Day of Remembrance (Cambodia)

Day of Remembrance
Official name	Ti Veer Jrong Komhuoeng
Observed by	Cambodia
Date	May 20
Next time	20 May 2018
Frequency	annual

Last updated March 24, 2019

The Day of Remembrance, formerly called the National Day of Hatred, which falls on May 20, is an annual event in Cambodia. It commemorates the Cambodian genocide of the Khmer Rouge regime that ruled the country between 1975 and 1979.

May 20 is the 140th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 225 days remaining until the end of the year.

Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is 181,035 square kilometres in area, bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the northeast, Vietnam to the east and the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest.

The Cambodian genocide was carried out by the Khmer Rouge regime under the leadership of Pol Pot, and it inflicted a population loss of between 1.671 and 1.871 million people from 1975 to 1979, or 21 to 24 percent of Cambodia’s 1975 population. The Khmer Rouge wanted to turn the country into a socialist agrarian republic, founded on the policies of ultra-Maoism. In 1976, the Khmer Rouge changed the name of the country to Democratic Kampuchea. In order to fulfill their goals, the Khmer Rouge emptied the cities and forced Cambodians to relocate to labor camps in the countryside, where mass executions, forced labor, physical abuse, malnutrition, and disease were prevalent. This resulted in the death of approximately 25 percent of Cambodia's total population. Approximately 20,000 people passed through the Tuol Sleng Centre, one of the 196 prisons operated by the Khmer Rouge, and only 7 adults survived. The prisoners were taken to the Killing Fields, where they were executed and buried in mass graves. The abduction and indoctrination of children was widespread, and many were persuaded or forced to commit atrocities. The genocide triggered a second outflow of refugees, many of whom escaped to neighboring Vietnam and, to a lesser extent, Thailand. The Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia ended the genocide by defeating the Khmer Rouge in 1979.

The English name 'Day of Hatred' is somewhat of a mistranslation. The Khmer name, when instituted in 1983, was ទិវាចងកំហឹង – Ti Veer Jrong Komhuoeng ('Day of Tying Anger'). The name could also be translated as 'Day of Maintaining Rage'.^[1]^[2]

History

The 'National Day of Hatred' was first launched in the People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) on May 20, 1984.^[3] The commemoration was initiated by a September 12, 1983 conference in Phnom Penh of around 300 intellectuals and clergymen.^[1] The date was selected since it marked the initiations of mass killings in Democratic Kampuchea on May 20, 1976. It was also the date that the Khmer Rouge had initiated forced collectivization in southern Takéo in 1973.^[1]

The People's Republic of Kampuchea was founded in Cambodia by the Salvation Front, a group of Cambodian communists dissatisfied with the Khmer Rouge after the overthrow of Democratic Kampuchea, Pol Pot's government. Brought about by an invasion from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, which routed the Khmer Rouge armies, it had Vietnam and the Soviet Union as its main allies.

Phnom Penh Autonomous municipality in Cambodia

Phnom Penh, formerly known as Krong Chaktomuk or Krong Chaktomuk Serimongkul, is the capital and most populous city in Cambodia. Phnom Penh has been the national capital since French colonization of Cambodia, and has grown to become the nation's economic, industrial, and cultural center.

The state of Kampuchea, officially Democratic Kampuchea, existed between 1975 and 1979 in present-day Cambodia. The state was controlled by the Khmer Rouge (KR) and was founded when KR forces defeated the Khmer Republic of Lon Nol in 1975.

In the PRK, the full title of the event was 'Day of Hatred against the genocidal Pol Pot-Ieng Sary-Khieu Samphan clique and the Sihanouk-Son Sann reactionary groups'. The National Day of Hatred was an important holiday in the PRK, and the Kampuchean United Front for National Construction and Defense mobilized Kampuchean mass organizations to ensure popular participation.^[4]

Pol Pot 20th-century Cambodian revolutionary and politician

Pol Pot was a Cambodian revolutionary and politician who served as the general secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea from 1963 to 1981. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist and Khmer nationalist, he led the Khmer Rouge group from 1963 until 1997. From 1976 to 1979, he served as the Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea.

Ieng Sary was a co-founder and senior member of the Khmer Rouge. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea led by Pol Pot and served in the 1975–79 government of Democratic Kampuchea as foreign minister and deputy prime minister. He was known as "Brother Number Three" as he was third in command after Pol Pot and Nuon Chea. His wife, Ieng Thirith, served in the Khmer Rouge government as social affairs minister. Ieng Sary was arrested in 2007 and was charged with crimes against humanity but died of heart failure before the case against him could be brought to a verdict.

Khieu Samphan is a former Cambodian communist politician who was the chairman of the state presidium of Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia) from 1976 until 1979. As such, he served as Cambodia's head of state and was one of the most powerful officials in the Khmer Rouge movement, although Pol Pot remained the General Secretary in the party. Khieu Samphan is the second oldest living former Khmer Rouge leader, alongside Nuon Chea. On 7 August 2014, they were convicted and received life sentences for crimes against humanity during the Cambodian Genocide, and a further trial found him guilty of genocide in 2018.

In the PRK, the policies of the United States (dubbed as imperialist) and the People's Republic of China (dubbed as expansionist) were also targets of dislike during the Day of Hatred.^[3] The 1983 conference had formulated that the objective of the National Day of Hatred was to mobilize international public opinion against the Khmer Rouge, their allies and their foreign backers.^[1] In particular, the issue of the representation of the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea in the United Nations was highlighted.^[1]

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico. The State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.

