Written by Administrator -- Saturday, 12 September 2009
The Tuol Sleng Museum of Cambodian Genocide, well-known all over the world for its grim exhibits relating to torture and thousands of killings at a former school during the brutal Pol Pot regime, was registered by UNESCO as Global Documentary Heritage on Friday.
The Tuol Sleng Museum of Cambodian Genocide, well-known all over the world for its grim exhibits relating to torture and thousands of killings at a former school during the brutal Pol Pot regime, was registered by UNESCO as Global Documentary Heritage on Friday.
Toul Sleng, used as a detention centre 1975-79 and designated as S-21, holds 4,186 prisoner ‘confessions’, 6,226 biographies of prisoners and 6,147 photographic prints, according to an archive officer.
Secretary of UNESCO for Cam-bodia Tann Theany told DAP News Cambodia that the new Cambodian generation should be educated about the sorrows inflicted upon Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge years, as well as make sure the world never forgets the tragedy.
“All archives are kept in the museum,” she stressed. Director General of UNESCO Koichiro Matsuura announced the inscription of documentary heritage on the recommendation of experts during a three day meeting of the International Advisory Committee (IAC) of UNESCO’s Memory of the World Program in on July 31, 2009 in Bridgetown.
Cambodia’s Toul Sleng Museum Archives, the Royal Archives of Thailand and Madagascar, Anne Frank’s Diaries in the Netherlands and the Santa Fe Capitulations in Spain were also added to the register, Koichiro added.
“This bring the total number of inscriptions to 193 items since 1997.”
S-21 imprisoned over 15,000 people in the 1975-79 Pol Pot regime, according to the Toul Sleng archives.
1 comment:
This induction is just as important as any other induction of other monuments into UNESCO. It may be even more so because it serves as a reminder and lesson for all Cambodian people of a folly at the catastrophic proportion to the nation and population and not be repeated. It needs to be around as evidents for next generations.
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