Som Savuth presents the temple's monk, Born Nai, with a ceremonial gift of rice.WCPN ideastream®
Posted Monday, April 6, 2009
Chhuon Latch is a 55-year-old machinist living on Cleveland’s west side. His path to Cleveland began 34 years ago this month, when Khmer Rouge soldiers took over the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. Latch was a university student at the time and he and hundreds of thousands of other residents were forced out of the city at gunpoint.
Chuuon Latch: It was a hot day. All the old people...sometimes the old people cannot walk away, they left alone. Like cats and dogs under the shade there, you know, and wait for some to die.
Latch watched Khmer Rouge soldiers kill two of his uncles. He lost brothers and other family members as well. Latch walked 350 miles to escape over the Thai border. By the time the Khmer Rouge were forced out in 1979 at least 1.7 million Cambodians had been murdered or died from overwork, starvation or untreated disease. Latch was among the millions forced to work in the countryside for the communist state.
Kaing Guek Eav, or Duch, asked his countrymen for forgiveness at the start of the trial. The confessed head of a notorious prison, Duch oversaw the brutal torture and murder of at least 14,000 people. Thousands of miles away, Cambodians in NE Ohio like human rights activist and Khmer Rouge survivor Loung Ung watched the grainy video from the trial on internet news sites which she monitors regularly.
Loung Ung: A majority of the immigrants and refugees who left, left somebody behind whether it’s a sister or a mother or an uncle or a brother and left them behind after four years of very traumatic rule, of genocide and war. So there’s intense bonds over there and being here, we’re all very, very pulled.
Nearly 50 people cram into a house turned Buddhist temple on Cleveland’s west side and chant prayers in Khmer. After prayers, there is lunch and over rice, fish and vegetables many say they do not believe the UN-supported tribunal will bring justice. 74-year-old Som Savuth lost two children during the Khmer Rouge regime. The temple’s monk translates: Savuth has been waiting for this trial since he arrived in Ohio in 1982.
Som Savuth (with translator):He says for Khmer Rouge tribunal, its not justice. He does not trust the court.
Savuth, like others here, say the current government is protecting some from trial. Several top leaders in the country’s ruling party, including the prime minister, are former Khmer Rouge. For machinist Chhuon Latch, “justice” is an “eye for an eye.” But since Cambodia does not have the death penalty, Latch says his ultimate hope is that the trial will yield answers to a question over three decades old: “Why did they do it?”
Latch: Cambodians are Buddhist religion. I don’t understand at that time everybody is so brutal. They were killing people without any consequence. I just don’t understand.
He may have a while to wait. Trial for four other senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge may not begin until next year.
Posted Monday, April 6, 2009
Chhuon Latch is a 55-year-old machinist living on Cleveland’s west side. His path to Cleveland began 34 years ago this month, when Khmer Rouge soldiers took over the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. Latch was a university student at the time and he and hundreds of thousands of other residents were forced out of the city at gunpoint.
Chuuon Latch: It was a hot day. All the old people...sometimes the old people cannot walk away, they left alone. Like cats and dogs under the shade there, you know, and wait for some to die.
Latch watched Khmer Rouge soldiers kill two of his uncles. He lost brothers and other family members as well. Latch walked 350 miles to escape over the Thai border. By the time the Khmer Rouge were forced out in 1979 at least 1.7 million Cambodians had been murdered or died from overwork, starvation or untreated disease. Latch was among the millions forced to work in the countryside for the communist state.
Kaing Guek Eav, or Duch, asked his countrymen for forgiveness at the start of the trial. The confessed head of a notorious prison, Duch oversaw the brutal torture and murder of at least 14,000 people. Thousands of miles away, Cambodians in NE Ohio like human rights activist and Khmer Rouge survivor Loung Ung watched the grainy video from the trial on internet news sites which she monitors regularly.
Loung Ung: A majority of the immigrants and refugees who left, left somebody behind whether it’s a sister or a mother or an uncle or a brother and left them behind after four years of very traumatic rule, of genocide and war. So there’s intense bonds over there and being here, we’re all very, very pulled.
Nearly 50 people cram into a house turned Buddhist temple on Cleveland’s west side and chant prayers in Khmer. After prayers, there is lunch and over rice, fish and vegetables many say they do not believe the UN-supported tribunal will bring justice. 74-year-old Som Savuth lost two children during the Khmer Rouge regime. The temple’s monk translates: Savuth has been waiting for this trial since he arrived in Ohio in 1982.
Som Savuth (with translator):He says for Khmer Rouge tribunal, its not justice. He does not trust the court.
Savuth, like others here, say the current government is protecting some from trial. Several top leaders in the country’s ruling party, including the prime minister, are former Khmer Rouge. For machinist Chhuon Latch, “justice” is an “eye for an eye.” But since Cambodia does not have the death penalty, Latch says his ultimate hope is that the trial will yield answers to a question over three decades old: “Why did they do it?”
Latch: Cambodians are Buddhist religion. I don’t understand at that time everybody is so brutal. They were killing people without any consequence. I just don’t understand.
He may have a while to wait. Trial for four other senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge may not begin until next year.
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