Cambodia: coming out of Year Zero

In 1975 the Khmer Rouge (Communist Party of Kampuchea) took control of Cambodia, renaming it Kampuchea, and governed through a reign of terror and mass murder until 1979 when neighbouring Vietnam invaded, overrunning most of the country. Following the example of the French Revolution in 1789, the Khmer Rouge designated 1975 as Year Zero. Cambodia was re-unified by the Paris Peace Accords of 1991 and was then governed by a United Nations Transitional Authority (UNTAC) until democratic elections in 1993.

In 1994 as Cambodia began to take its first tentative steps towards establishing a new democracy in the wake of the nightmare of the years of Khmer Rouge terrorism the Royal Cambodian Government requested the United Nations Centre for Human Rights to conduct a review of the situation in the country's prisons. The ensuing report (UNCHR, 1994) painted a grim picture, beginning with its stark opening paragraph: ‘Cambodia's prisons are in a state of crisis. Penal administration is in disarray. Prison buildings are in many cases literally falling down. Medical care is often non-existent and disease and malnutrition are rampant.’ Also in 1994 a medical team led by Physicians for Human Rights undertook an assessment of health conditions in the country's prisons. Their subsequent report (1995) documented ‘a pattern of mistreatment including beatings of detainees during interrogation, extreme overcrowding, shackling and other illegal means of physical restraint, decaying buildings, and overflowing septic systems and open sewers’.

Following these investigations I was asked by the United Nations to visit Cambodia to provide expert advice on prison reform. In the course of January 1995 I visited prisons across the country and also had a series of meetings with senior government officials and diplomatic representatives.

The director of prisons

There are few prison systems in the world that are administered by men or women who have themselves been prisoners. One such was in Cambodia in 1995. The story of Na Saing Hieng would be unbelievable if it were not true. He had trained as a lawyer in his native country and was appointed a local magistrate at a relatively young age. He subsequently became a soldier and in the early 1970s rose to be head of the military police in Cambodia under the Lon Nol government. After the Khmer Rouge came to power he escaped to Vietnam.