CAMBODIAN Deputy Prime Minister Sok An inaugurated a memorial at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum yesterday to remember more than 12,000 people tortured there by the Khmer Rouge.

Buddhist monks chanted prayers at a ceremony at the former secondary school that the Khmer Rouge converted into a prison after taking power in 1975.

Mr Sok was accompanied by representatives from the United Nations and the UN-backed tribunal trying former Khmer Rouge officials.

He said that the memorial would “serve as an educational tool for the next generations to remember and prevent the return of such a dark regime.”

An estimated 1.7 million people perished as a result of the Khmer Rouge’s inhuman policies from ’75 to ’79.

Tuol Sleng was one of a number of torture and execution centres. The tribunal has identified 12,272 victims who passed through its gates.

Only a handful of the victims survived.

The memorial replaces a similar one and is part of a renovation of the museum that began in 2010.

Mr Sok rejected criticism from human rights groups that the government is interfering in the Khmer Rouge tribunal, declaring it would “not intervene, will not interfere with the internal affairs of the court.”

Prime Minister Hun Sen warned recently that adding new defendants could incite former Khmer Rouge members to start a civil war, adding that the court’s investigations had “almost gone beyond the limit.”

The tribunal indicted two more suspects earlier this month — former Khmer Rouge navy chief Meas Muth and former district commander Im Chaem.

by Our Foreign Desk