If you haven’t read Fixers and Terps: Part One, you can find it here.
From the end of the Cold War until the 9/11 attacks, many in the West’s burgeoning human rights industry had an evangelical belief in the power of international law and transnational organizations like the United Nations. I found their “glass half full” optimism not only flawed, but also intellectually dishonest. While they made bold claims about their new international legal paradigm, “universal jurisdiction,” they turned a blind eye to the age old conflict between international law and national sovereignty that had hobbled similar efforts throughout history. Worse, the lines separating journalism, scholarship and advocacy had been erased and the new heralds of the “human rights era” made me long for the Cold War.
By 2001, the discussions between the United Nations and Cambodia over the eventual trials of five Khmer Rouge leaders had been dragging on for years. While I supported these efforts and donated all of the research that I collected to the Documentation Center of Cambodia, I was troubled by how these trials were being oversold. Phnom Penh was now flooded with human rights industry activists who argued that these war crimes trials would do more than determine legal guilt and innocence. They would bring about a national catharsis. However, these endless tribunal negotiations were dramatically overshadowed by more human tragedies that, for me, erased the dividing line between the personal and the professional.
In April 2001, my old fixer, Sok Sin, was feeling so sick that he got a passport and traveled to Thailand for the first time in his life. My colleague, Doug Niven, took him to the best hospital in Bangkok for a series of tests and was sitting next to Sok Sin when the doctor delivered the news. “Turns out the poor guy is HIV positive, fucking harshest thing you could imagine,” Niven wrote me in an email.
Throughout my time in Cambodia, it was well known that the virus was running rampant in the rabbit warren brothels of Tuol Kouk and Kilometer 11, where drunken soldiers purchased sex in small wooden cubicles for a few dollars. While condoms were available, so were AIDS “prevention” creams and protective amulets. The first recorded AIDS death in Cambodia was in 1995. The rate of blood donor HIV also rose dramatically: from .08 percent in 1991, to 4.3 percent in 1994, to a staggering 6.76 percent in 1995. Ignorance about modern medicine and basic hygiene was illustrated by an article in Chivit Kamsan, a Cambodian magazine, claiming that women whose partners used condoms increased their risk of cancer: “This is because the women . . . cannot get the sperms from the men . . . therefore they lose the capacity to prevent breast cancer.” According to Cambodian reporter Moeun Chhean Nariddh of the Phnom Penh Post, “Others claimed that AIDS was invented for condom manufacturers and that AIDS could be transmitted by mosquitoes. One newspaper had published advertisements for a ‘cure’ for AIDS offered by traditional healers.” The outlandish stories and spurious cures were only the tip of the perverted iceberg. Western entrepreneurs like Dan Sandler saw Cambodia as a paradise where anything could be purchased; spreading AIDS wouldn’t stand in the way of their erotic pleasure. There was even a sadomasochistic pedophile brothel/club called Rape Camp, whose website advertised:
Welcome to the Rape Camp!
Welcome to the year 2000
Welcome to Kampuchea
It’s not just a live video chat
It’s an international experience.
Sandler, the Rape Camp website creator, described Cambodia as “the land of impunity.” Not only were there, “No stalking laws here,” it was a country where “a female must serve a man on request.” There were discounts for patrons with HIV-negative test results; a positive result only meant a higher price. Virgin girls were also popular and cost US$300–700. Furthermore, many Cambodian men believed that sex with a virgin could cure AIDS.
Most of the bars in Phnom Penh were staffed by attractive, young Khmer women whom one expatriate discreetly labeled “the long-black-haired language instructors.” Over the years, many of my western colleagues had fallen in love with these mysterious beauties, but rarely did things seem to work out. One night I was eating dinner at an outdoor restaurant attached to a bar and noticed a stunning Khmer girl of eighteen or twenty, with high cheekbones, long black hair, and a statuesque bearing, on the arm of a well-dressed Frenchman. He was in a navy blue, double-breasted blazer with shiny brass buttons; she wore a long silk skirt. They made a splendid couple, even if it was only for the night. A few days later at the same bistro, a Cambodian man rushed in, yelling and running toward the beautiful bar girl. When he grabbed her, she broke from his grip, covered her ears with both hands, and put our table between herself and her pursuer. I happened to be dining with a Thai boxer who easily restrained the man while the bar’s owner walked the girl out to the street and sent her home on a mototaxi. It was clear that something very serious was going on; the beautiful girl’s countenance had changed in a split second as a result of whatever the Cambodian man had said. Even as she was driving away on the back of the moto, she never removed her hands from her ears. When the restaurant owner came back inside, she sensed my curiosity and said in passing, “She is nice girl, but she is sick.”
