Gunnar Bergstrom's "Mea Culpa"

Gunnar Bergstrom, right, a former Swedish leftist who sympathized with the Khmer Rouge regime, walks as he tours to the former Khmer Rouge's notorious S-21 prison, now known as Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Monday, Nov. 17, 2008. The former Swedish sympathizer of the late Cambodian dictator Pol Pot has visited the country's genocide museum during a trip to seek forgiveness for his past support of the Khmer Rouge regime. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Repentant Khmer Rouge fan returns

Tuesday, 18 November 2008
By Guy De Launey
BBC News, Phnom Penh

A Swedish man who supported the Khmer Rouge movement has returned to Cambodia for the first time in 30 years.

Gunnar Bergstrom was part of a group which toured the country and dined with the Khmer Rouge leadership in 1978.

He now says he regrets what he did - and plans to apologise to survivors of the Pol Pot era.

As many as two million Cambodians are thought to have died because of Khmer Rouge policies, and trials are underway of surviving Khmer Rouge leaders.

The last time Gunnar Bergstrom came to Phnom Penh, there was virtually nobody in the city.

The Khmer Rouge had evacuated the population to the countryside.

Many of them died there - from malnutrition, disease or summary execution.

Different light

But Mr Bergstrom's Swedish support group saw the Khmer Rouge in a different light.

They thought the ultra-Maoist organisation had liberated Cambodia from imperialist western powers.

On their carefully controlled tour in 1978, the Swedes only saw the positive side of the revolution - factories, hospitals, and smiling peasants.

Even then, Mr Bergstrom says, he felt troubled by the stories which were starting to emerge.

"There were times when the doubts crept into my mind, but I wouldn't express them to the group of the other people until later.

"But you shouldn't exaggerate it. I was crazy enough to support the Khmer Rouge when I came home, and I quieted that voice," he said.

Strong reactions

Now Mr Bergstrom is trying to make up for not speaking out at the time.

He is staging an exhibition of his photographs from the time, called "Living Hell", and he is touring the country again.

This time he will be addressing public forums for survivors of the Khmer Rouge era.

And he is prepared for strong reactions.

"I can answer questions and will have to deal with any reaction I meet," he said.

He said he would be pleased if that helped in educating young people in Cambodia about what happened.

He also wants to educate people in Sweden too, to not be uncritical, he said.

Mr Bergstrom's return to Cambodia coincides with the long-awaited Khmer Rouge Tribunal.

Five former leaders of the organisation have been charged with crimes against humanity.

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?”