25 Years Later: Cambodia Remembered

SCCA, in co-sponsorship with the ASSU Speaker's Bureau and the Asian American Activities Center, commemorates the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in order to raise awareness about the HIV/AIDS crisis that sweeps Cambodia. Dr. Soleak Sim (Â’94), currently living and working in Cambodia, will speak on her first hand experiences with the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the country. Twenty-five years have passed since the regime fell in 1979, and the country has made much progress. In the midst of recovering from its traumatic past, however, Cambodia must also face global challenges such as HIV/AIDS. According to the United Nations Development Programme, Cambodia has one of the highest infection rates in Asia. The 1975-1979 regime was responsible for the lives of nearly 2 million Cambodians, but it is estimated that nearly 115,000 people, including children, could develop AIDS by 2005. The country faces an epidemic comparably destructive to the brutality of the regime and threatens the countryÂ’s many developmental gains, leading authors to refer to AIDS as CambodiaÂ’s second killing fields.