AI & Soc DOI 10.1007/s00146-011-0325-7 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Witnessing and re-enacting in Cambodia: reflection on shifting testimonies Ste´phanie Benzaquen Received: 27 October 2010 / Accepted: 17 June 2011 Ó The Author(s) 2011. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract Thirty years after the collapse of the Khmer in which cultural differences in coming to terms with his- Rouge regime (1975–1979) how do Cambodians cope with torical trauma are expressed and recorded. the traumatic legacy of Pol Pot’s reign of terror? What forms does witnessing take on in post-socialist and tran- Keywords Cambodia Á Khmer rouge Á Trauma Á sitional Cambodia as senior Khmer Rouge leaders await Witnessing Á Participatory Á Theatre Á Documentary movie prosecution at the Cambodian Tribunal? The paper exam- ines aspects of witnessing in today’s Cambodia, expressing each in its own way the idea of the ‘shifting’ of witnessing: 1 Introduction the transformation of testimonies due to time passing and contrasted systems of justice through a comparison of Witnessing is a shifting category determined by what kind testimonies in the trial of the ‘Pol Pot/Ieng Sary clique’ of events are witnessed. This is what the media researchers (1979) and the current Cambodian Tribunal; the complex Ashuri and Pinchevski argue (2009, p. 136) thereby forms of witnessing emerging from participatory projects opposing the view held by some scholars in trauma theory developed with Western authors in ‘We want (u) to know’ and Holocaust studies that witnessing is ‘an independent (documentary movie made by an international film crew variable’. I will review ‘witnessing’ as a shifting category with the inhabitants of the village of Thnol Lok in 2009) at the political, social and ideological level in the context and ‘Breaking the silence’ (theatre play realised by the of the Khmer Rouge-led Cambodian genocide. Witnessing Dutch dramaturge Annemarie Prins that premiered in is not a static phenomenon, which becomes all the more Phnom Penh in 2009 and toured Cambodia in the following obvious when observed at a more global level. Testimonies years); the relationship between documentary and legal and the cultural forms used to convey them to audiences forms of witnessing through the example of Vann Nath, a are part of this. The past decades have been the ‘era of the survivor of S-21/Tuol Sleng, the prison where the Khmer witness’. It was initiated in the Euro-American sphere and Rouge tortured and killed thousands of their fellow coun- spread worldwide thanks to, amongst other factors, the trymen. The paper analyses the difficulty Western organ- expansion of electronic communication. The rise of civil isers of participatory projects experienced in applying the society and the demise of long held authoritarian doctrines hybrid model of transitional justice to sociocultural con- also freed the way for the development of a critical dis- texts of witnessing. Nevertheless it points out their con- course, as in the fields of post-colonialism and post-mod- tribution to processes of ‘recognition beyond recognition’ ernism. This has changed the context of witnessing. The cultural anthropologist Allen Feldman formulates it in this way: S. Benzaquen (&) Human rights testimony and medicalised or psycho- PhD Researcher Centre for Historical Culture, Erasmus School analytic talking cures currently function as Enlight- of History, Culture and Communication, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands enment stand-ins, morally polarised to the murky e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] density of embodied suffering and institutional 123 AI & Soc indifference and denial, and to the mutation of state my name. A Khmer lawyer reads a summary of the apparatuses into de-territorialised killing machines. two- or three-page statement I wrote (for the new These technologies of memory, jural reason and authorities) in Siem Reap. Then, I relate my four-year psycho-medical therapeusis are expected to rectify, ordeal, name my dead relatives, and end begging the respectively the polluting exposure of the victim and court to condemn the culprits. (Affonc¸o 2005, p. 225) his/her auditors to violence experienced and/or vio- Denise Affonc¸o was one of the twenty or so survivors of lence virtually witnessed in narrative and other media the Khmer Rouge terror who testified at the trial of the ‘Pol (2004, p. 168). Pot–Ieng Sary clique’ organised by the newly established Despite the process of standardisation stressed by People’s Republic of Kampuchea in August 1979. It has Feldman, witnessing resists reduction to some universal often been called a ‘show trial’, a rather unfit term for what formula. Contextual and local elements resurface and was intended and actually did happen, but characteristic of interact (clashing or combining) with internationalised the Cold War context of the late 1970s. The trial targeted templates. In their study of possible shared