Dancing in Shadows

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The Huffington Post February 21, 2011

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Jim Luce

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Posted: September 16, 2010 10:17 AM

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The Killing Fields and Indonesia's Relations with Cambodia Revisited

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I first met Benny Widyono at an Indonesian Consulate fete years ago. I knew upon meeting him that he had an extraordinary mind and knew Asia's southeast as well as he knew this nation's northeast. Living in Connecticut and commuting to his office at the U.N. for decades - when he wasn't living in Phnom Phen, clued me into that reality. I told him if he ever wrote his memoirs I wanted to read them. Sure enough, they arrived by post last week. And they are riveting.

The book Dancing in Shadows: Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge, and the United Nations in Cambodia has just been published. It is excellent. I had planned to read it next month, but I could not put it down. It is well written, engaging, and highly informative. I now understand so much more of Cambodia's Cold-War history and how it led to the Killing Fields in which about two million Cambodians perished. Google reviewers have given this excellent book 4.5 stars.

Dr. Benny Widyono was born "Hong Lan Oei," but during the madness of the anti communist/anti-Chinese period in Indonesia that killed 800,000 suspected Communists including ethnic Chinese - also a result of the Cold War - his name was "nativized" under the Suharto regime. Indonesians were still not allowed to read or speak Chinese when I first arrived there in 1995. Thus, my struggle to adopt an Indonesian Chinese infant then to get him away from there. However, today normalcy has returned to the Republic and Chinese language and culture are no longer criminalized.

Benny is thus an excellent guide to post-colonial Cambodia. As a recipient of the title of Commandeur de L'Ordre Royal de Sahametrey in 2004, the highest title for civilians bestowed by H.M. King Sihanouk of Cambodia, Benny played an integral role working with the U.N. in the recovery from the death and destruction of Pol Pot in a way that a non-South East Asian could have. Another key player at the time was the Japanese head of United Nations in Cambodia, Yasushi Akashi.

Benny notes in his book the King's words to the Japanese head of the U.N. presence in Cambodia:

"I wish to thank you, Excellency Mr. Yasushi Akashi, for sending another prince from Java to help bring peace to Cambodia," quipped Norodom Sihanouk, the King of Cambodia, referring to me.

We were at the official inauguration of my office, the provincial headquarters of the U.N. Transitional Authority on Cambodia (UNTAC) in Siemreap, Cambodia in 1992, the U.N. Peacekeeping operation established to bring peace to Cambodia.

Prior to our arrival, Cambodia was, due to its political location, been for 20 years the subject of turmoil, civil war and Khmer Rouge induced genocide. To end the stalemate of Cambodia having two governments... the U.N. became the temporary government until elections could be held.

Yasushi Akashi was the head of UNTAC and therefore, temporarily, the head of the country. I was his "governor" of Siemreap Province, home of the world famous Angkor Wat temple.

Benny's life is fascinating because he was raised in Indonesia in a minority religion - Roman Catholicism - and yet he attended the most prestigious university there, the University of Indonesia in Jakarta. He went on to study economics in the University of Texas. His Ph.D. dissertation compared the role of petroleum in economic development in Mexico and Indonesia. One week after he graduated he was offered a position with the United Nations in Thailand, beginning his professional and personal odyssey.

In 1981, Benny was transferred back to New York to work on helping countries cope with multinational corporations. In his new capacity he writes of coming home late from New York City as now his work at the U.N. consisted of "going to endless cocktail parties to lobby with ambassadors and other diplomats of member states. Most of the work gets done in these parties."

At the U.N. cocktail parties, he notes ruefully, the poorer the country the more lavish its reception:

One day Ethiopia celebrated its tenth anniversary of the Marxist revolution in that country with unlimited shrimps and other delicacies and whiskey and wine flowing all evening while we see pictures on BBC TV of starving Ethiopians looking like corpses.

Another anomaly was that the Khmer Rouge ambassador, who was responsible for killing 1.7 million of its own people, would strut about shaking hands with everybody to lobby against that bad fellow Hun Sen, Prime Minister of Cambodia who de facto ruled the country since 1979, because the U.S. and China spearheaded a resolution in the U.N. to continue to recognize the Khmer Rouge instead of the People's Republic of Kampuchea.

