To hear from a range of voices, we arranged for open focus groups to be organised in community buildings (such as outside mosques or in school buildings), but also specifically sought meetings with survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime, past and present religious and community leaders, womens groups and youth groups. Radin, supra n 57, cited in Atuahene, supra n 55 at 172. See e.g., Novic, supra n 4; Damien Short, Cultural Genocide and Indigenous Peoples, The International Journal of Human Rights 14(6) (2010): 833848; Lindsey Kingston, The Destruction of Identity: Cultural Genocide and Indigenous Peoples, Journal of Human Rights 14 (2015): 6383. Most constitutional regimes allow for lawful expropriation of private property, subject to prescribed conditions, e.g., that property is taken for a public purpose, with just compensation: see generally Andries J. van der Walt, Constitutional Property Clauses (Cape Town: Juta, 1998). Senior Lecturer, School of Law, Queen's University Belfast, BT7 1NN rachel.killean@qub.ac.uk. Naomi Roht-Arriaza, Measures of Non-Repetition in Transitional Justice, in From Transitional to Transformative Justice, ed. We would also like to thank Luke Moffett, Dacia Viejo-Rose, Farina So and Vannara Orn for their collaboration throughout this project. Mindy Thompson Fullilove, Root Shock (New York: Ballantine Books, 2004), 11. We try to research, but we have limited resources. Focus Group with Civil Parties, Svay Khleang, 21 March 2017. Atuahene has expressed a hope that scholars can rescue propertys political, cultural, emotional, and social value from the sizeable shadow cast by the overly dominant focus on its economic value.55 In doing so, her framework resonates with a set of theoretical positions in property theory which emphasize that property is premised on a broad and incommensurable range of human values, and implicates deeper moral and political ideas about just distributions and just social relationships.56 A particular line of thought, drawn from the work of Radin, highlights propertys relationship to personhood, and the capacity of objects to contribute to self-determination.57 While generally this supplies an argument for developing more stringent protections for some forms of property, it has particular applications in the context of culturally significant property.58 Such property can be infused with deep meaning, rendering these material things sacred.59 Citing Radin, Atuahene argues that the loss of or estrangement from property which has become bound up with a sense of identity can have serious emotional and cultural consequences. Case 002/02, supra n 26, 4423, 4425, 4457. For example, women were prohibited from covering their head and were forced to cut their hair. Using Bernadette Atuahenes property-loss concepts of dignity takings and dignity restoration, the article links the loss of property associated with the groups cultural heritage to experiences of dehumanization, infantilization and community destruction. E.g., UN Commission on Human Rights, Resolution on Impunity, 25 April 2001, UN Doc. This article builds on a developing literature which uses the concept of dignity taking to explore diverse experiences of property loss.25 In the following sections we unpack Atuahenes framework in greater depth, connecting it to ongoing debates within transitional justice about how to meaningfully respond to harm. Arnaud Kurze, Christopher Lamont and Simon Robins, Contested Spaces of Transitional Justice, International Journal of Human Rights 19(3) (2015): 260276. The concept of dignity restoration unites several contemporary developments and debates within transitional justice with regards to forms of restoration, victim participation and responsibility for repair. In the years that followed, interviewees from different communities spoke of living collectively, and of rebuilding their homes and communal religious property: After the regime people lived in a unity group. E.g., Emma Cunliffe, Nibal Muhasen and Marina Lostal, The Destruction of Cultural Property in the Syrian Conflict, International Journal of Cultural Property 23(1) (2016): 131; Francesci Francioni and Federico Lenzerini, The Destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan and International Law, European Journal of International Law 14(4) (2003) 619651; Jan Hladik, The UNESCO Declaration Concerning the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage, Art, Antiquity & Law 9 (2004): 215236. By engaging the framework of dignity taking with interviewees articulations of their harm, we develop a thicker understanding of the harm caused by the destruction of the Chams instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces, drawing connections between heritage loss and attacks on dignity and identity. Each group retained control over the produce of its land, which created confidence in the system and provided for a return to family living and cooking.87 For the Cham, this seems to have been consistent with their previous practice of living prior to the regime. Nicolas Robins and Adam Jones (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009). Such an argument would not doubt that property serves to recognize, value and respect human dignity on the contrary, it would suggest that property institutions are valuable precisely because they enable the realization of broader social values and the expression of individual and collective identity. We were also interested in responses to the Chams harm, including relevant case law and reparations awards made by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). Such a finding demonstrates the capacity for processes which enable formerly oppressed communities to use the law, the legal system, and legal services to protect and advance their rights and interests as citizens to become a valuable part of the transitional justice spectrum of interventions.131. Yet, civil party interviewees were often unaware of these projects, suggesting that such measures had relatively limited impact. Ibid., 965, citing Seyla Benhabib, Situating the Self (New York: Routledge, 1992), 159. Interview, Islamic Leader, Ponnhea Leu, 12 March 2017. These links between property, dignity and identity became more pronounced when interviewees discussed the expressive value they placed on targeted property. Robin Hickey, Rachel Killean, Property Loss and Cultural Heritage Restoration in the Aftermath of Genocide: Understanding Harm and Conceptualising Repair, International Journal of Transitional Justice, Volume 15, Issue 3, November 2021, Pages 468489, https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijab023.
Focus Group, Cham Women, Kandal, 18 March 2017; Focus Group, Cham Women, Svay Khleang, 21 March 2017. (Phnom Penh: CSHL, 2018). Requests for assistance in building mosques, religious schools or meeting halls were linked to identity preservation, expressed through wishes that the young generation learn and discuss the history and preserve religion.124 Some noted the need to address the loss of written records: we were not allowed to publish, all the documents were burned now, our young people dont have any witnesses I think its good if we can keep some culture to show.125. This is consistent with Article 2 of the UNESCO Convention (2003), which expressly connects the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, [and] skills of a given community to their associated instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces. Atuahenes framework usefully illuminates this connection, allowing us to explore in greater depth the harms that result from destruction of locally significant property.
In the immediate aftermath, Cambodia was a long way from recovery. P. Timothy Bushnell, Vladimir Shlapentokh, Christopher Vanderpool, and Jeyaratnam Sundram (Oxford: Westview Press, 1991), 227239; David Hawk, International Human Rights Law and Democratic Kampuchea, International Journal of Politics 16(3) (1986): 338,15. Our conversations with Cham communities suggested that the loss of cultural property resulted in feelings of harm that went beyond the loss of material goods. Theresa De Langis, Judith Strasser, Thida Kim, and Sopheap Taing, Like Ghost Changes Body:A Study on the Impact of Forced Marriage under the Khmer Rouge Regime (Phnom Penh: Transcultural Psychosocial Organisation, 2014). Atuahene, supra n 14 at 814. The first, Case 001, was against the former Chairman of the notorious Security Centre S-21 and focused on a relatively small range of victims and crimes.104 The second and third, Cases 002/01 and 002/02, ultimately convicted two surviving Khmer Rouge senior leaders: Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan. The Cham have been present in Cambodia for many centuries. Ysa Osman, The Cham Rebellion (Phnom Penh: DC-Cam, 2006). Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage 2003, Article 2; Janet Blake, Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Event of Armed Conflict, Europa Ethnica 74(3) (2017): 7381; Gregory M. Mose, The Destruction of Churches and Mosques in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Seeking a Rights-Based Approach to the Protection of Religious Cultural Property, Buffalo Journal of International Law 3(1) (1996): 180208. Focus Group, Cham Women, Kandal, 12 March 2017. Case 002/01, supra n 31; Case 002/02, supra n 26. Exploring the experience of the Cham through a dignity takings and dignity restoration lens highlighted enduring harms unaddressed by mechanisms of reparation. This made it very difficult for the Cham to collect and pass on their cultural knowledge and sustain a sense of connection to their traditions. Interview, Cham Civil Society Staff Member, Phnom Penh, 16 March 2017. By analysing the ECCCs reparation awards through the framework of dignity takings and restoration, we highlight the failure of existing measures to sufficiently redress the legacy of community destruction. In the case of the Cham, considering a broader framework of dignity restoration drew our attention to the restorative role of property regimes and religious freedoms.
