Introducing the Association of Khmer Rouge Victims in Cambodia

Click on the announcement in Khmer to zoom in

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT
Introducing

Association of
KHMER ROUGE
Victims
in CAMBODIA

(“AKRVC”)

We, the Association of Khmer Rouge Victims in Cambodia (“AKRV” or “AKRVC”), are survivors of the Cambodian killing fields (April 1975—January 1979) who are joined in our fellowship of suffering, in our demand for justice, and in our work for a just peace. In coming together, we become stronger and we are shaping our past for our future.

We have each other. We have hope.

CJR National Conference on Victims’ Participation: MOVING FORWARD, TOGETHER – Transforming Killing Fields to Healing, Living Fields at Pannasastra University, 11 Dec. 2009. AKRVC members raising their hands in response to query “who have lost father, mother, husband, or wife during the KR years?”

We are widows and orphans, former child soldiers and former prisoners; we are hard-working farmers and middle-class city-dwellers; we are well-known actresses, playwrights, journalists, authors; we are teachers, translators, security guards, taxi drivers. Some of us reside in the United States, France, Australia or another country, but the majority of us are from all the provinces and towns of Cambodia. Some of us are recognized civil parties to the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia; others are still yet civil party applicants; some may become witnesses. While some of us are neither of these.

We, the AKRVC, would like to acknowledge the technical assistance provided by the Center for Justice & Reconciliation in registering us as an association and in facilitating our involvement (directly or indirectly) in the ECCC. Until our website is fully functioning (and also in the Khmer language), if you would like to become a AKRVC member or an ECCC civil party, please visit www.cjr-cambodia.org or contact Mr. SOK Leang at sokleang@cjr-cambodia.org or Ms. MORM Sokly (AKRVC president, also playwright and actress of Breaking the Silence, inter alia) at president@akrvc.org, Ms. Theary C. SENG at thearyseng@akrvc.org, a member of and founding advisor to the AKRVC and representative of the Civil Party of Orphans Class.

Many of us came together as a result of the Justice & Reconciliation public forums facilitated by Ms. Theary beginning in 2006 till 2009 and Civil Party Seminars facilitated by both Mr. Leang and Ms. Theary beginning in 2007 till 2009—engaging victims (and perpetrators) from all 24 provinces of Cambodia and generously funded by Diakonia, German Development Service (DED) and The MacArthur Foundation.

The Association of Khmer Rouge Victims in Cambodia (AKRVC) is independent of any political or religious affiliation and is officially registered with the Ministry of Interior (No. 2880 SCN, 24 December 2009), the second victims’ association to be registered and the first to be actively functioning in Cambodia.

(We have worked with the only other MOI-registered victims’ association based in France and hope to continue working and coordinating activities with them, as well as with any other groups and associations to be registered. We believe in inclusiveness and the unity of our voices as victims and are deeply distressed and saddened by the ‘competition’ or ‘hierarchy of victims’ and the ‘Super-Victim’ status we have encountered, and work to strongly dissuade this unproductive mentality.)

………
For more information and photos, please visit us at:

akrvc.org

Cambodia turns to the gray areas of its violent past

The black-and-white view of humanity is what's responsible for all the misery that undid the country and still haunts it today

Friday, Dec 14, 2007
By Putsata Reang
Asia Society

The appearance of the first former Khmer Rouge leader in a special hybrid court established in Cambodia to bring that movement's surviving leaders to justice provoked a question on which the tribunal's integrity will depend: should an accused mass murderer be released from prison pending his trial?

Kaing Guek Eav, commonly known as "Duch," presided over the deaths of more than 14,000 people at S-21, a former Phnom Penh high school turned into a torture center. He is one of five former senior Khmer Rouge leaders who will be made to answer for their roles during Pol Pot's genocide, in which an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians perished. Until recently, Duch was the only one imprisoned, after being exposed in 1999.

The court -- with its improbable blend of Cambodian and foreign judges and attorneys as well as laws -- is meant to be a model for judicial reform and independent justice in a country where impunity has long been the rule.

The five red-robed judges who preside over the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia -- the tribunal's official name -- are the final arbiters of Duch's detention, but the question they are now considering belongs as much to the people of Cambodia as it does to the court. Should mass murderers be afforded the same rights as everyone else?

