Svay Rieng Stupa Marks Khmer Rouge Killings

By Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer
Original report from Svay Rieng province
03 March 2010

Every morning when Touch Sreng opens the door to his small shop in Tlork village, the first thing he sees is an old stupa. The stone stupa’s roof leaks and its walls are cracked and inside are a thousand human skulls, victims of a little-known Khmer Rouge prison.

The prison was called Wat Tlork, after the pagoda here in Svay Chhrum district, about 13 kilometers from the provincial capital of Svay Rieng province. At its height, it held thousands of prisoners, nearly as many as the infamous Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh, which is now a museum.

Touch Sreng, who is 48, said he wants this stupa to become a marker of remembrance too, similar to Tuol Sleng or the stupa at its sister site, in the Choeung Ek “killing fields” outside the capital.

“If the stupa can look like the Chheong Ek memorial, with transparent glass, the people and passengers would like to see it, thus making them remember the Khmer Rouge genocide,” he said. “But so far some people do not even know what this stupa is. Some say it is just a family stupa, though it is in fact the stupa of our community.”

The stupa occupies perhaps 2 square meters and on it hangs a broken wooden door. The roots of a nearby Bodhi tree have begun to uproot it.

Rath Nan, a 48-year-old farmer living next to the stupa, said she has a growing concern over the aging structure and she fears its skulls may be decaying and could be lost.

“I want the stupa turned into a museum, with a larger size and better appearance than it is now,” the mother of four said. “I want it with glass so that people in the village and from afar can clearly see the skulls.”

The prison was the largest in Svay Rieng province, and it was surrounded by 41 mass graves. Villagers call it “the Tuol Sleng of Svay Rieng,” after 932 skulls were found here in 1982. An estimated 10,000 to 15,000 people were killed here and buried and the site is under the jurisdiction of the Khmer Rouge tribunal.

On specially occasions like Pchum Ben and Khmer New Year, people in this village and others come to pray for the deceased. Travelling visitors also often stop by to photograph the stupa and chat with villagers to learn what happened here under the Khmer Rouge.

Srey Saphon, chief of Tlork commune, said local government has a plan to turn the stupa into a museum and hopes to add a library to keep Khmer Rouge-related documents.

“We will build a moderate museum and a library to keep documents, like photos we can collect from the Khmer Rouge time,” he said. There is no timeframe for the conversion so far, he said, and he was looking for funding for the work.

Sok Samin, chief of Tlork village, said after a recent village meeting the majority of more than 800 families here had suggested the stupa be converted into a museum.

“Most villagers want the memorial bigger and better,” he said, “for the next generation to be aware that the Pol Pol regime killed people, undertook the mass killings with no tolerance.”

Victims to play simpler role at KRT

A photo supplied by DC-CAM shows Boeung Rai prison, a security centre in Svay Rieng province that was not specifically named among the sites investigated by the Khmer Rouge tribunal for its second case. (Photo by: DC-CAM)

Wednesday, 10 February 2010
James O'Toole
The Phnom Penh Post

AS its critical second case approaches, the Khmer Rouge tribunal is wrestling with the issue of how to expedite proceedings against the ageing leaders set to stand trial, while at the same time giving adequate voice to the regime’s many victims.

On Tuesday, the court formally adopted reforms to civil party participation, including the establishment of a team of lead co-lawyers who alone will represent all admitted civil parties in court. In the first case, that of Tuol Sleng prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, civil parties were represented by four distinct legal teams.

This change was paired with an expansion of responsibility for the Victims Unit, renamed the Victims Support Section, to include “a broader range of services, as well as a more inclusive cross-section of victims than those who are admitted as Civil Parties in cases before the [court]”, the UN-backed tribunal said in a statement Tuesday.

More than 4,000 civil parties have applied to participate in Case 002, and about 250 had been accepted by the end of December, compared with just 90 who participated for the duration of the first case. Under the old system, this many civil parties could not have been accommodated, court officials say, though observers warn that the newly diminished legal role for civil parties may sow discontent among many victims.

“The judges ... have to balance between the rights of the accused and also respect for the victims,” said Long Panhavuth, project officer at the Cambodia Justice Initiative. “The victims have to have a meaningful way of participating.”

A further concern, aired by the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee last week, is the potential disappointment of thousands of civil party applicants whose applications may be inadmissible.

