THIRD QUARTERLY REPORT, JULY - SEPTEMBER 2005

Magazine and Radio. We continued to produce both the Khmer and English editions of our magazine, Searching for the Truth. In addition, in August 2005 we ran an all-out broadcast of an introduction to the Khmer Rouge tribunal.

1. DOCUMENTATION

Our documentation work consists of four activities: 1) cataloguing of documents and database management, 2) microfilming, 3) photographic exhibitions, and 4) digital photo archiving.

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). These databases hold information on both Khmer Rouge personnel and their victims, and because they are Internet-accessible and available on CD-Rom, can be utilized by expatriate Cambodians as well.

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 completed keying the last 7,079 of the D collection records into our database, bringing the total to 24,184 records in Khmer and another 5,551 records in 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 530 “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 a parallel effort to facilitate public inquiry and research, we have entered 72,186 records into a Microsoft Access List. This database is available for use in our Public Information Room (PIR) and on CD-Rom, and is intended to facilitate public inquiry and research.

 *The activity was speeded up with help of two additional volunteers.

**This activity slowed down as staff were occupied with core work

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 teams add information. We have updated over half of the book.

Earlier this year international experts from our Affinity Group (see below) began assisting us in the design and development of a more user-friendly database with increased capacity and a new format/field design. A local company, Lemon Computers, began working on putting our data into the MySQL program. This process has been completed for the CGEO, CBIO, CBIB, and CTS databases. We are now in the process of having the results reviewed, and hope to give final approval by next quarter. The company has agreed that it will not take any reimbursement for its work until DC-Cam is satisfied with the product. This program is expected to be up-and-running on our website by January 2006.

 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 began microfilming documents from its Promoting Accountability Team’s interviews.

*During 1998-2004, we produced 497 reels of documents from our D, I, J, K, L, and R collections. The numbers above reflect progress on the new collection 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. During the first quarter of 2005 we sent a set of 93 microfilm reels and other materials available at DC-Cam to Rutgers. Approximately 500 reels will have been sent by October of this year, and will be available for use at the Rutgers’ Library. In addition, we have made our microfilm available to the public, who can order it from DC-Cam.

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. Last quarter, we mounted an ongoing 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.

DC-Cam has mounted four exhibitions at Tuol Sleng to date; each is displayed in a classroom-turned prison cell from the KR regime. They were entitled “The Khmer Rouge Leaders,” “Victims of History,” “Forensic Exhibition,” and “Stilled Lives.”

4) Digital Photo Archiving

In 2005, 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.

We have learned that the “New People” who contributed photographs wish to have the originals returned, while “Base People” (those with rural backgrounds) prefer an enlarged copy of their original photo (DC-Cam retains the originals). We are pleased to see a steady increase in participation in this new book. Both overseas and in-country essay contest writers responded well to our inquiries about their stories or photographs: from France and Koh Kong, for example. An individual from Takeo province deposited his old photographs at DC-Cam in order to preserve them for history.

Documentation Project Impacts

As our name indicates, documentation lies at the heart of DC-Cam’s work, and to some extent provides the basis for all of our other projects and activities. Preserving the documentary evidence of the history, policies, activities and crimes of the Khmer Rouge regime is an absolute prerequisite to any effort at ensuring that such a regime is never permitted to rise again. While our progress in this work is quantifiable in terms of documents catalogued, archived and copied, the true impact of DC-Cam’s documentation work is the real, if immeasurable, degree to which it contributes to realizing the promise, “never again!”

Affinity Group. Together with the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), DC-Cam led the development of an “Affinity Group” of documentation centers from around the world (the former Afghanistan, Guatemala, Iraq, Thailand (working on human rights issues in Burma), and the former Yugoslavia to share information and techniques, and address the constraints shared by its members. The group, which plans to meet three or four times per year, would also call in international experts to help think through solutions to various technical documentation problems.

