The Documentation Centre of Cambodia houses over 500,000 documents and 6,000 photographs, making it the largest archive of its kind. According to Chhang, it was an important source of evidence contributing to the establishment of the Cambodia Tribunal in 1997. 

 

Chhang was imprisoned and tortured by the Khmer Rouge when he was 14. One of his sisters, accused by the soldiers of stealing rice, had her stomach cut open and died. The Khmer Rouge also killed Chhang’s other brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles and his grandparents.

 

“To be honest, I came to this work in the first place not for reconciliation but for revenge. I was very, very angry with the Khmer Rouge,” said Chhang.

 

“But then I had to accept the reality. You cannot change that. You have to move on. I don't want to live as a victim for the rest of my life…We like to move on to compete for success, to go to school, but then help others if possible. So that's my inspiration. By doing this for others, I'm also helping myself. ”  

 

Aside from maintaining one of the largest databases on the Cambodian genocide of 1975-1979, the Documentation Centre of Cambodia also provides education through textbooks on genocide studies in over 1,700 high schools nationwide, and provides legal training on international criminal law and human rights for universities and NGOs. 

  

During his brief visit to Bangkok, Prachatai talked to Youk Chhang, Director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia and a genocide survivor about reconciliation, forgiveness and the future of Cambodia.   

 

   

 

 

I think because I suffered so much, but I looked around and other people also suffer, then the first person that I looked at quickly was my mother. And I did not understand this until I became a father myself. You know she lost some of her own children, her husband, her parents, all her brothers and her sisters, and she never cried. And my mother is a peasant girl, but she looked after us, took care of us, gave to us, and protected us. But you know there's a point where she failed to protect us when the Khmer Rouge beat me, when they killed my sister. And I think as a mother, the pain of watching someone beating your own children is the greatest pain that a mother can endure. I was feeling very revengeful. I was very angry with the Khmer Rouge. I started this out of revenge, I wanted to go and beat up the Khmer Rouge, and put them in jail, but then I found thousands of them around the country. 

 

And then when I returned to the village where I was put in prison, I found the village chief who made me suffer. I found the prison guard who tortured me. So I talked to them, but they don't remember me. I thought that all perpetrators remember the face of their victims, but in fact it's the other way around. So the story that they were telling us was human story. They also lost their children. They also suffered. From their side, when they destroyed my mother's family, they kept their own. They starved us so they had food to eat. When they killed us, they wanted to live. So it made me think, what does this to all of us? 

 

So I began to change, looking into reconciliation, into the future. And revenge gradually faded away. My mother's wounds can never be healed in her lifetime. So perhaps I do all these things in a search for healing for myself, because I meet so many victims and survivors and mothers, and so research can help healing. I'm lucky, I can fly here, I go to Bangkok, I’ve gone to better schools and I have good housing. But many other survivors are living in poverty, they face new challenges, they lost their lands, they don't have food to eat. So research also helped my healing in a way. And I want every single Cambodian to heal the way they should, and live a better life as they should after the genocide. So that's my inspiration. To be honest, I come to this work in the first place not for reconciliation but for revenge. I was very, very angry with the Khmer Rouge. 

 

I was only 14 years old when they arrested me and put me in jail for picking mushrooms to feed my pregnant sister. They killed my sister, my aunt, my uncle, my grandparents, everybody. But then I have to accept the reality. You cannot change that. You have to move on. I don't want to live as a victim for the rest of my life. So if you see me in Bangkok, you don't think I'm a survivor, but just like all of you. We like to move on to compete for success, to go to school, but then help others if possible. So that's my inspiration. By doing this for others, I'm also helping myself. 

 

 

I have never forgiven them. They have never apologized. So it's blank. But I met the perpetrator who made me and my sister suffer; they don't remember me, so they don't apologize. Because they have never apologized, I have never forgiven them. It's as if this part of your memory was blocked. Perhaps we're Asian and Buddhist, so we believe in karma and things like that. That's how we deal with it. Because he never remembers me, why should he apologize for what he's done? So why should I forgive him? 

 

Perhaps this is a process of reconciliation, so he's no longer a part of my life. I'm no longer angry but I will not forgive. I have never had a chance to forgive because the perpetrators do not remember me. 

