(CNN) -- After four years and more than $100 million spent by the international community, the Khmer Rouge Tribunal rendered its first verdict Monday. Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, was found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to serve up to 19 more years in prison in what was an open-and-shut case. From the start, Duch, a born-again Christian, fully admitted his leadership role in Phnom Penh's infamous Tuol Sleng, a school-turned-torture center, where more than 14,000 people were killed. On this momentous occasion, I'd like to step back by reflecting upon and give voice to one victim of the Khmer Rouge: my late mother, Cam Youk Lim.
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A tribunal has begun prosecution of crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge regime
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Sophal Ear says his mother, who fled Cambodia, believed killers would pay for their crime
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She and her children were able to escape from Cambodia by posing as Vietnamese
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Ear's mother worked hard in France, U.S., to make sure her children got a good education
On the boat to @placeholder, she was given rice and canned milk for me, as the baby.