00;00;16;23 - 00;00;37;15

Jonathan Hafetz

Hi, I'm Jonathan Hafetz, and welcome to Law on Film, a podcast that explores the rich connections between law and film. Law is critical to many films, film, in turn, tells us a lot about the law. In each episode, we examine a film that's noteworthy from a legal perspective. What legal issues does the film explore? What does it get right about the law and what does it get wrong?

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Jonathan Hafetz

How is law important to understanding the film and what is the film teaches about the law and about the larger social and cultural context in which it operates? This episode, we'll look at two films about the Cambodian genocide of the 1970s. First, They killed my father. Directed by Angelina Jolie. And the Gate or late Tom Tavo. Confession time.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Directed by Radius or Mia. First They Kill My Father is based on the memoir of Long. UN was a five year old girl when the Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia in 1975. Long un was forced to flee from pen, the capital of Cambodia, along with her parents and two siblings. Long, whose parents were killed and she was separated from her siblings after surviving in a forced labor camp.

00;01;24;07 - 00;01;50;14

Jonathan Hafetz

Long UN was forced to become a child soldier. The gate tells the story of Francois Pizzo, an acclaimed French anthropologist who was imprisoned and tortured by the Khmer Rouge for three months in 1971 on suspicion of being a CIA spy, and who later becomes the French embassy's translator, an intermediary with the Khmer Rouge, until he's forced to flee after the Khmer Rouge take control of the country in 1975.

00;01;50;16 - 00;02;14;15

Jonathan Hafetz

The films, which are both based on personal memoirs, provide a harrowing account of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Joining me to talk about the two movies and the Cambodian genocide is Doctor Melanie O'Brien, associate professor of international law at the University of Western Australia Law School, visiting scholar at University of Minnesota Law School, and president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.

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Jonathan Hafetz

Doctor O'Brien or now is a leading expert on genocide in international law and is the author of acclaimed scholarly books and articles on the subject. Welcome, Mel, great to have you on law and film.

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Melanie O'Brien

Thank you so much, Jonathan, for having me. I'm really excited to be on this podcast because I love listening to the podcast.

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Jonathan Hafetz

It's so great to have a fan on and then it's great to connect with you. So you just tell us a little bit about the context for the two films, the setting and the background.

00;02;42;00 - 00;03;03;13

Melanie O'Brien

So these are two very different films, even though they are dealing with the same genocide. One of them, I'm going to start with the film about possible visual. So this film is based on Francois Bizos memoir, which is called The Party or the Gate in English. And the title is slightly different. When they, turned it into a film.

00;03;03;13 - 00;03;29;11

Melanie O'Brien

So they called it Little Desert View, which means confession time. But in English they call it the gate. And I'll get into that. The issues around that later in our discussion. But this film is set in the early days of the Khmer Rouge time, so that makes it different from the other one. So first I met my father really traverses essentially the entirety of the height of the genocide process.

00;03;29;13 - 00;03;43;05

Melanie O'Brien

Whereas the gate or the view looks at what took place as the Khmer Rouge were coming to power. Prior to 1975, and Bizos own experience at that time.

00;03;43;08 - 00;03;50;11

Jonathan Hafetz

So tell us a little bit more about the Khmer Rouge, who they were, what they advocated, how they came to power in Cambodia.

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Melanie O'Brien

Firstly, I want to talk a little bit about terminology, because I may switch my terminology as we're going through this discussion. So the Khmer Rouge were known by a few different names. Obviously the Khmer Rouge come by is. It means red kami. Khmer Rouge, because the Khmer people that is the people of Cambodia. But they were also known as the Communist Party of Kampuchea, because they were a Communist party.

00;04;13;28 - 00;04;36;00

Melanie O'Brien

And so, here is another terminology that Kampuchea, because at the time Cambodia was known as the Democratic People's Republic of Kampuchea. So sometimes you may hear me refer to Kampuchea as well, instead of Cambodia. When I'm talking about at that time. So we've got Khmer Rouge, Communist Party of Kampuchea, but they also referred to themselves as Angkor.

00;04;36;02 - 00;05;04;09

Melanie O'Brien

And I will use that terminology quite a lot, because that was something that they were frequently referred to. Uncle means the organization with a capital arm and uncle was what they referred to themselves as, and essentially what the people of Cambodia were obligated to commit to. And I'll talk a little bit more about that later. So just to give an idea of the different terminology that is interchangeable.

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Melanie O'Brien

So I'll usually talk about Khmer Rouge or Angkor when I'm talking about. Then so as I mentioned, they were communist, and they advocated complete communism. And this was in the form of collectivism and the complete elimination of individualism. So nobody had any possessions or individuality at all. So they took people's belongings away. They even dressed everyone the same.

00;05;28;24 - 00;05;54;14

Melanie O'Brien

Everyone was wearing the so-called black pajamas with red and white Christmas scarves with black sandals. They even gave them the same haircuts. The only exception was soldiers who were all dressed in khaki. Now, of course, you know, some of the rules that they brought about did not apply to those echelons at the top. They had actually received foreign university level education, and they were quite privileged.

00;05;54;17 - 00;06;16;10

Melanie O'Brien

So those at the top, the leadership, probably most people have heard of Pol Pot, who was the leader of the Khmer Rouge. And so he was known also as Brother number one. And those titles also went down through the ranks brother number two, brother number three, and so on. And I'll talk about a couple of those key players as we go on.

00;06;16;16 - 00;06;42;22

Melanie O'Brien

So the Khmer Rouge came to power through violent revolution, and it began in the northwest of Cambodia in the area of unknown Jang. It was long known before 1975 and after the Khmer Rouge had supposedly been defeated as a Khmer Rouge stronghold. So for many years after the Khmer Rouge was still in that area, and that was generally when they were looking for Khmer Rouge members to arrest them.

00;06;42;22 - 00;07;02;06

Melanie O'Brien

That was where they often ended up being found, still up in that unknown area. And what happened in April 1975 was that this violent revolution eventually spread throughout the country, and the Khmer Rouge soldiers rolled into and they took pen on pen. In April 1975.

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Jonathan Hafetz

And you can see some of that in the movie, what you said. Just to pick up on what you were saying about the clothes when they're long, long and our family are forced into one of the labor camps, right. They're forced to dye their clothes black. And you can see in the terminology, in terms of how they refer to each other as brother among the some of the guards or the leaders.

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Jonathan Hafetz

And I think in both movies actually. So, yeah, it's really interesting. And also even the terminology, right, that a lot of references not just to commit rouge, but to Kampuchea as well. So they take power in 1975, fully take power. And so that is, I guess, really kind of the start of the ramping up of what later becomes the Cambodian genocide.

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Jonathan Hafetz

So what happened during that time?

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Melanie O'Brien

Obviously there's a huge amount that we could talk about here. So I just want to cover some of the key aspects. So one of the main things is so I mentioned that they came in and they took over Pan Pan in April 1975. And as part of this, what they did was they separated Carmi people into what they termed nu or city people.

00;08;03;12 - 00;08;28;19

Melanie O'Brien

And the old or rural people and the new people were also called the 17th of April people. After the date of capture, no pen. According to the Khmer Rouge, only the old or rural people were acceptable because they worked the land, they did manual labor, whereas new people who had intellectual jobs, they had desk jobs, you know, they were teachers and so on.

00;08;28;20 - 00;08;52;25

Melanie O'Brien

They were targeted along with anyone who was affiliated with the law, no government that had been in the previous government. So they were targeted. They were subject to torture and detention and then ultimately execution. So what they first did as they came through all the cities and I and I talk about rolling in because of course, they're talking about military rolling in with their vehicles and their tanks.

00;08;52;27 - 00;09;12;05

Melanie O'Brien

They emptied out the cities of Kampuchea of people, and they just left these ghost towns just shells of buildings. And you do see that in the film town? There's a view. There's a scene where they go back into Penon pan and there's no one around the streets are empty. And that's something that people talk about, you know, something really strange.

00;09;12;05 - 00;09;45;18

Melanie O'Brien

Imagine a capital city with no one, no one in the streets or the buildings. So it's a very it's a very strange time as well. So the Khmer Rouge became obsessed with people being spies, the enemy within. And they talked about having to smash the enemy. This was it, something that was repeated constantly. They were obsessed that people were spies and that they were working for the CIA and or the KGB, which I always found ironic because, I mean, what is the likelihood that you are working for both the CIA and the KGB?

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Melanie O'Brien

But what they did was then they tortured people for false confessions and then usually murdered them. They had torture centers and killing sites all over the country, including S-21, which we will talk about later. At these sites, they would use a wide range of horrific torture techniques. I guess I should also add that in addition to those, the Khmer Rouge also targeted several minority groups.

00;10;12;05 - 00;10;41;25

Melanie O'Brien

And that was the Cham Muslim, the ethnic Chinese population and any Vietnamese that were in Kampuchea at the time. And it was actually the targeting of these minority groups that the extraordinary chambers in the courts of Cambodia held to be genocide in case two two against a new UN chair and Khieu Samphan. And to me, it is quite a disappointment that they actually did not address the genocide against the Khmer people itself.

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Melanie O'Brien

And I know we're going to talk a little bit more about the essay and introduce it, a little bit more later. So another significant aspect of the genocide was the starvation and overwork of the population. Everyone was made to carry out manual labor that could have been working in the rice fields or building infrastructure, such as roads and dams.

00;11;02;05 - 00;11;29;28

Melanie O'Brien

And unsurprisingly, many people died in the infrastructure building, because it was such hard work. And obviously there were no health and safety standards. There were thousands of people working in the rice fields with the goal of increasing rice production. But much of that rice didn't actually go to the Khmer people. It was harvested and it sat in sheds and went moldy, or it was exported out of the country.

00;11;30;01 - 00;12;00;07

Melanie O'Brien

And so the people who were actually growing and harvesting the rice, working really long days, they instead went hungry. They received bare minimum food rations and were often starving. And thousands of people were starved and overworked to death. This is interesting because another part of the Khmer Rouge policy was supposedly to increase the population, and I used the word supposedly because they stated this as their policy.

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Melanie O'Brien

But of course it seems completely contradictory to their actions starving people to death and killing thousands of people. But what they did as part of this population policy was that they forcibly married thousands of people, and this was a really prominent part of how they operated in the genocide. They would have mass ceremonies where men and women were lined up on each side of the room, and then they were married to each other, and it was usually to someone they had never met before in the ceremony.

00;12;31;29 - 00;12;57;10

Melanie O'Brien

It was not a Buddhist ceremony as they would traditionally have. Instead, they lined up and they pledged allegiance to Angkor. That was the wedding ceremony. The couple were then forced to consummate the marriage, obviously with this plan, that this would result in children being born of this consummation. But of course, when you have people who are starving to death, they are malnourished.

00;12;57;10 - 00;13;29;09

Melanie O'Brien

Their bodies don't work anymore. So particularly for women, women in genocide, when they find themselves in situations of malnourishment and disease, they stop menstruating so they no longer able to conceive. So this idea of consummating these forced marriages to result in children being born was completely pointless if those people were being subject to starvation and malnutrition and disease, because obviously, then, you know, they were not I'm not going to say there were no babies born because there were.

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Melanie O'Brien

But it wasn't to the extent that I guess the Khmer Rouge might have had in mind. And what's interesting about these marriages as well is that on face value, they may appear gender neutral. So you have a third party forcing a man and a woman to marry each other, but in fact they were still highly gendered forced marriages.

00;13;47;16 - 00;14;19;16

Melanie O'Brien

For example, if women refused to consummate the marriage, they were threatened with rape or sometimes raped by Khmer Rouge cadres. This did not happen to the men. The marriages were also between older girls or young women, and to men who were older than them, and by older I don't necessarily mean by decades, but it was always girls and young women in these marriages, whereas the males were older and the girls or women would also be forcibly married to soldiers who had been disabled in conflicts.

00;14;19;16 - 00;14;43;04

Melanie O'Brien

But the reverse did not happen. So forced marriage was really a prominent component of this. And it's interesting because it's a different form of forced marriage to what we have seen in other atrocities situations such as happened in Sierra Leone or into the Lord's Resistance Army, where girls and young women were taken as so-called bush wives for soldiers there.

00;14;43;06 - 00;14;50;26

Melanie O'Brien

So this context of how it happened in Khmer Rouge was really different, but it was still very much a forced marriage situation.

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Jonathan Hafetz

You see some of that, a number of these different things in both movies. But I'm thinking in even first they killed my father. Where long on this family is exactly one of those, you know, intellectual, educated families that are forced to try to hide their identity, which they're able to do for some time until they're not. And the parents are, it appears, killed and the small children are forced to flee and survive.

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Melanie O'Brien

Absolutely. And her father had worked for the government, so he was a particular target in that case. You know, not only were they shitty people, not only did he have an intellectual job, a desk job, but he was also affiliated with the government. So he really ticked all of the boxes in terms of the target groups that the committee were looking for within their own population.

00;15;37;06 - 00;15;58;23

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. Another thing I thought was interesting about first they killed my father was the way they really seemed to capture the Khmer Rouge is of continual, unrelenting use of propaganda. And there was a constant drone of the sort of slogans at these camps. At what role did this kind of propaganda play in that their operation and ideology.

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Melanie O'Brien

Propaganda isn't a central part of the genocide process. Perpetrators can't just start killing people, you know, out of the blue. If they started to do that, it wouldn't work. They wouldn't be able to achieve their goal of eliminating the target group in whole or in part. So first, what they have to do is they have to dehumanize the target group.

00;16;19;23 - 00;16;45;10

Melanie O'Brien

They have to create an enemy to make it acceptable to the majority population, that when they finally get to the physical elimination stage, that this seems acceptable, that they can go through with this. Now for the Khmer Rouge, propaganda was all encompassing. And you mentioned the slogans, and this is a really critical part of their culture. They had a litany of slogans that they would drum into the population.

00;16;45;10 - 00;17;08;01

Melanie O'Brien

These slogans covered all the different policies of the Khmer Rouge, such as the evils of individualism, the need to smash the enemy, the need to work hard for Angkor, the evils of capitalism and you know, many other concepts, that were behind this communist policy. So just to give you an idea of some of these types of slogans, here's a few.

00;17;08;01 - 00;17;40;10

Melanie O'Brien

So few. Idealists and capitalists are bloodsuckers of the nation. Monks are parasites. Monks are tapeworms gnawing out the bowels of society. Let us violently attack and scatter the Vietnamese vermin. Those who boil rice in secret or private are our enemies. So this one, of course, is referring to food, because people were starving and so people were trying to get food however they could in secret because they were punished if they were found to be eating food.

00;17;40;12 - 00;18;06;03

Melanie O'Brien

So that's why they're talking about this idea of boiling rice in sacred or private. They said the 17th April people are parasitic plants. And then some of them are actually, like, I mean, we're talking or almost like quite offensive. So this one, the new people bring nothing but stomachs full of shit and bladders bursting with urine. So they weren't even afraid of using this type of language in these slogans.

00;18;06;05 - 00;18;36;06

Melanie O'Brien

And another one, for example, if you dare say anything, comrade, you must take full responsibility for your own words. And that one is talking about the culture of denunciation that they had, where you had to denounce not only other people's behavior about your own behavior, and they would have these sessions where people would do that, and then people would be sent for reeducation, which was a euphemism that maybe meant reeducation, but also meant torture and possibly execution.

00;18;36;08 - 00;19;03;23

Melanie O'Brien

Now what I think is noticeable about the examples of these slogans, that I just said, and of course, there were hundreds of slogans. These are only a few examples, but some of these ones I've given that also often used a humanizing language. And so that's this key tactic of genocidal regimes, because they have to dehumanize the target group so that it becomes acceptable to eliminate these people once they come to the killing phase of the genocide process.

00;19;03;26 - 00;19;33;15

Melanie O'Brien

Now, I mentioned that when the Khmer Rouge came to power, they took away people's possessions. And this included things like radios. So people used to listen to the radio a lot. But after they came to power, nobody had their own personal radio anymore. What the Khmer Rouge did instead was they had a dedicated radio station that they ran, and this was broadcast over loudspeakers while people worked in the fields or also over loudspeakers in the villages.

00;19;33;21 - 00;19;59;19

Melanie O'Brien

They would also have loudspeakers outside places like the ministries. So these radio stations would obviously dedicated to the communist message. So they played propaganda, speeches, slogans, interviews with Khmer Rouge leaders and songs. And we hear this being played over the loudspeakers in first they met my father. When they're in the village, you hear this? And when they're working in the rice fields.

00;19;59;21 - 00;20;35;07

Melanie O'Brien

The Khmer Rouge also distributed propaganda through the publication of communist magazines such as Revolutionary Flag. That was the main one, but this was because it was printed material. It was only available to the upper ranks of the Khmer Rouge cadres, but it was still part of this indoctrination process. That process also involved that reeducation that I mentioned. So, you know, if people were deemed to have betrayed Anka, for example, by stealing food because they were starving, so that was when they would be taken to be reeducated in the ways of anger.

00;20;35;10 - 00;20;56;27

Melanie O'Brien

And that prevented people from speaking out against the Communist Party because they knew that if they did that, that they would be tortured and likely executed as well. Now, this was a whole propaganda machine, and it was overseen by a known Shia. He was otherwise known as Brother Number two, so he would give speeches all around the country.

00;20;57;04 - 00;21;29;22

Melanie O'Brien

He chaired study sessions, so-called study sessions with cameras, rouge cadres, as well as serving as the principal author for Revolutionary Flag magazine issues. And he published Communist Party related newsletters. Now, in case two to at the same, I described New Usher as retaining a tight grip on the CPC's carefully crafted narrative through propaganda and training activities. This actually formed part of the case against him.

00;21;29;24 - 00;21;56;19

Melanie O'Brien

They had a ministry of propaganda and information, and that was who was tasked with preparing the material for broadcast on the radio stations. But of course, this was under the guidance and very close scrutiny of the Communist Party, which obviously was led by non Shia in this regard. But what's also interesting is that the propaganda wasn't just internal, it was even prepared for foreign consumption.

00;21;56;25 - 00;22;28;10

Melanie O'Brien

They had radio programs in other languages like Vietnamese, English, French, Chinese. The impacts of the propaganda, even externally, was quite significant with the two foreign journalists and an academic who were permitted to enter Cambodia at the time of the Khmer Rouge being in power. They were taken on a very carefully crafted journey and said a whole range of lies about what was going on in the country, which were then reported by one of them back in their newspapers.

00;22;28;10 - 00;22;57;29

Melanie O'Brien

When they returned to their home countries. One of those journalists, Elizabeth Becker. She knew that something was wrong, though she had been to Cambodia before, she did not recognize the countries she saw, and instead she published about the human rights abuses. But the other journalist, Richard Dodman, he wrote about how the refugees were misleading people. He actually said people were not being worked to death or starved to death because he believed what he was shown by the regime.

00;22;58;01 - 00;23;29;07

Melanie O'Brien

He did later testify before the essay. He admitted that he was wrong and that the Khmer Rouge had committed genocide. But I think his is an, you know, a key example of how powerful propaganda is and how well it works, not just internally, but externally as well. And I have to say, the story of their visit alongside academic Malcolm Caldwell is really quite extraordinary, and we don't really have time to go into it here, but I strongly encourage listeners to look up that story.

00;23;29;09 - 00;23;54;27

Melanie O'Brien

Becker wrote a book called When the War Was Over Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution, and there's also an article in The Guardian newspaper by Andrew Anthony called Lost in Cambodia, which was written in 2010. And that has a really good summary of Caldwell's experience. So I highly recommend listeners have a read about what happened to those journalists and Malcolm Caldwell on that visit, because it's really quite a shocking story.

00;23;54;29 - 00;24;18;27

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, that is shocking. And you get the sense. And first, they killed my father when, Long Island is going through all this that they're just, you know, cut off no one no one knows what's happened. They're just in this sort of other world of violence, torture, enforced starvation. And, you know, so many of the things you touched on that you really can see if you go back and you look, at first they killed my father in terms of what it was like to be in these labor camps.

00;24;18;27 - 00;24;37;15

Jonathan Hafetz

So, for example, the food right where her brother, right is, he's so hungry and roughly her age, young child is out. He's just trying to eat something. When they think he's captured by a soldier, they beat him. They threatened to kill him. And the woman? There's a woman sort of camp leader who has totally internalized the propaganda, writes.

00;24;37;15 - 00;24;53;29

Jonathan Hafetz

You can see her, as I totally have internalized. And there's some of the other people, the ones, I guess the ones who don't internalize it are just too scared to do anything. And all the informing, you know, the film really does a great job. I think of, sort of visualizing the sort of detailed description you gave of what it was like in the, in the Khmer Rouge.

00;24;53;29 - 00;25;10;14

Jonathan Hafetz

And one of the other things which I haven't talked about yet, I don't know that much, is the and there happens too long, long as she becomes in her sort of odyssey, sort of like just a descent into darkness, essentially after they're forced to leave but not panic. And so the last and, you know, worst stage is when she's basically five years old.

00;25;10;14 - 00;25;18;19

Jonathan Hafetz

Maybe she's six at that time, I don't know, she's forced to become a soldier. And so how did they use children as soldiers? And what was that like?

00;25;18;22 - 00;25;42;29

Melanie O'Brien

The Khmer Rouge saw children as easily moldable. You know, they they had malleable minds that were ripe for the propaganda that they were drumming into them. They were taken for indoctrination into the Khmer Rouge mindset. So they they would go to these study sessions and be trained about the ways of communism. And they were as part of that as well, eventually trying to fight for Angkor.

00;25;43;04 - 00;26;12;29

Melanie O'Brien

So in the film, Long Ung does what she's told, but to me she nonetheless she seems quite uncommitted and unwilling, unsure why she's doing these things. But it represents really what happened because many of the Khmer Rouge cadres, they were very young. And interestingly, it's actually one of the things that Francois Bejo from the next film we'll discuss, he talked about in his testimony before the essay, he talked about how young the soldiers were in the camp where he was detained.

00;26;13;02 - 00;26;39;01

Melanie O'Brien

So in thinking about this idea of child soldiers, this is, of course, prohibited under international humanitarian law, which prohibits the recruitment and use of child soldiers under the age of 15. And certainly this was a rule that was breached by the Khmer Rouge, one of the ways that the Khmer Rouge manipulated children to ensure they stayed loyal to Angkor was to actually have them denounce their own parents and their family members.

00;26;39;03 - 00;27;00;20

Melanie O'Brien

So that way the children would well, they would either no longer have a family or because the family would be killed after the denunciation, or they would feel too guilty to return to their families because they had betrayed them. And this separation of families was a large part of the policies of the Khmer Rouge. And it was it was tied to the forced marriages as well.

00;27;00;23 - 00;27;09;05

Melanie O'Brien

They believed everyone should only love and be loyal to Angkor. That uncle was their real family.

00;27;09;07 - 00;27;29;21

Jonathan Hafetz

And then the movie So Long, does meet up at the end with her two other younger siblings are sort of reunited, but the parents are done. The family's been destroyed, and that's sort of the way the film ends is the Khmer Rouge has been defeated. But the hunger, the brutality, the death that she's experienced, you know, the impressions, it's made up for her.

00;27;29;25 - 00;27;48;17

Jonathan Hafetz

And so it leaves open. I think it suggests the leaves open. What would happen in this? You know, Cambodia is post-conflict transition because although the Khmer Rouge are defeated, they're ousted from power in 1979. You have a generation like long, who've gone through this, right? And, I mean, I wonder if you could talk about what the film suggests about that.

00;27;48;19 - 00;28;12;28

Melanie O'Brien

I think that in one way, the film leaves the viewer hanging as to what happens next. We see this reunification of longing and some of her siblings in a refugee camp. What we see is thousands of refugees living in makeshift shelters, surviving of whatever they can find, like snakes. You know, we see the children at one point cooking a snake to eat, and it leaves us wondering what happened next.

00;28;12;28 - 00;28;41;12

Melanie O'Brien

How did they find safety again? How did they reestablish their lives? How did they reinstate the society and culture of Cambodia, like the music and dance that Luong Ung so fondly remembers at the time? How did children manage to do this after losing their parents and family members? And what happened to the perpetrators? These are questions, though, that demonstrate how difficult post-conflict and post genocide transition is and what I find interesting.

00;28;41;12 - 00;29;02;13

Melanie O'Brien

There's a key scene right towards the end of the film, when they're in the refugee camp where some of the refugees get hold of a perpetrator and they start to attack him, the attack is eventually stopped. You know, there's quite a crowd that has gathered around these. And we say, long, she's crying at the violence, which is really one of the first times we see her cry in the film.

00;29;02;15 - 00;29;21;17

Melanie O'Brien

And ultimately, she's staring at this perpetrator who's on his knees on the ground, and she's thinking of her own father. And I feel like you imagine that she's thinking, you know, why did you kill my father? Why did you survive but not my father? You know, even though he's not necessarily the person who killed her father, but just his representative of perpetrators.

00;29;21;20 - 00;29;53;17

Melanie O'Brien

And I found this interesting because this attack against a perpetrator, it's certainly not unheard of by survivors in the immediate aftermath of genocide. As an example, there's a Holocaust memoir called I survived, written by Polish tattooist salvage, and he wrote in the very final pages, like in the last 3 or 4 pages of his book, about how he and several other survivors had come across an SS Qaisara who had commanded their own death march, and they had seen him murder weak and seek prisoners.

00;29;53;17 - 00;30;11;24

Melanie O'Brien

On the death march, one of the survivors he was with immediately put a gun on the SS guard to kill him, but there were five other survivors who intervened, and there was another survivor, though, that wanted to torture the god before killing him. And this is the dilemma. This is also what we see in this scene. In first sight killed my father.

00;30;11;24 - 00;30;34;10

Melanie O'Brien

It's the dilemma between the desire for revenge and the desire to distinguish oneself from those who have committed those horrific atrocities that they have experienced. It's a really difficult dilemma, and that's that is the dilemma they show in this scene near the end of first I Killed My Father. I think it's a truly moral and human dilemma that we see.

00;30;34;13 - 00;31;05;18

Melanie O'Brien

And you know, even though we think about much bigger pictures when we talk about post-conflict and post genocide, this is the type of dilemma that people can actually face in that chaos. When we're talking about the very immediate aftermath, you know, when that genocidal regime has been overcome, what do we do with those people? You know, what is justice and how how do people's emotions who have just emerged from this horrific situation, how do their emotions make them feel?

00;31;05;18 - 00;31;08;25

Melanie O'Brien

And what do they make them do in this time?

00;31;08;28 - 00;31;28;27

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, it really is. It's like a microcosm in a way. Those little those moments, individual moments for the issues that the larger society confronts, justice, reparations, all the different things are there in that sort of individual moment that you see in this film with the scene that you described, that long witnesses and in the story from the Holocaust survivors.

00;31;28;27 - 00;31;41;22

Jonathan Hafetz

And it's the same, same thing before we switch over to the gate. There's just so much in the first, they kill my father's rich from anything else about the Khmer Rouge in the Cambodian genocide that you thought they captured. Well.

00;31;41;24 - 00;32;04;03

Melanie O'Brien

There's a couple of things that I find outstanding about this film. Firstly, it captures so well this wide eyed wonder of a child is watching genocide occur. So this film is actually seen through the eyes of long. We see what she sees sometimes in very beautiful shots, such as where she's looking at her face or she's looking at her father.

00;32;04;05 - 00;32;36;09

Melanie O'Brien

And it shows us that bewilderment that a child would have wondering what is happening, why it's happening, but not really understanding things like why her pretty shoes are being taken away or why there's no food, why she's so hungry, not understanding the impact of her behavior when she steals the family's rice stash because of her hunger, the trauma of her father being taken away, and her lack of true engagement in the child soldiering activities that she ends up being forced to do.

00;32;36;11 - 00;33;02;18

Melanie O'Brien

I mean, even adults fail to comprehend what's happening in these situations, so how can a child possibly understand what is going on? Secondly, the film shows the whole process of the genocide from the fall of Panem pan to the freedom of refugees, and it does so by using Cambodia. It uses its people, its buildings, and and most importantly, its beautiful landscapes.

00;33;02;20 - 00;33;26;04

Melanie O'Brien

The esthetics of this film are just wonderful. It truly captures the beauty of the country, and in doing so, it captures how that country was used by the Khmer Rouge to perpetrate genocide. One of the most incredible scenes to me in this film is set in a minefield. It is visually striking and it is hot in your mouth.

00;33;26;04 - 00;34;02;20

Melanie O'Brien

Shocking, but it captures an important aspect of the period of genocide and conflict, which resulted in large swathes of land that were rendered completely uninhabitable because of landmines or other unexploded ordinances, and this in fact remains a problem today. Many people in Cambodia, as well as Laos and Vietnam, have lost limbs or lives to landmines. Crossing these types of fields covered in landmines for freedom actually appears in multiple memoirs by survivors, and it is yet another terror that they had to navigate to escape the Khmer Rouge.

00;34;02;22 - 00;34;46;00

Melanie O'Brien

And what I'll say is this film manages to do this and present such a violent and traumatic subject matter in such a beautiful way. The visual esthetics of this film are wonderful. I mean, I'll keep repeating myself. You cannot watch and not be struck by the way that Angelina Jolie and the cinematographer have captured the beauty of Cambodia, but also some extraordinary images of a really key moments in the film and the genocide, such as evacuation marches, the laborers in the fields, the patterns of the landscape, the child soldiers forced to hold guns on their shoulders while they stand in waist high water in the rain for hours, maybe even days.

00;34;46;02 - 00;35;08;25

Melanie O'Brien

And the view of child soldiers in Rose training to fight. I mean, it's just so striking. There were wonderful camera angles, such as when Ung looks down at her feet and the metal container she's carrying, there's a shot of a dragonfly, a water lily, or a lotus flower. Again, they use the color. We talked about these black pajamas and how they have to die.

00;35;08;25 - 00;35;34;15

Melanie O'Brien

They closed black. But what's interesting is we say in the film, when everyone is slaying pan on pan, they're all wearing white or pastel colors. And that makes a really stark contrast to the black Khmer Rouge clothes that we're seeing people wearing, and that later on everyone is dressed in. And there's another scene where you see this beautiful shot of a whole lot of the Khmer Rouge Red cross scarves drying on the line.

00;35;34;18 - 00;36;00;23

Melanie O'Brien

This is just red and white colors. But I just think really significantly, this scene towards the end of the film where Wang is trying to cross that minefield. For me, it really stands out. I mean, they have the camera pulls up, so you have a view from above and you see all these black holes of explosion and red blood and bodies of injured people, with others trying to flee across this field and risking their lives.

00;36;01;00 - 00;36;18;23

Melanie O'Brien

I mean, it really is to me, the most shocking and memorable scene of the film is it's quite incredible. But it it also captures something that was so significant for the camera people and not just during that main genocide process, but for decades later, even today.

00;36;18;25 - 00;36;39;27

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. It I mean, it captures so many aspects of it so beautifully. The scene in the minefield when they're escaping is just, just so intense. And I think, you know, when you start seeing the beginning that it it does it through. I mean, it's to try to tell it through the eyes of this child and how she's trying to kind of process as she's going through, not just survive the process, what's happening.

00;36;39;27 - 00;36;57;19

Jonathan Hafetz

And I think it really makes a tremendous contribution to understanding that the Cambodian genocide and even just the process of genocide itself. So moving on to the switching over to the gate for a minute. I mean, that's a that tells a another, I think, half a movie, but as a different, you know, kind of enters it from a different part of the story.

00;36;57;22 - 00;37;31;20

Jonathan Hafetz

It focus on the relationship between Francois Zote, the acclaimed French anthropologist, and comrade Deutch, the, Khmer Rouge military official, who in an earlier part of his career before he, you know, sort of escalated up or rose up the hierarchy, interrogates Bozo during his time in, in captivity in the jungle camp in 1969 or 1970, and who ultimately is convinced of Bezos's innocence, that he's not a CIA spy, but he actually is a dedicated anthropologist who wants to study Buddhist culture.

00;37;31;26 - 00;37;56;29

Jonathan Hafetz

And I think he's also concerned about killing a French citizen for political purposes. He essentially intervenes and prevents Bezos's execution by the Khmer Rouge comrades who wanted to kill them. And so after the war, Rizzo learns that, Deutch had gone on to run the notorious twice long prison S-21, a former high school where he oversaw the torture and murder of tens of thousands of innocent people.

00;37;57;01 - 00;38;07;10

Jonathan Hafetz

Can you talk a little bit about what role that relationship plays in the film? And, yeah, I mean, how it just really kind of opens up the story and what we can learn from it.

00;38;07;12 - 00;38;28;28

Melanie O'Brien

The relationship between Dov and visual is interesting. So bizarre was definitely treated differently from the other prisoners in the camp because of his foreigner status. So bizarre was taken prisoner at a time when he was doing his research as an anthropologist and taken with a couple of his Cambodian colleagues. They were taken to a camp in the jungle called M13.

00;38;29;01 - 00;38;49;09

Melanie O'Brien

And as you mentioned, this is prior to 1975. So this is the early stages of the genocide. But it's interesting because very few foreigners were left in Cambodia. Of course, once the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975 and prior to that time and Long Vang, that whole region up there wasn't really a region that tourists would travel to.

00;38;49;11 - 00;39;17;25

Melanie O'Brien

So bizarre circumstances were unusual in that regard that he was a foreigner in the area where the Khmer Rouge were located. The only other foreigners that eventually were captured by the Khmer Rouge. They were killed during Deutsch's trial. He actually admitted that four unidentified Western is were interrogated and of course likely tortured killed with their bodies burned by the Khmer Rouge because they had trespassed into Cambodian borders and there were nine.

00;39;17;25 - 00;39;42;22

Melanie O'Brien

Western is known to have been killed by the Khmer Rouge, some of whom were tortured under duress. Leadership at S-21, at that torture center. So business relationship with Duke was really important in that Duke took a liking to Bissell and believed his innocence of the spying charges because, of course, like everyone, he was accused of being a spy for either the CIA or the KGB.

00;39;42;24 - 00;39;59;06

Melanie O'Brien

And, you know, as you mentioned, that amazingly, ultimately resulted in Bissell's incredibly rare release from this prison camp, M13, where he was kept his two Cambodian colleagues. Unfortunately, were not as lucky, and their fate was to be executed.

00;39;59;09 - 00;40;09;00

Jonathan Hafetz

Were there any changes from the book to the film? Yes, memoir. You wrote excellent article talking about this. So what? You know what shifted it from the book to the movie.

00;40;09;02 - 00;40;30;08

Melanie O'Brien

So this film is based on a bizarre memoir called LA Birthday or The Gate. And now I do have issues with the film version. A little deja vu. So as you mentioned, I wrote about this. I did a review for this in the Alternative Law Review because it was something that I found frustrating, and I, and I said I would talk about the terminology.

00;40;30;08 - 00;40;54;02

Melanie O'Brien

So his memoir is called La Porte de la gate. And in the written memoir, it's essentially a two part memoir. And the first section is about Beasley's capture by the Khmer Rouge and his subsequent incarceration in that jungle prison camp. But the second part of the book, which is quite significant, is this is where the gate la POC day comes into play.

00;40;54;02 - 00;41;19;20

Melanie O'Brien

So the gate refers to the gate of the French embassy, and Pinon pen, where from 1975, once the Khmer Rouge came in, Bissell became the embassy's translator and the intermediary with the Khmer Rouge. Because he was fluent in Carmi. So the gate. It signifies several things. First of all, it's a barrier. It's safety. Keeping the people inside the grounds of the French embassy.

00;41;19;22 - 00;41;46;26

Melanie O'Brien

So this symbol of protection. But it was also a door between worlds. So that's why the book was called La Porte de the gate, to emphasize the gate when you watch the film. The film in French is called Little Desert View, which essentially translates in English to confession time. But they gave the English title as The Gate and I think that an English speaker watching it would think, why is this film called The Gate?

00;41;46;29 - 00;42;10;00

Melanie O'Brien

Because they spend very little of the film on the time when Bissell was at the French embassy. That story is in the film, but it's not significant. And they also do not emphasize the role of the gate itself. So to me, I imagine that if somebody did not have any clue about the backstory, they would leave that film thinking, why?

00;42;10;07 - 00;42;38;07

Melanie O'Brien

Why is it called the Gate? So I think that was a strange decision to not include so much of the story and to show the significance of the gate as part of that. And I'm going to come back to my issues with the portrayal of dork, but still talking about the embassy time in the film, the way the French consul is portrayed is somewhat lackadaisical in his attitude to what's going on, but that's not how Bizzaro talks about it.

00;42;38;07 - 00;42;58;15

Melanie O'Brien

In his memoir, he says that the French refused to evacuate refugees for quite some time, and it was only when the Khmer Rouge threatened violence that they eventually gave up Cambodian refugees. And the consul was actually quite angry. He was angry. The cameras were not respecting the right of asylum, and he didn't want to give in to their demands.

00;42;58;15 - 00;43;36;20

Melanie O'Brien

He was very distressed that he couldn't save the people, and that I think that's really important, because I think that's showing resistance and they don't really show that in the film. And I think when someone does resist, that's something that you should show. I think it's also really interesting because, again, thinking about this idea of the gate, there is this scene in his book that is incredibly moving and I think would have made a very striking scene in the film where a Cambodian woman is trying to throw her baby over the gate into the French consulate grounds because she wants her baby to be saved.

00;43;36;22 - 00;43;58;08

Melanie O'Brien

And I actually was really surprised because I feel like as a filmmaker, you could have made that a really dramatic scene. And again, that would have brought in the significance of the gate into the film. So I do encourage people to read the book because it's quite interesting. So the other issue I have, and that I've talked about in more detail in the review I wrote, is how they betrayed dwarf.

00;43;58;11 - 00;44;27;03

Melanie O'Brien

He's portrayed in quite a benevolent way in the film. And, you know, I think it's highly problematic. He wasn't benevolent. He ended up being responsible for the torture and killing of thousands of people. And the camp that bizarre was that that was a torture and killing camp. That was his right, you know, dikes, training ground. So in the book, you know, they show things like Doric being generous and giving Bissell a bowl to eat his food from.

00;44;27;07 - 00;44;52;06

Melanie O'Brien

But actually, in the book, Bejo asked for that ball himself. You know, in the book it's him asking for things. Whereas in the film it's just Dwight's generosity in giving him things. And I don't like the way they do that. It's interesting. They also at the end, when Bissell and his family are trying to cross the border to escape Cambodia, they show Doig is there at the border gate, and that did not happen.

00;44;52;07 - 00;45;14;02

Melanie O'Brien

He was not there. So that that part is, is also fabricated. So I think that when someone is watching a film, you know, particularly in outfield, if you are watching a film that is based on a memoir, I highly encourage people to always go back and read the book to get an idea of what is actually drawn from the book and what is fabricated by the filmmakers.

00;45;14;04 - 00;45;31;14

Melanie O'Brien

I don't want to say too much because he asked me not to, but I was in contact with Francois Bissell and he had never wanted to sell his story to be made into a film. And he eventually decided with this, and I do know that they essentially made it without his consultation. So I think that's a big part of it.

00;45;31;14 - 00;46;07;18

Melanie O'Brien

And I think he let me just say that he would have preferred that it was truer to his experience and his story. I will say, though, I like that the film ends by engaging with the justice process, you know, even if it's only very briefly. Obviously I like that because I work in this field. I work in international criminal law, but I also think it's really good to show the audience that there was a justice process and that someone like Deutch, who is responsible for horrific atrocities against thousands of people, can be and in fact, was brought to justice.

00;46;07;20 - 00;46;22;08

Jonathan Hafetz

Well, that kind of leads us into a discussion of the post-conflict court, the extraordinary chambers in the courts of Cambodia, the E, triple C, where Dwight was prosecuted, among other things. And, and I'd love for you to talk about that.

00;46;22;11 - 00;46;53;19

Melanie O'Brien

So talking about the accent and how that came in. So this is an interesting international court. It's actually a hybrid court and hence the title of the court extraordinary chambers in the courts of Cambodia. So it's not a distinct international criminal court or tribunal like the International Criminal Court or the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, for example. This is a hybrid court that is made up within the courts of Cambodia, but still with its own statute and its staff, half international and half Cambodian.

00;46;53;21 - 00;47;20;11

Melanie O'Brien

So I took a really long time for this to be set up. You know, lots of negotiation as the government in Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge actually still had ties with the Khmer Rouge and for quite some time, interestingly, the Khmer Rouge was still representing Cambodia at the UN. So it was kind of a crazy situation. So they didn't establish the say until 2001, and ultimately it only ran what ended up being three cases.

00;47;20;11 - 00;47;45;24

Melanie O'Brien

It was supposed to run more than that, but there was so much corruption from the Cambodian government and pressure on the Cambodian staff. There was a lot of resignations from the international code prosecutors, as they were called, because they simply found their work frustrated too much, too often, and sometimes they just essentially got too frustrated and said, I can't do this anymore.

00;47;45;27 - 00;48;10;29

Melanie O'Brien

So it has had a very tumultuous history, and it has also had deaths, because obviously the people who were leaders in the Khmer Rouge are quite elderly. And so some of the defendants have passed away and so some of the trials couldn't go forward for that reason. But also the trials three and four didn't go ahead, essentially because of political reasons and pressure from the Irish government.

00;48;10;29 - 00;48;35;13

Melanie O'Brien

So it's had a very interesting history because of the context in which it has sat, legally and politically, of course, but also socially is interesting. It was an important court for the people of Cambodia. A lot of people would come every day to that trial and watch, you know, full galleries, watching it, because it was so important of the people of Cambodia to see justice done.

00;48;35;13 - 00;48;56;20

Melanie O'Brien

And, you know, a lot of people I spoke to, they always were curious about. They wanted to know why the perpetrators did what they did. And they wanted to understand that. So the justice process was part of that. So coming to Deutsche case there. So Deutsche was the first case. He was case one as it was known as within the state.

00;48;56;20 - 00;49;32;13

Melanie O'Brien

And he was prosecuted, related only to his conduct at S-21. So S-21 was a and I'm going to describe the description that they used. They said the S-21 complex, a facility dedicated to the unlawful detention, interrogation and execution of perceived enemies of the CPK, both domestic and foreign. A concerted system of ill treatment and torture was purposefully implemented in order to subjugate detainees and obtain their confessions during interrogations, so Joyce rose up through the ranks.

