SUMMARY
Thirty years after the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror, those accused of perpetrating genocide in Cambodia are facing justice for the first time. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on the forthcoming verdict from the war crimes tribunal.
Transcript
JUDY WOODRUFF: Next: a step toward justice in the Southeast Asian nation of Cambodia.
We have a report from special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro. A version of this story aired on the PBS program "Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly."
Buzz Facebook Twitter Digg StumbleUpon Reddit Delicious FRED DE SAM LAZARO: For several months, as many as two million Cambodians tuned in to a weekly court drama on TV.
NEWS ANCHOR (through translator): Hello, and welcome to the 22nd program in our series "Duch on Trial."
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: This is no fictional series. The genocide being described killed almost two million in the 1970s. However, most viewers know little about what is now distant history.
Two-thirds of today's Cambodians weren't even born when the Khmer Rouge were in power. And few Cambodians know much about the international tribunal that is trying a handful of prominent survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime for their role in the killings. The TV series is intended to change that.
NEWS ANCHOR (through translator): Now we're going to see a selection of evidence given to the court about some of the crimes which with Duch has been charged.
NEWS ANCHOR (through translator): Viewers should be aware that some, but not all of the stories told here were denied by Duch.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The first to trial was Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Comrade Duch, now in his late 60s.
KAING GUEK EAV, former Khmer Rouge prison chief (through translator): We treated them as if they were already dead. I allowed four torture methods.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The trial itself is taking place just outside Phnom Penh. The capital is also the sight of the prison Duch commanded where at least 14,000 men, women and children were photographed and documented in a macabre administrative process, then tortured and killed.
Van Nath was one of only seven people who came out alive. Today, he paints and sells pictures of the painful memories. He talked about his imprisonment with Eric Stover, a human rights scholar and expert who is studying the impact of international courts on societies and individuals.
ERIC STOVER, Human Rights Center, University of California, Berkeley: How long were you held before you were asked to come and draw the portraits?
VAN NATH, former prisoner (through translator): One month and four days.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Van Nath's life was spared so he could paint portraits of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge leader who went into hiding and died in 1998.
VAN NATH (through translator): In that six months, about 67 pictures of Pol Pot.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Testifying at the trial left him angry at being cross-examined and at seeing how well the defendant seemed to be treated.
VAN NATH (through translator): It was just like a shock when I go there to the court and see him. When I tell them the truth, they doubt me, ask me a lot of questions. I don't feel the trust when I tell them, and that makes me feel bad. It seems like the accused person has more rights that the civil parties do, and I'm really not satisfied with that.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Many also aren't satisfied with the slow pace of justice. It was delayed for years by Cold War politics and the reluctance of the Cambodian government, which still has former members of the Khmer Rouge in it.
Stover says the tricky negotiations limited the scope of the court, which was set up with two international and three Cambodian justices.
ERIC STOVER: The Cambodian government itself was not that in favor of this court. Even the negotiations to create it took a long period of time. We say that with evidence, over time, evidence loses its value. You're 30 years later, people's memories have been -- people have forgotten. People have died. So they -- going after those most responsible is really all you're going to get at this point.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Justice delayed may be justice denied for many victims, but Chum Sirath, who started a group called the Victims Association says, despite the limited number of defendants, the court sends an important message.
CHUM SIRATH, Victims Association: If you can have a bigger number, more people, it would be better. But, if not, it's better than nothing. When you commit a crime, there will be people who try to put you -- to take you into account. This is one of the lessons that young generation can learn.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Eric Stover says the court itself has had to learn how to teach some of those lessons.
ERIC STOVER: I don't think any court should be expected to be a social engineering institution. They're just not designed to do that. But what we can expect from them is that they should have vigorous programs to try to go out into the population and describe what they're doing, why they're doing it, and what their limitations are.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: He says, after a slow start, the court did launch outreach programs. Twice a week, buses have brought in thousands of Cambodians on field trips.
I asked this group of visitors how many had ever heard of the court before coming here. The international community wanted the word spread even further. That's why the British government and the U.S.-based East-West Center sponsored the television series.
MAN (through translator): Do you think the trial has gone well? The process has been pretty impressive. I have supported it because I was one of the victims. I was in prison under the regime.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Matthew Robinson was hired to produce the court series.
MATTHEW ROBINSON, television producer: We had to devise a language and to base our understanding of what was going on in the court that would be intelligible to people who -- whose basic knowledge of -- of legal proceedings, indeed, court proceedings, is minimal indeed.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The program has also urged viewers to engage in more dialogue about the trial and about the genocide.
NEWS ANCHOR (through translator): Thanks to everyone here for this discussion of Duch's trial.
NEWS ANCHOR (through translator): We hope that this will encourage you at home to talk together about this topic so vital to Cambodia's future well-being and progress.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Those conversations aren't easy, says Robinson.
MATTHEW ROBINSON: I mean, anybody from 25 down are not so much skeptical about it, but they lack knowledge. And parents seem to be reluctant, maybe even embarrassed, to -- to talk about what happened to them.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Youk Chhang, who survived the Khmer Rouge killing fields, wants to make sure young people get the knowledge they need, even if their parents won't talk about it.
