Graffiti artist slammed for defacing Khmer Rouge genocide prison

Tue, 11 May 2010
DPA

Phnom Penh - An Italian graffiti artist has been sharply criticized for spray-painting walls at a notorious Khmer Rouge execution centre, national media reported Tuesday.

Fabrizio Cammisecra, who reportedly lives in London, posted photographs that showed him spray-painting cell walls of Tuol Sleng genocide museum, known as S-21, where thousands of victims of the Khmer Rouge were tortured and executed between 1975 and 1979.

S-21 survivor Bou Meng, who testified last year at the trial of the prison's former head, Comrade Duch, told the Cambodia Daily newspaper he was appalled at Cammisecra's actions.

"This is bad to see. S-21 is a historical museum," Bou Meng said. "How can people deface it? They should not let this happen again."

Bou Meng, an artist, was one of just a handful of people who survived S-21 where as many as 30,000 people are thought to have been tortured and executed.

The Cambodia Daily newspaper printed one of the spray-painted images, a portrait of a boy executed at S-21 holding a sign with Cammisecra's tag, codefc, and the words "#codefc stuDIED here 1975-1979."

Others that Cammisecra posted online show spray-painted images of more executed prisoners from S-21 with his codefc tag.

The director of S-21 museum, Keh Sobanaka, said his staff had scrubbed away several images in the past few months, and described people willing to deface S-21 as "mentally ill."

Judgement in Duch's trial is due to be handed down in the coming weeks. Duch, who was tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity for his part in the deaths of 12,380 people at S-21, faces life in prison if convicted.

Around 1.7 million people are believed to have died from execution, starvation, illness and overwork during the Khmer Rouge regime's rule of Cambodia between 1975 and 1979.

Buddhist monks know how to respond to vandals ... with compassion

6/12/2009
Post-Bulletin (Rochester, Minnesota)

We are members of a Rochester group that has met weekly over the past five years to learn how to meditate and to support each other in that effort. Among the members of our group are monks and lay people from the Cambodian Buddhist temple in Rochester.

It's with great sadness that we've learned about the repeated acts of vandalism against the Cambodian Buddhist temple in recent weeks.

Many members of the Buddhist temple in Rochester have a lot of experience with being victims of violence, having left Cambodia during the genocide there between 1975 and 1979, which claimed two million lives.

We hope that law enforcement works quickly in Rochester and that members of other faith communities in Rochester step forward to show their support of the temple. In the meantime, we offer this loving-kindness prayer that Buddhists offer when they become targets of violence, hatred and aggression:

"We pray that we may clearly understand the roots of these violent acts and that we respond to them not out of anger or hatred, but rather with wisdom and compassion. To both the perpetrators and to the victims of these crimes, we pray that you be safe. We pray that you be protected. We pray that you be happy. We pray that you be at peace."

Doug McGill
(For 21 members)
Rochester

Vandalism at Phnom Roung Temple

Countrywide, vandals damage ancient monuments

May 20, 2008
By Bangkok Post Reporters

Ancient statues at the Phanom Rung stone temple ruins in Buri Ram have been badly damaged and the Shiva Linga stone has been moved off its plinth.

Dusit Thummaporn, chief of the Phanom Rung Historical Park in Chalerm Phrakiat district, said the heads of eleven statues of Nagas, mythical serpent-like animals, at the stairs to the ancient temple had been broken off.

The statue of the sacred cow of the Hindu god Shiva, two statues of Singha, a mythical lion-like beast, and the statue of the guardian deity at the entrance were also damaged.

In addition, the Shiva Linga stone, a symbol of Shiva, was moved off its plinth and placed in the middle of the main building of the temple. A glass of water and three cigarettes were found at the Naga stairs.

Deputy provincial police chief Wichai Sangprapai said the vandalism may be linked to conflicts among people looking after the ancient site. It could also be the work of mentally disturbed people or those who were disgruntled because they were not allowed to use the ancient site to perform rituals to bless Jatukarm amulets, Pol Col Wichai said.

Meanwhile, in Rayong's Klaeng district, the sculptured flute missing from the Phra Apaimanee statue was found at a rubbish dump yesterday. The flute disappeared in the early hours of Monday, causing outrage among locals.

