April 17th Remembering Cambodia’s genocide in a corner of Africa

phuketrichard · Post by **phuketrichard** » Thu Apr 18, 2024 8:12 am

Cambodia is remembered at Rwanda's Kigali Genocide Memorial. Image: Kigali Genocide Memorial

Kigali, RWANDA- April 1975 was a cruel month for millions of Cambodians. Forty-nine years ago, on April 17, the Khmer Rouge finally captured Phnom Penh after a five-year civil war with the US-backed Lon Nol regime.

One million residents and another million refugees in the capital city initially felt a sense of jubilation that the war was finally over.

The Khmer Rouge had other ideas that didn’t include celebrating. They forcefully evacuated the city, a process that resulted in thousands of deaths, especially among the elderly and infirm, who walking in the blistering heat of April died along roadsides heading away from Phnom Penh.

The Khmer Rouge’s subsequent three years, eight months and 20 day disastrous reign of terror –under the leadership of Pol Pot – left around two million people dead from disease, starvation, overwork, and execution.

It was a catastrophe of epic proportions, one of the worst crimes against humanity in the 20th century. Only an invasion by the Vietnamese military, along with Khmer Rouge defectors, in late 1978 forced Pol Pot and his henchmen from power.

There is no public institution in Phnom Penh that comprehensively tells the story of these horrors; there is no “Cambodian Genocide Museum.”

full story by Michal Hayes:
https://asiatimes.com/2024/04/rememberi ... of-africa/

Spigzy · Post by **Spigzy** » Thu Apr 18, 2024 10:23 am

there is no “Cambodian Genocide Museum.”

Except there is.

(coudn't open the article, perhaps missed some context on this quote? Else what is Tuol Sleng when it is at home...)

HaifongWangchuck · Post by **HaifongWangchuck** » Sun Apr 21, 2024 2:48 pm

Spigzy wrote: ↑Thu Apr 18, 2024 10:23 am
there is no “Cambodian Genocide Museum.”
Except there is.

(coudn't open the article, perhaps missed some context on this quote? Else what is Tuol Sleng when it is at home...)

The context lacking is not that Cambodia has no genocide museum; There is almost one in every province, and they do a good job on conveying the story of Cambodia's hardship to the locals.

The problem is that there is no (what former NYU and DePaul professor Norman Finkelstein calls) "Holocaust Industry", i.e no shiny new building, attempt to profit off the suffering and use it for lobbying effort, and most importantly, no narrative under the control of Western academics and "interpreters", which could be very dangerous due to America's own involvement in supporting Democratic Kampuchea against the Khmer People's Republic--and thus requires intervention in order to "correct the record" as the Americans are fond of saying.

But don't take my word for it:

Considering the events that ushered in this dark period in Cambodia’s history, an officially recognized architecturally inspiring space should be established– one that does much more than simply memorialize the past, as some museums do by simply displaying photographs and artifacts. Cambodia, the victims and survivors of Democratic Kampuchea, their descendants, and humanity need and deserve a museum-institute that informs, inspires, and interacts with visitors and scholars the world over.

The Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam), founded in 1995 by Yale University researchers with a grant from the United States federal government, was initially set up to build an archive of original documents and related evidence pertaining to the 1975-1979 Democratic Kampuchea period. It became an independent legal entity in 1997. Arguably it has compiled the largest archive on the Pol Pot regime, including testimonials and oral histories from survivors.

But don't you worry! The United States has a solution! Their very own Sleuk Rith institute, which would (ostensibly) be financed, built and controlled by them:

The Sleuk Rith Institute aspires to become “Asia’s pre-eminent center for comparative research, analysis and interpretation on genocide, conflict, and human rights” in a space that “powerfully embrace[s] remembrance, healing, and restoration in the context of timeless Asian humanitarian values and design.” Overall, its mission will be to “advance human understanding and knowledge of atrocity crimes and the rule of law” through professional and education programs and services, research programs, general human awareness programs, and publicly available online historical archives.

In other words, the Sleuk Rith Institute will be a thorn in the side of Cambodia and the Party (unless of course they suddenly become Israeli, at which point the "Rule of Law" is just a theory), and will become a hive for US-financed apparatchiks to operate and group from in which to attack the country and its institutions, especially now that the US has declared this country to be part of its "Great Power" posturing with China.

I pray that such a monstrosity never opens. Lord knows the Cambodians don't want it, hence why these articles are always written by Westerners who speak for no one like Michael Karnavas, Sebastian Strangio, et. al. and never actually anyone who is Khmer.

HaifongWangchuck · Post by **HaifongWangchuck** » Sun Apr 21, 2024 3:07 pm

Addendum: The Sleuk Rith Institute in its own brochure (no link as I only have a hard copy) says "From 1995 to 1997, we were a field office for Yale University’s Cambodian Genocide Program with US State Department funding." This is source of funding is important because if it were really just for educational purposes, why did the grant come from the State Department (whose overview is foreign policy) and not the Department of Education, or even the NED?

Now, the institute claims to be independent, and yet since 1997, they only are "securing funds from a range of government sources in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and Japan." When you realise the source of funding, their mission to "Promote Accountability" becomes a slap in the face, seeing as not only the US has never apologised for its role in the Cambodian genocide, but people like Kissenger died with medals around their neck and glowing obituaries to boot.

Shame on everyone involved in this accursed project. Shame.