This short essay summarizes my experience blogging the proceedings during several weeks of Closing Statements at a years-long trial of the top leaders of the Pol Pot era. It consists of my wrap-up thoughts on a job for the Cambodia Tribunal Monitor in 2013.
The opportunity to be part of something historical comes rarely in a lifetime, if at all. The chance to seize that opportunity is perhaps even more rare, given the regular demands of a full life—a household, work, family, daily commitments. But I deeply believe that you make your own luck in life, and as luck would have it, I was free to answer the phone on Tuesday, October 8 when my daughter called from Chicago. She volunteers with the Center for International Human Rights (CIHR) in the Bluhm Legal Clinic at Northwestern Law School, and they needed some help.
Half a world away from my ordinary American life, a very long-overdue trial was about to wrap up. As a college kid in the 1970s, I first heard about Cambodia when the American military bombed it ferociously and “secretly” on the justification that such measures were necessary to the war effort in Vietnam. I was later deeply moved by the awful story of the regime of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge as depicted in the movie, “The Killing Fields.”
And now, my daughter said, the CIHR was desperate to find a writer to cover the closing statements for Case 002/01 at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). Law students and others had been sent over the years by the Center to witness the proceedings and post daily blogs about the trial of Nuon Chea (former Deputy Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea) and Khieu Samphan (former Head of State). Now, she said, the staff at the Center was stymied. They could find no one to write blogs for the last few courtroom days, scheduled to begin in the following Wednesday.
“My mom’s a journalist,” she’d said in a CIHR meeting. “Maybe she could go.” Thus the phone call. It would be a heckuva scramble. I would need to apply for a visa and a media pass right away and launch into arranging for an extended leave from home, but the decision wasn’t difficult. With no time to cogitate, I seized the opportunity.
The effort led to the sort of life experience you can’t find in a travel brochure My job was to go to court, take notes, and write an account of the proceedings (deadline: midnight) for posting on the Cambodia Tribunal Monitor. As the eyes and ears for interested readers in far-flung places, I would cover ten capstone days of the three(plus)-year trial as the lawyers for the prosecution, the civil parties, and the defendants, as well as the defendants themselves, gave their final statements.
Although my CIHR contact, Eben Saling, sent an invaluable Writer’s Guide (about both life in Phnom Penh and the work I was being asked to do), it was not until I boarded the plane out of Chicago on Monday, October 14 that I had a moment to sit back, exhale, and think, “what am I doing?”
My grasp of Cambodian history was very poor. How could I ever get up to speed in order to write knowledgeably? Although I am well-traveled, everything I had heard about Phnom Penh made it sounds like a very dangerous city. Was I savvy enough for those streets? I had not even had time to glance at earlier blog postings in the Cambodia Tribunal Monitor website. Would my skills be enough to measure up to its eminent reputation? Yet there I was, heading out spur of the moment for nearly three weeks, feeling somewhat helter-skelter (a prime example being that I had quickly had to purchase a new travel computer that I barely knew how to power up). I was facing the jetlag of a 12-hour time zone change. Twenty-six hours of travel would land me at my hotel in Phnom Penh at 11:00 p.m. Tuesday, and my ride to the ECCC would come at 7:15 a.m the following morning. It was all a bit daunting.
Of course, the nineteen days evaporated, blurry as a rainstreaked window—as I knew they would. When asked to reflect on the experience, a thousand observations flood the outgate of my mind, all vying to be first through the funnel of perspective, and none feeling adequate to serve as a beginning. Although I only have to flip the wall calendar one page back to review the dates of the journey, I hadn’t even landed back in Chicago on November 2 before the feeling of being in Cambodia had faded like the elusive village of Brigadoon. Thank goodness for photographs and my journal, which help to revive the sights, sounds, smells, feel of the place and its people.
Perhaps the best place to start rests with the trial itself. Although there are certainly many who could speak with firmer understanding of what it has required in terms of effort and financial underwriting to bring about these war crimes trials after so many years (well, decades), I am grateful that the various entities finally agreed to create the courts to hear what happened and at last hold the facts up to the light. Many can and do point out that the world is filled with more current horrors, and wonder why it is necessary to dredge up something so distant. But on the days when court was not in session and I was wandering the streets of Phnom Penh, I could see in the life of today the importance of the ECCC and its efforts to revisit the realities of life (and death) in the 1970s. The atrocities can never be made distant to the victims. The trials have been expensive, yes. They have demanded enormous effort by many people, true. But they have been completely necessary if we are to live in a world that at least attempts to bring people who act with such impunity to some sort of justice. I applaud all the people I saw at work in the court: judges, prosecutors, civil party representatives, and defense alike. They were impressive, and dedicated, and stirring. If I was so moved, I can only imagine the impact of these trials upon those who actually survived the dark days of the Khmer Rouge regime.
