© Morsi
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| Dara Sokha was 24 years old when he last saw Bora, his three years older brother. On 10 May 1975 Bora was taken by the authorities to the infamous Tuol Sleng prison s-21 in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Dara Sokha thinks that the coming court case against the Khmer Rouge is a farce. ‘Will the international criminals also be punished here, or have they secured themselves immunity by running this court case,’ he asks. |
‘I was walking with two friends when a soldier hit my friend on his head with a plank. He dropped to the ground and the soldier kicked him to death.’
The document with this terrible story is a testimony made by Kuch Set 23 years ago.
Finally, he may be allowed to tell his story in court – like many other Cambodians who have waited for more than three decades to witness against the tormentors who executed their loved ones. Kuch Set is happy for the Tribunal, but he is not satisfied.
‘It is too late. And I am disappointed that so few are accused,’ he says.
Pich Kalyan is another survivor. She was set free after several years in a girl’s prison in a school where she and 300 other girls had lived in a locker room.
She has longed for the court case, but says that the possibilities for punishing the guilty are not good enough.
‘We only send them to prison. We should kill them like they killed my whole family,’ says Pich Kalyan. She too is disappointed that so few are taken to court.
‘They buy presents and play with their children, but they killed my children. It is not fair,’ she says.
There is a widespread impatience among the people now that the Tribunal is getting closer. But not everybody thinks that the Tribunal is too late.
‘It is not a question about how the Tribunal should have been. It is a question about the Tribunal we have now. I believe that in the long term it will be good for Cambodia,’ says Youk Chhang.
He is Director of the documentation centre DC-Cam, which is a long-term partner of DanChurchAid and which has contributed tonnes of evidence for the prosecuting counsel of the Tribunal.
‘Some people still hope that the court case will reveal that in reality China or Vietnam was behind the genocide. It indicates to a certain degree the effect of the court cases and the truth, and Cambodia was not ready for that until now.’
He hopes that the court case will result in a lot of documentation on the genocide which can be used in school books, for a more open debate or for a documentation office under the Ministry of Justice, where people who need it can relay their stories. DC-Cam has collected a total of 1.6 million testimonies that are just waiting to be heard.
By Anya Palm, journalist