YOUK CHHANG, director, Documentation Center of Cambodia: This is the textbook for grade nine and 12.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: He's director of the Cambodia Documentation Center, which has published a textbook that is now in the hands of one million Cambodian students.
YOUK CHHANG: Start from the creation of the Khmer Rouge movement all the way to the fall of the Khmer Rouge in '79.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Most kids growing up in this country have never learned about it?
YOUK CHHANG: They never learned about this, but they heard about this. Right now, for the first time in 30 years, from grade 9 through 12, also the foundation year of every single university, allowed to study Khmer Rouge history.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The verdict and sentencing are expected in early June, six months after final arguments ended and two years after the trial began. Youk Chhang hopes it will help the country move on.
YOUK CHHANG: The court helped to put the past behind, and that gives us the direction we are going to be turning next for the future. And the court put the past into perspective, so that we can learn from it.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Survivors, like Van Nath, hope it brings justice.
VAN NATH (through translator): The verdict should be balancing what Duch has done, how many people he killed and how many he caused suffering. For me, I can't forgive.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Eric Stover says the court, by example, can be an important building block for the future of this country, still recovering from years of war and genocide.
ERIC STOVER: People will have basic needs and need to be attended to, but, if you're going to have real progress, you also put in the infrastructure for democracy, infrastructure for the rule of law, infrastructure that will support human rights, because, without that, you will always be in an uphill battle.
RAY SUAREZ: The tribunal's next case will be a joint trial for four elderly defendants. It's expected to start in 2012.
JIM LEHRER: Fred's reporting is in partnership with the Undertold Stories project at Saint John's University in Minnesota.
Copyright © 1996-2010 MacNeil/Lehrer Productions.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Friday, June 4, 2010
Artist tells of survival in S-21
Monday, 24 May 2010 15:03 Brooke Lewis and Mom Kunthear
The Phnom Penh Post
Photo by: Heng Chivoan
Bou Meng walks through the displays Sunday at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. A new book about the artist, one of only a handful of inmates who survived Tuol Sleng prison, was released on Sunday.
BOU Meng may be one of only a handful of inmates who escaped from Tuol Sleng prison with his life, but that doesn’t mean his time there was any less intense than that of the estimated 16,000 who perished.
In a biography released Sunday, the artist describes how he was imprisoned and tortured, and how the assignment that saved him – painting portraits of Pol Pot and other Communist leaders – also came with the pressure of knowing that his work was being scrutinised by fiercely dedicated revolutionaries.
He recalls in the book that prison guards warned him: “If the portrait is not lifelike, you will be dead.”
Written by researcher and Cambodia Television Network news director Huy Vannak, the biography – titled Bou Meng: A survivor from Khmer Rouge Toul Sleng Prison S-21; Justice for the Future, not just for the Victims – traces the artist’s life from an impoverished childhood in Kampong Cham province to an emotional encounter with Tuol Sleng prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, nearly 30 years after the Khmer Rouge fell from power.
It tells the story of how a self-described peaceful artist who “never dreamed of joining any political movement” was swept up in the Khmer Rouge revolution in 1971, after hearing a radio broadcast in which Prince Norodom Sihanouk called for citizens to help “liberate” a country that had been overtaken by the Lon Nol regime the previous year.
After six years of service to Pol Pot, Bou Meng and his wife were imprisoned at Tuol Sleng, a turn of events he says he still doesn’t understand. “It is hard to describe my suffering,” he says in the book. “We had devoted everything, even our happiness to the revolution. We were rewarded with suffering and remorse.”
Bou Meng was separated from his wife upon arrival at the prison, and though he never learned the details of her fate, it is assumed that, like many prisoners, she was tortured before being executed and buried in a mass grave.
He was also separated from his two children, and has no idea of what happened to them.
After two months of detention, Bou Meng was interrogated and tortured for two weeks before the staff put him to work painting portraits for the regime.
Huy Vannak, who began work on Bou Meng’s biography in 2003, said in an interview Sunday that the same skill that saved the artist’s life was integral to the process of transmitting his life story to the page.
“During the writing process, he painted more than 100 paintings about his life history during the Khmer Rouge. I asked him to paint pictures so that he could restart his memories,” Huy Vannak said. “Sometimes, he would just paint a picture and then the story would come out by itself.”
The process was often a painful one, the author recalled.
“Sometimes he cried when he spoke about the misery. Especially when he talked about his wife. But also when he talked about the way the Khmer Rouge tortured him, the way the Khmer Rouge dehumanised him,” he said.
Huy Vannak writes in the book that “every family in Cambodia, from the King to the peasants, lost at least one member during this regime”, and that victims and perpetrators across the country are now living side by side, often uneasily.
He said Sunday that the personal histories of survivors such as Bou Meng effectively complement the trials unfolding at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Individual stories, he said, can potentially reach a broader audience, and thus facilitate reconciliation in a manner that legal proceedings can’t.
“This book is another side of the history and the justice and healing process. I don’t think [the trial] alone can provide the truth, the whole truth of the Khmer history,” he said.