00;49;32;13 - 00;49;54;09

Melanie O'Brien

So he was running that M13 camp, you know, five years earlier when vigil was taken. But he then rose up through the ranks and ran S-21, which was the biggest torture center, and was based in Canon Pen and has since been turned into a museum and memorial to the people that were murdered there and in the genocide more broadly.

00;49;54;11 - 00;50;21;13

Melanie O'Brien

So. Doig was convicted of many crimes. He was convicted of crimes against humanity. There's a whole list of them, obviously torture, imprisonment, enslavement, other inhumane acts. He was also convicted of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, such as willful killing again, torture, inhumane treatment, willfully depriving a prisoner of war, a civilian of the rights of fair and irregular trial, unlawful confinement of a civilian, and so on.

00;50;21;16 - 00;50;59;08

Melanie O'Brien

There are more, you know, obviously, unsurprisingly, it's a long list. So he was found guilty under a few different ways. He was found guilty not through direct commission, but through joint criminal enterprise. He was found guilty on the basis of planning. He helped design S-21 and its functions. He worked to say that it functioned more effectively. He was the one who chose the Chung killing site, So Chung Ek of the killing Fields that are just on the outskirts of Penon Pen, and that's where the detainees from S-21 were taken and executed and buried in mass graves.

00;50;59;11 - 00;51;25;25

Melanie O'Brien

He was also found guilty on the basis of instigating. So he ordered the arrest, torture and execution of detainees, and the court held that the chain of command S-21 was clearly delineated, and the role of its staff members were rigorously defined and enforced, with Deutsch at the head of all that. So they did signs that his superior responsibility could be established.

00;51;25;25 - 00;52;06;01

Melanie O'Brien

But they decided instead of holding him guilty, that under that they would take it into account in sentencing. The case went to appeal as well, and on appeal all of the defense's appeals were dismissed, but a number of the prosecution appeals were granted, so there were actually some further convictions that were entered. And what I think is most important is that his initial sentence that had been given of 35 years was quashed, and a new sentence of life imprisonment was imposed, which I think is quite important, because if you're thinking about someone who oversaw a center like this that tortured and executed so many people, I think life imprisonment is a fair response.

00;52;06;03 - 00;52;27;23

Melanie O'Brien

I think it's also important to note, in the context of which we're talking about this film, that we say at the end of the film, a transfer zone comes and meets with Deutch, and Bissell did actually testify in Deutsch's trial, so obviously he couldn't testify about Is 21. But he did testify about his time at M13. He talked about things like the terrible hygiene.

00;52;27;26 - 00;52;52;00

Melanie O'Brien

You know, there was no bathing. He acknowledged his own privileged position. He talked about how other people were tortured, which he didn't witness. But he heard, as I mentioned, he talked about how young the soldiers were there. But he went into detail about his relationship with Deutch and how it was always Deutch who actually interrogated Bissell himself, but that, interestingly, Bissell was never beaten.

00;52;52;04 - 00;53;17;09

Melanie O'Brien

And in fact, he even describes his interrogations as polite. And it's interesting because this conforms with Dick's behavior at S-21, because generally he oversaw the facility and the training of people who work there. But he generally did not carry out the physical torture himself. That's why the essay specifically didn't find him guilty of physically carrying out the crimes himself.

00;53;17;12 - 00;53;50;13

Melanie O'Brien

But Bissell did testify that Deutch told Bissell that he would sometimes bait the prisoners if they lied. And apparently Deutch found lying absolutely abhorrent, and he said to Bissell that the job wasn't to his liking. But, you know, this was a responsibility that he had been entrusted with, from Angkor. So he had to obey. So this, this brings in this idea of obeying that anchor really drummed into everyone that you couldn't betray them.

00;53;50;15 - 00;54;27;06

Melanie O'Brien

So Deutch saw it as his duty to be the interrogator. And a really interesting quote said during his testimony, he said he described Doyle as doing his job in a frightening way, but extremely rigorously, very thoroughly, and with a view to doing his job well and fully so. Bissell found Doyle really disturbing because Doyle believed in his cause and the ultimate goal, so much that he was willing to commit crimes or even to die himself for the well-being of Kampuchea.

00;54;27;09 - 00;55;02;12

Melanie O'Brien

And in this fight against this so-called injustice, and in equity that, you know, was apparently going on. And this echoes this idea behind the Khmer Rouge, where they felt that the end justifies the means. You know, regardless of how they had to go about it. So this is interesting that, you know, this comes out a little bit in the film at the end when Bissell meets with Doyle, but that this is also a prominent aspect that appeared in The Trial of Derek, both through bizarre testimony but generally also through the findings of the court itself.

00;55;02;12 - 00;55;05;04

Melanie O'Brien

In the trial and appeal judgments.

00;55;05;06 - 00;55;26;04

Jonathan Hafetz

So we've been talking about the offenses that Doig was convicted of war crimes, torture. But there's also the larger crime, the overall crime of Cambodian genocide, writes the framing. So how did the E triple C deal with the crime of genocide? How was genocide classified and how was it, you know, applied in this situation? Because that was one of the major issues with the tribunal.

00;55;26;06 - 00;55;51;05

Melanie O'Brien

In terms of Doi. He was not charged with genocide. That didn't form any part of his charges or convictions. He was only convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity, as I mentioned, a long list, so not really only convicted of those, but they just didn't bring genocide into the question. It was brought into it. So case two became split into two cases, case two one and two two.

00;55;51;07 - 00;56;12;09

Melanie O'Brien

And that was in part because it was just too big of a case. So this was the case brought against Norm Chair and Khieu Samphan, who were very high ranking members in the Khmer Rouge. So they split this case. So it was two two where we looked at genocide and essentially in the end, it was only the genocide of the minority populations that became part of that case.

00;56;12;09 - 00;56;35;02

Melanie O'Brien

So, as I mentioned, the Cham Muslims, ethnic Chinese and Vietnamese people and particularly the Cham Muslims were targeted. These groups were targeted for different reasons. They were targeted because of their nationality, their ethnicity and their religion. Depending on which group it was. The prosecutors wanted to prosecute for the genocide of Carmi, but it ended up not going through and not being discussed.

00;56;35;02 - 00;56;58;19

Melanie O'Brien

And so for me, that was something really disappointing because there is still this debate. And I was recently speaking with someone from France who was saying that in France the narrative is that it was politicized and it wasn't genocide. And nobody uses that term to talk about Cambodia and France. And I found that interesting because in the scholarship, genocide scholars use the term genocide when talking about Cambodia.

00;56;58;21 - 00;57;30;14

Melanie O'Brien

And that's because we're talking about people who have really studied what happened in depth. And as one of those people. So my book, From Discrimination to Death Cambodian Genocide, is one of my case studies. And one of the things I say at the end of the book is that I hope that this contributes to putting an end to the discussion about whether or not there was genocide against the Carmi people, because I believe that the pattern that I show of the behavior confirms that it definitely was genocide, and that this wasn't about politics.

00;57;30;16 - 00;57;55;19

Melanie O'Brien

So this is an argument that comes from people who I think haven't really done enough research into what took place, and they take on face value that this was political. For example, they say that, you know, the Khmer Rouge was simply targeting its political opponents. And and that is just not true. They created this whole fantasy of people that they were targeting, which is the Carmi people.

00;57;55;19 - 00;58;18;20

Melanie O'Brien

And it just escalated, you know, these people that they arrested, that they tortured, that they executed, they weren't political opponents. It had nothing to do with politics. You know, it was such a I mean, honestly, an insane way of looking at things, to think that everyone was spying for the CIA and or KGB, that everyone was against them.

00;58;18;20 - 00;58;44;21

Melanie O'Brien

It was completely unrealistic. And the way that it escalated and the fact that they turned on themselves, the fact that they ultimately, while they started with non Khmer Rouge cadres for detention, torture and execution, it just escalated and they started taking out their own people. So in that way, you can see that it genuinely isn't just about politics.

00;58;44;21 - 00;59;16;17

Melanie O'Brien

It's about the Carmi people and looking at what they did, looking at the context, looking at their intentions were clearly, clearly to destroy, at least in part, the Carmi population. And we're going to talk shortly about culture as well, which I think is a strong part of that. But I just think that this was such a disappointing decision of the court not to explore, you know, not to convict for genocide against the Carmi people.

00;59;16;20 - 00;59;38;10

Melanie O'Brien

I think the conviction against the minority groups like the Cham Muslims was really obvious. And, you know, it was appropriate that they did that. I'm not criticizing that. And it's a good thing that they did that. But the fact that they didn't go into this other aspect of it, which, you know, it was really the majority of people who were targeted and killed is quite you know, it really is disappointing.

00;59;38;12 - 00;59;58;29

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. And just to frame for the listeners, right. So you have the definition. I think what you're talking about is of genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of a national ethnic, racial or religious group in whole or in part. And so when you refer to individuals who would want to deny that it was a genocide, a political group does not fit within that definition.

00;59;58;29 - 01;00;16;23

Jonathan Hafetz

But what you're talking about with the Chan, a population minority population would squarely fit with that. And then the issue was with the Khmer camp population. But why, as you said, that should be classified as genocide, at least because of attempted destruction in part. And you were going to talk a little bit about the cultural aspect, which I think is important.

01;00;16;23 - 01;00;35;08

Jonathan Hafetz

I mean, this, you know, this the film, both films touch on this, the gate in a, in a way, because his whole reason for being right is always to preserve Buddhist culture, like he is a, you know, a one of the great Buddhist scholars. And he's just there in this churning situation because he cares so much about this cultural heritage.

01;00;35;11 - 01;00;43;16

Jonathan Hafetz

So how how did the Khmer Rouge destroy cultural property? What legal implications is that have and what historical implications of that have?

01;00;43;19 - 01;00;56;28

Melanie O'Brien

So this was a big part of it. And I know you've talked about cultural property before on this podcast with Lucas Luzinski, which is a great episode. Talking about Indiana Jones. And, you know, if listeners haven't listened to that one, go have a listen to that.

01;00;57;01 - 01;00;58;29

Jonathan Hafetz

A later but later versions.

01;00;59;02 - 01;01;24;05

Melanie O'Brien

Yeah. But so within this, I want to start by talking about the intangible side of culture. And I mentioned forced marriages before and how these marriages were not carried out according to Buddhist tradition. You know, instead they had these mass ceremonies. So the victims of these forced marriages, what's really interesting is that the lack of Buddhist traditional ceremony was quite a significant source of trauma.

01;01;24;12 - 01;01;48;04

Melanie O'Brien

If you look at the testimonies of people who experienced forced marriage when they testified before, they say they all talked about this fact. They were they were quite upset that they were part of a wedding, that they were married to someone, but not through Buddhist traditional ceremonies, which is part of the culture. And I think this draws from the fact that the Khmer Rouge destroyed my culture.

01;01;48;06 - 01;02;20;22

Melanie O'Brien

They didn't want the Kimye people to be Kimye. And I think this is really part of the argument for genocide. So Buddhism was a huge part of what we could call commemorations, in French. And I love this word. And in fact, prior to 1975, saying Kimye essentially meant Buddhists as well. But religion was banned by the Khmer Rouge, and they specifically targeted monks for disrobing and torture.

01;02;21;09 - 01;02;48;19

Melanie O'Brien

They put them into forced labor. They executed them. It's estimated that somewhere between 50,000 and 65,000 monks were killed. One scholar gives an estimated mortality rate of basically 30% for Buddhists. So as part of this, they also destroyed the tangible culture. So, for example, they threw their Buddhist statues from what, on a lawn, which is a temple in Penon Penh, into the Mekong River.

01;02;48;25 - 01;03;16;27

Melanie O'Brien

Some of those, thankfully, were later retrieved. But there were temples that like what? On alum itself as well. It was also damaged, but temples were ransacked, the value valuables were taken and non valuable items were destroyed, including book burnings. And it's interesting because I used the word non valuable items, but visual actually felt very strongly about protecting things like manuscripts and archives because they don't necessarily have monetary value.

01;03;16;27 - 01;03;36;22

Melanie O'Brien

But of course they have cultural value. These are historical documents. And that was something that we don't see as much in the film. But in his book he talks about trying to protect manuscripts. They also used temples for various other purposes, so they use them for military offices, rice storage, pig sties they even use them as torture centers.

01;03;36;24 - 01;04;06;01

Melanie O'Brien

Other temples actually got completely dismantled with the materials taken and used for something else. And it's ironic because the Khmer Rouge, they wanted to build an empire that was reminiscent of the great uncle period. So all of those temples that if you go to Cambodia and you know, as a tourist and you go and visit these extraordinary temples like Bayon and Angkor Wat, but instead what they did was they destroyed culture, you know, including some of these beautiful temples in the gate.

01;04;06;01 - 01;04;27;18

Melanie O'Brien

We do see that this house where they've set it is in the jungle, but it's right next to temple ruins that the Khmer Rouge is paying no heed to whatsoever. But this also had really long term impacts. So this whole idea of destroying culture, it actually set up for a long period of the theft of cultural artifacts from Cambodia as well.

01;04;27;18 - 01;04;59;26

Melanie O'Brien

And repatriation of those artifacts is still an ongoing issue today. We're talking about museums like the Met Museum in New York, for example. You know, talking about what is the provenance of the statues that they have from Cambodia. And going back to the intangible perspective, the destruction of Buddhism. It had a long term effect as well, because these peaceful tenets of Buddhism were actually lost to this entire young generation that was indoctrinated by the Khmer Rouge into the violence of this communist revolution.

01;04;59;29 - 01;05;28;20

Melanie O'Brien

And in eliminating Buddhism, Angkor sought to eliminate the kami as they existed, creating a wholly new combination by radically eliminating some of the people but also transforming their culture. So I think this goes a long way to arguing about the existence of genocide under the Khmer Rouge. I want to also mention another example of the intangible side of culture that's brought out really beautifully in first I Met my father.

01;05;28;23 - 01;05;50;05

Melanie O'Brien

I know we've moved up to the gate, but I think this is really important. I talked about the communist songs playing over the loudspeakers, which was the only form of music that was permitted under the Khmer Rouge. No other music was allowed at what they termed inappropriate music. This was actually seen as lazy and a waste of time to listen to music.

01;05;50;08 - 01;06;15;24

Melanie O'Brien

So this was the same. This was how they felt about things like celebrations, about sexual enjoyment and things like this phase was seen as distractions from production, which was the main driving policy of the Khmer Rouge. Produce, produce. Produce mostly rice. Now in the film, in first they Killed My Father, we see Long Ong. She's watching a performance by Khmer Rouge cadres.

01;06;15;26 - 01;06;54;23

Melanie O'Brien

They're performing Khmer Rouge communist chants. And while she's watching it, she remembers. And you see what she's remembering in the film. She remembers watching the beautiful Cambodian traditional dances with their graceful movements, which are such a contrast to the rigidity of those who are marching around in front of her. And they have their beautiful long hair all done up and dresses full of color and shine, as opposed to these all black dullness that she is now living in and surrounded by everyone wearing black.

01;06;54;25 - 01;07;05;15

Melanie O'Brien

I think this scene is really poignant because it reflects the loss of culture through genocide, and what that loss really means to people.

01;07;05;17 - 01;07;27;22

Jonathan Hafetz

It is it's really captured, as you said, that intangible side beyond the evidence of the dead bodies. It's the physical death that's going on. But this whole loss of culture, this life that through the eyes of Wong on this young girl, what happens in Cambodia afterwards, anything that's significant to talk about. You mentioned before, S-21 is now a memorial museum as well.

01;07;27;25 - 01;07;32;04

Jonathan Hafetz

Anything else and related to how Cambodia has sought to emerge from this genocide.

01;07;32;07 - 01;07;56;21

Melanie O'Brien

It took a long time for anything to happen, really. You know, it's typical of any post genocide period that firstly, what you need to get back is, is basic infrastructure. But in terms of talking about transitional justice. So yes, S-21 has been turned into a genocide museum. A memorial to a sling, which is in Penan pen. And if anyone is there, I obviously recommend going to visit that.

01;07;56;29 - 01;08;18;02

Melanie O'Brien

It's really interesting. They have an extensive collection. We've talked about the clothes, so I wanted specifically mentioned they have an extensive collection of fabric items from the Khmer Rouge period, which are mostly items of clothing. So I mentioned, you know, this uniform that everyone had to wear, the so-called black pajamas. And Tuol Sleng is preserving many pieces of clothing from that.

01;08;18;09 - 01;08;45;29

Melanie O'Brien

So they've got trousers, tunics, scarves, hats, bags and so on. It's a really challenging task for them in the humidity of Cambodia, but they've worked with textile conservation specialists to acquire dedicated specialist dehumidifier containers, and they're monitored to keep the items in good condition. So that's only some of what they've got there. But it's really interesting. There are also other sites around the country that have been preserved and can be visited.

