Khmer Rouge’s Brutality Never Forgotten

On June 30, 2020 Anlong Veng Peace Center’s first-ever online forum on the history of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979) was conducted for a month and engaged approximately 50 students and history teachers from two high schools in the Anlong Veng district from June 11-30, 2020. Its intention is to increase knowledge of this history, to present and elaborate on the definition of genocide and on preventive measures on individual, community and country levels, and to generate an online debate on these topics during the COVID-19 pandemic, as all schools in Cambodia and across the globe are closed.

At the beginning of the forum, Anlong Veng Peace Center’s team members, Sout Vechet, Hean Pisey and Mek Ven, coordinated this work with the high school directors and history teachers to create a Telegram group as it is the only viable channel of communication. It started with 37 students from Trapeang Tav High School and, later on, almost the same number of students from Anlong Veng High School. The group reached 67 by June 10, 2020. However, 50 students (28 female) were able to complete a pre-classroom survey before the forum started.

The forum started by focusing on three topics: a history of DK, Anlong Veng’s community, the definition of genocide and means of prevention. Then, all the participants spent around ten minutes reading a brief summary concerning the early birth of the communist movement and a history of DK because it is a good way to explain history. After that, the students read longer texts on the history of DK and Anlong Veng from “A History of Anlong Veng Community: The Final Stronghold of the Khmer Rouge Movement, Guidebook for Tour Guide.” All the participants of this forum were then asked to ask any KR-related questions.

A day later, no one had any questions. Our team encouraged the students to use this opportunity to ask for any clarification on any specific parts of the history. After that, the group had six questions: 1) What is a ‘rebel’ and an ‘agenda’? 2) Why did the KR kill so many people? (3) What is a communist ideology? (4) Why were the KR created? (5) Why did the KR prohibit people from practicing religions? (6) Why did the Isarak movement have no clear leader in the beginning? In response, answers to each question were provided in writing and the participants were directed to read some relevant texts to obtain greater detail on these subjects. For example, the question of “why were the KR created?” was written in the book: “Guidebook for Tour Guide” Presentation 1.

On June 15, a new text on the history of the Anlong Veng community was shared. The students initially consulted with three slides that summarized important parts of the history of DK before going more from the guidebook. After the reading, a new round of discussion started. The last part of the online text defined “genocide” and its preventive measures at individual, community and national levels.

Overall, this classroom forum proved fruitful. There were some lessons learned and challenges as well. The forum relied on students’ active reading of the provided texts in the book: “A History of Anlong Veng Community: The Final Stronghold of the Khmer Rouge Movement: Guidebook for Tour Guide.” The students had to be active on their smartphones to obtain the information and ask questions. This could be accomplished if the students effectively managed their time to think of any questions. Some students felt this online learning took less time than a regular in-person class because they could spend their time learning many interesting parts of the DK’s history and viewing photographs. Others commented that Internet access or smart phones, sometimes, limited their active participation. At the end of the forum, the team offered them a few books: “A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979),” “A History of Anlong Veng Community: The Final Stronghold of the Khmer Rouge Movement—Guidebook for Tour Guide,” and the “Searching for the Truth” magazine, along with COVID-19 poster which they could pick them up at the Anlong Veng Peace Center in the downtown of the Anlong Veng district.

This was followed by a series of reactions concerning the online forum

TEAM: Sout Vechet, Mek Navin, Hean Pisey and Ly Sok-Kheang
REPORT: Ly Sok-Kheang
DONOR: United States Agency for International Development (USAID)