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Thai in Picture

Thailand's national police chief General Patcharawat Wongsuwan, pictured here on September 7, 2009, resigned on Wednesday, days after an anti-graft body held him responsible for deadly clashes between anti-government protesters and police last year.(AFP/File)

A soldier stands guard with his weapon at a polling station during district administrative elections in southern Thailand's Pattani province. Gunmen shot and killed three Muslim villagers, including a local leader and his daughter, in front of their home in the latest violence in Thailand's restive south, police said on Sunday. REUTERS/Surapan Boonthanom

A soldier stands guard with his weapon on his vehicle near a polling station outside a mosque during district administrative elections in southern Thailand's Pattani province. Gunmen shot and killed three Muslim villagers, including a local leader and his daughter, in front of their home in the latest violence in Thailand's restive south, police said on Sunday. REUTERS/Surapan Boonthanom

Thai soldiers stand guard outside a burnt school building after it was allegedly set on fire by separatist militants in the Ba-Choc distrist of Thailand's restive southern province of Narathiwat last month. Almost 3,900 people -- both Buddhists and Muslims -- have been killed since the unrest began in January 2004, led by shadowy Islamic insurgents who never claim responsibility for the attacks.(AFP/Madaree Tohlala)

Sondhi Limthongkul, founder of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), in Bangkok in this May 3, 2009 file photo. Thai court sentenced the founder of Thailand's "yellow shirts" political movement to two years in prison for defamation on Thursday, before freeing him on bail pending an appeal. REUTERS/Chaiwat Subprasom

Thai Buddhist monks gather to offer prayers at Bangkok City Hall in Bangkok, Thailand, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2009, as part of merit making ceremonies honoring King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Prime Minister Abbhisit Vejjajiva has ordered all government agencies to join in nationwide activities as part of the ninth day of the ninth month of the year 2009, as part of a campaign to promote the royal institution as the spiritual core of the Thai people.(AP Photo/David Longstreath)

Thai Buddhist monks accept food donations at Bangkok City Hall in Bangkok, Thailand, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2009, as part of merit making ceremonies honoring King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Prime Minister Abbhisit Vejjajiva has ordered all government agencies to join in nationwide activities as part of the ninth day of the ninth month of the year 2009, as part of a campaign to promote the royal institution as the spiritual core of the Thai people.(AP Photo/David Longstreath)

Thai schoolchildren wave flags in front of the portraits of King Bhumibol Adulyadej and Queen Sirikit during the celebration at a park in Bangkok, Thailand, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2009. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has ordered all government agencies to join in nationwide activities as part of the ninth day of the ninth month of the year 2009, as part of a campaign to promote the royal institution as the spiritual core of the Thai people.(AP Photo/Apichart Weerawong)

Thais wave flags while gathering at a park during a celebration in Bangkok, Thailand, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2009. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has ordered all government agencies to join in nationwide activities as part of the ninth day of the ninth month of the year 2009, as part of a campaign to promote the royal institution as the spiritual core of the Thai people.(AP Photo/Apichart Weerawong)

Cambodia In Picture

Meet SRP MP Mu Sochua in Long Beach on 12 Sept and Stockton on 19 Sept 2009

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Cambodia's Trial of the Century, Televised

Kaing Guek Eav, former chief of the Khmer Rouge's notorious S-21 prison, is seen on a screen during his trial in Phnom Penh on July 13, 2009 (Heng Sinith / AP)

Friday, Sep. 11, 2009
By Christopher Shay
Time Magazine (USA)

Like any pair of good TV news hosts, Neth Pheaktra and Ung Chan Sophea deftly play off each other, finishing each other's thoughts and building on each other's ideas. But unlike the playful banter of most local news shows, neither host ever cracks a joke, or even smiles. Instead, the two veteran Cambodian journalists look directly into the camera and talk to viewers every Monday at 1 p.m. about torture, murder and the law.

