Stuart Clark on Cambodia Part 3

How comes I’ve suddenly gone down with hypothermia? Oh, that’s right, I flew back yesterday from 40 degrees and blazing sunshine Phnom Penh to epicentre of the new Ice Age, Dublin.
A 6,422-mile journey, which gave me a chance to reflect on all I’d seen during my weeklong field trip to Cambodia with Concern.
Something you learn pretty much straight away is that 31-years after the fall of his Democratic Kampuchea – never has a country been so erroneously named – Pol Pot remains the dominant force in Cambodian life.
Everyone I met who was around during the ‘70s has horror stories about the Khmer Rouge murdering multiple members of their family; the camps where they were expected to work 16 hours a day, seven days a week on starvation rations and the internecine 14-year civil war that followed Pol Pot’s removal by the Vietnamese.
With an estimated 90% of teachers, professors, engineers, lawyers, doctors and other ‘intellectuals’ perishing in the Killing Fields, there was no one left to rebuild the country, hence the pivotal role that Concern and other NGOs have had to play in putting Cambodia back together again.
The bloodstained torture chambers at Tuol Sleng prison and the tree at Boeung extermination camp against which children’s heads were smashed provided stark reminders of the genocide.
What really got to me though was when one of Concern’s Programme Directors, Tan Bunleng, took out a 1974 family photo full of smiles and hope for the future. Of the ten people pictured only Bunleng and his brother-in-law survived the obscenities that were to follow.
Like many of his fellow countrymen, the way he’s dealt with Cambodia’s past is to make sure it has a better future. I attended two rural Village Association meetings where member after member spoke of how Concern’s livelihood, sanitation and infrastructure-building programmes have changed their lives.
From water pumps, rice banks and wash stations to livestock breeding, fish farming and palm sugar production, the evidence of what’s been achieved was all around us.
How can you help? Supporting Concern is a good start, but the best way is to get yourself over to Cambodia and see first-hand what a remarkable country it is.

Photo:
The Bunleng family in 1974. Tan (standing, second from right) and his brother in law (standing, third from right) were the only members to survive the Pol Pot regime.

Khmer I Want You…

Having conducted extensive research – okay, I asked Miratori from Concern! – I can reveal that Cambodia’s three favourite popsters are:

KING SINANOUK I

Like that other crooning King, Elvis, the former Cambodian monarch’s sales have skyrocketed since his death last November. We’d like him considerably more if he hadn’t cosied up to Pol Pot during the Khmer Rouge days just to piss off the Americans.

PREAP SOVATH

We’re not sure if he’s ever sported a gas mask or is “a smack addiction waiting to happen” thanks, Joey – but in all other respects this young gentleman is the Cambodian Justin Bieber.

PSY
Cambodians are seriously in love with the pleasantly plump Korean, although in keeping with the rest of the world they’re unable to name any of his songs other than ‘Gangnam Style’.

CAMBODIAN SPACE PROJECT

Not even in the top 300 of acts Cambodians know, this unlikely collective sound like Stone Roses if they’d been born along the Mekong Delta rather than Manchester. The campaign to get ‘em over to Ireland starts here!