One of my aunts believes has a strong opinion on the matter. Khmer Rouge soldiers beat her father to death, and she remembers being shot at for sport by communist cadres as she and dozens of other peasants scuttled up a mountainside. She now lives one block from S-21.

"Human rights are for humans," she said emphatically when I asked her about Duch's case. "He is a monster."

I once believed that, too. When I first visited Duch's house of horrors in 1990, I was 15 and full of wonder about the country where I was born but had never lived. My family escaped the Khmer Rouge on April 17, 1975, the day they claimed victory. When my mother and I journeyed home to reunite with relatives who had survived the genocide, S-21 (also known as Tuol Sleng) was among our first stops.

By then, the torture facility had been turned into a museum. I remember feeling claustrophobic as I walked down its narrow halls and into classrooms turned into crude cellblocks. The air was stale but heavy with the stench of death in interrogation chambers, barren save for a single bed frame, shackles and a chair. Flecks of dried blood peeled up from the floor.

This was a place where fingernails of countless victims were ripped out, where others were strung upside down and dunked in barrels of water, where many were brutalized with metal prongs and batons. This was a place of utter brokenness. This was Duch's place.

Mostly, I remember the hundreds of black-and-white mug shots of prisoners and victims that covered every inch of the walls -- a ghastly montage of human suffering that haunts me to this day. I couldn't help but think: This was somebody's daughter, somebody's son. This was somebody's mother or sister or brother.

Back then, I thought: What monster could do such things?

Now, that monster was sitting in a courtroom, looking scared and meek as prosecutors catalogued his alleged war crimes. Sitting in the packed auditorium where snatches of Duch's face flash by on a movie screen, I'm struck by what I see: A face that belongs to someone. This alleged perpetrator of unspeakable misdeeds is, like his victims, someone's son, someone's brother, someone's father.

This might have been only a fleeting thought had I not seen Duch's family members, who attended the hearings. Hang Seav Heang, 28, described the defendant as a gentle man, a good father. One of his sisters said he was a caring, protective brother and that she would always love him.

Outside the courtroom and in the community, most of the Khmers I talked to were, like my aunt, quick to categorize Duch as something other than human. Duch must have thought much the same thing about his victims when he ordered them to their deaths. When we start to see each other as less than human, we respond with inhuman acts.

It is this narrow, black-and-white view of humanity that has perpetuated a cycle of violence in Cambodia, where raging mobs beat to death robbery suspects and young mistresses suffer acid attacks by jealous wives. To say that Duch is a monster who does not deserve rights ignores the gray area between good and evil, between man and monster, where anything is possible.

This trial is about that gray area, about that place in us all where morality decays and evil takes root and grows, the way mold prevails given the right conditions. Each of us carries this potential for rot.

There is no dispute that Duch violated the rights of thousands of Khmers. But if the basic premise of these trials is to uphold human rights, then we are obliged to extend that same principle to Duch. What does it say to the country and the world if a court convened to mete out justice flouts the law? Isn't lawlessness the plague we are finally trying to eradicate in Cambodia?

The judges have offered no indication when they will make a decision. And no one would blame them for taking their time to consider their options. This is, after all, the court's first test of fairness before the trials of Duch and four of Pol Pot's other henchmen begin next year.

We all want justice, but that justice should not come at the cost of our humanity.

Putsata Reang is a fellow of the Asia Society

Cambodia's trial by fire

Nic Dunlop was born in Ireland in 1969. His work has appeared in numerous publications worldwide. In 1999, he received an award for Excellence in International Journalism from Johns Hopkins for exposing the head of the Khmer Rouge secret police, Comrade Duch. Dunlop lives in Bangkok, Thailand.

A former Khmer Rouge figure's indictment could be a turning point for the country.

August 21, 2007
By Nic Dunlop
Los Angeles Times (Calif., USA)

Last month, nearly 30 years after the Khmer Rouge reign of terror, the first indictment was issued by a U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal in Cambodia. From 1975 to 1979, more than 1.7 million people died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot. Now, after years of prolonged negotiations and conniving by the international community, the tribunal finally looks set to begin its work.

