24 July, 2010
'That night, for the first time ever, I had a dream about him,' said the 34-year-old, adding the court, despite its flaws, has helped her deal with her grief. -- PHOTO: AP
PHNOM PENH - HAV Sophea's father was killed by the Khmer Rouge just after she was born and she's spent a lifetime trying to make him feel real. She even took the single photo she had of him - a black-and-white mugshot snapped at the regime's notorious prison - and used a computer to insert him into a family portrait.
But nothing helped as much as testifying before a UN-backed war crimes tribunal, which will issue a landmark verdict in its first trial on Monday.
'That night, for the first time ever, I had a dream about him,' said the 34-year-old, adding the court, despite its flaws, has helped her deal with her grief. 'He was holding my hand and we were running out of Toul Sleng prison.' Cambodians are just emerging from more than 40 years of extreme violence - including US carpet bombing before the Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese military occupation and a bloody coup d'etat after.
Many have long tried to bury memories about the 1975-79 genocidal regime, when more than 1.7 million people - roughly a quarter of the population - died from forced labor, starvation, medical neglect and executions.
It wasn't until the monthslong trial of Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, that the traumatised nation started to speak out publicly about those atrocities. More than 28,000 people attended the hearings in the capital, Phnom Penh, and millions more watched on TV.
As part of outreach programs in the countryside, emotional villagers have gathered beneath coconut trees to tell stories about lost loved ones. Some angrily ask for answers: Why did Cambodians turn on one another and where was the international community then? Others complain about migraines and dizzy spells. -- AP
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