TUOL SLENG S A PRISON 4

TUOL SLENG S A PRISON

10. If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.

The prisoners were required to abide by all the regulations. To do anything, even to alter their positions while trying to sleep, the inmates had first to ask permission from the prison guards. Anyone breaching these rules was severely beaten. Prisoners were bathed by being rounded up into a collective room where a tube of running water was placed through the window to splash water on them for a short time. Bathing was irregular, allowed only once every two or three days, and sometimes once a fortnight. Unhygienic living conditions caused the prisoners to become infected with diseases like skin rashes and various other diseases. There was no medicine for treatment.

TUOL SLENG AS A MUSEUM

In the wake of its renovation following the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime, Tuol Sleng, the historical museum of genocide under the Khmer Rouge regime, opened in 1980 and welcomes the public to come and visit. Thousands of visitors from inside the country and abroad have visited Tuol Sleng museum. The visits developed in two phases:

• Phase I: In the 1980s, most visitors were local people, whereas foreign visitors were mostly from certain socialist countries as Vietnam, Soviet Union, Laos, Hungary, Poland, and others from the Eastern bloc.

• Phase 2: Since the 1993 election and the establishment of the Kingdom of Cambodia, most of the visitors to Tuol Sleng museum have come mainly from Taiwan, Japan, France, Germany, Korea, the United States, and other non communist countries.

About 50 people visit the museum on an average day. Once they come to the Kingdom of Cambodia, tourist§ seldom miss visiting this horrifying educational site.

At present, the museum is facing many challenges and urgent needs.

These include:

I. Building a fence of 660 meter! in perimeter around it in order to protect and preserve this compound of factual historical evidence. Another reason for building this fence is to prevent the now increasing number of unauthorized house constructions by sq alters in its compound.

2. Preserving and repairing all its buildings: Note that all the museum's buildings and the former buildings of Tu I Svay Prey High School, are over 40 years of age. The corrugated iron and cement sheet roofs of the decrepit buildings have many holes in them, allowing for the passage of rain to drip onto the ceilings. The ceilings remain wet for s long they have become decayed and broken. The walls of the buildings are a so damaged deeply, while floors have gradually broken up. The museum should not be left without proper care. It requires urgent repairs as well as conservation that aim at preserving the form and detail of the KR period.

3. Arranging the documentation room in a proper technical setting:

Given these Circumstance, the historical genocide museum Tuol Sleng is seeking substantial funding an support for refurbishment so that this

museum can reach the standard of current historical museums throughout the rest of the world. From 1979 until I 89, part of the national budget was always allocated to Tuol Sleng museum for its repairs and exhibitions. Unfortunately, for the past several years, this funding has dried up.

Tuol Sleng Genocide Muse[m calls for international organizations and individuals that despise and condemn crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide to help us maintain this museum in order to preserve "S-21" as a reminder not only of Cambodia's recent history but of the inhumanity that sometimes overwhelms ordinary hum n beings.
 

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