Talk:Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum/Archive 1

Starting this article

I must say, expanding this article has been a really disgusting thing (but someone had to do it). It was horrible. We should never forget things like this. Leaving my emotions aside, I must say that I'm not a native English speaker and this is one of my first contributions. Fixing is probably needed :) Sarg 15:48, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You did a very good job, the article is very well written —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.181.140.251 (talk • contribs) 16:52, 31 December 2005

Thanks a lot :) But for the sake of justice I must say it has been improved and corrected a lot of times since I wrote it. Sarg 17:59, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Nice article. However, I don't understand certain things, with regards of the security regulations.

For one thing, why are most of the regulations involve the words "my" and "me"? If they were regulations, that is likely to be written on signs and such, why do they use the first person pronouns and posessives?

Another thing, I don't understand what they mean by "8. Don’t make pretexts about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your jaw of traitor." What's this Kampuchea Krom?

Thanks in advance. --Kylohk 14:39, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

• The explanation is simple :) I included the regulations as they were written originally on the prison, with typos. Sarg 09:40, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Kampuchea Krom ("Lower Cambodia") is the term used in Khmer to refer to a region which is now in southern Vietnam, which was lost to the Khmers in the 19th century and where there are still about half a million Khmers, known as Khmer Krom. I don't know what the reference here means. Adam 14:46, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

You are correct. Throughtout history Cambodia was both geographically and politically sandwiched between two powerful neighbours - Thailand and Vietnam. Even when fighting beside the Viet Cong (and NVA) against the Americans during the Vietnam war, the Khmer Rouge were distrustful of the Vietnamese. As the Revolution started going wrong in Democratic Kampuchea, the Khmer Rouge started looking for enemies within its ranks. S-21 was primarily used to torture and purge the KR of supposed traitors of the Revolution. The KR believed that these counter revolutionaries were secretly agents of the Vietnamese - hence the Kampuchea Krom statement. -- Thaths 22:36, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Could someone who either is a native speaker of Khmer, or who knows the language well, do a better translation for this list? As it is, you can sort of see what the regulations were, but it would be good to know exactly what was meant.

WikiReaderer 13:40, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

No. That would be a very bad idea as the regulations are being quoted directly from a sign. If they are cleaned up they would be more "correct", but they would not be factual. There is another problem with them. When I first read these regulations (in a book) the word that most jumped out at me was "electrisisation", but when I last visited Tuol Sleng the word was "electrification". I can't remember what it was when I first visited, but I have an idea it was the former.KhProd1 (talk) 10:08, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

This is a really interesting article, but I think it should be cleaned up a bit....a lot more citations and possibly the writing made a bit more 'pretty'. And also - why is the article titled "Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum"? Would it be better to have the article named after the camp, with the museum at the end as it is at the moment? Adonai-aus- 00:36, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Name of article

Really I think the name of the article should be "Tuol Sleng" - not "Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum." Its historical significance is not in the fact that it's a museum, but rather that it was an execution center. It might merit its own entry as a museum, but the title of the entry should refer to what is most significant about the place. If no one disagrees, I will change the redirects accordingly. Bruxism 04:49, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. Tuol Sleng is the name of a locality in Phnom Penh, which is not of itself notable, any more than the town of Auschwitz is particularly notable. Auschwitz is notable for the concentration camp, and Tuol Sleng likewise is notable for the prison which is now a museum. It's not very clear what the place was actually called when the Khmer Rouge ran it, so I think this is the best name. Adam 05:01, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

• For the record, the original article was called S-21, since that was the article that was requested when I created it. It was changed a few months ago. Sarg 09:40, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

It should be changed back to "S-21" unless there's a good reason not to call the article this. Otherwise I suggest "Tuol Sleng prison", in keeping with "Auschwitz concentration camp". Peter G Werner 06:59, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

A quick search via Google confirms the current name of the article as the correct name. Brimba 07:25, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Support rename back to S21. The prison is more important than the museum that was built to crememorate it. Kransky (talk)

Number of Prisoners

The nuber of people who were improsoned in S21 is given as 17000, 20000 and 14200 at different points in this article. I imagine the exact number is not known anyway, but article could at least be internally consistant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.6.95.239 (talk • contribs) 00:51, 10 September 2006

