Blue lady blog » Khmer Rouge Tribunal

Wild Swan-Look at how the world is repeating its own mistakes.

Kounila Keo — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:28:51 +0000

Wild Swan

I am in the process of reading this book written by a Chinese lady (Jung Chang) who’s now residing in England. I couldn’t believe anyone could write this book with so much creativity of making you feel as if you’re really there. I really appreciate her efforts to do a great deal of research about her grandmother, mother and what happened during the time she had spent living in China. There are some situations which I find absolutely similar to situations many people were in, during the Khmer Rouge regime. For instance, her book says that a father killed his own baby for her flesh and meat because he was so hungry that he couldn’t stand his own hunger. He later confessed to an official for his daughter’s murder and asked to be severely punished. In this case, what a normal person like me could do while reading this was sadden or almost cry because this horrible thing really happened during the KR regime. According to my mother’s vivid memory, some parents during the Khmer Rouge regime did commit such a thing for their own survival. There are many interesting patches I could find: for instace, paranoid between Chinese people Mao ideologically injected into his people which led to killings and severe punishments.

Nowadays, I realize that Pol Pot, aka Salot Sar, imitated what Mao did: deceiving silent but strong critics to speak, so they can be persecuted; forcing people to believe that reasons or logics doesn’t matter; who didn’t follow orderes or showed some sort of negative reaction to his regime could be smashed, or if not, forever suffer. I let the book describe the necessary details for you.

After all, I recommend every Cambodian read this book to especially draw some similiaries as well as a few differences between what happened during the Cultural Revolution in china and the Khmer Rouge regime.

John Pilger-the man I like

Kounila Keo — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:28:26 +0000

I have watched two of his documentaries which I gained a lot of knowledge about the world from. The first is about Year Zero in Cambodia and the second is (as I recall) War on Democracy.

John Pilger came into Cambodia in 1979, and made a documentary about the immediate legacy of the Khmer Rouge regime. He did a really job in bringing causes together with effects. How did Year Zero exist? And what started the fire?

Here is the link of his speech:

Email sent to my classmates–I’m happy to read

Kounila Keo — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 09:36:42 +0000

This angry email was sent to us this morning, stemming from the late coming of several students including me. I didn’t back off and smiled at him because I knew what wrong I’d done. I don’t back off but feel sure that I’m going to do my best and do it best finally. Nobody wants to dwell on mistakes, and either do I. So the answer is that “I’ll do”, better than “I’ll try”.

[....You all still need support to become well-rounded, rational and productive citizens -- not just workers. Cambodians have historically categorized by many as one of the laziest peoples in Asia, and if we don't swim against this tide, who would? Foreigners have always looked down on Cambodians' lack of professionalism, punctuality and planning. I know you all will argue, but action speaks louder than words.

Some students think they are on top of everyone/everything.........This is a huge "false consciousness" [to borrow Marx's words]. The sky is high, and where you’ll reach is not yet known. I bet with my head that this country will always be a loser if its people never realize how antagonistic they are toward growth and professionalism. However, I will always hope you make a change in this country. Remember, Pol Pot, Kaing Gech Eav, Khiev Samphon, and the like, are all well-educated and intelligent people. SO we should always always and always remember that the “irrational” often overwhelms the “rational” in human beings. Karl Marx said, in his powerful words, human beings’ perceptions and consciousness about themselves are limited by their existence and material givens. Remember? How “false” human perceptions and consciousness are! Unless we recognize this, we can think the other way round. Only when we recognize this and think the other way round, can we make a change…..I know these are strong words, which should not be used by an academic. But at times a human being can lose his/her temper — and I’m about to….]

It’s only a matter of time

Kounila Keo — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 06:30:00 +0000

My mother’s generation are always appalled at the young generation’s choices or ways of life. They want things to run for us smoothly and, as they say, with no defiance. She, like other people of her age, has gone through so much that life has taught her to be quite different from her children including me. Born after Cambodia freed itself from France, she, in her late teen, suffered, sweltered in the Khmer Rouge regime. (I promise myself to write about her, just like what author Frank McCourt wants every one of his student to do: write about your family.)

