By Rafael D. Frankel, Special to the Tribune. Tribune news services contributed to this report
Published July 30, 2003
BANGKOK -- Two months after a crackdown on democracy groups in Myanmar, the military junta finds itself besieged by growing demands from governments around the world to release democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and hundreds of her followers.
Yet rather than showing signs of flexibility, the military is taking an indignant stance, analysts said, and ratcheting up the rhetoric against the National League for Democracy, which is headed by Suu Kyi.
The 58-year-old Nobel Peace laureate, who has spent much of the past 13 years under house arrest, has been held incommunicado by the junta since May 30 when she and hundreds of her supporters were arrested after a rally in northern Myanmar. The junta originally said Suu Kyi was being held "temporarily" in "protective custody."
Red Cross officials visited the pro-democracy leader Monday for the first time since she was detained. Michel Ducreaux, the agency's Myanmar representative, told Reuters on Tuesday that she was in good health and in "high spirits." He did not disclose where she is being held.
Condemnation of the junta for Suu Kyi's detention has come from around the world.
President Bush on Monday signed into law economic sanctions against Myanmar that had been quickly approved by Congress. The sanctions impose a ban on imports from Myanmar, freeze assets of the military government, expand a ban on granting U.S. visas to Myanmar officials and bar virtually all remittances to the country.
Myanmar, formerly Burma, exported about $356 million in products to the United States in 2002, mostly garments.
The European Union has taken similar steps, and Japan, the largest economic donor to Myanmar, has cut off all of its funding.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad recently warned that Myanmar could be expelled from the 10-member group of Southeast Asian nations, which previously had a strict policy of non-interference in each other's domestic affairs.
There is "a lot of coordination between certain governments that think the same way" to put pressure on the junta, a Western diplomat said in Yangon, Myanmar's capital. "And there is a lot of effort by the U.S. to influence many governments to adopt similar positions."
But with each criticism from the international community, the junta has intensified its attacks on Suu Kyi and the league.
©2003 The Chicago Tribune
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
Sunday, July 20, 2003
As dengue outbreak looms, Cambodia families tremble
By Rafael D. Frankel, Globe Correspondent, 7/20/2003
SIEM REAP, Cambodia -- For the next three months, monsoons will push through Southeast Asia, drenching the region with the daily downpours that sustain this lush region.
With the rains come mosquitoes. And at such places as the Angkor Hospital for Children in this northwestern Cambodian town known for the nearby 1,000-year-old Angkor Wat temple complex, that means combating a growing wave of dengue fever -- including the potentially deadly hemorrhagic form.
''We obviously hope to do better this year,'' said Dr. Eugene Tragus, chief of medicine for the hospital, ''but they tell us it's going to be another bad year.''
Seven children there are being treated for dengue. And doctors are bracing for almost 200 cases -- a sharp increase over the same period last year -- by the time the monsoons subside.
Dengue fever, caused by four closely related viruses and found throughout the world's tropical zones, is spreading in Southeast Asia in ways never seen, health officials say. The disease, which is transmitted by mosquitoes that bite during the day, has begun to buck a trend of occurring in three- to five-year cycles and shows signs of becoming an annual problem.
Children have become the main victims in Southeast Asia. In particular, Type 4 dengue, which causes hemorrhagic fever and carries with it the highest instance of death, preys most commonly on children younger than 7.
Scientists do not know why children contract the Type 4 strain more often. The phenomenon has not been seen in Central America, another hot spot for dengue, according to Dr. Chang Moh Seng, the World Health Organization's regional point man for the illness.
And scientists have not pinpointed why the disease is occurring with more frequency, although weather patterns, increased population density, and virulent strains are among the possibilities.
Malaria is a more deadly threat in the region. For a country like Cambodia, which is struggling with myriad health issues, where about half its 12.2 million people are under 15, the prospect of dengue morphing from a cyclical epidemic to an annual crisis is daunting, said Chang, who works in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital.
''It's possible that dengue is moving to a highly endemic disease,'' he said. ''The signs from the first four months indicate this will be an especially bad year.''
Cambodia recorded almost 12,000 cases of dengue last year; the death rate was almost 2 percent. This year, cases of dengue are 50 percent higher than they were at the same time in 2002.
Lack of funding is among the chief hindrances for health workers in Cambodia.
