"To preserve you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss." (Khmer Rouge slogan)

My relaxed life of a student-tourist came to a sobering halt today with visits to the infamous "Killing Fields" and Tuol Sleng (S-21) prison.

During the reign of the Khmer Rouge from 1975-1979, nearly 2 million people--one quarter of the population--were killed in an organized and ruthless campaign of Maoist Communism that sought to create an agrarian utopia. The city of Phnom Phen (pop. 1.7 million) was forcibly evacuated to the countryside overnight. Dissenters were shot on the spot...the weak, the bedridden, and the elderly were simply left to die.

Once in the countryside, the Cambodian people were placed in agrarian "communes" and made to work day and night. Starvation and malnutrition were prevalent. Families were separated and personal belongings were confiscated in an effort to promote fear and reverence for "Angkar" (literally, "the Organization"); the nebulous government authority whose de facto leader was Pol Pot.

The slightest dissent was met with swift retribution. Over 10,000 Cambodians were tortured and killed at Tuol Sleng prison, a former Phnom Phen high school turned nerve center for the Khmer Rouge's intelligence service. High ranking military officers, intellectuals, Buddhist monks, and political dissidents were often made to confess fantastic stories of subversion before being killed. Others were subjected to horrific torture methods whose only bounds were the limits of their torturers' imaginations.

Still many others were taken to the Killing Fields and summarily executed. Lacking bullets, victims were often dispatched with a blow to the head by readily available farming instruments--hoes, machetes, pick-axes. They were buried in shallow, mass graves that visitors today can still walk amongst...bones and clothing protruding from the dirt pathways.

It is both eerily morbid and refreshingly transparent the way that the Cambodian people have chosen to share these horrors with the outside world. It's as if, with each footstep among the mass graves and with each touch of the prison walls that once detained tortured souls, the country's wounds are healed. They are allowing us to mourn with them.

The long way round...

After 16 hours on a cramped plane, I've arrived!  The flight into Cambodia was gorgeous, with rice paddies and the snaking Mekong River ("The Great River") dominating the landscape below.  Had some delicious Pad Thai and slept like a rock last night.  

This morning I woke up to the bustling capital city of Phnom Phen.  This is my first time in southeast Asia, so I really don't know what to expect, but so far I find the city young, vibrant, and deeply spiritual.  It's the wet season here, and we had a good afternoon downpour to cool us off.  Otherwise, temperatures hover around 80-90 degrees.  Our hotel--the Goldiana--is in the heart of the Foreign Embassy section of Phnom Phen and NGO's abound: within blocks of us are an UNESCO field office, the UN Office for the High Commissioner of Human Rights, Catholic Relief Services, and a number of smaller NGO's catering to everything from the arts to street children.  There are ex-pats everywhere and a steady stream of tuk-tuk drivers at our service.  

Classes began this morning with an overview of the Nuremberg Trials and the difficulties/limitations those first justices and lawyers encountered when trying to address the grievous crimes of the Third Reich.  Tomorrow we will parse the specific language of the 1948 United Nations Convention on Genocide.  Fascinating stuff.

For dinner, we headed to the trendy Foreign Correspondents Club (FCC) with a three-story overlook of the muddy Mekong River--a short tuk-tuk ride away from our hotel.  The FCC sits near to the National Museum and Presidential Palace, and is reminiscent of our own National Mall in Washington D.C. only instead of church spires, there are Buddhist temples and monasteries.  The Mekong River appears to be the very lifeblood of this country, providing a living superhighway to the rest of the world.  As such, there is a palpably spiritual connection with the people here.  Along the river are multiple Buddhist shrines, and even on a Monday night, entire families flock to its banks to eat, dance, sing, and pray. 

Greetings from Phnom Phen!

I am Ben Lewis from Kansas City, Kansas.  I just finished my first year at the University of San Francisco School of Law and am spending this summer in Cambodia, studying War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity, and Genocide with Professor Howard de Nike.  We are specifically examining the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge genocide of 1975-1979 and are also looking more generally at International Criminal Prosecution from Nuremburg to the modern day.