In Phnom Penh

Jet lagged. In Phnom Penh after traveling for 24 straight hours (SFO – Taipei – Bangkok – Phnom Penh). Now back at the hotel after seeing three of our students at dinner. (The other two were at the hotel finishing up written pieces for the law review.)

I'm tired. So I flip on CNN and live at this moment is President Obama flanked by new Supreme Court nominee Judge Sotomayor and Vice President Biden.

I mention all of this because the seamless transition on our Court, regardless of how one views a particular nominee, stands in sharp contrast to the complete breakdown of the rule of law followed by the horrific genocide in Cambodia from 1975 – 1979. As I think about it, this point was really brought home for me tonight. After dinner, I saw the startling 1979 film by East German filmmakers, Kampuchea: Death and Rebirth, chronicling the horrors of the Khmer Rouge with rare footage and interviews. Seeing the movie and now seeing the President on television drives home how lucky we are and how vigilant we must be to sustain and nurture the rule of law.

Tomorrow we will visit the Killing Fields and the Toul Sleng prison where as many as 15,000 Cambodians were tortured and murdered. In the afternoon, I’ll be at the tribunal where Duch, who ran the prison, is on trial. The students and Howard De Nike and I will go on Thursday. This is an incredible experience for them that I suspect is sure to impact their legal studies and work in the future.

Here is the blog that gives you a good feel for movie which so graphically describes what happened during the time of Pol Pot. By the way, the movie was screened at the Meta House in Phnom Penh that is dedicated to promotion of all sorts of art and media. The top floor of the three story building has a small bar and a pull down screen. Maybe 100 folks were packed in to watch the movie.

A blog from the Phnom Penh Post:

Meta House was full as a tin of sardines last night, as people came out of the woodwork to watch an extraordinary historical documentary film - Kampuchea : Death and Rebirth - by the East German filmmakers Walter Heynowski and Gerhard Scheumann, who were one of the first reporting crews to get access to Cambodia after the expulsion of the Khmer Rouge from power in the spring of 1979. It certainly lived up to its billing of unique and raw footage from a devastated Cambodia. The mesmeric journey through the completely empty streets of Phnom Penh and the interviews with the handful of shell-shocked inhabitants who'd managed to survive the genocide, often by hiding their true identities, was powerful stuff for the time. British audiences had already seen some of the shocking scenes from Cambodia in John Pilger's Year Zero documentary in October 1979 but the Heynowski/Scheumann film featured more interviews and street scenes. It also contained interviews with leading characters such as Pen Sovann, the leader of the new Kampuchean authorities, a youthful student named Khieu Kanharith, who is now the Minister of Information and Khmer Rouge leader Ieng Thirith, who is currently awaiting trial in Phnom Penh for crimes against humanity.