The man awaiting trial is Kang Kek Ieu -- alias Comrade Duch, and referred to as Kaing Geuk Eav in tribunal filings -- Pol Pot's chief executioner and butcher. As the commandant of the infamous Tuol Sleng prison, he is allegedly responsible for the deaths of thousands of men, women and children. Duch has been charged with crimes against humanity.

Growing up in Ireland and England, I was shocked by revelations about what happened under the Khmer Rouge. As an adult, I based myself in Bangkok, working as a photographer. After making frequent trips to Cambodia, it occurred to me that if the world was serious about preventing such crimes in the future, it was crucial to understand the perpetrators. And I felt that if there was one man who could provide us with answers on the Khmer Rouge, it was Duch. He was the missing link between the killings and the leaders.

For about a year, I took to carrying a photo of him. I showed it to Cambodians I met to see if anyone recognized him. None did. Then, in 1999, while on assignment in the west of the country, I came face to face with him.

Duch had become a born-again Christian. After several meetings, he began to talk candidly about his role during the reign of terror. It was the first time that a senior cadre had ever confirmed mass murder as policy. "I have done very bad things before in my life," he said. "The killings must be understood. The truth should be known." He began to name names and establish a chain of command for the killings. As a result of my finding him, and his extraordinary confession, he was arrested. Today, he remains the only Khmer Rouge in custody.

Why has so little been done to bring to trial the perpetrators of the Cambodian holocaust? After the regime was overthrown in 1979, the quest for justice was sidelined during the Cold War because of the competing interests of the U.S., China and the Soviet Union. Cambodia had become a pawn.

After the Khmer Rouge was ousted, and despite its barbarous record, Pol Pot's men continued to be recognized as Cambodia's legal representatives at the United Nations, and the U.S. supported a guerrilla coalition they dominated. When the Cold War ended, the Khmer Rouge continued its fight to regain power. In the mid-'90s, as part of a strategy to defeat the guerrillas, the Cambodian government granted amnesty to Khmer Rouge members if they defected to the government side. Justice was exchanged for peace. Eventually the movement imploded.

Some former Khmer Rouge members now hold positions within the army and government. Many are old and frail men in their 70s. Nuon Chea, Pol Pot's right-hand man, and Khieu Samphan, the regime's former head of state, live freely in Cambodia -- although they are likely among those whom the tribunal will seek to indict. Some leaders, like Pol Pot, have escaped justice and taken their secrets to the grave. In all, only five to 12 Khmer Rouge leaders may be brought to trial.

Because he was Pol Pot's chief executioner, Duch's trial will be one of the most important. If he speaks as he did in 1999, Duch can explain the decision-making for the regime's atrocities and the chain of command and responsibility.

But after so many years, and with so few infirm and elderly cadres likely to be indicted, some people have questioned the purpose of a tribunal and a trial.

And yet Cambodia remains a society plagued by violence. A trial could help establish an understanding of the importance of due process of law to replace the current cycle of impunity and revenge. It is also important for people to see that leaders are not immune from prosecution. Many believe that this lack of accountability is one of the most enduring legacies of Khmer Rouge rule.

To counter the violence, the details of the process must be made accessible to a wide audience. With the tribunal, a completely alien and complex system of justice is being introduced to a largely uneducated population. What will people think when only a few old men whom some may never have heard of go on trial in Phnom Penh, but the man who killed their relatives, living in the same village, literally gets away with murder? As the head of Duch's defense team told me, "There will be many people who will be disappointed."

The biggest challenge for this tribunal is to demonstrate not only justice being done but, more crucially, justice understood. The key is not whether to find a group of old men guilty, but to explain how they are guilty. The tribunal also would be public acknowledgment of the suffering of those who survived and a means for the U.N. to show that when nearly 2 million people are killed, it matters.

Nic Dunlop is a photographer and author of "The Lost Executioner," the story of how Comrade Duch was found.

Former King denies responsibility for creation of Khmer Rouge

Driven into exile, Sihanouk initially allied himself with the Khmer Rouge movement. This now infamous picture shows him with Khieu Samphan [left], a key Khmer Rouge leader.

Monday - Sunday, August 13 – 19, 2007
Somne Thmey # 155
Translated and published in English by Development Weekly
Posted at KRtrial.info

A few days after an unidentified group scattered anti-Sihanouk leaflets near Phnom Penh’s Wat Phnom demanding the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) try former King Norodom Sihanouk and China for forming the Khmer Rouge, the retired monarch wrote a letter in French on his website seemingly in response. The six-page-long letter is entitled “Who were the real people responsible for the complete victory and rise to power of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia on April, 17, 1975?”

