Cambodia to Preserve Khmer Rouge Sites for Tourism

March 10, 2010

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) -- Cambodia will preserve 14 sites at the last bastion of the murderous Khmer Rouge, including the home of their leader Pol Pot, as tourist attractions, an official said Wednesday.

Following Cabinet approval last week, the sites at Anlong Veng will be protected from destruction by local people and illegal encroachment, the area's district chief Yim Phana said.

Anlong Veng, about 185 miles (300 kilometers) north of Phnom Penh, fell to government forces in 1998 after nearly 20 years of fighting.

The Khmer Rouge regime, under which an estimated 1.7 million people died from execution, disease and malnutrition, was toppled in 1979 but its guerrillas fought on in the jungles, with Anlong Veng becoming their last stronghold.

Yim Phana said the 14 sites include homes belonging to Khmer Rouge leaders, an ammunition warehouse and the grave of Pol Pot, who died in 1998.

Once a remote town, Anlong Veng is now connected by good roads to nearby Thailand and Cambodia's greatest tourist attractions, the temples of Angkor.

S-21 photographer ditches KR museum

Monday, 18 May 2009
Written by Sam Rith
The Phnom Penh Post

$1m to buy all of the exhibits, says Nhem En.

FORMER Tuol Sleng photographer Nhem En is putting all of his Khmer Rouge-era possessions - once destined for a museum in Anlong Veng - up for sale for US$1 million, saying that the global economic crisis is to blame for scuppering his monument to the regime whose most brutal moments he helped to document.

"I am calling on all interested individuals and companies, both inside and outside the country, to bid on more than 10 varieties of Khmer Rouge materials. The starting price is US$1 million," said Nhem En, who is deputy governor of Anlong Veng district in Oddar Meanchey province.

The items on offer include two cameras purportedly used to photograph prisoners at Tuol Sleng; 2,000 photographs of Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge leaders; what he claims are Pol Pot's sandals, toilet, clothes and hat; a piece of car tyre that was used in Pol Pot's 1998 cremation; videos of military commander Ta Mok and other top regime cadre; and 1,000 songs on original tapes and pirated CDs.

"I spent all my spare cash trying to build the museum and I can't borrow from the bank because they are suffering from the global economic crisis," he said.

Nhem En said he had spent more than US$200,000 buying and clearing 50 hectares of land in Anlong Veng, but had garnered no support. He said the museum would cost $1 million to complete.

The announcement follows his April offer to sell what he said were Pol Pot's sandals and his cameras for US$500,000. But early interest faded after provincial officials reacted negatively.

Oddar Meanchey provincial Governor Pich Sokhin declined Sunday to comment on the revised offer, but added that he also had no objection to the museum being built.

But S-21 survivor Chhum Mey said people who might consider buying the items should instead give that money to the cash-strapped Khmer Rouge tribunal.

Nhem En intends to become a millionaire: More Pol Pot's memorabilia put on sale ... including Pol Pot's toilet

Khmer Rouge photographer wants to sell Pol Pot's sandals, toilet

Mon, 18 May 2009
DPA

Phnom Penh - A former Khmer Rouge official photographer has put on sale for 1.5 million dollars what he claims to be Pol Pot's clothes, sandals and toilet, along with thousands of photographs and other artifacts he collected during the genocidal regime's 1975-79 rule. "I will sell Pol Pot's sandals, toilet, his uniform and cap, thousands of photographs and the two cameras I used during the Khmer Rouge period," said Nhem En, who was recruited to take photographs of detainees when they arrived at Tuol Sleng torture prison in Phnom Penh.

"I am asking for 1.5 million dollars, but the price is negotiable," he added.

Nhem En said he would use the money to establish a Khmer Rouge museum in Anlong Veng, a small town near the Thai border where the Maoist group hid in a jungle fortress until it disbanded in 1998.

"I am selling these items, but I have others that will be housed in the museum," he said. "I have already asked for donations for this museum from the US, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, Vietnam, South Korea and Thailand, but none have provided funding."

His appeal came as the trial of the former head of Tuol Sleng prison resumed before Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes tribunal.

Kaing Guek Euv, known by his revolutionary alias Duch, faces charges of crimes against humanity, torture, premeditated murder and breaches of the Geneva Conventions, allegedly committed at the school-turned-prison, where at least 15,000 men, women and children were imprisoned and tortured before being murdered in the "killing fields" on the outskirts of the capital.

Nhem En said the millions of dollars in international donor funding spent on bringing Duch and four other Khmer Rouge leaders to trial would be better invested in his museum.

"Nobody in the Cambodian government supports my museum plan, so it will need a great deal of international funding to be established," he said.

In April, Nhem En offered to sell Pol Pot's shoes and toilet for 500,000 dollars and said he would keep the other items to be housed in the museum.

Up to 2 million people died during through execution, starvation or overwork during the Khmer Rouge's rule.