Top Khmer Rouge leader detained

From the BBC: Top Khmer Rouge leader detained

Image courtesy of the BBC

Something that sets this country apart from many others... Pretty much everyone over a certain age has a past which either includes horrendous suffering or perpetrating horrendous brutality.

A few days ago I was reflecting on this as I waiting in a government building in a "queue" (read scrum) with about 50 others waiting to get my photo taken. I was the only white guy in the building, I didn't really understand what was going on, I felt very much in the spotlight - people clapped and "ooohed" when my turn came to be photographed. Another learning experience.

Anyway, as I was looking around the room I was spotting all the people over 40 and wondering what stories they could tell of their own experience. How many had mothers, fathers, siblings or even children who sat proped up, too weak to support themselves, in the photographers chair at Tuol Sleng as the flashbulb exploded their world in a stark glare of light? Running this through my mind, watching as people sat, stoney faced (Cambodians tend not to smile in photo's) and a harmless webcam clicked a digital record of their feature, it was easy to picture the other scene, in a different time where a photo in the records of S21 would be the only reminder of a persons. existance. Grim stuff.

It's worth remembering that, apart from the guy in the article above, the only other Khmer Rouge member in captivity is a man known as Comrade Duch. He was in charge of the S21 prison in Phnom Penh. He subsequently converted to Christianity and believes he must be tried for his crimes. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors?