Have you met... Duong?

My name is Duong Keo, 27 years old. I got married a couple years ago to my lovely wife, Sethy, and we have one daughter, Bolin, a name I got from Berlin, the first European city I have been to. I studied bachelor of art degree in history at the Royal University of Phnom Penh for four years from 2004 to 2008, the period that history of Democratic Kampuchea became the headline topic for education, research, media and other organizations after the official establishment of Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) in 2003. After my graduation, I was shortly employed by Austrians Film Production to be a correspondent of the trial at ECCC covering case 001 where I also learned from the trial procedure and where my interest about history of this period built up. Later I worked at Youth For Peace, a local peace NGO working with young people, and the project I worked on was Voice of Former Khmer Rouge. Through the project, I had the chance to meet and interview close to a hundred former Khmer Rouge cadres to record their biographies and their thoughts about their experiences and the establishment of the ECCC.

 At the same time, I was also the research assistant of Dr. Andrew Mertha, Associate Professor at Cornell University, interviewing former Khmer Rouge cadres for his project in which the outcome of the project is the book entitled: Brothers in Arms: Chinese Aid to Democratic Kampuchea. Working with a researcher somehow gave me a different way to approach interviewees and get information from them. With Youth For Peace, my interview was quite general while working with Andrew’s interview were more detailed in a particular topic that allowed me to experience another technique to get detailed information. In 2011, I won a fellowship training program called the Cambodian Khmer Rouge Tribunal Fellowship Program organized by German Development Program (GIZ) in Cambodia and Germany. And in 2012, I was granted a scholarship to pursue my master degree at Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, in the subject of Southeast Asian Studies. I graduated from this university with my thesis on Cambodian Nationalism and Its Relations to Mass Killing and Genocide (1975-1979). To fulfill this thesis research, I also interviewed former Khmer Rouge cadres to understand about their perception toward the regime that they had served and the leaders of the regime. So, my background is pretty much involved in interviews with former Khmer Rouge cadres.

 

When I almost finished my master degree in Thailand, I came into contact with Timothy Williams through a former colleague, Sonja Meyer and a director of Kdei Karuna organization, Tim Minea. After the introduction of the project, I quickly agreed to be part of the project as the assistant. Three main reasons I decided to participate in this project. Firstly, I have worked with former Khmer Rouge cadres for years. My experiences in the field research are sufficient to assist related work involving former Khmer Rouge cadres. Secondly, the Khmer Rouge topic is still an unfinished topic and researchers should find what made the regime as it was from different perspectives. Timothy studies individual motivation of those who participated in mass violence of genocide. This study matches my interest as I also study nationalism motivation against Vietnam from former Khmer Rouge cadres’ perspectives. Finally, I actually want to learn more from the research project and the project implementer, especially from the outstanding academic person like Timothy Williams. I have a dream to achieve a Ph.D scholarship in a foreign country, especially in Europe. Therefore, being involved in this project will partly be a basic foundation for my future academic career. 

After two months working with Timothy Williams, I experienced and learnt several good things from him. He is very punctual, well-planned, and hard-working. Punctuality is something that I have already been comfortably practiced, but working with a punctual person is my pleasure. Moreover, his well-planned work shapes me to be well-organized from time to time and hopefully, I will be fully well-planned person like he is. More importantly, he is a young hard-working academic person such as I rarely meet. I normally could not read or work on the bus as I would feel dizzy. He doesn’t want to let time go free; he works comfortably even though the bus is bumpy.  He is a purely academic person. However, it is new for him to be in the country that has a different culture. Sometimes his logical idea and thought is not implementable in this country. All in all, up to this point, I am really pleased to be part of the project and work directly with Timothy Williams. I am looking forwards to fulfill the project with fruitful results.