For the past three years, the government received $150,000 annually from the US Agency for International Development to fight dengue. Half of that amount went toward large-scale larviciding -- spreading a chemical in city and town water supplies; the chemical is toxic enough to kill mosquito larvae without endangering people. This year, USAID has increased its annual contribution to $250,000.
Still, Chang said, ''We are facing a hopeless situation'' trying to keep down the breeding of mosquitoes. He said that again this year, due to lack of money, the government will only be able to spread larvicide in a few of the cities where dengue hits hardest.
Thailand, which is spending more than $3 million fighting dengue this year and will spend $3.4 million next year, is struggling to cope with the disease.
''With SARS winding down, it is the most urgent matter we are facing now,'' said Nitaya Chanruang Mahabhol, a spokeswoman for the Thai Public Health Department.
The Ministry of Public Health in Thailand reported 24,000 dengue cases by the end of May, 23 of them fatal. This accounting put the country on track to surpass the 108,905 cases recorded in 2002.
In contrast, in 2000, the last nonepidemic year, 18,617 cases were reported.
There is no cure. Although trials are underway to develop a vaccine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it could be at least 5 to 10 years before one is available.
Although the death rate from the disease is relatively low, dengue fever's toll on towns like Siem Reap is often worse than it would seem at first glance.
With so many children ill, schools in areas with outbreaks often lag behind, Chang said. And parents who earn little money are often forced to stay home from work to care for sick children.
''It's just a grossly unfair disease,'' Tragus said as he surveyed the board listing the conditions of the children at the Ankgor Hospital. ''Soon, most of these will say `dengue,' and all we can do is really hope for the best.''
©2003 Globe Newspaper Company
SIEM REAP, Cambodia -- For the next three months, monsoons will push through Southeast Asia, drenching the region with the daily downpours that sustain this lush region.
With the rains come mosquitoes. And at such places as the Angkor Hospital for Children in this northwestern Cambodian town known for the nearby 1,000-year-old Angkor Wat temple complex, that means combating a growing wave of dengue fever -- including the potentially deadly hemorrhagic form.
''We obviously hope to do better this year,'' said Dr. Eugene Tragus, chief of medicine for the hospital, ''but they tell us it's going to be another bad year.''
Seven children there are being treated for dengue. And doctors are bracing for almost 200 cases -- a sharp increase over the same period last year -- by the time the monsoons subside.
Dengue fever, caused by four closely related viruses and found throughout the world's tropical zones, is spreading in Southeast Asia in ways never seen, health officials say. The disease, which is transmitted by mosquitoes that bite during the day, has begun to buck a trend of occurring in three- to five-year cycles and shows signs of becoming an annual problem.
Children have become the main victims in Southeast Asia. In particular, Type 4 dengue, which causes hemorrhagic fever and carries with it the highest instance of death, preys most commonly on children younger than 7.
Scientists do not know why children contract the Type 4 strain more often. The phenomenon has not been seen in Central America, another hot spot for dengue, according to Dr. Chang Moh Seng, the World Health Organization's regional point man for the illness.
And scientists have not pinpointed why the disease is occurring with more frequency, although weather patterns, increased population density, and virulent strains are among the possibilities.
Malaria is a more deadly threat in the region. For a country like Cambodia, which is struggling with myriad health issues, where about half its 12.2 million people are under 15, the prospect of dengue morphing from a cyclical epidemic to an annual crisis is daunting, said Chang, who works in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital.
''It's possible that dengue is moving to a highly endemic disease,'' he said. ''The signs from the first four months indicate this will be an especially bad year.''
Cambodia recorded almost 12,000 cases of dengue last year; the death rate was almost 2 percent. This year, cases of dengue are 50 percent higher than they were at the same time in 2002.
Lack of funding is among the chief hindrances for health workers in Cambodia.
For the past three years, the government received $150,000 annually from the US Agency for International Development to fight dengue. Half of that amount went toward large-scale larviciding -- spreading a chemical in city and town water supplies; the chemical is toxic enough to kill mosquito larvae without endangering people. This year, USAID has increased its annual contribution to $250,000.
Still, Chang said, ''We are facing a hopeless situation'' trying to keep down the breeding of mosquitoes. He said that again this year, due to lack of money, the government will only be able to spread larvicide in a few of the cities where dengue hits hardest.
Thailand, which is spending more than $3 million fighting dengue this year and will spend $3.4 million next year, is struggling to cope with the disease.
''With SARS winding down, it is the most urgent matter we are facing now,'' said Nitaya Chanruang Mahabhol, a spokeswoman for the Thai Public Health Department.
The Ministry of Public Health in Thailand reported 24,000 dengue cases by the end of May, 23 of them fatal. This accounting put the country on track to surpass the 108,905 cases recorded in 2002.
In contrast, in 2000, the last nonepidemic year, 18,617 cases were reported.
There is no cure. Although trials are underway to develop a vaccine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it could be at least 5 to 10 years before one is available.
Although the death rate from the disease is relatively low, dengue fever's toll on towns like Siem Reap is often worse than it would seem at first glance.
With so many children ill, schools in areas with outbreaks often lag behind, Chang said. And parents who earn little money are often forced to stay home from work to care for sick children.
''It's just a grossly unfair disease,'' Tragus said as he surveyed the board listing the conditions of the children at the Ankgor Hospital. ''Soon, most of these will say `dengue,' and all we can do is really hope for the best.''
©2003 Globe Newspaper Company
Sunday, July 13, 2003
Arrests anger Cambodian Muslims
Antiterror drive seen as political game
By Rafael D. Frankel, Globe Correspondent, 7/13/2003
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- These are tense days for the Muslims of Cambodia, long a peaceful minority in this Buddhist country, but now roiled by the specter of international terrorism and the politics of fighting it.
The recent arrests of an Egyptian and two Thai teachers at an Islamic school 20 miles outside the capital sent shock waves through the country's estimated 700,000 Muslims, the vast majority of them ethnic Cambodian Chams. The teachers are accused of having links to the terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiyah, which intelligence specialists believe is the Southeast Asian arm of Al Qaeda that is responsible for the Oct. 12, 2002, bombings in Bali, Indonesia, that killed 202 people.
The initial shock from the allegation that Jemaah Islamiyah had infiltrated Cham schools and their society has turned to anger with the Cambodian government. Cham leaders accuse the government of drumming up charges against the three teachers to show it was tough on terrorism before a visit by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell last month.
The government has ''used us in their game as a political issue, to please America and Australia, so they can get aid,'' said Ahmad Yahya, a leader of the Cham community and a secretary of state and deputy minister in the government. ''If these people are terrorists, we are very pleased for the government to arrest and jail them. But they have no proof.''
Since the arrests, the government has declined to disclose evidence against the suspects, and phone calls to the government spokesman seeking comment were not returned. But government and police officials have said they have evidence that the three teachers were involved in Jemaah Islamiyah. The officials also said that authorities acted on intelligence tips from the United States. Security specialists believe that Cambodia could be an ideal place for terrorists, with its porous borders and lax immigration laws.
An official at the US Embassy in Phnom Penh, speaking on condition of anonymity, would not disclose the nature of any intelligence cooperation. But the official said the United States was ''very pleased with the [arrests] and very happy at the cooperation Cambodia has shown in the fight against terror.''
The United States is considering resuming limited military aid to Cambodia, which it suspended after a 1997 coup, if the July 27 general elections are deemed free and fair and if the planned Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal is conducted without corruption, the embassy official said.
But Chams say the United States is behaving hypocritically by demanding fairness in the elections and tribunal while turning a blind eye to the manner in which the antiterrorist action was conducted. In addition to the arrest of the three foreign teachers and the deportation of at least 20 others, the government closed the 700-pupil Um al-Qura school where they taught. Its funding from a Saudi group that finances similar schools around the region also was cut off.
At the an-Nur an-Na'im mosque, 6 miles north of Phnom Penh, 18-year-old Sakin Abdullah spoke of the fear many in his community share: that they are being made scapegoats.
''We are worried to make friends with foreigners now,'' said Abdullah, a Cambodian who teaches English and the Koran to preteens in a two-story wooden shack next to the mosque that serves as a madrassa, or Islamic school. ''And we are very worried the government will close our school.''
The mosque, one of about 200 in Cambodia, was built in 1901. It was destroyed by the Khmer Rouge -- which killed more than 100,000 Chams during its brutal late-'70s reign, according to Cham leaders -- but was later rebuilt.
For about 1,300 years, the Champa kingdom existed in what is today central Vietnam. Islam came to the Chams' empire around the eighth century, spreading from what is now Malaysia. After being conquered by the Vietnamese in the 15th century, surviving Chams migrated to Cambodia, where they have maintained their community since.
Chams make up about 5 percent of the population. They have lived a mostly harmonious life in Cambodia, largely maintaining their distinct culture. In recent years, Chams have risen to high levels in the government.