It is this encounter with the Khmer Rouge ambassador, plus his experiences in Thailand where he had witnessed Cambodian refugees escape the Khmer Rouge atrocities and appear -- one by one -- from the jungle like emaciated corpses. These survivors reminded him of those in Ethiopia which made me decide to volunteer for Cambodian service for the U.N. I wrote about such survivors such as my good friend Ambassador Sichan Siv, whose story I have also told.

Benny eventually represented the U.N. Secretary General in Cambodia after the Killing Fields in which about two million Cambodians perished

We all have this myth that we control our lives. Benny tells it as it is:

One day, in the restroom of my floor, the 31st floor of the United Nations, I stood next to Yasushi Akashi, who just became the head of UNTAC in Cambodia. I congratulated him and asked whether he can take me along to Cambodia. Knowing me well he said yes, you will be the governor of Siemreap Province., which has Angkor Wat and is the most Khmer Rouge invested province.

I said yes as I did not want to languish in some idyllic province on the beach where nothing happened. Thus the last five years I was transferred to Cambodia, where I was at the political forefront of the political turmoil in the tragedy of Cambodia. It turned out to be the best assignment and I found out that my real fascination was with politics which I watched first hand. It is like studying while getting paid at the same time.

In his capacity of UNTAC Governor, Benny inspected U.N. forces in Cambodia.

Benny writes in his book that Akashi was right:

I got plenty of excitement and adventure in Siemreap where the Khmer Rouge murderers were ever present although at day time Hun Sen's People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) reigned supreme in almost all the country.

Siemreap was attacked many times by the Khmer Rouge. Since it was too dangerous for wives to join their husbands my wife stayed in Connecticut although she came to visit me several times. Live was very primitive as the Hun Sen government was isolated by the U.N.

Danger was ever present and at night I could not sleep if I don't hear mortar fire as Hun Sen's troops were fighting the Khmer Rouge. One day Siemreap was attacked by 800 Khmer Rouge. I called my wife in Stamford from the only telephone at my headquarters. After a full day Hun Sen troops drove them away.

Soon he received a phone call from the powers that were in U.N. Headquarters in New York and he was appointed the political envoy of the Secretary-General Boutros Boutros Ghali in Cambodia.

Benny Widyono, Mrs. Bintari Sudarpo, King Norodom Sihanouk, Queen Monineath, with Indonesian Ambassador Taufik Sudarpo, and Benny's wife Francisca.

Soon, his wife joined him full time. They were often invited, together with other ambassadors, to dinner with the King. He watched over dinners and diplomatic dispatches - and reported to his new boss Kofi Annan - that as Cambodia acquired two prime ministers who were former enemies, and with the "wily king pulling the string from behind the scene," he smelled trouble. Both sides clashed and in 1997 Hun Sen became the only prime minister. Benny then reached the age of 60 -- the mandatorily retirement age at the U.N. - and he moved back to the U.S. to teach at several universities including Cornell.

Dr. Benny Widyono with Prime Minister Hun Sen who after the clash in 1997 continued to consolidate his power until today 2010.

Benny has remained active with Cambodia and continues includes a board position with the Peoples Improvement Organization, an NGO running slum area schools in Phnom Penh now with 850 students who each day get lunch and education in English. These schools were founded one of his former staffers, Phymean Noun, who became a CNN hero in 2009 for her work with children.

Benny sits on the Board position of an NGO running slum area schools in Phnom Penh founded one of his former staffers honored as a CNN hero for her work with children.

I have been delighted to know Dr. Benny Widyono, born "Hong Lan Oei," as an outstanding Indonesian-American active with the United Nations in Cambodia and around the world. His compassion for all - especially children - has impressed me greatly. Above and beyond being a thought leader and global citizen, Benny has been able to share his gripping life in an exceptional book. I highly recommend it.

See also by Jim Luce:

Jim Luce on Cambodia and Cambodian-Americans

Jim Luce on the United Nations

Jim Luce on Indonesia

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ray christl 03:02 PM on 9/20/2010

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I've taught university classes in Phnom Penh for almost 9 years. The problem is the Western US media is sanitizing history. They want to obfuscate the first and third genocides within Cambodia.

From 1967-1997 the Khmer culture was slaughtered for geo-political gamesmanship. It's a disgrace mainstream media will never expose this monstrous period of American mass murder.