In the first meeting in Phnom Penh on March 1-5, 2005, the Affinity Group participants discussed strategic and technical issues. The second meeting was held at the Humanitarian Law Center in Belgrade on June 20-25, 2005 to cover 1) the ownership and custodianship of documents, 2) evidentiary questions, 2) information management systems, 4) documents and memory, 5) information preservation and dissemination, and 6) documentary collections. The technical subjects addressed included document protection, digitalizing videos and documents, evaluations of databases (DC-Cam, ICTJ, and the Iraq Memory Foundation), model information systems, and manuals and guidelines. DC-Cam’s database team leader Ros Sampeou attended the meeting. Beside the need for digitizing, DC-Cam has learned that its transcriptions of interviews are exactly in line with the thoughts of oral historian Marijana Toma. The next two meetings will take places in Guatemala and Kurdistan. The group hoped to be able to meet at the Rockefeller Residence in Bellagio, Italy to write final documents reflecting on the successes and failures of the Affinity Group.

In September 21, 2005, the Affinity Group made an appeal to the Government of Guatemala to take urgent measures to protect the security of, and prevent death threats against, staff and individuals associated with Affinity Group member Fundacion de Antropologia Forense de Guatemala (FAFG). The appeal continues, “This cannot be allowed to continue...We write as concerned members of the international community. We represent six non-governmental organizations, most of which are very similar to the FAFG, from countries around the world. We have formed a working group on concerns related to documentation, and we meet regularly to discuss issues of concern. We have the knowledge and authority to state unequivocally that the FAFG, one of our founding members, is a highly professional organization committed to human rights and democracy. The work they do depends on the highest stands.”

Cambodian Red Cross. On August 10, 2005, we received a request from the Red Cross to help trace a person named Choeung Chamroeun, a student in Germany who disappeared in 1974. This search is under way. Recent examples of public requests for searching our databases include the following:

• Mr Benjamin Valverde, a Cambodge Soir journalist, came to our PIR room,and asked database team leader Sampeou Ros to locate biographies of Hun Sen, Chea Sim and Khieu Samphan. Mr. Ros printed them and gave Valverde hard copies.

• On August 17, magazine staff Chy Terith asked our database team leader to find the biography of a person named Ou Lam, a former student in France and who had worked in the Ministry of Planning during the Lon Nol regime. Ou Lam’s wife Sausipha, who is living in Kampong Thom province, requested this information. We are happy to report that we found her husband’s biography in our database, and learned that Ou Lam was arrested along with other students when they returned from France in 1976 and were sent to the office S-21. We sent Sausipha her husband’s biography and prisoner photograph.

• On August 18, magazine staff member Kalyan Sann requested the biography of Choeun Chamroeun, a former technical school student in Dresden, Germany between 1971 and 1974. He returned to Cambodia in 1974, but then disappeared. Information on him was requested by Chamroeun’s Rebekka Mucha, a Cambodian-Germany citizen living in Potsdam Unfortunately, we could not find his father’s biography in our database.

• On August 19, after our PA team had interviewed former Khmer Rouge in Prey Veng province, we received a call from Chum Neou aka Chum Phy, former soldier in logistical unit 14 in Prey Veng district, region 20. She asked if we could locate her husband’s biography. Her husband (called Ngou Moeun) was also a soldier in unit 14, but had disappeared. Unfortunately, we could not find her husband’s information in our database.

• We helped filmmaker Marc Ebercle to prepare for a documentary film on Cambodian music of the 1960s. During August 19-27, 2005, we helped independent filmmaker Steve McClure from the USA to produce a documentary Rain Falls from Earth. McClure explained, “The title is taken from a person who once said, ‘If the Khmer Rouge told you that rain falls from the earth, not the sky, you agreed or you would be killed for being an intellectual.’ The film takes a very personal approach on how people of all ages and walks of life were affected by the regime...and the story is also one of hope and how personal strength and courage eventually prevailed...I am hoping it educates a society that is mostly unaware of what happened in your country so this type of atrocity can never happen again...Please let me know if you might have time to meet and allow us to include the important work that DC-Cam has done in our film.”

• On August 26, 2005, a participant in DC-Cam’s legal training course saw a photo of his deceased sister in the July 2002 issue of Searching for the Truth. Ros Suy, 51, from Kandal province was able to learn that his sister disappeared in 1977.