“At least we now all have a chance to acknowledge their suffering. When people suffer and you acknowledge their suffering, this is the way you can help victims to move forward, to move on.”
The first Khmer Rouge leader made to sit in the dock at the tribunal – Duch, Bou Meng’s former tormenter – was due to be sentenced early this year, but the verdict has not yet been reached.
Bou Meng said Sunday that he is concerned that he and other survivors – including fellow artist Vann Nath, who has been struggling with various illnesses – will not live to see justice served.
“I wish to God to help Vann Nath stay alive, at least until the court decision about Duch’s trial,” he said. “I want the court to do it quickly before my friend dies so he can know and feel better.”
In the meantime, he added, he is eager to see how the public responds to his book.
“I have never thought that I would have the opportunity to do this work when I was this age, and I hope that I live longer to see the book of my history being read by many people,” he said.
ARTICLE:
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2010052439234/National-news/artist-tells-of-survival-in-s-21.html
PHOTOS:
http://www.dccam.org/Projects/Living_Doc/Photos_2010/Bou_Meng_Book_Launching/index.htm
BLOG:
http://blog.andybrouwer.co.uk/2010/05/free-at-last.html
http://www.blueladyblog.com/article/bou-meng-free-from-the-past.html
Copyright © 2010 The Phnom Penh Post. All Rights Reserved.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
The Phnom Penh Post
Photo by: Heng Chivoan
Bou Meng walks through the displays Sunday at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. A new book about the artist, one of only a handful of inmates who survived Tuol Sleng prison, was released on Sunday.
BOU Meng may be one of only a handful of inmates who escaped from Tuol Sleng prison with his life, but that doesn’t mean his time there was any less intense than that of the estimated 16,000 who perished.
In a biography released Sunday, the artist describes how he was imprisoned and tortured, and how the assignment that saved him – painting portraits of Pol Pot and other Communist leaders – also came with the pressure of knowing that his work was being scrutinised by fiercely dedicated revolutionaries.
He recalls in the book that prison guards warned him: “If the portrait is not lifelike, you will be dead.”
Written by researcher and Cambodia Television Network news director Huy Vannak, the biography – titled Bou Meng: A survivor from Khmer Rouge Toul Sleng Prison S-21; Justice for the Future, not just for the Victims – traces the artist’s life from an impoverished childhood in Kampong Cham province to an emotional encounter with Tuol Sleng prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, nearly 30 years after the Khmer Rouge fell from power.
It tells the story of how a self-described peaceful artist who “never dreamed of joining any political movement” was swept up in the Khmer Rouge revolution in 1971, after hearing a radio broadcast in which Prince Norodom Sihanouk called for citizens to help “liberate” a country that had been overtaken by the Lon Nol regime the previous year.
After six years of service to Pol Pot, Bou Meng and his wife were imprisoned at Tuol Sleng, a turn of events he says he still doesn’t understand. “It is hard to describe my suffering,” he says in the book. “We had devoted everything, even our happiness to the revolution. We were rewarded with suffering and remorse.”
Bou Meng was separated from his wife upon arrival at the prison, and though he never learned the details of her fate, it is assumed that, like many prisoners, she was tortured before being executed and buried in a mass grave.
He was also separated from his two children, and has no idea of what happened to them.
After two months of detention, Bou Meng was interrogated and tortured for two weeks before the staff put him to work painting portraits for the regime.
Huy Vannak, who began work on Bou Meng’s biography in 2003, said in an interview Sunday that the same skill that saved the artist’s life was integral to the process of transmitting his life story to the page.
“During the writing process, he painted more than 100 paintings about his life history during the Khmer Rouge. I asked him to paint pictures so that he could restart his memories,” Huy Vannak said. “Sometimes, he would just paint a picture and then the story would come out by itself.”
The process was often a painful one, the author recalled.
“Sometimes he cried when he spoke about the misery. Especially when he talked about his wife. But also when he talked about the way the Khmer Rouge tortured him, the way the Khmer Rouge dehumanised him,” he said.
Huy Vannak writes in the book that “every family in Cambodia, from the King to the peasants, lost at least one member during this regime”, and that victims and perpetrators across the country are now living side by side, often uneasily.
He said Sunday that the personal histories of survivors such as Bou Meng effectively complement the trials unfolding at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Individual stories, he said, can potentially reach a broader audience, and thus facilitate reconciliation in a manner that legal proceedings can’t.
“This book is another side of the history and the justice and healing process. I don’t think [the trial] alone can provide the truth, the whole truth of the Khmer history,” he said.
“At least we now all have a chance to acknowledge their suffering. When people suffer and you acknowledge their suffering, this is the way you can help victims to move forward, to move on.”
The first Khmer Rouge leader made to sit in the dock at the tribunal – Duch, Bou Meng’s former tormenter – was due to be sentenced early this year, but the verdict has not yet been reached.
Bou Meng said Sunday that he is concerned that he and other survivors – including fellow artist Vann Nath, who has been struggling with various illnesses – will not live to see justice served.
“I wish to God to help Vann Nath stay alive, at least until the court decision about Duch’s trial,” he said. “I want the court to do it quickly before my friend dies so he can know and feel better.”