Neth Pheaktra and Ung Chan Sophea's 24-minute weekly show summarizing and analyzing the trial of Kaing Guek Eav, better known as 'Duch,' the chief of the Khmer Rouge's notorious S-21 interrogation facility also known as Tuol Sleng, has become a sleeper hit in Cambodia. With one in five Cambodians watching the show every week, Duch on Trial has become the main way many young Cambodians, who were not taught about the Khmer Rouge in school, learn about the historic Khmer Rouge tribunal unfolding in Phnom Penh — and, in a lot of cases, hear about this dark chapter of their country's history for the first time.

From 1975 to 1979, the ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge emptied Cambodia's cities, abolished money and turned its upper classes into de facto slave laborers in an attempt to form a radical agrarian utopia. More than 30 years later, Cambodia is still rebuilding — both economically and socially. For overseeing the execution of more than 15,000 people during that era, Duch has been charged by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), a hybrid Cambodian-international court backed by the U.N., with war crimes, crimes against humanity, homicide and torture. S-21, the facility that he headed from 1976 until 1979, was a local Phnom Penh high school that the KR transformed into what one scholar later called "the anteroom to death."

(See pictures of the rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge.)

Not surprisingly, testimonies at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) have been grim since the trial started in February of this year. Duch, a mathematics teacher before joining the Khmer Rouge, admitted that his guards smashed babies against trees. One guard on the stand outlined the process of live blood-letting, and a rare survivor described the pain of having his toenails ripped out.

Despite the gruesome tales, Duch on Trial has attracted up to three million viewers a week in recent months — a whopping 20% of the country's population. The success of the show, which premiered in April, rests on its ability to decode the trial's complex proceedings to a mass audience — no small task in this largely rural, poorly educated country where only about 30% of students who enter school graduate from grade 9. The ECCC was established as a hybrid court after years of negotiation between the U.N. and the Cambodian government, and the result is a complex hodgepodge of international and domestic law.

Matthew Robinson, the British producer of Duch on Trial and executive director of Khmer Mekong Films, took the show's predecessor — a pretrial miniseries about the ECCC — to focus groups around the country, fine tuning the show's language to ensure it could be understood. But while the show may keep it simple, it is still able to highlight complex themes raised in the trial — like mental health and forgiveness — that are relevant to people's daily lives in a nation still suffering from collective post-traumatic stress.

The endeavor was something of a gamble. With the Khmer Rouge only being introduced into the school curriculum this fall, many born after 1979 know little about Cambodia's darkest period. And for those who did, before the Duch trial, over two-thirds of people born after the Khmer Rouge rule said they rarely or never talked about the era. Robinson said before he produced the first episode, he went to his local eatery and asked the staff if they would be interested in a half-hour show about the Duch trial. "They said, 'No, no, no.' But I was there on the Monday [when the show first launched], and all of them were watching. At the end, they gave me a big thumbs up." Now the restaurant shows Duch on Trial every Monday at lunch.

The show, largely funded by the British government, is played on the Cambodian Television Network (CTN), Cambodia's most watched channel. Controlled by Cambodia's richest businessman, Kith Meng, CTN is not playing the show in a prime-time slot as a public service, but because it glues so many Cambodians to the TV screen.

Nonetheless, Duch on Trial is helping fulfill one of the Court's central mandates, according to ECCC chief spokesperson Reach Sambath: to educate Cambodians about the Khmer Rouge. In the last seven months, some 23,000 Cambodians have come to the courts to watch the trial, and the Documentation Center of Cambodia has discussed the trials with nearly 100,000 villagers throughout the country. The trial "is an education. It's equal to a professor of history," says Reach Sambath.

But with its millions of viewers in Cambodia, television has proven to be better positioned to bring the trial into people's homes. "You'll go out to the local little village in the middle of Kampong Speu [a province in Cambodia], and there will be almost nothing there," says Gregory Stanton, the president of the Washington-based NGO Genocide Watch. "Yet there will be a TV set hooked up to set of car batteries, and people watching."

