Cult of personality in Cambodia

A woman views a photograph of Prime Minister Hun Sen and Cuban leader Fidel Castro at an exhibition at Wat Phnom Museum on Friday. (Photo by: Heng Chivoan)

Photo exhibit marks PM’s birthday

Monday, 05 April 2010
Mom Kunthear
The Phnom Penh Post

Shots chronicling Hun Sen’s political career to be displayed at Wat Phnom Museum this week

NEARLY 200 photos of Prime Minister Hun Sen have been put on display by the Cambodian Photographers Association (CPA) to mark the premier’s 59th birthday, the group said Sunday, as King Father Norodom Sihanouk issued a statement praising “the nonstop and continued night-and-day progress of the nation and the Cambodian people”.

Keo Nuon, secretary general of the Cambodian Photographers Association and a former reporter for Agence Kampuchea Presse, the government press agency, said Sunday that the photos, which chronicle the premier’s life and career since 1978, will be displayed at Wat Phnom Museum until April 9.

“This is the first time we have held a Hun Sen photo exhibition because ... I want to let the next generation know that it is not easy to be a country’s leader,” he said.

“The next generation should follow his example in their own lives, especially when leading in work, in order to receive great successes.”

Information Minister and government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said at the launch of the exhibition on Friday that it was not intended only to venerate the prime minister. “It is to address the young generation so they can understand the history of the great leader of Cambodia and his hard work from the collapse of the Khmer Rouge until today,” he told reporters.

The King Father has also issued his own personal birthday greeting to the premier, just days after arriving back in the country from Beijing.

“I and the Queen Mother have the pleasure to warmly praise Samdech [Hun Sen], the valorous, intelligent, extremely clever leader and the supreme nationalist who received great successes in all fields,” the ex-monarch said in a statement.

“May you receive other big victories forever, and may you be blessed with long life, class, good health and strength.”

Sam Rainsy Party spokesman Yim Sovann said Sunday that it was not right to focus on just one man when many other politicians had contributed to building the country.

“There are many politicians who have participated in protecting the country, and there are many nationalists,” he said.

Although Hun Sen’s birthday is officially recorded as April 4, 1951, his official biography lists August 5, 1952, as the true date of his birth.

Photos Show Chams in Another Light

Two brothers (Photo: Emiko Stock)
Cham Women (Photo: Emiko Stock)

Additional photos from Emiko Stock can be viewed here

By Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
16 December 2009

In one photo a Cambodian Cham carries a traditional scarf over his left shoulder, his home festooned with lights to welcome friendly spirits and keep the malicious at bay. In another, three old Cham men in white dress and headscarves worship at a mosque. Such are the divergent portrayals in a new photo exhibition highlighting nine years of work by Emiko Stock, a French anthropologist who studies the minority group here.

“The exhibition is to show the public that there is not just one group of Chams, or the same Cham community, in Cambodia,” said Stock, whose 88 black and white photos were on display Monday night at Phnom Penh’s Reyum Institute. “In fact, the Chams in Cambodia have various characteristics in terms of celebrating marriages, religious rituals, or even the way they address their parents.”

The photos were taken from 2000 to 2009, in the provinces of Kampong Cham, Kampong Chhnang and Mondolkiri, as well as Phnom Penh.

“I think the show will enable viewers to understand that the Chams are different from Islam or Muslims, as is widely misunderstood,” Leb Ke, a Cham, said at the exhibition.

The Chams are descendents of the lost Champa empire, located in today’s Vietnam. When the Vietnamese conquered the kingdom in the 15th Century, the Chams were forced to move into southern Vietnam and Cambodia.

In Cambodia, the group numbers nearly half a million, and most—but not all—are Muslim. And though the group has been here a long time, it is little understood.

“Some people who were led to believe bad rumors about the Cham will better understand their ethics,” said Nos Sles, an undersecretary of state at the Ministry of Education, of the exhibition.

The exhibition, which was shown in Malaysia in October, will move to Hawaii in January.

Exhibit of 1978 ‘Hell’ Photos To Tour Country

In 1978 photographer Gunnar Bergstrom was shown factories, fields and classrooms, in a Khmer Rouge propaganda effort.

By Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
13 November 2008

A Swedish photographer who in 1978 was given a staged tour of the Khmer Rouge’s communist utopia will return to Cambodia for the first time Saturday, in part to exhibit the photographs he took on the trip and in part to apologize for missing the truth.

As part of the Swedish Cambodian Friendship Association, Gunnar Bergstrom spent 14 days in Cambodia in August 1978, where he was given a public relations tour by top leaders of the regime, including Pol Pot and Ieng Sary.

He visited factories and rice fields in Phnom Penh and the countryside and walked away believing Cambodia’s economy was showing promise, that the communist agrarian experiment was working. Only later did he learn of the nearly 2 million who died under the regime.

Bergstrom will return Saturday to begin a two-week tour “to speak with over 400 commune chiefs and villagers,” the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which is supporting the exhibit, said in a statement. “He will tell Cambodians—and ultimately the world—about the things he saw, ignored, and was never shown during his first visit.”

Bergstrom will be visiting a post-war Cambodia where some the regime leaders who hosted him are in jail under the Khmer Rouge tribunal, awaiting trials for atrocity crimes. The first, for jailed prison chief Duch, is expected in early 2009.

The 93-photograph exhibit, “Gunnar in the Living Hell,” features “never-before-seen photographs taken exclusively from Bergstrom's personal archive of his 1978 tour,” the Documentation Center said. “They are in color—unusual for pictures taken in Democratic Kampuchea.”

The exhibit will open at Reyum Arts Gallery and the Khmer Rouge tribunal building in Phnom Penh Nov. 18, before traveling to the provinces of Kampong Cham, Takeo and Battambang later in the month. Finally, the exhibit will be permanently displayed at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, with a duplicate exhibition shown in Stockholm, Sweden.

“The Khmer Rouge prepared [the visit] for him, so he could tell his people what he saw,” said Kalyanee Mam, a public affairs officer for the Documentation Center. “He was shown factories, and he visited a hospital and schools, but those were only an ideal picture that they had organized for him. He could not see behind the scenes.”

“What he saw was busy activity, and that made him think that Cambodia was developing its economy,” she said. “But later, he knew that nearly 2 million were killed in Pol Pot’s regime, and then he felt so guilty. He wanted to present his apology to everyone, because he did not know the truth.... He strongly supports the Khmer Rouge tribunal.”

“As with most visual documents produced for the Khmer Rouge, Bergstrom's collection includes no photos of the torture, starvation, death, and despair for which the Khmer Rouge is so reviled,” the Documentation Center said. “These omissions beg the questions: Was there any justification for the Swedes' support of the Khmer Rouge? Did the Khmer Rouge cadres filter what the Swedes saw, or were the Swedes willfully blind to the conditions surrounding them? Were the Swedes hapless bystanders—or were they, too, victims of the Khmer Rouge, manipulated and duped by the regime?”

Cambodian Photos Shed Light on Poverty

This photo, part of an exhibit by Trevor Wright, shows a young child chewing on a stalk of sugar cane. Wright's photo exhibit "Life at the Cambodian Garbage Dump," is located on the 4th floor of the HFAC.

28 Jan 2008
By Jenica Stimpson
BYU NewsNet (Bringham Young University, Utah, USA)

Trevor Wright, a BYU student and media arts major, served his mission in Cambodia and was intrigued with its people. He decided to go back last summer with the Cambodian Children's Fund (CCF) to serve the people he had grown to love. For three months he taught English to impoverished children and helped make their lives a little easier through the aid that the Children's Fund provides.

While serving in Cambodia he took documentary-like pictures of children at the dump. Families are driven to the dump in poverty and struggle through life as garbage pickers who find and sell whatever they can in hopes of earning enough money to survive. Children must help support their families by rummaging through the garbage each day.

"Through my photos, I like to capture the moments, situations and feelings of the individuals so that we can develop a greater understanding of human beings," Wright said. "Because of this experience in Cambodia, I have decided to minor in international development."

Wright's photos are currently displayed in the 4th floor west hall of the Harris Fine Arts Center.

Wright first became interested in photography while in high school and was influenced by his dad. As he grew older he became especially interested in documentary-type photos. He is planning on making a documentary film on the founder of CCF, Scott Neeson, in the near future.