In the meantime, he added, he is eager to see how the public responds to his book.
“I have never thought that I would have the opportunity to do this work when I was this age, and I hope that I live longer to see the book of my history being read by many people,” he said.
ARTICLE:
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2010052439234/National-news/artist-tells-of-survival-in-s-21.html
PHOTOS:
http://www.dccam.org/Projects/Living_Doc/Photos_2010/Bou_Meng_Book_Launching/index.htm
BLOG:
http://blog.andybrouwer.co.uk/2010/05/free-at-last.html
http://www.blueladyblog.com/article/bou-meng-free-from-the-past.html
Copyright © 2010 The Phnom Penh Post. All Rights Reserved.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Talking won't work with North Korea
Vietnam ousted the murderous Khmer Rouge by force; expecting peaceful change in North Korea is folly.
Donald Kirk
Los Angeles Times
May 19, 2010
Is the regime of Kim Jong Il the cruelest the world has seen since Adolf Hitler's in Germany or Josef Stalin's in the Soviet Union? For all the world has heard about North Korea and its people's suffering, the answer is no. The dubious distinction of cruelest probably belongs to Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge. They took over Cambodia in 1975 and ruled from the once-tranquil capital of Phnom Penh until December 1978, when Vietnamese communist troops drove them out. About 2 million people are estimated to have died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, from disease, starvation, executions and torture.
The suffering under the Khmer Rouge is resonant with the plight North Koreans have endured for many more years. Today, however, Phnom Penh is bustling, alive with shops selling an incredible variety of silk, statuary, silver objects and souvenirs. Restaurants offer just about any menu. The streets are swarming with traffic as motor scooters dart in and out and larger vehicles carry people and commercial products. Motorcycles pulling what look like small, old-fashioned carriages offer taxi services. Internet cafes thrive in every marketplace. Casinos and nightclubs lure those in search of higher-priced fun, and the National Museum and Royal Palace offer lush and rich glimpses of Khmer civilization and heritage going back 2,000 years.
So what lesson is there — for North Korea and the world — in the transformation of Cambodia from a frightening dictatorship into a hustling if not exactly democratic society? Cambodia's current system, in which Hun Sen has ruled as prime minister, with the backing of Vietnam, almost continuously for 25 years, is not at all ideal. Many of the country's 15 million people continue to suffer economically. And it's fair to assume that torture and killings go on, although not on a mass scale.
In an imperfect world, however, Cambodia gives every appearance of having recovered its erstwhile reputation as an "oasis of peace." That was how Prince Norodom Sihanouk described his kingdom when navigating a treacherous course of neutrality as American and South Vietnamese forces fought the North Vietnamese until the U.S.-backed regime fell in Vietnam two weeks after the defeat of Cambodia in 1975. It was a measure of Sihanouk's incredible finesse that he was able to return to Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, even though a number of his children were killed at the hands of the forces that isolated him in his royal quarters.
Sihanouk has somehow survived, even though he has no real power. He is more or less a king emeritus, a revered figure who is able to appear above the tawdry power politics that periodically shakes up the elite six years after his eldest surviving son, Norodom Sihamoni, was crowned as his successor. The endurance of the throne, however, represents a grand compromise in which momentous changes had to occur before Cambodia could begin to reach its current level of peace and prosperity. The Pol Pot regime had to fall, and the men around him — those responsible for forms of torture comparable to the security apparatus of North Korea's "Dear Leader," Kim Jong Il — had to flee, to be killed or captured, to disappear forever. That should not be lost on South Koreans or their American ally in weighing how far to go in attempting reconciliation or "talks" with North Korea. At some point someone in responsibility has to face the question: At what point does intervention become necessary?
In that debate, the Khmer Rouge comparison assumes still greater relevance. The question is how was it that the forces of a communist country —- against which the Americans and South Vietnamese, supported by two divisions of South Koreans, had fought for a generation — accomplished such a stunning success for the everlasting benefit of the Cambodian people? The answer in part is that Vietnam, after the communist victory in 1975, was never a terrible dictatorship. As Vietnam's leadership went through its own tortuous policy shifts, market capitalism began to flourish. Vietnamese gained a level of cultural and economic freedom that had not appeared possible in 1975. Moreover, Ho Chi Minh, who led Vietnam's communist regime until his death in 1969, never gained a reputation for pervasive cruelty over his own people, even as he ruthlessly suppressed opponents.
It's difficult to compare such different societies and cultures as those in Cambodia and North Korea, but the lesson is clear. There can be no real compromise with the Kim regime. The history of regimes such as Cambodia's under the Khmer Rouge is that they do not willingly yield, do not suddenly adopt humanitarian policies and do not give up the props of their rule, notably their weapons. It's wishful thinking to expect North Korea to shift its policies or honor any agreement on much of anything, including its nuclear weapons program. It took an upheaval to bring about relief from suffering in Cambodia, and it will take another on that scale to reform North Korea.
Donald Kirk, based in South Korea, covered Cambodia and Vietnam in the late 1960s and early '70s for newspapers and magazines. He is the author of several books, most recently "Korea Betrayed: Kim Dae Jung and Sunshine."
Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Donald Kirk
Los Angeles Times
May 19, 2010
Is the regime of Kim Jong Il the cruelest the world has seen since Adolf Hitler's in Germany or Josef Stalin's in the Soviet Union? For all the world has heard about North Korea and its people's suffering, the answer is no. The dubious distinction of cruelest probably belongs to Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge. They took over Cambodia in 1975 and ruled from the once-tranquil capital of Phnom Penh until December 1978, when Vietnamese communist troops drove them out. About 2 million people are estimated to have died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, from disease, starvation, executions and torture.
The suffering under the Khmer Rouge is resonant with the plight North Koreans have endured for many more years. Today, however, Phnom Penh is bustling, alive with shops selling an incredible variety of silk, statuary, silver objects and souvenirs. Restaurants offer just about any menu. The streets are swarming with traffic as motor scooters dart in and out and larger vehicles carry people and commercial products. Motorcycles pulling what look like small, old-fashioned carriages offer taxi services. Internet cafes thrive in every marketplace. Casinos and nightclubs lure those in search of higher-priced fun, and the National Museum and Royal Palace offer lush and rich glimpses of Khmer civilization and heritage going back 2,000 years.
So what lesson is there — for North Korea and the world — in the transformation of Cambodia from a frightening dictatorship into a hustling if not exactly democratic society? Cambodia's current system, in which Hun Sen has ruled as prime minister, with the backing of Vietnam, almost continuously for 25 years, is not at all ideal. Many of the country's 15 million people continue to suffer economically. And it's fair to assume that torture and killings go on, although not on a mass scale.
In an imperfect world, however, Cambodia gives every appearance of having recovered its erstwhile reputation as an "oasis of peace." That was how Prince Norodom Sihanouk described his kingdom when navigating a treacherous course of neutrality as American and South Vietnamese forces fought the North Vietnamese until the U.S.-backed regime fell in Vietnam two weeks after the defeat of Cambodia in 1975. It was a measure of Sihanouk's incredible finesse that he was able to return to Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, even though a number of his children were killed at the hands of the forces that isolated him in his royal quarters.
Sihanouk has somehow survived, even though he has no real power. He is more or less a king emeritus, a revered figure who is able to appear above the tawdry power politics that periodically shakes up the elite six years after his eldest surviving son, Norodom Sihamoni, was crowned as his successor. The endurance of the throne, however, represents a grand compromise in which momentous changes had to occur before Cambodia could begin to reach its current level of peace and prosperity. The Pol Pot regime had to fall, and the men around him — those responsible for forms of torture comparable to the security apparatus of North Korea's "Dear Leader," Kim Jong Il — had to flee, to be killed or captured, to disappear forever. That should not be lost on South Koreans or their American ally in weighing how far to go in attempting reconciliation or "talks" with North Korea. At some point someone in responsibility has to face the question: At what point does intervention become necessary?
In that debate, the Khmer Rouge comparison assumes still greater relevance. The question is how was it that the forces of a communist country —- against which the Americans and South Vietnamese, supported by two divisions of South Koreans, had fought for a generation — accomplished such a stunning success for the everlasting benefit of the Cambodian people? The answer in part is that Vietnam, after the communist victory in 1975, was never a terrible dictatorship. As Vietnam's leadership went through its own tortuous policy shifts, market capitalism began to flourish. Vietnamese gained a level of cultural and economic freedom that had not appeared possible in 1975. Moreover, Ho Chi Minh, who led Vietnam's communist regime until his death in 1969, never gained a reputation for pervasive cruelty over his own people, even as he ruthlessly suppressed opponents.
It's difficult to compare such different societies and cultures as those in Cambodia and North Korea, but the lesson is clear. There can be no real compromise with the Kim regime. The history of regimes such as Cambodia's under the Khmer Rouge is that they do not willingly yield, do not suddenly adopt humanitarian policies and do not give up the props of their rule, notably their weapons. It's wishful thinking to expect North Korea to shift its policies or honor any agreement on much of anything, including its nuclear weapons program. It took an upheaval to bring about relief from suffering in Cambodia, and it will take another on that scale to reform North Korea.
Donald Kirk, based in South Korea, covered Cambodia and Vietnam in the late 1960s and early '70s for newspapers and magazines. He is the author of several books, most recently "Korea Betrayed: Kim Dae Jung and Sunshine."
Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
History Can Help National Healing: Professor
Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer | Washington, D.C Tuesday, 18 May 2010
Photo: Jim Mizerski
A scene from the play ' Breaking the Silence.'
“To have reconciliation in society for those people to apologize, that’s not to create a new fault and not to educate children to act with such wrongdoing. That is a proper apology for those who were victimized.”
The teaching of Khmer Rouge history through books, radio and other new methods can help the spirit of national reconciliation, a leading historian said Monday.
Sombo Manara, a history professor at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, said teaching the history of Democratic Kampuchea through such new initiatives as the radio play “Breaking the Silence,” was a path to peace, healing and reconciliation.
“Breaking the Silence” urges victims and perpetrators—many of whom live in the same villagers together but may never speak to each other—to address their collective trauma.
