Loung Ung, a native of Cambodia, speaks of her return to Cambodia for the beginning of the Trial of Duch. She experienced the brutality of Duch's rule under the Khmer Rouge as she watched her family dissipate. She knows first hand that Polpot and his comrades did everything in their power to eliminate suspicions, in fact, anyone who could read, related to someone who could read was killed. But, Ung was also forced in to child combat. In her quest for survival, she used her rage and determination to fight the Khmer Rouge by fighting for them. Dressed in black pajamas, Ung, who was no older than seven, trained for war against her own people.
Surviving war and devastation, makes someones view point so different than anyone elses. And on February 17, 2009, Ung sat amongst the people whose families and friends lost lives were attributed to Duch, who ran the torture school, Tuol Sleng. All these people, like her, sat as victims of war, yet sill managed to hold back against the man who helped to destroy the over 2 million people in Cambodia. Ung said she wanted to scream at him, but like all her country men and women, she sat in silence in the courtroom. From Ung's words one could hear vengeance, but she was composed, as surely she was in that court room last month. The people of Cambodia still wait with baited breath as Duch remains on Trial. But, the people of Cambodia do not seek to kill him or attack him, they simply want for the law and order of the international justice.
Ung also said that she was lucky, even in when she was torn from her family at age five, because, as she pointedly said, she experienced the best and the worst of humanity before she was even ten and now she is able to witness the best of humanity everyday wholeheartedly
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