She wants me to study hard, so then I can become somebody. She wishes that I change my mind and live abroad. But I don’t listen to that. She wants me to escape to a haven, better than Cambodia, which I think there’s no better place than home. In fact, I can go and stay in other countries for a few years, but the intention to live abroad never satisfies me.

She says it’s only a matter time. Yes, maybe, I say. Perhaps, someday I’m going to change my mind about what I do and where I want to live. Everything depends on time we have and time given.

However, the time given to the old generation (my mother’s) was so little that many had lost their childhood and happiness. I know, old people, for instance, my parents have missed the most fun in their life, holding hoes and eating shells instead of being in school, hanging out with friends and realizing their own dreams. It’s something I wish all the parents now had had. Looking at the history pages, I feel pain for my mother and other old-timers who could have had their dream come true only till life was full of sorrow later.

How do the old people educate their children in Cambodia? Most of them, as I vicariously feel, want their children to acknowledge their gruelsome conditions in the past. For example, my parents more then often mention something about the Khmer Rouge regime. Now, the question is how much Cambodian youth know about the Khmer Rouge regime. It’s very less, according to some studies. Parents are a bit closed-lipped about who was behind it, but they are so generous to tell what happened to them.

I hope it’s only a matter of time that the old generation begin to heal as the Khmer Rouge court is proceeding. I, too, want to see and hear something from the new generation. I don’t want to discuss some same problems many old people have here…when it comes to teaching their children to live socially. I know there’s so much to say here about Cambodian parents, children of the Information Technology era..etc… However, it’s better to stop and think.

Intial Hearing of Duch’s Trial at ECCC

Kounila Keo — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 08:40:00 +0000

I remember about a year ago, I contributed a post about the throught of the first hearing of Duch. This year, this hour, Duch has been detained for 9 years, 9 months and 27 days, as Francios Roux said at the beginnig of the trial after the presiding judge allowed all the defense lawyers to speak. After hearing this, I evaluated that it was very nice to see it now because Duch could have a chance to taste legal procedures while about two millions of Cambodians didn’t. Of coures, I did agree that this past brutality should be settled in the court of law rather than by the natural law or mob justice.

The night before, I did sleep late. I was still pondering over the next day, the first day of Duch trial. Athough I was not related to Duch in any way, I still felt excited and eager to know how his fate will follow him. I was lying down, thinking if anybody thinks the trial is going to give more justice than now. It’s that I have visisted Tuol Sleng where Duch ruled once, many times I start to have too many questions to ask him. But what I found out after mentally struggling to question the reality, is that it seems to me death or killing is addictive. When you kill one, you just feel it easy to kill more. And to kill more under the regime means that you are more loyal to the regime. And for Duch, he believed that at the time, he had to behave very strongly in front of his superior.

As a math teacher, he should not have ended up here. That means, the education at school is never enough. That means, there’s something completely wrong everywhere– As a born-again Christian, before being baptised by a foreign pastor, he said to him that he had killed “many brothers and sisters”. At this point, I just don’t know what God really thinks. I am really asking myself if I myself can forgive such a person who has killed so many people without blinks. I’ve thought about this because as a Cambodian, I was too overwhelmed to believe this surreal past of my country— that not many countries in this world experience. Once great, once bleak, once rise, once fall.

One teacher puts it, “You never understand injustice until it hurts you.”

Pailin, a KR city

Kounila Keo — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 11:10:00 +0000

MY TRIP TO PAILIN
“Two people with the same fate”
By Keo Kounila

Years ago, my mother came to Pailin and worked very hard for the Khmer Rouge. About three decades later, I came to Pailin to work so hard as a translator or fixer to explore the Khmer Rouge leaders and people. Years of listening to and keeping track of the stories told by my mother and other survivors about how hard they worked to survive during the Khmer Rouge regime increase my frustration and curiosity to find out why Khmer people killed Khmer people. I never thought I would come face to face with people I have always thought are cruel and have committed brutal acts to the same humankind or nationality. Later, I found that most of the people now living in Pailin were based people and even the former Khmer Rouge officials or workers have moved there. They had a close contact with those former Khmer Rouge top leaders. For years, I have had no ideas of who exactly was behind the killing of about two million Cambodians from 1975 to 1979 and what motives pushed the mass killing in a small country like Cambodia.