While there is nothing particularly restoration-oriented about these provisions, they appear to have facilitated Cham resettlement of villages and re-engagement with religious practice. However, the communities we spoke with rarely attached particular significance to rebuilding mosques in the style that they had been in before the regime. Requests for financial support for mosques and religious buildings were voiced in: Focus Groups with Cham Women and Civil Parties, Svay Khleang, 2122 March 2017; Focus Group, Cham Women, Cham Leu, 18 March 2017; Focus Group, Islamic Leaders and Community, Kampong Tralach, 19 March 2017. To the extent that this capacity for expression of identity was created by ordinary rules about property and religious freedoms, it can be regarded as unintentional dignity restoration which nonetheless affirms humanity and reinforces agency. Luke Moffett, Dacia Viejo-Rose and Robin Hickey, Shifting the Paradigm on Cultural Property and Heritage in International Law and Armed Conflict, International Journal of Heritage Studies 26(7) (2020): 619634. Land Law 1992, Articles 72, 73, 74 and 75. Discussing responses to the dignity takings experienced by the Jewish population in the Netherlands and France, Veraart notes that the idea that dignity could be restored without public recognition of that particular suffering of concrete victim groups has long been abandoned.111 Citing Benhabib, he draws attention to the distinction between recognizing the dignity of the generalized other, based on what we, as speaking and acting rational agents, have in common, and the dignity of concrete others which derives from their concrete histories, particular identities, and social-affective constitutions.112 This formulation of dignity restoration resonates with theories of thick recognition as a means of building long-term peace in postconflict societies.113 Contrasted with thin recognition, which can be satisfied by recognizing anothers status as an independent, sovereign entity or universal person with legal rights, thick recognition refers to having respect for the features that make a subject unique, including their identity and history.114 As experiences of harm can become part of that identity and history, thick recognition necessitates acknowledgment of those harms.115, Turning to the Cham, the restoration of property and religious rights can be framed as thin recognition, acknowledging the dignity of the generalized or universal other as a sovereign entity with rights. However, such rights do little to recognize the Chams specific history of lost heritage and dehumanization. Craig Albert, No Place to Call Home, Chicago-Kent Law Review 92 (2018): 817840, 819. Interview, Islamic Leader, Chroy Changva, 16 March 2017. Focus Group, Cham Students, Phnom Penh, 14 March 2017. Linked to this framing of expressive value was the substantial social value of property, as things which establish spatial boundaries in which interpersonal and community engagement occurs.68 Physical property was often valued for its ability to facilitate community gathering and the practice of faith, highlighting its role in fostering a sense of shared identity inside the Cham group, as well as communicating it outwards. Focus Group, Cham Community, Kampong Tralach, 19 March 2017. When people agree on the design, we start project. This work was supported by an award from the Arts and Humanities Research Council: Restoring Cultural Property and Communities After Conflict [AH/P007929/1]. Bernadette Atuahene, Dignity Takings and Dignity Restoration, Law and Social Inquiry 41 (2016): 796823, 817. Within transitional justice practice it is recognized that while insufficient alone, criminal judgments may play an important role in acknowledging harm and may in some cases contribute towards reparations.110 This notion has also gained traction within the dignity takings literature. Compare [the Cham] to hill tribes; they are identified as a group, they have elements like language and culture, and examples for their people to follow. For those forcibly displaced during the Khmer Rouge, this included trying to find their way home. As such, dignity restoration can serve as a useful framework for furthering approaches that look beyond singular, institutional responses to violence, and instead move towards a spectrum of interventions130 designed to facilitate rehabilitation of victimized groups. Framing the Chams experience as a dignity taking also illuminates the connections between the loss of property through displacement and destruction, and the infantilization and dehumanization experienced by the community. This too was slow.
