“Just get in the picture. Can somebody translate that?”
Adam Saltsman
IIMHC Fellow in Cambodia

About once a week these days, I will get caught in a rainstorm while driving in Phnom Penh on my motorbike. A heavy and relentless storm that soaks every place on my body not covered by the enormous poncho that I don.
This is the season of pouring rain on an almost daily basis. I have learned that typhoons hitting China and Japan mean days of non-stop heavy rain and that when the skies are clear there might be a sudden rush of clouds with a brief downpour. I find myself walking or
riding my bike inches ahead of approaching clouds, scrambling under the protective awning of my office or apartment just as the clouds open. And oh how the temperatures shift around here. Blasted with heat in the morning and then chilled in the afternoon, such temperature shifts gather up the elderly and exhausted and distribute colds and flu in return.
Malaria and Dengue breakouts are more common right now. But at the same time, it is incredibly beautiful in the countryside; young rice and damp red clay dirt everywhere. Such fresh smells. On road number one, paddies give way to expanses of flooded land with
raised houses popping up here and there--extremely isolated looking islands.
Yesterday, I made my first trip to the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (KRT), located inconveniently far from the center of Phnom Penh (actually it was not in Phnom Penh until the municipal authorities recently extended the border of the city to incorporate the court). The
Extraordinary Chambers, which lies inside a military base, was not the most welcoming of places--at least until you made it through the doors. Sentries--representatives from a severely crooked police force--guarding the compound gate demanded our identification and
kept my business card. Am I now on some list of potential saboteurs?

The visit marked the third in a monthly series of meetings between the Court and relevant nongovernmental organizations--those groups who are planning outreach activities. It is at meetings like this where the court administrator reveals interesting new details about the tribunal's establishment such as the fact that the judicial police will be selected from the Cambodian police force (more representatives from a highly feared authority and political arm). Or that the prosecutors have begun interviewing witnesses despite there not being any witness protection system up and running.
These sessions also create space for NGOs to share with the Court their planned outreach activities. It is here that if one looks closely enough, one notices the emphasis on quantitative results as opposed to qualitative. How many fora will be conducted with how many participants? How many foreign experts will attend? How many workshops? How many trainings? How many villagers shuttled into Phnom Penh to visit the court and the genocide museum?
Never mind the fact that the trainings shoot way over the heads of participants, the fora serve more as public relations tools for the NGO than to educate those who attend, and that the foreigners are experts on matters totally unrelated to Cambodian transitional justice. Herein lies a hidden obstacle to the success of tribunal outreach: on the surface these events seem to do the
job, while in reality they fall significantly short and do not have built-in methods for measuring the impact on local participants
My fear is that those international figures coming to give money or analyze the overall tribunal process here--scholars, donors, embassies, et al. -- will buy into the painted picture of reconciliation and KRT education fostered by NGOs in conjunction with the Court proceedings. Going out to the countryside to do something, anything, is more prestigious than armchair conversations.
Indeed, it is of benefit. But the mere act of bringing foreign and domestic dignitaries and experts into contact with villagers and then taking their pictures together does not make a productive gathering. These self-serving meetings are wasting important opportunities while not serving the needs of people who have suffered enough and deserve better treatment.