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Published: January 29th 2010
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Photo 6
One of the torture rooms at Tuol Sleng - the photo depicts the last victims found dead on this bed Phnom Penh. The city that everybody pronounces differently, a city with a chequered past and a place known for little aside from mass genocide. Not a great thing to be known for, but for better or worse, this is where people come to learn about the attrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge. At a time when neighbouring Vietnam was coming to the end of its bloody civil war, Cambodia (then Kampuchea) was having it's national clocks turned back by a socialist regime that sought to rid the country of outside influence and become a classless, agrarian society without capitalism, imperialism, religion, education or free will. On 17th April 1975, the Khmer Rouge seized Phnom Penh and forced it's inhabitants to flee to the countryside under the pretext of a US attack. Thus began 'Year Zero', and for the next 3 and a half years, Democratic Kampuchea bore witness to some of the most atrocious acts ever committed by human beings (I use the term loosely).
There are two sites of importance to the story of the genocide in Phnom Penh - the museum at Tuol Sleng, a former detention and interrogation centre, and the famous Killing Fields at Choeung Ek.
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Photos of some of the Khmer Rouge's victims - most were not photographed I went first to Tuol Sleng, also known as S21. A former school, the site was run by the infamous Khmer Rouge commander Duch, and closed in 1979 following a successful invasion by Vietnam. Today, the three main blocks house exhibits and artefacts which attempt to convey the torture and imprisonement that took place there. In many ways, it still feels like a school, with some bright, airy rooms where one can easily picture children taking lessons. What we're shown instead are bare beds and shackles. The walls display solitary photos of the last 14 victims, found dead from torture in various states of decomposition. The remaining rooms show hundreds of mug shots of those killed in the prison (or those sent to Choeung Ek to be killed), and the tools of torture are also on display. The museum reminds us that the trial of the perpetrators continues, and notes the quandry faced by investigators over what to do with the bodies of the dead... Cambodian beliefs require them to be cremated, but the remains are needed for the trial. The genocide continues to afflict peoples' lives.
After my visit to Tuol Sleng, I headed out to the Killing
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Too many to count Fields to see where most of the prisoners ended up. It's a quiet, unassuming place. Grass and trees, with many excavated graves and a large memorial stupa containing nearly 9,000 skulls unearthed from the mass graves here. In some ways there's less here than Tuol Sleng, but this is a place to just see, think and try to comprehend what happened. One particularly chilling sign highlights the 'killing tree', against which babies' heads were smashed while being held by their feet. The Khmer wanted to prevent retribution from future generations.
The world is filled with stories of mass murder and oppression... on this trip alone I've experienced the genocide in Rwanda, Apartheid in South Africa, the occupation and suppresion of Tibet and the American and French wars in Vietnam, but the attrocities in Cambodia strike me as exceptionally abhorrent and inexplicable. I only wish it had made me confident that something like this would never happen again!
Of course there is more to Phnom Penh than the genocide, but I'm afraid to say I found it to be a bit of a bland, homogenous place. Parts of it, in particular the riverfront, do have a nice small-scale feel,
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A reminder at Choeung Ek but there isnt really much that stands out, and it is inexplicably expensive. This was most apparent at the restaurants on Sisowath Quay and by the silly $6.25 charged to enter the Royal Palace (which I didn't pay!), most of which is inaccessible to the public. However, I did find time for a pleasant if pricey beer with a view at the Foreign Correspondents Club, which i shared with Gonzalo and Yvonne, before they headed off south for some sun and relaxation at Sihanoukville. So, reflection over (and wanting to see something of the positive side to Cambodia), I headed to the mighty temples of Angkor.
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Hi Gaunt Jon, Having lived in Hiroshima for years and having gone to the Peace Museum numerous times, I could not control the tears that would well up. I cried like a baby many a times when friends would visit from elsewhere within Japan and overseas and ask me to take them to the PM. I do not have the stomach to go to the places you have gone to, though I appreciate that you have tried to pry open some of our eyes on the atrocities that were perpetrated by our own fellow human beings. I cannot fathom how people can be so cruel and heartless. But I do thank you for posting 'those' pics.