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Teaching Genocide in Cambodia:
Challenges, Analyses, andRecommendations
Khamboly DyT

I asked myself whether or not the young generation of Cambodians believethat the Khmer Rouge crimes did exist in Cambodia. Do they believe what
their parents and grandparents have told them about their suffering atthat time? Has any author or historian written about this history for official school curriculum yet?

his is the sorrowful impression of Soh Seiha, a female Cham Muslim community leader from Kratie province of Cambodia after visiting the former
Khmer Rouge (KR) central security center called Tuol Sleng and the killingfields at Choeung Ek. Some members of her family were killed or had disappeared
during the 1975-1979 reign of the KR. Her concern about the young generationof Cambodians raises a question: Should young people in Cambodia study thehistory of genocide, crimes and grave human rights abuses in formal classroom
settings?
Genocide education is the only effective
way to prevent future genocide and other grave
human rights violations, foster reconciliation
among victims and perpetrators, and continue
to address the question of justice in countries
that have experienced genocide. Cambodianscannot talk about justice and reconciliation
when the suffering of the victims has notbeen acknowledged. In order to fight against
the possibility of future genocide and othercrimes against humanity, young generationsof Cambodians have to understand how andwhy the genocide happened, to learn about its
effects and consequences. Genocide education
also helps to preserve the memory of the KR
atrocities, promote moral and civic values, andadvance democracy and rule of law in a culture
long accustomed to impunity. Moreover, under-

standing the important historical events enables
people, especially the young generations, toparticipate in the process of the Khmer Rouge
Tribunal1 that helps to promote accountability
for the abuses of that period.
However, this vitally and emotionally sensitive issue remains largely absent from school
curriculums in Cambodia. The obstacles tointroducing genocide education into classrooms appear in several critical aspects: social,economic, political, and pedagogical.
During the 1980s, Cambodian school children were taught about the KR genocide inpolitically charged, propagandistic ways, whichsought to instill in them a desire for violence,
hatred and revenge. Because the Cambodiansociety at that time prioritized basic economic
recovery, the suffering of the Cambodian

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people under the KR became a folktale foryoung Cambodians who were born after the
regime collapsed. After peace was restored in
1993, the volatile issue of KR genocide wasremoved from the school curriculum for thesake of reconciliation and political stability. In
2002, the Cambodian government ordered thewithdrawal of a section of Cambodian modern
history (Cambodia from 1953 to the 1998
national elections), which included the KR history, as a result of the conflict between the twomain political parties over the issue of the 1993
national elections. Research shows that young
generations know very little about the historyof the KR, and many young Cambodians do notbelieve that their parents and relatives experienced such hardship and unspeakable suffering
during that period. In addition to this politicaldispute, the Cambodian Ministry of Education,
Youth and Sports (MoEYS) claims that it lacks
resources to teach the history of the Cambodian
genocide. Moreover, teachers who are capableof conveying the history are few in number,and they lack the training to teach effectively
about genocide.
The absence of genocide education is asign that the specter of genocide continues tohaunt Cambodia. Giving a full picture of what
happened, why it happened, how it happened
and what the consequences were will provide afoundation for students to share what they havelearned at school with their parents, relatives
and friends. Genocide education will also help
to alleviate the suffering of survivors by enablingthem to share their experiences with their children and thereby ensure that their suffering will
be remembered and acknowledged. Since theabsence of genocide education makes it more
likely that future generations will suffer similar
circumstances, this paper examines the social,economic, political, and pedagogical obstacles
to teaching about genocide in a country thathas recently emerged from tragedy.

Social and Economic Challenges
The KR regime that controlled Cambodia
from April 1975 to January 1979, destroyed
almost all of the country’s infrastructures,
economic system, public and private properties,
and the education system. The regime viewed
education through schools and universities as awaste of time and useless for the revolution andthe development of the country. As a result, theKR regime closed all educational institutions
from primary to higher education. Teachers,
doctors and other intellectuals (including those
who wore glasses and spoke foreign languages)
were systematically killed since they were regarded as bad elements that brought injustice,corruption and exploitation into society andmade the country fall into foreign colonizationand imperialism.
All children, instead of being sent to schools,
were forced to labor and attend indoctrination
sessions. The KR claimed that the “hoe is yourpen; the rice field is your paper. If you wish to
get a baccalaureate, you have to get it at dams
and canals.”
The results were devastating. As many as two
million people were put to death by execution,
starvation, forced labor, torture, and sickness
without proper medical treatment. The regime
left tens of thousands of widows and orphansin complete poverty and illiteracy. Several otherhundreds of thousands of Cambodians fled
the county and became refugees. The country
after 1979 was in complete unrest since people
were moving around in search of their lost
relatives. Civil war among Cambodian factions
intensified. The KR left almost no foundation
upon which succeeding regimes might begin
to rebuild education in the country.
The presence of the Vietnamese forces in1979 ended the KR terror and restored a new
regime: the People’s Republic of Kampuchea(PRK). People received certain basic rights
and they were able to own houses, cattle andagricultural tools. Although people still farmed

Teaching Genocide in Cambodia:Challenges, Analyses, and Recommendations  131

collectively in “mutual aid teams or solidarity
groups,” and had no right to claim ownershipon their land, many farmers viewed the conditions in the PRK as considerably better thanthose under the KR regime. With assistancefrom Vietnam and cooperation from local
people, education was restored and primaryschools were rebuilt throughout the country.
Basic education subjects, including educationon the KR atrocities, were introduced. Teacher
training schools were reopened throughout thecountry and some educators were sent abroad
to study in socialist countries, especially Vietnam and the former Soviet Union.2
However, under the PRK Cambodia continued to face a severe crisis in education.
Many surviving educators fled the country to
the border of neighboring country. The PRK’s
Ministry of National Education consisted of asmall number of unqualified officials who had
little experience in education and few specialized skills. The regime did not have professional
experts to develop the curriculum. The PRK
depended heavily on Vietnamese advisors totrain and recruit teachers as well as to develop
the curriculum at all levels. The structure andthe management of education were identical tothose of the Vietnamese. The curriculum introduced “political morality” study that aimed at
instilling in children the socialist concept in aneffort to turn Cambodia into a socialist state.
In the attempt to recruit more teachers, the
PRK appealed to all educators nationwide toregister as teachers. The government strategy
to rescue national education at that time was tohave “the literate teach the semi-illiterate, andthe semi-illiterate teach the illiterate.” By theearly 1980s, the total enrollment of students at
all grade levels was more than one million, andas many as 37,000 teachers were recruited andtrained. Unfortunately, only about 10% of theseteachers had formal educational qualifications.3
They knew only what they had learned since thepre-revolutionary period (Cambodia during the1950s and 1960s). Moreover, the experiences

during the KR regime severely traumatized all
Cambodians. Most teachers could not concentrate on their careers since they worried about
the whereabouts of their family members andtheir activities for day-to-day living. Having
suffered from KR persecutions and received
poor training, teachers mostly conveyed the KR
history in emotional terms. In addition to thepoor teaching qualifications, the country faced
the problem of a lack of teaching materials,
educational infrastructure, teacher resources
and textbooks. In higher education, about ahundred students received scholarships to study
in several socialist countries, such as Vietnam,
the former Soviet Union, the former East Germany and Cuba. The recruitment of students
was very selective and carefully monitored.
Generally, the development of education
during the PRK regime was a slow process. The
regime not only struggled to put children inschools, but also fought illiteracy among adults
and older people, in addition to many othersocial problems, including daily incursions from
KR factions as well as international economic
sanctions. Due to the international politicaltension and the influence of the Cold War, the
PRK neither got the seat for Cambodia in the
United Nations, nor received international aid.
The regime received only limited humanitarian
aid from international organizations, such as
UNICEF and the International Committee of
the Red Cross. However, those agencies could
not do much to help the existing mis-oriented
educational problems, including education on
the recent events of the KR period. The PRK
inherited the educational problems from theKR. Together with its social insecurity, social
unrest, and undeveloped state-controlled
economy, the PRK encountered a hard time innational as well as educational rehabilitation andreconstruction during the 1980s. The content
on the KR history did not improve throughout the entire PRK period and never becamea national concern. As earlier emphasized, thecurriculum on the KR history provided by the

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HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION IN ASIAN SCHOOLSPRK’s Ministry of National Education was apolitical tool designed mainly to justify the
Vietnamese presence in Cambodia.
The transition period under the United
Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia(UNTAC) also saw little improvement in education. In order to maintain a neutral politicalenvironment in Cambodia, UNTAC exercised
control over five key ministries, including the
Ministries of National Security, Defense, Foreign Affairs, Consular Affairs and Finance, but
not the Ministry of Education.4 All politicalfactions were more concentrated on politicalstability, national security, national reform, election campaign, and political as well as military
power. The presence of UNTAC was solely
intended to ensure the implementation of the1991 Paris Peace Agreement on the comprehensive political settlement in Cambodia. Its
mandate, according to its website, included “aspects relating to human rights, the organizationand conduct of election, military arrangements,
civil administration, maintenance of law andorder, repatriation and resettlement of refugees
and displaced persons, and rehabilitation of
Cambodian infrastructure.5” UNTAC had very
little authority to intervene in education reform.
With minimal changes in education during
this transitional period, students continued to
study using the old curriculum. No effort wasmade to improve genocide education, which
was not on the list of the country’s priorities
at that time.
After the 1993 elections, the new Cambodian government made numerous efforts toimprove the quality of education at all levels.
As of 2007, thousands of primary and secondary schools have been built across the country,
though the teaching quality and teachers’ living
standard have not yet been given full attention
by the government. Today, there are as manyas sixty public and private universities. The
government appears strongly committed toachieving its strategic plan of Education for All(EFA) whose goal is to ensure that by 2015 all

Cambodian children will have equal access to
education.6
However, the Cambodian government has
not yet solved its social and economic problems
that bring a lot of negative impacts to its EFA
goal. More importantly, if the government is notable to consolidate these problems, it is unlikelythat it will be able to address other imperative
questions, such as educating students on thesubjects of genocide and human rights which arenecessary to ensure peace, democracy, respect ofhuman rights, and the rule of law in Cambodia,
and to prevent future genocide. What are thesocial and economic challenges for the present
Cambodian government? What should the government do to meet those challenges?
Up to 2002, with assistance from the international community, especially the World
Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF),
and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), thegovernment managed to devote twelve per centof its national budget to education. However,
all educational projects focused exclusively on
general education, and there has been extremely
little effort to put the KR genocide on stage.
Moreover, there has been little effort tofoster research on KR history among Cambodian students. Since the collapse of the KR
regime, a considerable number of publications
on this issue came out, but they were all written by foreigners and in foreign languages. The
books contained theoretical analyses, whichwere difficult for Cambodian secondary schoolor university students to grasp. Some of thebooks were translated into Khmer, but they
consisted of hundreds of pages, which madethem unlikely good sources of knowledge sinceCambodian students did not have the habitof reading. Among the twenty subjects at theRoyal University of Phnom Penh, the biggest
and oldest public university in Cambodia, history was one of the less interesting subjects.
Because of economic constraints, Cambodianstudents tend to study the subjects that could
generate earning potential in a short period ofTeaching Genocide in Cambodia:Challenges, Analyses, and Recommendations  133

time. Not many students enrolled in history
classes each year. This is one of the important
gaps that the government should address toraise the students’ awareness of the importanceof history and to give more incentives to students to enroll in history classes.
In addition to the absence of significant
content about the KR history in the current secondary school curriculum, university students
are also given little opportunity to learn about
this dark period. Within the four-year programof Bachelor of Arts in history, students are
introduced to various world histories (such as
Chinese history, American history, Vietnamese
history and Thai history) as core courses. In
contrast, KR history is integrated into Cambodian history from 1953 to the present as one
core course in the second semester of the fourthyear. Even though the discussions under theuniversity history course are broader and moredetailed than those in the secondary school
subject, they have similar content. Moreover,a very small number of history course students
graduate to become teachers in various Cambodian secondary schools and who are capableof conveying the history of the KR.
Moreover, people seem to be either unawareof the problem of the absence of genocide education or take it for granted. They are probably
inhibited by their poor living standard, thoughmany of them experienced the KR period.
Parents in the countryside usually discourage
their children from continuing their education
to higher levels. They ask their children to help
out in agricultural work or to get jobs in orderto ease family burdens. In the paper “Education
reforms in Cambodia,” Charlene Tan argues
that many children from poor families who
enrolled in primary school “may not be able
to complete their primary school education as
many of them are unable to cope with studying
full-time and working part-time after school tosupport the family.”7 Mostly female students
face this problem. Parents often send theirdaughters to work as garment workers in thecities, and they have to abandon their studies.
Daughters are also asked to help out in familybusinesses so that sons are able to continue theireducation. This results in high female illiteracy,
and high drop out and repetition rates among
women and girls at all levels of education.
Corruption within Cambodian society is
another social problem that leads to the low
quality of education. Officials of the Ministryof Education, Youth and Sports (MoEYS) andteachers receive salaries (28 US dollars permonth for primary school teachers) that are
too low to support their daily living expenses.
Generally, teachers are not able to survive with
their net income from the government. They
have to force themselves “to engage in second
income-generating job.”8 The most popularsource of income is to charge students extra feesin the classrooms, or to keep some importantlessons for their private classes. Students who
are unable to pay the charges may not be able
to pass the comprehensive examination, which
results in repetition. Unless general education
is improved, genocide education will never bebecome the next issue to deal with.
Atrocities during the KR regime directly
affected every single Cambodian family andindirectly affected those Cambodians who wereborn after the regime. Young Cambodian generations usually receive the burden of earning
for the family since their parents or adult family members died or became disabled during
the genocide and civil war. The legacy of theKR has affected people and young children in
many ways, especially in terms of education asemphasized earlier. Moreover, the vast majority
of Cambodian people, both victims and perpetrators (former KR cadres), have developed somedegree of mental problem without proper treatment over the period of almost thirty years since
the collapse of the Democratic Kampuchea (DK)
regime. According to a survey done by Cambodia’s Transcultural Psychosocial Organization(TPO), “81% of Cambodians have experienced
violence, 28.4% suffer from post-traumatic stress

