At the ROM, photos document Cambodia’s record of horror

Observance and Memorial: Photographs from S-21, Cambodia Institute for Contemporary Culture’s Roloff Beny gallery Level 4, Michael Lee-Chin Crystal. On display September 22, 2012 to March 10, 2013
(/Courtesy of the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and Photo Archive Group)

Tuesday, Sep. 18 2012
JAMES ADAMS
The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)

The camera, like the unblinking eye of God, has been a mute witness to happiness and horror, and everything in between since the invention of photography in the early 19th century. The 103 black-and-white pictures in the exhibition Observance and Memorial: Photographs from S-21, Cambodia weave their spell on the horror end of the experiential spectrum, but ever so quietly and sombrely.

The melancholy comes from the realization that soon after these photographs were taken, every single one of the subjects were beaten, mutilated, interrogated, forced to make false confessions, then killed and their bodies dumped into mass graves. These are shots before the shooting, so to speak, taken between 1975 and 1979 in the notorious S-21 prison camp that Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge established in a converted high school near Phnom Penh. By the time S-21 was liberated, in late January, 1979, more than 14,000 persons had been imprisoned there. Only 23, including five children, were alive to greet their Vietnamese and non-Khmer Rouge liberators. (The camp is now a museum of genocide.)

The negatives – there are more than 6,000 in total – for these images were discovered in the early 1990s by two U.S. photojournalists who subsequently set up a team, the Photo Archive Group, to clean, catalogue and print them. The original prints used by the Khmer Rouge were about the size of passport photographs and attached to each prisoner’s dossier. However, by the time S-21 was closed, images and dossiers had largely been separated, with the result that the inmates pictured in the exhibition, opening Saturday at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum, are, with only a handful of poignant exceptions, anonymous.

Westerner in Photograph Identified as American Sailor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7Df4ybZNOs

In this photo taken on Aug. 20, 2012, Director of Documentation Center of Cambodia, Youk Chhang arranges photos, a part of about a thousand of newly-discovered photo collection of detainees at the former Khmer Rouge main prison S-21, in his office in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. More than three decades have passed since the Khmer Rouge ultras orchestrated the deaths of nearly 2 million, one out of every four Cambodians, and turned the country into a slave labor camp.

The photographic evidence proves there were more than just four Westerners detained, tortured and ordered executed at the Tuol Sleng prison.

04 September 2012

Men Kimeng, VOA Khmer

WASHINGTON DC - Researchers at the Documentation Center of Cambodia have identified one of two Westerners who appeared amid more than 1,400 photographs donated to the center last month.

Researchers say one of the men photographed was American Christopher DeLance, who was seized by the Khmer Rouge as he sailed off the coast with three other foreigners.

The photographic evidence proves there were more than just four Westerners detained, tortured and ordered executed at the Tuol Sleng prison, known to the Khmer Rouge as S-21, which was supervised by jailed torture chief Duch.

“This finding is testimony against what Duch has always claimed, that there were only four westerners who died at S-21,” Chhang Youk, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, told VOA Khmer. “On the contrary, there were 12 of them, and one life is already important, not to say 10,000 or 20,000 lives. It adds to more responsibility for Duch.”

Khmer Rouge photos solve decades old mysteries

Photo: Reaksa Chuon poses with a photograph of his father (Claire Slattery)

Youk Chhang, Documentation Centre of Cambodia Director (Claire Slattery)

Photographs of Khmer Rouge victims (Claire Slatterly)

31 August 2012
Claire Slattery Phnom Penh for Connect Asia
Australia Network News

For thousands of Cambodians, the fate of their loved ones under the Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s remains a mystery, and the focus sometimes of a life-long search for answers.

DC-Cam, the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, is an organisation dedicated to collecting and researching documents from the Khmer Rouge period. From time-to-time, new documents and photographs emerge that provide people with information about how their friends and family members died but, a recent donation to DC-Cam has done just that.

Chuon Reaksa was eight-years-old when he last saw his father in 1976. For 36 years, Mr Reaksa has searched for answers about what happened to his father after he disappeared from Cambodia's Battambang Province during the Khmer Rouge Regime.

Now, he's has come face-to-face with his father again, in a photo.

"They sent him by train to Pronet Preah around my family, the whole family, only three days in Pronet Preah and he go, he leave family. So at that time, the information is finished until now I found him in picture. I'm very sorry," he said choking back tears.

