by Susan Spano.  Special to the Los Angeles Times. May 15, 2011

A muddy, weed-choked field in the hills of northern Cambodia is the last resting place of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, chief instigator of a communist regime that enslaved a nation, dismantled its social and cultural institutions and took the lives of 2 million or more people. In life, he was a cipher, known only to a handful of confederates. He died of a reported heart attack in 1998, with his revolution collapsed around him.

While United Nations-backed war crimes trials of surviving Khmer Rouge henchmen drag on in Phnom Penh, and another strongman, Hun Sen, also considered oppressive, rules the country, the Cambodian people go about their business. In a country where almost everyone lost family members — and in many cases entire families - no one needs to be reminded about the catastrophe.

Tourists are a different matter, especially those who do not remember or may never have known what happened in Cambodia in the 1970s. Even now, travelers usually visit Cambodia for one reason: to see Angkor, a vast complex of Hindu and Buddhist temples built by the Khmer Empire, which ruled most of Southeast Asia from about 800 to 1400.

The dark pages of Cambodia's recent history are not taught in schools, the Journeys Within young people said, because former Khmer Rouge cadres are everywhere - working at the post office, driving cabs, living next door. Older people want to forget the horror, though it comes out in odd ways, accounting graduate Sophary Sophin said. When she was a little girl, her grandmother used to tell her, "If you are lazy, you will die." READ MORE…