In the letter, the former king said, “men and women from Field Marshal Lon Nol’s republic groups, have alleged that I bear the greatest responsibility for the matter, an accusation made in early August 2007.” In response, the retired monarch said, “from 1940 to 1950 and 1960, the Khmer Rouge considered itself as my long-term enemy with whom I couldn’t seek compromise and decided to do anything to topple me and dissolve the monarchy.”

“During the Sangkum Reastr Niyum regime, I strongly supported the Khmer Rouge’s young intellectuals. My administration gave them good positions based on their abilities. The Khmer Rouge intellectuals even received positions as chiefs of various services in the Cambodian government. Some worked as National Assembly members, while others were government members holding positions as ministers, secretaries of state or undersecretaries of state,” Norodom Sihanouk said.

“Finally, the Khmer Rouge decided to abandon, criticize and severely slander me. Moreover, they ran into the forest to struggle against Sihanouk and the Cambodian monarchy including the rebellion in Battambang province’s Samlot district,” the former king added.

In 1967 a peasant uprising broke out in Samlot, though its significance was not appreciated at the time, Sihanouk later claimed the attacks had been carried out as a group he labeled the “the Khmer Viet Minh,” or the “Khmer Rouge.”

On March 18, 1970, a military coup was staged by Lon Nol and his accomplices against Sihanouk and the monarchy, said the 85 year-old retired king, adding, “a short time after the successful coup, former senior Khmer Rouge leader Ieng Sary and several other Khmer Rouge leaders went to Beijing. They went there not to support me, but to seek all possible means to establish and operate a strong movement in Beijing against Sihanouk and Cambodia’s monarchy and to use the capital of China as an important base to destroy other nations.”

“With unexplainable excitement and pleasure, Ieng Sary kept on saying in Beijing that ‘[I] would like to say “thank you very much” to Lon Nol and Sirik Matak! The historical coup to overthrow Sihanouk is what we, the Khmer Rouge, never expected. Our fight to end Sihanouk’s regime and Cambodian monarchy is a process which we thought would require a very long time. In regard to the coup by His Excellency Lon Nol on March 18, 1970, we, the Khmer Rouge, had expected to spend at least 20 years trying to get rid of Sihanouk’s regime, Sihanouk’s groups and monarchy,” the former monarch stated. “With the greatest pleasure and unlimited boasts, the Khmer Rouge who supported Ieng Sary but opposed Sihanouk and many other Cambodian royalists dared to come to my residence in Beijing to shout out in front of me “we would have spent at least 20 years trying to overthrow you!”

To confirm that what he claimed is true, the aging monarch said, “Both General Oum Manorin and General Bour Hol, who currently reside in France, can act as witnesses.”

“Since, 1973, the Khmer Rouge never stopped its policy of cruelly destroying anything established by Sihanouk,” the retired king added.

“The jurisdiction of the ECCC can try only two groups of people, Khmer Rouge top leaders and people who bear the greatest responsibility for crimes against humanity committed during the DK regime between April17, 1975 and January 6, 1979.” Reach Sambath, ECCC spokesman

With regard to the Khmer Rouge’s victory in April 1975’s, Norodom Sihanouk said “because the US air forces kept bombarding and destroying our Cambodian people’s rice fields, plantations, villages and properties and lives. The situation encouraged compatriots to join a struggle to liberate their nation from the claws of corrupt traitors whose bosses were imperialists, colonists and South Vietnamese; among those who precipitated hardship, robbery, and destruction of pagodas in Cambodia and who encroached on our villages, communes, districts, land, islands and sea.”

Authorities hunting the leaflet’s distributors

To date, there has still been no light shed on who spread the leaflets though authorities are focused on the investigation, claimed Daun Penh District Police Chief Phorn Pheng. He added that police at all levels have been taking action to uncover the distributors, but that he had very little hope of apprehending the perpetrators.

The leaflets which demanded the retired king and China be prosecuted by the ECCC, come as the Khmer Rouge tribunal is selecting five Khmer Rouge leadership suspects deemed most responsible for the deaths of nearly two million Cambodians during the reign of the Democratic Kampuchea (DK) from 1975 to 1979.

