Second Quarterly Report, April - June 2005

Second Quarterly Report:

April - June 2005

This report describes the Documentation Center of Cambodia’s (DC-Cam) activities for the second quarter of 2005 (April to June). It also cites challenges to our work and our responses to them, and provides indicators of our performance.

1. PROJECT ACTIVITIES

We have grouped DC-Cam’s activities into five main categories. Our progress in each area for this quarter is summarized below.

Documentation. We have entered 33,186 records in an Access List this quarter, and keyed in 9,296 records into our database in Khmer and English. In addition, we microfilmed 15,332 pages of our documents. Last, we conducted 14 interviews for a new photo-archive book and mounted a new exhibition at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum to mark the 30^th anniversary of the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge.

Promoting Accountability. We interviewed 65 survivors, 35 of whom were cadres. We transcribed 2,042 pages. Our pretrial outreach plans for forums on sexual abuse during Democratic Kampuchea and the dissemination of information by student volunteers are taking shape.

Public Education and Reconciliation Outreach. We made preparations for legal training on defense counsels, which will be held in July-September. While we slowed the pace of interviews for the Victims of Torture Project, we increased the number of interviews transcribed; they will be analyzed by our interns. This project also received much international attention in the second quarter. Last, we continued to plan for our pre-trial outreach activities and met with the groups who will volunteer to distribute materials for us.

Research, Translation, and Publication. One monograph was published in English this quarter. Two others are in advanced stages of editing. In addition, we helped prepare for publication a translation in Khmer of the French book, Histoire du Cambodge.

Magazine and Radio. We have kept pace with the production of both the Khmer and English editions of our magazine, as well as our recently expanded radio broadcasts.

1.1     Documentation

1.1.1      Cataloguing and Database Management

Our documentation work has entailed collecting and cataloguing documents, and managing two major databases: the Cambodian Genocide Bibliographic Database (CBIB) and the Cambodian Genocide Biographical Database (CBIO). Both databases were developed by a team of academics, technicians, and documentation specialists at Yale University, DC-Cam, and the University of New South Wales. They hold information on both Khmer Rouge personnel and their victims. These databases also facilitate our program of family tracing, whereby survivors of the Democratic Kampuchea (DK) era can search for information on lost loved ones. Because they are Internet-accessible and available on CD-Rom, expatriate Cambodians can also utilize them.

In 2004, we completed the cataloguing of our D collection. It contains general Khmer Rouge documents: notebooks, biographies, confessions, reports, and execution logs, as well as the Anlong Veng (a Khmer Rouge stronghold until 1996) collection of such post-1979 Khmer Rouge materials as school textbooks, minutes of meetings, and reports. This quarter, we began keying D collection records into our database, completing 9,296 records in Khmer and English. The database fields vary depending on the type of document. For example, some of the fields for execution logs include the document’s title and number of pages, while those for cadre biographies include names, dates, personal background, rank, date of arrest, number of pages, and source of information.

We also catalogued 472 “R” (Renakse) documents this quarter. These are petitions made in the 1980s to the successor government (the Peoples Republic of Kampuchea) to oust the Khmer Rouge from their seat at the United Nations. Signed by millions of people, they include accounts of horrific crimes and describe mass burial pits, prisons, and other evidence of Khmer Rouge terror. In addition, DC-Cam has catalogued 406 books, documents, and periodicals on the Khmer Rouge, law, justice and reconciliation between April and June.

In a parallel effort, we have entered 33,186 records into a Microsoft Access List, a program intended to facilitate public inquiry and research.

Finally, since late 2003, our documentation team has been preparing a printable index for our CBIO database, which contains 10,612 biographies of Khmer Rouge cadres and the general population. So far, we have worked on the field layout and design (name, gender, place and date of birth, names of mother and father). The index contains 2,800 pages at present, and will continue to grow as our Promoting Accountability and Victims of Torture teams add information. We have updated over half of the book.

Last quarter marked our final decision to enter information from our documents into a new, more user-friendly database with increased capacity and a new format/field design. International experts from our Affinity Group (see Section 3.3.1) are now assisting us on the design and development of the database. A local company, Lemon Computers, has been working on putting our data into the MySQL program and has nearly completed. This is a much more user-friendly program than our current database. The company has agreed that it will not take any reimbursement for its work until DC-Cam is satisfied with the product.

1.1.2     Microfilming

Our Microfilming Project aims to preserve historical documents related to the Khmer Rouge. Microfilming allows researchers and legal investigators to access our archival information without handling original documents, many of which have become fragile with age. Last year, we completed microfilming the primary documents from our R, D, L, I, K, and J collections. This year, DC-Cam has begun to microfilm documents from its Promoting Accountability Team’s interviews.

