Cambodia & PM : « Genocide education does not have to be limited to history lessons »

On May 20, 2024; the Documentation Center of Cambodia organized the first conference on "Future of Cambodia without Genocide, during which Samdech Moha Bovor Thipadei Hun Manet, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia, stated that “All government institutions, both military and civilian, must support the work of genocide education for future generations.

By Som Bunthon- Senior Researcher, Documentation Center of Cambodia

The Killing Fields in Cambodia (1975-1979). The Documentation Center of Cambodia uses global satellite position mapping (GPS) combined with eldwork to document mass graves nationwide. To date, DC-Cam has identied over 390 killing sites containing more than 19,000 mass graves dating from the Khmer Rouge regime. (DC-Cam denes mass graves as any pit containing 4 or more bodies, although some graves hold over 1,000 bodies.) In addition, the Center has documented 197 prisons from Democratic Kampuchea and 81 genocide memorials. (Data: Pheng Pong-Rasy, Documentation Center of Cambodia Archives)

We must ensure that history teaching is properly integrated into the public and private school curricula from secondary education to the university level, and all of our teachers can join forces to promote genocide education in schools across the country. Genocide education does not have to be limited to history lessons. We can integrate it into all subjects, from Khmer morality and literature to leadership studies and other soft skills development. We can also develop creative ways to tell these difficult stories to people of different ages and generations through arts, digital content, or multimedia.”

Day of Hatred

May 20 has been the National Day of Hatred in Cambodia since 1983. In Cambodia, May 20 has undergone numerous transformations following historical context, politics, national reconciliation, and the pursuit of justice in Cambodia. Despite various perspectives on the changes of May 20 commemoration across different periods, and the clear understanding of Cambodian people who survived the Khmer Rouge regime, May 20 continues to embody meaning and reflect the struggle, suffering, and loss for Cambodian people, and remains important for younger generations to understand.

May 20, 1976, was the day when Khmer Rouge leaders, or the Democratic Kampuchea (DK) regime (1975-1979), designated to celebrate the establishment of the first cooperative in Cambodia in May 1973, during the armed struggle against the Khmer Republic regime of Lon Nol, which was supported by the United States. This day marked when farmlands, plantations, and personal property of Cambodian people were consolidated into cooperatives, and subsequently, people were forced to perform hard labor at various work sites, leading to exhaustion, starvation, accusations, and purges that resulted in executions. May 20 is also considered the day that marked the beginning of widespread genocide throughout Cambodia under Khmer Rouge control.

Commemoration

After the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime on January 7, 1979, nearly every Cambodian family had lost their members, with between 1.4 million to 2.2 million Cambodians having lost their lives. As a result, the People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) and later the State of Kampuchea (SoK) designated May 20 as an important national holiday and organized it meticulously. This commemoration was named "May 20, Day of Hatred" and was observed in Phnom Penh and throughout provinces, districts, communes, and villages across Cambodia to condemn the leaders and the Khmer Rouge regime for their atrocities and killings of Cambodian people. The "May 20, Day of Hatred" also served as a political measure to prevent the return to power of the Khmer Rouge group.

Following the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in 1991 among political conflict parties in Cambodia, the commemoration of "May 20, Day of Hatred" ceased to be an official national holiday due to the trend toward national reconciliation and to end the civil war that had extended for more than a decade after the Khmer Rouge fell from Phnom Penh on January 7, 1979, which the Cambodian people across the country desired.

Nevertheless, in 1998, 1999, and 2000, May 20 was commemorated by the Phnom Penh Municipality at the "Choeung Ek Genocidal Center" and at memorial sites and bone repositories in the provinces, under the name "Day of Remembrance" to recall the killings during the Khmer Rouge regime.

Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

Upon request from the Royal Government of Cambodia, led by His Highness Prince Norodom Ranariddh, First Prime Minister, and Samdech Hun Sen, Second Prime Minister, on June 21, 1999, asking the international community to prosecute those responsible for crimes during the Democratic Kampuchea regime (1975-1979), negotiations between the Royal Government of Cambodia and the United Nations ensued. As a result, on January 2, 2001, the Cambodian National Assembly and the United Nations approved a draft law on the establishment of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), or the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. The agreement regarding the prosecution of crimes committed during the Democratic Kampuchea regime came into effect on April 29, 2005, and subsequently began hearings on Case 001, with the first suspect being Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, former chairman of the S-21 security center.

On the first day of substantive hearings for Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, on March 30, 2009, opinions were raised by the public and several non-governmental organizations proposing to the Royal Government of Cambodia to designate this day as a "National Day of Remembrance," but this was rejected by the spokesperson of the Office of the Council of Ministers on the grounds that March 30 was not considered the first day of justice for victims of the Khmer Rouge genocide because the court had already convicted the top leaders of this regime in 1979. In the past, we considered May 20 as the "Day of Hatred" toward the Pol Pot genocidal regime, and later, it was changed to the “Day of Remembrance” for compatriots who died during the genocidal regime. If March 30 were to be designated as a "National Day," it would be giving excessive value to those who had supported the Khmer Rouge genocidal regime, especially after the liberation day of January 7, 1979, by ignoring the historical fact that the leadership of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) had worked hard to find justice for the people.

National Day of Remembrance

Nevertheless, during the subsequent trial proceedings for Case 002, involving the accused Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith, Nuon Chea, and Khieu Samphan, on March 7, 2013, the Lead Co-Lawyers representing civil parties in Case 002 of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) proposed to Samdech Techo Hun Sen, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia, to issue a decree designating May 20 as the "National Day of Remembrance" in relation to the organization of reparation projects for civil parties before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). In response, on June 11, 2013, the Office of the Council of Ministers approved this proposal, designating May 20 as the "National Day of Remembrance" in the annual holiday calendar, replacing the "Day of Hatred or Day of Remembrance" that had been in use from 1984 until the present.

This change of May 20 commemoration is not altering the history of the Khmer Rouge regime but is part of providing psychological reparations, delivering justice, and facilitating the reconciliation process among approximately 5 million survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime, with the support of the Royal Government of Cambodia, following the conclusion of the proceedings of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) or the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.

In this regard, since 2007, the Documentation Center of Cambodia has published nearly 700,000 text books (core reference) on the history of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979) and distributed them to students at approximately 1,000 high schools throughout Cambodia for study, organized national-level training workshops for about 5,000 history and Khmer literature including morality teachers, arranged hundreds and hundreds classroom forums and public education on teaching the history of Democratic Kampuchea, disseminated information, and organized conferences to promote genocide education worldwide.