Imperialism is policy or ideology of extending a nation's rule over foreign nations, often by military force or by gaining political and economic control of other areas. Imperialism was both normal and common worldwide throughout recorded history, the earliest examples dating from the mid-third millennium BC, diminishing only in the late 20th century. In recent times, it has been considered morally reprehensible and prohibited by international law. Therefore, the term is used in international propaganda to denounce an opponent's foreign policy.

In expansionism, governments and states expand their territory, power, wealth or influence through economic growth, soft power, or the military aggression of empire-building and colonialism.

During the 1980s and 1990s, the National Day of Hatred was marked by fiery speeches and the burning of paper effigies of Pol Pot. During the PRK years, the National Day of Hatred represented one of very few spaces for victims of the Khmer Rouge to publicly discuss their experiences from the Democratic Kampuchea period. Also, the event provided an increased space for religious institutions (such as Buddhist temples) to hold functions.^[5]

An effigy is a representation of a specific person in the form of sculpture or some other three-dimensional medium. The use of the term is normally restricted to certain contexts in a somewhat arbitrary way: recumbent effigies on tombs are so called, but standing statues of individuals, or busts, are usually not. Likenesses of religious figures in sculpture are not normally called effigies. Effigies are common elements of funerary art, especially as a recumbent effigy in stone or metal placed on a tomb, or a less permanent "funeral effigy", placed on the coffin in a grand funeral, wearing real clothing.

Buddhism is the world's fourth-largest religion with over 520 million followers, or over 7% of the global population, known as Buddhists. Buddhism encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on original teachings attributed to the Buddha and resulting interpreted philosophies. Buddhism originated in ancient India as a Sramana tradition sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, spreading through much of Asia. Two major extant branches of Buddhism are generally recognized by scholars: Theravada and Mahayana.

During the UNTAC period, the National Day of Hatred was put on hiatus as the UN administration sought to involve the Khmer Rouge into the political process. Later in the 1990s, the day was revived. In 2001, the event was officially renamed 'Day of Remembrance'.^[1]

The National Day of Hatred is still marked in Cambodia, although the commemorations are of smaller scale today. Since the massive defections from the remaining Khmer Rouge guerrillas, the National Day of Hatred lost much of its prominence. Still commemorations are held, such as public theatre plays about the Khmer Rouge period. The Cambodian People's Party (the modern incarnation of the KPRP, the ruling party in the PRK) still conduct commemorations of the National Day of Hatred, often to remind Cambodians of the Khmer Rouge links from the 1980s of the contemporary opposition parties.^[5] The Phnom Penh municipality has instituted a tradition of arranging visits to the Choeung Ek fields, where Buddhist ceremonies are held.^[1]

Related Research Articles

The Khmer Rouge was the name popularly given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and by extension to the regime through which the CPK ruled in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. The name had originally been used in the 1950s by Norodom Sihanouk as a blanket term for the Cambodian left.

Ta Mok was a Cambodian military chief and soldier who was a senior figure in the Khmer Rouge and the leader of the national army of Democratic Kampuchea.. He was best known as "Brother Number Five" or "the Butcher". He was captured along the Thailand-Cambodia border in March 1999 by Cambodian government forces while on the run with a small band of followers and was held in government custody all the way to his death in 2006 while awaiting his war crime trial.

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Cambodian–Vietnamese War 1977–1991 war between Cambodia and Vietnam

The Cambodian–Vietnamese War, otherwise known in Vietnam as the Counter-offensive on the Southwestern border, was an armed conflict between the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and Democratic Kampuchea. The war began with isolated clashes along the land and maritime boundaries of Vietnam and Kampuchea between 1975 and 1978, occasionally involving division-sized military formations. On 25 December 1978, Vietnam launched a full-scale invasion of Kampuchea and subsequently occupied the country and removed the Communist Party of Kampuchea government from power.

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The Communist Party of Kampuchea, also known as Khmer Communist Party (KCP), was a communist party in Cambodia. Its leader was Pol Pot and its followers were generally known as Khmer Rouge. The party was underground for most of its existence and took power in the country in 1975 and established the state known as Democratic Kampuchea. The party lost power in 1979 with the establishment of the People's Republic of Kampuchea by leftists who were dissatisfied by the Pol Pot regime and by the intervention of Vietnamese military forces after a period of mass killing. The party was officially dissolved in 1981, with the Party of Democratic Kampuchea claiming its legacy.

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References

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Fawthrop, Tom, and Helen Jarvis. Getting Away with Genocide?: Cambodia's Long Struggle against the Khmer Rouge . Sydney: UNSW Press, 2005. pp. 73–74
↑ "Headley's Khmer-English Dictionary".
1 2 The New York Times . Cambodian Day of Hate Marks Pol Pot's Victims
↑ The KUFNCD
1 2 Saltsman, Adam. Hate to Remember…and Remember to Hate

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[geno-1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Fawthrop, Tom, and Helen Jarvis. Getting Away with Genocide?: Cambodia's Long Struggle against the Khmer Rouge . Sydney: UNSW Press, 2005. pp. 73–74

[2] "Headley's Khmer-English Dictionary".

[nyt-3] 1 2 The New York Times . Cambodian Day of Hate Marks Pol Pot's Victims

[4] The KUFNCD

[conc-5] 1 2 Saltsman, Adam. Hate to Remember…and Remember to Hate