But with intelligence specialists pointing to Southeast Asia as a hotbed of terrorist activity, the United States has made fighting terrorism the predominant issue guiding its policy on the region. High-profile arrests of suspected terrorists in Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia have won high praise from Washington.
©2003 Globe Newspaper Company
By Rafael D. Frankel, Globe Correspondent, 7/13/2003
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- These are tense days for the Muslims of Cambodia, long a peaceful minority in this Buddhist country, but now roiled by the specter of international terrorism and the politics of fighting it.
The recent arrests of an Egyptian and two Thai teachers at an Islamic school 20 miles outside the capital sent shock waves through the country's estimated 700,000 Muslims, the vast majority of them ethnic Cambodian Chams. The teachers are accused of having links to the terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiyah, which intelligence specialists believe is the Southeast Asian arm of Al Qaeda that is responsible for the Oct. 12, 2002, bombings in Bali, Indonesia, that killed 202 people.
The initial shock from the allegation that Jemaah Islamiyah had infiltrated Cham schools and their society has turned to anger with the Cambodian government. Cham leaders accuse the government of drumming up charges against the three teachers to show it was tough on terrorism before a visit by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell last month.
The government has ''used us in their game as a political issue, to please America and Australia, so they can get aid,'' said Ahmad Yahya, a leader of the Cham community and a secretary of state and deputy minister in the government. ''If these people are terrorists, we are very pleased for the government to arrest and jail them. But they have no proof.''
Since the arrests, the government has declined to disclose evidence against the suspects, and phone calls to the government spokesman seeking comment were not returned. But government and police officials have said they have evidence that the three teachers were involved in Jemaah Islamiyah. The officials also said that authorities acted on intelligence tips from the United States. Security specialists believe that Cambodia could be an ideal place for terrorists, with its porous borders and lax immigration laws.
An official at the US Embassy in Phnom Penh, speaking on condition of anonymity, would not disclose the nature of any intelligence cooperation. But the official said the United States was ''very pleased with the [arrests] and very happy at the cooperation Cambodia has shown in the fight against terror.''
The United States is considering resuming limited military aid to Cambodia, which it suspended after a 1997 coup, if the July 27 general elections are deemed free and fair and if the planned Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal is conducted without corruption, the embassy official said.
But Chams say the United States is behaving hypocritically by demanding fairness in the elections and tribunal while turning a blind eye to the manner in which the antiterrorist action was conducted. In addition to the arrest of the three foreign teachers and the deportation of at least 20 others, the government closed the 700-pupil Um al-Qura school where they taught. Its funding from a Saudi group that finances similar schools around the region also was cut off.
At the an-Nur an-Na'im mosque, 6 miles north of Phnom Penh, 18-year-old Sakin Abdullah spoke of the fear many in his community share: that they are being made scapegoats.
''We are worried to make friends with foreigners now,'' said Abdullah, a Cambodian who teaches English and the Koran to preteens in a two-story wooden shack next to the mosque that serves as a madrassa, or Islamic school. ''And we are very worried the government will close our school.''
The mosque, one of about 200 in Cambodia, was built in 1901. It was destroyed by the Khmer Rouge -- which killed more than 100,000 Chams during its brutal late-'70s reign, according to Cham leaders -- but was later rebuilt.
For about 1,300 years, the Champa kingdom existed in what is today central Vietnam. Islam came to the Chams' empire around the eighth century, spreading from what is now Malaysia. After being conquered by the Vietnamese in the 15th century, surviving Chams migrated to Cambodia, where they have maintained their community since.
Chams make up about 5 percent of the population. They have lived a mostly harmonious life in Cambodia, largely maintaining their distinct culture. In recent years, Chams have risen to high levels in the government.
But with intelligence specialists pointing to Southeast Asia as a hotbed of terrorist activity, the United States has made fighting terrorism the predominant issue guiding its policy on the region. High-profile arrests of suspected terrorists in Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia have won high praise from Washington.
©2003 Globe Newspaper Company
Monday, July 07, 2003
For Cambodia, it's time to look ahead--and back
Elections, tribunal stir up tensions
By Rafael D. Frankel
Tribune special correspondent
Published July 7, 2003
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- Uncertainty and trauma are familiar to Cambodians. And with general elections this month and a tribunal for the remaining Khmer Rouge leaders coming closer to reality, the Khmer people are again facing disquieting events.
