By CARE

By Chandara Tith.

The United Nations-backed war crime tribunal for the Khmer Rouge Regime has pronounced its first verdict on July 26, 2010. The former leader of the Toul Sleng prison in Phnom Penh, Duch will be sent to prison for 19 years.

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia (ECCC) known as the Khmer Rouge tribunal deals with surviving senior leaders of the regime. People believe it helps to support reconciliation after the enormous sufferings during the Khmer Rouge regime.  Many local and international news agencies are reporting on the first verdict and people are discussing it on the web, for example on Facebook (www.facebook.com). During the day, while I was in the CARE office, I was anxiously waiting for news and following the discussion of the final verdict on Facebook to see the how people react.

Kaing Guek Eav alias Duch, 68, was the chief of the former Khmer Rouge detention center S-21 (Toul Sleng) where people were tortured and murdered. He was charged with Crimes against Humanity, Grave Breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and Homicide and Torture. The court announced a sentence of 35 years in prison, but the years are allotted to reduce 5 years of illegal arresting in the army court and 11 years of time already served behind bars since 1999.

Lively discussions on- and offline

Local news online, Cambodia Express News (www.cen.com.kh) gripped the reactions of people in Svay Rieng Province while they were watching the verdict together.  Most people reacted very emotionally because they could not accept the decision of the court. One of them said this judgment would be more adequate for a thief stealing a chicken in the village and that it was far too mild. Since lots of people died during his regime, he should be sentenced to longer than the 19 years.
Having watched the trial footage of the whole verdict for more than one hour on Cambodia Tribunal Monitor website; I personally saw the court being up to international standards. It must have had a proper discussion before making the decision. The judgment has to be made after a good consideration and tough discussion followed by the international standard so that Cambodian people as victims can accept it. However, they don’t. Throughout the media on the day of the verdict, many people expressed their dissatisfaction with the court.

In the news, an S-21 Survivor Bou Meng, 79 was quoted that the verdict seems to slap him in the face or kick his head. He could not accept it. He was hoping that Duch would be sentenced for life.
I am now in Germany and therefore follow the German and European press. So I read BBC news, reporting this story and giving a summary of the process of the court. It also shows that many people are not satisfied with this verdict.

On Facebook, some young Cambodians said they did not care about the court and don’t want to talk about it. On the other hand, some are interested to discuss about it and contemplate on Duch’s life in prison.
More interestingly, some people said that this is a good chance to promote and advertise Cambodia to the world stage. More and more people will know Cambodia through various local and international media agencies.

The next morning, I grabbed a few German newspapers in the office including Die tageszeitung, Der Tagesspiegel, Süddeutsche Zeitung, General-Anzeiger and had a look at some other online news; I saw all of them reported about Khmer Rouge Tribunal and showing Duch’s picture. This clearly shows that media is putting a great attention on Cambodia. Because I did not understand German, my colleague, Sina, explained in English what the article was about. And when I was holding German newspaper, I again felt like an illiterate person: I understood nothing, and could only guess what it’s about by looking at the pictures. Although the court did not please everyone, we can at least see that Duch is not a free man. Considering his age (he is 67), 19 years in prison will likely be a life sentence. It is a long period of time as a baby-son grows up to be a man.

Turning memories into a movie

Following the scope of investigation of the court in the second case, a group of 20 students from the Department of Media and Communication (DMC) went to some of those places and produced “Recaptured”, a series of 10 short video documentaries, shot on 10 different locations across Cambodia. I was one of these students. The documentary asks two questions: “How do Cambodians today live with the memory of Khmer Rouge regime?” and “What does it take from not to escape the nightmares but remember at peace and keeping that memory for a better future?” Our aim was to help people from different parts of the country share their memory with each other, and, possibly, find new, better ways of dealing with what happened – allowing them to move forward without ignoring the past.

What encouraged us for the future productions was the reaction from the people when we went back to four provinces with the finished movie. Many viewers gave us construction feedbacks and appreciated our work. We were happy that the question asked the most was: When will we have that screening again?
I showed some parts of the documentary to my colleagues in the CARE office and they said it impressed them very much. They suggested having another screening for all the staff of CARE another time.
One of my colleagues, Sabine, suggested to me that I should write a short summary of the project and offer it to some of the media in Germany which target young people. I thought it was a very wonderful chance to publicize our work and tell people not only in Cambodia, but also in Germany of the work we have done.

These documentaries result from the ongoing course of Video Production for my bachelor degree in the third year of university. We made it possible through our commitment to work day and night. Though there were several arguments during the project run and it was a challeng for us to handle the equipment and the software.  Here you can see a short video diary that I produced while we travelled and made the movie:

What do you think? I am eager to hear your opinion.

All the best,
Dara

Tags: Cambodia, Cambodian Diary, court, documentary, Duch, genocide, Khmer Rouge, peace, reconciliation, ruling, trial, war crimes

This entry was posted on Friday, July 30th, 2010 at 09:53 and is filed under Cambodian Diary, Chandara Tith, Projects Asia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.