S21 - Hill of the Poisonous Tree

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So this is the division of labour under married life: Martine gets to write the cheery Xmas message, i get to write about genocide. Of course, i wouldn't have it any other way....

Cambodia represents our shortest stay in any one country, yet i suspect will prove one of the most memorable. From the famous ruins in the north to the infamy of its bloody past, few travellers could pass through unmoved (i even bought a T-Shirt).

Whilst Angkor offers an astounding glimpse of a civilization long since past, the Cambodians have also embraced their more recent, nefarious history. And sites such as Tuol Sleng and the killing fields of Choeung Ek, are placed firmly on the tourist map.

Tuol Sleng, otherwise known as 'Security Prison 21' or 'S21' served as the most notorious of detention centres for the Khmer Rouge, between 1975/79. Now a 'Museum of Genocidal Crimes', it plays host to some 50 tourists a day, each paying the entrance fee of $2. To the estimated 16000 detainees that were 're-educated' through its doors (of which only 7 are said to have survived) the notion of a future public paying to enter would no doubt seem disturbing. But this is how S21 is best described - disturbingly wrong, and a place every traveller ought feel duty bound to visit.

The name 'Tuol Sleng', meaning 'hill of the poisonous tree', was adopted. Originally the complex was the 'Tuol Svay Prey High School', and despite the constructional changes implemented by the Khmer Rouge, the sense of 'school' beneath the barbaric prison it became still prevails. This in itself heightens the twisted atmosphere, not least as many of those imprisoned where children themselves.

Like the Nazis, Pol Pot's regime was meticulous and methodic. Records were kept of all arrested, including photographs, detailed biographies and signed confessions. Here however, the similarity ends. Whilst the Nazis managed to destroy a lot of evidence, all of S21's paperwork was found intact by the 'liberating' Vietnamese army in 1979. This of course, was a significant find. Unfortunately, the photo negatives and the files were separated, so many prisoners remain unidentified officially.

During its operation, to those in the neighbourhood, S21 became known as 'the place where people go in but never come out' and for good reason. The KR leadership were obsessed with the perceived threat to their regime from 'pests buried within'. Consequently, the vast majority of political prisoners were native Cambodian, and often former KR members. In fact, anyone considered above the poorest of peasants were seen as a threat. Merely wearing spectacles would be enough to arouse suspision and provoke arrest. The purpose of detention would be to extract confessions, and prison cadres were ruthlessly efficient. Charges could be anything, from spying for the CIA or KGB, or conspiring with any perceived 'enemy'. Most were fabricated but torture someone for long enough, and they're likely to confess to anything. Most did, sometimes naming names; others would then be arrested, usually along with their family. For the prison commanders and KR leaders alike, this not only fueled their paranoia but seemed to justify their actions.

The tour of the museum itself is mercifully short. The first block seen are classrooms, some 7 on the ground floor, each having been used to torture 'important' prisoners. When the Vietnamese army got to the camp, they found corpses in these rooms; prisoners tortured to death not long before their arrival. They took photographs as they found it, and now each wall displays a black & white print of the room as it was then, including the grotesquely contorted remains of the those final few prisoners. The bodies were buried on site, but otherwise the cells remain unchanged. Each contains a rusty iron bed, and various implements of torture: cleavers, mallets, chisels... anything that could induce pain. And all on chequered floors that had once seen local kids learning mathematics.

The guards at the camp were not encouraged to commit outright murder. Instead the majority of prisoners were transported to the killing fields for execution, where, after having dug their own graves, they would be bludgeoned to death (to save bullets). However, the prison guards were encouraged to be particularly sadistic towards the inmates, whom they had free reign to punish severely for not following the many rules (such as "While getting lashes or electrification, you must not cry at all").

It wasn't until we entered the second room however, that we realised that some of the faces of the many mug shots on display, were actually the guards themselves. Amongst hundreds of pictures of former inmates on display, they looked no different. What united them was their age: mostly young teens, some as young as 11, from impoverished village families, mailable and brainwashed by the prison officials into becoming brutal executors of their will. Their own fates would be no better than those on whom they preyed. In an attempt to keep the prisons activities secret, the commandant decided that each year a new rote of youngsters would be conscripted; their first task would be to murder those they were replacing. This is why their faces are also on display.

The tour then moves on to the cells, for either solitary or mass incarceration. Each contained chains and iron rungs cemented to the floor. Prisoners where shackled to these each night, and could be punished for changing position without permission. Some blocks were adapted to easier facilitate rape, and others were moved so as locals wouldn't hear the screaming. It was in one of these cells blocks that i found myself alone, and the only time that i managed to lift the camera to my eye. There were many people taking many pictures but i never felt comfortable in doing so; the picture wasn't good and this is why, i'm afraid, there aren't any photos to accompany this entry. Some 25 years have passed, but with seemingly little having changed, a real sense of despair remained in those rooms, and for once, my usually fervent trigger finger was stilled. I left soon after, looking for Martine.

The remainder of the museum consists largely of photo exhibitions, of prisoners before they were arrested, accompanied by written testament of friends and relatives to whom they were known. One photo stands out in particular, having replaced one of the museums more contentious exhibits. The 'Map of Skulls' was created by the Vietnamese, using skulls and various bones found in shallow graves around the camp, to create a map of Cambodia. It was eventually dismantled in 2002, but many of the skulls remain on display, randomly packaged on glass shelves.

We had been unsure about visiting the killing fields of Choeung Ek (about 15km outside Phnom Penh) but after leaving Tuol Sleng, i have to say we were even less inclined. There's only so much genocide you can take in one day. We met another traveller later on, who told us of her visit, where local kids had run freely over the former graves, picking up bones and waiving them at her whilst asking 'one pen?' & 'bon-bon?.

But this is the converse nature of Cambodia; a country shut to the outside for years, now desperately open. In Angkor, I almost felt like a trespasser at times, clambering over such ancient relics. Yet perversely, such freedom was the best thing about it. It's hard to find superlatives for a genocide museum but the same contradiction applies: you want to be there and you want to leave at the same time. Apparently many of the visitors to the museum are Cambodian, including many school outings, which has to be a good thing.

Hopefully, Cambodia can maintain the difficult balance between embracing the past and exploiting it. Given the Khmer Rouge left the country in ruins having killed an estimated 1.4 million in total (about 20% of the population), their recovery since is nothing short of remarkable, and no doubt due to the resilience of the many good natured locals that we met. I can only hope a steady flow of tourist dollars is heading their way; it's a rewarding destination and heaven knows they deserve it.

Merry Christmas everyone

Sx

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Comments

[helen lord]

well done. xx