A Troubled Territory

THOK KHMER LAE KHMER Rungmanee Mekhasobhon Ban Phra Arthit Publishing, 288 pp, 175 baht ISBN 978-6115360031

Insight into past and present Indo-Chinese border disputes focuses on social, economic, political and cultural implications

20/07/2009
Writer: ANURAJ MANIBHANDU
Bangkok Post

For Thais following the brouhaha early this year over disputed border territory with Cambodia, and other nationals studying the country's present and past, there is no better time than now to pick up new literature on the country situated east of Thailand.

Rungmanee Mekhasobhon's book focuses on Cambodia since the Vietnamese-backed forces of Heng Samrin recaptured Phnom Penh from the Khmer Rouge on January 7, 1979. Some weeks after her book was launched at a book fair here, Francis Deron's book, presenting the case why there has to be a trial of the ageing Khmer Rouge, was launched in Paris on April 17, 34 years after the fanatics tortured, killed and starved people to force a new start. Late last year, a trio of Thai reporters well-versed in Indo-Chinese affairs brought out a book on the border problems that wandered through social, economic, political and cultural aspects.

Not forgetting the Thai angle as Thai reporters should not, Rungmanee credits the advisers in 1989 of then Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhavan with being catalysts towards peace in Cambodia. She backs that up by pointing to the agreement they obtained from the two major players in the Cambodian dispute: Prince Norodom Sihanouk, nominal leader of the tri-partite Cambodian coalition with the Khmer Rouge as its backbone, and Hun Sen, head of the Vietnamese-backed government in Phnom Penh that most of the world did not recognise.

Among these advisers was MR Sukhumbhand Paribatra, now the governor of Bangkok, who in those days was well known for his thoughts and writings on Cambodia.

But many in the foreign ministry in Thailand and other member states of Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), notably Indonesia, may be a little disappointed that there was no mention of a process that went on earlier which was also necessary.

After the second fall of Phnom Penh in 1979, it took another three years for Thailand, with Singapore's support, to put together a coalition of Khmers, which included groups led by Prince Sihanouk, free-style Son Sann and the Khmer Rouge, as well as to win them recognition at the United Nations (UN) for another 11 years until a peace agreement involving the coalition and Hun Sen's group was signed in Paris.

Without the so-called Jakarta Informal Meetings I and II (better known as JIM I and JIM II), France would not have hosted the Paris International Conference on Cambodia, and no formal peace agreements would have been signed.

However, Rungmanee does excavate another hardly known Thai angle that shows the country's skill in turning challenge into opportunity for itself and the region. In a recent interview with Gen Pattana Akkanibutr, she finds out that he and two others were sent out to China in June 1979, in the wake of conflict between China and Vietnam, the former teaching the latter a "lesson" for expelling Chinese boat people so furiously. He was then Col Pattana, Head of Intelligence, Joint Directorate, Supreme Command Headquarters.

That one of the other two was the then Col Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, at the time head of an army operation unit in charge of Cambodia, should provide an answer for anyone still wondering why his name was so sacred among Khmers on the coalition side. Also important to the Cambodian question was the instruction for the colonels to ensure that China keep up pressure on Vietnam.

The colonels were led by Lt-Gen Pin Kesorn, director of Military Operations, Supreme Command Headquarters. All three were ostensibly "on holiday" in Hong Kong and China.

Other highlights of the book include an interview conducted in November 1979 by Yodthong Thabtiewmai with Heng Samrin in Phnom Penh and another in 1989 by Sondhi Limthongkul, then director of the Manager Group, conducted with Prime Minister Hun Sen, also in Phnom Penh.

Rungmanee notes that Yodthong's interview with Heng Samrin, which the weekly Thai Nikorn of which she was editor-publisher carried, took place at about the same time as Pol Pot emerged out of the darkness to talk with a select group of Japanese correspondents. That interview is also reproduced in Rungmanee's book.

Rungmanee says she conceived the idea for this book while writing Khon Song Paendin, for which she was awarded the best book prize for 2009 by the Ministry of Education. The new book begins with an incident many reporters reporting Cambodia or border issues since the mid-1970s may have forgotten, and will be a refresher for them, though perhaps not such a pleasant one, especially for those given to vivid memories that turn into nightmares.

But there are also moments of light relief in the book, notably the descriptions of how Cambodians enjoy life at the seaside, and the first tour of Cambodia by the Songs for Life group "Caravan", thanks to Kraisak Choonhavan, then adviser to his prime minister-father.

With both books, Rungmanee has shown how someone who started off as an investigative reporter such as herself stands in good stead of going on to become an author of a book. Not only does she seem to have kept all her notebooks and tapes, she has also kept in touch with her sources and updated her material with recent interviews, as well as refresher visits to Cambodia, retracing the journeys she took those many years ago.

