Cambodia: Home, Reconsidered
Elderly couple walking home, Ratanakiri, Cambodia.
I was working on a chapter today and needed to refresh my memory of a story I wrote in Cambodia back in 2004. Along with several other reporters from my paper, I had traveled to Ratanakiri to confirm reports of Montagnard asylum-seekers hiding in the province. The Cambodian government was denying the existence of these ethnic minority refugees within their borders, while accepting payments to illegally deport them to Vietnam. Our paper's reporting, along with the work of very courageous local rights advocates, helped bring enough attention to their plight that the government was forced to allow aid workers access to them.
I wrote this story about the experience for Stanford Magazine. Reading it today brings up a lot of emotions. And I am still awestruck by how illustrator Matthew Cook, without any additional photos or notes from me, managed to produce a beautiful illustration that nearly exactly captures what I saw that night.
Posted on Wednesday, Feb 17, 2010
