Youk Chhang, right, director of the Cambodian Documentation Center (DC-Cam) watches on a tribunal's staff, center, putting small packs of microfilm into a box at DC-Cam office of the capital Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Monday, July 17, 2006. A Cambodian genocide researcher said on Tuesday, July 18, more than 381,000 pages of documents on atrocities of the Khmer Rouge regime have been given the U.N.-backed tribunal's prosecutors, who are working to build cases for trying the regime's surviving leaders. (AP Photo/Hang Sinith)Tuesday, July 18, 2006
By Phann Ana and Adam Piore
THE CAMBODIA DAILY
It took Youk Chhang and his staff more than 10 years to collect the hundreds of thousands of pages of prisoner confessions, internal Khmer Rouge memoranda and oral histories that make up their collection at the Documentation Center of Cambodia.
But it took only a few minutes Monday for prosecution staffers from the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia to begin carrying off the bulk of it from DC-Cam's office in Phnom Penh.
The documents—about 383,149 pages' worth, condensed and copied onto 524 rolls of microfilm— constitute the majority of DC-Cam's collection of information relating to the crimes of the 1975-1979 Khmer Rouge regime. That information now becomes possible evidence.
"I hope I am fulfilling my obligations as a victim by doing this," DC-Cam Director Youk Chhang said after the low-key signing of transfer documents with ECCC investigator for the prosecution Stephen Heder. "Not just for my family but for other families," he said.
For a decade, Youk Chhang and his staff have spearheaded the drive to shine a light on the shadowy internal workings of the anonymous and ruthless 1975-to-1979 state apparatus known as "Angka." DC-Cam is more than happy to now cede that role to the tribunal's co-Prosecutors Chea Leang and Robert Petit who will begin mining the hundreds of thousands of pages of documents for smoking guns in the weeks ahead.
"They have enough funds and human resources to do the job. Anything they provide will be useful," tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said of DC-Cam's body of work.
During the Democratic Kampuchea period, Angka's leaders made a deliberate effort to publicly shield their identities—and the methods by which their murderous policies were formulated, communicated, and implemented. But like the Nazis before them, the bureaucracy of Angka's killing apparatus was nothing if not meticulous. And the sheer volume of documentation Youk Chhang and his staff of 50 have collected is overwhelming: 600,000 pages of prisoner confessions, telegrams, minutes of meetings and memos; maps of some 20,000 mass grave sites, 189 prisons and 80 memorials; 6,000 photographs from the Pol Pot era; 200 documentary films; 4,000 transcribed interviews with former Khmer Rouge soldiers.
It's disturbing stuff. DC-Cam staffers have pieced together activities at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, where a former high school mathematics teacher named Duch oversaw the torture and execution of an estimated 16,000 people.
Duch resurfaced in 1999 as a born-again Christian who had been working in refugee camps for various aid agencies. He is now in prison and is expected to be among the first to stand trial.
Others have compiled internal memos from Pol Pot's deputies— men now in their 70s and 80s still living freely in Cambodia's northwestern provinces—urging underlings to "smash the enemy" and "root out unpure elements."
Back when he started out in 1995, Youk Chhang worked out of a tiny apartment near the Independence Monument. It was a distracting place to work—the owner sold fruit juice at the front of the apartment. The only document he had was a 74-page report issued by the Hanoi-backed government in 1983.
But along with a small grant from the US State Department— and later from multiple other sources—Youk Chhang had the approval of the government to conduct his research. Soon, the documents came pouring in. They came from institutions, from the government from scholars and from private individuals.
In 1999, Youk Chhang and his staffers began traveling abroad to explore the archives of countries in other parts of the world for information on the regime.
DC-Cam staffers have faced new kinds of challenges in recent years, as negotiations over the tribunal hit continued roadblocks and people began to lose hope that it would ever materialize.
"It’s a very special feeling now," Youk Chhang said. "When you told people what you do, they would say, 'you've been talking about the tribunal for six or seven years.' They didn't believe it would ever happen. I felt the worst for my staff. They were under a lot of pressure. Their friends were getting rich."
Today, the DC-Cam office is buzzing with activity. Though the prosecutors were only officially sworn in earlier this month, DC-Cam staffers have been assisting their advance teams since January.
Earlier in the year, prosecution researchers collected documents relating to the deliberate extermination of ethnic Chinese, Vietnamese and the minority Cham Muslim population, according to Sour Bunsou, leader of DC-Cam's "tribunal response team."
Targeting such groups would constitute genocide under the tribunal law.
"It’s urgent and it's exciting and we have been working 12 hour days," Sour Bunsou said. For some, the days can actually be longer.
Currently, Youk Chhang has teams working around the clock to finish the job of transferring the rest of the documents to microfilm for the prosecutors.
Most don't mind the long hours. For all involved, it's intensely personal. Every single employee lost at least one relative to the Khmer Rouge during the regime.
One researcher was poring over confessions a few years back from Tuol Sleng prison and came across one from her uncle. He had disappeared during the regime, and her family had long wondered about his fate.