There is a large group of highly respected academics (see below) who disagree completely with the whole premise of Khmer Rouge genocide here and specifically with the farce that is Tuol Sleng Museum. Fact: S-21 was a prison and formerly a school. Fact: Every regime in the world has prisons. FACT: "Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum" was created and way over-dramatized (read: mostly lies and propaganda) by the Vietnamese invaders to justify their conquest and occupation of a peaceful country, then known as Democratic Kampuchea, which, yes, was struggling mightily to feed itself after all aid and trade was cut. Did anybody ever wonder why the signs telling you what happened are ALL written in Vietnamese and poor English? One given in history is that all conquering invaders will launch a propaganda war to justify their usually dubious actions. The Western media has swallowed it hook, line and sinker due to expedience and fear of believing in a system of radical communism. The fictional Hollywood movie "Killing Fields" completely over-dramatized the whole situation and every Cambodian, even those who had a rough time from '75-'79, who has seen it laughs at the grotesque inaccuracies. I lived in Cambodia for 3 years and speak Khmer fluently so I saw this reaction hundreds of times. Here is a list of reading material from the most respected academics on Cambodia's '75-'79 period: Laura Summers' "Consolidating the Revolution" and "Defining the Revolutionary State in Cambodia" in Current History, George C. Hildebrand's and Gareth Porter's sine qua non of the STANDARD TOTAL ACADEMIC VIEW: Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution, Torben Retbøll's "Kampuchea and the Reader's Digest" in the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars and Malcolm Caldwell's towering essay "Cambodia: Rationale for A Rural Policy" in Malcolm Cadwell's South-East Asia (1979). Noam Chomsky's and Edward Herman's masterful "Distortions at Fourth Hand" in the Nation and "After the Cataclysm" completely debunk the mainstream media, US government and right-wing academic views of the Khmer Rouge.

In regards to the above paragraph, I suggest reading Bruce Sharp's articles for an opposing point of view: http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/articles.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.132.108.118 (talk • contribs) 13:43, 23 March 2007

Also in regards to said above paragraph, can I point out that Malcolm Caldwell's intellectual towering and neutrality were such that he was one of only 3 western writers to get himself an invite to Phnom Penh when it was ruled by Pol Pot and then got himself killed as part of a Khmer Rouge factional spat. So the author of that paragraph spent three years in PP and is fluent in Khmer. I've spent 5 1/2 years there and have Khmer relatives. None of them have ever laughed at the film. Neither have the Khmers I know in Australia who lived through it. I notice that Etcheson, Kiernan, Chandler and Vickery are all missing from the supposedly scholarly list. Smoke, mirrors and, yes, I can definitely smell it, bullshit.KhProd1 (talk) 10:41, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest a complete overhaul of this article -- removing emotive, subjective and errant words such as "genocide" museum to start with. Riccardo Sept 24, 2006 —Preceding unsigned comment added by RiccardoGRSB (talk • contribs) 12:27, 24 September 2006

• If the Museum is called that way, there is nothing we can do to change it. One thing is toning down emotive sentences and subjectiveness, which is a very good thing, and another one completely would be turning the article in a non-NPOV one. Sarg 06:44, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I would like to point out that none of the references that were mentioned by Riccardo were published after the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge in 1979. While I agree that the Tuol Sleng museum has been used for propoganda purposes by the Vietnamese and the Heng Samrin/Hun Sen government, there is no doubt among experts about Cambodia that S-21 was used to torture and extract confessions from people perceived to be enemies of DK. I refer you to the documents at the cambodian genecide program which are translated into German, English, Thai etc. from their original Khmer (not Vietnamese). I agree with Sarg in all respects. -- Thaths 22:14, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Images

I think the article has way too many images as it is now, and they are messing the page's layout. Unless anyone complains I'm going to start removing some of them selectively ;)) Sarg 06:48, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I have turned the images into a gallery, as well as removed excessive wikification and toned down the language a bit. I am opposed to the use of the word "genocide" to describe what the KR did. Adam 09:25, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Children Killers not mentioned

I went to Cambodia this summer and I went to the museum that displays information about this crazy genocide.

First of all, the museum is actually a school. When the Khmers invaded, the school was evacuated and the class rooms were used as prisons to keep normal civilians inside. Inside these classrooms today are still the beds and chains that bound the prisoner to the room. On the wall of each classroom is a photo of the corpse found in the room when American or French (I forgot who came right after the genocide) soldiers discovered it.

One of the rooms were completely filled with photos. Not only were the photos of victims but also the photos of the ruthless killers. The amazing thing is, none of the killers were older than twenty. Most of the killers, including girls, were estimated to be around fifteen and sixteen, mostly adolescents from the worst part of Cambodia where guerilla bandits frequent. Adolescents were recruited as soldiers for this genocide because they could be easily manipulated to torture and kill fellow civilians.

Pictures in another room showed weapons and tools used for torture. One of the rooms showed cells made of bricks that were clearly exposed so that soldiers could patrol and keep eye on the prisoners. The whole school museum screamed of pain from lost souls.

