“Encouraging youth to face Khmer Rouge history, accompanying them with relevant and attractive tools in their search for the truth, is crucial for a social transformation in Cambodia.” A state of collective denial of the past atrocities is even observed amongst youth,” a news release stated. “Young generations do not know much about what occurred under the Khmer Rouge regime. Seventy percent of the Cambodian population is under the age of 30 and teaching about the Pol Pot regime in the country’s public schools has long been very limited. The app will also be used as a teaching aid for history lessons on the period in high schools and universities. The easy-to-use app weaves archival photographs, videos, propaganda music and paintings, with historical text compiled by researchers, over eight chapters and 39 subchapters.įree to download, it was available on Tuesday on Android by searching for “Khmer Rouge History” and was expected to be released shortly on iOS.
The first mobile app offering a comprehensive and interactive history of the Khmer Rouge, created in the hopes of ending a “collective denial” about some of the atrocities committed by the Pol Pot regime, went live on Tuesday.ĭeveloped by the Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center in Phnom Penh, the app traces the communists’ roots in the 1950s up to the ongoing cases against the regime’s surviving leaders at the Khmer Rouge tribunal.