Two national events --one recalling a long past trauma, the other a cyclical torment--are crashing in on this Asian country.
On July 27, Cambodians will vote in what the government promises will be the most fair and free elections Cambodia has known.
Prime Minister Hun Sen, the former Khmer Rouge soldier who has ruled Cambodia since the Vietnamese left in the early 1980s, delivered that message personally to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell at a meeting here last month.
On the surface, prospects for such an election appear possible.
"They have done a lot to update their election process," said a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh. "The mechanisms are all in place for credible elections."
"They can reach international standards if they want to," said George Folsom, president of the Washington-based International Republican Institute, which promotes democracy around the world.
But Folsom compares Cambodian democracy with that of Belarus and Zimbabwe, where dictators have done their best to squelch opposition.
"Democracy is not just about elections," he said. "There must also be political space for an effective civil dialogue."
And recent remarks by Hun Sen, saying there would be a civil war in Cambodia if his political party loses, are subtle intimidation, according to an election observer from Human Rights Watch.
"The people want [opposition leader] Sam Rainsy," said student Kingvivo Kong, 20. "But the people will vote for [Hun Sen] because we are afraid of war."
"Chronic intimidation" also is coming from village chiefs installed by Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party to instill loyalty in rural areas, according to the Human Rights Watch observer.
Cambodians on edge
"Can a few more people talk about politics without getting shot? Yes," the observer said. "But any real discourse? No."
Most Cambodians are so nervous about being affiliated with a political party that asking whom they will vote for is a deeply personal question. Most people on the street answer, "I don't know."
Election observers are paying special attention to news media coverage of the campaigns that kicked off June 26.
As part of an agreement with the United Nations, one government-sponsored television station is devoting 15 minutes of its news coverage every night to balanced reporting. Cambodian reporters supervised by foreign journalists will report on the campaign in that time slot.
The amount of coverage each of the three main parties receives in the 15 minutes will be roughly equivalent to its representation in the national assembly.
But even as monitors judge whether coverage is balanced, they point out that 15 minutes of fairness is setting the bar conspicuously low.
And many election monitors are issuing comments critical of the government's conduct in the campaign, putting the government on the defensive.
"We will whistle even stronger this time around if the process and results are not legitimate," said Marco Perduca, an election monitor from the Transnational Radical Party based in Europe and the United States.
The campaign is being framed very differently by the competing parties. The ruling Cambodian People's Party is emphasizing the nation's improved roads, new schools and hospitals under Hun Sen.
The Funcinpec Party, headed by Prince Norodom Ranariddh, is campaigning on weeding out Vietnamese influence in Cambodia. The Sam Rainsy Party is campaigning against corruption in the government and calls itself the party of the working people.
One issue--so far untouched--is how to proceed with the Khmer Rouge tribunal. People's positions on this highly emotional topic are largely defined not by party affiliation but by generation.
Cambodia and the UN signed an agreement in early June to set up a tribunal that would bring aging Khmer Rouge leaders to the stand.
Modern-day Phnom Penh has changed dramatically since it was systematically emptied in 1975 after Khmer Rouge forces took control and banished the population to the countryside, condemning 1.7 million people to deathby execution, starvation, exhaustion and torture.
To those who never knew the nightmare of the Pol Pot years, putting a few old men on trial is not a pressing matter. But to the generation for which the killing fields were a gruesome reality, such a thing is never too far in the past for justice to be denied.
"For people of my son's generation, you come here and you witness an atrocity of history," Mong You said at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison where members of the Cambodian elite were interrogated and tortured before being driven to fields outside of town for execution by bludgeoning.
Horrors still fresh
"But for people of my generation, it feels like only yesterday and the horror is still so fresh."
Mong said "hundreds" of members of his extended family were killed by the Khmer Rouge and that putting the leaders on trial is necessary so they finally can be held accountable for their "genocide." Such trials also would "help history not repeat itself," he said.
More than a desire to see the perpetrators of genocide punished, Cambodians long for a day when they can look upon their justice system as fair, said Youk Chhang, director of a program that documents Khmer Rouge atrocities. In that way, the tribunal is an important election issue, he said.
"How can you grow a democracy without justice?" Youk asked.
"Only once the trial is over, and the verdict is returned, people will speak more freely. And then we will be on our way."
©2003 The Chicago Tribune
By Rafael D. Frankel
Tribune special correspondent
Published July 7, 2003
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- Uncertainty and trauma are familiar to Cambodians. And with general elections this month and a tribunal for the remaining Khmer Rouge leaders coming closer to reality, the Khmer people are again facing disquieting events.
