Cambodia Plugs Khmer Rouge Bastion as a Tourist Spot

A Cambodian soldier leans against a sign pointing to the cremation spot of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot in Anlong Veng (Photo: Brendan Brady)

Postcard from Anlong Veng
Tuesday, Jul. 20, 2010
By Brendan Brady / Anlong Veng
Time Magazine (USA)

"In those days we didn't have to worry about food or supplies — Ta Mok took care of that," says 56-year-old Sam Roeun, a former Khmer Rouge soldier with a prosthetic left leg who now sells entrance tickets to tourists in front of his former boss's home. Ta (grandfather) Mok, as his revolutionary alias went, was the ultra-Maoist regime's top military commander. In Anlong Veng, an isolated district of mostly wooden homes and crop fields north of Siem Reap, the name still conjures a mixture of worship and fear.

It's the latter sentiment that the Cambodian government is now trying to cultivate. Hoping to convince visitors to branch out from the more trodden Cambodian-tourism trails of ancient temples and backpacker bars, the government is trying to add a new stop on the foreign tourist's to-do list: a foray into the last stronghold of the mass-murdering Khmer Rouge. Anlong Veng, where the ultra-Maoist regime held out in its final years, may not be as enticing as the Cambodian hinterland's majestic Angkor temples nor as easygoing as its coastal hippie dens. But tourism officials are betting that travelers visiting for these two more common attractions can also be enticed by the dark history of this undeveloped pocket hugging the Thai border.

More than a million foreign tourists each year pay homage to Angkor Wat. But while it is just an hour and a half drive away, Anlong Veng receives only a tiny fraction of this horde, and its visitors are a trickle compared to the modest flow who visit Phnom Penh's infamous killing fields and Tuol Sleng torture center for a glimpse of the Khmer Rouge's goriest operations. Tourism officials' plans, dating back to 2000, to transform Anlong Veng into a showcase of the regime's final days suggest that they believe a bit of polish could turn those numbers around. In March, the government approved a comprehensive plan to formalize the area's development in order to allow "national and international guests to visit to understand the last political leadership of the genocidal regime," but they have yet to begin any significant construction.

Anlong Veng today is mostly populated by former Khmer Rouge cadres, as well as those who had been their most die-hard supporters or those who were forced by threat of death to join them in retreat. The fanatical regime's surviving leaders, depleted militia and dwindling supporters decamped here in 1979, after Vietnam toppled the Khmer Rouge and installed a new government. When it fell in 1998, Anlong Veng was the last territory under the Khmer Rouge rule and, to this day, the regime remains a presence in the area — in local residents' memories, former leaders' homes and grave sites and the facilities that served their deadly cause.
(Read "A Brief History of the Khmer Rouge.")

For some Cambodians, bizarrely enough, nostalgia lingers for the final years of Khmer Rouge rule. From 1975 to '79, the Khmer Rouge sought to turn Cambodia into an agrarian utopia and rid itself of traditional elites. In the process, an estimated 2 million people died from overwork, starvation and execution. Ta Mok, who earned the nickname "the Butcher," had accumulated a small fortune by pillaging this area's forests for timber he sold to Thailand, and he extended benefits to his followers to ensure their loyalty. Hence the former Khmer Rouge soldier Sam Rouen's admiration.

The remnants of these selective slices of Khmer Rouge history concerns Youk Chhang, the head of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, a nonprofit group that researches the regime's history. Chhang is skeptical that a "sufficient effort will be made to accurately explain the [tragic] historical context" behind the new attractions, and says the project is at risk of becoming more of a gimmick than sincere historical showcase. (Similar efforts have gone very wrong before, though it's hard to imagine anything stooping as low as Phnom Penh's Khmer Rouge Experience Café, which offered dishes styled after Khmer Rouge–era rations served by waitresses dressed as cadres. The café closed shortly after it opened in 2005.)

Today, most of the 14 scattered sites in Anlong Veng that the Tourism Ministry have chosen for its new "genocide-tour" itinerary leave a meager impression. The best-preserved attraction, Ta Mok's hideout, nestled in a floodplain to limit access points, includes three rickety structures and a decaying Chinese-made radio car used to disseminate propaganda. Otherwise, Pol Pot's old home has degenerated into a small shell of a building, akin to a concrete hut; the old school house for indoctrination is now simply part of a larger school for today's state education; and the medical ward that used to serve wounded militia is, after renovations and additions, a hospital serving the area.

