ADDRESSING THE WOUNDS: THE PROCESS OF RECONCILIATION AND SEEKING JUSTICE IN POST-GENOCIDE CAMBODIA

Christina Mary Carey

University of Southern California



Transitional justice is a difficult concept to grasp in response to the loss of millions of innocent people. In Cambodia , the efforts of the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) as well as the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) along with a scattering of other concerned human rights groups have been seeking models of transitional justice that will provide comprehensive justice to the surviving victims of the Khmer Rouge genocide. Justice is desired on many levels, from individual, to national, to international.

After looking at a snapshot of the social condition of the country and discussing the different perspectives of the Cambodian people on the genocide, this report will consider two parties who are liable for the current state of Cambodia, the government and the international community, and then weigh three possible venues through which Cambodians can and are pursuing reconciliation and justice on a personal, communal, and national level, namely; the ECCC, personal religious beliefs, and most importantly, comprehensive education.

Snapshot of Cambodia

In order to even attempt to understand reconciliation, justice, and restoration in post-genocide Cambodia , one must first understand the current tone of the country. Even though thirty years have gone by, the Khmer Rouge and the regimes following it have left Cambodia in a state of chronic pain. Wounds from the genocide are still festering in some places; in others they have turned into deep scars that the people live with on a day-to-day basis. The following is a snap shot of Cambodian culture and society and the ills that plague it, even today.

To begin, the overarching truth that has to be understood about Cambodia is that thirty-five percent of all Cambodians live below the national poverty line, which is forty-five cents per day. Slums house one quarter of Phnom Penh ’s population: children run around without shoes on; men and women sleep, cook, work and live on the streets; shantytowns are thrown up right next door to officials’ mansions. The homeless, the impoverished, and beggars of all ages can be found on any street corner in Phnom Penh . Barefoot, dirty children, many under the age of ten, some carrying babies, approach tuk-tuks through lanes of traffic to gaze at foreigners with longing eyes and an outstretched hand.

The working poor do what they can to survive. One tuk-tuk driver described his struggle to break out of the poverty cycle. As a married adult, he works to support his wife, but also his two younger sisters. He pays to send his younger sisters to school, and he is attempting to save enough money to send his children to school when they are old enough. He said that he was happy to work and work hard, as long as his children could have a better life than he did. Poverty is a universal problem in Cambodia , affecting everyone. Chea Mao, a former Khmer Rouge cadre who guarded the exterior of Toul Sleng prison during the regime, testified that like many perpetrators, he struggles under the dual burden of both his personal history and extreme poverty.

The land itself in Cambodia is still physically scarred. Bombs dropped by the United States in an attempt to force Vietnamese soldiers back over the border during the Vietnam War ravaged the land. The scars in the earth have been turned into rice fields, but they are still visible from the air, enduring markers of a terrible bombing campaign. Still worse are the land mines hidden in the countryside. Evidence of their effect is easy to find. Men and women without arms or legs surround major tourist attractions, begging pitiably for compassion from the Western and Asian tourists.

Lastly, it is important to get a sense of the social injustice that exists in Cambodia . Ken Huff, an American who has worked with the Assemblies of God church in Phnom Penh for the past ten years, testified that poverty and corruption lead to all kinds of social ills. Prostitution, for example, is widely practiced in Cambodia . Trafficked girls are often daughters of poor, rural farmers who sell their children to supplement their inadequate income. In other cases they are orphans who feel that they have no other option. Large numbers of pedophiles fuel another side of the sex trade. Huff explained that because almost anyone can get a visa, foreign men come into the country, marry Cambodian women as a decoy, and then gather little boys to sell as sex slaves. Many NGOs in Cambodia , like Daughters and Hagar Ministry, are devoted to giving girls and women a safe place to learn the skill they need to get out of the sex trade and reintegrate into society. But the problem is deeply rooted and complex, requiring massive societal change.

Remnants of the Genocide

Specific to the genocide, though, there is a whole other set of issues that need to be addressed. Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia , goes so far as to call Cambodian society broken: “Victims are like a broken glass, that you try to glue back together. That’s what we are, broken people living in a broken society.” What does it look like to have broken people living in a broken society?

For one thing, victims come from all different backgrounds in Cambodia . The Khmer Rouge targeted intellectuals, city dwellers, devout religious leaders, ethnic minorities, and anyone who was a threat or strayed from the party line—meaning, in effect, that everyone was vulnerable. Chhang says, “It’s easy to find victims. Almost everybody was a victim of the Khmer Rouge, from the king down to farmers in the most remote village. We all were victims.”