*During 1998-2005, we produced 497 reels of documents from our D, I, J, K, L, and R collections. The numbers above reflect progress on the new database only.

In 2005, we began sending copies of our microfilmed materials to Rutgers University’s campus in Newark, New Jersey, where we recently opened an office. Last quarter, we sent a set of 93 microfilm reels and other materials available at DC-Cam to this office. In addition, we have made our microfilm available to the public, who can order it from DC-Cam. This quarter, we received requests for copies from France.

1.1.3     Photo Exhibitions

Since 2002, DC-Cam has been mounting exhibitions at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum to describe the Cambodian genocide and learn from visitors’ views, as well as to facilitate reconciliation between victims and perpetrators. This quarter, we mounted an exhibition from our monograph Stilled Lives: Photographs from the Cambodian Genocide. It contains photographs and brief stories on 17 former Khmer Rouge. The exhibit’s opening on April 17, 2005 marked the 30^th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge’s takeover of Cambodia.

We also contributed photographs to an exhibition that Germany’s Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation mounted at its headquarters in 2005. The exhibit, entitled “The Trauma of Terror and the Challenges of Coming to Terms with the Past,” was followed by a symposium, which was attended by DK rape survivor Taing Kim and a Cambodian Buddhist monk. A booklet accompanied the exhibition: DC-Cam and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Kambodscha 1975-2005.

We also provided photographs and other materials to a film project directed by Alice Miceli; the film was screened on April 30 at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival 2005. Its synopsis reads, “The video shows images of people who were imprisoned and murdered by the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia during the 70s. The pictures, taken at their detention, are projected on a veil of falling sand, the projection time being proportional to the individuals’ suffering in prison.” The screening was preceded by Ms. Miceli’s exhibition of relevant photographs in February.
 

1.1.4     Digital Photo Archiving

Last quarter, we began to interview individuals and collect photographs for a new monograph. It will be similar in structure to Stilled Lives: Photographs from the Cambodian Genocide, which was published late last year and told the stories of 51 men and women who joined the Khmer Rouge. The new book will be based on the lives of new people (those the Khmer Rouge evacuated from the cities).

The interviews conducted to date reveal that most of the people who were evacuated from Phnom Penh were born in the provinces and had moved to Phnom Penh for safety or economic reasons.

While most of the photographs collected for Stilled Lives were contributed by our Promoting Accountability teams after their trips to rural areas, we are obtaining photographs for the new book from personal contacts, those who contributed to a Khmer Writers Association/DC-Cam essay contest held in 2003, and public announcements.

1.2     Promoting Accountability

On June 21, 2005, the Royal Government of Cambodia announced that all of the funding for the tribunal of senior Khmer Rouge leaders had been obtained, thus greatly increasing the prospects that the tribunal will begin soon. In anticipation, we are working on a number of programs to ensure access to our documents and to keep the public informed.

1.2.1     Public Access to DC-Cam Archives

DC-Cam’s archives are of great historical interest and may provide important evidentiary materials in any accountability process relating to Democratic Kampuchea. The over 600,000 pages of documents we have amassed include:

     §  Documents dating from the DK era: Communist Party of Kampuchea correspondence, confession transcripts, committee minutes and reports, Khmer Rouge biographies, foreign documents, media materials, cadre diaries and notebooks, and documents from foreign countries.

 

     §  Post-DK documentary materials: survivor petitions, 1979 trial documents, interview transcripts taken from survivors of the regime, scholars’ interviews with former Communist Party of Kampuchea officials, mapping reports, and photographs.

Guidelines for Access. In order to provide the court and other authorized officials with full access to our documents, we have been working with our legal advisors to develop and issue a set of rules and guidelines for viewing them as the tribunal process begins. The guidelines are designed to ensure that our documents remain both available for review and as secure as possible. As the tribunal process unfolds, we will develop a more specific set of guidelines to ensure that we assist the proceedings as effectively as possible. We have provided copies of those procedures to the appropriate UN and Cambodian authorities. This quarter, we also updated the guidelines and sent them to our advisors for comment.

A Response Team for the Tribunal. In late 2003 we began to plan for a tribunal response team. This team would comprise Cambodian and non-Cambodian lawyers, political scientists/historians. Two of these experts would work on the team full time and be assisted by shorter-term personnel on an as-needed basis; they would be supervised by a DC-Cam staff member familiar with our Center’s documentary holdings. This independent and neutral team will be in a position to help tribunal and other officials (as well as the public) carry out research and documentary reviews as needed. Also, Center staff will translate additional documents into English in advance of the tribunal. We are also in the process of seeking support to bring one or more experts from within Cambodia and/or overseas (e.g., historians, document preservationists) to work closely with our response team before and during the tribunal. We will formalize the structure and composition of this team when a date for the tribunal has been set.