• On July 13, 2005, a group of young Cambodians led by Pin Bunreas from Babel Studios requested and received 70 photographs from Democratic Kampuchea. The group will use the photographs as part of their music video project, which will include songs that describe their parents’ experiences during DK and their moves to America.

• On September 12, 2005, PA team member Sochea Phann requested the biographies of 12 people who had worked as medical personnel in Sre Ambel unit, staff at a printing house, soldiers in Division 310, and cooks and messengers for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the Khmer Rouge era. After locating their biographies in our database (listed below), we provided copies to Mr. Serey of Radio Free Asia.

• On the same day, Sin Hin, 60, of Pursat province came to the PIR room and asked us to search for the biography and photograph of hi his older brother Sin Dam. We were able to find his biography and learned that during Democratic Kampuchea, he was a train worker in Phnom Penh. He was arrested at his unit on January 24, 1976 and later sent Tuol Sleng.

• On September 15, Sao Thach, 57, of Pursat province came into the PIR and asked for the biography and photo of her husband Koam Thet (she had seen her husband’s photo in Issue 67 of our magazine. We provided these to her; according to his biography, Koam Thet was a former student of construction engineering, was arrested at office K-15 on October 23, 1976, and sent to S-21.

• On August 29, 2005, two groups of villagers from Svay Rieng province came to request information on their deceased relatives. A group of three persons led by Chan Sam Eat, 36, requested their father’s photo and confession. Another group of three led by Suos Sarim, 53, requested information on her brother Suos Savann who died at S-21. In both cases, we found photographs and provided them to the villagers.

2. PROMOTING ACCOUNTABILITY

Our promoting accountability work consists of four activities: 1) providing public access to our archives, 2) supporting efforts to identify those responsible for the crimes committed during the Khmer Rouge regime, 3) encouraging public participation in the judicial process being established to punish those responsible for these crimes through pre-trial outreach, and 4) ensuring the integrity and security of our archives for future use through the establishment and maintenance of an overseas office.

Regarding the prospects for the establishment of a tribunal for senior Khmer Rouge leaders and those most responsible for crimes committed under their rule, problems arose with respect to the Royal Government of Cambodia’s funding obligations for the tribunal during the 3rd Quarter. However, events (for example, the United Nation’s August announcement that it had chosen the deputy director for the tribunal’s administrative office) seem to indicate that the prospects for the tribunal commencing in the near future remain strong. In anticipation, we have continued working on a number of programs to ensure access to our documents and to keep the public informed.

1) Public Access to DC-Cam Archives

DC-Cam’s archives are of great historical interest and will doubtless 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.

During the first quarter we updated the guidelines and sent them to our advisors for comment. Our advisors are also compiling and analyzing materials such as a foreseeable draft agreement between the UN and the government on archival materials, existing analyses of the proposed National Archive Law, general principles of evidence concerning original documents, and ICTY’s relevant rules on document authenticity. The team might propose to the government, UN, or tribunal a draft agreement that only copies are to be used in the proceedings, if it is not necessary to show the documents. Given the recent (September 2005) distribution of a proposed Draft National Archive Law, our legal experts are also examining its potential impacts on our access guidelines and will be proposing any changes deemed necessary to comply with applicable laws. These guidelines are expected to be finalized during a meeting with two of our legal advisors this coming December.

A Response Team for the Tribunal. In late 2003 we began to plan for a “Tribunal Response Team.” This team will comprise Cambodian and non-Cambodian lawyers, political scientists, and historians. Two of these experts will 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 the 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. In this quarter our staff member Sour Bunsou, who recently received an L.L.M from the University of Essex, UK, will begin working as a team leader. The team’s priority actions will include reporting on the chain of custody of DC-Cam documents, compiling and identifying documents or contacts that might establish a criminal act or a chain of command, revisiting existing translations and making new translations, coordinating the above-mentioned access guide, and monitoring the trials. 