terrains two distinct audiences. On the one hand, the Cambodians: between Buddhism and human rights in Cambodia, Ledg- the new communist regime, backed by the Vietnamese and erwood and Un referring to Arjun Appadurai’s ‘ideo- composed of Khmer Rouge who had defected to Vietnam scapes’ remind that concepts displaced across borders and in 1977–1978, had to differentiate itself from the Com- cultures exist as different sets of notions. Therefore, they munist Party of Kampuchea led by Pol Pot and his com- require translation into a local idiom (2003). How does rades. On the other hand, the international community: the witnessing—thus—translate into the Cambodian context, idea was to discredit the Khmer Rouge since the latter 30 years after the collapse of the Khmer Rouge regime retained their seat at the UN General Assembly with the (1975–1979)? Lately, in the wake of the establishment of support of the Western powers and to challenge the West the Cambodian Tribunal, formally known as the Extraor- over its recognition policy. dinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC, a.k.a. Interviewed 30 years later in relation to the ECCC, Khmer Rouge Trial), there has been an upsurge of victims- Denise Affonc¸o, who lives in France since 1979, declared oriented projects in collaboration with Western partners. that she would not testify in the new trial but would What will be the impact on local communities? What become a civil party. Her lawyer will represent her. After forms will witnessing take on in post-socialist and transi- so much time she is afraid to come back to Cambodia, to tional Cambodia? Could witnessing furnish a space where the ‘crime scene’. Asked what she thought about the 1979 the relationship between Cambodians and Westerners can trial, she answered: be redrawn? [It] meant a lot to me. I was relieved and convinced The paper investigates a small segment of witnessing in that the culprits—sentenced to death in absentia— today’s Cambodia. It looks at some aspects, expressing would pay for their crimes and that the dead could each in its own way the idea of ‘shifting’: the transfor- rest in peace. I did not know what was happening in mation of testimonies due to time passing and contrasted the upper reaches of international politics. I believed systems of justice; the complex forms of witnessing that justice would do its job. The trial, organised by emerging from participatory projects developed with the book, had juridical value. There were lawyers Western authors in ‘We want (u) to know’ (documentary from various countries and international journalists. movie 2009) and ‘Breaking the silence’ (theatre play, Later on I accessed the trial archives. What a disap- premiered in 2009); the relationship between documentary pointment when I learned that the UN never recog- and legal forms of witnessing through the example of Vann nised the conviction. Today, I think it was a waste of Nath, a survivor of the prison S-21/Tuol Sleng (the infa- time and money (Ge´e 2008). mous torture and execution centre in Phnom Penh where the santebal, Khmer Rouge political police, under the The trial of the ‘Pol Pot—Ieng Sary clique’ was not the command of Duch, killed about 17,000 people) and a key only attempt of the People’s Republic of Kampuchea figure in the remembrance of Khmer Rouge crimes. government to document Khmer Rouge atrocities. In 1982–1983 it launched a petition operation (aka Renakse petition or ‘million documents’). Emissaries of the Soli- 2 Old and new testimonies darity Front, the entity in charge of the mission, travelled all over the country to collect signatures of villagers and It is the first time that I appear before a tribunal. I am testimonies about Red Khmer violence. They also recorded overwhelmed in turn by painful souvenirs and a the extent of Khmer Rouge destruction: number of people powerful desire for punishment and revenge … I give killed and missing, homes destroyed, animals killed and 123 AI & Soc location of mass graves. The petitions were never sent to resumed, thereby opening the country to Westerners and the UN as it had been intended, but were stored at the Cambodian exiles who had longed for home. Solidarity Front’s office. In 1997, they were handed over to This new context affected the politics of remembrance the Documentation Centre of Cambodia (thereafter DC- the authorities had developed so far (e.g. establishment of Cam), an independent research institute compiling and a National Day of Hatred turned into Remembrance Day preserving materials on Khmer Rouge crimes. Recently the after 1999, building of memorials, transformation of DC-Cam, whose mission also involves organising infor- S-21/Tuol Sleng prison into museum for genocidal mation for the prosecution of senior Khmer Rouge leaders crimes). Exchanges with international partners brought at the ECCC, decided to reactivate the Renakse petitions new forms of memorialisation, more focused on indi- and collect testimonies from the same witnesses anew.