Kaing Khek Iev, better known as Comrade Duch, chief of the S-21 detention center, is the first Khmer Rouge suspect to be charged by the ECCC with committing crimes against humanity. In reference to the claims made on the leaflet, ECCC spokesman Reach Sambath has stressed that the ECCC does not have any jurisdiction to try the retired monarch or China, stressing that “the Cambodian constitution states that the king is inviolable.”

“The jurisdiction of the ECCC can try only two groups of people, top Khmer Rouge leaders and people who bear the greatest responsibility for crimes against humanity committed during the DK regime between April 17, 1975 and January 6, 1979,” the spokesman said, adding that the ECCC is not entitled to try any countries or organizations.

Criticism of the anti-Sihanouk leaflets

Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam), said the anonymous perpetrators should not have scattered pamphlets publicly accusing the retired monarch and China, reasoning it is unfair to the former king.

“Today, we have the ECCC, so [we] should let the court complete the work,” the director said. The former king has repeatedly said that he is also a Khmer Rouge victim, adding that during the regime he was detained in the Royal Palace and that some of his relatives were killed during the brutal regime. The aging monarch had also demanded the cremation of the remains of Khmer Rouge victims so that their spirits can reach a peaceful place.

Khieu Samphan chooses Jacques Vergès as his defense lawyer

Khieu Samphan, former Khmer rouge leader (Photo: Pauline Gauraude/RFI)

Radio France International (RFI)
Translated from French by Tola Ek

"I don’t have anything to reproach myself. I believe that I did my duty towards my homeland. I could not remain idle when my country was invaded..." - Khieu Samphan

Khieu Samphan, one of the former Khmer Rouge leaders, selected, this Friday, Jacques Vergès, a French lawyer, to defend him. The former president of the “Democratic Kampuchea,” led by Pol Pot between 1975 and 1979, could appear in the Khmer Rouge trial next year. Five persons, whose identities are still unknown, were accused of war crime, crime against humanity and of genocide by the prosecutor of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. While close to 2 million people were killed under the Pol Pot regime, Khieu Samphan still claims, 30-year later, that “he has nothing to regret about” and that “he has nothing to reproach himself of.” For him, it was the communist Vietnamese and the US imperialist power which were responsible for the crisis leading to massive arrests, and to “these things,” referring to the massacres, without ever pronouncing the word himself. The exclusive interview of Khieu Samphan from his hometown in Pailin was conducted by Nicolas Vescovacci.

RFI: Is it true that you chose Jacques Vergès for your defense?

Khieu Samphan (KS): That’s right, that’s my lawyer. We knew each other when I was studying in France. We participated in several demonstrations against the war in Algeria and against the war in Vietnam. I believe he will try his best to let the law prevail.

RFI: Do you think you will be part of the 5 persons charged by the tribunal prosecutor?

KS: I have my name printed in almost all the newspapers. Therefore, I believe that it is possible that I will be among the 5.

RFI: Will you go to court if you are charged?

KS: It depends on the charge brought against me.

RFI: The main charges that the prosecutor upheld would be “war crime, crime against humanity and genocide.” What do you reply to that?

KS: We, the Khmer communists, we fought for the national liberation.

RFI: You don’t have anything to reproach yourself?

KS: I don’t have anything to reproach myself. I believe that I did my duty towards my homeland. I could not remain idle when my country was invaded, both by the South Vietnamese forces under the direction of the US, and by the communist Vietnamese, who tried to impose their hegemony on Kampuchea. I believe that it was my duty to bring in my contribution.

RFI: Do you contest the massacres of the Cambodian people which took place between 1975 and 1979?

KS: Regarding the massacres, Vietnam refused to recognize the Brévié line (maritime delimitation dating from the colonial period), while it was already recognized as the sea border between the two countries. But in the month of May 1976, they refused to recognize it, and demanded a new demarcation line.

RFI: What does that have to do with the massacres?

KS: Vietnam imposed an ultimatum to the Cambodian communist Party. Against this ultimatum, the communist Party was facing an impossible situation. If it were to accept it, it was the end of the Cambodian communist Party. Thus, Cambodia had to face military confrontations. It was the central problem which explained all the arrests made. These things.

