the citizen-viewer

Chea Vichea, a top union leader in Cambodia, was professionally executed as he read the newspapers on a Phnom Penh sidewalk in 2004. Head shot, heart shot, done.

Convicted of the murder, Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun are serving 20-year sentences. The problem is that it’s hard to find evidence to support their guilt. Witness after witness placed both men far from the newsstand where Vichea was shot to death. The prosecution didn’t bother to present a case. But it was good enough for the judge. Two innocent men rot away in prison so the real killers can remain in the shadows.*

Now, after three and half years of Samnang and Sam Oeun’s imprisonment, Bradley Cox has produced a short but intense documentary about the case. Plastic Killers is packed with the kind of intrigues that make Cambodia a place where legal reformers and human rights workers never lack for challenging work.

This may be the most compelling documentation yet of the twisted version of justice served up in Cambodia — even as its government revels in increased international aid and loans. Oh yes, and empanels the majority of judges for the foreign-funded Khmer Rouge tribunal.

Cox writes:

This is not the big movie, but a smaller version that I rushed out to help the two guys in jail. It’s geared towards a Cambodian audience so it’s heavy on the detail.

Citizen-viewers who aren’t current on Cambodian events should still be able to follow the story—despite the detail—because it unfolds so dramatically. Cox seems to have followed up every lead and every witness. The truth is revealed piece by piece as the the official version falls in tatters in front of Cox’s lens. What becomes obvious is that the official version is not even intended to convince Cambodians. Rather it’s intended to let them know, once again, that any opponent of the regime can be killed…or framed.

Of course, Cambodia’s Ministry of Information is threatening to ban the film, which is already on sale in bootleg versions in Phnom Penh’s markets in addition to being on the Web.

This film, big or small, and the witnesses who appear in it honor Vichea’s memory. In Vichea’s words: “I need to fight—I not afraid. If I afraid, like I die.”

Watch The Plastic Killers in lo-res above, or in hi-res at http://plastic-killers.blip.tv/.

* Well, there’s a decent chance they’ve been killed too.