She seems ready to write more about this country, but joins at least this reviewer in observing that some aspects are better left unsaid.

Cambodia Looks to Educate Youth About Painful Past

By Robert Carmichael

PHNOM PENH, Jun 12 (Newsmekong/IPS) - Walking through the former S21 security prison here, one cannot help but be struck by the hundreds of black-and-white photographs of former prisoners who were brought here, tortured, and then executed.

Around 20,000 people - men, women and children - are believed to have been murdered here. As many as two million died under the rule of the genocidal Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979.

Students at Cambodia’s schools have not learned much more than that - until now, the course work describing the four years of Khmer Rouge rule consisted of literally a few paragraphs.

Chea Vandeth, a final year student in Phnom Penh, says less than one lesson was devoted to the Khmer Rouge era in his entire schooling. Although he lives only three kilometres from S21, he has never visited it.

"My friends and I learned very little about the Khmer Rouge history at school, and what we did learn wasn’t very clear," he says. "But I would like to have learned a lot more if possible."

Vandeth says most of what he knows about the Khmer Rouge regime he learned by talking to his parents or by listening to radio broadcasts of the Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal, which is currently taking place on the city’s outskirts. The man in the dock is Comrade Duch, who used to run S21.

Later this year, that lack of coverage will change. Cambodia’s ministry of education is restructuring the syllabus dealing with the history of the Khmer Rouge.

Together with the country’s leading genocide research organisation - the Documentation Centre of Cambodia (DC-Cam) - education officials have created a comprehensive study programme that involves the use of the first textbook in the country about the Khmer Rouge. It is called ‘A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979)’.

The glossy 70-page book, launched in May, contains photographs and maps, survivor testimony and background on key people and events within Khmer Rouge history. It also explains how the Khmer Rouge rose to power, and how the group then ran Cambodia.

Ton Sa Im, undersecretary of state at the education ministry, whose job it is to coordinate this addition to the curriculum, says it is vital that high school children learn what happened. Some doubt that the terrible events - starvation, disease, state-sanctioned murders that killed two million people - ever happened.

"When we talk one-on-one with students, some believe that the genocide happened, but others are still sceptical," she says. "Although I must say that the Khmer Rouge tribunal at the international court is getting the attention of many students who are starting to believe that these things happened."

By the time the new academic year starts in October, around 3,000 teachers will have been trained in the new syllabus. But what of the fact that any teacher who is older than about 40 will likely have vivid and terrible memories of surviving the genocide? Does that bring certain risks?

Youk Chhang, the director of DC-Cam, had first-hand experience of that recently. In April, DC-Cam brought 400 students and their teachers to Phnom Penh. The group visited the Khmer Rouge tribunal, and later watched a film about victims and perpetrators of the genocide.

Afterwards, the students discussed whether reconciliation for such crimes was possible and then voted on it. They voted broadly for reconciliation, at which point one of their teachers stood up and asked Youk Chhang for permission to speak to the students.

"He said to them: ‘Look, all of you - you don’t know how much I suffered. I lost my father, I lost my brother, my sister. They were starved to death, they tortured me. You don’t know how I feel. And now you want me to forgive them?’ " Youk Chhang recalls.

The students were shocked.

"The whole room was silent - nobody talked. This is their own teacher," says Youk Chhang, adding that the incident illustrates why DC-Cam brought in psychiatrists and experts in genocide studies to help compile the teachers aid book in "a scientific way."

Ton Sa Im, herself a former teacher, understands the issue better than most: Her entire family - both parents and all seven siblings - died during the Khmer Rouge period. But she says the risks associated with teaching the syllabus are completely outweighed by the risks of not teaching it in the first place.

"The research in this book is so detailed that it can enable students to understand the reason why such a genocidal killing occurred, and can remember that atrocity, so they understand that this chapter of history should never be repeated," she says.

She explains that the period in question will appear not just in history lessons, but will be worked into the Khmer literature and social philosophy classes in school. This way, students can better understand how the Khmer Rouge era fits into the different social and cultural aspects of the country’s past.

Chhang says teaching the youth what happened fits well with DC-Cam’s remit. Much of the information contained in the textbook has come from his organisation’s research into the country’s brutal past. He sees DC-Cam’s role as finding out what happened, and then passing on that knowledge.

He points out a brief poem in the introduction to the textbook that makes clear that learning about the past can help to heal a traumatised nation. " ‘Transform the blood river/Into a river of reconciliation/A river of responsibility’."

The analogy is simple, he says: So many people died under the Khmer Rouge that the river - a potent symbol for this agricultural society - became a river of blood.

"Imagining that the river became blood - it’s something that is so hopeless, so despairing," he says. "So we want to transform that history [so] that that we can reconcile [and] live in a peaceful way."