There was an immune-boosting program available in Bangkok, so Doug Niven contacted many of the reporters Sok Sin had worked with over the years and took up a collection to pay for it. Jason Barber of the Bangkok Post offered to put Sok Sin up during his treatment. Documentary filmmaker Lisa Miller was left with the most unenviable task: she had to break the news to Sok Sin’s wives back in Phnom Penh and get them tested for HIV. Because Sok Sin’s condition was not very advanced, his most immediate problem was an intestinal disorder that had plagued him for a year and left him unable to eat even his favorite Chinese noodles.
While all of us westerners agreed on Sok Sin’s course of action, there was only one problem—Sok Sin. He wanted to go home and deal with this, or not deal with it, his way. Niven pointed out the sad truth: “I agree about the treatment and your suggestions about lifestyle, etc., but that sounds like a strange Western fantasy to these poor guys. The stigma [of AIDS] is just too heavy in Cambodge. I had already suggested the same today and it just went right by the poor guy.” Doug reminded me, “The concepts just don’t exist.”
All in all, the trip to Bangkok had been a crushing experience for Sok Sin. Besides the diagnosis, Bangkok’s efficiency, prosperity, and abundance, such a contrast to Cambodia, depressed him. While he was touched by our collective concern, he wanted no part of the treatment program. After he returned home to Phnom Penh, he turned off his mobile phone and went in search of the traditional, herbal HIV “cure.” Sok Sin was supposed to go back to Bangkok for treatment in the coming weeks, but never did. In addition to the prevailing superstitions and abundance of “cures,” the fact that much of Cambodian society did not see AIDS sufferers as victims further reinforced his decision to handle the problem his own way. Some compassion might have been expected from the likes of Samdech Tep Vong, one of Cambodia’s top Buddhist monks. Instead, he chose denial and challenged the HIV figures, arguing that they were inflated to embarrass Cambodia. As for those already infected, “it is the mistake of the people who get AIDS. They do not have good morals.”
I knew that Sok Sin trusted me when it came to health and nutrition. He seemed to believe that, as Lon Nol’s “magic shirts” protected soldiers from bullets, my imported Power Bars endowed me with special strength. He had listened to my 1999 lecture to a former Khmer Rouge soldier about AIDS with great interest and spent the next week asking me follow-up questions. I should have guessed the reason. An especially troubling email came from New York Times reporter Seth Mydans in July. Sok Sin thought the world of Mydans and was proud of his affiliation with The New York Times. Over the years, the pair had tracked down numerous Khmer Rouge alumni. Still, it seemed that not even Seth Mydans could convince Sok Sin that he was sick: “He says the Thai doctors were wrong; an herbal doctor told him he’s not infected. In another month he’ll be, as he says, ‘fleshy’ again. He’s still having trouble eating but he’s certain that will be better soon.” Mydans confirmed my worst fear: Sok Sin was convinced that traditional doctors could “cure” his AIDS and was now taking a traditional AIDS “cure,” getting shots every day. Although he was ingesting a pharmacological fruit salad of pills, he continued to suffer weight loss and discomfort from the intestinal virus that his collapsed immune system couldn’t overcome. Seth Mydans said that Sok Sin was afraid to return to Thailand because treatment—in which he had little faith to begin with—was so expensive: “What can he do to prolong his health, given financial constraints? It’s not a happy picture.”
