Updated August 20, 2010
After handing down its first verdict in July, the international war crimes tribunal in Cambodia will next year hear the second - and possibly final - case against a former senior Khmer Rouge leader. But some people are looking beyond all of this - to a time when the tribunal has left Cambodia - and a need for learning centres and other legacy projects.
Presenter: Robert Carmichael in Battambang, western Cambodia
Speakers: Acha Thun Sovath, Wat Samroung Knong, Battambang; Daravuth Seng, former executive director, Centre for Justice and Reconciliation
CARMICHAEL: Late last month, the UN backed Khmer Rouge tribunal in Phnom Penh convicted its first defendant, Comrade Duch. He was the former head of the Khmer Rouge's most important torture and execution centre, known as S-21, where thousands of Cambodians died.
Next month, it looks certain to charge another four suspects for their alleged roles in the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians.
The movement's crimes encompassed the entire country. Take, for instance, this temple, or wat, on the outskirts of the town of Battambang in western Cambodia.
When the Khmer Rouge took over the country in 1975, Wat Samroung Knong, was home to a young monk called Thun Sovath.
The Khmer Rouge were fiercely anti-religion. Thun Sovath was forced to leave the monkhood and work in the fields with everyone else. Many other monks were murdered.
Today, Thun Sovath is the Acha, or leader, of the temple. He explains that when the Khmer Rouge took over many people were imprisoned and interrogated at the pagoda.
THUN SOVATH: And then they asked them questions - what did you do? What was your position? The interrogators would be told, I am a soldier, I am a teacher. They were scared into answering every question truthfully. When they finished questioning, they took them to a piece of land behind this pagoda where they killed them.
CARMICHAEL: More than 10,000 people were murdered at this temple alone, their bodies thrown into the ponds.
Adjacent to one pond is a small building with windows on one side. The skulls of some of those executed here stare out blankly. Concrete murals around the base describe what happened - enslavement, torture, execution, even, cannibalism.
But nearby is a newer structure - a small wooden building on stilts that extends over a huge pond where the dead were once dumped. This wooden building, a sign of hope, will soon open as a learning centre for the community.
It is unique - it was built by the community with assistance from the Centre for Justice and Reconciliation (CJR), a local NGO, and with some funding from the Australian embassy.
Cambodian-American lawyer, Daravuth Seng, the NGO's former director, was deeply involved in this project. He explains its purpose.
DARAVUTH SENG: Our hope is a physical space for them to come together and also explore and to have documentation available so that some of these accounts do correlate with what my parents, or aunts and uncles, or surviving relatives have actually mentioned.
CARMICHAEL: Seng would like to see this sort of project replicated across Cambodia - small learning centres built at low cost allowing people to learn what happened.
This learning centre fits the concept of what are called legacy projects. In other words, what is left behind once the international tribunal finally closes.
At the tribunal the sole legacy project officially underway is an online database. Known as the virtual tribunal, it will one day hold all of this court's documents for public access.
The tribunal has also established a committee to tackle the issue of legacy projects, but there is little information available about its achievements to date.
Michelle Staggs Kelsall heads the Khmer Rouge tribunal monitoring project at the East-West Centre, a research organisation.
She identifies two key legacy projects - the first is to ensure that best judicial practices are transferred to Cambodia's much criticised domestic court system.
The second is to provide an historical record for the nation of the crimes of the Khmer Rouge.
She says another benefit is that the tribunal has created an environment where civil society can generate interest in other legacy-type projects, much as the CJR did with the community learning centre.
Daravuth Seng says legacy efforts such as the learning centre in Battambang could prove essential in helping Cambodia deal with its past.
Acha Thun Sovath, for one, fully endorses the centre. He says it provides the young with a chance to learn what happened to his generation.
THUN SOVATH: We will never forget. We must always remember what happened at these buildings so we can tell the next generation and let them know about the people that died under the Khmer Rouge.