S-21 photo leaves husband's search futile

Kim Vun, 53, looks through S-21 prisoner photos yesterday at the Documentation Centre of Cambodia in Phnom Penh. Vun learned at the Khmer Rouge tribunal on Wednesday that his wife had been held and executed at the notorious prison in 1978. Photograph: Meng Kimlong/Phnom Penh Post

Chim Nary, Kim Vun's wife

Friday, 24 August 2012
Bridget Di Certo and Chhay Channyda
The Phnom Penh Post

After learning the fate of his wife while giving testimony at the Khmer Rouge tribunal on Wednesday, Kim Vun yesterday sat with Documentation Center of Cambodia S-21 file photos trying to find the last living photo of his wife.

Flipping through the thousands of passport-sized photos collected by DC-Cam, an anxious Vun paused, his forefinger resting on an unnamed photo of a young woman with short-cropped hair, marked only as “1226” by the organisation.

“Her hair was just like this,” Vun, whose wife ,Chim Nary, was taken for re-education in 1977 and never heard from again, said.

“But in this photo, she is so skinny, it is hard to know absolutely,” he said, his eyes lingering on the black and white mug shot.

Some surprising attitudes to legacy of Khmer Rouge cruelty

The Irish Times - Friday, August 24, 2012
PADDY WOODWORTH

LETTER FROM CAMBODIA: I WAS sitting quietly on a bench, well off the main path out of Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Tuol Sleng is a 1960s high school, converted into the notorious S21 torture centre by the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s.

You need a bit of quiet after visiting Tuol Sleng, or at least I did.

The silent rooms in its three-storey blockhouses are heartbreakingly eloquent about the miseries endured by thousands of alleged “traitors” under Pol Pot’s notorious regime.

Almost everyone who survived the interrogations here was then transported to Choueng Ek, an orchard transformed into a killing field.

I had dreaded coming to this place, yet it felt wrong to enjoy the splendid Khmer temples around Angkor Wat and the abundant wildlife of Tonle Sap’s flooded forests without making some small pilgrimage to acknowledge Cambodia’s nightmarish recent past.

Researchers Find Rare Photo of Westerner Killed by Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge

Thursday, August 23rd, 2012
Voice of America

A Cambodian-led research team has uncovered a rare photograph of one of the few Westerners to be killed at a notorious Khmer Rouge prison in the 1970s.

The Documentation Center for Cambodia sent the photograph of French embassy worker Andres Gaston Courtigne to VOA's Khmer Service Thursday. Chief archivist Chhang Youk said his team found the photograph by chance while sifting through thousands of paper documents at the center, which seeks to preserve the history of Khmer Rouge genocide victims. The ultra-leftist group ruled Cambodia from 1975-79.

Courtigne already was known to have been one of 11 Westerners killed at the Khmer Rouge's Tuol Sleng interrogation center, also referred to as S-21. But the newly released photograph is the first known to show the Frenchman after his detention.

Rare Khmer Rouge Prison Photos Donated to Archives

In this photo taken on Aug. 20, 2012, Director of Documentation Center of Cambodia, Chhang Youk arranges photos, a part of about a thousand of newly-discovered photo collection of detainees at the former Khmer Rouge main prison S-21, in his office in Phnom Penh.

A pile of mugshots provided to the Documentation Center of Cambodia by an anonymous collector. (Credit: DC-Cam)

August 22, 2012
Nash Jenkin, VOA

The unidentified woman [who gave the photos] never looked at them ... she was afraid she would find a picture of her father

More than 1,000 photographs of inmates facing certain death four decades ago in a notorious Khmer Rouge torture center have been presented to an official Cambodian archive.

The 1,426 photos were donated anonymously this month to the Documentation Center of Cambodia. They stunned archivists with rich details of prisoners held at the Tuol Sleng prison during the 1975-1979 rule of the extremist group.

Documentation center chief Chhang Youk tells VOA (Khmer Service) the back of each passport-size photo contains information on each prisoner, with much of it written by the prisoners themselves.

Tuol Sleng photos recovered, Khmer Rouge prisoners remembered

Fourteen newly discovered photographs of people incarcerated at the notorious S-21 prison are displayed at the offices of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia yesterday. Photograph: Hong Menea/Phnom Penh Post

Wednesday, 15 August 2012
Bridget Di Certo and Chhay Channyda
The Phnom Penh Post

To Sochanthy made an unusual discovery when his family packed up their home on Monivong Boulevard to relocate four months ago.

