We visited the killing fields of Choeung Ek, which are outside Phnom Penh. It was an ordinary farming area until the Khmer Rouge used it as a place to systemically destroy about 20,000 of its real and imagined enemies. Anyone educated or skilled was a major target: doctors, teachers, engineers, lawyers, artists. Pol Pot decimated the Cambodian intelligentsia, and there is still a shortage of skilled workers to this day. You can still see pieces of clothing and bones sticking out of the ground. In order to save bullets, most victims were bludgeoned to death. I tried not to walk on the bones or graves, but there were so many, it was pretty much impossible. Some of the graves have been excavated, though many have not, mainly due to lack of funds. Cambodia is a predominently
... read more