Having been unable to reach Sok Sin on his mobile phone for months, I really had no idea how badly he was doing until I returned to Cambodia in August, 2001. After I landed at Pochentong Airport, I stowed my gear at the Foreign Correspondents Club, and took a moto to Sok Sin’s guesthouse, feeling trepidation as my driver cruised down the dirt road next to the French embassy’s giant wall. I recognized Sok Sin’s new “high-profile” Toyota SUV gathering dust in his guesthouse parking lot. At the foot of the stairs, Sok Sin’s thirteen-year-old niece sat in a chair with a massive key ring around one forearm and a walkie-talkie in her hand. She was a chip off the old block. When I asked for Sok Sin, she barked into the walkie-talkie, then vacated her chair and told me to sit. As she practiced her English on me, I heard a familiar voice: “Welcome to Cambodia, I am sorry that I was not there to pick you up at the airport.” I looked toward the stairs and at first did not recognize my friend. I tried to hide my shock. Skin and bones, Sok Sin could not have weighed 100 pounds, and he was covered with sores.
It took considerable effort on his part to lead me up the three flights of stairs to his room. I slowed my pace and, as I walked behind him, noticed that his knees were now the widest part of his legs. What hair he had left was cropped down to the scalp. His two sons, ages seven and fourteen, and two daughters, ages nine and four, scrambled to get chairs for us on the balcony overlooking Calmette Hospital. The two boys were from a previous marriage and the two girls were from his present wife. I gave the kids one of the Power Bars I had brought for their father and they devoured it. Sok Sin pointed to his youngest daughter, Srey Pich, “diamond girl.” Her face was smeared with chocolate, and she sucked at the bits still stuck to the wrapper. “See very smart, boss already! She got the most chocolate,” he said proudly.
Sok Sin told me confidently, “I am no longer HIV positive. Asian HIV was different, herbal doctors cure.” He pointed to the alleyway behind Calmette Hospital and showed me young women, obviously in various phases of AIDS, buying “cures” from slick salesmen who did a brisk business. His most immediate problem was diarrhea, so I gave him special antidiarrheal pills that a friend with AIDS in New York City had sent. I returned to his guesthouse the next day, and Sok Sin seemed more like his old self. He said that the pills had helped. Just as I was beginning to feel a hint of optimism, he showed me the herbal “cure” that he was using to chase my medicine. The dirty Johnny Walker bottle held a concoction that looked like muddy river water. I asked what it was and regretted it: “Pangolin blood with water and herbs.” Sok Sin also showed me a mishmash of pills of every shape, size, and expiration date. His regimen of any and every “medicine” available, his frailty, and his pessimistic demeanor made it clear: he was slipping away.
Never one to mince words, Sok Sin told me that he felt “lonely and isolated at home.” It seemed he had made a decision—as though in Bangkok, something had broken inside of the “excellent survivor.” He was checking out. It was very difficult for me to work without my collaborator. Cambodia felt very stark and sad without his manic energy feeding off of mine and vice versa. When I left the guesthouse that afternoon, I left my hope for Sok Sin behind. He was going, and I finally accepted it. But Cambodia was not a country where one had to look far to find sadness and misery. One day I noticed my moto driver was unusually subdued. I asked him how he was doing, “Sad. Wife die with baby thirty-five days ago, no money, hospital would not take,” he said matter-of-factly.
Sok Sin’s recovery was short-lived; over the next three weeks, he continued to fade. Many times I went to the guesthouse and found him asleep or unable to get out of bed. It was very difficult to see him wasting away as his four bright and healthy kids played nearby. For me, these miseries, particularly Sok Sin’s decline, cast a harsh light on the four-year debate over war crimes trials. While I fully supported trials if Cambodians wanted them, I knew they were no panacea for larger problems like corruption, disease, and poverty. The Khmer Rouge leaders had grown rich from the timber and gem trade, but the average Cambodian family subsisted on less than $400 per year. What little infrastructure existed outside the main cities was crumbling. The trials in Cambodia and, more significantly, the very nature of the post–Cold War world political order were laid bare on September 11, 2001.
