Phnom Penh - A former Khmer Rouge official photographer has
put on sale for 1.5 million dollars what he claims to be Pol Pot's
clothes, sandals and toilet, along with thousands of photographs and
other artifacts he collected during the genocidal regime's 1975-79
rule.
'I will sell Pol Pot's sandals, toilet, his uniform and cap,
thousands of photographs and the two cameras I used during the Khmer
Rouge period,' said Nhem En, who was recruited to take photographs of
detainees when they arrived at Tuol Sleng torture prison in Phnom
Penh.
'I am asking for 1.5 million dollars, but the price is
negotiable,' he added.
Nhem En said he would use the money to establish a Khmer Rouge
museum in Anlong Veng, a small town near the Thai border where the
Maoist group hid in a jungle fortress until it disbanded in 1998.
'I am selling these items, but I have others that will be housed
in the museum,' he said. 'I have already asked for donations for this
museum from the US, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, Vietnam,
South Korea and Thailand, but none have provided funding.'
His appeal came as the trial of the former head of Tuol Sleng
prison resumed before Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes tribunal.
Kaing Guek Euv, known by his revolutionary alias Duch, faces
charges of crimes against humanity, torture, premeditated murder and
breaches of the Geneva Conventions, allegedly committed at the
school-turned-prison, where at least 15,000 men, women and children
were imprisoned and tortured before being murdered in the 'killing
fields' on the outskirts of the capital.
Nhem En said the millions of dollars in international donor
funding spent on bringing Duch and four other Khmer Rouge leaders to
trial would be better invested in his museum.
'Nobody in the Cambodian government supports my museum plan, so it
will need a great deal of international funding to be established,'
he said.
In April, Nhem En offered to sell Pol Pot's shoes and toilet for
500,000 dollars and said he would keep the other items to be housed
in the museum.
Up to 2 million people died during through execution, starvation
or overwork during the Khmer Rouge's rule.
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