Public Information Room. To meet the anticipated need for documentation materials at the tribunal, in late April 2004 DC-Cam informally opened its Public Information Room (PIR). Access is given to legal personnel (representing both the defense and prosecution), scholars, reporters, and the general public. DC-Cam’s response team of documentation specialists, translators, and others provide assistance in searching for and interpreting documents.

The PIR also functions as a library and educational forum. In this quarter, we received 621 visitors, hosted guest lectures and training, screened 5 films on the regime, and provided office space for our Victims of Torture Project staff.

Our PIR became busier this quarter due to the arrival of legal training interns and volunteer students on the pre-trial outreach project (Section 1.2.3). The PIR provided space to legal training interns, DC-Cam researchers, meetings for guests, film screenings, readings, Internet usage, our Microfilm Project, and database volunteers. We also provided space for five forums and training sessions conducted by or with the National Museums of World Culture, Peace Forum, German Development Service, and Global Youth Connect (see Section 3.3).

A visitor from Global Youth Connect attended a screening of S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine and wrote us:

The movie was hard to watch and make sense of the atrocities that happened in Tuol Sleng. It poses a good argument as to viewing the perpetrators as victims of the KR regime as well, but it disturbs me that they seemed so apathetic, desensitized of their actions. It was upsetting to feel that they didn’t have remorse or felt they didn’t do anything wrong.

Following his visit to DC-Cam, Brian Ostrowski (resident director of the Council on International Educational Exchange, Vietnam National University) proposed bringing North American students and faculty for study trips to Cambodia. He wrote:

All these groups have been quite interested in DC-Cam’s work and in particular are grateful for the recent opening of DC-Cam’s Public Information Room. We are already planning our two upcoming academic visits to Cambodia: A May 2006 visit by around 15 U.S. college students and a July 2006 visit by around 15 North American university faculty. We would be very interested in bringing these groups to visit the Public Information Room and, if possible, arranging a guest lecture and/or relevant site visit with DC-Cam staff.

The PIR also provided space to pre-trial outreach and other training for staff and student volunteers, and DC-Cam planning meetings. The training included sessions on the DC-Cam library, a variety of the Center’s projects, and the Khmer Rouge Law.

1.2.2     The Promoting Accountability (PA) Project

This project aims to draw a picture of subordinate-superior relationships during Democratic Kampuchea, to identify a pool of survivors (victims and cadres) that may be helpful to the Khmer Rouge tribunal, and to build the historic record on DK.

This quarter, our PA team operated from field offices in Kampong Chhnang and Prey Veng provinces.

* This activity was slow due to staff allocations to other work, but is expected to pick up later in 2005 with the recruitment of additional volunteers.

Other activities on this project include:

     §  A forthcoming manuscript by Dr. Stephen Heder, based on his analysis of nearly 2,000 interviews (30,000 pages) DC-Cam conducted with former Khmer Rouge cadres. Specifically, he sought to determine if the interviews provide information relevant to the cases of the former Khmer Rouge officials most likely to stand trial: Ieng Sary, Mok, Duch, Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea, Ieng Thirith, and Mam Nai (deputy prison chief of S-21). Dr. Heder prepared English summaries of the historically salient points in selected interviews, while preparing the materials for legal analysis and presentation to the Extraordinary Chambers. He completed his manuscript last year; it will be analyzed by our legal advisor during 2005.

 

     §  A filing system that includes transcripts, biographies, photographs, relevant documents such as confessions and execution lists, and audio tapes. So far we have filed 4,907 folders and 2,080 audio tapes. The files completed are: Kampong Cham: KCI0001-1295, Kandal: KDI0001-1138, Takeo: TKI0747, Kampot: KPI0001-KPI0483, and Pursat: PTI0001-PTI0053. Those to be completed include: Kampong Thom: KTI0001-1076, Kampong Speu: KSI0001-0014, and Kampong Chhnang: KHI0001-0042.

1.2.3     Pre-trial Outreach (part of the Living Documents Project)

To engage people in the tribunal process, we have been meeting with nearly 400 Cham Muslim leaders (hakem) from all parts of the country, 32 Buddhist nuns, and members of 12 youth and student associations since 2004. They have been given an introduction to the tribunal and asked to reflect on its importance and their participation.

We also have two projects that work with the Cham community. The first is an oral history project. Through hakem, we have developed and distributed 30 questionnaires to 336 Cham villages throughout the country. They include 24 questions asking about the communities’ roots and their experiences during the Khmer Rouge regime. So far, we have collected 106 completed questionnaires, which will be used in a new magazine about the Cham. The second project aims to disseminate information about Cham history, livelihoods, and other relevant aspects through the development of an Internet web page. The website will enable members of this community to communicate with academics, interested members of the public, and other Muslim communities worldwide.

