(20 May 2025)
RESTRICTIONS SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Phnom Penh, Cambodia – 20 May 2025
1. Wide of entrance to Choeung Ek Genocidal Center, built on the site of an area outside Phnom Penh where thousands of perceived enemies of the Khmer Rouge regime were murdered
2. Wide of monks, waiting
3. Wide of dignitaries bringing a wreath to place in front of a stupa that contains the skulls of many of those killed at Choeng Ek
4. Wide of skulls stacked up in the stupa
5. Various of people with incense sticks, praying before stupa
6. Wide of musicians
7. Various of reenactment of the black-clad Khmer Rouge oppressing and killing the people
8. Wide of liberating forces (in green) attacking the Khmer Rouge and sweeping to victory
STORYLINE:
It’s been half a century since Cambodia’s communist Khmer Rouge launched a near four-year reign of terror causing the deaths of about 1.7 million of their countrymen.
On Tuesday Cambodia’s annual “Day of Remembrance” was vividly marked by student actors reenacting the brutalities of that time.
The official ceremony honoring the victims of what a U.N.-backed tribunal judged to be genocide was held at Choeung Ek, site of a Khmer Rouge “Killing Field” dotted with mass graves about 15 kilometers (10 miles) south of the capital Phnom Penh, and attended by about 2,000 spectators.
Several dozen Buddhist monks were among the crowd that watched 40 students from a Phnom Penh art school re-enact torture and executions which, along with starvation and misrule, resulted in the deaths of an estimated quarter of Cambodia’s population when the Khmer Rouge held power in 1975-1979.
Dressed in black, the Khmer Rouge’s standard attire, the performers acted as executioners, swinging bamboo sticks at the heads of victims, cutting their throats or shooting them. The reenactment was held just meters (yards) away from a memorial displaying victims’ skulls and mass graves where thousands of others were buried.
The event ended with actors portraying liberating forces sweeping in to drive the Khmer Rouge from power.
The Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975 and imposed conditions of extreme harshness and terror. They were overthrown in 1979 by an invasion from neighboring Vietnam.
AP video shot by Sopheng Cheang
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