Perpetrators are harder to define, though. Many of the Khmer Rouge cadres were young boys when they were conscripted into the army. Their only training was the violent indoctrination and desensitization they got from the Khmer Rouge leaders, and if they did not follow orders they knew that they would be killed. Even Him Huy, after admitting to murdering a man, said with a clear conscience that it was only because he feared for his life every day. Breaking the Silence, a play about people’s memories of Democratic Kampuchea, depicts girls who were taken from the countryside by the Khmer Rouge and placed in the hospitals as ‘nurses.’ They were uneducated, overworked, and had hardly any access to real medicine or adequate food. Though they had no way that to meet the needs of their patients, and lived in fear of severe punishment for stepping out of line, technically they are perpetrators.

Because of this complexity, DC-Cam’s staff attempt to interview perpetrators in a very non-accusatory way. For Chhang and his staff at the Documentation Center , the most important thing is trying to understand the perpetrators: “We want to see each perpetrator as a person, with a life history, a family, children, and so forth. . . . All the crimes were committed by human beings, and we have to understand why. We have to learn about the circumstances that made them do such things.” In order to understand a perpetrator’s motives, the interviewer has to create an environment of trust, and listen without an agenda. Chhang stresses that DC-Cam does not want to do the job of a prosecutor. They are simply looking to document the facts.

Whether they are classified as victims, perpetrators, or both, the survivors of the Khmer Rouge have proven their resilience again and again. Chhang remarked that he has seen people fight for their lives up until the very last moment, and because of this he believes that the Cambodian people can survive and move past this chapter in their history. The only thing that he seems to regret is the amount of time that has passed between the atrocities and any reconciliation attempts. He says, “I also feel a little bit sad because I know many souls have died without knowing that we worked so hard to come this far.”

The very idea of justice for genocide seems almost absurd. A survivor of the Rwandan genocide who now works for the USC Shoah Foundation said that there is no way to create justice for the death of millions of people. No form of reparation and no punishment could ever bring back the lives of the people who died. Therefore, she said that the international community should come up with a different word, because justice will not happen. But Chhang sees the mixed tribunal as a step in the right direction that will allow for the public to be involved in seeking personal justice. “I want them to be the judges, to be the witnesses to history . . . and I think they can find their own definition of justice.”

Part of seeking justice and reconciliation for the Cambodian people is allowing them to go through a healing process. Chhang tells of some victims who said that they wanted to chop the Khmer Rouge leaders into pieces, but when he asked them if they would feel better when they did that, they said no. Their anger is part of the healing process. Many people are not angry, they are just still confused and want to know once and for all what happened to their family members. Chhang says that people come to DC-Cam looking for a photograph of their brother in prison, or a paper with their spouse’s handwriting on it. He says that when people see these things is when they are really free. Apart from dealing with anger and seeking knowledge, many people just want to share their story. Chhang echoes that in his interview: “I think the most important thing many victims are looking for is someone to really listen to their stories. They want to tell you their story. And when you listen, it is very helpful. You don't need to do anything. When their children learn [about the Khmer Rouge] in school and come back home to talk to them, that is the most healing medicine.”

Modes of reconciliation

There are three venues through which reconciliation is being pursued. The first, and most publicized, is the UN-sponsored trial at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). The second and third are more personal: religious practice, specifically Buddhism; and education about the past. The ECCC is only effective to the extent that people are aware of it, and Buddhism is not serving this generation the same way it has served previous generations. Thus, the most viable route to reconciliation and justice is through education.

The ECCC has multifaceted goals and has great potential to be a very effective tool in the reconciliation process. To begin with, the international community hopes that the ECCC will broadcast a global message that anyone, anywhere who is considering committing crimes against humanity should think again, because they will not get away with it. Cambodia ’s leadership hopes to avoid renewed violence and focus on other priorities, like economic development. Outside of the international community and the Cambodian government, the Cambodian people also have goals for the tribunal. They include a desire to forgive those who are guilty, learn the truth about the Khmer Rouge period, simply understand what happened, make sure that the guilty are punished for their crimes, and allow the rule of law to take root in Cambodia.