It is, rather, the life stories of local residents that offer the starkest insight into the area's dark history. The hospital's director, 50-year-old Bich Sokha, for one, has worked in the same building for two decades, though he now only treats victims of traffic accidents and domestic abuse instead of militia with blown-off limbs. As part of the reconciliation plan that allowed former Khmer Rouge to integrate into new state institutions, Bich was able to trade in his black threads for a lab coat. He recalls having treated Ta Mok himself. "He had lost part of his leg from fighting and didn't like the first cut so we cut it again, above the knee, and he liked that."

Ta Mok's daughter Preak Lin, a deadpan 56-year-old woman who owns a sizeable peanut farm in the area, says the elegant stupa housing her father's remains (also one of the itinerary stops) nourishes fond family memories. Ta Mok died in 2006, just months after he was placed in pretrial detention for the U.N.-backed war crimes court that is ongoing. "Many people came to his funeral to pay tribute to him," she says. "When they open the tourist project, the villagers will be happy because they can earn more money, but I won't be happy because it will make me think about my father more and miss him."

Grappling with the loss of the Butcher or not, Anlong Veng's residents, whose living conditions are no exception to the poverty afflicting most Cambodians, are excited at the prospect of a steadier stream of customers for their vending stalls, restaurants and guesthouses. At the moment, only about a dozen people visit the main sites each day. Perhaps none has his entrepreneurial ambitions set higher than Nhem En. The former portrait photographer of prisoners who passed through Tuol Sleng prison, an anteroom to death where an estimated 15,000 people were viciously tortured, Nhem has for years tried to capitalize on his morbidly intimate connection with the regime and its inner workings. Now, he is uncasing his own attraction, a private museum located a half hour's commute outside of Anlong Veng, that will include, among other things, a walking stick, toilet seat and sandals he claims belonged to Pol Pot. (His offer to sell them last year for a million dollars didn't attract any suitors). Nhem says he wants to help illuminate Khmer Rouge history to foreigners and young Cambodians alike, but he's also happy to let someone else carry the torch: "I am offering my museum for 2 million dollars to anyone interested in buying it."

$790,000 "ghost" dollars offer to Nhem En for Pol Pot's shoes

'Ghost' dollars offered for Pol Pot's shoes: report

Thursday, May 21, 2009

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — A Cambodian photographer's attempt to sell the sandals of late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot has yielded only one bid -- 790,000 fake dollars offered in protest at the sale, a report said.

Nhem En, who photographed inmates at the regime's main torture centre and also snapped pictures at official regime ceremonies, announced last month he was selling the footwear along with two cameras.

The shoes belonging to Pol Pot, who died in 1998, were made of car tyre, while the two cameras were manufactured in Germany and Japan.

But "bidder" Pok Leak Reasey told English-language Phnom Penh Post newspaper that he was offering 790,000 fake dollar bills traditionally used to make offerings to spirits of the dead.

"And the reason why I have offered the money in ghost notes is because I want to say that all material remaining from the regime is worth nothing," he said, according to the paper.

Ghost money is used during funeral rites in many parts of Asia.

Up to two million people died of starvation, execution, overwork or torture as the Khmer Rouge, which ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, dismantled society in a bid to forge a communist utopia.

The former chief of Tuol Sleng prison, Kaing Guek Eav -- better known as Duch -- is currently on trial for crimes committed during the regime.

Cambodia's UN-backed court also plans to try four other senior Khmer Rouge leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Sacrava's Political Cartoon: my small BAG

Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)

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.

“My life was for Angkar, so everything I did was to obey Angkar’s orders”: Nhem En

A visitor walks past the alleged Khmer Rouge list of rules at the prison that became known as the Tuol Sleng genocide museum in Phnom Penh. Tang Chhin Sothy / AFP

Cashing in on the killing fields

April 28. 2009
Jared Ferrie, Foreign Correspondent
The National (United Arab Emirates)

ANLONG VENG, CAMBODIA - As his former boss faces war crimes charges for running a Khmer Rouge torture centre, the prison’s chief photographer plans to capitalise on his country’s dark legacy.