For some of our interviewees, culturally significant items were instead valued because of their capacity to allow expression of the communitys religious faith and identity. The lack of redress for this ongoing harm was reflected in our interviewees requests for future reparative measures. Scholarship has tended to prioritise the loss of internationally valued monuments and the associated challenges of restoring and/or reconstructing such objects.5 Less theorised are other forms of heritage frequently subject to attack during periods of conflict and atrocity. A further sense of restoration is added when it is recalled that this practice of collective ownership is consistent with how the Cham had managed their property prior to the regime. Thus, dignity restoration must not only return or compensate lost property but also address victims experiences of dehumanization (by affirming their humanity), infantilization (by reinforcing their agency) and community destruction (by allowing them to connect with their community and heritage). Thus, the takings experienced by the Cham can be situated not only within broader policies of collectivization and authoritarian control, but within the Khmer Rouges attempt to eradicate them as a group, first through forced assimilation and latterly by targeted extermination. So, supra n 28 at 55. Transitional Justice from Below (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2008); Patricia Lundy and Mark McGovern, Whose Justice? They are often identified by their two core identities: their Islamic religious practice, and their Indigenous Cham history and language. This would include the potential for ordinary property institutions to counteract the harms of property loss and the impacts of deeply embedded practices of infantilization not because property rules are expressly framed to address these harms, but rather because of the capacity of property simultaneously to promote autonomy and foster interdependence, and thus to enable action at the level of the community to reconstruct social anchors and collective practices. While the loss of culturally significant items was expressed in terms that went beyond material loss, we noted that little intrinsic value was placed on the specific physical objects themselves meaning it was rarely the loss of a particular copy of the Quran, or a particularly structured mosque, that was mourned. Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. Both were framed as projects aimed at guaranteeing non-repetition by acknowledging harm, documenting experiences, raising awareness about their treatment and promoting non-discrimination in order to prevent the recurrence of crimes against the group.123 Due to the unique nature of the Courts reparation mandate, which requires reparations to be fully funded prior to judgment being given, the reparation projects specific to the Cham had already been completed by the time our research took place. Thank you for submitting a comment on this article. As noted above, Atuahenes correlative frameworks of dignity takings and dignity restoration require remedies to respond to the distinct aspects of dignity takings. Certainly, restitution and/or compensation have traditionally been viewed as the appropriate response to the loss of cultural property.77 However, Atuahenes call to incorporate broader measures of repair resonates with increased acceptance that reparations should encompass symbolic reparations, acknowledgment, rehabilitation, measures of satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition.78 Her focus on restoring the autonomy, agency and interconnectedness of dispossessed populations in a broader social sense also finds parallels in calls for reparative development,79 non-recurrence80 and transformative justice,81 which share a focus on forward-looking measures which address underlying structures of inequality and othering. In considering the crimes committed against the Cham, the Trial Chamber made explicit reference to the processes through which the group were dehumanized and deprived of their religious freedoms and cultural heritage. See e.g., Rita Nakashima and Gabriella Lettini, Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury after War (Boston: Beacon Press, 2012). imagined because the members will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (New York: Verso, 1991), 15.
We therefore interviewed survivors who were participating in that Courts proceedings, government officials, ECCC practitioners and civil society actors engaged in reparation projects.16 Interviews were conducted in Khmer or English, with interpretation and translation provided by our Khmer colleagues when necessary.17 The transcripts were analysed using inductive and deductive thematic analysis, drawing from existing literature while allowing themes to emerge from the data. Indeed, if dehumanization is understood as classifying a person or group as an unfit participant of the social contract, then genocidal use of force can be interpreted as the most extreme form of extinguishing ones humanity.54 Having explored the Chams experience through the lens of dignity takings, the following section interrogates the connections between heritage loss and the feelings of harm expressed by interviewees. This article seeks to contribute a thicker understanding of the harm caused by the destruction of cultural heritage and the means through which that harm can be redressed. It analyses attacks on property of local significance to the Cham, an Islamic group subjected to religious persecution and genocide during the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. The targeting of the Chams property, when combined with prohibition of religious and cultural expression and the deliberate targeting of their teachers and leaders, created a shortage of human resources and capacity in the aftermath of the regime. Thats why we were not able to communicate with each other quite often.