RFI: But, it was the Cambodian people who were massacred by Cambodian people?

KS: But, I already told you, it was the Vietnamese ultimatum. This means that the Vietnamese tried to provoke internal troubles in the country.

RFI: And you responded with massacres?

KS: But, please. It is very complicated to answer this question.

RFI: 30 years later, do you regret the actions taken by the regime, the actions taken by the Khmer Rouge leaders during that period?

KS: Long afterward … I was only their road companion.

RFI: You were the president of the republic …

KS: First of all, I was not part of the Khmer Rouge management. Second, they fought at the same time, against both the US superpower and the Vietnamese hegemony attempts. I believe that they accomplished their duty for Cambodia still. Without their fight, Cambodia would have been in the hands of communist Vietnamese since 1970. Please think about me. I am Cambodian, that’s how I think.

RFI: Do you think about the victims?

KS: Sure, I think about the victims. I bow in front of the memory of the innocent victims. But, it must be taken into account the circumstances of the events with which the accused are reproached of. These people fought against foreign interference, against foreign aggressions. They did their duty for their country.

Nuon Chea promises to unveil "new" secrets during KR Trial ... that is, if he's still alive to unveil it by then

Friday May 11, 2007
Ex-Khmer Rouge leader says will unveil new secrets at trial

(Kyodo) - Former Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea says he will unveil "yet untold secrets" if he is summoned to appear at the planned Khmer Rouge tribunal.

"I have reserved some new secrets to be heard in a trial," Nuon Chea said in an interview with Kyodo News at his home in the former Khmer Rouge stronghold of Pailin near the Thai border.

When asked who were responsible for the genocide committed during the 1975-1979 Khmer Rouge regime, Nuon Chea, 80, mentioned enemies that the regime's leaders could not identify.

"There were many enemies," he said, adding that a group of leaders of the United States and Vietnam were also responsible for the deaths of at least 1.7 million Cambodians.

"John Foster Dulles and Henry Kissinger of the United States, and Le Duan of Vietnam were also held accountable," he said without elaborating.

When pressed on his own accountability as one of the senior leaders in the regime, Nuon Chea said he was sad to learn of the mass killings and the existence of a torture prison.

"I express my apologies to the victims and relatives of the victims who have died in the regime," he said.

He also disputed the death toll of 1.7 million. "How did they count on the victims? Many of the victims might have been killed during the wartime before Democratic Kampuchea came to power, while many others were killed when Vietnam came to our country in 1979 and in the time after," he said.

Nuon Chea, who appeared to be in frail health, said he is concerned whether he will be strong enough to defend himself in court.

The tribunal, officially known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, is a hybrid court being put together by the United Nations and the Cambodian government to try surviving Khmer Rouge leaders over atrocities committed during the Khmer Rouge reign.

Discussions on the special court have dragged on since 1997.

Besides Nuon Chea, other former top Khmer Rouge leaders expected to be summoned are Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan, and Kaing Kek Ieu, better known as Duch.

Pran still just wants to know: Why?

Dith Pran, who survived a Cambodian labor camp and whose story was immortalized in the Academy Award-winning film, "The Killing Fields," gave the audience at Georgian Court Tuesday night a general history of the rise of the Khmer Rouge and the role the Vietnam War played in Cambodian affairs. (STAFF PHOTOS: MICHAEL J. TREOLA)

Genocide survivor talks of forgiveness at Georgian Court

04/11/07
Asbury Park Press (New Jersey, USA)

BY TRISTAN J. SCHWEIGER
TOMS RIVER BUREAU

LAKEWOOD — Dith Pran doesn't believe in execution for members of the Khmer Rouge.

For one thing, Pran said he long ago learned to let go of his anger — after all, he said, he was the only one it was hurting, and it wouldn't bring back his parents or siblings. But he said he's also much more interested in asking questions than seeking vengeance.

He wants to know why, for instance, the radical communist regime thought it was right to kill 2 million of his fellow Cambodians. He wants to know why they thought it was necessary to empty the country's cities, forcing millions out into the rice fields to work 14-hour days on starvation rations.

"I want them to tell the world why (they believed) what they believed, so we make it different in the future," Pran told an audience at Georgian Court University Tuesday night.

