The Phnom Penh Post

In the first issue of a new Rutgers University magazine (disclaimer: with which I am involved), an undergraduate student describes his experience working with DC-Cam's Victim Participation Team. You can read it here.

Cambodia and the tribunal will certainly be featured in upcoming issues as well, as Rutgers has an active relationship with DC-Cam and a number of students who are interested in the country. The magazine is published by the Center for the Study of Genocide, Conflict Resolution and Human Rights.

Via DC-Cam, this paper analyzes Ta Mok's Southwestern Zone under the Democratic Kampuchea regime and the success of the Khmer Rouge "butcher" in crafting a pliant patronage network. It was written by Socheat Nhean for the MA program in Anthropology at Northern Illinois University.

From the abstract:

Patron-client relations created strong socio-political bonds in Democratic Kampuchea (DK). These relations were even stronger and more stable when members of the networks were related, as occurs in the Southwest Zone, where cadres were mostly related to Zone Secretary Chhit Choeun aka Mok either directly or indirectly. Every citizen, both cadres and ordinary people, were aware that life during DK was fragile, and was even more in the later stage of the regime, and this caused people to have stronger ties to powerful persons. In the DK administrative systems, the cadres from each hierarchically administrative unit were closely interrelated and orders were strictly implemented by chain of administrative command in a topdown hierarchical system. Orders were issued from the closest higher echelon and from higher to lower-ranking cadres within each unit. For instance, districts issued orders to sub-districts and within districts orders were issued from secretary to deputy. Orders were followed without fail.

You can read the full-length thesis here on DC-Cam's website.

One of the best online sources for those following the proceedings at the ECCC, cambodiatribunalmonitor.org, has announced new features that it plans to have in place in time for the July 26 verdict in Case 001. The site, which has recently added RSS and Twitter feeds, will have correspondents on hand to live-blog on the day of the verdict and to post video interviews. You can also log onto the site to find video archives of proceedings at the court thus far and read expert analysis. The site's managing editors are Youk Chhang, director of DC-Cam, and David Scheffer, a professor at the Northwestern University School of Law and the former US Ambassador at Large for war crimes issues.

The verdict against Duch is set to be announced on July 26 (photo: AFP).

The Rutgers, Newark Law School will host a symposium this Friday, April 2, featuring an extensive panel discussion about the Khmer Rouge tribunal. Speakers will include Khmer Rouge survivor and activist Theary Seng, Fulbright Fellow Randle DeFalco, DC-Cam Legal Associates Jared Watkins and Andrew Diamond, and others.

The panel ("The ECCC: The Issues and Challenges of Prosecuting the Senior Leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime") is part of the larger event "Human and Economic Dimensions of the Law in Asia."

More information about the symposium is available here. If you are interested in attending, RSVP to ruils@pegasus.rutgers.edu. 

A feature story on the Genocide Education Project, an effort to train teachers in the use of the first government-sanctioned textbook  covering the Khmer Rouge years: 

Find it online here.

On a recent Thursday, a classroom full of high school teachers in Takeo province sat in groups of five sharing survivors’ recollections of 20th-century mass atrocities.