![]() The main question here is: given the time that has elapsed between the KR rule (1975–79) and today's Cambodia, to what extent might the S-21 personnel have gone from obedient agents to reformed individuals who demonstrate respect for human rights and accept their own wrongdoing? It demonstrates that the ideological and moral frames that were developed during the cadres’ extensive thought reform process before and during their work at S-21 prevents them from accepting responsibility for their actions. Instead, this study looks at such effects decades after the fact. Most research in the area of rule- and obedience-based behavior has focused on either the immediate effects of obedience or laboratory tests. Reference Sonis, Gibson, de Jong, Field, Hean and Komproe2009). Socioeconomic injustice perpetuates the collective trauma of the population (Sonis et al. After all, the results of the genocide are still felt in Cambodia. In this sense, “historical justice” has not yet been delivered. ![]() Today, questions remain about the extent to which Cambodians have been able to deal with the past in a way that honors the victims and allows the perpetrators to face their past. Focusing on them will help generate insights into the lingering effects of obedience in other segments of the KR personnel and agents of genocidal acts in other parts of the world. The study focuses on prison guards and interrogators, because they are more likely than other segments of society to still manifest traces of rule-based behavior. Footnote 1 It seeks to identify shifts from rule- and obedience-based behavior and thinking to genuine assessment of past collective and individual acts. While this study does not seek to vilify agents of state at the time of the genocide and subsequently, it examines the extent to which the collective mindset of the former S-21 staff has endured (Chandler Reference Chandler1999, 32 Keo and Nean Reference Keo and Nean2011). Regardless of age, however, through the process of mind control, the KR cadres were able to switch off their consciences in order to commit atrocities in the labor camps (known as killing fields) and elsewhere. Consequently, younger recruits would take relatively less time to forge according to KR standards (Path and Kanavou Reference Path and Kanavou2015). In such conditions, “thought reform” practices allowed the KR to effectively forge both willing and unwilling collaborators, who were frequently recruited as children. This space enabled a thought reform process across the board in Cambodia. The study begins with an assessment of the cultural background that provided the cultural space from which the KR unleashed their lethal plan. The influence of these events was especially strong among educated KR cadres. ![]() ![]() This study describes the broader context facing Cambodians during the 1960s and 1970s, such as the Vietnam War (1959–75) and China's Cultural Revolution (1966–76). Unlike the Holocaust, where remembrance is a matter of moral responsibility, remembrance of the Cambodian Genocide is orchestrated in ways that fit the broader political agenda of collective amnesia and disregard for human rights. Many survivors and perpetrators have coexisted in conditions of social alienation and confusion about a history that remains unsettled. ![]() The intensity of large-scale trauma in a society ravaged after the destruction of resources, the disruption of civil society generated by the Khmer Rouge (KR), the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia in the 1980s, and the lack of accountability afterwards have fragmented Cambodian society. Yet, apart from notable exceptions, far less attention has been placed on perpetrators’ post facto perspectives on their actions, as well as their social and psychological adaptation over time (Browning Reference Browning1992 Hirsch Reference Hirsch1995 Klee, Dressen, and Riess Reference Ernst, Dressen and Riess1991). Scholarship has provided new insights into how ordinary people become perpetrators of genocide (Haritos-Fatouros Reference Haritos-Fatouros2003 Milgram Reference Milgram1974 Waller Reference Waller2007 Zimbardo Reference Zimbardo2008). ![]()
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