Pran, now 64, is perhaps the best-known survivor of the Khmer Rouge genocide, which began in 1975 after the movement led by Pol Pot seized control of the country. He had worked as a war correspondent alongside New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg, and both were arrested by the regime when it seized power.

Schanberg was ultimately released, and he received a Pulitzer Prize, which he accepted on behalf of Pran and himself. But Pran disappeared into rice fields as the Khmer Rouge proclaimed "Year Zero" and sought to completely remake Cambodian society.

The educated and professionals such as doctors and teachers were among the most prominent targets of the regime.

"They abolished almost everything," Pran said. "Some of you say, "Do you still have hospitals?' No. No schools. (The Khmer Rouge) say, "Maybe in the future. First we have to work to get more rice.' "

The Khmer Rouge regime ended after neighboring Vietnam invaded in the late 1970s. Pran escaped from Cambodia in October 1979, after enduring four years of starvation and torture. The Academy Award-winning film "The Killing Fields," released in 1984, depicts his life.

On Tuesday night, Pran, a New York Times photojournalist since 1980, gave the audience at Georgian Court a general history of the rise of the Khmer Rouge and the role the Vietnam War played in Cambodian affairs. But he said his main purpose in speaking out about the genocide is to educate people about what happened and try to prevent it from happening in the future.

"If we don't take this important issue to the next generation, we can expect to see it again," Pran said. Audience members said they were impressed by Pran's ability to forgive those who committed such atrocities.

"I really believe that that forgiveness is a gift," said Susan Andrews, 58, of Manasquan.

Her husband, Robert Andrews, a professor at Georgian Court, said he also found that to be Pran's most striking message.

"Understanding that type of harboring of that resentment is self-destructive — that's an amazing revelation," said Robert Andrews, 57.

------
ABOUT DITH PRAN
Born in Angkor Wat, Cambodia, in 1942, Dith Pran worked in a hotel before becoming a war correspondent. He lost more than 50 relatives to the Khmer Rouge genocide. He still works as a photojournalist and was appointed as Goodwill Ambassador by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 1985. He compiled the book "Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields: Memoirs of Survivors."

RELATED LINKS
• Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project

Time short for genocide justice in Cambodia

07/04/2007
By Justine Smith in Phnom Penh,
Sunday Telegraph (UK)

Victims of the Khmer Rouge's genocide in Cambodia are recording their accounts on video in the hope of being able to give evidence at the trials of their alleged persecutors, even if their testimony eventually is heard from beyond the grave.

Foot-dragging by the Cambodian government and legal wrangling pushed back the start of the UN-sponsored trials, which were agreed in 2003 but are now not expected to start until later this year. They are expected to last years, raising fears that many witnesses will not live long enough to give evidence.

Only three survivors of the notorious Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh are still alive and they are all too aware that time is running out.

At 76, Chum Mei has already outlived the average Cambodian man by 25 years, despite the malnutrition and torture he endured in the prison, codenamed S-21 and now a genocide museum.

"During my interrogation I was electrically shocked and beaten and they pulled out my toenails," he said. "Now, I still sometimes dream that I am being beaten. Sometimes I scream until I wake my wife up."

Almost three decades after Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime wiped out a quarter of Cambodia's eight million population, he and fellow S-21 survivor Bou Meng, 65, have recorded their testimonies on film. Another to do so is former guard Him Huy, 50, who described how he was required to help execute prisoners at the extermination camp at Choeung Ek, one of the sites known collectively as the Killing Fields.

"They were blindfolded and handcuffed. One by one, each was taken out of the room to be executed," said Huy. "The henchmen were already waiting by the pits. The prisoners were clubbed to death with metal bars at first and then their throats were cut with machetes. They took the handcuffs and other stuff off the prisoners and pushed them into the pits. After everything was done, they filled the pit with earth."

As many as 14,000 perceived enemies of the Khmer Rouge who had been detained at S-21, met the same fate at Choeung Ek.

Huy claims that he too was a victim, brainwashed by the Maoist regime and haunted by what he had done.

"The prisoner was put on his knees and I clubbed him with a metal bar. After the hit, I threw down the metal bar and left the spot. I was very upset at being taken to work there. I am not the one to be blamed," he said.

