A Small Explosion

Sunday morning, 11:48am - B O O M! Lizzy and I stop, mid-bite, lock eyes and turn quickly towards the reverberating sound. A shrug of the shoulders and back to chewing our late breakfast at Java Cafe, but with minds whirring rapidly to settle the unsettling shock.

Just on Saturday I was questioning with Lizzy about how fragile the peace is in Cambodia. After being here for awhile, if you're keen to it, you learn what happens behind the scenes of politics and daily life. The somewhat placid bustling pace of street vendors, moto-dops, half-naked toddlers and ubiquitous honking of horns masks a government that seems to keep things under control.

Most everything looks and seems okay. There are political parties - the CPP is the ruling party with Hun Sen as the Prime Minister, and Funcinpec as its main rival. Then at a distance there is the Sam Rainsy Party and now the new Human Rights Party. There is the usual and typical bickering that reverberates between back and forth between parties. But in recent decades, this is a country that is used to settling political squabbles with violence. Only recently have they had democratic elections and still learning about what that really means, I think.

When the Vietnamese pulled out in 1989 there was a void of leadership and government. The UN came in with UNTAC and troops to keep the peace until there were "democratic" elections in a free Cambodia in 1993. Open fighting in the street aside, an uneasy decision was rendered which put co-prime ministers from CPP and Funcinpec in power. For the next four years it was a very shaky power-sharing agreement between Hun Sen and Prince Rannaridh. But that changed in 1997.

On July 5 and 6 a very swift shift happened when outright armed conflict plagued Phnom Penh once again. The more or less private armies of the two parties skirmished in various parts of the capital city and in the end, Hun Sen became the sole Prime Minister as he is today. According to an article in the Phnom Penh Post, a number of soldiers loyal to the Funcinpec party were later dug up with hands tied behind their backs and single bullets to their heads. Never has there been a thought given to prosecution of those responsible. Some say it was a coup d'etat manufactured by one side; others say that CPP was only defending itself from a reverse coup attempt. Who knows.

The more I'm here, the more I read and the more conversations I have, I begin to learn more of the detail of Cambodia's history that's not easily offered up. The ruling party has the privilege of the spoils - the position of power to control the rich natural resources of the country. It sickens me to realize that so few people enjoy these resources, and yet I equally realize that peace is worth the price that is being borne by the people.

But one must understand the context from which this country springs. People have been exhausted by decades of civil war, genocide and factional fighting, which has been eased by the ways of politics today. So much better than it was and yet so much has been yielded by a populace hungry for peace.

For the casual tourist, the obvious Khmer history is within easy reach. Visitors here are typically guilt-fully shocked at their own ignorance of the atrocities committed at the Killing Fields or S-21 (Tuol Sleng Prison) where nearly 17,000 lost their lives. Or at the news that 500,000 tons of American bombs actually accelerated the Khmer Rouge's ascent to its horrific power. Difficult questions surge forth: "Why did this happen? Why did I not know about this?"

But there is even more to the story than can be easily accessed, even when one is willing to ask the painful questions about what actually happened.

What I have found is that most Khmer do not like to talk about the years and events under the Khmer Rouge. I remember a conversation with three colleagues several months ago where it was revealed that one man's father had been executed by the Khmer Rouge. As his chin nearly grazed his chest I sensitively asked the follow on of 'do you know what happened?' Three eternal seconds ticked by when the voice of another colleague came to the rescue, "We don't like to talk about those kinds of memories." All of us swallowed hard and grasped for some rare air to move on from the delicate subject. I learned something important that evening.

Cambodia is on the verge of the long-awaited and long-delayed trials of the Khmer Rouge. Two million people died during three and three quarter years of their reign. Many were executed, still more died from starvation and slave labor. The number is not even exact, but it was too many, many times over. But for almost 30 years the guilty have mostly gone free. Only Duch, the infamous prison warden of S-21, has been incarcerated since 1999. It's as if the entire KR guilt is laid upon his shoulders, but there were those who directed his actions. We'll see what justice awaits Duch and other old Khmer Rouge leaders, at least those whom are still alive.

So, as a Western visitor in this exotic country, much lies below the surface of tourism and ancient monuments. Still, I feel safe in this place and worry not about what might happen. The struggle for this country is not with me, but with them. "Safe" coup d'etats seem to happen in this region of the world, such as has happened many times in Thailand. My concern is for the people of this country who need its leaders to find a vein of compassion matched with a backbone to fight rampant corruption that sucks the blood of the economy.

Today I read in the Cambodia Daily that three fertilizer bombs, small five-gallon bucket versions of the Oklahoma City truck bomb, had been placed at the base of the Cambodian-Vietnamese Friendship Monument and one had partially detonated. The blast we heard was a controlled explosion of the other two.

And life goes on.