Though the government has not publicly commented on the show, Robinson says he's heard that high-ranking government officials also watch it to keep tabs on the trial. The current government contains many former members of the Khmer Rouge, including Prime Minister Hun Sen, who was a low-level cadre and even lost his eye fighting for the Khmer Rouge during the invasion of Phnom Penh. It was Hun Sen who initially asked the U.N. for help in establishing a tribunal in 1997, but he has since been accused by critics like Human Rights Watch for trying to limit the trial's scope in order to protect members of his own Cambodian People's Party (CPP).

But for Reach Sambath and many other Cambodians, this trial is not just about teaching the public or finding justice but about accelerating a long-overdue healing process. "The witnesses cry. The accused cries. The audience that comes to the court or watches on television cries," Reach Sambath says. "But they cry not to be more painful, but to release their pain that they have been holding for 30 years."

Duch is only the first Khmer Rouge member to sit behind the bulletproof glass at the ECCC. A joint trial of four other defendants will start within the next two years, and on Sept. 8 despite objections from Hun Sen, prosecutors submitted a list of five additional former high-ranking members of the Khmer Rouge who may one day end up at the tribunal. No matter how open Duch is about the horrific details of S-21, he cannot supply all the answers about the Khmer Rouge, as he played no policy role. "The people we've interviewed say, 'We want to know why these educated people did this to our country?'" Robinson said. "And they won't really get this answer through the Duch trial."

The next hearings, however, expected begin in 2010, will include several people who did derive the Khmer Rouge philosophy, like Pol Pot's second-in-command Nuon Chea and the Khmer Rouge's former head of state Khieu Samphan. Robinson is hoping Khmer Mekong Films will be there too, helping give millions of Cambodians the answers they've been waiting three decades to hear.

Did it all started with a "royal seal of approval"?

The Rise and Fall of the Khmer Rouge

Time Magazine (USA)

Royal Seal of Approval
In 1965, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodia's head of state, asserted the nation's opposition to the U.S.-backed government in South Vietnam by allowing North Vietnamese guerrillas to set up bases within Cambodia's borders. The North Vietnamese had an alliance with a Cambodian Marxist insurgency group, the Khmer Rouge, whose top brass Sihanouk is pictured here with in 1973. (AFP)
Losing Control
A Cambodian soldier holds a .45 to the head of a Khmer Rouge suspect in 1973. When Sihanouk was forced out of power in a coup, the new Prime Minister, General Lon Nol, sent the army to fight the North Vietnamese and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Fighting two enemies proved to be too much for Cambodia's army. As Civil War raged from 1970 to 1975, the army gradually lost territory as Khmer Rouge increased its control in the countryside. (Bettmann / Corbis)
Coming Apocalypse
Survivors sift through rubble after the Khmer Rouge bombed Phnom Penh, the capital city, on January 1, 1975. Four months later, the party took the city, on April 17, 1975, and began their mission of returning Cambodia to an agrarian society, emptying the cities and forcing their countrymen into agricultural labor. (Christine Spengler / Sygma / Corbis)

