Khmer Rouge Trial

It was with mixed feelings that I recieved the news of the Khmer Rouge Trial beginning last week. Justice is value to which humanity must aspire but perhaps not without it’s own sense of pain of memory, trauma and loss of the irreplaceable.

In 2004 I spent quite a bit of time in the region and at the time wrote in an article published in the local paper, “It was Cambodia that stole my heart”. I remember being struck by the harmony of the place, mixed with a strong wiff of memory and dysfuntion. One day I spent hours playing with a group of gorgeous kids in a village after a day on the back of a motorbike. My driver invited me back to his home and before long there was a collection of dark curious eyes following me, playing cat and mouse behind my back before we tumbled into games of soccer, piggy back and shoulder rides, and crude lessons in photography with my camera. I sat for a breather for a cup of tea and a chat when the conversation lightly turned to the family members missing due to the genocide. It seemed to me that these facts were repeated tranfered in this manner with the many others who I spent time with along the way. These people were emotionally spent.

I also remember the feeling of vomit rising in my throat at the killing fields and Tuol Seng in particular.

Perhaps Cambodia was my entre to a need to explore the ghosts of trauma among survivors, how we heal and what aids the healing process. War crimes trial may be one way, Truth and Reconciliation Tribunals, Apologies, compensation, therapy. I don’t have answers to such questions, except what people have told me: speaking, being heard, being acknowledged, being supported, sharing pain and having a future.

These episodes move survivor groups to vow, “never again” but horrifically, as a global community we seem to watch the same story line replayed over and over again only with different characters, different locations. To this again all I can say is that I have no answer and that like everyone else, my eternal question is simply “why”.

Also read responses from Khmer people, News reports and a resource from Yale University