The statue is in the memorial park built in honour of Sunthorn Phu (1786-1855), Thailand's great poet, who was declared a world poet by the United Nations Economic, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) in 1986.

Phra Apaimanee is a character from one of Sunthorn Phu's literary works, also titled Phra Apaimanee.

Klaeng district is believed to be the birthplace of Sunthorn Phu. A monument to the poet, along with statues of characters from his works, was erected there.

Ban Kram police station chief Pol LtCol Surapong Muenpaopong said the replica flute was in safe-keeping at the police station.

Witnesses said they saw two people riding a motorcycle around the memorial park before the flute disappeared.

In Ayutthaya, governor Preecha Kamolbutr feared that the thefts of ancient items in the province could affect the reputation of Thailand's old capital.

Rampant theft has triggered concern that Unesco may consider delisting Ayutthaya as a world heritage site.

Mr Preecha said the thieves were not average gangsters but ‘‘professionals'' skilled in stealing precious items and might have been paid to steal the artifacts.

It is a top priority for all agencies and local people to work together to combat the thieves, the governor said.

An urgent meeting would be held to work out measures to protect the ancient artifacts, he said.

Some details of the vandalism in Khmer Temple Phnom Roung in Buriram, Thailand

Superstition reigns

May 21, 2008
By Daily Xpress (Thailand)

Vandals destroy artefacts during raid to perform a superstitious ritual at Phanom Rung castle

Vandals invaded the historic Phanom Rung castle in Buri Ram early yesterday, destroyed a number of artefacts and mysteriously relocated a phallus in what looked like a superstitious ritual.

The phallus was moved one metre from its base and turned to face in a different direction. The mouths of 11 Naga King figures, two lion figures, and two hands of a guardian angel figure were damaged.

Strange spirituality

The vandals apparently performed some kind of a ritual inside the temple, but no other items were stolen, said culture office chief Somphong Wiriyakaru.

Candles and joss sticks were lit and left in the castle's main chamber, in addition to cigarette butts and plastic glasses. Phanom Rung historic park chief Dusit Thummaphorn said the damage resulted in some monetary loss, but the loss was tremendous in terms of historic value.

He said later that only two unspecified genuine artefacts were damaged, while the rest were replicas.

Dusit said the area had often been used by people who had their amulets or holy items "re-blessed" in various ceremonies, until he banned all rituals from being performed in the park site last October.

The ritual appeared to be a rite to apologise to the temple before the destruction began, although no one has specified a motive for the attack.

The genuine artefacts that were destroyed would be remoulded, Dusit said, adding the mouths on the figures were damaged because they were easy targets.

Various suspects

Muang Buri Ram police chief Pol Colonel Wichai Sangpraphai said the vandalism could have been due to internal conflicts within the historical park's organisation, from acts of mentally ill people, or by people who had lost benefit from the rituals being banned.

He specified a group of people who were banned from blessing the once popular Jatukham Ramathep amulets as prime suspects.

XTRA

Rich history

>> The Phanom Rung castle was built in the 15th [KI-Media: the actual date was 12th century] century by Hindu priests.

>> It was turned into a Buddhist shrine 300 hundred years later by King Jayavarman VII (1181-1206), who converted to Buddhism.

>> The castle, whose name means 'a large hill', was made from pink sandstone and stands 1,320 metres above sea level.

Preah Khan Temple located in Preah Vihear province is vandalized

Fresh sign of vandalism can be clearly seen on these stone sculptures along the Preah Khan Kampong Svay temple (Photo: RFA listener)

14 April 2008
By Sav Yuth
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by KI-Media

A number of villagers from Preah Vihear province claimed that an ancient temple enclosed in a wall measuring more than one kilometer along each side, located in Sangkum Thmei district, is being vandalized by looters who hacked off the stone sculptures along the temple walls in many places to sell.