The 47-year-old government official was overwhelmed with a rush of memories as he stumbled upon 14 photographs of S-21 prisoners he had found as a teenager and kept stored in his post-1979 family home.

“I lived [after 1979] near the health university, and in 1983, I saw those photos and some other documents scattered under a tree on the corner of the street,” Sochanthy said, describing a Khmer Rouge bulletin, handwritten books and some photographs of Lon Nol soldiers marching.

“I chose only the photos to keep, because they looked like prisoner photographs I had seen at Tuol Sleng museum when my family visited after the Pol Pot regime,” he said, recalling a deserted building with clothes and torture implements strewn across the grounds.

Nuon Chea Ordered Torture of Prisoners, Duch Tells Tribunal

Thursday, 29 March 2012
Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer | Phnom Penh

“He said, ‘Comrade, clear them out.’”

Testifying for a seventh day before the Khmer Rouge tribunal, convicted prison chief Duch said he was ordered to torture prisoners by Nuon Chea, the regime’s chief ideologue, who is on trial for atrocity crimes.

Duch said Pol Pot, the leader of the secretive regime, told him not to use torture as an interrogation measure, as more and more suspected spies and informants were brought to the prison he ran, S-21.

Three days later, Nuon Chea ordered him to extract confessions under torture, Duch said.

Duch is helping prosecutors describe the inner workings of the regime as they seek to tie three suspects—Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, and Ieng Sary—to atrocity crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge under their leadership.

Duch said Nuon Chea also ordered him to execute all remaining prisoners at S-21 as Vietnamese-led forces ousted the Khmer Rouge from the power and pushed them out of the capital.

Evidentiary Hearing in Case 002 | March 29, 2012

Evidentiary Hearing in Case 002 | March 29, 2012 - Part 1 (Khmer) from Cambodia Tribunal Monitor on Vimeo.

Evidentiary Hearing in Case 002 | March 29, 2012 - Part 2 (Khmer) from Cambodia Tribunal Monitor on Vimeo.

Evidentiary Hearing in Case 002 | March 29, 2012 - Part 3 (English) from Cambodia Tribunal Monitor on Vimeo.

Evidentiary Hearing in Case 002 | March 29, 2012 - Part 4 (English) from Cambodia Tribunal Monitor on Vimeo.

ឌុច៖ នួន ជា ជា​អ្នក​បញ្ជា​ឲ្យ​សម្លាប់​មនុស្ស​នៅ​ទួល​ស្លែង - Duch: Nuon Chea ordered the killings in Tuol Sleng

សវនាការ​របស់​សាលាក្ដី​ខ្មែរក្រហម នៅ​ថ្ងៃ​ទី ២៨ មីនា ឆ្នាំ ២០១២ អង្គ​ជំនុំជម្រះ​នៅ​បន្ត​សួរ​ដេញដោល​សាក្សី ឌុច នៅ​ឡើយ​ទេ។

2012-03-29
ដោយ ឡេង ម៉ាលី
Radio Free Asia

សាក្សី កាំង ហ្កេក​អ៊ាវ ហៅ ឌុច បាន​ប្រាប់​អង្គ​ជំនុំជម្រះ​ថា ជន​ជាប់​ចោទ នួន ជា បាន​បញ្ជា​ឱ្យ​សម្លាប់​អ្នកទោស​ទួល​ស្លែង​ទាំង​អស់​នៅ​ថ្ងៃ​ចុង​ក្រោយ​នៃ​របប​កម្ពុជា​ប្រជាធិបតេយ្យ។

សាក្សី ឌុច បញ្ជាក់​ដូច្នេះ គឺ​នៅ​ពេល​ឆ្លើយ​តប​នឹង​សំណួរ​របស់​សហ​ព្រះរាជអាជ្ញា ដែល​បាន​សួរ ឌុច ថា តើ​មន្ទីរ ស២១ ឬ​គុក​ទួល​ស្លែង​បិទ​ទ្វារ​នៅ​ពេល​ណា៖ «ស-២១ បើ​និយាយ​ពី​បិទ​ទ្វារ​ពិបាក​និយាយ​ណាស់។ បើ​និយាយ​អំពី​បញ្ជា​បង នួន ឱ្យ​កម្ទេច​មនុស្ស​ឱ្យ​អស់ គឺ​ប្រហែល​នៅ​ថ្ងៃ ៣ ខែ​មករា ឆ្នាំ ១៩៧៩។ ម៉ោង ១១ រថក្រោះ​វៀតណាម​មក​ដល់​មុខ​ផ្ទះ​ខ្ញុំ។ ម៉ោង ៣ យើង​ខ្ញុំ​ចេញ​ពី ស-២១ ទៅ​សាលា​សន្សំ​កុសល។ អត់​មាន​បិទ​ទ្វា​ទេ គឺ​រត់​ចេញ​តែ​ម្ដង។ មេ​រត់​ចោល​បាត់»។