Huy said his former boss, Pol Pot's chief interrogator Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, was "sometimes there" to witness the mass murders.

That could prove important evidence, as Duch is the only senior Khmer Rouge leader currently in detention awaiting trial following the death in custody last July of Pol Pot's most ferocious commander, Ta Mok, known as "The Butcher". Pot himself died under house arrest in 1998.

Mr Meng was also able to recall an encounter with Duch. He said he was saved from death only when his artistic talents were called on to draw portraits of Pol Pot. He was warned by Duch that if he did not paint flattering likenesses of the tyrant, he would be executed,

For two years he was kept barely alive with one daily ladle of gruel and forced to sleep on a concrete floor with 50 other men.

He said: "I thought to myself, it looks just like hell. After about a year of imprisonment I became so emaciated I was not sure I would live because an inmate sleeping next to me had already died.

"The young guards of about 13, 14, 15 stepped on him so many times that blood came out of his mouth. The smell became so bad before they took his body away. I couldn't sleep before midnight. I was waiting to see if my name was called. Those whose names were called were to be executed at Choeung Ek."

The men's evidence has been recorded by the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, which has spent 10 years collecting witness statements.

Campaigners fear that the delays to the start of the hearings mean that those facing trial will evade justice by outliving the witnesses. Last month, the tribunal was mired in petty squabbles over the height of the judges' chairs. Now it is prohibitive fees being levied upon lawyers who wish to appear at the trial, which the UN warns could lead to its collapse.

While the scarred nation waits for justice, the Cambodian government appears determined to ward it off until key players - who might implicate many people in power today - are silenced by death.

Brad Adams, Human Rights Watch's spokesman on Cambodia, said: "Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen does not want this trial to go ahead and he has played a game of brinkmanship with the UN, forcing them to bow to his unreasonable demands again and again.

"The tribunal has not even started to gather testimonies and key witnesses are dying. It is now or never."

Cambodian-Americans Seek Healing in Tribunal

Poch Reasey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
03/04/2007

When Khmer Rouge soldiers marched into Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975, Ronnie Yimsut was 13 years old. Almost four years later, when Vietnam invaded Cambodia and toppled the Khmer Rogue, Yimsut lost nine of 12 family members.

Now a landscape architect and a father of two in Oregon, Yimsut should not be alive. The Khmer Rouge attempted to kill him along with his family by smashing his head over and over with the butt of a Chinese AK-47. They left him to die but he survived.

Though his physical wounds healed a long time ago, Yimsut told VOA Khmer recently, emotional wounds remain. He has written an autobiography titled "Journey to Freedom" to describe his ordeals.

Yimsut is organizing a two-day public forum in Portland, Ore., April 27 and April 28 to help survivors share their experiences and heal the emotional wounds they have carried for three decades. Another goal for the forum is to inform the Cambodian-American community about the foundering UN-assisted Khmer Rouge tribunal.

What he wants is not revenge—because revenge would only bring more suffering. What Yimsut wants is the truth about what happened during the Khmer Rouge period, to name those responsible for the deaths of nearly 2 million Cambodians.

A claim of responsibility is the key to justice and healing, he said.

Chea Vannath, former director of the Center for Social Development, said the forum is a great place for Cambodians to exchange ideas about the tribunal.

Dr. William H. Sack, professor emeritus of psychiatry at the Oregon Health and Science University, worked with hundreds of Cambodian youths in Oregon in the 1980s and 1990s, many of whom had post-traumatic stress disorder.

A Khmer Rouge trial could help survivors heal emotional wounds, he said, and he was happy to see the trial might take place after all these years.

Sack's research assistant, Chanrithy Him, also a Khmer Rouge survivor, lost both her parents and five siblings to the regime.

"Once the tribunal is finished, it would help the whole nation heal," she said. "It's time to move on."

Her feelings have been echoed by Catherine Fillox, a well-known US playwright, who has penned several plays about Cambodian genocide over the years.

"Genocide destroys culture like fire destroys the house," she said. "And the kind of destruction that genocide does is pervasive."

For that reason, Fillox says it was important to look forward to the tribunal.

But the UN-assisted tribunal has stalled repeatedly, as foreign and Cambodia judges are at loggerheads over internal rules and fees for Cambodian lawyers.

None of the former Khmer Rouge leaders has been indicted.