Some Justice for Cambodia

Posted by: | Posted on: July 28, 2010

July 27, 2010
The New York Times
Editorial

It is disturbing that the Cambodian prime minister, Hun Sen, has said the court will not prosecute more suspects than the ones in custody. One has to ask, whom is he trying to protect?

Thirty years later, Cambodia’s “killing fields” are still haunting. A Buddhist memorial displays 5,000 haphazardly arranged human skulls — a tiny fraction of the 1.7 million Cambodians butchered by the Khmer Rouge.

While the world must never forget what happened, there is at least the beginning of justice. On Monday, a United Nations-backed tribunal convicted Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, of war crimes and crimes against humanity — the first major Khmer Rouge figure to be tried since the regime was overthrown. He has already spent 16 years in prison, and the tribunal sentenced him to another 19 years.

Duch oversaw a notorious prison where more than 14,000 people were tortured and killed. During an eight-month trial, he admitted to many of the charges against him. His defense — he was a “cog in a machine” — is no defense at all.

We understand why many of the victims of the Khmer Rouge and their families were disappointed that he was not given life in prison. He should never taste freedom, but at least he was held to account and he will be 86 years old when his sentence is served.
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Cambodian ‘Justice’: Without major personnel changes, the Khmer Rouge trial risks descending into farce

Posted by: | Posted on: July 18, 2010

By SOPHAL EAR

While my mother, four siblings and I escaped Pol Pot’s Cambodia in 1976, my father died of dysentery and malnutrition after a brief stay at a mite-infested Khmer Rouge “hospital.” Although I have harbored grave doubts about the ability of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal underway in Phnom Penh to punish the guilty, I hoped for the best and even filed a civil complaint with the Tribunal’s victims unit last year.

But I can no longer in good conscience sit back in silence and watch this theater of the absurd. As with so many other donor-financed projects, the Tribunal—set up in 2006 to bring justice to millions of Khmer Rouge victims—has been mired in an endless stream of corruption and mismanagement allegations.

David Klein

The latest news came on August 11, when Uth Chhorn was named to the court as an independent counselor. Mr. Chhorn is Cambodia’s auditor-general and heads the seven-year-old National Audit Authority, which is supposed to audit the government’s activities. It has yet to make a single report public. His appointment was sanctioned by the United Nations, which manages the court alongside the Cambodian government.

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Modern Masterpieces

Posted by: | Posted on: May 28, 2010

Independence Monument; Vann Molyvann, architect (All photos: Luke Duggleby for The Wall Street Journal)

A lone figure walks the stands of Vann Molyvann’s Olympic Stadium.

The Chaktomuk Conference Hall, one of Mr. Molyvann’s earliest designs, was built in 1961.

The library at the Institute for Foreign Languages, now part of the Royal University of Phnom Penh

More of Mr. Molyvann’s work at the Institute for Foreign Languages

Yet more of the institute

Modern Masterpieces

MAY 28, 2010
By TOM VATER
The Wall Street Journal

Vann Molyvann, Cambodia’s greatest living architect, recalls that the night his Olympic Stadium in Phnom Penh was completed, in 1964, “I took my wife to see the work.” Sitting in the top tier of the stands, they listened to Dvorák’s “New World Symphony” over the stadium’s speaker system. “It was one of the great moments of my life.”

In the years after Cambodia won independence from France in 1953, Mr. Molyvann—then scarcely in his 30s—set out under the tutelage of King Norodom Sihanouk to transform Phnom Penh from a colonial backwater into a modern city. But in the late 1960s the country was drawn into decades of war and terror, including years under the murderous Khmer Rouge regime, and Mr. Molyvann’s vision was virtually forgotten. The architect himself had to flee the country.

And while he returned in triumph after more than 20 years abroad, it was to find that grand titles didn’t translate into influence in today’s Cambodia. His legacy—structures in a style dubbed New Khmer Architecture—lives on, contributing significantly to the flair of the city, but even that is in danger as Phnom Penh, like other Asian capitals, clears historic buildings to make room for skyscrapers.

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Ambitious Monk Mixes Business With Buddhism

Posted by: | Posted on: May 19, 2010

Monk, Hoeurn Somnieng receives a degree in business management from St. Ambrose University in Iowa, USA. (Photo: Courtesy of Life and Hope Association)
Nuch Sarita, VOA Khmer
Washington, D.C Tuesday, 18 May 2010

“It was a very profound experience for me. In a period of great suffering, I was kind of not knowing what to do, and I just sat and closed my eyes and focused on my breathing.”

One determined monk says he wants to use his education and experience from the US to help fund a number of projects, including a network that helps combat child trafficking.

Hoeurn Somnieng is the deputy head of Wat Damnak pagoda in Siem Reap. He studied at St. Ambrose University in Iowa in 2008. He says now he plans to return to Cambodia with a degree in business management and ideas to help his home country.

“I want to use my education to represent people in need and to represent the poor and powerless,” Hoeurn Somnieng told VOA Khmer in a recent interview. “This education gives me a louder voice.”

Hoeurn Somnieng is the founder and executive director of a junior high school, a boarding house for girls, a vocational training program, an orphanage and the Life and Hope Association.
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