See e.g., Prosecutor v. Al Mahdi, Reparations Order, Trial Chamber VIII, ICC-01/12-01/15, 17 August 2017; Francesca Capone, An Appraisal of the Al Mahdi Order on Reparations and Its Innovative Elements, Journal of International Criminal Justice 16(3) (2018): 645661. Kieran McEvoy, Beyond Legalism: Towards a Thicker Understanding of Transitional Justice, Journal of Law & Society 34 (2007): 411440. This recovery-supporting aspect of property law takes on a further dimension when we recall the expressive value of cultural property in the eyes of our interviewees, and its related emotional and social value. Andrew Linklater, The Problem of Harm in World Politics: Theoretical Investigations (Cambridge: CUP, 2011). Thats why it was very hard during that time in terms of [maintaining] religious practices and also personal life.69, Gray has highlighted the importance of community practices as a means through which the Cham accessed religious knowledge, due to the lack of widespread religious textual knowledge.70 Through displacement, the Cham were deprived of their property rights, and through that deprivation separated from the social ties, rituals and material objects that defined and sustained their imagined community..
Focus Group, Cham Women, Kandal, 18 March 2017; Focus Group, Cham Women, Svay Khleang, 21 March 2017. (Phnom Penh: CSHL, 2018). Requests for assistance in building mosques, religious schools or meeting halls were linked to identity preservation, expressed through wishes that the young generation learn and discuss the history and preserve religion.124 Some noted the need to address the loss of written records: we were not allowed to publish, all the documents were burned now, our young people dont have any witnesses I think its good if we can keep some culture to show.125. This is consistent with Article 2 of the UNESCO Convention (2003), which expressly connects the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, [and] skills of a given community to their associated instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces. Atuahenes framework usefully illuminates this connection, allowing us to explore in greater depth the harms that result from destruction of locally significant property.
In the immediate aftermath, Cambodia was a long way from recovery. P. Timothy Bushnell, Vladimir Shlapentokh, Christopher Vanderpool, and Jeyaratnam Sundram (Oxford: Westview Press, 1991), 227239; David Hawk, International Human Rights Law and Democratic Kampuchea, International Journal of Politics 16(3) (1986): 338,15. Our conversations with Cham communities suggested that the loss of cultural property resulted in feelings of harm that went beyond the loss of material goods. Theresa De Langis, Judith Strasser, Thida Kim, and Sopheap Taing, Like Ghost Changes Body:A Study on the Impact of Forced Marriage under the Khmer Rouge Regime (Phnom Penh: Transcultural Psychosocial Organisation, 2014). Atuahene, supra n 14 at 814. The first, Case 001, was against the former Chairman of the notorious Security Centre S-21 and focused on a relatively small range of victims and crimes.104 The second and third, Cases 002/01 and 002/02, ultimately convicted two surviving Khmer Rouge senior leaders: Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan. The Cham have been present in Cambodia for many centuries. Ysa Osman, The Cham Rebellion (Phnom Penh: DC-Cam, 2006). Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage 2003, Article 2; Janet Blake, Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Event of Armed Conflict, Europa Ethnica 74(3) (2017): 7381; Gregory M. Mose, The Destruction of Churches and Mosques in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Seeking a Rights-Based Approach to the Protection of Religious Cultural Property, Buffalo Journal of International Law 3(1) (1996): 180208. Focus Group, Cham Women, Kandal, 12 March 2017. Case 002/01, supra n 31; Case 002/02, supra n 26. Exploring the experience of the Cham through a dignity takings and dignity restoration lens highlighted enduring harms unaddressed by mechanisms of reparation. This made it very difficult for the Cham to collect and pass on their cultural knowledge and sustain a sense of connection to their traditions. Interview, Cham Civil Society Staff Member, Phnom Penh, 16 March 2017. By analysing the ECCCs reparation awards through the framework of dignity takings and restoration, we highlight the failure of existing measures to sufficiently redress the legacy of community destruction. In the case of the Cham, considering a broader framework of dignity restoration drew our attention to the restorative role of property regimes and religious freedoms.
