2012-2013 - Center for Khmer Studies

THE CKS LIBRARY: RARE DONATIONS, UNIQUE INSIGH
Supparidh Hy’s donation to the library is blessed by the head abbot of Wat Damnak, Ven. Neal Chhum
The CKS library is very lucky with its friends and members.
Over the years, the collection has been built up
thanks to generous and varied gifts which have established
the library as a solid resource on all things Khmer.
History, religion, architecture, geography, social sciences, a
large part of what has been published and is worth reading
is available on the shelves of the library. And if you canʹt
find it, it can probably be dug out by Daraneth or Vannary,
the librarians. And then, suddenly, this year, we were the
beneficiaries of gifts we never knew we missed because we
did not know they existed.
Dr. Benny Widyono, now a CKS board member, was
Governor of Siem Reap Province for UNTAC in 1992 and
1993. From 1994 to 1997, he was in Phnom Penh, as
Representative of UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros­
Ghali. The United Nations, being an administration, livesin
fact, thrives on reports. CKS has had the luck to be given
Dr. Widyonoʹs analyses and confidential reports to M.
Arkashi, head of UNTAC, and to the secretary general of
the UN. Coming from an organization that was one of the
main forces in the country, these documents will help
understand a period that in many ways shaped todayʹs
Cambodia.
Mr. Supparidh Hy is a Cambodian, who has lived in New
York for most of his adult life, and spent his career at the
United Nations. From 1974 onwards, thanks to the very
international U.N. press room, he collected all the articles
written about Cambodia around the world. Photocopied
and filed along with U.N. working papers, these fill 54
binders, from 1974 to 2006. No Google search will tell you
how 15 different papers reported the events of, say, the 7th
January 1979. Mr. Hyʹs incredible compilation will. CKS
was proud and delighted to receive these documents in
January.
Darryl Collins also sits on the CKS board. An expert on
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