របាយការណ៍​ពី​មន្ទីរ ស-២១ ឬ​គុក​ទួល​ស្លែង ដែល​សហ​ព្រះរាជ​អាជ្ញា​លើក​ឡើង បាន​បង្ហាញ​អំពី​អ្នក​ទោស​ជាង ១ ម៉ឺន ២ ពាន់​នាក់ ត្រូវ​បាន​គេ​ឃុំ​ខ្លួន ធ្វើ​ទារុណកម្ម និង​សម្លាប់​ចោល បន្ទាប់​ពី​យក​ចម្លើយ​រួច។

សាក្សី ឌុច បាន​បន្ត​ថា បញ្ជី​ឈ្មោះ​អ្នក​ទោស​ជាង ១ ម៉ឺន​នាក់​នោះ គឺ​ចាប់​តាំង​ពី​ខែ​មេសា ឆ្នាំ ១៩៧៥ ដល់​ឆ្នាំ ១៩៧៩។

Duch claimed that proof fall on Nuon Chea’s lap

Duch (L) and Nuon Chea (R)

28 March 2012
By Leng Maly
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Soch
Click here to read the original article in Khmer

During the KR Tribunal hearing held on 27 March, the co-prosecutors raised a number of documents related to S-21 (Tuol Sleng) reports to question Duch in order to pinpoint the accused.

Raising the S-21 reports with Duch was done to seek proof showing relationships between S-21 and the KR leaders, in particular Nuon Chea, the 2nd top leader of the KR regime.

Duch confirmed at the hearing about the writing found on a number of documents showed Nuon Chea’s involvement in 1977: “On the top box, on the left hand side, it is written: ‘Not read yet. One copy for Brother Nuon 11 Nov. 1977’. That’s the handwriting of Son Sen, my boss. Regarding the word ‘Brother Nuon’, it is directed to Mr. Nuon Chea.”

Jesmond backpacker's killer is jailed for life

Feb 4 2012
by Sara Nichol
Evening Chronicle (UK)

TYRANNICAL Cambodian leader Pol Pot’s chief executioner will spend the rest of his life in jail after killing a Tyneside backpacker more than 30 years ago.

John Dewhirst, 26, of Jesmond, Newcastle, was sailing with a group of men in 1978 when their yacht was intercepted by Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime.

Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, was commander of the top secret Tuol Sleng prison – code-named S-21 – at the time. He admitted to overseeing the torture of his prisoners before sending them for execution at the “killing fields”.

Touring Pol Pot's Cambodian killing fields

For a project exploring the "origins of evil," what could be more evil than the genocidal regime of Pol Pot in Cambodia? My talented, adventurous intern at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Sarah Collman, recently visited the Cambodian killing fields. I invited her to contribute a guest blog post:

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

By Sarah Collma

Foreign Policy

Perpetrators of genocide use different methods to kill and maim. In Bosnia, Serb forces lined up Muslim men and boys at mass execution sites, and shot them through the head. In Rwanda, Hutu gangs hunted down their Tutsi neighbors with knives and machetes. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge tortured their fellow Cambodians with farming tools and bamboo sticks in prisons, before dumping their bodies in mass graves in the countryside. .

It is an eerie feeling to follow in the footsteps of the executioners and their victims, and stand in places that have witnessed so much pain, horror, and death.

I began my tour of the Cambodian "killing fields" by visiting Tuol Sleng, the death prison known as S-21, in Phnom Penh. I walked through each of the tiny rooms and cells in buildings A, B, C, and D, which were used for extreme torture and interrogation, detention, and extermination from 1975-1979. Guards at S-21 beat prisoners until they were nearly dead, pulled off their fingernails and toenails, forced them to eat human excrement, and poured salt water over their wounds -- in order to force confessions of non-existent crimes.

Tuol Sleng daughters reconcile the past

Huy Senghul (left) and Norng Chen Kimty stand in front of a photo of Norng Chen Kimty’s father Norng Chanphal, seen on the left in the background photo. Photo by: John Anthony

Wednesday, 14 September 2011
John Anthony
The Phnom Penh Post

Huy Senghul and Norng Chen Kimty’s fathers were tormentor and victim, respectively, at the Khmer Rouge’s infamous Tuol Sleng interrogation facility, but the two now work together, at times sharing a desk, to document the crimes of the genocidal regime.