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disorder (PTSD), 11.5% from mood disorders,and 40% from anxiety disorders.” This is a realsocial problem that the government has to copewith in order to enhance the quality of education
for young children and to foster an environmentof reconciliation.
Acknowledging the suffering of the victims
through formal education is an effective way tofoster reconciliation between victims and perpetrators. Instead of addressing the issue, however, the government appears to want to bury
the past. Youk Chhang, Director of DC-Cam,emphasized that it is important that people start
to tell their life stories during the KR era “nomatter how hard it is or how horrible your storyis.” He asserted that, “the Khmer Rouge regime
is an important part of Cambodia’s history
and has touched nearly every Cambodian....
We must also teach our children about it andmake sure they learn from our suffering. [Doingso] we share the experiences of genocide withmillions of other Cambodians and many more
millions around the world...” Though talking
about the past, as Youk Chhang puts it, faces“so many barriers: cultural, language, personaland even political,”9 understanding about theroots of suffering is an important step to alleviate the victims’ trauma and free them from thepast. This also establishes a sense of empathy
and reduces the spirit of hatred and desire forrevenge among victims and perpetrators. More
importantly, it develops interest in the KR history among students.
The Khmer Rouge Tribunal process,though some analysts believe that it may
open old wounds and retraumatize victims,
is a good mechanism to uncover the past andto answer questions about why this atrocity
happened. The tribunal with its official namethe Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of
Cambodia (ECCC) will additionally function
as an educational center teaching Cambodian
young generations as well as people aroundthe world about the atrocities during the KR
period. The hearings at the tribunal will uncoverand settle many of the unclear events during the
KR period that are viewed differently among
politicians and scholars.
The Cambodian government has to continue to alleviate issues related to education if
Cambodia is to develop on the path of democracy and rule of law. Introducing genocide education into the classrooms is one way by which
the government could help shape people’s
attitude towards respect for human rights. It is
one effective dynamic that develops fundamental solutions for other social issues.

Political Challenge
The collapse of the KR regime and theestablishment of the PRK by Vietnam marked
the starting point of a very controversial, political interpretation of Cambodian history,
particularly the history of the KR genocide. In
post-genocide Cambodia, genocide education
became a political tool for parties competingfor power. Children in the PRK-controlled territories were taught that the KR were inhumandevils or monsters that killed people and sucked
people’s blood. In contrast, children in the KRcontrolled areas were indoctrinated to believethat Vietnam was going to annex Cambodia
and that the talk about Cambodians being killedduring the war and genocide period was an evil
trick of the Vietnamese. As a consequence of
this politicization, the tragedy of Cambodian
history ultimately became a myth.
To justify the Vietnamese presence in Cambodia, the PRK used textbooks for primaryschool education that described the KR genocidein propagandistic terms. Children from grade
one and up were taught via these textbooks tohate and fear the KR. For example, a reading
textbook for grade one (published in 1979 by
the PRK’s Ministry of National Education) contained the following two sentences devoted to
the KR period: “Our people supplied foodstuffs
to soldiers who were sweeping up the traitors

Teaching Genocide in Cambodia:Challenges, Analyses, and Recommendations  135

Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique. The United Front for
National Salvation of Kampuchea eliminated thetraitors Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique.”10 While mostresearchers put the number of deaths during
the genocide at between 1 million to 2 million,
students were taught inaccurately that the KR
killed 3.3 million people. In the reading book for2nd grade, the following sentences appear: “Pol
Pot-Ieng Sary clique killed more than 3 million
people and completely destroyed everything in
Cambodia. We are absolutely furious and strongly struggle against these atrocities.”11 In addition,
the pictures in the textbooks included graphic
depictions of the KR disemboweling people, thecruel tortures at Tuol Sleng prison and killings
that are too violent for young children to grasp.
These textbooks were used to teach the young
Cambodian generations who were born after the
KR and during the period of Cambodian civil
war from 1979 to 1991.
In 1991, all parties in the conflict, including
the KR faction, reached a peace agreement andagreed to hold the first national elections in
1993 under direct supervision of UNTAC. The
elections marked a turning point in Cambodian politics and education system. The PRK’s
textbooks were replaced by new textbooks. But
none of the new textbooks included an accountof the KR era. The government claimed thatthe absence of KR history was necessary “forthe sake of national reconciliation.” Teachers
were instructed not to mention the KR in theclassrooms. Instead, the new social studies
textbooks focused exclusively on the pre-Angkorean and Angkorean periods (Cambodia
before the 12th century and later) and, in themodern period, on Cambodia during the 1950s
and 1960s. From 1991 to 2000, political instabilities ensured that the account of the KR
history would continue to remain absent fromschool curriculum, even though officials at the
Ministry of Education had frequently discussed
about putting the KR atrocities as content of
the school curriculum. In 1996, Tol Lah, thethen-Cambodian Minister of Education had

vowed to teachers and researchers that the
Ministry of Education would not take the KR
history for granted. He was quoted in the local
newspaper, The Cambodia Daily, saying that,“We will not rewrite history. History is to behistory. Facts have to remain as they are.”12
However, the question of when and how to
educate Cambodian students on KR history
was still unresolved.
In 1996, the government was negotiating
peace with the KR faction as part of its policyof reconciliation and national unity. At thattime, a large portion of the KR, led by former
DK Foreign Affairs Minister Ieng Sary, agreed
to dismantle their armed forces and defect to
the Royal Government of Cambodia bringing
with him tens of thousand of KR soldiers andcadres back to the government fold. In 1998,
three other senior leaders (Khieu Samphan,
Noun Chea and Ke Pauk) defected to the Royal
Government leaving only a small faction of the
KR forces near the Thai border. This development created a pause on the consideration ofteaching young children about the KR. “Forthe sake of national reconciliation,” the government, during this interval period, ignored thisimportant issue.
Following the defection of the KR, civilsociety began to demand that the school curriculum be revised to include an account of
the Cambodian genocide. The MoEYS finallyrevised the existing curriculum in 2000-2001
and published new social study textbooks forgrades 9 and 12. The new textbooks included
an account of Cambodian modern history,
from Sihanouk’s regime up to the recent 1998
national elections, and an account of the Cambodian genocide. But although the Cambodian
government, via these textbooks, introduced
KR history into the classrooms, the account
was shockingly brief, far too brief to ensure thatyoung generations of Cambodians understandwhat really happened at that time. Indeed, the
9th grade textbook devotes only five sentences
to the KR era: 13

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From April 25 to April 27, 1975, the Khmer
Rouge leaders held a special general assembly inorder to form a new Constitution and renamed
the country “Democratic Kampuchea.” A new
government of the DK, led by Pol Pot, cameinto existence, following which the massacre of
Khmer citizens began.

