Ambassador Youk Chhang
Executive Director
Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam)
Head of the Queen Mother Library in Phnom Penh, and a survivor of the Khmer Rouge’s “killing fields.” Ambassador to the Cabinet of His Majesty, the King of Cambodia, with a rank equivalent to that of a minister.
Chhang was born in 1961 and raised in Phnom Penh. At age 15, laboring under Khmer Rouge rule, he was arrested for picking up mushrooms in the rice fields to feed his pregnant sister. He was tortured publicly before more than a hundred villagers before being dispatched to an adult prison without trial. He recalls, “Months later, when I ran out of lies to tell to save my life, an older prisoner begged the prison chief to release me. The prison chief agreed, but I later learned that the older prisoner was killed in exchange for my freedom. I lived, and he died. I do not remember his name but have been searching for his surviving relatives to pay respect to them for what he did for me. I hope someday I will find them.”
Chhang later escaped the Khmer Rouge killing fields, moving to the United States as a refugee. However, his experience of Khmer Rouge terror and loss of loved ones led him to a lifelong commitment to promote memory and justice in Cambodia
He returned to Cambodia in the 1990s to manage human rights and democracy training programs for the U.S.-based International Republican Institute and assist the Electoral Component of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC).
Chhang became DC-Cam’s leader in 1995, when the Center was founded as a field office of Yale University’s Cambodian Genocide Program to conduct research, training and documentation related to the Khmer Rouge regime. He continued to run the Center after its 1997 inception as an independent Cambodian non-governmental organizatio.
Among many contributions to truth and justice, he has testified as a living witness to genocide before the United Nations-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, a tribunal created to address Khmer Rouge atrocities. He has also developed a nationwide genocide education program with strong grassroots support; built one of Asia’s leading genocide research centers; led successful programs on oral history, documentation, and reconciliation; and established the Anlong Veng Peace Center. He currently leads DC-Cam’s development of a permanent hub for genocide studies in Asia to advance justice, memory, education, and healing in Cambodia and beyond.
Ambassador Youk Chhang, Brief Biography 2026
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