Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) will mount an exhibition at Chulalongkorn University on the role of the Khmer Rouge during the period of UNTAC. The opening of the exhibition will follow a lecture given by DC-Cam Director Youk Chhang at the university. The event will take place one month prior to multi-party elections in Burma scheduled for November 7, 2010. Burma has been ruled by a military regime since 1989 and has been heavily criticized for the oppression of its people.
In 1992 the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) was created as part of the UN effort to end a decade long civil war between the Khmer Rouge and the State of Cambodia under the 1991 Paris Peace Accords. UNTAC administered the first-ever democratic elections in Cambodia on May 1993 with a high 90% voter turnout of approximately 4 million people. Left out of the political reconstruction process however, the Khmer Rouge boycotted the elections and continued several more years of fighting with the new government. Thus a common critique of the UNTAC period is the failure to resolve the Khmer Rouge problem, in particular the failure to disarm and demobilize the Khmer Rouge. Further, the Khmer Rouge were not held accountable for the brutal crimes committed under Democratic Kampuchea. Nonetheless, UNTAC was a pivotal moment in Cambodia’s modern history, prompting some to draw comparisons to the present situation in Burma in hopes of gaining insight on Burma’s prospects for democratization.
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Searching for the Truth.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
“...a society cannot know itself if it does not have an accurate memory of its own history.”
Youk Chhang, Director
Documentation Center of Cambodia
66 Sihanouk Blvd.,
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
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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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