Hollywood film executive Scott Neeson founded the CCF when he traveled to Cambodia in 2003 and witnessed the desperate needs of young children. After working in the film business for 26 years, he now resides in Phnom Penh, Cambodia year-round.

According to the CCF Web site, the organization has three separate facilities where 300 children receive nutrition and housing, medical treatment, dental services and vaccinations. The children are also involved in an educational program that includes local language reading and writing, classes in English, social sciences and math. They also attend evening classes where they learn traditional Khmer music, dance and drama.

"Through these photos I hope that other people will fall in love with Cambodia like I have," Wright said. "I hope that these photos will give an insight that these people are individuals just like you and me."

Lens on Cambodia's beauty

Botumroath Keo Lebun will unveil photos of her travels in Cambodia tonight at NuArt Cafe at Fourth St. and Temple Ave. Here, Lebun poses in front of a 2005 photo of Kompong Cham Province tobacco field workers. (Scott Smeltzer / Press-Telegram)

Photos of a changing land aim at a fresh view.

08/17/2007
By Greg Mellen, Staff writer
Long Beach Press Telegram

LONG BEACH - Botumroath Keo Lebun wants to change the way the world sees Cambodia. And she's taking a rather literal approach toward her goal.

While much of the world attention on Cambodia is focused on tourism at the suddenly crazily popular Angkor Wat temple complex and the resuscitated Khmer Rouge tribunals, Lebun wants to show a different picture of Cambodia.

So beginning today, a month-long photography exhibition of LeBun's images entitled "Rivers of Life" opens at NuArt Cafe, 2741 E. Fourth St.

"I wasn't interested in the typical things," Lebun says. "I was more interested in documenting the beauty of the country. I wanted to show a beautiful place."

Lebun is a native Cambodian, but was born just before the Khmer Rouge rise to power. And while she has no real memories of the murderous reign of the regime, which left about 1.7 million dead in its wake, she was profoundly affected. Her father was killed when she was three months old.

Lebun and her family were forced from their home in Kampot Province and shipped to Battambang Province near the Thai border. When the Vietnamese ousted the Khmer Rouge in 1979, Lebun and her family moved to a refugee camp and in 1981 to the Bronx in New York City.

"Another war zone," she says ruefully.

Lebun refers to herself as a 1.5-generation Cambodian, influenced by the culture and traditions of her mother, but highly Americanized.

She graduated from Buffalo University with a degree in political science. It was on a trip to Cambodia in 1998 that she met noted Vietnam War photographer Philip Jones Griffiths and discovered a new interest.

Since then, Lebun has honed her artistic skills, returned to Cambodia to work for a nongovernmental organization or NGO, received a master's degree from the Columbia School of Journalism and attended the School of International and Public Affairs.

During the trips to Cambodia, Lebun said she began to make connections through her images.

"They say food and learning are the way to understand your culture," Lebun says. "For me it was through (photography)."

As a political scientist and journalist, Lebun understood one side of Cambodia: the geopolitics of the area, the evolving society and the influences that are changing the country.

But through photography, she discovered something more elemental, something pure that is disappearing from the landscape.

That's what she's trying to present in her exhibit - a lifestyle and a culture defined by the Tonle Sap and Mekong River. These are people and a culture that aren't seen in burgeoning Siem Reap, the gateway to Angkor Wat, or Phnom Penh, but are being subsumed by the changing culture.

"With all the land grabbing going on, there is a beauty that will be gone," Lebun says. "I give it like 10 years."

As a self-proclaimed 1.5-generation member, Lebun feels a responsibility to the Cambodian-American community.

Tonight, Lebun plans to auction some of her pieces with a portion of the proceeds going to the Cambodia Town Inc., helping to promote the newly designated stretch of Anaheim Avenue.

When not working at her full-time job as a program coordinator at USC, she is active as a volunteer in the Cambodia Culture and Arts Association, where she has been doing grant writing.

She hopes later this year to begin a photojournalism book about the Cambodian Community in Long Beach.

For the moment, however, Lebun's focus is on tonight's festivities, beginning at 6:30. She plans to have a Cambodian band, Cambodian finger food and, she hopes, a Cambodian celebrity or two.
"It's going to be a hot night," Lebun says.