Their fathers, former Tuol Sleng executioner Him Huy and child survivor Norng Chanphal, have since quite remarkably reconciled, and the children now work as researchers at the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, a key source of written evidence for the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.

Both daughters share a common goal: to search for the truth about those slain during the three years, eight months and 20 days that the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia.

Go shrine seeing, prison strolling in Cambodia

New Delhi, Sep 13 (IANS) - A Communist legacy in the form of ghastly souvenirs, an ancient town with over 100 temples of Hindu origin, a port city with spotless beaches — the tourism map of Cambodia, hard-selling itself as a prime Asian destination to Indians, is etched in extremes.

The violent legacy of the Communist regime of the former Khmer Rouge in capital city Phnom Penh is in sharp contrast to the mystical Siem Reap, the temple town.

‘We are promoting Cambodia as a holistic destination for mid-segment and high-end Indian tourists with a refined sense of history and cultural sensitivity,’ Chhoeng Monny, deputy director (marketing and promotions) of Cambodian tourism, told IANS.

Bordering the gulf of Thailand adjoining Laos, Vietnam and Thailand, Cambodia — the land of surprises — is spread across 181,035 sq km in the heart of Southeast Asia within the lush tropics.

B.C. man's killers may finally face justice

The remains of Cambodians killed by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime during their 1975-79 reign of terror lie in an abandoned school house in Tonle Bati, 40 km south of Phnom Penh.Photograph by: Reuters, Special To The Sun

Four top leaders of Khmer Rouge regime to face UN-backed tribunal in Phnom Penh on June 27

June 8, 2011
By David Kattenburg
Special To The Vancouver Sun (British Columbia, Canada)

It's unclear why Richmond native Stuart Robert Glass was sailing off the coast of Cambodia, back in August 1978, on a little yacht named Foxy Lady, when a patrol boat of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime appeared out of the haze.

He might have been on his way to Bangkok to pick up a load of Thai marijuana. Perhaps he was just there for fun and adventure.

Whatever the reason, Stuart Glass, who was only 27, was gunned down in a hail of bullets -the only Canadian to die, along with two million Cambodians, in one of the 20th-century's largest mass murders.

The fate of Glass's pals, a New Zealander and an Englishman, would be far worse.

Now, 33 years later, four top leaders of Democratic Kampuchea -as the xenophobic Khmer Rouge called their regime -will face a United Nations-backed tribunal on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. Their trial begins June 27.

Former KR prisoner finds her photo in Tuol Sleng

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1x8e-JgXaE&feature=channel_video_title

Haunting memories linger in Cambodia

The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, is a former high school that was used as a prison by the Khmer Rouge regime. / Maggie Downs, Special to The Desert Sun

May. 15, 2011
Maggie Downs
Special to The Desert Sun

This used to be a school.

Then the Khmer Rouge communist regime took over. From 1975 to 1979, this institute of higher learning was turned into a torture chamber, Security Prison 21. An estimated 20,000 people were beaten, maimed, tortured and killed in the converted Phnom Penh high school. Some of them were soldiers for the opposition. Others were simply intellectuals, academics, doctors, teachers, monks and students.

Now the buildings form a memorial site called Tuol Sleng, which translates to “Strychnine Hill.”

These are some of the people who died there. Their faces haunt me.

Documentary gives Khmer Rouge convict his say at Cannes

Rithy Panh at the 63rd Cannes Film Festival (AFP/File, Martin Bureau)

Monday, May 16, 2011
AFP

CANNES, France — Duch, who oversaw the deaths of 15,000 people as a Khmer Rouge prison chief in the 1970s, portrayed himself Sunday as a victim of circumstances in a documentary screened at Cannes.

Cambodian director Rithy Panh filmed Duch a few weeks before the commander of Tuol Sleng prison, also known as S-21, became the first Khmer Rouge cadre to be tried by a UN-backed tribunal in Phnom Penh.

Panh apologised Sunday for turning down interviews about "Duch: Master of the Forges of Hell", saying a decision was imminent on Duch's appeal of a 30-year jail sentence for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

"I don't have the right to set out my opinions" while the appeal process is under way, said the film-maker, who was a child when his family perished under the Khmer Rouge.