• Re: Children Killers not mentioned...

First of all, the museum is not actually a school; it is actually a museum. It uses the actual buildings of the prison/torture centre named S21. They happen to have been, in a previous use, built as a school. Secondly, "When the Khmers invaded"? The "Khmers" didn't invade anything, the Vietnamese, however, definitely invaded Cambodia. You went to Cambodia but completely missed the fact that the Khmers are the largest ethnic and cultural group within that country and that the language of Cambodia is, in fact, Khmer? There is a reason the Khmer Rouge were called the Khmer Rouge. The "Rouge" is just as important as the "Khmer".

Thirdly, the corpses were photographed by the VIETNAMESE soldiers who discovered the prison/torture facility.

Fourthly, it has never been proven that what happened in Cambodia was, in fact, genocide.

Finally, this is a "Genocide Museum", despite the fact that "Torture Museum" would be the accurate title, it is definitely not a "school museum". In a school museum I would expect to find desks, chairs, maybe some blackboards, class photos, sporting trophies et al.

You may have been to Tuol Sleng, as you claim, but you clearly learned nothing from your visit. French or American soldiers? Are you completely clueless?KhProd1 (talk) 10:55, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Cambodian genocide article

I think there should be one. Like you have an articles about Nazis, Third Reich, Auschwitz etc (dozens or hundreds or such) AND the Holocaust. Here you get only Khmer Rouge, "Cambodia under Pol Pot", and some specific articles (biographies, this museum, etc.) - Cambodian genocide is just a redirect. There are 390 books mentioning "Cambodian genocide" (and 772 just Cambodia and genocide). --HanzoHattori 12:56, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

The issue is that it is not technically a genocide. A genocide seeks to wipe out a specific group, this simply killed masses of people with little in the way of selection. - 67.166.139.181 18:18, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd have to argue there. For those who like to quibble that the KR years were not a genocide - because it wasn't directed an a distinct group - but just Khmer killing Khmer check out some of the new research on what happened to ethnic and religious minorities under the KR. The anti genocide argument is an old one and mostly came about as fall-out from the vicious academic brouhaha mentioned above. However, this event was in living history and has not been completely researched by any means. New information is coming to light all the time as documents are found and translated and survivors are tracked down and interviewed. The Khmer Rouge Tribunal is a major catalyst in this process. Personally, I believe the non-genocide argument will have been comprehensively discredited within a few more years - multiple distinct genocides is what most likely occurred here. Paxse 13:52, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

The KR wanted, and to some extent managed, to kill intellectuals, urbanites, and people living in a developed way. So I would argue it was genocide. Popher (talk) 11:10, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

To be truly called Genocide it requires a verdict in court that satisfies the "select group" and "extinction" criteria. That hasn't happened. That's why what happened in Democratic Kampuchea isn't "technically" a genocide. Because technically it isn't and that technicality is important. You will notice that as yet none of the Charged Persons has been charged with the crime of Genocide. They have, however been charged with Crimes Against Humanity. When Genocide has been proven before the ECCC (and what happened to the Cham is your best bet for that happening) you can call it The Cambodian Genocide, until then, we're stuck without the article.KhProd1 (talk) 11:03, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The S in S21

I was at Tuol Sleng a couple of weeks ago. According to the literature there, S21 stood for Security Office 21, not Security Prison 21 as this article states. Yes it was a prison, but it was refered to euphemistically; perhaps so that the high command could deny knowledge of its purpose, as they did when they were arrested.

The number of prisoners shouldn't require an estimate. There are meticulous records. Every prisoner was photographed on entry, and these are displayed in the museum. I'll try and dig out the actual number (which I have on a leaflet somewhere).

203.144.75.18 05:23, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

My mistake. The records didn't include children and some records were destroyed. So there were 10,499 recorded prisoners at Tuol Sleng. Beyond that the figures are estimates. 203.223.35.253 02:44, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Assessment

This article is really close to achieving B class. It reads well, has some excellent detail and the images are great. the only thing holding it back is referencing. Some good inline citations would quickly get it up to B class. Great work anyway, Cheers, Paxse 09:15, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

• Back when I created it, referencing was a real pain in the ass. The amount of misinformation lying around this topic is incredible... Ideally, someone from the academic world with some solid knowledge about the subject should help with this. Sarg 20:31, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
• I just asked David P. Chandler to see if he can help with this. Sarg 20:51, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I was going to say I've got some good references - but some of them are David's :) Paxse 13:43, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

He handed me an extended version of the article with some corrections. I'm going to try to add them tomorrow :) Feel free to add anything you had, though! The more the merrier hehehe. Sarg 18:23, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Add more information from the KR Trial Portal