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SocratesFan 06:04 AM on 9/21/2010

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That the Americans were willing to mass murder the Khmer Rouge does not excuse the Khmer Rouge's own genocide, as you seem to imply it does; it only means that BOTH countries were acting against universal ethical principles.

Instead of getting caught up in what is or isn't propaganda or what is or isn't empire, let's try to create a world in which nobody at all is being tortured or abused or mistreated, by ANYBODY, whether that anybody is a global empire like our own or whether it's a corrupt indigenous government or whether it's a drunk husband or a child willing to institutionalize his parents or what-have-you.

All these issues of identity and nation and sovereignty and so on are getting in the way of the ideal: a humane, civilized world respecting the common bond of all humanity.

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Pod-gers 03:10 PM on 9/19/2010

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Nice article. We should all learn from our past mistakes. In order to do this, we must not forget.

The anti-Chinese environment in Indonesia was shameful. I am now wondering if that is a reason for Obama to be so hostile to China?

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Elecion results signal bright future for Cambodia's economy

2008-09-05T13:10:00.000-07:00

Opinion: Election results signal bright future for Cambodia's economy
Written by Benny Widyono
Monday, 11 August 2008
The landslide victory of the Cambodian People's Party at the July 27 elections, in which it is expected once official results are released to have won 90 seats out of 123, a gain of 17 seats from the 2003 election, bodes well for the future of Cambodia and it will bolster the 23-year rule of Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen, who is considered a fulcrum of economic stability.

Hun Sen's victory, the third since UNTAC (United Nations Transitional Authority of Cambodia) conducted elections in 1993, carries a special significance.

It is the first election under the constitutional amendment of March 2, 2006, requiring only a simple majority, 50 percent plus one, rather than the unwieldy two-thirds majority laid down in the Constitution adopted after the UNTAC elections.

This time, CPP won at the expense of Funcinpec, the royalist party, which had won the UNTAC-administered elections in 1993, and has now practically disappeared from the radar screen, obtaining only two seats. The main opposition party is now the Sam Rainsy Party, which gained 26 seats, three more than in 2003.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cambodia has an $8-billion economy, but this could easily be a $100-billion economy within another 10 to 20 years, providing stability continues.

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The landslide victory can no doubt be attributed to rapid economic progress since the UNTAC elections of 1993, driven by four Fs: foreign aid, foreign investment, foreign trade and foreign tourists.

Since 2004 Cambodia has become Asia's fastest growing economy after China. Starting from a low base, average annual growth rate during 2001-2006 was 9.9 percent compared with Asean's 6.5 percent. Everywhere one can see a rapidly emerging middle class living in ever better accommodations, reflecting the construction boom and rapidly escalating land prices, while more and more families are sending their children to public and an increasing plethora of private schools and universities.

In the last 10 to 15 years, the four Fs were augmented by a rapidly growing, vibrant and dynamic domestic sector.

An example can be found in Lucky enterprises, which during UNTAC days had a small store serving high-spending UNTAC personnel. Now Lucky boosts five supermarkets including one in Siem Reap and seven Lucky Burgers and Lucky Sevens.

FDI surge
In 2004, foreign direct investment began to surge from less than one percent to eight percent of GDP in 2007. Today, foreign investment is dominated by North Asia, particularly Korean companies who are building skyscrapers and condominium complexes. The growth of domestic enterprises has attracted American capital, including Leopard Capital, a private investment fund aimed at building a diversified portfolio of Cambodia's leading businesses in key sectors it has identified such as financial services, energy, telecoms, real estate, hotels, manufacturing, agribusiness and natural resources
After the UNTAC elections in 1993, the country was governed by two prime ministers, Prince Ranariddh, head of the royalist Funcinpec party who won the elections and Hun Sen of the CPP who came in a close second. Ironically, soon businessmen who flocked to Cambodia, as well as donor governments discovered that in order to get things done one should turn to the ex-Communist Hun Sen wing of the government rather than to the erratic and haphazard Ranariddh who headed the Royalist wing of the government.

Today, Cambodia has a US$8 billion economy - but this could easily be a $100 billion economy within another ten to 20 years, providing stability continues, and there is no reason to think it won't.

There are many other compelling reasons to invest in the country including a remarkably open economy, its central location as the epicentre of a fast growing region, no separatist movements, a young and hardworking population eager to learn new skills, and low labour costs.