Others have looked up the leadership of the Khmer Rouge administrative zones where they lost relatives, and pored over photos from the evacuation of Phnom Penh hoping to catch a glimpse of their old streets and neighborhoods.
"When I experienced the killing of my brother and sister, I hoped some day to get revenge," said Dara Vanthan, 33, DC-Cam's deputy director. "I went to law school to get justice. And now I see that justice will be done and for that I love this place."
But it took only a few minutes Monday for prosecution staffers from the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia to begin carrying off the bulk of it from DC-Cam's office in Phnom Penh.
The documents—about 383,149 pages' worth, condensed and copied onto 524 rolls of microfilm— constitute the majority of DC-Cam's collection of information relating to the crimes of the 1975-1979 Khmer Rouge regime. That information now becomes possible evidence.
"I hope I am fulfilling my obligations as a victim by doing this," DC-Cam Director Youk Chhang said after the low-key signing of transfer documents with ECCC investigator for the prosecution Stephen Heder. "Not just for my family but for other families," he said.
For a decade, Youk Chhang and his staff have spearheaded the drive to shine a light on the shadowy internal workings of the anonymous and ruthless 1975-to-1979 state apparatus known as "Angka." DC-Cam is more than happy to now cede that role to the tribunal's co-Prosecutors Chea Leang and Robert Petit who will begin mining the hundreds of thousands of pages of documents for smoking guns in the weeks ahead.
"They have enough funds and human resources to do the job. Anything they provide will be useful," tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said of DC-Cam's body of work.
During the Democratic Kampuchea period, Angka's leaders made a deliberate effort to publicly shield their identities—and the methods by which their murderous policies were formulated, communicated, and implemented. But like the Nazis before them, the bureaucracy of Angka's killing apparatus was nothing if not meticulous. And the sheer volume of documentation Youk Chhang and his staff of 50 have collected is overwhelming: 600,000 pages of prisoner confessions, telegrams, minutes of meetings and memos; maps of some 20,000 mass grave sites, 189 prisons and 80 memorials; 6,000 photographs from the Pol Pot era; 200 documentary films; 4,000 transcribed interviews with former Khmer Rouge soldiers.
It's disturbing stuff. DC-Cam staffers have pieced together activities at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, where a former high school mathematics teacher named Duch oversaw the torture and execution of an estimated 16,000 people.
Duch resurfaced in 1999 as a born-again Christian who had been working in refugee camps for various aid agencies. He is now in prison and is expected to be among the first to stand trial.
Others have compiled internal memos from Pol Pot's deputies— men now in their 70s and 80s still living freely in Cambodia's northwestern provinces—urging underlings to "smash the enemy" and "root out unpure elements."
Back when he started out in 1995, Youk Chhang worked out of a tiny apartment near the Independence Monument. It was a distracting place to work—the owner sold fruit juice at the front of the apartment. The only document he had was a 74-page report issued by the Hanoi-backed government in 1983.
But along with a small grant from the US State Department— and later from multiple other sources—Youk Chhang had the approval of the government to conduct his research. Soon, the documents came pouring in. They came from institutions, from the government from scholars and from private individuals.
In 1999, Youk Chhang and his staffers began traveling abroad to explore the archives of countries in other parts of the world for information on the regime.
DC-Cam staffers have faced new kinds of challenges in recent years, as negotiations over the tribunal hit continued roadblocks and people began to lose hope that it would ever materialize.
"It’s a very special feeling now," Youk Chhang said. "When you told people what you do, they would say, 'you've been talking about the tribunal for six or seven years.' They didn't believe it would ever happen. I felt the worst for my staff. They were under a lot of pressure. Their friends were getting rich."
Today, the DC-Cam office is buzzing with activity. Though the prosecutors were only officially sworn in earlier this month, DC-Cam staffers have been assisting their advance teams since January.
Earlier in the year, prosecution researchers collected documents relating to the deliberate extermination of ethnic Chinese, Vietnamese and the minority Cham Muslim population, according to Sour Bunsou, leader of DC-Cam's "tribunal response team."
Targeting such groups would constitute genocide under the tribunal law.
"It’s urgent and it's exciting and we have been working 12 hour days," Sour Bunsou said. For some, the days can actually be longer.
Currently, Youk Chhang has teams working around the clock to finish the job of transferring the rest of the documents to microfilm for the prosecutors.
Most don't mind the long hours. For all involved, it's intensely personal. Every single employee lost at least one relative to the Khmer Rouge during the regime.
One researcher was poring over confessions a few years back from Tuol Sleng prison and came across one from her uncle. He had disappeared during the regime, and her family had long wondered about his fate.
Others have looked up the leadership of the Khmer Rouge administrative zones where they lost relatives, and pored over photos from the evacuation of Phnom Penh hoping to catch a glimpse of their old streets and neighborhoods.
"When I experienced the killing of my brother and sister, I hoped some day to get revenge," said Dara Vanthan, 33, DC-Cam's deputy director. "I went to law school to get justice. And now I see that justice will be done and for that I love this place."
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