Apr 17, 2007, 9:43 GMT
Phnom Penh - Cambodians marked the 32nd anniversary of the fall of the capital to Khmer Rouge troops Tuesday with a subdued memorial service but little fanfare.
A small ceremony organized by the opposition Sam Rainsy Party at the Choeung Ek killing fields just outside the capital was the only tangible reminder of the anniversary. A few hundred prayed at a stupa of skulls among the mass graves.
The long awaited 56-million dollar joint Cambodian-UN tribunal to bring a handful of former leaders of the genocidal Democratic Kampuchea regime to justice has again stalled, this time in wrangling over fees for foreign lawyers.
The government prefers to commemorate the day the Khmer Rouge was ousted by Vietnamese-backed troops in January 1979. It has angrily denied that it lacks the political will to hold a trial of former leaders, saying the fact some current officials were former Khmer Rouge cadre had no bearing on the delays.
Many Cambodians, including some former Khmer Rouge, said Tuesday they still want answers on how a revolution so hard-fought and initially welcomed by so many could have turned so bloody.
'I still remember that day as Victory Day. I thought it was the sweetest day I would ever know,' said My Mak, deputy governor of the north-western former Khmer Rouge stronghold of Pailin.
'We would still celebrate it now if the government allowed us ... not what happened afterwards, because on that day we could not know what lay ahead, but because of what it meant on the day itself.'
Mak, a former Khmer Rouge radio operator who now serves the ruling Cambodian People's Party, was among the rebel troops who took the capital.
'We truly believed in the revolution. We believed we were liberating our country and claiming the Motherland back. After years of fighting, Phnom Penh just opened up to us, and many of the people welcomed us.'
A country boy of just 23, Mak and many of his fellows had never seen a city before. He said they joined the Khmer Rouge at the behest of former king, Norodom Sihanouk, who called on his people to support him after he was deposed in a US-backed coup in 1970.
Mak said the young troops believed they had saved Cambodia from foreign imperialism, and, for a short time at least, thought victory marked a new, better era and an end to killing.
'(But) the revolution changed. People I worked with started disappearing. We knew something terrible was happening, but we were mere foot soldiers. We could do nothing. I spent most of those years in fear of my own life.'
Vann Nath, one of only a handful of survivors of leader Pol Pot's secret prison, Toul Sleng, or S-21, also remembered watching victorious Khmer Rouge troops flood the capital and thinking it could bring an end to Cambodia's civil war and bloodshed.
An artist, spared when around 14,000 other prisoners died because of his ability to create images to glorify Pol Pot, Nath has campaigned for justice for those responsible for the deaths of up to 2 million Cambodians under Democratic Kampuchea.
Now 61 and critically ill with kidney disease, Nath said he can only hope he lives to see their trials. But answers are necessary to understand how such a tragedy could happen and prevent it ever happening again.
'It is still unthinkable to me that what could have been a turning point in history turned into what it did,' Nath said. 'I remember thinking 'maybe now Cambodia can have peace and we can live happily'. But after that everything changed.'
Nath is still not sure why he was arrested. The regime rounded up thousands as 'spies' and tortured confessions from them. He thinks one may have given his name, despite his innocence, in an attempt to save themselves.
His first family was killed. He later remarried and tried to rebuild his life, traveling the world to tell people about his experiences and urging them to help find answers before it is too late. Pol Pot died in 1998. Other former leaders are elderly.
'What happened should not have happened,' Nath said.
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