While there is nothing particularly restoration-oriented about these provisions, they appear to have facilitated Cham resettlement of villages and re-engagement with religious practice. However, the communities we spoke with rarely attached particular significance to rebuilding mosques in the style that they had been in before the regime. Requests for financial support for mosques and religious buildings were voiced in: Focus Groups with Cham Women and Civil Parties, Svay Khleang, 2122 March 2017; Focus Group, Cham Women, Cham Leu, 18 March 2017; Focus Group, Islamic Leaders and Community, Kampong Tralach, 19 March 2017. To the extent that this capacity for expression of identity was created by ordinary rules about property and religious freedoms, it can be regarded as unintentional dignity restoration which nonetheless affirms humanity and reinforces agency. Luke Moffett, Dacia Viejo-Rose and Robin Hickey, Shifting the Paradigm on Cultural Property and Heritage in International Law and Armed Conflict, International Journal of Heritage Studies 26(7) (2020): 619634. Land Law 1992, Articles 72, 73, 74 and 75. Discussing responses to the dignity takings experienced by the Jewish population in the Netherlands and France, Veraart notes that the idea that dignity could be restored without public recognition of that particular suffering of concrete victim groups has long been abandoned.111 Citing Benhabib, he draws attention to the distinction between recognizing the dignity of the generalized other, based on what we, as speaking and acting rational agents, have in common, and the dignity of concrete others which derives from their concrete histories, particular identities, and social-affective constitutions.112 This formulation of dignity restoration resonates with theories of thick recognition as a means of building long-term peace in postconflict societies.113 Contrasted with thin recognition, which can be satisfied by recognizing anothers status as an independent, sovereign entity or universal person with legal rights, thick recognition refers to having respect for the features that make a subject unique, including their identity and history.114 As experiences of harm can become part of that identity and history, thick recognition necessitates acknowledgment of those harms.115, Turning to the Cham, the restoration of property and religious rights can be framed as thin recognition, acknowledging the dignity of the generalized or universal other as a sovereign entity with rights. However, such rights do little to recognize the Chams specific history of lost heritage and dehumanization. Craig Albert, No Place to Call Home, Chicago-Kent Law Review 92 (2018): 817840, 819. Interview, Islamic Leader, Chroy Changva, 16 March 2017. Focus Group, Cham Students, Phnom Penh, 14 March 2017. Linked to this framing of expressive value was the substantial social value of property, as things which establish spatial boundaries in which interpersonal and community engagement occurs.68 Physical property was often valued for its ability to facilitate community gathering and the practice of faith, highlighting its role in fostering a sense of shared identity inside the Cham group, as well as communicating it outwards. Focus Group, Cham Community, Kampong Tralach, 19 March 2017. When people agree on the design, we start project. This work was supported by an award from the Arts and Humanities Research Council: Restoring Cultural Property and Communities After Conflict [AH/P007929/1]. Bernadette Atuahene, Dignity Takings and Dignity Restoration, Law and Social Inquiry 41 (2016): 796823, 817. Within transitional justice practice it is recognized that while insufficient alone, criminal judgments may play an important role in acknowledging harm and may in some cases contribute towards reparations.110 This notion has also gained traction within the dignity takings literature. Compare [the Cham] to hill tribes; they are identified as a group, they have elements like language and culture, and examples for their people to follow. For those forcibly displaced during the Khmer Rouge, this included trying to find their way home. As such, dignity restoration can serve as a useful framework for furthering approaches that look beyond singular, institutional responses to violence, and instead move towards a spectrum of interventions130 designed to facilitate rehabilitation of victimized groups. Framing the Chams experience as a dignity taking also illuminates the connections between the loss of property through displacement and destruction, and the infantilization and dehumanization experienced by the community. This too was slow.