Youk Chhang talks about the trial as part of the process of confronting the past. “I anticipate that it’s going to be difficult for all of us, but if we don’t face it, it’s going to be difficult for us to move on with our lives. That would drag us back to the past.” While the trial is playing a role in that process, it is questionable whether it will yield true justice. As discussed before, the line between victim and perpetrator is very fine; there are many mass murderers from the Khmer Rouge regime still living freely in Cambodia . For example, Toul Sleng was not the only prison that tortured and exterminated thousands of people during that era, which means that there are other men who had the same authority as Duch, the commander of S-21, yet he is the only one who is being tried. Similarly, what is the difference between Duch, who commanded the murders, and Him Huy, who carried them out? Him Huy was only willing to be interviewed when it was clear that the tribunal was not trying anyone lower than Duch, which shows his recognition of the role he played in the Khmer Rouge. On the other hand, there is no way that every Khmer Rouge cadre could possible be tried. The line had to be drawn somewhere.

More damaging than questions of limited justice are the accusations of corruption against the court. But Chhang observes that “not even the purest, more intelligent court can bring back human life. So for me the most important thing is that we have a process in which survivors can participate, and can have ownership of the trial.” Despite allegations of corruption, the court is still in session. There is a great desire for the court to succeed, from the international community but also from Cambodians. This is their last chance at some semblance of official justice. If this fails, there will be no other opportunity.

The case currently at trial, against Kaing Guek Eav, or Duch, is interesting. Not only are there documents demonstrating his guilt, but also Duch himself admits to the role he played in the Khmer Rouge. But the ECCC does not allow defendants to plead guilty, so Duch must have a trial despite his admission of guilt. So far the trial has gone on far longer than anyone expected. This leads to a legitimate concern. There are five other people to be tried by the ECCC. All are quite old, and not all are in good health. Will they ever really be tried? Will they die in UN confinement before their turn comes? Is it worth the money to be keeping them alive and well in comfortable, air-conditioned, cared for confinement when so many of Cambodia ’s people live below the poverty line?

As far as more personal modes of seeking peace and justice, Buddhism is enormously influential. Buddhism is the predominant religion in Cambodia , with about 95% of the population claiming to be followers. During the Khmer Rouge all religious practice was abolished. Buddhist pagodas became places to gather and watch executions, or places for the Khmer Rouge to meet. Since the Khmer Rouge, Buddhism has re-entered Cambodian culture, but as more of a secular shaper of personal world-view rather than a doctrinal religion. Many people in the younger generation would say that they are Buddhist because they are Cambodian. Many in the older generation, on the other hand, are still devout, practicing Buddhists, and the tenets of Buddhism have helped many of them move on. Chea Mao, the former external guard at S-21, said that justice would be when the perpetrators face Karma in the next life for what they did in this life. More broadly, Buddhism teaches that since hatred and vindictiveness do not end by hatred and vindictiveness, people should learn forgiveness.

If the ECCC is not well publicized nor well attended, and if the young generation is not turning to faith to provide reconciliation with their past, it is up to education to open up lines of communication and further the healing process. The survivors of the Khmer Rouge, at least the ones who really remember it, are in their sixties and seventies now, which means that unless their stories are heard they will take them to their graves. The younger generation has had next to no exposure to the truth about the Khmer Rouge era, but that is starting to change.

In the last month, DC-Cam has begun to distribute textbooks about the Khmer Rouge to high school students around Cambodia . As one of many techniques to get people talking about the genocide and sharing their experiences, the Documentation Center is instructing teachers about how to teach this portion of their country’s history. For some children, this will be their first exposure to the Khmer Rouge. Other than their work with students, DC-Cam issues magazines, puts on plays like Breaking the Silence, arranges for people to be transported to the trials, and gathers footage from interviews conducted with survivors. They are in the process of building a new institute that will be attached to a school. Students will be able to actively take part in the research and documentation while they get their degrees. It is a huge step in the right direction. Education also takes place in the form of monuments and museums. Cheung Ek, or the killing field used for executions of S-21 prisoners, is just one of many memorial sites scattered throughout the country. As more mass graves are excavated, more monuments are being constructed.

Conclusion

Cambodia is a country of many wounds. They run deep and they are painful to deal with. There is no quick fix to the problems facing Cambodia ; whether they are social problems like poverty and sex trafficking, or leadership problems like corruption in the government or problems of reconciliation in the aftermath of genocide. The ECCC will hopefully prove to be a positive step toward reconciliation and peace, not just for the country on a national level, but also for the people on a personal level, though it is not going to be comprehensive.

Not until the people are bold enough and willing enough to face their past and hurt again will they be able to really move on from the genocide. And sadly, some people probably never will. There is no use in being prescriptive; that would do nothing more than oversimplify the situation in Cambodia . It will take a whole generation of dedicated people like the staff at the Documentation Center to really effect change in Cambodia and until then, there is nothing to do but press on, educate, enlighten, inform, expose, and diligently seek after truth.