I was having a late dinner at the bar of the FCC when Agence France Presse’s Luke Hunt came bounding up the staircase shouting, “World War III’s started! World War III’s started! Turn on CNN!” A plane had just flown into one of the World Trade Center towers, and Hunt claimed that it was part of a larger first strike against the United States. Huddled with the other patrons around the television set, I wrote it off in my mind as an accident and did my best to downplay the event. I had already decided that this was a limited attack when a second plane slid into the frame and disappeared into a ball of flames. It took a minute to comprehend that this wasn’t a replay. In real time, we had just watched a second jet fly into the World Trade Center. Mobile phones started ringing nonstop. Luke and I, along with South African journalist Rob Carmichael, moved to my room to watch the unfolding drama in privacy. When the first building began to burn, I insisted that it would not collapse. A few minutes later, it imploded in a fiery avalanche and a mushroom cloud of concrete dust rose over Lower Manhattan. The second tower collapsed soon afterward. Carmichael was on the phone and couldn’t figure out why the TV screen had turned gray. “They pancaked,” I said. It was my only correct interpretation of the night.
My wife, Annabelle, was in New York City. I had tried to reach her on Luke Hunt’s phone, but it was impossible to connect. The three of us continued to drink as we struggled to come to grips with the event we had just witnessed. Hunt had just spent a year as AFP’s correspondent in Afghanistan and immediately grasped the significance of the attack. Now CNN was flashing to images of the Pentagon burning. Like Pearl Harbor, this was a remarkable first strike that demonstrated how vulnerable the United States was to a surprise attack aimed at civilian targets. We all went to bed dazed. The next morning I received an email from my wife. She was fine, but New York City was not. The collapse of the World Trade Center had punctuated the end of the “human rights era” (inaugurated in 1989 by the fall of the Berlin Wall) with an exclamation point. The post–9/11 world looked like the “neo–just war” era I had described in my dissertation in 1993. War crimes trials would soon become “so September 10th” as the saying went, and overnight the savants of the human rights industry transformed themselves into terrorism experts.
I arrived for my final visit with Sok Sin on September 15, the day before I was to return home. His youngest daughter, “diamond girl,” was playing downstairs. She smiled when she saw me and led me by the hand up the stairs to her father’s bedside. Sok Sin was asleep, but she woke him. When he said that he would get up “to say good-bye,” I swallowed hard and was relieved when his sons asked me to play badminton in the hallway. They were both quite good and his older son was beating me soundly when Sok Sin came out of the bedroom. His daughters placed our plastic chairs by the balcony’s steel rail and brought us water. I was sweaty from the badminton, and Srey Pich came over and began to comb the hair on my arms like I was the unkempt family dog.
Sok Sin, like many Cambodian friends, was very kind to me in the wake of September 11. They knew that my wife and home were in New York City and apologized for the attack. Almost all of the mototaxi drivers at the FCC asked about my wife and expressed their condolences. It was very moving, now that the shoe was on the other foot. I suspected that most Cambodians hadn’t experienced such sympathy from Americans and other foreigners in the past. Sok Sin was no exception. He told me not to worry about him and that it was time for me to return to the United States. “You stay with your wife now,” he said several times.
Sok Sin took out a box full of old photographs of him with different reporters taken all over Cambodia over the previous two decades: “If I have guest, anywhere I go. Any battle, I go. And so I always advise to my children, ‘The property that we have here is from my risking.’” Sok Sin talked about the many reporters he had enjoyed working with over the years: Jason Barber, Seth Mydans, Nic Dunlop, Phil Shenon, David Lamb, Vernon Loeb, and many others. He regaled me with tales of journalistic malfeasance and then hassled me for the final time about becoming a “high-profile” journalist. He never minced words and it was, after all, Sok Sin’s brutal honesty that gave so many of us a window into a society and culture so different from our own. Then he began to rail against his detractors, those who “rubbish Sok Sin.”
