Bokor obstacles

After the monsoons, we had to clear a road in order to get off the mountain. After about an hour of breaking a number of trees into pieces with our bare hands.. some construction workers working on the mountain came to our rescue with their truck. (although we effectively conquered the obstacle as far as we were concerned).

Bokor 2

A French Colonial Bldg on top of Bokor Mountain. Notice the artillery damage to walls. We sought shelter in this bldg from the monsoon rains. I also noticed the small caliber round impacts in some rooms here as well. My Director told me that this mountain was not taken but I believe there were definitely some close quarter struggles.

An era long past..

A ghostly room.. a mere remnant of an era long past. This is presumably one of the lounge areas in a 19th century French colonial casino located on the top of Bokor Mountain along the southern coast of Cambodia, (Kampot). The mountain was one of the last holdouts for the Khmer Rouge who sought shelter here when battling Vietnamese and Cambodian opposition forces. During the day, the mountain was shelled and at night.. the Khmer Rouge snuck down off the mountain to the coastal villages to resupply. Having toured some of the colonial buildings I can confirm the substantial damage caused from artillery. Our director who managed to get us past the checkpoints to get up here confirmed that there was shelling up here but based on my observations of the impacts.. there look like there was also some close quarter gun battles as well.

Phu Quoc island. This island was fought over between the Khmer Rouge-Vietnamese war of the late 1970s. You can only get here via flying to Ho Chi Minh city and then taking a bus/boat from there. Rumors abound of gun battles between the Vietnamese on this island and Khmer ships who sail near the island but I have not confirmed this really. I've only heard it from numerous associates here. This view is from Bokor Mountain road... now currently closed to all vehicular traffic due to construction. But those interested can hike this road. Its about 35km to the top. I suggest anyone going pack lots of water, wine, and food. The ranger station at the top has supplies but as you can expect the supplies are meager. They rescued us in a horrible bind we got in.. while visiting the old 19century French colonial bldgs at the top. (we were caught in very rough monsoon rains).

Kep 4.

I ordered "shark fin" soup. They told me it will take a few minutes. I said.. Sure. I have lots of time. They got into their boat and fished for awhile.. then came back in.. telling me.. "No shark.. but we have barracuda." So I had barracuda for lunch.

Kep 3

A dedication to Joel in Seattle. Study hard my friend. study hard. :)

Kep2

Weekend at Kep 2. Tide is out.

Kep 1

Weekend at Kep. Tide is in.

Change of Subject...

In the interest of encouraging participation in this blog, I've posted a photo of past meal I enjoyed. Guess the dish... ? Answer forthcoming.

Suicide prevention

One of the upper floors of a Toul Sleng prison bldg. Toul Sleng used to be a large high school complex. During the Khmer Rouge period, 1975-1979 it was converted into a prison in which the urban class, intelligentsia, and former regime members were kept for interrogations and ultimately death. The barbed wire in the picture here was constructed for the purpose of preventing prisoners from escaping the prison via suicide. The primary strategy of the Khmer Rouge was to take Cambodia back to "Year Zero" which means all technology, education, modernity were destroyed in the name of starting all over again. In the end, arguably the Khmer Rouge succeeded. while no census could define how many truly died but it is suspected to have been in the millions. In the immediate aftermath of the Khmer Rouge regime.. only 7 Cambodians in the country possessed law degrees. The medical profession and pretty much all educational institutions were utterly destroyed. In some ways it speaks a great deal for the Khmer people and their ability to revive since the society has made immense strides in almost all areas since the 1980s. Particularly in light of the fact that while the Khmer Rouge were ousted by the Vietnamese army in 1979, they continued to fight an intense war against the Vietnamese and the Cambodian "government" into the late 1990s.

A cell in Toul Sleng

This is a room in Toul Sleng. It contained 1-2 people. As you can see it is barely much more than a closet space. Now also imagine that if you were imprisoned here, your legs were shackled to the floor/wall 24/7 with the exception of the random times that they removed you from the room for your confession or interrogation period. I will refrain from posting many photos and commentary for respect for those who passed through these halls but I think the few photos I did post will suffice to give at least a glimpse into the horrors of S-21. A prison which saw 20,000 human beings and only allowed 7 to survive.

Toul Sleng Floor 1

One thing that immediatly comes to mind when walking these halls is the question of "how could this happen?" "Who could possibly perpetrate such horrific acts against other human beings and be able to look at themselves in the mirror the next day?" These and many other questions inevitably arise in any visit to a genocide museum, death camp, killing field, or mass gravesite. We asked these questions after World War II, Rwanda, Yugoslave, Sierra Leone, Cambodia, East Timor, and many other locations. There are always answers that one can find specific to the circumstances of these horrors but inevitably I suspect we always arrive at the overall common idea that human beings in all cultures carry with them the seeds for great achievment... as well as horrific depravity. I think its all too easy and lazy of us to simply dismiss war crimes, human rights violations, and genocidal campaigns to the unique byproducts of these horrible regimes but I think we do greater justice to genocide studies and international legal institutions if we devoted not only our efforts to the post-campaign, post-conflict application of justice.. but also to strategies and tools for prevention. The first step in doing this perhaps is coming to the realization that acts of genocide, war crimes, and human rights abuses are not anomalies of our contemporary era or byproducts of contemporary ideological movements but a human condition that must be addressed and dealt with both in terms of retributive victims' justice as well as preventative measures for denying regimes the ability to sacrifice human life for utopian dreams.

The Pole and Putrid Water pot today

Toul Sleng today.

S-21

Graphic representation of Posting 1 on Toul Sleng. This is how "confessions" were achieved.