When I took my seat at the table in the media room of the ECCC for my first day, I knew I had a lot to learn. Indeed, a tsunami of information was headed my way. Face it: Cambodian history and the topic of international human rights is pretty abstract for the average American (me). Thankfully, I was flanked by patient and smart assistants from the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam), a co-sponsor of the Cambodian Tribunal Monitor and fulltime observer of the ECCC since its inception. The precipitous learning curve that I (gladly) endured began with the basics. I cringe to remember asking “what is Anghar?” I didn’t know that Phnom Penh had been completely evacuated in just three days in April, 1979. I didn’t know a lot of things. I am still reading, now that I am back in the States, and a pile of books awaits me. Cambodia’s national history is very complex, and extends well beyond the three years, nine months and twenty days of the Khmer Rouge regime. It interests me to try to make sense of it. One early task was to see the movie The Killing Fields (1984) again; I was amused to discover that a very youthful John Malkovich was well-cast (in just his third film) as photographer Al Rockoff, who I met the final day of the trial.
In my wanderings of current-day Phnom Penh, the most dangerous and frightening aspect turned out to be crossing the street. The best word for the traffic situation is “anarchy.” Anything goes, and it does...somehow. Our DC-Cam driver for the hour-long ride back and forth to the ECCC, Kim Sovanndany, was masterful in her ability to pilot our Toyota SUV with five to seven people aboard through the rush-hour chaos. There were other passenger vehicles, large trucks, tuk-tuks, bicycles, and pedestrians going every which way. Scooters were the predominant vehicle, flowing like water or a snake (depending on whose description you wanted to use) around us. I saw only two crashes, a near-miracle.
In order to cross the street, I learned to seek a small opening, develop a true link to the concept of blind faith, take a deep breath and enter the flow. You simply...walk. Don’t pause or hesitate. Just walk. I had to cross two four-lane roads to reach my ride at DC-Cam each day, a real adventure. I would murmur, “keep walking, keep walking, keep walking...” to myself, and indeed, oncoming traffic made its way around me. No problem. Exciting.
In the end, I was struck by a somewhat melancholy sense of inevitability regarding how Phnom Penh is sure to change. I was in China in 1981, when, as in Phnom Penh today, the traffic situation still consisted mostly of bikes and scooters. Now, the vehicle congestion and air pollution there are legendary. I can too easily guess what the future holds for Phnom Penh. I also wonder how the city’s quaint architectural stance and footprint will change, as it inescapably will. The colonial French buildings, mostly limited to four- or five-storeys, will likely be replaced with modern-day glitz. It is already happening. An immense building is rising up across the confluence of the Tongle Sap and Mekong Rivers, killing the view from the quay in downtown Phnom Penh. I wonder, does everything need to change?
Yes, probably. With an average national age less than 25, there are plenty of people in Cambodia who do not have firsthand knowledge of the harder times of the 1970s (and beyond). The here-and-now is what is mainly relevant to the young people. (Indeed, the young woman behind the front desk at my hotel was mostly interested in meeting up with her friends and dancing at the disco. She loves music, and is very fashion-minded. Her dream is to go to America.) The young people I spoke with are deeply concerned about their futures. They brood openly of the high levels of corruption amid burgeoning environmental, social, and healthcare needs. But I also see a lot of hopefulness. There are decent options for people willing to work hard.
Between the days at court when I heard so much about Cambodia’s dark days during the Khmer Rouge regime and my free time when I wandered the streets of Phnom Penh, I felt a powerful tug of contrast. Sometimes, I encountered ancient-looking souls out for some fresh air, many in wheelchairs. Seeing them made me wonder “what have you seen, done, endured in your life?” At the same time, I was curious to know what websites or other techno-innovations their attendants, busy with their cell phones, were viewing. I saw many young couples playing with toddlers, and felt a sense of freshness, a new beginning.Although certainly this remains a struggling nation, it has a lot of pride and matter-of-fact movement toward a brighter future. If the streets were littered from a night market or national holiday (there were three while I was there), they were spotless by morning. I saw no “street” people, wasn’t harangued by beggars. There were few really down-and-out people, at least in the areas I went. During my ambling, I felt never felt any hostility or danger.
My final reflection turns toward the larger sense of society. It seems to me that Cambodia has had a particularly rough ride as a nation lately. It wasn’t only the Khmer Rouge who shook things up (although certainly outlawing such social norms as religion, money, commerce, family, and the human urge to build a satisfying life didn’t help). Historically, invaders have imposed upon Cambodian self-rule from all sides: from Thailand, from Vietnam, from France, to name three. Neither did references at the trial to the American imperialists go unnoticed by me; much of the arable land in the east was bombed into oblivion, along with a majority of the beasts of burden who could have helped with the plowing.
So, I wonder what comes next. To me, there is much that is complex and inscrutable about Cambodia, and yet I was smitten by Phnom Penh and by its people. I hope that the people I now know by name, and their fellow Cambodians, can move forward positively from the terrors of the late 20th century. I believe the trials I was honored to attend are relevant, and that they serve a just purpose. If nothing else, I hope the process of bringing the leaders of the Khmer Rouge to trial can eventually allow the people of Cambodia to rest and recover from the difficulties of a horrendous past.