Killing Fields and S21

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We had sampled all the great stuff on offer in Phnom Penh and on our final day we were to see the worst side of Cambodia and of human kind.

Between 1975 and 1979, Cambodia was ruled by Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge army. Initially, when Pol Pot took charge, the Cambodians were pleased as they supported his communist views and were glad to get rid of a corrupt military government that had overthrown their king. This didn't last more than a day as he emptied the cities, split up families and began a killing spree that took over 2 million lives. Pol Pot wished to take Cambodia back to its rural roots and hence wished to get rid of all educated people and their families leaving only peasant population who would not challenge his rule.

Having now come through this horrific genocide and once again become a kingdom, Cambodians wish people to know exactly what happened. Not just foreigners but their own people as it wasn't just us outside the country that didn't know this was happending but also many people within it were kept in the dark through carefully contolled communication. Cambodians wish to remember the dead and to imprint on people's minds the horror in the hope that things like this won't happen again. For this reason as a toursit you feel you should visit the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek and the Tuol Seng prison ... much as you don't want to.

We first visited Choeung Ek, known as the Killing Fields. This is an old chinese cemetary that was used by the Khmer Rouge to kill and bury and estimated 17,000 people. There are 129 mass graves, some holding as many as 400 people. We got a guide who was excellent and explained the history really clearly. It was an eerie place to be, imagining the terrible events that occured here. Our guide explained that men, women and children would be lined up and killed one at a time and then pushed into a grave. Apparently bullets were too costly so this was done with clubs and such. Perhaps the most shocking thing walking around the area is the sight of the bones and clothes of people buried there, sticking out of the ground. Many of the graves have been exhumed and in memory, the skulls of the 8,000 bodies found have been placed in a glass case in a stupa (buddhist memorial). We were shocked by the magnitude of the killings. Not just here but we were told there were many, many more killing fields with similar numbers of bodies.

Moving on, we went to Tuol Sleng which was once a school but was turned into a prison and torture centre by the Khmer Rouge and renamed S21 (security Area 21). This is a very gruesome place where the Khmer Rouge violently tortured educated people or people that they believed against them. The aim of this torture was to get them to 'implicate' others that the Khmer Rouge could arrest and ultimately to get them to confess to some random crime so that they could 'legitimately' be killed. The Khmer Rouge documented all these 'confessions' as well as haunting photos of all the people held here. We had a tour guide whose father and brothers had all been killed under the regime making her accounts incredibly moving. Needless to say, sunglasses were a requirement of the day to hide the inevitable tears people shed at the thought of these atrocities.

Not surprisingly, our afternoon was quiet, taking it all in. That night we watched a really interesting film called S21 where some survivors from the prison meet with ex Kymer Rouge soldiers to talk about what happened. No one will accept responsibility of what happened, senior people saying they weren't aware and junior people saying they were forced. Cambodians now have to cope with the fact that for the moment at least, no one is being brought to account for what happened. Pol Pot himself died of a heart attack whilst awaiting trial.

We are sorry to have depressed with this blog but we too felt that the Pol Pot regime is something people should know about. We confess to knowing nothing about it, apart from recognising the name Pol Pot as a communist, until we arrived here.

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Comments

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I have the misfortune of already having been educated to these atrocities. I think the upper estimate is 3 million deaths - that's the entire population of my home country for god sake!! Unbelievable. On a lighter note, a belated Happy Birthday to Sitch! Sorry, I didn't read the blog until today....and surprisingly, my usually attentive sister failed to let me know. Hope you enjoyed your day mate. Come home so we can do another London A to Z (ish)