Today I went to the trial for Duch, director of S-21, more commonly known as Tol Sleng prison. Duch was a member of the Khmer Rouge regime and presided over the facility in which more than 15,000 accused enemies of the party were killed. Only a dozen prisoners survived. Tol Sleng (poison tree hill, in Khmer) is only a few minutes from where we live and trials are taking place about a half an hour away, so we thought it would be a good idea to take some of Eric's older students to see the trial.
The courtroom was already full when we arrived, but they allowed us into the press room. That in itself was interesting. I thought of all the reporters who have written about famous trials and here were reporters reporting on history as it happened. There was nothing exciting about it. The members of the press sat around at tables with laptops. Many copied the trial verbatim. Some seemed to be writing editorial pieces. A few napped and played games. Some had been coming every day since the trial started.
At the recess, many people who had come to watch the trial left to get something to eat. We watched the audience, mostly Cambodians, stream out of the courtroom and noticed that so many were the same age as Duch and almost certainly lived through the Khmer Rouge regime. It left us wondering if they were victims hoping to see justice done or former friends of Duch who have not yet revealed the role they played. Another teacher who went with us met a Cambodian woman in the bathroom. She asked her where she lived. This woman had come with other residents of her village from a town close to the border of Vietnam. When the teacher asked the woman, "Why did you come?" the woman replied, "I came to see his face."
I can identify with that woman. I had seen pictures of Duch, but seeing him in the flesh was surreal. Here was a man who ran a prison where so many were tortured and killed. Visitors to Tol Sleng prison/museum in the first year it opened said that the smell of blood and rotting flesh was overwhelming. Yet he looked gentle, intelligent and peaceful. He states, though, that he is constantly haunted by remorse and has plead guilty. He has also apologized for his crimes against the victims.
An interesting side note to the this story: Duch had been an exemplary mathematics teacher in Cambodia until he became a part of the communist party. He himself was arrested and held without trial for two years for communist activities. The day that the Vietnamese occupied an empty Phnom Penh, Duch walked out of Phnom Penh and established a new life in another area of the country. During the 90's his wife was killed in a burglary and he subsequently became a Christian after contact with a Cambodian-American missionary.
Another interesting side note: Duch's defense lawyer also defended Zacarias Moussaoui.
Most interesting quote of the day-from a witness: "As far as I know, this is the first time someone has been prosecuted for crimes committed against the people in the name of the people."
Having decided that a car would be more of a headache than a help in this city, we bought a motorbike. On the streets of Phnom Penh motorbikes outnumber cars and this is probably the most common model-a Dae Lim Citi. I really wish I'd had my camera at the motorbike shop because we bought this bike from a shop with hundreds of identical red Dae Lims. As you can see from the long seat, it is considered a family vehicle. One of the Khmer staff at school helped us to select this bike and encouraged us to buy something boring and unattractive like this one so, as he put it, we "wouldn't get our throat cut." Many of the staff have nicer bikes and are still living, but we decided we'd like to have something that didn't draw attention. Not having ridden a motorbike much, I've mostly ridden around the neighborhood to get used to it. Some of the students from Hope saw me the other day and apparently told their parents, "I saw Mr. Eric's wife on the motorbike and now there's someone who rides even slower than mom!"
sure to miss the lovely parks and open green spaces in Michigan. Then we discovered a recreation area (vacant lot) just down the road from our new home. Obviously, we worried in vain... This is a picture of the neighborhood volleyball game. They play most days that there aren't too many puddles in the mud. It draws a good crowd. 
