Cambodia and its War Tribunals

I looked at Cambodia and its War Tribunals. http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/03/cambodia_and_its_war_tribunal.html

The first thing I could not help but notice is the length of time it took for trials to occur. These crime against humanity are now being taken up in trials three decades after they occurred. Its hard to believe that death of 1.4 million Cambodians look three decades to address and punish.

The site shows the numbers of bones that are just piled up and its disturbing. Human skulls and appendages are just arranged neatly in a pile, and I honestly wondered why the time was taken to do this.

Just as we have no smoking signs, there is a no laughing sign posted on a wall. I found it hard to believe that laughing, a way of expression joy and emotion, is prohibited. I couldn't help but to keep comparing it to signs we see everyday: no smoking; no turn on red; no u-turn; no laughing . . .one of these just doesn't belong.

Last week when I read articles and watched videos of Holocaust survivors, I remember reading something about how horribly intellectuals were treated. The same type of event occurred in Cambodia. Intellectuals were tortured and interrogated before they were killed and drown into mass graves.

There were also pictures of the fields of landmines, and soldiers attempting to find them. I'm not sure how landmines are generally found and recovered, but I found it surprising that they were using pick axes and shovels to recover a delicate explosive. The following picture was a man with a prosthetic leg at a rehabilitation center.

30 years after strict labor laws, executions, starvation, and torture due to the power of the Khmer Rouge, the country is still suffering with a destroyed agricultural system and extreme poverty being only two of their many problems.