Word: seng
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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When the Khmer Rouge emptied the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh of human inhabitants in 1975, one of Pol Pot's soldiers murdered 4-year-old Theary Seng's father. Later, Theary Seng, her mother and siblings ended up in a prison in southeast Cambodia. One day, Theary Seng awoke to an empty cell - the prison population had been massacred overnight. In a rare act of mercy, the Khmer Rouge soldiers allowed the handful of children to survive. Theary Seng eventually escaped to a Thai refugee camp and then to the U.S. Her story is by no means unique in Cambodia...
Still traumatized by those years and subsequent decades of political instability, many Cambodians had hoped that the U.N.-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal, a hybrid Cambodian-international court, would help push the country toward reconciliation. In November 2007, Theary Seng, now a human-rights lawyer in Phnom Penh, applied to become the first civil party at the Khmer Rouge tribunal - whereby she and other Khmer Rouge victims are participating in the criminal proceedings with their own set of lawyers. On Friday, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) - the official name of the tribunal - finished hearing its first case...
Despite these issues, Theary Seng says the tribunal has ultimately helped the healing process by encouraging people to talk openly about the Khmer Rouge era. She says that though most Cambodians assume there is some degree of corruption at the tribunal, "we are not to the point where it should shut down." She says that the Khmer Rouge tribunal is more than a court of law - "it's also a court of public opinion."(Read about malaria prevention in Cambodia...
...comes the waiting. A verdict for Duch isn't expected until March. For Theary Seng, the Duch case "is sort of a test trial" for the more important Case Two when four high-ranking Khmer Rouge leaders will be in the dock: Nuon Chea, 83, who was second in command to Pol Pot; former head of state Khieu Samphan, 78; former Foreign Affairs Minister Ieng Sary, 84; and Ieng Thirith, 77, the former Social Affairs Minister. They are expected to face the tribunal in 2011 in a case that could last years. Case Two, says Theary Seng, will make Duch...
...past year is any indication, the tribunal will face many more hurdles, but Theary Seng says it has benefited Cambodia. The trial, she argues, has generated much needed discussions about history as well as mercy across the country. Says Theary Seng: "The Khmer Rouge tribunal has triggered a process of forgiveness." And perhaps a process leading finally to closure...