Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer | Phnom Penh Thursday, 20 May 2010
Photo: AP
Human skulls and bones of victims of the Khmer Rouge regime are displayed in
a stupa at Sgnuon Pech pagoda, about 20 kilometers (13 miles) southwest of
Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Nearly 100 villagers gathered together on the outskirts of Phnom Penh
Wednesday, to place the bones of Khmer Rouge victims at a pagoda memorial
not far from the UN-backed tribunal.
The villagers had a Buddhist ritual performed at the Wat Sgnoun Pich pagoda,
where they placed the remains of some 60 people to represent the more than
1,000 who were filled here under the Khmer Rouge.
The pagoda had been a Khmer Rouge prison site, holding hundreds of people at
a time.
"My sister and my brother-in-law, plus three children, were killed here,"
said Men Kan, a 68-year-old resident here. He set bones on a pedestal at the
new memorial, along with five other men under the watch of seven monks.
"I'm holding these bones, and I don't even know if they are my sister's, and
it makes me sob," he said.
Suon Sethy, deputy director general at the Council for the Development of
Cambodia, initiated the construction of the memorial.
"It is not only to respect the souls of the victims, but it will also be
evidence" of Khmer Rouge crimes, he said at the ceremony.
More than 1,500 people were ultimately held at the pagoda and killed at
various sites on the pagoda grounds, said Sar Meng, a high school
administrator and organizer of the memorial. The dead were put in mass
graves of between 150 and 500 people, he said.
Also present was Andrew Cayley, the international prosecutor for the Khmer
Rouge tribunal.
"Here we see the victims of the Khmer Rouge regime, and this suddenly makes
me feel that I want to redouble my efforts in what I'm doing at the court,"
he said.
The tribunal is currently building a case against at least four more jailed
leaders of the regime-Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Ieng
Thirith-with a trial for atrocity crimes, including genocide, expected next
year.
This memorial was one of more than a hundred that have been going up around
villages in Cambodia, where authorities and residents have held onto the
bones of the victims, Chhang Youk, director of the Documentation Center of
Cambodia, said Wednesday.
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About Me
- Duong Dara
- Dara Duong was born in 1971 in Battambang province, Cambodia. His life changed forever at age four, when the Khmer Rouge took over the country in 1975. During the regime that controlled Cambodia from 1975-1979, Dara’s father, grandparents, uncle and aunt were executed, along with almost 3 million other Cambodians. Dara’s mother managed to keep him and his brothers and sisters together and survive the years of the Khmer Rouge regime. However, when the Vietnamese liberated Cambodia, she did not want to live under Communist rule. She fled with her family to a refugee camp on the Cambodian-Thai border, where they lived for more than ten years. Since arriving in the United States, Dara’s goal has been to educate people about the rich Cambodian culture that the Khmer Rouge tried to destroy and about the genocide, so that the world will not stand by and allow such atrocities to occur again. Toward that end, he has created the Cambodian Cultural Museum and Killing Fields Memorial, which began in his garage and is now in White Center, Washington. Dara’s story is one of survival against enormous odds, one of perseverance, one of courage and hope.
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