 

 

You have to depend on the young generation. For us as victims, direct victims, it's just broken glass. You can only try to put small pieces together and it's never the same. You have to rely on the younger generation and proper education. They are the best reconciliation medicine at home. So when the kids begin to learn to understand, you have to accept that the genocide is a part of us, that it is our history. You cannot deny it. So have children learn this, have them talk to their parents as part of a school assignment. You create a society that allows people to take charge of their own history, so they decide what to do. 

 

Because reconciliation is personal, you cannot tell my mother to forgive, or tell the perpetrators to apologize to solve it personally. You cannot tell her to forgive someone who killed her own daughter. Even today, if somebody kills your kid, how could somebody tell them to forgive? It's a personal thing. It's a life, a human life. And therefore, for Cambodia, I hope we can provide the younger population with a proper education not to be embarrassed by our own history, but to embrace, to learn, and to share. Then perhaps it can help us to grow. 

 

Like for me, I use the Khmer Rouge to better myself. I'm not crying over it. I'm not living as a victim, so I use it to better myself. And that's what I want Cambodia to do, not to be embarrassed by its history. Get out from being a victim to be educators, to be doctors, to be lawyers, so that the Khmer Rouge can no longer be with us. Free yourself through education. 

 

So I think Cambodia is moving in that direction. It's fragile, it's sensitive, but we've got to face it. And now we are facing it with the Tribunal. The whole world forced Cambodia to face this publicly. It was global pressure from the world to make Cambodia look at its history. So it creates a culture of debate, its ownership of history, creates a better environment, creates better education, but facing it is extremely difficult. People are divided. My mother and I and my nieces are divided on how justice is being done, because we care so much about what the future looks like. 

 

So that is the Cambodian experience. It's extremely difficult but now we're being forced, and I think that's only the solution because we've been hiding it for so many years. And that wasn’t working. So now we have to face these things. I think about human rights. Even if small groups of people are killed or abused, it comes back to you because memory is very powerful. Even though you killed people for a long time, you buried them, there's always something left behind, photographs, writing, textbooks, or even stories. It all comes back to you. 

 

I think the government must deal with all these issues before they become major conflicts. And I think the memory of the human experience of genocide is the most powerful force in humanity. It will be expressed when the time comes. It will come back to you. So I think this is the only way that the government has to address this. Even though thousands or hundreds have been abused, the government must address it. People never thought it would happen in 34 years but it comes back. 

 

 

It would be wrong to compare suffering because every mother suffers the same way when they lose their children. So it's wrong to compare Thailand as smaller scale and Cambodia as bigger scale. But those who lose loved ones suffer the same way. In terms of Thai society, by talking about this issue, we're making Thai society healthier, because you cannot pretend that everything is beautiful here. You cannot pretend that in Thailand. And you keep pretending that life is fine. Someday it will explode. And if the government does not invest in education in such research, then it will come back to you. 

 

And now that ASEAN is integrated we Thais and Khmer have a lot in common. All the young in ASEAN are studying finance, accounting, and banking. We face competition from China and Japan and we need to equip ASEAN youth to know about human rights, if you want to have better regional economic development 

 

Now ASEAN is forcing us to understand each other. If you go to Suvarnabhumi airport, and you have memorial to October 14 as a place to visit, to learn and to see the exhibition, to have a dialogue, that would be great. I come here (The 14 October Memorial) so many times, but nobody knows this place because it's never been addressed at the national level. And that is the danger. If the Thai government fails to address this, it could create danger, as in Cambodia. You think it's okay, just a few Vietnamese killed but it will get bigger and bigger until it's too late to stop. 

 

And most of us tend to focus more on nationalism, but you become so narrow that it leads to violence, and that's the danger. And so much about nationalism can lead to conflict as well. And sometimes, because of social media and all these things, it can have an immediate effect. By connecting to Cambodia which shares a similar culture, language, food and everything else, people-to-people suffering, it will make both societies better. Despite of government conflicts, you bring people together, and we suffer the same genocide, the same crimes against humanity. It's a strong message to both governments who are now in conflict.