It is very difficult not to bring western ideas of fairness into a developing country. Especially one with a recent thirty year history of civil war, genocide and occupation. A good example of this is the Khmer Rouge war crime trials. The big show trial is of Comrade Duch the former commander of the notorious S21 prison and torture palace in Phnom Penh. It is an awful place, as you would expect, but the more so because it was a school before 1975 and has the instantly recognisable architecture of all schools in Cambodia. Unspeakable things happened here. Almost noone left alive and the bodies were taken from here to the killing fields on the outskirts of the city. It is unknown how many died an agonising, slow death here.
Duch has found Jesus and now, apparently, admits his crimes and shows remorse. His trial has split Cambodian opinion. The way that the majority of people cope with their terrible history is to draw a line in front of it and move on. Everyone in this country is a victim in some way. Everyone has suffered. People like the Ly family who were starved, tortured made to work like slaves. The child soldiers indoctrinated into cruelty. The former Khmer Rouge soldiers obeying orders. The children of all these traumatised people in a country with no mental health provision. The high rate of drug abuse and alcoholism. The generation of educated people murdered. The lack of old men. The mad demographic of this place that has 50% of the population under the age of 16. The desperate lack of infrastructure. The poverty. The corruption. If the way that most people are able to live with each other is to not talk about the past who are we, with our western idea of retribution,to say that this is wrong? I don't know what the answers are.
I told you in January about the gorgeous girl in my class who had been raped by her neighbour. This was tolerated by her mother because he gave her, a single mother, rice. It came to light because she could not sit down at school one day and she told her teacher what had happened. The school Principal, naturally, was incensed by this and was determined to get him prosecuted, quite rightly. He was sent to prison for three months. Three months for the rape of an eight year old. The mother pleaded with the Principal saying that they would starve. I noticed that she was not in school this time and asked why. He is out of prison now and so she is not allowed to go to school as that is cause of his trouble. Her life will undoubtedly be worse now than it was before. It is painful to think about what is happening to her. It will be a very small step to take before she is sold into child prostitution. The most terrible thing of all is that there is no process here for child protection, Nothing that we can do. It makes you want to grab her and bring her home. Trouble is there are children like her being abused all over Cambodia and no one is able to do anything about it. It breaks your heart.
So, what is right and what is wrong. Plainly, the rape of a child is always wrong and should be addressed. The problem is that now her life is worse. I don't have the answer to that one.
Duch has found Jesus and now, apparently, admits his crimes and shows remorse. His trial has split Cambodian opinion. The way that the majority of people cope with their terrible history is to draw a line in front of it and move on. Everyone in this country is a victim in some way. Everyone has suffered. People like the Ly family who were starved, tortured made to work like slaves. The child soldiers indoctrinated into cruelty. The former Khmer Rouge soldiers obeying orders. The children of all these traumatised people in a country with no mental health provision. The high rate of drug abuse and alcoholism. The generation of educated people murdered. The lack of old men. The mad demographic of this place that has 50% of the population under the age of 16. The desperate lack of infrastructure. The poverty. The corruption. If the way that most people are able to live with each other is to not talk about the past who are we, with our western idea of retribution,to say that this is wrong? I don't know what the answers are.
I told you in January about the gorgeous girl in my class who had been raped by her neighbour. This was tolerated by her mother because he gave her, a single mother, rice. It came to light because she could not sit down at school one day and she told her teacher what had happened. The school Principal, naturally, was incensed by this and was determined to get him prosecuted, quite rightly. He was sent to prison for three months. Three months for the rape of an eight year old. The mother pleaded with the Principal saying that they would starve. I noticed that she was not in school this time and asked why. He is out of prison now and so she is not allowed to go to school as that is cause of his trouble. Her life will undoubtedly be worse now than it was before. It is painful to think about what is happening to her. It will be a very small step to take before she is sold into child prostitution. The most terrible thing of all is that there is no process here for child protection, Nothing that we can do. It makes you want to grab her and bring her home. Trouble is there are children like her being abused all over Cambodia and no one is able to do anything about it. It breaks your heart.
So, what is right and what is wrong. Plainly, the rape of a child is always wrong and should be addressed. The problem is that now her life is worse. I don't have the answer to that one.
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