History and Social Justice Outreach Project
The ICfC staff - Adam Saltsman and Vichhra Muoyly with the Village Development Group in Battambang Province
The Open Society Institute - Southeast Asia Initiative has supported the ICfC Cambodia office with a grant of $30,000. This grant is towards the continuation of the History and Social Justice Outreach Program, which ICfC developed and implemented since January 2006.
Project Summary:
Nearly thirty years ago, the citizens of Cambodia were in the immediate wake of the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge regime. Mass killings, starvation, forced labor, and widespread displacement affected more than nine out of ten Cambodians in the 1970s. Now, after decades of impunity, a structure to bring the leaders of the Khmer Rouge to justice for these years of brutality has finally been established.
In a country where more than 60% of the population over the age of 40 is believed to suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and where silence about atrocities committed has been enforced, the Khmer Rouge Trial excites feelings of anger, humiliation and hatred among the regime’s surviving victims and perpetrators. Moreover, the decades of silence have produced a younger generation that is ignorant of its nation’s history of violence and that thrives on the widespread impunity inspired by a lack of justice for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge. Currently there is very little being done to break the silence over history in a way that both involves Cambodians in the transitional justice process and educates the younger generation about its heritage.
Through the Justice and History Outreach Project, the International Center for Conciliation (ICfC) works in rural Cambodian communities to create space for dialogue among older and younger villagers about the years of atrocity and their hopes for the future. By connecting youth to their nation’s past, ICfC contributes to creating a younger generation more committed to stopping the prevalent violence in their country. The ICfC helps villagers to commemorate the past by setting up public information rooms and bringing them to view memorials. The Center facilitates their engagement in their nation’s quest for justice by bringing them to meet with officials from the Khmer Rouge Trial. For many rural Cambodians, this means breaking the silence about their painful history for the first time. The Center builds on the work of others that is already being done in the field of transitional justice, human rights, and peacebuilding. By offering training in historical conciliation the ICfC empowers and connects the community of peacemakers within Cambodia and makes them more effective.