On a more somber - Toul Sleng Prison

Read this and see above postings. This is posting 1 on the Toul Sleng Prison, known as S-21 run by Duch (pronounced Doik) who is currently charged for crimes against humanity and other related offences in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, ECCC. Of the 20,000 prisoners who passed through S-21, only seven (7) survived. That means 99.97 percent of all people to go through this prison died.

Tree 1, Temple 0

Even mother nature has a way of building around our buildings. This is at a temple in the angkor wat complex deep in the jungle.

Rich life or a life that is rich?

happiness is not a product of wealth.. but an appreciation for life.

young khmer children who frequented a temple area in an island village outside phnom penh.

Dining on a Non-Vegetarian-Non-Meat Diet

Dinner Menu outside my apartment. Question for the day: Which would you choose if you had nothing else to choose from?

Frolic and Detour

Even monkeys in Southeast Asia can be morbidly obese!!! Yes that is his gut touching the ground. When we arrived on the road where this small herd of young marsupials (sic- spelling?) decided to congregate we discovered that not only had we discovered an eager band of monkeys happy to partake of our food.. but they were eager to eat all food. apparently this monkey herd has abandoned it foraging skills to take up tourist operations on the road into the angkor wat temple complex. This guy off hand.. was marked by the Khmer as "Boss Monkey." As soon as we saw him.. all our tuk tuk Khmer drivers.. began pointing at him, saying "He .. Boss Monkey!... He the Boss." Even the Khmer know a Boss Monkey when they see him. Note to Self.. Big Gut = Big "Respect."

A detour

the internet in cambodia is far from advanced and recent assignments and events have kept me from this board. I've decided to divert to my current work and get comments on it. Right now I am working on judicial independence and impartiality for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. I don't expect the readers of this blog to understand the multitude of issues in this topic but maybe I can put my work on this board finally as I move ahead in some of work research. Basically the ECCC is under enormous pressure. It is faced with a cultural, political and social climate that appears to hinder its every move. This is to be expected. The Court is far from an ideal structure for dealing with the war crimes and crimes against humanity of Khmer Rouge leaders perpetrated more than 30 years ago. To compound the problems of the ECCC, it must prosecute these leaders within the Cambodian Court system using a majority of Cambodian justices and a supermajority rule that prevents any decision from being determined without the concurrence of an international judge. The issues go on and on of course. Probably more than could be stated in any blog. But regardless, I'll end with a question that ultimately strikes at the heart of any international war tribunal: What is the purpose of international law? Is it more appropriate to consider these courts as mediums for conferring legitimacy to victorious powers (i.e. Nuremberg's victor's justice) or should we really adhere to strict rules of procedure in order to truly live up to the concepts of justice? Of course the former seems wrong today, but we mustn't forget that for prosecutiorial goals, Nuremberg was extremely successful. Some Nazis were acquitted but the majority were prosecuted and done so quite quickly. On the other hand, it recieved much criticism for putting biased judges on the court as well as lacking many procedural safeguards and imposing retroactive laws. One justice in Tokyo was actually a Bataan Death March survivor! On the other hand, we have the ICTY -dealing with Yugoslav criminals. The Prosecutor followed a much more strict regimen in building the case against the Yugoslav war criminals, so much so that Milosovec died before even receiving a sentence! The difficulty in prosecuting war criminals is always compounded by politics and this explains my initial discussion on Law, Politics and Culture. However due to time constraints and technological difficulties, I decided to jump to the chase and move right into the primary topic for this blog.

Law, culture, and politics

What are the sources of law? In the West, the law embodies a phenomena that transcends individual or even social group control; arguably it is above politics and above social or even economic class. Is this true?

One thing that I've understood based on my studies is that law is a product of two powerful forces in society which are distinct and intertwined in the same breath, namely: culture and politics.

Law differs largely on how important one source is over the other or how much one source has overcome another in society's makeup. For instance, while the law against murder exists in the United States, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, the interpretation of legal murder differs from one society to the next based on the culture. In the Middle East, some cultures allow for the "murder" of one's daughter if she has brought shame on the family, in the US, one may "murder" another for self-defense but may not kill one's daughter for her acts. In Europe, the death penalty is banned while in the US and many other societies, the death penalty is still alive and well, e.g. Saudi Arabia. The point being made here is that while law against a specific human behavior may exist universally in all systems, the circumstances allowing the application of this law or exceptions to it differ drastically.
So next posting, I'll talk a bit on politics and I invite commentary on my points thus far.

Disclaimer and FYI

I think its important in any public forum that one defines the limits of discussion. If not, the audience might have high expectations that might surpass what is reasonably possibly. This blog attempts to raise issues that the author thinks are important in today's world. Grammar and prose will be diminished in importance for the sake of informal discussion. Having this in mind, I'll start off the initial topic that I'm interested in: law, culture, and politics.

Finally..

I've finally entered the 21st century! Its taken me a week to set up this blog but I've finally evolved to the point that I can now blog. Unfortunately, with all my previous travels abroad, I maintained a travel diary at best, usually keeping it to myself. This blog will now allow me to publish my thoughts, keep me in touch with friends and possibly get feedback on current research I am doing. Well, I loathe rambling and I will keep this short but I'll leave this posting with an observation that has occurred to me: Having been to Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Americas, Europe, I realized that the more one travels and experiences different cultures... the more aware one becomes of the incredible similarities between people. I'm not an anthropologist by training or education, but this simple thought, which is probably "anthropology 101" is also one of the single greatest points that is largely forgotten in the US when we watch our nightly news describing violence in Gaza, crime in Baghdad, and the multitude of other problems and issues around the world. The only thing separating us from them is distance and even this is a minor formality in today's age. Everyone needs food, water, shelter, and a sense of security for a basic existence. Lacking one of these can mean the difference between peace and war, life and death, stability or migration. Just a thought as I sit in a nice cafe in Phnom Penh. Cheers and more to follow.