Historical figure
Sophany Bay
Sophany Bay is a Cambodian American survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime who became a mental health counselor in San Jose, California. In June 2013 she testified as a civil party before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, the court set up to try senior leaders of the regime.[1][2]
Life under the Khmer Rouge
Bay was a schoolteacher in Phnom Penh. Her husband, Sarit Bay, an officer in the Cambodian army, was in the United States for military training in April 1975.[3] When the Khmer Rouge emptied the city on April 17, 1975, she left with her three young children and few supplies. All three children died under the Khmer Rouge.[1][3] The trial monitor's report of her testimony records that she blamed their deaths on the conditions of the evacuation and the cooperatives, where food was scarce and the children fell sick.[1][3] She was later sent to carry earth for a dam.[1]
After the regime fell in 1979, Bay escaped to Thailand. Stanford Medicine writes that she spent years in the Khao-I-Dang refugee camp, where her French let her work for a relief group. Her husband, who had settled in Birmingham, Alabama, found her through former refugees from the camp, and in 1983 she joined him in the United States.[3]
Counseling
Bay had a university degree from Cambodia. In San Jose she studied psychology at a community college so that she could help other refugees, and she became a counselor for low-income Cambodians at the Gardner Family Health Network, a clinic in San Jose.[3][1] The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum writes that she has given herself to helping survivors in the United States overcome their trauma, and that she goes on speaking about her loss.[4] In 2011 she told Stanford Medicine that she still had nightmares from those years.[3]
Testimony
Bay was one of nearly 50 survivors in the United States whom the Applied Social Research Institute of Cambodia and the Center for Justice and Accountability helped to take part in the trials.[4] She began her testimony in Case 002/01 on June 4, 2013, and put questions to the accused Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan about what they knew of the treatment of children under the regime.[1]
Young-Hee Kim of the Documentation Center of Cambodia wrote that her account dwelt on her children and on her mental suffering, and that she told the court she saw the same symptoms in her clients. When a defense lawyer questioned her memory, her lawyer objected and the court upheld the objection.[2] The museum writes that her testimony showed the lasting harm, to mind and body, that survivors and their families still carry.[4]
In 2018, when the court found Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan guilty of crimes against humanity and genocide in Case 002/02, the Center for Justice and Accountability published her response as one of its clients. She said, "Today, the world knows the truth."[5]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 KRT Trial Monitor, Case 002, Issue No. 62, Hearing on Evidence Week 57, 3-7 June 2013 (Asian International Justice Initiative)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Cambodia Tribunal Monitor, Young-Hee Kim (Documentation Center of Cambodia), Reflection on Mental Health in ECCC Case 002: Testimony of Civil Party Sophany Bay and Mental Health Expert Dr. Chhim Sotheara (2013)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Stanford Medicine, Tracie White, Khmer Rouge on Trial: Can Serving Justice Cure PTSD? (Summer 2011)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Justice beyond the Courts, Cambodia case study (undated)
- ↑ Center for Justice and Accountability, Senior Khmer Rouge Leaders Found Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide (November 16, 2018)