Cambodian Students Open the Book on Khmer Rouge

The trial of the top Khmer Rouge leaders still alive is now underway in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Opening statements happened Monday after months, and really decades, of delays. We thought it important to look at how the atrocities, which left as much as a fourth of Cambodia’s 1970s population dead, are being taught in the country’s classrooms today.

For the most part, this brutal history wasn’t taught in Cambodian classrooms until last year. Only two years ago Cambodia’s Education Ministry approved the first-ever Khmer Rouge history textbook. Those involved say it took 13 years from the book’s conception in 1996 to distribution last year. The plan called for one million books in schools and 3,200 teachers trained to use it in 2010.

The new textbook was created by the Documentation Center of Cambodia, a non-profit trying to record the years of the Khmer Rouge’s terror. Youk Chhang, the center’s director told VOA News that the older history books ignored the Khmer Rouge, except for a brief mention in one book.

“They learned from ’45 through ’75 and they jumped to 1990, they jumped that period. After a long public debate they had a photograph of Pol Pot and exactly two lines in Khmer saying that Pol Pot is responsible for the death of 3.3 million Cambodian people. That’s it.”

The addition of more Khmer Rouge history to the curriculum has been tough for today’s teachers. Some may have lived through the history, but they admit they didn’t learn details about it in their own classrooms. So, many teachers have had to learn the history in order to teach it.

And, it’s a dicey issue because many classes are made up of children of victims of the Khmer Rouge, and children of former Khmer Rouge officers. Not to mention, former mid-level Khmer Rouge officers hold high-ranking positions in Cambodia’s government today.

The trial is certainly giving teachers an angle to make the lesson relevant to the history unfolding this week. Here’s one of the latest reports from inside the Khmer Rouge trial.