PHNOM PENH - The United
States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC
plans a new exhibition on Cambodia's Khmer Rouge,
but it is uncertain if the American secret bombing
of the country, which some analysts say helped the
radical Maoists come to power, will be included in
the presentation.
The
temporary exhibition, which is scheduled to open
in the next 12 to 18 months, will feature
photographs, video footage and artifacts from the
Khmer Rouge regime that some estimate is
responsible for the deaths of approximately two
million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979. The
exhibition will also discuss the ongoing United
Nations-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal.
The
exhibition will be in line with the museum's
mission of
preventing genocides
around the world, said Michael Abramowitz, the
director of the museum's Committee on Conscience,
who recently visited Cambodia with an 18-member
delegation from the United States. It is also
being viewed as part of the US's ramped up
diplomacy in Southeast Asia in line with
Washington's "pivot" towards Asia.
"We
want to study these genocides so that we can do
more to prevent these genocides from happening
again," Abramowitz said. "We want to make it clear
that genocide didn't stop in 1945."
While
the Holocaust Museum's primary focus is on the
Nazi crimes during World War II, the museum has
also held small displays on genocides in Rwanda,
Sudan and Bosnia, Abramowitz said. It will be the
first time that the museum, which is funded by the
American government and receives more than a
million visitors every year, will hold an
exhibition on an Asian genocide. According to its
website, the museum has received more than 34
million visitors since it opened in 1993,
including 91 heads of state.
Contested
role The museum delegation, including
former US secretary of homeland security Michael
Chertoff, Illinois State Senator Jeffrey
Schoenberg and CNN journalist Amy Kaslow, visited
the infamous Tuol Sleng prison, where the Khmer
Rouge murdered an estimated 17,000 people. The
delegation sat in on a session of the Khmer Rouge
tribunal, interviewed survivors, and spent an
afternoon watching an interview with former Tuol
Sleng prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, or Duch.
The delegation also met with Youk Chhang,
director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia,
which holds the world's largest archive of
documents related to the Khmer Rouge. Chhang, who
is a survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime, brought
the Americans to see a pond in a picturesque
village outside of the capital. The 10-meter-deep
pond in Kampong Chnang province, he explained to
the visitors, was left behind by an American bomb.
"When the villagers began to tell the
story, it was chilling," Chhang said. "They picked
up the remains of the bomb [and sold them] to make
a living. They all know this site, and they don't
drink from this pond."
More than two
million tonnes of American bombs were dropped on
Cambodia between 1965 and 1973 as part of the
wider war in Vietnam. Some of the secret bombing
campaigns were referred to crudely by government
officials as "breakfast", "lunch", "dinner",
"snack", and "desert", according to an article
co-authored by American history professor Ben
Kiernan, who is also author of the book How Pol
Pot came to power.
The American-dropped bombs resulted in
the deaths of between 50,000 to 150,000
people. Some analysts, including Kiernan, say
that these civilian casualties drove angry villagers
to support the Khmer Rouge, who generally were not
popular at a grassroots level until the
bombing began. The Khmer Rouge forces grew from only
10,000 in 1969 to more than 200,000 by
1973.
Abramowitz said he cannot say
with certainty if the American bombing of Cambodia
will be included in the museum's display. The
problem, he explained, is that exhibitions tend to
be small. "There is a huge amount of information
that we have to boil down to a very modest
[presentation]," he said.
He added that
the exhibition will discuss the role America
played but not necessarily the bombing. "We do
plan to touch on the American role, which will be
of interest to our visitors," he said. "If you
study Khmer Rouge history, America is very much
tied in - [We might discuss] the American role in
trying to broker the Paris peace accord in the
1990s. America is [also] a strong supporter of the
[Khmer Rouge tribunal]."
Select
presentation Even if the American bombing
of Cambodia is included in the exhibition, there
are many ways the museum could choose to present
the campaign. For instance, it could also be
argued that American bombing actually delayed the
Khmer Rouge victory by supporting the right-wing
government in Phnom Penh.
"It's a long
debate, but I'm sure the Holocaust museum will
give a balanced [view] to the public," Chhang
said. "The US publicly apologized for one bomb and
compensated the victims who lost their family
members. This can also teach us about
forgiveness." The Documentation Center of Cambodia
has already helped to organize several Khmer Rouge
exhibits in the US, but almost all were on
university campuses, according to Chhang.
While in Cambodia, Abramowitz said he saw
strong parallels between the Holocaust and the
Khmer Rouge regime. While attending a session of
the Khmer Rouge tribunal, for example, he heard
testimony from a former railway company employee
about the evacuation of Phnom Penh in 1975 when
all residents, including hospital patients, were
forced to leave the city at gunpoint.
While Abramowitz did not say what kinds of
artifacts will go on display in Washington, most
of the Khmer Rouge memorials in Cambodia include
the skulls of victims. These skulls, some with
wounds that graphically illustrate how the Khmer
Rouge murdered their victims, have never been
included in any international exhibitions, Chhang
said.
"I think the government would
support [the museum] if they borrowed the skulls,"
he said. "Cambodia has a tradition of cremating
the bodies, but according to our tradition, you
cannot cremate someone who does not belong to your
family." Because it is not known to whom the
skulls of the Khmer Rouge victims belonged, they
cannot receive proper burial. "For this reason,
it's permissible to include them in an
exhibition," he said. "The bones still speak."
Julie Masis is a Cambodia-based
journalist.
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