Before the blessing ceremony, ECCC grounds, 31 March 2006. Photograph courtesy of ECCC Public Affairs Section.
March 31 this year marked ten years since the ceremony pictured above, a Khmer Buddhist blessing of the courtroom and compound of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. This event is one of many starting points of the tribunal, more correctly known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC).
The ECCC is an internationalised effort to bring to account ‘senior leaders and those most responsible’ for crimes committed in Cambodia during Khmer Rouge rule between April 1975 and January 1979. It is widely held that these crimes contributed to the death of around two million people, or one in five Cambodians, with millions more who suffered and survived. Three individuals, across two ECCC cases, have so far been found guilty of crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Convention.
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Reblogged this on Progressive Geographies and commented:
A supplemental essay at the Society and Space open site – original journal article open access for a limited time.