Nhem En hopes to raise at least US$500,000 (Dh1.8million) by selling two cameras he used to photograph many of the estimated 17,000 prisoners before they were tortured and executed.

“All Khmer Rouge leaders and prisoners at S21 were photographed with these cameras, so the buyers can take them to exhibits around the world,” said Mr Nhem, who said he had “met everyone” in the Khmer Rouge leadership while taking their portraits.

Mr Nhem said he has other items, including the alleged footwear of the regime’s leader, Pol Pot, which he also plans to auction off.

He said he would use the profits to build a museum in Anlong Veng, the former Khmer Rouge stronghold where he is now district vice governor. Many of the regime’s former figures hold positions of power in the area, which fell to the government in April 1998, ending two decades of civil war.

Mr Nhem is banking on curiosity about the regime that plunged Cambodia into “year zero” in an attempt to create an agrarian utopia by executing intellectuals and eradicating traditional family structures, among other disastrous policies.

Two similar museums in the capital, Phnom Penh, are popular with tourists. One of them is the former S21 prison, where many of Mr Nhem’s chilling black and white images are displayed, the prisoners staring wide-eyed with terror into the camera.

The most significant site in Anlong Veng is the grave of Pol Pot, who died, reportedly of a heart attack, as government forces were closing in. His remains were hurriedly cremated and they now lie buried beneath a rusting sheet of corrugated metal.

Although he is widely reviled as the mastermind of a movement that killed as many as two million Cambodians, his final resting place regularly receives visitors who sometimes leave offerings and pray.

One of them, Phan Phary, laid a bunch of bananas at the grave and lit a few sticks of incense before making a short prayer.

“I know Pol Pot killed a lot of people and he was a bad man, but he was the leader here and people living here respect him,” she said. “They need to respect him to bring luck and happiness for their families.”

Him Chhay, who lives in a small wooden house adjacent to the site, said Pol Pot was cruel during the Khmer Rouge’s reign from 1975 to 1979, but by the time he took refuge in Anlong Veng as an ageing guerrilla fighter he had softened.

“It’s better to have a big museum for Pol Pot’s grave because at least he is a former leader of Cambodia,” he added.

Youk Chhang, who heads the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, which researches Khmer Rouge history, said it was not surprising that residents retain a conflicted affinity for Pol Pot.

He explained most were members of the Khmer Rouge who took refuge in the area, which was jungle at the time, where they continued to fight against the government.

“Pol Pot was the only person who took care of them, who gave them food to eat,” Mr Chhang said. “He’s a father, he’s an uncle. But he was the architect of the genocide of Cambodia.”

Mr Chhang said the brutal legacy of the Khmer Rouge has had a psychological effect on many who fought with the movement and have not yet been reintegrated into Cambodian society.

“They are in search of an identity. They are in search of themselves,” he said.

Mention of the UN-backed war crimes tribunal, which recently began trying the first of five former leaders of the regime, prompted ambivalent responses from some residents.

“I don’t listen to the radio; I don’t care about this. I’m very busy with no time to think about it,” said Chan Lay, a former Khmer Rouge fighter who lost his leg during the war and uses a prosthetic limb.

Another resident, Khieu Dum, said the tribunal “is no use for Cambodian people”. He is the son of Khieu Samphan, one of the regime’s top leaders, who is in prison awaiting trial.

“My father is innocent,” Mr Khieu said in an interview at the busy gas station he owns in the centre of town.

Mr Chhang, of the Documentation Centre, said he supports the idea of creating a museum in Anlong Veng because it would help people in the area understand and come to terms with their history. He was, however, sceptical of how Mr Nhem acquired the items, and he suggested the sandals in particular might be impossible to verify as authentic.

Mr Nhem insisted the items were real. He said he was given the cameras in 1976 to work as an official photographer at S21, the prison run by Kaing Guek Eav, who is now on trial and has confessed to ordering torture and executions.

As for his own role in the regime, Mr Nhem was unapologetic.

He said he realised later that the party’s leadership, known as Angkor, led the country into disaster. But he photographed the prisoners at S21 because it was his job and he was fully committed to the party.

“My life was for Angkar, so everything I did was to obey Angkar’s orders,” Mr Nhem said. “You can judge me as guilty or innocent.”