Public Information Room (PIR). The PIR gives access 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 689 visitors, hosted guest lectures and training, screened films on the regime, and provided office space for our Victims of Torture and Microfilm Project staff. The PIR also hosted our Legal Training Program for defense counsel during this quarter.

The PIR has continued to provide space to legal training interns, our pre-trial outreach student volunteers, DC-Cam researchers, family tracing activities, guest meetings, readings, Internet usage, and database volunteers.

Our PIR became busier this quarter, accommodating legal trainees, trainers and volunteer students on the pre-trial outreach project. Nearly 700 people visited the PIR, with over 1700 documents and 100 photos being copied. This quarter, it hosted training sessions on the DC-Cam library, a variety of the Center’s projects, and the Khmer Rouge Law. The PIR also provided accommodations for many other DC-Cam activities, including media interviews, public lectures, and informal gatherings of persons interested in the history of the Khmer Rouge era for both personal and academic reasons.

The PIR has also provided services to Cambodians at home and abroad to help them locate loved ones who died or disappeared during the Democratic Kampuchea regime. PIR work includes searching databases, documents, and photographs; writing stories on victims and survivors; and publishing letters of inquiry in the Center’s monthly magazine.

To date, we have received 70 letters from people concerning relatives who disappeared during the regime. We also welcomed 13 people who came to the PIR to ask about their relatives. As a result we located the names of 26 persons who disappeared during DK and gave biographies, photos and confessions to them.

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 continued to operate from field offices in Kampong Chhnang and Prey Veng provinces.

*A larger percentage of cadres in the Eastern Zone were massacred than in other zones. Because our work focused in the Eastern Zone this quarter, the rate of interviews is low.

**This number is constant because all team members spent all their time in the field this quarter.

Last year, a manuscript was produced 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. This manuscript will be analyzed by our legal advisor John Ciorciari in November 2005. In this quarter, Dr. Heder has started to analyze PA interview scripts with a new focus on building middle- and lower-rank chains of command. As Dr. Heder reports this work in this quarter:

“English summaries of an additional 45 PA interviews have been completed. These include interviews conducted in Kompong Cham, Kompong Thom, Kandal, Takeo, Kampot, Prey Veng and Svay Rieng provinces. The interviewees come primarily from military units, security forces, government ministries and hospitals in Phnom Penh. Their testimonies make reference to potential suspects for criminal prosecution in a Khmer Rouge Tribunal, such as Nuon Chea, Ta Mok, Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith, Khieu Samphan, and Duch. They add to the indications of these potential suspects’ involvement in or knowledge of international and domestic crimes within the tribunal’s jurisdiction. They also provide additional historical and sociological information about the rise and fall of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, life and death under its rule. They also further elucidate the experiences and attitudes of the mostly menial Khmer Rouge who are the interviewees, including their retrospective views of the Khmer Rouge regime and their hopes and fears regarding prosecution of the Khmer Rouge crimes.”

The PA Project has also created a filing system that includes transcripts, biographies, photographs, relevant documents such as confessions and execution lists, and audio tapes. So far we have filed 4,961 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: KSI0001-0019, Prey Veng: PVI0001-0005, Svay Rieng: SVI0001-0005, and Kampong Chhnang: KHI0001-0081. 

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

In our Living Documents Project, we will bring 1,200 people from selected communes around the country to attend courtroom proceedings of the Khmer Rouge tribunal within three years. These respected villagers will not only see justice done but also will convey messages to their relatives and neighbors that the Cambodian government and the world sympathizes with their tragedy and they are now well protected by the rule of law. They will bring with them materials related to the Khmer Rouge tribunal. To this end, we have been taking preliminary steps and familiarize ourselves with villagers and people of different ages, genders, and religious beliefs. 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. During the second quarter participants were given an introduction to the tribunal and asked to reflect on its importance and their participation.

