Memory and Sovereignty in Post-1979 Cambodia: Choeung Ek and Local Genocide Memorials 1

Hughes, Rachel

doi:10.4324/9780203790847-9

Cited by 11 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…In 1980, a Vietnamese General by the name of Mai Lam was put in place as the curator of the Tuol Sleng museum in the former S-21 prison building and the Choeung Ek Memorial Stupa (the place of the “killing fields” for the S-21 prison). According to sources, he is quoted as saying that the preservation of human remains was “very important for the Cambodian people – it's the proof.” Some have interpreted this as also legitimizing the Vietnamese invasion, which effectively put an end to Pol Pot's genocide by building visual reminders of what happened (17).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forensic Legacy of the Khmer Rouge: The Cambodian Genocide

Gruspier¹,

Pollanen

2017

Academic Forensic Pathology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The people of Cambodia were subjected to widespread forced migration and labor, disease, starvation, torture, murder, and indeed, genocide over a period of four years during the control of the country by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. While the country awaits some form of justice from the hybrid tribunal hearing cases against a few of the perpetrators of these crimes, it has undertaken to memorialize the dead in visible monuments in order that the people remember and never allow it to happen again. This paper outlines the few forensic investigations which have been undertaken on the remains of the deceased from this period in Cambodia's history. The current status of the legal proceedings and the current death investigation system in Cambodia are also presented. There is a wealth of objective forensic information that can be gathered from analyzing the remains that have been disturbed and placed in monuments (stupas), and also in the undisturbed graves across the country. This information cannot only assist in any legal proceedings, but can aide in training medicolegal experts in Cambodia for the future good of the country and its rule of law.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forensic Legacy of the Khmer Rouge: The Cambodian Genocide

Gruspier¹,

Pollanen

2017

Academic Forensic Pathology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…2 As in other Southeast Asian Buddhist cosmologies, deaths from violence are regarded as particularly grievous and inauspicious (Hughes 2006).…”

Section: Proper Transformationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Two notable exceptions are pieces by Anne YvonneGouillou (2012) andRachel Hughes (2006).17 BothKwon (2006Kwon ( , 2008 andGustafsson (2007) temporally locate the growth of these practices in Doi Moi, a program of economic liberalization adopted by the Vietnamese state in 1986. Increased economic freedoms were accompanied by a loosening of state control over religious and social life, which corresponded with a massive upsurge in commemorative ritual practices centered upon the grievous dead.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Dead in the Land: Encounters with Bodies, Bones, and Ghosts in Northwestern Cambodia

Arensen¹

2017

J of Asian Stud

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article explores one Cambodian village's engagement with the remains of the dead encountered during postwar resettlement. For Khmer Buddhists, the correct material transformation of the bodies of the dead is critical, but these processes were often disrupted in Cambodia's recent troubled past. This article describes the subsequent ramifications of these interrupted processes for both the living and the dead in Reaksmei Songha village in northwestern Battambang. Various residents had encountered the bones of the war dead, and some described sightings of ghosts. Kinship played a vital role in villagers’ responses to unearthed bones. However, residents tended to downplay the impact of these remains and their ghostly counterparts, possibly because of their own affective identification with the plight of the dead.

show abstract

“…Both sites were curated as public memorials in 1979-1980. 7 Initially, S21 prisoners who died were buried in and around that complex, but the sheer number of bodies made this impractical to continue and, from 1977 Choeung Ek, a former Chinese cemetery, served as S21's execution and burial site. Some eightynine of the estimated 129 Choeung Ek mass graves from this period were excavated in mid1980, and the remains of 8,985 victims were exhumed.…”

Section: Mass Grave Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Powerful remains: the continuing presence of victims of the Khmer Rouge regime in today‘s Cambodia

Jarvis¹

2015

Human Remains and Violence: An Interdisciplinary Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Khmer Rouge forbade the conduct of any funeral rites at the time of the death of the estimated two million people who perished during their rule (1975–79). Since then, however, memorials have been erected and commemorative ceremonies performed, both public and private, especially at former execution sites, known widely as the killing fields. The physical remains themselves, as well as images of skulls and the haunting photographs of prisoners destined for execution, have come to serve as iconic representations of that tragic period in Cambodian history and have been deployed in contested interpretations of the regime and its overthrow.

show abstract

Memory and Sovereignty in Post-1979 Cambodia: Choeung Ek and Local Genocide Memorials 1

Cited by 11 publications

References 0 publications

Forensic Legacy of the Khmer Rouge: The Cambodian Genocide

Forensic Legacy of the Khmer Rouge: The Cambodian Genocide

The Dead in the Land: Encounters with Bodies, Bones, and Ghosts in Northwestern Cambodia

Powerful remains: the continuing presence of victims of the Khmer Rouge regime in today‘s Cambodia

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About