Of students, Killing Fields, Toul Sleng and Tribunals

It's now Thursday. I lost a full day of blogging because of a computer crash. So now in the Business Center in my Phnom Penh Hotel with a day and one half to reflect on our students and visits to Cambodia's Killing Fields, the notorious Toul Sleng Prison (S-21) where at least 15,000 were tortured and murdered, and to the Tribunal where evidence is being taken against Toul Sleng mastermind, Duch, who sits unshackled, tells all and has found Christianity at this late stage in his suddenly repentent life (and God help him!).


I've been in and out of Cambodia so many times, working with others in the late 90s to train would-be judges for a tribunal that never happened then. No matter how many trips, however, I am constantly struck by the power of the Killing Fields and Toul Sleng visits, and this time, watching our five students experience the horrors, the history, the unfathomable is particularly powerful.


The Killing Fields and andToul Sleng sit in stark contrast to one another but are inextricably bound by common policies of a murderous relentless state. The former is on the outskirts of Phnom Penh in a beautiful even serene setting. This is not a Dachau or Teresenstadt with its feel of a city dedicated to murder. Rather, this is a dumping ground for the dead. In 1979, skulls and bones littered the landscape. Today, the Vietnamese-built monument to the dead, with skulls piled 30 feet into the air in a glassed-in pagoda-like building dominates the landscape and is the first shoeless stop one makes to pay homage to the murdered. Once descending the few steps of the shrine, one is still left to wander an almost lush landscape that has changed little since the murderers mercilessly killed their own. Walking the paths, one still encounters bones and clothing peeking through the soil that continues to erode and reveal the ghosts of the dead. ("Do not pick up bones," the signs incredibly remind).


Toul Sleng is in the city, a former three story school whose architecture is typical of school architecture in a hot, humid Southeast Asia -- classrooms, sometimes open to the outside, protected by eaves, and opening to balconies that serve as open-air hallways. But the sounds of children no longer echo in these rooms. Steel beds, chains, photos of the dead kept by the Khmer Rouge, instruments of torture, remarkable photographs of the dead and dying after the Khmer Rouge fled, instruments of torture (water boarding [Mr. Cheney, please visit here!], guillotines) leave sounds of screaming prisoners echoing in one's head -- sounds confirmed by what still appear to be bloodstained floors (or is it just worn tiles?)


We walk through the Killing Fields and Toul Sleng all morning long. Tears on the face of one student. A statement of "overwhelming" from another. A gratifying proclamation by another that there is no way to understand genocide without being at the Killing Fields; and, a poignant scene as two students sit alone amid incense and beautiful foliage, contemplating the unimaginable.


In Toul Sleng, amid the photos of the faces of the dead -- lined up line-up style as in a police station -- one is particularly disturbing. The photo reveals more than most. Down at the woman's waist, is a portion of her child's head poking through the bottom of the photo with the child's arm's reaching in apparent anguish to the mother's forlorn face.


And so it goes...we are all quiet and we get out of our van and the students return to their hotel. And now it is the following day and we are sitting in the tribunal where ironically Duch, whose prison we visited the day before is now on trial. After repeated failed efforts for more than a decade, the tribunal has finally begun and the students are fortunate to be able to witness it. To be sure, it has been mercilessly attacked for many reasons -- corruption, too long delayed, prosecutions that do not dig deep enough down the chain -- but as we sit there one suspects, that while imperfect, Cambodia is trying to deal with its tragic and murderous past perhaps as best it can and in ways which, I remain convinced, no Westerner can fully understand.


The courtroom is a tens of millions of dollar effort, an auditorium style building with seats for 350 or so who view the proceedings through a glass barrier where the stage in this Pirandello-like drama is filled with judges, lawyers, survivors (who sit behind some of the lawyers), translators, and Duch himself, who would blend in as one of the court personnel if one didn't know who he was. Today, Duch is just an observer as the Western expert, in an almost, cold and calculated cadence, recites facts and opinions about the torture, the confessions, and the chain of command. The beautifully robed lawyers aim their voices toward the platform which holds the international and Cambodian judges in their colorful robes flanked by large Cambodian and United Nations' flags on the wall. The sacharrine civility of the lawyers and the judges mask the reality of murder, torture and tragedy which the students experienced just the day before.


But there is no denying what is at stake here. The students get it. We all get it. And at that moment, I can' help but be proud that our students have the oppportunity to experience the responsibility that comes with the privilege of studying law. To be sure, they likely will not be (as most of us have not been) participants in a drama of the magnitude of the trial of those responsible for Pol Pot's and the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror. But there is no denying that as they watch the proceedings through glass, the power of the law and what it is capable of doing to tranform lives and society is seeping into their psyches. It surely continues to find its way into my thoughts as I feel lucky and privileged to be there at that moment.

To be continued!