01;08;45;29 - 01;09;13;17

Melanie O'Brien

So, for example, on the outskirts of Penon pen, the trunk killing fields, which I mentioned. So these were the killing fields where people were taken from Tule Sleng and sent to be killed. They've still got some bones in the ground because of the mass graves, although generally the graves have been excavated and placed into the. There's a large memorial stupa in the middle that contains all the different bones, and they have a laboratory there where they do research on the bones.

01;09;13;17 - 01;09;34;14

Melanie O'Brien

And, you know, they work on ascertaining how people were killed there. The different means by which people were killed for visitors. There's an audio to I was actually created by a fellow Australian miner, Bowie Jones. And so that's really useful for visitors. I have also visited killing Fields that are further afield in other provinces, but these are definitely less visited.

01;09;34;26 - 01;10;03;28

Melanie O'Brien

Not usually sites where tourists would go. And I also usually still actually have the mass graves in place in addition to the museum and memorial sites. Just to mention, there's also reparations that have come out of the sea, such as things like dance performances. I think this is really quite poignant given that it reinvigorates, you know, as I mentioned, a key aspect of my culture that was denied during the genocide, namely Khmer dance and music.

01;10;04;00 - 01;10;22;10

Melanie O'Brien

And I encourage listeners who are interested in learning more about the reparations in Cambodia to read the work of Christopher Fairfield, Rachel Killeen and Blake Moffitt in particular. They have written quite a lot on the reparations, the process, but also the different types of reparations that have come out of the essay.

01;10;22;12 - 01;10;45;11

Jonathan Hafetz

That's always amazing. When you go to a place like that to just think what had happened. I mean, the numbers vary to 3 million killed in a small country. You know, it's so mind boggling to think about to navigate that. And we're thinking about genocide, things like the Cambodian genocide in these two movies. What role the memoirs and filmic versions of memoirs play in these kind of accounts and memories of, and the constructions of genocide.

01;10;45;14 - 01;11;14;09

Melanie O'Brien

Memoirs are incredibly important. These are the main way in which survivors tell their stories. I say survivors, by the way, because it is generally survivors who write memoirs. It is definitely less common that perpetrators write memoirs, although not unheard of. So, for example, Rudolf Hess wrote his memoirs. He called them death de la the memoirs of the SS commandant at Auschwitz, which I think is, you know, just quite incredible.

01;11;14;19 - 01;11;38;06

Melanie O'Brien

But generally I'm talking about survivor memoirs. So memoirs, they're a way for the general public to have access to the stories of people who've been through such an incomprehensible experience and for the reader to understand. What is it like, on a personal level, to experience genocide? You know it. That's very different from the big picture of a history book which talks about big picture and numbers.

01;11;38;09 - 01;12;03;04

Melanie O'Brien

So memoirs as testimonies as well. They're also an incredibly useful resource for researchers as a primary source, especially when survivors have passed away. You know, they're no longer accessible to interviews. So, for example, you know, I work on the Armenian Genocide as well, and there are no survivors left anymore because that was from 1915. So testimonies and memoirs are a really key source.

01;12;03;04 - 01;12;26;12

Melanie O'Brien

Their memoirs and testimonies, notably both. So I will say, a more useful source when they're written or testimonies taken closer to the time of the experience, rather than decades later, because memories obviously can fade, but also people can take on memories that maybe aren't their own. You know, once you hear lots of stories about what happens, maybe you miss remembering.

01;12;26;12 - 01;12;50;22

Melanie O'Brien

So as a scholar, it's important to remember just to think about memoirs in that perspective, thinking about turning memoirs into films for me personally, I believe that the story should stay true to the survivors experience. You know, obviously, I know that there is freedom of cinematic creativity, but I think if you're going to tell someone's story, why not tell it as it happened?

01;12;50;22 - 01;13;15;11

Melanie O'Brien

Like, why make something up? And I think making up stories or aspects of a story in films in this context is problematic because there are many people who won't read a book about genocide, you know, even a memoir or historical or academic publication. And that's honestly totally understandable and normal. Not everyone is nerdy like we are and does all this rating.

01;13;15;13 - 01;13;34;22

Melanie O'Brien

So for many people, watching a film adaptation may be their only exposure to what happened in a particular genocide. And to me, if that portrayal is inaccurate, I mean, well, that's the perception that the viewer will walk away with. In other words, you know, they'll think that X happened when it actually didn't, or that X happened when really Y happened.

01;13;34;24 - 01;13;58;07

Melanie O'Brien

So I think it's quite important to tell the story, you know, particularly significant parts of the story. Now, as I discussed about the way that doc was portrayed in the other that I have a real issue with, I don't think that a perpetrator who was responsible for the torture and murder of thousands of people should be portrayed as being benevolent, that kind of thing.

01;13;58;09 - 01;14;13;17

Melanie O'Brien

So I think drawing from memoirs and staying true to that story, because these people, honestly, their stories are so powerful and dramatic as they are. I don't think they need to be changed to be dramatic for the big screen.

01;14;13;20 - 01;14;37;09

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, I felt like they did that a little bit in the gate to try to heighten the inner conflict for Francois Zo. Right. Because he was this person that saved his life and yet did all these horrible things, but they humanized him, perhaps a little too much. In the movie that's really divergent from the memoir. That will be someone's memory of that or their their knowledge of the particular incident.

01;14;37;09 - 01;14;53;18

Jonathan Hafetz

Right. Whether it's Schindler's List or that's what they'll think about the Holocaust. Are the killing fields of the Cambodian genocide, which we don't really talk about, but that when that came out that you say to someone of a certain generation early, so the genocide, the other killing fields. So it's really important to get it right.

01;14;53;21 - 01;15;12;15

Melanie O'Brien

Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, I think mentioning the Killing Fields is quite important as well, because you are absolutely right. That film was quite pivotal and so many people have seen The Killing Fields. And, you know, that's one of the reasons why I also like to talk about these two films, because they are less known than The Killing Fields.

01;15;12;17 - 01;15;34;21

Melanie O'Brien

And I think that it's good to get people to watch them. And I think thinking about since I Killed My Father, that is on Netflix. So it is accessible to millions of people around the world. It's also directed, you know, and created by Angelina Jolie, who is a very big name in cinema. And so it has the capacity to reach quite a large audience.

01;15;34;24 - 01;16;01;00

Melanie O'Brien

And what is important about first thinking of my father is that she made it with long, in collaboration with her. So this has been made. This is long, long story, but she has been part of the making of the film. So it means that it's told in the way that she wanted her story to be told. And I think that's an important contrast with the film on this level compared to Francois Bezos's story.

01;16;01;02 - 01;16;24;15

Melanie O'Brien

So I think having these two new films, more modern day films since the Killing Fields, that kind of accuracy is important. You know, many people who've maybe only seen that The Killing Fields, and that has been the same. There was, a series on the Holocaust released in Germany, and it was essentially the first filmic kind of creation about the Holocaust.

01;16;24;15 - 01;16;46;21

Melanie O'Brien

And apparently many people in Germany, that was where they learned about what happened in the Holocaust, even though it was a couple of decades later. So that's why I think it's important that these films do portray what happened in an accurate way, so that we do have an understanding. And out of the two films, I would probably prioritize, you know, I'd recommend people to watch.

01;16;46;26 - 01;17;17;25

Melanie O'Brien

First, they killed my father firstly, because of the way it portrays his genocide. You know, it just encompasses it so well, but also because it is just so beautiful to watch. It is just beautifully made. And I know that that sounds possibly contradictory because we are talking about a film of such traumatic content, but that just makes it, as I said, I think it really brings in the country itself and the people, and that's an important way to tell their story.

01;17;17;28 - 01;17;32;13

Melanie O'Brien

And it also makes it the type of film that you can sit through from start to finish and not want to pause it because you are gripped at what happens because of the way that it's portrayed. It's a beautiful film.

01;17;32;16 - 01;18;00;23

Jonathan Hafetz

It isn't so poignant, and there's almost like a dream out-of-body state that you get when you watch it. So yeah, I think they're both worth watching for different reasons, but I, I share your view that in some ways, especially given the accuracy of the first they killed my father and the fidelity to long, long and her story. Well, Mel, it's been such a pleasure having you on the podcast to talk about these movies and your incredible knowledge and expertise into the horrible subject of genocide, but just so important to know about.

01;18;00;23 - 01;18;03;05

Jonathan Hafetz

So thank you so much for coming on.

01;18;03;07 - 01;18;15;07

Melanie O'Brien

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really delighted to be, as I said, I really love this podcast and I've learned a lot from listening to other episodes, so I feel really honored to be part of it. Thank you.