After handing down its first verdict in July, the international war crimes tribunal in Cambodia will next year hear the second - and possibly final - case against a former senior Khmer Rouge leader. But some people are looking beyond all of this - to a time when the tribunal has left Cambodia - and a need for learning centres and other legacy projects.
Presenter: Robert Carmichael in Battambang, western Cambodia
Speakers: Acha Thun Sovath, Wat Samroung Knong, Battambang; Daravuth Seng, former executive director, Centre for Justice and Reconciliation
CARMICHAEL: Late last month, the UN backed Khmer Rouge tribunal in Phnom Penh convicted its first defendant, Comrade Duch. He was the former head of the Khmer Rouge's most important torture and execution centre, known as S-21, where thousands of Cambodians died.
Next month, it looks certain to charge another four suspects for their alleged roles in the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians.
The movement's crimes encompassed the entire country. Take, for instance, this temple, or wat, on the outskirts of the town of Battambang in western Cambodia.
When the Khmer Rouge took over the country in 1975, Wat Samroung Knong, was home to a young monk called Thun Sovath.
The Khmer Rouge were fiercely anti-religion. Thun Sovath was forced to leave the monkhood and work in the fields with everyone else. Many other monks were murdered.
Today, Thun Sovath is the Acha, or leader, of the temple. He explains that when the Khmer Rouge took over many people were imprisoned and interrogated at the pagoda.
THUN SOVATH: And then they asked them questions - what did you do? What was your position? The interrogators would be told, I am a soldier, I am a teacher. They were scared into answering every question truthfully. When they finished questioning, they took them to a piece of land behind this pagoda where they killed them.
CARMICHAEL: More than 10,000 people were murdered at this temple alone, their bodies thrown into the ponds.
Adjacent to one pond is a small building with windows on one side. The skulls of some of those executed here stare out blankly. Concrete murals around the base describe what happened - enslavement, torture, execution, even, cannibalism.
But nearby is a newer structure - a small wooden building on stilts that extends over a huge pond where the dead were once dumped. This wooden building, a sign of hope, will soon open as a learning centre for the community.
It is unique - it was built by the community with assistance from the Centre for Justice and Reconciliation (CJR), a local NGO, and with some funding from the Australian embassy.
Cambodian-American lawyer, Daravuth Seng, the NGO's former director, was deeply involved in this project. He explains its purpose.
DARAVUTH SENG: Our hope is a physical space for them to come together and also explore and to have documentation available so that some of these accounts do correlate with what my parents, or aunts and uncles, or surviving relatives have actually mentioned.
CARMICHAEL: Seng would like to see this sort of project replicated across Cambodia - small learning centres built at low cost allowing people to learn what happened.
This learning centre fits the concept of what are called legacy projects. In other words, what is left behind once the international tribunal finally closes.
At the tribunal the sole legacy project officially underway is an online database. Known as the virtual tribunal, it will one day hold all of this court's documents for public access.
The tribunal has also established a committee to tackle the issue of legacy projects, but there is little information available about its achievements to date.
Michelle Staggs Kelsall heads the Khmer Rouge tribunal monitoring project at the East-West Centre, a research organisation.
She identifies two key legacy projects - the first is to ensure that best judicial practices are transferred to Cambodia's much criticised domestic court system.
The second is to provide an historical record for the nation of the crimes of the Khmer Rouge.
She says another benefit is that the tribunal has created an environment where civil society can generate interest in other legacy-type projects, much as the CJR did with the community learning centre.
Daravuth Seng says legacy efforts such as the learning centre in Battambang could prove essential in helping Cambodia deal with its past.
Acha Thun Sovath, for one, fully endorses the centre. He says it provides the young with a chance to learn what happened to his generation.
THUN SOVATH: We will never forget. We must always remember what happened at these buildings so we can tell the next generation and let them know about the people that died under the Khmer Rouge.
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