Sombo Manara said the radio play, which also toured as a live performance earlier this year and last year, can prompt memories and healthy debate.
“To have reconciliation in society for those people to apologize, that’s not to create a new fault and not to educate children to act with such wrongdoing,” he told “Hello VOA.” “That is a proper apology for those who were victimized.”
Sombo Manara also said apologies to victims from perpetrators not currently held by the Khmer Rouge tribunal would show the next generation a better way of doing things.
If apologies are made at the local level, it will help explain morality to the young, where the old can teach the rule of Buddha and merit and avoidance of sins, “in order to prevent such actions again,” he said.
Sombo Manara was responding to questions from guests about the Khmer Rouge tribunal, which is now seeking to prosecute its second case against jailed leaders of the regime. But so far only five have senior-most leaders been detained.
Low-ranking cadre will not be targeted by the tribunal’s prosecutors and judges, but Sombo Manara said they still bear some responsibility for helping the country overcome the atrocities of the regime.
Meanwhile, teachers who give lessons about the regime in history must make sure they are not producing new fault lines in the next generation through embittered or vengeful instruction, he said.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Photo: Jim Mizerski
A scene from the play ' Breaking the Silence.'
“To have reconciliation in society for those people to apologize, that’s not to create a new fault and not to educate children to act with such wrongdoing. That is a proper apology for those who were victimized.”
The teaching of Khmer Rouge history through books, radio and other new methods can help the spirit of national reconciliation, a leading historian said Monday.
Sombo Manara, a history professor at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, said teaching the history of Democratic Kampuchea through such new initiatives as the radio play “Breaking the Silence,” was a path to peace, healing and reconciliation.
“Breaking the Silence” urges victims and perpetrators—many of whom live in the same villagers together but may never speak to each other—to address their collective trauma.
Sombo Manara said the radio play, which also toured as a live performance earlier this year and last year, can prompt memories and healthy debate.
“To have reconciliation in society for those people to apologize, that’s not to create a new fault and not to educate children to act with such wrongdoing,” he told “Hello VOA.” “That is a proper apology for those who were victimized.”
Sombo Manara also said apologies to victims from perpetrators not currently held by the Khmer Rouge tribunal would show the next generation a better way of doing things.
If apologies are made at the local level, it will help explain morality to the young, where the old can teach the rule of Buddha and merit and avoidance of sins, “in order to prevent such actions again,” he said.
Sombo Manara was responding to questions from guests about the Khmer Rouge tribunal, which is now seeking to prosecute its second case against jailed leaders of the regime. But so far only five have senior-most leaders been detained.
Low-ranking cadre will not be targeted by the tribunal’s prosecutors and judges, but Sombo Manara said they still bear some responsibility for helping the country overcome the atrocities of the regime.
Meanwhile, teachers who give lessons about the regime in history must make sure they are not producing new fault lines in the next generation through embittered or vengeful instruction, he said.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Memorial Built for Prisoners Executed at Pagoda
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.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
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.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Nob Bunna: an Unforgettable Memory
Chea Phalla
Democratic Kampuchea was a malicious regime that abused many Cambodians and took the lives of approximately 2 million innocent people. Although the regime has been over for over three decades, those who experienced that brutal era cannot forget what happened to them. A case in point is Nob Bunna—a teacher participating in a training organized by the Documentation Center of Cambodia in cooperation with Ministry of Education on how to teach the textbook “History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979)”—who still vividly remembers what happened to him.
Nob Bunna was born in 1960 in Bram Bey Mom village, Treang district, and Takeo province. Wanting to have education, Bunna decided to leave his parents and went to live at a pagoda with Chouch, chief of the pagoda, and Chin, a teacher at the pagoda. In 1970, when the Khmer Rouge army and Lon Nol troops battled against each other in the village, Bunna was injured by an artillery shell. When the Lon Nol army withdrew to Takeo town, Bunna asked them for a lift to a provincial hospital in the town in order to receive treatment. After staying in the hospital for three months, Bunna settled with his aunt’s family in the town and furthered his studies at Bros Primary School. The situation in town, however, was not convenient since Bunna and other inhabitants were unable to travel to far since the Khmer Rouge army had captured many areas in the province.
With the Lon Nol government’s power becoming weak, in 1975 the Khmer Rouge captured all of Takeo province. Not long after, the Khmer Rouge evacuated all residents in the town to the countryside. At night, the Khmer Rouge arrested people who had served in the army or worked for the previous government in order to interrogate them. Later, the Khmer Rouge used Trakuon Tek (a kind of vine) to tie the hands of those who had been arrested behind their backs and escorted them away. Every ten people were accompanied by a Khmer Rouge soldier who wore a black uniform and was armed with a gun. Unfortunately, Bunna’s uncle was one of those taken away and no one has ever heard anything of him since. The remaining people were classified as “new people” or “17 April people,” and evacuated to Champa pagoda located in Ang Tasom sub-district.
A week after he was evacuated, Bunna was assigned by Angkar to live in his home village. However, Bunna was able to live with his parents for short time only because he then was sent to work in mobile unit consisting of 30-40 members and supervised by a unit chief named Tong. At first, Bunna’s unit was appointed to build dike at the rate of 15 meters of land a day, and then 25 meters per-day. Afraid of not completing the task, all members in the unit tried to work very hard. However, they were only allotted watery porridge; three cans of rice for ten people.
