On September 19, 2011, the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam)'s Genocide Education Project will conduct a public education forum in O Commune, Phnom Sruoch District, Kampong Speu province. The forum will be conducted at a compound of 2 Thnou Primary School. The participants attending the forum are over 200. Among these numbers, there are 20 students, 200 villagers and 10 teachers.
Kampong Speu province is around 50 kilometers from Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia. Like others places, the people in O commune of the province suffered tremendously from the Khmer Rouge (KR) atrocity (1975-1979) and subsequent civil war (1979-1996). During the war, an estimated 100 KR forces had a base in a nearby mountain to launch a frequent attack on the government forces. The state of insecurity and instability plagued O commune even after the Paris Peace Agreement was signed on 23rd October 1991. Although the KR faction was a signatory to the Agreement, it boycotted the electoral process and further fought the first democratically elected government. After the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) ended its mandate, some places such as O commune in Kampong Speu province remained prone to the subsequent fighting. A total termination of the war took place in 1996 when there were mass defections of the KR forces.
The public education forum will discuss the experiences of the people's lives under the KR and will also encourage the younger and the older generations to discuss the importance of genocide education and survivors to share their real life experiences under the KR. The project's team members will distribute copies of the textbook "A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979)" and discuss one chapter from it. Other materials for distribution include the magazine Searching for the Truth and booklets on Khmer Rouge tribunal Cases 001 and 002. During the forum, one of the team members will teach a chapter from DK history book.
The forum is being held in cooperation with the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport and funded by The Asia Foundation (TAF), Phnom Penh, Cambodia with the core supports from the Swedish International Agency for Development (Sida) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
For more information, please contact:
Ser Sayana <truthsayana.s@dccam.org> Cell: 092 763 272