Land boom
Let us look at some specifics. The property boom including the building of a great number of housing projects and malls have driven land prices sky high especially in the centre of Phnom Penh where land values rose from $500 a square metre in 2003 to over $3,000 today.

Many feel that this will be followed by a crash. However, look at the history at such countries like Thailand and Indonesia, who suffered a property bubble during the financial crisis of 1997, but have since continued to boom and are now at levels much higher than before the crisis.

The plans for a stock market to open its doors in 2009 will further boost the rapidly growing financial services sector attracting both domestic funds as well as international funds through mutual funds following the pattern of other Asian countries.

International banks have started to move in but there is room for much faster growth in this sector.

With economic stability assured, other internationally known banks will follow and move in.

Decades of fighting has had one consequence which makes Cambodia so desirable to investors: the availability of vast swathes of arable and fertile land just waiting to be cultivated for rice and other valuable cash crops for exports, agricultural materials including food processing is another untapped resource for growth.

Finally, in addition to Angkor Wat, Cambodia offers beautiful untouched beaches to attract tourists. Indeed, Cambodia is still relatively unexplored in tourism potential.

Overall, there is no doubt in my mind that the elections will usher in another five years of dynamic growth and stability in the country.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benny Widyono, Ph.D., was the UN secretary general's representative in Cambodia from March 1993 to May 1997.
He is a professor of economics at the University of Connecticut.

Bangkok Book Launch

2008-02-27T04:13:00.000-08:00

My book will be launched at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand next Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 8 PM. Please come if you're in the city.

META House Forum on Khmer Rouge Tribunal

2008-02-27T04:06:00.000-08:00

Andy Brouwer has photos from my presentation at the META House Forum on the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.

Review from South China Morning Post

2008-02-27T03:50:00.001-08:00

South China Morning Post
Sunday, January 6, 2007

Asian history

Dancing In Shadows: Sihanouk, the Khmer rouge, and the United Nations in
Cambodia

By Benny Widyono

# Paperback: 312 pages
# Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. (October 28, 2007)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0742555534
# ISBN-13: 978-0742555532

After two decades of war and genocide in Cambodia, the United Nations initiated its most ambitious peacekeeping mission in 1991 in a bid to end the conflict, organise elections and transform a one-party quasi-communist state into a liberal democracy.

The author was parachuted from his plush UN office in New York to operations in Siem Reap, far from basic comforts and convenience. His fascinating account reveals how he coped with potholed roads, an erratic power supply, political headaches and a deeply flawed UN mandate with considerable humour and rare commitment.

The flawed mandate passed on by the PP5 - the five members of the UN Security Council - could have resulted in his untimely death. In May 1993 an increasingly belligerent Khmer Rouge attacked and briefly occupied the town of Siem Reap in a defiant attempt to frighten voters and disrupt elections.

Although the Pol Pot faction had signed the Paris Peace Agreement in 1991 together with the two non-communist factions and the incumbent government led by Prime Minister Hun Sen, they doggedly refused to permit UN access to their guerilla zones and continually obstructed the peace process.

UN battalions were helpless in the face of Khmer Rouge attacks. As Widyono points out, the UN Transitional Authority of Cambodia (Untac) had to appeal to the forces of Hun Sen's government, not officially recognised by the UN, to come and chase the Khmer Rouge soldiers out of town.

Amazingly the treaty made no provision for how to deal with any faction that violated its accords, much less any contingency plan to protect Cambodian civilians from the genocidal Pol Pot. Ordinary Cambodians had assumed that UN forces had come to Cambodia to protect them. But UN senior officials pointed out to this reviewer "it was not part of our mandate". They even had difficulties protecting themselves.

This insider's account provides fresh insights into another major controversy. How far was Untac supposed to take over from the incumbent government led by Hun Sen? The book clarifies the complexities, illusions and realities of power in Cambodia.

The arrangement was extremely complex, with authority vested in Untac and King Norodom Sihanouk, then the president of the Supreme National Council. But neither body was equipped or prepared to run the country during the period of preparation for free and fair elections.

Widyono soon grasped that only the incumbent government, which had presided over the rebirth of Cambodia since the Pol Pot nightmare, had the capacity to do this. Guerilla factions and some western governments never wanted to accept that reality.