Day One, Year Zero
Khmer Rouge fighters celebrate as they enter Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975. Prince Sihanouk, the party's early ally, resigned in 1976, paving the way for the now notorious Khmer Rouge founder and leader, Pol Pot, to become prime minister. The country was renamed Kampuchea, and it was the start Year Zero — the beginning of a new history for Cambodia written by Pol Pot. (Claude Juvenal / AFP / Getty Images) [KI-Media note: The fighters shown on this photo were not actual Khmer Rouger soldiers]
Left Behind
Days before the occupation of the capital, thousands of Cambodians gather behind a school perimeter fence near the American embassy to watch the final evacuation of U.S. and foreign nationals. (Roland Neveu / OnAsia)
Death Sentence
A prisoner gets her mug shot taken. At prisons like Phnom Penh's infamous Tuol Sleng, prisoners were painstakingly documented before being sent to their deaths in mass graves later to be come known as the "killing fields." Hundreds of thousands of intellectuals were tortured and executed under the Khmer Rouge; others starved or died from disease or exhaustion. In total, an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians died between 1975 and 1979. (GAMMA / Eyedea Presse)
Pol Pot's Utopia
An undated photograph shows forced laborers digging canals in Kampong Cham province, part of the massive agrarian infrastructure the Khmer Rouge planned for the country. (AFP / Getty Images)
A New Occupier
Fed up with cross-border raids by Khmer Rouge, Vietnam invaded Cambodia on Dec. 25, 1978. By Jan. 7, shown here, Vietnamese troops had occupied Phnom Penh. The Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia lasted for 10 years. (Bettmann / Corbis)
Fearless Leader
The Vietnamese overthrew Pol Pot, too, driving the leader to the Thai border where he continued to head the Khmer Rouge in the jungles. (Kyodo News / AP)
Purging the Western Curse
The Khmer Rouge sought to rid Cambodia of all Western influences that distracted its people from their agrarian calling. Cars, abandoned and forbidden, were stacked up alongside the road. (John Bryson / Time Life Pictures / Getty)
A Bloody Landscape
An exhumed mass grave, pictured in 1981, in the Cambodian countryside reveals the skeletons of those executed and buried together under Pol Pot's regime. (David A. Harvey / National Geographic / Getty Images)
The Resistance
Khmer Rouge guerrillas in the jungle of western Cambodia as they attempt to halt advancing Vietnamese forces on Feb. 15, 1981. (Alex Bowie / Getty Images)
Running for Cover
Cambodian refugees, pictured in January 1985, at a refugee camp, near the Thai-Cambodian Border. Some 60,000 people fled to the south as fighting increased between Khmer-Vietnamese troops and the FNLPK (Khmer People's National Liberation Front), one of the three groups making up the anti-communist resistance. (Alain Nogues / Corbis Sygma)
Out from Under the Iron Curtain
Without backing from the Soviet Union, Vietnam could no longer afford to keep its troops in a state of indefinite occupation in Cambodia. In September 1989, Vietnamese troops withdrew from Phnom Penh. (Jacques Langevin / Corbis Sygma)

A Tearful Reunion
A family greets each other in August 1989 after being separated during years of war and occupation. (Michael Freeman / Corbis)
Return the Old Guard
The 1991 Paris Peace Accord that followed Vietnam's withdrawal mandated democratic elections and a ceasefire, but was not fully respected by Khmer Rouge guerrillas. U.N. transitional authority shared power with representatives of various factions, and Prince Sihanouk, shown here at center making his way back the Royal Palace in November 1991, was reinstated as Head of State. (Jacques Langevin / Corbis Sygma)
Forgiven
U.N.-run elections in May 1993 resulted in a shaky coalition between Sihanouk's son, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, and Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge guerrilla pictured here at a political rally before the elections. The country was once again named the Kingdom of Cambodia. Hun Sen remains Prime Minister today. (Romeo Cacad / AFP / Getty Images)
The Banality of Evil
Pol Pot continued to lead the Khmer Rouge party from rural Cambodia until July 1997 when he was arrested. In a show trial, Pol Pot, known as Brother No. 1, was denounced by his own followers and sentenced to house arrest in his jungle home. The press gathered there when he died less than a year later at age 73 on April 15, 1998, never having faced charges. (Jason Bleibtreu / Corbis Sygma)
A New Chapter
Finally agreeing to abandon their fight, the remaining Khmer Rouge soldiers fighters surrendered on Feb. 9, 1999, and donned new uniforms of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces during an integration ceremony in Anlong Veng near the Thai-Cambodian border. (Ou Neakiry / AP)
Documenting the Aftermath
Contact sheets showing pictures of what is believed to be former prisoners of the S-21 prison, also known as Tuol Sleng, where over 15,000 people lost their lives. Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, was detained for his role as chief of the torture center in 1999. (David Hogsholt / Getty Images)
The World Watches, and Waits, for Justice
A long delayed U.N.-backed tribunal to bring the leaders of the genocide to justice began in 2009. On Feb. 17, Duch's trial began. He is the first of five defendants scheduled for trial. (John Vink / Magnum Photos)