Though the court’s mandate is to investigate crimes committed under Democratic Kampuchea (DK), charges in individual cases are confined to particular crime sites falling under the scope of the judges’ investigation. As such, prospective civil parties with applications pertaining to other sites will be unable to participate at trial.

Although the Case 002 investigation began in 2007, the sites being examined were not publicly revealed until last November.

Theary Seng, the former executive director of the Centre for Social Development and a civil party in the case, acknowledged the court’s need to keep the investigation confidential, but said the delayed disclosure did a disservice to victims.

“To use the blanket of confidentiality to keep the public from being adequately informed generally, and then to keep the victims who could become civil parties from knowing whether they fit into the scope or not is irresponsible,” she said.

After being imprisoned as a child at the Boeung Rai security centre under Democratic Kampuchea, Theary Seng was frustrated to learn that the site, where perhaps 30,000 people were killed, was not named specifically by the court (though it may be included in the investigation of purges in DK’s Eastern Zone). She said she plans to file an investigative request asking judges to examine the centre.

More broadly, Theary Seng said she resented what she views as the court’s diminished engagement with victims and civil parties.

“The fear is that they’re going to really emasculate and water down the concept [of civil parties] to make it completely not meaningful,” she said, calling victim participation essential “to give a larger meaning to this process”.

Defence teams, however, say the increased number of civil party applicants in Case 002 may undermine the rights of the accused.

Richard Rogers, chief of the court’s defence support section, said in a statement following the conclusion of Tuesday’s plenary that the newly established 10-day window for lawyers to appeal decisions about the admissibility of civil party applications is unacceptably small.

“According to international standards, an accused’s right to appeal must be practical and effective. In adopting these amendments, the plenary has left the accused with a right that is merely theoretical,” Rogers said.

Outside the courtroom

Helen Jarvis, head of the Victims Support Section, emphasised the importance of contrasting between “the issue of admissibility in a particular case … and recognition of somebody’s status as a victim”.

“It’s an important distinction. I think it’s a technical distinction, and I think that we have done and certainly will [continue to] bend over backwards to thank people for the information that they have provided,” she said.

Jarvis said her section was developing outreach efforts through “non-legal measures” to ensure that victims who are unable to officially participate nonetheless have their suffering addressed.

These measures notwithstanding, a more limited role for victims is inevitable in Case 002, said Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, who called on the court to be open about its reforms.

“If a person can no longer speak, you’re no longer a civil party,” he said, adding: “It’s a bumpy road by having to explain this, and perhaps the fear is of being resented by the victims.”

While he noted the importance of outreach efforts for Khmer Rouge survivors, Youk Chhang said the broader expectations of the Cambodian people are uncomplicated.

“None of the people here expect the court to go down to the villages and record their story on file,” he said. “They expect delivery of justice and a verdict.”

M-13 prison site

Cambodian Lim Phet, left, and Mark Oeun show the venue where the Khmer Rouge set up M13 prison in early 1970s in the jungle at Trapang Chrap, Kampong Chhnang province, a bout 80 kilometers (49 miles) north of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tuesday, April 21, 2009. The prison's former commander Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, 66, accused of overseeing the torture and execution of thousands of men, women and children said Tuesday that his underlings were taught class hatred that allowed them to kill their enemies. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
Cambodian Lim Phet reacts when he saw the venue where the Khmer Rouge set up M13 prison in early 1970s in the jungle at Trapang Chrap, Kampong Chhnang province, a bout 80 kilometers (49 miles) north of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tuesday, April 21, 2009. The prison's former commander Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, 66, accused of overseeing the torture and execution of thousands of men, women and children said Tuesday that his underlings were taught class hatred that allowed them to kill their enemies. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
Cambodian Lim Phet shows the venue where the Khmer Rouge set up M13 prison in early 1970s in the jungle at Trapang Chrap, Kampong Chhnang province, a bout 80 kilometers (49 miles) north of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tuesday, April 21, 2009. The prison's former commander Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, 66, accused of overseeing the torture and execution of thousands of men, women and children said Tuesday that his underlings were taught class hatred that allowed them to kill their enemies. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

This Year, Costly Rice for Hungry Ghosts

In more than 5,000 pagodas, Cambodians offer tons of rice to wandering ghosts in early morning ceremonies.

By Pin Sisovann, VOA Khmer
Original report from Battambang province
29 September 2008

In the provincial darkness of an early morning last week, the traditional "Song of Crying Souls" blared from a loudspeaker lashed to a coconut tree. The song was a call to the "pret," ghosts condemned to hell who cannot walk the earth by day, to Russey pagoda, in Battambang province, to receive offerings of rice and sugarcane.