One day, Bunna’s brother called him to a rice field in order to find fishes. There, Bunna saw plenty of rice. In a state of hunger and exhaustion, Bunna grasped three bunches of rice. Sadly, the Khmer Rouge arrived; they arrested him and sent him to a prison in Svay Seh village. While walking to the prison, Bunna was terrified and thought that his life was going to end soon. After reaching the prison, Bunna became more frightened because he saw prisoners tortured by being fought, kicked, and sometimes cut with palm leaves or left in a chicken cage under the sun. Moreover, Bunna witnessed some prisoners disappear after being interrogated. Those who still alive were forced to do work such as transferring water from ponds to water plantation fields, planting crops, and building dikes. Fortunately, the Khmer Rouge did not hurt Bunna because it was his first time making a mistake. He was ordered to carry water from a pond to water the crops 300-400 times a day. Three months later he was released and sent back to his cooperative.
Even though he was freed, Bunna was still investigated by the Khmer Rouge, and ordered to carry earth with a digging hoe every day until his neck became swollen. Seeing many people got sick because of overwork, some 17 April people refused to follow the Khmer Rouge’s order. The Khmer Rouge then pushed their head in water to torture them. Later, in mid-1978, Bunna received the bad news that his parents had gotten a serious illness and passed away because of not receiving treatment.
In 1979, after the Khmer Rouge collapsed, Bunna went to live with his brother in his home village. However, because of living in terrible conditions Bunna made up his mind to be ordained a monk at Bram Bey Mom pagoda where he had previously studied. At the pagoda, Chouch, the chief of the pagoda, and Bunna found nothing so they traveled to Phnom Penh to find books for study materials and supplies to use at the pagoda. Shortly after, he found a case of books including law books and scriptures from an abandon library, and transported them by train back to the pagoda.
Because of his love of learning and the return of stability to the country, in 1983, Bunna was able to restart his studies again from grade 4. Subsequently, he went to study in Prey Sandek Secondary School situated in Treang district. After that, he entered Takeo pedagogy school. Today, Bunna is a history teacher at Sonlong High School, Treang district, Takeo province.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Democratic Kampuchea was a malicious regime that abused many Cambodians and took the lives of approximately 2 million innocent people. Although the regime has been over for over three decades, those who experienced that brutal era cannot forget what happened to them. A case in point is Nob Bunna—a teacher participating in a training organized by the Documentation Center of Cambodia in cooperation with Ministry of Education on how to teach the textbook “History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979)”—who still vividly remembers what happened to him.
Nob Bunna was born in 1960 in Bram Bey Mom village, Treang district, and Takeo province. Wanting to have education, Bunna decided to leave his parents and went to live at a pagoda with Chouch, chief of the pagoda, and Chin, a teacher at the pagoda. In 1970, when the Khmer Rouge army and Lon Nol troops battled against each other in the village, Bunna was injured by an artillery shell. When the Lon Nol army withdrew to Takeo town, Bunna asked them for a lift to a provincial hospital in the town in order to receive treatment. After staying in the hospital for three months, Bunna settled with his aunt’s family in the town and furthered his studies at Bros Primary School. The situation in town, however, was not convenient since Bunna and other inhabitants were unable to travel to far since the Khmer Rouge army had captured many areas in the province.
With the Lon Nol government’s power becoming weak, in 1975 the Khmer Rouge captured all of Takeo province. Not long after, the Khmer Rouge evacuated all residents in the town to the countryside. At night, the Khmer Rouge arrested people who had served in the army or worked for the previous government in order to interrogate them. Later, the Khmer Rouge used Trakuon Tek (a kind of vine) to tie the hands of those who had been arrested behind their backs and escorted them away. Every ten people were accompanied by a Khmer Rouge soldier who wore a black uniform and was armed with a gun. Unfortunately, Bunna’s uncle was one of those taken away and no one has ever heard anything of him since. The remaining people were classified as “new people” or “17 April people,” and evacuated to Champa pagoda located in Ang Tasom sub-district.
A week after he was evacuated, Bunna was assigned by Angkar to live in his home village. However, Bunna was able to live with his parents for short time only because he then was sent to work in mobile unit consisting of 30-40 members and supervised by a unit chief named Tong. At first, Bunna’s unit was appointed to build dike at the rate of 15 meters of land a day, and then 25 meters per-day. Afraid of not completing the task, all members in the unit tried to work very hard. However, they were only allotted watery porridge; three cans of rice for ten people.
One day, Bunna’s brother called him to a rice field in order to find fishes. There, Bunna saw plenty of rice. In a state of hunger and exhaustion, Bunna grasped three bunches of rice. Sadly, the Khmer Rouge arrived; they arrested him and sent him to a prison in Svay Seh village. While walking to the prison, Bunna was terrified and thought that his life was going to end soon. After reaching the prison, Bunna became more frightened because he saw prisoners tortured by being fought, kicked, and sometimes cut with palm leaves or left in a chicken cage under the sun. Moreover, Bunna witnessed some prisoners disappear after being interrogated. Those who still alive were forced to do work such as transferring water from ponds to water plantation fields, planting crops, and building dikes. Fortunately, the Khmer Rouge did not hurt Bunna because it was his first time making a mistake. He was ordered to carry water from a pond to water the crops 300-400 times a day. Three months later he was released and sent back to his cooperative.