Cham Community Outreach Project. Our work with Cambodia’s Cham community includes an oral history project. DC-Cam has designed a questionnaire with 24 questions concerning the history and experiences of Cham community members during the Khmer Rouge regime. With the participation of hakem and tuans throughout Cambodia, 1,008 questionnaires have now been distributed to 336 Cham villages. To date we have received over 132 completed questionnaires from 53 Cham communities in Banteay Meanchey, Takeo, Koh Kong, Kandal, Battambang, Kampot, Pursat, Kampong Chhnang and Kampong Cham provinces, as well as from Sihanoukville and Phnom Penh. These responses will be used in a special edition of the DC-Cam magazine Searching for the Truth about the Cham.

In conjunction with our distribution of the Cham history questionnaire, we are also distributing copies of documents related to the upcoming tribunal, including copies of the Khmer Rouge Trial Law and the Agreement between the United Nations and the Royal Government of Cambodia concerning the conduct of that tribunal.

Nuns’ Peace March and Public Forums on Sexual Abuse under DK. Plans for nuns to organize a march for peace and justice in Phnom Penh were finalized last quarter. We anticipate that at least 500 nuns from throughout the country will participate, and that the march will be held on the official opening day of the Khmer Rouge trials. DC-Cam will facilitate this march with financial support for transport to and from the provinces. Participating nuns will also assist in hosting approximately 44 public forums to be organized by DC-Cam throughout Cambodia, with at least two forums in every province. The exact locations will be determined based in part upon their proximity to known killing and prison sites. These forums will focus on sexual abuses perpetrated during the Khmer Rouge regime and their continued impacts upon society today. We plan to document these forums with video recordings, including interviews with participants, and to produce radio broadcasts. As we have completed the logistical and team plans this quarter, the forums will begin in November 2005.

Student Outreach Groups. In the fall of 2004, 22 student associations formed a Student Council for Justice (“SCJ”), with the aim of planning for student participation in the tribunal process. DC-Cam has joined in this student initiative and recruited student volunteers to go door-to-door in several areas of Cambodia to explain the process, activities, and benefits of the tribunal to citizens. Approximately 171 students were selected from a pool of nearly 200 volunteers and were trained at DC-Cam. Their training included addresses by His Excellency Mr. Maonh Saphan, then Chief of the Legal Commission of the Cambodian national Assembly, and His Excellency Mr. Sean Visoth, General Executive of the Secretariat of the Royal Government Task Force of the Council of Ministers, as well as visits to Tuol Sleng and the viewing of documentary films on the Cambodian Genocide. The students committed to a two-month period of voluntary service. Further training sessions included meetings with DC-Cam researchers on how to interview victims and perpetrators.

To date, approximately 250 villages in 20 provinces and 3 cities have been reached by our student outreach volunteers. During their visits, the students have recorded over 142 interviews with survivors and produced 3,463 written field reports that include the villagers’ life stories, their views on the Khmer Rouge tribunal, and lessons the students learned. Eight students were selected to work on filing, transcribing, and analyzing the reports, and have distributed 45,200 copies of project materials (e.g., Khmer Rouge Tribunal Law, KR Law Amendment, UN/Royal Government of Cambodia Agreement, introduction to the Khmer Rouge tribunal, Searching for the Truth no. 58) to 13,100 villagers, with approximately 25,000 others having listened to the student-villager conversations.

Student outreach volunteer Kea Seyha described her field interview with one survivor:

“When I first arrived at his house, he looked unhappy and perhaps thought that I had come to cheat people. After I introduced myself and clearly explained the purpose of my visit, he agreed to be interviewed, and spent quite a long time with me. He did not seem to be afraid, and described with animation his life under the Khmer Rouge. However, his mood changed when speaking of the loss of loved ones to the regime. This man was impressed by our gift of the documents we had brought, and when last I saw him as I walked away, he was reading the materials intently beneath his home.”

During her interviews in Stung Treng province, student outreach volunteer Thol Dina met with a 51-year-old man who had lived with Cambodian returnees from North Vietnam in Kratie province, before the “Liberation.” This man stated that none of those returnees was spared, and that he himself was sent to Phnom Penh, where he eventually ended up in a work unit tending vegetables near the Royal Palace, surrounded by 30 or 40 guards. This man would see the Khmer Rouge leadership attending technical training. He stated that he hoped to see the establishment of a tribunal, but doubted that a Cambodian court would deliver justice for the victims. This man seemed very willing to tell what he knew, and hoped that it would help the younger generation of Cambodians.