On Monday 14 April, one of the many villagers of Sangkum Thmei district who just visited the Bakan Temple which some also call the Preah Khan Kampong Svay Temple (not to be confused with the Preah Khan Temple in Siem Reap province), located in Kanseng village, Ranakse commune, called on the authority to help protect this ancient temple after he saw the large amount of vandalisms that made him concern about the fate of the temple: “They just hacked off the carvings very recently, maybe they took them to sell. Last year, when I went there, it was beautiful, but this year, it’s all different, they hacked off 5, 6, 7 places. It’s regretful that they do this, I feel pity for the loss of our cultural heritage.”

Nevertheless, Son Bun Leang, the cabinet chief of the provincial office, said that he cannot comment about this temple because it is under the administration of the provincial department of culture and fine arts: “Ask the experts at the department of culture, they are the ones who are administering this temple…”

Nouv Sokuna, the deputy director of the Preah Vihear department of culture and fine arts, rejected the information claiming that carvings in the temple were hacked off by looters. He claimed that, currently, his department is taking good care and is protecting this temple by setting up 40 guards, as well as tourist police offices, and royal academicians who are based there also. Nouv Sokuna said: “The province is paying a lot of attention, in particular the department of culture has 40 guards based there, this is one issue. Secondly, there are also tourist police officers and royal academicians staying there also.”

Local police and tourists visiting the temple said that they never saw any temple guards as the department of culture claimed.

An anonymous police officer from the Sangkum Thmei district said that at the Preah Khan Kampong Svay Temple, there are no police guards there, there are only two tourist police officers: “There are two tourist police officers also…”

A tourist from Phnom Penh who visited the temple, indicated that he did not see anybody protecting the temple, and he observed that vandalism took place and the carvings were hacked off: “I didn’t see any (temple guards). I saw fresh hacking of the stone carvings, the debris are still there. They hacked off ancient Khmer sculptures, I don’t know where they take them to, they looted everything. The temple is very beautiful. Please help intervene!”

An official of the Preah Vihear department of culture and fine arts indicated that the Bakan Temple, aka the Preah Khan Kampong Svay temple, is located in the middle of a forest, about 100-kilometer from the Preah Vihear provincial city, and there are not many tourists visiting there.

The temple was built from sandstone, and it is about the same age as the Angkor Wat temple, it could possibly be built around the 13th century.

Making Angkor's Tourism Sustainable

The face and breats of this Apsara dancer are shiny from people touching and rubbing them
(Photo: http://dpmac.com/angkor/trip-reports/07-08/07-angkorwat.html)

January 14, 2008
Mara Hvistendahl
World Changing

When UNESCO designated Angkor a World Heritage site in 1992, it aimed to protect the area –- once the capital of the Khmer empire -- from encroaching development. Cambodia was just emerging from decades of political strife during which restoration work had halted, and with the UNESCO designation the emphasis shifted back to conservation. But now, fifteen years later, Angkor has other problems. It's become a zoo.

In the early 1990s, Angkor drew a few thousand people a year. Today, a sign in Siem Reap, the town that borders the park, boasts that Angkor has reached the two million mark. Tour buses -- many of them labeled in Chinese and Korean, suggesting the boom is exacerbated by development in Cambodia's Asian neighbors -- clot the road outside the flagship temple of Angkor Wat. I witnessed people climbing temple facades to stage vanity shots. In some temples, carvings on the walls are shiny from touching (the are a particularly popular target). Some tourists go one step further and apsaras' breastsbuy a ceramic pot or antique beads – fueling the looting of valuable sites. According to Heritage Watch, an organization that monitors the Cambodian trade in artifacts, nearly 20 percent of visitors to the country purchase an antiquity during their stay.

Even conscientious tourists leave their mark. As massive hotels with swimming pools sprout around the park, the water table is suffering. Cheaper guesthouses reportedly dump sewage directly into the Siem Reap River. In the chaos of rapid development, real estate ventures aren’t always carefully vetted; it appears a South Korean company started on a golf course inside the park before Cambodian authorities intervened. And while tourism dollars are benefiting many local residents, development is hardly evenly distributed. Siem Reap is thriving, its property values skyrocketing. But the surrounding area still contains some of the poorest villages in Cambodia.