Untac also had its successes. A mass refugee repatriation emptied all the camps in Thailand and brought Cambodians home in time for voting day. Numerous NGOs were set up and the seeds of pluralism and a free press were successfully cultivated. The first democratic election in Cambodian history took place thanks to the bravery and dedication of hundreds of UN
volunteers. That the UN did not achieve more in the way of delivering peace and justice was primarily owing to the drafting of the mandate.

In his capacity as the UN Secretary-General's special representative, Widyono returned to Cambodia some years after the end of Untac's mission. The book ends in 1997 with Hun Sen emerging triumphant from a showdown with Royalist armed forces in a tank battle in Phnom Penh.

The UN had been forced to dance to many different tunes. Dancing in the shadows of the killing fields, Untac was mandated to promote respect for human rights, yet paradoxically it was not allowed to investigate the Khmer Rouge regime of mass murder. Respecting Pol Pot as part of an inclusive peace process was a tune dictated by the US, Britain, France and China in the Security Council, with reservations from Russia only.

The UN military commander, General John Sanderson, berated journalists one night for highlighting the genocidal record of the Khmer Rouge, instead of focusing on Untac's drive for reconciliation among the four factions.

But unlike the Australian general, the author concludes that including the Khmer Rouge in the peace agreement was a huge blunder. He argues that they should have been put on trial like those who committed atrocities in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, and not coddled by the UN.

Now, so many years later, the UN is finally backing a Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Phnom Penh. It's better late than never.

2008-02-02T19:59:00.000-08:00

DANCING IN SHADOWS
Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge, and the United Nations in Cambodia

By Benny Widyono

"Benny Widyono has written a lively, sometimes passionate and controversial book from the perspective of a fellow Southeast Asian who was also a senior UN official through Cambodia's crucial post–Cold War years. His account is rich in detail, from scenes of his own life and work in the devastated country to his insider's analyses of its troubled politics." —Barbara Crossette, Former New York Times correspondent in Southeast Asia and UN bureau chief

"Benny Widyono brings us the remarkable inside story of the UNTAC operations in Cambodia after the conclusion of the Paris Peace Agreements, as well as the intrigues, turmoil, and political upheavals of the first years of a reborn Cambodia. This book will be fascinating reading for anyone interested in the often tragic history of Cambodia and the history of big-power intervention in Southeast Asia." —Ali Alatas, Former foreign minister of Indonesia and co-chairman of the Paris International Conference on Cambodia

This fascinating book recounts the remarkable tale of a career UN official from Indonesia caught in the turmoil of international and domestic politics swirling around Cambodia during the tumultuous period after the fall of the Khmer Rouge. Writing from his experience first as a member of the UN transitional authority and then as a personal envoy to the UN secretary-general, Benny Widyono re-creates the fierce battles for power centering on King Norodom Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge, and Prime Minister Hun Sen. A simultaneous insider and outsider, he also untangles the competing and conflicting agendas of the key international players, especially the United States, China, and Vietnam. He argues that great-power geopolitics throughout the cold war and post–cold war eras triggered and sustained a tragedy of enormous proportions in Cambodia for decades, ultimately leading to a flawed peace process.

Widyono tells the inside story of the massive UN operation in Cambodia, the largest and most challenging in the organization's history to that time and long considered a model for UN operations elsewhere. He draws not only on his vantage point as part of the UN bureaucracy, but also as a local UN official in the rural Cambodian province of Siem Reap, the site of Angkor Wat. As a fellow Southeast Asian with no geopolitical axe to grind, Widyono was able to win the respect of Cambodians, including the once and future king, Norodom Sihanouk, whose decline after fifty years as his country's leading figure is vividly portrayed. Putting a human face on international operations, this book will be invaluable reading for anyone interested in Southeast Asia, the role of international peacekeeping, and the international response to genocide.

About the Author

Benny Widyono, born in Indonesia to ethnic Chinese parents, was a career UN diplomat. He was a peacekeeper with UNTAC from 1992 to 1993 and representative of the UN secretary-general in Cambodia from 1994 to 1997. He holds a Ph.D. in economics and wrote this book while a visiting scholar at the Kahin Center on Advanced Research on Southeast Asia at Cornell University.

Review from The Advocate (Stamford, Connecticut)

2008-02-01T18:04:00.000-08:00

Dancing in 'Shadows' Stamford professor writes about experiencees as UN official in Cambodia

By Scott Gargan
Special Correspondent

The Advocate (Stamford, Connecticut)
December 30 2007

Benny Widyono was talking by phone with his wife, Francisca, who was at home in Stamford, when a UN soldier screamed "get down!" Siem Reap, where the Indonesian diplomat served as provincial governor for the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia - the peacekeeping mission deployed in 1992 after decades of civil war in the country - was under attack by the Khmer Rouge.

"They were fighting us with 900 people," says Widyono, who called his wife from a phone inside UNTAC's Australian communications unit. "She was up all night worrying about me."

Before their ouster by the Vietnamese-led People's Republic of Kampuchea in 1979, the KR starved or executed some 2 million of their own people in a four-year campaign to force Cambodia's population into agrarian labor communes. Now 14 years later, they were shelling Widyono's city in protest of UNTAC-coordinated elections.

Widyono admits he could have waited to call his wife. But, he says UNTAC "timidity" toward the KR - born out of a UN mandate recognizing the group as a legitimate administrative faction in Cambodia - gave them the audacity to strike in the first place.

"How can you recognize a genocidal regime? Without UN recognition, the KR wouldn't have been as confident," says Widyono, who discusses his experiences as part of UNTAC from 1992-1993 and later, as a UN special envoy to Cambodia from 1994-1997, in his memoir, "Dancing in Shadows: Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge and the United Nations in Cambodia."

As the title suggests, Widyono's narrative focuses on the role of what he calls the "unholy trinity" - King Norodom Sihanouk, the KR and the UN - in fomenting political chaos. Widyono writes how the UN refused to recognize the PRK, even though it freed Cambodia's citizens and worked to rehabilitate the country. Instead, it was slapped with economic sanctions (withholding aid for thousands) and denied representation at the UN.

Those seats, Widyono says, were kept for representatives of the Sihanouk-led Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea - comprised of the KR and other anti-Vietnamese groups - at the behest of western nations like the United States. Rather than support Cambodia's de facto rulers or leave the UN seat open, Widyono explains, the West backed a powerless government in exile - all because the PRK was installed by Vietnam's communist government, a hated enemy of the United States in the Cold War.

"It's like letting Hitler represent Germany at the UN," Widyono said during a Dec. 11 lecture at the University of Connecticut in Stamford, where he teaches economics. "Did anyone ask the Cambodian people who they wanted to represent them?"

On the ground, this meant Widyono and his UNTAC colleagues could not disarm Cambodia's warring factions (the KR was non-compliant) or protect civilians from the KR's pre-election violence.

Widyono says his comments have "raised eyebrows" at the UN, which views UNTAC as an overall success for its organization of elections and repatriation of refugees. He still believes UNTAC's mission was fundamentally flawed.

"The Paris Peace agreements (ending the civil war) were born with original sin because UNTAC had to recognize the KR," says Widyono, who wrote the book during a three-year stint as a visiting scholar at the Kahin Center for Advanced Research in Southeast Asia at Cornell University. "Our mandate was a joke."

Oddly enough, Widyono didn't hear complaints from Cambodia's ostentatious King Sihanouk, whom he criticized for backing the KR. He was surprised to receive a thank-you note from Sihanouk for the copy of "Dancing..." he sent to the former king for his birthday.

"I was quite critical of him, so I wasn't sure if he would like the book," says Widyono. "But he likes to have his name mentioned everywhere and my book revives him. He is even in the title."

Widyono may be firm in his criticisms of UNTAC and pessimistic about the UN, but he still thinks there can be lessons for future missions, such as the United Nations-African Union Hybrid Mission in Darfur.

"The UN is constrained because they don't have their own troops," Widyono says. "But that doesn't mean they can't stand up to those who have committed atrocities."

David Chandler's Review

2008-02-01T18:01:00.000-08:00

Dancing in Shadows

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Jim Luce

The Killing Fields and Indonesia's Relations with Cambodia Revisited

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Elecion results signal bright future for Cambodia's economy

Bangkok Book Launch

META House Forum on Khmer Rouge Tribunal

Review from South China Morning Post

Review from The Advocate (Stamford, Connecticut)

David Chandler's Review