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. This office 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 are available to locate information and provide translations for people interested in the upcoming tribunal. We have been stocking the Rutgers office with DC-Cam monographs, books on the Cambodian genocide, our monthly magazine, microfilms, films, maps, posters, and photographs; when it is complete, the archives will be the largest collection of such documents on the Khmer Rouge in the United States. Particularly in this quarter, we discussed ways of updating our indexes, storing documents, and digitalizing our microfilms. We also keep updating our news clips.

Another program activity is set to be launched on March 28, 2006. Entitled “Documentation Center of Cambodia Year-Event,” it will cover:

• Introduction to Cambodian genocide and Documentation Center of Cambodia

• Film screenings

• Photo exhibitions

• Lecture/guest speakers series

• Oral histories of Cambodian-Americans.

We are currently in the process of recruiting a new office administrator at Rutgers.

Promoting Accountability Project Impacts

Any accounting for the crimes perpetrated under the Khmer Rouge regime will be for naught in the absence of Cambodian public participation and understanding of the process. As the only ongoing effort to ensure as broad a participation by the people of Cambodia as possible in the proposed Khmer Rouge Tribunal, DC-Cam’s promoting accountability activities are making a significant contribution in this area. Examples of the project’s impacts include:

• Staff members Osman Ysa and Sophary Noy have been accepted into Sida’s International Training Programme 2006, and will be participating in the Human Rights and Disability (May) and Project Management (April) programs, respectively.
  
   

• On September 8, 2005 staff member Sochea Phann participated as a guest speaker at an FM 102 radio discussion program on the Role of the Royal Cambodian Government and International Community in the Support of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal organized by the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee.
  
   

• DC-Cam staff members Sour Bunsou, Phan Sochea, and Vanthan Peou Dara participated in a meeting that discussed a draft recommendation paper on Internal Regulations of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal on September 21, 2005 at the Cambodian Defenders Project office in Phnom Penh.

Cham Outreach

• Farina So’s article “Education Needed for Cham Women in Cambodia” was published in the 3^rd edition of AMANA. Her interview with RFA was aired on August 8. Last, her paper “The Study of Qur’an vs Modern Education for Islamic Women in Cambodia” was published as a five-part series in Kampuchea Thmei in September 2005.

• Anges De Feo, a French researcher on the Cham interviewed Ms. So on her paper.

Student Outreach

• An article about DC-Cam’s Student Outreach program appeared in the July 1 issue of Cambodge Soir. It will be distributed to villages nationwide as the tribunal draws near.
   

• Volunteer Meng-Try Ea wrote an article for the July 1 issue of The Cambodia Daily about disseminating information on the tribunal and urged the government to announce the date for the trials of the KR Trial.
   

• On July 15, DC-Cam staff Em Sokhym and Vanthan Peou Dara gave a presentation at a meeting organized by the Cambodian Justice Initiative on DC’Cam’s trial outreach activities. 34 students and representatives of academia, media, human rights NGOs/UN, embassies, and aid agencies attended.
   

• On July 29, Mr. Ea and DC-Cam deputy directors Sorya Sim and Dara Vanthan were invited to talk about the Outreach Program at the “Sunday Talk” program on CTN TV (Cambodian Television Network). They discussed what, where, when, why, and how the volunteer students will conduct their work, and urged other students to participate in the process.

• On August 4, 2005, Dara Vanthan and other NGO representatives spoke about the role of NGOs in the KRT at a live talk show on radio FM102.

• On August 8, the governor of Pursat’s Kandieng district called for a meeting with the student group. He wrote a letter to show the villagers’ and his own positive attitude toward DC-Cam, and requested that we bring the tribunal materials to other villages. He also asked that DC-Cam hold workshop at schools on the KRT.
   

• On August 9, Cambodia Daily staff went to Takeo with the student group. They interviewed the students on how they find the former KR cadres and villagers on how they have reconciled within their communities. On August 12, The Cambodia Daily published an article about their trip entitled