These issues aren’t just a problem at Angkor, of course. Earlier this year, Christian Manhart of the World Heritage Center, which administers the World Heritage Fund, admitted to the London Telegraph that "conservation versus tourism has been an issue for a long time. Before, we slightly ignored it and it was a big, big problem for many sites.” Today, the World Heritage program has a sustainable tourism program. But many sites were designated for protection before these mechanisms were put into place. Now, the challenge is to stave off future damage.

So what can be done? The Cambodian government is apparently considering restricting access to certain temples. But a holistic approach that addresses the boom in Siem Reap is needed as well. Heritage Watch carries out campaigns to educate locals and tourists alike about looting and promotes sustainable tourism in Siem Reap and beyond. The organization also certifies local businesses as "heritage-friendly" -- a designation that indicates clean environmental policies, support for the local economy, and contributions toward preservation.

Such efforts are critical to the scattering of temples that still remain relatively untouched. A hundred miles north of Siem Reap lies Koh Ker, at one point the Angkorian capital. Because of their distance from other tourist attractions, Koh Ker's unrestored temples and towers get just a few dozen visitors a day.

That will soon change. With a new road in place, the drive from Siem Reap to Koh Ker is now down to two hours – short enough for tour buses to travel there and back in a day. Hopefully this time around the tourism the site attracts will be sustainable.

Ancient Temples Face Modern Assault

Thousands of tourists a day climb to the top of Phnom Bakheng, the highest peak in Angkor, to watch the sunset. (Photo Credit: By Anthony Faiola -- The Washington Post)

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

Rapid Rise in Tourism Is Overwhelming Cambodia's Ability to Protect Fragile Sites

By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service

"The rural province surrounding Angkor remains the
third-poorest in Cambodia, despite the opening of a string
of five-star hotels and shopping arcades in the
nearby town of Siem Reap"
- Cambodian Development Resource Institute

ANGKOR, Cambodia -- Built by a mighty 9th-century Khmer king, the soaring temple of Phnom Bakheng stands atop the highest peak of ancient Angkor. With a sweeping view that takes in Angkor Wat -- the world's largest religious structure -- the monks stationed here were probably among the first to glimpse the approaching Siamese troops that snuffed out this city's centuries-long domination of much of Southeast Asia.

So perhaps it is not surprising that more than 500 years later, Phnom Bakheng has become the ideal perch from which to watch another assault on Angkor -- by marauding armies of tourists.

As Cambodia has settled into peace and opened to the world, the temples of Angkor have in recent years gone from stone to gold for the national government. This year, a deluge of tour operators is expected to cart in nearly 1 million foreign visitors, a sixfold increase since 2000.

Including Cambodians, the number of visitors to the archaeological park will reach a record 2 million this year and at least 3 million by 2010, according to the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which identified Angkor as a World Heritage site in 1992.

The growth has put the Cambodian government in a difficult position, observers say, forcing it to balance the potential to make money against the need for preservation, restoration and study. It is a dilemma familiar to other countries that profit from treasured cultural sites.

The Acropolis in Athens, the Forbidden City in Beijing and the Hagia Sophia area of Istanbul are all experiencing tourism pressures. In Peru, the massive sand lines at Nazca and Palpa have come under threat from encroaching power lines and roving tourists in jeeps. In Nepal's Kathmandu Valley, UNESCO has decried "uncontrolled urban development."

Preservationists and archaeologists here increasingly fear that the frenzy to commercialize Angkor, now also a hot set location for films such as Angelina Jolie's "Tomb Raider," is winning out over the need for preservation.

Nowhere is that clearer than at Phnom Bakheng, where a number of new guidebooks advise visitors not to miss the sunset from the temple's summit. Tips like that have led to a daily siege by an armada of tour buses around dusk. On a recent afternoon, about 4,000 visitors, speaking Korean, Japanese, Mandarin, English and a host of other languages, scampered to the top of the temple, stepping on pictorial stones and manhandling ancient statues as one lonely guard sat on the sidelines, overwhelmed.

"The problem we're facing is that the pace of visitor growth is accelerating far faster than the ability to manage such huge crowds," said Teruo Jinnai, UNESCO's top official in Cambodia. "There is no doubt that this is beginning to cause damage to the temples and that it has the potential to become much worse if nothing is done."

Six months ago, the U.S.-based World Monuments Fund, which is doing major restoration work at Phnom Bakheng, was forced to rope off the rapidly deteriorating main stone path leading to the temple area because of a combination of trampling tourists and rain runoff.

Inside Phnom Bakheng, statues and carvings in low relief have sustained new damage from tourists. Fresh graffiti have been sprayed alongside sandstone carvings of flying celestial nymphs and Garuda warriors.

On one side of the temple, piles of sandbags placed last year to hold up a retaining wall have been damaged by tourists who have climbed and descended the temple's sides without waiting their turn on a number of steep stone staircases.

"In the 10th century, this was a perfect creation, a structure built with mathematical and religious harmony and where the king and a few of his monks would come to worship," John H. Stubbs, the World Monuments Fund vice president for field projects, said as he surveyed the crowds on the temple summit.

"But now, look at this," he said. "It simply was not built for these thousands of people to be here at once. Tourism is a double-edged sword. We want everyone to appreciate the importance of Angkor's temples, but not like this."

The Cambodian government has come under fire over Angkor. Only a few local and foreign businesses appear to be benefiting from the economic boom generated by the ruins, by far Cambodia's largest tourist attraction.

The concession to run the admissions center -- which generates tens of millions of dollars a year that preservationists say is rarely pumped back into the site itself -- was granted to a politically connected company run by a powerful Cambodian businessman. Many of the street vendors who now peddle trinkets inside the park have come from the capital, Phnom Penh, rather than nearby villages.

As a result, the rural province surrounding Angkor remains the third-poorest in Cambodia, despite the opening of a string of five-star hotels and shopping arcades in the nearby town of Siem Reap, according to a study released in 2005 by the Cambodian Development Resource Institute.

"We are doing the best we can under the circumstances," said Chau Sun Kerya, tourism director at APSARA, the Cambodian government body in charge of Angkor. "Do we want to have a better plan for crowd control? Do we want more monitoring of the temples? Of course we do, but we simply don't have the funds to do it quickly."

But the government has found the means to push forward on initiatives designed to lure even greater numbers to the park. In recent weeks, authorities launched a pilot program with Korean tour operators for a nighttime "sound and light" show at Angkor Wat. There, massive spotlights and electrical cords run along the sides of the main temple, a structure so large that four St. Peter's Basilicas could fit inside its footprint. A Japanese tourism company has been granted rights to hold large, moonlit banquets inside the park grounds at $60 per person.

"Angkor has become a sort of cultural Disneyland," said Khin Po Thai, a longtime Angkor guide and preservation activist. "We are overwhelmed by the crowds we have now, but they are still trying to bring in more and more people. No one ever sees where the money goes. It certainly doesn't go back into preservation."

Without doubt, Angkor has had its share of good times and bad. The great King Jayavarman II began erecting his capital city here in A.D. 802, founding the Khmer Empire that held sway over what is now Cambodia, as well as much of Thailand, Vietnam and Laos, from the 9th century to the 12th.

At its peak, the city boasted a population of more than 1 million, with part of its cultural importance stemming from a mixed religious influence that resulted in a magnificent diversity of stunningly intricate reliefs. Starting as a Hindu city, Angkor turned to Buddhism in later centuries. Its religious life always included a strong dose of animism as well.

After the city's final fall in the early 15th century, it descended into obscurity. Although glimpsed sporadically by foreign travelers and pilgrims in later years, it regained global attention only in 1864, with the publication of the French explorer Henri Mouhot's book "Travels in Siam, Cambodia and Laos," about his visits to the ruins.

The temples suffered during and after the communist Khmer Rouge era in the 1970s and '80s. But since the early 1990s, a growing campaign has been underway to restore the ruins. The massive preservation effort now involves archaeological teams from at least 12 countries.

"Our goal is to try to prolong the life of this incredible site for as long we possibly can," Stubbs said. "We understand the clear need to have tourists visit the temples, and of course we want them to see this great achievement by mankind. But we also need to understand that the real focus should be keeping them safe."