Cell
This is one of the larger cells in Building A, which was used to house the politically significant prisoners--former high officials, foreigners, etc. On the wall is a photo of what appears to be a corpse chained to the bed; presumably the photo was not there originally.
This is as good a place as any to discuss genocide, I guess. One of the most controversial questions in the literature is whether the Khmer Rouge are guilty of "genocide".
After World War II, most countries signed the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which criminalizes any attempt to destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. I hear there was talk of including "economic class" in the list, but the communist nations (being dedicated to the destruction of economic classes) wouldn't let that fly.
Did the Khmer Rouge attempt to destroy a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group? They certainly didn't attempt to destroy the Cambodian people--they killed millions, but there was no systematic attempt to wipe out their own race. They suppressed Buddhism, but it's not clear that there was systematic murder of Buddhists.
The best argument for calling the Khmer Rouge genocidal may be the ethnic minority tribes in northern Cambodia, which fared very poorly under the Khmer Rouge. It's not clear whether there was ever an intent to destroy them as a group--maybe the Khmer Rouge Tribunal can determine that. There was also persecution of the Vietnamese minority during the KR period (although there's much stronger evidence of genocide of the Vietnamese by the US-supported Lon Nol regime (1970-75)).
The Khmer Rouge may have attempted to commit genocide, but they almost certainly didn't do it in S-21. So why is it called the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum? Because when the Vietnamese conquered, they wanted to make the Khmer Rouge seem as evil as possible. You wouldn't think it would be necessary to make a torture center seem worse, but that's the idea.
This is as good a place as any to discuss genocide, I guess. One of the most controversial questions in the literature is whether the Khmer Rouge are guilty of "genocide".
After World War II, most countries signed the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which criminalizes any attempt to destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. I hear there was talk of including "economic class" in the list, but the communist nations (being dedicated to the destruction of economic classes) wouldn't let that fly.
Did the Khmer Rouge attempt to destroy a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group? They certainly didn't attempt to destroy the Cambodian people--they killed millions, but there was no systematic attempt to wipe out their own race. They suppressed Buddhism, but it's not clear that there was systematic murder of Buddhists.
The best argument for calling the Khmer Rouge genocidal may be the ethnic minority tribes in northern Cambodia, which fared very poorly under the Khmer Rouge. It's not clear whether there was ever an intent to destroy them as a group--maybe the Khmer Rouge Tribunal can determine that. There was also persecution of the Vietnamese minority during the KR period (although there's much stronger evidence of genocide of the Vietnamese by the US-supported Lon Nol regime (1970-75)).
The Khmer Rouge may have attempted to commit genocide, but they almost certainly didn't do it in S-21. So why is it called the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum? Because when the Vietnamese conquered, they wanted to make the Khmer Rouge seem as evil as possible. You wouldn't think it would be necessary to make a torture center seem worse, but that's the idea.
posted by arie at 9:20 PM
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