11/5/07
An early morning wake-up and breakfast at 5am? Not real hungry at that time of day but a coffee to get started and off we go to mild early morning traffic to the airport. Our guide takes our tickets and passports and all we have to do is linger around and all is arranged and we are at the gate and on the plane for the short flight to Phnom Penh
Cambodia. We arrive on time and are met by our Cambodian guide who gets us through the airport and outside to the hustle and bustle of this busy city of 2 million. I’ve been to
Cambodia a number of times previously and each time the energy of this city increases. The airport has been upgraded and you certainly get the idea that this is an emerging economy. We are shuttled to the Raffles Hotel which is our home for the next few days. It is a beautiful building from the French colonial period.
There are many books written about the history of
Cambodia and especially of the history during the period 1975-1979. This was the time of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot when 25% of the total population of
Cambodia was eliminated…2 Million people. Our first speaker was Mu Sochua, Secretary General of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, Nobel Prize candidate and leader of Civil Society in
Cambodia. She lived through the Khmer Rouge times and related how not 1 family went unaffected by this genocide. After 1979, the population distribution was 85% female and 15% male so the family and societal structure was completely destroyed. The symbol of the Sam Rainsy Party is the candle…a light in the darkness and one strong message of the party is “Never Forget”…sound familiar? A large percentage of the population was born after the Khmer Rouge and the story must be told. One charge of the party is to promote women’s involvement in political change and civil society. The effect of the genocide is ongoing since the nature of it killed trust and respect in the Cambodian society. Without political power, it is very difficult to effect change and social justice. In this historically patriarchal society, domestic violence is a problem. After the war, women were the majority and now have major roles in the workforce. The party teaches conflict resolution skills and tools to help modernize the “code” of women’s behavior. Amazingly, in this military run government, many of the top officials are former Khmer Rouge leaders. Corruption is a huge problem as are land rights, abuse of the poor, and heritage preservation. Vote buying is common. Fifty percent of children are registered in schools and $500,000,000.00 is lost to corruption instead of social services. A farmer (80% of the population) makes $0.75/day, a teacher $1/day, a civil servant $75/month and the minimum wage (factory workers) is $50/month. Only 15% of high school graduates find employment. What the Sam Rainsy party professes is transformative leadership that is transparent and non corrupt. For me, I take anything that a politician says with several salt grains but if she and her party are true to their word, I wish them all the luck in the world because the Cambodian people are certainly deserving of peace, security, and justice.
We then met with Arun Sothea, a holocaust survivor of the Cambodian genocide and an activist with CVCD, Cambodian Volunteers for Community Development. This soft spoken young man related to us his life as a young boy during the Khmer Rouge. I had read several true accounts of these times and the consistency of his story to those I had read was powerful, but the way in which he is giving back is inspirational. Arun’s childhood was broken in many ways and he wanted to do something that would help today’s youth to help assure that the genocide of the 70’s never happens again. CVCD was formed by street youth in 1992 and at that time there were 500 volunteers. Their activities included:
- Urban clean-up
- Tree planting
- Computer training
- Community development
CVCD now has 60,000 volunteers!
After lunch, we went to the S21 Museum. This museum is a memorial to the genocide of the Khmer Rouge regime.
Cambodia has a very sad history that has major impact to today. The museum highlights “man’s inhumanity to man” through torture, killing, and any and every kind of horrendous means, many beyond one’s imagination. This is a very haunting yet necessary place…a reminder that just 30 years ago, brutality of this scale went pretty much unabated…
These meetings lasted till late afternoon and we were able to walk to the central market and have a quick look-see prior to our evening program.
Ruth Messenger, President of AJWS spoke to us in the evening about
Darfur. The conflict in
Darfur began in 1993 between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes. The Darfur region is in western
Sudan and is the size of
Texas. AJWS was a first responder and took 11 months to respond. Eighty percent of AJWS activities center on humanitarian relief and 20% on advocacy. The relief is in the form of clean water, medical clinics, educational resources in the camps and generally filling holes that the international relief agencies have trouble filling.
A terrible statistic of
Darfur is that EVERY woman in the refugee camps has been raped. AJWS fulfills rape training and counseling services through its partner agencies.
AJWS has been very active in the divestment campaign in Darfur/Sudan. Two and one half million people are displaced and 4 million people need outside support. In Ruth’s words,
Darfur is “A Problem from Hell”.
Overall, this was a very emotional, depressing, yet hopeful day. As a Jew, I have always felt it is important to “Never Forget”. Today reinforced that in that genocide keeps occurring, the places change but the cruelty of humankind persists. Greed, corruption and power fuel hideous behavior and it cannot go on without active and forceful resistance. I again count my blessings that I have not had to endure what so many in the world endure every day of their lives and I feel the responsibility to do my small part to insure that my children live in a fair and peaceful world.