Two national events --one recalling a long past trauma, the other a cyclical torment--are crashing in on this Asian country.
On July 27, Cambodians will vote in what the government promises will be the most fair and free elections Cambodia has known.
Prime Minister Hun Sen, the former Khmer Rouge soldier who has ruled Cambodia since the Vietnamese left in the early 1980s, delivered that message personally to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell at a meeting here last month.
On the surface, prospects for such an election appear possible.
"They have done a lot to update their election process," said a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh. "The mechanisms are all in place for credible elections."
"They can reach international standards if they want to," said George Folsom, president of the Washington-based International Republican Institute, which promotes democracy around the world.
But Folsom compares Cambodian democracy with that of Belarus and Zimbabwe, where dictators have done their best to squelch opposition.
"Democracy is not just about elections," he said. "There must also be political space for an effective civil dialogue."
And recent remarks by Hun Sen, saying there would be a civil war in Cambodia if his political party loses, are subtle intimidation, according to an election observer from Human Rights Watch.
"The people want [opposition leader] Sam Rainsy," said student Kingvivo Kong, 20. "But the people will vote for [Hun Sen] because we are afraid of war."
"Chronic intimidation" also is coming from village chiefs installed by Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party to instill loyalty in rural areas, according to the Human Rights Watch observer.
Cambodians on edge
"Can a few more people talk about politics without getting shot? Yes," the observer said. "But any real discourse? No."
Most Cambodians are so nervous about being affiliated with a political party that asking whom they will vote for is a deeply personal question. Most people on the street answer, "I don't know."
Election observers are paying special attention to news media coverage of the campaigns that kicked off June 26.
As part of an agreement with the United Nations, one government-sponsored television station is devoting 15 minutes of its news coverage every night to balanced reporting. Cambodian reporters supervised by foreign journalists will report on the campaign in that time slot.
The amount of coverage each of the three main parties receives in the 15 minutes will be roughly equivalent to its representation in the national assembly.
But even as monitors judge whether coverage is balanced, they point out that 15 minutes of fairness is setting the bar conspicuously low.
And many election monitors are issuing comments critical of the government's conduct in the campaign, putting the government on the defensive.
"We will whistle even stronger this time around if the process and results are not legitimate," said Marco Perduca, an election monitor from the Transnational Radical Party based in Europe and the United States.
The campaign is being framed very differently by the competing parties. The ruling Cambodian People's Party is emphasizing the nation's improved roads, new schools and hospitals under Hun Sen.
The Funcinpec Party, headed by Prince Norodom Ranariddh, is campaigning on weeding out Vietnamese influence in Cambodia. The Sam Rainsy Party is campaigning against corruption in the government and calls itself the party of the working people.
One issue--so far untouched--is how to proceed with the Khmer Rouge tribunal. People's positions on this highly emotional topic are largely defined not by party affiliation but by generation.
Cambodia and the UN signed an agreement in early June to set up a tribunal that would bring aging Khmer Rouge leaders to the stand.
Modern-day Phnom Penh has changed dramatically since it was systematically emptied in 1975 after Khmer Rouge forces took control and banished the population to the countryside, condemning 1.7 million people to deathby execution, starvation, exhaustion and torture.
To those who never knew the nightmare of the Pol Pot years, putting a few old men on trial is not a pressing matter. But to the generation for which the killing fields were a gruesome reality, such a thing is never too far in the past for justice to be denied.
"For people of my son's generation, you come here and you witness an atrocity of history," Mong You said at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison where members of the Cambodian elite were interrogated and tortured before being driven to fields outside of town for execution by bludgeoning.
Horrors still fresh
"But for people of my generation, it feels like only yesterday and the horror is still so fresh."
Mong said "hundreds" of members of his extended family were killed by the Khmer Rouge and that putting the leaders on trial is necessary so they finally can be held accountable for their "genocide." Such trials also would "help history not repeat itself," he said.
More than a desire to see the perpetrators of genocide punished, Cambodians long for a day when they can look upon their justice system as fair, said Youk Chhang, director of a program that documents Khmer Rouge atrocities. In that way, the tribunal is an important election issue, he said.
"How can you grow a democracy without justice?" Youk asked.
"Only once the trial is over, and the verdict is returned, people will speak more freely. And then we will be on our way."
©2003 The Chicago Tribune