In the 12th grade textbook, the chapter
on KR history extends to three pages in the
Khmer language (about one and a half pages
in English). This chapter briefly discusses thepolitical conditions, the formation of the DK
government and economy, and how people
lived.14 But the textbook omits the important
historical events during DK, and fails to describe who the KR were and how they came to
power. The textbook neglects to mention the
KR four-year plan, the forced labor, purges andmassacres, and other grave human rights abuses
that characterized the period. Moreover, theshort chapter ends by echoing the same skewed
number of deaths given in the PRK’s textbook:“This regime had more than three million innocent people killed...the DK plunged the entire
country into a real catastrophe in only three
years, eight months, and twenty days.”15
The inclusion of a brief account of KR history in the textbooks shows that Cambodian
leaders and educators of the MoEYS saw theimportance of genocide education differently.
The way to deal with the past, for them, wasto forget the past. The Chairman of the Committee for Curriculum Development said thatthe texts did not discuss the killings in detailbecause “we don’t want Khmer children to
repeat the bitter history. We try to bury eventhe smell.”16 This comment echoes Hun Sen’s
remark that “it is time to dig a hole and bury
the past even when we consider that the past
is for thousands of Cambodians an unbearable burden.”17 Similarly, former DK Head
State Khieu Samphan, though denying that heknew anything of what happened during KR
regime, apologized for those who died andsuffered during that time and called upon the

Cambodian people to “forgive and forget.”18
Yet members of the MoEYS, especially teachers,
have the responsibility to convey the KR history,
especially the events that are still controversial
today, so that students are able to find out
the truth. Rather than limiting the content,
the Committee for Curriculum Development
should have allowed the debatable topics tobe depicted in the textbooks more broadly.
Moreover, Cambodian politicians have to be
brave in facing history and allow professional
and pedagogical experts to decide what shouldbe put into the curriculum.
Teaching the KR history of genocide inclassrooms remains an issue in Cambodia today.
The key decision-making about the content ofcurriculum still lies in the hands of politicians,
and the depiction of modern Cambodian history in the two social studies textbooks remains
politically controversial. For example, while the12th grade textbook mentions the Cambodia’s
People Party’s (CPP) victory in the 1998 national election, it neglects to mention that theRoyalist Funcinpec Party won the first national
election in 1993. Prince Norodom Ranariddh,
then head of the Funcinpec party and President of the Cambodian National Assembly,
criticized the content of the book for failingto mention his party’s victory, and called forfurther revisions. In response, officials of thethen Ministry of Education agreed to review
the textbook and add more information on
the section of the Khmer Rouge history.”19
Yet subsequent discussions between the two
key political leaders, Prime Minister Hun Sen
and Prince Norodom Ranariddh, led to evenmore omissions. The section on Cambodian
modern history, including the account of the
KR era, was removed entirely from the 12th
grade textbook. The new edition of the textbook was thinner and focused almost exclusively
on histories of foreign countries. Later, in the
middle of the school year in 2002, Hun Sen
ordered the withdrawal of all 12th grade social
studies textbooks. Minister of Education Tol

Teaching Genocide in Cambodia:Challenges, Analyses, and Recommendations  137

Lah confirmed the confiscation of the book but
could not answer the question of how long it
took to bring the book back into school.20 It
was the question beyond his authority.
Up to the present day, Cambodian students
study history without a textbook. The Association of Independent Teachers has unsuccessfully
appealed many times to the MoEYS to returnthe book to schools. This decision to withdraw
the textbook has been seen by many educators
as a violation of civil rights and the freedom of
the press and expression. Moreover, the decision of the Prime Minister ethically, though
not technically, overlaps the mandate of the
Ministry of Education that has professional
expertise in developing curriculum. Perhaps,
rather than remove the Cambodian modern
history from the school curriculum, the Prime
Minister should have suggested that the MoEYS
review and improve the accuracy and the validityof the content of the history textbook.
Seeing this important gap in governmental
responsibility, the DC-Cam, which has been
independently documenting the KR genocide
since 1995, approved the establishment andimplementation of a Genocide Education
Project. The aim of the project is “to enhance
the capabilities of teachers and the Ministryof Education to convey the regime’s history
through the provision of ideas, materials, recommendations on curriculums, and a short text
on the history of Democratic Kampuchea.”21
The project started in September 2004 andended in March 2007. The result of the project
was a hundred-page history book called “A History of Democratic Kampuchea.”22 Coinciding
with the start of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal
process, copies of the book were distributed andwere very well received by students, teachers,
researchers and the public. One thousand five
hundred copies were delivered to two hundred
fifty-nine secondary schools throughout thecountry. In this context, the government seems
to open more opportunities for, and remove
the barriers to, the way Cambodians students

are educated about genocide. This can be considered as the first time that the government
allowed such a political issue to be publishedand disseminated throughout the country.
This is the first fruitful move towards genocide
education in Cambodia.
The KR period is a politically significant
event that links Cambodian history from one
regime to another. When talking about KR
history, one cannot avoid discussing events
during the French colonial period, Cambodia
under Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the Khmer
Republic regime and the American bombings.
Nor can one stay away from discussion of the
PRK regime, the State of Cambodia (SOC),
the transitional period of UNTAC and thesecond Kingdom of Cambodia. Generally, theCambodian situation from the French colonial
period up to the present day is an inseparable
collective event, and the KR history is the integral part of this event. The full dimension of theKR genocide can hardly be understood unless
it is presented in a framework that highlights
the emergence of the communist movement in
Cambodia from the 1940s up to the time of its
total collapse in 1999. This approach allows students to grasp the full picture of the KR regime
and enables them to trace the development of
the KR movement and to link this movement
to other historical events for further researchand broader understanding.
History, by its nature, is always problematic.
However, our understanding of the history
shapes the way we deal wisely with problems
in the present. Therefore, the absence of an
account of Khmer Rouge history in textbooks
and school curriculum presents dangerous
possibilities. Historical research, such as thehistory book published by DC-Cam, should be
accepted as part of the country’s historical truth
for teaching history. Philip Short, author of thebook, Pol Pot: The History of a Nightmare,wasquoted in the International Herald Tribune
claiming that the newly published history book
“is an accurate and objective account of a very

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complex period, and it therefore deserves to be
not merely an approved textbook for Cambodian schools, but a compulsory text, which all
Cambodian school children should be required
to study.”23 This historical research should be
used in order to formulate historical memory
and historical consciousness so that history will
not repeat itself, and Cambodian young generations are able to get out of the shadow of thepast and find a way to build a better nation. As
such, the truth of the KR history is preserved
from generation to generation, which is an effective measure, as Yair Auron said, to prevent“the forgetting that is always present along side
the memory.”24
MoEYS officials said that the Ministry
planned to revise the curriculum and bring thebook back into school in 2009. David Chandler, scholar on Cambodian history, gave his
impression as quoted by the Associated Press
that, “the government seems unwilling to
produce such a text, or at least does not sharea sense of urgency about exposing this periodof the past.”25 Political and financial issues may
stall the process, and teachers will continue toaddress KR history informally or convey thehistory inappropriately in class. DC-Cam has
extended its genocide education project to2010 in the hope of cooperating well with the
MoEYS in securing the formal inclusion of theKR history into the school curriculum. However, political will is the key factor in solving
this problem.

Pedagogical Challenges
To be able to introduce KR history into
secondary school classrooms in Cambodia,
the production of a short, simple, accurate,
unbiased, and understandable textbook of thehistory of Democratic Kampuchea is the firstcrucial step. It is important to make sure that
the MoEYS reforms the secondary school curriculum so that the content on KR history is
integrated.

The teaching methodology, the way teachers
discuss KR history with students, is the second
important step. As emphasized earlier, KR
history is politically and emotionally sensitive;
therefore, introducing this controversial subject can either foster or undermine democracy,
peace and unity. The outcome hinges largely
on pedagogy. How should history be taught?
What kind of textbook should teachers use toconvey KR history in classrooms? Can teachers
use other materials besides the state-approved
textbook? How much training should teachers
receive? How much time should be devoted tothis subject? How can teachers be protected in
an environment where this politically sensitive
issue may produce violence? What are the rolesof history teachers?
Currently, the MoEYS’s resources (bothhuman resources and teaching materials) arescant. There are very few secondary school
teachers who are capable of delivering KR history appropriately and professionally in class.
There are also very few students who havereceived degrees in History. These students
who are going to become secondary school
teachers in different parts of the country aretrained on various histories - Cambodian, Asianand world. The history course was developedin 1980 and has been updated gradually withassistance from foreign countries and donors.
Moreover, most research books are written in
English and French, which make them evenmore difficult for students to comprehend.
The KR history is integrated as a small partin Khmer history in the second semester ofthe fourth year, forming a limited knowledge
on this critical subject. Both history graduate
students and current secondary school teachers
need a generally acceptable history textbook,study plan, and other supplementary materials
with accurate historical narratives that do notinstill political bias and do not generate hatredand a desire for revenge.
Nationwide teacher training on the KR history is important to ensure that teachers havethe necessary knowledge, skill and confidenceTeaching Genocide in Cambodia:Challenges, Analyses, and Recommendations  139

to convey their country’s history in the mostobjective way and that they are able to provide the answers accurately and to assist theirstudents to address the past in a critical andimpartial manner. This teacher training will alsoenhance the realization of genocide education
in social reconstruction since most post-conflictcountries emphasize “subjects seen to havepractical value, such as foreign languages, math,science, technology, and vocational training,”
as Elizabeth A. Cole and Judy Barsalou claim in
their report The Challenges of Teaching History
in Societies Emerging from Violent Conflict.26
Should teachers be not well trained, even themost objective and accurate textbook might beuseless and Cambodia might face similar circumstances or new forms of social problems.
In addition to teacher training, the MoEYS
may need to focus on some degree of pedagogical reform to address the question of year levels
that should include the study KR history andwhether this study should be incorporated intoor taught alongside human rights education.
These are also major issues in teaching about
genocide, crimes and violence. Some analysts
believe that it is better to introduce the subject
at the primary level since correct attitudes areformed at the early stage of life. However, inCambodia, primary school students are too
young to grasp the KR history and too early to
study about torture and killings. With respect
to the high illiteracy and high drop out rate aswell as the on-going crimes and extra-judicial
killings happening everyday, young children
and the drop-out students are likely to imitate
the lessons from classes. Other analysts believethat students should attain a certain degree of“emotional maturity and intellectual sophistication in order to comprehend the enormity andmagnitude of the genocide.”27 In this sense,
only secondary school students are mature
enough to understand, analyze, and handle thelessons appropriately.
With this complexity, lessons on KR history
should pedagogically be either incorporated

into or taught alongside the human rights
study. The combination of study of genocideand human rights allows students to makecomparisons and, as Schwart argues, “to draw
insights concerning conditions that give rise tomass killings, and helps them understand something about the behavior of the perpetrators andvictims of inhumanities.”28 This would not be
a big challenge since human rights education is
widely introduced in the current curriculum of
the MoEYS and human rights issues are broadly
expressed and taught to people by many NGOs
in Cambodia.
While teaching KR history objectively,teachers may face conflict of understandingor perception of history not only between
teachers and students but also among teachers
due to different experiences, knowledge, andpolitical interests and thinking. For instance,in Cambodia, some teachers believe that thepresence of the Vietnamese in Cambodia isin the form of invasion while some others see
it as an intervention. In a politically-charged
situation like this, as Cole and Barsalou claim,
history teachers face a “threat to physical safety
and generally are under enormous pressure...
to play too many roles—from psychologist andguidance counselor to conflict resolution expert
and mediator.” Therefore, before instilling inthe students the knowledge on KR history, it
is crucial to instill in the teachers the wider
knowledge and understanding on this sensitive
subject and the highly ethical issue in teaching
and conveying KR history. History teachers
need strong support from people, and particularly from the government, to be able to teachKR history objectively and with no fear.
To overcome this challenge, the MoEYS is ina better position to seek assistance from outsiders
for the training of the Ministry staff, undertaking
teacher training, developing teaching materials
and improving teaching methods and interests
to make sure that teachers have both passion
and capacity to teach. DC-Cam has played a
key role in this process since the beginning.

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DC-Cam has offered teaching resources to the
MoEYS and agrees to help train teachers as wellas to develop a guidebook. More importantly,
resources provided by non-governmental organizations are more accurate, objective, andpolitically unbiased than the ones produced by
the government. However, these two institutions
have to cooperate together well.

Recommendations
There is an urgent need to introduce genocide education in Cambodia. KR history has
to be fairly and accurately presented, not to
be interpreted and placed upon by those with
political authority. Cambodian politicians haveto stop using the suffering of their people asa political tool and allow practitioners of the
MoEYS to redraft school curriculum, initiate
the plan to train history teachers to be able toteach KR history, and improve teaching methodology in conformity with this change. It isnecessary to help students uncover the truth
and realize that the Cambodian genocide is
not the designed fate from God or from anyother mystical power. It is clearly the result of
the utopian and radical ideologies of a groupof Cambodian leaders, the architects of thisgenocide. Students need to understand how
the Cambodian leaders who were supposed tobe highly influenced by a culture of respect forlife could commit crimes and kill more than amillion of their own people. To meet these challenges, the following recommendations should
be considered and undertaken.
Political will: Sustainable development andenforcement of solutions to these challenges
are largely a matter of political will. First andforemost, politicians have to remove all barriers, restrictions and pressures that obstruct thepath to genocide education. The government
should create a secure environment so that writers, authors, and educators feel safe to address
this politically controversial issue. Most analysts

believe that adequate security is highly unlikely
to be accomplished in this politically-charged
society that has just emerged from conflict andviolence. However, political will and politicaldevotion are the keys to removing these barriers. Only when these barriers are opened, canwe proceed to other steps, which are mattersof technical solutions.
Secondary school curriculum reform:
The MoEYS officially adopted DC-Cam’s KR
history book “A History of Democratic Kampuchea: 1975-1979” as a core reference towrite KR history for integration into national
secondary school social study textbooks, which
are planned to be revised in 2009. To resolve
the criticism of the MoEYS that the DC-Cam’s
history book is too long, the four major chapters (Chapter 2 [Who were the Khmer Rouge?
How Did They Gain Power?], Chapter 3 [TheKhmer Rouge Came to Power], Chapter 6 [TheFour-Year Plan], and Chapter 7 [Daily Lifeduring the Democratic Kampuchea Period])
have been recommended to be used as major
materials. Moreover, the Curriculum Reform
Committee should not make many unnecessarychanges to the original content of these chapters if the new textbook revision is to serve its
prime objectives. The new textbooks should bepolitically neutral and should serve to advance
students’ knowledge on the period rather thanlimit their understanding. In other words, thetextbooks should pave the way for students togain greater insights and new understanding,enhancing their knowledge and, as Schwart
puts, giving them “the opportunity to reactand express their feeling and to listen to thesentiments of their classmates.” Therefore, thehistorical narratives have to be as clear, precise,concise, consistent, and cogent, accurate andunbiased as possible.
In addition to the accuracy of the text, theamount of the text devoted to KR history has
to be increased from the previous ones. It is
understandable that the MoEYS’s Social Study
Textbooks from grade 9 to grade 12 comprise ofTeaching Genocide in Cambodia:Challenges, Analyses, and Recommendations  141

many important lessons and consist of over two
hundred pages. The review committee of the
MoEYS has raised the concern that incorporating too many pages of the KR history may overload the textbooks and that students may not
be able to finish their history study within theacademic year. Moreover, the pedagogical research committee of the Ministry of Educationneeds to balance KR history with other history
lessons, and not allow one lesson to displace theothers. However, the coverage devoted to KR
history should be around twenty pages in each
grade. In addition, the new curriculum should
include supplementary materials such as books
about survivors’ stories for students to fully
understand this dark period.
University curriculum revision: The Department of History of the Royal Universityof Phnom Penh (RUPP) needs to revise its
curriculum to enable the MOEYS to reinforce
its secondary school curriculum reform. These
two factors are strongly interconnected. It will
be useless if the amount of KR history in secondary school is increased but the capacity ofteachers in teaching history remains the same.
History Departments, which have the responsibility to produce history teachers, have toincrease both study hours and the quantity ofKR history content. The History Department
should design the study on KR history as a core
course in its four-year undergraduate program.
Moreover, the history graduate students should
be provided the opportunity to visit some important genocide sites, such as the Tuol Sleng
Genocide Museum and Cheung Ek killing fields
to visualize the artifacts, skulls, mass graves,
torture tools and victims’ photos. They shouldhave a chance to screen original documentaryfilms. Perhaps the History Department candevelop a program in collaboration with DCCam to show KR films to history undergraduate
students. The films can help them learn more
about the KR regime, and thus enable them tofunction more effectively as future teachers.
Teacher training and teaching manual:

Assuming the MoEYS includes, in whole or inpart, DC-Cam’s history book into the school
curriculum, and teachers are permitted to use
other supplementary sources for reference as
discussed above, the next question is, how?
This is almost parallel to the activities in university program development, but we go moredeeply to develop teachers’ capacity building
to be able to use history textbooks objectively
and to give instruction in class appropriately.
Workshops on teaching KR history should be
convened on a national scale. History teachers
throughout the country should be invited to attend the workshops and share their experiences
and the challenges they encounter in teaching
KR history. This will allow teachers to form ageneral policy on dealing with those difficulties
and developing new teaching strategies. At thisstage, teachers can also be updated on newlyproduced materials and provided more training
on KR history and genocide in other countries
to make them understand that genocide did not
only exist in Cambodia but also in many othercountries throughout the human history.
This training can be done by DC-Cam incollaboration with the MoEYS and other foreign institutions that have expertise in genocide
studies. During the workshop, the teachers andexperts can discuss a teaching manual so thatthey can develop an appropriate guidebook
on history teaching suited to the Cambodian
education system. The guidebook will help
teachers in preparing lesson plans and teaching
methodology.
Research and publication: The MoEYS
should encourage researchers and students inhigher education to do research on Cambodian
conflicts, war, and genocide to help shape theirperception of their own country’s history andfind ways of dealing wisely with the issues.
Moreover, the government should create anenvironment that allows researchers to share
their findings with policymakers and educators
at the MoEYS. This is a very urgent need to support the reform of the curriculum in accordance

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with history education objectives, namely, topreserve the memory of the past in the mostobjective way, promote social reconstruction,and build internal empathy and moral development among students. In other words, thedialogue will enable researchers and educators
to integrate genocide education, human rights
education and peace and democracy educationin order to promote genocide awareness, genocide remembrance, and rule of law, respect forhuman rights, peace, democracy and national
reconciliation as well as national unity. This environment will also help the MoEYS reduce theburden of its professional work because it lacks
the appropriate resources to write or produce
unbiased lessons or textbooks on its own. The
MoEYS’s request to DC-Cam to help produce
KR history lesson in 2000 was an important step
showing how education officials work well withindependent researchers to produce the urgent
lessons for students.
Cooperation with non-governmentalorganizations: The MoEYS should continue
working closely with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that have expertise in KR
history. DC-Cam has done research on andcollected documents from KR era since 1995.
Millions of pages of documents, thousands ofinterview transcripts, and hundreds of documentary films as well as research monographs,
are housed and preserved in the center’s archives. Students, teachers, researchers and thegeneral population can view and do researchin these archives. Particularly, the MoEYS canseek support from DC-Cam to train teachers. Working towards genocide education isa long-term process, not unlike the process
undertaken by the Cambodian government,international communities, and NGOs in theestablishment of a judicial organ to prosecutehigh ranking members of the KR. This processneeds a concerted effort among government,
NGOs, people, and the international community. We need the government’s willingness toaddress the problem, people’s awareness andparticipation in solving the problem, support
from NGOs, as DC-Cam has done to support
the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, and financial andtechnical assistance from foreign donors.
Unlike one or two decades ago, the Cambodian government now has the resources
necessary to facilitate the teaching of KR history to young generations. Many researchersand scholars, both foreigners and Cambodians,
have written and published articles and books
which can be used as both teaching resources
and supplementary materials. In addition, theTuol Sleng genocide museum, Choeung Ek
memorial site and other memorials, as well as
former prisons and killing sites throughout thecountry, are invaluable resources in teaching
KR history. More importantly, Cambodia still
has living witnesses, victims and perpetrators
who survived the KR killing fields. They are
the best resources for consultation and informal
discussion. Students can discuss what they havelearned at school with their families at home.
Financial improvement: In addition,
the government should enhance the national
budget for educational development andpedagogical research, to ensure that educators
are able to use the history books appropriately. Educational reform and development isa long-term process; consuming much timeand financial resources. Therefore, the government should ensure that education is free fromfinancial disruption, which is one of the major
problems in Cambodia today. This addresses
one of the urgent needs to improve the qualityof teaching-learning, raising the teachers’ living standard. Low salary discourages teachers
from making the effort to improve the qualityof their teaching.

Conclusion
It has been almost three decades since thecollapse of the DK regime, and yet education on
critical events of the KR period has never beenTeaching Genocide in Cambodia:Challenges, Analyses, and Recommendations  143

accurately, appropriately, professionally, andpedagogically integrated into the Cambodian
education system. The conflict over its content
remains unresolved. Important historical events
have been interpreted and defined by a numberof political perspectives depending on the political atmosphere and political trends. Politicalclimates shape the way the writers, authors, andthe writing and review committees of the government education agency convey the historyof the KR era. As a result, historical depictionsin school textbooks represent the interests of
the ruling political leaders.
The absence of KR history in public education allows politicians to interpret, modify andmanipulate the presentation of history to convey
political messages, rather than historical facts,
to people, especially the young generations. On
the one hand, there is Khieu Samphan claiming
in his latest interview with the Voice of America(VOA) in October 2007 that without the KR
revolution Cambodia would have become aVietnam and that the 1991 Paris Peace Agreement would not be reached since its faction
was one of the big dynamic forces behind thenegotiation. CPP senior leaders, on the other
hand, in many public hearings, especially during the 1980s and 1990s, emphasize very oftenthat without “7 January” event29 the KR would
continue to hold power and hundreds of thousands more people would have been killed andthat Cambodia today would not exist. So whatis the truth behind this political propaganda?
This is a vicious circle that students find hard to
distinguish without proper education.
A study of the various textbooks produced
for the formal school curriculum since 1979 up
to date, all history school textbooks mention
the glorious events of the succeeding regimes
and talk about all the bad things about the defeated regimes. The writers do not include any
controversial point for debate or discussion in
the classroom. Rather, the writers present clear
judgments on the debatable issues, which givethe sense that students, rather than having the

responsibility to debate, discuss, or find out
the truth, have to accept their points of viewas valid historical facts. History, emphasized
by Cole and Barsalou, should be taught “ina way that inspires young people to believe intheir own ability to effect positive changes insociety and contribute to a more peaceful andjust future. ”30
The controversial points in the Khmer
Rouge history are the best examples of thisissue. Fair accounts of historical events facepolitical pressure since many politicians in Cambodia are not yet able to accept some facts ashistorical facts, as discussed earlier. This is oneof the big crises of the Cambodian education
system, whose resolution needs strong politicalcommitment and devotion.
The post-conflict and divided-society of
Cambodia is subjected to many kinds of political influences that prioritize the interests ofgroups over national interests. Any criticism
of this situation usually ends up in favor of
those who are currently in positions of power,
and who were also in power to end the major
issues (conflicts, colonization, genocide orinvasion) that afflicted the country in the past.
Moreover, it is hard for Cambodia, a deeply
damaged country, to introduce accurate andunbiased account of KR history immediately
after emerging from civil war because of lackof consensus among politicians and educators
on how the KR history, and the Cambodian
modern history for that matter, should be presented. This follows the observation of Coleand Barsalou that “in societies recovering fromviolent conflict, questions of how to deal withthe past are acute, especially when the past
involves memories of victimization, death, anddestruction so widespread that a high percentage of the population is affected.”31 Ultimately,
the question of whether or not this controversial
part of Cambodian history should be integrated
into school curriculum rests on the willingness,
commitment, devotion, and concession among
key political leaders.

144

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HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION IN ASIAN SCHOOLSThe Khmer Rouge history is politically andemotionally sensitive because it touches andlinks all parts of Cambodian histories, fromthe French colonial period up to the presentday. It is very important that young children in
the present and future generations fully understand how Cambodian leaders in each regime
shaped the country. It is crucial for students toperceive how some former Cambodian leadersinterjected powerful ideologies into the social
web that affected the entire population.
The Anatomy of a Crisis of David Ayres32
best mirrors the Cambodian history. Ayres
wrote that Prince Sihanouk, who ruled Cambodia from 1955 to 1970, was determined to“mold Cambodians into good Buddhist socialists committed to the [absolute] monarchy andthe struggle against underdevelopment,” while
his coup-successor Lon Nol from 1970-1975
embarked on transforming the people into
“Neo-Khmer Republicans,” and totally denied
the ideas of monarchy and socialism. He further
wrote that in contrast, Pol Pot (1975-1979)
aimed to abolish all old models and brought
Cambodia back to “year zero.” He wanted
to achieve an utopian ideal of collectivizationand make Cambodia independent politically,
economically and culturally from foreign influences. Heng Samrin and Hun Sen from 1979 to
1989, as David Ayres mentioned, “attempted
to rescue the communist cause in Cambodia”
in the hope that Cambodia could become asocialist country like its neighbor Vietnam.33
Finally, awakening from civil war, after the
1993 national elections, all Cambodian political leaders, with guidance from international
communities, agreed that Cambodians should
walk on the path toward multi-party democracy.
The failure to discover the past problems will
widen the gap and allow the old corrupted social structures to recover and reoccur, which isharmful to people and society as a whole.
For the present generation in the decadeof 2000s, secondary school students can talkand share what they have learned in schoolwith their parents, grandparents, or relatives
who survived the KR period. But one or two
generations later, the students may perceive KR
history as well as Cambodian modern history
differently, and may find them irrelevant totheir real lives. But though the KR regime had
ended, its legacy of atrocity still remains. Coleand Barsalou claim that, “conflict almost always
continues at some level and violence takes new
forms in the present.” The old forms of violent
conflicts should be studied in order to have abasis for preventing their recurrence in the future and, if they recur, deal with the new formsof violence and atrocities. They continue toargue that, “if the regime does not address theorigins of the conflict effectively, they tend tobe the bases of future instability and conflict.”
In Cambodia, power struggles, sexual abuses,
prostitution, gangs, domestic violence, social
injustice, human rights violations, corruption,
illiteracy, and impunity continue to be majorsocial issues. These problems existed in previous regimes, with some of them having become
worse today.
Generally, the social, economic and pedagogical challenges to genocide education in
Cambodia are not as outstanding obstacles as
the political challenges. When political issues
are solved, other challenges seem to be easily
resolved or at least do not constitute muchconcern since they are largely matters of technical and professional expertise. If the politicalinstitutions do not support genocide education,
the challenges are highly unlikely to be met andthe obstacles overcome. The genuine problem
at the present time is that the government does
not see the urgent need for genocide education.
Though the government, with both encouragement and pressures, agrees to put the issue on
its agenda, it justifies the decision to exclude theKR history from official curriculum by citinglack of resources (funds included) to do morethorough research and publication. And evenwhen the research and publication (KR historybook) are undertaken by institutions outside

Teaching Genocide in Cambodia:Challenges, Analyses, and Recommendations  145

the government, such as international organizations, NGOs, or research institutions that havethe expertise in the field, the government has
no political will to incorporate this research into
school curriculums. As time passed, and withthe existence of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal
and the demands from students, teachers, andthe general public to learn about Cambodian
history, the government has reluctantly agreed
to use the existing history book done by DCCam, but with a condition that the MoEYS
exercises full right to modify the book without
outside intervention or firm participation. In
the end, the Khmer Rouge history remains a
political tool.
Both formal and informal teachings of KR
history at present have improved significantly.
Although the government did not agree toendorse the inclusion of the KR history bookproduced by DC-Cam into secondary school
curriculums, they consented to discuss andshare some concerns, which have allowed DCCam and NGOs working on educational issues
to form a foundation on how to reconcile theconcerns and to solve the problem. Moreover,
the MoEYS review committee’s decision to
officially allow DC-Cam to publish the history
book, and distribute copies to secondary schools
throughout the country, marks the first timethat the Cambodian government has allowed
such a politically controversial publication in the
Khmer language to be disseminated.
Genocide education is the only way to establish a society free from human rights violations and wide scale genocide. Cambodia andher people have suffered from war, genocide,
conflicts and violence for many decades. It istime we learn from our past to build our future
and use our past experiences as mechanisms toinstill in our young generation social cohesion
so that the rhetorical meanings of democracy,
peace, reconciliation, and rule of law, respect ofhuman rights, and national unity employed by
Cambodian politicians can be put into practice.
Teaching KR history to young generations of

Cambodians serves the collective interest of all
Cambodians and all humanity. It is our history,
and it is our responsibility to learn it. Understanding the full dimension of KR history will
enable young generations of Cambodians tophysically, emotionally, legally, morally, culturally, and psychologically engage in solvingsocial problems and participate in the processof national development.

Endnotes
This is the Extraordinary Chambers in the
Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) established jointly
by the Cambodian government and the UN in
2004 to bring to “trial senior leaders of Democratic
Kampuchea and those who were most responsible
for the crimes and serious violations of Cambodian
penal law, international humanitarian law andcustom, and international conventions recognized by
Cambodia, that were committed during the period
from 17 April 1975 to 6 January 1979.” (Article 1,
Agreement Between the United Nations and the Royal
Government of Cambodia Concerning the Prosecution
Under Cambodian Law of Crimes Committed During
the Period of Democratic Kampuchea, 2003).
2
Duggan, Stephen J., The Role of International
Organization in the Financing of Higher Education in
Cambodia (Melbourne: Victoria University, 1997).
3
Ibid.
4
	Yair Auron, The Pain of Knowledge: Holocaust
and Genocide Issues in Education (New Brunswick,
N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2005), page 155.
5
	United Nations Transitional Authority in
Cambodia (UNTAC), February 1992-September
1993, http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/co_
mission/untac.htm
6Charlene Tan, "Education reforms in Cambodia:
issues and concerns," Educational Research for Policy
and Practice; 6(1):15-24 (2007).
7
Ibid.
8
	Sitha Chhinh, Satisfaction Sources of Cambodian
Urban Primary School Teachers, a paper for
Graduate School for International Development andCooperation, Hiroshima University, 2003.
9
	Youk Chhang, Director of DC-Cam, gave aspeech at a genocide conference at McGill University
in Montreal, Canada.
10
Ministry of National Education, Reading Book
for Grade 1, Part 1, Publication of the, Phnom Penh,
1

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HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION IN ASIAN SCHOOLS

Cambodia, 1979, page 43 and 46.
11
Ministry of National Education, Reading Book
for Grade 2, Part 1, Publication of the, Phnom Penh,
Cambodia, 1979, page 59.
12
Pin Sisovann and Matt Reed, “Textbook Delay
Reflects Sensitivity of Cambodia’s Recent History,”
The Cambodia Daily, March 23-24, 2002.
13
Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of
the Royal Government of Cambodia, Social Study
textbook, Grade 9th Lesson 12, page 169, edition
2000. (Unofficial translation by Bun Sou Sour,
Documentation Center of Cambodia)
14
Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of theRoyal Government of Cambodia, Social Study Textbook,
Grade 12th Lesson 4, edition 2001. (Unofficialtranslation by Bun Sou Sour, Documentation Centerof Cambodia)
15
Ibid.
16
	Sisovanh and Reed, op cit.
17
	Suzana Linton, “Reconciliation in Cambodia,”Documentation Center of Cambodia, Phnom Penh,
2004, page 84.
18“Khieu Samphan: Sorry and Please Forget the
Past,” Rasmei Kampuchea Daily, January 1, 1999.
19
Lor Chandara, “Prince Ranariddh Slams New
History Textbook,” The Cambodia Daily, April 27-28,
2002.
20
Pin Sisovann, “Prime Minister Orders Recall of
Textbooks,” The Cambodia Daily, April 29, 2002.
21
DC-Cam’s proposal on Genocide Education.
22
	The full text of the book in PDF files can befound at: http://dccam.org/Projects/Genocide/English.htm
23
Ker Munthit, “New Text Gives Cambodians
Glimpse of Khmer Rouge Period,” International
Herald Tribune, by, The Associated Press, June 18,
2007.
24
	Yair Auron, The Pain of Knowledge: Holocaust
and Genocide Issues in Education, New Brunswick,
N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2005.
25
Ker Munthit, “New text gives Cambodians
glimpse of Khmer Rouge Period,” The AssociatedPress, June 18, 2007.
26
Cole, Elizabeth A. and Barsolou Judy, Unite or
Divide? The Challenges of Teaching History in Societies
Emerging from Violent Conflict, Special Report to theUnited States Institute of Peace, 2005.
27
	Schwartz, Donald, “Who Will Tell Them After
We’re Gone? Reflections on Teaching the Holocaust”,
The History Teacher Journal, 23/2, February 1990.
28
Ibid.

29
	This refers to the date when Vietnam entered
Cambodia – 7 January 1979.
30
Ibid.
31
Ibid.
32
David M. Ayres, Anatomy of a Crisis: Education,
Development, and the State in Cambodia, 1953-1998,(Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000), page186-187.
33
Ibid.

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NJ.: Transaction Publishers.
Duggan, Stephen J. 1997. The Role of International
Organizations in the Financing of Higher Education in
Cambodia. Melbourne :Victoria University.

Teaching Genocide in Cambodia:Challenges, Analyses, and Recommendations  147
United Nations Transitional Authority in
Cambodia (UNTAC), February 1992-September
1993, http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/co_
mission/untac.htm
Tan, Charlene, “Education Reforms in Cambodia:
Issues and Concerns,” Educational Research for Policy
and Practice; 6(1):15-24 (2007).
Chhinh, Sitha, Satisfaction Sources of Cambodian
Urban Primary School Teachers, a paper for graduate
school for International Development and Cooperation,
Hiroshima University.
Cole, Elizabeth A and Barsolou Judy. 2003 Unite
or Divide? The Challenges of Teaching History in Societies
Emerging from Violent Conflict, Special Report to theUnited States Institute of Peace.
Chhwartz, Donald, “Who Will Tell Them After
We’re Gone? Reflections on Teaching the Holocaust,”
The History Teacher Journal, 23/2, February 1990.
Minutes of Meeting of the Committee Membersof the Royal Government of Cambodia on the Reviewof the Draft of “A History of Democratic Kampuchea,”
Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, December
14, 2006, http://dccam.org/Projects/Genocide/Mi
nute%20of%20the%20Review.htm
Official letter from His Excellency Im Sothy,
Secretary of State of Cambodian Ministry of Education,
Youth and Sports, to His Excellency Sok An, Deputy
Prime Minister in charge of the Office of the Councilof Minister, January 3, 2007, http://dccam.org/
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Textbooks
Ministry of National Education of the PRK,
Reading Book for Grade 1 (Ho Chi Minh City: 1982).
______ Reading Book for Grade 1, part 1 (Phnom
Penh: 1979).
______ Reading Book for Grade 2, part 1 (Phnom
Penh: unknown date of publication).
______ Reading Book for Grade 2, part 2 (Unknown
place of publication: 1981).
______ Reading Book for Grade 3, part 1 (Ho Chi
Minh City: 1981).
______ Reading Book for Grade 3, part 2 (Phnom
Penh: Rannakse Printing House, 1984).
______ Reading Book for Grade 4, part 2 (Ho Chi
Minh City: 1980).
______ Reading Book for Grade 5, part 1 (Phnom
Penh: 1988).
______ Reading Book for Grade 5, part 2 (Phnom
Penh: Education Printing House, unknown date of
publication).
______ Reading Book for Illiterate Adults, grade 1,
part 2 (Phnom Penh: unknown date of publication).
______ Reading Book for Illiterate Adults, grade 2,part 1, (Ho Chi Minh City: 1982).
______ Reading Book for Illiterate Adults, grade 2,part 2, (Phnom Penh: 1980).
______ Reading Book for Illiterate Adults, grade 3,part 1 (Phnom Penh: unknown date of publication).
______ Reading Book for Illiterate Adults, grade 4,
part 1 (Ho Chin Minh City: 1980).
Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of theRoyal Government of Cambodia, Social Study Textbook
for grade 9 (Phnom Penh: 2000)______ Social Study Textbook for grade 12 (Phnom
Penh: 2001).