One gets the impression, visiting Siem Reap - and even to an extent the capital city Phnom Penh - that Cambodia is like most other developing countries, stricken by government corruption, rife with an incredible slanted distribution of wealth, and without the necessary inertia to pick itself up by its bootstraps without a massive infusion of tourist dollars and foreign sympathy.
Visiting the ancient temples of Angkor Wat, exploring the inner boundaries of the walled city of Angkor Tom, and getting a taste for the dynastic history of Cambodia, and suddenly the perspective changes. At a time when London boasted a population of 50,000, Angkor Tom housed an empire of a million. The strength, organization, and leadership bespoken by the enormity and intricate detailing (and historical recordings through bas relief decoration) of the temples of Cambodia has persevered for over half a millennium, hinting at the prior glory of the region.
But as elsewhere war, religious dispute, familial power struggles and the like, destabilized the region. That is ancient history. With the re-discovery of the ruins in the early 20th century, Cambodia had been delivered it's golden goose for national development - its rich, well preserved, and simply amazing cultural history.
Enter the Khmer Rouge.
In retrospect, the regime was seemingly hell-bent on stunting every growth opportunity possible for the country. Praising (though often then merely as lip service) the agrarian "base people" and their lifestyle, the Khmer Rouge forcibly vacated cities, imprisoned eminent thinkers and public figures as political dissidents, brutally murdered entire families including babies - to curb any foreseeable streaks of vengeance - and placed those spared from gruesome torture and death in harsh work camps. Even the historical treasures of Cambodia were not safe - hundreds if not thousands of religious and spiritual carvings and figures remain in the ruins, decapitated and robbed of their limbs - having been sold off by the regime to foreigners.
While developed nations including the US turned a blind eye to the atrocities occurring in the region for fear of destabilizing "geopolitical" power dynamics, Cambodia and its people were left to toil and squalor under blatant and persistent violations of human rights.
If only globalization had preceded their reign by a decade, even a few years. The story may have ended quite differently.
Today, many of the Khmer Rouge leaders maintain seats of political power, having been "re-integrated" into the current government. Tep Vong, a former high ranking official of the regime, now reigns as Great Supreme Patriarch of Cambodia - the senior most Buddhist monk. Duch, the former chief of the S-21 prison camp, remains to date one of the few if only high ranking officials who has been held in custody and tried in court - despite committing his war crimes over 2 decades ago, his sentencing was only administered within the past year - and his appeal remains active.
It's hard not to want to point fingers; but the assignment of blame is far murkier a task that one might think. Brother number one, Pol Pot, has been dead for some years. Those who remain claim that, like the people they oppressed, they themselves were forced to obey inhumane orders. These are similar arguments and defenses offered by soldiers of the Nazi concentration camps. Does complicity necessarily amount to culpability?
The world is a strange and fucked up place. How many in our generation grew up in an idyllic Western culture, raised on sugary cereal and Saturday morning cartoons. Its unimaginable that at the same time, children our age were being executed by having heads smashed into trees, or tossed callously in the air and shot at like clay ducks.
The sheer magnitude of injustice is startling, and absolutely humbling.
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