Next quarter, we plan to hold three meetings with hakem to collect questionnaires and distribute the pre-trial outreach materials. We will also interview villagers in towns where our questionnaires have not been completed.

Plans for nuns to organize a march for peace and justice in Phnom Penh were finalized this quarter. We anticipate that at least 500 nuns from throughout the country will participate. The nuns would also participate in 44 public forums hosted by DC-Cam (forums will be held in two villages in each of 22 provinces; villages will be selected based on their proximity to killing and prison sites). The forums will bring together victims and perpetrators to discuss sexual abuse during Democratic Kampuchea and their impacts today. We will film the forums and interview participants, and plan to prepare radio broadcasts on the forums.

The student groups we met with plan to go door-to-door in several areas of Cambodia to explain the process, activities, and benefits of the tribunal to citizens. Nearly 200 students who applied picked up project materials for study before coming to a test at DC-Cam. Last quarter, students were selected for a two-month period of voluntary service. In this quarter, they were given four days of training on the project materials, watched documentary films, and visited Tuol Sleng. Other training sessions included meetings with DC-Cam researchers on how to interview victims and perpetrators, and with Cambodian officials involved in legislation and negotiations for the tribunal. Logistics for the field trips have also been prepared. During mid-July and mid-September, the students will travel throughout the Cambodian countryside distributing 40,000 copies of project materials (e.g., Khmer Rouge Tribunal Law, KR Law Amendment, UN/Royal Government of Cambodia Agreement, debates) to villagers. Students will record questionnaire responses from every villager who receives materials. The villagers will be asked to describe their lives under the Khmer Rouge and express their views on the tribunal. In turn, students will record their personal observations of every villager.

On June 30, H.E. Mr. Sean Visoth, executive secretary of the Task Force of the Cabinet Ministers, spoke to DC-Cam’s student volunteers about the law on the UN-Cambodia Agreement on the establishment of the EC. Also, H.E. Mr. Maonh Saphan of the Parliament spoke on the Extraordinary Chambers Law. DC-Cam rented a private school for this event, which was attended by about 180 participants. Many questions were raised on these documents.

1.2.4         DC-Cam Overseas Office

In the fall of 2004, we set up an office in the United States at Rutgers University to collect and disseminate information on Khmer Rouge history, with a particular emphasis on assisting the Cambodian North American community. It also: serves as a forum for reciprocal exchanges between DC-Cam and Rutgers’ students and faculty, internships/externships, research and training, exhibitions and seminars. In addition, our PIR personnel locate information and provide translations for people interested in the upcoming tribunal.

This quarter, we continued to stock our archives with DC-Cam monographs, books on the Cambodian genocide, our monthly magazine, microfilms, films, maps, posters, and photographs. Our other ongoing and planned activities include:

Oral History Program. This program provides opportunities for students at Rutgers to do research on the Khmer Rouge regime. Twenty honors students will join this program in September 2005. They will interview members of the Cambodian-American community in Philadelphia (many of its 100,000 members are survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime).

Exhibition Program. Next year, exhibitions on the Khmer Rouge regime will be mounted at Rutgers’ Dana Library and Robinson Hall.

Lecture Program. Vannak Huy, author of Division 703, gave a lecture on “what is Khmer Rouge” to Rutgers students.

Internship Program. This summer, Janet Lee from Rutgers University Law School is a summer legal associate at DC-Cam.

News Clips. To keep abreast of developments on the Khmer Rouge tribunal, we have compiled 120 news clips to date and filed them chronologically.

This quarter, we also began planning to build our archives at Rutgers. The archives will contain microfilm, films, etc., and will be the largest collection of such documents on the Khmer Rouge in the United States.

1.3     Public Education and Reconciliation Outreach

1.3.1     The Legal Training Project

We will hold a second legal training course this summer, sponsored by the US State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, and focusing on the defense counsel. This quarter, we hosted several North American law students who will be our summer legal associates, and confirmed a number of local and international guest lecturers.

The project will involve three intensive two-week courses in Phnom Penh for selected Cambodian officials, university professors, NGO leaders, and journalists.

Each two-week course deals with different aspects of international criminal law and criminal defense relevant to the upcoming tribunal in Cambodia:

     §  An introduction to the upcoming KRT

     §  The rights of the defendant

     §  The role of the defense counsel before the KRT

     §  Potential challenges for defense counsel before the KRT

     §  Rights and duties of defense counsel before the KRT

     §  Types of defense

     §  Defense motions and closing arguments.

This quarter, our legal team focused on preparing training manuals for the course.

The courses will be taught, coordinated, or assisted by the following team: