CGP Report 2001-03
The Cambodian Genocide Program
A project of the Genocide Studies Program
Yale Center for International and Area Studies
Report: 2001-2003
Overview and Activities
On October 1, 2001, the Cambodian Genocide Program (www.yale.edu/cgp), founded in 1994 at the Yale Center for International and Area Studies by Prof. Ben Kiernan, became a project of the comparative, interdisciplinary Genocide Studies Program launched by Kiernan in 1998. The CGP thus joined the Rwandan Genocide Project, the Yale East Timor Project, the Holocaust Trauma Project, and other ongoing GSP activities.
The CGP consults with and provides advice and assistance as requested both to the United Nations Assistance to Khmer Rouge Trials (UNAKRT), of the UN�s Office of Legal Affairs, and to the Khmer Rouge Tribunal Task Force of the Royal Government of Cambodia.� In New York City on January 8, 2003, Prof. Kiernan met with H.E. Sok An, Senior Minister in Charge of the Council of Ministers of the Royal Government of Cambodia, for discussions on the forthcoming tribunal. On November 19, 2003, attorney David Hutchinson of the UN Office of Legal Affairs, and Ellen Alradi of the UN Office of Political Affairs visited New Haven for discussions with Kiernan before the departure of the UN delegation for Cambodia in December.
The CGP provides a detailed chronology of the UN-Cambodian negotiations for the creation of the tribunal on its website at www.yale.edu/cgp/chron_v3.html , and has also published the major tribunal documents at www.yale.edu/cgp/news.html and in print:www.yale.edu/cgp/Cambodia_Docs_Oct16.pdf
Mr. Philippe M.F. Peycam, Director of the Center for Khmer Studies, Siemreap, Cambodia, visited Yale on October 22, 2003. He and Prof. Kiernan discussed future collaboration between the CGP and the Center.
CGP Website
The CGP�s multifaceted website at www.yale.edu/cgp received 825,707 �hits� from November 11, 2001 to November 30, 2003, averaging approximately 7,700 per week. These included 205, 911 visits to the site�s front page alone, or about 2,000 visitors per week over the two-year period.
The CGP website has now received four awards. Upon its launch in 1997 it received the Internet Site of the Day award from Academe Today, the on-line journal of the Chronicle of Higher Education (Academe Today Daily Report, January 28, 1997). It was also named History Site of the Week of March 16, 1997 by World History Compass. On December 4, 1998, the CGP site was selected for inclusion in the �Scout Report� by the National Science Foundation-sponsored Internet Scout Project at the Department of Computer Sciences of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The Scout Project selects �only the most useful resources, considering the depth of content, the authority of the source, and how well the information is maintained and presented.� The CGP website was also named Asia Observer’s Site of the Week in April 2000. In 2002, Columbia University�s internet portal for high-end academic products featured the site as an outstanding resource with an article entitled �Documenting the Cambodian Genocide�
( www.fathom.com/story/story.jhtml?story_id=35577 ), written by Dr. Susan E. Cook, CGP Director 1999-2001, now a member of the Anthropology Department at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.
In 2002-2003, the CGP enhanced the website, including the Cambodian Genocide Data Bases (CGDB), which contain 28,000 individual records. With the assistance and advice of the Yale web team led by Jonathan Lizee, Director of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences� Information Technology Support (Academic Media & Technology), Molly Simpson, and Ann Green, Director of Social Science Research Services/Statlab, the CGP redesigned and revamped its website, along with that of the GSP, in 2002. With the help of Michael Appleby, the CGP also migrated, from the CDS/ISIS platform to a new Postgres platform, its new updated versions of the Cambodian Biographic Database (CBIO: 19,000 entries), the Cambodian Bibliographic Database (CBIB: 3,000 catalog records), and the Cambodian Photographic Database (CTS: 6,000 photos). In 2003, we added a new function enabling users to conduct integrated full-text searches of all three databases.
Mapping Project
In the fall of 2003, with the help of Abraham Parrish of the Mapping Department of Yale�s Sterling Memorial Library, and Steve Citron-Prousty of the Social Science Research Services/Statlab, the CGP mounted its fourth database, the enhanced CGEO interactive Geographic Database, along with a new information tutorial for easy use. Among many other functions, CGEO�s multi-layered digital map of Cambodia can be queried on the name of each of the thousands of the country�s villages or the details of hundreds of mass grave sites, at the click of a mouse. All four CGP databases are now accessible online at www.yale.edu/cgp/databases.html
Also in 2003, the CGP completed its project to compile and display satellite maps and mosaic images of Cambodia before, during and after the genocide. This project was funded by a grant from the Yale Institute of Biospheric Studies (YIBS) and carried out in cooperation with YIBS� Center for Earth Observation. These nineteen CGP satellite maps of Cambodia, displaying the precise GPS locations of hundreds of Khmer Rouge-era prisons and mass grave sites, and subsequent memorials to the victims, in their contemporary environmental context, are now accessible online at www.yale.edu/cgp/maps.html
The museum La Coupole, a Center of History and Remembrance in northern France ( www.lacoupole.com ) has requested permission to display several of the CGP�s digital maps as part of its planned May 2004 exhibition on the history of aerial photography and space imagery.
Cambodia Holdings and Archives
The CGP continues to work closely with Sterling Library�s Southeast Asia Collection in augmenting up Yale�s extensive and growing Cambodian-language acquisitions. The Southeast Asia Collection offers full access to a 132-reel microfilm copy of the Khmer-language archives of the Santebal, the former Khmer Rouge Special Branch secret police, a 50,000-page collection located and obtained by the CGP in 1996, and microfilmed by Sterling Library. Copies of the microfilm set are also available for purchase, for $4,620.
Mr. Heng Samnang, MA (Yale, 1996), a Cambodian historian trained by the CGP and Yale History Department, will return from Phnom Penh University�s History Department in the spring semester of 2004 to complete the cataloguing of Sterling�s other Khmer-language holdings. The CGP and Prof. Kiernan maintain their own large multi-lingual collections of documents and videos on the Khmer Rouge era, and continue to focus on documentation, research, and print and electronic publications on the Cambodian genocide.
In 2003, the CGP received two generous donations of collections of Cambodia papers. Prof. Peter Carey of Trinity College, Oxford, donated the papers bequeathed by Mme. Louise Vidaud de Plaud, collected in Cambodia and France from the 1960s to the 1990s. Prof. Milton Leitenberg of University of Maryland, College Park, kindly donated his own papers on Cambodia.
Having successfully funded, trained and equipped the staff of the Documentation Center of Cambodia for seven years, the CGP completed its support for the DC-Cam in October 2001. In consultation with Sterling Library�s Manuscripts and Archives and Mapping Departments, the CGP and GSP provide assistance with the archiving and retrieval of CGP training and other records.
Media
The CGP�s work continues to attract favorable publicity. In July 2003, PBS Television published an interview with Kiernan on its website: http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2003/thefluteplayer/special_kiernan.html
A cover story in the Yale Alumni Magazine, �Life After Genocide� (Nov.-Dec. 2003) described the CGP�s history and achievements: www.yalealumnimagazine.com
Staff
CGP staff and consultants, 2001-03, included: Ben Kiernan (GSP Director), Barbara Papacoda (Business Manager), Rich Richie (Sterling Library), Michael Appleby (databases), Abe Parrish (mapping database), Molly Simpson (website), Douglas Morton and Eden Enclona (mapping consultants, 2002 and 2003, respectively). Interns: Heather Spaide, Kuong Ly.
Donors
The CGP wishes to thank Frederick J. Iseman, the Jocarno Fund, and the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies for generous grants that made its work possible in 2001-2003.
CGP Publications on Cambodia, 2001-2003
Books and Monographs:
The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-1979, by Ben Kiernan (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2nd edition, 2002, with a new preface by the author): www.yale.edu/yup/books/096496.htm
Conflict and Change in Cambodia, edited by Ben Kiernan. Winner of the 2002 Critical Asian Studies Prize. Caroline Hughes, consulting editor. Thematic issue of Critical Asian Studies, 34:4, December 2002, pp. 483-622: www.yale.edu/cgp/conflict.html
Introduction by Ben Kiernan, �Conflict in Cambodia, 1945-2002�:� www.yale.edu/cgp/CAS34-4_Kiernan_Introduction.pdf
Introductory notes to documents, pp. 496, 611-12:
www.yale.edu/cgp/Cambodia_Docs_Oct16.pdf
The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective, edited by Robert Gellately and Ben Kiernan, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2003:
www.cup.org/titles/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521527503
Chapters 2 and 14, by Ben Kiernan and Edward Kissi, respectively, discuss the Cambodian genocide in detail.
Articles and book chapters:
Ben Kiernan, �The Ethnic Element in the Cambodian Genocide,� in Daniel Chirot and Martin E. P. Seligman, eds., Ethnopolitical Warfare: Causes, Consequences, and Possible Solutions, Washington, D.C, American Psychological Association Press, 2001, pp. 83-91.
Ben Kiernan, �Myth, Nationalism, and Genocide,� Journal of Genocide Research, 3:2, 2001, pp. 187-206: www.yale.edu/gsp/publications/Myth.pdf
Ben Kiernan, �Cambogia: Giustizia posposta,� in Storia, verita, giustizia: I crimini del XX secolo, a cura di Marcello Flores, Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 2001, pp. 171-79. (In Italian.)
Ben Kiernan, �Lliurar els khmers rojos a la justicia,� El Contemporani (Barcelona) 24, juliol-desembre 2001, pp. 70-78. (In Catalan)
Ben Kiernan, ��Collateral Damage� Means Real People,� Bangkok Post, 20 October 2002, p. 3: http://search.bangkokpost.co.th/bkkpost/2002/oct2002/bp20021020/perspective/20Oct2002_pers05.html
Ben Kiernan, �From Cambodia to Iraq: The USA and International Law,� Bangkok Post, 11 May 2003: http://search.bangkokpost.co.th/bkkpost/2003/may2003/bp20030511/perspective/11may2003_pers10.html
Ben Kiernan, ��Collateral Damage� from Cambodia to Iraq, �Antipode 35:5, 2003, pp. 846-55: www.yale.edu/gsp/publications/02_Kiernan.pdf
Ben Kiernan, �Conflict in Cambodia,� in Kai Ambos and Mohamed Othman, eds., New Approaches in International Criminal Justice: Kosovo, East Timor, Sierra Leone, and Cambodia (Freiburg im Bresgau: Max Planck Institute for International Criminal Law, 2003), pp. 173-88.
Ben Kiernan, �The Demography of Genocide in Southeast Asia: The Death Tolls in Cambodia, 1975-79, and East Timor, 1975-80,� Critical Asian Studies 35:4, December 2003, pp. 585-97:
Ben Kiernan, �War, Genocide, and Resistance in East Timor, 1975-1999: Comparative Reflections on Cambodia,� in Mark Selden and Alvin Y. So, eds., War and State Terror: The United States, Japan, and the Asia-Pacific in the Long Twentieth Century, Lanham, MD, Routledge, 2003, pp. 199-233: www.yale.edu/gsp/east_timor/03-263_Ch_09.pdf
Lectures and presentations on Cambodia, 2001-03 (Ben Kiernan)
�Cambodia, East Timor, and the Australian Aborigines,� Monash University, Centre of Southeast Asian Studies seminar, 23 August 2001.
�The Cambodian Genocide,� presentation to the conference on �Genocide in the Twentieth Century,� Clark University, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 20 October 2001.
�The Cambodian Genocide: Problems and Prospects for Accountability,� Trinity College, Hartford, International Human Rights Lecture Series, January 30, 2002.
�Cambodia�s First Magpie and Other Globalisation Stories,� presentation to the Yale Conference on Southeast Asian Studies, March 3, 2002.
�War and Genocide: Cambodia and East Timor,� lecture to the Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, April 25, 2002.
�Genocide and Resistance in East Timor and Cambodia,� presentation to the East Asian Institute at Columbia University, September 30, 2002.
�The Cambodian Genocide�, presentation to the Political Science Department, Oslo University, Norway, October 21, 2002.
�Genocide and Resistance in East Timor and Cambodia,� presentation to the International Studies Program, Ohio University, November 8, 2002.
�Genocide in Cambodia and East Timor,� lecture at Vassar College, 8 April 2003.
�External and Indigenous Sources of Khmer Rouge Ideology,� paper presented at the London School of Economics conference on The Cold War and the Third Indochina War, Windsor Great Park, London, May 13-16, 2003.
�Cambodia: Comparative History and Relative Justice,� plenary address to the fourth biennial conference of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Galway, Ireland, June 8, 2003.
Seventh Freilich Foundation Lecture on Bigotry and Tolerance, �Genocide and Resistance in Cambodia and East Timor,� Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University, Canberra, July 22, 2003.
�Genocide and Resistance in Cambodia and East Timor,� seminar presentation to the Monash University Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Melbourne, August 21, 2003.