Voices
from S21
by David Chandler
This
is the paperback edition. Hardback
is
available.
Book
Description
The
horrific torture and execution of hundreds of
thousands of Cambodians by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge
during the 1970s is one of the century's major
human disasters. David Chandler, a world-renowned
historian of Cambodia, examines the Khmer Rouge
phenomenon by focusing on one of its key institutions,
the secret prison outside Phnom Penh known by
the code name "S-21." The facility
was an interrogation center where more than
14,000 "enemies" were questioned,
tortured, and made to confess to counterrevolutionary
crimes. Fewer than a dozen prisoners left S-21
alive. During the Democratic Kampuchea (DK)
era, the existence of S-21 was known only to
those inside it and a few high-ranking Khmer
Rouge officials. When invading Vietnamese troops
discovered the prison in 1979, murdered bodies
lay strewn about and instruments of torture
were still in place. An extensive archive containing
photographs of victims, cadre notebooks, and
DK publications was also found. Chandler utilizes
evidence from the S-21 archive as well as materials
that have surfaced elsewhere in Phnom Penh.
He also interviews survivors of S-21 and former
workers from the prison. Documenting the violence
and terror that took place within S-21 is only
part of Chandler's story. Equally important
is his attempt to understand what happened there
in terms that might be useful to survivors,
historians, and the rest of us. Chandler discusses
the "culture of obedience" and its
attendant dehumanization, citing parallels between
the Khmer Rouge executions and the Moscow Show
Trails of the 1930s, Nazi genocide, Indonesian
massacres in 1965-66, the Argentine military's
use of torture in the 1970s, and the recent
mass killings in Bosnia and Rwanda. In each
of these instances, Chandler shows how turning
victims into "others" in a manner
that was systematically devaluing and racialist
made it easier to mistreat and kill them. More
than a chronicle of Khmer Rouge barbarism, Voices
from S-21 is also a judicious examination of
the psychological dimensions of state-sponsored
terrorism that conditions human beings to commit
acts of unspeakable brutality.
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Editorial
Reviews
From
Publishers Weekly
Chandler presents a grisly but lucid historical
accounting of S-21, the secret prison
where at least 14,000 people were interrogated,
tortured, forced to confess to counterrevolutionary
crimes and executed during the reign of
the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. This "anteroom
to death," as Chandler labels it,
was discovered by two Vietnamese photographers
in the wake of the invasion that forced
out the Khmer Rouge in January 1979. Drawn
to the site by the smell of decomposing
flesh, the men discovered the bodies of
50 recently murdered prisoners, an array
of implements of torture and a vast abandoned
archive of institutionally sanctioned
torture and murder. (The area was immediately
turned into a museum.)
Chandler
methodically reconstructs the history
of S-21, working with both the archives
discovered there and his own interviews
with survivors of the camp; he offers
some context for his evidence by drawing
on his considerable knowledge of the region's
past (the Australian scholar is the author
of a history of Cambodia), for instance,
identifying Chinese models for the camp.
His assessment is of a government gone
mad with paranoia, which must torture
and murder its own citizens to protect
itself against conspiracies that arise
against it--"hidden enemies burrowing
from within" who were viewed as more
dangerous than outside threats. In attempting
to understand how such evil arose, Chandler
comes to the dismaying but arguable conclusion
that places like S-21 and Nazi concentration
camps originate in our own everyday capacities
to order and obey, form bonds against
outsiders, seek perfection and approval
and vent anger and frustration upon the
helpless. 13 b&w photos not seen by
PW. (Jan.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information,
Inc.
LA
Weekly, 11/19
"By turns startling, fearsome and
profound." --This text refers to
the Hardcover edition.
Booklist,
12/15
"A studious work of the sinister
place that should enter all holocaust
collections." --This text refers
to the Hardcover edition.
From
the Back Cover
"The Khmer Rouge terror constitutes
one of the most horrific instances of
mass murder in the twentieth century,
and Chandler has immersed himself in a
unique and largely unexplored collection
of primary sources from hell. This will
be a very important and enduring work.
. . . Moreover, no scholar is better situated
to undertake this project than David Chandler."
(Craig Etcheson, Director, Cambodian Genocide
Project, Yale University) --This text
refers to the Hardcover edition.
About
the Author
David
Chandler is Professor Emeritus of History
at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
His published works include A History
of Cambodia (1991, 1996) and Brother Number
One: A Political Biography of Pol Pot
(1992). He currently lives in Washington,
D.C. --This text refers to the Hardcover
edition. |
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