Cambodia Deals with its Past: Collective Memory, Demonisation and Induced Amnesia

Abstract This paper examines how successive Cambodian governments have regarded the so‐called Khmer Rouge regime, which ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. Between 1979 and 1993, Cambodian governments demonised the Khmer Rouge but since the late 1990s, and the collapse of the Khmer Rouge as a movement, the government has enforced a policy of collective amnesia. In closing, the rationales for officially demonising the past and officially burying it – and how these rartionales ‘fit’ with Cambodia’s collective memory – are discussed in relation to the trial of surviving Khmer leaders now (2008) taking place in Phnom Penh.