented the people of Cambodia at the UN well into 90's and prevented all pleas for justice by the Cambodian people of being heard.
When the UN finally opened their ears to listen, this is what was said.
Nearly 3 million people--one third of the population of Cambodia--we murdered by Pol Pot and his regime.
The country's capital--Phnom Pehn--was emptied overnnight from a million plus to less than 40,000 (mostly high ranking party officials). Everyone was told to leave and go to the country where they were forced to abandon their education, their homes, their jobs and be people of the land. Pol Pot wanted to lead the world's most successful agricultural communist state and decided the best way to do this was empty the cities.
But first, he needed to rid the country of his competition. He chained, tortured and murdered all who were educated. The country was soon devoid of all teachers, doctors, economists, and engineers. The educated were the enemy. Western medicine was deemed inferior and adequate health care was inaccessible.
Schools like this one (photographed throughout this blog post) called S-21, were turned into bastions of hell. This one was later renamed Tuol Sleng were thousands of people were killed by means only the most heinous of people could imagine--electric shock through ears, nails to the head, hoes to the face, starvation; bullets were too "valuable" to waste. The Khmer Rouge's motto was: "To keep you is no benefit. To destroy you is no loss." Of the thousands to enter here, only 12 people are known to have survived S-21.
In 1998,
Pol Pot died under house arrest though the causes are unknown. Was he poisoned? Was it suicide? The only thing known is that the man most responsible for the nightmare will never be put before court to face his victims.
Many who can remember are old. Most who survived have since died. The country is young--over 1/3 under the age of 20--but the wounds are still fresh.
In 1997 a task force was established by the government to bring the criminals responsible for these deaths to justice.
The Extraorinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia was created in coalition with the UN and is now holding trials against several high ranking officials among the Khmer Rouge.
Jeremy and I had the opportunity to visit the Chambers and watched an appeal hearing for bail or house arrest in the case against
Ieng Thirith: the Minister of Social Affairs and Action and Head of Democratic Kampuchea's Red Cross Society. Sitting in the chambers and watching her take the stand was conflicting in the most confusing of ways. She is old. She is decripid. She is pitiable. She is a murderer. She is respectful but she is also deceptive and hideous. When the judges asked her if she had anything to comment on before they made their decision, she said, "If you determine me guilty of murder, I will curse you to the seven layers of hell." Though the audience laughed, we all quickly returned to our sombre silence: this is a woman who helped send MILLIONS to their untimely deaths.
There is nothing funny about it.
It may not be the Hague, the ICC or Nazis, but history is being made in Cambodia--history of the same porportion, of the same gravity. Some of the world's most heinous and unrepentant murderers are facing their deeds and standing trial. Most of them are old and many will not live to see their verdicts. But I hope they will. And I hope that those who survived the horrors will live to see the lives of their loved ones honored with the gavel of justice firmly placed on the heads of their assailants.
In Cambodia, all are victims. Let's not forget them.
