Choeung Ek - The killing fields & Tuol Sleng - S21 prison

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In 1975 the Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia under the leadership of Pol Pot. Cambodia was already a basket case, the 1970 - 1975 civil war had just come to an end and millions of Cambodians had been driven from their land and had taken refuge in the cities to escape fighting and heavy bombing by the US, aimed at disrupting Vietnamese supply lines. A lot of these people initially welcomed the Khmer Rouge, but within days Pol Pot's genocidal plans were being put into operation. The cities were emptied of people as everyone was forced back into the countryside to grow rice in order to fulfill Pol Pot's utopian dream of an agrarian society. Many of these people had never lived in the country and had no idea how to farm so either died on the forced relocation or from starvation when they got there.

As with most of these genocidal tyrants, and the 20th century produced more than its fair share, Pol Pot was extremely paranoid, so to avoid possible overthrow he undertook the systematic persecution and eventually execution of almost anyone who might pose a threat e.g. anyone with connections to the former government as well as intellectuals and professionals. A number of ethnic groups along with Cambodian Christians and Buddhist monks were also 'cleansed'.

The Khmer Rouge had little money for bullets so most executions were carried out using poison, spades, axes, or sharpened bamboo. The spiny branches of palm trees were even used to cut throats. Children weren't spared either, there was a Khmer Rouge saying "in order to pull up the grass you must also dig out the roots", which translates to leave noone alive to later exact revenge.

This brutal regime remained in power for just short of four years before being overthrown by a mix of Vietnamese forces and Khmer Rouge defectors. Pol Pot fled to Thailand where he remained until his death at age 73.

Whilst in Thailand, Pol Pot formed a Khmer Rouge government in exile that, mind-bogglingly, continued to hold Cambodians seat in the UN until 1993 with considerable international support.

In 1993 the monarchy was restored and the country changed its name to the Kingdom of Cambodia. In 1994 a government amnesty was declared and thousands of Khmer Rouge guerrillas surrendered.

In 1997 the Cambodian government asked the UN for help in setting up a genocide tribunal. It took 9 years to agree the form it would take. So far only 2 people have been sentenced by the ECCC (Extraordinary Chamber in the Courts of Cambodia). In 2007 Comrade 2, Nuon Chea, as the title implies the number two man in the regime, was given a life sentence, and in 2010 Comrade Duch, Kang Kew Lew, the director of the notorious S21 prison was sentenced to 35 years in prison. A further 3 people await trial and deny any knowledge of the genocide despite being members of the Angkar, the ruling cadre.

Choeung Ek is around 17kms from the centre of Phnom Penh and was once an orchard but became a mass grave for victims of the Khmer Rouge. It is the best known of the many sites now referred to as the Killing Fields, and now contains a moving memorial to all of those killed under the regime.

Many of those killed at Choeung Ek were housed in the notorious S21 prison, or Tuol Sleng, formerly a high school, which is somewhat ironic given that Pol Pot started out as a teacher before becoming a genocidal maniac and putting teachers at the top of his hit list. S21 was both a prison and interrogation centre where prisoners were routinely tortured to extract confessions that they were CIA operatives or had not performed their duties as they should. The prisoners were all photographed and their confessions painstakingly recorded so that Comrade Duch could prove he was doing his part. Those prisoners that survived the torture were transported to Choeung Ek to be executed and disposed of in mass graves.

So what do I make of it all?

I think that despite two or three thousand years of civilisation, it really is only a very thin veneer, and that whenever some genocidal maniac with a screwed up ideology turns up he can generally find a ready audience in the poor and uneducated and build a willing army by promising them virtually anything; money, power, women, a glorious afterlife. And to the eternal shame of those countries that could have prevented this and other genocides like Rwanda, it didn't suit their political aims to do so, so they stood by and did nothing. In the 20th century alone we saw corrupt regimes and despots kill tens of millions of people in Russia, China, Rwanda, Cambodia, Argentina and Chile to name but some. Have we learnt anything from it or put mechanisms in place to prevent it happening again, NO.

There is a quote I read recently, I think by Edmund Burke, " All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,"

How true.

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Comments

[Rene]

A good read!
You are allowing us to travel the world by proxy :-) I'm reading all your daily stories with great interest Alistair. This one was particularly compelling. Thanks!