Finally, I changed the subject to the matter of his children’s futures. Sok Sin wanted to get one of his sons out of the country for school. I knew that he had at least two wives and four kids. He carefully wrote down all of their names and birth dates on a piece of paper and handed it to me. The finality of it was very sad. Sok Sin was certainly no saint, but he had taught me a great deal, and both of us knew that we would never see each other again. Stoic to the end, Sok Sin shook my hand, looked me dead in the eyes, and said good-bye.
I left Cambodia trying to get my head around Sok Sin’s fatalism and the long-term impact of the events of September 11. The four-year-old negotiations over a war crimes trial thirty years after the fact seemed more and more like an irrelevant charade. My friend, Lisa Miller, kept me informed when he entered Calmette Hospital in October. Doctors believed that he was suffering from meningitis and inflammation of the cerebral cortex. He no longer tried to get out of bed and slept most of the time. “I spent an hour and a half with him today. He cried a lot. He talked about how his parents were killed in Pol Pot time and there was no one to look out for his family,” Lisa wrote to me in an email. When she tried to console him and told him that he should be proud of his many accomplishments, Sok Sin worried that his children were about to become orphans. Lisa told him that we had been in touch and asked if he had a message to pass along. He said, “I don’t want anyone scared for me.” Sok Sin was heartened by visits from the many journalists who came to pay their final respects. When Regis Martin, a French doctor with Médecins du Monde, took over his case, he noticed Sok Sin had been taking tuberculosis medicine on top of everything else. The hospital quickly filled with Sok Sin’s relatives and family.
“Good ol’ Sok Sin, 4 wives and 7 children is my latest count. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few more came out of the woodwork,” Lisa Miller emailed. One of the doctors looked at the crowd assembled around Sok Sin’s bed and asked who this guy was. His wife Sarin “casually informed him that he worked for The New York Times.” Once again, Lisa had the task of explaining the HIV virus and the need to get tested. “As late as last night I was having to explain about AIDS. The level of denial has compounded the problem immeasurably.” Sok Sin died on the afternoon of Wednesday, November 7, 2001, in the intensive care ward at Calmette Hospital. The funeral would be a traditional Buddhist ceremony. Sok Sin was taking no chances when it came to his afterlife.
A very suave Khmer man in his forties, equal parts priest and wedding planner, was hired to oversee the entire week-long event. Overnight, Sok Sin’s guesthouse garage was transformed into a Buddhist temple. The following morning a dozen monks filed in to begin the rituals, and the crowd of mourners spilled out onto the street. Seth Mydans, Chris Decherd, Lisa Miller, Jason Barber, and close to a hundred others attended various stages of the funeral. As the monks offered a blessing for his soul, Sok Sin’s emaciated corpse, dressed in his favorite clothes, lay on a mattress with his briefcase and car keys next to it. Behind him was a giant altar with two huge, Kentucky Derby–size wreaths and dozens of other flower arrangements. Both flashing disco and Christmas lights surrounded a picture of Sok Sin in the center. In front of the shrine, his children burned fake money in clay pots. For the next seven days, his body was mourned with chants, prayers, and final good-byes. The emotional pitch seemed to ebb and flow. At one point his wife took Sok Sin’s face in her hands and wailed inconsolably as Srey Pich tried to comfort her.
Finally, his body was placed in his $1,000 hand-carved wooden coffin, which was lifted by six uniformed men and placed inside a truck painted to resemble a giant green and red dragon. Six monks rode inside with the coffin and everyone else made their way to the cremation temple on foot. The funeral procession was led by Sok Sin’s son, the one who had beaten me so easily in badminton. With his shaved head and the weight of the world on his young shoulders, he looked much older than his fourteen years. When they arrived at the temple, the six handlers lifted the coffin out of the dragon truck and placed it on a gurney that ran on steel tracks while the family hastily reconstructed the shrine in front of the mouth of the crematorium. His eldest son lit the fire and pushed the coffin down the rails into the flames. The family launched into one final chorus of grief, and it was over. Sok Sin was gone. Jason Barber had kindly sent me an email telling me the time of the cremation. That day was blustery on Oahu’s north shore, but I walked down to a bend in the reef and threw a lei in the Pacific Ocean for Sok Sin. He was gone, but I would not forget him.