Even though he was freed, Bunna was still investigated by the Khmer Rouge, and ordered to carry earth with a digging hoe every day until his neck became swollen. Seeing many people got sick because of overwork, some 17 April people refused to follow the Khmer Rouge’s order. The Khmer Rouge then pushed their head in water to torture them. Later, in mid-1978, Bunna received the bad news that his parents had gotten a serious illness and passed away because of not receiving treatment.
In 1979, after the Khmer Rouge collapsed, Bunna went to live with his brother in his home village. However, because of living in terrible conditions Bunna made up his mind to be ordained a monk at Bram Bey Mom pagoda where he had previously studied. At the pagoda, Chouch, the chief of the pagoda, and Bunna found nothing so they traveled to Phnom Penh to find books for study materials and supplies to use at the pagoda. Shortly after, he found a case of books including law books and scriptures from an abandon library, and transported them by train back to the pagoda.
Because of his love of learning and the return of stability to the country, in 1983, Bunna was able to restart his studies again from grade 4. Subsequently, he went to study in Prey Sandek Secondary School situated in Treang district. After that, he entered Takeo pedagogy school. Today, Bunna is a history teacher at Sonlong High School, Treang district, Takeo province.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
BOU MENG: A SURVIVOR FROM KHMER ROUGE PRISON S-21 Justice for the Future, Not Just for the Victims
By Huy Vannak
Foreword by Seth Mydans
Nearly 30 years after the fall of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, a survivor of its ruthless torture machine emerges from history to announce: “I am still alive.”
The Khmer Rouge imprisoned and tortured 14,000 Cambodians at its notorious Toul Sleng Prison, also known as “S-21.” Imprisonment at S-21 was a certain death sentence--only a handful of men walked out alive. Among them was Bou Meng, an artist. Years after the collapse of the Khmer Rouge regime, one of the most horrific in history (1975-1979), and three decades after S-21 was closed, Bou Meng was believed dead. In January 2002, an English local newspaper in Phnom Penh reported that he had died in 1997 or 1998, and in October 2002, a Cambodian magazine called Searching for the Truth ran a photo of S-21 survivors gathered at the former prison site, reporting that Bou Meng had “disappeared.”
But Bou Meng actually survived, an astonishing escape from execution made possible only because of his skill as a portrait artist. During his imprisonment at S-21, Bou Meng was forced to paint propaganda portraits of Pol Pot and other Communist leaders. Only because of his unique talent did the murderous leaders of S-21 keep him alive. But it could not save Bou Meng's wife, Ma Yoeun, or his two children. Ma Yoeun was tortured and died at the killing site, Choeung Ek. Bou Meng's children starved to death at a Khmer Rouge child center.
Bou Meng’s story is the story of millions of Cambodians who endured relentless suffering, torture and imprisonment during a vicious and murderous regime. Today, Bou Meng’s story has also become the particular story of one man’s quest to use his memory as a tool in the search of truth and justice.
Documentation Center of Cambodia -- Documentation Series No. 15
Funding for this project was generously provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and Swedish International Development Agency (Sida).
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Foreword by Seth Mydans
Nearly 30 years after the fall of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, a survivor of its ruthless torture machine emerges from history to announce: “I am still alive.”
The Khmer Rouge imprisoned and tortured 14,000 Cambodians at its notorious Toul Sleng Prison, also known as “S-21.” Imprisonment at S-21 was a certain death sentence--only a handful of men walked out alive. Among them was Bou Meng, an artist. Years after the collapse of the Khmer Rouge regime, one of the most horrific in history (1975-1979), and three decades after S-21 was closed, Bou Meng was believed dead. In January 2002, an English local newspaper in Phnom Penh reported that he had died in 1997 or 1998, and in October 2002, a Cambodian magazine called Searching for the Truth ran a photo of S-21 survivors gathered at the former prison site, reporting that Bou Meng had “disappeared.”
But Bou Meng actually survived, an astonishing escape from execution made possible only because of his skill as a portrait artist. During his imprisonment at S-21, Bou Meng was forced to paint propaganda portraits of Pol Pot and other Communist leaders. Only because of his unique talent did the murderous leaders of S-21 keep him alive. But it could not save Bou Meng's wife, Ma Yoeun, or his two children. Ma Yoeun was tortured and died at the killing site, Choeung Ek. Bou Meng's children starved to death at a Khmer Rouge child center.
Bou Meng’s story is the story of millions of Cambodians who endured relentless suffering, torture and imprisonment during a vicious and murderous regime. Today, Bou Meng’s story has also become the particular story of one man’s quest to use his memory as a tool in the search of truth and justice.
Documentation Center of Cambodia -- Documentation Series No. 15
Funding for this project was generously provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and Swedish International Development Agency (Sida).
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
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.