Mr. Youk Chhang is the Director of the Documentation Center of
Cambodia.
Since its inception, the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam)
has been at the forefront of documenting the myriad crimes and
atrocities of the Khmer Rouge era. DC-Cam was founded after the U.S.
Congress passed the Cambodian Genocide Justice Act in April 1994.
That legislation established the Office of Cambodian Genocide
Investigation in the U.S. State Department's Bureau of East Asian
and Pacific Affairs, which was charged with investigating the
atrocities of the Khmer Rouge period, 1975-79.
In January 1995, a grant to Yale University was announced, enabling
Yale's Cambodian Genocide Program (CGP) to conduct research,
training and documentation relating to the Khmer Rouge regime. The
specific roles of the CGP were to assemble evidence concerning the
leadership of Democratic Kampuchea (DK) and to determine whether the
DK regime committed international offenses such as genocide, war
crimes, and crimes against humanity. The CGP was an academic
program and was not equipped to conduct a legal proceeding against
the Khmer Rouge leaders. It had three main objectives: (1) to
prepare a documentation survey and index, (2) to undertake
historiographical research, and (3) to provide legal training for
Cambodians.
In pursuit of these objectives, the CGP founded DC-Cam as a field
office in Phnom Penh in January 1995 under the leadership of its
Program Officer, Mr. Youk Chhang. DC-Cam facilitated all of the
CGP’s principal operations in Cambodia until the conclusion of CGP's
original mandate in December 1996, conducting extensive research and
documentation into the Khmer Rouge era. In addition, in 1995 and
1996, DC-Cam hosted two very successful legal training courses with
the CGP and Yale Law School's Schell Center for International Human
Rights. DC-Cam and the CGP also hosted a major conference regarding
the possibility of justice for the Khmer Rouge atrocities, which
Prime Ministers Prince Norodom Ranariddh and Samdech Hun Sen
attended.
DC-Cam became an independent Cambodian research institute on January
1, 1997 under the leadership of Mr. Youk Chhang, a survivor of the
Khmer Rouge's "killing fields."
Since that time, it has continued its extensive research and
documentation activities. DC-Cam is not a for-profit, governmental
or political organization, and we are not a judicial body.
DC-Cam has two main objectives. The first objective is to record and
preserve the history of the Khmer Rouge regime for future
generations. The second goal is to compile and organize information
that can serve as potential evidence in a future legal accounting
for the crimes of the Democratic Kampuchea (DK) regime. These
objectives represent our promotion of memory and justice, both of
which are critical foundations for the rule of law and genuine
national reconciliation in Cambodia.
Prior to the establishment of the Documentation Center of Cambodia
in 1995, Mr. Youk Chhang managed and led political, human rights and
democracy training programs in Cambodia on democratic institutions
for the International Republican Institute (IRI). He was also
associated with the Electoral Component of the United Nations
Transitional Administration in Cambodia (UNTAC). From 1989 to 1992
Mr. Youk Chhang worked on crime prevention in the City of Dallas,
Texas, USA.
He has dedicated his work to his mother and the memory all the
mothers of Cambodia.
Written by Prof. Frank Chalk
Historian
Concordia University, Canada
Co-Director, Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights
Studies
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