For some of our interviewees, culturally significant items were instead valued because of their capacity to allow expression of the communitys religious faith and identity. The lack of redress for this ongoing harm was reflected in our interviewees requests for future reparative measures. Scholarship has tended to prioritise the loss of internationally valued monuments and the associated challenges of restoring and/or reconstructing such objects.5 Less theorised are other forms of heritage frequently subject to attack during periods of conflict and atrocity. A further sense of restoration is added when it is recalled that this practice of collective ownership is consistent with how the Cham had managed their property prior to the regime. Thus, dignity restoration must not only return or compensate lost property but also address victims experiences of dehumanization (by affirming their humanity), infantilization (by reinforcing their agency) and community destruction (by allowing them to connect with their community and heritage). Thus, the takings experienced by the Cham can be situated not only within broader policies of collectivization and authoritarian control, but within the Khmer Rouges attempt to eradicate them as a group, first through forced assimilation and latterly by targeted extermination. So, supra n 28 at 55. Transitional Justice from Below (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2008); Patricia Lundy and Mark McGovern, Whose Justice? They are often identified by their two core identities: their Islamic religious practice, and their Indigenous Cham history and language. This would include the potential for ordinary property institutions to counteract the harms of property loss and the impacts of deeply embedded practices of infantilization not because property rules are expressly framed to address these harms, but rather because of the capacity of property simultaneously to promote autonomy and foster interdependence, and thus to enable action at the level of the community to reconstruct social anchors and collective practices. While the loss of culturally significant items was expressed in terms that went beyond material loss, we noted that little intrinsic value was placed on the specific physical objects themselves meaning it was rarely the loss of a particular copy of the Quran, or a particularly structured mosque, that was mourned. Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. Both were framed as projects aimed at guaranteeing non-repetition by acknowledging harm, documenting experiences, raising awareness about their treatment and promoting non-discrimination in order to prevent the recurrence of crimes against the group.123 Due to the unique nature of the Courts reparation mandate, which requires reparations to be fully funded prior to judgment being given, the reparation projects specific to the Cham had already been completed by the time our research took place. Thank you for submitting a comment on this article. As noted above, Atuahenes correlative frameworks of dignity takings and dignity restoration require remedies to respond to the distinct aspects of dignity takings. Certainly, restitution and/or compensation have traditionally been viewed as the appropriate response to the loss of cultural property.77 However, Atuahenes call to incorporate broader measures of repair resonates with increased acceptance that reparations should encompass symbolic reparations, acknowledgment, rehabilitation, measures of satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition.78 Her focus on restoring the autonomy, agency and interconnectedness of dispossessed populations in a broader social sense also finds parallels in calls for reparative development,79 non-recurrence80 and transformative justice,81 which share a focus on forward-looking measures which address underlying structures of inequality and othering. In considering the crimes committed against the Cham, the Trial Chamber made explicit reference to the processes through which the group were dehumanized and deprived of their religious freedoms and cultural heritage. See e.g., Rita Nakashima and Gabriella Lettini, Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury after War (Boston: Beacon Press, 2012). imagined because the members will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (New York: Verso, 1991), 15.
We therefore interviewed survivors who were participating in that Courts proceedings, government officials, ECCC practitioners and civil society actors engaged in reparation projects.16 Interviews were conducted in Khmer or English, with interpretation and translation provided by our Khmer colleagues when necessary.17 The transcripts were analysed using inductive and deductive thematic analysis, drawing from existing literature while allowing themes to emerge from the data. Indeed, if dehumanization is understood as classifying a person or group as an unfit participant of the social contract, then genocidal use of force can be interpreted as the most extreme form of extinguishing ones humanity.54 Having explored the Chams experience through the lens of dignity takings, the following section interrogates the connections between heritage loss and the feelings of harm expressed by interviewees. This article seeks to contribute a thicker understanding of the harm caused by the destruction of cultural heritage and the means through which that harm can be redressed. It analyses attacks on property of local significance to the Cham, an Islamic group subjected to religious persecution and genocide during the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. The targeting of the Chams property, when combined with prohibition of religious and cultural expression and the deliberate targeting of their teachers and leaders, created a shortage of human resources and capacity in the aftermath of the regime. Thats why we were not able to communicate with each other quite often.
See e.g., Prosecutor v. Al Mahdi, Reparations Order, Trial Chamber VIII, ICC-01/12-01/15, 17 August 2017; Francesca Capone, An Appraisal of the Al Mahdi Order on Reparations and Its Innovative Elements, Journal of International Criminal Justice 16(3) (2018): 645661. Kieran McEvoy, Beyond Legalism: Towards a Thicker Understanding of Transitional Justice, Journal of Law & Society 34 (2007): 411440. This recovery-supporting aspect of property law takes on a further dimension when we recall the expressive value of cultural property in the eyes of our interviewees, and its related emotional and social value. Andrew Linklater, The Problem of Harm in World Politics: Theoretical Investigations (Cambridge: CUP, 2011). Thats why it was very hard during that time in terms of [maintaining] religious practices and also personal life.69, Gray has highlighted the importance of community practices as a means through which the Cham accessed religious knowledge, due to the lack of widespread religious textual knowledge.70 Through displacement, the Cham were deprived of their property rights, and through that deprivation separated from the social ties, rituals and material objects that defined and sustained their imagined community..