International Education Week participation

Since the formation of ASEAN GSA 3 years ago, our club has been participating in UB's International Education Week in November. This tradition will continue on - we have invited guest speakers, conducted discussions and have showed documentaries/docu-dramas highlighting issues within the ASEAN member states. Not to be left out, this year we will again participate in this event. Vida has suggested a video documentary showing. Please find below information to the film.

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The film that we're showing is about a prisoner of the Khmer Rouge Torturing Chamber named HOUT Bophanna. Hout is her last name and Bophanna is her first name. The prison that she was in named Toul Sleng. Toul Sleng is now a museum, but once was a high school. It was taken over by the Khmer Rouge during its regime and was converted into an interrogation and torture center to purge Cambodia of intellectuals and perceived dissidents.

**More information about The Khmer Rouge**

Source: The Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project, Inc http://www.dithpran.org/killingfields.htm

In April 17th, 1975 the Khmer Rouge, a communist guerrilla group led by Pol Pot, took power in Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia. They forced all city dwellers into the countryside and to labor camps. During their rule, it is estimated that 2 million Cambodians died by starvation, torture or execution. 2 million Cambodians represented approximately 30% of the Cambodian population during that time.

The Khmer Rouge turned Cambodia to year zero. They banned all institutions, including stores, banks, hospitals, schools, religion, and the family. Everyone was forced to work 12 - 14 hours a day, every day. Children were separated from their parents to work in mobile groups or as soldiers. People were fed one watery bowl of soup with a few grains of rice thrown in. Babies, children, adults and the elderly were killed everywhere. The Khmer Rouge killed people if they didn't like them, if didn't work hard enough, if they were educated, if they came from different ethnic groups, or if they showed sympathy when their family members were taken away to be killed. All were killed without reason. Everyone had to pledge total allegiance to Angka, the Khmer Rouge government. It was a campaign based on instilling constant fear and keeping their victims off balance.

After the Vietnamese invaded and liberated the Cambodian people from the Khmer Rouge, 600,000 Cambodians fled to Thai border camps. Ten million landmines were left in the ground, one for every person in Cambodia. The United Nations installed the largest peacekeeping mission in the world in Cambodia in 1991 to ensure free and fair elections after the withdrawal of the Vietnamese troops. Cambodia was turned upside down during the Khmer Rouge years and the country has the daunting task of healing physically, mentally and economically.

Source: The Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project, Inc at http://www.dithpran.org/killingfields.htm

Nearly 2 million people died in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979 in a Khmer Rouge reign of terror in Cambodia. Information about the Killing Fields and the Khmer Rouge can also be found at http://www.pbs.org

For recent information about Cambodia, visit the Cambodian Embassy's website at http://www.embassy.org/cambodia