Cambodians’ responses to the Khmer Rouge Trials: Justice, Desire for Revenge and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
January 20, 2010 4:30 pm
Free and open to the public
Parking vouchers for the Medical Center lots available
After years of impunity for perpetrators of the Cambodian genocide, a joint United Nations-Cambodian tribunal was recently launched to try senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge. But what effect do human rights tribunals have on perceptions of justice and mental health in post-conflict settings? Do they help to ameliorate post-conflict distress, by promoting justice and reducing the desire for revenge, or do they re-traumatize survivors? Jeffrey Sonis, M.D., M.P.H., Assistant Professor in the Departments of Social Medicine and Family Medicine at UNC-Chapel Hill, explores these questions in his presentation of data from two national cross-sectional studies in Cambodia, conducted prior to the start of the public trials, in 2007 and 2009, on attitudes toward the Khmer Rouge trials and posttraumatic mental health. The abstract of Dr. Sonis’s recent paper on the 2007 national study in Cambodia is available at the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Sponsored by the Duke Human Rights Center and the Global Health Institute. For more information, please contact 668-6511 or rights@duke.edu.