| Written by Neth Pheaktra | |
| Tuesday, 24 February 2009 Phnom Penh Post | |
| Over one million documents, thousands of photos and rare films belonging to the former King have been sent to the French National Archives for preservation.  Photo by: AFP This photo, taken September 9, 1975, shows Prince Norodom Sihanouk (right), at Beijing airport before boarding a plane to Phnom Penh. KING Father Norodom Sihanouk has donated his private records to the French government's National Archives in Paris, where they have been painstakingly catalogued since their arrival from Beijing two years ago. "[Sihanouk] is the first foreign head of state to give his archives to France," said Olivier de Bernon, director of studies at the Ecole Francaise Extreme D'Orient (EFEO). Over two years, with help from two researchers and one archivist, de Bernon catalogued manuscripts and photos belonging to the 86-year-old King Father, who abdicated in 2004. "These archives have never been in Cambodia. They come directly from the King Father's residence in Beijing," said de Bernon, adding that an inventory of the "Sihanouk Fund" will be published next year. A unique collection The 50 boxes of archives deal primarily with the period following Sihanouk's ouster in the republican coup of March 1970, and as such do not cover the period of his childhood, coronation and first reign - most of the records of which were destroyed in the upheavals of the 1970s. "There is an enormous variety of documents," said de Bernon, who estimates that the collection contains one million documents, several thousand letters and 10,000 photos, which will be housed at the Soubise Hotel in Paris, an institution of the National Archives. "We have the integrity of his speech in French, as he translated it all into Khmer by himself," de Bernon added. "His language is French. This is where Sihanouk's style is very recognisable." The collection also includes rare film footage of the speech Sihanouk gave after his resignation as head of state of Democratic Kampuchea in April 1976, and large quantities of photos taken while the deposed King lived in North Korea as a guest of Kim Il Sung. There is also an extensive collection of autographed letters from Zhou Enlai, Andre Malraux, Yasser Arafat, Nelson Mandela and Ronald Reagan. Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, said that the Sihanouk archives are very important for the preservation of Cambodia's history. "We need history to shape our future," he told the Post Monday. "We hope the people of Cambodia and others can access the archives openly." ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY AFP |
Tuesday, 24 February 2009
Sihanouk donates archives
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5 comments:
Good way to preserve the documents. To donate to Khmer archives would be like to throw them away because Cambodian librarians are not well-trained enough to preserve that many documents. Second, another Pol Pot-type regime might take power in Cambodia and burn all the documents and books.
It is not good idea to keep all his document in France only. He should keep both in cambodia and France musem.
We are khmer. We want to study our Ex-leader document. What did they do in the past?
Good idea. I agree with you totally. The problem is we have to make copies. Who will pay with thousands of photos, films, documents and who will archive them? It can be done in the long term, bit by bit and the documents can be copied and put in libraries in Cambodia. But it will take time. In France it took 2 years already and they still have a long way to finish archiving them. I agree with your idea totally that documents should be kept both in France and Cambodia.
We take time to copy all document. Yes, it is late but better not do it. Atleast one day in our country has musem for our Ex leader.
Fund for document collection, i think it is not big problem. According to cambodia law, king has special fund. I used to see he donated alot of money to help people in rural area. So, just some money for this important project. It is not a big deal.
My own thinking, Our former king (king father), he is like foreign country than cambodia. As i heard and i know some from reading history paper and documents.
Our king never promote national identity, he likes to speak and write french, he likes to call his dog in french name, he likes to sing french song......etc Sometime, i heard that he promoted people to use foreign currency than national currency.
He is our khmer leader, everybody listen to him. It should be start from him to be good example for ordinary khmer people.
May I, for the benefit of your readers, point out, that I was one of the researchers that worked in in collection and sending to France of His Majesty's archives. In this regard and with His Majesty's permission and at my suggestion, every document that was in duplicate form was sent to the National Library of Cambodia and if there were more copies available, as it was the case with many documents, I sent copies also to the Library of the Khmer Institute of Democracy (KID) in Phnom Penh and to the Southeast Asia Research Librayo f Monash University in Melbourne (Australia).
The same happened with set of photos. If there were multiple sets one set went to France and the next set to the National Library in Phnom Penh and so on.
I know that this may not be viewed favourably by some of your readers but having also worked for over a month at the Archives in France when they arrived in Paris. I can state confidently that they are perfectly well taken care of and will be available to all researchers in the best possible conditions.
Ambassador Julio A. Jeldres
Official Biographer of HM the King Father Samdech Preah Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia
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