Capstone in Cambodia

Next summer, 12 students will travel to Southeast Asia to complete their Senior Capstone requirement.

Christopher Carey, assistant professor, will accompany the students as they observe the Khmer Rouge War Crimes Tribunal in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

The University Studies Program, which urges local community-based learning, includes the course due to its relevance and involvement in the large and active Portland Cambodian community.

The chosen students will spend five to six days at the tribunals and will have chances to speak with the judges and attorneys involved. Select days will also be spent in Angkor Wat to visit and absorb local culture.

The Capstone students will examine the tribunals through observation and by conducting interviews with judges, lawyers and survivors.

“The course is designed to expose students to international travel, the peace and reconciliation process and how the law operates in the developing world,” Carey said.

Upon returning to Portland State to analyze their research and findings, students will prepare a presentation at a to-be-announced Cambodian community awareness event.

There will be an interview process in late spring of 2010, and students will leave for Cambodia in early summer, allowing students the opportunity to travel as they wish following their studies.

Carey hopes to find students who are flexible, mature and collaborative. Given the ambitious nature of the program, he recommends students possess a strong interest in travel and intercultural communication.

Students will be working with the Royal University of Law and Economics (RULE), a community partner in Cambodia, to help collect data and record their observations. They will also work to understand, analyze and disseminate their findings to both academic and popular print outlets.

Carey is a former deputy district attorney who currently works as a University Studies assistant professor. He served as the executive director of a U.S.-based nonprofit focused on addressing human trafficking, safe migration and gender-based violence through culturally grounded, rights-based solutions.

The California Judicial System identified him as an expert on the topic of human trafficking and intercultural communication, an area where he recently testified as a witness.

The Khmer Rouge War Crimes Tribunal is in response to the nearly 2 million Cambodians who died while the Khmer Rouge was in power. The deaths and crimes against humanity were due to its inhumane policies, which included forced labor, executions, starvation and torture.

These war crimes were part of the Khmer Rouge’s effort to dismantle their existing society and build a communist nation in the late 1970s.

Three decades later, contemporary Cambodia is still struggling with millions of leftover land mines, dire poverty and an unstable agricultural system.

The trials are an attempt at enforcing accountability for one of the most notorious mass atrocities of the last century.

“We will be looking at how a country heals after a horrible tragedy,” Carey said.
More information about the Capstone class will be available spring term.