Khmer Rouge Memorials: PM Orders Enhanced Protection on UNESCO Inscription Anniversary

One year after three of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge-linked memorial sites were inscribed on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites, Prime Minister Hun Manet has instructed cultural authorities and local administrations to ensure their long-term protection and prevent construction that could undermine their heritage value. The three components of the UNESCO property represent different stages of the Khmer Rouge regime’s system of detention, torture and murder. M-13 was an early Khmer Rouge detention centre in Kampong Speu, while S-21, housed in the former Tuol Sleng school in Phnom Penh, became one of the regime’s most notorious security prisons. Choeung Ek was a major execution and burial site, or killing field, linked to S-21. Rather than preserving the sites solely as evidence of past atrocities, the World Heritage inscription frames them as places where the memory of crimes can contribute to education, reflection, reconciliation and peace. Prime Minister Hun Manet used the July 11 anniversary to instruct cultural authorities and local administrations to safeguard the historic landscape of Cambodia’s three UNESCO-listed Khmer Rouge memorial sites and prevent construction that could undermine their heritage value. In a message released to mark the anniversary, Manet said the three sites should be protected for the long term and managed in accordance with the operational principles of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre. The three sites were collectively inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List on July 11, 2025, under the title “Cambodian Memorial Sites: From Centres of Repression to Places of Peace and Reflection”, following Decision 47 COM 8B.14, adopted at the 47th session of the World Heritage Committee in Paris, France. “I instruct the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, local authorities and relevant institutions to continue paying close attention to preserving the sites and preventing any construction that affects the historic landscape of Cambodia’s Memorial Sites,” Manet said. He added that authorities must ensure the sites are protected for generations to come as a form of modern World Heritage in Cambodia’s history, while carrying out management and conservation work carefully and in line with World Heritage guidelines. The prime minister described the UNESCO inscription as an effort to preserve the legacy of remembrance, encourage the study of historical lessons and protect peace for future generations. He credited the initiative to former prime minister and current Senate president Hun Sen, saying the memorial sites offered the world a Cambodian model of national reconciliation, the pursuit of justice for victims, education and peacebuilding. Their inscription, Manet said, represented a major achievement for the Kingdom on the international stage and reflected the struggle, sacrifice and resilience of the Cambodian people in their pursuit of peace. He linked the achievement to Cambodia’s national reconciliation and the country’s subsequent development, saying peace had provided a foundation for national construction, cultural conservation and the protection of historical truth. The prime minister also praised officials from the culture ministry, the inter-ministerial commission, local authorities and other specialists who worked on the nomination. He thanked UNESCO’s Phnom Penh office, the World Heritage Centre, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), GIZ Civil Peace Service, national and international experts and survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime for supporting the inscription process. According to Manet, their contribution helped secure international recognition of the memorial sites’ universal value as witnesses to historical truth and as places dedicated to remembrance and the protection of peace. “I call on all media outlets to cooperate in widely publicising these historic sites… to further strengthen the absolute rejection of the destruction of war and the crime of genocide, and to remind us of the necessity of jointly protecting peace for future generations,” he said. The prime minister’s instruction on construction places particular emphasis on preserving the historical setting surrounding the memorial sites, as Cambodia enters its second year of managing the three locations as a single World Heritage property. His message stressed that recognition by UNESCO was not the end of the process, with authorities now responsible for ensuring conservation, management and development around the sites do not compromise the historical landscape that underpins their heritage significance. Securing the inscription of the three sites transformed three places associated with some of the darkest crimes in the country’s modern history into internationally recognised memorial sites centred on remembrance, reconciliation and peace.