Reflections on Community Meetings in Sihanoukville and Koh Kong

An hour outside of the city limits, past the Special Economic Zones, past the genocide tribunals, and even past the constructions sites that boast of 52-sky scrapers, there is another Cambodia. A Cambodia that is filled with luscious green rice paddy fields, wooden houses resting on long stilts, and unpaved roads. Another Cambodia which I was fortunate enough to experience as I journeyed with several housing rights activists as they made their monthly meetings to various communities, either immediately threatened by land evictions or organizing to prevent forced resettlement in the near future.

We arrived in the rural commune of Cheko Leu, located within the Koh Kong province, first greeted by a few community members. Yet in half an hour’s time, a few friendly faces turned into forty-two, the majority of which, surprisingly enough, were women. Although the meeting was all in Khmer, I got the sensation that true grassroots efforts were being constructed and I sat back on the cool tile floor, attempting to take it all in, as I frantically tried to capture the key points that were translated in English.

I think what resonated most with me at the meeting of five villages was the grassroots approach that COHRE and other housing rights affiliates had taken in their attempts to address forced evictions. This wasn’t a matter of the all too familiar pattern that many international non-governmental organizations take: “we will give you money and tell you how to spend that money.” Instead, COHRE and others haves stressed the importance of taking a backseat role – COHRE has been committed to providing background research, providing necessary tools and information – in community organizing campaigns. Housing rights activists half-joked that the village organizers were ultimately the drivers in the car, and they saw themselves as the “helpers along the road,” giving encouragement and support as needed: an all too true and clever analogy.

Though the land of these villagers—the rightful owners—has been taken away, and what remains continues to be at risk of being taken, they remain hopeful that their land will be returned to them. While visiting the community, we listened to the report-backs of their journey to Phnom Penh to the Prime Minister’s house, who they earnestly hope will do something to remedy the situation.

This persistence of the community amazes me. “If there is no response to our letter [which they wrote to the Prime Minister, asking for support] then we will return to Phnom Penh.” Indeed they will. As I write this, this community, along with many other communities facing evictions from provinces throughout Cambodia, is coming to the capital in a demonstration of their basic human rights. For the next few days, housing rights activists will be marching to the United Nations with petitions calling on Prime Minister Hun Sen to address their demands.

All of this I find extremely overwhelming. I am very much in awe of these human rights activists and community leaders, but it is not until I ride back from our first meeting in Koh Kong to our second and third community meetings in Sihanoukville, that I understand precisely why. Reflecting with a COHRE housing rights activist, I understand that while these mobilizations are enthralling, they are first and foremost, out of necessity. I think that is what makes me respect their efforts the most. This is not about glamour or recognition. It’s about being in pursuit of the most fundamental rights: the right to a home, which as been systematically denied to thousands of people throughout the country, most often in the name of “development.” Whose development? I’m not exactly sure. In this case, the revolution will probably not be televised, nor will it be screen printed. But it does exist and it is a very important one.

First Week: Reflection on the Cambodian Genocide

Hello all:

I apologize for beginning this blogging experience with such intensity, but I sincerely believe that the tragic/depressing cannot be overlooked in this journey, which has proven to be extremely valuable and powerful thus far.

As many of you may know from 1975 until 1979, there was a genocide within the country, where over two million Cambodians were killed by the Khmer Rouge army, led by Pol Pot. Thousands of families were separated from one another: those who did not starve to death in work camps were shot to death or brutally tortured. The Cambodian Genocide has come to be recognized as one of the worst incidents of human rights violations the world has ever seen.

Currently interns in our program have been boarding at the facilities of Bridges Across Borders, an amazing non-profit organization working in Southeast Asia. Very near the Bridges Across Borders office, is the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, previously a high school until the years of genocide, when the Khmer Rouge converted the space into a prison. Nearly 17,000 Cambodians were said to have been tortured and imprisoned here, many of the bodies buried near the site. During our training with the One World Foundation this past week, both the American and Cambodian participants of the program came together to visit the site.

The following poem/rap is a reflection of my experience at the museum and the conversations I had with people during the visit.

I'll try not to fail you this time around

Just give me multiple choice and
a daily double round.

They say everyone's a rapper
and every rapper's cynical
I'll try to break this cancer down
and prevent the cyclical
nature of the beast, where
it's signing its lease
in the land of a thousand landmines;
where only the shame and
guilt of mind remain.

10,000 crisp golden portraits,
weathered by a concoction
of time, death, and pain,
stare back at me, relentless, all the same.

Failed attempts to avert my gaze
only leave a sickening knot
in the depths of my stomach.
Tattered, dry-blooded cells,
rusted beds of torture
that no junk yard would accept-
except may hell's.

"Lest we never forget"
that no one wants to remember.
Push the tribunals back at least
until September.

To avoid interfering with impunity's
wedding party or the
bat mitzvah of injustice.

Ask Bansky if he'll paint a mural to give us solace;
or find Chris Pape in a tunnel.
But I fear that even his skilled hands
would be unable to reach every
crevice of death,
every tile that once cooled lifeless flesh.

Or even worse, I fear that in 29 more years,
the red drips of his cans
will be indistinguishable from the bloodstains.

Thank you very much for reading this, I appreciate all your support and kindness during this summer experience.