I came across [[1]] page of the A History of Democratic Kampuchea by the Documentation Center of Cambodia. It seems to contain more information relevant to this article. -- Thaths 20:55, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Were there women among the S-21 staff

[[2]] photo shows women (and what appears to be a young smiling Duch on the right) among the staff. Are there other references to women working as staff in the prison? -- Thaths 22:42, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Dividing article

I think there should be 2 (linked) articles: "Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum" and "Security Prison 21". --HanzoHattori 17:36, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

That is an outstanding suggestion - very sensible. What about a generic Security Centre article (there were a hell of a lot of them) and then this article just for Tuol Sleng specifically? Then S 21 could be a redirect here. Paxse 06:28, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Deletion discussion

See [3]. Badagnani (talk) 19:23, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

New information on survivors of S-21

A recent article in Samleng Yuvachun (unofficial English translation at: More Than 100 Prisoners Set Free at S-21), says that "128 prisoners were listed in the documents in 1975-1976; and 100 prisoners in 1977."

Since this is the ONLY mention of this many survivors of S-21, we must obviously wait for further details to emerge before adding this information. In the meantime, I am adding it to the discussion page so that we can keep an eye on this story.

According to this article in BBC news, the number of people that survived imprisonment in S-21 was 7 (and not 11 as mentioned in 'A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979)' and currently mentioned in this wikipedia article). -- Thaths (talk) 05:12, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

According to this article in KR Trial Web Portal, Sek Kalkhan was also a survivor of S-21. -- Thaths (talk) 19:27, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

S-21 facts emerging from the KR Tribunal Trail

Noting some additional facts coming out of the KR trial here. Should incorporate this into the main article as citable sources emerge:

• According to [4]:
  • Tuol Sleng prison was first established on 13 August 1975 chaired by Nath, while Duch was a deputy chairman.
  • In mid-March 1976, Son Sen, former Khmer Rouge Defence Minister, decided to appoint Duch as chairman of S-12 to replace Nath’s position
  • S-21 was in the control of Son Sen, according to 9 October 1975’s evidence document.
  • S-21 was used to detain and interrogate the prisoners by using the five buildings of Ponhea Yat High School
  • The S-21 deputy chairman named Khim alias Hor
  • "Duch claimed that a group of female interrogators to interrogate female prisoners was also established after an incident in which a male interrogator raped a female prisoner, by inserting a stick into her virginity. The group of female interrogators consisted of five, who were wives of cadre leadership at S-21." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thaths (talk • contribs) 23:39, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
• According to Duch: S-21 turned "innocent people into cruel people":
  • Staffers at the detention center were recruited from three main sources: Phnom Penh city, Security Division 703 and M-13, Duch's former detention center.
  • Duch said staffers in the first two groups were purged, but not in the third.
  • Takmao prison had been a psychiatric hospital before it was turned into a Khmer Rouge detention facility.

-- Thaths (talk) 17:57, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

• According to Words masked truth of torture centre's operations: Duch:
  • Prey Sar prison was also known as S-24.
  • Nun Huy ran S-24.

-- Thaths (talk) 16:41, 2 July 2009 (UTC) i thik that S-21 prison is a very good site for visiting and to get knowledge more of this view. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.178.112.21 (talk) 11:21, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

The Rules of Interrogation

During cross-examination at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia Duch has said that the rules were the invention of the Vietnamese after they liberated Phnom Penh and that he had never seen them in his life prior to his visit to the prison museum as part of an ECCC re-enactment. This surely belongs in the relevant section.KhProd1 (talk) 09:09, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Name of Tuol Svay Prey High

Tuol Svay Prey is definitely not the name of a royal ancestor of HM King Norodom Sihamoni (or his old man, for that matter). It might be the name of suburb in Phnom Penh, but that just marks a locality and not even the one where Tuol Sleng is - that's in Buoeng Keng Kang 3. HM the King's antecedant was Phonea Yat and the school's name was Phonea Yat Lycee.KhProd1 (talk) 11:18, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I just checked 'A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979)' by the Documentation Center of Cambodia. According to it:

"The most important prison in DK was known as S-21. The letter "S" stood for "security" and the number "21" was a code designating its location in the southern part of Phnom Penh (Sangkat Tuol Svay Prey).... The prison had once been the Chao Ponhea Yat High School. Built in 196, it was situation on a 600 meter by 400 meter parcel of land. Behind the school fence were two wooden buildings with thatched roofs, one of which had been the Boeng Keng Kang Primary School. Together, these buildings formed the S-21 prison."

I will update the entry accordingly. -- Thaths (talk) 18:12, 9 June 2009 (UTC)