Privatization of genocide memorial stirs anger in Cambodia

CHOUENG EK, Cambodia — The burial pits are shallower, their banks softened by wind and rain. Still, a few fragments of bone and faded cloth poke through the red soil.

The bitter harvest of Cambodia's "killing fields" is hard to miss. Inside a concrete pagoda, a knot of European tourists gazes silently at the 8,985 skulls on display. Tour guides point out the rusted iron bars used to silence the men, women and children that the Khmer Rouge had deemed enemies of the state during their murderous reign in 1975-79. "Don't be afraid, you're going to a new home," the blindfolded captives were told before their nighttime execution.

In a move that has stirred public anger, this memorial to the genocide that haunts Cambodia has been given to a private company. Under a 30-year concession that started Sunday, JC Royal will "develop and renovate the beauty of Choueng Ek" to attract more paying tourists.

Critics said such profiting is unconscionable. "This is the memory of the nation. It doesn't belong to city hall. It belongs to the survivors," said Youk Chang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia. The site's manager, who first revealed the privatization, has accused the government of "using the bones of the dead to make business."

The municipality of Phnom Penh, which owns the site, said the new owner is forbidden to move the skulls and other remains. The national government has sought to dampen criticism by saying profits would go to a local charity run by a senior Cabinet minister, Chea Vandeth. Local media have speculated about the ownership of JC Royal, a Japanese company run by Vandeth.

The dispute comes as Cambodia inches closer to holding a war-crimes tribunal for the surviving Khmer Rouge leaders. The United Nations said last week that it had sufficient funding and asked the government to start organizing the long-awaited trials. Some observers are dubious about the formula for judging suspects and the government's resolve to investigate the past.

Choueng Ek is one of hundreds of sites across Cambodia that testify to the mass killings which, with overwork and starvation, caused the deaths of some 1.7 million people. Thousands of tourists visit each year. Many also visit Tuol Sleng, a grisly detention center in Phnom Penh that is now a museum.

Some activists welcome the new ownership of the killing fields. They point to a contract that requires upgrading the unpaved road to the site and building a museum and documentary-film studio. "If a private company can do it better, why not? If they can bring in international visitors and tell them something about our tragedy, all well and good, so we don't repeat it," said Lao Mong Hay, head of legal reform at the nonprofit Center for Social Development in Phnom Penh.

Outside the dusty entrance to Choueng Ek, Hang Dul holds out a baseball cap and asks for a dollar. A former government soldier who lost his left leg to a land mine, he's keen for more tourists. He also wants unsettling truths to linger in Cambodia's future generations. "I must tell my children about the genocide," he said.