The Medical Press
by Alvin Powell in Other
“We have people say: ‘We want to know what happened to our family,’ ”
said Phuong Pham, a research scientist at Harvard (pictured in Cambodia
in 2008). Pham and fellow Harvard researcher Patrick Vinck have been
conducting surveys of Cambodians’ attitudes toward trials of former
Khmer Rouge officials. The trials — Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts
of Cambodia — are currently under way. Credit: Phuong Pham
In the 1970s, the Khmer Rouge killed 2 million people in Cambodia's
"killing fields," roughly a quarter of the population. Today, 80 percent
of Cambodians say they're victims of the regime, including half of
respondents too young to have lived under it, but nonetheless affected
by it.
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The results of the survey, conducted by Harvard researchers Phuong Pham
and Patrick Vinck, illustrate the depth and breadth of the impact of the
Khmer Rouge's bloody four-year reign. They also highlight the
importance of trials under way today, called the Extraordinary Chambers
in the Courts of Cambodia, to prosecute those who participated in the
massacre.
"We have people say: 'We want to know what happened to our family,'"
said Pham, a research scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health
(HSPH) and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI). "They're all gone,
missing. People want to know what happened to them."
Pham and Vinck, also a research scientist at HSPH and HHI, have been
conducting surveys of Cambodians' attitudes toward the trial since 2008,
and sharing results with government and tribunal officials to help them
understand the trials' impact on national healing.
The Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975 and ruled until Vietnam invaded in
1979 and installed a government friendlier to Hanoi. During its rule,
the Khmer Rouge instituted a policy of reverse migration from the
cities, expulsion of ethnic minorities, repression of former leaders and
intellectuals, mass killings, and forced labor that, together with
disease and starvation, resulted in deaths on a scale not seen since
World War II.
The practices gave rise to the killing fields, which referred to sites
where people were slain and buried in mass graves, and which became the
title of a 1984 movie on the era. Among the most notorious sites was the
Tuol Sleng prison, a converted high school in Phnom Penh, the capital,
where thousands were tortured and killed.
In 2003, Cambodia agreed to set up a joint Cambodian-United Nations
tribunal to try those responsible for the killings. There were to be
four trials, the first of which resulted in a life sentence for the
commander of Tuol Sleng for torture, murder, and crimes against
humanity. The second trial, of four additional top Khmer Rouge leaders,
is under way today. The other two are pending.
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Vinck said there are delicate judgments to make on how far to extend the
prosecutions. Many government officials of the time still hold
positions of power, he said, which has led to allegations of political
tampering with the trial and even to threats against some international
judges.
Pham and Vinck have worked with a local partner, the Center for Advanced
Study in Phnom Penh, to conduct several surveys. They began the first
survey in 2008 while at the University of California, Berkeley, and have
continued their work since arriving at Harvard in 2011, issuing reports
that year and this one.
Pham and Vinck designed lengthy, structured interviews that take an hour
to an hour and a half to administer, and then trained a team of about
30 interviewers to ask the questions while Pham and Vinck supervised.
Results show that news about the tribunal spreads through the country,
but not predominantly through media channels. Rather it spreads by word
of mouth through families and friends. Results also show that the
younger generation of Cambodians doubts the worst of the atrocities.
Until the trial began, the Khmer Rouge era was not taught in schools. In
addition, older Cambodians often don't share their experiences, leaving
a gap in knowledge.
"Our surveys showed that the older generation didn't talk to the younger
generation about what happened, and [when they did] younger people
didn't believe the older people," Vinck said. "The scope of the
atrocities is so incomprehensible that it's understandable that people
don't believe it."
Despite that lack of knowledge, surveys show that 51 percent of those
polled who were too young to have lived through the violent period
called themselves Khmer Rouge victims nonetheless. The researchers said
that's because the impact of family members murdered, lands confiscated,
and lives disrupted reaches through generations.
Pham and Vinck's Cambodian work is part of a broader agenda of research
examining the importance and impact of international tribunals and
justice after atrocities. The two have also worked in Uganda, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Liberia, and the Central
African Republic. They said what drew them to Cambodia was that, unlike
nations where tribunals were empaneled not long after the atrocities,
the Cambodian court convened nearly 30 years after the Khmer Rouge took
power.
"The question is: How do societies affected by conflict rebuild
themselves? What is the role of justice? What do international tribunals
mean to people?" Vinck asked. "To us, it is an interesting case because
it happened 30 years after the conflict."
They have conducted two public surveys about the trials, each polling
1,000 people. They've also surveyed 75 of 90 citizen participants in the
first case and a 300-person sample of the 2,000 citizen participants in
the second trial. They've done several smaller, targeted surveys, which
all show that rifts in the nation have not healed, despite both the
time that's passed and the economic progress the nation is making under
today's constitutional monarchy. People still thirst for understanding
and for justice.
"For the population, it's still important to see some sort of justice,"
Vinck said. "The demand for justice is very local. They want to know
what happened to their family and who did it."
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This story is published courtesy of the Harvard Gazette, Harvard
University's official newspaper. For additional university news, visit
Harvard.edu.
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