Cambodian Schools Reopen History's Wounds

A girl sits in a history class at the local high school in Kampong Trach, Cambodia (Photo: VOA photo - A. Belford)

High schools in Cambodia have begun rolling out the first textbook dealing with the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime. It's part of an effort to teach a dark past long left out of the classroom.

Aubrey Belford, VOA
Kampong Trach, Cambodia
19 April 2010

Between 1975 and 1979, as many as two million Cambodians were murdered, starved, or worked to death as the ultra-communist Khmer Rouge tried to build a rural utopia. Many older Cambodians are haunted by vivid memories of this time.

But for the young who make up most of the population, learning this history has been hard to do - schools have up to now just not taught it.

A high school in the southern town of Kampong Trach is at the front of efforts to teach - for the first time - the history of the Khmer Rouge. The school is using a new textbook called "A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979)"

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