On the bus from Phnom Penh to Battambang, I took all the chances and time I had to think about the prospect of being there, where I would meet people whom in my mind I did not want to see and hear voices from. As time was going so slowly while I was mentally counting each minute and hour, one idea after another comes and replaces each other. After several hours I spent dealing with my emotions and figuring out how I really was, I felt I had to be very energetic on the first day of my traveling and I was, really was. Annie, an American journalist whom I worked for as a fixer, thought that it would be a scary moment for me to interview all those KR people or perhaps a difficult moment for me to carry on with. I questioned myself for sure many times if now I was trembling with fear. Not! I was breathing well and collecting myself for a battle. I told myself I would never be scared of them at all. Even though I would not be secure, at least it was worth being there, tracking down people who could tell us what make them Khmer Rouge. There is no complete security for us during our lifetime, so it was really worth taking an adventure for what we believe. So I hoped that they would not do any harm to both of us; the cruelty within themselves should pass away as the memories they have and I want to know should be still going on. I was not aware of what pushed my pulse to be courageous. On the first day in Pailin, I phoned a few former KR officials, now working inside the government. I talked to three of them on phone and they finally agreed to talk to me, though one of them told most of the worst lies that I did not wish to hear. I thought we are here to listen to them talk, but at the same time, Anne said that we had not to believe him easily and had to find the truth for our readers, so we could not publish only his words or ideas without obtaining the facts behind it. We journalists cannot afford to let our readers get confused over what we are going to write in the news.

On the second day, we interviewed a former KR radio speaker. He was charming and, as I noticed, was not scared of us. He told us what he knew as we asked him questions. He worked in the KR radio in Pailin after 1979, very carefully monitored by Pol Pot. He told us that all he said was written and strictly controlled by Pol Pot. In the afternoon, we talked to a cameraman who followed Pol Pot everywhere during the KR regime. While he was talking about his experience working with Pol Pot, he appeared very pleased with his past work. What I found interesting about all the things he said was ‘he couldn’t see any suspicious thing that people were starved to death.’ He said that everywhere he went, he saw people working in the paddy fields with smiles and laughter on the faces. The people whom he met looked healthy and well-fed. At that moment, I wanted to shout to his face that ‘my grandfather was starved to death, and many hundred of people were starving while you were looking at all those smiling and laughing people, which was a really well set-up site.’ It is hard to tell if he is guilty; after the war was over, he told he got shocked about a mass killing and death. After all the three interviews, I asked a government official in the Pailin municipality to phone another former Khmer Rouge official whom I knew nothing at all about and who is now one of the deputy governors there. He refused to talk to me no matter how much I persuaded him. I called him twice, of which the second try was done because of Annie’s encouragement. He said that he had been cheated enough by journalists. Of course, because of that I knew that he had had a very bitter or unpleasant experience with some other journalists who came here before. He sounded a little bit angry on the phone at last, but I politely thanked him.

First Khmer Rouge Pre-Trial Chambers

Kounila Keo — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 09:11:00 +0000

Today is the day that the pre-trial chambers of the courts of Cambodia started to judge Duch’s case.

Ka Savuth and Francios Roux are persisting to legally get Duch out of the ECCC’s prison or detention based on the legal reason that Duch was abused in the military prison without being found guilty. Duch has been detained for 8 years, 6 months and 10 days in the Cambodian military court and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), without being tried.

the gate of the extraordinary chambers in the courts of Cambodia

ECCC

very well-guarded as well

the line of waiting observers

on a hot tuesday morning,one could tolerate the heat when something was worth it