This time of year, during the Pchum Ben festival, relatives of the dead amass at pagodas like this one to throw rice to hungry ghosts. And this year, more than others, that ceremony is getting expensive. In the face of high prices and an estimated 25 percent inflation rate this year, devotees seem undeterred, throwing an immeasurable amount of rice in the dirt.

Around 300 people travel to Russey pagoda—one of more than 5,000 in Cambodia—each night during Pchum Ben, a 15-day Buddhist ceremony that culminates Monday and Tuesday.

Venerable Ratanak Pho, a senior monk at Russey pagoda, explained that the souls of criminals who have robbed or killed, or those who maltreated their parents or eaten monk's food before monks, will become pret. (An even worse hell is reserved for the souls of those who kill their parents, incite violence among monks, or, traditionally, shed the blood of the Buddha.)

At Russey pagoda, Battambang province, rice if offered to thousands of departed ancestors killed by the Khmer Rouge.

These souls cannot eat from traditional alms plates, but must eat rice offerings from the ground, he said.

"We don't put the rice on plates to offer them because those whose souls are born as pret cannot eat food from plates or any clean material," Ratanak Pho said. This process is called "bayben."

Bayben is signaled to the pret by the sounds of drums, and at Russey pagoda, the howls of dogs accompanied pre-dawn drumming. People began to throw their rice-ball offerings on the ground, along with sugarcane and cakes.

Behind them walked five young boys, the hungry living. What the boys didn't get, the neighborhood dogs snatched.

One of those who offered rice was Ung Reaksmey, from a nearby village, who said he would spend seven mornings at the pagoda, making offerings to his grandparents, uncles and aunts, who all died nearby under the Khmer Rouge.

"We cook one can of rice to share among four or five or us," he said.

Across Cambodia, millions will follow this pattern, at a time when the price of rice has steadily risen, costing up to 3,500 riel, or $0.87, per kilogram, a rise that prompted an export ban by Prime Minister Hun Sen earlier this year.

Yang Sang Koma, director of the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture, warned that people should reduce some of their bayben offerings this year.

"I think we should save rice from the ceremony, because we should feel sorry for the loss of rice," he said. "The production of rice is getting harder than before. Cambodian tradition holds that everyone should go to at least seven pagodas, but I think once is enough for the ceremony. It appears extravagant to go so many times."

If only 4 million of Cambodia's 14 million people threw bayben just once over the ceremony, it would amount to 250 tons or rice for ghosts.

"Everyone thinks it's a little, but if we add it together and multiply by many days, it would be too much," Yang Sang Koma said. "We should realize that at present, there are many people who starve and cannot buy rice to eat."

Such conservation might be a tough sell. During Pchum Ben, Cambodians make offerings of bayben because they are unsure if their loved ones have become pret. They throw rice just in case, and if their ancestors are not pret, at least some pret will eat.

Hundreds of people come to Russey pagoda each night during the 15-day Pchum Ben ceremony, which culminates Monday and Tuesday.

The area around Russey pagoda, in Battambang's Morng Russey district, is full of ghosts. It was the regional security headquarters for the Khmer Rouge, making it an enormous prison. Thousands of Cambodians, evicted from their homes, were brought here for interrogation. Some were murdered by cadre of the regime; others starved to death.

"They were brought here for questioning at the temple," said Yurk Pheung, chief of Russey pagoda, who had just finished early-morning bayben chanting. "They went missing after questioning. We don't know where they were sent, or went to. Wives and children could only wait. Some lost fathers. Others lost mothers."

The Khmer Rouge of nearby Boeung Bei village were notoriously cruel, he said, killing hundreds of families, perhaps as many as 20,000 people.

"Some were smashed to death," the monk said. "Others were not, but died of starvation. Some died from overwork and lie down in the rice fields. In 1979, I came to look for gold buried with the dead. I saw skulls here and there."

Before dawn scattered the souls of the departed, Chhay Chan Theany, who lost her mother, four siblings, a grandfather, grandmother, and four uncles and aunts, placed her own rice in the grass, to keep the dirt off.

"Well," she said simply, "they died of starvation at Boeung Bei village."

It was her first bayben ceremony this year, she said, adding, "If I have a chance, I will come again."