Why go
This chapter connects the United Nations transition with the institutions visitors encounter in Phnom Penh today. It also helps place Tuol Sleng and other memorial sites alongside the later effort to hold former Khmer Rouge leaders accountable, decades after the crimes.
The full story
The 1991 Paris Peace Agreements set up a United Nations transition and elections in 1993. Norodom Sihanouk returned as king under a constitutional monarchy. The elected government, rather than the monarch, held governing authority. The new framework followed years of fighting and displacement, so its establishment did not settle every political dispute. Violent conflict between governing factions in 1997 was another major break in the transition. Accountability for Khmer Rouge crimes came much later. The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, a tribunal with Cambodian and international participation, tried a small number of senior figures and those considered most responsible. Former S-21 commandant Kang Kek Iew was convicted of crimes against humanity and war crimes. The tribunal also convicted former regime leaders Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan. These proceedings addressed only part of the violence: many perpetrators were never tried, and many survivors lived for decades before verdicts arrived. For visitors, the restored monarchy, memorials and tribunal history belong to one continuing story of rebuilding public life after conflict. They should not be read as proof that the effects of war ended with the 1993 vote.