Yon Sineat


As everyday Cambodians strive to improve their lot in the developing Southeast Asian nation, not everyone is comfortably navigating the journey to prosperity.
 
Tales have become commonplace of poor people falling prey to ruthless moneylenders, most recently focused on the business practices of microfinance institutions (MFIs).
 

Ate Hoekstra
 
Dul Hab will always remember the day his father disappeared.
 
“The Khmer Rouge soldiers tied his hands and took him away. Even now we don’t know where they killed him, but we do know that they did it because he was a district official,” the 64-year-old said, speaking from his home in Koh Kong, southwestern Cambodia.
 

Twenty-five years ago, few thought the genocidal leaders of the Khmer Rouge would ever be tried for war crimes. Pol Pot and his lieutenants lived freely in the remote northwest of Cambodia, indulged by the United Nations (UN) and Cold War allies, and despised by survivors of their brutal regime.
 
Public opinion began to shift only after the last shots rang out at the end of 30 years of war and a transition to peace began, slowly at first with Cambodians haunted by their tragic past.

Eight years ago, Buck Billy arrived in Cambodia, a country he had never seen before. Even though it’s where his parents were born, considering the Southeast Asian nation as home hadn’t crossed his mind for a single moment. For him, home was Philadelphia in the United States (US), at least for the first 26 years of his life.